As they waited for his change, Madame Duchesne placed a small cardboard box on the table.
‘A present from Massinger,’ she said.
He picked it up – it was heavy and it rattled.
‘Perhaps you should wait to open it when you return to your hotel,’ she said.
But he was too curious and placed the box on his knee below the level of the table and lifted the lid back. He saw the gleam on the short barrel of a small revolver. There were some loose bullets beside it that had caused the rattling.
‘What do I need this for?’ he asked.
‘It may be useful. Who knows? Massinger gave one to me, as well.’
Lysander slipped the box in his jacket pocket and they walked out into the formal gardens – box hedges, the trained rows of limes and planes, raked gravelled paths. There was still some light in the sky and the air was cool.
‘Thank you for my dinner,’ she said. ‘It was a pleasure to get to know you better.’
They shook hands and he felt the squeeze of her firm grip. Again he sensed this curious desire for her – this woman who apparently had no desire in her life.
‘By the way, my real name is Lysander Rief.’
‘You probably shouldn’t have told me that.’
‘May I know your first name? Forgive me, but I’m curious. I can’t gain a full idea of a person without knowing their full name.’
‘Florence.’ French pronunciation, of course, so much nicer than the English – Florawnce.
‘Florence Duchesne. Lovely name.’
‘Goodnight, Herr Schwimmer. And I wish you good luck for Sunday.’
3. 25,000 Francs, First Instalment
On Sunday morning at 9.45 Lysander saw the concierge and her husband leave Glockner’s building for church. He had gone in the day before with a fake parcel for a Monsieur Glondin and had been assured by the concierge that there was no one of that name in the building – a Monsieur Glockner on the top floor, but no Glondin. It was definitely Monsieur Glondin, he said – must be a mistake, sincere apologies. He had gained a good sense of the entry floor and the stairway up to the apartments and, judging by the heavy cross the concierge wore around her neck and the larger cross on the wall of her cubby-hole, he suspected that a pious absence might be likely as the church bells began to chime on Sunday morning.
After a minute or so he pushed open the small street door and strode to the stairway, unnoticed by the little boy who was sitting in the concierge’s seat with his head down scribbling in a book. He climbed the stairs to Glockner’s apartment on the fourth floor.
Standing outside the door, ready to ring the bell, he paused a moment, running through the plan of action he had made, mentally ticking off everything he had brought with him in the small grip he was carrying – every eventuality covered, he hoped. He took the revolver out of his pocket and rang the doorbell. After a while, he heard a voice close to the door.
‘Oui? Qui est là?’
‘I’m a plumber sent from downstairs. There’s a leak coming from your apartment.’
Lysander heard the key turn in the lock and the door opened. Glockner stood there in a silk dressing gown.
‘A leak? Are you –’
Before Glockner could register that he didn’t look in the least like a plumber Lysander pointed his gun at his face.
‘Step back inside, please.’
Glockner did so, clearly very alarmed, and Lysander locked the door again behind him. Gesturing with the gun, he steered Glockner into his sitting room. Glockner was recovering his composure. He put his hands in his dressing-gown pockets and turned to face Lysander.
‘If you’re an educated thief you might find some books that are worth stealing. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.’
The room was lined with bookshelves, some glass-fronted, some open. A blond parquet floor with a self-coloured navy rug. A deep leather armchair set beneath a standard lamp with a pliable shade to direct the light for well-illuminated reading. A writing desk with a chair and on the one clear wall a line of framed etchings – cityscapes. An intellectual’s room – Florence Duchesne’s pen-portait was correct. Glockner spoke good French with a slight German accent. He was an even-featured, clean-shaven man in his mid-thirties with a slight cast in his right eye that made his gaze seem curiously misdirected, as if he wasn’t paying full attention or his mind had wandered.
Lysander pulled the hard chair away from the writing desk and set it in the middle of the room.
‘Sit down, please.’
‘Are you German? Wir können Deutsch sprechen, wenn Sie das bevorzugen.’
Lysander stuck to French.
‘Sit down, please. Put your hands behind your back.’
‘Ah, English,’ Glockner said knowingly, smiling widely and nodding as he sat down, revealing some extensive silver bridgework at the side of his teeth.
Lysander walked behind him, and taking a short noose of rope from his grip, slipped it over Glockner’s wrists and pulled it tight. Now he could put his revolver down and with more short lengths of rope bound Glockner’s arms together and secured them to the back of the chair. He stepped back, put the revolver in his pocket and placed his grip on the desk, reaching in and removing the wad of 500 franc notes. He placed it on Glockner’s knees.
‘25,000 francs, first instalment.’
‘Listen, you English fool, you moron –’
‘No. You listen. I just need the answer to one simple question. Then I’ll leave you alone to enjoy your money. No one will know that it was you who told me.’
Glockner swore at him in German.
‘And if you behave yourself,’ Lysander continued, unperturbed, ‘then in another month you’ll receive another 25,000.’
Glockner seemed to have lost something of his self-control and assurance. He spat at Lysander and missed. A lock of his fair, thinning hair fell across his forehead, almost coquettishly. As he continued to swear vilely at him the silver in his teeth glinted.
Lysander slapped his face – not hard – just enough to shut him up. Glockner looked shocked, affronted.
‘It’s very simple,’ Lysander said, switching to German. ‘We know everything – the letters from London, the code. We have copies of all the letters. I just need to know the key.’
Glockner took this in. Lysander would have said that this news had genuinely disturbed him somewhat, as if the full seriousness of his plight were suddenly made clear to him.
‘I don’t have it,’ he said, sullenly.
‘It’s a one-on-one cipher – of course you have it. As does the person who is sending you the letters. We’re not interested in you – we’re interested in him. Give us the key and the rest of this Sunday is yours.’
As if to underline his words, the big bells from the cathedral a few streets away began to chime, sonorous and heavy.
‘You’ve just signed your own death warrant,’ Glockner said, with too evident bravado. ‘I don’t have the key – I just pass the letters on to Berlin.’
‘Yes, yes, yes. Why don’t I believe you?’
Lysander took the wad of money off Glockner’s knees and reached into his grip and drew out a bundle of washing line, unspooling it and then roping Glockner securely to his chair – his chest and arms, his thighs and shins – bound tight like a spider spinning the filaments of sticky web around a pinioned fly. Then he tipped the chair back until Glockner was lying on the floor.
Lysander stood over him, looking down. In reality, he had no sure idea what he was going to do next – though it was clear that the bribe option had failed. However, having Glockner helpless like this served to make the obvious point that there would be alternative attempts at ‘persuasion’ imminently.