The Power (51 page)

Stumbling towards the gate, his vision was better with
the cold air clearing his eyes. He'd only taken a small quantity of the stuff, mostly in his left eye. The match
book had prevented the gate locking. In a hurry to get
away, he still paused to retrieve the matchbook - he
might want to use the same trick when he returned to the Château
Noir.

He stood by his car, sucking in great breaths of the
mountain air, then slid behind the wheel, closed the door quietly, turned on the ignition. The girl at the Bristol had marked an alternative route back via the D417 down the
Col de la Schlucht. He'd go back that way.

He turned the car round, determined to check the
second route Tweed might use to visit the Château Noir.
His left eye was still watering as he drove carefully,
expertly negotiating the bends in the road.

Norton was livid - and furious with himself. He had
broken his golden rule - never act on impulse, always
check out the target in advance, then send in the soldiers.

He had given in to the temptation to do the job on his
own. Never again
...

His great regret was that he'd not had the remotest idea
what the figure which had stood on the stairs looked like.
Who the hell could that have been, the figure which had
fired the gas pistol? One thing was for sure - he was
returning to the Château Noir with Mencken's complete
team. Norton had observed a lot during his brief humili
ation. There was a wire - presumably electrified - spanning the top of the wall which surrounded the stone
monstrosity.

Norton had also noticed a stone-flagged path leading behind the château in the direction of the towering keep.
One man on top of that with a machine-pistol could
command all the exits and entrances.

He had turned on to the D417 a while back, a much
more main highway. He reached a point where a large
building carried the legend
la schlucht
1139. He was
1139 metres high, over three thousand feet. Norton drove on and it was then he encountered a hideous and endless spiral of hairpin bends.

At one point he stopped, marked the location on his
map. To his left a sheer granite cliff rose vertically from the road. To his right the world dropped into another
bottomless abyss. The cliff wall was covered with steel
mesh to prevent it crumbling on to the road. A first-rate
ambush point.

He was still well above the snow line as he drove on
down and round icy spiral bends. Despite the risk he kept
his foot on the accelerator - the light was fading. Dusk
was beginning to fall over the Vosges.

Norton kept moving, meeting no traffic. He dropped
below the snow line and rammed his foot down further. The lights were on in Colmar as he entered the town. He stopped outside the station, went inside to ask how to get
to the Old Town, saw a huge wall map of Colmar.

He soon realized that the Old Town where the small hotels were situated was called Little Venice. Amazing how many Venices there were in Europe. The next thing
to do when he'd found a room was to call the Bristol, ask to speak to a Mr Tweed. He felt sure that was where he'd
hit the sack. When Tweed came on the line - if he did -
he'd put down the receiver. That should twitch at his
nerves. Mr Tweed didn't know it, but they'd bury him in
Alsace.

31

'I expect the Vosges to be an area of maximum danger,' Tweed announced to the gathering in his bedroom at the
Drei Könige.

Newman and Paula shared a couch, Butler and Nield sat in armchairs and Marler adopted his usual stance,
leaning against a wall and smoking a king-size cigarette.

Marler, a member of the SIS and the deadliest marks
man in Europe, had been summoned to fly from London
to Basle when Tweed had phoned Monica. Of medium
height and light build, he had fair hair,
was in his early
thirties and wore a smart check sports jacket and razor-
creased slacks. He spoke in an upper crust drawl and was
always crossing swords with Newman.

'Is this intuition on your part?' Marler asked. 'Or have
you solid data to base your warning on?'

'Does it make any difference?' Newman snapped.

These two men were hardly mutual friends. But if it
came to a firefight each knew they could rely on the other
to the hilt.

'Yes, it does, old man,' Marler replied patronizingly.
'Is there any solid data?' he asked Tweed.

Since his arrival Tweed had brought Marler up to date
on everything that had happened. Marler, with his fresh
eye, might notice something significant they had missed.

'There is some data,' Tweed told them. 'Beck phoned
me and reported that a man whose description sounds
very like Joel Dyson's was held up outside the Zurcher
Kredit here.'

'Held up?' Paula queried.

'Yes. An American shoved a gun into Dyson's back as
he left the Zurcher Kredit. Fortunately a patrol car
turned up, the American with the gun fled, and if it was Dyson he'd asked a Mrs Kahn at the bank where Amberg was. Beck never overlooks a thing - he phoned the bank,
spoke to Mrs Kahn. She confirmed what Eve Amberg
told me - that the banker is at the Château Noir.'

'You said
if
it was Dyson,' Paula commented. 'Not like
you to accept an identification without proof.'

'Which is why,' Tweed told her, 'I sent Cardon to show
the photocopy of your sketch of Dyson to Mrs Kahn . . .'

There was a knock on the locked door. Newman
opened it and Cardon strolled in. He winked at Paula who
made a moue.

'It was Dyson who called at that bank here in Basle,'
Cardon addressed Tweed. He handed back the envelope containing the photocopy. 'She recognized him at once
from the sketch. Beck is helpful - he had a detective
waiting there to escort me into Mrs Kahn's office. She didn't hesitate to talk to me.'

'All of which confirms my warning about danger
waiting for us in the Vosges. That American who held up
Dyson and then escaped probably asked him where
Amberg was. We shall have company - unwelcome com
pany - in Alsace.'

The phone rang. Paula picked it up, listened, said she
would tell him, put down the receiver and looked at
Tweed with an amused smile.

'You already have company waiting for you in the
lounge. More welcome company. Jennie Blade is anxious
to talk to you.'

'She didn't mention Gaunt?' Tweed asked, frowning.

'Not a word.'

'When I spoke to Monica she told me she'd added to
her profile on Mr Gaunt. At one time he was an officer in
Military Intelligence. Intriguing
. . .'

Jennie Blade sat upright in an armchair. She was dressed
in ski pants tucked into smart leather ankle boots and a
blue silk polo-necked sweater which hugged her figure. Folded neatly on a nearby chair was a fur-lined jacket.

When Tweed stepped out of the lift she was smoothing
down her blonde mane with one hand, checking her
appearance in a compact mirror with the other. The
moment she saw Tweed she snapped
the mirror shut, put
the compact inside a Gucci handbag with a shoulder
strap.

'Long time no see,' she greeted him.

She tilted her head, held up her right cheek. He bent
down and kissed it, perched himself on the arm of her
chair. It was an unusual place for him to sit but he sensed she was putting herself out to be seductive. Her long legs
were crossed.

'Not so long since we had a drink in the Hummer Bar in
Zurich. Where is Gaunt?' Tweed asked.

'Oh, the Squire? God knows. He's a pain in the prover
bial. Disappears for hours, days. He told me he'd seen you here. I have the strong impression you're a very
reliable man - by which I mean a man a woman can rely
on.'

'Depends on the woman, the circumstances.'

'And I thought you liked me.'

She twisted round - as she had on the stool in the
Hummer Bar - clasped her strong slim hands and rested
her forearms on his leg. She gazed up at him pleadingly.

'Let's say I do like you,' Tweed suggested. 'What
comes next?'

'I'm frightened. I'm being followed by someone. They appear when I'm least expecting it. As I'm leaving a shop just before closing time when it's dark outside. When I'm
getting my keys out to enter the apartment Gaunt has
near Bankverein. It takes a lot to scare me but I admit I'm really worried about this shadow man.'

'Describe him.'

She took hold of his right hand. Holding it between
both of hers she continued gazing up at him.

'I said describe him,' Tweed repeated in a hard voice.

'Wears a black wide-brimmed hat, tilted down over his face. About five foot six tall. I might be wrong about his
height. He also wears a long black overcoat and a woollen
scarf.'

Without showing it, Tweed was taken aback. Jennie
had just given almost exactly the same description of the man seen leaving Klara's apartment in Rennweg after she
had been garrotted. Her words were almost precisely
those used by Old Nosy who occupied the ground-floor apartment in the Altstadt building where Klara had been
murdered.

'You are talking about Basle?' he checked. 'This man is
following you here in Basle?'

'Yes. The Shadow Man.' She shivered. 'It's getting on my nerves. Which is ridiculous considering the jobs I've
had.'

'What jobs might those be?' he asked gently.

'I had a training as an accountant. Found it frantically
boring. Then I got a big job with a huge firm in New
York. They checked up on the financial stability of firms
all over the world for a fabulous fee. Also on prominent
individuals. I had to bluff my way into offices and private
apartments to check on the lifestyle of certain individuals.
That's how I saved quite a packet. I left them when one target threatened me with a gun. Felt my luck was running out. I came back to Britain, to London.'

She was interlacing her fingers with Tweed's as she spoke. He thanked Heaven that Paula wasn't there to see
him. She'd pull his leg unmercifully.

'And then you met Gaunt?' he suggested.

All the time she told him the story of her life she was
gazing at him, her glowing eyes almost hypnotizing him. Watch it, he warned himself.

'No, Gaunt came later,' she went on. 'Back in London I got a job with a private investigation agency. That lasted six months and was sordid work, but it led me to Gaunt.'
She paused.