The Paper Chase (21 page)

Bogue wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “I never meant to kill you, Skid.”

“You didn’t. But I still have headaches sometimes.”

“The paper chase,” Applegate said. Suddenly he was unable to contain his laughter. “All of you chasing after forgeries. Murder done for them. The paper chase. Oh, dear.” He rocked backwards and forwards. They stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“The plane,” Hedda said. “There should have been a third body.”

“Bogue had made provision for that as well as he could. The plane burned to a skeleton. In it were found some things of Bogue’s, the metal buckle of a belt he wore, some fragments of a briefcase and of shoes.”

“No body.”

“A body could not be provided. For this Bogue relied on Shalson, who had to explain his own conduct in some way. Remember this was Portugal, wartime, there were no facilities for official inspection of the plane. Shalson said he shot Bogue through the head, and the report was never queried.”

“Tarboe accepted it?”

“Tarboe accepted it. But the concussion had a lasting effect on Shalson. His powers of concentration became poor. He was retired from the service. Of course Bogue had never told him where the money was hidden. He was going to do that after they dropped.”

“I don’t see the point of all this,” Eckberger said. “You’ve got the money, why don’t we talk about that?”

Applegate pointed at Eckberger. “I’m not sure that I understand even now. What’s he got to do with it?”

“The Bank of England are wise to these forgeries now,” Shalson said. “It would be no use simply spreading them around in this country, you see that.”

“Yes.”

“So they were useless to Bogue until he met Max in South America, and Max was able to obtain permission for opening – what’s it called?”

“The Banco Grando Metropolitano di Brasil.”

“Eckberger must have some pretty influential friends in South America,” Applegate said.

“Or I have, don’t forget that possibility.” Bogue seemed more at his ease now.

“Or you have,” Shalson agreed. “Can’t you guess what the bank’s capital will be? A million pounds in forged currency notes.”

“But when those notes get back here they’ll be recognised as forgeries,” Applegate said.

“Yes. The game wouldn’t last long. How long do you reckon?” he asked Bogue politely.

“About six months. But three will be enough.”

“Yes. Within three months, you see, they’ll have converted their clients’ stocks and property into perfectly good currency. Then one night the bank will close its doors, the bank’s clients will find themselves a good deal poorer, and the trickle of forgeries back to the Bank of England will become a flood. By that time Messrs. Bogue and Eckberger will be somewhere else.”

“And so will Skid Shalson,” Bogue said.

Shalson’s look was direct and guileless. “Not Skid Shalson.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I’ve come here to do what I should have done a long time ago. I’m going to kill you, Johnny.”

Bogue began to talk quickly, his eyes flickering from one to the other of them, and Applegate understood what Shalson had said about Bogue’s talk.
You listened to him with two parts of yourself. One part knew that he was simply a liar and a cheat. The other part just heard and believed.
Was Shalson, part of him, hearing and believing now? Applegate hoped not, but watching the flickering eyes and the gesturing hands, listening to the rich pleading voice, he could not be sure.

“What is it you want, Skid? You want to shoot me, you want to get your own back because I played a dirty trick years ago. Here I am then, go ahead and shoot. But before you do it, think. Use your brain box. Ask if it’s worth while. With what you’ve got hold of there’s enough to make us all rich, without a lot of risk attached to it. Kill me and that’s over, you’re saying goodbye to a fortune. You think because I dealt them from the bottom last time I’ll do it again. But ask yourself, Skid, what chance had I got? What would you have done in a plane with someone who’d been told not to let you out of it alive?”

Shalson listened to him attentively, the revolver in his right hand pointed somewhere in the region of Bogue’s stomach.

Suddenly Bogue grinned, the naughty boy’s grin that Applegate had seen before. “Besides, Skid, this time you’ve really got us by the short hairs. Last time you only had a promise. This time you’ve got the stuff.”

“You’re mistaken, Johnny,” Shalson said.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t got it.”

Bogue was staring hard at Shalson. “I do believe you’re telling the truth, Skid. But you know where it is.”

“I haven’t any idea. And I don’t care. I told you what I came here for. I came to kill you, Johnny.”

“In that case…” Eckberger said, and his hand dropped to his side. Applegate remembered that Eckberger hadn’t been searched. He saw Maureen rush across to her father, shrieking: “No, no.” He saw Bogue fling himself sideways, Deverell dive to the floor, Shalson’s face change expression. All this was as though wax figures had suddenly become animated. But had he really seen all this, or was it something he imagined afterwards? He could never be sure, he was not sure of anything except that the whole room had exploded into an inferno of noise and blood.

The noise. A blaze of indistinguishable voices, shrieking, crying, groaning.
No, no…oh, don’t do it.… I’m hurt…
Johnny, I’m trying to…out – out, let me out…
All this was confused, was the background only to more powerful noises. The breaking of glass, for instance, a tinkle and then another tinkle. Enjoyable rather, like a small boy hitting a cricket ball through a window. But that, of course, was only a background sound too. In the foreground were the bangs, the ear-cracking bangs and the good firework smell that went with them, the bangs that came from Eckberger and from somewhere behind him that must be Shalson and Hedda perhaps, and a gun had been snatched from his own hand, there was something hot in his hand, and a tremendous
crack
as it seemed from beneath him.

There were too many people in the room and now some of them were lying down.

The windows must be open. Somebody had opened the windows and the curtains were flapping.

Within the noise the smoke, the blue firework smoke that rose confusingly into nostrils.

A door opening, a door banging.

And then the blood, the blood from nowhere. A river of blood coming from the other side of the room, from the door. Blood that he slipped in, stupidly looked down at, there by his own feet. Blood, a red much darker than he had imagined, dark certainly rather than bright. Suddenly he was very close to this blood, it was necessary to look at it more nearly, people were shouting something.
Oh, oh,
somebody kept repeating,
Oh, oh,
and that was his own voice. Then something seemed to split inside his head, the blood was very near now, he was conscious of the sweet smell of it mixed with all the other smells. And that was all.

He blinked, and blinked again, at an unknown room, white walls, white ceiling, all anonymous. Then he looked at the impedimenta by his bedside, spittoon, orange juice, flowers, and knew himself in hospital. He moved and pain went through him. His body seemed tied to the bed.

It seemed only a moment later, but must, in fact, have been hours, or even days, when he looked at the world again and saw something incredible. He blinked, but it did not go away. Tarboe sat in a chair by the bed, looking with one eye at him, with the other at the wall. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“I suppose so.” Applegate lifted his head from the pillow in an effort at comprehension. “Oh.”

“Shouldn’t do that,” Tarboe said. “You stopped two of Eckberger’s bullets, and one was in the shoulder, not too far from the heart. Take it easy.”

“Eckberger.” Recollection came back. “What happened to Eckberger?”

“Dead. Shalson shot him. Shalson’s dead too. Bogue had another gun you were too careless to take off him. Pretty fair holocaust, as a matter of fact. When our chaps got in the whole place was what you might call running with blood. Bit uncertain what actually did happen, but I think you can say that little girl Maureen saved your life. She jumped at Eckberger when he was going to shoot.”

“Is she–”

“She’s all right, got a slight flesh wound. Gone off to some crackpot place called Shovels End.”

“The Anarchist Country Community.” He laughed, and stopped when it hurt. “I hope she’ll be happy.”

“Seemed to be. Jenks will stand trial, didn’t get a scratch on him. We got Barney and Delaney too, though she was shot through the head, doubtful whether she’ll live.” Tarboe coughed. “We’re not worrying too much about who fired all the shots, putting any hits down to Shalson. After all, Shalson’s dead.”

“And –”

“Bogue, of course you want to know about Bogue. He shot Shalson. Tell you something funny about Bogue, he might have got away. Doubtful, but he just had the chance, he’d got to the door. Know why he didn’t? Turned back for that son of his who’d got shot in the leg, tried to get him out too.”

“Who shot Deverell – Geoffrey?”

Tarboe’s wandering eye glanced briefly at the ceiling, then down again. “You.”

“And Bogue couldn’t get him out.”

“No, he waited that extra minute too long, till my men had organised outside. Saw it was no use, dragged his son upstairs and they fought it out up the spiral staircase.”

“What happened?”

“Both killed,” Tarboe said briefly. “Bogue tried to shield the boy. Hadn’t a chance.”

“What about” – he found it hard to utter the name – “Hedda?”

“Miss Pont.” Tarboe’s wooden features relaxed into something approaching a smile. “Not a mark on her. Take more than a little shooting match to hurt that girl.”

Applegate sighed, and for the first time fully realised the implications of Tarboe’s presence. “But you – you knew Bogue was alive all the time.”

“Yes. We never quite accepted Shalson’s story, though he didn’t know that. No body, you know, there should have been a body. Never traced him in South America, didn’t try very hard. But when all that activity started up round Bramley we guessed something was up, and began to take an interest. Can’t let a million pounds’ worth of forged notes get into circulation, wouldn’t do. The local Inspector chap, Murray, was working with us. He tried to warn you off, we all tried to warn you off.”

“The money.” Applegate suddenly remembered. “Where was it?”

Now, there could be no doubt of it, something like a human smile melted that Red Indian impassiveness.

“It was down in the cellar. If you’d merely turned that ring instead of pulling it you’d have seen the ring hid the keyhole of a safe. The money was there for years. Then somebody moved it from that safe.”

“Who?”

“Somebody who got a key to the safe when she bought the house. Somebody who wanted a hiding place for certain essential bottles. Don’t you remember it was bottles that Barney and Craigen found in the safe?”

“Janine,” Applegate gasped. “But what did she do with the money?”

“She thought she’d found a fortune. That’s why she got so excited. She put it in the place where she’d kept her bottles. In the airing cupboard. Handed it over now of course.” He looked at his watch. “I must go. Just thought I’d pass the time of day. Stick to writing detective stories in future. Goodbye.”

The door had hardly closed after him when Applegate heard the voice. It was singing:

“A park at night reveals a sight most shocking,

A young man’s hand upon a young girl’s stocking.”

The door opened. She came in. She was wearing the black jumper and red jeans that she had on when he first saw her standing by the car. Applegate was conscious of impending doom. Freedom, freedom, he thought, freedom farewell. He thought for a moment of her thick legs, then put them out of mind with the reflection that she almost always wore jeans.

“You’re better,” she said. “They say you’ll be up tomorrow and out in a week.”

“Good.” They were silent. “Where are Jeremy and Janine?”

She laughed. “Didn’t Tarboe tell you? They’ve gone with Maureen to join the Anarchist Country Community. Janine was heartbroken when she had to give up her million pounds, but I believe she’s going to get some kind of small official reward. They were both delighted when Jeremy was appointed as some kind of lecturer at the Community. It was Maureen’s suggestion. Janine seems quite to have given up drinking, for the moment at least. They sent their love to you.”

“Good.”

They were silent again. “I’ve thought over that proposition you made me.” She approached the bed.

“What proposition?”

“Marriage. I’ve decided to accept.” Now she was very close to him. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes shone.

“Be careful of my shoulder,” Applegate said. “I am far from well.”

“I shall cure you.” The lips pressed on his did seem to have some reviving effect.

“If you could move just a little more off my shoulder,” he suggested.

“I’ve thought of a ready-made plot for your next book,” she went on briskly. “A young man – as it might be you – is in some romantic place in the Far East as it might be Smyrna –”

“I’ve never been farther than the Mediterranean.”

“We can go on our honeymoon. In a hotel there he meets a beautiful young woman whose husband has just disappeared. She’s stranded, you see, in the hotel. And then the chief of police, a fierce figure but romantic, becomes involved –”

“Haven’t I read something like this before?”

“Nonsense,” she said decisively. Applegate abandoned his objections. Yes, yes, yes, he said, not listening, but simply looking at her. He knew that, in any important sense, he would never say no again.

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)