Assault on England (10 page)

I shrugged. "A leak in Brutus's office?" I suggested.

"Impossible!" She was indignant.

"I hope so," I said. "Anyway, it means we're getting warm so — what about that emblem?"

Her face brightened again excitedly. "Let me see that paper."

I handed it to her. "Yes," she nodded, "I'm sure of it. It's part of a design for an auto emblem. I just can't remember which one."

I pulled on a shirt and buttoned it. I was beginning to get excited too. "Let's go back and talk to that fellow at the Royal Hotel again," I said. 'That may just be faster than trying to get a list of emblems from the AA."

"I have a taxi waiting."

We drove through a dissipating fog along Millbank, past the massive edifices of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. I knew the House of Commons was in an emergency session at that very moment, debating how to best implement the Prime Minister's decision to comply with the assassin's demand for a fortune in sterling.

At the Royal Hotel, Heather told our man, "We think we may have identified the symbol on the paper we showed you. It seems to me that I've seen it in connection with an automobile."

The hotel clerk thought a moment "You may be right," he said, finally.

"Have you had any guests recently who might have been in London representing some auto firm?" I asked.

He gave us a big smile. "Not a fortnight ago we had a convention of auto makers here."

"Really?" Heather said.

"Quite!" The man was getting as excited as we were. "I can give you a list of all the firms that were represented. In fact, I believe we still have some of the literature they passed around in back, waiting for pickup. Would you like to take a look?"

"Yes we would. Thanks," I said.

He took us to a small storeroom at the rear of the main floor. There were boxes of pamphlets and note paper stacked in a corner. A couple of boxes bore insignia but none that seemed to fit ours.

The desk man went back to his work and we were alone. Heather started looking through one cardboard carton and I took another. Suddenly Heather gave a sharp cry of recognition.

"We've got it, Nick! Look!" She was holding a sheet of paper the same manila color as ours. I moved over to her and studied it.

"Well," I said. "Well, well, well."

The complete emblem showed a scorpion on a field of vine leaves set on a crest shield. We looked at the name of the company printed in an arc above the shield, then at each other.

"Jupiter Motors Limited," Heather said, her face suddenly changing. "Yes, of course."

"Jupiter," I said. "Isn't that your friend?"

"Elmo Jupiter isn't my friend," Heather said flatly. "But he does own Jupiter Motors. Now I know why the emblem seemed familiar. I've been to one of his showrooms. His plant and offices are on the outskirts of London somewhere."

"Interesting," I said. Something about Elmo Jupiter was tugging at the edge of my mind but I couldn't bring it into focus. I stuck the sheet of note paper, along with the original scrap, into my pocket and steered Heather out of the storeroom and back to the desk.

The hotel clerk was delighted when we told him that we had matched the emblem.

"Smashing!" he said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Now maybe you can do us one more good turn."

"Pleased to."

"We'd like a list of the Jupiter Motors personnel who attended the meetings, if you can manage it,"

"Certainly! We were given a list for each company by the organizer of the affair. I'm sure I still have it somewhere. Excuse me a moment,"

He was back shortly with the list and showed us the names of the Jupiter Motors people. There were three: Derek Forsythe, Percival Smythe and Elmo Jupiter himself.

I thanked the clerk for all his help and Heather and I walked toward the park at Russell Square, slowly, to let our new-found information sink in.

"Jupiter is a Scorpio," Heather said. "Astrologically, I mean. I remember his telling me. That's why the emblem features the scorpion."

"I think. Heather, we should go see Mr. Jupiter," I said.

Jupiter Motors was in a modern building complex out on North End Road. A lot of money had obviously been put into the place. Still, it showed signs of neglect. After a brief exchange with Jupiter's private secretary, we went into his office. He was all smiles, ignoring me and concentrating on Heather.

"Well, Heather!" he said warmly. "What a pleasant surprise."

"You told me to get in touch," Heather said as he took her hand and held it. "Richard here is frightfully interested in cars and hoped he could have a look through your plant."

Jupiter focused his hard brown eyes on me. He wasn't bad-looking, I had to admit, with an athletic, muscular build. But those hard eyes spoiled an otherwise handsome face.

"Of course you may look around." He gave me a tight smile. "It will give me a chance to chat with Heather."

Heather gave him a warm look. I watched his face. He seemed to be studying her now, as if trying to determine if she were friend or enemy.

He pushed the intercom button and asked his secretary to call a Mr. Burroughs who would show me around while Jupiter and Heather had tea in a lounge down the corridor.

As we waited for Mr. Burroughs, I said to Jupiter casually, "I understand there was an auto manufacturers' convention here in London recently."

"Yes." He nodded. "I attended with my sales director and his assistant. The meetings fell far short of expectation. There's too little cooperation between companies here in England."

"It's the same in the States, I think," I said.

"Yes," he said slowly. "And what is it you do there, Mr. Matthews?"

"I'm in public health, same as Heather here. She's been assigned to show me London."

Heather pulled out a cigarette and deliberately fumbled her lighter. It fell to the carpeted floor. I stood as if to pick the thing up for her but Jupiter beat me to it. As he lighted her cigarette, I pressed the stem on the watch I was wearing. Besides keeping perfect time it took excellent pictures.

The intercom buzzed. Jupiter reached over and flicked the switch. "Yes? Good, send him right in." He glanced over at me. "It's Burroughs at last."

Mr. Burroughs was amiable but almost as bored as I was with the tour. In the sales division I was introduced to Forsythe and Smythe, the two men who'd attended the convention at the Royal Hotel with Jupiter. Forsythe was a gray-haired distinguished type; Smythe about fifteen years his junior and pushy, the type of salesman who shoves his foot in the door when he's selling house to house. Somehow I didn't see either of them as our man, but we'd have Brutus check them out anyway.

Jupiter seemed a bit tense when Heather and I said good-bye finally. He focused those cold eyes on me and said, with complete insincerity, "Come back any time, Mr. Matthews. Glad to have you."

"Thanks," I said, returning the chilly stare.

Walking toward West Kensington station, Heather and I assessed our morning's work. "Burroughs hinted the company is in financial "trouble because of high government taxes," I told her.

"Interesting," she said. "I got a set of prints, I think, on the cigarette lighter. Did you manage any photos?"

"One of him and a couple of the papers on his desk, for his handwriting." I lit cigarettes for us as we walked. "I also met Forsythe and Smythe, but I think Jupiter is our man. I'd just like to know how he found out I'm an agent."

"He knows I'm an agent too," Heather said. "I'm sure of it. But we got what we wanted and that's the important thing."

"I just hope it all adds up to something," I said.

She regarded me soberly. "I remembered something else, Nick, while I had tea with Jupiter. Remember the day the Foreign Secretary was assassinated, I told you I'd run into Elmo Jupiter when I met you outside?"

I stopped and looked at her. I had forgotten that "Yes," I said slowly, something stirring in my memory, "you said you'd just seen him, right near the Foreign Office. What was he doing around there, did he say?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Oh, I went through the usual polite bit, 'Why, Elmo Jupiter, what brings you to this part of town? I think he said a friend but I wasn't really listening. Then he started pressing for a date and I got away as soon as I decently could."

"'A friend, " I said, shaking my head. "It's always possible, of course, but it's too much of a coincidence."

"I certainly could believe he's our killer," Heather said, shuddering. "Those eyes! They give me the creeps."

I stopped dead. "That's it! The janitor! That's what's been working at the back of my mind. He had the same build as Jupiter and the same hard-looking eyes. I was right — the hair and mustache were phony. It
was
Jupiter, I'm sure of it. And it fits! He recognized me when he bumped into me in the corridor and concluded, rightly, that I was with the security people. He was afraid of just this, afraid I'd see him again and remember, so he sent those thugs to kill me."

"I think it's time for another chat with Brutus," Heather said.

We found her boss in his office. He was in a foul mood, having just returned from London Airport where he had been overseeing the loading of fourteen million pounds sterling aboard a military jet. The money had been packed in steel boxes and guarded by SOE agents.

We briefed him on our trip to Jupiter Motors, then gave Brutus Heather's cigarette lighter and the film from my watch camera. He rushed them to scientific division and we settled down to wait.

The results were not long in coming, only a half hour. A clerk handed Brutus a folded file. As he read it, his brow furrowed. Finally he said, "It seems, Nick, you and Heather have gotten the fingerprints of a dead man."

He handed me the file. The first page was the police record of John Elmore.

"There's no doubt?" I asked.

Brutus shook his head gravely. "The fingerprints match perfectly."

"Then he must have staged that fight with Scotland Yard, left a body behind and sneaked out somehow while the fire was raging. He could have had plastic surgery performed on his face and gone into the automobile business. All these years he was operating in the clear. But why now, out of the blue, would he…"

"Well find out after we pick him up," Brutus said, reaching for the telephone.

"You'd better pick good men, sir," I told him. "If Jupiter is our man, and it certainly looks like it, he's very clever. And extremely dangerous."

"No need to remind me," Brutus huffed.

After he got off the phone I offered to go along with his men. "No need," he brushed off my offer. "You two've done enough today."

"What about the money now?" Heather asked him.

"I've spoken to the Prime Minister — the white flag is flying above Parliament and he is not impressed yet with what we've done so far. He remembers Novosty."

"But this is different!" Heather pleaded.

"You have to remember," Brutus said, "that absolute panic reigns at the moment. Parliament insists that something be done to stop the killings. And the shipment can still be stopped in Switzerland if Elmo Jupiter does turn out to be the assassin."

We left him a few moments later and walked through the building, headed for the parking area and the beautiful yellow Porsche 911 Heather had rented.

"I think we're entitled to a good lunch," she said as we reached the car.

I agreed. "I'm famished."

Heather started to get behind the wheel, but I stopped her. "You're not the only sports car buff in the crowd."

I took the wheel. She chuckled and climbed in beside me. "Do you like Greek mousaka?" she asked.

"If it's made with plenty of meat," I said, starting the engine.

"Then I'll make you a nice meal while we wait to hear from Brutus," she said.

We were lying side by side on the long sofa in Heather's flat. I was digesting the mousaka, which had been delicious. Heather was certainly an amazing girl.

"A penny for your thoughts," she said. She was lying against my chest, running a hand seductively along my jaw.

I took the hint and turned to her. I buried my face in her hair, drawing in the scent of her perfume. I nibbled on her ear and she uttered a low, deep moan. She lifted her face to mine, and as T kissed her I undid the row of buttons of her housecoat. I slipped around her back, found the clasp of her bra and unsnapped it. She pulled the housecoat off her shoulders and threw the bra away. I played with her nipples, teasing them with my teeth. They grew hard as pebbles.

Slowly I caressed her shoulder, then the outer rim of her breast. She sucked in her breath sharply when I did that, then bit down on my lip.

Lightly I ran my fingers over her thighs and hips, distributed kisses across her breast. That was as much as she could take.

She guided me to her, making the union herself, arching her lovely back into it and thrusting to meet me until I was deep in her. The familiar sound of pleasure purred in her throat. My mind and body centered on the primal urge to penetrate and explore and ravish this lovely female who was, for the moment, part of me. Our passion grew, mounted… and erupted in total fulfillment.

The phone rang just minutes after we'd finished. Heather put the receiver to her ear, listened a few moments, then gasped. "Yes sir, right away," she said, then hung up.

"Brutus?" I asked.

"Yes," her head bobbed up and down. "Jupiter has disappeared. He's nowhere to be found, not at his office or his home."

"Maybe he is just out."

"Brutus doesn't think so," she said. "He believes Jupiter suspects we know about him."

I pondered that for a second. Brutus was probably right. A man with Jupiter's intelligence would suspect something about our sudden visit to his place. After thinking about it he'd probably decided to play it safe, to hide out somewhere.