The Falcon's Malteser (17 page)

“Did he tell you everything?” I asked.

“Well, let’s just say that Herbert and canaries have a lot in common.”

Snape held out a hand. “I want the Maltesers,” he said.

“I don’t have them,” I said. “The Fat Man took them.” Snape’s eyes narrowed a little more. “If you don’t believe me, you can search my bag.”

“I already have,” Boyle muttered.

“The Fat Man took them,” I repeated. “When you arrest him you can get them from him.”

“Arrest him?” Snape twisted his neck until the bone clicked. “That may not be so easy.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a question of evidence, lad. We haven’t got anything on him. Nothing concrete—”

“What about the stuff he was burying me in?”

“You don’t understand!” Snape was distressed. “He’ll deny he was ever there. He’ll say it was a case of mistaken identity . . . in the fog. He’ll have an alibi.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “So that’s it, then,” I said. “If the Fat Man goes free, he’ll find the diamonds and that’ll be the end of it.”

“You should have given us the Maltesers in the first place,” Boyle said.

“Sure.” I nodded. “And if the Fat Man had come strolling in and claimed them as lost property, I suppose you’d have handed them over.”

That made Boyle scowl again. But Snape stood up. “You’ve got a lot of questions to answer,” he said.

“Are you arresting me?”

“No. You’ve had enough for one day. We’ll talk to you next week. Like you say, the Fat Man has the Maltesers and that’s the end of it. We’ll be in touch.”

I showed them to the door. Snape stopped in the doorway and turned around. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

I’d forgotten until then. It was Christmas Eve. “Yeah . . . Merry Christmas, Chief Inspector,” I said. “And to you, Boyle.”

Boyle grunted. He probably didn’t even know what Christmas was.

 

An hour later I was lying in hot water with soap bubbles up to my neck and Herbert’s plastic duck floating around my feet. My body wasn’t a pretty sight just then. What with the ropes, the cement, and the general manhandling, I had more bruises than I cared to count. But it felt good in the bath. I needed to relax. It was time for some serious thinking.

What did the Maltesers unlock?

I knew the answer. I knew I knew the answer.

It had to be something near Herbert’s apartment. Johnny Naples had left Notting Hill Gate with the Maltesers and a pair of scissors. By then he’d found the answer. He knew where he was going and he went to Fulham. But he’d been followed—and rather than lead anyone to his destination, he’d come to us. So it had to be something near. But what was there near the apartment connected with the Falcon?

Four days later we’d found Naples dying. He’d managed to say two things: “The Falcon” and “the sun.” I assumed it was sun—with a
u.
Henry von Falkenberg didn’t have a son . . . at least, not one that we’d heard about. But what did the sun have to do with the Falcon? Nothing . . . unless he’d been talking about another falcon. Maybe not a man. A bird. Or a statue of a bird.

And then I thought about the Maltesers themselves and about a phrase that Clifford Taylor had used. The journalist had described the laser as “the shining light.” The sun was a shining light, too. But the phrase bothered me. I’d seen those words somewhere before. The Maltesers.

When the Fat Man had taken them, he’d looked on the bottom. I’d already tricked the Professor once. He’d told the Fat Man to find something, to check that they were the real ones. Henry von Falkenberg would have had to mark them in some way. And there was an easy way.

That was what the journalist had said. And I knew that number. I’d read it so many times that I’d learned it by heart: 3521 201 000000. That number was the final clue.

I pulled the bath plug out with my toes and wrapped a towel around my body. Then, still dripping water, I went downstairs. It took me an hour before I found what I was looking for, but there it was—a piece of paper with another number on it. I’d written that number myself on the day of the Falcon’s funeral.

There were thirteen digits on the Maltesers box—but the last six of them were all zeroes. Cross those out and you’d be left with seven digits.

A telephone number. And I knew which telephone it rang.

That was when our own telephone rang. The noise of the bell was so sudden, so loud, that I almost dropped the towel. I went into the office and picked it up.

“Nick Diamond?”

The voice was ugly with hatred. I didn’t believe a voice could hate that much.

“Gott,” I said.

“We have your brother.”

That took me by surprise. Herbert? But that was the way Gott worked. He’d snatched Lauren, then me. Why shouldn’t he add Herbert to his list?

“If you don’t give us what we want,” Gott snarled, “he dies.”

I didn’t have what they wanted, but I wasn’t going to say that. Because suddenly I knew everything. It all made sense. I should have seen it a long, long time before.

“Come to the cemetery,” I said. I was talking even before I knew what I was saying. “I’ll meet you at the Falcon’s grave. Tomorrow at twelve o’clock.” I hung up.

I didn’t want to get into any arguments.

Then I opened the drawer of Herbert’s desk. On the day we had first met the Fat Man, he had given us a card with his telephone number. I called it now, hoping there would be someone in.

“Yes?” It was a flat, neutral voice.

“I want to talk to the Fat Man,” I said.

“He’s not here.”

“It’s important I get a message to him.”

“Who is this?”

“Nick Diamond.”

There was a pause. Then the voice said, “What is the message?”

“I know what the key opens,” I said. “And I’m willing to do a deal. Tell the Fat Man to be at Brompton Cemetery tomorrow. At the Falcon’s grave at five to twelve exactly. Alone. Have you got that?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I hung up on him, too.

After that I made one last call. That was the hardest to make. It cost me five million dollars. But the way I looked at it was like this. The Fat Man had the Maltesers. Gott (and maybe Himmell) had Herbert. And I had the answer. If I’d planned things right, it would all sort itself out the next day at noon.

If I didn’t . . . well, we were meeting in a cemetery. At least they wouldn’t have to carry me far.

I just hoped it would be a sunny day.

There are only about three or four days in the year when the Brompton Cemetery is more or less empty—and Christmas Day, of course, is one of them. That would suit my plans. Witnesses were one thing I could do without. It was eleven forty-five when I walked up to the Falcon’s grave. There was nobody in sight. Fortunately it was another crisp, cloudless day. The sun had no warmth, but it was bright. At least the weather was on my side.

I stood beside the Falcon’s grave. The earth was still fresh where they’d buried him, like a sore that hadn’t healed. It would take the grass time to grow over it—but where better to find time than in a cemetery? I looked at the memorial, that Victorian telephone booth with the stone falcon perched on top. There’s an old saying I thought of. “You can’t take it with you.” But the Falcon had—or at least, he’d tried his best to. I read the inscription on the memorial. I’d read it before.

The Falcon must have smiled when he had that cut in. I wondered if he was still smiling in his grave.

I heard the gate grind open down at the Fulham Road. That had to be the Fat Man. Sure enough, he appeared a few moments later, wearing a camel-hair coat with real humps. He carried a shooting stick and walked at a jaunty pace, for all the world like a man taking a little exercise before his Christmas lunch.

He saw me standing by the grave, raised the shooting stick, and sauntered over. He was smiling, but only with his lips. His eyes didn’t trust me.

“Merry Christmas, Fat Man,” I said.

“I hope so,” he replied. “And I hope you’re not wasting my time, my boy. You should know by now that I don’t take kindly to—”

“Have you got the Maltesers?” I cut in.

He nodded. “In my pocket.”

“Let me see them.”

He took them out but held on to them like he was afraid I was going to grab them.

“Read me the number on the bottom,” I said.

He turned the box over: “3521 201 000000.” It was the right number. “You say you know what these chocolates meant to the Falcon,” he said in a graveyard voice. “You say you want to make a deal. What deal?”

“We’ll split the money,” I said. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Eighty-twenty.”

“Sixty-forty.”

We were juggling figures. It didn’t matter to me. I knew that once I showed the Fat Man what to do with the Maltesers, I’d be dead. But it was important that he hung on to them. They had to be out in the open.

“Seventy-thirty,” the Fat Man said. “It’s my last offer.”

It was his last offer. There was a movement on the path behind him, and when he turned around there were Gott and Himmell with Herbert between them. It had been a week since I’d last seen him and Herbert had lost weight.

I smiled at him. “Hello, Herbert,” I said.

He looked at me reproachfully. “The name is Tim,” he muttered.

There are times when my brother really amazes me. I’d been kidnapped, tied up, chased around London, threatened, and half killed. He’d been arrested for murder and kidnapped himself. We were unarmed and surrounded by three psychopathic killers. And he was worried about names. “How are you . . . Tim?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” he said. He considered. “Actually I’ve got a runny nose and—”

“All right,” the Fat Man interrupted. “What is this?”

“It’s a cemetery,” Herbert said.

The Fat Man gritted his teeth.

“Do you know them?” I asked him.

He glanced at Gott and Himmell. “I know them,” he said.

“If that little swine is trying to trick us—” Gott began.

“I’m doing what I said I would,” I cut in. “I promised I’d lead you to the Maltesers in return for Herbert—I mean— Tim.” I pointed at the Fat Man, who was still holding them. “There they are. And I promised the Fat Man that I’d tell him their secret. If you’ll let me, I will.”

Nobody said anything. The wind ruffled my hair. I was wearing a warm coat, but my body was far from warm. I just wanted the whole thing to be over.

“Go ahead,” Gott said.

“Yes, go ahead,” the Fat Man repeated. “And it had better be good.”

“All right,” I said. “This is how it goes. Henry von Falkenberg was a very careful man, a man who trusted no one. He had five million dollars in diamonds stashed here in England. It was in a safe that had been specially built for him. Even the key to the safe was special. It was designed so that nobody would even know it was a key. Only the Falcon knew. It was the only way he could feel safe himself.

“The Professor built the safe for him—the late Quentin Quisling. I guess we’ll never know, but I suppose he built in some sort of device so that Henry von Falkenberg could choose his own combination. That wouldn’t have been difficult. The key was a bar code. It could be on a tin of baked beans, a pack of playing cards—a box of Maltesers. The Falcon brought the key with him every time he came to England. If he was searched by the police, he had nothing to fear. Who would suspect that a few black lines on the bottom of a box of candy could open the door to a fortune?

“There was one thing, though. One fail-safe device. There was a number written on the box. I don’t know why. Maybe it appealed to the Falcon’s sense of humor. Or maybe it was a clue—a puzzle for his heirs to fight over. But that number was 352-1201 with a few zeroes added to stretch it out. I wrote that number down for my brother on the day of the Falcon’s funeral. It’s the phone number of this cemetery.”

I walked forward to the monument. Nobody spoke, but their eyes followed me like so many gun barrels. I stood on tiptoe and wiped the cuff of my shirt across the eyes of the falcon. As I had guessed, they weren’t made of stone. They were glass.

“And where is this ingenious safe?” I asked. “You’re looking at it. The Falcon had it designed like a memorial. You see the inscription? The ‘shining light’ it’s referring to is the light beam that opens it. Johnny Naples tried to tell me about that—the sun.

“I won’t try to explain to you how a bar code works. I only half understand it myself. But what you’re looking at here is the first solar-powered bar-code reader. You’ve got to hand it to the Professor. He may have been crooked. He may have been a drunk. But he was clever.

“The sunlight goes in through the eyes of the stone falcon. You run the bar code—at a guess—across the open beak. Somewhere inside all this there’s a photodetector, a small computer, and an opening device—all solar-powered. If you’ve got the right bar code, it’ll open the safe.” I pointed at the Maltesers, still clutched in the Fat Man’s hand. “That’s the right bar code,” I added. “It’s as simple as that.”

I stopped. Nobody spoke. Only Herbert looked puzzled. He obviously hadn’t understood a single word I’d said.

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen next, but I’ll tell you the general idea. The Fat Man isn’t going to share the diamonds with Gott and Himmell. Gott and Himmell clearly have no intention of sharing the diamonds with the Fat Man. But now everybody knows the secret. Herbert and I are forgotten. Nobody cares about us anymore. We slip away to live happily ever after, leaving our three friends to sort themselves out as best they can. That was the general idea. But obviously I’d been talking to the wrong general.

It all happened at once.