The Power (89 page)

'But Amberg's face - or the dummy used to fake him.
The face was also destroyed with acid.'

She looked round at all the people in the living-room at
Tresillian Manor. Tweed, sitting close, with Newman
near by. Amberg in a chair next to Newman, looking
dazed. Jennie, gazing at the banker as though she
couldn't believe what she saw.

'Yes, we used acid,' Buchanan went on. 'It exposed the
metal struts inside so we painted them with red oil-paint.'

'It needed a powerful shock to crack Julius Amberg and
Eve,' Tweed explained, taking over. 'The tableau worked
the oracle.'

'Julius Amberg? You mean Walter,' she said. 'Julius was
killed in the massacre.'

'No, Walter was. That man sitting over there is Julius.'

'Identical twins,' Tweed went on. 'Julius has admitted the
whole conspiracy while you were pursuing Eve. He viewed
the film, listened to the tape Joel Dyson handed him for
safe-keeping. He was frightened, but Eve, the driving
force behind the whole thing, saw an opportunity to make
a fortune - to blackmail Bradford March for twenty million
dollars. Julius had been playing with the bank's money gambling in foreign currencies. He lost ten million. The
other ten million was to keep them in luxury for the rest of
their lives.'

'But where did Walter come in?' Paula asked.

'I said Julius was frightened - taking on the US President
was a frightening thing. Eve came up with the solution.
Walter, who knew nothing about the film, was persuaded
to travel here, to impersonate Julius. They told him I was a
specialist in securities, that I could tell Walter how to make
a lot of money. But they also explained I only trusted
Julius, who pretended to be ill. Walter was the scapegoat-
they counted on the news of the fake Julius's death being broadcast as part of a sensational mass murder case. The
guards who travelled with Walter were to ensure the
secrecy of the meeting. With the news of Julius's death
reaching President March they thought they'd be safe -
that Joel Dyson would be the target.'

'What first made you suspicious?' she asked.

'Have some more tea,' Newman urged, refilling her cup.

After her grim experience on High Tor Paula had driven
the Land-Rover back along the main road. Halfway to the
manor she'd been met by police cars Buchanan had sent
out to find her, but she'd insisted on driving the rest of the
way.

'Suspicious that the so-called Walter was Julius?'
Tweed continued. 'First the acid - why destroy his face?
To make true identification of the victim impossible.
Then Eve kept going everywhere
with Amberg. Her
excuse - to get money out of him. A lawyer could have
done the job. Also it would take strength to garrotte the
two call-girls in Zurich - to the extent of nearly severing the head from the neck. At the swimming pool up at the Château
Noir I noticed how fit and strong she was
...'

'So she killed Helen Frey and Klara in that horrible
way?'

'Yes. Eve was suspicious Julius had been seeking
pleasure with other women. Hence her employing Theo
Strebel, the detective, who tracked them down. Eve
never took chances. She realized call-girls would know Julius better than any of his staff, might recognize him in
Zurich.'

'I'd thought using the pearl garrotte meant a man,'
Paula remarked.

'Eve visited each girl, offered her money not to see
Julius again. Then showed them the pearls, said they were
real and would they take them instead? She stepped
behind them to fit the string round their throats, then
pulled the wire supporting them with all her strength.'

'But what about Theo Strebel? He was shot.'

'She could hardly use the pearls on him. The significant factor was he knew Eve, so let her into his office without
any inkling of danger. I also noticed that Eve had fre
quently used the name Walter - a little too often - to
emphasize that it
was
Walter. An accumulation of small pointers made me focus on her.'

'And she was going to kill me,' Jennie said and
shivered. 'She knew I had seen her in Padstow early on
the morning of the massacre. She was the Shadow Man.'

'How do we know that?' Paula asked.

'Because,' Buchanan intervened, 'at Tweed's sug
gestion I came armed with a warrant to search her luggage
at the Metropole. A phone call while you were chasing Eve - that was foolhardy - from my men in Padstow
confirmed they'd found a large man's hat with a wide brim
- and a cloak.'

'Hence the varying descriptions we got from different
witnesses,' Tweed explained. 'Sometimes the Shadow
Man was slim, sometimes well built. She used the cloak to
change her appearance.'

'We also found the string of pearls in a secret compartment,' Buchanan added. 'There appears to be dried blood on the strong wire the pearls are looped on. Forensic will
confirm, I'm sure.'

'So there
were
two interlocking jigsaws,' Paula com
mented.

'Yes, you've caught on,' said Tweed. 'The first was
Joel Dyson taking that damning film of Bradford March killing his mistress then fleeing to Europe, handing one
copy of film and tape to Monica, then flying on to Zurich
to deposit the others with Julius. I've no doubt it was
Dyson who intended to blackmail the President in due course, but Eve jumped in first. Without Dyson's actions there would have been no incriminating material. They
triggered off the biggest man-hunt by March's thugs ever
launched. The second jigsaw was Eve and Amberg
taking over the role of blackmailers. One led to the
other.'

'How do we know all this?'

Paula glanced round at the audience. Her gaze rested on Gaunt.

'Because,' Buchanan intervened again, 'after due
warning that anything he said might be taken down and
used as evidence, et cetera, Amberg admitted
everything.'

'I shall be returning to Switzerland,' Julius said in his normal commanding tone.

'I don't think so,' Buchanan assured him. 'After the
statement you made you will be charged as an accomplice to ten murders - all of which took place here. You ran the
devil of a risk - taking on the President of the United
States.'

'I was desperate. I was short of ten million of the bank's
money. Maybe British prisons are less austere than Swiss.'

'I expect you're going to have a long opportunity to find
that out,' Buchanan said unsympathetically.

'The tide's gone out. It's just a solid sandbank in the
estuary,' said Paula.

'I hope you're packed,' said Tweed as they stood with
Newman in Tweed's room at the Metropole. 'Incidentally,
Cord Dillon is safely back behind his own desk in Langley-
he's officially returned from a long leave. No one connects
him with what happened. And I phoned Howard - while they rebuild our HQ we move into the communications centre further along Park Crescent. They say it will take eight months to rebuild - which means a year. The PM is
talking to Howard each day, feels he got it all wrong.'

'He did,' Paula snapped.

'Better news from Washington,' Newman remarked.
'The newspapers report Jeb Galloway was sworn in as President the day we flew from New York. He's sending
fresh troops to Europe to reinforce NATO. That should
checkmate the crisis in the East. Middle East terrorists are
rumoured to have put the bomb on March's plane.'

'That's Wingfield's propaganda machine gearing up,' Tweed commented cynically. 'There'll be conspiracy theories invented for ages just as there were after Ken
nedy's assassination. Let's get out of here as fast as we can.'

'Why the great hurry?' Paula enquired.

'The Squire - Gaunt - wanted us to have dinner with
him at the Old Custom House. He feels a bit of an idiot
the way Eve fooled him, used him as camouflage to distract attention from Walter, who was really Julius.
And the PM has asked me to dinner at Downing Street,
according to Howard.'

'You'll go, of course,' Paula teased him.

'Another bit of news Howard gave me. Commander Crombie's men, digging in the remains of the Park Cres
cent rubble, found my safe. It was moved along the
Crescent to our communications centre. Monica said it
was intact, opened it up, found the film and the tape in
perfect condition. Oh, Bob, Dyson tricked you - said they
were copies. What he delivered to you were the originals.'

'Well, I'll be damned!' Paula burst out. 'Everything
we've gone through was unnecessary.'

'Was it?' Tweed queried. 'We've got rid of a psycho
path who sat in the Oval Office. Would the PM have
permitted that film and that tape to be sent to Washing
ton? Never. March would have remained President. As it
is, the film and the tape will remain classified material for
the next thirty years. It was a classic case of Lord Acton's
maxim.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power cor
rupts absolutely.'