Alistair MacLean - Puppet on a Chain

'A phone call, perhaps — ' 'No, no. Must be personal.' 'You couldn't tell me the nature — '

'Colonel de Graaf!' He nodded in quick understanding, appreciating the fact that I wouldn't be likely to divulge State secrets in the presence of the proprietors of a warehouse about which I obviously held serious reservations. 'I—I could borrow your car and driver—' 'Certainly,' he said unenthusiastically. 'And if you could wait till I come back before — ' 'You ask a great deal, Mr Sherman.' 'I know. But I'll only be minutes.'

I was only minutes. I had the driver stop at the first café we came to, went inside and used their public telephone. I heard the dialling tone and could feel my shoulders sag with relief as the receiver at the other end, after relay through an hotel desk, was picked up almost immediately. I said: 'Maggie?'

'Good morning, Major Sherman.' Always polite and punctilious was Maggie and I was never more glad to hear her so.

'I'm glad I caught you. I was afraid that you and Belinda might already have left — she hasn't left, has she?' I was much more afraid of several other things but this wasn't the time to tell her.

'She's still here,' Maggie said placidly.

'I want you both to leave your hotel at once. When I say at once, I mean within ten minutes. Five, if possible.'

'Leave? You mean — '

'I mean pack up, check out and don't ever go near it again. Go to another hotel. Any hotel… No, you blithering idiot, not mine. A suitable hotel. Take as many taxis as you like, make sure you're not followed. Telephone the number to the office of Colonel de Graaf in the Marnixstraat. Reverse the number.'

'Reverse it?' Maggie sounded shocked. 'You mean you don't trust the police either?'

'I don't know what you mean by "either" but I don't trust anyone, period. Once you've booked in, go look for Astrid Lemay. She'll be home — you have the address — or in the Balinova. Tell her she's to come to stay at your hotel till I tell her it's safe to move.*

'But her brother — '

'George can stay where he is. He's in no danger.' I couldn't remember later whether that statement was the sixth or seventh major mistake I'd made in Amsterdam. 'She is. If she objects, tell her you're going, on my authority, to the police about George.'

'But why should we go to the police — '

'No reason. But she's not to know that. She's so terrified that at the very mention of the word "police" — '

That's downright cruel,' Maggie interrupted severely.

'Fiddlesticks!' I shouted and banged the phone back on its rest.

One minute later I was back in the warehouse and this time I had leisure to have a longer and closer look at the two proprietors. Both of them were almost caricatures of the foreigner's conception of the typical Amsterdamer. They were both very big, very fat, rubicund and heavily jowled men who, in the first brief introduction I had had to them, had had their faces deeply creased in lines of good-will and joviality, an expression that was now conspicuously lacking in both. Evidently, de Graaf had become impatient even with my very brief absence and had started the proceedings without me. I didn't reproach him and, in return, he had the tact not to enquire how things had gone with me. Both Muggenthaler and Morgenstern were still standing in almost the identical positions in which I'd left them, gazing at each other in consternation and dismay and complete lack of understanding. Muggenthaler, who was holding a paper in his hand, let it fall to his side with a gesture of total disbelief.

'A search warrant.' The overtones of pathos and heartbreak- and tragedy would have moved a statue to tears; had he been half his size he'd have been a natural for Hamlet. 'A search warrant for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler! For a hundred and fifty years our two families have been respected, no, honoured tradesmen in the city of Amsterdam. And now this!' He groped behind him and sank into a chair in what appeared to be some kind of stupor, the paper falling from his hand. 'A search warrant!'

'A search warrant,' Morgenstern intoned. He, too, had found it necessary to seek an armchair. 'A search warrant, Ernest. A black day for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler! My God! The shame of it! The ignominy of it! A search warrant!'

Muggenthaler waved a despairingly listless hand. 'Go on, search all you want.'

'Don't you want to know what we're searching for?' de Graaf asked politely,

'Why should I want to know?' Muggenthaler tried to raise himself to a momentary state of indignation, but he was too stricken. 'In one hundred and fifty years — '

'Now, now, gentlemen,' de Graaf said soothingly, 'don't take it so hard. I appreciate the shock you must feel and in my own view we're on a wild goose chase. But an official request has been made and we must go through the official motions. We have information that you have illicitly obtained diamonds — '

'Diamonds!' Muggenthaler stared in disbelief at his partner. 'You hear that, Jan? Diamonds?' He shook his head and said to de Graaf: 'If you find some, give me a few, will you?'

De Graaf was unaffected by the morose sarcasm. 'And, much more important, diamond-cutting machinery.'

'We're crammed from floor to ceiling with diamond-cutting machinery,' Morgenstern said heavily. 'Look for yourselves.'

'And the invoice books?'

'Anything, anything,' Muggenthaler said wearily.

'Thank you for your co-operation.' De Graaf nodded to van Gelder, who rose and left the room. De Graaf went on confidentially: 'I apologize, in advance, for what is, I'm sure, a complete waste of time. Candidly, I'm more interested in that horrible thing dangling by a chain from your hoisting beam. A puppet.'

'A what?' Muggenthaler demanded.

'A puppet. A big one.'

'A puppet on a chain.' Muggenthaler looked both flabbergasted and horrified, which is not an easy thing to achieve. 'In front of our warehouse? Jan!'

It wouldn't quite be accurate to say that we raced up the stairs, for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler weren't built along the right lines, but we made pretty good time for all that. On the third floor we found van Gelder and his men at work and at a word from de Graaf van Gelder joined us. I hoped his men didn't wear themselves out looking, for I knew they'd never find anything. They'd never even come across the smell of cannabis which had hung so heavily on that floor the previous night, although I felt that the sickly-sweet smell of some powerful flower-based air-freshener that had taken its place could scarcely, be described as an improvement. But it hardly seemed the time to mention it to anyone.

The puppet, its back to us and the dark head resting on its right shoulder, was still swaying gently in the breeze. Muggenthaler, supported by Morgenstern and obviously feeling none too happy in his precarious position, reached out gingerly, caught the chain just above the hook and hauled it in sufficiently for him, not without considerable difficulty, to unhook the puppet from the chain. He held it in his arms and stared down at it for long moments, then shook his head and looked up at Morgenstern.

'Jan, he who did this wicked thing, this sick, sick joke — he leaves our employment this very day.'

'This very hour,' Morgenstern corrected. His face twisted in repugnance, not at the puppet, but at what had been done to it. 'And such a beautiful puppet!'

Morgenstern was in no way exaggerating. It was indeed a beautiful puppet and not only or indeed primarily because of the wonderfully cut and fitted bodice and gown. Despite the fact that the neck had been broken and cruelly gouged by the hook, the face itself was arrestingly beautiful, a work of great artistic skill in which the colours of the dark hair, the brown eyes and the complexion blended so subtly and in which the delicate features had been. so exquisitely shaped that it was hard to believe that this was the face of a puppet and not that of a human being with an existence and distinctive personality of her own. Nor was I the only person who felt that way.