Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

'Probably the best collection for its size in the world,' the General said contentedly. 'Eighteenth-century flintlocks, as you must know, sir.' I just nodded again. I hadn't known anything of the sort. He went on: 'I've got a Cazes there, and a Boutet, and-'

Morgan came back with a bottle and a couple of tulip glasses on a silver tray.

He'd taken off his raincoat and was down to a plain black uniform with a row of 1914-18 medal ribbons. As he bent over to pour the champagne, he developed a hard bulge in his hip pocket, so the General's collection of pistols hadn't stopped at the end of the eighteenth century. I decided to let him keep it: if I took it off him, he'd only find something else and be a lot more tricky hiding it.

Morgan passed me a glass. The General stirred his with a gold swizzle stick and explained: 'Old turn can't take the bubbles these days. Your health, sir.'

We drank, and I remembered not to tell him I thought it was good stuff; he belonged to the days when everybody served only the best and to remark on it would suggest you'd expected something worse.

Instead, I said: 'How did you come into this work, General?'

'Ha.' He put his glass down with a careful, shaky hand. 'Shall we tell him, Sergeant? Give him our credentials and experiences before we start dealing? We might frighten him off.'

Morgan grinned back at him. I had an idea he'd have liked to see me frightened. He resented my threatening his master a lot more than the master himself did.

The General said: 'Well, no matter. We've been here since 1916, and we've only gone up one rank since. We were Colonel and Corporal then. I was on Haig's intelligence staff, and he sent us over to start our own spy ring. He didn't trust the civil secret service. Damn fool didn't trust anybody -didn't trust us as soon as we were over the border. Did he, Sergeant?'

Morgan shook his head gravely.

'Damn fool,' the General said again, and I assumed he still meant the Field-Marshal, not the Sergeant. 'I gave him Ludendorff's artillery planand his idea of using picked stormtroopers for the 1918 push. And he didn't listen. So that's why he got surprised in March. Damn fool never forgave me being right about that. Gave us both new ranks and kicked us straight out. We must have been the first people demobilised, weren't we, Sergeant?'

Morgan grinned again. 'Just about, sir.'

'Ha. So we just took up being what we'd been pretending to be – a retired old fogey and his chauffeur looking for a quiet life and good investments. Used the spy ring we'd started and switched it over to business information.'

He picked up his champagne again and gave a long, careful sip. 'Now, we'd better earn our lunch, hadn't we, Sergeant? I think we need some little pink cards here. You know which ones.'

Morgan said: 'Yes, sir,' and stumped out.

The General and I watched each other across our champagne glasses.

After a while Morgan came back with a handful of pink cards each about twice the size of a packet of cigarettes. The sort you use in little desk-top filing drawers.

The General dealt himself what looked like a patience hand on to the top of his invalid table, then jammed a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez on his nose and started sorting it over. Morgan poured me some more champagne.

Then the General looked up at me. 'At least I know who you are, now.' He read off one of the cards: 'Lewis Cane. Wartime codename, Caneton. Ha. I see we're in rather the same sort of business.' He shoved the card aside.

I frowned. I should have dropped the Caneton years ago.

He was looking at me again. 'Well, Mr Cane – have you decided what you want to buy?'

The phone rang.

Morgan picked it up, said 'Yes?' and listened for a moment. Then he turned and nodded to the General. The old boy reached down beside his chair and picked up a second receiver.

He said a few words in perfectly good French, but mostly just listened. Then he put the phone down and turned slowly back to me.

'Pity I didn't make you buy sooner, Mr Cane. Your friend Maganhard's just been arrested.'

I thought of asking something stupid like 'Are you sure?' -then started thinking what sort of profit the foxy old pirate could be making from tipping the police off to Maganhard. I couldn't think of anything. The local cops wouldn't pay much for a mere tip-off, and the General was far too much of a solid successful citizen, in a town which exists for such citizens and no others, to need to give them something free.

I gave up and asked a sensible question: 'Where did they pick him up?'

Tn the Cafédes Grottes. That was the proprietor who rang me.'

Morgan said: 'That wasn't where I saw him, sir.'

I asked: 'Would it be the next caféup, on the same side?'

He calculated. 'Yes, that'd be it.'

I nodded. 'It sounds like Maganhard, all right.' Harvey must have moved them, as I'd told him to, but probably hadn't managed to get Maganhard to degrade himself by combing his hair differently. So he'd got nicked.

That settles one question,' the General growled. 'Have the police been asked to arrest Maganhard? Yes, they have. Pity. I'd planned making some money by finding out that for you.'

'You still can,' I said. They just might have got the idea out of the Journal de Genève. Can you find out – without tipping them off that you know he's been picked up?'

The General just looked at me. Then: 'Sergeant, I don't think he was listening when I told him we'd been doing this since 1916.'

I grinned. 'Sorry. Anyway, I'll buy that. Did he say if anybody else had got arrested, too?'

'Only Maganhard.'

'Okay. I'll be down at that café. I'll ring you from there.' I dived out of the room before he could start haggling over prices.

It took me about five minutes to reach the Cafédes Grottes. Harvey and Miss Jarman were still there. I sat down beside them.

Harvey said: 'It's the end of the line, Cane. Maganhard's-'

'I know. Just tell me how it happened.'

He shrugged. 'I got them up here. He didn't buy that idea about changing his hair-style, but I got his glasses off. Lot of damn use that was.'

I nodded. 'Go on.'

'I stayed by myself, playing American tourist. A cop came in for a quick coffee, and I guess he spotted Maganhard then. Then Helen' – he nodded at Miss Jarman – 'she went out to do some shopping. Ten minutes later the cop and a sergeant came back, picked Maganhard up, and carted him off.'

'What did you do?'

His face was quite expressionless and his eyes were staring at me but not seeing me.

'Nothing,' he said calmly.

He had enough self-respect, and enough respect for my intelligence, not to offer any explanations.

Miss Jarman looked at me. 'And where wereyou all this time?'

'Drinking a morning glass of champagne. Come to that, what had happened to you?'

'If you recall, Mr Cane, you made us leave all our luggage behind in France. I had to buy some things.'

'And maybe make a few phone calls, too?'

She stared at me. After a time, she said in a small voice: 'Perhaps.'

Harvey slumped back in his chair. 'I could use a drink,' he said, softly but very positively. The girl jerked a scared look at him.

I said: 'Not here. Get on up to the Victoria – just above the Quai des Fleures, you know? Get up to room 510, and say I sent you. You'll find a character who looks as old as the Devil's grandfather, and about twice as crafty. Name's General Fay, and I'll tell him you're coming.'

'What are you going to do?' Harvey asked.

'See if there's a chance of bailing Maganhard out.'

When they'd gone, I walked over to the counter. Seeing me coming, the proprietor went through a mime of never having noticed me come in. He'd been watching the three of us like a nervous cobra.