Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

'This,' said Malory grimly, 'can go on for years. Damn fella will be in Timbuctoo next, and the new offer'll be a million. Offer one hundred and thirty-two conditional upon immediate acceptance.'

But the hostage had by then been given, and it had been examined with pleasure. It was now very clear that Hill 11Qyard, Cleef not only sought to possess Cavendish House, but did so with great ardour. 'And Hillyard, Cleef,' as Thomas Plantagenet Grace observed, 'are rich, rich, rich!'

The riches, however, had not been accumulated by succumbing very often to essentially simple lures. Malory and Graves could play this game, too, and frequently did. The Hillyard, Cleef offer was suddenly lowered. Neither Graves nor Malory was subsequently available when Mr Grace telephoned to enquire if he understood the reduced offer aright. A further and genuine bid then materialized from another source altogether; this for one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. It was made by an elderly lady who marched up to the white-painted door one evening, said she was from Australia, and would buy the house there and then. 'Here,' she said, 'is my cheque. And here, because there are crooks in this world Mr Abrahams-and I'm not saying you're one of them because I don't know whether you are or not - is a document for you to sign. In the event you call off the deal, you pay me ten thousand. Fair?'

It was fair, Abrahams thought. But Mr Thomas Plantagenet Grace was privately doubtful. He suspected that the elderly lady was a plant, an agent of Hillyard, Cleef. What is more, he was right. She was herself a director of a Hillyard, Cleef subsidiary in Australia. Mr Grace could prove nothing. What he could do was delay matters.

He did.

At Hillyard, Cleef the effects of the delay varied according to the individual. Laurence Pilgrim, with a somewhat irritable Malory haunting the building seven hours a day, began to hope that part three of Dikeston's memoirs would surface soon, if only to get Malory off his back. Malory passed his day harrying lawyers, Graves, and anybody else within reach. He was, by now, thanks to the historian from Oxford, as well-informed as it is possible to be about the question of what happened to the Romanovs after Yakovlev was compelled to turn back outside Omsk. Evenings at Wilton Place tended to be spent in his study with a volume of Romanov reminiscences, rather than at the bridge table. He read the memoirs of Romanov uncles, cousins, aunts, teachers and friends. In some areas all said much the same thing. In others they differed.

Not one mentioned a meeting with Dutov - nor was there mention anywhere of the possibility that Commissar Vassily Yakovlev was a British agent.

There were other mysteries, too.

When at last Cavendish House changed hands-and it took a full month despite all the pressure exerted by the no-nonsense lady from Australia - Graves heard the news without pleasure. A most useful part of Graves's make-up was a pronounced node of suspicion which probably came from his French ancestry, and which told him that there was a great deal more to Dikeston's story than might be gathered from a first and superficial view. Dikeston, he thought, was obsessive; Dikeston had taken trouble with his arrangements, and had carried his grievances a long time. Dikeston had also liked setting traps and Graves, thinking about all the years Dikeston had had to set them and all the money available for them, viewed his own future involvement with no enthusiasm at all. He had originally accompanied Laurence Pilgrim to London because working for Pilgrim in international financing projects would provide the challenges to which he best responded: locking horns with clever and energetic men on a familiar battlefield and according to rules universally comprehended. But Dikeston's legacy - and Graves by now felt this strongly - was something very different. Had he been able to avoid further involvement, he would have done so, but Pilgrim had made clear his own aversion to what he described to Graves privately as

'Malory's senescent flourish', and had indicated that Graves must bear the load. The load had been borne quite lightly for several days, since Hillyard, Cleef's solicitors were taking the weight. Jacques Graves, temporarily freed as a result, had been in Vancouver. British Columbia, tying up a profitable deal involving the building of two ocean-going tugs. He was sitting in the dining-room of the Bayshore Inn, picking with pleasure at a handsomely arranged plate of Crab Louie, when he was paged. There was a telex from Malory. It read: 'Return at once.'

'The deeds.' Malory's smooth hand, brown-spotted with age, manicured throughout a lifetime, patted twice at the manila envelope which lay upon his desk. He took the gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. 'I don't think,' he added, 'that you should waste too much time.'

Graves, baggy-eyed and dopey with jet-lag after the seven thousand-mile overnight trip, reached for the envelope. 'Where was the address again?'

Malory looked at him reprovingly. 'A good memory,' he said, 'is extremely important in our profession, Mr Graves. Perhaps you'd better write it down.'

As the train travelled north to Liverpool, Graves's tired mind wrestled with images of Dikeston. Graves had never before in his life been subject to the feeling that he was being oppressed, but he felt it now. By some means or other, he thought savagely, anything that had its roots in Dikeston turned out to be uncomfortable, difficult or humiliating. It was evening when the train arrived in Lime Street. He awoke refreshed in one of the big high beds of the old but comfortable Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool; he breakfasted well and afterwards took a taxi to the premises of the Irish Linen Bank. The morning was bright; Graves felt cheerful; the dark, Dikeston-based delusions had been sloughed off by sleep and he was on his way to a bank to collect papers. What could be simpler? Yet it happened.

'I have an appointment,' Graves said, presenting his card, 'with Mr O'Hara.'

'One moment, sir.'

The girl who came over to him was O'Hara's secretary. Mr O'Hara would not be in until after luncheon. Yes, she knew Mr Graves had an appointment; yes, she realized he had come from London; indeed an attempt had been made to call his office and warn him. No, it was impossible to get a message to Mr O'Hara. But he would be in after lunch.

O'Hara arrived, finally, at a quarter to three and Graves, who had been cooling his heels with growing impatience for four and three-quarter hours was shown in. O'Hara, a big open-faced Irishman, was very apologetic and extremely sorry to hear that the warning message had not reached Graves at Hillyward, Cleef.

'But what is it I can do for you, Mr Graves?'

Graves removed two envelopes from his slender document case. Handing the first, and fatter, envelope to O'Hara, he said, 'We are fulfilling the terms of some old and somewhat, er, odd instructions. These are the deeds of a house, which you are to inspect and be sure they are what we say they are. And this -' he offered the second envelope - 'is our cheque for the sum of fifty thousand. Both are to be passed to the holder of an account here.'

'Lucky fella,' said O'Hara. 'Whose account is that?'

'I don't know.'

O'Hara smiled. 'As you say, odd. But if you can't tell me the name -?'

'There's a number. It's a special -'

He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone on O'Hara's desk.

'Excuse me.' O'Hara picked it up. 'Yes,' he said. Then, 'No.' Then 'Two and one, my dear, a diplomatic defeat.' Then, 'Well, nobody can go round Birkdale without -' He stopped, the open face suddenly flushing. 'I'll call you later, dear.'

'Golf?' Graves said, anger almost erupting. 'You were playing golf?' O'Hara's explanation was as full as his apologies were fulsome. 'Called out at the last minute, terribly sorry, but the General Manager . . , and one of our most important customers . . , promotion in the wind, you know .., no way of refusing . . . Now, you were saying?'