John Gardner - Never send flowers

They finished saying hello about two hours later, after which he called room service and they sat across a small table eating smoked salmon and a huge chef's salad while he told her how things stood.

`The letter was certainly to David,' he swallowed, `but not to dear departed brother David. I suspect she never intended to send that letter. I believe it was a kind of private therapy.

Sometimes people deal with emotions by writing letters to a loved one now out of reach. I'd bet money that's what Laura March was doing.

`And the loved one was?" He told her. Inevitably her jaw dropped and she asked the familiar question, `Not the David Dragonpol?" `In the flesh." `Ah." She gave him a sloe-eyed, knowing look.

`We know of the famous Mr Dragonpol.

`Everyone knows of the famous Mr Dragonpol.

`I mean the royal "we", as in my service knows of David Dragonpol." `Really? Interesting?" `I use the term "my service" loosely. I honestly don't know if I'm still a member of it. Like you, I'm on leave pending a Court of Inquiry. But, yes, I've seen the name come across various desks from time to time. He travels a lot.

`My information is that he stays holed up in a castle on the Rhine." She nodded. `Schloss Drache, sure. He comes in via Germany, but he's been in and out like a jack rabbit you should pardon the simile over the last couple of years. A day here, two days there, a change of plans. Busy man, David Dragonpol what a crazy name, Dragonpol." She ran it over her neat little pink tongue, then tried it again.

`Dragonpol." Then, once more with feeling, `Draaagooonpool.

Weird." `It means Dragon Head." `I know what it means, James. It's just a weird name. He should have changed it to Beastiehead, or something more conventional. Where did you come by all this information anyway-about Laura and the demon Dragonpol?" `First, what do your people think the great man's up to, travelling around Switzerland?" `Nobody's sure. He's only been casually questioned, and always has a ready answer: says he is hunting for pieces to go in his castle which he is turning into a huge theatre museum.

`A theatre museum?" `He plans to open it to the public in due course: a kind of Disneyland, but dedicated to the history and art of theatre through the ages. That's what he says he's doing. Mind you, he likes disguises, but then he's an actor, so he would like disguises.

`Yet your service still knew of his comings and goings?" `Usually, yes. He's also very good at slipping surveillance, but there were some leads little things-I recall." `Such as?" `Such as a possible meeting with an arms dealer here, or a special source there: the odd informer; some people on the fringes of international terrorism. Nothing was ever proved, but there is definitely something sniffy about the actor.

`Iffy,' Bond corrected.

`No, sniffy, like in smelly.

`If your people had an eye on him, what about the British Security Service?" `I wouldn't know about that.

`You share information though.

`Only when it's absolutely necessary. Dragonpol very rarely went to England. We Swiss like to keep certain secrets." `Then you Swiss should have known about him and Laura.

She shrugged. `Maybe we did. I don't see everything." `Well, he was definitely engaged to the fair Laura, and the engagement was broken off a couple of weeks before she went up the mountain and didn't come down again." She looked at him as though not entirely satisfied; as a woman who has smelled a different scent on his shirt, or spotted a lipstick mark on a collar: a shade of lipstick she never uses. `So, where did you come by all this information?" He told her about the skirmish with the Security Service's watchers, and his meeting with the lovely Carmel Chantry.

`And this Chantry person told all?" `Everything. Including how we were set up by the unlovely Fraulein Bruch.

`Mmmm." She again cocked a quizzical eye at him. `She tell you this standing, sitting, or flat on her back, James?" `I was sitting, she was lying on a bed in Brown's Hotel.`Before she told you, were you also lying on the bed?" `No, Fredericka. It was all very proper." `What we've been doing is also very proper.

`More than very proper. She also told me that she once made a pass at Laura.

`Doesn't mean a thing particularly if she's fragile and feminine.

`She volunteered the information.

`Lying on a bed?" `Yes." `Huh!" Fredericka von Grusse narrowed her eyes.

`I remained seated throughout." `Long may it stay that way. You think the wicked witch of the Victoria-Jungfrau will get us off the hook if I alert large muscular members of my service to go and talk with her?" `Shouldn't be surprised. You might even provoke some kind of international incident.

`Good." She sounded quite ready to start a global incident.

`Good, I'll telephone them in the morning. I still have a few favours I can call in.

Anyway, someone's going to be in touch with me; give me the inquest verdict and find out when Laura's going to be buried-and where." She took another mouth full of salmon. `What was it the old Inquisition used to call an interrogation? Putting someone on the question." `To,' Bond smiled. `They put people "to the question `Good again. In a few minutes I shall put you to the question, James. But I shall do it lying down, and the torture will be exquisite.

`You could take a man to an early grave, Fredericka." `No, but I'll soon tell if his stamina has gone down the tubes. Find out if he is telling the truth about this little heart-to-heart, earlier this evening, with His Chantry." `I look forward to it * Now, on the morning after a strenuous night before, she stood in the doorway, one foot tapping and the other pointing to the picture of the elaborate brunette. `Is this the trollop, Carmel Chantry?" `No,' Bond said, shifting his body and reaching up, as though to take the paper. `No, that's not her, but there is a likeness ... I wonder...?" He reached for the telephone and dialled Brown's Hotel, asking for room 349.

A few seconds later the operator came back and asked who he actually wanted to speak with.

`Three-forty-nine. His Chantry." `His Chantry checked out yesterday evening, sir." `Thank you." He cradled the telephone, and looked up at Fredericka again. `Does the paper give a name?" `Of the murder victim?

Yes, she was staying in the hotel under the name Barnabus. Heather Barnabus. Shall I read it to you?" `No, let me see." He all but snatched the Telegraph from her, quickly scanning the story.

The girl had arrived at the hotel during the previous afternoon, had registered under the name Heather Barnabus, and, it was reported, she had been seen talking to a man in the lounge just after they had stopped serving tea around six o'clock. A chambermaid had found her body at seven-thirty when she went to make up the room for the night.

According to the story, she had died from multiple stab wounds.

Then came the description that, at a pinch, would pass for Bond. The police, as ever, wished to interview this man in order to eliminate him from their enquiries.

`This girl is definitely not Carmel." He tapped the picture again.

`Though there is a passing resemblance. It's possible that someone saw me with Carmel before we went up to her room." `A passing resemblance? Really? So this Carmel looks a bit of a tart, yes?" `Not at all. She's been put in a very difficult position..

`Many times I should imagine `By her imbecilic superior who appears to be about as professional as a veterinary surgeon in an abattoir. -Ăš `If this one is like the Chantry person, she looks pretty ,professional to me..

`She s an experienced security officer, Fredericka!" He raised his voice, just enough to put paid to the bitchy remarks.

`Don't you think you should do something about it? I mean, somebody's going to connect you with that photofit, and they'll haul you off to the pokey before you can say cipher.