The Oxford Gambit by Joseph Hone

Author:Joseph Hone [Hone, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2567-5
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2013-05-21T22:40:00+00:00

BOOK THREE

The Search

1

WE MET IN MY London club once more. But this time privately in the gilt-blue library upstairs, Marcus pretending an interest in some recent literary donations from members on a table by the window, though it was mid-morning and the gracious, sunlit room was empty.

Marcus had seen the Yugoslav letter and spoken to Madeleine too, which was why I had craved an appointment with the clever little man, for he had been unable to offer her any real help.

‘Oh, it’s quite genuine, I think,’ he said, thumbing through a new large quarto edition of The Water Babies—vilely illustrated by one of our younger members. ‘Rackham would have done it so much better,’ Marcus added.

‘He has, Marcus. He has. The letter—’

‘Yes, genuine I’d say.’ He looked up brightly, the pearl tie-pin in place, the confident jeweller’s smile swelling out gently from the fatty jowls. ‘They always put their logo on the top. It’s King Tomislav’s sword—did you know that? Tenth century. First King of an independent Croatia. And that’s what they want again, of course; to get out of Tito’s mob—’

‘I gathered that—’

‘“Hrvatska Slobodna”, Marlow.’ Marcus pronounced the phrase with relish and in probably the right accents. He had obviously been well briefed by experts in the last few days. ‘“Free Croatia”,’ he continued. ‘That’s the name of the game from now on.’ He said this with pleasure, as though he had at last learnt that Lindsay had simply been picked up by some old friends who were half-way through an elaborate practical joke with him. Something had happened to Lindsay which Marcus, at least, viewed with relief.

‘The letter: what did your people—’

‘Oh, yes, our handwriting fellow says it’s almost certainly Lindsay’s signature. But not fluent. So he may have damaged his arm somewhere along the way. That, and the personal contents, of course: I see no reason to doubt it. The trouble is, as I told Mrs Phillips, we can’t release this Croat terrorist. The PM is adamant. Hi-jacked one of our planes last year. But more than that, it would queer our pitch with the Marshal entirely. So that’s out, I’m afraid.’

Marcus closed The Water Babies and opened a heavy volume entitled Psychology in Industrial Relationships by a clever, psychiatrist member.

‘Look at this!’ he exclaimed, finding a passage in the preface. ‘“Management and Work Force in dispute may be regarded essentially as one would a mental breakdown in an individual: as a form of schizophrenia—”’

‘Marcus, now you know who has him, where Lindsay is, you’re going to have to make every effort to get him back in any case, aren’t you—whatever Tito thinks.’

‘Money for old rope, isn’t it? What will these shrinks get up to next?’ Marcus closed the book and paid me attention. ‘Yes, Marlow. But I don’t think you know very much about these exiled Croat extremists, do you? That’s the whole point, you see: we don’t know where Lindsay is. Could be anywhere in Europe. These fellows live all over the place. Particularly in Munich and Brussels.

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