The Doors Open (5 page)

All of whom accepted their rebuffs with the greatest of good humour.

At eleven o’clock the café put up its shutters and Nap found himself in the street. There were still lights and sounds of activity in the Mogador; but of Mr Brandison no sign at all.

Discovering that both his bicycle lamps had been stolen, Nap wheeled his machine slowly home through the emptying streets.

On reflection, he was not ill pleased with his night’s work.

It went on like this for three weeks.

Every Friday the Chief Cashier of the Stalagmite followed a routine which was uncannily the same. Observed by Nap, he left the head office, always at the same hour; walked along High Holborn and New Oxford Street; called at the same little shop (subsequent inspection had shown it to be a hairdressing saloon); stayed there about half an hour, then emerged and made straight for the Mogador.

At what hour he left this gilded haunt Nap had as yet been unable to discover, though he waited on the two Fridays following, first in the café opposite and when that closed, in the street, until well after midnight. There was, however, no sign of Brandison on either occasion.

On other nights of the week, the cashier seemed to lead an outstandingly normal existence. Paddy followed him to his suburban home at Warbridge and discovered that he possessed a villa, a garden, a dog and a pallid wife. There were no children in evidence; but there was a maid called Maria, supposed in the neighbourhood to be an Italian. Nap cultivated her acquaintance and spent an evening with her at the Crooked Billet. He soon came to the conclusion that, though her parents or grandparents might have come from Italy, she herself was plain Borough.

It was from her, when a surprising quantity of pink gins had unlocked her pearly lips, that Nap got most of his information about the Brandison household.

It appeared that Mr Brandison was a well-known and respected resident of Warbridge. A vice-president of the Bowls Club and a pillar of the Methodist Church. Later in the evening, becoming more outspoken, she stated openly what she had previously hinted. She did not really like him. He was odd. He had moods. Sometimes very nice, but more often rather “difficult”.

Difficult in what way, Nap asked. Did he perhaps make a nuisance of himself to Maria?

Nothing of the sort, said Maria. Why, she wouldn’t stay for a minute in a house where that sort of thing went on. Just generally difficult. Frachitty. Irritable. She thought that perhaps Mrs B was the trouble. Anyway, whenever he took a night off in town, which he did regularly every Friday, it always seemed to put him in a better humour – for a day or two. Maria had her own explanation of how Mr Brandison spent his Friday nights and Nap thought it might easily be the right one.

By the time the fourth Friday came round, he had his plan ready. The Mogador, he had discovered, though described as a club, was really an exclusive restaurant of a type not uncommon in Soho: being public to the extent that anyone, in theory, could patronize it, but in reality private, as a place well may be when all tables are reserved by name and in advance.

After some thought, Nap called on an uncle whom he knew to be one of those almost extinct creatures, a man about town, and asked him to reserve a table for him.

“For two, of course, my boy,” said his uncle.

“Well, yes – certainly.” The cost of the extra cover would be a small price to pay for not having to explain his affairs to Uncle Ambrose. He could always pretend that the girl had stood him up.

“For what time?”

Well, that was the difficulty. How long could one sit over a solitary dinner in a Soho restaurant? If he made it too early he would be forced to leave before Brandison, and would have accomplished nothing. On the other hand, if Brandison had some secondary motive for visiting the Mogador – (Nap found himself thinking for some reason, of private dining-rooms, pink-covered table lights, orchids and polite but formidable head waiters) – well, he might have gone about that business before Nap arrived.

“A quarter to nine,” he said at last. “We shall be going to a show first. And by the way, uncle – you know most of these nightspots–”

“Naturally, my boy, naturally.”

“Do you know anything about the Mogador? Is it the sort of place I could – er – take a nice young girl to?”

“I’ve never had very much to do with ’em,” said Uncle Ambrose frankly. “But I expect you’ll be all right. It’s quite a respectable place. Used to be owned by a Greek called Populous, or some such name. Though it’s probably changed hands half a dozen times since then.”

“And you think you can get me a table?” said Nap.

“My boy,” said Uncle Ambrose, “I may be old, and I may be decrepit, but I can still get a table at any restaurant in London.”

At a quarter to nine, then, on that Friday night, Nap, looking sleek and seraphic in his best dark lounge suit, entered the Mogador and asked for “Mr Upjohn’s” table.

Undoubtedly there was still power to his uncle’s name. The doorman summoned a waiter who bowed him into what was clearly one of the best places on the floor – a secluded table for two, halfway along the wall on one side, and commanding a view of most of the room.

“My friend hasn’t arrived yet,” he said.

“Benissimo,” said the waiter. “Will you order now?”

“No,” said Nap. “I’ll wait.”

“To drink whilst you wait.”

Nap examined the list. If genuine, the choice was remarkable. He ordered a glass of Bristol Cream and the man took himself off.

The restaurant of the Mogador was not a large one – perhaps thirty tables in all. It was shaped in the form of a rectangle, with the addition of two recesses, one near the door, occupied by a waiter’s table and serving door, and another opposite to where he was sitting, forming a sort of annexe with three or four tables in it, none of them yet occupied.

Nap suddenly became aware that Brandison was standing almost at his elbow, looking straight at him. It was an effort not to move – not to let that sign which means recognition come into his eyes. He had followed him so long and studied him so closely that it was difficult to realize that he could still be a stranger to the Chief Cashier.

Brandison passed slowly by. He had a girl on his arm, and at the sight of her Nap began to wonder whether the explanation of those weekly visits might not be the natural if discreditable one suggested by Maria. This girl was clearly of the lowest class. A certain indefinable dime-store elegance seemed to proclaim the pavement. A woman would quickly have picked on a dozen details in her get-up; to Nap she simply looked wrong – wrong from her over-rigged, over-red hair to her black velvet wedge slippers with paste buckles. And she was using a scent which would have anaesthetized a goat-house.

The ill-assorted pair turned into the annexe and sat down at one of the tables half hidden by a pillar. Brandison was virtually out of sight, but the girlfriend was well within Nap’s range of vision. She seemed to be finding her escort very attentive, judging by the way she bent forward to listen to him; amusing, too, by the amount of laughter he was provoking. Nap had never thought of him as a squire of dames and wondered what had come over the saturnine head cashier.

He had plenty of time to observe them for the service at the Mogador was not of the brightest. Every course was good, though, when it did at last arrive. And the wine was a first-class Antinori, so drinkable that Nap felt no compunction at paying what he knew to be twice the controlled price for it.

The last course was eventually cleared: the wicker-covered flask was nearly empty, and Nap was drinking a remarkably good cup of black coffee and doing some thinking.

That girl with the henna hair was pretty obviously an habitué of the place. Careful though the fatherly British police might be, Nap knew that such an arrangement was not uncommon. In a few minutes, when the restaurant was empty, she and Brandison would disappear, he guessed, through that discreetly curtained doorway. He shifted his chair, and received a shock. For the second time the laws of optics were destined to play an important part in this affair.

From where he sat he was looking, as has been explained, directly into the annexe. On its wall, and facing him, there was hanging a framed advertisement for a French aperitif. The shift in his position, combined with the forward tilt of the picture, enabled him to see Brandison’s table reflected in the glass.

And Brandison was not there.

His chair was empty. Yet the girl was apparently continuing to talk and laugh, as she had been doing throughout the evening. Look. She was leaning forward now, pretending to say something.

“In a few minutes – when the restaurant was empty–”

In all the human orchestra the shrillest note is the trumpet of sudden danger. During the months that he was working for the French Maquis Nap had kept his ears carefully alert for its unmistakable warnings. Through the clatter of other small noises he heard it now; and the familiar prickling sensation ran up the back of his neck.

A dozen urgent questions called for answers.

Why had Brandison and the girl, alone of all the diners, been allowed to sit in the annexe and been placed at that one table, so that he could see the girl, but not the man? How long had Brandison gone? Where was he now?

And why was the restaurant so empty? His subconscious had been calling his attention to it for some time. Party after party had gone;
but
it was a long time since anyone had come in.

Nap glanced quickly down at his wristwatch.

Half past ten. Yet, when he had been watching the place, he could swear that parties had continued to arrive regularly till eleven o’clock or later. Why were they not doing so tonight?

Had a quiet hand slipped the latch an hour before?

Was the doorman turning people away. “Sorry, sir.” “Sorry, madam. We’re closed tonight. Yes, closed for redecoration.”

And who was going to be redecorated?

The slowness with which his own food had arrived assumed a new significance. He remembered now that a man and girl at the next table, who had come in some time after him, had finished and gone half an hour since.

Nap signalled for his bill and this time the waiter quite palpably ignored him.

These reflections, though they have taken some time to set out, had not actually occupied many seconds. As he was looking round another party had gone out into the vestibule. He heard the doorman saying good night, and the clack of the door closing.

Apart from a scattering of waiters and the girl, who had ceased her charade and was now looking directly at him with undisguised interest, there was only one person visible. This was a large man, who had come in late, he remembered, and was now seated two tables away with his back towards him.

“When that chap goes,” he said to himself, “the band will begin to play.”

What would happen, he wondered, if he got up and made a dive for the open. One of the waiters was standing beside the inner entrance, which led out into the vestibule. A nasty-looking customer. Most of the waiters, he thought, were Italians or Maltese.

Here it came: the other man was obviously getting ready to leave. He had paid his bill. Now he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

Then a surprising thing happened.

Instead of making for the door, he swung round, came up to Nap, and sat down beside him.

“Mr Rumbold?”

“Yes?”

“Or ‘Pascale’ I think it was you called yourself, when I last had the pleasure–”

“Good God,” said Nap, with undisguised relief. “It’s – wait a jiffy – Angus McCann.”

“Right.”

“You were the chap in charge of that commando crowd – near Besançon – August 1944–”

“Right,” said McCann again. “And we’ll have a good yarn about it later. At the moment, I suppose, you know you’re well and truly on the spot.”

Nap looked round. The long room was entirely empty. Even the waiters had gone.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. What’s the next move?”

“Follow me,” said McCann. “Keep close behind me, and never, for one instant, stop praying. Put your hat on – it may save your head. And carry your coat. Drop it at once if anything starts. You’ll need both hands.”

The two men picked their way down the room towards the vestibule. The silence was unnerving.

The entrance hall of the Mogador was really a small bar. A counter ran up one side. This room, too, was empty, except for a man, who sat on one of the high stools, with his back to the bar, swinging his legs.

“Now look here, Lucy,” said McCann. “Be a good chap and open that door. We don’t want any trouble.”

The man addressed as Lucy – his real name, by the way, was Luciano Capelli – climbed down from his stool, walked slowly up to McCann, and said with venomous distinctness, “You keep outta this, eh.”

McCann stood his ground.

“Now listen,” he said, and he still sounded anxious to please. “This chap’s a friend of mine. A very old friend. Anything that happens to him happens to me, too.”

“And if something
does
happen to you, eh?”

“Birdy won’t like it, you know.”

“I don’t give thatta much for Birdy,” said Luciano; he accompanied his words with an exceedingly vulgar and expressive gesture. Nevertheless it seemed that a thoughtful look had come into his eye.

But for the fact that the street door was undoubtedly locked, and that he had a feeling that a number of men were at call within the inner Club door, awaiting only the result of the present negotiations, Nap might have found the whole situation amusing. Luciano was a black-haired, intensely virile little Italian with a white face which looked as if it was permanently set in a one-sided grin; closer inspection suggested that this was the result of a long, dry knife-scar running from the side of his cheek, past his mouth and down to his chin. His wavy black head scarcely came up to McCann’s massive shoulder.

“You keep outta this,” said Luciano again. “No one’s gointa hurt your friend. We just wanta word with him, eh.”

“Be your age,” said McCann. “I’ve already seen Hoppy and ‘Dumb-bell’; they got here just ahead of me. And Tony was in the dining-room. The only talking those lads do, they do with their boots.”

During these exchanges neither side so much as looked at Nap who felt exactly like a schoolboy who is being argued over by his father and the headmaster (“Really, sir. Discipline must come first,” “But I assure you the boy meant no harm–”).

“Basta,” said Luciano with a sudden gleam of anger in his eyes. “I have warned you. If you interfere, you will get hurt perhaps. That is not my fault.”