Текст книги "Ragtime in Simla"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Chapter Five

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As the last note died away the singer smiled sadly and instantly left the stage. It was clear that any applause would have been out of place and Joe noticed that, so moved was the audience, everyone stayed silently in their seats for a full minute, eyes downcast.

‘For God’s sake, George,’ said Joe urgently, ‘who was that? I want to meet that young woman.’

George rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t think even James could fix that for you. You’ll have to join the queue, I’m afraid. No use going backstage when Mrs Sharpe has just performed! I know, I’ve tried it myself. You can’t move for the bouquets and the strings of eager young mashers waiting to throw themselves at her feet.’

‘Mrs Sharpe?’

‘Wife of Reginald Sharpe. They’re both on the board of the Dramatic Society. And he’s another obstacle to intimacy with your little songbird – you’ll generally find him backstage like a lurking Cerberus!’

‘Look, George, my interest is purely professional,’ said Joe firmly. ‘I want to know how well that girl knew Feodor and why she was weeping at his memory.’

‘Oh, come on, Joe! Don’t let your romantic imagination run away with you – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, including your own, including mine… but I see what you mean. James! Our guest has made his choice. Help us to hack our way through to Mrs Sharpe’s dressing room, would you?’

As steam gives way to sail, the crowds hung back and moved away before Sir George’s majestic approach. Joe followed him down corridors and around to a series of poky little rooms behind the theatre – the backstage of any provincial theatre in the world – where actors and singers were calling subdued goodbyes and closing doors. A tall spare man in evening dress approached them with a questioning smile.

‘Reggie!’ said Sir George heartily. ‘Good to see you! It went very well, I have to tell you. And here’s someone I’d like you to meet. Joe Sandilands who’s staying with me for the next few weeks. Joe is from Scotland Yard. Pretty useful chap to have around in our present mysterious circumstances! Would you mind introducing him to your wife? I think he has something he’d like to ask her.’

Reginald Sharpe eyed George with, in sequence, irritation, resentment and suspicion but these fell before an imperious and steady gaze down the length of George’s aristocratic nose and he summoned up a tight smile. ‘Of course, Sir George. How do you do, Sandilands? But look here – my wife is very tired and I’d be grateful if you could confine your, er, interview if that is what this is, to a few minutes only. I’m sure you understand.’

Joe was not quite sure what he was supposed to understand but he managed a sympathetic murmur of agreement. Reginald Sharpe knocked on a door and called out, ‘My dear, you have a visitor. From Scotland Yard, no less. Will you see him?’

There was a moment’s pause and then the door was flung open. She had not had time to change or to remove her make-up but she had dried her tears. A smiling and quizzical face greeted them. ‘Scotland Yard? Good Lord! Was I so criminally bad this evening? And which one of you has come to arrest me? Surely not you, Sir George? How good it is to see you again!’

Introductions were made, with rather bad grace, by Sharpe. ‘My dear, may I present Mr Sandilands who is a guest of the Governor? Mr Sandilands, my wife, Alice Conyers-Sharpe.’

With good humour and not a sign of the advertised fatigue, Alice Conyers-Sharpe took control of the situation. Sir George and James and her husband were all dismissed gracefully and Joe found himself alone with the young woman. Alone and, for once in his life, lost for words.

‘Mr Sandilands? Do sit down over there and tell me why you wanted to see me. Something tells me that you have not fought your way backstage to compliment me on my awful singing.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have,’ said Joe. ‘I was moved by your love song. So was everyone in the audience. But I particularly, since I was with Feodor Korsovsky when he was killed.’

Alice nodded and he understood that the news of his involvement had obviously already reached her. She leaned forward, a look of deep concern chasing away the questioning smile. ‘What a terrifying and sickening experience you must have had! It makes me shudder to think that while you were being shot at, while Korsovsky was dying, I was here at the theatre dancing the cakewalk with the Tinker Belles!’ It occurred to Joe that she was the first person to acknowledge that he too, though unscathed, had been involved in a horrifying incident. He felt impelled to confide in her.

‘It has, truly, left me very disturbed, Mrs Sharpe. I had known Korsovsky for a few hours only but that was enough, I think, to count him my friend. I’m here in Simla on leave but with Sir George’s permission – indeed at his request – I’m going to make it my business to find his killer. And, by your reaction on stage this evening, I’m wondering whether you were personally acquainted with him? You appeared intensely moved by your song and your Russian, as far as I am any judge, was perfect…’

Alice nodded again and whisked aside a curtain under her dressing table, producing two glasses. These were followed by a bottle of Islay malt and, without a word, she poured two generous glasses and handed one to Joe. As she held up her glass to him in a silent toast he noticed that her deep blue eyes were large and still wet with tears. She sipped for a moment at her whisky before answering.

‘I don’t find your response at all strange, Mr Sandilands. I too am able to make an instant judgement about people. I know within minutes whom I am going to like, respect and trust. And you are very perceptive! That song always makes me cry. It has many memories for me. It was taught to me by my first singing master – I had a very old-fashioned English country upbringing – and he was a young Russian émigré fleeing from the Revolution. He was the penniless son of a Count from Georgia.’ She laughed. ‘Nothing very special about that; as far as I can see everybody in Georgia is a Count and all penniless – and he was trying to accumulate enough money to pay for a passage to America. He was the first glamorous man to come into my life. I was fifteen and ready to fall in love. I fell in love. He went to America. And that was the end of it. At least, not quite the end, because I still sing that song and I still weep.’

Her steady gaze had held his while she spoke and Joe was the first to look away.

‘Your singing master?’ he said hesitantly. ‘His name was not Feodor Korsovsky by any chance?’

She laughed again and shook her head. ‘No, my singing master was a tenor. But I would have liked to meet Feodor Korsovsky. He might have… you will think me very odd to say such a thing, respectable married woman that I am… he might have known, have heard of my tenor, might have been able to give me news of him. Korsovsky was much travelled. He had spent some time in America, I understand. Mr Sandilands, I was…’ again her intense feelings were clear in her direct look, ‘I was waiting eagerly to meet him. I am devastated that such a talent has been silenced. I will do anything I can to help you catch the man who has done this.’

‘And the man who shot your brother also?’ said Joe. ‘Mrs Sharpe, forgive my mentioning your previous sorrow but we have reason to believe that the two killings may have been carried out by the same person. They were ambushed in the same place, shot by the same calibre bullets. Can you think of any connection, any connection at all between your brother Lionel and Korsovsky?’

She turned from him to the mirror and rubbed absently at a scar running the length of the right side of her face. ‘I have given it much thought. I have no answer for you. What connection could there be but that they were travelling on the same road? There are bandits even in this part of India, you know, Mr Sandilands. Three years ago the train was stopped by a boulder on the line. Five dacoits walked along the line of carriages shooting passengers and robbing them. Carter caught them and there has been no trouble since then but others may try. On the tonga road perhaps.’

Faced with his silence, she shook her head and agreed with his thoughts. ‘No, it’s not likely, is it? I believe, and you will know the truth of this, that no attempt at robbery was made. Very well, here’s my serious theory: political killings. You have heard of Amritsar?’

Joe nodded. The shooting down of over three hundred peacefully demonstrating Indians by British troops three years earlier in the town of Amritsar had been a scandal that had reverberated throughout India and Britain.

‘Amritsar is not all that far from here. Someone may be seeking revenge on the British. Any British. My brother with his fair hair would have been an obvious target and Korsovsky looked British from a distance. And last month,’ she hesitated, wondering how wide Joe’s knowledge of the Indian political scene might be, ‘last month, you may have heard that Mahatma Ghandi was sent to jail. For six years. On what many consider to be a trumped-up charge. He has many friends in Simla, Mr Sandilands, amongst whom he counts no less than the Viceroy, Lord Reading, and Lady Reading. There are both English and Indians who might try to voice their disapproval of such a sentence in a telling manner.’

‘But Ghandi abhors and rejects violence, doesn’t he?’ Joe objected.

‘Yes, indeed, he does. But one cannot always control one’s supporters. And there are many in India who are ready to stir up trouble for the British by any means at their disposal. Even these green hills, Mr Sandilands, could prove to be the slopes of a sleeping volcano. The population of Simla in the summer months is forty thousand. And do you know what proportion of these are European?’

Joe shook his head.

‘Four thousand. And it is the same all over India. There are millions of Indians who have never even set eyes on a white face. You could say we only scratch the surface of the continent. And, like an irritant flea, we could be swept away with one flick of our host’s finger.’

‘Any moment now,’ thought Joe, ‘she’s going to start lecturing me on the Indian Mutiny.’ Aloud he said, ‘I’ll bear this in mind, Mrs Sharpe. But I’m reluctant to begin to form any theories until I’ve seen the forensic evidence, however slight it may be, gathered from the scene of the crime. And this I will do tomorrow with Carter.’

‘I expect you would like to see me again?’ she volunteered.

Joe was taken by surprise. Her tone had been almost flirtatious. He was unaccustomed to his interview subjects requesting a second session.

She laughed, again, he suspected, reading his thoughts correctly. ‘I’m sure you’ll need to ask me if I was responsible for my brother’s death… where I was at the moment he was killed… how I may have profited from it and so on. When you’ve learned all you can from Carter why don’t you come to see me at my place of work – it’s just off the Mall.’

‘Your work?’ said Joe.

‘Oh, yes. I work, Mr Sandilands. I work hard. I am a director of a big – a very big – international company. It’s based in Bombay but I prefer to run things from Simla in the summer. Now we have telegraph and telephone such an arrangement is not out of the question. Heavens! They run the whole of the Indian Empire from here for seven months of the year, one business is nothing in comparison! Take a rickshaw – all know where to find me.’

And, with a dazzling smile and an unambiguous gesture she managed to convey without any possibility of contradiction that the interview was at an end.

Much puzzled, Joe returned to the auditorium, still full of chattering people reluctant to disperse. Sir George, accompanied by James, was still holding court. Over the heads of the crowd and discreetly watching, Joe caught the eye of Carter and made his way to him.

‘Well?’ they both said together.

‘One or two things here,’ said Joe, ‘which – I don’t know if you agree – we really ought to talk about. When can we arrange to do that?’

‘I was going to say the same thing. Look, why don’t we meet again tomorrow? Go over some of the evidence with me. And, to take this thing away from the cloak of officialdom, why don’t you come and have tiffin with us? Apart from anything else I’d like you to meet my wife.’

‘I’d like to meet your wife. Let’s do that.’

‘Any rickshaw will bring you to my house.’

‘I was going to say,’ said Sir George as they remounted the carriage together, ‘I think the time has come for a further conference with Carter but if I well understood what you and he were saying to each other just now, it seems as if that may have arranged itself. Am I right?’

On return to Sir George’s residence it became clear that he and Joe had very different ideas as to how the next hour or so should be passed. Hospitable and expansive, Sir George could see no reason why they should not between them discuss the day’s events over a bottle of port. Joe, nearly dropping with tiredness, wasn’t even sure that he had the strength to fall into bed and he had some difficulty in convincing Sir George of this. He was suffered at last to retire to the manifest comforts of the guest bungalow.

‘It’s been a damn long day,’ he said apologetically and, indeed, he could hardly believe that it was in the same day that he had driven up the Kalka road with Korsovsky. But the guest bungalow when he finally reached it was everything he could have asked of comfort and luxury. His clothes had been unpacked, his bed was ready, an eiderdown lay across it as a precaution against the cold Simla nights. There was even electric light. Joe fell into bed and into a restless night. Dreams and visions troubled him and more than once he woke with a shock believing himself to be hearing once more a double shot from behind encircling boulders. Visions of Alice Conyers-Sharpe perpetually intruded between him and sleep and, following him into his dreams, she bent over him, her hypnotic eyes fixed on his. ‘Find him!’ she said. ‘You’ve got to find him!’ Alice faded and he was climbing with Carter a sliding scree slope from which stones fell booming into an abyss below. ‘Find him!’ said Carter.

Twice he got out of bed to stand by the window looking down on silent, moonlit Chota Simla to the south. A very distant dog and only a somewhat less distant rattle of a trotting horse broke the silence. From Sir George’s garden came the faint fragrance of jasmine and lily of the valley. He drained the carafe at his bedside, appreciating the chill water and, thankful for the absence of a mosquito net, he fell, finally exhausted, into sleep.

It was a bad night but what Sir George’s staff thought suitable for breakfast went a long way to compensate for it. There was a plate of porridge, there was a rack of toast, four rashers of bacon and two fried eggs and, inevitably, a pot of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade together with an urn of coffee that would adequately have supplied the officers’ mess of a small regiment. Heartened by this and grateful for the clean clothes that had been laid out for him, Joe was preparing to set off on a voyage of exploration round Simla but his eye was caught by a note from Sir George.

‘If you look in your spare room, you will find your luggage and that of Feodor Korsovsky. My car has been released to me by the police and these items were with it. I thought you might like to go through his things. Carter has had a preliminary rootle around. He sends you the keys and invites you to do the same. I suppose, in due course, it will all have to be returned to K’s next of kin (whoever that may turn out to be) but in the meantime you and Carter may be able to glean a thing or two. Come and see me when convenient. I shall be out all morning and certainly for the first half of the afternoon. Dinner perhaps?’

Joe was impressed. Among his mental list of things to do had been the question of the whereabouts of Korsovsky’s luggage but, predictably and characteristically, Sir George was one jump ahead of him. Joe looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He wondered at what hour officialdom in Simla got to work.

There were two large cases. Expensive luggage, Joe noticed, with a Paris label. The clothes were mostly French apart from the dinner jacket which was made in New York and the shirts which were made in London. The shoes were hand-stitched and barely worn. Amongst the toiletries was a bottle of bay rum from a barber in Duke Street, St James’s. An expensive set of lawn handkerchiefs came from a haberdasher in Milan; in a black metal box was a patent safety razor from New York with a packet of razor blades, each bearing the portrait of King C. Gillette, claiming to be the inventor. It was the luggage of a very much travelled and incessantly travelling man. But the collection was curiously impersonal and was answering no questions.

Joe took out each item carefully and piled everything neatly on the floor. At the very bottom of the first trunk were one or two books and underneath that a layer of newspaper. Joe examined the books carefully, shaking them to dislodge any papers which might be hidden between the pages, but the well-worn copies of War and Peace in Russian, Les Trois Mousquetaires in French and Plain Tales from the Hills in English yielded up no secrets. Dutifully Joe looked at the yellowing newspaper. A French national paper, Le Matin, and a date in 1919. But more, evidently, than just a lining for the trunk.

A short handwritten message in French in the margin said, ‘Feodor – as promised. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ And there followed initials so flamboyant as to resemble a coat of arms. G.M.? Joe thought back to his journey with the talkative Monsieur Korsovsky. He had mentioned his agent… Grégoire, was it? Grégoire Montefiore… something like that. He wondered what the agent could possibly be apologizing for. He glanced at the headlines. The French Minister for Finance was announcing strict measures to control inflation. A severe frost had decimated the vines in the Rhone Valley. Miracle baby, six-month-old orphan Jules Martin, was once again in the arms of his grandmother.

Fighting the temptation to dip deeper into three-year-old news Joe turned to the inside page where he knew he would find the Arts Diary. Yes, there it was. An article about Korsovsky. He read it quickly. After his phenomenal success in New York and New Orleans the singer was to return to Europe where he was booked to appear at the reopening of the Covent Garden Opera House in the autumn. And – a treat for French music lovers who had, after all, been the first to recognize his talents – he was to give three summer recitals in the Roman theatres of Provence.

Was this what his agent was apologizing for? It looked like a case of enthusiastic overbooking to Joe. He replaced the newspaper in the bottom of the trunk and continued his search.

Looking more closely at the trunks themselves, he noticed that under the lid of the second was a slim compartment built into the lining. He slid in a hand and took out a leather satchel containing a leather writing case. A leather writing case with Russian writing on the cover and embossed with a coat of arms. This once smart and very expensive item was the only thing which showed any signs of wear. It was, indeed, much used. On a small chain in the satchel was a key which fitted and Joe opened the writing case and took it over to the window. He settled down to go through the contents.

There were several letters of recent date still in their envelopes. There was a photograph of a family group. A bearded man, a smiling woman in a large sun hat and a little boy in a sailor suit who by a small stretch of the imagination could have been Feodor himself. There was a group photograph by a professional photographer of an operatic cast. Rigoletto, Joe decided after a little examination. There was a family group on a seaside terrace with a large house in the background and now Korsovsky appeared to have been joined by a younger brother and a baby in his mother’s arms.

Joe took the letters one by one from their envelopes. These seemed to be letters from his agent bafflingly written in a careless mixture of Russian and French and signed with the flourishing G.M. But there was one letter with a Simla postmark. On headed Gaiety Theatre writing paper an official and impersonal typed message confirmed the arrangements for the recital. It referred to terms agreed in previous correspondence, politely said how much they were looking forward to his visit and how honoured they would be by this. It concluded with the words: ‘… you should leave the train at Kalka and come on by tonga. The Toy Train (!) is really not to be recommended at this time of year and is likely to be very crowded. Yours sincerely…’ A signature he couldn’t read followed.

What had been Korsovsky’s words? ‘I was instructed to proceed by tonga.’ This, presumably, was the instruction. The instruction which had led him to his death.

‘I wonder who the devil signed this?’ thought Joe.

The old programme with its wine-stained front looked so ordinary Joe nearly thrust it back into the leather case unexamined. Professional procedure stayed his hand and he looked at it more closely. A performance of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville staged in the Opera House in Nice in March 1914. With a flicker of interest Joe wondered why Korsovsky would have carried around with him just one of what must be dozens of programmes bearing his name in a starring role, a dog-eared eight-year-old programme.

He opened it, noting that the part of Figaro had, as he had guessed, been played by Korsovsky. The part of Rosina was taken by a soprano, unheard of all those years ago but now one of the glittering names on the London and international stage. But it was not the printed programme which held his attention. It was the handwritten message scrawled across the top. A message in an exuberant girlish hand. It was a quotation from the opera. The first six lines of Rosina’s most famous aria ‘Una voce poco fa’ were copied out in the Italian but one slight alteration had been made to the text. Joe translated:

The voice I heard just now

Has thrilled my very heart.

My heart already is pierced

And it was Lindoro who hurled the dart!

Yes, Lindoro shall be mine,

I’ve sworn it! I’ll succeed!

The original name ‘Lindoro’ had been crossed out and ‘Feodoro’ substituted.

‘Feodoro shall be mine!’ Joe mused, much intrigued.

He sat back on his heels and reflected. The message was unsigned. And surely that was unusual? In his experience girls finished off a note of such intimacy with an initial at least. Or a jokey nickname. The exuberance and youthful confidence chimed badly with this note of discretion. What had been going on? A clandestine liaison? Very likely. But an important one to the man who had carried it around with him in his trunk for eight years. He wondered who she could have been. Eight years ago in her prime or young – the writing gave the impression of youth – the lady would be in her late twenties now, possibly early thirties. Korsovsky himself, he guessed, must have been in his forties when he died. Perhaps his passport would tell him more and that would be in his notecase which undoubtedly Carter had taken from the body and kept.

Aware of the weight of material the case was now beginning to engender, Joe got to his feet. He put the programme, the photographs and the letter from the Gaiety Theatre back into the leather case and pushed it into the inside pocket of his khaki drill jacket. Deciding that the theatre would be his first call and that his approach should be a bit anonymous, he waved aside the Governor’s rickshaw and set off to the town on foot.

He paused outside the Gaiety and thought how raffish and down-at-heel it seemed, like all theatres, in the daytime. The play bills announcing Korsovsky’s recital had been torn down already, dustbins full of waste paper were being hauled away by teams of Indian sweepers, and others were clearing the pavings of cigarette ends and cigar stubs. With a general hangover air the doors stood open on a dimly lit interior. Finding no bell and no knocker, Joe walked in and called, ‘Anybody there? Hello!’

Impatiently a figure in shirt-sleeves emerged from the booking office and Joe recognized Reggie Sharpe.

‘Morning!’ he said affably.

Reggie Sharpe looked him up and down. ‘Yes?’ And then, ‘Oh, it’s you, is it? Sanderson? Can I help you?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘I think you probably can. We met last night. Commander Joseph Sandilands of Scotland Yard…’

Reggie Sharpe looked at him with considerable distaste. ‘Can’t give you long,’ he said. ‘So make it as short as you can. What can I do for you?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, not prepared to be patronized, ‘what I have to ask might be confidential. I don’t really choose to discuss murder in the foyer and in the presence of,’ he waved an explanatory hand, ‘half a dozen sweepers.’

‘You’d better come in,’ said Reggie Sharpe reluctantly. With ill grace he opened the door of the booking office and with an ostentatious glance at his watch he took the only chair, offering Joe a small stool. ‘Now what’s all this about?’

‘You may know – ’ Joe began.

‘Well,’ said the other, ‘I’ll save you a bit of time and tell you what I do know. You’re a policeman, though God knows what you’re doing in Simla! I understand that you’re acting with the approval of Sir George though again I can’t imagine why and I imagine you are in concert with Carter investigating the death of the unfortunate Korsovsky. And I’ve yet to discover what on earth you think I will be able to tell you.’

‘Perhaps I can help you. Korsovsky didn’t just happen to be in Simla. His visit must have been arranged a long time ahead. There must be some correspondence between the theatre and him or between the theatre and his agent. There are two theories as to the cause of his death – firstly that it was a random shooting and has no connection with the former assassination of Conyers, and the second theory is that he was expected; someone was lying in wait for him, someone who knew his movements well enough to mount an ambush, and the information I need might conceivably emerge – to some extent at least – from any correspondence you or the theatre might have had with him. Perhaps you could enlighten me?’

Sharpe extended an angry hand and picked up a slender file of papers. ‘You’re welcome to look through this. It is – such as it is – the letters we exchanged with Korsovsky.’

‘May I take this away?’ Joe asked.

‘I’d very much rather you didn’t.’

‘I don’t need to but I wanted to spare you the boredom of sitting in silence while I read through them. Just as you like, of course.’

He began to thumb through the letters of which there were half a dozen going back about a year and opening with a letter from Korsovsky himself saying that he had always wanted to visit Simla and with due notice this might be arranged. Across the bottom of this was written ‘Acknowledged’ and a date. The next letter was from Korsovsky’s agent naming dates and making tentative reference to terms.

‘Considering his eminence, this is a very mild offer he was making you, isn’t it?’ Joe asked.

‘Well, we certainly thought so. The Gaiety can’t in the ordinary way begin to afford a man of his stature but I think it was true that for some reason unknown he wanted to come to Simla and was prepared to do it for a very modest fee.’

‘I think I can explain that,’ said Joe. ’He was passionately interested in Kim and carried the book about with him. He wanted to see where it all happened and that may have been reason enough.’

‘Huh! Another one of those,’ said Sharpe disparagingly. ‘Kipling fans are as thick as sparrows on the ground in the season.’

‘Can you suggest another reason?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Sharpe. ‘It’s no part of my job to interpret the vagaries of spoilt operatic stars.’

‘No part of your job? Do you have a job? I mean – what is your concern with the management of the Gaiety?’

‘I’m vice chairman. The chap who does all the work. Except that I don’t in fact. My wife Alice. She’s the one with the real interest in the theatre – handles the bookings, dictates the letters, checks the finance is in order. That sort of thing. You should be talking to her – I just come in one day a week, sign the letters and the cheques. You’re lucky to have caught me.’

Joe was listening for any nuance of resentment or even of pride in his wife’s achievements but there was none. His tone was straightforward and matter of fact.

‘Your wife seems to be a busy lady…’

‘This is just a small part of what she does. She has many irons in the fire. Talented woman, my wife, as all will tell you.’

‘Do you type your letters or do you write them in longhand?’

‘Sometimes one, sometimes the other. If it’s important – type. If unimportant – write.’

‘You, or someone,’ said Joe, ‘would have written to Korsovsky clinching the arrangement. Do you have a copy of that letter here or would that not have been a typed letter?’

‘Certainly. Yes, it would have been typed. I think I can almost say I remember typing it myself. It’ll be here somewhere.’

He took the file from Joe’s hand and riffled through the papers. ‘Yes, here it is.’

Joe read a carbon copy of a letter confirming arrangements for train and hotel bookings that had been made on Korsovsky’s behalf, the letter concluding with the words: ‘… and again we would like to express our gratitude that you should be undertaking this trip to Simla. We are looking forward so much to hearing you perform.’ It was followed by a clearly readable signature ‘R. Sharpe’.

Joe produced the letter from the leather case and showed it to Sharpe.

‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed and pointed to the ending of the second letter.

‘You see that the two letters are in a vital particular not identical. If you typed this letter why did you advise Korsovsky to come by tonga and not by the train?’

Sharpe seemed genuinely astonished and genuinely at a loss for a word. ‘Just a moment,’ he said in tones of excitement. He took up a fountain pen from his desk and a sheet of paper, signed his name and held it out to Joe. The signature was exactly like the one on the carbon copy and in no way resembled the letter from Korsovsky’s writing case. ’Compare the two. Identical typewriters, identical text until you come to this last bit about the tonga. It’s clear somebody wanted him to come up the cart road in a tonga but that somebody wasn’t me! Somebody who had access to the Gaiety writing paper… That wouldn’t be difficult – we’re not very careful about such things. Why should we be? Who would expect something like this to happen?’