In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,61

a bigger threat than a cigarette lighter?’

‘You could tell him what I’ve just told you.’

‘And waste all your efforts.’

‘Retreat is sometimes necessary.’

He shook his head. ‘If we stay with you, retreat may never be necessary. It’s the better of two risks. And anyway…’ the old fire gleamed in his eye… ‘It will be a great game. Cat and mouse. With cats who don’t know they are mice chasing a mouse who knows he’s a cat.’

More like a bull fight, I thought, with myself waving the cape to invite the charge. Or a conjuror, attracting attention to one hand while he did the trick with the other. On the whole I preferred the notion of the conjuror. There seemed less likelihood of being gored.

13

I spent a good deal of the night studying the list of Overseas Customers, mostly because I still found it difficult to lie comfortably to sleep, and partly because I had nothing else to read.

It became more and more obvious that I hadn’t really pinched enough. The list I’d taken was fine in its way, but would have been doubly useful with a stock list to match the letters and numbers in the right hand column.

On the other hand, all stock numbers were a form of code, and if I looked at them long enough, maybe some sort of recognisable pattern might emerge.

By far the majority began with the letter M, particularly in the first and much larger section. In the smaller section, which I had found at the back of the file, the M prefixes were few, and S, A, W and B were much commoner.

Donald’s number began with M. Maisie’s began with S.

Suppose, I thought, that the M simply stood for Melbourne, and the S for Sydney, the cities where each had bought their pictures.

Then A, W and B were where? Adelaide, Wagga Wagga and Brisbane?

Alice?

In the first section the letters and numbers following the initial M seemed to have no clear pattern. In the second section, though, the third letter was always C, the last letter always R, and the numbers, divided though they were between several different countries, progressed more or less consecutively. The highest number of all was 54, which had been sold to a Mr. Norman Updike, living in Auckland, New Zealand. The stock number against his name was WHC54R. The date in the left hand column was only a week old, and Mr. Updike had not been crossed out.

All the pictures in the shorter section had been sold within the past three years. The first dates in the long first section were five and a half years old.

I wondered which had come first, five and a half years ago: the gallery or the idea. Had Wexford originally been a full-time crook deliberately setting up an imposing front, or a formerly honest art dealer struck by criminal possibilities? Judging from the respectable air of the gallery and what little I’d seen of Wexford himself, I would have guessed the latter. But the violence lying just below the surface didn’t match.

I sighed, put down the lists, and switched off the light. Lay in the dark, thinking of the telephone call I’d made after Jik had gone back to Sarah.

It had been harder to arrange from the motel than it would have been from the Hilton, but the line had been loud and clear.

‘You got my cable?’ I said.

‘I’ve been waiting for your call for half an hour.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve sent you a letter,’ I said. ‘I want to tell you what’s in it.’

‘But…’

‘Just listen,’ I said. ‘And talk after.’ I spoke for quite a long time to a response of grunts from the far end.

‘Are you sure of all this?’

‘Positive about most,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s a guess.’

‘Repeat it.’

‘Very well.’ I did so, at much the same length.

‘I have recorded all that.’

‘Good.’

‘Hm… What do you intend doing now?’

‘I’m going home soon. Before that, I think I’ll keep looking into things that aren’t my business.’

‘I don’t approve of that.’

I grinned at the telephone. ‘I don’t suppose you do, but if I’d stayed in England we wouldn’t have got this far. There’s one other thing… Can I reach you by telex if I want to get a message to you in a hurry?’

‘Telex? Wait a minute.’

I waited.

‘Yes, here you are.’ A number followed. I wrote it down. ‘Address any message to me personally and head it urgent.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘And could you get answers to three questions for me?’ He listened, and said