‘And this Doctor Casaubon?’

‘There is a Doctor Augustus Casaubon listed in Kelly’s Directory on Harley Street. Number seventeen.’

‘Does his surgery possess a telephone?’

‘It does. But no one is answering it this morning. I will keep trying, of course.’

‘In this case, perhaps it might be worth our while to apply a little boot leather to the task. I shall go there myself. Inchball …’

‘Nguh?’

‘I have a very important task for you.’

Inchball blinked and winced as he struggled to sit up in his chair.

‘Go home and get some sleep.’

THIRTY-ONE

Magnus Porrick stirred in the darkness, turning his back on fitful, flickering dreams. The four tip-up auditorium seats he was stretched out across shook and groaned in protest.

He had not slept well. His back began to ache almost as soon as he lay down. It was now locked in a muscle clench of pain. And he was cold. God, it was cold in the Palace at night, after the massed bodies of successive audiences had finally vacated the rows. Once he had started shivering, he could not stop. And every shiver sent a fresh jolt of pain shooting through his limbs.

No, he had not gone home. He had thought it best to give Edna a little time to calm down. She would come round eventually, he felt sure. He had needed time too. Time to sober up.

The plush of the seat dug into his face, stubble against stubble. He kept his eyes closed tightly though he was awake, as if dreading what the day might offer to his sight. The image of that aristocratic erection was a chastening example. Some things, once seen, are hard to eradicate from the memory, however much we might wish it. Some sights change everything.

Movement was painful. It was as if the darkness was a vice that gripped him tightly. It was fruitless to struggle. The vice held him facing the memory of last night.

Granted, it was all very sordid and unpleasant. There was nothing he could do about that. It was a question of business now. And there are all sorts of unpleasant businesses that men steel themselves to undertake. (Undertaking being one of them. Was the undertaker squeamish about manhandling the dead? Porrick doubted it.) A lesser man might give in to the natural instinct to put it all behind him. But he could not afford to take that view. The darkness would not let him take that view. He was a businessman. A businessman was obliged to look for the commercial opportunity in any given situation, and exploit it.

Business consisted of the relationships between men. That was why the handshake was so important. Last night, something had changed in the relationship between Magnus Porrick and Lord Dunwich. Both men knew it. Why, Lord Dunwich would have been amazed if he had not taken advantage of it.

But he need not be in any hurry. Indeed, it was preferable to wait for Lord Dunwich to come to him. And when that happened, the first thing to do would be to reassure his lordship of his goodwill. He must insist that he had known nothing about the Novaks’ grubby plan to entrap him; he was a pawn in their game. And if Lord Dunwich doubted it was a plan, he would reluctantly disabuse him. At which point he would offer to intercede with the Novaks. He could put himself forward as a man of influence in the motion picture business. It wouldn’t be overstating it too much to say that he could see to it that neither of them ever made another film. Certainly, if his plans with Waechter came to fruition, he could ensure that they never appeared in another of the Austrian’s films.

And so, without doing anything very much, he would manufacture that most valuable of commodities: the gratitude of a rich and powerful man.

Porrick kept his eyes closed, as if he was afraid to let reality intrude on his daydreams. And yet, what was there to worry about? It all seemed watertight. And whatever happened, he would be in the clear. He himself had done nothing wrong. What he was proposing was not blackmail. It was more a question of leverage.

Something, however, nagged at the edge of his consciousness, a vague awareness that there was something he had forgotten.

Of course, this would all take time. Things had to be allowed to unfold at their own pace. You couldn’t force it. And in the meantime, if Kirkwood’s warnings had any substance, his chain of Porrick’s Palaces could come tumbling down around him.

No, no, it’d be all right. He’d show them all. He’d turn it round. He had a plan. And he didn’t just mean the business with Lord Dunwich. He had another plan …

But there was so much to keep in mind. Everything contingent on everything else.

The other plan, the business with Waechter. Yes, that was the thing. The production company. He’d turn it round with the production company. That would be a great success, he’d show them. He had a secret weapon. He had …

And at that point he sat up and opened his eyes. The released seats sprang into the upright position. The auditorium was in utter darkness still. Porrick had no way of knowing what time it was, but the lights would not be put on until it was time to admit the matinee audience at eleven. The heavy drapes at the entrance prevented any light from the foyer from seeping in.

‘Scudder?’

How could he have been so stupid? So drunk! Scudder was not just a dog, he was a valuable business asset. He might even put it more forcibly than that: Scudder was his ticket to future prosperity. And he had just abandoned him, as if he was a worthless street mutt! Would Hartmann have treated his star, Eloise, with equal carelessness?

Porrick rose to his feet. The remaining tip-up snapped shut. He groped his way to the end of the row and felt for the wall ahead of him. When he had that, he turned to the right and made his way along the wall towards what he knew was the rear of the auditorium.

At last the solidity of the wall gave way to the swing of drapery. He burst through into the dim half-light of the foyer before opening.

It took a while for Porrick’s eyes to adjust, for him to realize that the silhouette coming towards him was Max Maxwell.

‘Have you seen Scudder?’

‘Scudder?’

‘My dog. The Yorkie.’

Maxwell scrutinized Porrick’s face closely, as if he were struggling to remember ever having seen him with a dog. ‘No. I haven’t seen him since last night.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Maxwell held up a rolled newspaper that he was carrying. He used it to point at Porrick, almost accusingly. ‘You had him at the party with you last night, did you not?’

‘Yes, but you meant something, I’m sure.’

Maxwell dropped the hand holding the newspaper. ‘Did you not take him home with you?’

‘No … I … I did not, as it happens. I lost sight of him during last night’s … celebrations.’

‘That was very careless of you.’

‘I imagine he found a corner somewhere, where he curled up and went to sleep. Now he will be hungry, poor chap.’

‘That’s probably it. Try Hartmann’s place in Cecil Court. That was where I last saw him.’

There was something in Maxwell’s eye that Porrick didn’t like. An open hostility, brimming with impertinence. He had long suspected Maxwell’s hostility towards him, his hatred even. He knew that the man who had died in the fire in Islington had been a friend of his. It was reasonable that he would harbour a grudge. As an employee, Maxwell had kept his feelings close to his chest, until now. Porrick sensed that something had changed in their relationship.

‘Yes. I’ll do that. Thank you.’

Maxwell again lifted the newspaper. ‘Have you seen it?’

‘What?’

‘It’s all over the front page of the Clarion. It mentions Porrick’s Palace. And there’s a quote from Waechter.’

Porrick took the tubed paper and unfurled it.

Maxwell grinned sarcastically. ‘Was it right, I wonder, to have celebrations after this?’ Maxwell’s emphasis of the word that Porrick had just used was pointed. ‘Mind you, it will be good for the box office, I dare say. Unless they shut us down.’