Read Online The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard - Free Book Online

handkerchief and cufflinks, the tie-pin, the humble comb, the signet ring. They were Sir Henry Maxted’s props and accessories that he had carried around the world.
    ‘All present and correct,’ said Max quietly.
    ‘Count the money, if you would be so good,
monsieur
.’
    Max sighed and counted. Forty-one francs there were. He turned to Ashley. ‘Will you sign for it or shall I?’
    ‘I’ll do it,’ said Ashley. He had reddened slightly and his eyes had moistened, as if the sight of his father’s effects, arranged on a police-station desk, had moved him more deeply than viewing the old man’s corpse on a mortuary slab. There was something in that, Max would have agreed. He could not really have explained why.
    Ashley signed on the dotted line and Max loaded the items back into the envelope. An awkward silence loomed. Zamaron looked at Appleby and Appleby looked at Max. Ashley blew his nose. Zamaron made a meal of folding the receipt. And Max decided to put a toe into some untested waters. ‘You collect art, commissioner?’
    ‘I do, Monsieur Maxted, I do.’ Zamaron sounded pleased by the question and allowed himself a self-satisfied glance around his walls.
    ‘Is there any of Spataro’s work here?’
    Ashley stiffened, but remained silent. Zamaron, meanwhile, appeared blithely undismayed. He was on first-name terms with his favourite artists as well, it soon transpired. ‘I cannot show Raffaele’s paintings here. They are too—’
    ‘Explicit?’
    ‘
Non, non
. They are too big. Raffaele, he … paints on a grand scale.’
    ‘But he does paints nudes, doesn’t he?’
    ‘Er, sometimes. Not always. He is … versatile.’
    ‘And something of a ladies’ man?’
    Zamaron leant back in his chair and gazed studiously at Max. ‘He is Italian, Monsieur Maxted. He has a reputation, like many ofhis countrymen. But it was my understanding that you and Sir Ashley did not wish to enquire deeply into—’
    ‘We don’t, commissioner,’ Ashley interrupted, with a glare at Max. ‘We don’t require any more information than we already have. Isn’t that so, James?’
    Max shrugged. ‘Yes. Of course. I was just—’
    The door rattled open and Fradgley came in, sparing Max the need to complete his sentence. ‘I’m pleased to say that all the documentation we require to facilitate the collection of Sir Henry’s body from the hospital is now to hand, gentlemen,’ Fradgley announced, looking every bit as pleased as he claimed to be. ‘There is a reliable firm of undertakers we customarily use in such situations as this. They can arrange everything and deliver the deceased to the Gare du Nord to be carried on the train you elect to travel home on.’
    ‘They’re thinking of tomorrow, Fradgley,’ said Appleby.
    ‘That should present no difficulty. The documents are waiting at the Embassy and the undertakers will be available at your convenience.’
    ‘Excellent,’ said Ashley.
    So it was, in its way, thought Max. The Paris police and the British Embassy were surpassing themselves in the cause of a speedy resolution to the awkward matter of Sir Henry Maxted’s fatal fall. It was hard not to be impressed. And it was equally difficult not to ponder what chances the truth had of making itself heard amidst all this speed and efficiency.
    ‘Is there anything else I can do for you,
messieurs
?’ Zamaron enquired, in a tone that presumed the answer would be no.
    ‘One point does occur to me,’ said Max in the same instant that Ashley opened his mouth to speak.
    Ashley rounded on him. ‘What?’
    ‘It’s simply that there’s no key among our father’s possessions, commissioner.’
    ‘No key?’ Zamaron frowned in puzzlement.
    ‘Well, I’m merely wondering how our father gained entry to the apartment building on Friday night. I assume it’s locked at night.’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, James,’ spluttered Ashley, ‘haven’t we—’
    ‘
Non, non
,’ Zamaron cut in. ‘Monsieur Maxted asks a good