The Main Chance by Colin Forbes Read Free Book Online Page B

handkerchief of his own as more protective wrapping.
    `Back in two hours,' he promised and was gone. `Don't tell me anything,' Paula chided.
    `Wait until we find out whether I'm right or wrong,' Tweed replied.
    `No good pushing Tweed,' Harry warned from the floor. 'He will only talk when he's ready. Should know that by now.
    `And I love you,' she told him with a smile.
    The phone rang. Monica answered, waved to Tweed who reached for the phone, heard the voice, beckoned to Paula to listen on her phone.
    `Yes,' he said. 'More information about—'
    `I'm reliably informed that Calouste Doubenkian is now in England. Arrived several days ago...'
    `Where?'
    `No idea.'
    `What route did he use?'
    `No idea. Will keep in touch. When I can.
    The phone went dead. Philip Cardon had swiftly ended the call. Tweed raised his eyebrows at Paula. He thought for a moment, then asked Monica to get Commander Buchanan on the line. He opened the conversation by giving his friend Roy a terse report on his visit with Paula to Hengistbury, leaving out any reference to the gold specks.
    `I'm sorry,' Buchanan commented. 'I had no idea she was after you as a bodyguard, which is what it comes to as I see it. Of course you had to refuse. Don't like the sound of an offer to buy her out. That could be very dangerous.'
    `Thought you didn't know anything about this character.'
    `Only rumours, which it's suspected Doubenkian spreads himself.'
    `What rumours?'
    `Among others he wanted to buy a private bank in Vienna. The owner refused. Next development is his only son — eighteen years old — is kidnapped. Price of his safe release is the sale of the bank. Owner sells, boy is returned unharmed. Then a mysterious buyer, as in Vienna, is offered a price for his private bank in Grenoble. Owner refuses, his wife is kidnapped. Owner, who maybe wasn't too fond of wife, gets her back through the post, a leg at a time, then an arm and in pieces the rest of her.'
    `Doubenkian sounds the most cold-blooded villain I have ever heard of...'
    `Hold on. These are rumours . Nothing is ever connected to Calouste Doubenkian.'
    `The buyer could be traced by finding out where the sale money ended up,' Tweed insisted.
    `The Vienna criminal department tried that. The money was passed through several private holding companies. Ended up inVaduz, Liechtenstein. You know it's impossible to check accounts in that tiny state.'
    `Mrs Bella Main says Doubenkian phoned her himself.'
    "That's no proof. We only have her word for that. It is not enough to prove it was him.'
    `Doesn't anyone have any idea where his base is?' `No.'
    `What about Interpol?' Tweed hammered away. `Aren't they at all interested?'
    `What I'm about to say is not a joke. You know Interpol out at their quiet HQ at Lyons in France have black notices to list wanted major criminals, with their photographs and whatever data they have? I once asked a contact in Lyons what the position was on Calouste Doubenkian. A black notice is on their walls. Just his name with a query mark. Nothing else, a blank sheet. No photo. Some humorist has scrawled one word on it: Phantom . He probably has half a dozen perfect fake passports. All with different names.'
    `Why the query mark after his name?'
    `Because his real name could be anything. Tweed —' Buchanan became emphatic. — 'Everything Fire told you is rumour .'
    `Well, now you know I'm not going to Hengistbury.' `How could you? With the present position you hold...'
    Tweed ended the call, looked across at Paula, who had heard every word. Smiling, he spread his hands in a gesture of forgetting the whole thing.
    `What did you think of that?' he asked.
    `I found it most intriguing.'
    `In what way?'
    We don't yet have a clue as to what Calouste looks like but his character is emerging.'
    `In what way, for Heaven's sake?'
    `In his callous way he is very clever, a brilliant puller of strings without ever exposing himself. I'll bet he never stays in the same place for long. And he'll always