Dr Natouche appeared and then Mr Lazenby. The eight passengers stood along the rails and watched the riverbanks take on a new perspective and become remote. Spires and waffle-irons, glass boxes, mansard roofs and the squat cupola of the Norminster Town Hall were now merely there to be stared at with detachment. They shifted about, very slowly, and looked over one another’s shoulders and grew smaller. The Zodiac, now in mid-stream, set her course for Ramsdyke Lock.

CHAPTER 2
The Wapentake

‘He had been operating,’ Alleyn said, ‘in a very big way in the Middle East. All among the drug barons with one of whom he fell out and who is thought to have grassed on him. From drugs he turned to the Old Master racket and was certainly behind several very big jobs in Paris. Getting certificates for good fakes from galleries and the widows of celebrated painters. He then crossed to New York where he worked off the fruits of this ploy until Interpol began to make interested noises. By the way, it may be noted that at this juncture he had not got beyond a Blue Circular which means of course—’

The boots of the intelligent-looking sandy man in the second row scraped the floor. He made a slight gesture and looked eager.

‘I see you know,’ Alleyn said.

‘Ay, sir, I do. A Blue International Circular signifies that Interpol cannot place the identity of the creeminal.’

‘That’s it. However, they were getting warmer and in 1965 the Jampot found it necessary to transfer to Bolivia where for once he went too far and was put in gaol. Something to do with masquerading in female attire with criminal intent. From there, as I’ve said, he escaped, in May of last year, and sometime later arrived with an efficiently cooked-up passport in a Spanish freighter in England. At that juncture the Yard had no specific charge against him although he featured heavily in the discussions we were holding in San Francisco. He must have already been in touch with the British group he subsequently directed, and one of them booked him in for a late summer cruise in the Zodiac. The object of this manoeuvre will declare itself as we go along.

‘At this point I’d like you to take particular note of a disadvantage under which the Jampot laboured. In doing this I am indulging in hindsight. At the time we are speaking about we had no clear indication of what he looked like and our only photograph was a heavily bearded job supplied by the Bolivian police. The ears are hidden by flowing locks, the mouth by a luxuriant moustache and the jaw and chin by rich and carefully tended whiskers.

‘We now know, of course, that there was, in his appearance, something that set him apart, that made him physically speaking, an odd man out. Need I,’ Alleyn asked, ‘remind you what this was—?’