'I think the firm can stand it.'

Hardin gave Stafford an opened bottle and a glass. 'I've written a detailed report but I can give you the guts of it now. Okay?'

'Shoot.'

He sat down. 'Jan-Willem Hendrykxx born in 1899 in -believe it or not – Hoboken.'

Stafford looked up, startled. 'In the States!'

'It got me, too,' Hardin admitted. 'No, the original Hoboken is a little place just outside Antwerp in Belgium. Parents poor but honest, which is more than we can say of Jan-Willem. Reasonable education for those days but he ran away to sea when he was seventeen. Knocked about a bit, I expect, but ended up in South Africa in 1921 where he married Anna Vermuelen.'

He rubbed his jaw. 'There was a strike in Johannesburg in 1922, if that's what you can call it. Both sides had artillery and it sounds more like a civil war to me. Anyway, Jan-Willem disappeared leaving Anna to carry the can – the can being twin babies, Jan and Adriaan. Jan is the father of Dirk Hendriks, and Adriaan is the father of Hank Hendrix, the guy I picked up in Los Angeles. Follow me so far?'

'It's quite clear,' Stafford said.

'Jan-Willem jumped a freighter going to San Francisco, got to like the Californian climate, and decided to stay. Now, you must remember these were Prohibition days. Most people, when they think of Prohibition, think of Rum Row off Atlantic City, but there was just as much rum running on the West Coast, either from Canada or Mexico, and Hendrykxx got in on the act. By the time Repeal came he was well entrenched in the rackets.'

'You mean he was a genuine dyed-in-the-wool gangster?'

Hardin shrugged. 'You could put it that way. But he made a mistake – he never took out US citizenship. So when he put a foot wrong he wasn't jailed; he was deported back to his country of origin as an undesirable alien. He arrived back in Antwerp in April, 1940.'

Stafford said, 'You've been busy, Ben. How did you discover all this?'

'A hunch. What I found out in Belgium made Hendrykxx a crook. He was supposed to have been killed in Jo'burg in 1922 but we know he wasn't, so I wondered where he'd go, and being a crook he'd likely have a record. I have some good buddies in the FBI dating back to my CIA days. They looked up the files. There's a hell of a dossier on Hendrykxx. When he came to the attention of the FBI they checked him very thoroughly. That's where the phone bill came in; I spent about six hours talking long distance to the States.'

The room waiter came in with lunch and set it on the table. Hardin waited until he had gone before continuing. 'I don't know whether it was good or bad for Hendrykxx that he arrived in Antwerp when he did. Probably good. The German offensive began on May loth, Holland and Belgium fell like ninepins and France soon after. Antwerp was in German hands about two weeks after Hendrykxx got there. His wartime history is misty but from what I've picked up he was well into the Belgian rackets, the black market and all that. Of course, in those days it was patriotic but I believe Hendrykxx wasn't above doing deals with the Germans.'

'A collaborator?'

Hardin bit into a club sandwich and said, with his mouth full, 'Never proved. But he came out of the war in better financial shape than he went into it. Then he started import export corporations and when the EEC was organized he went to town in his own way which, naturally, was the illegal way. There was a whole slew of EEC regulations which could be bent. Bargeloads of butter going up the Rhine from Holland to Germany found themselves relabelled and back in Holland with Hendrykxx creaming off the subsidy. He could do that several times with the same bargeload until the damn stuff went rancid on him. He was into a lot of rackets like that.'

'The bloody old crook,' said Stafford.

'On the way through the years there was also a couple of marriages, both bigamous because Anna was still alive back in South Africa. In 1974 he retired and went to live in Jersey, probably for tax reasons. By then he was pretty old. Last year he died, leaving close on a hundred million bucks, most of which went to the Ol Njorowa Foundation in Kenya. End of story.'

Stafford stared at Hardin. 'You must be kidding, Ben. Where's the Kenya connection?'

'There isn't one,' said Hardin airily.

'But there must be.'

'None that I could find.' He leaned forward. 'And I'll tell you something else. Hendrykxx never was all that big time and crooks like him are usually big spenders. I doubt if he made more than five million dollars in his whole life. Maybe ten. Of course, that's not bad but it doesn't make him into any kind of financial giant. So where did the rest of the dough come from?'

'Every time we find anything new this whole business gets crazier,' Stafford said disgustedly. . 'I checked a couple of other things,' said Hardin. 'I went to Jersey and saw Hendrykxx's death certificate in the Greffe -that's their Public Record Office. The old guy died of a heart attack. I talked to the doctor, a guy called Morton, and he confirmed it. He said Hendrykxx could have gone any time, but…' Hardin shook his head.

'But what?' asked Stafford.

'Nothing to put a finger on definitely, but I had the impression that Morton was uneasy about something.' Hardin refilled his glass. 'Back in London I checked on Mandeville, the lawyer who handled the London end of the legacy business. Very right wing. He's making a name for himself defending neo-Nazi groups, the guys who find themselves in court for race rioting. But I don't see that has anything to do with us.'

'No,' agreed Stafford. 'Did you talk to him?'

'I couldn't. He's vacationing in South Africa.' Hardin drank some beer. 'What's new with you?'

Stafford told him and by the time he had finished it was late afternoon and the undrunk coffee had gone cold. Hardin listened to it all thoughtfully. 'You've had quite a time,' he commented. 'Where's Corliss now?'

'Curtis saw him yesterday,' Stafford said. 'He was in a remote tented camp in the Masai Mara, but I wouldn't want to guarantee he's there now. What do you think of the line Gunnarsson pitched me?'

'Righteous anger isn't Gunnarsson's style,' said Hardin. 'He sure as hell wants Corliss back and if that's the way he's going about it you know what it means – Hendrix is dead.'

'I'd already got that far,' said Stafford.

'But there's more.' Hardin took out his wallet. 'I got this at paste restante in London. Jack Richardson sent it, and he got it from Charlie Wainwright in Los Angeles. Charlie remembered I'd been interested in Biggie.'

He took a newspaper clipping from the wallet and passed it to Stafford. It was a brief report from the Los Angeles Examiner to the effect that a disastrous fire had broken out IT. a house in Santa Monica and that all the occupants had died six of them. The fire was believed to have been caused by an over-heated pottery kiln which had exploded. The names of the dead were given. Five of them were unknown to Stafford but the sixth was Olaf Hamsun. Biggie.

He looked at Hardin and said slowly, 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'If you're thinking that Gunnarsson plays for keeps.

'Ben; you're a bloody lucky man. How did Gunnarsson miss you?'

'You've just said it – sheer goddamn luck. Jack Richardson sent a letter with that clipping; he told me that the rooming house I'd been living in had burned up. Maybe I'd slipped to London just in time.' Hardin rubbed his jaw. 'On the other hand it might not have been Gunnarsson at all. In the Bronx they have a habit of burning buildings for the insurance money. The whole damn place is falling apart.'

Stafford held up the clipping. 'Was this the whole of the commune?'

'Just about, I reckon.'

'Then that means that you are possibly the only person who definitely knows that the Hendrix who claimed the estate is a fake. What's more, it means that Gunnarsson, if he's going to make a big song and dance at the Embassy, is sure that you won't pop up to prove him wrong. If Gunnarsson thinks you're out of the game – and that's the way he's acting – then that gives us an edge.'