Circus. Alistair MacLean

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘If you were a genuine army colonel,’ Pilgrim said, ‘instead of one of the most bogus and unconvincing frauds I’ve ever seen, you’d rate three stars for this. Excellently done, my dear Fawcett, excellently done.’

      Pilgrim was the great-grandson of an English peer of the realm and it showed. Both in dress and in speech he was slightly foppish and distinctly Edwardian: subconsciously, almost, one looked for the missing monocle, the Old Etonian tie. His exquisitely cut suits came from Savile Row, his shirts from Turnbull and Asser and his pair of matched shotguns, which at 4000 dollars he regarded as being cheap at the price, came, inevitably, from Purdeys of the West End. The shoes, regrettably, were hand-made in Rome. To have him auditioned for the screen part of Sherlock Holmes would have been superfluous.

      Fawcett did not react to the criticism, the praise or the understated sartorial splendour. His facial muscles seldom reacted to anything – which may have been due to the fact that his unlined face was so plump it was almost moon-shaped. His bucolic expression verged upon the bemused: large numbers of people languishing behind federal bars had been heard to testify, frequently and with understandable bitterness, that the impression Fawcett conveyed was deceptive to the point of downright immorality.

      Half-hooded eyes deep-sunk in the puffy flesh, Fawcett’s gaze traversed the leather-lined library and came to rest on the sparking pine fire. His voice wistful, he said, ‘One would wish that promotion were so spectacular and rapid in the CIA.’

      ‘Dead men’s shoes, my boy.’ Pilgrim was at least five years younger than Fawcett. ‘Dead men’s shoes.’ He regarded his own Roman foot briefly and with some satisfaction, then transferred his attention to the splendid collection of ribbons on Fawcett’s chest. ‘I see you have awarded yourself the Congressional Medal of Honour.’

      ‘I felt it was in keeping with my character.’

      ‘Quite. This paragon you have unearthed. Bruno. How did you come across him?’

      ‘I didn’t. Smithers did, when I was in Europe. Smithers is a great circus fan.’

      ‘Quite.’ Pilgrim seemed fond of the word. ‘Bruno. One would assume that he has another name.’

      ‘Wildermann. But he never uses it – professionally or privately.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I don’t know. I’ve never met him. Presumably Smithers never asked him either. Would you ask Pele or Callas or Liberace what their other names are?’

      ‘You class his name with those?’

      ‘It’s my understanding that the circus world would hesitate to class those names with his.’

      Pilgrim picked up some sheets of paper. ‘Speaks the language like a native.’

      ‘He is a native.’

      ‘Billed as the world’s greatest aerialist.’ Pilgrim was a hard man to knock off his stride. ‘Daring young man on the flying trapeze? That sort of thing?’

      ‘That, too. But he’s primarily a high-wire specialist.’

      ‘The best in the world?’

      ‘His fellow professionals are in no doubt about it.’

      ‘If our information about Crau is correct, he’d better be. I see he claims to be an expert in karate and judo.’

      ‘He has never claimed anything of the kind. I claim it for him – rather, Smithers does, and as you know Smithers is very much an expert in those matters. He watched Bruno having a work-out down-town this morning in the Samurai club. The instructor there is a black belt – they don’t come any higher in judo. By the time Bruno had finished with him – well, I understand the instructor disappeared with the general air of a man about to write