by Jane Arbor
What possible business could Guy have or ever have had in such a quarter? The portera must have made a mistake - Emma was nearing the peak of her misgiving about the unwisdom of her errand when the taxi finally drew up in what appeared to be a cul-de-sac.
Emma did not alight. “La Casa del Sol?” she ventured.
The driver clicked off his meter. “It is quite close. But I can go no further. Not possible for a car. Too-” meaningly he set his hands about six inches apart. “Twenty- five pesetas, if you please.”
Emma paid him and got out. “The cafe I want is quite near, you say?”
“Yes. Through there -” He pointed to what she had thought was the cul-de-sac’s blind end but which she saw now gave on to an overhung passageway. “To the right and to the left - a few paces only. You will know it by its hanging Sun and it has a patio which you cannot miss.”
Encouraged, she let him go, only to wish, as his rear- light winked away, that she had asked him to wait for her. For her and Guy, who couldn’t have brought his car here, either. If he were here at all –
She stepped into the passage, repeating the simple- sounding directions aloud. But a right and a left turn beyond the passage gave on to no patio and no hanging sign of a sun; only on to another blue-washed walled tunnel with a vista of archways at its far end.
Foolish to go on? Or more foolish to go back, with the urgency of that message still kept from Guy, and he, or news of his whereabouts perhaps, within a few yards of her if she had misunderstood what the taxi-driver had said...?
She went on. Began to turn this way and that: was baulked at more than one blind end; believed she was safely retracing her steps before she realized she was passing a fast-shut studded door she had never seen before.
Now she was really frightened. Behind the tap of her own footsteps over the rough cobbles there was an echo' that could only be someone following close. But when she looked back there was no one there, though once she shrank and ran from a movement of something or some- one in a dark recess. Once too, ahead of her in the gloomy she thought she saw the dripped-candle shape and whiteness of a Moorish woman’s enveloping haik. But when she turned the next corner, that, also, was not there.
Now she had forgotten the need to find Guy, was oblivious to everything but the mounting, whispering menace of these dark ways. Her fear was something outside herself, a primitive thing beyond her control, and her breath was sobbing in her throat when she blindly turned another corner and ran into a man’s arms.
Newly panic-stricken, she cried out and made to spring back, then slowly, willingly, yielded her weakness to the strength and reassurance in the iron grip of the hands about her shoulders.
He was human. He was her own kind. Leaning against him in helpless terror, she looked up. He was - Mark Triton. And, whether he was despot or roué or both, she had run to him for help for the second time....
CHAPTER TWO
As their eyes met, Mark Triton frowned and held her back from him, his hold now a rough grasp of her upper arm which hurt. He looked angry enough to be about to shake her, and when she tried to speak she was humiliated to find that her voice was completely starved of sound.
He did not shake her, but peremptorily turned her about. “Come -” he ordered. And even if her panic had not bereft her of all will or power to resist, his thrusting hand at her elbow gave her no choice but to obey.
Unable to match her steps to a stride he made no effort to shorten, she stumbled along at his side in a blind trust of him at which she scarcely had time to wonder before they emerged upon the comparative normality of the street where the taxi had set her down. There he paused and released her. “My car is parked a minute away,” he said. “Will you come there, or shall I bring it here to you?”
“Oh, I’ll come. Or - or - I could call a taxi from here -” But as if she had not spoken, he ignored that and strode on again.
Arrived on the little square where his car was parked among others, he tipped the hooded Dirkawa Moor who ran to open its doors, and ushered Emma into it. Beside her, he turned to her, one arm across the wheel, the fingers of his other hand tapping imperiously upon the
back of her seat,
“Now,” he demanded, “perhaps you will explain what criminally foolhardy errand could possibly have taken you to the souks alone and at night? Or are you asking me to believe that it has been no one’s business to warn you that they are no place for a European woman without escort at any time? First, though, as I daresay your dinner-companion at the Velasquez on your first night will have told you who I am, you have the advantage 'of me. What is your name?”
“It’s Emma Redfern. And yes, Mr. Triton, of course, my fiancé has told me who you are -”
“Yes, I see. And my question -?”
Emma’s fingers twisted nervously in her lap. On a long-drawn breath she said: “Yes, I knew too late that it was unwise. But my errand was very urgent indeed. And I had taken a taxi as far as the driver said he could go.”
“How far?”
“To the end of the street we came out on just now. I wanted a café-bar called La Casa del Sol, and the man said it was only a step or two from there.”
“Well, he was wrong. The approach to the Casa del Sol, I happen to know, is from the Calleja Nueva, not from that street at all. It’s not your fault, then, that you lost your way. But what did you want with the Casa del Sol, may I ask? And don’t, please, offer me the slap in the face that it’s no affair of mine. Because it’s the business of any man to prevent a repetition of your rashness , tonight."
Emma raised frank eyes to his. “I made it your business, didn’t I? And I haven’t, thanked you yet,” she said, simply.
“Cut but the personal thanks,” he advised. ‘‘Just be grateful that any European happened along before the medina misunderstood your errand in a way you mightn’t have liked. Well -?”
“I went there looking for Guy - Guy Trench, my fiancé, you know. He hadn’t kept an appointment at the café where we always meet. So I went round to his room. But he hadn’t returned there either. I was there, waiting for him, when the message came in. The porteress translated it for me, and of course realized all the importance to him of his getting it in time. But by then there was less than an hour -”
“Just a minute - Message? What message?” “Well - the one telling him to report in time to fly that plane to Marseilles. This one that the porteress took down when it was telephoned from Martime-Air -” Emma took the paper from her bag and thrust it into his hands.
He flicked his lighter in order to read it, held her glance as he handed it back. “That didn’t originate from Maritime-Air,” he said.
“Not? But-?”
‘‘Well, how do you imagine it could? Trench has ceased to fly for us.
“Yes, I know. But he was only temporarily grounded, he said.”
“You’re ahead of me. ‘Temporarily grounded’? That’s what he told you?”
“Yes - for a failure to report for duty on time. You relegated him to the city office, didn’t you?”
Mark Triton straightened in his seat and laid both hands in the driving position on the wheel. He said: “I’m sorry, no. And if Trench has allowed you to believe that, he has grossly deceived you, I’m afraid. The bare truth is, Miss Redfern, that on a most serious charge, I dismissed your fiancé from all service with Maritime-Air more than six weeks ago. Justifiably, without notice, and certainly with no prospect of his return –“
“Oh, no -!” As foreboding leaped into certainty Guy’s deception loomed for Emma more shamefully than anything else, and she was grateful for the mercy with which her companion refrained from looking at her as he started the car. It was as if he knew that; momentarily, she needed to be alone with the shock of it; that, dwarfed by that, even the cruel details of it must wait. She could scarcely even care where he was driving her, except that it was back into familiar streets. And when he drew up at a French restaurant on the Boulevard Pasteur, she obediently went
ahead of him to a table, nodding in- silent agreement to his quite gentle: “We need to talk a little, wouldn’t you say?"
He ordered coffee for her and brandy for himself and then asked her if she wanted to telephone Guy’s rooms again.
Emma hesitated: “Yes - No, I think I’d rather hear first-”
“Then will you excuse me while I ring up? When we met, I was on my way to dine with a friend who lives in the Kasbah and I’d like to say I shall be late.”
Emma half rose from her chair. “Please, no! Not on my account!” But his hand on shoulder pressed her back.
While he was away, she noticed by a wall clock that it was already a quarter-past eight, and wondered wretchedly where the urgency to find Guy had gone. Now she was actually dreading the moment of meeting him again, primed as she would be then with the truth he should have loved her enough to trust her with, instead of leaving her to hear it from someone else. And if he had found it necessary to concoct an elaborate half-truth with which to deceive her, the charge on which he had really been dismissed must be serious indeed.
When Mark Triton returned he said: “You are sure you want to hear this from me, rather than from Trench himself? You have a right to demand it of him, you know.”
Emma said: “Yes, but I’d rather know it before I see him again. So tell me, please -”
“Very well. As a preliminary, though, I'll remind you that Tangier has a lawless reputation which it doesn’t altogether deserve. But it is true that a black market in any commodity that is scarce elsewhere does exist and flourish, and a certain amount of smuggling goes on all the time. And your fiancé, I’m afraid, has taken a hand in that."
“Smuggling? What of?” breathed Emma.
“Diamonds.”
“Diamonds? But that's impossible! How could he hope to get them out or know where to sell them if he did? Besides, if he were dealing in anything like that, he’d hardly be in debt for quite ordinary things, which I happen to know he is."
Mark Triton shook his head. “It doesn’t follow. In any case, there’s no suggestion that Trench was capable alone of smuggling out or selling diamonds on any scale. No, his part was the minor and sordid one of forming just one insignificant link in a long chain of such links between Sierra Leone, where the consignments originated, and the underworld of Tangier. You know, I daresay, that his flying for Maritime-Air took him regularly to Casablanca and Marrakesh? ”
“Yes, I did know -”
“And we know that parcels of diamonds were being passed to him by contacts there, that he was bringing them in to Tangier.’’
Emma shivered. “You mean - you found them when he brought the plane in?"
“No. That’s where, fortunately for Trench, we could bring no case with regard to the two occasions when the plane was searched. No diamonds were found.”
“Then you have no proof that he-!”
Mark Triton regarded her compassionately. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have full proof that he was regularly making his contacts and handling them under cover of Maritime-Air, and that justified a dismissal which his guilt didn’t permit him to dispute. But I don’t suppose you’ve any idea how ‘small’ a packet of diamonds will travel, and I told you Trench was merely one link in the chain. The only conclusion is - and the police case rests there - either that on those occasions he wasn’t carrying any or, more likely, that he was warned in 'time to pass the diamonds on to the next ‘link’ - an aircraft cleaner or a mechanic - so that nothing, emerged from the search.”
“Then is he - wanted by the police still?”
"Not on the evidence they have.”
“But he isn’t cleared of suspicion either?”
“My dear, at the one end there was proof, not suspicion
merely. But his dismissal has dealt with that. So far as Maritime-Air is concerned, any witch-hunting of him is over, and unless he is a fool he won’t run any such risk again.”
But he let me come out here to marry him with at least the risk hanging over his head was Emma’s silent bitter thought. Aloud, she said: “I think I’d feel more sure of that if — if he had trusted me with the truth as soon as I came out. Now I’m wondering whether that message which came for him, though not from Maritime-Air, could mean that he is getting involved again?”
“It’s possible, though I’d say not. Our pilots are never briefed for duty merely by a telephone call that they may or may not receive. But I believe now that I’ve heard Trench has been doing some ‘jobbing’ and charter flying since he left us, so it probably referred to one of those. However, when he turns up he’ll be able to explain that innocently - you must hope. Meanwhile, you say your reading of the urgency of it was your motive for going to look for him at the Casa del Sol? ”
“Yes, because the porteress said it is a regular haunt of his. Though I found that hard to believe, as he has never mentioned it to me.’’
“H’m. Well, that looks as if he hasn’t wanted to take you there. But if I were you, I wouldn’t worry that it has any more sinister attraction for him than that it is, I happen to know, a cosmopolitan sort of place with a highly Moorish flavour. I suppose, though, you are still worried that you haven’t got in touch with him at all tonight?”
“Yes, but Emma drew her bag towards her and half rose.
“But what?”
“Well, you are on your way to dine out, and though I’m terribly grateful to you, Mr. Triton, I’ve already delayed you long enough.”
“A little longer will be neither here nor there," he said easily. ‘‘Where are you staying, by the way?”
When she told him, he asked: “Mightn’t Trench have gone to call for you there?”
“It’s possible. But I did ring Madame Blanchard, my landlady, before I went to the Casa del Sol. He hadn’t been there by then.”
“But may have been since. Or have returned to his rooms. Or have received the charter-flight message by some other means and by now be on his way to Marseilles.” Mark Triton rose. “In any case, I’m taking you home now, and even if there is no news of him, I’m going to ask your promise that you won’t attempt to explore the city again for him tonight."
"I’ll promise, of course," Emma murmured.
“Thank you. In return, I'll do what I can to trace his movements, and if I hear anything before midnight I’ll ring you. Shall we go?”
At the pension he waited in the car while she went in to inquire about Guy. But she realized that she could hardly expect him to share fears that she dared not name. Nor, for pride’s sake, would she have him guess at the sharp sense of desolation with which she watched him drive away after she had returned to tell him that Guy had not been seen and had left no message for her. Mark Triton was little more than a stranger. How was it she had come, at their second brief meeting, to regard him as the reliance, as the rock which Guy should be for her, yet suddenly, treacherously, was not?
The maid she had questioned about Guy had glanced at her oddly, she thought. And when she looked at herself in the mirror in her room she realized why.
As was usual in the cool of the evenings she had gone hatless, and her headlong flight through the alleys of the medina roughened her hair and her black linen dress was smeared with whitewash where she had brushed between the narrow walls. Strain had already smudged dark shadows under her eyes and even her hands, she noticed with distaste, were none too clean.
She had had nothing to eat since luncheon, but felt that food would choke her and could not bear the thought of meeting her fellow-guests in the dining-room. So when she had telephoned Guy once more, she returned to her room to wait until she could reasonably ring him again or until he or Mark Triton rang her.
But two other calls brought only the porteress’s laconically repeated. “Señor Trench has not returned,” and by midnight, when Mark Triton had made no sign either, she reached her zero hour of despair. By that time her mind was rejecting every reasonable explanation of Guy’s failure to keep their rendezvous and was feeding o
n the darkest of fears.
Sheer weariness drove her to sleep at last and when she woke to the now familiar clop-clop past her window of the laden donkeys on their way in to market, she could not at first, define the cloud which hung over her senses. Then she remembered.... But the sanity of morning restored some proportion to her problem, and by the time she was dressed she was facing it with a hopeful courage she had not been capable of bringing to it overnight.
She usually breakfasted in the little pension garden, and, while she waited for her rolls and coffee to be brought to her there, she did her best to rid herself of the last traces of her shocked sense of injury against Guy.
She must be fair to him... If their whole future relationship were not to be poisoned, she must be fair. There could be a dozen reasons why he had not kept their rendezvous; fewer, perhaps, for his failure to get in touch with her since; almost none, in her view, for his having lied to her about his dismissal in disgrace from Maritime-Air.
She thought, I shall have to make him see that our only way ahead now is together. He must trust me and I mustn’t judge him - But on her way in to the telephone lobby, to ring him again, she was handed two letters by the maid who was sorting the post for the guests’ rack.
Emma’s heart plunged as she saw that one of hers was from Guy, posted overnight. The other was postmarked Gibraltar and could only be from Mrs. Marguan. But Guy -! Why should he have written to her at about the hour they should have met, when he could have telephoned her at any time or even have had her “paged” at their rendezvous?
Sick with renewed apprehension, she tore at the envelope while she retraced her steps. The leaves of the garden’s one tree dappled light and shade mockingly across the pages of the letter as she read –
“My dear” (Guy had written), “This is no easier to do than I knew it would be when I first realized it must be done. But I’ve got to get out, Emma, of Tangier, because it is too hot to hold me, owing to debts of which I haven’t confessed the half to you, and of our engagement because there’s another girl for me. I fell hard enough for you in England, and I still wasn’t sure of my feelings when I let you come out here. And even when I knew that you and I hadn’t ‘got what it takes’ for each other, I hadn’t the courage to tell you as: much. Nor the courage to let the smuggling-racket story break before I finally made up my mind to be off. Soon now, though, you’ll hear about it from Maritime-Air. But you won’t hear what they don’t know - that it has let me down badly and that I shouldn’t be in my present jam for cash if there’d been anything in it for me...
