by Ellery Queen
Rand was impressed. But after a few more moments of chatting he remembered the reason for his trip.
“Could I speak to you in private, Professor, about some research I’m doing?”
“Regarding Cleopatra?”
“Regarding the Sphinx.”
There was a flicker of something in Fanger’s eyes. He excused himself and went with Rand. When they were out of earshot he said, You’re British Intelligence, aren’t you? Bollinger told me.”
“Concealed communications, to be exact. I know this country, so they sent me to talk with you.”
“I’ve been retired since the mid-sixties.”
“We know that. It took us that long to track you down. We’re not after you, but you must have a great many names in you mind. We’d be willing to make a deal for those names.”
Fanger’s eves flickered again. “I might be interested. I don’t know. Coming here and talking to me openly could have been a mistake.”
“You mean there’s someone here who—”
“Look, Rand, I’m forty-seven years old and about that many pounds overweight. I retired before I got myself killed, and I don’t know that I want to take any risks now. Espionage is a young man’s game, always was. Your own Somerset Maugham quit it after World War One to write books. I quit it to chase women.”
“Having any luck?”
“Here?” he snorted. “I think Leila’s a twenty-eight-year-old virgin and the French one is pure bitch. Not much choice.”
“Exactly what is the purpose of this conference?”
“Simply to discuss recent advances in archeology. Each of five nations sent a representative, and of course the University thought Leila and I should attend, too. There’s nothing sinister about it—of that I can assure you!” But his eyes weren’t quite so certain.
“Then why the armed guards patrolling the grounds?”
“You’d have to ask Bollinger—though I imagine he’d tell you there are occasional thieving nomads in the region. Without guards this place would be too tempting.”
“How far is it to the nearest town?”
“More than a hundred miles overland to Aswan—nothing closer except native villages and lots of sand.
“An odd place to hold a conference. An odder place to build a plush resort.”
“Once the Suez Canal is back in full operation, Bollinger expects to get most of his clientele by boat—wealthy yachtsmen and the like. Who knows? He might make a go of it. Once it’s cleaned up. Foul Bay could make a natural anchorage.”
They had strolled out of the building and around the cluster of white structures still in various stages of completion. Rand realized the trend of the conversation had got away from him. He’d not traveled all the way from London to discuss a resort hotel with Herbert Fanger. But then suddenly Leila reappeared with another of the male conferees—a distinguished white-haired man with a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard. Rand remembered seeing him lounging by the pool. Now he reached out to shake hands as Leila introduced him.
“Oh, Mr. Rand, here’s a countryman of yours. Dr. Wayne Evans, from Oxford.”
The bearded Dr. Evans grinned cheerfully. “Pleased to meet you, Rand. I always have to explain that I’m not a medical doctor and I’m not with the University. I simply live in Oxford and write books on various aspects of archeology.”
“A pleasure to meet you in any event,” Rand said. He saw that Fanger had taken advantage of the interruption to get away, but there would be time for him later. “I’ve been trying to get a straight answer as to what this conference is all about, but everyone seems rather vague about it.”
Dr. Evans chuckled.
“The best way to explain it is for you to sit in at our morning session. You may find it deadly dull, but at least you’ll know as much as the rest of us.”
“I’d enjoy it,” Rand said. He watched Evans go down the walk, taking the path that led to the pool and then changing his mind and heading for the lounge. Then Rand turned his attention to Leila, who’d remained at his side.
“As long as you’re here you can escort me to dinner tonight,” she said. “Then your long drive won’t have been a total waste.”
He reacted to her impish smile with a grin of his own. “How do you know it’s been a waste so far?”
“Because I’ve known Herbert Fanger for three years and never gotten a straight answer out of him yet. I don’t imagine you did much better.”
“You’re quite correct,” he admitted. “Come on, let’s eat.”
He checked in at the indigo suite he’d been assigned and found it not nearly as depressing as he’d expected from the color. Like the black suite, the dominant color had been liberally bordered in white, and the effect proved to be quite pleasant. He was beginning to think that the End of the Rainbow might catch on, if anyone could afford to stay there.
Over dinner Leila introduced him to the other conferees he hadn’t met—Jeanne Bisset from France, Dr. Tao Liang from the People’s Republic of China, and Ivan Rusanov from Russia. With Fanger and Northgate and Evans, whom he’d met previously, that made six attending the conference, not counting Leila herself.
“Dr. Tao should really be in the yellow suite,” Rand observed quietly to Leila. “He would be if Bollinger had any imagination.”
“And I suppose you’d have Rusanov in red?”
“Of course!”
“Well, he is, for your information. But Dr. Tao is green.”
“That must leave the Frenchwoman, Jeanne Bisset, in violet.”
“Wrong! She’s white. Bollinger left indigo and violet empty, though now you have indigo.”
“He implied that was the only suite empty. I wonder what’s going on in violet.”
“Nameless orgies, no doubt—with all you Englishmen on the premises.”
“I should resent that,” he said with a smile. She put him at ease, and he very much enjoyed her company.
After dinner the others split into various groups. Rand saw the Chinese and the Russian chatting, and the American, Harvey Northgate, walking off by himself. “With those other suites free, why do you think Bollinger insisted on giving the black one to the American?” Rand asked Leila as they strolled along the edge of the bay.
“Perhaps he’s anti-American, who knows?”
“You don’t take the whole thing very seriously.”
“Should I, Mr, Rand?”
“Can’t you find something else to call me?”
“I never knew your first name.”
“C. Jeffery Rand, and I don’t tell anyone what the C. stands for.”
“You don’t look like a Jeffery,” she decided, cocking her head to gaze up at him. “You look more like a Winston.”
“I may be Prime Minister someday.”
She took his arm and steered him back toward the cluster of lighted buildings. “When you are, I’ll walk along the water with you. Till then, we stay far away from it. The last time I was near water with you, I ended up swimming across the Nile to spy on a Russian houseboat!”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Sure. So was climbing that pyramid in the middle of the night. My legs ached for days.”
It was late by the time they returned to their building. Some people were still in the lounge, but the lights in most suites were out.
“We grow tired early here,” she said. “I suppose it’s all the fresh air and exercise.”
“I know what you mean. It was a long drive down this morning.” He glanced at his watch and saw that it was already after ten. They’d strolled and chatted longer than he’d realized. “One thing first. I’d like to continue my conversation with Fanger if he’s still up.”
“Want me to come along?” she suggested. “Then we can both hear him say nothing.
“Come on. He might surprise you.”
Fanger’s yellow suite was at the rear of the first floor, near a fire exit. He didn’t answer Rand’s knock, and they were about to check the lounge when Rand n
oticed a drop of fresh orange paint on the carpet under the door. “This is odd.”
“What?”
“Paint, and still wet.”
“The door’s unlocked. Rand.”
They pushed it open and snapped on the overhead light. What they saw was unbelievable. The entire room—ceiling, walls, floor—had been splashed with paint of every color. There was red and blue and green and black and white and violet and orange—all haphazardly smeared over every surface in the room. Over it all, ashtrays and towels meant for other suites had been dumped and scattered. Fanger’s yellow cigarette box was smashed on the floor, with blue and yellow cigarettes, green and indigo towels, even an orange ashtray, scattered around it. The suite was a surrealistic dream, as if at the end of the rainbow all the colors of the spectrum had been jumbled with white and black.
And crumpled in one corner, half hidden by a chair, was the body of Herbert Fanger. The red of his blood was almost indistinguishable from the paint that stained the yellow wall behind him. He’d been stabbed several times in the chest and abdomen.
“My God,” Leila breathed. “It’s a scene from hell!”
“Let’s phone the nearest police,” Rand said. “We need help here.”
But as they turned to leave, a voice from the hall said, “I’m afraid that will be impossible, Mr. Rand. There will be no telephoning by anyone.” Felix Bollinger stood there with one of his armed security guards, and the guard was pointing a pistol at them both.
Rand raised his hands reluctantly above his head, and at his side Leila Gaad said with a sigh, “You’ve done it to me again, haven’t you. Rand?”
They were ushered into Bollinger’s private office and the door was locked behind them. Only then did the security guard holster his revolver. He stood with his back to the door as Bollinger took a seat behind the desk.
“You must realize, Mr. Rand, that I cannot afford to have the End of the Rainbow implicated in a police investigation at this time.”
“I’m beginning to realize it.”
“You and Miss Gaad will be held here in my office until that room can be cleaned up and some disposition made of Herbert Fanger’s body.”
“And you expect me to keep silent about that?” Rand asked. “I’m here on an official mission concerning Herbert Fanger. His murder is a matter of great interest to the British government.”
“This is no longer British soil, Mr. Rand. It has not been for some decades.”
“But you are a British subject.”
“Only when it pleases me to be.”
“What’s going on here? Why the armed guards? Why was Fanger murdered?”
“It does not concern you, Mr. Rand.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Hardly!”
Rand shifted in his chair. “Then the killer is one of the others. Turn me loose and I might be able to find him for you.”
Bollinger’s eyes narrowed. “Just how would you do that?”
“With all that paint splashed around, the killer must have gotten some on him. There was a spot of orange paint on the carpet outside the door, for instance, as if it had come off the bottom of a shoe. Let me examine everyone’s clothing and I’ll identify the murderer.”
The manager was a man who reached quick decisions. “Very well, if I have your word you’ll make no attempt to get in touch with the authorities.”
“They have to be told sooner or later.”
“Let’s make it later. If we have the killer to hand over, it might not look quite so bad.”
Rand got to his feet. “I’ll want another look at Fanger’s room. Put a guard on the door and don’t do any cleaning up.”
“What about the body?”
“It can stay there for now,” Rand decided. “If we find the killer, it’ll be in the next hour or so.”
Leila followed him out of the office, still amazed. “How did you manage that? He had a gun on us ten minutes ago, and you talked your way out of it!”
“Not completely. Not yet. His security people will be watching us. Look, suppose you wake everyone up and get them down by the pool.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But what for?”
“We’re going to look for paint spots.”
The American, Harvey Northgate, refused to be examined at first. And the Russian demanded to call his Embassy in Cairo. But after Rand explained what it was all about, they seemed to calm down. The only trouble was, Rand and Leila could find no paint on any of them. It seemed impossible, but it was true. Rand’s hope of reaching a quick solution to the mystery burst like an over-inflated balloon.
It was Bollinger himself who provided an explanation, when the others had been allowed to return to their beds. “I discovered where the paint cans and the rest of it came from. Look, the side exit from this building is only a few steps away from the side exit to that building still under construction. Just inside the door are paint cans, boxes of towels and ashtrays, and even a pair of painter’s coveralls.”
“Show me,” Rand said. He looked around for Leila but she was gone. Perhaps the day really had tired her out.
The resort manager led Rand to the unfinished building. Looking at the piles of paint cans, Rand had little doubt that this was the source of the vandal’s supplies. He opened a box of red bath towels, and a carton of blue ashtrays.
Anything else here?” he asked.
Just drapes. Apparently he didn’t have time for those.”
“What about the carpeting? And soap and cigarettes?”
“They’re stored in one of the other buildings. He just took what was close at hand. And he wore a painter’s coveralls over his own clothes.”
“I suppose so,” Rand agreed. The splotches of paint seemed fresh, still tacky to his touch. “What I’d like to know is why—why risk discovery by going after that paint and the other things? He had to make at least two trips, one with the paint cans and the second to return the coveralls and probably gather up a few other things to throw around the room. Who knew these things were here?”
“They all did. I took them on a tour of the place the first day and showed them in here.”
“Coveralls,” Rand mused, “but no shoes. The shoes with the orange paint might still turn up.”
“Or might not. He could have tossed them into the bay.”
“All right,” Rand conceded. “I’m at a dead end. We’ll have to call in the authorities.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. The people here don’t want publicity. Nor do I.”
“They’re not archeologists, are they?”
“Not exactly,” Bollinger admitted.
“Then what were Leila and Fanger doing here?”
“A mistake. Cairo University believed our cover story and sent them down for the conference. Fanger, a retired agent himself, knew something was wrong from the beginning. Then you came, and it scared one of them enough to commit murder.”
“You have to tell me what’s going on here,” Rand said.
“A conference.”
“Britain, America, France, Russia, and China. A secret conference in the middle of nowhere, policed by armed guards.” He remembered something. “And what about the violet room? Who’s in there?”
“You ask too many questions. Here’s a list of all our guests.”
Rand accepted the paper and scanned it quickly, refreshing his memory:
First Floor: Red—Ivan Rusanov (Russia)
Orange—Leila Gaad (Egypt)
Yellow—Herbert Fanger (Egypt)
Green—Dr. Tao Liang (China)
Second Floor: Blue—Dr. Wayne Evans (Britain)
Indigo—Rand
Violet—
White—Jeanne Bisset (France)
Black—Harvey Northgate (U.S.)
“The violet suite is empty?” Rand questioned.
“It is empty.”
Rand pocketed the list. “I’m going to look around.”
“We’ve cut the telephone service. It will do you no good to try phoning out. Only the hotel extensions are still in operation.”
“Thanks for saving me the effort.” He had another thought. “You know, this list doesn’t include some very good suspects—yourself and your employees.”
“I would never have created that havoc. And my guards would have used a gun rather than a knife.”
“What about the cooks and maids? The painters working on the other buildings?”
“Question them if you wish,” he said. “You’ll discover nothing.”
Rand left him and cut through the lounge to the stairway. He was anxious to check out that violet suite. It was now after midnight, and there was no sign of the others, though he hardly believed they were all in their beds.
He paused before the violet door and tried the knob. It was unlocked, and he wondered if he’d find another body. Fanger’s door had been left unlocked so that the killer could return with the paint cans. He wondered why this one was unlocked. But he didn’t wonder long.
“Felix? Is that you?” a woman’s voice called from the bedroom. It was the Frenchwoman, Jeanne Bisset.
“No, just me,” Rand said, snapping on the overhead light.
She sat up in bed, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s as much my room as yours. I’m sorry Felix Bollinger was delayed. It’s been a busy night.”
“You don’t have to explain. I was wondering why he kept this suite vacant, and now I know.” He glanced around at the violet furnishings, deciding it was the least attractive of those he’d seen.
“Have you found the killer?” she asked, recovering her composure. She was a handsome woman, older than Leila, and Rand wondered if she and Bollinger had known each other before this week.
“Not yet,” he admitted. “It might help if you were frank with me.”
She blinked her eyes. “About what?”
“The purpose of this conference.”
She thought about that. Finally she said, “Hand me a cigarette from my purse and I’ll tell you what I know.”
