He broke off to bare his teeth with a rasping noise and draw a finger across his throat.
‘You live here, I take it?’ I asked him.
‘O’Halloran’s the name,’ he said at once, and offered me a hand iodized with tobacco stain. ‘Will this be your wife, now?’
‘She is,’ I affirmed, straightening him up on his tenses.
He slithered down off his stool and went to pump Steve’s hand, while she looked down on him from the queenly loftiness of her perch.
‘Isn’t it the beautiful creature she is?’ cried O’Halloran with enthusiasm. Steve was trying to pull her hand away, but the small Irishman would not part with it. I watched with interest to see if he would try and relieve her of her wrist-watch or dip into her handbag. ‘Now don’t tell me there isn’t a bit of Irish in her with them eyes. There isn’t? Ah, I’ll not believe it. Thank you, Achmed. Merci. No! Go easy with the soda. Excuse me if I make a long arm. Ha! Ha! Well, here’s to yer very good health and a pleasant stay in the city of Tunis. That’s better. Will ye have an American cigarette?’
He smacked his lips and produced a battered packet of Camels from his pocket. Steve and I declined the offer. O’Halloran moistened his lips, inserted a cigarette between them, rotated it till it was thoroughly wet, then ignited it with a match, which he struck on the seat of his trousers by raising his right knee. He blew it out without removing the cigarette from his mouth, inhaled for about thirty seconds, and then began to talk. The smoke did not reappear until a good deal later in the conversation.
‘Isn’t it funny the way chance works out? Here yes are, sittin’ havin’ a drink, wonderin’ how on earth yes are to find yer way round this strange city, and who should come along but meself – just the very man in the whole of Tunis who can do the most to help yes. Isn’t it amazin’ now?’
‘You mean,’ Steve said in a voice that trembled slightly with suppressed laughter, ‘that you’re a guide, Mr. O’Halloran?’
‘A guide, me dear? Say rather, the guide. Sure I know Tunis like the back of me hand.’ O’Halloran looked at the back of his hand, then put it quickly in his pocket. ‘Or better, perhaps. Here, take a look at this.’
He whipped from his pocket a tattered wallet, bulging with letters, newspaper cuttings, business cards and even a few notes of currency. Carefully he took out a photograph cut from some newspaper years and years ago. It was yellow with age and coming apart at the line where it was folded. I knew that Mr. O’Halloran’s eyes were upon me as I studied it. It showed a group of prosperous Americans lined up beside a charter aircraft. In the centre of them, like a monkey mascot, was Mr. O’Halloran in his prime of life.
‘The United States Federation of Brewers and Bottlers. Picked me to be their official guide during the whole three days of their visit to Tunis.’
‘That’s a wonderful testimonial, Mr. O’Halloran. Look, darling, this is Mr. O’Halloran with the United States Federation of Brewers and Bottlers.’
‘It’s a very good likeness,’ Steve said fatuously as she leaned across to study the picture.
‘I’m glad you like it. And now…’
With equal care Mr. O’Halloran selected one of the business cards he carried in his wallet. He handed it carefully to Steve, who in her turn showed it to me.
HOUSE OF SHONI(ZOLTAN GUPTE: ART DEALER)227, Avenue Mirabar,TUNISCurios a SpecialityAmerican & English visitorswelcome.Tel: 187592
Written across the top in a shaky hand were the words: ‘Patrick O’Halloran. Special Representative.’
‘It’s well worth a visit,’ the Irishman assured us with sudden earnestness. ‘Indeed it’ll pay you handsomely. I can show you the way to the place meself. When will it suit you to pay a visit?’
‘Well, Mr. O’Halloran, our plans aren’t quite definite yet. We’d prefer to look around on our own for a bit first. Then later we’d be very glad of your services. How can we get in touch with you?’
‘Just ring that number. And remember – day or night, Pat O’Halloran is at your service. Yes won’t forget now? The House of Shoni. I wouldn’t delay it too long if I were you. And now, sir and madam, if yes will excuse me I have a party waitin’ to be shown round the Kasbah.’
Mr. O’Halloran swept his hat off, revealing a mass of surprisingly youthful curls, gave us both a broad wink, and made his exit. He had not attempted to pay for his drink.
Steve and I both burst out laughing the moment he had gone.
‘If I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed such a character existed,’ she said. ‘He was pure music hall.’
She slipped Mr. O’Halloran’s card into her handbag.
‘I mustn’t lose this. Did you notice how vehement he was about our visiting the shop, Paul? Do you think there’s anything significant about that?’
‘Could be. We’ll leave Mr. O’Halloran in the oven for a bit and let him cook. I somehow think he’ll show up again before long.’
The bar was beginning to fill up now. It seemed to be one of the fashionable meeting places for the French inhabitants of Tunis. Most of them had sat at the small tables, and Steve and I were rather conspicuous at the bar. Mr. O’Halloran was not quite what I had expected, and I had a suspicion that there was someone in the bar who was waiting for the chance to speak to me.
‘Steve,’ I suggested, ‘how would you like to go on up and start changing? I’ll stay down here for a while. Someone we know may turn up.’
She gave me a quick look, but took the hint and climbed down from her stool.
‘Can I have the key, please?’
I took the key from my pocket and handed it to her.
‘See you in about twenty minutes. Another Dry Martini, please, Achmed.’
I was quite right in my suspicion that the young man sitting alone at one of the tables had been waiting for a chance to talk to me. Almost as soon as Steve had gone he came up and introduced himself. He had been in London on business at a time when I was engaged with Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard on a murder case which had hit the headlines. He had seen my photograph at that time and remembered it. He was a likeable young Frenchman, and we were soon deep in a discussion about the possibilities created for international criminals by modern methods of travel and communication.
We had been talking for seven or eight minutes when I saw a woman come hurriedly into the American Bar through the curtained door which led to the hotel foyer. She was handsome rather than pretty, and fairly tall. At a quick guess I put her age down as thirty. She had a good figure but was built on generous lines. Her bones were large. Her clothes were severe though well-made. Black, close-fitting skirt, high-heeled shoes, white, crinkly shirt, expensive ear-rings. She was the type of comely but efficient secretary who wouldn’t let her boss turn office hours into workers’ playtime.
She glanced all round the room until her eyes came to rest on my faintly tweedy person. I suppose it was the cut of my jacket which gave me away. She came towards me, a worried frown on her carefully made-up face.
‘Oh, pardon, monsieur. Vous n’êtes pas, par hasard, Monsieur Temple?’
Though she put the question in French the American accent was already apparent.
‘Yes. My name is Temple.’
‘Thank goodness I’ve found you, Mr. Temple, and excuse me butting in like this.’
She glanced at my companion, who had leapt to his feet and was standing to attention in expectation of an introduction.
‘Is anything wrong?’ I asked her, sensing the urgency in her manner.
‘It’s your wife. I’m afraid she’s had a nasty shock. But she’s quite all right. You can rest assured of that. I’ve given her a little sedative and she’s lying down quite calmly now. I wouldn’t have left her but she was most insistent that I should come and fetch you—’
‘Excuse me, please,’ I flung over my shoulder at the youthful criminologist, and began to hurry the secretarial young woman towards the door. He bowed stiffly and disapprovingly, and I kn
ew that he thought the manners of the English were the absolute bottom.
‘Are you on the staff of the hotel?’ I asked the girl as we stood waiting for the lift to come down, which it did with agonizing slowness.
‘No. I occupy the room next door to yours, Mr. Temple. I was lying down resting when I heard your wife scream—’
‘Scream?’
The lift had arrived at last. The girl hurried in, I followed, and pushed my finger on the button for the third floor. When the doors had rolled across the lift began to move upwards.
‘Of course I ran in straight away. Your wife was lying on her back on the bed, struggling with a man who was holding a pillow over her face—’
‘By Timothy! Go on.’
‘Well, that’s about all. When he saw me he made a dash for the window and disappeared on to the balcony. I didn’t try to follow him. I was too concerned about your wife. She was having difficulty in regaining her breath—’
‘And you mean to say you left her alone in that room?’ I began angrily.
The American girl looked at me reprovingly.
‘I made sure the window was bolted, Mr. Temple, and I locked the door behind me. You can see I have the key here.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that I was rather horrified when you described—’
‘There’s no need to apologize.’ A hand was laid gently on my forearm and I felt a slight pressure of fingers through my coat. ‘You had a horrible shock. By the way, my name is Audry Bryce – Miss Audry Bryce.’
The lift doors slid back and I let her walk out ahead of me and lead me to the door of our room. She unlocked it, and this time stood back to let me enter first.
Steve was lying on the bed, but she sat up when she saw me. She was very flushed, and I saw at once that she was still trembling. Miss Bryce stood tactfully in the background while I made sure that I still had a wife in one piece. Then she coughed to remind us that she did exist.
‘Well, I think I’ll be running along now. I’ve put the key in the lock on this side.’
‘Oh, please don’t go yet,’ Steve said. ‘Paul, Miss Bryce has been terribly kind. I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t come to the rescue. I’m afraid I almost had hysterics on her.’
‘Yes, we really are very grateful to you,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t possibly dine with us this evening? We’d both enjoy it very much if you would.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Mr. Temple, but I’m afraid I have a previous engagement. Perhaps we’ll have the pleasure of meeting later, though.’
‘I hope so. And thank you again.’
As soon as the door had closed Steve swung her legs to the ground.
‘Paul, do you know who the man was?’
‘Now, Steve, how on earth could I—?’
‘It was Sam Leyland.’
‘Sam Leyland? Tell me exactly what happened.’
I sat down on the bed and eased Steve’s head down on to the pillow.
‘Well, I came up here, unlocked the door, walked in and closed it again – you know the way one does, without thinking. Then this figure sort of loomed up at me from behind the bed. He put his hand over my mouth. I bit it good and hard and he let go. That’s when I got my screams in, and saw that it was Sam Leyland. Then he wrestled with me and threw me down on the bed. Oh, Paul, when he put the pillow over my face I began to think of Judy Wincott and the way we found her in that cupboard—’
‘I wish I’d hit Sam harder at the Villa Negra. Did you get any idea of what he was doing here? The place does not look as if it has been searched.’
‘I think I must have surprised him before he got started properly. Unless he really intended to suffocate me…’
I walked across to the French windows and unbolted them. The balcony, of course, was deserted; but it ran the whole length of the hotel and only a low wall separated the section belonging to each room.
‘I don’t believe he intended to harm you,’ I said as I came back into the room. ‘The pillow was to prevent you calling for help.’
‘Then you think he was after the spectacles again. Surely they don’t imagine we’re going to leave them lying about in a hotel bedroom after all that’s happened?’
‘Perhaps they think we’re less intelligent than we really are. How are you feeling now? Would you like a brandy or anything?’
Steve shook her head.
‘I’m quite all right now. I really think I gave as good as I got. I wonder if I bit right through his flesh?’
‘Blood-thirsty female! How would you like me to order dinner to be sent up here?’
‘No, I wouldn’t like that. I feel I want to get right away from this room. What I long for more than anything is pints and pints of good fresh air.’
‘That’s a rare commodity in Tunis, but I think I know the next best thing.’
When Steve was ready I took her down and we walked a little way up the street to a cab rank where a line of horse-drawn open carriages stood waiting. An Arab coachman, who looked every day of a hundred, clambered down from his seat to hand Steve up into the beautifully upholstered passenger compartment.
‘You visit Kasbah, monsieur? Old part of Tunis?’
‘Anywhere you like,’ I said. ‘Just as long as you keep moving.’
The whip cracked above the horse’s head and we moved forward. The streets were in shadow now and the old horse drew us along fast enough to bring an aromatic but none the less agreeable breeze fanning round our cheeks.
For the next hour, lulled by the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves, we tried to forget all about murder and violence, and to conduct ourselves like a pair of unashamed tourists. Our coachman took us on what must have been his routine tour, and I was glad that no one in the streets we passed along took undue notice of his two fares. The sky had turned a deeper blue, and already in the east one bright star was twinkling. We passed along gay boulevards where the café tables on the pavements were crowded. Every now and again our driver would point to some fragment of a wall or to an archway which reminded the modern traveller that here, too, the Romans had been before him. At one stage we plunged into the narrow alleys of the old Arab quarter, and a flock of yelling Arab boys began to run along behind the cab. Our coachman drove them off with his whip. The closely packed houses rose up sheer and dark on either side, so close that it would have been easy for anyone to throw solids or liquids out of the window on top of us. There were few Europeans in these streets. Ragged Arabs wrapped in their one-piece garments squatted at the foot of the houses on either side of the black doorways. Veiled women with only their eyes showing pressed themselves against the walls to leave us room to pass. We caught glimpses of squalid cafés packed with gossiping Arabs, and heard the curious wailing sound that passes for song in the Near East. Once we encountered a street fight of frightening violence. Razors and knives were out and we saw one man’s forehead slashed to the bone. Our driver whipped his horse up and took us out of the trouble at a canter. All the time we were in the native part I had the sensation that hundreds of eyes were fixed on us; some with indifference, some with hostility, and some with a disturbing look of calculation. By the way she pressed closer against me I knew that Steve felt it too.
It was a relief when we suddenly emerged into a broader street and found ourselves back in the modern part of the city.
I paid the driver off at the point where we had started. Remembering the razors I gave him a good tip, and he heaped the blessings of Allah on both our heads.
‘How’s your appetite?’ I enquired as we turned towards the hotel.
‘I think I’m really hungry, though my tummy did some funny things when we saw that fight.’
‘Then I suggest we go straight to the dining-room. Unless you want to go upstairs first?’
‘No. I’m quite ready, as long as you don’t mind eating with a shiny nose.’
I asked a chasseur the way to the dining-room, but we had not gone far towards it when a tubby man in a black coat and stripe
d trousers came running after us.
‘Mr. Temple!’ His voice was urgent, but pitched very low as if he were passing me some secret message. ‘Le Commissaire Renouk has been waiting to see you. I did not know where to find you, and he is become terribly impatient. If you do not mind, monsieur, he is waiting in my office.’
We had already stopped dead in our tracks.
‘Le Commissaire Renouk?’ I echoed. ‘Is he from the police?’
‘Oui, monsieur. From the Commissariat de Police.’
‘And does he want to see me or my wife as well?’
‘Just you, Monsieur Temple, I think.’
‘You are the Manager?’
‘The Night Manager, monsieur.’
‘You speak excellent English.’
The small man put his head on one side trying to look pleased and modest at the same time.
‘Monsieur is too amiable.’
‘Now, I’m going to place madame in your personal care while I am talking to the Commissaire. Will you make yourself responsible for her well-being?’
The Night Manager placed one hand on his diaphragm and the other hand on his kidneys before bowing low.
‘Enchanté, madame. And now, monsieur, if you will please to come this way. Monsieur le Commissaire is already very impatient.’
The man I found waiting for me in the Manager’s office had somehow succeeded in filling the small room with an atmosphere of disapproval, suspicion and menace. He was wearing a khaki uniform liberally adorned with gilt. Several meaningless medal ribbons meandered across his chest. He wore a French-style képi which he had kept on his head. His skin was sallow, his eyebrows very black and bushy, his mouth thin and twisted down on one side.
‘Sit down, if you please.’ He spoke harshly in French. I guessed that he was an educated Tunisian Arab who had been trained under French sponsorship and who for some reason was determined to put all Europeans in their places.
‘Your name is Paul Temple?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your nationality?’
‘British.’
‘Your passport, please.’
I took my passport out and handed it to him. He turned the pages over suspiciously for several minutes then pushed it back towards me.
East of Algiers Page 9
