‘What is the purpose of your visit to Tunis?’
‘Pleasure, I suppose. What you call tourism.’
‘I see. Did you come here for the purpose of meeting Patrick O’Halloran?’
‘Certainly not. I had no idea—’
‘But you had an appointment to meet him in the American Bar of this hotel at six this evening?’
‘No. He followed us in—’
‘How long has this Patrick O’Halloran been known to you? I looked at my watch.
‘About two hours. I never set eyes on him before this evening—’
‘You maintain that he is not a friend of yours? You were seen to engage in a very animated conversation with him.’
‘I see you have been talking to Achmed. Why all these questions, Commissaire? Has O’Halloran picked someone’s pocket?’
‘Please not to jest with me, Monsieur Temple. This is a serious matter, and I warn you not to trifle with me. If you do not want to tell the truth and give me your full co-operation—’
‘Monsieur le Commissaire,’ I interrupted, ‘I am ready to give you my full co-operation. Would it not be better if you explained to me just what the purpose of this interrogation is? What has O’Halloran done?’
Renouk fixed his dark eyes on me and studied my reactions closely.
‘A body was found in the Arab quarter at half-past six this evening. It has been identified as that of Patrick O’Halloran. We believe that you are the last person who saw him alive.’
Chapter Six
STEVE and I did not eat a very hearty dinner that evening. Goodness knows we had both experienced our fair share of sudden and violent deaths. But the fate of Mr. O’Halloran shocked us unaccountably. We felt a genuine grief at the thought of that whiskyfied voice being permanently silenced.
‘I had an instinct that he was connected with the spectacles in some way,’ Steve said.
‘Go easy, Steve. The fact that a man is killed in the streets of Tunis does not mean that he was involved in all this business.’
‘Don’t you think it’s too much to be coincidence, Paul? Considering all that happened. Here’s a man, whom you yourself took for a pick-pocket, who engineers a conversation with us and an hour later is found dead—’
‘Actually, I agree with you, Steve.’
I took the oil and vinegar which the waiter had brought and began to mix a dressing for our lettuce.
‘You remember how insistent he was about our visiting the House of Shoni?’
Steve suddenly reached for her handbag, which she had deposited on one of the empty chairs. We had both of us thought of the same thing at the same time. I suspended my salad operations while she reached her bag.
‘Have you still got it?’
‘Yes. Here it is.’
While Steve studied the card which Mr. O’Halloran had given her, I saw the vague outline of a drawing on the reverse side.
‘Have a look on the other side, Steve.’
She turned the card over, then lifted her eyes to mine and silently handed it across the table. Crudely drawn on the back was a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles.
‘This clinches it. Mr. O’Halloran himself may not have known what it was all about, but there’s not much doubt that Zoltan Gupte belongs to the vast company of spectacle fanciers. I wonder whether we know him already under some other name?’
Steve and I ate our salad in silence. When the waiter came along, waving his huge menu, we both shook our heads.
‘Just coffee for me, Paul. But don’t let me stop you—’
‘Let’s go outside on the terrace. It’s awfully close in here.’
‘We’re staying in the hotel,’ I told the waiter as he pulled Steve’s chair out of her way. ‘Room number three seven two.’
‘Bien, monsieur. Merci, monsieur-dame.’
We left him slapping the table with his serviette and wandered across the foyer towards the terrace which overlooked the hotel’s small garden. It was an attractive place with crazy paving and rustic tables and chairs under coloured umbrellas. Now that it was dark, little coloured lights had been switched on among the trees. A three-man orchestra was playing sultry music above a small marble square where nobody was dancing yet.
We were picking and choosing among the tables when a voice from behind us spoke.
‘Well, hallo there!’
Even as we turned round I was thinking that Audry Bryce’s previous engagement had not lasted long. If all her dates were as abbreviated as this evening’s, it was small wonder she was still Miss.
She was sitting on one of those very low swinging garden seats. Her long, well-shaped legs were crossed in an elegant V. They seemed to glow invitingly in the gloom.
‘Why don’t you come and join me?’ she called out.
‘Thank you. We’d love to,’ Steve said.
We moved towards the table, and the next few minutes were taken up with arranging seats and swapping politenesses. Audry Bryce already had her coffee, so I ordered two more cups for Steve and me and liqueurs for all three of us.
‘You’re feeling quite better now, Mrs. Temple?’
‘Much better, thank you. We had a wonderful ride in a cab through the most interesting parts of Tunis—’
‘Those old cabs! They are quaint, don’t you find? Personally I think Tunis is absolutely fascinating. I only came here for a week in the first place, and I’ve stayed a month already. It’s such an extraordinary mixture; you know – the East hand in hand with the West, all those cute little shops in the Arab quarter. You know that Tunis is famous for perfumes? They tell me that there are secrets in the manufacture of perfumes which are kept in one family and only handed by word of mouth from father to son. And they make the most divine leather goods. Morocco leather, I suppose you call it. The cutest little slippers.’
‘We rather wanted to buy some things of that kind while we are here,’ I cut in. ‘We were recommended a place in the Rue de Mirabar. I wonder if you know it? It’s called the House of Shoni.’
Audry Bryce’s eyes had sharpened. She listened to me attentively, then made a throwing gesture towards me with one hand.
‘The House of Shoni,’ she said disparagingly. ‘No, I don’t know it, and I’d advise you against going there. You’ve been talking to that revolting little Irishman who pesters all the new guests who come here – what’s his name – O’Harrigan or something.’
‘O’Halloran.’
‘That’s him. O’Halloran.’ She switched her attention to Steve. ‘Don’t you pay any attention to him, Mrs. Temple. He’s just a little tout who’s after your money. For a start he drinks too much. Why the other morning at nine a.m. he was positively reeking with whisky. Now, I don’t know about you, but if there’s one thing I don’t care for it’s—’
‘He was murdered earlier this evening,’ I said. ‘The police were here just before dinner, making enquiries. I’m surprised they didn’t want to talk to you.’
Audry Bryce’s flow was cut off in mid-stream. For a moment her guard dropped and her face was that of a rather stupid, frightened woman.
‘Murdered? But that’s impossible!’
‘Why impossible? Tunis is a pretty violent place. We know that all too well, don’t we, Steve?’
Steve smiled at me feebly. I was watching Audry Bryce as she struggled to recover herself.
‘What I mean to say is it’s impossible to imagine anyone wanting to murder such an insignificant person. I mean the motive could hardly be robbery, could it?’
‘I shouldn’t have thought so. Unless, of course, O’Halloran was a thief who had stolen something of value and was himself attacked and robbed before he could dispose of it.’
The American girl’s eyes widened with dismay as she heard my suggestion. She reached for her glass of Benedictine and took a quick gulp at it.
‘This is terrible! What an evening it has been! First that brutal attack on Mrs. Temple, and now this poor O’Halloran person being murdered. I’m sure I won�
�t be able to sleep a wink to-night.’
She had been gathering up her impedimenta as she spoke – an evening bag, a gauze shawl for her shoulders, a glossy-backed American novel.
‘Now I must ask you to excuse me. I promised a friend I would telephone him before ten o’clock.’
I stood while she made her departure, then sat down on the swinging seat beside Steve.
I felt for matches and lit up one of the small cigars I had bought during our tour that afternoon. Steve watched the first smoke-ring curl up into the midnight blue darkness.
‘You were very hard on Miss Bryce, Paul. I think you frightened her away.’
‘Miss Bryce is as transparent as a bottle of Vichy water. If she’s an innocent American tourist you and I are Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.’
‘What do you think she’s up to?’
‘As Sherlock Holmes said: “I haven’t a clue.” We’ll find out in time. Do you feel like dancing? There are some people on the floor now.’
‘No. Let’s go on sitting here.’ Steve put her arm through mine. ‘You enjoy your cigar. I like watching the smoke-rings go up.’
On our way up to bed I called at the reception desk and asked for the Night Manager. He came out from his office, pulling a serviette from inside the front of his collar. I knew that we had interrupted his dinner.
‘I just wanted to ask you one thing. How long has Miss Bryce been staying here?’
‘The American lady? Fifteen days, monsieur. She is a friend to you, is it not?’
I agreed vaguely that she was, and the Night Manager beamed.
‘You like your room, monsieur?’
‘Yes, it’s very nice.’
‘Miss Bryce said you would admire the view. It was difficult for me to give you the room next to her, but she has been very generous to the staff, so we—’
‘She asked you to put us in that room?’
‘Mais oui, monsieur. We always try to oblige our guests.’
‘Yes, it is most kind of you. Thank you very much. Bonne nuit.’
‘Good night, mister. Good night, lady. Good repose.’
As we waited for the lift I said to Steve: ‘Obviously he likes plenty of garlic in his mash.’
The light glowed to show that the lift was on our floor. The automatic doors rumbled across and we stepped into the lift. It was, I thought, as private a place for a conversation as one could find – or for a murder.
‘What are you thinking about, Paul?’
I said: ‘Have you noticed that since we arrived in Tunis there has been no sign of either Tony Wyse or Simone Lalange?’
‘Are you pining for her?’
‘No. I was just wondering whether their tour of duty finished when we touched down at El Aouina and their places were taken by Pat O’Halloran and Audry Bryce.’
The walls of the hotel had maintained the heat of the day and the atmosphere inside our bedroom was stiflingly hot. Even though we threw off all the bedclothes it was difficult to sleep. Very fresh in our minds, too, was the thought of Mr. O’Halloran and that disturbing revelation of violence in the Arab quarter. I supposed we dozed off every now and then, but the hours passed with maddening slowness.
At about three o’clock I heard Steve slip furtively out of bed and move towards the balcony in search of a breath of air. In a minute she was back, shaking me by the shoulder.
‘Wake up, Paul,’ she whispered. ‘There’s something going on in the next room – Audry Bryce’s.’
There was no need for me to force myself into wakefulness. I had never been properly asleep.
‘What sort of thing? Not another strangling match, for Timothy’s sake!’
‘No. Voices. There’s a man in with her.’
‘Oh, Steve,’ I expostulated, and lay down again.
‘No, Paul. Be serious. Come and listen.’
‘All right. But you stay in here out of the way.’
Steve was reluctant to do as I asked, but I persuaded her to keep in the darkness while I went out cautiously on to the moonlit balcony. The windows of the adjoining room were open, and I could see the light streaming out. I was able to hear the mumble of voices, a man’s and a woman’s, but it was impossible to determine what they were saying. I guessed from their intonation that they were speaking in English.
The voices stopped after a few minutes. I was wondering whether I dared to climb the wall on to the other balcony when a woman’s shadow fell across the rectangle of light: Audry Bryce’s voice, though pitched low, sounded only a few feet away.
‘All the same, you should have warned me that he had been killed. Suppose I had given myself away? All the good work Sam and I did earlier this evening would have been thrown away.’
The shadow was suddenly duplicated, and I could picture the man standing behind her, with his hands on her shoulders.
‘How could I tell you, chérie, when I did not know about it myself? And I am sure you did not give yourself away. You are too clever for that. Come away from the window now. We do not want to disturb our neighbours, do we?’
The shadows moved back, and at the same time I hoisted myself on to the wall and dropped quietly down on the other side. They were well inside the room now, but by putting my ear to the crack of the door just beside the hinge I could hear something of what was said.
The man was speaking again.
‘—I never really expected that they would be so foolish as to leave them in the bedroom. Have you any idea which of the two carries them?’
‘Temple, I am sure. He does not wear glasses himself, but there is a slight bulge in his breast pocket which is not accounted for by his handkerchief.’
‘Mmm. It is what I thought. If only he were not so well known to the police. Still, our time will come. We shall find a way. Only there is not so much time.’
‘They are bound to be suspicious. That fool Leyland! To be caught in the room like that. He must have heard the key in the lock. You must get rid of him, Pierre. He is a terrible bungler.’
‘Sam has his uses,’ Pierre said. ‘He may be stupid but he’s trustworthy. He has not the brains to double-cross me, and for that I value him.’
‘As long as I don’t have to do any more jobs with him—’
‘You won’t. Your job is to keep friendly with the Temples.’
‘Oh, I’m good at being friendly, you should know that, Pierre.’
Audry Bryce’s voice had changed. ‘You don’t have to go for a while yet, do you, honey? We have so few chances of being alone together.’
‘No, I don’t have to go yet.’ Pierre’s voice had become husky. I heard a rustle of silk and the sudden subsidence of divan springs. I knew there was going to be nothing more in that conversation for my ears.
Steve was agog when I rejoined her.
‘Well, could you hear anything?’ she whispered. ‘Did you recognize the voices?’
‘Audry Bryce, of course, though she sounded a good deal less like the stock edition of an American tourist. I’ll know the other voice to my dying day. It was Rostand.’
‘Rostand! So he’s in Tunis. Could you hear what they were saying?’
I closed our windows gently so that we could talk above a whisper without danger of ourselves being overheard. Then I repeated the conversation which had taken place in the next room.
‘Thanks to Audry Bryce’s forethought we have acquired some useful information.’
‘Though I suppose her real reason for wanting us in the room next door to her was so that they could search it, and if that didn’t work scrape an acquaintance with us. What was the particular bit of information you were so pleased about, Paul?’
‘Well, we’ve confirmed that the spectacles themselves are what everyone is after, though we really knew that all along. What we now know for certain is that more than one gang is interested in them. Rostand and his troupe did not know about O’Halloran and what he was up to. I suspected this all along. It’s the only explanation for all the killings there have b
een.’
‘I think I see what you mean. Whenever one of the greyhounds gets too close the others eat him up.’
‘That’s about it.’
‘What happens when there’s only one greyhound left?’
‘It’ll be some time before that happens. There are an awful lot of greyhounds in this race.’
‘There seem to be, don’t there? All after a perfectly ordinary pair of spectacles. That’s what’s so fantastic about the whole thing. I wish you’d hurry up and find out why, Paul.’
Steve was gazing at me with a rapt, intent expression as if I were a slot-machine into which she had put her sixpence and which was expected to disgorge a card telling her fortune. I found myself laughing at her.
‘Usually it’s quite a different story; you’re begging me to give the case up and stay out of trouble.’
‘I know. But this time I confess I’m so curious that I can hardly bear it. And besides, I don’t have a feeling that anything awful is going to happen to you.’
After our disturbed night we slept late the following morning. When we woke I rang down for breakfast to be brought up to our room. I shaved and took a cold shower while waiting for it to arrive. Steve ate her croissants and drank her coffee in bed, wriggling about in luxurious sleepiness and yawning her head off. It was obvious that she would not be mobile for some considerable time, so I decided to go round to the bank on my own. I made a little parcel of the spectacles and inserted it in an envelope before replacing it in my breast pocket. I lowered and bolted the wooden sun-blind and made Steve get out of bed to lock the door on the inside when I left.
‘Don’t open up for anyone,’ I said. ‘I shan’t be long – not more than half an hour.’
As things turned out it took me rather longer than that to complete my errand. On my way to the Tunis branch of Lloyds Bank my attention was arrested by an optician’s window display. I had taken certain precautions to make sure that I discarded anyone who might have felt inclined to follow me, so I did not hesitate before going inside.
A tall, cadaverous man with sparse white hair was crouching over a table in a small glass-walled compartment, examining something through an eye-glass fixed in one eye. He straightened up painfully and walked with tiny steps to the other side of the counter.
East of Algiers Page 10
