East of Algiers

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘I would be very glad if you could tell me.’

  ‘By the sound of it there are several separate gangs. I mean, Rostand and Schultz must be hand in glove with Leyland and the late lamented Audry Bryce. Constantin seems to have been a lone wolf – unless he was connected with Zoltan Gupte and O’Halloran. The important thing from your point of view is to know which group have kidnapped Steve – I mean Mrs. Temple.’

  ‘You’ve left one person out.’

  ‘Oh? Who’s that?’

  ‘Simone Lalange. She has a way of turning up every now and again which cannot be accidental. Where do you fit her in?’

  ‘Simone?’ Wyse was looking very youthful and worried. ‘You don’t seriously believe she’s involved in all this?’

  ‘I forgot to tell you that on the evening when we discovered Judy Wincott’s body in that room, Steve picked up an empty book of matches outside the door. It was the replica of the ones Simone carries.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Wyse exclaimed with relief. ‘She told me herself that she’d turned the room down because it hadn’t a bathroom. She must have dropped the book of matches when she was being shown the room.’

  ‘None the less,’ I said, ‘I’m sure there’s more to Mademoiselle Lalange than meets the eye.’

  ‘No, you’re quite off the rails there, Temple.’

  He stubbed his cigarette out a little too forcibly in his coffee saucer.

  ‘I wish I could help you. There’s nothing more that you haven’t told me? I’m very sorry you have not brought those spectacles with you. I’d give anything to have a look at them.’

  ‘Would you? What about lunching with my wife and me at the François Premier to-morrow? I’ll show them to you then. We could invite Simone Lalange too.’

  ‘That’s rather a good idea…’ Wyse began enthusiastically. Then he stopped. ‘But you said with your wife and you. Supposing Mrs. Temple—’

  ‘Supposing I have not found her by then? In that case I will not be able to show you the spectacles. If the people have made no proposal by to-morrow morning I’m going to smash those glasses to smithereens. Now, if you don’t mind, I must be getting back to the hotel.’

  ‘I have a car outside,’ Wyse said, rousing himself out of his reverie and signalling to the waiter. ‘I’ll run you into Tunis.’

  I could probably have picked Wyse’s car out from among those standing in the park even if he had not been there to guide me. It was a two-seater M.G., of a rather hideous green colour. He unzipped the tonneau cover which protected the two small seats.

  ‘You don’t mind a bit of air? I can put the hood up if you like.’

  ‘I shall be all right,’ I said, and inserted my legs into the narrow tunnel provided for them.

  The gravel of the car park was sent flying as we accelerated out on to the road. The rear tyres screamed as soon as they were on the tarmac. Wyse caned his engine mercilessly, and the car jerked at each successive gear change. The noise of the wind made conversation impossible. I grasped the alarming handle fixed to the dashboard and tried to appreciate the beauties of the landscape.

  We swept down the hill from Sidi bou Saïd, leaving behind us the luxurious villas of the rich Arab merchants of Tunis. Soon we were screaming past Carthage, the headlights sending long warning beams down the road ahead of us.

  Wyse seemed anxious to show me his car’s cornering powers, and as we rushed towards a fast left-hand bend he pulled well over to the wrong side of the road so as to cut the corner. I grasped the chromium-plated handle more firmly and tried to assume an Arabic attitude of fatalism.

  Wyse spun the steering-wheel, and I felt as if my elbow was about to break through the side of the car. The tail began to slide outwards. Wyse rapidly put on the opposite lock in an attempt to correct the skid. But his move had no effect on the behaviour of the car. I saw him juggling madly with a steering-wheel which had suddenly gone slack. The car was gyrating wildly, and all the time its impetus was carrying us towards the ditch and bank that bordered the road. The tail was pointing backwards as we hit the grass verge with a bump that nearly shook us out of our seats. The car had time to spin through a hundred and eighty degrees before we slammed into the bank. I saw the bonnet go up in the air and instinctively crouched down in my seat. For an agonizing instant the car stood on its tail, then with apparent slowness it toppled back on top of us.

  It was the ditch which prevented us from being crushed underneath it. The car lay straddling the slight dip, depositing Wyse and me on our heads in a dried-up water course. Close to me I could hear the trickle of petrol escaping from the filler cap. The car could catch fire at any moment. There was just room to crawl out under the door beside me. I squeezed through and stood up, to find Wyse standing on the other side.

  ‘Phew! That was a near one!’

  He stared back at the skid marks corkscrewing across the road towards us.

  ‘I wasn’t going too fast, you know. I could have corrected that skid easily, only the steering went dead on me.’

  He seemed more concerned about disclaiming responsibility for the accident than about the fact that he had only just failed to kill us both. I suppose the passenger, who can do nothing except watch helplessly, always has the worse time on these occasions.

  I went far enough away from the wrecked car to strike a light in safety. I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. Wyse had managed to reach into his glove compartment and find a torch. I saw him examining the front axle of the M.G. After several minutes he came towards me, looking very thoughtful.

  ‘Somebody is not very kindly disposed towards yours truly. That was a piece of deliberate sabotage.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The drag link had been forced out of its socket and was only held by a piece of wire. It was bound to snap as soon as any strain was put on it.’

  We were lucky to stop an empty cab returning from Sidi bou Saïd. Wyse dropped me at my hotel before going on to a garage to arrange for the salvage of his car.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ he called through the window just before the taxi drove off. ‘We have a date for lunch to-morrow. You haven’t forgotten your promise?’

  I said: ‘I always keep my promises.’

  Chapter Nine

  SIR GRAHAM FORBES had been waiting for a bare five minutes when I found him in the writing-room of the hotel, his spectacles perched on his nose and a typewritten memorandum on his knee.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Sir Graham. I had a little accident on the way.’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Temple.’ Sir Graham came to meet me with outstretched hand.

  We were both struck with a momentary awkwardness. Sir Graham and I had met in a good many strange places, but there had nearly always been another person there, and we had abruptly become painfully conscious of Steve’s absence.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ I said. ‘I am very much in need of a friend.’

  ‘I understand. Where can we go to talk without being disturbed?’

  ‘My room’s the best place, I think.’

  The hotel foyer was almost deserted as we crossed it towards the lift. The François Premier was an extremely respectable hotel, which calmed down early every evening.

  ‘By the way,’ Sir Graham said as the lift bore us upwards, ‘I promised the receptionist to give you a message. Some chap has been telephoning you every quarter of an hour since ten o’clock. Name of Leyland.’

  ‘Leyland? What did he want?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say, apparently. Just kept asking if Mr. Temple was in.’

  ‘Do they know where he was calling from?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The chap wouldn’t say much.’

  ‘Well, if he rings again they’ll put the call through to my room.’

  As we walked along the corridor to room number three seven one I noticed that the door of Audry Bryce’s room was open and a chamber-maid was making the bed. I put my head in through the door and asked her when the room had bee
n vacated.

  ‘During dinner-time, sir. The lady’s staying with friends. The chauffeur came to fetch her baggage.’

  ‘Very thorough,’ I said as I rejoined Forbes and inserted the key in my own lock.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ll explain later.’

  I closed the door and bolted it. Then wound up the sunshade to let some air into the room, which was still close after the heat of the day. Forbes sat down in one of the easy-chairs while I picked up the receiver to call the reception desk.

  ‘If any calls come in put them through to this room, will you? And you remember that envelope I asked you to look after for me? Would you send a page up with it right away?’

  I turned back to Sir Graham, who had unrolled his tobacco pouch on to his knee and was filling his pipe.

  ‘Now, Sir Graham. Let’s have the answer to this mystery. It’s not true that your doctor ordered you a complete rest?’

  ‘I’m afraid that was all a story, Temple. I didn’t want too much talk about what I was doing. The fact is I’ve been in Paris for the last few months, working in liaison with Interpol.’

  ‘You told me on the telephone that you came here on account of a pair of spectacles. Do you mind elaborating on that remark?’

  Forbes puffed at his pipe for a few moments and the flame of the match bobbed up and down over the bowl.

  ‘I’m relying on you to do some elaborating for me, Temple. But would I be right in saying that when you were in Paris you acquired a pair of spectacles which have involved you in a certain amount of embarrassment?’

  ‘Embarrassment? That deserves a prize for understatement! Several people have been murdered, almost under our very noses; I’ve been threatened with shooting, escaped miraculously from a car crash, whilst my wife has been kidnapped. And you call that embarrassing?’

  Forbes had created a grey cloud in the atmosphere above his head, and was thickening it up with every breath.

  ‘Come to that,’ I said. ‘How do you know about all this?’

  ‘Interpol’s a wonderful organization. We’ve been following your adventures ever since you were interviewed by Mirabel in Nice. A smart man, that.’

  He broke off as a knock sounded on the door. I went to unbolt it and handed a tip to the page who had brought up the envelope. Sir Graham raised his eyebrows enquiringly, but when he saw that I was waiting to hear what he had to say he cleared his throat and went on.

  ‘Your unfortunate experiences happen to tie up with a case on which I have been working with Interpol. You’ve heard of the Melrose jewels?’

  ‘Who hasn’t? One of the most valuable private collections in Britain. They were stolen from the Duke of Melrose’s castle at the end of last year. The news of the robbery caused a sensation. Didn’t the thieves tunnel under the castle walls from a cottage just outside and come up directly beneath the family treasure vault?’

  ‘Yes. A most daring and well-conceived robbery. It wasn’t discovered until four days later, and the thieves got away with stuff to the value of close on half a million.’

  ‘And this is the case you’ve been working on?’

  Forbes, as usual, had packed his tobacco too tight. It had gone out, and he had to apply another match and hold his box over the bowl to make it draw.

  ‘The robbery was planned by a syndicate, but the brains and uniting force behind the whole thing was a chap called Leather.’

  ‘Leather?’

  ‘Yes. Adrian Leather, an international criminal. You know the name?’

  ‘Yes, I know it. Sorry to interrupt. Go on.’

  ‘Well, they managed to get the stuff out of Britain, and we still don’t know how. But we do know that they got as far as Tunisia before the hunt came too close to them. Leather hid the jewels, making a careful note of the hiding-place, and the syndicate agreed to split up and wait till things were quieter before they started to sell the stuff. However—’

  Forbes took his pipe out of his mouth and thoughtfully contemplated the dead ash in the bowl.

  ‘—all the best laid schemes of mice and so on. Three months later Leather was crossing a street in Paris when he was hit by a car and received multiple injuries. He survived for a few days in hospital before dying. During that time a woman who was devoted to him never left his side—’

  ‘Mrs. Audry Leather,’ I said confidently.

  ‘No,’ Forbes contradicted. ‘You’re quite wrong. This girl was called Diana Simmonds.’

  ‘Diana Simmonds! By Timothy! That’s the name of the girl who was found murdered outside our flat in Paris!’

  ‘Correct. Now the interesting thing—’

  Forbes broke off. The telephone was ringing. I stood up and crossed the room to it.

  ‘Hullo. Temple speaking.’

  ‘This is reception, monsieur. A Mr. Leyland is here to see you.’

  ‘He’s here – in the hotel?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘You’d better tell him to come up.’

  ‘Very good, monsieur.’

  During the time that I estimated it would take Leyland to come up in the lift I gave Sir Graham an idea of where he fitted into the picture. I was unlocking the door when I heard the familiar rumble of the lift doors opening. Perhaps ten seconds later Forbes and I both recognized a sound which once heard can never be forgotten – the thwack of a silenced automatic. It took perhaps two seconds for the implications to hit us, another three for me to unlock the door and wrench it open.

  In the corridor the burly form of Sam Leyland lay twitching on the ground. His hands were both clamped to his back and he was arching his spine in pain. Beyond him the lift doors were closing – just too quickly for me to see whoever was inside.

  ‘Telephone the hall,’ I called back to Sir Graham. ‘Tell them to stop whoever comes out of the lift.’

  I ran towards Sam Leyland and dropped on one knee beside him. He struggled to rise to his knees.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Don’t move more than you need.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. Get that bastard,’ he grunted.

  Sir Graham and I bumped in the doorway of the bedroom.

  ‘I’ve told them,’ he said. ‘They’re watching the lift.’

  Over his shoulder I could see the receiver, still off its cradle, lying on its side on the table.

  ‘Help me to get him in and on to the bed.’

  Together we lifted Leyland into the room and laid him on the bed. While Forbes went back to the telephone I split Leyland’s jacket up the back and ripped his shirt open. The bullet had gone in through a neat hole just below his ribs. It probably had not improved one of his kidneys, but it had missed the heart. The bullet was still inside him.

  ‘They’ve got another think coming if they’re counting on that stopping Sam Leyland,’ growled my patient. ‘That swine shot me in the back.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘No. But it was one of Rostand’s lot. Ooh, how I’d love three minutes in the ring alone with Rostand! Ouch!’

  Leyland had tried to twist round, but as quickly decided to stay put. Forbes had replaced the telephone.

  ‘The lift never came down,’ he said. ‘Our man must have got out at the first or second floor. He’s probably gone out via the fire escape or the tradesmen’s entrance by now. I told them to send for an ambulance, and the police. How’s the patient?’

  ‘Not so bad,’ Sam Leyland said, though he was gasping with pain. ‘I may have gone down for a count, but I still have my eyes open. You know it’s a funny thing, I don’t seem to feel much pain. A bit as if a rather feeble horse had kicked me in the back. Just danged cold.’

  ‘It’s shock. You’ll feel that bullet all right when it wears off.’

  ‘Temple—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I came here to tell you something. I’m danged well going to say it. If you want to see your wife again let Rostand have those spectacles.’

  ‘Have you seen Steve
? Do you know where she is?’

  In my eagerness I had gripped his arm more fiercely than I realized.

  ‘No, chum. I can’t tell you where they’ve got her, but I do know that she’s still alive. And that’s more than you can say for that poor Bryce girl. That’s what decided me to quit. Murder’s not in my line of business.’

  ‘What’s your line of business, Leyland?’

  ‘Well, I’ve done a lot of things in my time, you know. But this offer Rostand made me was the best I’ve had. Four thousand quid for pinching a pair of spectacles. It was money for old rope.’

  ‘Do you know why Rostand wanted the spectacles?’

  ‘Not me, chum. I don’t believe in asking too many questions. I say, would it do me any harm to smoke a fag?’

  With my help he eased himself carefully on to his back and let me light the cigarette for him.

  ‘Did you enjoy your little bit of motor-boating at Nice?’ I enquired casually. ‘That came pretty close to murder, didn’t it?’

  ‘That was Rostand’s idea, not mine,’ Leyland said sullenly. ‘He thought you’d handed the glasses over to the police for good, and decided you’d be better out of the way.’

  ‘So Rostand was in Nice too? Tell me, Sam, what really happened at the Villa Negra? Why was Thompson beaten up and shot?’

  Leyland pulled deeply on his cigarette. I could see that his wound was beginning to hurt him. His face was a nasty grey colour and his voice kept checking. I hoped the ambulance men would come quickly.

  ‘I won’t say he deserved what he got, but he was too greedy. A hundred quid for telling you he was David Foster! Then after he’d phoned you at the Hotel Alletti he thought he could put his price up. Rostand didn’t quite see it his way.’

  Forbes had been on the balcony looking down into the street. I knew by the way he came into the room that the ambulance had arrived.

  ‘One more thing, Sam. Am I right in thinking that Rostand and Schultz are working together?’

  ‘They are now. They joined forces in Algiers after you came to the Villa Negra.’

  ‘Did you ever see anything of Constantin or O’Halloran and a man named Zoltan Gupte?’