BACK IN the main compartment I found that Steve had sacrificed her seat to the French girl. The latter had, however, tired of gazing down at the unchanging sea; her head had fallen back and she was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling with each deep breath. I signalled to Steve, who moved quickly round to sit in the empty seat beside me.
‘Your instinct was right. There is some curious significance in those spectacles. I can’t think why, but there are people who are prepared to pay big money for them. And when big money is at stake you have an ample motive for murder.’
I told her about my encounter with Constantin and the fabulous offer he had made. Steve nodded, her eyes on the sleeping girl. She took it all in as if it were merely the confirmation of something she had known all along.
‘The reason for the murders of those two girls is in your breast pocket,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve discovered something interesting too. I’ve had quite a talk with her.’
She gestured towards the sleeping Simone Lalange.
‘She practically told me her life history. Do you know what came out? Her reason for going to Tunis is that she has friends in Trans-Africa Petroleum. It seems an amazing coincidence.’
‘Does she know David Foster?’
‘I asked her that, but she said she still only knew the names of a few people in the firm.’
We both contemplated the girl in the opposite seat, and I think the same question was in each of our minds. What had she been doing at the door of room number twelve the previous night?
The rest of our flight was uneventful. Neither Constantin nor Wyse came near us again. As far as Simone Lalange was concerned our relations only grew more friendly. She now directed her attention more towards me, unmasking the full battery of her considerable charm. I alone was aware of the double meaning which was creeping into some of Steve’s apparently innocent remarks. I was quite relieved when the long North African coast line came into view and we began to lose height for the landing at Maison Blanche.
Air France had booked accommodation for most passengers at the Aletti Hotel, the most modern hotel in Algiers, which stands facing the harbour. When the company bus set us down at the door I noticed that both Tony Wyse and Simone Lalange were also to be at the Aletti. Of Constantin there had been no sign since the aircraft doors had opened. He had either been met by friends or found some private transport of his own.
In view of the disturbances in Algeria the police were insisting on all the regulations with regard to travellers being rigidly observed. The reception clerk asked us to fill in the usual fiche de voyageur even before we were shown our rooms. When I handed mine in he glanced at the name and then raised his eyebrows.
‘Mr. Temple? There has been a telephone call for you. A gentleman rang up about half an hour ago to ask if you had arrived yet.’
‘That’s odd,’ I said to Steve. ‘I don’t know anyone in Algiers. Certainly I haven’t told anyone I was coming.’
I turned to the clerk: ‘Did he give any name?’
‘No, monsieur. He said he would telephone you again later.’
Our room in the Aletti Hotel was a truly magnificent one, affording us a splendid view of the harbour which had once served as a base for the pirates who had terrorized shipping in the Mediterranean. A big French passenger liner was berthed in the inner harbour within a couple of hundred yards of Algiers’ busy streets. Though there was a general feeling of tension in the air, as if everyone was expecting a bomb to explode, there were few visible signs of the violence which was splitting Algeria apart and keeping a whole Army of French troops occupied in the mountains farther south. The pedestrians on the pavements below were an odd mixture of French and Arabs. Many of the latter wore European clothes with perhaps only a fez or their swarthier features to distinguish them, but there were a number of shambling figures in Arab dress. They wore the curious one-piece tweed garment with hood attached which goes by the name of cachabia. Often their feet were bare, their features pinched and soiled. They were very different from the romantic notion of the proud Bedouin astride his camel.
‘I hope there isn’t going to be a revolution while we’re here,’ Steve remarked as she carefully took her dresses from the travelling case and hung them in the wardrobe. ‘I know you’d think it was marvellous material for some book, but I personally don’t relish the idea of being knifed in the street. And talking of knifing, Paul, I wish you’d deposit those glasses in some safe place.’
‘You don’t trust me with them?’
‘It’s not that. If this man Constantin wants them badly enough to offer you ten thousand pounds he may easily make violent attempts to get them from you. You said yourself that when big money is at stake there’s an ample motive for murder. Why don’t you ask the hotel manager to put the glasses in the safe?’
I went through into the little bathroom to arrange my washing and shaving things on the shelf.
‘You can’t expect me solemnly to ask the manager of a hotel to put a perfectly ordinary pair of spectacles in his safe. Everyone would think I was dotty. Besides, it would only attract attention.’
‘They can’t just be an ordinary pair of glasses,’ Steve objected. ‘They must have some special value for this David Foster person.’
‘I can’t see quite why. The French police are very thorough, and you can be sure they subjected the spectacles to an exhaustive scrutiny.’
I took the spectacles out of my pocket as I went back into the bedroom and placed them on the table in the middle of the room. Steve stood beside me and we both looked down at them. It was hard to imagine anything more homely and prosaic. They reminded me of one of the most kindly and gullible of my masters at school, and I associated them with a smell of pipe tobacco, leather bindings and the cosy sound of a motor-mower on a cricket pitch. Yet since they had come into my hands two girls had been brutally done to death, a crude attempt had been made to drown Steve and me, and a complete stranger had made me an offer of ten thousand pounds.
‘I just don’t understand your attitude, Paul.’ Steve’s tone showed that she had mis-read my thoughts. ‘You aren’t even prepared to take this seriously.’
I turned to her and put my hands on her shoulders.
‘I do take this seriously, Steve. I’m quite prepared to believe that there’s some sinister, perhaps deadly secret attached to them. But I gave my word to a girl who is now dead that I would deliver them. My object is to do so as quickly as possible and wash my hands of the whole business. Then you and I can carry on with our holiday as planned.’
Steve did not respond to my smile. Her eyes were clouded and there were three little lines across her brow.
‘Suppose Constantin is right and you don’t succeed in finding David Foster. There may not be any such person.’
‘In that case I’ll take the glasses back to France and hand them over to the police. All the same I think David Foster exists – though he may well be known by another name. It’s even possible that we’ve met him already.’
‘You think he might be Tony Wyse? In that case why does he not ask you outright to hand over his property? But I don’t think that theory holds water. I can’t believe there’s much wrong with Mr. Wyse’s eyesight.’
It was significant of our feelings that when the telephone rang my first action was to tuck the glasses safely away in my breast pocket and arrange my handkerchief to cover them. Only when that was done to the satisfaction of both of us did I cross to the bedside table and lift the receiver.
‘Who is it?’
‘Is that Mr. Temple?’
‘Yes. Who’s that speaking?’
‘It’s David Foster here. I understand you have my spectacles. I thought I’d ring up and arrange to collect them from you.’
‘Oh, Mr. Foster?’ I echoed the name, looking at Steve as I did so. She immediately came and stood with her ear close to the other side of the receiver, straining to catch both sides of the conversation. ‘I didn’t expect to hear from you till we reached Tunis.’
‘Oh. I see. Well I had to come over to Algiers for a few days on business. I had a cable from Judy and she told me you would be coming this way. I thought it would save you further trouble if I relieved you of the glasses right away.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I expect you find life rather complicated without them.’
‘Oh?’ The voice sounded suspicious. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I expect it’s difficult for you to read and that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ The caller laughed nervously. ‘Yes, I keep tripping over things and taking the wrong bus and so on. It’s an awful nuisance. Will you be in if I come round right away?’
‘Yes. About how long will you be?’
‘Oh, not long. I’m at the Villa Negra—’ The voice suddenly broke off. I put my hand over the receiver and turned to Steve.
‘We seem to have been cut off.’
Steve said: ‘It sounded to me more as if he had done just what you have – put his hand over the mouthpiece—’
I held my finger up to silence her. The voice on the telephone was speaking again.
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes. Still here.’
‘I’ll call in about twenty minutes. Can you wait for me in the hotel lounge?’
‘Yes. Ask the reception clerk and he’ll show you where we’re sitting.’
‘Good. By the way, how is Judy?’
‘Judy Wincott? I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, but it had better keep till we meet.’
‘Bad news?’
‘I’m afraid so. See you in about twenty minutes.’
It was twenty-two minutes past seven when I put the receiver down. Steve and I were in the lounge by half-past seven, and had briefed the reception clerk to show our visitor where we were sitting. At half-past eight I checked with the desk for the third time, but no one had asked for Temple.
‘Nothing doing,’ I told Steve as I joined her again. ‘I’m afraid our bird is not going to turn up.’
‘I thought there was something fishy about that conversation. Could it have been your friend Constantin?’
‘No. I’d have recognized that voice, even on the telephone. Perhaps he’s taken the wrong bus again.’
‘I suppose there’s no way of tracing the call?’
‘He did mention the Villa Negra, though it seemed to me that the name slipped out unintentionally. Perhaps the staff behind the reception desk would help us. There are enough of them.’
The chief clerk was distant and doubtful, but when I said I would have to call in the police he changed his tune. Directories were produced, and at the end of ten minutes he beckoned me over and showed me a map of Algiers.
The Villa Negra was a large house overlooking a small private bay to the West of Algiers. It was about a quarter of an hour away by car or taxi.
‘Can you get a taxi for us?’ I asked the clerk.
‘There’s no need, monsieur. Always there is at least one taxi waiting outside the hotel.’
He snapped his fingers at a chasseur who, scenting a tip, rushed forward with alacrity.
‘Show monsieur to a taxi.’
‘Dinner?’ Steve enquired when I told her that we were going. ‘I must say I’m ready for it.’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid. First, the Villa Negra. I think I’d eat with a better appetite if I can find Mr. Foster and hand his glasses over to him.’
The taxi-driver did not know this suburb of Algiers well enough to take us direct to the Villa Negra. He had to ask his way several times, and at last stopped within sight of a white but rather neglected building which stood on a steep slope some way from the road.
The entrance gate which he had found was too narrow to admit a car, and the track beyond was little more than a path.
‘Ça alors,’ the driver muttered, and pushed his cap back on his head. ‘After all that it is a back entrance!’
‘That’ll do,’ I told him, and opened the door. ‘We’ll walk from here. How much do I owe you?’
The first part of the walk was easy. The ascent was only slight, though the path was overgrown with grass; brambles growing out from the bushes clawed at our clothes. Night had fallen long ago, but the windows on the ground floor of the Villa Negra were blazing and their reflected light illuminated the grounds.
As we came nearer we could see that the Villa had been a fine residence. It had a wonderful view out to sea and a magnificent terrace running along the whole front of the house. The ascent became steeper here, and the path weaved its way upwards in a series of little hairpin bends.
‘It seems an odd way to call on strangers,’ Steve whispered as we neared the top of the path. ‘I can’t help hoping that the genuine David Foster really is staying here.’
We both stopped short at the sudden burst of angry shouting which came from the front room of the house above us. At first the voices were muffled by the French windows which had been tightly closed. Then, as we stood staring upwards, we saw the shape of a man come hurtling through the glass, his arms held above his head in self-protection. A split second later the sound of a crash hit our ears, followed almost at once by the sharp bark of an automatic. The first shot was followed quickly by a second. From the man who had come through the window came a scream of agony.
We could see his shape outlined against the illuminated window. He was doubled up now, clutching at his stomach, running and stumbling towards the short flight of steps that led off the terrace on to the path which we were following. For a second he stood on the top step, fighting for breath, his body twisted with pain. Then he came plunging and slithering down. Without the light behind him we could no longer see him, but we could hear his sobbing gasps as he came nearer and nearer. Back at the house the French windows of the front room had been wrenched open and two men had stepped carefully out. But they seemed at a momentary loss in the darkness, and at first went casting off towards the wrong side of the terrace.
The fleeing man was on us before he saw us. So doubled up was he that he had no inkling of our presence till he saw our feet. Then he stopped and with great difficulty half straightened himself up. His head and hands had been viciously cut by the splintered glass. Blood was pouring down his face and from the tips of his fingers. But the real damage was being done by the lead bullet lodged in his stomach.
He swayed as he stood looking at us trying to make out whether we were friend or foe. I took hold of his arm to steady him. I thought his only chance of survival was to lie still and wait for medical help.
‘Take it easy,’ I said.
‘Who are you?’ the man said suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here?’
There was something familiar about his way of speech.
I said: ‘You’re the man who telephoned me earlier this evening, aren’t you? Is your name David Foster?’
He wiped a sleeve across his face to keep the blood out of his eyes. Had I not been holding on to him he would have fallen over. He was losing strength fast.
‘You’re Temple,’ he gasped. I had to stoop as he sank down on one knee. ‘I wish I could have got to you…’
His voice failed and he made a sudden grimace of pain. Steve was standing up staring towards the house.
‘Watch out, Paul. They’re heading back this way.’
I said urgently to the wounded man: ‘Are you David Foster?’
‘No. But it was me who telephoned you. He made me do it.’
He went down on the other knee and grabbed my arm as a shout sounded from the terrace above. Two forms in silhouette were at the top of the steps. One very tall, the other short and squat and somehow ape-like.
‘Oh, God!’ the man whispered hoarsely. ‘Don’t let them get me again.’
I looked down and saw with horror that a pool of blood was forming on the path where he knelt. He was losing blood terribly fast from some hidden wound.
‘It’s all right,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘We’re going to take care of you.’
‘Paul!’ Steve hissed from close beside me. ‘They’re coming down the steps. What are you going to do?’
The wounded man heard her words. He made a supreme effort and half rose to his feet.
‘Temple, whatever you do…’ His voice was choking over the words. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let them have those spectacles.’
It was a final effort. He slumped, a dead weight on my hands.
I lowered him gently to the ground. Feet were already pounding on the path above, but we were screened by a bank of shrubs. I took the spectacles from my pocket and handed them to Steve.
‘Steve. Take these and go back to the gate where we came in. Wait for me there. If I don’t come within an hour go to the police and tell them everything.’
‘Paul…’ she began. ‘I’m not going to leave you…’
‘Go on,’ I growled at her. ‘Can’t you see you’re the only insurance policy I’ve got?’
I touched her arm, trying to speak less harshly. ‘Please do as I ask.’
‘God keep you,’ she whispered as she took the glasses. A second later she had vanished into the bushes beside the pat. I knelt down quickly beside the wounded man. I thought that if I could do something to prevent him losing more blood he might still be saved. He was wearing no coat, just a thin shirt and a pair of trousers. Even his feet were bare. There was no sign of a shot wound on his front. Disregarding the approaching sound of feet and voices I rolled him over on his face. There was no resistance in him and he made no sound.
His back was matted with blood and the shirt was already stuck to his flesh in several places. I found it hard to account for the state of his shoulders unless he had been beaten or clubbed. I ripped the shirt apart and saw the hole where the blood was welling. I was making a pad with my handkerchief when the beam of a torch found and focused on me. The approaching footsteps stopped dead. For a moment the silence was heavy with menace. ‘Qui êtes vous? Qu’est ce que vous foutez ici?’ The voice was harsh, the intonation and phraseology undeniably French.
‘This man needs medical attention at once,’ I said in English. ‘Have you a telephone in the house?’
‘I asked you who the hell you were,’ the same voice said. This time he spoke in English, but with a trace of an American accent. ‘What are you doing on my property? Is this guy a friend of yours or…’
The torch beam flicked down on to the wounded man. He was terribly still now. I put my finger on his pulse. There wasn’t even a flutter.
‘He isn’t a friend of anyone now,’ I said. ‘He’s dead.’ I stood up wiping my hands clean on my handkerchief. The smaller of the two men came forward into the beam of the torchlight. He was a hunchback Arab with unnaturally long arms and huge hands. He turned the dead man on to his back without apparent effort and stared at his eyes.
‘C’est vrai,’ he muttered to the man holding the torch. ‘II est mort.’
I had somehow sensed, though I could not see it, that ever since the torch had found me I had been covered by the same automatic as had killed the man on the ground. I knew that I was a very unwelcome witness of the scene which had just taken place, and that the easiest solution for the man with the gun would be to shoot and dispose of me in the same way. I decided it was time I introduced myself. ‘My name’s Temple,’ I began. ‘I came here because this address was given me by a Mr. David Foster—’
‘You are Temple?’ The beam of light immediately moved from my hands up to my face. ‘I am Colonel Rostand, the owner of this house. I am sorry that you have been given such an inhospitable welcome. This man broke into my house, but luckily we caught him red-handed. He managed to wriggle free and I took a pot shot at him more to frighten him than anything. I certainly never intended to hit him.’
‘Two pot shots,’ I corrected him. ‘And I’m surprised to hear he wriggled free. To judge by his back he’s been pretty thoroughly beaten up.’
‘Well,’ Rostand said. ‘I’m afraid my man here is a little impulsive at times.’
The hunchback was watching me in a hungry kind of way, his great hands hanging limply by his thighs. He was turned half into the torchlight, and I could see that his forehead was unnaturally shallow and that his upper teeth protruded over his lower lip. I found myself thinking of Prospero and his creature Caliban.
The torch was abruptly switched away from me. Rostand had directed its light on to the path and turned back towards the house.
‘I suppose I shall have to telephone the police and tell them that I’ve accidently shot a man. You’d better come up with me. I can introduce you to David Foster.’
‘Then he is here?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Rostand said. ‘He has been waiting for you to bring him his spectacles.’
As I moved to follow Rostand the Arab fell into place behind me. Like a sheep dog who senses his master’s wishes he had guessed that I was not to be allowed to escape.
We passed into the house through the shattered French windows. The first room was a ‘salon’ furnished in a rather archaic style, like a room in a public museum. The chairs and tables were obviously genuine period pieces, but they were in a dilapidated condition. Rostand led the way through into a smaller room, the walls of which were lined with dusty books.
‘If you will excuse me for a moment I will telephone the police. Sandro will attend to your needs.’
He gave the hunchback a significant nod, went back through the door and closed it.
Sandro’s idea of attending to my needs was to stand, back to the door, with dangling arms and unblinking eyes fixed on my face. To avoid his scrutiny I turned to the shelves and picked out a book at random. It was Marivaux’s Les Fausses Confidences.
I had time to read the first scene before Rostand returned. He was all affability now and had resumed the veneer of militarized good-breeding. He was tall and spare, very upright in his carriage, with a straggly brown moustache and perfectly round but very small steel-rimmed spectacles. His Adam’s apple was noticeably pronounced; it jumped up and down when he talked. His hands were very restless, the fingers ceaselessly moving even when he was not using them.
‘The police are coming,’ he assured me with a smile. ‘They say they recognize the man from my description. He’s a notorious burglar whom they have been hunting for some time. I told Foster you were here. He’ll be down in a minute.’
He turned to the Arab and spoke curtly in French.
‘Ça va, Sandro. Tu peux partir maintenant.’
Without a word Sandro turned on his heels and went out through the door. He was about to close it when he stopped and pushed it back to allow another man to enter.
Rostand turned with an affable smile. ‘Ah, Foster,’ he said. ‘This is your long-awaited friend, Mr. Temple.’
The newcomer stopped dead and stood frozen in the doorway, the hand he had already stretched out poised in mid-air. We stood contemplating each other for a few seconds.
‘So this is David Foster?’ I said to Rostand.
‘Haven’t I already told you so?’ Rostand spoke impatiently, but he was puzzled by the attitude of both of us.
‘You should have introduced yourself in Nice, Mr. Foster,’ I said politely. ‘But perhaps you did not feel the need of your glasses then. Your eyesight seemed to be functioning particularly well.’
The man who had introduced himself as Sam Leyland shrugged his shoulders heavily and glanced accusingly at Rostand.
‘You should have warned me,’ he said.
‘Warned you of what?’
‘That this was the same bloke as I met in Nice. We were both in the same hotel there.’
Rostand made one last attempt to take a grip on the situation.
‘I don’t know what he was calling himself in Nice, Mr. Temple, or why he did not introduce himself to you by his proper name. But I assure you that this is David Foster. Now if you will kindly hand over his spectacles I will have Sandro drive you home and you need not be involved in these tiresome formalities with the police.’
Sam Leyland was looking at me entreatingly, as if begging me silently to do as Rostand said and get out of the place. I shook my head.
‘I’m sorry, Colonel Rostand, but I can’t do as you suggest. For one thing I don’t believe that this is David Foster. For another I don’t believe that the man you shot is a common burglar. I prefer to believe that he is the person who telephoned me at the Aletti Hotel at twenty-past seven this evening, purporting to be David Foster. What happened? Did Sandro’s impulsiveness make him unfit for public appearance?’
Though he hardly seemed to have made any movement the automatic suddenly appeared again in Rostand’s hand. The pose of gentleman was abruptly abandoned.
‘All right, Temple,’ he said. ‘You chose to have it this way yourself.’
He shaped his lips and gave vent to a shrill and piercing whistle such as a shepherd uses to control his dog. Instantly the door crashed open and Sandro erupted into the room. He saw that Rostand had me covered with the automatic, and moved without hesitation. With a muzzle pointing at my stomach and the memory of that pitiful figure lying on the path outside I was in no mood to resist. Even so I doubt if I could have done much in the grip of Sandro. His strength was enormous as he seized my arms, dragging them behind me and pinioning my wrists in the grip of one huge hand. The other arm went round my throat from behind, the hard bone of the forearm forcing my head back, almost closing my wind pipe. There was no denying that Sandro was impulsive.
‘Come on, Leyland,’ Rostand commanded. ‘Frisk him.’
The slow-thinking Leyland moved forward. While Sandro held me arched backwards like something from the armoury of Robin Hood, he went carefully through my pockets. He turned unhappily to Rostand.
‘He hasn’t got them on him.’
‘I could have saved—’ I began, and at once Sandro’s forearm tightened on my windpipe and the sentence ended in a gurgle.
‘Laisse-le parler,’ Rostand said. The grip relaxed again.
I said: ‘I was only going to tell you that I could have saved Sam the trouble. I have not got the glasses with me.’
Rostand nodded.
‘I suppose that was to be expected. The main thing is that we have you, and that is almost as good. Now I know Sandro will be disappointed if you tell me where to find them, because I have already denied him the pleasure of breaking one man’s back this evening, but it will save the rest of us a lot of trouble—’
‘You don’t think I came up here without taking some elementary precautions,’ I said. ‘If I am not back at my hotel within half an hour the police will be informed exactly where I am.’
Again Rostand nodded as if conceding a putt to a golf opponent.
‘You may be bluffing, but again you may not. I think I can afford to be generous. Perhaps after all we can come to a business agreement.’
‘Then tell your Arab friend to unhook himself from my neck.’
‘Tu peux filer, Sandro. Tu sais ce que tu as à faire.’
Sandro’s arms slid away from my throat and my hands were released. So tight had his grip been that I had to rub my wrists to restore the circulation. I felt a good deal less unhappy when I heard the door close on him.
‘Now then, Mr. Temple. I don’t know what your interest is in this matter or why you should be so obstinate in refusing to hand over a pair of spectacles. But every man has his price. I will pay you five thousand pounds in British five-pound notes the moment I have possession of the spectacles. Of course you will still have the problem of getting the currency back to England. On the other hand if you are prepared to trust me I will have the money paid into any bank you mention.’
‘I don’t think much of your offer,’ I said. ‘Mr. Constantin was able to do much better. His figure was ten thousand.’
For the first time Rostand was rocked.
‘Constantin?’ His eyes switched to Leyland for an instant and then back to me. The fingers gripping the automatic had tightened. ‘Did you sell the glasses to him?’
I knew that if I answered in the affirmative my number would be up. Rostand could have no further interest in keeping me alive and every reason for wanting me dead. On the other hand I was not prepared to give way to his threats or accept his offer. I calculated that not more than twenty minutes had passed since Steve and I had parted. If she followed my instructions the police could not be notified for another forty-five minutes. I doubted my ability to stall for as long as that, but it was worth trying.
‘You said every man has his price. Mine is pretty high. I admit that I agreed to Constantin’s figure, but if you are prepared to go higher than that – say twelve thousand five hundred.’
Rostand pounced quickly.
‘Then you still have the spectacles.’
‘Not exactly,’ I hedged. ‘They are at the moment in transit, but I think I can stop them before they reach him—’
‘You’re lying,’ Rostand snapped suddenly. ‘I’m not such a fool as you take me for. You haven’t had any offer from Constantin, and the only offer you’ll get from me is a bullet in your guts. Now start telling the truth quickly, or by heavens I’ll give you the same treatment as Thompson. You saw how he finished up. You’ve just five seconds before I pull this trigger. One…’
There was no doubt in my mind that Rostand was ready to carry out his threat. There is an unmistakable look in a man’s eyes when he feels the lust to kill.
‘Two.’
Leyland had backed away and was watching apprehensively. He had probably seen the business with Thompson, and was sickening at the prospect of watching another man squirm to death.
‘Three.’
I knew that the obvious thing was to tell a lie, but I funked it in the face of that supreme menace. There is a saying that a man on his death-bed speaks only the truth. I can confirm it from my experience at the Villa Negra. The temptation was very strong to tell them about Steve, standing not two hundred yards away with the glasses in her handbag. I had to bite my lips, knowing that the only thing was to keep silent, hoping that Rostand’s nerve would break.
‘Four.’
At the same instant as the word was spoken a telephone bell rang in the big front room we had come through. It might have been someone ringing the wrong number, but it was still enough to stop Rostand. I’ve often thought since how powerful the anonymity of the telephone bell is.
‘See who it is,’ Rostand snapped at Leyland.
The big man lumbered out of the room, glad to be spared the execution scene. The door swung behind him till it was almost closed. We could only hear the mumble of his voice as he answered. Rostand still kept me covered, but I was glad to note that he moved a little closer to me as he approached the door, straining to hear what Leyland was saying. That movement brought him within seven feet of me.
The conversation was brief. I heard Leyland walking hurriedly across the parquet floor. Rostand had to move away as he burst into the library. That brought him six inches nearer me.
‘It was Constantin,’ Leyland said excitedly. ‘Temple must have been telling the truth. He says he has the glasses and is prepared to consider offers for them—’
This unexpected confirmation of what I had told him led Rostand to make his mistake. His gun hand wavered as he glanced in surprise towards Leyland. I knew it was my one chance, and that I must take it.
I brought my right foot up in a straight-legged rugger kick aimed at the automatic. It caught Rostand’s hand and sent the gun sailing into the air. I was off balance for the moment, thrown forward with my head down. Rostand’s fist was raised to strike as I straightened up. I brought the sharp point of my elbow up and drove it on to his chin with all the strength of my shoulder. I heard his jaw-bone crack and the crunch of his teeth as they came together. His head jerked back.
I had no more time for him at the moment. Leyland was coming for me, and I knew now how he had acquired that broken nose. He was a heavyweight boxer coming out of his corner to administer the knock-out to an opponent. They call boxing the Noble Art of Self Defence, but boxing is far too clean a sport to deserve that name. Boxers develop instincts which leave them wide open to an unfair attack. And believe me, when your life is at stake you are prepared to fight unfairly.
I went in below his guard and doubled him up with a blow for which the fans at Harringay Arena would have torn me limb from limb. As he went to the floor I stole a glance at Rostand. He was holding his jaw and stumbling towards the automatic, which lay at the base of one of the bookcases. I beat him to it and kicked the thing far out of reach. Rostand was clawing at me with his nails. He had bitten the tip off his tongue and blood was dribbling down his chin. I did not want to break my fingers on his jaw, so I chopped him on the neck with the side of my hand. His knees buckled and he slumped to the floor.
Leyland was still groaning and twisting his face with pain. I felt no compunction. My main worry was that Sandro would hear the din and come back. I had to hurry, and the memory of Thompson hardened my heart. The big Lancashire man stumbled to his feet and aimed a punch at me as I approached him. I let the blow go past my head, using his own strength to put a lock on his arm which almost pulled it out at the socket. He gave a yelp and began to dance on tip-toe.
‘Now then,’ I told him. ‘You’re going to do some talking. I advise you to answer my questions quickly.’
Just to encourage him I increased the pressure a little. He nearly rose off the ground.
‘Why is Rostand so keen to lay hands on these spectacles? What is their value to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Leyland grunted. ‘He never told me why he wanted them. He just said a friend of his had lost a very special pair of spectacles and was prepared to pay £4,000 to whoever recovered them.’
‘And you were prepared to swallow that one? Surely you guessed that there was something fishy about that?’
‘I did. But Rostand paid me a retainer of a thousand pounds, so why should I ask any questions? Here, go easy on my arm. I’m telling you the truth, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, but I relaxed my grip a little.
‘I didn’t know it was going to be anything like this,’ Leyland went on with a rush. ‘Killing and all that. I had no part in what happened here to-night, I tell you straight.’
‘Maybe not. But you’re an accessory all the same. What were you doing at Nice?’
Leyland was silent and I had to put the pressure on again.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. Rostand tipped me the wink that a girl named Judy Wincott would be at the hotel in Nice on a certain night. He said she would be sure to have the spectacles. All I’d have to do was find out where her room was—’
‘You knew Judy Wincott was going to be in Nice?’
‘Yes. But I never saw her. I swear I didn’t. She never registered at the hotel, you know. When I heard she’d been murdered I was…’
I found myself believing Leyland. He was a rogue but no murderer, and I could not help remembering the beseeching look he had given me when Rostand had offered me the chance of walking out of the house.
‘You’re really in trouble, Sam,’ I said. ‘Now what about David Foster? Have you ever met anyone of that name?’
Leyland shook his head.
‘Rostand talked about him, but I never met him. I began to wonder if it was some code name.’
‘Perhaps it is. All in all you don’t know much, do you?’
‘Too much for my liking,’ Leyland complained with feeling. ‘I wish I’d never set eyes on this Rostand.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘No more than a month. I met him in Tunis through a business friend of mine.’
There were plenty more questions I wanted to ask Leyland, but Rostand was beginning to stir and I was always afraid that the formidable Sandro would reappear.
‘One last question. Did Constantin say where he was speaking from?’
‘No. He just asked Rostand to meet him at the El Passaro night club if he felt like talking business.’
‘The El Passaro. Do you know it?’
‘I don’t know it, but I’ve heard of it.’
Rostand was grunting and spitting. I propelled an unresisting Leyland into a large cupboard in the corner of the room, pushed him inside and turned the key on him. The automatic was still lying on the floor. I stared at it for only a moment. Once again experience had proved my theory that a gun only gives a man a sense of false security. I kicked it out of sight under the heavy bookcase. Then I slipped out of the library into the big salon. All the lights were still turned full on. There was no sign of Sandro. I stepped out of the French windows into the rapidly chilling night air.
When I reached the spot where I had parted from Steve I stopped. I could just make out the dark, wet patch where Thompson had lain, but his body had vanished. This must be the work of Sandro, and since he had not returned to the house he must have gone on towards the gate – where Steve was.
I ran rather than walked the remaining distance to the gate, not caring about the branches and brambles which clawed at my clothes and scratched my face. There was no one in sight near the gate.
‘Steve!’ I called in a whisper. Then louder, ‘Steve!’
A shadow moved out of the bushes and came towards me.
‘Paul, thank God you’ve come! I was certain that something had gone wrong with my watch. The time simply crawled. What happened?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it later. You have the glasses safely?’
Steve nodded and touched her handbag.
‘Better hand them back to me. Those spectacles are dynamite to whoever has possession of them.’
She took them from her bag and I fitted them back into their usual place in my handkerchief pocket.
‘Did you see anyone go past while you were waiting?’
Steve shuddered at the memory.
‘I did. A most awful hunchback Arab. He was carrying something over his shoulder. It looked like a body.’
‘It was,’ I said grimly. ‘The body of our friend who came out through the French windows. Which way did he go?’
She pointed to a gate on the other side of the road. It was the twin of the one by which we were standing. By all appearances it was a private way down to the beach below.
‘And he hasn’t come back yet? Now I wonder what he’s up to down there. It’s going to be my word against three of them if they succeed in disposing of Thompson’s body. Do you mind hanging on here just a little longer?’
‘By myself? Yes, I do,’ Steve said firmly. ‘I was just about ready to scream when you came. If you’re going down that path I’m coming with you.’
‘All right,’ I agreed after a moment. ‘But keep well behind and don’t make any noise.’
The gate uttered a mournful wail as I swung it open. I signalled Steve to leave it that way. Below on the beach we could hear the regular swish of small waves breaking on pebbles. Somewhere nearby there was stagnant water where frogs were croaking in raucous chorus. They all stopped to listen as Steve and I went stealthily by, and the sudden silence was unearthly.
Round a sharp twist in the steeply descending path we came in view of the beach. It was a small crescent-shaped miniature bay with a steeply shelving shore. At one side a pier had been built out to act at the same time as shelter for the boats and foundation for a small house. No boat was visible, the windows were dark, and there was no sign of anything moving.
But on the small expanse of pebbles by the pier, which seemed faintly luminous in the starlight, a lumpy object was lying. Cautioning Steve again, I slid down the rest of the path until my feet sank into the sand. I was near enough now to see that my first impression had been correct. The shape on the beach was that of a man.
Keeping a weather eye lifting towards the house, I moved cautiously towards him. He made no move, but I could hear the deep snoring breaths of a man who has been knocked out cold. The hunched back told me who he was, even before I was near enough to see the weal on the side of his forehead where he had been coshed. Even with his thick skull I thought he’d be out for a long time yet.
I left him where he was, and, signalling Steve to follow, approached the boat-house. Its windows were curtained and it had been freshly painted. It was in a far better state of repair than the Villa Negra. The windows were fastened and the door was locked. Using my pencil torch I inspected the lock. It looked like a simple job. Making use of a trick taught me by a professional burglar, I extracted a flat strip of celluloid from my wallet, and in a minute had the door open.
Very little light penetrated as far as the large sitting-room into which the door opened directly. I dared not switch on the lights even though there was a possibility that someone was standing there in the dark waiting for us. I ran the thin beam of my torch round the place, but it illuminated no crouching figure. A door at the far end was open and led into another smaller room.
It was early for anyone to be already in bed, but the moment I shone my light into the room I saw the shape of a form lying under the bedclothes. My instinct was to withdraw before he or she woke up and saw us. But something about the unnatural attitude of the form made me go closer. In the end I pulled the bedclothes back.
I thought then that I had found Thompson.
Yet this man was fully dressed and, what was more, he was wearing a jacket. I turned him over, and the beam of my torch drew a glint from the knife sticking into his ribs below the heart. It had been the professional killer’s upward stab. I moved the torch beam up to illuminate his face.
‘Constantin!’
I was so startled that I spoke the name aloud. To judge by the temperature of the body, allowing for the fact that he had been covered by the bedclothes, he had been dead for some time.
Who, then, had telephoned Rostand suggesting the meeting at the El Passaro? Who had killed Constantin and knocked out Sandro? And what had become of Thompson’s body?
Steve, from the next room’s windows, had been watching the beach. She came now to the door of the bedroom.
‘Did you call, Paul? I think that Arab’s beginning to come round. I saw him move just now.’
I had switched the torch off so that she would not see the body. I thought we had had our share of bodies for one evening, and that to delay longer would be tempting Providence.
‘I have a feeling we may be over-staying our welcome,’ I whispered to Steve. ‘Let’s get away from here while we still can.’
We had to walk some distance before we came to a main road, and I had ample time to tell Steve all that had happened from the moment we had separated.
‘If Constantin’s telephone call saved your life, then I’m sorry that he’s dead,’ she declared. ‘However much of a crook he may have been.’
‘But it can’t have been he who telephoned,’ I pointed out. ‘He must have been dead already when that call was made.’
‘Then presumably whoever killed him also telephoned Rostand. And that person will be at the El Passaro.’
‘Which is exactly why you and I are going to pay the place a visit. Constantin’s murderer can’t know that I was at the Villa when he telephoned.’
‘But wait a minute, Paul.’ Steve slowed down a little. ‘What’s the point of arranging a meeting when he hasn’t got the spectacles to sell? They are in your pocket.’
‘He may have had a similar pair made, and be counting on hood-winking Rostand. As far as I can see, Steve, these spectacles have no special distinguishing feature.’
I grabbed her arm and hurried her into a run.
‘Come on. There’s a bus heading for the centre of the city. We can just catch it.’