FRANCIS DURBRIDGE

Paul Temple: East of Algiers

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Hodder & Stoughton 1959

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1959

All rights reserved

Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008125660

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008125677

Version: 2015-06-23

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘Pardon, monsieur. This chair – it is occupied?’

‘Yes. I am afraid it is. I am keeping it for a lady.’

For the tenth time a disappointed Frenchman turned away as I laid my hand possessively on the seat of the chair I was keeping for Steve. It was l’heure de l’apéritif, and the tables of all the cafés up and down the Champs–Élysées were filled. The nine gentlemen whom I had already prevented from sitting in Steve’s chair found places elsewhere and were now regarding me with a certain amount of suspicion. I could tell from their expressions that they were beginning to think that my long-awaited wife was a figment of the imagination. Steve herself had assured me that she would have ample time to finish her shopping by twelve o’clock. We had made our rendezvous for midday at Fouquet’s, half-way up the Champs-Elysees, and it was now twenty to one.

Luckily the morning was a glorious one, and the time was passing very pleasantly. The Arc de Triomphe stood out in its crisp greyness against a blue sky and the sun was warm enough to make most people decide to sit at the tables set out on the pavement rather than seek the shade and seclusion of the bar and brasserie inside. The show in front of me was as good as a Music Hall. The Parisian girls in their spring dresses were well aware of the male eyes focused on them as they walked with self-conscious elegance down the broad pavement. Every now and then a sleek car rolled to a halt, its wheels touching the edge of the pavement, and disgorged its passengers into one of the cafés. Further away, on the roadway proper, cars were racing six deep down the hill. Every time the traffic lights changed to red, their tyres shrilled as the brakes were mercilessly applied. A minute later, when the signal changed to green, every engine whined in misery as each driver tried to win the race to the next intersection.

I was just ordering a second Martini when one of the new small Dauphine taxis drew up in front of me. The driver opened his door, and I recognized the long, slim leg that felt its way down to the pavement. I was unable to see its owner because of the mass of parcels and boxes which she was trying to manoeuvre through the narrow door. With the true Parisian’s instinct to help a pretty woman, the taxi-driver had bustled out of his seat, and he now took charge of the two largest boxes. I think he was a little disappointed when Steve led him towards me and explained that I would pay his fare.

‘I haven’t a sou left, but I’ve found some of the most wonderful bargains. Really there’s nowhere in the world like the Rue St. Honoré. Darling, this is Judy Wincott. She’s going to join us for a cocktail.’

I suppose I had seen the girl follow Steve out of the taxi with the corner of my eye, but the business with the driver and the fare and the parcels and the general impact of Steve’s arrival had diverted my attention from her. I turned to shake hands. She was a smallish girl of about twenty-one. She could have been described as good-looking, for her features followed the pattern which is generally approved by film periodicals and fashion magazines, but I somehow could not find her very attractive. There was a suggestion of aggressiveness, or perhaps efficiency, which made me write her off as not quite my type. I don’t mind women being efficient, but I don’t think it ought to show.

‘Oh, Mr. Temple,’ she said as I shepherded my two charges through the maze of tables, ‘I hope you don’t mind my jumping at the chance of meeting you. Is it really true that your books are based on actual cases you’ve been involved in?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact it is. Do sit down. I’ll try and get us another chair.’

Steve had sat down and was disposing her purchases round her feet. I was doling out notes to the taxi-driver with one hand and signalling to the waiter to bring a third chair with the other.

The girl was still looking at me as if she expected I might utter some Confucian epigram.

‘It’s amazing to think such things actually do happen,’ she said. There was a slight but unmistakable American intonation in her rather high voice.

‘What you read in the books is really not so extraordinary. My trouble is I can’t write about the most astonishing cases. No one would believe me if I did.’

‘Oh, I think you should,’ Judy Wincott said with a dazzling smile. ‘I would believe you at any rate.’

The waiter produced a chair from somewhere inside the sleeve of his jacket and by judicious squeezing and elbow prodding we were soon all three ensconced around the small table.

‘Miss Wincott was very kind,’ Steve explained when I had ordered drinks. ‘I would never have found the kind of shoes I wanted if she had not told me about Chico’s.’

‘You know Paris well, Miss Wincott?’

‘Not really well, as I should like to. But I do know the principal streets. I’ve been over two or three times with my father. He come to Europe every year – to hunt out old pictures and antiques and things. He’s Benjamin Wincott, the antique dealer, you know. He has a very important shop in New York. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?’

‘No. I’m afraid I haven’t.’

‘It’s very well known,’ Miss Wincott resumed her recital cosily. ‘Of course he has to travel a great deal. It’s no good relying on other people’s judgement when so much money is involved, is it, and then again Daddy’s got such an amazing instinct for what is really good. There aren’t many countries in the world he hasn’t visited. China, Japan – why we’ve only just made a little hop across to Tunis to buy a collection of very rare amber pendants. Mrs. Temple tells me you’re planning to go on there yourselves in a day or two.’

I caught Steve’s eyes for an instant, and her expression confirmed my suspicion that it was more by her own invitation than by Steve’s that Miss Wincott had favoured us with the pleasure of her company.

‘We may go on there after we’ve had a look at Algiers,’ I admitted.

‘To get material for a novel?’ Judy Wincott prompted quickly.

‘That’s the main idea.’

The waiter set the three glasses down expertly, each in front of its proper owner. The American girl had ordered a champagne cocktail. I watched her hand close round the stem and suppressed the beginnings of a shudder. Her nails had been allowed to grow a quarter of an inch beyond the ends of her fingers, filed to a point and carefully enamelled a glistening blood-red colour. She took a sip of her drink and gave a quiet laugh, as if she were remembering some good but private joke.

‘I certainly had a good time in Tunis. Talk about champagne! I wonder if you’ll meet a boy I got to know quite well, even during the short time we were there. His name’s David Foster; he works for Trans-Africa Petroleum.’

She gazed at me enquiringly. Not being a seer I could not tell her whether I was likely to meet Mr. Foster of Trans–Africa Petroleum or not. What I really wanted to do was have a chance to talk to Steve and find out what on earth she had in that mountain of parcels.

I muttered: ‘Well, Tunis is a pretty big city, I remember hearing.’

‘You’re dead right,’ Miss Wincott agreed reminiscently. ‘David and I certainly turned it inside out that last night. The funniest thing happened…’

This Judy Wincott was clearly one of those non-stop expresses. Here we were on a sunny spring morning in the most civilized city in the world, condemned to listen to the egotistical babblings of a spoilt child. I took a long pull at my Martini, but it tasted bitter.

‘You’ll never believe this,’ she forged on. ‘When we ended up at my hotel somewhere around dawn, David found he had lost his glasses. He was so high he hadn’t noticed till then. Well, we searched everywhere. He still hadn’t found them when Daddy and I left for Paris that afternoon. And do you know where they turned up?’

Judy Wincott turned enquiringly first to Steve and then to me. Neither of us knew the answer.

‘You tell us,’ I suggested.

‘The customs man at Orly airport found them in my evening handbag when he searched my case.’

Steve and I snickered politely. Miss Wincott laughed richly and then suddenly stopped. She had had an inspiration.

‘Say, this is rather a lucky coincidence. Your going on to Tunis, I mean. You could take David’s glasses back, couldn’t you? I hope you don’t mind my asking.’

‘Well, I suppose we could, though I think they’d get there much quicker if you sent them by ordinary mail. We don’t expect to be there ’till Thursday.’

‘No, I can’t do that. David’s cable said on no account to send them by ordinary mail. They’d be sure to get broken or lost. Poor lamb, he’s absolutely stricken without them.’

I suppose it was the vision of a distant but stricken lamb that softened my heart. Steve shot me a glance which I interpreted as meaning: ‘Do the decent thing. Don’t let the nation down.’ So in a moment of weakness I consented.

‘That’s swell,’ Miss Wincott said, and polished off her champagne cocktail. ‘Now it’s just a question of how to get the spectacles to you. What hotel are you staying at?’

‘We’re not at a hotel this time,’ Steve explained. ‘Some friends of ours have a flat just round the corner in the Avenue Georges V, and they’ve lent it to us for a day or two. We’ll be in this evening. Why not come round about seven and have a drink with us? It’s number eighty-nine.’

‘Oh, no.’ Now that she had what she wanted Miss Wincott was prepared to play shy. ‘You’ve seen enough of me already. I’ll only pop in for a tiny moment.’

I noticed with relief that she was gathering up her gloves and preparing to leave us. Lest she should change her mind I stood up and made way for her to pass by. Her farewells were hasty but effusive. We watched her weave her way through the pedestrians on the pavement and hail a passing cab with an imperious stab of her forefinger. She waved back to us as she was borne down the street towards the whirlpool of vehicles in the Place de la Concorde.

‘You do pick up some odd friends,’ I reproached Steve.

‘I couldn’t do less than ask her to join us. I was absolutely floundering in the Galeries Lafayette when she rescued me. She spent a whole hour showing me where the best shops were. Then when I told her who I was she seemed pathetically anxious to meet you.’

‘I didn’t think there was anything very pathetic about Miss Wincott. I would say that everything she does is aimed somehow to promote her own interests.’

‘Well,’ Steve said, ‘I think it shows a nice side of her nature to be so anxious to get that poor man’s glasses back to him.’

‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I admitted against my better judgement. ‘Drink up, Steve. We’re supposed to be meeting the de Chatelets at one, and we shall have to dump your parcels at the flat before then.’

We lunched well but not wisely at the de Chatelets’, and then went to see the Exhibition of pictures at the Orangerie. It was almost seven when we got back to the flat in the Avenue Georges V. I had quite forgotten about Judy Wincott, and was sousing my head in cold water when the door bell rang. I combed my hair hurriedly and went to open it.

‘Ah,’ I said when I saw who it was. ‘Come on in. We’re just going to have a drink.’

Judy Wincott was flushed and panting, as if she had run all the way up to the fourth floor. She was wearing the same clothes as before lunch and did not look as if she had even taken time to do her face up.

‘I mustn’t stay,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Daddy and I are dining at the Embassy and I have a taxi waiting. There are the glasses. David’s address is inside the case. I sent him a cable to say you’d be arriving on Thursday, and asked him to meet the Algiers plane.’

She had already gone when Steve came through the double doors that led into the hall, dressed in one of the creations she had bought that morning.

‘Has she gone already?’

‘Dinner at the Embassy and a carriage waiting without,’ I explained, looking down at the spectacles case.

The case was a plain leather one bearing no maker’s name. When I opened it a folded sheet of paper jumped up. It bore the heading of the Hotel Bedford in Paris, and a brief message in flowing characters:

David Foster,

c/o Trans-Africa Petroleum, Tunis.

from Judy. ‘In Memoriam.’

The spectacles were what is known as the Library style. They were made of very strong and thick tortoiseshell with broad side-pieces which folded protectively over the lenses.

I put them on the bridge of my nose and immediately almost fell over. The lenses were strong and thick and my vision seemed to be twisted into a knot. I took them off hastily and found Steve convulsed with laughter.

‘You really ought to wear glasses, Paul,’ she said illogically. ‘They make you look so learned.’

‘This chap Foster must be very near-sighted. No wonder he’s hollering for his specs. He must be almost blind without them.’

Steve and I travelled on the afternoon plane to Nice next day. It would have been possible to fly direct to Algiers, but Steve finds that long periods at high altitudes tend to make her head ache. Besides, we both have a particular weakness for the Côte d’Azur and are glad of any excuse to spend a day or two there.

We had booked rooms at a hotel where we had stayed before, just a little way along the Promenade des Anglais from the Negresco. It is a small but very luxurious place and the service is usually impeccable. That afternoon, however, several guests had arrived at the same time, and the reception clerk was in a flat spin. One of the uniformed chasseurs accompanied us and our luggage up to the first floor. Even before we turned into the corridor where our room was we could hear the metallic clatter of a key being turned vainly in a lock. Another chasseur with a very English-looking guest in tow was trying to open the door of number twelve, the room next to ours. A moment later our own chasseur was twisting his key in the lock, rattling the handle and generally behaving like a bad case of claustrophobia.

Suddenly the English-looking guest pushed his chasseur aside, took the key out of the door of number twelve, marched up to number thirteen, pushed the second chasseur to one side and exchanged the keys. He turned the key and immediately our door swung open. He spun on his heel and directed a suspicious nod at us.

‘Pardong, Mushoor,’ he said in terrible French. ‘Vous avez mon clef.’

‘Not my fault,’ I answered in English. ‘The desk clerk had his wires crossed.’

The other man started; then his face expressed relief and returning faith.

‘English, are you? Well, that’s something. For a moment I thought someone was trying to play a trick on us, and Sam Leyland doesn’t like that kind of thing.’

Lancashire and proud of it. His voice was powerful and resonant, his dress equally so. He wore a grey check suit which must have been tailored to accommodate the bulge of his stomach. His shoes were rather on the yellow side, but very shiny and amazingly small by comparison with his enormous but top-heavy body. He sported a silk tie with a picture of a ballet dancer on the swelling part, and a fading rose in his button-hole. His face was red and washed-looking; the dome of his head glistened and was innocent of hair. His nose had been broken, perhaps during some encounter with a lamp-post or a business associate. I put him down as one of that breed of Company Directors who by mysterious means make enough money to travel abroad and carry the Union Jack into the Casinos of furthermost Europe. Still, I could not help rather liking him, though I would not have trusted him to time my egg boiling.

‘I don’t think it was done on purpose,’ I reassured him. ‘They’re usually pretty good here.’

‘They’d better be,’ the Lancashire man said. ‘Their prices are steep enough, and if there is one man who’s going to see value for money that’s Sam Leyland.’

He was beginning to look angry again, so when Steve began to retreat into our room I followed her.

‘Who’s this Sam Leyland he was talking about?’ she asked me when the door was shut. ‘He sounds simply terrifying.’

‘Don’t be an ass. That was Sam Leyland himself.’

We were destined to encounter Sam later that evening. We were returning from a particularly good dinner at La Bonne Auberge soon after ten-thirty. The lift was taking someone up to the top floor, so we decided it would not kill us to use the stairs, though the idea was abhorrent to the night porter, so much so that he almost used physical force to prevent us.

There was no mistaking the voice which we could hear upraised in anger, and when we came round the corner we were not surprised to see Sam Leyland, still with his hat on his head, standing over a terrorized chamber-maid and raising all hell with her. He had found some neutral language, half-way between French and English, which was utterly incomprehensible to anyone else.

When we appeared he shrugged his shoulders and turned away from the chamber-maid in disgust. The demoralized girl seized her chance to scuttle down the corridor and bolt herself into a small room with her brooms and pails.

‘I knew there was some monkey business going on here,’ Sam thundered as he advanced threateningly on us. ‘And someone’s going to pay for it or my name isn’t Sam Leyland.’

‘What’s the trouble? Have they switched keys on you again?’

Sam’s eyes were rather like an angry porker’s, small and fierce, but uncomprehending. He seemed about to speak, but words failed him and he expelled a long breath.

‘Come and take a look at this.’

He led the way towards the door of his room. It was open and the key was still on the outside of the lock. The decorative scheme was the same as ours; faint lilac walls, deep blue curtains, black fitted carpet and modern furniture in very light-coloured natural wood. The only real difference was that Sam’s room contained a single bed instead of a double and was in a state of unimaginable disorder.

‘By Timothy, what a mess! No mistaking the fact that you’ve had a visitor.’

Sam’s answer was a low growl. It was easy to sympathize with his rage. Every drawer had been wrenched open and its contents scattered on the floor, the bedclothes had been torn off and the edges of the mattress ripped open. The pillows had been disembowelled and feathers were everywhere. Sam’s cases had been opened and the linings cut loose. Even his shaving set in its leather case had been torn apart and the case ripped up. The general impression of violence and desperation was frightening.

‘How simply awful!’ Steve exclaimed. ‘It must have been a thief. Did you leave anything valuable here?’

For the first time an expression of pleasure flickered across the burly man’s face. He patted the bulge of his wallet pocket and nodded wisely at Steve.

‘My valuables are all tucked safely away in here. Sam Leyland doesn’t believe in taking chances. The best this scallywag is likely to have got away with is a pair of Woolworth’s cuff links. It’s the mess he’s made that annoys me. Well, the hotel staff will just have to find another room for me.’

I felt Steve’s fingers suddenly tighten on my arm.

‘Paul! The diamond brooch you gave me for my birthday. I left it in the drawer of my dressing-table.’

It was with an absolute conviction that I would find our own room in the same state of disorder that I fumbled the key into the lock and felt for the light switch. The room sprang into relief as the indirect lighting above the wall fluting flooded the ceiling. I heard Steve’s sigh of relief when she saw that our room appeared to be just as we had left it. The telephone was ringing, but she ignored it and pushed past me to go towards the dressing-table. I saw her open the drawer, feel around inside, and then hold up the glittering brooch. She was smiling with relief.

‘I’m glad he didn’t find this.’

‘Steve!’ I remonstrated. ‘How many times have I warned you not to leave valuables in hotel bedrooms?’

‘I didn’t mean to, darling. If you hadn’t kept telling me to hurry up I would never have forgotten it.’

There is no answer to that sort of remark, so I crossed the room, sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the telephone receiver.

‘Hello. Temple here.’

‘Monsieur Temple? I am so sorry to disturb you, monsieur, but a police inspector is here and he wishes to speak with you immediately.’

It was the voice of the night-duty clerk at the reception desk.

‘Does he say what it is about?’ I asked. I was thinking that if they were already on to the hotel thief the police in this part of the world were pretty fast movers.

‘No, monsieur. He says it is very urgent and he must see you at once.’

I took time to light a cigarette before going down the stairs again. When I reached the foyer I saw the desk clerk nod to a man who was sitting in one of the arm-chairs. He rose at once and came forward to meet me.

Being accustomed to working with the officers of Scotland Yard I was prepared for something rather different. To begin with, this man’s size would have prevented him from entering our Police Force. He was too small, perhaps not more than five foot five. He was dark and concentrated, very neat in his appearance and turn-out, with black hair brushed smoothly back, slick collar and shirt cuffs, well-cleaned shoes. His head seemed big by comparison with his body and his eyes extraordinarily keen. He looked more like a musician than a policeman.

‘Mr. Temple?’ he asked, and I could tell at once that he was going to speak good English.

‘Yes.’

He perfunctorily showed me a little wallet. I caught a glimpse of his photograph behind a cellophane slip and a flash of the red, blue and white of official France.

‘Inspecteur Mirabel, of the Police Judiciaire. I would like to speak a few words with you in private. I think this room is empty.’

He motioned me into a small room which was only used by those of the hotel’s clientele who insisted on coming downstairs to breakfast. The chairs were all hard and upright, and when we sat down one on either side of a bare table, the whole situation seemed very official and unfriendly. Mirabel’s manner and tone of voice kept it that way. He opened a small notebook, but did not glance down at it. His eyes were fixed gravely on me.

‘Mr. Temple, it is correct that you came here to-day by the 2.20 airplane from Paris?’

‘Yes.’

‘And before that you were staying at number 89 Avenue Georges V?’

‘That is right. Some friends of ours lent us their flat for several days.’

‘Were you visited there by a Miss Wincott?’

‘Yes,’ I said, surprised at the unexpected question. ‘Only very briefly. She came to deliver a package and was not in the flat for more than two minutes.’

To myself I was thinking that the instinctive antagonism I had felt towards Judy Wincott had been justified. She was bringing trouble.

‘Did you know Miss Wincott well? Please tell me what your relations with her were.’

‘My relations were very casual. I had only met her that day. She was rather kind to my wife in Paris yesterday morning, and she invited her to join us for an apéritif.’

‘That was last night?’

‘No. That was before lunch. It was then arranged that she would call on us at the flat about seven that evening—’

‘And she did so? Can you remember the exact time?’

‘Yes. I think I can. My wife and I got back at seven and she arrived about five minutes later.’

Mirabel made a quick note. I was becoming curious as to how Judy Wincott had aroused the interest of the police, but decided that it was better not to ask any questions just yet.

‘Did she give you any address?’ Mirabel continued.

‘She was staying at the Hotel Bedford, I believe – with her father.’

‘Her father?’

Mirabel had looked up in surprise.

‘He’s Benjamin Wincott, an antique dealer from New York. The American Embassy can tell you more about him than I can. According to Miss Wincott they were dining there last night.’

Mirabel gazed at me for a moment and a little smile touched the corner of his mouth.

‘You mentioned a package, Mr. Temple. Please tell me what this was.’

‘Oh, it was just a pair of spectacles she asked me to deliver to a friend of hers in Tunis.’

Mirabel’s eyebrows rose. I went on to give him a résumé of the tale Judy Wincott had told me.

When I had finished he said: ‘I should like to see these spectacles. Would you show them to me, please?’

‘Certainly. I have them here.’

I took the case from my breast pocket and handed it over to Mirabel. He extracted the spectacles and turned them over slowly in his long and sensitive fingers. He smoothed the sheet of Hotel Bedford notepaper on the table. I saw his brows furrow. He balanced the case in his hand as if assessing its weight.

‘I should like to take these to my headquarters and have them examined by an expert,’ he said. ‘You do not object?’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘You will allow me to have them back? I feel under some obligation—’

‘I will give you a receipt,’ Mirabel said stiffly. ‘Unless there is any reason to the contrary these glasses will be returned to you in the morning.’

‘Thank you. May I ask—? Is Miss Wincott in some sort of trouble?’

Mirabel’s deep eyes focused on me again and his expression was whimsical.

‘I do not think you would say that she was in trouble. Her body was found by the concierge this afternoon in one of the rubbish bins behind your block of flats. She had been shot in the back. The police doctor’s estimate of the time of death coincides with your account of the time she left you.’

I didn’t say anything. I knew Mirabel was studying me as my thoughts flew back to Fouquet’s and the girl who had so exasperated me when she had sat beside me the day before. Murderers themselves usually make sense. It is the victims they choose that somehow startle and shock one. I could have imagined Judy Wincott being smacked by an exasperated suitor, being socially ostracized, even arrested for drunkenness – but not murdered.

‘You are surprised?’ Mirabel murmured.

‘What do you think? She left me at seven last night to join her father and dine at the American Embassy. Does it seem natural that her body should be found to-day in a refuse bin? Have you any ideas as to who did it, or why?’

Mirabel shook his head.

‘The assassin left no trace. It has taken us until now to find out who it was she was visiting last night and why.’

‘Surely her father notified the police when she failed to turn up last night? And I’m surprised her taxi-driver didn’t start looking for his fare!’

Again that little smile moved at the side of Mirabel’s mouth. I began to feel that I was the object of his amusement.

‘We have checked on all foreigners in Paris hotels at the moment. There is no Benjamin Wincott and he is certainly not known to the American Embassy.’

‘Have you tried the Bedford Hotel?’

‘We have checked at all the big hotels. No one of that name is registered at any recognized hotel.’

Steve and I talked for a long time after we had gone to bed. She was very distressed at the thought that within a few minutes of leaving us Judy Wincott had been attacked and killed.

‘One somehow feels that one should have been able to do something to avoid it, Paul. The motive must have been robbery, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe. Though I should have thought a thief would have been more likely to use a cosh or a razor.’

I felt Steve shiver.

‘I’m glad I have you beside me. There seems to be such a lot of crime on the Continent. First the business in the room next door and now the news of this murder.’

At last we put our light out and went to sleep.

Almost at once it seemed that Steve was gently shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes, saw the pattern of light cast by the moonlight on the wall opposite our bed, and for a moment had to grope in my mind to realize where we were.

‘Paul, listen!’ Steve’s words came in an alarming stage whisper. ‘There’s something very funny happening in the next room.’

I sat up quickly in bed and listened. It was a curious slithering, bumping noise as if a man were half carrying, half dragging a heavy weight. Through the wall it seemed that I could hear his grunts and heavy breathing. Then there came an especially loud thud against the dividing wall, a series of thumps and the sound of a door closing.

‘It’s Sam Leyland’s room,’ Steve said. ‘I thought he had moved somewhere else.’

We sat there listening in the dark. The noise had stopped and there was an ominous silence on the other side of the wall.

Beside me I heard a click, and Steve’s bedside light flooded the room. I already had one foot out of bed and was reaching for my dressing-gown.

‘Something damned fishy is going on. I’m going to have a look and see if he’s all right.’

‘Then I’m coming too,’ Steve said firmly, and slipped out of bed.

We moved out into the corridor so fast that we cannoned into the young man who was at that moment passing our door. He too was wearing a dressing-gown and had apparently been roused from sleep just as we had.

‘Sorry,’ I said, and then remembering that we were in France I changed it to: ‘Pardon.’

‘It’s all right,’ the young man smiled. ‘I’m English too. My room’s on the floor below, and I came up to see what all the commotion was about. But if it’s only you two having a row…’

He was good-looking in a matinee idol sort of way, with side-whiskers just a shade on the long side and a frieze of early morning stubble round his chin. He was tall and well-made, and a dressing-gown of sheer, sky-blue silk was knotted round his middle. His voice was well educated and nicely pitched, his manner of speaking lazy and slow. But his eyes, as they appraised Steve, were obviously missing nothing.

‘It wasn’t us,’ Steve said quickly. ‘I was woken up by it, and my husband was just going to investigate. It came from in here.’

She pointed to the door of number twelve. The young man turned back and advanced towards the door. He gave a tentative knock; there was no answer.

‘Perhaps we should break in,’ he suggested unenthusiastically.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve stoop suddenly and pick something off the floor.

I said: ‘Try the handle first.’

The young man turned the handle and pushed. The door swung open into the pitch-dark room. The bulb in the corridor behind us sent a rectangle of light across the floor in which our two shadows loomed like elongated monsters. Someone had pulled the curtains in that room tight shut and the light behind us only served to accentuate the blackness of the rest of the room. We stood there for a moment, tense, as if expecting some nameless horror to burst out at us. Then the young man put a hand up and snapped on the light.

The room was still in a state of chaos, though all Sam Leyland’s things had been collected and moved. The only difference was that the curtains were drawn, which they had not been before, and the doors of the big built-in cupboard on the wall adjoining our room were closed. I thought I could see an impression on the bed where a recumbent body might have lain.

‘Nobody here,’ the young man said. ‘But what an extraordinary mess! I think we’d better let the management know.’

I said: ‘Hold on a moment.’

I was remembering the thump on the wall which had brought us out of bed. It must have had something to do with that cupboard. I crossed the room, turned the small key in the lock and opened the door. Behind me I heard Steve gasp and the young man utter an exclamation.

The body was lying on the floor of the cupboard, where it had been bundled hastily and unceremoniously. It was that of a girl, and she was wearing clothes which I recognized. Her legs were free, but her wrists were tied with a strip of cloth and a gag was still in her mouth. I lifted her face for a moment before letting it fall back on her chest. Her body was still warm, but there could be no life behind those eyes. My guess was that she had been forcibly brought to that room and then smothered with the pillow which still lay on the bed. Not a very pretty crime.

‘Don’t look, Steve,’ I said, and stood up to shield her from the sight. But Steve had already seen enough and was twisting away in horror. I closed the cupboard door and met the eyes of the young man. He was standing like a statue, trembling violently, every drop of colour drained from his face.

‘You’d better let them know downstairs about this,’ I told him. ‘I’ll stay here and look after my wife.’

He seemed glad to go, and vanished without a word. Steve, whose nerves have become harder than those of most women, had pulled herself together quickly.

‘Paul!’ she said in a low voice. ‘You saw who it was. I couldn’t mistake that hair and those clothes. It was Judy Wincott!’

I didn’t answer. A movement of the curtains had caught my eye, and I was very conscious of the fact that we had come into the room within a minute or so of the murderer completing his work. I pushed Steve back, stepped over to the curtains, and with a quick movement pulled them aside.

In front of me the open windows gaped out on to the night, and the faint sea breeze which had stirred the curtains fanned my face. The greeny light of the street lamps brought the dark walls and gables into ghostly relief. Down below a street cleaner was hosing the pavement and swishing the debris down the gutters with a long brush. From somewhere indeterminate came the smell of tomorrow’s bread baking.

I turned back to Steve.

‘This must be the way he went. We can’t have missed him by much. He may even have been watching us when we opened that cupboard.’

Chapter Two

THERE was little sleep in store for Steve and me that night. At my suggestion Mirabel was summoned and a cold-looking dawn was lightening the sky before we had made our statements and been given permission to withdraw.

We were awakened by a buzz on the house telephone at ten o’clock. A quarter of an hour later our petit déjeuner was brought up on a nice big tray. We had barely finished our coffee and croissants when the ’phone buzzed once more. Mirabel was in the hall below and wanted to see me again.

‘I’m just going to have a bath,’ Steve said. ‘You can tell him to come up here.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not dressed yet,’ I told the telephone. ‘Would you mind coming up to room number thirteen? Or if you’d rather I’ll get dressed and be down in about ten minutes.’

Mirabel decided to come up. Within a minute he was at the door. He had found time to shave and change his collar. Spick and span as he was, he looked very out of place in our chaotic bedroom. I pulled him up a chair and offered him a cigarette, which he refused. I thought, however, that his manner was more friendly than the previous night.

‘Are you any further on?’ I asked, trying to show the right amount of polite interest.

‘I have had time to communicate with our English colleagues and obtain some information about you, Mr. Temple. They tell me that though you have a gift for attracting trouble towards you, you are not usually the prime cause of it.’

I laughed, imagining Vosper’s wording of such a message.

‘Then I’m off your list of suspects?’

‘I think so,’ Mirabel said and smiled. ‘You will be interested to hear that we have solved the mystery of the same woman being murdered twice. It now appears that the girl found in the dustbin behind your flat was not Judy Wincott at all, though she was half American too and her name was Diana Simmonds. Our mistake was a natural one, since a letter found in her bag bore the name Judy Wincott and the murdered woman resembled her enough for the concierge to mistake her for the Miss Judy Wincott who had enquired for you the previous evening.’

Mirabel seemed prepared to dismiss the subject at that. I expected him to ask me a great many more questions and there were several that I would like to have put myself. But the Inspector limited himself to feeling in his breast pocket and producing a small object wrapped in tissue paper.

‘I am returning the glasses to you as I promised,’ he said. ‘Without the case, though. Our people soon reduced that to its elemental components.’

‘Did you find anything?’

Mirabel shook his head.

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Did you have the spectacles checked?’

‘Yes, of course. There is nothing unusual about them. They are a perfectly ordinary pair of spectacles.’

He unwrapped them from their tissue paper and inspected them casually before handing them across to me.

‘Genuine tortoiseshell, too clear to conceal anything. And the lenses – well, there is nothing, is there?’

I took the glasses reluctantly.

‘I can’t help wondering. All the trouble seemed to begin from the moment these spectacles came into my life…’

‘You can rest assured, Mr. Temple. If there were anything abnormal about those spectacles our experts would have found out about it.’

The Inspector rose to his feet and pulled his jacket down.

‘I am sorry that your holiday has been interrupted in such an unpleasant way, and grateful to you for your co-operation.’

He held out his hand.

‘Give my homage to madame, your wife. I hope you will have a pleasant journey to Tunis.’

‘We are free to carry on?’ I said, still surprised that Mirabel was letting us off so lightly. ‘You won’t require us to give evidence at the inquest?’

‘It will not be necessary,’ Mirabel assured me. ‘You can continue your journey and Mr. David Foster can recover his spectacles – which I feel he must be missing very badly.’

I had risen to my feet at the same time as Mirabel but I still felt reluctant to let him go.

‘Will you forgive me, Inspecteur, if I ask you something?’

Mirabel shrugged non-committally, but he waited for my question.

‘This woman who was murdered in the Avenue Georges V – do you know who she was?’

‘We have found that out,’ Mirabel said readily enough. ‘She had several names but the one she used the most of the time was Lydia Maresse. She was known to Interpol as an international criminal.’

‘Any idea of the motive for her murder?’

‘None at all.’

I hesitated for a moment while Mirabel studied me quizzically.

‘Inspecteur – it surely does not escape you that there must be some connection between the two crimes, since Judy Wincott’s handbag was planted on the body found in Paris. Nor can it have failed to strike you as odd that my wife and I should have been so close at hand on each occasion.’

Mirabel raised his eyebrows and studied his immaculate nails.

‘These facts had not escaped us, Mr. Temple. But we are satisfied none the less that you had nothing to do with either crime.’

He suddenly smiled, offered me his hand again and turned to the door. It had almost closed on him when his head was poked in again.

‘If by any chance I need to contact you again I can always be sure of finding you. Thanks to Interpol we can reach the people who interest us in almost any country in the world.’

Steve and I had half a day to kill. We were again booked for the afternoon flight, this time to Algiers. I felt that what she most wanted was a breath of honest fresh air, as far away from that accursed hotel as possible. Enquiries at the hotel desk revealed that it was quite feasible to hire a small yacht. Sailing is a sport both Steve and I are addicted to and by half-past eleven we were well out from the shore in a neat little dinghy with racy lines.

For an hour we enjoyed the illusion that no inquisitive or prying eyes were watching us. From out at sea Nice, with its long promenade of white buildings, gay sun shades and the hills rising in tiers behind it, looked even more attractive than from land. A number of other craft were out on the water. Several speed-boats were towing water ski-ers at speed across the bay and there were a dozen other yachts of various sizes about. The water was not rough, but there was enough of a breeze to make sailing an energetic job that occupied most of our attention. Every now and then an aircraft taking off from the Nice airport skimmed low over our heads.

The wind was whipping the hair away from Steve’s ears, and I could see the colour returning to her pallid cheeks. We had just gone about for the twentieth time and were sitting on the gunwale to counterbalance the dinghy when she pointed to one of the speed-boats which had been cruising in our vicinity for some time.

‘He seems very interested in us,’ she called to me above the noise of the spray and the water swishing under our bows. ‘I think he’s watching us through binoculars.’

I glanced at the launch and then turned to laugh at Steve. She is a very attractive woman, but unusually modest, and she can never bring herself to attribute the attention and interest of other gentlemen to the very apparent attractiveness of her person. In the blue trousers and scarlet shirt she was wearing this morning she was likely to be the target for more than one pair of eyes.

A sudden gust of wind made the dinghy tip over dangerously, and we had to lean right back to keep her sails up out of the water. It was quite a tricky moment, and several hectic minutes passed before we had things under control again. Our canvas hid the cruising speedboat from us until I brought the dinghy’s head round to work her back to the shore. The noise of wind and water was so high that we had been unable to hear the sound of the engine. Even when I did hear the powerful roar I thought that it was just another aircraft taking off.

Steve’s shout switched my attention to our starboard beam.

‘Alter course, Paul. He’s coming straight for us!’

I looked up and saw the speed-boat no more than twenty yards away. Her engines must have been at full power, for her bows were well clear of the surface. A cliff of water seemed to be sheering away from either side of her steeply sloping sides. Every time she hit a wave the white foam went hissing outwards.

She must have been doing thirty or forty knots. On her present course she must surely ram us.

It was hopeless to shout and attract the attention of the pilot. He wouldn’t have heard us, and anyway his bows were riding so high that I doubted whether he could see us.

I slammed the tiller over and ducked as the boom came across. The dinghy yawed. She had lost all momentum and wallowed in a trough of water, a helpless and motionless prey for the oncoming speed-boat. She bore down on us like a swooping hawk.

When she was twenty yards away I shouted to Steve: ‘Jump for it!’

Hand in hand we leapt into the sea, as far from the path of the speed-boat as we could. Even as we rose to the surface we heard the crash behind us and the splinter of wood. The big speed-boat had cut the flimsy dinghy clean in two. Next instant a wall of creamy water hit us, filling our eyes and noses, thrusting us deep under the water. All the time I kept Steve’s hand clutched in mine.

When we got our heads above water and recovered our breath the hum of the speed-boat was quite distant. A wave lifted me up and I saw his wake disappearing in the direction of Monte Carlo.

The biggest piece of wreckage left was a section of the mast, which had a life-belt attached to it. Dragging Steve, I paddled towards it and we each grabbed hold of one side.

‘Well,’ Steve remarked to me bitterly, between gasping breaths. ‘Do you still maintain that the man in that boat was only interested in my elegant torso?’

As we bobbed aimlessly up and down, the coast seemed to be as far away as the Antipodes. None of the other craft in the neighbourhood had noticed the accident, and there was not enough of our dinghy left to attract attention. Luckily the water was not unbearably cold. I thought we could hold on till darkness at least. During that time someone must surely come near enough to spot us.

In the end it was less than ten minutes before we were found. A rather slow but obviously safe fishing-boat came chugging out straight towards us. As it drew near I began to wonder if there was going to be room on board, since half the population of Nice’s old quarter seemed to have thumbed a ride out to watch the rescue.

So many willing helpers reached down to haul us out of the water that our arms were nearly pulled out of their sockets. There were even some especially keen rescuers who would have been only too willing to apply artificial respiration to Steve.

‘Doucement, doucement! Faîtes place pour Madame.’

The accent was pretty good, but there was still that slight broadness of speech which betrays the Englishman. I looked round and saw the young man who had shared our discovery of Judy Wincott’s body. His name, as I knew all too well by now, was Tony Wyse. He seemed to have been accepted by the crew and passengers as the leader of the salvage operations, and in answer to his instructions room was made for us while dry pullovers and jackets were pressed on our soaked bodies.

‘It was a bit of luck I saw it all happen,’ Wyse told us, as he held his lighter to the cigarettes we had accepted. ‘I’m interested in sailing myself, and I was watching your yacht through one of those penny-in-the-slot telescopes they have on the front.’

Steve and I exchanged an amused glance. We had been speculating that morning on the convenience of those same telescopes for gentlemen who are keen on bird watching.

‘Did you see what happened?’ I asked him. ‘I’d like to lay my hands on the owner of that speed-boat. For one thing the dinghy’s a total loss and someone will have to pay for her.’

‘You needn’t worry about that,’ Wyse assured me airily. ‘They all have pretty comprehensive insurance.’

His day attire was as colourful as his night wear. He sported a pair of fawn flannel trousers which were as innocent of wrinkle as of spot, intermesh shoes, one of those Spanish-cut shirts with horizontal stripes and sailor neck, which you wear outside your trousers, and a silk neckerchief tied round his throat – more for beauty than for warmth. ‘Killer’ was written all over him, but strictly a lady-killer. He was not a man’s man.

‘He did it on purpose,’ Steve stated rather wildly. ‘I knew he was watching us in a malice aforethought kind of way. If we hadn’t jumped into the sea we would have been killed. I tell you, Paul, it’s all because of those confounded—’

‘It certainly was a freak accident,’ I interrupted quickly, and turned to Wyse. ‘How did it seem to you?’

Wyse raised a shoulder elegantly.

‘It’s hard to say whether he saw your boat or not. But you can’t seriously be suggesting that he ran you down on purpose, can you? I mean, you don’t even know who it was, do you?’

Wyse’s tone was that of an elder soothing the fears of children who have just awakened from a nightmare.

‘Then why—’ Steve began.

‘No, of course not,’ I said, and tried to quell Steve’s protestations with a wink. ‘It was just one of those million to one chances. We’re none the less grateful to you for coming so promptly to the rescue. It looks as if we may still catch this afternoon’s plane to Algiers.’

‘You’re flying to Algiers to-day?’ Wyse queried. He smiled broadly and his eyes rested comfortably on Steve’s face. ‘But this is going to be delightful. I shall be on the Algiers plane myself.’

We caught the Algiers plane with only a minute to spare. It had taken me a long time to come to terms with the owner of the dinghy. We were forced to fling our things into the suitcases and bolt our lunch before careering out to the airport in a taxi. The other passengers had already been escorted to the big Air France machine. Luckily there were no customs or immigration formalities to be observed, and a smartly uniformed young woman marched us rapidly out to the aircraft, just before the steps were wheeled away.

Our seats were half-way along the aircraft. At our own request we each had a seat next to the window, and so were sitting opposite to each other. By no means all the available space in the aircraft had been booked, but the seat next to Steve’s was occupied by a vision whose age I put at somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-seven. That she was French seemed obvious from the start. She drew her legs demurely aside to let Steve squeeze past and, under the guise of a friendly smile, the two women exchanged a wary, appraising glance.

The contrast between them was very marked. Whereas Steve was dark and did not have recourse to much makeup, this girl was an ash-blonde. Her hair was so immaculately dressed and glistening that I felt certain she must have been to the coiffeur that morning. Her eye-lashes were too long to be all her own, her nails were varnished and her lips were tinted by a faintly mauve lipstick. Yet there was nothing flashy or cheap about her appearance. You felt rather that she was a very lovely woman who took the maximum care to present herself well.

She must have been a novice at air travel, for when the illuminated sign was switched on she fumbled helplessly with her seat belt and got her own straps mixed up with Steve’s. Steve showed her how to fasten herself in.

The French girl smiled charmingly and groped in her mind for words.

‘Sank you very mush,’ she said, and gave a shy laugh.

‘Not at all,’ Steve said. ‘You’re not very accustomed to air travel?’

‘Please?’

‘I said: you have not travelled by air-o-plane much before?’

The French girl shook her head a little, but not so much as to disturb the ash-blonde hair.

‘Yes, sometimes already but not since several years.’

The aircraft was turning on the tarmac, preparing to lumber out to the end of the runway. The stewardess, a reassuring smile on her face, was moving up the aisle, asking passengers to put their cigarettes out, making sure their belts were properly fastened. The French girl was leaning forward, looking out of the window rather nervously at the rapidly passing ground. I knew that Steve was trying to keep her mind from the take-off when she resumed the conversation.

‘You are staying in Algiers or going further on?’

‘I go to Tunis. But of course I must first stop at Algiers and catch the airplane to Tunis the next day.’

‘That’s what we are doing. We shall be fellow passengers again to-morrow then.’

‘Yes. I shall begin to know you very well. I saw you in the hotel last night when the police were questioning all the guests.’

‘Oh, you were staying there too, were you?’

‘It must have been terribly désagréable for you to find that poor girl like that.’

‘Yes,’ Steve agreed. ‘It was.’

‘How horrible to think that you were in the very next room while an assassin was committing his crime!’

Now that she was warming to the conversation the French girl’s English was improving. She seemed very interested indeed in all the circumstances of Judy Wincott’s murder and began to ply Steve with questions.

‘Do you believe it was an attempt to make the police believe you and your husband had committed the crime?’

Steve shot me a startled glance.

‘Good gracious, I don’t think so.’

‘But it is a fact that if the other monsieur had not been there you would have been in a situation – très embarassante.’

‘Well, perhaps we would—’ Steve began.

‘Though myself I think that she was murdered before she was brought to the room next to yours.’

‘Oh?’ Steve said. ‘Then why did the murderer make such a noise about placing her body in the cupboard?’

‘Well,’ the French girl said thoughtfully. ‘He may have wanted that you should do précisément that which you did – precipitate yourselves into the room where the body was finding itself.’

The aircraft had reached the end of the runway and the roar of the engines as the pilot tested them precluded further conversation. The stewardess had strapped herself into her own seat at the rear end. After a momentary hush the engines roared again and the machine began to rush over the ground at rapidly increasing speed. The French girl leant her head back against the seat cushion and I saw her throat move as she swallowed. It was the only sign she gave that she was nervous.

In a few moments our wheels were clear, the flight became smooth and the sea was below us, dropping away rapidly as the aircraft banked and turned southwards towards the North African coast. The sign enjoining passengers to desist from smoking went out, and from all around came the clinking of clasps as people released themselves from their safety belts.

As soon as her buckle was undone the French girl picked up her handbag, and her long, shapely fingers groped for a tiny gold cigarette-case. She took a cigarette, placed it carefully in a holder and put it in her mouth. Then she handed the case to Steve, who smiled and accepted one of the Egyptian cigarettes. The French girl felt in her bag again and produced a new container of book matches. The cover was plain blue, stamped in gilt with the initials S.L.

She struck a match and held it for Steve. I saw my wife staring in a very curious wav at the book matches. Then she collected herself and puffed at her light.

‘You like my matches?’ The French girl had also noticed Steve’s expression and was smiling. ‘These are my initials. Simone Lalange. It is quite charming, is it not?’

I thought Steve’s assent a little forced, and I was disappointed in her when she broke off the conversation. I began to wonder if she was feeling air-sick, for her expression had altered and she was watching me in an expectant kind of way.

I leaned across the table.

‘Feeling all right, Steve?’

‘Yes, thanks. More or less. I could use a brandy to steady my tummy though. We must have eaten that meal in record time.’

‘There’s a bar in the tail of this machine. Shall we go and have a drink?’

No one else had yet thought of visiting the bar, so we had the little compartment to ourselves.

‘Paul!’ Steve said excitedly as soon as the steward had moved behind his tiny counter. ‘You remember when we were standing outside that bedroom last night – just before we discovered the body?’

‘I do. Most emphatically.’

‘Well, I noticed something on the floor and picked it up. It was an empty box of book matches.’

‘Yes, I noticed you stooping and wondered what you’d dropped. I’d forgotten all about it.’

‘So had I. But I distinctly remember now. It had a blue cover with the initials S.L. on it.’

I shot an instinctive glance towards the seats we had just vacated.

‘You saw the book matches that French girl had,’ Steve pursued. ‘They were an exact replica.’

‘Did you tell the police about your find? It’s rather important.’

‘No. I’d forgotten all about it until now. The thing is still in the pocket of my dressing-gown. You know the way a shock drives everything that’s happened previously out of your mind?’

‘Perhaps it’s not so very important,’ I reassured her. ‘Mademoiselle Lalange may have been shown the room before it was allotted to Mr. Sam Leyland, or she may have thrown it away at any time when she was passing by.’

‘Maybe,’ Steve said doubtfully. ‘But did you hear what she had to say about the murder? She seemed to have more theories than anyone else.’

‘Well, if you really do regard her with suspicion, I suggest you behave in a more friendly way to her. She’s more likely to open up if you don’t give her the cold shoulder.’

‘Did I give her the cold shoulder?’

‘Yes. You closed up like a clam the moment she’d lit your cigarette for you. I can’t really bring myself to believe she’s mixed up in this, but I think you should cultivate her. In any case she’d make a very interesting friend for the family.’

Steve’s glance had the glint of a dagger in it.

‘I know you think my theories are all very amusing,’ she said. ‘But I’m convinced that some very monkey business is going on, and equally convinced that it has to do with those spectacles. It was because of them that Judy Wincott was murdered, and because of them that we were run down by that launch this morning. Someone is prepared to stop at nothing to prevent us delivering them to David Foster.’

‘Whereas you are not prepared to let anything stop you doing so?’

‘Right first time,’ Steve answered belligerently, and her mouth set in the firm line which indicates that she really means business.

The aircraft had gained its cruising height now and had levelled off. I set my drink down on the low bar table and watched Steve with amusement.

‘If the glasses are so vitally important I’m glad you took charge of them, Steve. By the way I suppose you still have them?’

‘Of course I have. They’re in my handbag.’

She opened her handbag to prove the point to me, and a second later was groping about feverishly among the collection of assorted and mysterious objects she keeps in there. Then she withdrew her hand and closed the bag deliberately.

‘They’re gone! Someone must have taken them from my bag since we got on the plane. They were there when we showed our tickets. That French girl! I knew she—’

Steve was already rising when I put a hand to stop her. I patted my handkerchief pocket where the glasses were safely reposing.

‘I thought it wise to relieve you of the responsibility. Have you forgotten that since we’ve been married you’ve lost three of the handbags I gave you?’

Steve looked at me with undisguised repugnance as she rose to her feet.

‘You are not fit to command the loyalty of a decent woman,’ she said in her most regal tone, and marched out of the bar.

I was not left alone in the bar for long. Either by chance or because he had seen Steve leave, Tony Wyse appeared within a few moments. He greeted me enthusiastically, and after ordering a brandy and soda sat down beside me. He had changed for the journey into a dark grey suit, suède bootees and a striped tie. After the events of the previous night and the rescue operations that morning he was prepared to regard me as a long-lost brother.

‘One thing puzzles me about that business last night, Temple. When you opened the cupboard door and disclosed the simply ghastly spectacle of that slaughtered girl, your wife gave vent to a comment which has made me ponder more than somewhat. She seemed to know at once who it was.’

Wyse raised his glass, but he was studying me closely as he put his question.

‘Was she a friend of yours?’

‘Not exactly a friend. We’d met her briefly in Paris. That’s all.’

‘In Paris?’

The information seemed to surprise Wyse.

‘Yes. It was a chance encounter. She was very kind to my wife and we invited her to have a drink with us.’

‘You told the police this?’

‘Yes, of course. Did you imagine I was trying to hide something?’

‘No, indeed.’ Wyse hurriedly took a sip of his brandy and switched on the charm, which just for a moment had worn thin. ‘I’m sorry to appear to be so inquisitive, but one can’t help wondering about a murder, especially when one stumbles on the victim before she’s even cold.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you,’ I said.

Wyse seemed prepared to take the hint implied in my tone of voice and changed the subject.

‘This is your first trip to French North Africa?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Perhaps I can be of some service to you? I know both Algiers and Tunis pretty well. I would esteem it a privilege if you would permit me to conduct your wife and yourself round some of the curiosities.’

I thought that a whole day of Wyse’s roundabout brand of conversation would send me out of my mind.

I said: ‘It’s very kind of you, but we are hoping to meet friends there. Does your business bring you out here?’

‘Yes. I work for Freeman & Bailey – the engineering firm, you know. We have a good deal of business with Trans-Africa Petroleum.’

‘Trans-Africa Petroleum? Perhaps you know a slight acquaintance of mine who’s in that firm? His name is David Foster.’

‘David Foster?’ Wyse echoed the words with judicious thoughtfulness. ‘No. I can’t say I know him. Of course, I’m constantly on the move, so I miss meeting everyone.’

‘You are an engineer yourself?’

‘No. Not really an engineer. I am in the liaison department, as you might say – I hold a roving brief.’

He smiled broadly, but I felt that where questions were concerned, he did not relish being at the receiving end. He excused himself, signalled to the steward and made his exit.

The bar was becoming fuller, and I decided it was time I made way for someone else. I was already rising when the gentle pressure of a hand on my shoulder stopped me. I looked down at the hand. It was podgy and very white. Little dimples smiled at the backs of the fingers. Beyond snow-white silk cuffs was the black material of a very expensive suit. My eyes travelled upwards till they had taken in the appearance of the man who had sat down beside me.

I disliked him at once. He was too reminiscent of a white slug. That sickly sweet perfume which he exhaled suggested that his own odour must be strong and unpleasant. His eyes were small, his mouth lascivious. He was growing bald on top but allowed his back hair to curl upwards over the back of his collar.

‘One moment, please. You are Mr. Temple, are you not?’

He spoke with his mouth offensively close to my face, more in a whisper than in a normal speaking voice.

‘I am. I don’t think I have the pleasure of knowing you.’

‘Maybe not,’ the plump man said. ‘My name is Constantin. Blanys Constantin. You, I think, are Mr. Paul Temple?’

I did not answer. The steward came to enquire what Constantin wanted to drink, but he waved him away impatiently.

‘You were in Nice last night, Mr. Temple, staying at the hotel where a girl named Judy Wincott was murdered.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘The newspapers made a good story of it.’

‘Not a complete story. They did not say that you had met Miss Wincott in Paris.’

‘Perhaps they did not consider it a very important piece of news.’

‘Other people might consider it interesting, though, might they not, Mr. Temple? Especially if they knew the reason for her visit to your flat in the Avenue Georges V.’

The man had edged even closer, and his voice had dropped. As I was at the end of the couch I had no means of escape unless I was prepared to use violence on him.

‘You did not tell the police that she had entrusted you with a certain very valuable document, did you, Mr. Temple?’

My anger was beginning to rise, but I continued to keep my voice down.

‘I did not tell them so because it would have been quite untrue.’

‘Come, come,’ Constantin said. ‘You and I know better than that.’

‘If you want the truth, Miss Wincott simply asked me to return a pair of spectacles to a Mr. David Foster who lives in Tunis – where my wife and I happen to be going.’

Constantin blinked rapidly several times. For a moment he seemed floored, then returned rapidly to the attack.

‘You are being made a fool of, Mr. Temple. There is no such person as Mr. David Foster, and those spectacles will only bring difficulties for you.’

‘I think it is you who are being a fool, Mr. Constantin. The spectacles are a perfectly ordinary pair – there’s nothing mystic or magic about them, and there’s no possibility that they are connected in any way with the murder of Miss Wincott.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Constantin’s eyes flickered rapidly round to make sure that no one was taking an interest in our conversation. ‘Nevertheless, I will give you a thousand pounds if you will hand those spectacles over to me.’

I began to laugh and shake my head, but Constantin pressed me back into my seat.

‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said with intensity, and then almost without a pause: ‘Ten thousand! Do not think that I cannot pay so much, because I can. You can collect the money as soon as we arrive in Algiers.’

‘You are wasting your time,’ I said bluntly, and this time I did push him out of my way so that I could get up.

‘No,’ he called after me quite loudly as I left the bar. ‘It is you who are wasting time. I tell you, you will never find your David Foster!’

Chapter Three

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.’

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