The silence was shattered by a burglar alarm!
Feverishly I pushed at the door. The woodwork splintered, and I crashed out on to the balcony. In a matter of moments, I was over the ledge and dropping into the street I landed hard on my ankle, and rolled on to the pavement in pain. Then, gritting my teeth, I staggered to my feet.
‘Halt or we shoot!’ a voice cried from the house.
Escape was impossible. The most that I could do was to hobble a few yards.
Five minutes later I was in Melissa’s room. She motioned the servants to the door. Then she said:
Well, Harry?’
I explained that I had come there to steal something—a few hours alone with her.
She laughed, and I thought I could detect relief.
I went straight on: •
‘I pretended to leave, so I wouldn’t embarrass you by being the last guest here; and then I stole* into your little sitting-room…You didn’t turn the lights on when you came through…’
‘No,’ she said.
‘I sat down in that comfortable sofa to wait for you. You wouldn’t talk to me earlier; and I had so much to tell you—things I couldn’t say before the other guests.’
I could see that she was weakening.
I smiled wryly, and continued: ‘Well, I guess I did a silly thing and fell asleep. I didn’t wake up until a few minutes ago, and then…well, it was almost dawn, and I felt a complete fool. I tried to sneak out, and you know the rest.’
’Oh, poor Harry. Your ankle hurts you very much? ’
‘When you look at me like that, I can’t feel any pain.’
She didn’t answer, so I said: ‘Can I phone for a cab?’
‘I’ll send you home in my car,’ she offered. ‘Pedro can take you.’
It was probably some sort of innovation—a thief being given chauffeur service by his…‘victim’. Pedro drove me to my hotel, and I picked up a few things there and then slipped out of the back door. It wouldn’t be too long before the theft was discovered and the police would be looking for me.
The thing ‘to do was to deliver the painting to Ferendez, get my money, and skip out of the country. But it was Sunday, and I couldn’t find Señor Juan Ferendez any place!
I spent the day skulking in doorways, running from shadows, hiding in deserted spots along the waterfront near Puerto Nuevo. I caught fitful snatches of sleep in the shelter of the deserted Parque del Retiro.
Monday morning came, and with it the newspapers—probably carrying my description! But to my surprise there was no mention of the robbery. For some reason Melissa Corday had not reported the theft. Maybe the old Lime charm had been more successful than I’d thought.
Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. I made my way most carefully to the galleries of Señor Ferendez. And this time I insisted on seeing him.
’The Rubens!’ he exclaimed while he was examining it at the window. I said: ‘I need the money right away, Juan. I have to get out of the country now.’
He was absorbed in his examination.
‘And I want seventy-five per cent this time. Of course, I know you haven’t got that much cash hanging around…’
‘I have enough to pay you what this is worth,’ he said slowly, turning round.
I didn’t get it.
’This is not an original Rubens, Harry. It’s a copy, a very good copy—worth a hundred dollars, perhaps.’
So that was what she had meant when she said, It’s almost worthless., And I had been worried about her morale.
It’s an old game^-insuring a fake, permitting someone to steal it, giving him ample time to make a getaway, and then suddenly discovering the loss and reporting it to the insurance company.
The Insurance Company! Their investigators would be after me—and for a hundred-dollar copy. And she. was in the clear. If I was caught, she didn’t dream it was a fake. If I made a getaway, she was rich.
Ferendez interrupted my musings: *1 have a friend. He owns a small freighter which sails in a few hours. I’ll call him.’
I explained I might not be able to afford the fare.
He pulled out his wallet: ‘Here, a hundred dollars for the Rubens’ copy, though I don’t know what I can do with it. The skipper is a friend of mine. He won’t charge you more than a hundred dollars.’
And as I sailed away that night, Melissa Corday and Juan Ferendez sipped their cocktails together.
‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you,- Señor Ferendez,’ said Melissa. ‘You were my only chance. I had to come to you.’
‘It was a great pleasure to save your masterpiece for you.’
’That wasn’t all you saved,’ she continued. ‘If I’d called the police, there would have been no way of explaining the presence of an attractive man in my home at that hour. I could never have obtained my divorce. My whole reason for being in Buenos Aires would have been shattered: my months of being rude to every man who looked at me, lest my husband’s agents should misinterpret my friendships/
They drank in silence. Then Juan said, ‘You know I’m beginning to think I was never cut out for this business. We Spaniards are too sentimental. Like Harry Lime, I might have made a fortune out of this painting…’
She laughed. ’Imagine buying it from him for a hundred dollars.’
‘But with no profit to me. All I accomplished was the saving of a woman’s reputation—a perishable commodity at best.’
Of course, I didn’t witness that last scene. I reconstructed it later from a few newspaper clippings. One reported the final divorce of Melissa Corday; another told of her marriage to Señor Juan Ferendez.
And a third, which must have been released to the press in anticipation of my reading it somewhere, told how a priceless work of art had been recovered for a hundred-dollar reward!
Oh, it had been a work of art all right. Everything she had done—right from the beginning.
ROGUE’S HOLIDAY
by
Peter Lyon
Did I ever tell you about the time when I outwitted three suspicious Wall Street investors, at a net profit to me of fifty-five thousand American dollars? Well… . but on second thoughts that story requires too much credulity on the part of my readers. But it was because of that incident that I decided that an ocean trip would be good for my nerves and for the nerves of some half-dozen New York detectives. That is how I happened to go on a holiday—a rogue’s holiday, if you will.
It was very pleasant, a day or so out of New York, aboard the Queen Anne, bound for Southampton. I was on the passenger list as J. Harrington Lime. I ate, of course, at the captain’s table; and, remembering how I had put the investments of those three Wall Street brokers in my own personal savings bank, whenever I was asked what business I was in I would smile to myself and answer that I was an investment banker.
At dinner the first night, I found that the chair next to mine was occupied by an English lady in her middle thirties. Her travelling companion was not down to dinner, and the chair next to her on the other side was therefore empty. We soon introduced ourselves and got into conversation.
‘Yet you seem so young, to be engaged in so complex a business.’ she said to me as we sipped our coffee. ‘Investment banker! I always thought all bankers were portly men in their fifties…’
I smiled at her. ’Every banker must be able to inspire confidence in his clients, Lady Barbara. The incompetent banker relies on his appearance and his maturity.’
‘And you?’
‘I rely on my record of success, ma’am.’
I smiled as I walked the deck after dinner thinking of my fifty-five thousand: and wondered if Lady Barbara Ffolliot had any investments on which I might be able to offer discreet and profitable advice. There was no harm in looking, at least, even if I was on holiday. So I made my way to the ship’s library and asked for that invaluable work of reference—Debrett’s. But the steward returned after searching the shelves with the news that the book had been borrowed and not yet replaced.
I said I would call again in a day or two.
There was no hurry—not while I was on holiday. The Queen Anne is a pleasant boat, scheduled to take six days, and I had plenty of time. But the question of Lady Barbara’s bank account, and the question of the empty chair that was always next to hers at the captain’s table preyed on my mind.
So I looked up the passenger list. There she was, all right: ‘Lady Barbara Ffolliot—Stateroom, “A” Deck.’ But all it said was ‘and companion’. And companion? What did that mean? Not a husband, surely? I paid a social visit to the steward who had charge of her stateroom.
She had given him ten dollars not to give out information, so it cost me twenty to get it.
‘Looking for a little shipboard romance, no doubt, sir,’ he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.
I thought it best not to disillusion him.
’Then you’ve got clear sailing, sir,’ he continued, ’the companion’s not her husband. Matter of fact, sir…’
‘Yes?’
’Take my advice, sir, and wait till the companion’s got her sea legs, sir. A lot cuter, the companion, than Lady Barbara, sir.’
So, in the next day or so, I found plenty of opportunities for squiring Lady Barbara around the boat—cocktails in the evening, a drink or two after dinner, or a game or two of deck tennis in the afternoon. And from a few remarks she made in conversation I began to redouble my attentions to her and begin to view her quite definitely as a prospective…shall I say ‘client’.
One morning I ran into their steward, and he told me that both ladies were out on the promenade deck. With some caution I went looking for them. True, I was on holiday; but still, if I could turn my hand to a piece of business…And besides, I was curious about this mysterious companion, whose name was not even carried on the passenger list.
Turning a corner on the promenade deck, I nearly bumped into them. Quickly I ducked back, behind a bulkhead, as they passed. Had they seen me? I didn’t think so.
I heard a musical voice saying, ’Et puis, alors! Que pourrai je faire?’ Its owner laughed, and then went on, ‘Que c’etait drole, hein?’
’Tres rigolo, ma princesse…’ was all I caught of Lady Barbara’s reply as they passed out of earshot. •
But I had heard enough. ‘Ma Princesse.’ So her: companion was a princess! Oho l For the rest I had seen that she wore a veil close over her hair and face, but no veil could conceal her beauty. And I had seen something else that interested me, too. A string of pearls—matched pearls.
I manoeuvred into position for their next round of their promenade.
’Oh, good morning, Mr. Lime,’ was Lady Barbara’s greeting. She turned to her companion. ‘Anne, this is the nice man I have told you about, who has been so kind to me. Mr. Lime, this is Miss Jones.’
I bowed to her. ‘Miss Jones? Such an ordinary name for such an extraordinary young lady?’
‘He makes nice speeches, Barbara, just as you said he did.’ Her voice had a pleasant trace of accent.
I suggested that I might join them in their walk, but Anne said that they were just about to go in. ’Then, at least, Miss-uh-Jones, maybe you will join me and Lady Barbara this evening before dinner?’ Lady Barbara explained that I always insisted on buying her a cocktail before our evening meal.
‘Why, I should like that. Only, as to cocktails, the ship’s doctor has told me that perhaps, until I am stronger, I should drink champagne.’
‘I will make sure that there is a bottle on ice for you,’ I assured her, and went away feeling well pleased with the turn that events had taken that morning.
Miss Jones? I could spot that a mile away as an incognito. And something else that I was pretty sure I could spot was that string of pearls. I was confident that while the name of Jones was a phony, the pearls certainly weren’t. This was promising to become one of the most profitable holidays I had ever spent.
That evening, I was in the lounge early, a bucket of iced champagne at my side. Anne came in, lovely in a simple, close-fitting black silk evening gown. Her only jewellery was the rope of pearls.
She explained that Lady Barbara was a little indisposed. I said that I was not sorry.
‘So?’ she asked.
T was so looking forward to meeting you,’ I went on. ‘You had become a lady of mystery; and having met you this morning on the promenade deck, I spent the day looking forward to chatting with you this evening.’
‘More pretty speeches!’
I raised my glass, and she leaned slightly forward So that our glasses might touch. Then, with a quick, panic-stricken movement, her hand flew to her neck.
’Oh!’ she gasped.
‘What is it?’
’The string of my necklace…it broke! Oh, my pearls, they’re all…’
‘Just hold still,’ I said. ‘You know how many of them there were?’
’Oh, yes! There were sixty-four.’
After five minutes on our hands and knees, the steward and I had sixty-four pearls safely in an empty wineglass on the table. Anne sighed with relief. I was looking closely at the pearls. Finally I remarked that they were a flawless set.
*Yes, aren’t they handsome?’ she answered. ‘Mr. Lime, dome a great favour?’
‘Anything at all.’
*You have an envelope, perhaps, or a safe pocket?’ she went on. ’Take them for me to the little jewellery shop. You know the one? Right on this deck.’
I protested that I did not relish the idea of walking around the ship with a handful of loose pearls. Laughingly, she insisted that I should go, and I allowed myself to be persuaded.
‘I shall sit here quietly.’ she said as I rose to go, ‘just thinking how lucky I am that you were with me when the string broke, until you return. All right?’
So there I was by myself, free as the wind, with sixty-four pearls in my pocket. Every one of them, one of the bigger ones, would be worth, what? Five thousand pounds? A nice sum. In my stateroom I had some loose pearls—paste. I could have made the switch easily enough, for I had plenty of time. A stupid thief might have done just that. But not me. Not Harry Lime. I was too smart. I would wait until later, until after, we were off the ship. I went straight to the ship’s jeweller.
Casually, I asked him to restring them. His eyes lit up when I poured them into his hand. ‘Very handsome, very handsome indeed,’ he muttered.
‘How much would, you estimate that string to be worth?’ I asked him.
‘If you were just to walk into this shop and ask me to buy them, you mean? Or if yon wanted me to find another sixty-four like them?’
‘Just walk in and buy them.’ I paused, and then suggested ’Fifty thousand pounds?’
He smiled with superior professional knowledge. ’This string…closer to one hundred and fifty thousand, sir.’
When he had finished his work, I asked him how much I owed him.
’Forget it, sir,’ was his reply. ‘It was a privilege to be handling pearls like that, even if only for a moment.’
It would have been foolish for me to tamper with this fortune while we were still aboard ship. In two days we would be in Southampton, after which there would still be time. The important thing was to get this lovely girl’s confidence, which I most certainly did; and the second thing was to pry under her incognito.
Not until the last night, when the ship was gliding in the soft darkness past Plymouth and the two of us were standing close together on the deserted boat deck, did I find out. If she looked lovely in the moonlight, her pearls looked even lovelier…
‘You…you kiss very expertly, Mr. Lime.’
‘Harry.’
’Or should I say, you seem very practised.’
‘If a cat may look at a king…’ I began, and. stopped suddenly.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘…then perhaps it’s all right if I kiss a princess?’
I could hear the sharp-intake of her breath.
‘You recognised me?’ she asked, after a few moments.
I said that I knew she was a princess, but not her name…if that mattered.
When she remarked that I was uncanny, I gave a little smile and moved closer to her. We both looked over the rail in silence. Then she said:
‘Since you have got this far, and since you have shown yourself trustworthy, I can see no reason for not telling you more. I am Anne de Bourbon, Princess of Helwigstein. That is a principality in Eastern Germany, beyond the Iron Curtain. I should say that it was a principality. Now it is no more. All gone, except…’
’Except what?’
‘I am not sure. I will not know until I meet my husband in London.’ She paused, and then added: I’ll meet my husband.’
‘If? There is some doubt?’ I asked.
‘I have said too much already, Harry. It is too bad. It had been a pleasant evening. I was almost able to forget for a moment. Good night.’
She was gone. Just like that. At least I knew now who she was. But whether I would be able to find her again in London; whether I had frightened her away, and with her my chance at that string of pearls, by letting her know that I knew she was a princess. All these things I was nervous about. Until, next day, just as I was getting ready to disembark, a steward brought me an envelope.
The notepaper bore a crest. It was one sheet of heavy paper, folded once. There was no salutation. The note said: ’As you said, a cat may look at a king. It might be interesting—and fun—to experiment once more with your other statement—the one about the princess.’ There was no signature, but none was necessary.
I tipped the steward, who was waiting at my elbow.
He thanked me, and added: ‘Madam told me to tell you, sir, that they would be stopping at the Carleton/
So she had arranged that we would meet again, after ail. And when we met again, away from the confines of an ocean liner, I proposed to have a surefire scheme for relieving her lovely neck of those even more attractive pearls. To be sure, I was on holiday; to be sure, sentiment was involved; but these were factors that had to be disregarded. My scheme was foolproof, but as it turned out, it wasn’t needed. On my very first visit, she asked me to do her a favour. I started to say that I would do anything short of murder.
The Lives of Harry Lime v1.0 Page 12