by Eric Ambler
“We’ll talk about that later.” He stared at me for a moment and smiled slightly. “Tonight I think I feel like going out on the town. You know some good places?”
As he said it there was just the suggestion of a wink. I am sure of that.
I smiled discreetly. “I certainly do, sir.”
“I thought you might. Pick me up at nine o’clock. All right?”
“Nine o’clock, sir. I will have the concierge telephone to your room that I am here.”
It was four-thirty then. I drove to my flat, parked the car in the courtyard, and went up.
Nicki was out, of course. She usually spent the afternoon with friends-or said she did. I did not know who the friends were and I never asked too many questions. I did not want her to lie to me, and, if she had picked up a lover at the Club, I did not want to know about it. When a middle-aged man marries an attractive girl half his age, he has to accept certain possibilities philosophically. The clothes she had changed out of were lying all over the bed and she had spilled some scent, so that the place smelled more strongly of her than usual.
There was a letter for me from a British travel magazine I had written to. They wanted me to submit samples of my work for their consideration. I tore the letter up. Practically thirty years in the magazine game and they treat you like an amateur! Send samples of your work, and the next thing you know is that they’ve stolen all your ideas without paying you a penny-piece. It has happened to me again and again, and I am not being caught that way any more. If they want me to write for them, let them say so with a firm offer of cash on delivery, plus expenses in advance.
I made a few telephone calls to make sure that Harper’s evening out would go smoothly, and then went down to the cafe for a drink or two. When I got back Nicki was there, changing again to go to work at the Club.
It was no wish of mine that she should go on working after our marriage. She chose to do so herself. I suppose some men would be jealous at the idea of their wives belly dancing with practically no clothes on in front of other men; but I am not narrow-minded in that way. If she chooses to earn a little extra pocket money for herself, that is her affair.
While she dressed, I told her about Harper and made a joke about all his questions. She did not smile.
“He does not sound easy, papa,” she said. When she calls me “papa” like that it means that she is in a friendly mood with me.
“He has money to spend.”
“How do you know?”
“I telephoned the hotel and asked for him in Room 230. The operator corrected me and so I got his real room number. I know it. It is a big air-conditioned suite.”
She looked at me with a slight smile and sighed. “You do so much enjoy it, don’t you?”
“Enjoy what?”
“Finding out about people.”
“That is my newspaper training, cherie, my nose for news.”
She looked at me doubtfully, and I wished I had given a different answer. It has always been difficult for me to explain to her why certain doors are now closed to me. Reopening old wounds is senseless as well as painful.
She shrugged and went on with her dressing. “Will you bring him to the Club?”
“I think so.”
I poured her a glass of wine and one for myself. She drank hers while she finished dressing and then went out. She patted my cheek as she went, but did not kiss me. The “papa” mood was over. “One day,” I thought, “she will go out and not come back.”
But I am never one to mope. If that happened, I decided, then good riddance to bad rubbish. I poured myself another glass of wine, smoked a cigarette, and worked out a tactful way of finding out what sort of business Harper was in. I think I must have sensed that there was something not quite right about him.
At five to nine I found a parking place on Venizelos Avenue just round the corner from the Grande-Bretagne, and went to let Harper know that I was waiting.
He came down after ten minutes and I took him round the corner to the car. I explained that it was difficult for private cars to park in front of the hotel.
He said, rather disagreeably I thought: “Who cares?”
I wondered if he had been drinking. Quite a lot of tourists who, in their own countries, are used to dining early in the evening, start drinking ouzo to pass the time. By ten o’clock, when most Athenians begin to think about dinner, the tourists are sometimes too tight to care what they say or do. Harper, however, was all too sober. I soon found that out.
When we reached the car I opened the rear door for him to get in. Ignoring me, he opened the other door and got into the front passenger seat. Very democratic. Only I happen to prefer my passengers in the back seat where I can keep my eye on them through the mirror.
I went round and got into the driver’s seat.
“Well, Arthur,” he asked, “where are you taking me?”
“Dinner first, sir?”
“How about some sea food?”
“I’ll take you to the best, sir.”
I drove him out to the yacht harbor at Tourcolimano. One of the restaurants there gives me a good commission. The waterfront is really very picturesque, and he nodded approvingly as he looked around. Then, I took him into the restaurant and introduced him to the cook. When he had chosen his food and a bottle of dry Patras wine he looked at me.
“You eaten yet, Arthur?”
“Oh, I will have something in the kitchen, sir.” That way my dinner would go on his bill without his knowing it, as well as my commission.
“You come and eat with me.”
“It is not necessary, sir.”
“Who said it was? I asked you to eat with me.”
“Thank you, sir. I would like to.”
More democracy. We sat at a table on the terrace by the water’s edge and he began to ask me about the yachts anchored in the harbor. Which were privately owned, which were for charter? What were charter rates like?
I happened to know about one of the charter yachts, an eighteen-meter ketch with twin diesels, and told him the rate-one hundred and forty dollars U.S. per day, including a crew of two, fuel for eight hours’ steaming a day, and everything except charterer’s and passengers’ food. The real rate was a hundred and thirty, but I thought that, if by any chance he was serious, I could get the difference as commission from the broker. I also wanted to see how he felt about that kind of money; whether he would laugh as an ordinary salaried man would, or begin asking about the number of persons it would sleep. He just nodded, and then asked about fast, sea-going motorboats without crew.
In the light of what happened I think that point is specially significant.
I said that I would find out. He asked me about the yacht brokers. I gave him the name of the one I knew personally, and told him the rest were no good. I also said that I did not think that the owners of the bigger boats liked chartering them without their own crewmen on board. He did not comment on that. Later, he asked me if I knew whether yacht charter parties out of Tourcolimano or the Piraeus covered Greek waters only, or whether you could “go foreign,” say across the Adriatic to Italy. Significant again. I told him I did not know, which was true.
When the bill came, he asked if he could change an American Express traveler’s check for fifty dollars. That was more to the point. I told him that he could, and he tore the fifty-dollar check out of a book of ten. It was the best thing I had seen that day.
Just before eleven o’clock we left, and I drove him to the Club.
The Club is practically a copy of the Lido night club in Paris, only smaller. I introduced him to John, who owns the place, and tried to leave him there for a while. He was still absolutely sober, and I thought that if he were by himself he would drink more; but it was no good. I had to go in and sit and drink with him. He was as possessive as a woman. I was puzzled. If I had been a fresh-looking young man instead of, well, frankly, a potbellied journalist, I would have understood it-not approved, of course, but understood. But he was
at least ten or fifteen years younger than me.
They have candles on the tables at the Club and you can see faces. When the floor show came on, I watched him watch it. He looked at the girls, Nicki among them, as if they were flies on the other side of a window. I asked him how he liked the third from the left-that was Nicki.
“Legs too short,” he said. “I like them with longer legs. Is that the one you had in mind?”
“In mind? I don’t understand, sir.” I was beginning to dislike him intensely.
He eyed me. “Shove it,” he said unpleasantly.
We were drinking Greek brandy. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another. I could see the muscles in his jaw twitching as if with anger. Evidently something I had said, or which he thought I had said, had annoyed him. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that Nicki was my wife, but I didn’t. I remembered, just in time, that I had only told him about Annette, and about her being killed by a bomb.
He drank the brandy down quickly and told me to get the bill.
“You don’t like it here, sir?”
“What more is there to see? Do they start stripping later?”
I smiled. It is the only possible response to that sort of boorishness. In any case, I had no objection to speeding up my program for the evening.
“There is another place,” I said.
“Like this?”
“The entertainment, sir, is a little more individual and private.” I picked the words carefully.
“You mean a cat house?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that, sir.”
He smirked. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t. How about ‘ maison de rendezvous’? Does that cover it?”
“Madame Irma’s is very discreet and everything is in the best of taste, sir.”
He shook with amusement. “Know something, Arthur?” he said. “If you shaved a bit closer and had yourself a good haircut, you could hire out as a butler any time.”
From his expression I could not tell whether he was being deliberately insulting or making a clumsy joke. It seemed advisable to assume the latter.
“Is that what Americans call ‘ribbing,’ sir?” I asked politely.
This seemed to amuse him even more. He chuckled fatuously. “Okay, Arthur,” he said at last, “okay. We’ll play it your way. Let’s go to see your Madame Irma.”
I didn’t like the “ your Madame Irma” way of putting it, but I pretended not to notice.
Irma has a very nice house standing in its own grounds just off the road out to Kephisia. She never has more than six girls at any one time and changes them every few months. Her prices are high, of course, but everything is very well arranged. Clients enter and leave by different doors to avoid embarrassing encounters. The only persons the client sees are Irma herself, Kira, the manageress who takes care of the financial side, and, naturally, the lady of his choice.
Harper seemed to be impressed. I say “seemed” because he was very polite to Irma when I introduced them, and complimented her on the decorations. Irma is not unattractive herself and likes presentable-looking clients. As I had expected, there was no nonsense about my joining him at that table. As soon as Irma offered him a drink, he glanced at me and made a gesture of dismissal.
“See you later,” he said.
I was sure then that everything was all right. I went in to Kira’s room to collect my commission and tell her how much money he had on him. It was after midnight then. I said that I had had no dinner and would go and get some. She told me that they were not particularly busy that night and that there need be no hurry.
I drove immediately to the Grande-Bretagne, parked the car at the side, walked round to the bar, and went in and ordered a drink. If anyone happened to notice me and remember later, I had a simple explanation for being there.
I finished the drink, gave the waiter a good tip, and walked through across the foyer to the lifts. They are fully automatic; you work them yourself with push buttons. I went up to the third floor.
Harper’s suite was on the inner court, away from the noise of Syntagmaios Square, and the doors to it were out of sight of the landing. The floor servants had gone off duty for the night. It was all quite easy. As usual, I had my pass key hidden inside an old change purse; but, as usual, I did not need it. Quite a number of the sitting-room doors to suites in the older part of the hotel can be opened from outside without a key, unless they have been specially locked, that is; it makes it easier for room-service waiters carrying trays. Often the maid who turns down the beds last thing can’t be bothered to lock up after her. Why should she? The Greeks are a particularly honest people and they trust one another.
His luggage was all in the bedroom. I had already handled it once that day, stowing it in the car at the airport, so I did not have to worry about leaving fingerprints.
I went to his briefcase first. There were a lot of business papers in it-something to do with a Swiss company named Tekelek, who made accounting machines-I did not pay much attention to them. There was also a wallet with money in it-Swiss francs, American dollars, and West German marks-together with the yellow number slips of over two thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. The number slips are for record purposes in case the checks are lost and you want to stop payment on them. I left the money where it was and took the slips. The checks themselves I found in the side pocket of a suitcase. There were thirty-five of them, each for fifty dollars. His first name was Walter, middle initial K.
In my experience, most people are extraordinarily careless about the way they look after traveler’s checks. Just because their counter-signature is required before a check can be cashed, they assume that only they can negotiate it. Yet anyone with eyes in his head can copy the original signature. No particular skill is required; haste, heat, a different pen, a counter of an awkward height, writing standing up instead of sitting-a dozen things can account for small variations in the second signature. It is not going to be examined by a handwriting expert, not at the time that it is cashed anyway; and usually it is only at banks that the cashier asks to see a passport.
Another thing: if you have ordinary money in your pocket, you usually know, at least approximately, how much you have. Every time you pay for something, you receive a reminder; you can see and feel what you have. Not so with traveler’s checks. What you see, if and when you look, is a blue folder with checks inside. How often do you count the checks to make sure that they are all there? Supposing someone were to remove the bottom check in a folder. When would you find out that it had gone? A hundred to one it would not be until you had used up all the checks which had been on top of it. Therefore, you would not know exactly when it had been taken; and, if you had been doing any traveling, you probably would not even know where. If you did not know when or where, how could you possibly guess who? In any case you would be too late to stop its being cashed.
People who leave traveler’s checks about deserve to lose them.
I took just six checks, the bottom ones from the folder. That made three hundred dollars, and left him fifteen hundred or so. It is a mistake, I always think, to be greedy; but unfortunately I hesitated. For a moment I wondered if he would miss them all that much sooner if I took two more.
So I was standing there like a fool, with the checks right in my hands, when Harper walked into the room.
2
I was in the bedroom and he came through from the sitting room. All the same he must have opened the outer door very quietly indeed, or I would certainly have heard the latch. I think he expected to find me there. In that case, the whole thing was just a cunningly planned trap.
I was standing at the foot of one of the beds, so I couldn’t move away from him. For a moment he just stood there grinning at me, as if he were enjoying himself.
“Well now, Arthur,” he said, “you ought to have waited for me, oughtn’t you?”
“I was going back.” It was a stupid thing to say, I suppose; but almost anything I had said would
have sounded stupid at that point.
And then, suddenly, he hit me across the face with the back of his hand.
It was like being kicked. My glasses fell off and I lurched back against the bed. As I raised my arms to protect myself he hit me again with the other hand. When I started to fall to my knees, he dragged me up and kept on hitting me. He was like a savage.
I fell down again and this time he let me be. My ears were singing, my head felt like bursting, and I could not see properly. My nose began to bleed. I got my handkerchief out to stop the blood from getting all over my clothes, and felt about among the checks lying on the carpet for my glasses. I found them eventually. They were bent a bit but not broken. When I put them on, I saw the soles of his shoes about a yard from my face.
He was sitting in the armchair, leaning back, watching me.
“Get up,” he said, “and watch that blood. Keep it off the rug.”
As I got to my feet, he stood up quickly himself. I thought he was going to start hitting me again. Instead, he caught hold of one lapel of my jacket.
“Do you have a gun?”
I shook my head.
He slapped my pockets, to make sure, I suppose, then shoved me away.
“There are some tissues in the bathroom,” he said. “Go clean your face. But leave the door open.”
I did as I was told. There was a window in the bathroom; but even if it had been possible to escape that way without breaking my neck, I don’t suppose I would have tried it. He would have heard me. Besides, where could I have escaped to? All he would have had to do was call down to the night concierge, and the police would have been there in five minutes. The fact that he had not called down already was at least something. Perhaps, as a foreigner, he did not want to get involved as a witness in a court case. After all, he had not actually lost anything; and if I were to eat enough humble pie, perhaps even cry a bit, he might decide to forget the whole thing; especially after the brutal way in which he had attacked me. That was my reasoning. I should have known better. You cannot expect common decency from a man like Harper.