Contraband gs-1

by Dennis Wheatley

  'Shut up!' snapped Gregory. 'You were in it yourself I expect. Any more from you and I'll give you a taste of this.' He waved the end of the broken bottle, which he still held, aggressively.

  The man gnawed his walrus moustache in apparent indecision while he eyed Gregory stupidly for a moment, then he suddenly dived back behind the rampart of his bar and ran from the room as quickly as he had come.

  Gregory wasted no time in argument. If the landlord of the place was not in with the thugs he was now making a beeline for the telephone and the police would be arriving at any moment. Gregory knew just how inconvenient a French police inquiry could prove, even to innocent persons. They might hold him for days as a material witness against the thugs. To be mixed up in anything of that sort was the last thing he desired. But the lesson of Drake and the game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe was one which had always appealed to him. Time enough now to impress the lady first and run from the French police afterwards. So instead of hustling her out he dropped the bottle, held open the door and, removing his hat with a graceful bow, said courteously:

  'Mademoiselle, the time has come for you and me to find pleasanter surroundings. I have a cab below.'

  'I thank you, Monsieur,' she replied evenly, and the suggestion of a smile which played about her red lips as she walked from the room showed that she was not unappreciative of his poise and gallantry.

  As Gregory made his bow, his eye had fallen on a flat, black notecase lying a few feet away from the corner where the tussle had taken place. He stooped swiftly, picked it up, and thrust it in his pocket. Then he strode after the girl and shepherded her swiftly down the stairs.

  The street was still empty except for his waiting taxi a hundred yards away. The voices of the few night birds now raised in excited argument within the cafe drowned the sound of their footsteps as he took the girl's arm in a confident grip and with long, but apparently unhurried strides, led her to the cab.

  'The Metropole, Deauville,' he told the driver, and the man nodded with a quick grin as they climbed in.

  The airman and the thugs had probably taken the other direction, Gregory assumed, since the taxi man said nothing of the chase. Anyhow, the fellow could grin until he burst, for he, Gregory, had got the girl, and what a girl. She seemed to radiate warmth by merely sitting beside him as they bumped over the pave of the old streets back to the harbour, and a faint delicious odour, not so much a definite perfume as the scent of daily coiffured hair, freshly washed silks and a scrupulously tended person the hallmarks of a superbly soignee woman filled the darkness of the taxi. The problem was how to keep her?

  'What would you like me to call you?' Gregory asked her suddenly.

  'My name is Sabine.3

  'Delightful and the other half?

  'Monsieur is curious, but I do not consider it necessary that I tell. We part soon and it is not-er convenable that we meet again.'

  'Parfaitement.' Gregory bowed to her decision but with mental reservations. 'Sabine it is then but you seem to forget that the police are probably taking down our descriptions at the moment. Unless we can keep clear of them we shall both spend the rest of the night in the lockup?'

  'You think that pas de blague ?'

  'I certainly do. That's why I told this chap to go to the Metropole and here we are.'

  He paid off the taxi with a lavish tip and followed her into the hotel.

  'I leave you only for the moment,' she said as they reached the entresalle and he watched her walk in the direction of the ladies' cloakroom.

  But Gregory was not to be caught like that. She might give him the slip if he went into the lounge and sat down at a table so, instead, he took up a position where he could keep the door under observation and occupied himself by examining the notecase which he had collected from the floor of the upstairs cafe.

  A quick survey of its contents caused him to smile with pleasure. Then he slipped the case back into his pocket and, lighting a cigarette, stood waiting for Sabine.

  She appeared again a moment later and he noted with satisfaction that she had not left her mink coat in the cloakroom; thus enabling him to put a completely fresh plan into operation without delay. As they passed into the lounge he took her arm again and whispered:

  'We won't stay here. There are so few people about at this hour we're certain to be noticed. We'll go out through the other entrance and along to the Normandie.'

  'But why should there be people in quantity there more than here?' she questioned.

  'There won't,' he answered tersely, 'but the taxi man set us down here so it's as well to get out of this place as quickly as possible in case he's questioned.'

  'As you will.' She allowed him to lead her out on to the plage and they walked the few hundred yards to the other hotel. At the entrance he paused and faced her.

  'Listen Sabine!' he spoke with unusual firmness. 'Any argument will draw attention to us. I am staying here, so there must be no fuss you understand? Do as I say or else the police will get us and we shall both spend the night in some uncomfortable gaol.'

  'But…' She was about to make a protest.

  'Stop it,' he cut her short abruptly. 'I hate to remind you of the fact, but it was you who took the fellow who was attacked to the maison de rendezvous, so it is you whom the police will want to talk to. Remember, he may have been murdered by now for all we know.'

  'All right,' she murmured and when he took her straight over to the lift and upstairs to his room she made no further protest.

  'Now,' he said, having closed the double doors behind him and thrown his coat upon the bed, 'I think you had better tell me what you know.'

  Again she regarded him with her large, calm, unfrightened eyes. 'How?' she asked.

  'There's something going on, and I want to know about it.' Gregory's chin jutted out as he faced her in the quiet room, shut off from the corridor by the private bathroom, clothes closet and miniature hall, with its toile de jouy hangings and rose du barri colouring, warm in the pink lights of the shaded lamps.

  He took the worn notecase from his pocket again and added quietly: 'Perhaps this will help us.'

  The case contained 2,440 francs in notes of various denominations, the document which Gregory had already scanned at the Metropole, and a telegram. He spread out the latter and read it carefully.

  'This is written out in pencil; by a woman I should judge. It's on a sending form so it has not yet been despatched; it says:

  COROT CAFE DE LA CLOCHE CALAIS SIXTH 41 44 II 15 THENCE 46 SEVENTH 43 47 EIGHTH 43 AGAIN 47

  Well, that doesn't help us much, since it's in code,' he added. 'But it's interesting all the same, and confirms my ideas about your charming self. Now, once again, what do you know?'

  She stared at him with a lazy insolence in her hazel eyes.

  'If I knew anything why should I tell? Also, I do not regard the chance of being questioned by the police as of sufficient importance to risk my reputation by remaining in your room.'

  A sudden smile that could on occasion make Gregory's lean face so attractive flashed over it. 'Why?' he said softly with a new note in his voice. 'We are both bad hats anyway aren't we?'

  'Of course,' she murmured with an answering smile. 'And you are how shall I say? well, emotionant in your way one does not often meet an Englishman with your personality see how frank I have become. But I fear I have no time for gallantry at the moment.'

  'Haven't you? I think you have.' Gregory took one of her hands and kissed it.

  'No no,' she shook her head. 'You are a nice person but at this time such follies are apart from me.'

  'Are they?' He pressed nearer to her and his eyes said infinitely more than his words conveyed. But at that moment the telephone which stood on a little table near the bed shrilled loudly.

  It was just behind her and she picked it up without the least hesitation. 'Ullo,' she said, 'merci… ah bon!… Adieu.' Then she replaced the receiver.

  'As I thought,' she turned back to him. 'That call was for me
. My friend whom you have seen with me in the Casino has many ways of knowing what I do. Someone in this hotel has told him of my presence here. He assures me that all is arranged so that there is no further likelihood of my being troubled by the police.'

  She smiled a little mocking smile of triumph at Gregory. 'You understand? I must return to my friend. This little adventure has been quite amusing and I thank you for your courtesy, but now, Monsieur it is over.'

  Gregory smiled too. 'I hate,' he said, 'to seem to press you; but I think you will see the wisdom of remaining here in hiding when I tell you I know from his papers that the man whom you lured to that dive tonight was an officer from Scotland Yard. If the French police knew that they would renew their desire to interview you despite anything that your very clever friend can do. So it seems to me that you are wrong, Mademoiselle, and that this adventure has only just begun.'

  3

  An Interrupted Idyll

  'You mean to keep me here against my will?' For the first time the self-confidence faded from Sabine's eyes. Almost instinctively she glanced behind her to see if there was another exit from the room.

  Gregory faced her across the broad low bed. His back was to the only door which gave on to the miniature hallway of the suite. Tall, lean, the suggestion of a smile pulling at his thin lips, he noted with quiet satisfaction that he had at last broken through her armour of casual ease.

  It was now well after one o'clock. Many of the wealthy crowd staying at the Normandie would, he knew, still be at the casino; while those who did not gamble or dance would already be in bed. The double doors, with the small hallway in between, separating the big room from the corridor, muffled the loudest sounds even in the day time; now, the unbroken hush of midnight hours pervaded the great hotel. In the soft light of the rose du barri shaded lamps against the back' ground of the toile de jouy hangings Sabine's dark beauty glowed warm and alluring.

  Not a flicker of an eyelid betrayed Gregory's determination to take with both hands this golden hour which it seemed that the Gods had decreed for him. The girl was no bread and butter miss but an adventuress, perhaps even a poule de luxe, one of those rare exotic women for the sake of whose caresses millionaires commit crazy follies and sometimes come to ruin, disgrace, and suicide. He had caught her fairly; he was even running some risk of trouble with the police for deliberately concealing her. She must pay toil but she should do so of her own free will in an hour or two. Gregory was by nature the joyful cynic and far too old a hand to rush his fences. He moved round the bed towards her.

  'Listen!' he said. 'You lured that chap in the airman's coat down to that dive where he was set upon.'

  ''Monsieur, that is not true.'

  Gregory dismissed her protest with a wave of his thin muscular hand. 'Owing to the break I gave him he may have got clean away. On the other hand, those thugs may have run him down and knifed him.'

  'No no. If so my friend would have told me of that when he telephoned just now.'

  'Toucher Gregory exclaimed, his smile broadening into a grin. 'A confession, my dear Sabine, that those cutthroats were in your friend's employ, and that you knew it.'

  Her dark eyes flashed. 'Monsieur is clever but it is sometimes dangerous to know too much.'

  'A threat, eh? Come, that's ungenerous, since you'd be in Deauville police station at this moment if I hadn't got you out of that cafe. More, it's rank ingratitude when I propose to keep you here all night to save you from arrest.'

  'My friend has said that I am in no danger of arrest.'

  'You forget that your description will have been given to the police by the patron of the cafe. They'll nab you for certain if you try and leave this hotel.'

  'Nab what is that?'

  'Pinch arrest. All the hotel porters and taxi men in Deauville will have been warned to keep a look out for you by this time. Remember, the man whom your friend's thugs tried to do in was an officer from Scotland Yard. When our special branch men operate on the continent they always keep in touch with the local police, so if he has escaped he will have made his report by now, and the authorities will be wanting you pretty badly.'

  For a moment she was silent then, with a little sigh, she sat down on the arm of a low chair. 'I am so tired,' she murmured, passing her hand across her eyes. 'Perhaps you are right, Monsieur, but it is ungallant that you should take advantage of my situation.'

  Gregory reassessed his chances. Her regal self-assurance of a few moments before had suddenly disappeared. It was as though a spring inside her had given away; she sat now hunched and dejected, a rather pitiful little figure, acute anxiety in her dark eyes as to the outcome of this difficult position in which her evening's adventure had landed her.

  His experience of women made him certain that she was not shamming. She was an adventuress, of course, but not a poule, otherwise she would never have broken down like this. He was glad of that since it made the affair so much more interesting. Like a good diplomat he prepared himself to make concessions. The gods gave only in their own good time. They had been kind to place so rare a gift within his compass. Now he must wait upon their pleasure.

  He smiled, one of those rare warm smiles which could at times make his grim face so attractive, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  'Don't worry please,' he said softly. 'I hope we are going to see quite a lot of each other in the future, so the last thing I want is to make you think me a bore. I only want to help you. I'm sure it's best for you to stay here the night. You can have my bed and I'll shake down with some cushions and the eiderdown in the bathroom. We'll talk things over in the morning.'

  She nodded slowly, not doubting for an instant that he meant exactly what he said.

  'I think I might have guessed that I need have no fear of you. How wise you are, too, if you really wish to gain my fren'ship.'

  'May our friendship ripen quickly,' he replied, and they smiled into each other's eyes like two expert swordsmen about to enjoy a test of skill with buttoned foils.

  'Pyjamas!' Gregory drew a clean pair, of peach coloured silk, from a drawer and threw them on the bed. 'You'll have to use your fur coat as a dressing gown I'm afraid I'll need mine if I'm to sleep hard. They key's in the door, so you can lock it if you wish but you needn't bother. Your virtue is as safe as the crown jewels for, shall we say, the next eight hours or until you leave this suite but after that, gardez vous ma belle Sabine. Je deviendrai le loup dans le bois.'

  She arched her splendid eyebrows. 'Is that a challenge?'

  'It is. I know nothing of your dealings with your elderly friend but I mean to take you from him even if I have to, swing for it.'

  As he spoke Gregory had been gathering up his things together with the cushions and the coverlet from the bed. He had no intention of losing the maximum effect of his withdrawal by prolonging the conversation. In the doorway he turned. 'Good night, little Red Riding hood.'

  Sabine inclined her head. 'Dormez bien, my Big Bad Wolf.'

  She was now a little uncertain if she was altogether glad to see him leave her so quickly.

  Outside he locked the door on to the corridor, made up a couch for himself on the bathroom floor, undressed and, putting out the light, lay down to think.

  His unusual resting place did not trouble him at all. Gregory Sallust could sleep anywhere but his brain was busy with the events of the evening.

  His tour through Normandy, spying out the land for the organisation which had engaged him in London, had proved completely abortive until this, the very last evening of his visit. Even now he had no certain knowledge that this strange adventure, into which he had been led by following Sabine had any bearing upon the operations which he had been asked to investigate, yet he had a strong feeling that this might be so. The officer from Scotland Yard, who'd been attacked, might have been in Deauville for half a hundred different reasons, but it was Sabine's connection with that strange little man, with whom he had first seen her in the Casino, which intrigued him. That almost dwarf like figu
re with the powerful head, pale stone cold eyes, and shock of white hair above the broad forehead, was known to Gregory as one who had been engaged for years in great, and always sinister, undertakings. It might well be that he was at the bottom of the whole business. Even if that were not so, Gregory had found Sabine, a woman in a million; one of those rare beings who possessed all the attributes which appealed to his fastidious nature. Gregory Sallust felt that his evening had not been wasted. For a time he amused himself by conjuring up her face again in the darkness; then he turned over and slept peacefully.

  Gregory made a practice of never being called and usually slept late in the morning, so he would probably not have woken until nine o'clock, but at half past eight the bathroom door creaked and Sabine put her dark head round the corner.

  As his eyes opened he stared at her in bewilderment; then the events of the few hours before flooded back to him and he sat up.

  'I am so sorry if I disturb you,' she said, 'but I have been awake a long time and I am hungry; also, I would like a bath.'

  'Right oh! Give me ten minutes, will you, and I'll see what we can do about some breakfast. Feeling better this morning?'

  'A lot, t'ank you.' She smiled and shut the door.

  He shaved his lean face with quick sure strokes, brushed his tumbled hair, slipped on his dressing gown, and then joined her in the bedroom.

  Her evening dress and stockings were still lying over a chair and she sat perched on the edge of the bed muffled up in her big fur coat.

  'I've turned on the bath,' he told her, 'so in you go, and don't come out before I call you. In the meantime I'll order breakfast. What would you like? Just coffee and rolls, or something more sustaining?'

  'May I have some canteloupe, also an omelette fines herbe I think.'

  'You little glutton,' he laughed, 'of course you may, but we'll have to eat it off one set of plates, or else they'll tumble to it that I've got a visitor. Run along now and when you hear the waiter come in mind you stop splashing.'