East of Algiers

by Francis Durbridge

  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 favo
ured 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.’