East of Algiers

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘I am curious to see these spectacles,’ the Inspecteur went on when we were alone again. ‘You have them with you?’

  Once again the spectacles were produced and handed from hand to hand. Even I, whose mind carried a permanent picture of them, found myself scrutinizing them afresh.

  ‘There is nothing remarkable about these,’ Flambeau said as he handed them back to me. ‘I cannot believe that they are in any way connected with these crimes.’

  ‘Perhaps not. None the less I shall be very glad when they’re off my hands. We’re flying on to Tunis to-morrow and I can tell you that the first thing I’ll do when I get there is to find the real Mr. David Foster.’

  When I returned to the table I found Simone Lalange sitting alone. Tony Wyse, gallant gentleman that he was, had decided that Steve was due for a turn on the floor. I could see them close to the orchestra, laughing at some joke he had made and getting along very well together.

  The least I could do was ask the French girl to dance. She gave me the full force of her dazzling smile and accepted with enthusiasm.

  I think I would have enjoyed the dance more if I had not suspected that Steve’s eyes were occasionally on me. For Simone Lalange dancing was no conventional contact of hand with hand. She snuggled close against me, and when her hair tickled my chin I breathed in some subtle perfume reminiscent of pine-smoke and lotus ponds. There was no question of making polite conversation. This was an intimate, secret experience implying an understanding deeper than words.

  At one moment she suddenly moved away from me and seemed to be looking at my breast pocket.

  When the music ended she disengaged herself with slow reluctance and we threaded our way back to our own table. Just before we reached it two waiters, each moving fast in the opposite direction, collided violently. One of them raised his fist, struck the other, and sent him crashing to the ground. A woman screamed and Simone clung to me. Immediately all the electric bulbs in the room went out so that the darkness was almost total. I felt a surge of bodies jostling around me, then something heavy thumped me on the chest and I was borne to the ground. Instinctively my hand went to my handkerchief pocket.

  The spectacles had already gone!

  Feverishly I groped round the floor on my hands and knees, but only had my fingers stamped on for my pains. Several women were screaming now and there was a crashing sound as tables were overturned. Above it all a man was shouting at everyone to keep calm.

  Then abruptly the lights came on again, this time reinforced by a huge chandelier in the centre of the ceiling.

  Schultz had leapt on to the band’s platform.

  ‘Everything is all right,’ he shouted. ‘It was just a blown fuse!’

  He made a signal to the band leader, who raised his baton to start the next tune. People began shamefacedly to resume their seats, waiters to pick up the fallen crockery. There was no point in my searching the floor for the spectacles. They could not have fallen accidentally from my pocket. The rest of our party were collecting round the table, laughing and joking over the incident. Steve saw by my look that something had gone wrong. She moved quickly to my side.

  ‘What’s happened, Paul?’

  ‘The spectacles. They’ve gone. Someone must have taken them from my pocket when the lights went out.’

  ‘You’re sure they’re not there?’

  ‘Of course I am.’ I patted the empty pocket where the spectacles had been. ‘I wonder if Flambeau’s still here. Perhaps we could have the exits sealed.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ Wyse said. ‘Lost something?’

  ‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘My husband lost a pair of spectacles.’

  On the other side of the table the French girl was just putting away her mirror after re-arranging her hair and touching up her lips.

  ‘We’ll ask the band leader to make an announcement,’ Wyse said. ‘Someone’s sure to find them. Nothing else missing? Putting the lights out may have been a pickpocket’s trick.’

  ‘My handbag!’ Steve said. ‘I’m sure I left it on the table in front of my place.’

  Wyse pulled her chair back and stooped to look under the table.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said, and picked the small black evening bag off the seat of the chair. ‘Better check and see if anything’s missing.’

  Steve took the bag, opened it, looked inside and then slowly raised her eyes. Her expression was very puzzled. She lifted out the spectacles and handed them to me.

  ‘Just like a wife!’ Wyse laughed. ‘She must have had them all the time.’

  ‘Well, Paul. Here we are at last. I wonder if the real David Foster is waiting for us down there.’

  I glanced at Steve as she sat opposite me looking cool and poised in an exquisite white suit and wondered, not for the first time, at her ability to bob up so freshly after a night of adventures.

  Our aircraft was banking over the luxury suburb of Sidi bou Saïd before making its run in to El Aouina airport. Ahead of us, with a faint haze dancing over the roof tops, the modern city of Tunis lay spread out below the ancient Kasbah. The waters of the bay were a greeny blue, flecked here and there by a white-crested wave. Within the inner bay the water was flat and calm, its surface bisected by the railway running out to Khérédine. We flew in low over the arena of Carthage and caught a glimpse of the aqueduct along which the Romans had brought their drinking water from the mountains of Zaghouan.

  Many of the passengers on this flight had been our companions on the Nice to Algiers hop. A notable absentee was Constantin. Wyse and Simone Lalange were seated further forward in the plane. The young man had been successful in having his seat moved so that he could be beside her.

  I had been watching Mademoiselle Lalange with a good deal more interest since the incident in the El Passaro. It would have been easier for her than for anyone else to have removed my precious spectacles when the lights went out. But if she had done so what was the point of planting them in Steve’s handbag? The idea of a substitution had occurred to both of us. I had, however, taken the precaution of placing a very clear thumb print on the inner face of one of the lenses. On returning to the hotel I had applied white dust to it and confirmed that it was still there. My thumb print was one identification mark which no one could detect at a casual inspection and which was impossible to fake.

  Our pilot made heavy weather of his landing. We hit the runway with a tremendous bump, and for a sickening moment went flying through the air again before he got us down. Most of the passengers were looking a little green when the machine came to a standstill and the hostess opened the door.

  The Tunisian authorities were maddeningly officious, and it took us a long time to pass through the customs and immigration checks. Wyse, with his plausible way of talking and his condescending manner, rubbed them up the wrong way completely. They examined every article in his baggage with minute care and even insisted on him emptying his pockets. When at last we were clear I made a point of looking at the notice-board where messages for arriving travellers are posted. There was nothing for us. Nor did anyone appear to have come out from the city to meet this particular plane.

  I noticed Wyse saying a regretful farewell to Simone Lalange. She had insisted on taking a taxi on her own, and Master Wyse was not being allowed to accompany her. He watched her enter the back seat with a flash of high heels and silken legs, and soon after she had driven away he called up a taxi for himself.

  Steve and I waited about for a little time to give David Foster every chance of making contact with us if he was there. By so doing we missed the free bus-ride into Tunis and we too had to charter a taxi.

  Tunis was somehow more open and clean than Algiers, and there was not the same tense atmosphere here. There were a great many people in Western clothes about, but the Arabs had a more prosperous air and held their heads higher.

  We had booked a small suite at the Hôtel François Premier, which stands in the Avenue Jules Ferry. As our baggage was being taken up I asked for a tele
phone directory, and turned to the names beginning with ‘T’.

  ‘Well, here’s Trans-Africa Petroleum anyway,’ I said to Steve, with my index finger under the entry. ‘120 Avenue de Rome. Make a note of the number for me, will you?’

  Siesta time in Tunis continues until about four, so I had to possess my soul in patience until the hour struck. It would have been a waste of time to telephone any office until then.

  At five minutes past I put the call through. I was answered by the mechanical voice of a switch-board operator.

  ‘I would like to speak to Mr. Foster, please. Mr. David Foster.’

  My request met with no acknowledgment, but I heard a series of clicks and then a prolonged buzzing. At last a man’s voice spoke sleepily.

  ‘Forster here!’

  ‘My name’s Temple,’ I said. ‘I expect you’ve had a message from Judy Wincott about me. I’d like to make an appoint—’

  ‘Judy who?’

  The voice at the other end sounded very angry, as if its owner had only just woken up and didn’t like what he saw.

  ‘Judy Wincott. I happened to meet her in Paris and she asked me to return your spectacles to you.’

  ‘Look here!’ the voice spluttered. ‘Is this some kind of joke? I’ve never heard of any Judy Wincott, and the only pair of spectacles I’ve got are firmly planted on my nose.’

  ‘But you are David Foster?’

  ‘My name is Daniel Forster – with an r. Now if you’ll kindly get off the line—’

  ‘Just a moment,’ I said quickly, before he could hang up.

  ‘This is really rather important. Is there anyone called David Foster in your Company?’

  ‘No,’ Mr. Forster said emphatically. ‘If there was I’d know him. I’m the Personnel Manager.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘WELL,’ I said as I replaced the receiver. ‘That’s that.’

  ‘No David Foster?’

  ‘No David Foster. The nearest I could get was a Mr. Daniel Forster.’

  ‘But that’s almost the same name, Paul. Mightn’t Judy Wincott have made a mistake?’

  ‘Judy Wincott might, but not Daniel Forster. His spectacles are firmly planted on his nose and something in his voice implied that it would take a platoon of paratroopers to get them off. No, Steve, I’m certain he’s nothing to do with this business.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s being used in some way without knowing it.’

  ‘No. I think it’s just a coincidence. Not really that, even. I dare say there’s someone with a name vaguely like David Foster in every organization as big as Trans-Africa Petroleum.’

  Steve moved to the window and began to wind up the slatted shade that had protected the room from the fierce midday heat. The reflected light from the white houses opposite flooded in.

  ‘In that case, who and where is the real David Foster?’

  ‘I don’t believe he exists.’

  ‘You mean the whole story was invented?’

  ‘Maybe. On the other hand maybe David Foster is dead. What I do believe is that a very carefully conceived plan has gone wrong somewhere – and you and I are left holding the baby.’

  ‘The baby being the spectacles? So what are you going to do now? You can’t very well deliver them to an owner who doesn’t exist.’

  I opened the wardrobe and took out a pair of mesh shoes with composition soles which I’d bought in Algiers. They would be a lot cooler than the brogues I had worn on the journey. I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to undo my laces.

  ‘I suppose the correct thing would be to hand them over to the police as lost property. But I confess that would go against the grain. Have you noticed how many odd people have come into our lives since we’ve had those glasses? Sam Leyland, Tony Wyse, Constantin, Colonel Rostand – not to mention the inimitable Sandro.’

  ‘And Simone Lalange,’ Steve reminded me with a dark look. ‘You needn’t try and make me think you’ve forgotten about her.’

  ‘No, I hadn’t. You just didn’t give me time to get to her.’

  ‘Nor will I if I can help it,’ Steve warned me. We both laughed.

  I stood up and wriggled my toes. My feet were very grateful for the new shoes. They could bulge and breathe in them much more comfortably.

  ‘I feel as if we’re being accompanied by an invisible travelling circus, all pretending to be busily engaged in something else, but in fact with only one thought in their minds – these spectacles. No, I’m going to hold on to them. I shall be interested to see who is the next candidate for our friendship.’

  I stood in front of the cheval mirror, wondering if the new shoes were too yellow. Steve came up behind me and put her hands on the sides of my arms. I could see her looking over my shoulder at our reflexion.

  ‘I think you must be very careful, Paul. These people are prepared to kill each other. If you go too far they might decide to kill you too. I wish you wouldn’t insist on carrying the spectacles round with you, darling.’

  I turned round to face her.

  ‘I don’t think anything will happen for a while, Steve. A clumsy attempt was made in Algiers to persuade me to part with them. I believe that another and more subtle approach will be made here in Tunis. It’s bound to involve a little preparatory work on someone’s part. And I promise you that to-morrow, as soon as the banks open, I’ll deposit these in the Lloyds branch here.’

  I patted my handkerchief pocket gently. The spectacles hardly showed. I had cut a piece of cardboard to the right size and slipped it down outside the glasses. It acted at the same time as concealment and protection.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘When you’re ready…’

  ‘When I’m ready?’ Steve echoed. ‘I’ve been waiting for five minutes. Who’s been standing admiring his feet in the mirror?’

  I opened the door and gave Steve a little push out into the corridor, then locked it behind us.

  ‘Where to now?’ she enquired.

  ‘We came here to see Tunis, and that’s what I suggest we do. Let’s start by taking a stroll round some of the main streets. It’s not too hot for walking now.’

  The streets, which had been fairly free during the siesta hours, were now filling up rapidly. We crossed to the middle of the roadway and walked up the broad central pavement under the shelter of a double line of trees. The usual assortment of street hawkers tried to sell us guides, postcards, trinkets, Parker pens and Rolex Oysters. We stopped at a news stall to buy an evening paper, watched with interest while three sharp-eyed Arab boys shinned up an electric light standard to retrieve a model aircraft from a tree, risked our lives to get across the roadway again, and then started window-shopping along the Avenue de Rome.

  We had just moved on from a window displaying beautifully made leather bags and suitcases of all shapes and sizes when I put my hand under Steve’s elbow.

  ‘We’re being followed.’ I felt her stiffen involuntarily. She knew better than to glance round.

  ‘Already?’

  ‘He may be an ordinary pick-pocket. There are always thieves hanging round the big hotels who trail tourists in the hope of catching them unawares. We’ll give him an opportunity of coming to closer quarters.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘European. About five-foot-five, fiftyish, clean-shaven, grey ready-made suit about two sizes too big for him and a green felt hat.’

  We took a turning to the right which would bring us back to the hotel, and continued to move along the street in the same halting way, pausing every now and then to gaze at a window display. Our shadow was far from expert, and I could see him reflected in a pane of glass with affected casualness whenever we stopped. I remembered that the Hôtel François Premier had a good American Bar with a separate entrance from the street. Steve and I paused outside it as if debating whether to go in, and out of the corner of my eye I could see our shadow watching us. When we entered I had no doubt that he knew where to find us if he wanted to.

  The bar was still rat
her empty, but a radiogram was thumping gently and an Arab barman, in spotless white nylon jacket, was shaking a cocktail for two Sultans disguised as European business men. Steve and I took stools at the bar and ordered our usual Dry Martinis.

  The barman was still shaking them up when in the mirror behind the bar I saw the little man in the big grey suit come in.

  He made no bones about it. He marched straight up to the bar, hoisted himself on to the stool beside me, and nodded to the barman.

  ‘’Soir, Achmed. Oon Scotch avec Seltz, silver play.’

  He spoke his piece with an atrocious French accent, then turned and winked broadly at me.

  ‘Lovely weather we’re havin’!’

  The voice was thick and carried an aroma which told me that this was not his first Scotch of the evening. His accent was already unmistakable as a boggy Irish.

  ‘Very good for the time of year,’ I agreed politely, knowing perfectly well that during spring in Tunis the sun can be relied upon to shine all day from a clear sky.

  ‘Is it here on holiday yes are?’

  ‘That’s right. Trying to find somewhere that isn’t crowded with tourists.’

  He nodded several times, acknowledging the wisdom of my observation. His blue and white striped shirt was not too clean, and the red and white tie seemed to be trying to draw attention away from it. He kept his hat on, tilted well to one side with the brim pulled rakishly down over a bloodshot eye. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and I didn’t think he’d dared to display his teeth to a dentist for ten years or more. They were brown with nicotine stain and one was missing from each row. The suit was a puzzle. I couldn’t imagine anyone choosing a suit two sizes too big. In a way he looked as if the heat of Tunis had made him shrivel up and shrink inside it.

  ‘Oh, ye’ve come to the right spot, then. It’s a wonderful place, Tunis. But ye’ll need to mind yer step, don’t ye know. It doesn’t do to be wanderin’ about the native quarter after dark. There’s many a one has gone lookin’ for a bit of the Arabian Nights, don’t ye know, and been found next mornin’…’