East of Algiers

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘Why doesn’t this Mr. David Foster approach me about the glasses himself?’

  ‘Ah!’ O’Halloran exclaimed. ‘Now that’s the crux of the whole matter! Ye’re wonderin’ why ye’ve never set eyes on Foster, wonderin’ why he didn’t meet ye at the airport – is that it?’

  ‘Yes. I have been wondering about that.’

  ‘Well, the explanation’s a simple one. Foster is a very close friend of mine, so I can tell ye all about it. The fact is, he’s wanted by the police.’

  O’Halloran made the announcement in an awed voice, as if this was an adequate explanation for the whole thing. He must have seen my sceptical look, for he rattled on.

  ‘Yes, wanted by the police he is, the poor fellow, and for a crime he didn’t commit too. You can imagine what it’s like, Mr. Temple, especially for a man that’s as active as he is, to be confined to the house and never able to put a nose outside for fear the police’ll grab him. He can pass the time in readin’, ye’ll say, to improve his mind. But how can he read when he hasn’t his glasses with him? Will ye answer me that, now. Sure he’s as blind as a bat without ’em. It’s a pitiful sight, I’m tellin’ ye, in sowl.’

  Mr. O’Halloran was a great deal more carried away by his recital than I was. There were genuine tears in his eyes. I finished my whisky and stood up.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. O’Halloran. I just don’t believe a word you say.’

  If looks could be killers, Mr. O’Halloran’s glance would have dropped me dead in my tracks.

  ‘Bah! Some people have no decent feelin’s in them.’

  Zoltan Gupte came smoothly forward. He had been watching all this with an amused smile.

  ‘Pat likes his little joke, Mr. Temple. I think on the whole we understand each other very well. You say you have not got the spectacles with you?’

  ‘I’d hardly be likely to, since they’ve been valued at ten thousand pounds, would I?’

  O’Halloran jumped to his feet, sending his empty glass splintering to the floor.

  ‘Ten thousand pounds? Where do ye get this idea from?’

  ‘That was the offer made to me by a Monsieur Constantin.’

  O’Halloran and Zoltan Gupte exchanged a glance.

  ‘You know him, then?’ I asked.

  ‘I know of him,’ Zoltan Gupte admitted cautiously.

  ‘Did you know that he had been murdered – and I mean really murdered, not like our friend O’Halloran here. I’ve seen his body.’

  ‘I did not know this.’ The only change in Zoltan Gupte’s manner was that he began to breathe a little faster and I saw tiny beads of sweat break out on his forehead.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘In Algiers, the night before last.’

  ‘Do the police know who committed this crime?’

  ‘They do. It was a man known as Colonel Rostand, aided and abetted by an accomplice of his called Sam Leyland.’

  ‘Rostand, did you say? What was the other name?’

  ‘It’s an English name. Leyland. You don’t know him?’

  ‘No,’ Zoltan Gupte shook his head. ‘Nor this Colonel Rostand. He is French?’

  ‘Maybe French. Maybe American. He speaks both languages.’

  The shopkeeper turned to O’Halloran.

  ‘Do these names mean anything to you, Pat?’

  O’Halloran shook his head. He was still sulking. Zoltan Gupte pondered for a moment. I was sure he was about to make some suggestion, so I waited. Sure enough it came.

  ‘If we were to present you to the real David Foster, Mr. Temple, I take it that you would be prepared to hand the glasses over to him. What would your price be?’

  ‘Why should I have a price? If he can prove his identity he can have his glasses.’

  ‘Then the sooner we can arrange this the better.’ Zoltan Gupte was rubbing his hands, glancing suggestively at O’Halloran. The bell in the shop sounded at that moment. Gupte excused himself and went to attend to whoever it was.

  ‘What about this evenin’, Temple?’ O’Halloran suggested. ‘Are ye free?’

  ‘I’d rather you made it before then.’

  ‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid. We’ll have to wait till it’s dark or very nearly.’

  ‘That means about seven o’clock. Where shall I meet you?’

  O’Halloran thought for a moment. ‘Ye know Khérédin?’

  ‘That’s the kind of bracelet of land that curves round and encloses the inner bay of Tunis?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s where the ships and docks are. Now there’s a fellow called Durant has a boatyard out there. His house is beside a place called the Hôtel du Port. I’ll meet you there at seven o’clock this evenin’, without fail.’

  Zoltan Gupte had pushed open the door again.

  ‘It is your taxi-driver, Mr. Temple. He does not know whether to wait any longer.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll be out in a moment. Now this is on the level, O’Halloran? No more disappearing tricks?’

  ‘Cross me heart and hope to die. Oh, and Temple…’

  I stopped in the doorway and glanced back to find him grinning at me.

  ‘You won’t let on to the police that I’m not murdered after all. They’re no friends of mine and I like to see them makin’ jack-asses of themselves.’

  ‘Don’t you worry. As far as I’m concerned you’re a dead duck.’

  As I walked up the corridor I could hear his delighted laughter through the closed door.

  It was a quarter to two when I entered the Hôtel François Premier again. Four hours had passed since I had last set eyes on Steve. A glance towards the dining-room showed me that it was already almost empty. People lunch early in Tunis.

  The clerk at the reception desk gave me an amused look when he saw me approaching him with anxious face. Clearly he had classified me as a husband who was worried in case his wife went off with another man.

  ‘Has Mrs. Temple come in?’

  ‘No, monsieur.’

  ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

  ‘Not through the foyer, monsieur. I told the chasseurs to keep a watch for her.’

  ‘And there has been no message?’

  ‘Yes. Le Commissaire Renouk telephoned. You are to put yourself in touch with him as soon as you return.’

  ‘But no message from Mrs. Temple?’

  The clerk’s patience was rapidly dwindling.

  ‘Nothing from Mrs. Temple, monsieur. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s in our room,’ I said, and began to turn away.

  He called after me as I hurried towards the lift. ‘Your key, monsieur.’

  ‘But I left it in the door.’

  ‘The femme de chambre brought it down when she had done your room, monsieur.’

  He handed me the key, and although this confirmed that Steve had not come back, I went up to number three hundred and seventy-two. As I had expected, the bed had been made, the floor swept, and all our clothes neatly put away. That left little chance of finding out whether Steve had left the room voluntarily. Even the scrap of paper with her message had been tidied away. I thought I was unlikely to have been deceived by her hand-writing, although there was one person who could have faked the message about the cute slippers. On the whole I felt inclined to believe that the note had been genuine. She had gone out of the hotel of her own accord, and whatever had happened to her had taken place in the street.

  The room was terribly empty with only me in it. I almost gave way to despair when my eye fell on the dressing-table with all Steve’s familiar things on it. If I hadn’t gone out and left her alone—

  I checked that way of thinking abruptly. To start blaming myself would not undo the harm. Now more than ever was a time for clear thinking. I had little stomach for food, but I knew that I had to make myself eat something. Very heavy calls might be made on both my mental and physical resources, and I could not meet them with an empty stomach. I went down to the now virtually deserted dining-roo
m. Our waiter of the evening before concealed any impatience he might have felt and took my order for an omelette. It was all I could bring myself to tackle.

  While waiting for the food to come I tried to put my thoughts in order. It was, of course, just possible that Steve had met with an accident or been taken suddenly ill. Later I would have to go through the disheartening business of checking the hospitals and police-stations. But I could not seriously bring myself to believe that. Her passport was in her handbag, and by now the authorities would have traced her back to the hotel. The obvious explanation was that she had been taken as a hostage to persuade me to part with the spectacles. Then why had I received no threatening message? I now wryly remembered my own remark to Steve about leaving Mr. O’Halloran to cook. I had certainly been put on hot bricks myself.

  Who had organized the abduction of Steve? I sensed that Zoltan Gupte and O’Halloran knew nothing about it. That still left a good many other possibilities. I found them falling into groups in my mind. Rostand, Leyland and Audry Bryce formed one obvious trio. Leyland had already made one attack on Steve, and I knew how much violence Rostand was capable of. It seemed likely that if that group decided to abduct Steve they would have used Audry Bryce as a decoy, and surely Steve would have been suspicious of any approach by her.

  Then there were Simone Lalange and Tony Wyse. The latter had kept well out of sight, and I had suspected all along that he was up to no good. The French girl had approached me that morning with what had appeared to be a calculated motive. By then Steve must have been in the bag. Why had Simone Lalange not opened the bargaining?

  Lastly there was Schultz, whose arrival in the hotel almost coincided with Steve’s disappearance. Obviously business must bring him regularly to Tunis, but why should he have to stay in a hotel when he had his own place out at Sidi bou Saïd? This surely meant that he belonged with Rostand’s group, and had registered at the hotel to cover a meeting with the bogus colonel – probably in Audry Bryce’s room.

  Whoever had taken Steve, the shape of things was clear. I held the spectacles, they held the thing in the world which I valued most. Sooner or later they would approach me with a suggestion that we should make an exchange. This was the thought I must keep uppermost in my mind during the coming hours. As long as I had the spectacles, Steve was unlikely to be harmed. And since the way to Steve was via a solution of the mystery, I must continue to explore every avenue that offered itself.

  I must resist the temptation to rush out into the street and start questioning the taxi-drivers and shop-keepers. That would only lead me into a blind alley.

  I had eaten the omelette without noticing. The glass of wine which the waiter had poured out for me remained untouched. I decided to leave it and drank a glass of water instead. I was the last guest to leave the dining-room.

  As I waited for the lift I could feel the desk clerk’s eyes on my back. It reminded me that I was under orders to ring Renouk. Well, I could do that later.

  There was no one in the corridor outside our room when I knocked hard on Audry Bryce’s door. Still no reply. I went into our own room, locked the door and marched through to the balcony. Anyone who cared to look up from the street would have seen me climbing the dividing wall and entering the neighbouring room. It contained a single bed and had been left as tidy as our own. I bolted the door on the inside and then went systematically through Audry Bryce’s possessions. She had obviously been well trained. There was not a single paper in her room. The only interesting thing I discovered was that most of her clothes had been bought in Paris, and that the tailor who had made her suit had obligingly written a name in the blank space on the trade label: Mrs. Audry Leather.

  I unbolted the door before returning to my own room the way I had come. I sat on the bed, picked up the receiver and asked the hotel operator to put me through to the Commissariat Central de Police, Commissaire Renouk’s office. I laid the instrument on my knee and lit a cigarette. Presently a male voice crackled against my leg. I picked up the receiver.

  ‘I want to speak to Commissaire Renouk, please. My name is Temple.’

  ‘Monsieur le Commissaire is not here, monsieur. He is gone to lunch some time ago.’

  ‘Is he not back yet?’ My watch said a quarter to three. Then I remembered the sacrosanct siesta. ‘What time do you expect him?’

  ‘Four o’clock, monsieur – maybe.’

  ‘I suppose he leaves you his telephone number in case of an urgent message?’

  ‘Well, yes, monsieur – but—’

  ‘Then ring him at once and tell him that Mr. Temple will meet him in his office at three o’clock. Have you got that?’

  ‘I cannot do that, monsieur …’ The police clerk began to stammer.

  ‘You’d better,’ I told him, and slammed the receiver down.

  A sleek, well-polished Citroen, with a driver at the wheel, was standing outside Police Headquarters when I drove up in my taxi. It was just on three. A uniformed policeman intercepted me in the hall.

  ‘You are Mr. Temple?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve come to see le Commissaire Renouk.’

  ‘Monsieur le Commissaire has sent his car. If you will mount the driver will take you to him.’

  ‘That’s very considerate of him. Thank you.’

  The police Citroen took me at terrifying speed through the streets and deposited me at the steps of a villa which stood in its own small garden in the northern suburb of Tunis. At the sound of the car an Arab man-servant in a white coat opened the door and gave a friendly nod to my driver.

  ‘Monsieur le Commissaire is awaiting you,’ he informed me, and opened a door leading off the hall.

  All the sunshades had been drawn, and when I entered this room after the brilliant sunlight I was as blind as a cinema-goer who comes in half-way through the film. I seemed to be swimming through a dense cloud of cigar smoke. Gradually the objects in the room became clear to me, among them Renouk.

  He was taking his siesta seriously. Wearing a dressing-gown with his shirt collar loosened, he was reclining on a divan. I noticed a small liqueur glass at his elbow. He did not get up, but waved me to a chair.

  ‘Sit down, sit down, Mr. Temple. I have been trying to get in touch with you. You will take a digestif – no? A cigar then. Yes, please smoke a cigarette if you prefer that.’

  Something had happened to make Renouk more favourably disposed towards me. I soon learnt what it was.

  ‘Since we last met I have had some messages from my colleagues in Algiers, Nice and Paris. I have also been in contact with Interpol in Paris.’

  ‘I see. Then you know all about this curious business my wife and I have been unwittingly caught up in.’

  ‘Well, it would be untrue to say I know all about it. But I know enough to be able to tell you that it is a very grave case. Very grave indeed. Tremendous stakes are involved, and you and your wife may be in very great danger.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that. My wife left the hotel between ten and eleven this morning and has not been seen since. It’s my belief that she has been kidnapped.’

  Renouk was startled enough to allow the long ash he was cultivating on his cigar to fall to the carpet. His jet-black eyebrows rose an inch.

  ‘Kidnapped? You have had threatening messages?’

  ‘Not so far. I was going to ask you if you would arrange for the hospitals to be checked – just in case…’

  ‘I will do that,’ Renouk said impatiently. ‘Though I am convinced it will yield no result. I had been expecting that something like this would happen.’

  He struggled to his feet, pulling his dressing-gown cord tighter round the place where his waist might have been had he indulged in less gastronomic midday meals.

  ‘Now I understand from these reports that you have in your possession a pair of spectacles which seems to have some peculiar significance—’

  ‘It’s true that we’ve experienced nothing but trouble since they were handed to us. But both your colleagues in
Nice and Algiers seemed convinced that these spectacles can have no special significance.’

  ‘That view has been revised,’ Renouk snapped. ‘It is desired to make a more detailed examination of the spectacles, and I ask you to hand them over to me now.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have not got them with me,’ I said for the second time that day.

  ‘Then perhaps you would be kind enough to fetch them. My driver will take you back to your hotel.’

  ‘They’re not at the hotel,’ I began, then stopped. I had suddenly seen Renouk as a potential threat. My whole system of orientation had changed since eleven o’clock that morning. If I allowed the glasses to go out of my possession I would have nothing with which to barter for Steve’s life and safety. And that had become for me the most important thing in the world.

  I said: ‘They were stolen from me this morning.’

  ‘Stolen!’ Renouk echoed furiously. ‘Why did you allow such a thing to happen?’

  ‘Well,’ I pointed out, ‘the police had assured me that these spectacles could have nothing to do with the murders, so naturally I took their word for it. I think a common pick-pocket must have removed them from me as I was going through a crowded street this morning.’

  Renouk uttered an oath in Arabic and regarded me with exasperation.

  ‘This is a serious development, Monsieur Temple. You are sure you are telling me the truth?’

  ‘Why should I try to deceive you, Monsieur le Commissaire? I rely on your help to find my wife.’

  ‘That is so,’ the Commissaire agreed. ‘We must go to Headquarters at once. You will give me as much information as you can while we are in the car. Excuse me while I go and put on my uniform.’

  At Police Headquarters Renouk put a man on to checking all the hospitals and police-stations in Tunis. While I was waiting I had an opportunity of watching the Commissaire in action. He gave a great many orders and shouted his instructions very loudly at his subordinates, but I did not feel that he had a firm grip of the case. I was glad that I had not told him too much in the car. This was a situation which needed handling with velvet gloves.