Paul Temple: East of Algiers

‘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.’

He was beginning to look angry again, so when Steve began to retreat into our room I followed her.

‘Who’s this Sam Leyland he was talking about?’ she asked me when the door was shut. ‘He sounds simply terrifying.’

‘Don’t be an ass. That was Sam Leyland himself.’

We were destined to encounter Sam later that evening. We were returning from a particularly good dinner at La Bonne Auberge soon after ten-thirty. The lift was taking someone up to the top floor, so we decided it would not kill us to use the stairs, though the idea was abhorrent to the night porter, so much so that he almost used physical force to prevent us.

There was no mistaking the voice which we could hear upraised in anger, and when we came round the corner we were not surprised to see Sam Leyland, still with his hat on his head, standing over a terrorized chamber-maid and raising all hell with her. He had found some neutral language, half-way between French and English, which was utterly incomprehensible to anyone else.

When we appeared he shrugged his shoulders and turned away from the chamber-maid in disgust. The demoralized girl seized her chance to scuttle down the corridor and bolt herself into a small room with her brooms and pails.

‘I knew there was some monkey business going on here,’ Sam thundered as he advanced threateningly on us. ‘And someone’s going to pay for it or my name isn’t Sam Leyland.’

‘What’s the trouble? Have they switched keys on you again?’

Sam’s eyes were rather like an angry porker’s, small and fierce, but uncomprehending. He seemed about to speak, but words failed him and he expelled a long breath.

‘Come and take a look at this.’

He led the way towards the door of his room. It was open and the key was still on the outside of the lock. The decorative scheme was the same as ours; faint lilac walls, deep blue curtains, black fitted carpet and modern furniture in very light-coloured natural wood. The only real difference was that Sam’s room contained a single bed instead of a double and was in a state of unimaginable disorder.

‘By Timothy, what a mess! No mistaking the fact that you’ve had a visitor.’

Sam’s answer was a low growl. It was easy to sympathize with his rage. Every drawer had been wrenched open and its contents scattered on the floor, the bedclothes had been torn off and the edges of the mattress ripped open. The pillows had been disembowelled and feathers were everywhere. Sam’s cases had been opened and the linings cut loose. Even his shaving set in its leather case had been torn apart and the case ripped up. The general impression of violence and desperation was frightening.

‘How simply awful!’ Steve exclaimed. ‘It must have been a thief. Did you leave anything valuable here?’

For the first time an expression of pleasure flickered across the burly man’s face. He patted the bulge of his wallet pocket and nodded wisely at Steve.

‘My valuables are all tucked safely away in here. Sam Leyland doesn’t believe in taking chances. The best this scallywag is likely to have got away with is a pair of Woolworth’s cuff links. It’s the mess he’s made that annoys me. Well, the hotel staff will just have to find another room for me.’

I felt Steve’s fingers suddenly tighten on my arm.

‘Paul! The diamond brooch you gave me for my birthday. I left it in the drawer of my dressing-table.’

It was with an absolute conviction that I would find our own room in the same state of disorder that I fumbled the key into the lock and felt for the light switch. The room sprang into relief as the indirect lighting above the wall fluting flooded the ceiling. I heard Steve’s sigh of relief when she saw that our room appeared to be just as we had left it. The telephone was ringing, but she ignored it and pushed past me to go towards the dressing-table. I saw her open the drawer, feel around inside, and then hold up the glittering brooch. She was smiling with relief.

‘I’m glad he didn’t find this.’

‘Steve!’ I remonstrated. ‘How many times have I warned you not to leave valuables in hotel bedrooms?’

‘I didn’t mean to, darling. If you hadn’t kept telling me to hurry up I would never have forgotten it.’

There is no answer to that sort of remark, so I crossed the room, sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the telephone receiver.

‘Hello. Temple here.’

‘Monsieur Temple? I am so sorry to disturb you, monsieur, but a police inspector is here and he wishes to speak with you immediately.’

It was the voice of the night-duty clerk at the reception desk.

‘Does he say what it is about?’ I asked. I was thinking that if they were already on to the hotel thief the police in this part of the world were pretty fast movers.

‘No, monsieur. He says it is very urgent and he must see you at once.’

I took time to light a cigarette before going down the stairs again. When I reached the foyer I saw the desk clerk nod to a man who was sitting in one of the arm-chairs. He rose at once and came forward to meet me.

Being accustomed to working with the officers of Scotland Yard I was prepared for something rather different. To begin with, this man’s size would have prevented him from entering our Police Force. He was too small, perhaps not more than five foot five. He was dark and concentrated, very neat in his appearance and turn-out, with black hair brushed smoothly back, slick collar and shirt cuffs, well-cleaned shoes. His head seemed big by comparison with his body and his eyes extraordinarily keen. He looked more like a musician than a policeman.

‘Mr. Temple?’ he asked, and I could tell at once that he was going to speak good English.

‘Yes.’

He perfunctorily showed me a little wallet. I caught a glimpse of his photograph behind a cellophane slip and a flash of the red, blue and white of official France.

‘Inspecteur Mirabel, of the Police Judiciaire. I would like to speak a few words with you in private. I think this room is empty.’

He motioned me into a small room which was only used by those of the hotel’s clientele who insisted on coming downstairs to breakfast. The chairs were all hard and upright, and when we sat down one on either side of a bare table, the whole situation seemed very official and unfriendly. Mirabel’s manner and tone of voice kept it that way. He opened a small notebook, but did not glance down at it. His eyes were fixed gravely on me.

‘Mr. Temple, it is correct that you came here to-day by the 2.20 airplane from Paris?’

‘Yes.’

‘And before that you were staying at number 89 Avenue Georges V?’