Paul Temple: East of Algiers

I did not answer. The steward came to enquire what Constantin wanted to drink, but he waved him away impatiently.

‘You were in Nice last night, Mr. Temple, staying at the hotel where a girl named Judy Wincott was murdered.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘The newspapers made a good story of it.’

‘Not a complete story. They did not say that you had met Miss Wincott in Paris.’

‘Perhaps they did not consider it a very important piece of news.’

‘Other people might consider it interesting, though, might they not, Mr. Temple? Especially if they knew the reason for her visit to your flat in the Avenue Georges V.’

The man had edged even closer, and his voice had dropped. As I was at the end of the couch I had no means of escape unless I was prepared to use violence on him.

‘You did not tell the police that she had entrusted you with a certain very valuable document, did you, Mr. Temple?’

My anger was beginning to rise, but I continued to keep my voice down.

‘I did not tell them so because it would have been quite untrue.’

‘Come, come,’ Constantin said. ‘You and I know better than that.’

‘If you want the truth, Miss Wincott simply asked me to return a pair of spectacles to a Mr. David Foster who lives in Tunis – where my wife and I happen to be going.’

Constantin blinked rapidly several times. For a moment he seemed floored, then returned rapidly to the attack.

‘You are being made a fool of, Mr. Temple. There is no such person as Mr. David Foster, and those spectacles will only bring difficulties for you.’

‘I think it is you who are being a fool, Mr. Constantin. The spectacles are a perfectly ordinary pair – there’s nothing mystic or magic about them, and there’s no possibility that they are connected in any way with the murder of Miss Wincott.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Constantin’s eyes flickered rapidly round to make sure that no one was taking an interest in our conversation. ‘Nevertheless, I will give you a thousand pounds if you will hand those spectacles over to me.’

I began to laugh and shake my head, but Constantin pressed me back into my seat.

‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said with intensity, and then almost without a pause: ‘Ten thousand! Do not think that I cannot pay so much, because I can. You can collect the money as soon as we arrive in Algiers.’

‘You are wasting your time,’ I said bluntly, and this time I did push him out of my way so that I could get up.

‘No,’ he called after me quite loudly as I left the bar. ‘It is you who are wasting time. I tell you, you will never find your David Foster!’

Chapter Three (#u0c448b10-fe91-5d96-85d0-0711b8b14d81)

BACK IN the main compartment I found that Steve had sacrificed her seat to the French girl. The latter had, however, tired of gazing down at the unchanging sea; her head had fallen back and she was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling with each deep breath. I signalled to Steve, who moved quickly round to sit in the empty seat beside me.

‘Your instinct was right. There is some curious significance in those spectacles. I can’t think why, but there are people who are prepared to pay big money for them. And when big money is at stake you have an ample motive for murder.’

I told her about my encounter with Constantin and the fabulous offer he had made. Steve nodded, her eyes on the sleeping girl. She took it all in as if it were merely the confirmation of something she had known all along.

‘The reason for the murders of those two girls is in your breast pocket,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve discovered something interesting too. I’ve had quite a talk with her.’

She gestured towards the sleeping Simone Lalange.

‘She practically told me her life history. Do you know what came out? Her reason for going to Tunis is that she has friends in Trans-Africa Petroleum. It seems an amazing coincidence.’

‘Does she know David Foster?’

‘I asked her that, but she said she still only knew the names of a few people in the firm.’

We both contemplated the girl in the opposite seat, and I think the same question was in each of our minds. What had she been doing at the door of room number twelve the previous night?

The rest of our flight was uneventful. Neither Constantin nor Wyse came near us again. As far as Simone Lalange was concerned our relations only grew more friendly. She now directed her attention more towards me, unmasking the full battery of her considerable charm. I alone was aware of the double meaning which was creeping into some of Steve’s apparently innocent remarks. I was quite relieved when the long North African coast line came into view and we began to lose height for the landing at Maison Blanche.

Air France had booked accommodation for most passengers at the Aletti Hotel, the most modern hotel in Algiers, which stands facing the harbour. When the company bus set us down at the door I noticed that both Tony Wyse and Simone Lalange were also to be at the Aletti. Of Constantin there had been no sign since the aircraft doors had opened. He had either been met by friends or found some private transport of his own.

In view of the disturbances in Algeria the police were insisting on all the regulations with regard to travellers being rigidly observed. The reception clerk asked us to fill in the usual fiche de voyageur even before we were shown our rooms. When I handed mine in he glanced at the name and then raised his eyebrows.

‘Mr. Temple? There has been a telephone call for you. A gentleman rang up about half an hour ago to ask if you had arrived yet.’

‘That’s odd,’ I said to Steve. ‘I don’t know anyone in Algiers. Certainly I haven’t told anyone I was coming.’

I turned to the clerk: ‘Did he give any name?’

‘No, monsieur. He said he would telephone you again later.’

Our room in the Aletti Hotel was a truly magnificent one, affording us a splendid view of the harbour which had once served as a base for the pirates who had terrorized shipping in the Mediterranean. A big French passenger liner was berthed in the inner harbour within a couple of hundred yards of Algiers’ busy streets. Though there was a general feeling of tension in the air, as if everyone was expecting a bomb to explode, there were few visible signs of the violence which was splitting Algeria apart and keeping a whole Army of French troops occupied in the mountains farther south. The pedestrians on the pavements below were an odd mixture of French and Arabs. Many of the latter wore European clothes with perhaps only a fez or their swarthier features to distinguish them, but there were a number of shambling figures in Arab dress. They wore the curious one-piece tweed garment with hood attached which goes by the name of cachabia. Often their feet were bare, their features pinched and soiled. They were very different from the romantic notion of the proud Bedouin astride his camel.

‘I hope there isn’t going to be a revolution while we’re here,’ Steve remarked as she carefully took her dresses from the travelling case and hung them in the wardrobe. ‘I know you’d think it was marvellous material for some book, but I personally don’t relish the idea of being knifed in the street. And talking of knifing, Paul, I wish you’d deposit those glasses in some safe place.’

‘You don’t trust me with them?’

‘It’s not that. If this man Constantin wants them badly enough to offer you ten thousand pounds he may easily make violent attempts to get them from you. You said yourself that when big money is at stake there’s an ample motive for murder. Why don’t you ask the hotel manager to put the glasses in the safe?’

I went through into the little bathroom to arrange my washing and shaving things on the shelf.

‘You can’t expect me solemnly to ask the manager of a hotel to put a perfectly ordinary pair of spectacles in his safe. Everyone would think I was dotty. Besides, it would only attract attention.’

‘They can’t just be an ordinary pair of glasses,’ Steve objected. ‘They must have some special value for this David Foster person.’

‘I can’t see quite why. The French police are very thorough, and you can be sure they subjected the spectacles to an exhaustive scrutiny.’

I took the spectacles out of my pocket as I went back into the bedroom and placed them on the table in the middle of the room. Steve stood beside me and we both looked down at them. It was hard to imagine anything more homely and prosaic. They reminded me of one of the most kindly and gullible of my masters at school, and I associated them with a smell of pipe tobacco, leather bindings and the cosy sound of a motor-mower on a cricket pitch. Yet since they had come into my hands two girls had been brutally done to death, a crude attempt had been made to drown Steve and me, and a complete stranger had made me an offer of ten thousand pounds.

‘I just don’t understand your attitude, Paul.’ Steve’s tone showed that she had mis-read my thoughts. ‘You aren’t even prepared to take this seriously.’

I turned to her and put my hands on her shoulders.

‘I do take this seriously, Steve. I’m quite prepared to believe that there’s some sinister, perhaps deadly secret attached to them. But I gave my word to a girl who is now dead that I would deliver them. My object is to do so as quickly as possible and wash my hands of the whole business. Then you and I can carry on with our holiday as planned.’

Steve did not respond to my smile. Her eyes were clouded and there were three little lines across her brow.