5
I am afraid that I lost my head a little. As I ate my fish my imagination began to run riot. I gloated over the scene with Beghin that would follow my revelation.
I would be cool and patronizing.
“Now, Monsieur Beguin,” I would say. “When you gave me this list I naturally assumed that it contained the names of all the visitors to the Reserve apart from the staff. The first thing I find is this Paul Heinberger unaccounted for. What do you know of him? Why is he not registered? Those are questions that should be answered without delay. And, my friend, I advise you to look over his belongings. I shall be extremely surprised if you do not find among them a Zeiss Ikon Contax camera and a spool of film with some photographs of a carnival at Nice on it.”
The waiter took my plate away.
“Another thing, Beghin. Investigate Koche. The waiter says that Heinberger is a friend of Koche. That means that this manager is implicated. I am not surprised. I had already noticed that he took a suspicious interest in my camera. He is well worth examination. You thought you knew all about him, eh? Well, I should investigate a little more carefully if I were you. Dangerous to jump to conclusions, my friend.”
The waiter brought me a large portion of the coq au vin a la Reserve.
“Always investigate a man with a name like Heinberger, my dear Beghin.”
No, too clumsy. Perhaps a mocking smile would be best. I experimented with a mocking smile and was in the middle of the fourth attempt when the waiter caught my eye. He hurried over anxiously.
“There is something wrong with the coq au vin, Monsieur?”
“No, no. It is excellent.”
“Pardon, Monsieur.”
“Not at all.”
Blushing, I got on with my food.
But the interruption had brought me to earth. Had I, after all, made such an important discovery? This Paul Heinberger might have arrived that very afternoon. If that was the case, the hotel could not yet have furnished the police with particulars of his passport. But where, then, was Emil Schimler? The waiter had been very positive that nobody of that name was staying at the hotel. Perhaps he had made a mistake. Perhaps the police had made a mistake. In any case, I could do nothing but report to Beghin in the morning. I must wait. And meanwhile time was going. I could not telephone until nine o’clock at the earliest. Over twelve hours wasted. Twelve out of about sixty. I had been crazy to think that I could get away by Sunday. If only I could write to Monsieur Mathis and explain, or lie, say that I was ill. But it was hopeless. What could I do? This man who had my camera-he wouldn’t be a fool. Spies were clever, cunning men. What could I hope to find out? Sixty hours! It might just as well be sixty seconds.
The waiter took my plate away. As he did so he glanced disapprovingly at my hands. I looked down and found that my fingers, fumbling with a dessert spoon, had bent it double. I straightened it hurriedly, stood up, and left the terrace. I was no longer hungry.
I walked through the house into the gardens. In one of the lower terraces overlooking the beach there was a small alcove. It was usually deserted. I went to it.
The sun had gone and it was dark. Above the hills across the bay stars were already shining. The breeze had stiffened a little and carried a faint smell of seaweed with it. I rested my hot hands on the cold brickwork of the parapet and let the breeze blow on my face. Somewhere in the garden behind me a frog was croaking. The sea lapping gently at the sand made scarcely a sound.
Out at sea a light winked and disappeared. Ships exchanging signals, perhaps. One, maybe, a passenger liner, rustling swiftly through the oily sea on its way east, the other a cargo boat, travelling light with a half- submerged screw, thrashing its way towards Marseilles. On the liner they might be dancing now or leaning on the rails of the promenade deck watching the moon on the wake and listening to the water bubbling and hissing against the plates. Below their feet, deep down, would be half-naked lascars sweating amidst the roar of oil-fired boilers and the thudding of propellers. The headlights of a car swept the road round the bay, gleamed on the water for an instant, and were lost among the trees as the car headed for Toulon. If only I…
A shoe grated on the gravel slope behind, and someone began to descend the steps leading to the terrace. The footsteps reached the bottom. I prayed that their owner would turn to the right, away from me. There was silence, a hesitation. Then I heard a rustle as a piece of creeper overhanging the path to the alcove was pushed aside and I saw a man’s head and shoulders faintly outlined against the blue-black of the sky. It was the Major.
I saw him peer at me uncertainly. Then he leaned on the parapet and looked out across the bay.
My first impulse was to leave. I did not feel in the least like talking to Major Herbert Clandon-Hartley of Buxton. Then I remembered young Skelton’s comment on the Major. The man was “high-hat.” It was unlikely that he would speak first. But I was wrong.
We must have stood there leaning on the parapet for ten minutes before he spoke. I had, indeed, almost forgotten his existence when suddenly he cleared his throat and remarked that it was a fine evening.
I agreed.
There was another long silence.
“Cool for August,” he said at last.
“I suppose so.” I wondered whether he had been thinking the point over and really did consider it cool or whether the comment was purely formal. If he really thought it cool I ought for politeness’ sake to draw attention to the breeze.
“Staying long?”
“A day or so.”
“May see something of you, then.”
“That would be pleasant.”
You would scarcely call this “high-hat.”
“Shouldn’t have thought you were a Britisher. But I heard you talking to that young American just before dinner. If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look British.”
“There is no reason why I should mind your saying so. I am a Hungarian.”
“Are you now! I thought you were British. My good lady said so, but she hadn’t heard you speak.”
“I spent some years in England.”
“Oh, I see. That accounts for it. In the war?”
“I was too young.”
“Ah, yes, you would be. Difficult for us old stagers to realize now that the war’s all ancient history. Went right through from fourteen to eighteen myself. Just got my battalion in time for the March offensive in eighteen. Got put out of action a week later. Just my luck. Reverted to second-in-command and invalided out. Never had anything to do with your lot, though. Heard the Austrians are damned good soldiers.”
This did not seem to call for a reply on my part, and there was silence again. He broke it with an odd question.
“What do you think of our respected manager?”
“Who? Koche?”
“That’s how you fellows pronounce it, is it? Yes, Koche.”
“Well, I don’t know. He seems a very competent manager, but-”
“Exactly! But! Slovenly, untidy, lets those damn waiters do what they like. They pinch your wine, you know. I’ve caught ’em at it. Koche ought to put some ginger into them.”
“The food is very good.”
“I dare say it is, but you’ve got to have more than good food to be comfortable. If this place was mine I’d put some ginger into things. Have you talked to Koche much?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you something funny about him. My good lady and I were in Toulon the other day doing some
