“Pop,” remarked the girl, “looks exactly like Tenniel’s illustration of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Get those pants!”
The object of these criticisms was regarding us anxiously. He addressed himself to me.
“Die jungen Leute haben unseren kleinen Spass nicht ubel genommen?”
“He says,” I explained to the Skeltons, “that he hopes he hasn’t offended you.”
Young Skelton looked startled.
“Heavens, no. Look-” He turned to the Vogels. “Nous sommes tres amuses. Sie sind sehr liebenswurdig,” he said heartily. Then: “Hell, tell him, will you?”
I did so. There was a great deal of nodding and smiling. Then the Vogels began to talk between themselves.
“How many languages do you speak?” said Skelton.
“Five.”
He laughed disgustedly.
“Then would you explain very carefully,” put in the girl, “just how you learn a foreign language? I don’t want five. But if you could think in terms of ones for a moment, my brother and I would be interested.”
I muttered something about living in countries and cultivating a “language ear,” and asked them if they had been at the Reserve long.
“Oh, we’ve been here a week or so now,” he replied. “Our parents are coming over from home next week on the Conte di Savoia. We’re meeting them at Marseilles. You got here Tuesday, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m glad we can talk to someone in English. Koche is not bad with his English, but he’s got no staying power. We’ve only had that British major and his wife. He’s high-hat and she doesn’t speak at all.”
“Which could be lucky, too,” said his sister.
She was, I was realizing, though far from pretty, extremely attractive. Her mouth was too wide, her nose was not quite symmetrical, and her face was flat, with over-prominent cheekbones. But there was humor and intelligence in the way the lips moved, and the nose and cheekbones were good. The skin of her body was firm and clear and brown, while the thick mass of tawny fair hair crushed forward by the back of the deck-chair gleamed in a most interesting way. She was almost beautiful.
“The trouble with the French,” her brother was saying, “is that they get mad if you can’t speak their language properly. I don’t get mad if a Frenchman can’t speak English.”
“No, but that’s because most ordinary Frenchmen like the sound of their language. They don’t like listening to a bad French accent any more than you like listening to a beginner practicing on a violin.”
“It’s no use appealing to his musical ear,” commented the girl. “He’s tone deaf.” She got up and smoothed out her bathing suit. “Well,” she said, “I guess we’d better be getting some more clothes on.”
Herr Vogel heaved himself out of his chair, consulted an enormous watch, and announced in French that it was seven fifteen. Then he hitched up his suspenders another notch and began to collect his and his wife’s belongings. We all went in procession to the steps. I found myself behind the American.
“By the way, sir,” he said as we started up, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Josef Vadassy.”
“Mine’s Warren Skelton. This is my sister Mary.”
But I barely heard him. Slung across Herr Vogel’s plump back was a camera, and I was trying to recollect where I had seen another one like it. Then I remembered. It was a box-type Voigtlander.
On very warm nights, dinner at the Reserve was served on the terrace. A striped awning was put up for the purpose and illumination was provided by candles on the tables. It looked very gay when they were all alight.
I had made up my mind to be the first on the terrace that evening. For one thing, I was hungry. For another, I wanted to inspect my fellow guests one at a time. Three of them, however, were already in their places when I arrived.
One of them, a man sitting alone, was placed behind me so that I could not see him except by turning right round in my chair. I took in as much as possible of his appearance as I walked to my table.
The candle on his table and the fact that he was bending forward over his plate prevented my seeing much of him except a head of short, graying fair hair brushed sideways without a part. He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of coarse linen trousers of obviously French manufacture.
I sat down and turned my attention to the other two.
They sat very stiffly, facing one another across their table, he a narrow-headed man with grizzled brown hair and a clipped mustache, she an impassive middle-aged woman with large bones, a sallow complexion, and a head of neatly dressed white hair. Both had changed for dinner. She wore a white blouse and a black skirt. He had put on gray flannel trousers, a brown striped shirt with a regimental tie, and a broad check riding-coat. As I watched him he put down his soup spoon, picked up a bottle of cheap claret from the table, and held it to the light.
“I do believe, my dear,” I heard him say, “that the waiters drink our wine. I marked this bottle most carefully at luncheon.”
He had a penetrating upper-middle-class English voice. The woman shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly. Obviously she did not approve.
“My dear,” he replied, “it’s the principle of the thing that I look at. They ought to be pulled up about it. I shall drop a hint to Koche.”
I saw her shrug her shoulders again and dab her mouth with her napkin. This was evidently Major and Mrs. Clandon-Hartley.
The other guests had by this time begun to arrive.
The Vogels sat at a table beyond the two English and beside the balustrade. Another couple made for the table against the wall.
These were unmistakably French. The man, very dark and with goitrous eyes and an unshaven chin, looked about thirty-five. The woman, an emaciated blonde in satin beach pajamas and imitation pearl earrings the size of grapes, might have been older. They were very interested in one another. As he held the chair for her to sit down he caressed her arm. She responded with a furtive squeeze of his fingers, then looked round quickly to see if the other guests had noticed. I saw that the Vogels were convulsed with silent laughter at the incident. Herr Vogel winked at me across the tables.
The blonde woman, I decided, was probably Odette Martin. Her companion would be either Duclos or Roux.
Mary Skelton and her brother came next. They nodded amicably and went to a table behind me on my right. There was only one more to come. He proved to be an elderly man with a white beard and wearing pince-nez attached to a broad, black ribbon.
When the waiter took my soup plate I stopped him.
“Who is the gentleman with the white beard?”
“That is Monsieur Duclos.”
“And the gentleman with the blonde?”
The waiter smiled discreetly.
“Monsieur Roux and Mademoiselle Martin.” He placed a faint emphasis on the “mademoiselle.”
“I see. Which, then, is Herr Schimler?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Herr Schimler, Monsieur? There is no one of that name at the Reserve.”
“You are sure?”
“Perfectly, Monsieur.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
“Who is the gentleman at the end table?”
“That is Monsieur Paul Heinberger, a Swiss writer and a friend of Monsieur Koche. Will you take fish, Monsieur?”
I nodded and he hurried away.
For a second or two I sat still. Then, calmly but with a hand that trembled, I felt in my pocket for Beghin’s list, enveloped it in my napkin, looked down and read it through carefully.
But already I knew it off by heart. The name of Heinberger was not on it.
