‘Who cares?’ MacAlpine turned the key in the lock. ‘I got Johnny’s key, didn’t I?’
‘And if you hadn’t?’
‘I’d have kicked his damned door in. I’ve done it before, haven’t I?’
The two men entered, closed and locked the door behind them. Wordlessly and methodically, they began to search Harlow’s room, looking equally in the most likely as unlikely places — and in a hotel room the number of places available for concealment to even the most imaginative is very limited. Three minutes and their search was over, a search that had been as rewarding as it was deeply dismaying. The two men gazed down in a brief and almost stunned silence at the haul on Harlow’s bed — four full bottles of scotch and a fifth half full. They looked at each other and Dunnet summed up their feelings in a most succinct fashion indeed.
He said, ‘Jesus!’
MacAlpine nodded. Unusually for him, he seemed at a total loss for words. He didn’t have to say anything for Dunnet to understand and sympathize with his feelings for the vastly unpleasant dilemma in which MacAlpine now found himself. He had committed himself to giving Harlow his last chance ever and now before him he had all the evidence he would ever require to justify Harlow’s instant dismissal.
‘Dunnet said: ‘So what do we do?’
‘We take that damn poison with us, that’s what we do.’ MacAlpine’s eyes were sick, his low voice harsh with strain.
‘But he’s bound to notice. And at once. From what we know of him now the first thing he’ll do on return is head straight for the nearest bottle.’
‘Who the hell cares what he does or notices? What can he do about it? More importantly, what can he say about it? He’s not going to rush down to the desk and shout: ‘I’m Johnny Harlow.
Someone’s just stolen five bottles of scotch from my room.’ He won’t be able to do or say a thing.’
‘Of course he can’t But he’ll still know the bottles are gone. What’s he going to think about that?’
‘Again, who cares what that young dipsomaniac thinks? Besides, why should it have been us.
If we had been responsible, he’d expect the heavens to fall in on him the moment he returns. But they won’t. We won’t say a word — yet. Could have been any thief posing as a member of the staff. Come to — that, it wouldn’t have been the first genuine staff member with a leaning towards petty larceny.’
‘So our little bird won’t sing?’
‘Our little bird can’t. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.’
Too late, my Mary,’ Harlow said.
‘I don’t mean that and you know it. I mean your drinking.’
‘Me? Drink?’ Harlow’s face was its usual impassive self. ‘Who says that?’
‘Everybody.’
‘Everybody’s a liar.’
As a remark, it was a guaranteed conversation-stopper. A tear fell from Mary’s face on to her wrist watch but if Harlow saw it he made no comment. By and by Mary sighed and said quietly:
‘I give up. I was a fool to try. Johnny, are you coming to the Mayor’s reception tonight?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you’d like to take me. Please.’
‘And make you a martyr? No.’
‘Why
‘I’m not every other driver. I’m Johnny Harlow. I’m a pariah, an outcast. I have a delicate and sensitive nature and I don’t like it when nobody speaks to me.’
Mary put both her hands on his. ‘I’ll speak to you, Johnny, you know I always will.’
‘I know.’ Harlow spoke without either bitterness or irony. ‘I cripple you for life and you’ll always speak to me. Stay away from me, young Mary. I’m poison.’
There are some poisons I could get to like very much indeed.’
Harlow squeezed her hand and rose. ‘Come on. You have to get dressed for this do tonight.
I’ll see you back to the hotel.’
They emerged from the cafe, Mary using her walking stick with one hand while with the other she clung to Harlow’s arm. Harlow, carrying the other stick, had slowed his normal pace to accommodate Mary’s limp. As they moved slowly up the street, Rory MacAlpine emerged from the shadows of the recessed doorway opposite the cafe. He was shivering violently in the cold night air but seemed to be entirely unaware of this.
Judging from the look of very considerable satisfaction on his face, Rory had other and more agreeable matters on his mind than the temperature. He crossed the street, followed Harlow and Mary at a discreet distance until he came to the first road junction. He turned right into this and began to run.
By the time he had arrived back at the hotel, he was no longer shivering but sweating profusely for he had not stopped running all the way. He slowed down to cross the lobby and mount the stairs, went to his room, washed, combed his hair, straightened his tie, spent a few moments in front of his mirror practising his sad but dutiful expression until he thought he had it about right, then walked across towards his father’s room. He knocked, received some sort of mumbled reply and went inside.
James MacAlpine’s suite was, by any odds, the most comfortable in the hotel. As a millionaire, MacAlpine could afford to indulge himself: as both a man and a millionaire he saw no reason why he shouldn’t. But MacAlpine wasn’t indulging in any indulgence at that moment, nor, as he sat far back in an over-stuffed armchair did he appear to be savouring any of the creature comforts surrounding him. He appeared, instead, to be sunk in some deep and private gloom from which he roused himself enough to look up almost apathetically as his son closed the door behind him.
‘Well, my boy, what is it? Couldn’t it wait until the morning?’
‘No, Dad, it couldn’t.’
‘Out with it, then. You can see I’m busy.’
‘Yes, Dad, I know.’ Rory’s sad but dutiful expression remained in position. ‘But there’s something I felt I had to tell you.’ He hesitated as if embarrassed at what he was about to say.
‘It’s about Johnny Harlow, Dad.’
‘Anything you have to say about Harlow will be treated with the greatest reserve.’ Despite the words, a degree of interest had crept into MacAlpine’s thinning features. ‘We all know what you think of Harlow.’
‘Yes, Dad. I thought of that before I came to see you.’ Rory hesitated again. ‘You know this thing about Johnny Harlow, Dad? The stories people are telling about his drinking too much.’
‘Well?’ MacAlpine’s tone was wholly non-committal. It was with some difficulty that Rory managed to keep his pious expression from slipping: this was going to be much more difficult than he expected.
‘It’s true. The drinking, I mean. I saw him in a pub tonight.’
‘Thank you, Rory, you may go.’ He paused. ‘Were you in that pub too?’
‘Me? Come on, Dad. I was outside. I could see in, though.’
‘Spying, lad?’
‘I was passing by.’ A curt but injured tone.
MacAlpine waved a hand in dismissal. Rory turned to go, then turned again to face his father.
‘Maybe I don’t like Johnny Harlow. But I do like Mary. I like her more than any person in the world.’ MacAlpine nodded, he knew this to be true. ‘I don’t ever want to see her hurt. That’s why I came to see you. She was in that pub with Harlow.’
‘What!’ MacAlpine’s face had darkened in immediate anger.
‘Cut my throat and hope I die.’
‘You are sure?’
‘I
‘I’m sure there’s not.’ MacAlpine said mechanically. A little, but not much, of the anger had left his eyes. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to accept it. Mind you, I don’t like spying. ‘
‘This wasn’t spying, Dad.’ Rory’s indignation could be of a particularly nauseating righteousness at times. This was detective work. When the good name of the Coronado team is at stake —’
MacAlpine lifted his hand to stop the spate of words and sighed heavily.
‘All right, all right, you virtuous little monster. Tell Mary I want her. Now. But don’t tell her why.’
