He surveyed his collection of currency and pulled out his pocketbook, and then, as he opened the worn pigskin, he sighed with relief. Instead of one, he had two traveller’s cheques left, and they were plenty. He signed them, and the polite clerk took them to the caisse.
The girl was still at the counter. He kept his eyes lowered. He caught a glimpse of her hands moving beside him, reaching for her receipt, tucking it away, closing her bag. And her hands were something of a shock to him. They were fine hands, strong and capable, but they suggested a worker rather than one who lived in decorative idleness. They were cared for, obviously, but were marked by cuts and scars. The right thumb wore an adhesive bandage. The left forefinger had a blue bruise under a broken nail, as if it had received a whack with a hammer.
He had, perhaps, two seconds to notice these curious details. Then the hands were withdrawn, and he was aware that she had left the counter. He looked up and saw her back, a receding image in the mirror, followed by the porter with her valise. A mirror on the opposite side of the foyer returned a reflection of her approach, and he saw her serene face again with its corona of red-gold hair. He continued to stare after she had gone, seeing himself reflected back and forth. The place had more mirrors in it than the Palace of Versailles. Someone must have had a mania for…
He remembered suddenly the doubly-reflected picture of Kusitch stooping in the corner of his room, shoving the manila envelope under the carpet. He hoped Kusitch hadn’t forgotten that envelope, because it probably contained his money and the man was going to need it to pay his share of the confounded bill.
“Your taxi, monsieur.”
He followed the porter. He saw Ruth Meriden again as her cab drove away from the hotel, and in another moment his own cab started as if in pursuit.
There was quite a crowd at the terminal building. He checked the number of his plane and found the official who was dealing with the passengers. Flight 263-that was the designation. The girl was the fourth person ahead of him, and there was still no sign of Kusitch.
Andrew was still the last in the line when he reached the desk. He asked about Kusitch.
“Kusitch?” The official looked at his passenger list. “I’ve no one of that name.”
“But you must have,” Andrew protested. “It’s the ten o’clock plane to London, isn’t it?”
“Certainly, sir. Flight two-six-three.”
“Then Mr. Kusitch is a passenger. We travelled together from Athens yesterday. We reserved seats for this morning as soon as we heard the night plane for London was grounded. Kusitch must be on your list. He has the seat next to mine.”
Andrew became vehement. The official shook his head, then hesitated.
“Perhaps there has been a cancellation,” he suggested. “Just a moment. I’ll find out.”
He picked up a telephone, pressed a button, and made his inquiry. He spoke to Andrew, holding a hand over the receiver.” That’s right, sir… P. G. Kusitch. He cancelled his reservation. The seat has been given to Major Bardolph.”
Andrew felt anger rising. What sort of damn-fool game was the fellow playing? Skipping out of the hotel with his bill unpaid, leaving his things in the bathroom.
“When did the man cancel his seat?”
The official passed on the question and transmitted the answer to Andrew.
“Last night, sir. He telephoned.”
“But that’s impossible. I’m sure he never left his room. He was in bed, asleep.”
“Nevertheless…”
Andrew began to feel a little sick. He pressed a hand on the desk before him. “Please,” he said. “Can you find out the time your people got the message?”
The official put through the additional inquiry. There was a short wait. Then he announced: “Our record says twenty-two thirty-three hours. Monsieur Kusitch telephoned in person.”
“Ten-thirty!” Andrew shivered as if a blast of cold air had touched him. “At ten-thirty I was with Mr. Kusitch in a cafe, drinking coffee and cognac. He definitely did not telephone.”
“But surely, sir? He has not come to claim his seat. That proves that he must have cancelled it.”
Andrew gazed at the man incredulously. He had a queer feeling in his stomach and icy fingers seemed to be pressing him in the small of the back. He put both hands on the desk and leaned heavily.
“I was with Kusitch all the evening,” he asserted. “From seven o’clock on he was scarcely out of my sight. We left the hotel together and did not get back till after midnight. Kusitch never went near a telephone in that time.”
“Possibly he had someone pass on the message for him?”
“No. He never had the slightest intention of giving up his seat in the plane. He was anxious to get to London as soon as possible.”
“Then where is he, sir?” “I don’t know. The last I saw of him, he was in bed…”
He broke off, suddenly recalling the sounds in the night. He had interpreted them so amusingly. He had imagined the comical figure of Mr. Kusitch falling out of bed and climbing back again. That was a laugh, a good laugh. He heard the bedsprings creaking. Again he felt the cold touch at the bottom of the spine. He had known fear more than once in his life, but this was a different kind of fear. He pulled himself together, shaking away the sickness, and in the instant he knew what he had to do.
“There’s something wrong,” he told the official. “You’d better make full inquiries about that phone call. I’m going back to the hotel. Can you switch my seat to the afternoon plane?”
“But, Dr. Maclaren, the bus is about to leave for the airport.”
“This is serious. It may be very serious indeed. If you can’t put somebody else in my seat, I’ll have to pay an extra fare.”
“Some people are waiting, but at this late hour it is very difficult.”
“Can you get me on an afternoon plane?”
“There’s a vacancy on Flight seven-four-nine, two-thirty.”
“All right. Find out about that telephone call. The police may want to know.”
Andrew checked his bag at the luggage office and strode off quickly. Outside he passed the bus loaded with the passengers for Flight 263. It was waiting; waiting for him. The red-haired girl sat well up towards the front, and now the customary serenity of her face was marred by a slight frown of impatience. For a moment he regretted that he had given up his seat. That was curious; but, of course, it was simply that he realised that he was meddling with something that did not concern him. What was Kusitch to him that he should put himself to any trouble over the man?
He halted. All the doubts he had entertained about Kusitch went through his mind again. The man’s story might have been wholly false. He could be something silly like a spy. He could have chosen to disappear in the middle of the night, suddenly apprehensive of one of those enemies he had talked about. He could be a criminal with quite another motive for performing a vanishing trick. And he could be merely an unhappy creature with persecution fantasies, a paranoiac.
All the probable and improbable explanations wheeled in Andrew’s head, but none of them altered the basic situation. Kusitch had dropped out of sight, and he, Andrew Maclaren, was the one man who could do something about it. If he did nothing, if he washed his hands of the whole affair and went on to London, no one might ever hear another word of Kusitch.
How it had happened he could not say, but Kusitch seemed to have established a claim on him. He had wanted to get rid of the little man. He had found him a bore and a nuisance; but he had also found him pathetic. Andrew could see again the hurt-dog look of appeal in the round face, and it was an appeal he could not resist. It might have been instinct, a hunch, an extrasensory perception of some other kind, but he believed in that instant that Kusitch was in danger of his life, and that he had to do something about it.
He hurried past the bus and hailed the first taxi he saw. In seven minutes he was back at the Risler-Moircy. He would not have been surprised to find police cars drawn up in front of the entrance and the foyer swarming with plain-clothes men and uniformed agents. There was nothing, not even a porter in the foyer. A young couple emerged from the restaurant deep in an argument. That was all. It was the midmorning lull when the Risler-Moircy relaxed and yawned. The clerk at the reception counter seemed half asleep.
Andrew explained that he had left something in his room. The clerk, completely indifferent, produced the key
