at once. People were always leaving things in their rooms it seemed: pocketbooks, trinkets, dead bodies.
The idea came to Andrew with horrifying impact. He hadn’t thought of that before, but now the one thing in his mind was the door of the clothes cupboard in the double bedroom.
The lift was shuddering about somewhere near the top of the building. Andrew could not wait for it. He ran up the stairs and was breathing heavily when he reached the third floor. The door of the sitting room was open. He paused a moment, then walked in, surprising one of the floor maids who was stripping the divan.
She was full of apologies. She thought Monsieur had departed. If she was in the way, she would return later.
He told her to carry on, and repeated the excuse he had made to the clerk.
The girl hesitated, gathering up the used linen in her arms. He asked her if she had done the other room, and she replied that she had. She had not noticed any forgotten property.
“I’ll look,” he told her, and all the while he was trying to hide the fact that his nerves were jumping.
He closed and bolted the bathroom door so that she could not follow him. Once he was in the room he had no hesitation. He went to the clothes cupboard and pulled the door open. There was nothing there. Not even a coat hanger on the rail, let alone a corpse.
There was sweat on him. He could feel the prickle of it and was annoyed. He had seen enough of death, God knows, and he should, as a professional man, have been able to face a corpse unemotionally. Yet this time the thought of it had come too close to him. He stood staring into the empty cupboard, quite still for a moment. The reprieve was for him and not for Kusitch, yet it made him believe that Kusitch was still alive, however illogical this new belief might be.
He shut the cupboard door and looked round the room. He went to the corner near the window and lifted the carpet with his toe.
The manila envelope was still there.
To his mind it was positive proof that Kusitch had not left the hotel voluntarily. If he had done so, he must surely have taken the envelope with him. The suggestion had been that he had hidden it because it contained money or a means of drawing money. In that case he would not have departed without it.
Andrew stooped, holding the carpet back. The envelope lay flap down and there was nothing written on the exposed side. He hesitated. The correct thing was to leave it as it was and notify the police; touch nothing. But he had to know what was in the envelope; besides, it might not be safe to leave it under the carpet.
He picked up the packet and allowed the carpet to fall back into place. As he straightened himself, he heard someone trying the bathroom door, turning the handle. The door creaked as pressure was applied to it, and a male voice asked in French if anyone was there. The voice had an accent that Andrew could not identify. It was provincial, perhaps: Walloon, Flemish, or whatever they called it. Another servant, he thought, and resented the peremptory note in the voice. Let him wait.
Andrew was at the window, peering at the package as if, by concentration, his eyes might see through the opaque manila paper that kept its secret. The envelope measured about seven and a half by five inches. The contents made a mass whose area might have been covered by a pound note. The mass was not very thick, but such a tightly packed wad, if it were indeed composed of pound notes, must have represented a substantial sum of money; something like two hundred or so. Tentatively, he pushed a finger beneath the flap of the envelope. He could feel that the flap was only lightly gummed. He slid his finger forward. The flap sprang. The envelope was open.
The wad was a booklet. Andrew took it out, stared at the green paper binding, blinked at it, and stared again. At first sight it was just unbelievable, but no amount of gazing at it would effect a transformation. The legend upon it was fixed in white lettering: “A London Transport Publication.” And then, following the symbol of circle and bisecting bar: Green Line Coach Guide.
Andrew thumbed hastily through the stapled pages of timetables, but saw nothing between die leaves; not a solitary bank note, not even a key to the cipher of the Yugoslav secret police.
It was anticlimax, and the sudden release of tension made him feel curiously weary. He dropped the envelope on the floor and put the Green Line Coach Guide in his pocket. Then he sat down in the window and looked across the room at the newly made bed. He smiled ruefully, thinking of Kusitch. Bits of behaviour, remembered fragments of speech, now came together to form a pattern. The pistol, the manila envelope, locked doors, fastened windows, wall-backed seats, searching looks, confidences, the pathetic clinging to the chance company of a fellow passenger… The man must live in a most extraordinary world of fantasy; a world in which a Green Line Coach Guide became the plans of the Petropavlovsky Fort or the blueprints of a hydrogen bomb, a nightmare world in which there were enemies behind every pillar. The man’s conscious mind, of course, had really nothing to do with it. He was dominated by his fantasies and they followed a classic pattern. He was the sufferer, the persecuted. Not all his persecutors were projected, of course. Some stayed inside: epilepsy, lumbago, the liver complaint. And the hostages in Dubrovnik, the imaginary wife and child. Heaven alone knew what new terror had seized him in the night after his fall from the bed. By now he might be on his way to Warsaw or Waziristan. There was still that phone call to the air terminal to be considered, but no doubt there was a simple explanation.
Andrew felt himself cheated. He felt doubly cheated when he thought of the plane that would be taking off for London in a very few minutes. And somehow Miss Ruth Meriden, her red hair, cool eyes, smug look and all, got mixed up with his regrets. It was curious that he should have a feeling of emptiness when he considered that it was unlikely he would ever see her again; curious, because he despised the type and found the individual wholly objectionable. It was even more curious that he should now begin to blame Kusitch bitterly for the sense of loss that came over him.
There was nothing more to do in the hotel. He went into the bathroom, threw back the bolt in the farther door, and entered the living room. A man rose from an armchair and wheeled to face him.
“Pardon for my disturbance,” he said. “I wish to see the suite by the permission of the chambermaid. My room has not the comfort. I make change-over when you are departing.”
The voice was that of the man who had tried the bathroom door. His English was worse than his French, but more revealing. The accent was German. So was the parade-ground arrogance. His tone was sharp and accusing. He said, in effect: “Why are you holding me up? Get the hell out of it, and be quick!”
At that moment Andrew was not in a conciliatory frame of mind. “Where I come from,” he said, “it’s customary to wait till a room is vacated before moving in.”
“I have no need for instruction. I make no fault. The chambermaid tells me the Englishman is departing.”
“I haven’t departed yet. And I’m not English.”
“No? This is not the right suite, perhaps? The maid said the Englishman and a friend were to leave this morning.”
The man was tall and lean. He had a nose that looked as if it had been stropped to a fine edge. His mouth was a hard line between thin and shapeless lips. The eyes were black, and quick with animal menace, but the rest of the face had the wooden immobility of a ventriloquist’s dummy. The lower jaw moved when required; only the eyes were alive. They narrowed aggressively, demanding an answer from Andrew. When they failed to get it, the mouth moved again.
“Perhaps your friend is in the next room? The maid makes more mistakes?”
The maid returned along the corridor and hesitated in the open doorway. She saw that the situation was unfortunate, and turned a worried look on Andrew.
“Pardon, monsieur. I am sorry you have been disturbed.” Then she spoke in German to the tall man. “I asked you to wait till the suite was ready, Herr Schlegel.”
The reply came quickly and harshly. “You told me the suite was empty. You are a fool. Get out of my way.”
He walked with a stiff gait that might have been due to a mechanical limb. He thrust out a hand to wave the girl aside. Andrew stopped him.
“Now that you’re here, you can look the place over,” he said. “I’m going. I’ve finished.” “Did you find what you wanted, monsieur?” the girl asked him.
“Yes. I found it, thanks. Good-bye.”
He looked back from the first turn in the corridor. Herr Schlegel was standing in the doorway of the sitting room, watching him.
