The foyer was empty, except for a slim man with dark glasses and steel-grey hair who was sitting opposite the lifts behind a copy of L’Aurore. The second American was saying, ‘What about that place Byron was at — Cap Sunion or something?’
Neil stopped at the hotel bookstall on their way to the bar and bought yesterday’s Paris edition of the Herald Tribune. The bar was crowded, full of the subdued roar of lunchtime drinking, breaking about them like surf on a beach. They pressed past the crush of shantung and mohair, and found a place in the corner under a fan.
Pol had not yet arrived. Neil ordered two Bloody Marys and glanced at the Herald Tribune. Guérin’s Secret Army was on the front page: during the past twenty-four hours thirty-nine Moslems had died in acts of street terrorism in the French Protectorate in North Africa. Six of them, including a woman and a fourteen-year-old boy, had been dragged from a tram in a European working-class suburb and beaten to death in front of a crowd of several hundred. Neil folded the paper up and felt sick and angry.
Twenty minutes later, Pol had still not arrived. They were beginning to feel hungry. ‘I’ll go and see if he’s been delayed in his room,’ said Neil.
The receptionist lifted the telephone and listened for a moment, then shook his head: ‘Sir, there is no reply from Monsieur Pol’s suite.’
Neil detected a faint stir behind him; the slim steel-grey man had shifted his copy of L’Aurore. The receptionist added, ‘I have not seen Monsieur Pol go out this morning, sir. His key is gone — he should be somewhere in the hotel.’
‘There may be a message,’ said Neil, ‘the name’s Ingleby.’ He turned his head slightly and thought he caught the edge of the slim man’s eyes shining at him from behind their dark glasses. It gave him a queer, uneasy feeling, as though he had been surprised in some compromising act.
The receptionist turned back: ‘I’m sorry, sir, there are no messages. Shall I have Monsieur Pol paged?’
‘Please,’ said Neil, ‘say he’s wanted in the bar.’
He went through and bought Van Loon another drink and watched the bar empty for lunch: waiters whisking up glasses and flicking napkins and collecting ashtrays. And still Monsieur Pol did not come.
‘Perhaps he is drunk,’ Van Loon suggested.
‘Perhaps,’ said Neil, thinking that more likely Pol had just forgotten, or had had another engagement and hadn’t bothered to leave a message. He put down some money on the bar and was just leaving, when a bellboy touched his arm: ‘Mister Ingilbee?’
‘Yes?’
‘Telephone please!’
In the foyer Neil noticed that the slim grey man with L’Aurore had gone. He went into one of the airless cells and lifted the receiver. The line crackled as though it were long-distance.
‘Monsieur Ingleby? This is Charles — Charles Pol!’
‘Where are you?’
‘Monsieur Ingleby, can you hear me? I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you for lunch. Something has happened.’ The voice faded into static and Neil shouted again: ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in a café near the Acropolis — in Kalidon Street. It’s called the Olympic. Have you got that? Take a taxi. And don’t tell anyone in the hotel. Hello!’
‘Hello!’ Neil shouted. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I will explain when you get here. And bring your Dutch friend. You understand?’ The line was so indistinct that it was hard to recognize Pol’s tone. ‘It is very important,’ the voice went on, ‘very important that you come, Monsieur Ingleby!’
‘Are you in any trouble?’ said Neil.
‘I shall wait for you, please hurry!’ The line went dead.
Neil hung up and joined Van Loon outside. ‘Something’s happened to Pol,’ he explained, ‘he wants us to meet him in a café in Kalidon Street, wherever that is.’
Van Loon stroked his blond beard and grinned: ‘A bit of horseplay, huh?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s go and see.’
Outside, while the bellboy went for the taxi, Neil paced up and down in the hot sun and puzzled over what sort of scrape Pol could be in. He had the Greek police eating out of his hand, so why was he so urgently summoning him and Van Loon?
It took just over a quarter of an hour to reach Kalidon Street, bouncing over alleys through the meat-markets, the cobbles wet with melting ice blocks. The Olympic Café was in a small street in the shadow of the Acropolis Rock. It was a barn-like building, full of sad-eyed men with black moustaches sitting in front of empty coffee cups and glasses of water, playing backgammon and dominoes.
They saw him at once, his balloon-like back facing them from the far end of the room. He sat down at a marble-topped table over a glass of dubious brown liquid, sweating heavily.
‘Monsieur Pol!’
He swung round: ‘Ah voilà, mes amis!’ he crowed with delight, grabbing up chairs and waving for the waiters.
Neil said, ‘What’s happened, Monsieur Pol?’
‘I’ve had a bit of trouble at the hotel. A small complication. What will you drink?’
A radio behind the bar began to blare out a deafening Greek lament. ‘What sort of trouble?’ said Neil.
‘There are two men at the hotel looking for me. That’s why I couldn’t meet you for lunch. I’d have left a message, but I didn’t want to risk them picking it up.’
‘Who are they?’
‘They belong to Broussard — Secret Army men. There was one at the front and one at the back. I had to slip out through the kitchens.’
The waiter arrived; Neil and Van Loon ordered a list of Greek dishes at random and glasses of Fix beer. ‘Why didn’t you call up Captain
