Good old Howard Johnson was reaching out his hands across the steps to dust me down. I took one of them gratefully and, with a wrist and upper arm hold, I threw him over my shoulder against the house wall. I went through his pockets while he snored like a drunk and found nothing of interest, except a packet of Beograd filter-tips. Then I walked down to the car. There was no one in it, so I took it. It saved a big taxi fare from the Porte de la Villette, where Vérité lived, to my flat. I parked it a hundred yards down the road from the flat, dropped the keys down a drain, and let the air out of the four tyres. A French tart, who was slightly tight on duty, watched me and said, “Vous vous amusez, no?”
“Yes,” I said.
As I went to move away, she said, “Bien. Maintenant, nous allons nous amuser beaucoup plus?”
“No,” I said.
I went up to my flat, taking with me the only thing of interest which I had found in the car. It was a paper-back book written in English, published by a firm I’d never heard of in London called Unity Books, Ltd. It was a translation from the German, so the fly-leaf said, and was entitled – Stigmata: A Study of European National Neuroses. It sounded like light bedtime reading, but I hadn’t taken it because of that, and I don’t think Howard Johnson had been reading it because of that. The name of the author had caught my eye. It had been written by a Professor Carl Vadarci. I was interested, among other things, to see if Professor Vadarci took the same line on the subject as, I had gathered from Wilkins’s summary, The Times had in their second leader on 16 February, 1947.
CHAPTER SEVEN
OYSTERS WITH OGLU
Vérité could not get seat reservations for the next day. We left the morning of the day after in a Caravelle. She turned up in a neat blue travelling suit and with one case, and she ran neck and neck with Wilkins for efficiency. She took charge and shepherded me around quietly but firmly. I began to wonder if all she had left now was a frustrated mother instinct.
We sat together and, as we took off, she handed me the daily papers and an English edition of a Fodor’s Modern Guide – Yugoslavia (with illustrations and maps) to keep me from getting bored during the trip. I knew it would not be worth while even trying the mildest flirtation with the Air France hostess. Vérité would tell me I wasn’t old enough.
I read the papers, saving the guide for later. I hoped it would not be such heavy reading as Stigmata by Professor Vadarci.
Part of the past day I’d spent trying to pick out some of the jigsaw pieces with straight edges so that I could get a frame for the puzzle before I began to work inwards. I hadn’t found many. Beograd filter was easy. They wanted it to look as though Howard Johnson had been through the Vadarci suite. Sir Alfred and Katerina’s Embassy dinner had been easier – though it had cost me a phone call to Wilkins in London. One of the Counsellors at the British Embassy in Paris was a Sir Alfred Coddon, K.B.E., C.V.O. I guessed that he had gone quietly on leave somewhere, and that when the need arose Manston was taking his place. Why? No answer, except that I would gamble that Manston was working on the jigsaw by starting with the centre pieces. Professor Vadarci was much harder. Wilkins could find nothing on him. So I just had to keep my muzzle down to the scent and jog on. The money was good, and there was always a chance that some time or other I could make it better.
I looked at Vérité. She had her eyes closed and could have been sleeping. I dipped into Fodor and started to read the serial story called “Tourist Vocabulary” at the back, which was all about an inquiring chap like myself who goes about hotels, shops, restaurants, garages and banks asking questions. I liked the episode in the restaurant best ... “Waiter! I would like to have lunch, dinner. The menu, please. Thank you. Soup. Bread. Hors d’oeuvre. Smoked ham. Ham omelette. (God, what an appetite – right down to fruit, cheese, fish, eggs.) Serve me on the terrace. Where can I wash my hands? Beer. Bottled water. Turkish coffee.” Poor bloody waiter.
Vérité woke up.
I said, “Where are we staying?”
“At the Imperial. It’s quite close to the Argentina.”
“Good. I hope I’ve got a sola prema moru?”
“A what?”
“If I’ve pronounced it right, it means a room with a view of the sea.”
I didn’t get a smile. I turned to a section on national dishes and soon saw that I was going to be in for a great deal of mutton stew under different names.
At Zagreb airport we changed to a DC.3 of the JAT airline, and all the way down to Cilipi airport I forced myself to sleep so that I wouldn’t have to watch the limestone mountains not so far below.
I had a room with a view of the sea, though it was too dark to see much by the time we arrived. I flopped back on the bed to recover from a twenty-mile trip in from the airport over unmade roads, and I reached for the phone. It was answered by somebody who spoke English, and I ordered a large whisky up to the room and a personal call to Katerina at the Hotel Argentina. I was told that she had left the hotel that morning.
I went next door, carrying my drink, to Vérité’s room, knocked and was admitted. She had a dressing-gown on, and her feet were bare. She had nice toes, but I kept my eyes off them.
I raised the glass. “Like me to order one for you?”
“No thank you.”
I sat down
