I said, ‘Why didn’t Olaf come with you?’
‘He has a stomach upset.’
I didn’t make any comment. The taxi ride was bad enough; I didn’t want Wilkins turning a broadside on me.
‘Where am I staying?’
‘At a hotel on the sea front called Del Mehari. I got you a room with bath.’
‘Why not a room at your hotel, or the Uaddan?’ La Piroletta was still very, very fresh in my mind.
‘Because all of them are fully booked. This is a booming oil town and hotel rooms are at a premium. And, anyway, I thought you might like to stay where Martin Freeman and William Dawson had stayed.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘Olaf was responsible. I told him about the case. We checked all the hotels to see if either man had stayed recently—with no result. Then Olaf said that if Bill Dawson had said in his letter to Freeman that he could have his revenge at the Wheelus course, then—if the hotels were covering up about them for any reason, which now I am sure they are—the police or whoever it was who had instructed them might not have thought to put a cover on the Seabreeze golf course, particularly as it is American owned. So Olaf said—’
‘Let’s go out and see if they did play there and enter their names in the book?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they had?’
‘Yes.’
‘Clever Olaf. He’s in the wrong business.’
‘They played there about twelve days ago and they both gave the Del Mehari as their hotel. But at the Del Mehari when Olaf and I made enquiries—’
‘They just looked blank and said no?’
‘Very blank. And since they don’t use a hotel registration book but do each guest on a card which goes into a filing system we couldn’t ask to see the register. How long do you think it will be before Olaf and I can go to Cairo?’
‘Don’t tell me you’re losing interest? You’ve done so well.’
‘I’m entitled to my holiday. Also—’ an even primmer note came into her voice—‘I don’t like being followed by the police everywhere I go. The car behind us now is one which followed me out to the airport.’
I screwed my head round. Through the back window I could see headlights following us.
‘Sure?’
‘Positively.’ Then disapprovingly, ‘I thought this might be a straightforward case, but I’m sure now that it isn’t. You know how much I dislike complications.’
‘You, and Monsieur Robert Duchêne. What’s Olafs reaction? Doesn’t he find it exciting?’
‘I told you he has a stomach upset. I’m sure it’s a nervous one. I’m worried for him.’
She had reason to be. In a man Olafs size a stomach upset was no minor matter.
I said, ‘Did you get anything on Bill Dawson?’
‘Nothing, except—’
I lost what she said as the radio began to whack out an Arab nuptial dance or something and we swerved to miss a donkey loaded four storeys high with sacks.
‘Except what?’
‘Except that I keep thinking that I ought to know something about him. Something at the back of my mind. It is most irritating.’
‘I get the feeling too. Maybe it will come. Did you check the hire-car services? This golf course is some way out of the town, isn’t it? They could have hired a car to go out.’
Wilkins nodded. ‘Olaf suggested that. We went round them all. And they were all very co-operative, looking through their books and apologizing when they had no record recently of a Freeman or a Dawson. All except one—it’s a place near the centre of the town called the Magarba Garage. They just said at once without reference to their books that they had not hired out any cars to any such persons.’
‘The police or whoever had been at them?’
‘Yes. Did you bring any firearms in?’
That was typical Wilkins. She could call a spade a spade with the best of them, but a gun was always a firearm.
I said, ‘Yes. It’s strapped to the inside of my left leg now and damned uncomfortable.’
‘Then if you don’t want to become persona non grata I should get rid of it. Firearms can only be imported if declared on arrival and a licence obtained.’
‘I’ll be careful. And you’ve done a good job—or, at least, Olaf has. He’s a bright boy. Why don’t we offer him a job with us and then you wouldn’t have to make the Cairo trip every year? Carver, Wilkins and Bornjstrom. Sounds good.’
‘The car behind is coming up to overtake us.’
I squinted back. It was. And it did. And then about a hundred yards ahead it pulled up and a man jumped out into our headlights. Wilkins said, ‘The firearm.’
I jerked up my trouser leg and did some quick unstrapping. Wilkins took it from me and calmly put it into her handbag like a schoolmistress coolly confiscating a catapult.
Our driver hesitated for a moment or two, considered whether he would notch up another pedestrian on his steering column, and then changed his mind as the white holster webbing, navy blue uniform and peaked cap said ‘Police’ very plainly.
He pulled into the side of the road behind the police car which I saw now was a Land-Rover. The police corporal or sergeant or whatever he was came round to the side of the car and spoke through the driver’s open window. Our taxi-man switched off ‘Return to the Oasis’ or whatever was playing and shrugged his shoulders.
The policeman came back to the rear window and signalled for me to wind it down. I did. A warm gust of night air came in and I gave him a big smile.
‘Trouble, Officer?’
He was a Libyan, small, stocky, hard material all the way through and very correct. Even his English was correct.
‘You are Mr Carver?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you stay where?’
‘At the Del Mehari Hotel, when I get there.’
‘This lady?’
‘She is my secretary.’
‘It is requested that you come with us, Mr Carver. Be good enough to ask your secretary to take your luggage on to your hotel.’
‘I hope I’m going to be allowed
