Читать книгу Ladies Won't Wait - Peter Cheyney - Страница 3

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Even to-day I don’t know very much about her. Which is a pity. I suppose if I knew her story I shouldn’t spend so much time wondering about it. Somebody or other said that unsatisfied curiosity fed upon itself, and there’s nothing that can supply food for thought like a mysterious woman who appears from nowhere, mixes herself up in one’s life for a little while and then goes out of it. Especially if she happens to be beautiful.

In my own rather odd profession one is inclined to speculate a great deal about women. In terms of their peculiar effect upon people, and I say peculiar because no two men are affected in exactly the same way by women. If they were, life would be a great deal easier.

I suppose, really, Theodora St. Philippe must have been some sort of desperate idealist. She must have been—even if her ideals were a bit cock-eyed. Besides beauty, and that indefinable attraction which all women want to possess and so few do, she must have had brains and intelligence and a helluva lot of guts. I ought to have known from the first time I saw her that she was a rather special sort of person. I ought to have known. If I didn’t it was because I was much too busy looking at her and wondering just who and what she was; when and how she’d acquired that strange quality of allure, that extraordinary grace....

Anyhow ... she’s had it and that’s that. And in my profession it doesn’t do too much good to spend your off-times in wondering about women who’ve had it. Especially those who’ve won it in the same way as you might easily win it yourself. One of these days!

I came away from the Pré-Catalan about five o’clock. I drove into the Champs Elysées, turned off and parked the car in the Rue Royale not far from Maxims. I had a drink in Maxims. I didn’t want it, but I had it. It was so hot you could hardly breathe. July, if it is hot, is not the sort of month you’d pick to be in Paris.

When I came out I began to walk down the Rue Royale, and she was about ten paces in front of me. I tell you she was something! And because I was undecided in my mind and wasn’t quite certain at that particular moment—I had just a few minutes to spare before my appointment with Olly—as to where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, I just trailed along behind her, admiring the way she put her feet on the ground and that just too elegant sway with which she walked.

I thought she was marvellous. She turned into the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and when I went round the corner after her I jerked my mind back to realities and thought it was about time I went home. I suppose I forgot Olly for the time being, which was strange, because I’d had Olly in the back of my head for the last two hours. If it hadn’t been for my goddam sex curiosity maybe I’d have been back minutes before. Anyway, I started to walk, thinking about the woman. I crossed the Faubourg; turned into a side street. Then, a few minutes afterwards, I saw it. A beret of a peculiar shade of blue lying in the gutter, looking just as if it had been run over, which funnily enough it had been, and with the oil stain on the side.

I thought: That’s Olly’s beret. I didn’t like it. I went round the corner and there was the flic with his note-book out, and two or three people talking to him all at once—talking rapidly and rather vehemently, which was quite unnecessary since nobody seemed to know anything at all about it.

It was Olly all right. I spoke to the flic. As far as he could ascertain, Olly, who by the way was a very tough Frenchman of nearly sixty, had been leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette and doing nothing in particular. The next time the flic passed, which was some five minutes later, Olly was lying in the gutter in the quiet street. He was dead ... a hit and run driver, apparently. They had taken the body away.

I thought it was a bit hard that Olly, with his experiences in the war, his toughness, his astuteness and the courage he brought to life, should finish like that. I talked to the flic for a few minutes and I went off.

I started to walk round the streets, thinking about Olly, wondering. Then I went back to Maxims and had a drink. I drank a brandy cocktail and leaned up against the bar with my mind running around the blue beret with the oil stain on it lying in the gutter, and looking in some strange way almost animate, rather as if it wanted to get up and talk to me. I ordered another brandy cocktail, paid for it and didn’t drink it.

I went back and found the beret was still there. I picked it up. I don’t know why I wanted to do that, but I did it. Then I started to meander round the streets. I was walking more or less in a circle, which was what I wanted to do. After a while I thought I had as much chance of seeing what I wanted to as finding a needle in a haystack, and just as I came to this conclusion I saw the needle!

It was parked in front of me. It was a 6/15 Citroen car which, if you know anything about Paris, is not at all unusual. They grow on gooseberry bushes there. The streets are full of them.

But I knew this one. I could see the small cut in the near-side wing that had broken open after the wing had been newly planished. I walked over to the car and slipped my hand under the driver’s door-handle. And there was the groove on the underneath side of the handle. So I knew who the car belonged to. And I wondered what the hell it was doing there.

And then I saw the other thing, which was the front number plate. And there was the number on it as large as life, and the egg who had painted the number on it had been too lazy to get a new plate. He’d painted over the old number. You could see the vague outlines of the original number underneath. So it was Rockie’s car originally, which I thought, having regard to this and that, was very funny.

I started walking again; finished up looking in the window of Lanvin’s men’s shop in the Faubourg. But I wasn’t looking at anything. I was smoking a cigarette without tasting it and thinking about the car and Olly. When I turned away from the window, having come to the conclusion that looking in shirt shop windows wasn’t a paying proposition, I saw the woman coming down the Faubourg towards me. I had another look at her.

I didn’t think she was French. In spite of what she’d got she was English. And she looked a very nice woman when you looked at her. And as she swayed past me she gave me the eye. I thought: Well ... well ...! I watched her as she floated down the street a little way and then stopped and looked into a perfumery shop, to give me a chance to make my approach, I supposed.

But I wasn’t sure and you have to be sure about a thing like that. I’d spent so long running the garage, and trying to kid everybody that that was my job, that I didn’t even think, at the moment, that she might have some sort ulterior motive. Of course, I should have thought of it, and probably would have, except that three-quarters of my mind was concerned with Olly and the business of his getting himself rubbed out in such an annoying manner.

So I thought to hell with it! I crossed the street; went back to where I had parked the car and drove slowly home. I went up the two flights of stairs and pushed the door open; went into the bedroom; lay down on the bed; looked at the ceiling and thought where do we go from here?

But not for long! I heard somebody at the front door and bawled: “Come in....”

A moment later somebody pushed the bedroom door open and Janey came in.

Janey leaned against the wall and looked at me with mischievous blue eyes. He was tall, slim, rangey, with a particular charm which isn’t easy to describe.

He wasn’t good-looking, but he was very attractive. Women went for him in a big way. His face was odd. It missed being good-looking by a near margin. And his eyes were very good. They were strange eyes—deep, sometimes mischievous, sometimes smiling in a cold sort of way. He walked with a peculiar, casual grace and his clothes—no matter how old they were—hung on him perfectly. He would have looked well-dressed in an old sack.

His name was Everard Mailey Jane. Someone told me he came of an antique family, but some woman had christened him “Janey,” and it stuck. It suited him. He seemed to have money of his own, and did what he thought interesting jobs about the world. He was an Englishman, but had fought with the Americans in World War II and collected a couple of gongs. He had also done a little airplane testing for them, and had a share in a business somewhere or other.

I met him in Frankfurt two years ago.

He said with a grin: “You old bastard. Lying on the bed and looking at the ceiling and smoking. What are you plotting ... some woman I’ll bet?”

I said: “You don’t know how right you are. I wish to God I hadn’t seen her!”

He raised his eyebrows. “So ... it’s like that. What did she do? Did she bite you?”

“No ... not exactly. She was what the Americans call a looker and I went on looking too long....”

“And you missed an appointment?” he said.

I nodded. I told him about the woman.

He pushed himself away from the wall; lighted a cigarette; began to walk about the room looking at the weird pictures that I’d acquired with the apartment.

He asked: “What was she like?”

I said: “She was tall and slim, and she had one hell of a figure, and the sort of legs that you dream about. She had a way of walking, too ... you know, Janey. And her clothes were something. She was wearing a chartreuse shangtung tailored coat and skirt, with black gloves and a black shiny sailor hat and patent leather sandals with the right sort of heel, and sheer nylons. I think that woman was very intriguing, Janey.”

He yawned. “Yes? Most women are intriguing for some reason or other, aren’t they?”

I said: “I suppose so. But according to the kind of quality that makes them intriguing. A woman might be intriguing because she had no ears. That wouldn’t make her attractive, would it, Janey?”

He said: “No. Well, what’s so marvellous about this woman you saw?”

“I don’t know. She was perfectly dressed. She looked as if she was English. She looked as if she might have been well-bred. But there was something rather odd about her. She gave me the impression that she was trying to pick me up.”

He yawned again. “That wouldn’t make her intriguing, would it? Except to you, perhaps. So she tried to pick you up?”

I said: “Maybe. Well ...” I got off the bed. “That’s a point which will remain unsettled. I don’t propose to ask her.”

“This description rather reminds me of a woman I met in Frankfurt,” said Janey. “I’ll have to tell you about her.” He looked at his strap-watch. “D’you know what the time is? It’s six o’clock. I think we should go somewhere and have a drink, don’t you?”

I looked at him. I thought to myself: I wonder what’s on your mind; what you’re trying to do. I stood there smiling, looking at Janey and wondering just how deep those mischievous smiling eyes of his were; how far the pools behind them extended into the brain and what was going on inside that brain. I thought to myself: I think you’re a son-of-a-bitch and if you are I’m going to have you, Janey.

I grinned at him. I said: “I think it’s a hell of an idea. Let’s go and have a drink.”

We went downstairs and walked for a bit. We went into Charles’ Bar. Janey said he liked the atmosphere. We drank two large whiskies and sodas. I’d just ordered another round when a man came in. He came across.

He said: “Hallo, Janey. How’s it going with you?”

He was short and thin. He had high cheek bones and a pronounced pallor. He looked as if he might have been slightly tubercular or something like that. He had a mean sort of face with long, narrow eyes, but the effect was lightened by an almost permanent smile about his mouth.

Janey said: “Not too bad. How does it go with you?” He turned to me. “This is a friend of mine. His name’s Marcini. A most peculiar specimen.” He grinned pleasantly. “I don’t know who he is or what he does or why, but wherever I go I meet him. He always has enough money in his pocket to buy me an expensive drink. He never talks about himself. When he asks questions you never know he’s doing it.” He said to Marcini: “This is Michael Kells.”

Marcini looked at me. He said, with the slightest touch of a foreign accent: “I think you’re a very fine specimen, Kells.” He stepped back and looked me over. “I should say your weight’s nearly two hundred pounds. In spite of that you look thin. So I should think most of it was muscle. You’ve nice eyes, a tough jaw, very good teeth and women would like your hair. Do you know, Kells, I think women might like a lot of you. Yes, I should think you’re very attractive to women. Wouldn’t you think so, Janey?”

The waiter brought our drinks. I told him to bring another.

Janey said to Marcini: “You’re telling me. This egg has been ruined by women so many times that the process doesn’t even affect him any more. Why they fall for him I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t talk a lot. He’s always finding beautiful women or rather he thinks he’s finding them. Usually they find him.”

Marcini said: “That’s how it goes. For me ... I’m always very unlucky with them. I don’t like women except very occasionally. When I meet one, if I do like her, she doesn’t like me. I suppose I’m unfortunate.”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

He nodded. “You might be right,” he conceded. “I remember once in Mexico City I had a little trouble with a woman—she was charming and good-looking, also intelligent, which I thought was unique. She came to the conclusion that I had two-timed her with a hat-check girl at a night club. So she made an appointment with me and brought a small automatic pistol with her. When she saw me approaching she produced the pistol and fired at me. She missed me and killed her husband who was following me. A most distressing business.”

I asked: “Why? Think of the money and trouble you saved yourself. Who was the Chinese philosopher who said that the only woman a man really desired was the one he couldn’t get?”

Janey said: “Yes, that boy knew his stuff whoever he was.” He drank some whisky. He went on: “How’s the garage going, Mike?”

“It’s all right,” I told him. “In point of fact it was a very good idea of mine. It’s become a sheet anchor to me, that garage.”

“So you’re making money?” asked Janey.

I nodded. “A little. And it keeps me out of mischief.”

There was a little silence; then Janey said: “How’s that old boy who used to get around with you? I saw him once or twice in Frankfurt. I believe you mentioned the garage idea to him. Then you told him that if you went through with it you’d put him in charge.”

I said: “You mean Olly—the Frenchman.”

“Yes. How’s Olly?”

I lighted a cigarette. I said: “He’s dead. A hit and run driver got him this evening—about an hour ago—in a quiet street. Just knocked him down and killed him. I arrived a few minutes after it had happened.”

Janey said: “Good God ... ! What a weird egg you are. You never said a word about it to me.”

“Why should I, Janey? What’s the good of talking about a thing like that? If a man’s dead, he’s dead.”

He said: “Well, goddam it, he was running the garage for you, wasn’t he?”

“Maybe ... There’ll be another Olly. There must be lots of people in France looking for garage managers’ jobs.”

He looked at Marcini and grinned. “You see, he’s tough. That’s why he gets on. He just doesn’t take any notice of a little thing like somebody’s death.” He went on: “I wonder if they’ll get the motorist who did it. It’s a pretty lousy thing to hit a man and not stop.”

I said: “I think so, too.”

“I think this conversation should be changed,” said Marcini. “I find talking about death is not very happy. There are other things to talk about.”

“All right,” said Janey. “There’s his latest woman. Let’s talk about her.”

Marcini raised his eyebrows. “What woman?”

Janey said: “He tells me when he came out of Maxims—mark you, I don’t know how many brandy cocktails he’d had—floating down the Rue Royale in front of him is a most devastating piece. She was so good that the boy friend had to go after her half-way down the Faubourg St. Honoré. He just had to go on looking.”

Marcini said languidly: “Was that all?”

“Yes, that’s what he says. That was all. She disappeared into thin air. The only pleasure he got out of this brief encounter was that he missed an appointment.”

Marcini laughed. “Too bad. I’ll make a guess that the appointment he missed was with an even more beautiful woman and, because he didn’t keep it, when he did arrive she was gone. Isn’t that true, Kells? Isn’t that the story?”

I said: “No. I hadn’t an appointment with a beautiful woman. I had an appointment with Olly. If it hadn’t been for the baby with the lovely figure I’d have kept it, and the probability is that Olly would still have been alive.”

Marcini shrugged his shoulders. “That is how it goes. That is life. Walking about Paris at this moment, or probably drinking a cocktail, is this lovely woman who is indirectly responsible for the death of Kells’ garage manager. And she doesn’t even know it. I wonder what would happen if somebody went up to her and told her about it. I wonder if she’d even be sorry.”

I said: “How do I know? I don’t know and I don’t care very much.”

Marcini said: “This conversation is still on a rather sombre note. I’m going to buy another drink.”

I said: “I don’t like drinking too much spirits in hot weather, so I’ll have a large whisky and soda with some ice in it.”

Marcini gave the order.

Janey said: “Mike, did you ever come across Rockie when you were in Frankfurt?”

I looked at him. “Rockie ...? Who’s Rockie?”

He said: “You’ve answered my question. I see you couldn’t have met him. He’s one of the most amusing types—almost a relic of the past.”

I asked: “Why is he a relic?”

He said: “I think he’s the world’s best play-boy. Rockie is about thirty—certainly not thirty-five. He has a lot of money, which is unusual, and it’s good money because it comes from America. I’ve never known a man drink so much, spend so much money and get so much fun out of it as Rockie.”

I asked: “Did he get a lot of fun in Germany? I shouldn’t have thought that Frankfurt was the place for a lot of fun—not that sort of fun—at the moment.”

He said: “He had fun, anyway. The reason I mentioned his name, Mike, was because if you’d known him you might have known his sister. Talking about beautiful women you brought to my mind the name. I should think Rockie’s sister is the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I yawned. “That’s O.K. by me. And what does she do. Is she a play-girl?”

He shook his head. “She’s delightful ... as sensible as he’s stupid. She lives in Sussex in England. She has an old manor house and a farm. She’s the sort of person who’d drive you crazy, Mike.”

I grinned at him. “Oh, yes ... why?”

He said: “Well, she knows her own mind. She’s poised. I should say she’s quite clever in a quiet sort of way. And she wouldn’t stand for any damned nonsense from you.”

“Why should she? I don’t even know her, and I don’t want to.”

Marcini said: “We talk about dead garage foremen and we talk about beautiful women who have been pursued by Kells and beautiful women who live in Sussex, and I don’t think it’s at all interesting.”

I asked: “What would you like to talk about?”

“I don’t like talking,” said Marcini. “I like listening.”

I said: “Well, what would you like to listen to?”

“That’s the joke ... I don’t know.”

We finished the drinks.

Marcini asked: “Well, what ... if anything ... are we going to do?”

Janey said: “I’m game for anything. I’m only here for two or three days; then I’m going off on my travels.”

I asked: “Where are you going to, Janey?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought I might go back to Germany. There’s a very interesting little Fräulein I know in Frankfurt, in spite of what you think about it, Mike. What are you going to do?”

I said: “I’m going back to England in a day or two I think.”

Janey began to laugh. “What did I tell you? All I have to do is to tell him about a lovely lady in Sussex and he makes up his mind to go back to England.”

I said: “Nuts!”

Marcini shook his head. “You’re quite wrong, Janey. I don’t think his technique would be so hurried.”

I picked up my hat. “Well, I’ll be seeing you two some time or other some place. You know where to find me, Janey. You found me a little earlier.” I stubbed out my cigarette. “By the way, how did you know my address?”

He said: “I got it at The Travellers’ Club.”

“Did you? Who gave it to you—the hall porter?”

“Of course. Who else?”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, then: “Well ... until next time....”

I went out of the bar.

I stood for a moment on the pavement outside, undecided. Then I began to walk slowly towards Maxims. I walked into the Faubourg St. Honoré, round the corner into the Rue Royale. I began to meander down the right hand side of the street. When I got within sight of Maxims I saw her. She was standing under the awning and she wasn’t the sort of person who stood under awnings outside Maxims. It was my girl friend of the early evening. She looked just as cool; just as collected.

As I approached her she turned; moved round in the direction of the Place de la Concorde. The way she walked was still very attractive. When I got round the corner she was buying a newspaper from the newsvendor. There was the usual crowd milling about; the usual traffic; the usual bunch of people trying to get across the street. I bought a newspaper. I opened it; said out of the corner of my mouth:

“You wouldn’t be interested in me or anything, would you, Madame? Or would it be Mademoiselle?”

She said: “Why not, M’sieu? The world is a very small place. And it isn’t often one sees a man quite as attractive as you are.”

“Thank you for nothing. A very good line of talk.”

She said: “Perhaps it isn’t even talk.”

I asked: “If it isn’t, what is it?”

She said quietly: “M’sieu ... ladies won’t wait. They believe more in action.”

“And the address?” I queried.

She said: “2 bis Place des Roses—not too far from the Etoile. On the second floor. Be unostentatious.”

“You’d be surprised. I’ll be there. About eleven, when it’s dark. Expect me. Au revoir.”

She walked a few yards; signalled a cab. I thought: Well, that’s that. But I wasn’t surprised.

I’m not often surprised.

I looked at my strap-watch. It was eight o’clock. I began to walk up the Champs Elysées towards The Travellers’ Club. Most of the time I was thinking about the woman. The Old Man seemed to be finding ’em these days. I wondered what her particular assignment was, or whether it was merely to contact me. In the last year or so the Old Man had become very careful. During the years I had worked for him I’d never known him to be so careful. Personally, I think he was right. These days you never know where you are. Most of Europe is a battle-ground of espionage agents, intelligence people, double agents and double-double agents; everybody trying to double-cross each other like hell and sometimes getting away with it. The Old Man had done his best to try and keep the book straight by handing out a few code words for every few months, so that when agents who were unknown to each other met, there was no question about identities; there was no need to carry those minute identifications which we’d used during the war. The code was much better and the one for July-August was ‘Ladies won’t wait.’ Directly she’d spoken the words I realised from the very look of her that she was the sort of girl the Old Man would choose—a woman who looked like anything but an agent.

I began to think about Janey; Marcini. Some of the things I thought were extremely improbable, if not impossible. But life’s like that. I should think during the last ten years everything had happened which was considered impossible, and people who don’t believe in impossibilities these days ought to go and bury themselves somewhere quietly. They’d find life easier that way.

I went into The Travellers’ Club and talked to Jacques, the head porter. I said: “Jacques, has Mr. Jane been in to-day asking for me? I expected a message from him.”

He said: “No, M’sieu. ’E ’as not been in. I ’ave been on duty all day.”

I thought: “So that’s that!” In other words Janey hadn’t been into The Travellers’ Club. He hadn’t got my address from Jacques, and he had some reason for concealing where he had got the information from. I didn’t think that was quite so good, and began to believe a little more in impossibilities.

I came out of the Club; took a cab; drove back to my apartment. I took off my coat; went into the bathroom and dipped my head and hands in cold water. Then I mixed a long whisky and soda with a lump of ice; opened the window in my sitting-room; sat in an easy-chair with my feet up on the window ledge, breathing the somewhat cooler air, and chewing over things.

What did I know about Janey? Nothing very much. I knew less about Marcini, whom I had met for the first time that evening. But I was concentrating on Janey. He was one of those people who expected to be valued on his looks, and most people valued him that way. He was popular; had money or was considered to have money; was seen all over the place; was an athlete and a good sportsman. People took him at his face value. I’d done that myself, not because I’m careless—because I’m far from that—but because there was no reason why I should bother about him. I’d run into him in Frankfurt a half a dozen times.

I went over the sequence of events in my mind—the events of the early evening. Janey arrived at my apartment. He said he was only in Paris for two or three days. He was driving Rockie’s old car. Someone had painted out the original number and the number of Janey’s car, which I remembered because I’ve a trained memory for that sort of thing and he was driving the car in Frankfurt, had been painted over the old one—pretty carelessly, too.

From some source Janey had got the address of my apartment, which very few people knew, and which wasn’t in the telephone directory. He told me he had got it from Jacques at The Travellers’ Club, which was a lie, which meant he didn’t want me to know where he’d got it from. Then he brought up Rockie’s name in the course of conversation. I didn’t fall for that one. I professed to know nothing about Rockie. But he felt he ought to have a reason for bringing it up, so he told me about Rockie’s sister. He put the idea into my head that I was the sort of man who might go over to England to see her. Maybe he wanted me to do that. I shrugged my shoulders. At the moment it was a little difficult to know what anybody wanted.

He wanted a drink and specifically he wanted to go to Charles’ Bar. And a couple of minutes afterwards his friend Marcini arrived. This could have been accidental of course. It might have been just one of those coincidences and it might not have been. It might be that he’d insisted on going to Charles’ Bar because he wanted Marcini to identify me. Maybe he knew what my job was. Maybe he knew that I’d been working for the Old Man for years. If he did, where had he got the information from?

Then, on top of all this, there was my mysterious lady friend, who was also working for the Old Man; who’d been doing her best to get me to pick her up at the time when I came out of Maxims. She must have done a lot of walking that afternoon. And why would she use such a process? Only because she didn’t want to use my telephone number to make an appointment, and because she didn’t want to come round to my apartment. Because the Old Man knew where I was. He knew the address of my apartment and the address of the garage I used for a front in Paris. And the only reason that she wouldn’t phone or come round to the apartment was because such a process would be dangerous, which meant that something was breaking.

Of course it could be all one peculiar set of coincidences. But I’d found that car—Rockie’s Citroen—near the place where Olly was killed in the side street. Janey was driving that car. He’d told me a lie about how he’d found out where I was, and he wanted to go to Charles’ Bar because he liked Charles’ Bar, and Marcini had come in purely by chance. It could have been like that, but I didn’t believe it was like that. I had a hunch.

I drank my drink slowly; asked myself what I was worrying about. Probably the solution of the whole business lay in the hands of Madame, whom I intended to see later in the evening. I’d probably get the whole story from her, or at least a bearing on it. I’d find out what the Old Man wanted.

I put on my coat and went out. I stopped a taxicab and told him to drive to the garage at the end of the Rue de la Chappelle. When I got there, Le Fevre—the mechanic on late duty—was just closing up. I told him to wait a minute before he pulled down the shutter; walked across the floor of the garage into Olly’s little glass-fronted office in the corner. Lying on the oil-stained table was Olly’s day-book—the book in which he kept a record of daily transactions. I opened it.

There it was. ‘3.30 R.F. 6347. Oil, Gas, Tyres.’

I thought: That ties it up. I began to believe that my guess was right. That was the number of Janey’s car—the new number that had been painted over Rockie’s old one. So at 3.30 that afternoon Janey had driven into the garage, bought petrol, checked his oil and had the tyres filled. I could imagine the scene. Maybe the other two mechanics had been busy. Olly had put the air into the tyres himself. I visualised him kneeling down fitting the air tube on to the near-side front wheel. From that position, if he looked up, he could see that peculiar groove under the driver’s door-handle.

Oily would be on that like a knife. He knew that was Rockie’s car. He had probably spoken to Janey about it; asked him where he’d got the car. And Janey had realised that he’d got to do something about it. Janey had realised that somehow Olly was to be prevented from seeing me and talking to me about that car. He’d gone off and hung about somewhere in the neighbourhood; waited until he’d seen Olly leave the garage; followed him. When Olly had gone into the side street, stretching his legs while he was waiting for me to turn up, Janey had taken his chance, run him down and made a certainty of him. Maybe he’d finished him off with a spanner or something. Nobody was going to worry very much. There are lots of street accidents in France. Then, quite calmly, he’d driven his car round the corner; left it there and slid off quickly before anybody came across Olly. After which he’d thought he’d better get a move on and see me, and bring up Rockie’s name.

Maybe he thought I’d tell him I’d known Rockie for years; that he was a supreme actor, a play-boy, drinking and slinging money about all over Europe. Whilst all the time, underneath, he was one of the finest agents the Old Man had ever had and a particularly good friend of mine.

I said good night to Le Fevre; took a cab back to my apartment. I had another drink. I thought to myself: Well, if I’m right about you, Janey, I’ll fix you one day. By God, I will ...! Because—not that it mattered—I was rather fond of Olly. We’d been through the war together. He was a good egg. I thought it wasn’t so hot that he should die in such a very uninteresting manner.

*****

I passed the time until eleven o’clock by having a cold bath and changing my clothes. At eleven o’clock it was dark. I walked round to the Place des Roses, because I didn’t think I’d chance taking a taxicab. It was a nice place. The Place des Roses was a long, narrow cul-de-sac formed by the backs of delightful old-fashioned buildings. The end of the cul-de-sac was 2 bis—a charming house with creeper, which looked as if somebody had omitted to fill in the end of the cul-de-sac and had thought suddenly of putting a house there.

I lighted a cigarette. I began to walk slowly round the cul-de-sac. I was wondering, I suppose, about the woman, wondering what she had to tell me. I thought it must be important. Yet I didn’t know why. I shrugged my shoulders. This woman intrigued me. Quite apart from whatever business she had with me I thought she was a superb-looking person—one of the sort of women that most men spend their time thinking about—in imagination, if not in reality. When I’d finished the cigarette I threw the stub away and went back to the house.

The front door was open. Inside was an indicator which showed that the ground floor was the consulting room of a Doctor Simon, the first floor an agency office and the second floor the apartment of Madame St. Philippe. I thought I’d try that. I went up the stairs slowly. They were wooden and uncarpeted but very well cleaned, and my footsteps echoed strangely in the house, which had an atmosphere of strange emptiness.

When I arrived at the second floor the entrance door was in front of me. There was a nicely engraved card, with “Madame Theodora St. Philippe” on it, pinned to the door with a drawing-pin. I knocked, and the process opened the door, which was off the latch. I went in.

A small square hall, quite well-furnished, was lit by a shaded electric lamp. There was a door in front of me, a door to the left and a door to the right. I knocked at the door in front of me and went in. The room was large with indications of good taste—a woman’s taste. There was a great bowl of roses on a walnut table in the centre of the room. At the end of the room on the right was a door. It was just ajar.

A woman’s voice called softly in English: “Is that you, Mr. Kells?”

I said: “Yes.”

The voice said: “Just a minute and I will be with you.”

I put my hat on the table; smelled the roses; sat down in one of the big chairs by the fireplace. I lighted a cigarette. I imagined that my new colleague Madame St. Philippe had become tired of waiting and had decided to bath and change. I wondered what she would be wearing. I thought, having regard to her appearance of the earlier evening, that whatever she wore she’d look pretty good. I went on thinking about this for quite a bit. Then I called: “Madame....”

There was no answer. I got up; walked across to the door, tapped on it and went in. The room was in darkness. I fumbled about and found the switch by the door; flicked it on.

It wasn’t at all nice ... not a bit. She was lying on the bed. One handsome silk-clad leg was hanging over the side; the other foot touching the floor. The top of her well-shaped head was smashed in. It looked to me as if she had been getting off the bed when she’d been hit.

I went over to the bed and looked at her. She wasn’t at all pretty—not now. The bed, which had a pink coverlet, and the frilled pillows, were in a hell of a mess. I picked up her hand. It was quite warm. I thought there might be a dog’s chance that she was still alive—just a chance. I opened the crêpe-de-Chine peignoir she was wearing; put my ear down and listened. There was no result. To make sure I went over to the dressing-table; picked up the hand-mirror, brought it back and tried that. She was dead all right. And she hadn’t been dead for long—a matter of minutes, and not too many of them. She had been killed by the woman who’d spoken to me through the door when I’d entered the flat, and that baby had gone out of the door that led to the hallway—the one on the right; quietly slipped down the stairs and disappeared.

I felt very disappointed, and I didn’t like the way things were going. I began to think about Janey. I was disliking Janey more and more every moment.

I went out of the bedroom; started a systematic search of the flat. There was a bathroom and kitchen and a bedroom off the left of the hall door, the sitting-room and the bedroom where I had found the girl. There was nothing. Not that I expected to find anything. The Old Man’s agents were too carefully trained not to advertise themselves. There was not even a distinguishing laundry mark on her underthings, and I tell you they were very nice underthings, too. She definitely had taste.

I went into the bathroom, found a soft linen towel and came back and spread the towel over the white face and battered head. I sat down on the stool before the dressing-table and looked at what remained of “Madame St. Philippe.”

I wondered who she was, what was her real name, and why she was working for the Old Man. I wondered why in hell a woman with looks, a figure and personality like this one, should be an agent. I thought life ought to have found a safer job for her.

Everything about her indicated class. The cut of her feet and ankles, the well-manicured, long, once-supple fingers that lay so uselessly beside her.

I thought it was a hell of a waste of woman.

I got up. I said: “O.K., baby. I’ll even this up one day. So long.”

I went home.