Dark Interlude by Peter Cheyney

Author:Peter Cheyney [Cheyney, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2021-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

O’Mara stood in front of the pier glass in the bedroom to which Yvette had shown him. He was tying a blue silk tie with difficulty. Guelvada, sitting by the window, looked out on to the drive that ran round both sides of the Villa; smoked and watched O’Mara.

O’Mara said: “Your girl friend of last night must have been quite interesting.”

Guelvada said: “Yes . . .! Madame la Comtesse has taste; those clothes might have been made for you. Also they are well cut. She has an eye for detail . . . that one.”

O’Mara said: “Even the shaving soap was good. How does she know? Is she married to someone . . . has she been married? Do you know anything about her?”

Guelvada smiled. “I consulted Quayle’s information bureau—Myra,” he said. “She knows about her. They say she’s very good.”

O’Mara asked: “What about the husband?”

Guelvada spread his hands. “You know . . .” he said. “It was what you call ‘one of those things’—an arranged marriage. De Sarieux was younger than she—about three or four years, I think, and he had a lot of wrong ideas.”

“What wrong ideas?” asked O’Mara. He had finished tying the tie; stood back from the pier glass, examining the picture he presented.

“Wrong ideas about women, and drinking and cards and money, and also about Madame la Comtesse de Sarieux,” said, Guelvada. “But definitely he had the wrong ideas about her. The marriage was not successful. It was one of those affairs which, in no circumstances, by no stretch of imagination, could have been successful. I think that she must have been very bored.”

O’Mara fumbled in the bottom of the airplane kitbag that had held his new clothes. He produced a cigar box. He looked at it; opened it; smiled. Fifty of the small black South American cigars that he loved looked up at him from the box. He took one out, pierced it with a nail-file; lit it. He drew the smooth smoke down into his lungs.

He wondered about the cigars. He supposed that Tanga had asked Eleanor Frayne what sort of thing he smoked. She had found out somehow. Definitely, he thought, as Guelvada had said, she had an eye and a memory for detail.

He said: “And then?”

Guelvada shrugged his shoulders. “She didn’t divorce him,” he said, flickering the ash from his cigarette, “because he was a Catholic, and his family—who were nice people—did not like the idea. So it went on and the war came.”

“And he got himself killed?” said O’Mara.

Guelvada shook his head. “He wasn’t fit enough to join the Army or any of the Services,” he said. “But she went to work on him after it seemed that France must be defeated. She managed to inspire him with a great deal of ardour—which was amazing. He joined one of the first Resistance groups. They got him, and he died—not very pleasantly, I believe—at Dachau.”

O’Mara asked: “What was she doing?”

“She’s been working for Quayle ever since she saw that her marriage

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