East of Algiers by Francis Durbridge

Author:Francis Durbridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008125677
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

STEVE and I did not eat a very hearty dinner that evening. Goodness knows we had both experienced our fair share of sudden and violent deaths. But the fate of Mr. O’Halloran shocked us unaccountably. We felt a genuine grief at the thought of that whiskyfied voice being permanently silenced.

‘I had an instinct that he was connected with the spectacles in some way,’ Steve said.

‘Go easy, Steve. The fact that a man is killed in the streets of Tunis does not mean that he was involved in all this business.’

‘Don’t you think it’s too much to be coincidence, Paul? Considering all that happened. Here’s a man, whom you yourself took for a pick-pocket, who engineers a conversation with us and an hour later is found dead—’

‘Actually, I agree with you, Steve.’

I took the oil and vinegar which the waiter had brought and began to mix a dressing for our lettuce.

‘You remember how insistent he was about our visiting the House of Shoni?’

Steve suddenly reached for her handbag, which she had deposited on one of the empty chairs. We had both of us thought of the same thing at the same time. I suspended my salad operations while she reached her bag.

‘Have you still got it?’

‘Yes. Here it is.’

While Steve studied the card which Mr. O’Halloran had given her, I saw the vague outline of a drawing on the reverse side.

‘Have a look on the other side, Steve.’

She turned the card over, then lifted her eyes to mine and silently handed it across the table. Crudely drawn on the back was a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles.

‘This clinches it. Mr. O’Halloran himself may not have known what it was all about, but there’s not much doubt that Zoltan Gupte belongs to the vast company of spectacle fanciers. I wonder whether we know him already under some other name?’

Steve and I ate our salad in silence. When the waiter came along, waving his huge menu, we both shook our heads.

‘Just coffee for me, Paul. But don’t let me stop you—’

‘Let’s go outside on the terrace. It’s awfully close in here.’

‘We’re staying in the hotel,’ I told the waiter as he pulled Steve’s chair out of her way. ‘Room number three seven two.’

‘Bien, monsieur. Merci, monsieur-dame.’

We left him slapping the table with his serviette and wandered across the foyer towards the terrace which overlooked the hotel’s small garden. It was an attractive place with crazy paving and rustic tables and chairs under coloured umbrellas. Now that it was dark, little coloured lights had been switched on among the trees. A three-man orchestra was playing sultry music above a small marble square where nobody was dancing yet.

We were picking and choosing among the tables when a voice from behind us spoke.

‘Well, hallo there!’

Even as we turned round I was thinking that Audry Bryce’s previous engagement had not lasted long. If all her dates were as abbreviated as this evening’s, it was small wonder she was still Miss.

She was sitting on one of those very low swinging garden seats.

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