The lighthearted quest, p.23
The Lighthearted Quest, page 23
part #1 of Julia Probyn Series
Behind Julia’s back the bar door had opened, letting in a puff of cool air; whoever it was that entered sat down at the table by the door, also behind her—she paid no attention.
“She’s up at Glentoran,” she said, in answer to the question.
“Ah, yes. Such a lovely place, in spite of the ghastly house. Didn’t old John Monro, the uncle, die the other day?”
“Yes.”
“Then who’s running it? Not poor old Ellen M.?”
“No, Edina’s doing it—and hating it.”
“Why hating it? Oh, yes, she had a riche amusing job in London, hadn’t she? But where is young Colin? It’s his pidgin now, surely.”
“My dear Angus, if only we knew! He was last heard of on a yacht somewhere out here—only he was smuggling. But we can’t trace him.” Julia was rather pleased with this answer of hers, which she brought out quite pat—but it caused Angus Ross-shire to look thoughtful.
“You don’t mean to say he was one of that crowd on the Finetta?” he asked. “Not that anyone but Grove was really involved, I gather, but it was a horrid business.”
Julia was startled. “Why do you ask that?” she demanded. As she spoke she glanced across to where Purcell stood behind the bar, and saw his face. It told her, as plainly as any words, that he had heard what her companion said, and that Colin had been on the yacht that was now lying in the lagoon behind the headland.
“My dear girl, naturally the whole of le grand bidet was ringing with the story, and I thought I remembered the name Monro—but of course I never connected it with Colin. They tried to pull us in for it at one point—poor Interpol, they try so hard!—but the Zone Police soon cleared that up.” The Duke gave Julia a shrewd amused look.
“You wouldn’t be out here looking for Master Colin, by any chance, and doing archaeology with your circus sideshow as a supporting bye-line?” he asked.
Julia could not refrain from glancing at Purcell. He had heard again—a veiled discreet delight showed in his face. Bother Angus—he was too intelligent by far.
“You’ll be cutting yourself soon if you aren’t careful,” she said coldly—and to her surprise heard a stifled laugh. It was not Angus, who was merely grinning at her smugly; and it was not Purcell, smooth and correct, carrying a drink to the table behind her, though still carefully enjoying himself, evidently. Her companion now leaned across to her, and spoke in a lowered voice.
“Don’t look now, but there’s a rather sinister type sitting just behind you who seems to be taking a deep interest in us.”
“Was it he who laughed?” Julia asked, in the same tone.
“Yes, damn his impertinence.”
“Then I shall look.” Slowly and deliberately she turned fully round. At the table behind her sat Reeder.
Julia did rather well, Angus Ross-shire thought. She got up very slowly, and held out her hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Reeder. How nice to see you again. Won’t you come and join us, properly?” And as he rose, a little shamefacedly, she made the introductions—“Mr. Reeder, the Duke of Ross-shire. Mr. Reeder was First Officer on the boat I came out on, and was very kind to me,” she said equably.
In fact Mr. Reeder also did quite well. He shook hands with the Duke, sat calmly down, and said to Julia very nicely—
“I do apologise for laughing just now. I couldn’t help overhearing, but I oughtn’t to have laughed.”
Julia swam over that.
“I daresay I was talking rather loud. Tell me, what are you doing here? Is the Vidago in?”
“Not she. Poor old Vidago—Freeman piled her up, going in to Seville to collect sherry.”
“No! Is she done for?”
“Well, we hope not—but it will be quite a while before she’s on the run again, so I’m taking a bit of leave.”
“Was anyone hurt? Is the Captain all right?” Julia asked, with an eagerness which rather surprised Angus Ross-shire.
“Oh, Cherry’s as right as eight trivets. But you should have heard him swear!—you know he never does as a rule, but he let Freeman have it superbly.”
“I wish I’d been there! Precious Captain Blyth!” said Julia, with enthusiasm. She turned to her friend. “The Vidago’s the most darling boat, I was so happy on her—and Captain Blyth is an angel. So you’re hanging about here for a bit?” she asked Reeder.
“Yes. I thought I’d go inland now I have the chance—see Fez, and Marrakesh, and all that; there’s never been time before.”
“It looks as though we shall all be ‘piling up’ at Marrakesh, though let’s hope not actually wrecked,” said the Duke. “You are going, Miss Probyn is going, I and my party are going. I hope we all meet there and have a drink. Where shall you drink in Marrakesh, Julia? The Mamounia?”
“Mercy, no!” said Julia. “The Café de France.”
Chapter 13
“Now what is all this nonsense about not being rung up on the telephone?” Mr. Lynch asked, as he steered his car skilfully through Casablanca’s traffic on the way from the station.
“It may be nonsense, as you say, Paddy, only I have been being shadowed pretty persistently—even as far as Fez.”
“Who on earth by?”
“A seedy little creature who was pretty unsuitable for the job because he had a squint which one simply couldn’t mistake.”
“And in whose interest is this flatty employed, do you imagine?”
“I don’t imagine, and I don’t know. I can only guess—and I want you to help me with my guessing. In fact, a car is such a good place to talk in—do you think we could potter about a little instead of going straight home? I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
“God help you, you have got it on your mind,” said Mr. Lynch. “O.K.—we’ll potter.”
Julia had decided on her way down in the train to tell Mr. Lynch everything. He was intelligent, trustworthy, and had lived in Morocco for a considerable time; moreover not being a British subject he would be free from certain inhibitions. Her cogitations about this had been constantly interrupted by what she saw from the train windows—the endless young plantations of eucalyptus inland from Port Lyautey; the curious fact that all the orange-groves, gleaming with fruit in their neat squares, were surrounded by 20-foot hedges of some evergreen thing like a cypress; the large pale-brown winged insects that sprang up in clouds from beside the line in several places as the train passed—could they be locusts? She must ask Paddy about all these things—but also, she managed to decide, she must tell him her whole story. And while they sat drawn up by the kerb in the open space near the new Cathedral—that inspired combination of Gothic form with the characteristic Moroccan open-cut plaster-work in the windows, creating quite a new sort of beauty in ecclesiastical building—she did tell him. Julia had no great gift for lucid exposition; she began at the end rather than at the beginning, and continued with many parentheses and flash-backs. But from the moment when she said—“Well, I know what Colin is doing: he is digging out some rare mineral somewhere down in the South and shipping it out in velvet trousseau-trunks which they buy from an old Moor in Fez”—she held Mr. Lynch’s attention. There was no more mockery; now and again he asked a question, but on the whole, at the end, he accepted her piecing together of facts from so many different sources, including his friend Mr. Bingham.
“Old ruffian,” he said cheerfully. “He told you much more than he ever has me! I knew about the chrome and molybdenum of course, and I’d heard vague talk of some rarer things being prospected for, but I’d no idea the East Germans were doing it. I’d better see what I can find out. There are others who know things besides Bingham.”
“Oughtn’t we to go and see young Bathyadis?” Julia asked.
“Oh we will, by all means—I’d like a good tray as a baby-present for Nita, anyhow. But we shan’t get anything from a Moor.”
“I did from his father,” Julia pointed out.
“Yes—that’s the queerest part of the whole business. Very odd, his assuming you were in on it, and an amazing stroke of luck; everything else has flowed from that—though I’m not saying you weren’t almighty smart, dear Julia. Whoever’d think it, to look at you? Your face really is your fortune!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Julia tranquilly.
Mr. Lynch continued to meditate.
“I wonder if it would be any good having a go at the Affaires Indigènes.”
“Why?”
“They keep tabs on all travellers: everyone has to have a fiche, a sort of permis de circulation with their name and so on, which is checked and stamped in each Administration Post. Car-drivers are even asked at one post where they are making for, and the French check by telephone to find if they’ve clocked in where they said.”
“Goodness, do they? They ought to be easy to trace, so, Paddy.”
“Not if they’re using false names and false passports. And one person may dig a thing out, but there are probably whole echelons of men of straw between him and whoever ships it—in this case presumably young Bathyadis.” He reflected. “I’ll think about it. Anyhow, come on home now and have a drink.”
“There he is!” Julia ejaculated, as Mr. Lynch swung the car swiftly round.
“Who is?”
“My shadower—look, the little man in the bad hat, on that seat. Oh, he’s going off.”
Mr. Lynch pulled the car sharply back onto the wrong side of the road and overhauled Moshe; springing out, he caught the little Jew by the shoulder, and stared relentlessly in his face.
“I shall know you if I see you again,” he said in French—“And if I do see you again you will come to call on the police! Why do you pursue Mademoiselle?”
“I do not, I do not! I take the air only.”
“Well, take some other air! Go back to Tangier! Where’s your notebook?”
Even as the little Jew said piteously—“Monsieur, I have no carnet” one hand flew protectively to the breast pocket of his shabby jacket; Paddy’s followed it, and drew out a small book.
“Très-bien! I keep this. Be off—it is not permitted to pursue young ladies in Casablanca.” He returned to the car, tossing the notebook into Julia’s lap as they drove off.
They studied it together over their drinks in Paddy’s villa. There were various dates: Julia identified the two days when she had called on Bathyadis, with a small “f” in front of them; the number (which she happened to remember) of Steve’s car, with the date of her return in it to Tangier, and such a quantity of entries with “P” and a date that Paddy laughed out loud when Julia explained that these must presumably represent her visits to Purcell’s Bar.
“No wonder you needed to seek ‘gainful employment’—you seem to have lived in that bar!” he said, delightedly. Julia ignored this and went on studying the notebook—in view of what Purcell had said about the Jew’s probably having only started following her after he had seen her outside the house in the Kasbah, she was looking for the date when she went up to see the Mendoub. There it was—with “XO1” and “XO2” against it. She showed these to Paddy, with great satisfaction.
“There’s a car-number on the next line,” he said. “See? Moroccan, by the look of it.”
“Goodness, so there is! That might be the car they fetched the gin and whisky in. Paddy! Couldn’t we trace them with that?”
“Might do. We’ll have a fair try, anyhow. Do you want to change?”
In the pretty downstairs bedroom allotted to her Julia found an airmail letter on her dressing-table. “Oh, yes—sorry; that came this morning,” said Mr. Lynch, “but with all this Inspector Alleyn stuff I forgot to tell you. Dinner in half-an-hour?”
In spite of unpacking and dressing in a hurry, Julia found time to gobble her letter while she smeared stuff on her face and wiped it off again. It was from Mrs. Hathaway, to whom she had written about her impending stay in Casablanca, and brought news. After describing her visit to Glentoran and her suggestion to Edina about getting in a factor Mrs. Hathaway went on—“And young Struthers was free, and is there now; Edina is running him in, and she says he’s shaping so well that she hopes to be able to come South next week. She is delighted, of course. And from what your friend Geoffrey said (but don’t tell him I told you) it seemed of little use her hanging on indefinitely waiting for Colin.”
“Good for you, Mrs. H.!” Julia ejaculated. “But I wonder exactly what Geoffrey has been saying.” She herself had mentioned confidentially to her old friend that she thought she might be on Colin’s track, though it was far from certain that he could or would return even if she found him; but that letter could only have reached Mrs. Hathaway some days after the visit to Glentoran, when she had already suggested getting a factor at once—so Geoffrey certainly had said something.
Mr. Lynch, who had a very sound sense of priorities, called on Casablanca officialdom on his way to the bank next morning; he rang Julia up to say that lunch would have to be pretty late, as he proposed to have “some useful drinks”, and would she tell Mahomet? Julia relaxed in the sun on the balcony among the geraniums, still studying Moshe’s grubby little notebook. There were various entries of “XO1” and XO2” prior to the day when she had seen Colin on the roof of the house in the Kasbah, but none after; presumably these figures represented him and the red-haired man, and when they left Tangier someone else had followed that line and Moshe been told off, as Purcell had suggested, to tail her. She smiled slowly when she noted that the last entry of all bore yesterday’s date, with a small “c” and a car-number, presumably Paddy’s. Would the little Jew also have memorised it?
Mr. Lynch came back in high spirits.
“Well, I’ve got the name of the owner of that car,” he said, throwing a slip of paper to Julia—“English all right, though not Monro.” Julia took up the slip—on it was written: “M. Charles Smith.”
Her air of stupefaction as she read was so marked that Paddy got up and came over to her.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing—only I think it means that Colin must have been on the Finetta.”
“That drug-yacht? Why on earth do you deduce that?”
She told him why, at some length; when Mahomet appeared in the archway leading to the dining-room he was told—“Five minutes more.”
“I didn’t bother to tell you all this yesterday, because it was just a possibility,” Julia said at the end. “The dates fitted all right, and Angus Ross-shire mentioned that he thought Monro was one of the Finetta names—but I couldn’t be positive. I think this ties it in, though.”
“So do I. But what on earth is the yacht doing in that lagoon where you say you saw her?”
“What indeed? That will want some thinking about. But isn’t the first thing to find out where Mr. Charles Smith’s car is now? Won’t your fiche experts be able to tell that?”
“They should be. It’ll take a little working, but I’m pretty bien with one of them, luckily. I’ll tackle that the moment after lunch—and after tea, what about a call on Master Bathyadis?”
The visit to Bathyadis produced no fresh information, as Mr. Lynch had foretold, except concerning the situation of his shop, which was just outside the Old Medina, the original Moorish quarter, and therefore quite close to the harbour. Young Bathyadis expressed polite pleasure at seeing Julia, but seemed rather reserved otherwise, though he sold Paddy an exquisite old brass tray rather cheap. There were no velvet trousseau-trunks on view, and Julia refrained from asking to see one.
“We’ll just call round at the Bureau to see if they’ve traced that car,” Mr. Lynch said as they drove off. Julia waited in the car—her companion presently returned with another slip of paper.
“Garaged, and in this town,” he said. “I think we’d better check right away.” They drove to the garage, where Julia again waited outside.
This time the pause was prolonged. Presently Paddy came out—“Got any money on you?”
“About 20,000 francs.”
“I daresay that will do.”
She handed over the notes and then waited again. When at last Paddy emerged he drove off very fast.
“Very sticky, Monsieur Martin,” he said. “The car’s there all right—I saw it; a black saloon. But it took most of your good francs, my dear Julia, to elicit what I so badly wanted to know: which is that for his trips to the interior Monsieur Smith leaves his car there and takes a closed camionnette.”
“Golly! Did you get its number?”
“Yes, I did—that was what cost the money. How are you off for cash, by the way?”
“Oh, masses. I earn a salary in francs now, you see.”
“I don’t see—but here we are. Wait again, will you?”
They were once more outside the Administration Offices—and this time the pause was brief before Mr. Lynch returned.
“Mr. Smith has now metamorphosed himself into a Swiss,” he said as he drove away. “Herr Nussbaumer. He travels in men’s clothing and ladies’ dresses, down in the South. What do you make of that? Can it be the party we want?”
“Oh, yes—it sounds exactly right to me. I know all about these Swiss and Austrian travellers: they sell shirts to the personnel at the mines, and frocks and nylons to the wives of the cantiniers.”
“And how do you know that, my girl? You seem to have plenty up your sleeve.”
Julia explained about the hotel patron at Fez and his wife, who had been so informative. “It all seems to me to tie in. Couldn’t one put coffers, or sacks of ore, on the floor of the camionnette under the suits and dresses? And they’d have a perfect excuse for cruising about near the mines.”
“They would that. Yes, so far so good. I wonder how Mr. Smith gets away with two passports, though.”
“Two cars, and a false beard on one passport, do you think?”
“Yes—plus a venal garagiste.”
“But what can this ore be,” Julia asked, “to be worth so much fuss?”
“Ah, yes—I never told you about that at lunch, you got so het up about Mr. Smith. It was the East Germans who found it originally—old Bingham was quite right—helped by a Swiss metallurgist who’d been in the Legion, and stayed on here; they went for it bald-headed because it gave them something unique to trade to the Russians, so’s they could keep their end up a bit, see? They have some proper concessions, mostly for chrome and molybdenum, but they get this stuff as well, and ship it out along with the other, secretly.”
