Алистер Маклин - The Way to Dusty Death

‘You said what, sir?’

‘Double gin and tonic is what I said.’

‘Yes, Mr Harlow. Very good, Mr Harlow.’

As impassively as he could, the barman prepared the drink which Harlow took to a wall seat situated between two potted plants. He looked across the lobby with interest. There were some signs of unusual activity at the telephone switchboard, where the girl operator was showing increasing signs of irritation. A light on her board kept flashing on and off but she was obviously having no success in contacting the room number in question. Finally, clearly exasperated, she beckoned a page boy and said something in a low voice. The page boy nodded and crossed the lobby at the properly sedate pace in keeping with the advertised ambience of the Hotel-Villa Cessni.

When he returned, it was at anything but a sedate pace. He ran across the lobby and whispered something urgently to the operator. She left her seat and only seconds later no less a personage than the manager himself appeared and hurried across the lobby. Harlow waited patiently, pretending to sip his drink from time to time. He knew that most people in the lobby were covertly studying him but was unconcerned. From where they sat he was drinking a harmless lemonade or tonic water. The barman, of course, knew better and it was as certain as that night’s sundown that one of the first things that MacAlpine would do on his return would be to ask for Johnny Harlow’s drink bill, on the convincing enough pretext that it was inconceivable for the champion to put his hand in his pocket for anything.

The manager reappeared, moving with most unmanagerial haste, in a sort of disciplined trot, reached the desk and busied himself with the telephone. The entire lobby was now agog with interest and expectation. Their undivided attention had now been transferred from Harlow to the front desk and Harlow took advantage of this to tip the contents of his glass into a potted plant. He rose and sauntered across the lobby as if heading for the front revolving doors. His route brought him past the side of the manager. Harlow broke step.

He said sympathetically: ‘Trouble?’

‘Grave trouble, Mr Harlow. Very grave.’ The manager had the phone to his ear, obviously waiting for a call to come through, but it was still apparent that he was flattered that Johnny Harlow should take time off to speak to him. ‘Burglars! Assassins! One of our chambermaids has been most brutally and savagely assaulted.’

‘Good God! Where?’

‘Mr Jacobson’s room.’

‘Jacobson’s – but he’s only our chief mechanic. He’s got nothing worth stealing.’

‘Ah! Like enough, Mr Harlow. But the burglar wasn’t to know that, was he?’

Harlow said anxiously: ‘I hope she was able to identify her attacker.’

‘Impossible. All she remembers is a masked giant jumping out of a wardrobe and attacking her. He was carrying a club, she said.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Excuse me. The police.’

Harlow turned, exhaled a long slow sigh of relief, walked away, passed out through the revolving doors, turned right and then right again, re-entered the hotel through one of the side doors and made his way unobserved back up to his own room. Here he withdrew the sealed film cassette from his miniature camera, replaced it with a fresh one – or one that appeared to be fresh – unscrewed the back of his cine-camera, inserted the miniature and screwed home the back plate of the cine-camera. For good measure, he added a few more scratches to the dulled black metal finish. The original cassette he put in an envelope, wrote on it his name and room number, took it down to the desk, where the more immediate signs of panic appeared to be over, asked that it be put in the safe and returned to his room.

An hour later, Harlow, his more conventional wear now replaced by a navy roll-neck pullover and leather jacket, sat waiting patiently on the edge of his bed. For the second time that night, he heard the sound of a heavy diesel motor outside, for the second time that night he switched off the light, pulled the curtains, opened the window and looked out. The reception party bus had returned. He pulled the curtains to again, switched on the light, removed the flat bottle of scotch from under the mattress, rinsed his mouth with some of it and left.

He was descending the foot of the stairs as the reception party entered the lobby. Mary, reduced to only one stick now, was on her father’s arm but when MacAlpine saw Harlow he handed her to Dunnet. Mary looked at Harlow quietly and steadily but her face didn’t say anything.

Harlow made to brush by but MacAlpine barred his way.

MacAlpine said: ‘The mayor was very vexed and displeased by your absence.’

Harlow seemed totally unconcerned by the mayor’s reactions. He said: ‘I’ll bet he was the only one.’

‘You remember you have some practice laps first thing in the morning?’

‘I’m the person who has to do them. Is it likely that I would forget?’

Harlow made to move by MacAlpine but the latter blocked his way again.

MacAlpine said: ‘Where are you going?’

‘Out.’

‘I forbid you–’

‘You’ll forbid me nothing that isn’t in my contract.’

Harlow left. Dunnet looked at MacAlpine and sniffed.

‘Air is a bit thick, isn’t it?’

‘We missed something,’ MacAlpine said. ‘We’d better go and see what it was we missed.’

Mary looked at them in turn.

‘So you’ve already searched his room when he was out on the track. And now that his back is turned again you’re going to search it again. Despicable. Utterly despicable. You’re nothing better than a couple of – a couple of sneak-thieves.’ She pulled her arm away from Dunnet. ‘Leave me alone. I can find my own room.’

Both men watched her limp across the foyer. Dunnet said complainingly: ‘Considering the issues involved, life or death issues, if you like, I do consider that a rather unreasonable attitude.’

‘So is love,’ MacAlpine sighed. ‘So is love.’

Harlow, descending the hotel steps, brushed by Neubauer and Tracchia. Not only did he not speak to them, for they still remained on courtesy terms, he didn’t even appear to see them. Both men turned and looked after Harlow. He was walking with that over-erect, over-stiff posture of the slightly inebriated who are making too good a job of trying to pretend that all is well. Even as they watched, Harlow made one barely perceptible and clearly unpremeditated stagger to one side, but quickly recovered and was back on an over-straight course again. Neubauer and Tracchia exchanged glances, nodded to each other briefly, just once. Neubauer went into the hotel while Tracchia moved off after Harlow.

The earlier warm night air had suddenly begun to chill, the coolness being accompanied by a slight drizzle. This was to Tracchia’s advantage. City-dwellers are notoriously averse to anything more than a slight humidity in the atmosphere, and although the Hotel-Villa Cessni was situated in what was really nothing more than a small village, the same urban principle applied: with the first signs of rain the streets began to clear rapidly: the danger of losing Harlow among crowds of people decreased almost to nothingness. The rain increased steadily until finally Tracchia was following Harlow through almost deserted streets. This, of course, increased the chances of detection should Harlow choose to cast a backward glance but it became quickly evident that Harlow had no intention of casting any backward glances: he had about him the fixed and determined air of a man who was heading for a certain objective and backward glances were no part of his forward-looking plans. Tracchia, sensing this, began to move up closer until he was no more than ten yards behind Harlow.