Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

“That would depend on the information.”

“Well, supposing he’d had a wife and kids. They’d be in line for the cash, wouldn’t they?”

“ Did he have a wife and kids?”

“I’m not saying he did and I’m not saying he didn’t. But just supposing-”

“If there was clear, legal proof of that to be had, I’d certainly stay. But I’m not staying just in order to listen to a lot of unconfirmed hearsay, and I’m not paying out another cent to anyone.”

“Nobody’s asked you to, have they?”

“Not so far.”

“Nasty suspicious nature you got, eh?”

“Yes.”

Arthur nodded gloomily. “Can’t blame you. Tricky lot of sods in this part of the world. Look, if I give you my sacred word of honour that it’ll be worth your while to stay a couple of days, will you do it?”

“You’re asking rather a lot aren’t you?”

“Listen, chum. You’re the one that’s going to get a favour done. Not me!”

“That’s what you say.”

“Well, I can’t do more. Here’s the proposition. Take it or leave it. If you want the information my friends have got, stay here and do what I tell you.”

“And what might that be?”

“Well, first of all, you don’t say one word to that little bastard of a Captain you were chin-wagging with last night. O.K.?”

“Go on.”

“All you do is go to that big café with the yellow blinds next door to the Acropolis Hotel between four and five tomorrow afternoon. Just sit there and have a cup of coffee. That’s all. If you get no message from me while you’re there, it’s all off. If you do get a message, it’ll be an appointment. Just say nothing and keep it.”

“What about the interpreter?”

“If she keeps her mouth shut she can come too.”

“Where would the appointment be?”

“You’d be taken to it by car.”

“I see. Just one question. I’m not exactly timid, but I would like to know a bit more about these friends of yours before I do anything about meeting them. Would they be ELAS people, for instance?”

Arthur grinned. “Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Maybe not. But I’m not half-witted. You say these friends of yours don’t want money for their information. O.K., what do they want? For that matter, what do you want?”

“Sweet Fanny Adams,” said Arthur cheerfully.

“Let’s quit kidding.”

“All right. Maybe they want to see justice done.”

“Justice?”

“Yes. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure. I’ve heard of kidnapping too.”

“Oh, blimey!” Arthur laughed. “Look, if you’re as nervous as that, chum, forget it.” He stood up. “I’ll have to be getting along now. If you want to come, be at the café tomorrow like I said. Otherwise-” He shrugged.

“O.K. I’ll think about it.”

“Yes, you do that. Sorry to mess up all your papers like that, but I expect you’d sooner tidy them up yourself, really. Bye-bye for now.”

“Good-bye,” said George.

Almost before the word was out of his mouth, Arthur was out of the room and shutting the door noiselessly behind him.

It was not his uncertainty about bedbugs that kept George from sleeping soundly that night.

The café with the yellow blinds was in an exposed position on a busy corner, and everyone sitting in it could be clearly seen from anywhere in the main square: It was, George thought, the very last place he would have associated with the transaction of clandestine business. But then, he was not a practised conspirator. The café’s air of having nothing to conceal was probably its greatest asset. In Arthur’s world, no doubt, such matters were elaborately calculated.

Miss Kolin had listened blandly to George’s account of his interview with Arthur and accepted without comment his decision to postpone their departure. When, however, he had gone on to say that, in view of the possible risks involved, he would leave her to decide for herself whether she would accompany him or not, she had been quite obviously amused.

“Risks, Mr. Carey? But what sort of risks?”

“How should I know?” George was irritated. “The point is that this isn’t exactly the most law-abiding part of the world and this guy Arthur’s way of introducing himself for a cozy chat wasn’t exactly according to Emily Post, was it?”

She had shrugged. “It served its purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Frankly, Mr. Carey, I think that it was a mistake to give the Vassiotis woman so much money.”

“From my point of view, she’d earned it.”

“Your point of view, Mr. Carey, is that of an American lawyer. The points of view of the Vassiotis and her friends are different.”

“I see. You think that this Arthur proposition is just another shakedown then?”

“I do. You gave that Captain a hundred dollars and the Vassiotis fifty. Now Mr. Arthur and his friends would like some dollars, too.”

“He emphasized that there was no question of money involved. I told you.”

“You believed him?”

“All right, then, I’m the prize sucker. But, for some reason, I did believe him. For some reason, equally idiotic no doubt, I still do.”

She had shrugged again. “Then you are right to keep the appointment. It will be interesting to see what happens.”

That had been over breakfast. By lunch-time his confidence in his first estimate of Arthur’s intensions had completely evaporated. Sitting in the café with the yellow blinds, glumly sipping coffee, he had only one consoling thought in his head: no matter what happened, no matter what they did, neither Arthur nor any of Arthur’s friends was going to get one red cent for his trouble.

It was after five o’clock now. The café was three parts empty. Nobody who looked as if he might conceivably have a message to deliver had been near them.

George finished his coffee. “All right, Miss Kolin,” he said, “let’s pay and go.”

She signalled to the waiter. When his change came, George noticed a fold of grey paper underneath it. He put it in his pocket with the change. When they had left the café, he took out the paper and unfolded it.

The message was written in a careful schoolboy hand and in pencil:

A car with the registration number 19907 will be waiting for you outside the Cinema at 20.00 hrs . [it said]. If anyone wants to know where you are going you are going for a drive to get some air. The driver is O.K. Ask no questions. Do what he tells you. Wear comfortable shoes. Arthur .

The car was an old open Renault that George remembered having seen once before in the town. On that occasion it had been piled high with furniture. Now it was empty, and the driver stood beside it, cap in hand, gravely holding open the door for them. He was a fierce, sinewy old man with a long white moustache and skin like leather. He wore a patched shirt and a pair of old striped trousers belted in at the waist with lighting flex. The back of the car showed signs of having recently carried vegetables as well as furniture. The old man scooped up a handful of decaying stalks and threw them in the road before getting into his seat and driving off.

Soon they had left the town and were on a road with a signpost pointing to Vevi, a station on the railroad east of Florina.

It was getting dark now and the old man turned on a single headlight. He drove to save gasoline, coasting down the hills with the ignition switched off, and starting up again only just before the car rolled to a standstill. The battery was down, and when the motor was not running, the headlight dimmed until it was useless. With the disappearance of the last of the daylight, every descent became a hair-raising plunge into blackness. Fortunately, they met no other traffic, but after one particularly sickening moment George protested.