Eric Ambler: The light of day

“Yes.”

“So that’s forgery. Now, I’m asking again. Have you ever been caught before?”

“No, sir.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any sort of police record?”

“Here in Athens?”

“We’ll start with Athens.”

I hesitated. “Well, not exactly a police record. Do you mean traffic offenses?”

“You know what I mean. Quit stalling.”

I sneezed, quite unintentionally, and my nose began bleeding again. He sighed impatiently and threw me a bunch of paper napkins from the drink tray.

“I had you pretty well figured out at the airport,” he went on; “but I didn’t think you’d be quite so stupid. Why did you have to tell that Kira dame that you’d had no dinner?”

I shrugged helplessly. “So that I could come here.”

“Why didn’t you tell her you’d gone to gas up the car? I just might have bought that one.”

“It didn’t seem important. Why should you suspect me?”

He laughed. “Oh brother! I know what that car you have sells for here, and I know that gasoline costs sixty cents a gallon. At the rates you charge you couldn’t break even. Okay, you get your payoffs-the restaurant, the clip joint, the cat house-but they can’t amount to much, so there must be something else. Kira doesn’t know what it is, but she knows there’s something because you’ve cashed quite a few traveler’s checks through her.”

“She told you that?” This really upset me; the least one can expect from a brothel keeper is discretion.

“Why shouldn’t she tell me? You didn’t tell her they were stolen, did you?” He drank his brandy down. “I don’t happen to like paying for sex, but I wanted to find out a bit more about you. I did. When they realized that I wasn’t going to leave without paying, they were both real friendly. Called me a cab and everything. Now, supposing you start talking.”

I took a sip of brandy. “Very well. I have had three convictions.”

“What for?”

“The charge in each case was representing myself as an official guide. In fact, all I did was to try to save one or two clients from those boring archaeological set speeches. The official guides have to learn them by heart before they can pass the examination. Tourists like to know what they are looking at, but they do not want to be bored.”

“What happened? Did you go to jail?”

“Of course not. I was fined.”

He nodded approvingly. “That was what Irma thought. Now you just keep on playing it straight like that and maybe we can keep the police out of this. Have you ever been jailed anywhere, to serve time, I mean?”

“I do not see why I should…”

“Okay, skip it,” he broke in. “What about Turkey?”

“Turkey? Why do you ask?”

“Have you been there?”

“Yes.”

“Any police record there?”

“I was fined in Istanbul for showing some people round a museum.”

“Which museum?”

“The Topkapi.”

“Were you posing as an official guide that time?”

“Guides must be licensed there. I did not have a license.”

“Have you ever driven from here to Istanbul?”

“Is that a criminal offense?”

“Just answer. Have you?”

“Occasionally. Some tourists like to travel by road. Why?”

He did not answer. Instead, he took an envelope from the writing desk and began to scribble something in pencil. I desperately needed a cigarette, but was afraid to light one in case it might look as if I were no longer worried. I was worried, and confused, too; but I wanted to be sure I looked that way. I drank the brandy instead.

He finished his scribbling at last and looked up. “All right, Arthur. There’s a pad of plain paper there and a pen. I’m going to dictate. You start writing. No, don’t give me any arguments. Just do as I tell you.”

I was hopelessly bewildered now. I picked up the pen.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Head it: To the Chief of Police, Athens. Got that? Now go on. I, Arthur A. Simpson, of- put in your address- do hereby confess that on June fifteenth, using an illegal pass key, I entered the suite of Mr. Walter K. Harper in the Hotel Grande-Bretagne and stole American Express traveler’s checks to the value of three hundred dollars. The numbers of the checks were…”

As he felt in his pocket for the loose checks, I started to protest.

“Mr. Harper, I can’t possibly write this. It would convict me. I couldn’t defend myself.”

“Would you sooner defend yourself right now? If so, I can call the police, and you can explain about that pass key.” He paused and then went on more patiently. “Look, dad, maybe you and I will be the only ones who will ever read it. Maybe in a week’s time it won’t even exist. I’m just giving you a chance to get off the hook. Why don’t you take it and be thankful?”

“What do I have to do for it?”

“We’ll get to that later. Just you keep writing. The numbers of the checks were P89.664.572 through P89.664.577, all in fifty-dollar units. I intended to forge Mr. Harper’s signature on them so that I could cash them illegally. I have stolen, forged, and cashed other checks in that way. Shut up and keep writing! But now I find I cannot go through with it. Because of Mr. Harper’s great kindness to me during his visit to Athens, and his Christian charity, I feel that I cannot rob him. I am, therefore, sending the checks I stole from him back with this letter. By taking this decision, I feel that I have come out of the darkness into the light of day. I know now that, as a sinner of the worst type, my only chance is to make restitution, to confess everything, and to pay the penalties the law demands. Only in this way can I hope for salvation in the world to come. Now sign it.”

I signed it.

“Now date it a week from today. No, better make it the twenty-third.”

I dated it.

“Give it to me.”

I gave it to him and he read it through twice. Then he looked at me and grinned.

“Not talking any more, Arthur?”

“I wrote down what you dictated.”

“Sure. And now you’re trying to figure out what would happen if I sent it to the police.”

I shrugged.

“All right, I’ll tell you what would happen. First they’d think you were a nut. They’d probably think that I was some kind of a nut, too, but they wouldn’t be interested in me. I wouldn’t be around anyway. On the other hand, they couldn’t ignore the whole thing, because of the checks. Three hundred dollars! They’d have to take that seriously. So they’d start by getting on to the American Express and finding out about all the check forgeries that have been traced back to accounts in Athens banks. Then they’d pull you in and grill you. What would you do, Arthur? Tell them about me and what really happened? You’d be silly to do that, wouldn’t you? They’d throw the book at you. No, you’re too smart for that. You’d go along with the reformation jazz. That way, you’d have a real defense-voluntary confession, restitution, sincere repentance. I’ll bet you’d get away with just a nominal sentence, maybe no more than a year.”

“Thank you.”

He grinned again. “Don’t you worry, Arthur. You’re not going to do any time at all.” He waved the paper I had written and the checks. “This is just a little insurance.” He picked up the brandy bottle and refilled my glass. “You see, a friend of mine is going to trust you with something valuable.”

“What?”

“A car. You’re going to drive it to Istanbul. You’ll be paid a hundred bucks and expenses. That’s all there is to it.”

I managed to smile. “If that’s all there is to it, I don’t see why you have to blackmail me. I would gladly do the job every week for that money.”