Francis Durbridge - Paul Temple - East of Algiers

Air France had booked accommodation for most passengers at the Aletti Hotel, the most modern hotel in Algiers, which stands facing the harbour. When the company bus set us down at the door I noticed that both Tony Wyse and Simone Lalange were also to be at the Aletti. Of Constantin there had been no sign since the aircraft doors had opened. He had either been met by friends or found some private transport of his own.

In view of the disturbances in Algeria the police were insisting on all the regulations with regard to travellers being rigidly observed. The reception clerk asked us to fill in the usual fiche de voyageur even before we were shown our rooms. When I handed mine in he glanced at the name and then raised his eyebrows.

‘Mr. Temple? There has been a telephone call for you. A gentleman rang up about half an hour ago to ask if you had arrived yet.’

‘That’s odd,’ I said to Steve. ‘I don’t know anyone in Algiers. Certainly I haven’t told anyone I was coming.’

I turned to the clerk: ‘Did he give any name?’

‘No, monsieur . He said he would telephone you again later.’

Our room in the Aletti Hotel was a truly magnificent one, affording us a splendid view of the harbour which had once served as a base for the pirates who had terrorized shipping in the Mediterranean. A big French passenger liner was berthed in the inner harbour within a couple of hundred yards of Algiers’ busy streets. Though there was a general feeling of tension in the air, as if everyone was expecting a bomb to explode, there were few visible signs of the violence which was splitting Algeria apart and keeping a whole Army of French troops occupied in the mountains farther south. The pedestrians on the pavements below were an odd mixture of French and Arabs. Many of the latter wore European clothes with perhaps only a fez or their swarthier features to distinguish them, but there were a number of shambling figures in Arab dress. They wore the curious one-piece tweed garment with hood attached which goes by the name of cachabia . Often their feet were bare, their features pinched and soiled. They were very different from the romantic notion of the proud Bedouin astride his camel.

‘I hope there isn’t going to be a revolution while we’re here,’ Steve remarked as she carefully took her dresses from the travelling case and hung them in the wardrobe. ‘I know you’d think it was marvellous material for some book, but I personally don’t relish the idea of being knifed in the street. And talking of knifing, Paul, I wish you’d deposit those glasses in some safe place.’

‘You don’t trust me with them?’

‘It’s not that. If this man Constantin wants them badly enough to offer you ten thousand pounds he may easily make violent attempts to get them from you. You said yourself that when big money is at stake there’s an ample motive for murder. Why don’t you ask the hotel manager to put the glasses in the safe?’

I went through into the little bathroom to arrange my washing and shaving things on the shelf.

‘You can’t expect me solemnly to ask the manager of a hotel to put a perfectly ordinary pair of spectacles in his safe. Everyone would think I was dotty. Besides, it would only attract attention.’

‘They can’t just be an ordinary pair of glasses,’ Steve objected. ‘They must have some special value for this David Foster person.’

‘I can’t see quite why. The French police are very thorough, and you can be sure they subjected the spectacles to an exhaustive scrutiny.’

I took the spectacles out of my pocket as I went back into the bedroom and placed them on the table in the middle of the room. Steve stood beside me and we both looked down at them. It was hard to imagine anything more homely and prosaic. They reminded me of one of the most kindly and gullible of my masters at school, and I associated them with a smell of pipe tobacco, leather bindings and the cosy sound of a motor-mower on a cricket pitch. Yet since they had come into my hands two girls had been brutally done to death, a crude attempt had been made to drown Steve and me, and a complete stranger had made me an offer of ten thousand pounds.

‘I just don’t understand your attitude, Paul.’ Steve’s tone showed that she had mis-read my thoughts. ‘You aren’t even prepared to take this seriously.’

I turned to her and put my hands on her shoulders.

‘I do take this seriously, Steve. I’m quite prepared to believe that there’s some sinister, perhaps deadly secret attached to them. But I gave my word to a girl who is now dead that I would deliver them. My object is to do so as quickly as possible and wash my hands of the whole business. Then you and I can carry on with our holiday as planned.’

Steve did not respond to my smile. Her eyes were clouded and there were three little lines across her brow.

‘Suppose Constantin is right and you don’t succeed in finding David Foster. There may not be any such person.’

‘In that case I’ll take the glasses back to France and hand them over to the police. All the same I think David Foster exists – though he may well be known by another name. It’s even possible that we’ve met him already.’

‘You think he might be Tony Wyse? In that case why does he not ask you outright to hand over his property? But I don’t think that theory holds water. I can’t believe there’s much wrong with Mr. Wyse’s eyesight.’

It was significant of our feelings that when the telephone rang my first action was to tuck the glasses safely away in my breast pocket and arrange my handkerchief to cover them. Only when that was done to the satisfaction of both of us did I cross to the bedside table and lift the receiver.

‘Who is it?’

‘Is that Mr. Temple?’

‘Yes. Who’s that speaking?’

‘It’s David Foster here. I understand you have my spectacles. I thought I’d ring up and arrange to collect them from you.’

‘Oh, Mr. Foster?’ I echoed the name, looking at Steve as I did so. She immediately came and stood with her ear close to the other side of the receiver, straining to catch both sides of the conversation. ‘I didn’t expect to hear from you till we reached Tunis.’

‘Oh. I see. Well I had to come over to Algiers for a few days on business. I had a cable from Judy and she told me you would be coming this way. I thought it would save you further trouble if I relieved you of the glasses right away.’

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