Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes

The concierge looked up and said, “But the baroness has checked out, Monsieur Grangier.”

“You're mistaken. Call her.”

Jules Bergerac was distressed. It was unhealthy to contradict Armand Grangier. “I checked her out myself.”

Impossible. “When?”

“Shortly after she returned to the hotel. She asked me to bring her bill to her suite so she could settle it in cash--”

Armand Grangier's mind was racing. “In cash? French francs?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, monsieur.”

Grangier asked frantically, “Did she take anything out of her suite? Any baggage or boxes?”

“No. She said she would send for her luggage later.”

So she had taken his money and gone to Switzerland to make her own deal for the large printing press.

“Take me to her suite. Quickly!”

“Oui, Monsieur Grangier.”

Jules Bergerac grabbed a key from a rack and raced with Armand Grangier toward the elevator.

As Grangier passed Zuckerman, he hissed, “Why are you sitting there, you idiot? She's gone.”

Zuckerman looked up at him uncomprehendingly. “She can't be gone. She hasn't come down to the lobby. I've been watching for her.”

“Watching for her,” Grangier mimicked. “Have you been watching for a nurse — a gray-haired old lady — a maid going out service door?”

Zuckerman was bewildered. “Why would I do that?”

“Get back to the casino,” Grangier snapped. “I'll deal with later.”

The suite looked exactly the same as when Grangier had seen it last. The connecting door to the adjoining room was open. Grangier stepped in and hurried over to the closet and yanked open the door. The printing press was still there, thank God! The Whitney woman had left in too big a hurry to take it with her. That was her mistake. And it is not her only mistake, Grangier thought. She had cheated him out of $500,000, and he was going to pay her back with a vengeance. He would let the police help him find her and put her in jail, where his men could get at her. They would make her tell who the engraver was and then shut her up for good.

Armand Grangier dialed the number of police headquarters and asked to talk to Inspector Dumont. He spoke earnestly into the phone for three minutes and then said, “I'll wait here.”

Fifteen minutes later his friend the inspector arrived, accompanied by a man with an epicene figure and one of the most unattractive faces Grangier had ever seen. His forehead looked ready to burst out of his face, and his brown eyes, almost hidden behind thick spectacles, had the piercing look of a fanatic.

“This is Monsieur Daniel Cooper,” Inspector Dumont said. “Monsieur Grangier. Mr. Cooper is also interested in the woman you telephoned me about.”

Cooper spoke up. “You mentioned to Inspector Dumont that she's involved in a counterfeiting operation.”

“Vraiment. She is on her way to Switzerland at this moment. You can pick her up at the border. I have all the evidence you need right here.”

He led them to the closet, and Daniel Cooper and Jnspector Dumont looked inside.

“There is the press she printed her money on.”

Daniel Cooper walked over to the machine and examined it carefully. “She printed the money on this press?”

“I just told you so,” Grangier snapped. He took a bill from his pocket. “Look at this. It is one of the counterfeit hundred-dollar bills she gave me.”

Cooper walked over to the window and held the bill up to the light. “This is a genuine bill.”

“It only looks like one. That is because she used stolen plates she bought from an engraver who once worked at the Mint in Philadelphia. She printed these bills on this press.”

Cooper said rudely “You're stupid. This is an ordinary printing press. The only thing you could print on this is letterheads.”

“Letterheads?” The room was beginning to spin.

“You actually believed in the fable of a machine that turns paper into genuine hundred-dollar bills?”

“I tell you I saw with my own eyes —” Grangier stopped. What had he seen? Some wet hundred-dollar bills strung up to dry, some blank paper, and a paper cutter. The enormity of the swindle began to dawn on him. There was no counterfeiting operation, no engraver waiting in Switzerland. Tracy Whitney had never fallen for the sunken-treasure story. The bitch had used his own scheme as the bait to swindle him out of half a million dollars. If the word of this got out….

The two men were watching him.

“Do you wish to press charges of some kind, Armand?” Inspector Dumont asked.

How could he? What could he say? That he had been cheated while trying to finance a counterfeiting operation? And what were his associates going to do to him when they learned he had stolen half a million dollars of their money and given it away? He was filled with sudden dread.

“No. I — I don't wish to press charges.” There was panic in his voice.

Africa, Armand Grangier thought. They'll never find me in Africa.

Daniel Cooper was thinking, Next time. I'll get her next time.

It was Tracy who suggested to Gunther Hartog that they meet in Majorca. Tracy loved the island. It was one of the truly picturesque places in the world. “Besides,” she told Gunther, “it was once the refuge of pirates. We'll feel right at home there.”

“It might be best if we are not seen together,” he suggested.

“I'll arrange it.”

It had started with Gunther's phone call from London. “I have something for you that is quite out of the ordinary, Tracy. I think you'll find it a real challenge.”

The following morning Tracy flew to Palma, Majorca's capital. Because of Interpol's red circulation on Tracy, her departure from Biarritz and her arrival in Majorca were reported to the local authorities. When Tracy checked into the Royal Suite at the Son Vida Hotel, a surveillance team was set up on a twenty-four-hour basis.

Police Commandant Ernesto Marze at Palma had spoken with Inspector Trignant at Interpol.

“I am convinced,” Trignant said, “that Tracy Whitney is a one-woman crime wave.”

“All the worse for her. If she commits a crime in Majorca, she will find that our justice is swift.”

Inspector Trignant said, “Monsieur, there is one other thing I should mention.”

“Sн?”

“You will be having an American visitor. His name is Daniel Cooper.”

It seemed to the detectives trailing Tracy that she was interested only in sightseeing. They followed her as she toured the island, visiting the cloister of San Francisco and the colorful Bellver Castle and the beach at Illetas. She attended a bullfight in Palma and dined on sobrasadas and camaiot in the Plaza de la Reine; and she was always alone.

She took trips to Formentor and Valldemosa and La Granja, and visited the pearl factories at Manacor.

“Nada,” the detectives reported to Ernesto Marze. “She is here as a tourist, Commandant.”

The commandant's secretary came into the office. “There is an American here to see you. Seсor Daniel Cooper.”

Commandant Marze had many American friends. He liked Americans, and he had the feeling that despite what Inspector Trignant had said, he was going to like this Daniel Cooper.

He was wrong.

“You're idiots. All of you,” Daniel Cooper snapped. “Of course she's not here as a tourist. She's after something.”

Commandant Marze barely managed to hold his temper in check. “Seсor, you yourself have said that Miss Whitney's targets are always something spectacular, that she enjoys doing the impossible. I have checked carefully, Seсor Cooper. There is nothing in Majorca that is worthy of attracting Seсorita Whitney's talents.”

“Has she met anyone here… talked to anyone?”