Dennis Wheatley - Contraband

As they came out again from the Maine in the evening sunlight he remarked to Rudd: 'Our birds won't operate until after dark in any case so there's no sense in making ourselves conspicuous. We'll go to the Hotel Terminus. So few people stop in Calais that I cannot think why it should be worth the proprietor's while, but it's a fact that it has a first-class cellar, and the fresh caught local soles cooked a special way are a thing to dream over.'

'That's O.K. by me, sir,' agreed Rudd, 'although I'd rather have a good steak and chips. I never was one for these frenchified foods, in a manner of speaking.'

'You shall have a Chateau Briand, which is French for an outsize steak, to your own cheek, and a bottle of vin rouge to wash it down.'

The queerly assorted couple obtained an excellent meal, entirely satisfactory to both their divergent tastes and, by the time they had finished, darkness had fallen.

During dinner Gregory had been carefully considering the problem of how he could best install himself at the Cafe de la Cloche without arousing suspicion. To visit it was simple enough, but he might have to remain there for several hours, and from the description which the old woman at the Maine had given him of the place, it hardly seemed one at which a well dressed traveller would choose to linger. True, he had brought a disreputable looking old raincoat for just such a possibility the pockets of which bulged with his gun, night glasses, and a big torch but that hardly seemed enough.

The fact that Rudd was so obviously an Englishman, and could hardly speak a word of French was also certain to raise comment in such an out-of-the-way spot. He could leave Rudd outside, of course, but he preferred to have him with him so that he could send him off at once to shadow anybody whom he wished to have followed. Moreover, if this estaminet were the headquarters of a gang there was a possibility that one of the thugs who he had come up against in Trouville might be there and, if he were recognised, a rough house was certain to ensue. Gregory was perfectly capable of taking care of himself but all the same it would be a comfortable thought to know that Rudd was with him. From past experience he knew well that the excellent Mr. Rudd could prove a magnificent ally and an extremely ugly sort of customer in any fracas.

After dinner, by an offer of lavish payment, he managed to hire a car to drive himself from a garage. It was a Citroen and had seen better days but that suited his purpose admirably.

At ten o'clock they packed themselves into its worn seats and Gregory drove slowly out of the town; explaining to Rudd his plan of campaign as he did so.

'I want to snoop around at this place a bit,' he said, 'and unless I can get what I'm after I don't want to leave until they chuck us out. We're on a motoring holiday you and I and another bloke named Brown. We intended to move on to Boulogne tonight, but this wretched old bus let us down a few hundred yards from the estaminet. We've sent poor old Brown to footslog it back into Calais and come out with a mechanic to do the necessary repairs.

'In the meantime we've dined damn well, and that's the truth God knows, but we'll give them the impression we've dined a damn' sight better; not tight you know, but just about half a one over the odds, so what's more natural than we should knock off a few more drinks at this place while we're waiting for old Brown and the motor merchant.

'If he fails to turn up in an hour or so we may think it a bit strange, in fact even funny that the poor blighter's lost his way, but by that time we'll be fairly well ginned up and not caring two hoots in hell for anybody. We'll start talking of making a night of it as we refresh ourselves with further potions of the local poison. Round about midnight we'll agree that old Brown's lost himself and obviously returned to the hotel in Calais, where we spent last night. Then we'll say, for the benefit of anyone who's listening, that we'll do the same ourselves and foot it back when we feel like bed. It's not likely they'll turn us out as long as we look like buying another drink off them since there are none of these fool early closing laws in France. If they do, we'll know that there's something fishy going on, then we'll have to continue our watch outside. Get the idea?'

'Yes, sir. Sounds like a first-class pub crawl, without the crawl in it, ter me. I've often wished there weren't no early closing hours in England.'

While Gregory was speaking they had driven clear of the last houses of the town and were now out in the open country with the rolling down land all about them. A few minutes later a solitary building came into view at the roadside on the brow of a low hill.

'That'll be it, unless I'm much mistaken,' said Gregory, 'so I think it's about here we'll ditch the car.'

He slowed down and ran it off the road into a shallow gully, then climbed out, remarking: 'I don't want to leave her on the road in case some fool breaks his neck by crashing into her. We'll say we had to run into the bank to avoid a speed maniac and that the jolt snapped something. We don't know what as we're not mechanics, only holidaymakers who've bought a cheap car for our trip.'

Side by side they trudged up the slope to the solitary building. It proved to be no more than a couple of ancient flint walled cottages knocked into one, but a creaking sign above the doorway established the fact that it was the Cafe de la Cloche. Before it, on the stony ground, stood a few rusty iron tables and battered chairs. The place was shuttered but lights came through the cracks of two windows and from beneath the heavy door. No other sign of life showed about the place and it was wrapped in a deep silence.

It was so old and tumbledown that Gregory allowed his vivid imagination to play upon it. He felt that it had probably already been an inn in Napoleon's day, frequented by gay Hussars and Chasseurs of the Guard from that mighty 'Army of the Ocean' that the Emperor had assembled on the nearby downs for his projected invasion of England in 1802. It was just the sort of place too, where spies might have met by night in those far-off times, to exchange secret intelligence about activities in the Channel ports after having run the gauntlet of the British fleet in some lightless lugger, while ten years earlier, aristocrats escaping from the Red Terror might have made rendezvous there before their final dash into exile and safety.

Dismissing his romantic speculations, Gregory kicked open the door and walked in with Rudd behind him. Inside, the place was like a hundred small estaminets which they had visited behind the lines, years before in the Great War. A bar ran down one side of the room; behind it on the shelves was a meagre collection of bottles, mostly fruit syrups, many of which, from their tattered labels, looked as though they had stood there for generations. A dark, blowzy, sullen eyed French girl sat behind the bar knitting. A handful of men occupied three out of the five cheap wooden tables covered with red and white checked clothes. One group was playing dominoes;, the rest were talking in subdued voices. All of them had the appearance of French peasants or fishermen. The air was heavy with stale tobacco smoke, the fumes of cheap spirits, and the odour of unwashed humanity.

'Monsieur?' said the girl, standing up and abandoning her knitting.

Gregory asked for whisky, but she had none, so he changed his order to cognac and she poured two portions from an unlabelled bottle into thick glasses.

He had become suddenly garrulous and friendly. Leaning across the bar he told her about their 'accident', and laughed somewhat hilariously at the thought of poor old Brown now trudging back to Calais. Then he went on to speak of their holiday; purposely refraining from using his best French and helping out his apparently scanty knowledge of the language with frequent vivid gestures.