Night Without Stars (10 page)

I confess,” said McWheeler, getting confidential over the third drink, “that I find the Continental approach to things a little unbusinesslike. I'm speaking as an outsider, mind you. But they often seem to be optimistic—or the reverse—without being logical. That is, they don't seem to see the future in terms of hard fact. You either have pessimistic irrelevances brought in, or else you are gratuitously assured that ‘everything will be all right' without any apparent effort having been made to envisage the difficulties.”

I said: “Nothing's working properly yet. The government's torn between the extremist groups and is afraid to give a lead. The ordinary businessman just shrugs his shoulders and lives from day to day.”

“Aye. But I'm not sure that that quite answers my complaint, because isn't any government composed of ordinary individuals? Isn't putting the blame on the government an easy excuse for avoiding the responsibility yourself? Mind you, I don't know. I'm asking you these things.”

We talked for about half an hour. He seemed decent enough, and I felt an impostor (a) because he evidently didn't realise what a total write-off I'd become, and (b) because the incentive was gone which might have made me anxious to do something for him. Yet because I couldn't
quite
make up my mind never to attempt to see Alix again, I stalled and let the thing move on, so that when he finally left we'd arranged a further meeting in a fortnight's time when he got back from Italy.

I didn't realise then how much else would have moved on in a fortnight.

I was listening to the radio when the phone bell rang. It was three days since the meeting with McWheeler.

I lifted the receiver, and someone said something I couldn't catch.'

“Wait,” I said, and switched off the set. “Yes?”

“Mme. Colloni?” said a woman's voice.

“You've got the wrong number,” I said, and then stopped. Alix's voice. “Hullo!”

“Mme. Colloni. I've phoned to say I'll not be back to-night. I thought you might be worried if you didn't hear.”

I said: “ Is that Alix?”

“
Yes
. This is Alix Delaisse speaking.”

“What's the matter? Where are you?”

“At M. Grognard's flat. I can't say exactly when I shall be home, but I'll let you know.”

I said: “ This is Giles. Are you playing some sort of joke?”

“Of course not,” said the voice casually. “I thought I'd ring you just to let you know.”

“Let me know what? What's wrong? D'you want me to come round?”

“Yes, please do. It will be much better if you do that.”

“Is Pierre with you?”

“Thank you very much,” said the voice. “ Good-bye.” The line went dead.

The conversation was like an overheard one on a crossed wire. Yet the voice had seemed to answer some of my questions. And the voice was Alix's. I felt irritated and a bit put out. Grognard's flat was the last place. But she must have known that; it wasn't in her interest to provoke a rough house—perhaps Pierre was away. Then …

I'd never heard Alix speak like that before. I found my shoes, put them on and laced them, picked up my stick. By a piece of luck Old Larosse was fiddling about in the hall, and I asked him if there was a chance of a taxi.

“Perhaps round the corner, m'sieu. Shall I go and see for you?”

I waited in the doorway, blowing on the handle of my stick. Larosse didn't come back. After a while I began to fume. It would have been a bit of an awkward walk for me, but at least I should have been well on the way by now.

Just as I was about to go off, there came the clip-clop of hoofs on the road.

“It was difficult, m'sieu. In the end I had to bring a fiacre.”

“Rue St. Laurent du Var,” I said to the cab driver.

“Very well, m'sieu.”

As I got in I tried to remember the name of the book-shop. Something to do with a duck. We clip-clopped off into the night.

It seemed a long way.

“What number?” he said presently.

“The book-shop. Mallard's.” That was it.

“
Et voilá.
”

I got out, paid him his outrageous charge without argument, and crossed the pavement. For a minute I wasn't quite sure where I was, then realised he'd brought me just past the shop. I turned back and it wasn't long before my fingers found the door leading upstairs. I could tell that the stairs were lighted, but that was about all.

At the top was the door of his flat. I fumbled about and found the bell.

No one came. I rang again. Someone was singing or humming in the flat. A man. I caught English words. “You found I was true, Although you knew. You'd broken your date with love.…”

The wait for the taxi had made me more impatient than usual. I groped for the knocker but there didn't seem to be one. But slight pressure showed that the door was ajar.

I pushed it open an inch or two and said: “Anyone at home?”

Nobody answered. It was the radio that was on—but not the station I'd been listening to.

“It's all very fine To take that line, But no one can ask for more than I gave. In keeping a date with love.”

I went in.

It seemed to be one of those flats where the front door opens straight into the living-room. The light was on, and I got a definite feeling of space. The radio was on very low, in the far left-hand corner.

An awkward situation. A call over the phone—either designedly or by way of crossed wires—had brought me to Pierre's flat, where I certainly wouldn't be welcomed by its owner. Perhaps Alix and Pierre were in another room having a meal or the servant had gone out for something and left the door ajar. But if Alix wasn't here I'd better get out again quick. She'd been here: I could tell that at once from the faint scent.

Perhaps at this moment Pierre was sitting by the radio, sneering at me.

After a bit I began to walk into the room, feeling the way with my stick and moving towards the radio. I got round a small table and a chair, nearly came to grief over a tiger-skin rug, found the wall and then the radio.

“
Ici Radio Paris. Vous avez entendu—
”

I switched it off.

There was no one in the room. Could tell that at once now. The only sound was an electric fire over to my left.

Work it out. You came in at the door, and the hearth and electric fire were to your right. The radio was left corner. There were probably a couple of doors to the other rooms, one in the left wall, one in the far wall, not a long way from where I was standing. Perhaps it was Alix and Pierre who had just gone out and would be back in a minute. Perhaps Pierre was in Monte Carlo and it was just Alix. Wait a bit and see.

I waited.

It's a quiet part of Nice, and there was only an occasional car passing outside. A clock was ticking over above the electric fire. In the distance a train whistled. Occasionally a piece of furniture “cricked” slightly. The book-shop was shut and the staff had gone home. I wondered if there was another flat above this. If so, no one moved in it.

Somebody had been smoking a Turkish cigarette recently, and there was a faint stale smell somewhere like stale water.

The clock began to ping suddenly. Ten.

The sound got me impatient again. I began to feel along the wall beside the radio. Expensively framed picture; ornament like a mask; door. Just about where one would have expected it.

I lifted my stick and gave a sharp rap: one, two, three, on the panels.

Nothing happened. Surprising how startling a noise you make yourself can be.

I felt for the handle, turned it, and the door opened. A step in. Darkness and I didn't bother to put on the light, because again I could tell the room was empty. Unmistakably a man's bedroom: you could smell the hair cream, the sheets, the shoes and suits, the tooth-paste. I backed out and shut the door.

That was that. Now was the other hunch right, that there would be another door in the left wall? Back to the radio and then move off along the left wall. Bookshelves, a cupboard with glass handles; probably drinks. Contact with the tiger rug again. More wall. No, wrong. No door there.

I turned about and wondered whether to leave. Not comfortable. Yet Alix had been here. And the more I thought of it the more likely it seemed that she'd deliberately phoned me. Old Larosse and the fiacre.

Try the opposite wall, between the fire and the main door. I went back to the main door and moved across in the other direction. In a bit I should have completed a circuit of the walls.

Ah.… A door here. My sense of the plan of the place had been wrong. Knock again. Again no answer.

Open it.

A kitchen. The light on here, but empty. Go in a few paces. Smell of herbs, eggs, raw steak, coffee, one of the cream cheeses, probably Chèvre; it all smelled clean; there had been no cooking done there to-day. What servants did Pierre employ? Never heard. Probably one man. Anyhow, the servant was away or out.

Back into the living-room again. There was only one small corner now unexplored, and that didn't seem worth bothering about. There was also the large central space of the room not quite furnished in my mind.

I passed in front of the fireplace and felt the heat of the electric fire, turned away from it and touched the end of a cretonne-covered settee. Negotiating this, I moved across in the general direction of the glass-handled cupboard. If there was to be a wait, a drink would help to pass the time.

At that moment my foot trod on something which crunched lightly under it. I bent down and found a carnation on the carpet The head itself was wet, and in a moment the tips of my fingers were wet as they touched the floor. A dozen other carnations and then a glass vase. It had evidently been knocked over or had fallen over, but it wasn't broken. I stuck the flowers back in the vase and felt around for a table, found one, and put the flowers on it.

Hands on the glass handles of the cupboard, I paused. I certainly hadn't tipped over the flowers. Whoever had done so must have been very untidy or in a devil of a hurry. Open the cupboard.

Disappointment here. China ornaments of some sort instead of bottles. The cupboard doors were of glass: Pierre evidently collected pieces of Doulton or Sèvres. His display cabinet. Shepherdesses and peacocks and cottages and dogs, and little men and women sitting on chairs. Careful not to knock any down. Fine work.

Put them back. Well … stay or go? I'd already been here a good ten minutes and no one had come in. The flat was obviously empty.
Yet Alix had phoned from here
. I moved back to the settee. Wait another five, or as near as could be gauged. I sat down on the settee and lit a cigarette.

Once sure that the place was empty, and with the general lay-out in my mind, I'd begun to feel a bit better about the whole thing; but now, for no particular reason, I began to get uneasy again. Perhaps it was just the silence. Twice I fancied footsteps coming up the stairs, and once a car stopped nearly outside, and I half got up, expecting to hear someone come in. Then after a bit I began to have the idea that someone was creeping up behind the settee. This was just silly because I should have heard the slightest sound.

The clock was ticking away like anything. There might have been an urgency about it, as if it wanted to get to the end of the day and start again. As if its hair-spring had slipped and it was racing, trying to tell me.… For something to do I put my wrist-watch up to my good eye but of course it was no use. There'd been a general deterioration again this month. Whatever the outcome of my affair with Alix I should never see her face again.

Yet in a way the blackest mood of all had not come back. However sick and resentful I was, the experiment in suicide was off.

There were various faint smells in the room I couldn't pin down; and perhaps they were at the back of the added feeling of unease. Or perhaps it was the overturned flower vase. Or perhaps it was the continued silence, coming into the flat of an enemy, where the lights and the fire were burning, the radio on, finding nobody, and sitting here listening and waiting. And not being able to
see
.

I began to feel convinced I was being
watched
. There were six of them, sitting in different parts of the room, all watching me and waiting. A Chinaman with a knife, a grinning lunatic. And the man I'd seen in the ditch near Caen, and that girl with lupus …

Careful. That way … I alone was in darkness, that was what it amounted to. There was danger somewhere and I didn't know of it. There was a gun pointed at my head, a knife lifted.… I had to move, to duck, or …

“Who's there?” I said, turning my head swiftly.

Just the same silence.

I got up.

At least I began to get up, and in doing so put my hand down farther along the settee. My hand touched a man's coat sleeve.

I got in a hell of a panic and grasped the man's arm in self-defence, putting my other hand up to guard my face. He moved across the settee to attack me, but I struck at him and jumped up, nearly fell, backed away.

I backed into a table and it went over with a crash, the vase of flowers with it—and this time the vase broke.

I stumbled back over the tiger rug and fetched up against the wall

The sweat had broken out all over my hands and arms. I waited for him to move, but he didn't again.

I said: “ Is it you, Grognard?”

Couldn't see—and now somehow mustn't be able to hear. I rubbed my eyes instinctively, trying …

Couldn't hear the man breathing; my own was noisy enough. I stumbled back to the settee. He'd fallen full length across the seat of it one hand touching the floor. The smell of his clothes told me it was Pierre Grognard; he was dead.

It takes a lot to make me tremble, but I was shaking from head to foot. I groped for a chair and sat on it and nearly vomited.

First thought was: get out of here. Put a distance between you and your companion on the settee.