Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (21 page)

Hafez had no paper but he did have a pencil. He drew it
out, wet it with his lips and tested it on the inside of his nylon windbreaker. It wrote, and he carefully copied down on his jacket the license numbers of the two cars. He had scarcely finished doing this when the sheik came out of the Clinic. He and the three men began an argument, during which Hafez heard his name spoken several times, and then Fouad and Munir stripped off their jackets and stepped behind the cars. When they reappeared Hafez saw that they wore uniforms of some kind. The sheik opened the trunk of the Rolls and tossed their old clothes inside.

Why didn’t the police come
, Hafez thought desperately. He watched Fouad and Munir walk down the driveway in their matching uniforms and he guessed they were going into the Clinic now to find Madame Pollifax. There was no reason to believe they wouldn’t capture her, too, and then he would be the only one left.

He would be the only one who knew—but what could he give Robin and the police except the license numbers of two cars that might have already vanished by the time they came? It was not enough.

He had seen the sheik open the trunk of the Rolls and toss clothes inside. It was a large trunk, and he knew it was unlocked. Now the sheik had climbed inside the car and he and Sabry sat talking in the front seat. It was very quiet except for the low murmer of their voices and birds chattering in the tall trees.

We have to be resourceful
, Madam Pollifax had said.

Hafez moved swiftly. Once behind the Volkswagen he slid to his knees and crawled around it to the back of the Rolls and crouched there. Ever so gently he lifted the door to the trunk and opened it half way. It creaked a little but the murmur of voices continued. Climbing inside he lowered it softly behind him and stuffed a corner of Fouad’s jacket into the opening to leave a crack for fresh air.

When the sheik’s car reached the village
it did not turn to the left to head down the mountain, it turned to the right to begin a precipitous climb upward. Mrs. Pollifax looked at the sheik seated opposite her on the jump seat and said, “Where are we going?”

His dark eyes were friendly as he smiled. “In due time we separate. I go far, madame, but you and the other two will go no farther than I wish you to go. You have been, you know, a very naughty lady.”

That sounded patronizing and she told him so.

His eyebrows lifted. “How so? You have been only a minor inconvenience, no more than a buzzing gnat. Can one give to a gnat obeisance or importance?”

“I can’t speak for Mrs. Pollifax,” said Robin, “but I resent being called a gnat and a minor inconvenience, damn it.”

The sheik laughed. “Well said, Burke-Jones, I’d feel the same way myself. Your face is familiar to me, by the way. Have we met?”

“Paris—’65,” Robin said shortly. “Le Comte de Reuffe’s weekend party. Gabrielle’s ball. The races at Deauville.”

“Ah yes, I remember now. Have you news of them?… ’65 was a gay year, it lingers in my mind like vintage wine on the palate. I understand that Jackie has married?”

“Twice since then,” said Robin.

Mrs. Pollifax only half-listened. She was looking around
her as the road narrowed and the houses thinned. They were moving now up a steep slope through thick dark woods, they rounded a curve and suddenly they were at the top of the mountain on which Montbrison rested. But this peak was negligible, no more than a foothill, a step-pingstone to what lay beyond, for they were surrounded by even higher peaks that merged into other, taller mountains stretching ahead like an endless cyclorama. Patches of forest broke up the quilt pattern here and there, and each seam of green on these lower slopes boasted a small village or cluster of chalets. Far off on another rock projection Mrs. Pollifax could see a tiny train chugging along like a slug, its smoke almost transparent against the pale blue sky.

“No, I can’t believe that,” Robin was saying. “Really I can’t Gabrielle a nun? I thought she married Roger.”

It was too civilized for Mrs. Pollifax. “Where are we going?” she asked again.

“No, no, it was Danielle who married Roger,” protested the sheik.

This name reminded Mrs. Pollifax of the film on Saturday evening—the heroine’s name had been Danielle—and this in turn reminded her of Hafez, who had promised to confide the plot to her and had never done so. She realized that she was very frightened for him because he had been guarding his grandmother, and Madame Parviz was in the car behind them. What had happened to him? She recalled her impressions of the back seat of the Volkswagen and what she had seen in that quick glance inside. There had been only the one crumpled figure with head against the window and eyes closed … but if they had found Madame Parviz they must have found Hafez, too and he was not in the Volkswagen. If they had killed him—“Where is Hafez?” she demanded.

The sheik turned to look at her with interest. “Hafez?” He shrugged. “I don’t think we need to worry about Hafez.”

“I should like to worry,” she told him.

Again he shrugged, this time with a pleasant smile. “But Hafez is—shall we say, expendable?” Over his shoulder he called, “Ibrahim, are we nearly there?”

“We are nearly there, Sayyid.”

Expendable, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and felt a little sick.

They had been climbing all the time and now they had reached a bald, wind-swept plateau which ran like a spine across the mountain they’d left to the mountain ahead. Patches of thin grass grew wherever they found a little earth but there was little earth that had not been swept away by the winds. Mrs. Pollifax looked out of the car window and down, and caught a glimpse of Lake Geneva far, far below. The car slowed, and up ahead she saw a seam in the stony earth, a narrow cart track winding off toward the stony knob of a hill to the right. The car turned off the paved road and jolted and leaped across the ground with the Volkswagen following behind them.

They approached the knoll on a bias, winding around boulders and fields of dead earth littered with pebbles. There were no trees, they must be too high for trees, decided Mrs. Pollifax, and she began to feel the total hopelessness of their situation. It would be better to take each moment as it came, she told herself, and acknowledged for the first time that not many moments might lie ahead.

The car cleared the knob of the hill and Mrs. Pollifax looked ahead and saw a chalet, a weatherbeaten, closed-up Alpine cottage perched absurdly up here among the rocks and the clouds, its shuttered windows overlooking what must be a spectacular view of the country miles below. A single stunted tree was its only companion. As she watched, a cloud of mist drifted lazily toward them across the stony meadow. It obliterated the gnarled old tree, stroked the chalet with long ghost-like fingers and then swirled toward them. A moment later it had surrounded the car, damp and sunless and gray. When they emerged from its clutch the car had reached the chalet.

Robin peered out. “I say, this doesn’t seem up to your standards as a
pied-à-terre
,” he said, still playing the
bon vivant
.

“This?” said the sheik, startled. “Oh my dear fellow, this was rented only last evening when it became apparent that you and your friend were becoming nuisances. A pity, too, for it amused me to use the Clinic.”

“Amused you?” said Robin.

“It’s so much more dangerous,” he explained simply. “There was the irony of it, too. I happen to be a member of the Board of Directors, you see. I am so very welcome there.”

I don’t think we’re going to get out of this
, thought Mrs. Pollifax bleakly, and turned her head as the Volkswagen pulled up beside them. Fouad climbed out and went up the steps of the chalet to unlock the door. With the door open he waved them in. The sheik uncrossed his long legs and stepped out of the car. “Sabry?”

Sabry nodded and brought out a gun. “You will go inside the chalet,” he told them without expression.

Robin climbed out first, and as he turned to face her for the first time she saw that the right side of his face was scratched and torn, and his right eye swollen almost closed. “Oh Robin,” she said sadly.

“I’ve obviously lived much too sedentary a life,” he said lightly. “A fact that I intend to rectify at the earliest possible moment if I ever get out of this in one piece.” His hands were also tied but as she climbed out he succeeded in lifting them to touch her arm reassuringly. At the moment it only made her want to cry.

They moved across the rocks to the wooden steps. Mrs. Pollifax turned for one last look around her but the empty, windswept landscape was so distressingly bleak that she did not linger; she entered the chalet almost gratefully.

Inside it was midnight, every window shuttered and barred. Fouad was lighting an oil lamp and as it flared up to illuminate the room he looked at her once, briefly, and
she saw the hate in his eyes. Then he lifted the lamp and carried it to a table in the middle of the room, his face impassive.

“Cheerless place,” said Robin behind her. “Rather like a cottage at Brighton in the off season.”

It was precisely what it did resemble; it still held within it the bone-chilling damp of winter, the furnishings were shabby and dusty and the grate in the fireplace empty. There was a strong smell of cooking oil and mothballs.

“Planning to stay long?” quipped Robin.

The sheik moved away from the door as Munir carried in Madame Parviz and lowered her, none too gently, to the couch in front of the fireplace. Because Sabry chose this moment to glance at his watch, Mrs. Pollifax glanced at hers too; it was eight o’clock, which was difficult to realize in this lightless room. Sabry and the sheik began talking amiably in Arabic. The sheik brought out his wallet, counted an enormous number of Swiss francs into Sabry’s palm and wished him well. Sabry went out, closing the door behind him.

“I wish I knew where he’s going,” Mrs. Pollifax said to Robin in a low voice. “I wish Hafez were here to translate that for us.”

The sheik heard her and smiled. “But I have no secrets from you,” he said, his eyes twinkling at her. “Ibrahim has gone to bring back a helicopter. You may have noticed that the terrain here is quite suitable for its landing. I’ve no intention of lingering any longer in Switzerland and since I’ve no idea what little hints either of you may have left behind at the Clinic I shall proceed as if the Clinic—as if all of Switzerland!—is looking for me.” He appeared delighted at the thought. “To outwit them—oh superb sport, that.”

“You’re quite a sportsman,” Robin said dryly.

“But of course—I am a Bedouin,” he said with dignity. “Sit down, there is no need to stand on ceremony. The
chairs are dusty but far more comfortable than standing. Munir—we’ll have food now.”

Mrs. Pollifax lowered herself into a straight chair near the fireplace, her tied wrists extended awkwardly in front of her. Across the room she met Robin’s gaze and recognized the question in his eyes. She spoke it aloud. “What do you plan to do with us—with Robin, Madame Parviz and me?”

The sheik walked to the fireplace and rested a hand on the mantel. “I’m sorry you ask,” he said regretfully. “I thought we could enjoy a rather charming picnic here together while we wait. It may be a wait of several hours and unfortunately—” He sighed. “Unfortunately Fouad and Munir have never developed the art of conversation. They remain distressingly utilitarian.” He sighed. “In such bleak surroundings a little conversation helps to smooth the passing of time. Surely we need not discuss such a painful thing as your futures?”

“They are,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax, “
our
futures.”

“Were,”
he corrected gently, with a smile. “Now of course they belong to me. We have a proverb that says ‘If you are a peg, endure the knocking; if you are a mallet, strike.’ I hope that you will endure with fortitude the consequences of your meddling.”

“Haven’t you been doing a little meddling of your own?” inquired Mrs. Pollifax.

He laughed. “It is all in the eye of the beholder, is it not? However, to answer your question as tactfully as possible, let me say that the helicopter, when it arrives, will have no room for you and Mr. Burke-Jones. There will be space only for Fouad, Munir, Ibrahim, myself and Madame Parviz, who—as you may have guessed—is still of some importance as a hostage. Now please, let us say no more, it becomes distasteful to me. There are always a few who have to be sacrificed for the greater good. We also have a saying ‘What is brought by the wind will be carried
away by the wind.’ Ah, good—good,” he said happily as Munir came in carrying firewood.

Quickly and efficiently Munir arranged the wood in the fireplace and lighted a fire. Once it was ignited he spread a rug on the floor in front of it—a gorgeous Persian rug, Mrs. Pollifax noted—and distributed cushions around it. Incense was placed on the mantel, a match applied to it and the scent of sandalwood met her nostrils. Then Munir retired to the kitchen off to the left and the rattle of cups could be heard. Mrs. Pollifax stood up and walked over to the fire, holding her bound hands out to warm them but it was uncomfortable standing so near the sheik and she retreated to the couch and sat down at the end of it, near Madame Parviz’s feet. The poor woman was still unconscious, her eyes closed, but a second later Mrs. Pollifax glanced again at her and was not so sure. She thought a gleam of light showed between the fringe of her lashes and the bone of her cheek. She did not look again.

“For the greater good of what?” she asked the sheik. “If we’re to be so lightly sacrificed perhaps you can tell us the great benefit the world is going to gain?”

“The benefits are Allah’s, I am only the instrument,” he told her sternly.

Munir returned carrying a tray. On it were tiny cups and a large, beak-nosed brass coffeepot which exuded a spicy fragrance and a cloud of steam. The fire flickered across the rug, picking out its jewel-like colors and the patina of brass. A dusty Brighton cottage was rapidly turning into an Arab tent, she thought, and she couldn’t help but admire this imposing of will upon a shell of a house.