Involuntarily, Clay found his eyes drawn to the young woman’s face and body. She appeared to be about twenty-five, with a hard look, but different. She belonged to the underworld, but she was almost stunningly beautiful. Her air, the way she walked, spelled money, big money. She was redhaired, with finely-etched nose and chin, an elegant mouth, and unblemished skin. Clay found himself staring at her, open-mouthed.
The woman read his thoughts and flushed slightly. Unconsciously, she drew the folds of the wispy red kimono more tightly around her.
“It was too dangerous to give you the delivery at the hotel,” she said simply. “The hotel is being watched. I had to pretend to be a woman of the Zeedjik for this one night.”
Clay Felton nodded. “Good idea.”
“Here’s your money. Count it, please, so there will be no question of a mistake. The rest you will receive when the delivery is made in America.” She handed him a thick packet of Dutch currency.
Since she expected him to count the money, he did so. It amounted to five thousand Dutch guilders — about fourteen hundred dollars, American.
“Here’s what you are to deliver. Just put it in your baggage, but be very careful with it, please.”
To Clay’s astonishment, she handed him a pair of souvenir Dutch wooden shoes. He turned them toward the light. The wooden shoes were varnished, with decals of garlands of brightly-colored tulips, and a Dutch boy and girl holding hands. In English, each shoe carried the legend Amsterdam, Venice of the North. Both wooden shoes were filled with Dutch chocolates wrapped in gold foil. The shoes were tied together and covered with cellophane. Similar chocolate-filled wooden shoes were on sale at every souvenir shop in Amsterdam for about two dollars a pair. Clay wondered what this special pair contained — heroin or diamonds?
“Clever. Shouldn’t attract any attention at Customs.”
“They won’t. There is no risk for you.”
I’ll bet, Clay thought, but he said nothing.
“You’d better leave quickly. I’ll show you out the back way.”
Clay gazed speculatively at the scantily-clad woman. She was very attractive.
“Hurry!” she urged him. “Every minute you are here, there is danger. You could be killed.”
Clay did not reply. He thrust a hand into the pocket of his khaki shorts, drew out a package of cigarettes, and offered her one, which was nervously refused. Then he lit a cigarette for himself. He gazed at her speculatively.
“Pity. Such an exotic place, such a beautiful woman. One should take advantage of life’s opportunities, don’t you think?”
The attractive, redhaired woman flushed and drew the red kimono tighter around herself. However, to Clay, she did not seem especially displeased. It had been his experience that women are more apt to be displeased with the man who does not make a pass at them then with the one who does.
“Don’t be a fool, Eric. Your boat leaves in two hours.”
“I’ll make the boat in plenty of time.” He wondered which boat it was that left in two hours. He seized her by the waist.
“No! Please don’t! Klaas would kill you — and me — if he dreamed you laid a finger on me.” The girl’s eyes were blue and very wide open. She spoke with genuine terror, her voice rising to a squeal.
Clay wondered who Klaas was, but he smiled knowingly. “You can’t very well put up much of a fuss then, can you? And then there’s the police. You wouldn’t want to attract their attention, would you?”
Without waiting for her to answer, Clay drew her toward him, but she turned away. Perhaps she feared that every moment was dangerous and only wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it might have been masculine vanity but he felt that she did not object nearly as much as she pretended. Her blue eyes were shining, and Clay imagined she was not at all displeased to think herself femininely irresistible. Nevertheless, she led him up a crumbling back stairway and let him out into the black, deserted street.
Clay turned toward the railroad station, but had gone only three blocks when he came upon a crowd of people clustered about the Zeedjik Canal. Searchlights from police boats stabbed fingers of white light through the black night. They were dragging the canal for something. Lost in the crowd, he waited. A few minutes later, the grappling hooks pulled the body of a man to the surface. Heavy weights were tied to a metal chain looped about the bare knees. Foul, oozing mud covered the face and eyes. A gasp of horror swept the crowd. The corpse’s throat had been hideously slashed so that the head was barely attached. Clay Felton noticed something else. The corpse had light blond hair, wore khaki shorts, leather sandals, and a sport shirt, and looked like an American college student.
His first impulse was to hide. It might be dangerous even to walk the few blocks to the railroad station. Instinctively, he headed into the darkness toward a bridge. In Europe, the poorest of the poor sleep under bridges — and they are seldom bothered. Running into the darkness, he found a deserted area, and then clambered under the supports of one of the innumerable bridges that dot Amsterdam.
Presently, for he had not eaten and was famished, he tore the cellophane from one of the wooden shoes filled with chocolates. Biting into the candy carefully, he cracked the chocolate off, and a sparkling, gleaming diamond was in his hand. In the two wooden shoes there were twenty-four diamonds.
Clay Felton sat hunched up in the musty dampness under the bridge and did the hardest thinking of his life. The idea of being a thief had never seriously occurred to him before. Now, however, he was in possession of a fortune. The gleaming diamonds, which he carefully placed in his money belt, made him feel like a walking branch of Tiffany’s. If he could get the diamonds safely into the United States, he would be rich. If he could not, he was dead. It was that simple. The murder of the man dragged out of the canal was proof that diamond smuggling was a deadly business. Not only the smuggling ring but also the police would be combing Amsterdam for the murderer.
Clay had no way to prove his innocence. No alibi. He did not know a soul in Amsterdam. No one could vouch for his whereabouts at the probable time of the murder.
What was worse, the smugglers could realize their mistake.
So it all boiled down to a place to hide.
Where could he hide? Hole up in a cheap hotel for three days? No. Cheap hotels would be the first place they would look. Gradually, the outline of a bold plan formed in Clay’s mind. Thinking hard, he went over it and over it and over it again in his mind. Then, bone-weary, he was gradually overcome by sleep. There was nothing he could do until morning anyway, and he needed the rest.
The noises of Amsterdam’s early morning traffic awakened him, but Clay did not venture out from his cranny underneath the bridge until swarms of people were on the street, hurrying to work. Then he felt it safe to melt into the rushing throng. His first step was to take a tram to the railway station. Then he bought a Dutch newspaper, glanced at it, saw that a picture of the murdered man was on the front page. He wanted to read the story but could not make out the language. Anyway, he was in a hurry, with more important things to do.
Clay reclaimed his baggage from the luggage room, went into the men’s room, washed quickly, and ran a comb through his disheveled hair. Then he went into a pay lavatory, took his wrinkled blue suit from the valise, and put it on. Wrapping his faded khaki shorts, sport shirt, and sandals in the Dutch newspaper, he waited until nobody was looking, then dumped the bundle into a trash container. Examining himself in the mirror, he was partially satisfied. Then he rechecked his luggage.
The next step was to find a barber. Explaining that he wanted a shave was easy, but trying to get the idea across to a Dutch barber that he wanted an unfamiliar crew haircut was harder. Somehow he managed. Next, Clay walked down the Damrak until he found an optical shop. The clerk spoke English, so it was not difficult to explain that he had lost his glasses and needed a pair to replace them for reading. No, he was sorry he did not remember the prescription. Clay glanced at some eye charts, and the clerk gave him a weak prescription that magnified objects only slightly. After selecting a dark, horn-rimmed frame for his glasses, Clay looked at himself in the mirror and was satisfied that a dramatic change had been made in his appearance. He paid for the glasses with one of the bills the redhaired girl had given him. There was much change. One thing he did not have to worry about now was money.