There was a slight creak from somewhere behind me. I looked sharply in the mirror. There was nothing to be seen.
Then suddenly I leapt from the chair and hurled myself at the door. But I was not quick enough. My hand just missed it as it swung to. It slammed. A key turned quickly in the lock.
I tried the handle once, then looked round wildly. There was the window. I dashed over, fumbled for a second or two with the catch and flung it open. I trampled frantically over a couple of flowerbeds to the door of the hotel.
The hall was deserted and silent. The chair on which I had left the camera was empty.
My trap had worked. But it had caught me. I had lost the one piece of evidence that proved my own innocence.
7
I spent quite a long time in my room that afternoon trying to persuade myself that the best thing I could do would be to leave the Reserve, make my way across country to Marseilles, and ship as a steward or deck-hand in an east-bound cargo liner.
I had the whole thing planned. I would take Koche’s motorboat and land at some deserted spot west of St. Gatien. Then I would lock the rudder of the boat, start the engine and leave it to chug out to sea while I made off inland to Aubague. There I would catch a train for Marseilles.
At this point doubts began to creep in. One was always reading of young men running away to sea, of people shipping as deck-hands and working their passages. There seemed to be no special qualifications needed. No ropes had to be spliced. No rigging had to be climbed. All you did was paint the anchor, chip rust off the deck plating, and say “aye, aye, sir,” when addressed by an officer. It was a tough life and you met tough men. There were weevils in the ship’s biscuits and you had little to eat but skilly. Quarrels were settled with bare fists and you went about naked to the waist. But one of the crew always had a concertina and there were sing-songs when the day’s work was done. In after life you wrote a book about it.
Yet would it work out quite like that for me? I was inclined to think that it wouldn’t. I may be unlucky, but I find that my enterprises never proceed along classical lines.
Rust-chipping would probably prove to be a highly skilled trade. They would laugh at the idea of a landsman imagining that he could do it. There would be no vacancy. Or if there were a vacancy it would be on a coastal steamer bound for Toulon. Or there would be some strange permit that had to be obtained from the police three months prior to sailing. Or they would find that my eyesight wasn’t sufficiently good. Or they would insist on previous experience. Reality is always so obstructive.
I smoked a cigarette and reconsidered my position.
One thing was clear. I must not let Beghin know that I had lost the second camera. To do so would be to invite immediate re-arrest. The Commissaire was out for convictions. Without the evidence of the camera I would stand no chance of proving my innocence before an examining magistrate. What a fool I had been! Now it was more than ever necessary that I should clear up the mystery for myself. I must take risks. I must know for certain that Schimler had the cameras. I must be in a position to convince Beghin. There was only one thing to do. I would have to search the German’s room.
The idea scared me. If I were caught, a charge of thieving would be added to my present troubles. But the search had to be made. Besides, it was certain to be successful. Should I make it now? My heart beating a little faster than usual, I looked at my watch. Nearly three o’clock. I would have to find out first exactly where Schimler was at the moment. I must be cool and careful about it. The phrase comforted me. Cool and careful. I must keep my head. Soft shoes? Most necessary. A revolver? Absurd! I didn’t have one, and even if I had… A torch? Idiot! it wasn’t dark. And then I remembered that I didn’t even know the number of his room.
A wave of relief swept over me, and immediately I despised myself for it. It was no good telling myself that, whatever I felt, annoyance or relief, the fact remained that I did not know Schimler’s room number. The point was that an efficient person would have already found out what it was. If this was the way I was protecting my own interests-feeling relieved when difficulties arose-then heaven help me.
It was in this frame of mind that I went down to the terrace. I had hoped to find it empty. But it was not. Sitting in a deck-chair at one end, smoking a pipe and reading a book, was Herr Schimler.
Now, if I had but known the number of it, was the time to search his room. I almost turned on my heel to go back. But I stood where I was. I would have to let the opportunity go. Still, there was no harm in engaging the man in conversation, in finding out what sort of a person I had to deal with. After all, one of the fundamentals of good strategy was the study of your opponent’s mind.
But it was easier to think about studying Herr Schimler’s mind than actually to do so. I moved a wicker armchair into the shade near him, sat down, and cleared my throat.
He shifted the pipe between his teeth and turned over a page of the book. He did not so much as glance in my direction.
I had heard that if one stares intently at the back of a person’s head and wills that person to turn round, he will very soon do so. I stared and willed at Herr Schimler for a good ten minutes. I could still now make an anthropometric drawing of the back of his head. But I made no impression at all on him. I managed to see the title of the book. It was Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, in German, and one of several German books I had seen on the shelves in the writing-room. I abandoned the attempt to compete with Nietzsche and gazed out to sea.
The sun was incredibly hot. A smoky haze lay on the horizon. The air above the stone balustrade quivered in the heat. In the garden the cicadas were in full chorus.
I watched a huge dragonfly circle once round a piece of flowering creeper and soar off over the fir trees. It was not an afternoon for thinking of spies. I ought, I knew, to telephone to Beghin and give him the list of cameras. But he could wait. Perhaps later, when the day had grown cooler, I would walk down to the post office. The detective in his heavy black suit would be sweating in the shadow of the dusty palm trees outside the gate and longing for a limonade gazeuse. I envied him. In exchange for peace of mind, I would gladly wear black on hot summer afternoons and sweat and wait and watch and long for limonades gazeuses. A fine life that! Whereas mine was furtive like that of a criminal. I was the watched.
I wondered what Mary Skelton thought of me. Nothing, probably. Or if she did think anything it was, no doubt, that I was a polite, reasonably personable young man with a gift for languages that was useful. I remembered the phrase she had used when she had thought that I was out of earshot. “The nice gentleman.” The intention had been facetious in a kindly way. Quite appropriate to a hotel acquaintance. It would be exceedingly pleasant to have Mary Skelton interested in you. She understood her brother perfectly. That was obvious. No less obvious was the fact that he thought he understood her. You could tell that by his manner towards her. But she…
Herr Schimler shut his book with a snap and tapped his pipe on the wood of the deck-chair.
I plunged.
“Nietzsche,” I said, “is hardly the companion for a hot afternoon.”
He turned his head slowly and examined me.
His thin cheeks had more color in them now than on the night before; but in his blue eyes there was no longer misery. They expressed a more immediate emotion-suspicion. I saw the muscles at the corner of his mouth tighten.
He removed his pipe and started refilling it. His voice when he spoke was casually deliberate.
“You are probably right. But I was not seeking companionship.”
At any other time this rebuff would have reduced me to miserable silence. Now I persevered.