“Nor do I.” Kek removed the gun, checked it, and slipped it into his topcoat pocket.
Chico turned the ignition key; the engine sprang to life. “Where to?”
“No place, yet. We wait here.” His hand went out to prevent Chico from switching off the engine. “Let it run and keep the car warm.”
“All right. How long do we wait?”
“Until the regular flight from Brussels.” He glanced at his watch. Chico had been right; he had spent well over an hour with the customs. “It should arrive in about forty-five minutes. Wake me then. All right?”
“Right,” Chico said. Kek put his head back and almost instantly fell asleep. It seemed that no more than seconds had passed before Chico was shaking him. “The plane. It’s landed.”
Kek yawned. “Thanks.” He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d better wake up.” He climbed out of the car and walked up and down the parking lot several times, swinging his arms, breathing deeply. Awake at last he returned to the car, climbed into the rear seat and put his case in front with Chico. “The passengers will be out soon. Pull the car in front of the terminal, ahead a bit, just behind the taxi rank. And keep your motor running.”
Chico said nothing. He shifted gears and edged forward, following the curved driveway to the point Kek had indicated. The two men waited. Passengers began to emerge from the terminal at last, moving toward the parking lot, or the one taxi braving the night at the rank beyond. Their shadows jumped from light pole to light pole; they, at least, were impervious to the cold. A bareheaded man in a heavy trench coat, sporting a thick mustache and carrying an overnight bag in one hand and an umbrella hooked over the other arm, came down the airport steps. He paused momentarily and then started walking rapidly in the direction of the sole taxi. Kek smiled in pleased satifaction and slipped from the car, turning to face the man at the last moment. To any onlooker it would have appeared that they had bumped by pure accident.
“Perhaps I can offer you transportation, Alex?”
The gun was held easily in his pocket, pressing against the other’s stomach. DuPaul’s black eyes widened in surprised recognition and then hardened. The tableau held for several seconds; then the mustached man shrugged.
“Good,” Huuygens said approvingly. “Your bag in the front seat and you in the back.” He tipped his head politely. “After you.”
The door was slammed; the car instantly began to move. Chico brightened the lights and half-turned his head. “Where to?”
“I want a place where we can drop our friend when we finish talking to him. Some place that will give him an hour or so of brisk walking to reach civilization in the form of taxis or telephones. Some place,” he added with a smile, “that we can reach by car, ourselves.”
“Easy,” Chico said and swung from the airport road into the two-lane highway leading away from the city toward the distant mountains.
“Good,” Huuygens said and turned back to DuPaul, sitting with a frozen expression at his side. “I’m happy you got my message.”
Chico negotiated a curve. “Your message?” he asked mystified.
“I was speaking to my friend, here,” Huuygens explained. “In Brussels I arranged for him to learn that a certain object of great value — which he thought was safely his — was, instead, in my possession in my hotel room. The man he overheard was planning on taking it away from me on the Paris Express, because he knew I was taking it into Spain for some Englishman, and he knew I hated to fly—”
For the first time DuPaul spoke. His voice was bitter. “You used me.”
“Of course,” Kek said, and added, honestly, “I had to.”
“You won’t get away with this, Kek.”
“Of course I’ll get away with it,” Huuygens said, surprised at the other’s innocence. “I’ll have my money and in all likelihood be out of Spain before you even get back to the highway. Besides,” he added logically, “the painting was given to me to deliver, you know. It’s a matter of honor.”
DuPaul didn’t answer. He sighed and leaned back in his seat, staring ahead. They had left the main road and were bumping over a rutted dirt trail, twisting higher, rising into the foothills of the mountain. The air was getting colder; Chico closed the small side window and increased the output of the tiny heater to its maximum. They came to one ridge and negotiated it; one more and Chico stopped, backed into an opening between the road and a fence, preparing to return as they had come.
“This should do it,” he said calmly.
“Good.” Huuygens turned to DuPaul, truly apologetic. “I’m sorry, Alex. You can follow the road back or cut across the fields; I’ll be gone before you can even get to a phone. You can take your bag if you want—” He saw the sudden light in the other’s eyes and swiftly disabused him of the notion. “No,” he said quietly. “Not the umbrella.” He smiled. “I thought you might bribe your way through customs, but the umbrella was a much better idea. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hope to get away with it.”
DuPaul, his jaw clenched tightly, climbed out of the car. Chico handed him the overnight bag and slammed the door. Huuygens held the gun steady over the edge of the window, now rolled down; with his free hand he slid his fingers inside the silk of the umbrella, verifying his guess.
DuPaul, his breath steaming in the cold air, bent forward.
“I don’t blame you,” he said quietly. “You got me to bring the painting in for you, and I don’t blame you. I had it in my hands in Brussels — in my hands! — and by now I could have been far away with it. But you knew I wouldn’t let the fat man get away with robbing me. You knew it.” He straightened up. “But when you see Thwaite, tell him I’ll find him. I swear I’ll find him.”
“I’m sure you will,” Huuygens said, and his sympathy was genuine. “I think you’ve been treated very badly, and I’m sure Thwaite deserves payment in whatever coin you choose.” He sighed. “But that is, after all, none of my concern. I had to deliver. I contracted to.”
He paused a moment, frowning in thought. Then he took a deep breath and leaned back, the revolver dangling between his legs. He raised his voice for Chico to hear. It carried clearly through the open window to the man in the road.
“No. 617 Estrada de las Mujeres, Chico. And I should judge we have approximately an hour or so to fulfill our commitment...”
Counter Intelligence
I have long since ceased to be amazed at bumping into Kek Huuygens anywhere in the world, or in any condition of financial peak or depression. He is a charming fellow, brilliant and persuasive, who buys his share of the drinks when his pocketbook permits — and with the added attraction that he does not use his considerable talent at deception against his close friends. I have often wondered just how far Kek Huuygens might have gone in life had a policy of strict moral turpitude been one of his inviolate precepts.
This time, I ran into him in Paris. My newspaper had transferred me back there after an absence of almost eight years, and this particular day, I was walking morosely back from the office to my hotel, reflecting unhappily on the changes that had taken place in the city since I was last there. I was edging past a crowded sidewalk café when an arm reached out to detain me. I turned and found myself staring into Kek Huuygens’ smiling eyes.
“Have a seat,” he said calmly, almost as if it had been but hours since we had met instead of at least three years — and that time across an ocean. He raised a beckoning arm for the waiter, his eyes never leaving my face. “The last time I saw you, I was unfortunate enough to have to ask you to buy me a drink. Allow me to repay you.”
“Kek Huuygens!” I exclaimed delightedly, and dropped into a chair at his side. Besides being excellent company, Huuygens has always been good for copy, and one of the changes in Paris that had discouraged me was the very lack of copy; Frenchmen, in my absence, had seemingly become civilized. My eyebrows raised as my glance flickered over the figure across from me. The excellent cut of his obviously expensive suit, the jaunty angle of his Homburg, the trim insolence of his mustache, not to mention the freshness of his boutonniere at that late hour of the afternoon, all were in sharp contrast to his appearance the last time I had seen him in New York.