Pope said at once, and with a touch of relief, “I do indeed, we certainly don’t want to upset anyone. That’s one of my special nightmares, as courier. I’m responsible, yet I’m not.” He sighed. “They’re all adults — sane, intelligent people. They don’t like being nursemaided too obviously, and it’s only too easy to get complaints flowing back to base… and I like my job. I need it, what’s more.” He looked at Shaw speculatively. “You asked to sit with Miss MacKinlay today, didn’t you… did you get along with her all right? What I mean is, did you, by any chance, get any pointers as to where she might have thought of going?”
“None. As a matter of fact, though, I got along with her very well… and it’s precisely because I had a date with her tonight that I’m getting anxious. She wanted me to escort her around the night spots, and I’d be extremely surprised if she cut it just like that. I still don’t think it’d be wise to make too much of it,” he added, “but I do think she should be looked for around the old town area. I… er… I wonder,” he suggested with due diffidence, “if you’d care to leave it to me for the time being?”
Pope looked at him curiously. “Mean you’ll go and look for the girl yourself?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“D’you know the old town?”
“No, of course I don’t, but—”
“A needle in a haystack’d be a damn sight easier, Mr Cane.”
“I’ll take your word for it, but I’d like to have a shot.” Shaw finished his drink. “I’d suggest that if I haven’t called you by… let’s say, midnight, then you inform the police officially that some of the party are adrift and unaccounted for. All right, Major?”
“I’ll certainly have to take some action by midnight. As to the rest of it, well, I’ll do better than just wait here. I’ll come with you. I know my way around Warsaw, and it’s my responsibility when all’s said and done.”
“I see your point, but if it’s all the same to you, Major,” Shaw answered, putting a friendly hand on the courier’s shoulder, “I’ve a feeling it would be better if you stayed here in charge of the base, as it were — to keep the other passengers happy and stop them worrying. You see, just in case there’s any trouble at all at either end, I think it would be preferable to have the brains here and let me take the brawn with me. If you’ll authorize it I’ll take Tanner. He knows his way around too, I imagine.”
“He does, but—”
“Good! Now let’s have another drink, Major.” Shaw signaled to the barman. Pope didn’t strike him as being a great deal of use, and he’d used exactly the right phrase when he’d talked of leaving him “in charge of the base.” Shaw had seen the coy gratification in the man’s eyes… it must have been like being back in the army again.
Tanner knew his way around and was looking forward, as he told Shaw, to a touch of excitement. They left immediately after Shaw had had a word with the other passengers about where Virginia had last been seen. He hadn’t got much out of them because, as Pope had indicated, they were quite unable to agree as to where Wicks and Fawcett at any rate had left the party. Some hadn’t even noticed the absence of any of the three until they failed to turn up at the rendezvous.
“Not,” as Shaw told Tanner while they walked quickly towards the clustered buildings and narrow alleys of the old town, “that it makes any odds, of course. Wherever any of them were last seen, it’s history by this time. It was about three hours ago, give or take a little.”
“True enough, sir.” Tanner hesitated. “Mr Cane, what have you got in mind that may have happened to the young lady?”
Shaw shrugged and gave a non-committal grimace. “No idea. There’s always the possibility she may have been knocked on the head and robbed — or worse. In fact that kind of thing does seem to be a likely explanation in Miss MacKinlay’s case. Don’t know about the men. They could have gone off on the spree, couldn’t they — wine, women, and song.”
“Yes, I’d say you’re right, Mr Cane.” Tanner rasped a hand along his leathery cheeks. “Nice kid like that… I wouldn’t’ve thought there’d be anything to take her away from her mates, like, not in a strange city where she doesn’t speak the lingo — or does she?”
“Not that I know of,” Shaw told him. “I gather she hasn’t been out of the States before, either.” He added, “Following the trend of my earlier remarks… there’d probably be quite a lot of things to interest Mr Wicks and his friend, I take it?”
Tanner grunted. “There’s prostitution — if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Mind, it’s not condoned by the authorities in any way, and, while it exists, I reckon it’d be pretty near impossible for a foreigner to find the ways and means of getting in touch. There’s not exactly a red-light district. It’s not like the West End — not in the Communist Bloc!” Shaw nodded; he knew what Tanner said was true. Tanner went on, “Well, I s’pose all we can do is to have a look-see, Mr Cane. We just might pick up something… maybe.” He sounded doubtful to say the least of it.
Shaw said quietly, “It’s a long shot, I know, but it’s what I’m hoping for.”
As they made their way along, Shaw ran over what he had gleaned about Virginia from her own conversation. The girl was no prairie dweller — she knew what cities were like. She had been born and bred on Manhatten, now lived across the river in New Jersey, and commuted daily to Manhatten, where she was secretary to an executive in the New York offices of a Chicago meat corporation — or so she said; Shaw was more and more convinced that was just a cover-story — for what? He was frankly more concerned about who Miss MacKinlay was and who she really worked for than he was about her physical safety.
They were moving now into the shadows down along the age-old streets… streets that were mere alleys with the roofs and upper storeys of the crumbling buildings almost meeting overhead to blot out the sky. Some sunlight filtered down, filled with dust particles, but, by this hour of early evening, little warmth. Indeed, it was almost chilly now; the sun had a curiously metallic, autumnal feel. Slanting on to the rotting masonry of a bygone age, it showed up the cracks and the patches, the discoloration of filth, and the patina of near decay. Shadowy figures flitted in and out of side-alleys and broken doorways — old men and old women mostly. A few crones stood in the doorways with arms folded; one or two of them shrieked toothlessly across the narrow way at other crones. This part of town was not the habitat of the young. It was a kind of ghetto for the very old, the otherwise homeless, grubbing for shelter among the ruins, and the decrepit who were too old and tired and hopeless to move away from squalor and desolation — and it was almost certainly a home for other elements too: thieves, killers, men on the run, political intriguers, enemies of the police state — and would-be assassins?
Tanner said suddenly, breaking a long silence, “Never did like this district, sir, not in the evening, any road. You always feel like you’re going to get a knife in the back.”
“No need to labor the obvious,” Shaw said with a grin. In point of fact he was being forced to the conclusion that he was completely wasting his time. If Virginia MacKinlay was up to something on her own account she would keep it well hidden. If anything nasty had happened to her, she would be equally well concealed, and it was likely that not even her body would ever be found.
Shaw had never imagined the old town could be quite such a honeycomb as this.
A couple of hours later, as they were walking along a narrow alley, Tanner asked, “You don’t think it’s time the police were told?”
Shaw said wearily, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. We obviously couldn’t comb the whole of this stinking dump even if we brought the whole of the coach-party along plus half the Metropolitan Police, but for various reasons it was worth a shot at it before alerting the authorities.”