The Melting Man

'Personal.'

'Well, that makes a change from head-shrinkers and social boneheads.' She looked at a small gold watch on a slender wrist and said, 'She'll be doing her jigsaw in the sun-lounge up front.' She tipped her head forward. 'Don't knock. Go straight in. If she's in a good mood maybe she'll let you stay. Before you go, come and have a drink with me. I might give you my autograph.'

'Is it worth anything?'

'Mercenary type, eh? On a cheque, value nil. On a photograph, value sentimental. But come and have a drink. You'll be helping my beat boredom campaign.'

She blew a cloud of smoke without removing the cigar, picked up the magazine, winked at me and began reading.

I went forward along the spotless deck, under the bridge-wing and had the run of windows of the sun-lounge on my right. They curved round in a wide semicircle above the forward deck. A seagull cut down through the warm air and screamed something at me in French. A man wearing a blue singlet leaned over the bridge-rail above me and nodded, and a Chris-Craft went by at speed, spewing a trail of wake like a plume of ostrich feathers.

I looked through the glass of the sun-lounge door and had my first glance of Zelia Yunge-Brown, the girl with the lost memory. She was sitting at a table, bending over a big tray on which part of a gigantic jigsaw was coming to life. At her right side the table was covered with a muddle of loose jigsaw pieces. All I could see at first was a sweep of long dark hair, the slope of a high, sun-tanned forehead, brown arms and hands and part of a simple blue-and-white-striped dress that looked like the stuff that butchers used to wear for aprons. I stared at her for a while, hoping she would become aware of me. The glass was proof against my magnetic personality, so I went in. She made a little clicking noise with her tongue, removed a piece from the tray and began searching in the loose pile alongside her, ignoring me completely either from rudeness or absorption in her work.

I walked across the lounge and sat on the arm of a blue-leather chair. There was a bar at the back of the lounge with a chromium grille pulled across it, through which I could see rows of glasses and coloured bottles. Either side of the bar were a couple of paintings of old-time tea-clippers, and above the bar in a glass case a stuffed swordfish with a stupid grin on its chops.

I said, 'What's it going to be when it's finished? The Houses of Parliament? George the Fifth's coronation? Or one of those old hunting scenes with chaps in red coats drinking port while the hunt servants pull off their boots and the inn servants are charging in with boars' heads and poached salmon three feet long. Those were the days. Everywhere by horse and coach. None of the roads stinked up with motor cars. By the way, talking of cars — my name is Carver and your father has hired me to find the red Mercedes which you carelessly mislaid.'

I said it all coolly, in my best unruffled manner, but, I hoped, getting a little hint of something not quite friendly in it to show that I wasn't in the mood for moods. Halfway through she raised her head, and that made it difficult for me to maintain my even manner because she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had this wonderful black hair, pale blue eyes, and perfect classical features, and she was as cold as ice. An ice maiden from the frozen north. There was something of Julia in her looks, but only just enough to tell they were sisters. She settled back in her chair to get a good look at me, and I saw that she was a big girl, tall, statuesque and as strong as an ox. All she needed was a winged helmet, a shield and a long boat, and Eric the Red would have gone crazy over her. Personally, she made something quietly shrivel up inside me and die.

In a voice, steely and cold, straight from the refrigerator locked somewhere inside her, she said, 'I don't care particularly for your manner, Mr Carver. And I have already given all the information I can about the car.'

I gave her a big smile, trying to get the atmosphere above zero, even feeling that maybe I had judged her a little hastily. After all she was beautiful enough to merit a second opinion. Could be I was wrong.

'So,' I said, 'you're sorry you can't help me?'

'I can't help you, Mr Carver.'

She moved forward and studied the jigsaw.

I stood up, and the movement brought her head up a little.

She said, 'I'm sorry you've had a wasted journey — but I did tell my stepfather that it was unnecessary for you to come.' I walked round her to the bar, gave a bottle of Hines a quick, frustrated glance through the grille, and said, 'I'd like to make one thing very clear.'

She had to turn a little to get me in focus and the movement showed off the splendid shoulders and torso to more than advantage.

'Yes.'

'I've been hired to do a job of work! I like to finish what I've started. It's a kind of thing with me. Stupid pride. Professional prejudice. Call it what you like. But I'd like you to know that I am only interested in the car. I want to get it back for your stepfather. But when I hand it over I don't have to give a blow-by-blow account of the recovery. Anything revealed to me in confidence by anyone along the line remains that way. You understand?'

'Perfectly. But I can't help you.'

She turned back and began to fiddle with the puzzle. I walked round the back of her and finished up full circle in the blue-leather chair. She glanced up briefly as I sat down.

'I would like you to go, Mr Carver.'

'I will,' I said, 'when I've done what I'm being paid to do. For some reason your stepfather sets great store by this car. As his daughter—'

'Stepdaughter.' The word was snapped at me, like icicles breaking.

'—I should have thought you would have wanted to help him.'

She gave me a cold stare, and said, 'I have every reason in the world for not caring a damn about him.'

'You can't really mean that, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here enjoying all the luxuries he provides. No girl with any spirit would. Now, come on, what happened to the car?'

I was pushing her, hoping to break her down a little; but it didn't work.

She got up from the table and began to move towards the bar. In the woodwork at the side was a bell-push. I was so absorbed in watching her walk, this frozen, beautiful Amazon, that I almost let her reach the bell-push.

'I wouldn't do that,' I said. 'Not if you want me to help you. It won't do you any harm to listen to me for a few moments. Then, if you want to, you can push the bell.'

She was silent for a moment or two, then she said, 'Go ahead.'

I stood up and lit a cigarette. Having her towering over me made me nervous.

'I'll be frank with you. You may or may not have lost your memory. Personally, I don't think you have. But if it suits you for good and private reasons to have people think that, then that's okay by me. But one thing is for certain — you haven't been truthful about your stay at the Ombremont Hotel. If you'd known what was going to happen after you'd left it, then, of course, you'd have naturally been more… well, discreet.'

'I don't know what you're—'

'You do. I'm talking about Room 16.'

'I was in Room 15.'

'But you telephoned Durnford in England from Room 16.'

'I certainly did not.' Big and frozen she might be, but I didn't have to have a trained eye and ear to know that she was holding something down inside, probably a desire to shout at me to clear out and go to hell. And it wasn't something that was pleasant for me to be aware of. Quite suddenly I had become sorry for her.

I shook my head. 'There was no telephone charge on your account. On the other hand there was on Room 16's account. And the person in that room — a man — paid for it without any fuss. So where do we go from there?'

She moved back towards the table until she was almost alongside me.

'We don't go anywhere, Mr Carver. I know nothing about Room 16. If the hotel desk got their accounting mixed up and somebody paid for my telephone call because they were in too much of a hurry to check their account, I'm not interested. The only thing I'm interested in is that you get out of here and leave me alone. Go back to my stepfather and tell him to forget his car.' She paused and I could see the fine tremble all over her as she held on to her control, and I knew that she only needed a push from me — the mention of Ansermoz's name or a reference to a white poodle and her leaving in the morning, laughing and happy — to go right over the edge. With a lot of people I would have happily given the push. But I couldn't with her. Julia apart, there was some barrier in me that wouldn't let me do it. Whatever I wanted from her I would have to get some other way. This job made you think of and see people as jigsaw puzzles; you had to piece the parts together and not mind what sort of dirty or unholy picture came out. But I couldn't rush it with her. She was big and dark and as solid as an iceberg but she'd come too far south in the warm currents and was ready to topple. I didn't have to be the one to give her the final push. But now I was determined to find Ansermoz. Oh yes, I wanted to meet him. I moved to the door.