She had seen Guffy, but had not been able to get anything more out of him about anonymous letters concerning O'Dowda. He had said, however, that he wanted to get in touch with me and would she pass him any location or telephone number she had. I considered this, decided there could be no harm in it, and gave the Abbaye's number, Talloires 88.02. I then told her I had found the Mercedes and would be back very soon to face the bills which had no doubt accumulated.
She said, 'Are you all right, personally?'
'Intact,' I said, 'except for a three-inch scratch on my left arm which I've bandaged with a very dirty handkerchief. I was chased by Miss Panda Bubakar. She was wearing just a brassiere and pink tights. She's coloured, by the way.'
At the other end Wilkins cleared her throat but said nothing.
I said, 'Anything else to report?'
She said, 'A Miss Julia Yunge-Brown has telephoned three or four times wanting to know where you were. I decided it wouldn't be wise to say. Oh, yes, there is one other thing. There was an announcement in The Times yesterday of the forthcoming marriage of Cavan O'Dowda to a Mrs Mirabelle Heisenbacher.'
I said, 'Remind me to send flowers,' and then rang off.
After that I rang Durnford at the Château de la Forclaz. I gave him the location of the car to pass to O'Dowda when he got back. My job was now finished. I would be forwarding my bill in a few days.
He said, 'Did you go down to the car?'
I said, 'You any idea how cold those lake waters are, even in September?'
He said, 'If you did recover the package I'd like to talk to you about it, privately, and soon. After all, I did tell you where it was. And it could be, would be, to your advantage.'
I said, 'I'll think about it.'
He said, "Where are you?'
I said, 'I'll tell you if you promise not to hand it on to O'Dowda.' I knew I was dead safe on that one. 'I promise.'
I gave him the hotel address.
After that I had the hotel send up a bottle of whisky and a couple of bottles of Perrier water. I took the first drink into the bath with me and soaked for half an hour. Dressed, I fixed a second and undid the oiled-paper parcel. There was an inner wrapper of thick plastic sheeting, and inside this were two rolls of 16-mm film and a tape-recorder spool.
I took one of the films to the window and stripped off a couple of feet, holding the negatives up to the light. I wasn't really surprised. In this business you get to have a sixth sense, an instinct for anticipation that can sometimes take a great deal of pleasure out of life. The short strip of film I held up featured Panda Bubakar prominently, grinning all over her fun-loving face and stripped for action. The man in the background, a coloured gentleman, looked broad-shouldered enough to take the brunt of anything but, even so, there seemed to be a slight nervousness about his attitude which I could well understand. I didn't unroll any more film. Personally I've found that if you must have pornography — and a little occasionally never did any harm except to make life a shade greyer than it need be — then it was better after dinner with a couple of brandies. I had promised myself that I would eat at the Auberge du Pere Bise along the quay and I didn't want to spoil my gratin de queues d'ecrevisses.
I wrapped the whole lot up, and wondered what I would do about security arrangements. The next day I meant to hire a projector and run the film and also a tape recorder to play off the tape. But that was the next day. It would come all right. But I didn't want it to come without my being able to take a dispassionate eye-view of Panda and her friends and also to hear the tape which, I had a feeling, would be more interesting because it would leave a great deal more to the imagination than the film would. So I took the whole lot, including my dollars in a separate packet, to the Auberge du Pere Bise with me and asked if they would keep them in their safe for me overnight, which they said they would, without any demur, which is always the sign of a first-class, well-run establishment. My hotel would have done the same but I knew that that was one of the obvious first checks that any official busybody would make since I was staying there. The écrevisses were delicious. So was the omble chevalier poche beurre blanc which followed them — and although ombles are part of the great Salmonidae family, I didn't think of O'Dowda once.
The next morning I was glad that I had taken my simple security precautions. Around eight o'clock there was a knock on the door and the chambermaid came in with my breakfast coffee, hot rolls and croissants and two of those small pots of conserve, one apricot, the other raspberry, and a big dish of butter curls. Behind her came Aristide Marchissy la Dole. He looked as though he had gone without sleep for a week and hadn't had his brown suit pressed for a month. He had a little blue cornflower in his buttonhole and a shaving nick on his chin with a little fuzz of cotton wool stuck to it like penicillin mould. He gave me a slow, dubious smile and lit a cigarette while he waited for the maid to go out.
I sat up in bed and said, 'There's one important thing I want to make clear. I'm hungry. So lay off my croissants.'
The door closed on the maid. Aristide came over, took a hot roll and buttered it, flicked the silver foil off the raspberry conserve, put a spoonful inside the roll, removed the cigarette from his mouth and wolfed the lot.
'I said lay off.'
He said, 'You specified croissants, which by the way, were first made in Budapest in 1686. That was the year the Turks besieged the city. They dug underground passages under the walls at night, but the bakers — naturally working at that hour — heard them, gave the alarm and Johnny Turk was thrown out. In return the bakers were given the privilege of making a special pastry in the form of the crescent moon which, I believe, still decorates the Ottoman flag. Fascinating, no?'
'Someday,' I said, 'I must buy myself a copy of Larousse Gastronomique.'
But I was fascinated. Not by what he had said, but by what he was doing as he spoke. I've turned plenty of rooms over in my time, and seen experts turn rooms over, but I'd never seen an expert like Aristide turn a room over. He did it without any fuss, restricting himself to the probable size of the article he was looking for. He was neat and he was fast and afterwards there wasn't going to be a sign that anything had been disturbed. He found the gun I had taken from O'Dowda and pocketed it without comment.
He disappeared into the bathroom and then came back and said, 'All right. Now the bed.'
Reluctantly, I got out. He searched pillows, sheets, mattresses and the frame then replaced the stuff tidily and waved me to take up residence again, which I did. He buttered and jammed himself another roll.
I said, 'Of course, you've checked the hotel safe and my car?'
'Naturally. And of course, I know you've got it — somewhere. Let us just regard you for now as the custodian. If you lose it, of course, you could be in trouble.'
The roll finished, he came back to the tray, tipped the wrapped sugar lumps from the bowl, and said, 'Do you mind if I share your coffee? I've been driving since four o'clock this morning.'