I sat down in a chair and stared at that last line. So they would be coming here to question me! First the landslide, and now this! I dropped my head into my hands. It was too much. Everything seemed to have gone wrong. And then I was staring at that news story again, suddenly conscious of the significance of that word fate. They wish to question him about the fate of this second man. I wondered how they knew for certain that there had been two men on the boat. But it didn’t matter. The point was that they knew. I licked my lips, which had suddenly gone dry. The police had leapt to the same conclusion that I had.
I grabbed the paper again and ran up the stairs. It was inevitable. What else could they think? The man they thought was Wade had disappeared and his companion on the boat had never arrived. On the face of it, it could only add up to murder and now they’d go searching and questioning until they found him. I ran quickly from bedroom to bedroom. But they were all empty. Jan wasn’t there. I went back down the stairs and shouted for Madame. The kitchen door opened. ‘Dinner is almost ready,’ she said.
‘Where’s Dr Kavan?’ I asked her breathlessly.
‘He has gone out.’
‘Where? Did he say where?’ I got a grip on myself and added more calmly, ‘When did he leave?’
‘About half an hour ago.’ She paused and I was conscious of her beady eyes watching me curiously. ‘He has gone to see Monsieur Frehel.’
‘Frehel?’ Had the police traced Jan already? Had they guessed at the truth? Oh God! What a mess! And then I pulled myself together and asked Madame to bring me a fine a I’eau. They’d discover that he was the man who’d come ashore from the wreck. I crossed the room and sat down at the table that had been laid for us. They’d think he’d taken Wade’s identity for fear of being accused of killing the man. What else could they think? I rubbed my hand across my eyes. Poor devil! And there was his wife, waiting in Tangier. She would be brought into it, too. I tried desperately to think of a way out for him, but it was no good. The only hope was to tell them the truth. It would involve Vareau, but that couldn’t be helped. They would have to be told the truth.
Madame brought me my drink and settled herself in her chair, holding the cat in her lap, stroking it gently and watching me with a gossip-greedy look in her small eyes. ‘Alors, monsieur — about this affair in Tangier. I see your name is mentioned in the paper.’
But I was saved her cross-examination by the arrival of a car. It was a Frenchman wanting a room for the night. He was a man of medium height and he wore a grey felt hat and a raincoat over a light suit. I didn’t really take much notice of him then. He was one of those men who fit quietly into their surroundings. He might have been a commercial traveller. Madame took him up to show him his room and I sat staring down at the paper, not reading it, just wishing I was done with the whole business.
And then Jan came in. ‘I had to go down and see the Civil Controller,’ he said.
‘What happened?’ I asked quickly. ‘What did he want? Does he know who you are?’
‘Of course. I showed him my papers and we talked — ‘
‘I don’t mean that. Does he know you’re the man who posed as Wade in Tangier?’
‘No. Why should he?’ He seemed surprised.
‘Why? Because the police…’ But of course, they couldn’t know all that yet. ‘Have you seen this?’ I thrust the paper across to him.
He picked it up and I heard the quick intake of his breath, saw the knuckles of his hand whiten as his grip tightened on the pages. He dropped into the chair beside me. ‘How do they know I was on the boat? They can’t know. It was dark when I joined Gay Juliet and we sailed in the early hours of the morning, before it was light. I’m certain I wasn’t followed.’ He didn’t say anything more for a moment as he read the whole story through. Then he put the paper down and looked at me. ‘This is how it started before,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of publicity about my being taken off secret work, that was how they knew I was worth bringing back to Czechoslovakia. Once the International Police reveal my name to the newspapers …” He gave a little sigh and shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. ‘They’ll be coming here to question you, I suppose.’
I nodded.
‘What are you going to do? Frehel wants to see you in the morning. At ten o’clock. He asked me to let you know.’ He stared at me. ‘What are you going to tell him?’
‘The truth,’ I said.
‘No. You can’t do that. Not yet.’ His voice was urgent, his grip on my arm like a vice. ‘I need time.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘The truth is your only help.’
‘How do you mean?’ He had completely failed to understand the implication of the story.
But when he asked me to put my thoughts into words, I couldn’t do it. He didn’t see it the way I did — the way the police must see it. Perhaps it was better if he didn’t. That way his denial would be more convincing. And then he said something that put the thing out of my mind for the moment. He said, ‘Philip. I want you to do something for me. I want you to confirm what I have just told Frehel — what you arranged back there in Tangier. I want you to tell the police when they come that I flew out from England direct to Casablanca.’
‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘They’ve only to check at Paris or London.’
‘I know. But I still want you to do it. All I need is four days. In four days I can get down to Foum-Skhira.’
‘Foum-Skhira?’ I stared at him.
‘I have to see Caid Hassan d’Es-Skhira. It’s about Kasbah Foum.’
‘What’s Kasbah Foum got to do with you?’ I demanded. And then I was suddenly angry. All the bitterness of the last few hours was concentrated on this one thing. ‘You never intended to work at the Mission, did you?’ I accused him. ‘It was just an excuse. You used my need of a doctor — ‘ But I stopped there. How could he have known then about Wade and Kasbah Foum? I was tired and my mind was confused.
He leaned forward, his hand on my arm again. ‘Please, Philip. Listen. I have a proposition — ‘ He stopped abruptly as footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him.
It was the Frenchman. He stood at the foot of the stairs for an instant, staring at us. Then he went over to the table in the far corner.
Jan picked up the paper again. I saw him glance several times at the newcomer. Then he leaned towards me. ‘We’ve got to talk this over. There’s something I haven’t told you.’
But Madame came in then and I motioned him to be silent. She went through into the kitchen and for a while the only sound was the ticking of an alarm clock somewhere behind the bar. The darkness and the dreariness of the room, combined with Jan’s tenseness, began to get on my nerves. The room had an unreal quality. It looked like a stage set, with its bar and its white-tiled stove and the faded posters on the flimsy wooden walls.
The soup arrived, and then Madame waddled in, carrying a special bottle of wine carefully in her two fat hands. She took it across to the Frenchman. Monsieur Bilvidic she called him, and her throaty voice smarmed over the hard syllables of his name as she bent obsequiously over his table. Evidently he wasn’t just an ordinary traveller. He was someone of importance — an official. His face was pale, almost sallow, and there were little pouches under his eyes, like half spectacles on either side of his thin, sharp nose.
Once our eyes met. It was a quick, appraising glance, and it left me with a faint feeling of hollowness in the pit of my stomach.