Night Train to Memphis (36 page)

‘Maybe we’d better get out of here.’

‘No need for haste. They’ve already been.’

‘How . . .’ I stopped myself. He was dying to show off; his half-smile and cool stare invited me to make a babbling fool of myself so he could patiently explain things to me.
‘Where was the note?’ I asked.

John nodded graciously, like a teacher to a dull student who is finally getting the hang of it. ‘On the desk. Someone had smoothed it out.’

‘But Schmidt must have thrown it away. In the waste-basket or onto the floor, after he spilled food all over it . . .’

‘Deliberately spilled food all over it,’ John said encouragingly.

‘The implication being that he’d discarded the note because it was sticky and wet and illegible, and written another one.’ I began pacing the floor. ‘He expected
they’d locate him sooner or later. I’ve been gone . . .’ I looked at my watch. ‘Over five hours, and they had been looking for us since early afternoon. Time enough to
inquire at every hotel in Luxor. He registered under his own name . . .’

‘If he had the intelligence for which I am belatedly beginning to give him credit, he left this room shortly after you did,’ John said. ‘In disguise, if I know my Schmidt.
Let’s see. What would I do next? Stake myself out in the lobby. Hope you’d make it back before they located him. Be ready to move on in case they got here first. He’d already have
cashed his traveller’s checks and retrieved his passport.’

‘They did get here first.’

‘And found the discarded letter.’ John’s eyes were bright with amusement and, as he proceeded to make clear, admiration. ‘You see what the little elf’s done,
don’t you? This letter is not only a red herring, it is an attempt to protect you, in the event that you had been recaptured. If he’s got the evidence that can convict them
there’s no reason for them to harm you. In fact, there is every reason for them to keep you whole and healthy so they can try to strike a deal: silence, or at least delay, in exchange for
you.’ He paused, and then delivered the highest accolade in his repertoire. ‘I couldn’t have done better myself.’

‘So you don’t think he’s gone back to the house?’

‘Not our Schmidt. Whether you are a fugitive or a prisoner, he can serve you best by remaining free.’ John returned to his study of the note. ‘I can’t see anything else
here. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he had . . . Wait a Sec. What’s this?’

‘The sticky stuff must have spattered,’ I said, as he held up a blank page spotted with stains.

‘The spots make a suspiciously regular pattern,’ John muttered.

‘Try joining the dots,’ I suggested sarcastically.

John emitted a crow of triumph. ‘That’s it! Look here.’

Picking up a pen, he began to draw – not lines connecting the spots, but a series of parallel lines. Five parallel lines. They made the nature of those odd splotches plain. They were
musical notes.

‘No key signature,’ John muttered. ‘Let’s assume it’s the key of C and that there are no accidentals. Hard to indicate them, really . . .’ He began to
whistle. ‘Strike a chord?’

‘Try to avoid puns if possible,’ I said critically. ‘No, it isn’t familiar.’

‘How about this?’ There was a slight difference. I assumed he’d thrown in a few miscellaneous sharps and/or flats.

‘This is a waste of time,’ I grumbled. ‘Schmidt probably was trying to be cute, but if that’s one of his beloved country music tunes you’ll never figure out which
song because there are only three or four melodies in the whole damned repertoire.’

John dropped heavily into a chair. ‘My God. I should have known.’

‘What? What?’

He tried to give me the definitive version, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t keep his lips puckered. ‘If the Egyptians don’t strike a medal for him I’ll do it
myself. And kiss him on both cheeks. He’s taken the night train to Memphis.’

T
HE ROOM HAD
been stripped of all personal possessions, whether by Schmidt or by John’s hypothetical searchers I
could not determine. ‘They’ became less hypothetical as we continued our own search; they had made quite a neat job of it, but I doubted Schmidt would have removed the mattress from the
bed and then replaced it and the bedclothes. The searchers must have been men; they hadn’t bothered to tuck in the sheets.

‘Is there a night train to Memphis?’ I asked, investigating the drawers of the nightstand.

‘There’s one to Cairo. Close enough.’ John returned from the bathroom. ‘Nothing there. What about the chest of drawers?’

‘Only the souvenirs he bought today.’ The Nefertiti bag had been on top of the pile. I turned it upside down and shook it. ‘He’s even taken the few odds and ends I left
– cosmetics, sunglasses – ’

‘Chocolates, apples, and gingerbread?’

I didn’t want to be reminded of the night in the abandoned church when we had ‘dined’ on the odds and ends I carried in my backpack. Sooner or later I would have to deal with
those widening cracks in my defensive walls, but not now, not when we were still four hundred miles from safety and Schmidt was someplace or other doing God knows what, and Mary was looking forward
to renewing old acquaintances. I said shortly, ‘He might have left us some money.’

‘He wouldn’t leave anything of value. The point of the message was to suggest that neither of you intended to return to this room.’

‘Obviously,’ I said.

‘That’s it, then. There’s nothing else except a few travel brochures. I’ll go first. Take the next elevator. I’ll meet you at the car.’

But when I got out of the elevator he was standing nearby, glancing at his watch as if waiting for someone who was late for an appointment. A slight sideways movement of his head drew my
attention towards the registration desk.

I saw Foggington-Smythe first. He was bareheaded, and his face was set in a frown as he talked with the clerk. The clerk kept shaking his head. He was looking, not at Perry but at Perry’s
companion. From behind all I could see was white – fur coat, long evening frock, bleached hair.

I ducked behind a convenient pillar. John sauntered towards me and paused to light a cigarette. ‘Yours?’ he asked.

‘No. I don’t think so. Yours?’

‘At this point we must assume everyone who isn’t for us is against us. Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit.’

It was the only thing to do; I’d be even more conspicuous lurking in doubtful concealment. But I felt as if I were being followed across the lobby by a gigantic searchlight, and when
someone barred my path I almost jumped out of Feisal’s oversized sandals.

‘Excuse me, young fella.’

I looked wildly over my shoulder before I realized I was the young fella in question. The speaker was a grey-haired American wearing a bright red fez. He wanted to know where I had bought my
shirt. Innocent creature that I am, I didn’t realize that wasn’t all he wanted until he suggested that we have a drink while we talked it over.

I was about to tell him what he could do with his drink – and his fez – when John, passing on his way to the door, swung his briefcase and caught me a painful blow on the leg. It
was, as the poet says a salutary reminder. I growled wordlessly at my admirer and scuttled after John.

By the time I reached the car I was running, and so was the engine. John shoved me in.

‘You daft female,’ he said crossly. ‘What did you stop for? I think Foggington-Smythe may have spotted you.’

‘I can’t help it if I’m irresistible to men,’ I said, falling across his lap as Feisal made an abrupt and doubtless illegal U-turn.

John set me upright. ‘In your present costume I have no difficulty at all resisting you.’

‘Crushed again.’

‘I am beginning to understand why so many people are so annoyed with you two,’ said a voice from the front seat. ‘Where’s the Herr Direktor? Where are we going? What
– ’

‘One question at a time,’ said John. ‘First, I suggest you get off the corniche. Take back streets whenever possible – ’

‘We have to go past the railroad station first,’ I interrupted.

‘No, we don’t.’

‘Yes, we do. I want to make sure Schmidt – ’

‘No, we don’t.’

‘Stop it!’ Feisal shouted hysterically.

‘Right,’ said John. ‘Who’s in charge here, anyhow?’

‘I’m not winding my way through a maze of back streets, either,’ Feisal declared. ‘The sooner we get out of Luxor the happier I’ll be.’

John sighed. ‘That was certainly one of the most futile questions I have ever asked. Vicky, there’s no use looking for Schmidt at the station. I – er – I haven’t
been entirely candid with you.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘You, not entirely candid? I can’t believe it. What little teeny tiny unimportant detail did you omit? Don’t tell me, let me guess. There is no
night train to Memphis, right?’

‘There is no bloody train to Memphis, stop, end of sentence!’ He caught himself in mid-shout and in the silence that followed I could hear every shaken breath. ‘I told you
that,’ he went on, a few decibels lower. ‘What I neglected to mention, for a number of reasons, all excellent, is that there are several night trains to Cairo. Would you care to hear my
ideas as to which one Schmidt is most likely to have chosen, or would you rather continue this unproductive exchange of insults?’

‘I hate it when you talk like that,’ I muttered. ‘Go on.’

‘Egyptian trains,’ said John, in an even more maddening drawl, and with even more infuriating precision, ‘are of several types. Wagon Lits runs two overnight expresses, with
sleeping cars, between Luxor and Cairo. They start at Aswan, in fact, but that doesn’t concern us. One leaves Luxor at seven-thirty and the other at ten-thirty. Both times, I hardly need add,
are approximate.’

‘You hardly need. How do you know the times?’

‘I believe I mentioned earlier that strict attention to schedules is essential for one who wishes to succeed in my profession. That rule applies particularly to transportation.
Really,’ John mused, ‘one day I must write a little handbook. Rule number one: As soon as you arrive in a place, find out how to depart in a hurry.’

‘Don’t do that, John,’ I said very gently.

‘Then leave off distracting me. As I was saying: Most well-to-do tourists who travel by rail take those trains. And that, my dear, is a very good reason why Schmidt, if I read his
character aright, wouldn’t have taken either. They have a further disadvantage in that they do not stop between Luxor and Giza, just outside Cairo. Once you’re on that train you
can’t get off it for ten or eleven hours. If I were worried about possible pursuit, I’d prefer more flexibility.’

‘Makes sense,’ I admitted. ‘So what’s the alternative?’

‘I’m so glad you asked. The other night trains make several stops, but only one of them offers first-class travel. First class is fairly comfortable, even by your effete American
standards. Second and third class are not, and even if Schmidt were prepared to endure the crowding and the heat, he wouldn’t stand a chance of passing as a student or an Egyptian.’

‘So – ’

‘So, I think he intends to take the eleven p.m. train. It stops at Sohag, Asyut, and Minya. If he wants to confuse his trail he’ll buy a ticket through to Cairo and get off at one of
the above.’

‘Is that the last train?’

‘There are others, after midnight. We have to assume he meant not only “night,” but “tonight.” The note had today’s date.’

‘It’s clever, but awfully tenuous,’ I said.

We had left the city centre behind and the only light came from the headlights of approaching vehicles. John had withdrawn into the opposite corner. He didn’t respond to my comment, but I
could still hear him breathing and I didn’t like what I heard.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘Perfectly.’

‘Maybe you should take another of those – ’

‘I just did.’ He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘If I should happen to fall asleep, wake me before we reach Nag Hammadi. We may have to reconsider our strategy at that
point.’

‘What strategy?’ I demanded. ‘If you have some plan in mind I wish you’d let me in on it. Are we going to try to intercept Schmidt at one of the places you mentioned, or
do you intend to drive straight through to Cairo, assuming this decrepit hunk of metal can make it that far, or – ’

Feisal interrupted me with a vehement comment in Arabic.

‘What did you say?’ I leaned forward.

‘I’d rather not translate literally. There are corresponding proverbs in English, referring to domineering women.’

I heard a muffled laugh from John. ‘Now, kiddies, don’t be rude. The main north-south highway and the railroad tracks cross the river at Hammadi. If they are going to set up a
roadblock, that’s the obvious place. We’ll have to reconnoitre before we try the bridge. There’s nothing we can do about it until we get there, so stop quarrelling and let me get
some sleep.’

I couldn’t think of a response that wasn’t rude, childish, or irrelevant, so I didn’t say anything.

John was out before we’d gone another mile, so far under that he only muttered sleepily when I put my arms around his shoulders and drew him down so that he was lying across the seat with
his head on my lap. Feisal had his foot down as far as it would go. The car shook alarmingly but the engine was surprisingly quiet.