Authors: Helen Nielsen
“Sugar and cream on the buffet,” she said.
“Nothing, thank you,” he said.
“Toast and muffins in the warming dish,” she added. “Sorry, but I ate all the scrambled eggs. I can have the cook make something if you’re hungry.”
“I had breakfast at the hotel,” Lange said.
“I thought you would. The sea air makes me famished.” She removed the top from the warmer and took out a narrow piece of toast. Nibbling it, she sat down on a deep-cushioned divan. “Please sit down, Mr. Lange,” she said. “You’re so very tall and I like to look at people when I talk to them. Now, what is this news you have of Harry?”
“He’s missing,” Lange said simply.
“But I know that—” She stopped abruptly. “You mean something else,” she said.
“Yes, I do. What I mean is that the wreckage of the plane has been reached. The pilot was inside—dead. Harry is missing.”
“He wasn’t in the plane?”
“Not when it was found. What I wonder—what I hoped you might be able to tell me—is whether or not he was in the plane at all.”
“But how could I tell you that?”
“It’s possible—since the plane was small and easy to land—that he might have had the pilot leave him somewhere.”
“But where? And why?”
“Where, I don’t know. Why? Well, there are possible reasons. He might have wanted to meet someone, without anybody knowing that a meeting was taking place.”
She dropped the toast into a convenient ash tray. “Meet me, do you mean? That’s ridiculous! If Harry wanted to meet me, he would come here to the yacht as he always does. We don’t play games.”
“No, I didn’t mean that he was meeting you. I know you don’t play games. That’s the problem. You’re always very open about your men, Miss Blair. I thought it possible that Harry might have been meeting your father.”
“Barney? Why would he do that? Why would he do that without telling me?”
“Perhaps he wouldn’t. But he wasn’t found in the plane and there’s no trace of him, in spite of a search by several interested parties. None of his equipment has been found. No cameras. No film.”
She was worried. The concern so evident in her eyes gave him an advantage, and it was rarely that anyone had an advantage over Pattison Blair.
“Why did you think Harry would meet my father secretly?” she demanded.
“Perhaps because your father asked him to do so.”
“But he didn’t!”
“Are you certain? Miss Blair, there’s no reason for evasion between us. I’m Harry Avery’s legal adviser and I know all of his plans that concern legal actions. I know that he’s planning to divorce his wife and marry you in the very near future.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, from my point of view. There was some problem with Mrs. Avery, but that’s been taken care of in a rather complete manner. The only obstacle remaining is Bernard Blair. It’s rumoured that he’s vowed Harry Avery will never become his son-in-law.”
“Rubbish! Barney always objects to my husband and I’ve had three.”
“But you haven’t had five, have you? Three years ago there was an obscure but ambitious young French actor to whom you announced your engagement. He had an unfortunate skiing accident in the Alps that resulted in his death. Last year you were rumoured about to marry a highly successful Spanish racing driver who didn’t survive the Grand Prix—”
“Manuel’s death
was
an accident. Thousands of people saw the crash!”
“But thousands of people don’t know that his car was tampered with before the race—as I do—and, I think, as you do.”
Lange’s advantage was growing. She found a cigarette box and lit a cigarette. She took just one puff and forgot about it again. “If it was tampered with,” she conceded, “it was done by one of the other drivers—or by a gambling syndicate.”
“Is that what your father told you?”
“Damn you, no! What are you trying to say, Mr. Lange? Are you suggesting that my father has done something with or to Harry?”
“Where is your father?”
“In Budapest.”
“Has he called you?”
“Yes—several times. He knew I was worried about the missing plane.”
“Then my suspicions may be unfounded. You must be generous, Miss Blair. Harry Avery’s interests are my interests and it’s a well known fact that Bernard Blair has professed open contempt for, what he calls, fortune-hunting males.”
“You mis-quote my father,” she said. “His exact words were ‘fortune-hunting studs’. Barney speaks basic Anglo-Saxonese.”
“Do you think Harry is a fortune-hunting stud, Miss Blair?”
“I think he’s fun—vertically and horizontally. Besides, he has his own fortune.”
“Which he gambles continuously.”
“Of course. That’s the name of the game, isn’t it? Do you think I ball around with timid conservatives, Mr. Lange?”
The words had a cutting edge. The advantage had changed hands. Lange finished his coffee and returned the cup to the buffet. He remained standing—deliberately.
“I think,” he said coldly, “that you like to hurt your father.”
“No analysis, please!”
“No analysis intended. But if you should hear from Harry, I hope you’ll be wise enough to get in touch with me immediately. It could be a matter of life and death—Harry’s, I mean. He’s a strange man. Just when I think I know all there is to know about him, he shows another face. Did he tell you anything about the purpose of this latest flight.”
“He was looking for a locale.”
“He has others in the organization who can do that sort of thing for him.”
“But that’s Harry’s secret—his signature. He likes to do things himself. Besides, outside of this ridiculous suggestion that he had a rendezvous with Barney, what other purpose could the flight have?”
Lange remained silent. He was confused and his orderly mind was outraged by confusion. There were too many people looking for Harry. Just too many people.
“No answer?” she asked.
“No answer—yet,” he said.
She dropped her cigarette into the ashtray, in a gesture of dismissal. “Then I have a question to ask of you, Mr. Lange. Are you one of them, too?”
“One what?”
She smiled. “Are you a fortune-hunting stud?”
When the boy, who had driven Brad to meet Stephanos, arrived back in the city, his bus let him out at a corner, within sight of the building that had been bombed the previous night. The police were still guarding the premises and he walked hurriedly, eyes averted, because he had heard some things about this bombing that it was safer not to know. He wasn’t involved in any of the resistance movements and didn’t want to become involved. He was too young for politics and too poor. He was also afraid. One heard rumours of terrible things. One preferred not to think about them. He had a job at the garage and his ambition was reasonable. One worked; one lived and let live. Quickening his pace, he crossed the street and collided, briefly, with a middle-aged businessman, carrying a black briefcase, who was crossing in the opposite direction. Muttering a quick apology, he sprinted the rest of the way back to the garage. The businessman barely noticed the boy; his attention was on the wrecked building. Shuddering inwardly, he realized that he might have been caught in the explosion, if the buyer from Cairo hadn’t telephoned when he did, to cancel their after-hours appointment in his office adjoining the bombed construction site. Senseless destruction enraged him. Fortunately, the city had a good police force that could handle such an outrage. His own building was untouched. He entered the structure and took the elevator up to his offices.
The secretary was at his desk. Smiling, he rose to greet the businessman. “Mr. Kolinos,” he said, “the client you were expecting last night has arrived. He’s in your private waiting room. Shall I send him in to see you now?”
“Give me five minutes,” Kolinos said. “Did he bring the invoices?”
“I have them here on my desk. Everything seems in order.”
“Good. I’ll take them with me.”
The businessman picked up a sheaf of papers and walked into his private office, a small but elegantly appointed oasis in a busy commercial building. From the window behind his desk he could look out on the night’s destruction and appreciate even more his timely escape from violence. He breathed a small prayer of thanksgiving, scanned the invoices and then went to the wall safe that was concealed behind a heavy hand-carved screen. Ordinarily, he never kept large amounts of cash in the office, but the broker from Cairo had insisted on a cash transaction and the original appointment was for after banking hours. The safe opened as he completed the combination. He reached inside and withdrew a metal cash box that somehow felt lighter to his touch. He turned it over and saw that the lock was sprung. His hand trembled as he tore open the lid and picked up a bound sheaf of newsprint that had been carefully cut to the size of Deutschmarks.
“ONE MILLION DEUTSCHMARKS! What idiot would keep such a sum in an office safe? We have banks in Athens!”
Konstantin Koumaris had been interrupted at his morning coffee and this infuriated him. To think, to reason clearly, a man needed a period of relaxation at the start of the day. A priest begins his day with prayer and meditation. The captain, to whom the performance of duty was akin to priesthood, began each day at his office with a pot of strong coffee and three, exactly three, cigarettes. The ugly business of the explosion on the night before, disturbed him more than he cared for his staff to know. An isolated incident was a small matter. There would be no great loss. American owned, the structure was well insured. But violence breeds violence, and anarchy was in the air. To such a threat the captain knew only one remedy: a strong hand. Rebellion must be put down quickly and ruthlessly. Wasn’t democracy ruthless? It had destroyed the order that preceded it by the most undemocratic means. It would survive, in whatever modified form it could survive, by equally ruthless means. One could not be effete in a world convulsed with revolution.
In addition to the preservation of law and order, the captain had much to protect. A man of means, he owned a small estate in the suburbs, where his wife of twenty-one years (the captain had married young) maintained a home for their children: two lovely daughters and one son. The older girl was already safely engaged to the son of a prominent merchant: the younger was still in school. The boy, his youngest child, was only fifteen and entered in a military academy, which seemed insurance enough against any undue youthful rebellion. Uneducated though he was, Koumaris was observant. The military was still the best way of life for one not born to wealth, and he wanted a good life for his son. With adequate education and good contacts, young Konstantin might rise to a position of power in the new Greece. This was the private dream of Captain Koumaris, and one doesn’t coddle revolutionaries in the face of such a dream. He hated the anarchists. It was unthinkable that last night’s outrage would go unpunished.
And so, after seeing the girl Katerina, whose brother was known to be a radical activist, at the restaurant with an American of dubious status, he had gone to her apartment and planted a seed of fear. His reputation for brutality flattered him. Let the rumour flourish. A fearful image made his work easier. And conceding brilliance to an adversary was no sacrifice of position. A wise man never belittled an antagonist except at his own peril. That was the weakness of the Americans who expected to win a war and maintain an empire, with no loss of life or revenue. They would have hard lessons to learn.
But Katerina was loyal, and, perhaps, genuinely unaware of her brother’s activities and there was still no evidence to warrant an arrest. And the unimportant evidence was not necessary. It was almost two months since a lieutenant, in the captain’s absence from Athens, had questioned the girl, Anna, who was known to be Stephanos’ fiancée. They had gone too far with the humiliation—one never knew how a woman would react. After her release Anna had gone home and committed suicide, and word spread through the underground that Stephanos vowed revenge.
Frustrated and troubled, the captain left Katerina’s apartment and went to the apartment of his mistress, a charming lady, five years his senior. Old men, he reasoned, needed very young women and girls to maintain the illusion of never waning virility; but the captain was only thirty-eight and found older women more attractive to the eye and more sensuously compassionate. And so, refreshed and reassured, he came to his office in the morning prepared to launch a full investigation of the senseless explosion. Now, five minutes after the retreat into solitude, Lieutenant Zervios had burst in with a report of the theft of one million Deutschmarks, taken from the office safe of a local cotton broker.
“In any event,” he added soberly, “what has this matter to do with me? It isn’t political.”
“Deutschmarks,” the lieutenant repeated. “Not drachmae.”
“So? It’s a sound currency. Many businessmen prefer making deals in Deutschmarks. All right, since you have already ruined my coffee, you may as well tell me the rest. What are the details?”
The lieutenant quickly related the story of his visit to the offices of Kolinos and Company, a merchandise brokerage firm, where he had found Mr. Kolinos almost hysterical and barely coherent.
“Last night this man Kolinos had an appointment with an Egyptian cotton broker, a Mr. Hussad, for the purpose of completing the purchase of a cotton shipment. Kolinos deals in big orders supplying many mills. This order was for cash only—in Deutschmarks. The money market being what it is—”
“I know what the money market is,” Captain Koumaris said impatiently. “Continue.”
“Due to the Egyptian’s busy schedule, the meeting was set for eight-thirty—after banking hours.”
The captain brushed his moustache with one hand. “Convenient,” he mused. “The appointment, of course, was cancelled.”
“How did you know?”
“Because an excuse was needed to have so large a sum of money in the office safe overnight. Where is this Hussad now?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t
know
! You come to me with this story and you haven’t even checked on the whereabouts of this alleged cotton merchant? Was he on the premises when you examined the safe?”
“I didn’t see him. And the safe wasn’t empty. The envelope that once contained the money was in place. It had been stuffed with paper.”
“Never mind that! Find Hussad—if he exists. I would also suggest that the company examine the books. In cases of this sort it’s nearly always an inside job—embezzlement. Kolinos himself, very likely. I suppose you do know where to locate him.”
“Oh, yes, sir. He’s in the outer office.”
The captain lost his bluster. He seemed puzzled. “He came here with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why are you wasting my time, in telling me at second hand what I could learn from Kolinos first hand? Show him in.”
The lieutenant went to the door and called for Mr. Kolinos. He entered quickly, his somewhat puffy face reddened with excitement, his eyes large and troubled behind magnified lenses. He was not a disciplined man, the captain noted in one disdainful glance. Too much stomach. Too much flab. And now, hat in hand, too much humility. As briefly as possible, in the face of pending apoplexy, the broker repeated the lieutenant’s story. On the previous evening, he related, he had gone out for an early supper and returned to his office to wait for Hussad alone.
“You were alone in the office all evening?” Koumaris asked.
“I was quite safe. We have a security officer.”
“Still, with so much money on the premises I think you might have wanted someone with you.”
Kolinos smiled nervously. “On the contrary, captain. With so much money, safety lies in secrecy.”
“Then no one in your office knew that you were meeting the Egyptian?”
“I didn’t say that. My secretary knew, of course. It was he who arranged the appointment. What he didn’t know was that the transaction involved exchanging cash. I placed the money in the safe myself, and I am the only one in the organization who has the combination.”
“To your knowledge.”
Kolinos seemed to pale. “To my knowledge,” he repeated.
“Very well. Continue.”
“I returned to the office alone,” Kolinos repeated, “and remained there until eight-fifteen. That was when the Egyptian called and changed the appointment to nine o’clock this morning. He said this was because he had been detained at another business conference.”
“Did he keep this morning’s appointment?”
“He was waiting in the adjoining office when I arrived.”
“Did you actually see him?”
“Not until after I discovered the theft.”
“Where is he now?”
“He returned to his hotel—the Grand Bretagne.”
Koumaris nodded to the lieutenant. It was a signal to try to reach Hussad at the hotel. Zervios left the room.
“Mr. Kolinos,” the captain said when they were alone, “had you met this man prior to this morning?”
Kolinos nodded vigorously. “Indeed, yes, captain. We lunched together yesterday and then went together to the docks to inspect the cotton shipment. It was a very fine quality and the price was so good I would have bought it on the spot but for Hussad’s insistence on a cash payment in West German currency. As I have said, the price was so good that I was happy to meet the demand. It’s not as unusual as you might think.”
“And you knew the man to be a reliable broker?”
“Oh, yes. I have corresponded with Mr. Hussad for many years. A most reliable firm.”
Corresponded. Captain Koumaris’s alert mind caught the word and played it over in his mind. To Kolinos he said: “And so, after receiving a telephone message from Hussad at eight-fifteen last night, I suppose you went home, leaving the money in the office safe?”
“What else could I do? Besides, the security guard was on duty.”
“He saw no one, I presume. They never do.”
“That’s right. He saw no one. Under the circumstances, no one can blame him for that.”
“What circumstances?”
“The explosion, captain. That horrible explosion that almost destroyed the building site next door. Do you know who was responsible? People are saying it was revolutionaries.”
“People talk too much!” Koumaris retorted. “But let me understand you—” He leaned forward and fixed the broker with a menacing stare, usually reserved for the purpose of cowing suspects. “Are you telling me now, that this explosion took place next door to your office building?”
“I can see the debris from my windows,” Kolinos declared. “I was lucky not to have been walking past the site when the disaster occurred. The newspapers say it was just before nine o’clock. The security guard, naturally, rushed outside to see what had happened. It was, I suppose, a compulsive act.”
“Compulsive,” the captain agreed. He came suddenly to his feet. “Zervios!” he shouted, “have you completed that call?”
The lieutenant came to the doorway.
“A Mr. Hussad of Cairo was registered at the Grande Bretagne until eight-forty this morning,” he said. “At that time he had his luggage sent to the airport on the hotel bus and took a taxi to a business appointment.”
“And never returned,” Koumaris concluded.
“That’s right.”
“So, why are you standing there in the doorway? Call the airport. See if he has departed for anywhere.”
A devastated Mr. Kolinos stood before the captain’s desk, his face and balding pate dripping perspiration. He took a large white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the top of his head, as carefully as if he were drying a porcelain dish, and then patted the cloth against his forehead and sagging jowls. Koumaris watched this picture of desolation and began to revise his initial deduction. Unaware that he was being studied, the man betrayed no signs of a wily embezzler. He looked exactly what he claimed to be: a man who had been robbed of a quarter of a million dollars. It was beginning to look like an arrangement between the quickly departed Mr. Hussad and one of the staff—or even the security guard until he mentioned the explosion. Now there were more sinister possibilities—but no need to inform Kolinos of that.
“Let me get everything straight now,” the captain said. “You say that you have dealt with this broker previously, but only by mail.”
“Mail and telephone,” Kolinos said. “But he had full credentials—”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Do you think they were forged?”
“We shall find out, if he’s still in Athens. Zervios—” The lieutenant had returned to the doorway. “—what is it?”
“We are too late,” Zervios said. “Our man departed for Cairo twenty minutes ago.”
“He was frightened by the robbery!” Kolinos shouted.
It was possible. It was also natural for a man, who had been fooled, to refuse to acknowledge his lack of perception, whether it be a financial loss or the infidelity of a wife.
“Time will tell,” Koumaris mused.
“Captain,” Zervios added briskly, “there is a man here who says it is most important that he see you immediately. He sent in his card.” The lieutenant advanced into the room and placed the card in the captain’s hand. Koumaris read it quickly and threw it down on the desk.
“Mikos Pallas! That pimp! What is he doing here in Athens? I thought he was deported years ago.”
“That may be, but he’s no longer a Greek citizen—if he ever was. He carries a South African passport and seems prosperous. He claims to have information about the explosion last night.”
“Pallas?”
“He insists.”
“All right, I’ll see him. As for you, Mr. Kolinos, I advise you to go home and get some rest. You look ill. I also advise you to remain accessible to the police, so we can reach you at any time.”
“One million Deutschmarks!” Kolinos moaned.
“They are somewhere,” the captain said. “They didn’t disappear into thin air. Zervios, take Mr. Kolinos to his car and see that he has protection. And send in Mikos Pallas.”
Times changed. The man who entered the captain’s office, after the departure of the broker, was nothing like the procurer of prostitutes, forged passports and illegal drugs, who had faced the captain, under vastly different circumstances, in years past. True, he claimed to be a Greek, but one had only to look at him to see that he was part Turk, part Italian, part of whatever breed his unidentified parents had slept with in whatever hovel. He was a child of the street, and a child of the street learns fast or never sees manhood. And now this derelict returned, arrayed like a peacock and bouncing with energy. He marched into the captain’s office, like a conquering general come to claim his sword. He carried a small, but expensive, attaché case, which he unhesitatingly placed on the captain’s desk and opened without comment. From inside the case he withdrew a series of photographs.
“I have become a camera addict,” he announced briskly. “I have a very expensive selection but my favourite is an American made Polaroid, which enables me to finish the picture as soon as I have taken it. Yesterday morning, while on my after-breakfast stroll, I became fascinated by the activity at a construction site. I took some photos and this was fortunate, because today the site no longer looks the same. I thought these pictures quite interesting. Do you find them so, captain?”