The Melting Man rc-4 Page 7

'This is not for me to know. We keep our departments very separate except in peripatetic cases like yours, Mr Carver, where the subject is long-ranging. May I say already I have a great admiration for you. Man, you're a damned fast worker.'

  I sat down, suddenly feeling very tired. Jimbo and Najib might look and act like a couple of clowns, but there had to be more to them than that. They had to be good for far more than a laugh. To prove it, Najib put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a gun.

  I said, 'Is that really necessary?'

  He said, 'Man, I hope not, because I am very bad at aiming.' He half turned and called over his shoulder, 'Panda!'

  From the little hallway outside the bedroom door, where she had been waiting, a young woman came into the room. Not that 'came' was the word. She breezed in like a whirlwind, smacked Najib on the back and waltzed up to me in a cloud of some very strong scent, ran her fingers through my hair, tugged the lobe of my right ear and said, 'Whoof! Whoof! Happy to know you, Rexy boy.'

  Wearily, I said to Najib, 'She's not real, is she?'

  Panda gave me a big grin, 'You betcha, daddy-ho. Every curve, every muscle, genuine human and jumping with life.'

  She was over six feet tall, wearing a very short skirt and a gold lame blouse. She was good-looking, with big, moist brown eyes and a laughing mouth full of the most splendid teeth I had ever seen, though I felt that there were too many of them. In fact there was too much of her altogether. Her legs were too long and her arms were too long, and as she pirouetted in front of me she gave off a hum as though she were driven by some high-powered dynamo. Her skin was a pleasant milky-coffee colour, and her hair was a mass of tight black curls. From her ears dangled gold earrings, each shaped to represent a man hanging from a gallows.

  Najib said, 'My assistant, Miss Panda Bubakar. Pay no attention to her. Tonight she is full of beans.'

  'Panda hungry. Panda want man,' said Panda.

  'Panda search room,' said Najib, smacking her on the bottom. Standing, he could just reach it.

  'Panda can search room,' I said, 'but what the hell is she looking for — apart from a man?'

  'In England,' said Najib, holding the gun on me, 'you were given damned honourable offer of cash for non-cooperation with O'Dowda. Now, cash offer withdrawn. We just take the goods.'

  From behind me, where Panda was turning over my bed, she said, 'Ra-ra! Ritzy pyjamas. Any time you want those pressed, Rexy, just call for me.'

  Something bit me gently on the back of the neck and I jumped.

  'Leave Mr Carver alone and get on with job,' said Najib.

  I slewed round, rubbing my neck and watched her. Winking at me, she started to go through the room. She did it well — not as well as some people I'd seen, but good enough to prove she was no amateur.

  Some of her remarks as she went through my case and the bathroom wouldn't have gone down well at a vicarage garden party, but there was no denying her high spirits and exuberant bonhomie. At a distance she was — once you got used to the length of her — quite good to look at, but I didn't trust the hungry man-glint in her eyes. After mating, she was the kind that topped it off by making a meal of her consort.

  She came back from the bathroom and said, 'Nothing, Najib — except he wants a new toothbrush and he's almost out of sleeping pills. You sleep bad, honey?' She kicked out a long leg. 'Whoof! Whoof! Mamma has something for that, too.'

  'Give me your number,' I said. 'The next time I have insomnia I'll ring. Now will the two of you get to hell out of here?'

  'If it is not here, then it must be in the car still. The key, please?' Najib held out his hand.

  Panda sat on the bed behind me and wrapped her arms around my neck. 'Give the man the key, honey.'

  I said, half choked, 'What's all this about a car?'

  Najib said, 'The car you find. I wait here all this evening and see you arrive, but I am not quick enough to see which garage you took it to.'

  One of Panda's hands had snaked down inside my jacket and now came out. holding my car key. She slid around me and handed it to Najib.

  'Okay,' I said, 'it's in the Renault Garage just up the avenue and behind the Rue d'Antibes. Just leave the key with the hall porter when you've finished. I'm going to bed.'

  It was a stupid thing to say.

  Panda gave a couple of barks and high kicks and said, 'Mamma stay and tuck Rexy up.'

  I said, 'Take this praying mantis with you, too.'

  Najib looked at the key which lay like a fat tear-drop in the palm of bis black hand, and then raised a pair of puzzled eyes to me.

  I went on, 'It's not the car you want, but one I hired in Geneva to drive down here. Why didn't you check the registration number when I arrived?'

  'Numbers can be changed, honey,' said Panda. 'You go check, Najib.'

  'You both go,' I said. 'Check the car. There's one thing will tell you whether it's the right one. The secret compartment. You know where it is supposed to be?'

  Najib grinned suddenly. 'I know where it is, Mr Carver, sir. But I don't think you do. O'Dowda would never have told you. Damn right, yes?'

  'Course he doesn't know,' said Panda. 'Mamma can tell from his eyes.' She made for the bathroom.

  'That's not the way out,' I said.

  'Man, I know that. I'm going to fix your bath and rub you down after.' She opened her mouth and snapped her fine teeth at me, her eyes rolling.

  'You come with me, Panda,' said Najib. Then to me, he went on, 'I make the check and return the key. Some time, also Mr Carver, after you have seen Miss Zelia, we must have a man-to-man talk because it could be to your profit.' He got hold of Panda's arm and began to tug her towards the door.

  'Mamma stay,' she cried.

  'Mamma go,' I said. There was a moment's temptation, but I put it firmly aside. I just wasn't in her league.

  From the door Najib said, 'While you are in this town, if there's anything you need, just let me know.'

  'Double it for me,' said Panda.

  'After all' — Najib ignored her — 'we are in the same line of business, so no need not to be friends unless it becomes absolutely damned necessary otherwise.'

  'Nicely put,' I said.

  'Sleep well, Mr Carver.'

  'I don't like to think of you all lonely in this room, lover-boy,' said Panda. 'I'll survive.'

  'Say, Rexy' — her eyes open wide with a thought — 'you ain't discriminating about colour are you?'

  I shook my head. 'I like your colour. But I need a lot of building up to deal with the size it comes in. Goodnight.'

  They went. And I went to bed. Both of them were putting on a big fooling act. But neither of them were fools. And how the hell had they known that I was coming to the Majestic? Nobody had known until I told Wilkins, and she had phoned the O'Dowda place in Sussex. Within three or four hours of that time Najib had been on my trail. Somewhere in the O'Dowda menage there was somebody who was tipping off the other side. Somebody in the household didn't want O'Dowda to have his Mercedes back, and they weren't being very subtle about it. My' guess was that it was Durnford. Working for O'Dowda, he could be expected to have a healthy dislike for him, but this went farther, this was a horse called Revenge out of Dislike by Disloyalty. Good lines but obvious breeding. As far as O'Dowda was concerned something was really burning up Durnford, and quite clearly he wasn't overworried about what the man said, that you can hide the fire, but what do you do about the smoke? When O'Dowda saw that smoke Durnford was due for trouble.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  'Fate cropped him short — for be it understood

  He would have lived much longer, if he could!'

  (William Barnes Rhodes)

  It was a warm, gentle, late September morning, full of soft yellow light bouncing off the sea from a golden mesh of ripples.

  The Ferox was anchored just outside the port, floating like a fluffy white meringue, the final threat of confection piped out to a narrow prow. For ten francs, a gross overcharge, a boy of about fifteen rowed me out
in a pram dinghy. He was bare to the waist and the sight of his brown, muscular torso, not a spare ounce of fat on it anywhere, made me consider the possibility of starting my early morning exercises again.

  I went up the gangway to the deck and blinked my eyes at the white and gold paint, the polished brass and chromium, did a quick sum in my head of what this outfit probably cost O'Dowda a year, shuddered, and became aware of a woman sitting in a deckchair reading a copy of Vogue. She had silvery hair, touched with a purple rinse, and was wearing red shorts and a red blouse. She was somewhere around thirty, had a baby face, a tiny pout to her full lips, and was smoking a long thin cigar.

  I said, 'I have a kind of appointment with Miss Zelia Yunge-Brown. Carver is the name.'

  She dropped the Vogue lazily on to the deck, studied me, and in an American accent said, 'What kind of appointment? Personal, medical, social or just hopeful?'

  '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.

  'All right. Just forget I ever came.' I gave her a brotherly grin. 'But if ever you want a shoulder to cry on, somebody to talk to — just get in touch.'

  She dropped a hand and touched one of the loose pieces of the puzzle and, without looking at me, said, 'Thank you, Mr Carver.'