Over dinner Leila introduced him to the other conferees he hadn’t met — Jeanne Bisset from France, Dr. Tao Liang from the People’s Republic of China, and Ivan Rusanov from Russia. With Fanger and Northgate and Evans, whom he’d met previously, that made six attending the conference, not counting Leila herself.
“Dr. Tao should really be in the yellow suite,” Rand observed quietly to Leila. “He would be if Bollinger had any imagination.”
“And I suppose you’d have Rusanov in red?”
“Of course!”
“Well, he is, for your information. But Dr. Tao is green.”
“That must leave the Frenchwoman, Jeanne Bisset, in violet.”
“Wrong! She’s white. Bollinger left indigo and violet empty, though now you have indigo.”
“He implied that was the only suite empty. I wonder what’s going on in violet.”
“Nameless orgies, no doubt — with all you Englishmen on the premises.”
“I should resent that,” he said with a smile. She put him at ease, and he very much enjoyed her company.
After dinner the others split into various groups. Rand saw the Chinese and the Russian chatting, and the American, Harvey Northgate, walking off by himself. “With those other suites free, why do you think Bollinger insisted on giving the black one to the American?” Rand asked Leila as they strolled along the edge of the bay.
“Perhaps he’s anti-American, who knows?”
“You don’t take the whole thing very seriously.”
“Should I, Mr. Rand?”
“Can’t you find something else to call me?”
“I never knew your first name.”
“C. Jeffery Rand, and I don’t tell anyone what the C. stands for.”
“You don’t look like a Jeffery,” she decided, cocking her head to gaze up at him. “You look more like a Winston.”
“I may be Prime Minister someday.”
She took his arm and steered him back toward the cluster of lighted buildings. “When you are, I’ll walk along the water with you. Till then, we stay far away from it. The last time I was near water with you, I ended up swimming across the Nile to spy on a Russian houseboat!”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Sure. So was climbing that pyramid in the middle of the night. My legs ached for days.”
It was late by the time they returned to their building. Some people were still in the lounge, but the lights in most suites were out.
“We grow tired early here,” she said. “I suppose it’s all the fresh air and exercise.”
“I know what you mean. It was a long drive down this morning.” He glanced at his watch and saw that it was already after ten. They’d strolled and chatted longer than he’d realized. “One thing first. I’d like to continue my conversation with Fanger if he’s still up.”
“Want me to come along?” she suggested. “Then we can both hear him say nothing.”
“Come on. He might surprise you.”
Fanger’s yellow suite was at the rear of the first floor, near a fire exit. He didn’t answer Rand’s knock, and they were about to check the lounge when Rand noticed a drop of fresh orange paint on the carpet under the door. “This is odd.”
“What?”
“Paint, and still wet.”
“The door’s unlocked, Rand.”
They pushed it open and snapped on the overhead light. What they saw was unbelievable. The entire room — ceiling, walls, floor — had been splashed with paint of every color. There was red and blue and green and black and white and violet and orange — all haphazardly smeared over every surface in the room. Over it all, ashtrays and towels meant for other suites had been dumped and scattered. Fanger’s yellow cigarette box was smashed on the floor, with blue and yellow cigarettes, green and indigo towels, even an orange ashtray, scattered around it. The suite was a surrealistic dream, as if at the end of the rainbow all the colors of the spectrum had been jumbled with white and black.
And crumpled in one corner, half hidden by a chair, was the body of Herbert Fanger. The red of his blood was almost indistinguishable from the paint that stained the yellow wall behind him. He’d been stabbed several times in the chest and abdomen.
“My God,” Leila breathed. “It’s a scene from hell!”
“Let’s phone the nearest police,” Rand said. “We need help here.”
But as they turned to leave, a voice from the hall said, “I’m afraid that will be impossible, Mr. Rand. There will be no telephoning by anyone.” Felix Bollinger stood there with one of his armed security guards, and the guard was pointing a pistol at them both.
Rand raised his hands reluctantly above his head, and at his side Leila Gaad said with a sigh, “You’ve done it to me again, haven’t you, Rand?”
They were ushered into Bollinger’s private office and the door was locked behind them. Only then did the security guard holster his revolver. He stood with his back to the door as Bollinger took a seat behind the desk.
“You must realize, Mr. Rand, that I cannot afford to have the End of the Rainbow implicated in a police investigation at this time.”
“I’m beginning to realize it.”
“You and Miss Gaad will be held here in my office until that room can be cleaned up and some disposition made of Herbert Fanner’s body.”
“And you expect me to keep silent about that?” Rand asked. “I’m here on an official mission concerning Herbert Fanger. His murder is a matter of great interest to the British government.”
“This is no longer British soil, Mr. Rand. It has not been for some decades.”
“But you are a British subject.”
“Only when it pleases me to be.”
“What’s going on here? Why the armed guards? Why was Fanger murdered?”
“It does not concern you, Mr. Rand.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Hardly!”
Rand shifted in his chair. “Then the killer is one of the others. Turn me loose and I might be able to find him for you.”
Bollinger’s eyes narrowed. “Just how would you do that?”
“With all that paint splashed around, the killer must have gotten some on him. There was a spot of orange paint on the carpet outside the door, for instance, as if it had come off the bottom of a shoe. Let me examine everyone’s clothing and I’ll identify the murderer.”
The manager was a man who reached quick decisions. “Very well, if I have your word you’ll make no attempt to get in touch with the authorities.”
“They have to be told sooner or later.”
“Let’s make it later. If we have the killer to hand over, it might not look quite so bad.”
Rand got to his feet. “I’ll want another look at Fanger’s room. Put a guard on the door and don’t do any cleaning up.”
“What about the body?”
“It can stay there for now,” Rand decided. “If we find the killer, it’ll be in the next hour or so.”
Leila followed him out of the office, still amazed. “How did you manage that? He had a gun on us ten minutes ago, and you talked your way out of it!”
“Not completely. Not yet. His security people will be watching us. Look, suppose you wake everyone up and get them down by the pool.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But what for?”
“We’re going to look for paint spots.”
The American, Harvey Northgate, refused to be examined at first. And the Russian demanded to call his Embassy in Cairo. But after Rand explained what it was all about, they seemed to calm down. The only trouble was, Rand and Leila could find no paint on any of them. It seemed impossible, but it was true. Rand’s hope of reaching a quick solution to the mystery burst like an over-inflated balloon.