"That's very interesting," he murmured. "And very convenient. Mrs. Bentall, you can come and sit by your husband here and hold his hand-it doesn't look any too steady to me." He waited till she had crossed the room and sat down on the bed, a good two feet from me and staring straight ahead, then said: "Krishna?"
"Yes, captain?" This from the Indian who had been watching Marie.
"Go outside. Put a call through to the desk. Say you're speaking from the airport and that there's an urgent call for Mr. and Mrs. Bentall, that there's a K.L.M. plane with two vacant seats just stopped over for refuelling. They've to go at once. Got it?"
"Yes, captain." A gleam of white teeth and he started for the door.
"Not that way, fool!" The white man nodded to the French doors leading to the outside verandah. "Want everyone to see you? When you've put the call through pick up your friend's taxi, come to the main door, say you've been phoned for by the airport and come upstairs to help carry the bags down."
The Indian nodded, unlocked the French doors and disappeared. The man with the yachting cap dragged out a cheroot, puffed black smoke into the air and grinned at us. "Neat, eh?"
"Just what is it that you intend to do with us?" I asked tightly.
"Taking you for a little trip." He grinned, showing irregular and tobacco-stained teeth. "And there'll be no questions- everyone will think you have gone on to Sydney by plane. Ain't it sad? Now stand up, clasp your hands behind your head and turn round."
With three gun barrels pointing at me and the furthest not more than eighteen inches away, it seemed a good idea to do what he said. He waited till I had a bird's eye view of the two unlit railway tunnels, jabbed his gun into my back and went over me with an experienced hand that wouldn't have missed even a book of matches. Finally, the pressure of the gun in my spine eased and I heard him taking a step back.
"O.K., Bentall, sit. Bit surprising, maybe-tough-talking pansies like you often fancy themselves enough to pack a gun. Maybe it's in your grips. We'll check later." He transferred a speculative glance to Marie Hopeman. "How about you, lady?"
"Don't you dare touch me, you-you horrible man!" She'd jumped to her feet and was standing there erect as a guardsman, arms stretched stiffly at her sides, fists clenched, breathing quickly and deeply. She couldn't have been more than five feet four in her stockinged soles but outraged indignation made her seem inches taller. It was quite a performance. "What do you think I am? Of course I'm not carrying a gun on me."
Slowly, thoughtfully, but not insolently, his eyes followed every curve of the more than adequately filled silk sheath dress. Then he sighed.
"It would be a miracle if you were," he admitted, regretfully. "Maybe in your grip. But later-neither of you will be opening those bags till we get where we're going." He paused for a thoughtful moment. "But you do carry a handbag, don't you, lady?"
"Don't you touch my handbag with your dirty hands!" she said stormily.
"They're not dirty," he said mildly. He held one up for his own inspection. "At least, not really. The bag, Mrs. Bentall?"
"In the bedside cabinet," she said contemptuously.
He moved to the other side of the room, never quite taking his eye off us. I had an idea that he didn't have too much faith in the lad with the blunderbuss. He took the grey lizard handbag from the cabinet, slipped the catch and held the bag upside down over the bed. A shower of stuff fell out, money, comb, handkerchief, vanity case and all the usual camouflage kit and warpaint. But no gun. Quite definitely no gun.
"You don't really look the type," he said apologetically. "But that's how you live to be fifty, lady, by not even trusting your own mother and-" He broke off and hefted the empty bag in his hand. "Does seem a mite heavy, though, don't it?"
He peered inside, fumbled around with his hand, withdrew it and felt the outside of the bag, low down. There was a barely perceptible click and the false bottom fell open, swinging on its hinges. Something fell on the carpet with a thud. He bent and picked up a small flat snub-nosed automatic.
"One of those trick cigarette lighters," he said easily. "Or it might be for perfume or sand-blasting on the old face powder. Whatever will they think of next?"
"My husband is a scientist and a very important person in his own line," Marie Hopeman said stonily. "He has had two threats on his life. I–I have a police permit for that gun."
"And I'll give you a receipt for it so everything will be nice and legal," he said comfortably. The speculative eyes belied the tone. "All right, get ready to go out. Rabat"-this to the man with the sawn-off gun-"over the verandah and see that no one tries anything stupid between the main door and the taxi."
He'd everything smoothly organised. I couldn't have tried anything even if I'd wanted to and I didn't, not now: obviously he'd no intention of disposing of us on the spot and I wasn't going to find any answers by just running away.
When the knock came to the door he vanished behind the curtains covering the open French windows. The bell-boy came in and picked up three bags: he was followed by Krishna, who had in the meantime acquired a peaked cap: Krishna had a raincoat over his arm-he had every excuse, it was raining heavily outside-and I could guess he had more than his hand under it. He waited courteously until we had preceded him through the door, picked up the fourth bag and followed: at the end of the long corridor I saw the man in the yachting cap come out from our room and stroll along after us, far enough away so as not to seem one of the party but near enough to move in quick if I got any funny ideas. I couldn't help thinking that he'd done this sort of thing before.
The night-clerk, a thin dark man with the world-weary expression of night clerks the world over, had our bill ready. As I was paying, the man with the yachting cap, cheroot sticking up at a jaunty angle, sauntered up to the desk and nodded affably to the clerk.
"Good morning, Captain Fleck," the clerk said respectfully. "You found your friend?"
"I did indeed." The cold hard expression had gone from Captain Fleck's face to be replaced with one that was positively jovial. "And he tells me the man I really want to see is out at the airport. Call me a taxi, will you?"
"Certainly, sir." Fleck appeared to be a man of some consequence in those parts. He hesitated. "Is it urgent, Captain Heck?"
"All my business is urgent," Fleck boomed. "Of course, of course." The clerk seemed nervous, anxious to ingratiate himself with Fleck. "It just so happens that Mr. and Mrs. Bentall here are going out there, too, and they have a taxi-"
"Delighted to meet you, Mr.-ah-Bentall," Fleck said heartily. With his right hand he crushed mine in a bluff honest sailorman's grip while with his left he brought the complete ruin of the. shapeless jacket he was wearing another long stage nearer by thrusting his concealed gun so far forward against the off-white material that I thought he was going to sunder the pocket from its moorings. "Fleck's my name. I must get out to the airport at once and if you would be so kind-share the costs of course-I'd be more than grateful…"
No doubt about it, he was the complete professional, we were wafted out of that hotel and into the waiting taxi with all the smooth and suave dexterity of a head-waiter ushering you to the worst table in an overcrowded restaurant: and had I had any doubts left about Fleck's experienced competence they would have been removed the moment I sat down in the back seat between him and Rabat and felt something like a giant and none too gentle pincers closing round my waist. To my left, Rabat's twelve-bore: to my right, Fleck's automatic, both digging in just above the hip-bones, the one position where it was impossible to knock them aside. I sat still and quiet and hoped that the combination of ancient taxi springs and bumpy road didn't jerk either of the forefingers curved round those triggers.