She puts it back into place and takes out another bag containing the black and white scarf. She folds this back and with her lipstick she traces on the outside of the bag in large capitals, ‘Olga’. Another package seems to puzzle her. She feels round it with half-closed eyes for a moment, then opens it up. It contains the pair of men’s slippers which Mrs Fiedke had mislaid in the shop having apparently in fact put them in Lise’s bag. Lise wraps them up again and replaces them. Finally she takes out her paperback book and an oblong package which she opens. This is a gift-box containing the gilded paper-opener in its sheath, also Mrs Fiedke’s property.
Lise slowly returns the lipstick to her handbag, places the book and the box containing the paperknife on the table beside her, places the zipper-bag on the floor, then proceeds to examine the contents of her hand-bag. Money, the tourist folder with its inset map of the city, the bunch of six keys that she had brought with her that morning, the keys of Carlo’s car, the lipstick, the comb, the powder compact, the air ticket. Her lips are parted and she leans back in a relaxed attitude but that her eyes are too wide open for restfulness. She looks again at the contents of her hand-bag. A notecase with paper money, a purse with loose change. She gathers herself together in such an abrupt manner that the toilet attendant who has been sitting vacantly in a corner by the wash-basins starts to her feet. Lise packs up her belongings. She puts the paper-knife box back in the zipper-bag, carefully tucking it down the side, and zips the bag up. Her hand-bag is also packed tidily again, except for the bunch of six keys that she had brought on her travels. She holds the book in her hand, and, placing the bunch of six keys with a clatter on the plate left out for the coins, the attendant’s reward, she says to the woman, ‘I won’t be needing these now.’ Then, with her zipper-bag, her book, her handbag, her hair combed and her face cleaned up, she swings out of the door and into the hotel lounge. The clock above the reception desk says nine thirty-five. Lise makes for the bar, where she looks round. Most of the tables are occupied by chattering groups. She sits at a vacant but rather out-of-the-way table, orders a whisky, and bids the tentative waiter hurry. ‘I ‘ye got a train to catch.’ She is served with the drink together with a jug of water and a bowl of peanuts. She drenches the whisky with water, sips a small part of it and eats all the peanuts. She takes another small sip from her glass, and, leaving it nearly full, stands up and motions the waiter to bring her bill. She pays for this high-priced repast with a note taken from her bag and tells the waiter to keep the change, which amounts to a very high tip. He accepts it with incredulous grace and watches her as she leaves the bar. He, too, will give his small piece of evidence to the police on the following day, as will also the toilet attendant, trembling at the event which has touched upon her life without the asking.
Lise stops short in the hotel lounge and smiles. Then without further hesitation she goes over to a group of armchairs, only one of which is occupied. In it sits a sickly-looking man. Bending over him deferentially to listen to something the man is saying is a uniformed chauffeur who presently turns to go, waved away by the seated man, just as Lise approaches.
‘There you are!’ says Lise. ‘I’ve been looking for you all day. Where did you get to?’
The man shifts to look at her. ‘Jenner’s gone to have a bite. Then we’re off back to the villa. Damn nuisance, coming back in to town all this way. Tell Jenner he’s got half-an-hour. We must be off.’
‘He’ll be back in a minute,’ Lise says. ‘Don’t you remember we met on the plane?’
‘The Sheikh. Damn rotters in his country have taken over behind his back. Now he’s lost his throne or whatever it is he sits on. I was at school with him. Why did he ring me up? He rang me up. On the telephone. He brings me back to town all this way and when we get here he says he can’t come to the villa after all, there’s been a coup.
‘I’ll take you back to the villa,’ Lise says. ‘Come on, get in the car with me. I’ve got a car outside.’
The man says, ‘Last time I saw the Sheikh it was ‘38. He came on safari with me. Rotten shot if you know anything about big game. You’ve got to wait for the drag. They call it the drag, you see. It kills its prey and drags it into the bush then you follow the drag and when you know where it’s left its prey you’re all right. The poor bloody beast comes out the next day to eat its prey, they like it high. And you only have a few seconds. You’re here and there’s another fellow there and a third over here. You can’t shoot from here, you see, because there’s another hunter there and you don’t want to shoot him. You have to shoot from over here or over there. And the Sheikh, I’ve known him for years, we were at school together, the bloody fool shot and missed it by five feet from a fifteen-foot range.’
His eyes look straight ahead and his lips quiver.
‘You’re not my type after all,’ Lise says. ‘I thought you were, but I was away out.’
‘What? Want a drink? Where’s Jenner?’
She gathers up the handles of her bags, picks up her book and looks at him and through him as if he were already a distant memory and leaves without a good-bye, indeed as if she had said good-bye to him long ago.
She brushes past a few people at the vestibule who look at her with the same casual curiosity with which others throughout the day have looked at her. They are mainly tourists; one exceptional sight among so many others does not deflect their attention for very long. Outside, she goes to the car park where she has left Carlo’s car, and does not find it.
She goes up to the doorman. ‘I’ve lost my car. A Fiat 125. Have you seen anyone drive off with a Fiat?’
‘Lady, there are twenty Fiats an hour come in and out of here.’
‘But I parked it over there less than an hour ago. A cream Fiat, a bit dirty, I’ve been travelling.’
The doorman sends a page-boy to find the parking attendant who presently comes along in a vexed mood since he has been called from conversation with a more profitable client. He owns to having seen a cream-coloured Fiat being driven away by a large fat man whom he had presumed to be the owner.
‘He must have had extra keys,’ says Lise.
‘Didn’t you see the lady drive in with it?’ the doorman says.
‘No, I didn’t. The royalty and the police were taking up all my time, you know that. Besides, the lady didn’t say anything to me, to look after her car.’
Lise says, opening her bag, ‘Well, I meant to give you a tip later. But I’ll give you one now.’ And she holds out to him the keys of Carlo’s car.
The doorman says, ‘Look, lady, we can’t take responsibility for your car. If you want to see the porter at the desk he can ring the police. Are you staying at the hotel?’
‘No,’ says Lise. ‘Get me a taxi.’
‘Have you got your licence?’ says the parking attendant.
‘Go away,’ Lise says. ‘You’re not my type.’ He looks explosive. Another of tomorrow’s witnesses.
The porter is meanwhile busy helping some newcomers out of a taxi. Lise calls out to the taxi-driver, who nods his agreement to take her on.
As soon as the passengers are out, Lise leaps into the taxi.
The parking attendant shouts, ‘Are you sure it was your own car, lady?’
She throws Carlo’s keys out of the window on to the gravel and directs the taxi to the Hotel Metropole with tears falling over her cheeks.