Journey Into Fear (25 page)

Graham was relieved. Obviously, Moeller thought him a fool. He said doubtfully: “Yes, I see. That’s all right, but what about this typhus? If I’m going to be taken ill I’ve got to be taken ill properly. If I were really taken ill
I should probably be on the train when it happened.”

Moeller sighed. “I see that you’ve been thinking very seriously, Mr. Graham. Let me explain. If you were really infected with typhus you would already be feeling unwell. There is an incubation period of a week or ten days. You would not, of course, know what was the matter with you. By to-morrow you would be feeling worse. It would be logical for you to shrink from spending the night in a train. You would probably go to an hotel for the night. Then, in the morning, when your temperature began to rise and the characteristics of the disease became apparent, you would be removed to a clinic.”

“Then we shall go to an hotel to-morrow?”

“Exactly. There will be a car waiting for us. But I advise you to leave the arrangements to me, Mr. Graham. Remember, I am just as interested as you are in seeing that nobody’s suspicions are aroused.”

Graham affected to ponder this. “All right then,” he said at last. “I’ll leave it to you. I don’t want to be fussy, but you can understand that I don’t want to have any trouble when I get home.”

There was a silence and for a moment he thought that he had overacted. Then Moeller said slowly: “You have no reason to worry. We shall be waiting for you outside the Customs shed. As long as you do not attempt to do anything foolish—you might, for example, decide to change your mind about your holiday—everything will go smoothly. I can assure you that you will have no trouble when you get home.”

“As long as that’s understood.”

“Is there anything else you want to say?”

“No. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Graham. Until to-morrow.”

Graham waited until Moeller had reached the deck below. Then he drew a deep breath. It was over. He was safe. All he had to do now was to go to his cabin, get a good night’s sleep and wait for
Mr
. Kuvetli in cabin number four. He felt suddenly very tired. His body was aching as if he had been working too hard. He made his way down to his cabin. It was as he passed the landing door of the saloon that he saw Josette.

She was sitting on one of the
banquettes
watching José and Banat playing cards. Her hands were on the edge of the seat and she was leaning forward, her lips parted slightly, her hair falling across her cheeks. There was something about the pose that reminded him of the moment, years ago it seemed, when he had followed Kopeikin into her dressing-room at Le Jockey Cabaret. He half expected her to raise her head and turn towards him, smiling.

He realized suddenly that he was seeing her for the last time, that before another day had passed he would be for her merely a disagreeable memory, someone who had treated her badly. The realization was sharp and strangely painful. He told himself that he was being absurd, that it had always been impossible for him to stay with her in Paris and that he had known it all along. Why should the leave-taking trouble him now? And yet it did trouble him. A phrase came into his head: “to part is to die a little.” He knew suddenly that it was not Josette of whom he was taking his leave, but of something of himself.
In the back streets of his mind a door was slowly closing for the last time. She had complained that for him she was just a part of the journey from Istanbul to London. There was more to it than that. She was part of the world beyond the door: the world into which he had stepped when Banat had fired those three shots at him in the Adler-Palace: the world in which you recognised the ape beneath the velvet. Now he was on his way back to his own world; to his house and his car and the friendly, agreeable woman he called his wife. It would be exactly the same as when he had left it. Nothing would be changed in that world; nothing, except himself.

He went on down to his cabin.

He slept fitfully. Once he awoke with a start, believing that someone was opening the door of his cabin. Then he remembered that the door was bolted and concluded that he had been dreaming. When next he awoke, the engines had stopped and the ship was no longer rolling. He switched on the light and saw that the time was a quarter past four. They had arrived at the entrance to Genoa harbour. After a while he heard the chugging of a small boat and a fainter clatter from the deck above. There were voices too. He tried to distinguish Mr. Kuvetli’s among them, but they were too muffled. He dozed.

He had told the steward to bring coffee at seven. Towards six, however, he decided that it was useless to try to sleep any more. He was already dressed when the steward arrived.

He drank his coffee, put the remainder of his things
in his case and sat down to wait. Mr. Kuvetli had told him to go into the empty cabin at eight o’clock. He had promised himself that he would obey Mr. Kuvetli’s instructions to the letter. He listened to the Mathis arguing over their packing.

At about a quarter to eight the ship began to move in. Another five minutes and he rang for the steward. By five to eight the steward had been, received with barely concealed surprise fifty lire, and gone, taking the suitcase with him. Graham waited another minute and then opened the door.

The alleyway was empty. He walked along slowly to number four, stopped as if he had forgotten something, and half turned. The coast was still clear. He opened the door, stepped quickly into the cabin, shut the door, and turned round.

The next moment he almost fainted.

Lying across the floor with his legs under the lower berth and his head covered with blood, was Mr. Kuvetli.

M
OST OF THE BLEEDING
seemed to have been caused by a scalp wound on the back of the head; but there was another wound, which had bled comparatively little and which looked as if it had been made with a knife, low on the left side of the neck. The movements of the ship had sent the slowly congealing blood trickling to and fro in a madman’s scrawl across the linoleum. The face was the colour of dirty clay. Mr. Kuvetli was clearly dead.

Graham clenched his teeth to prevent himself retching and held on to the washing cabinet for support. His first thought was that he must not be sick, that he must pull himself together before he called for help. He did not realise immediately the implications of what had happened. So that he should not look down again he had kept his eyes fixed on the porthole and it was the sight of the funnel of a ship lying beyond a long concrete jetty that reminded him that they were going into harbour. In less than an hour the gangways would be down. And Mr.

Kuvetli had not reached the Turkish Consulate. The shock of the realisation brought him to his senses. He looked down.

It was Banat’s work without a doubt. The little Turk had probably been stunned in his own cabin or in the alleyway outside it, dragged out of sight into this, the nearest empty cabin, and butchered while he was still insensible. Moeller had decided to dispose of a possible threat to the smooth working of his arrangements for dealing with the principal victim. Graham remembered the noise which had awakened him in the night. It might have come from the next cabin. “Do not leave your cabin under any circumstances until eight o’clock the following morning. It might be dangerous.” Mr. Kuvetli had failed to take his own advice and it
had
been dangerous. He had declared himself ready to die for his country and he had so died. There he was, his chubby fists clenched pitifully, his fringe of grey hair matted with his blood and the mouth which had smiled so much half open and inanimate.

Someone walked along the alleyway outside and Graham jerked his head up. The sound and the movement seemed to clear his brain. He began to think quickly and coolly.

The way the blood had congealed showed that Mr. Kuvetli must have been killed before the ship had stopped. Long before! Before he had made his request for permission to leave by the pilot boat. If he had made the request, a thorough search for him would have been made when the boat came alongside and he would have been found. He had not yet been found. He was not travelling
with an ordinary passport but with a diplomatic
laisser passer
and so had not had to surrender his papers to the Purser. That meant that unless the Purser checked off the passenger list with the passport control officer at Genoa—and Graham knew from past experience that they did not always bother to do that at Italian ports—the fact that Mr. Kuvetli did not land would not be noticed. Moeller and Banat had probably counted on the fact. And if the dead man’s baggage had been packed, the steward would put it in the Customs shed with the rest and assume that its owner was lying low to avoid having to give a tip. It might be hours, days even, before the body were discovered if he, Graham, did not call anyone.

His lips tightened. He became conscious of a slow cold rage mounting in his brain, stifling his sense of self-preservation. If he did call someone he could accuse Moeller and Banat; but would he be able to bring the crime home to them? His accusation by itself would carry no weight. It might well be suggested that the accusation was a ruse to conceal his own guilt. The Purser, for one, would be glad to support that theory. The fact that the two accused were travelling with false passports could, no doubt, be proved, but that alone would take time. In any case, the Italian police would be amply justified in refusing him permission to leave for England. Mr. Kuvetli had died in trying to make it possible for him to reach England safely and in time to fulfil a contract. That Mr. Kuvetli’s dead body should become the very means of preventing the fulfilment of that contract was stupid and grotesque; but if he, Graham, wanted
to be sure of saving his own skin, that was what must happen. It was strangely unthinkable. For him, standing there above the dead body of the man whom Moeller had described as a patriot, there seemed to be only one thing of importance in the world—that Mr. Kuvetli’s death should be neither stupid nor grotesque, that it should be useless only to the men who had murdered him.

But if he were not going to raise the alarm and wait for the police, what was he going to do?

Supposing Moeller had planned this. Supposing he or Banat had overheard Mr. Kuvetli’s instructions to him and, believing that he was sufficiently intimidated to do anything to save himself, had thought of this way of delaying his return. Or they might be preparing to “discover” him with the body and so incriminate him. But no: both those suppositions were absurd. If they had known of Mr. Kuvetli’s plan they would have let the Turk go ashore by the pilot boat. It would have been his, Graham’s, body that would have been found and the finder would have been Mr. Kuvetli. Obviously, then, Moeller could neither know of the plan nor suspect that the murder would be discovered. An hour from now he would be standing with Banat and the gunmen who were to meet him, waiting for the victim to walk unsuspectingly …

But the victim would not be unsuspecting. There was a very slender chance …

He turned and, grasping the handle of the door, began to turn it gently. He knew that if he thought twice about what he had decided to do he would change his mind. He must commit himself before he had time to think.

He opened the door a fraction of an inch. There was no one in the alleyway. A moment later, he was out of the cabin and the door of it was shut behind him. He hesitated barely a second. He knew that he must keep moving. Five steps brought him to cabin number three. He went in.

Mr. Kuvetli’s luggage consisted of one old-fashioned valise. It was standing strapped up in the middle of the floor, and perched on one of the straps was a twenty lire piece. Graham picked up the coin and held it to his nose. The smell of attar of roses was quite distinct. He looked in the wardrobe and behind the door for Mr. Kuvetli’s overcoat and hat, failed to find them, and concluded that they had been disposed of through the porthole. Banat had thought of everything.

He put the valise up on the berth and opened it. Most of the things on top had obviously been stuffed in anyhow by Banat, but lower down the packing had been done very neatly. The only thing of any interest to Graham, however, was a box of pistol ammunition. Of the pistol which fired them there was no sign.

Graham put the ammunition in his pocket and shut the valise again. He was undecided as to what he should do with it. Banat had obviously counted on its being taken to the Customs shed by the steward, who would pocket the twenty lire and forget about Mr. Kuvetli. That would be all right from Banat’s point of view. By the time the people in the Customs shed started asking questions about an unclaimed valise, Monsieur Mavrodopoulos would be non-existent. Graham, however, had every intention of remaining in existence if he could possibly
do so. Moreover, he intended—with the same proviso—to use his passport to cross the Italian frontier into France. The moment Mr. Kuvetli’s body was found the rest of the passengers would be sought for questioning by the police. There was only one thing for it: Mr. Kuvetli’s valise would have to be hidden.

He opened the washing cabinet, put the twenty lire piece on the corner by the bowl, and went to the door. The coast was still clear. He opened the door, picked up the valise, and lugged it along the alleyway to cabin number four. Another second or two and he was inside with the door shut again.

He was sweating now. He wiped his hands and forehead on his handkerchief and then remembered that his fingerprints would be on the hard leather handle of the valise as well as on the door handle and washing cabinet. He went over these objects with his handkerchief and then turned his attention to the body.

Obviously the gun was not in the hip pocket. He went down on one knee beside the body. He felt himself beginning to retch again and took a deep breath. Then he leaned across, gripped the right shoulder with one hand and the right side of the trousers with the other and pulled. The body rolled on to its side. One foot slid over the other and kicked the floor. Graham stood up quickly. In a moment or two, however, he had himself in hand sufficiently to bend down and pull the jacket open. There was a leather holster under the left arm but the gun was not in it.