The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [0]
THE LIGHT OF DAY
“Mr. Ambler is a phenomenon.”
—Alfred Hitchcock
“Ambler is the best spy novelist of all time.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Ambler combines political sophistication, a gift for creating memorable characters and a remarkable talent for turning exciting stories into novels of wonderful entertainment.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Ambler towers over most of his newer imitators.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Arthur Abdel Simpson … is one of fiction’s most delightful rogues, and his adventures provide the best Ambler entertainment in years.”
—Anthony Boucher
“Ambler may well be the best writer of suspense stories.… He is the master craftsman.”
—Life
“Ambler is incapable of writing a dull paragraph.”
—The Sunday Times (London)
“Ambler is, quite simply, the best.”
—The New Yorker
Eric Ambler
THE LIGHT OF DAY
Eric Ambler was born in London in 1909. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked at an engineering firm and wrote copy for an advertising agency. His first novel was published in 1936. During the course of his career, Ambler was awarded two Gold Daggers, a Silver Dagger, and a Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain, named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers Association of America, and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. In addition to his novels, Ambler wrote a number of screenplays, including A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination. Eric Ambler died in 1998.
ALSO BY ERIC AMBLER
The Dark Frontier
Background to Danger
Epitaph for a Spy
Cause for Alarm
A Coffin for Dimitrios
Journey Into Fear
Judgment on Deltchev
The Schirmer Inheritance
State of Siege
Passage of Arms
The Ability to Kill and Other Pieces (Essays)
A Kind of Anger
To Catch a Spy (Editor)
The Intercom Conspiracy
The Levanter
Doctor Frigo
Send No More Roses
The Care of Time
Here Lies Eric Ambler (Autobiography)
The Story So Far
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, DECEMBER 2004
Copyright © 1962 and renewed in 1990 by Eric Ambler
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Heinemann,
London, and in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1962.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition
as follows:
Ambler, Eric, 1909–
The light of day / Eric Ambler.—1st American ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PZ3.A48 Li2
63007762
eISBN: 978-0-307-95001-7
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Also by Eric Ambler
1
It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do as this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me.
I thought he was an American. He looked like an American—tall, with the loose, light suit, the narrow tie and button-down collar, the smooth, old-young, young-old face and the crew cut. He spoke like an American, too; or at least like a German who has lived in America for a long time. Of course, I now know that he is not an American, but he certainly gave that impression. His luggage, for instance, was definitely American; plastic leather and imitation gold locks. I know American luggage when I see it. I didn’t see his passport.
He arrived at the Athens airport on a plane from Vienna. He could have come from New York or London or Frankfurt or Moscow and arrived by that plane—or just from Vienna. It was