The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [59]
The Peugeot was back on duty again. I drove towards Sariyer for about half a mile, and then turned left onto one of the roads leading up to the forest. It was Sunday morning and families from Istanbul would soon be arriving at the municipal picnic grounds to spend the day; but at that early hour the car-parking areas were still fairly empty, and I had no difficulty in finding a secluded place under the trees.
I decided to try the same door again. I had scratched the leather on it once already; but if I were very careful it need not be scratched again. In any case, as long as I drove the car, scratches would be less noticeable on that door than on the others. The earlier attempt had taught me something, too. If I removed all the screws on the hinge side of the door first and only loosened the others, I thought it might be possible to ease the panel back enough to see inside the door without taking the whole panel and electric window mechanism completely away.
It took me twenty minutes to find out that I was right about the panel, and a further five seconds to learn that I had been completely wrong about the stuff having been removed. There it still was, just as I had seen it in the photographs Tufan had shown me at Edirne. In this particular door there were twelve small, paper-wrapped cylinders—probably grenades.
I screwed the panel back into place, and then sat there for a while thinking. The Peugeot was parked about a hundred yards away—I could see it in the mirror—and I very nearly got out and walked back to tell the driver what I had found. I wanted badly to talk to someone. Then I pulled myself together. There was no point in talking to someone who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, usefully talk back. The sensible thing would be to obey orders.
I took my report out of the cigarette packet and added to it.
9:20 a.m. inspected interior front door driver’s side. Material still in place as per photo. In view of time absent from villa and inability to add to this report, will not telephone from garage now.
I replaced the toilet paper in the packet, tossed it out of the window, and drove back onto the road. I waited just long enough to see a man from the Peugeot pick up the report, then I drove into Sariyer and filled the tank. I arrived back at the villa just before ten.
I half expected to find an angry Fischer pacing the courtyard and demanding to know where the hell I’d been. There was nobody. I drove the car into the stable yard, emptied the ash trays, brushed the floor carpeting, and ran a duster over the body. The Phillips screwdriver in my pocket worried me. Now that I knew that the stuff was still in the car, it seemed an incriminating thing to have. I certainly did not want to put it back in my room. It might be needed again, so I could not throw it away. In the end, I hid it inside the cover of an old tire hanging on the wall of the garage. Then I went and tidied myself up. Shortly before eleven o’clock I drove the car round to the marble steps in the front courtyard.
After about ten minutes Harper came out. He was wearing a blue sports shirt with blue slacks, and he had a map in his hand. He nodded in response to my greeting.
“Are we all right for gas, Arthur?”
“I filled it this morning, sir.”
“Oh, you did.” He looked agreeably surprised. “Well, do you know