The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [70]
“If I can. Tell him I made a search of the bedrooms while they were out, but could not find the chart. I will try to search the living rooms tonight. It may be quite late before I can report. Will you be here?”
“Someone will be.”
“All right.”
As we turned and walked back towards the Opel, I crossed the road and re-entered the drive. I had something to think about now. From what I had overheard in the courtyard the night before, I knew that Fischer had some special task to perform that day. Had he already performed it, or was it yet to be performed? Driving the car into Istanbul so that he and the others could have some eatable food didn’t seem very special. On the other hand, it was odd that I should have been told to stay behind, and odd about that visit to the garage. There was nothing wrong with the car and it needed no spare parts. And why had Fischer not walked to the Divan with the other three? Why had he stayed behind?
It is obvious that I should have thought of the car doors first. I didn’t do so for a very simple reason: I knew from personal experience how long it took to remove and replace one panel, and Fischer had not been at the garage long enough to empty one door, let alone four. The possibility that his function might have been to give orders instead of doing the actual work didn’t occur to me, then. And, I may say, it didn’t occur to Tufan at all. If it had, I should have been spared a ghastly experience.
Anyway, when I went back through the yard to take a look at the car, my mind was on spare parts. I looked in the luggage compartment first to see if anything had been stowed away there; then I examined the engine. You can usually tell by the smudges and oil smears when work has been done on an engine. I drew a blank, of course. It wasn’t until I opened the door to see if anything had been left in the glove compartment that I saw the scratches.
Whoever had taken the panels off had made the very mistake I had been so careful to avoid; he had used an ordinary screwdriver on the Phillips heads. There were scratches and bright marks on the metal as well as cuts in the leather where the tool had slipped. Of course, nobody would have noticed them on a casual inspection, but I was so conscious of the panels and what I had seen behind them that the slightest mark stood out. I went over all four and knew at once that they had all been taken off and replaced. I also knew, from the different feel of the doors when I swung them on their hinges, that the heavy things which had been concealed inside were no longer there. Presumably, they had been removed in the garage near the Spanish Consulate. Where they were at that moment was anybody’s guess.
I wondered whether I should go down to the road again immediately and report to the surveillance car, or wait until I reported later about the map. I decided to wait. If the stuff was still in the garage, it would probably still be there in the morning. If, as seemed more likely, it had already been moved somewhere else, then the damage was done and two or three hours would make no difference. Anyway, I didn’t want to go back down to the road. I felt that I had run enough risks for one day already; and I still had to go looking for that damned map. I think I did the sensible thing. I can’t stand people who are wise after the event, but it must be obvious now that it was Tufan who made the real mistakes, not me.
The trouble with Geven began while we were in the kitchen eating our dinner; or, rather, while I was eating and he was putting away more brandy. It was about seven o’clock, and he had been drinking steadily since six. In that hour he must have had nearly a third of a bottle. He wasn’t yet quite drunk; but he was certainly far from sober.
He had made a perfectly delicious risotto with finely chopped chicken livers and pimientos in it. I was on my second helping and trying to persuade