The Light of Day (4 page)

'In there.'

As I went in, he moved past me to the door and bolted it

There was a marble-topped commode against the side wall. On the commode was a tray with an ice-bucket, a bottle of brandy and „some glasses. He picked up a glass then looked at me.

'Sit down right there,' he said.

The chair he motioned to was by a writing table under the window. I obeyed orders; there did not seem to be anything else to do. My nose was still bleeding, and I had a headache.

He slopped some brandy into a glass and put it on the table beside me. For a moment or two I
fett
encouraged.

If you are going to have a man arrested you don't sit him down first and give him a drink. Perhaps it was just going to be a man-to-man chat in which I told him a hard-luck story and said how sorry I was, while he got dewy-eyed over his own magnanimity and decided to give me another chance.

That
one did not last long.

He poured himself a drink and then glanced across at me as he put ice in the glass. 'First time you've been caught at it, Arthur?' I blew my nose a little to keep the blood running before I answered. 'It's the first time I've ever been tempted, sir. I don't know what came over me. Perhaps it was the brandy I had with you. I'm not really used to it.'

He turned and stared at me. All at once his face was neither old-young nor young-old. It was white and pinched and his mouth worked in an odd way. I have seen faces go like that before and I braced myself. There was a metal lamp on the writing table beside me. I wondered if I could possibly hit him with it before he got to me.

But he did not move. His eyes flickered towards the bedroom and then back to me.

'You'd better get something straight, Arthur,' he said slowly. "That was just a little roughing-up you had in there. If I really start giving you a going-over, you'll leave here on a stretcher. Nobody's going to mind about that except you. I came back and caught you stealing. You tried to strong-arm your way out of it and I had to defend myself. That's how it'll be. So cut out the bull, and the lies. Right?'

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'Empty your pockets. On this table here.' I did as I was told.

He looked at everything, my driving licence, my
permis de séjour,
and he touched everything. Finally, of course, he found the pass-key in the change purse. I had sawn off the shank of it and cut a slot in the end so that I could use a small coin to turn it, but it was still over two inches long, and heavy. The weight gave it away. He looked at it curiously.

‘You make this?'

'Not the key part. I just cut it down.' There seemed no point in trying to lie about that

He nodded. ‘That's better. Okay, we’ll tart over. We know you're a two-bit ponce and we know you heist traveller's cheques from hotel rooms when you get the chance. Do you write the counter-signature yourself?’

Yes.'

'So that's forgery Now, I'm asking again. Have you ever been caught before?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Sure?'

‘Yes.'

'Do you have any sort of police record?'

'Here in Athens''

'We'll start with Athens.'

I hesitated. ‘Well, not exactly a police record. Do you mean traffic offences?'

'You know what I mean. Quit stalling.'

I sneezed, quite unintentionally, and my nose began bleeding again. He sighed impatiently and threw me a bunch of paper napkins from the drink-tray.

'I had you pretty well figured out at the airport,' he went on; 'but I didn't think you'd be quite so stupid. Why did you have to tell that Kira dame that you'd had no dinner?’

I shrugged helplessly. 'So that I could come here.'

"Why didn't you tell her you'd gone to gas up the car? I just might have bought that one.'

'It didn't seem important. Why should you suspect me?'

He laughed. ‘Oh brother! I know what that car you have sells for here, and I know that gasoline costs sixty cents a gallon. At the rates you charge you couldn't break even. Okay, you get your pay-offs—the restaurant, the clip joint, the cat-house—but they can't amount to much, so there must be something else. Kira doesn't know what it is, but she knows there's something because you've cashed quite a few traveller's cheques through her.'

'She told you that?' This really upset me; the least one can expect from a brothel-keeper is discretion.

‘Why shouldn't she tell me? You didn't tell her they were stolen, did you?' He drank his brandy down. 'I don't happen to like paying for sex, but I wanted to find out a bit more about you. I did. When they realized that I wasn't going to leave without paying, they were both real friendly. Called me a cab and everything. Now, supposing
you
start talking.'

I took a sip of brandy. 'Very well, I have had three convictions.'

‘What for?’

The charge in each case was representing myself as an official guide. In fact, all I did was to try to save one or two clients from those boring archaeological set speeches. The official guides have to learn them by heart before they can pass the examination. Tourists like to know what they are looking at, but they do not want to be bored.'

‘What happened? Did you go to jail?'

'Of course not. I was fined.'

He nodded approvingly. 'That was what
Irma
thought. Now you just keep on playing it straight like that and maybe we can keep the police out of this. Have you ever been jailed anywhere, to serve time I mean?'

'I do not see why I should
 
...'

‘Okay, skip it,' he broke in. 'What about Turkey?"

‘Turkey? Why do you ask?'

'Have you been there?'

‘Yes.'

'Any police record there?'

'I was fined in Istanbul for showing some people round a museum.'

‘Which museum?'

‘The Topkapi.'

‘Were you posing as an official guide that time?'

'Guides must be licensed there. I did not have a licence.'

'Have you ever driven from here to Istanbul?'

'Is that a criminal offence?'

'Just answer. Have you?'

'Occasionally. Some tourists like to travel by road. Why?'

He did not answer. Instead he took an envelope from
thè
writing desk and began to scribble something hi pencil. I desperately needed a cigarette, but was afraid to light one in case it might look as if I were no longer worried. I
was
worried, and confused, too; but I wanted to be sure I looked that way. I drank the brandy instead.

He finished his scribbling at last and looked up. 'All right, Arthur. There's a pad of plain paper there and a pen. I'm going to dictate. You start writing. No,
dont
give me any arguments. Just do as I tell you.'

I was hopelessly bewildered by now
.
I picked up the pen.

‘Ready?'

‘Yes.'

‘Head it,
"To the Chief of Police, Athens".
Got that? Now go on. "
I
,
Arthur A. Simpson of
—" put in your address
"do hereby confess that on June fifteenth, using an illegal pass-key, I entered the suite of Mr Walter K. Harper in the Hotel Grande
Bretagne
and stole American Express traveller's cheques to the value of three hundred dollars. The numbers of the cheques were
...'

As he felt in his pocket for the loose cheques, I started to protest.

'Mr Harper, I can’t possibly write this. It would convict me. I couldn't defend myself.'

‘Would you sooner defend yourself right now? If so, I can call the police and you can explain about that passkey.' He paused and then went on more patiently: ‘Look, Dad, maybe you and I will be the only ones who will ever read it. Maybe in a week's time it won't even exist I'm just giving you a chance to get off the hook. Why don't you take it and be thankful?'

'What do I have to do for it?'

‘We'll get to that later. Just you keep writing.
"The numbers of the cheques were P89.664.572 through P89.664.577 all in fifty-dollar units. I intended to forge Mr Harper's signature on them so that I could cash them illegally. I have stolen, forged and cashed other cheques in that way."
Shut up and keep writing!
"But now I find I cannot go through with it. Because of Mr Harper's great kindness to me during his visit to Athens and his Christian charity, I feel that I cannot rob him. I am, therefore, sending the cheques 1 stole from him back with this letter. By taking this decision, I feel that I have come out of the darkness into the light of day. I know now that, as a sinner of
the worst type, my only chance is to make restitution, to confess everything, and to pay the penalties the law demands. Only in this way can I hope for salvation in the world to come."
Now sign it.'

I signed it.

'Now date it a week from today. No, better make it the twenty-third.'

I dated it.

'Give it to me.’

I gave it to him and he read it through twice. Then he looked at me and grinned.

'Not talking any more, Arthur?'

'I wrote down what you dictated.'

'Sure. And now you're trying to figure out what would happen if I sent it to the police.'

I shrugged.

'All right, I'll tell you what would happen. First they'd think you were a nut They'd probably think that I was some kind of a nut, too, but they wouldn't be interested in me. I wouldn't be around anyway. On the other hand, they couldn't ignore the whole thing, because of the cheques; Three hundred dollars! They'd have to take this seriously. So they'd Start by getting on to the American Express and finding out about all the cheque forgeries that have been traced back to accounts in Athens banks. Then they'd pull you in and grill you. What would you do, Arthur? Tell them about me and what really happened? You'd be silly to do that, wouldn't you? They'd throw the book at you. No, you're too smart for that. You'd go along with the reformation jazz. That way, you'd have a real defence— voluntary confession, restitution, sincere repentance. Ill bet you'd get away with just a nominal sentence, maybe no more than a year.'

Thank you.'

He grinned again. 'Don't you worry, Arthur. You're not going to do any time at all.' He waved the paper I had written and the cheques. This is just a little insurance.' He picked up the brandy bottle and refilled my glass. 'You see, a friend of mine is going to trust you with something valuable.'

'What?'

'A car. You're going to drive it to Istanbul. You'll be paid a hundred bucks and expenses. That's
all
there is to it.'

I managed to smile. 'If that's all there is to it, I don't see why you have to blackmail me. I would gladly do the job every week for that money.'

He looked pained. 'Who said anything about blackmail? I said insurance. This is a seven-thousand-dollar Lincoln, Arthur. Do you know what it's worth now in Turkey?'

'Fourteen thousand.'

'Well, then, isn't it obvious? Supposing you drove it into the first garage you came to and sold it.'

'It wouldn't be so easy.'

'Arthur, you took a hell of a risk tonight for just three hundred dollars. For fourteen thousand you'd do pretty well anything, now, wouldn't you? Be your age! As it is, I don't have to worry, and my friend doesn't have to worry. As soon as I know the car's delivered, that little confession'll be torn up and the cheques'll go back in my pocket.'

I was silent. I didn't believe a word he was saying and he knew it. He didn't care. He was watching me, enjoying himself. 'All right,' I said finally, "but there are just one or two questions I'd like to ask.'

He nodded. 'Sure there are. Only that's the one condition there is on the job, Arthur—no questions.'

I would have been surprised if he said anything else. 'Very well. When do I start?'

‘Tomorrow. How long does it take you to drive to Salonika?'

'About six or seven hours.'

‘Let's see. Tomorrow's Tuesday. If you start about noon you can spend the night there. Then Wednesday night in
Edirne.
You should make Istanbul Thursday afternoon. That'll be okay.' He thought for a moment.
‘I’ll
tell you what you do. In the morning, you pack an overnight bag and come here by cab or streetcar. Be downstairs at ten.'

'Where do I pick up the car?'

'I'll show you in the morning.'

‘Whatever you say.'

He unbolted the door. 'Good deal. Now take your junk and beat it. I have to get some sleep.'

I put my belongings back in my pockets and went to the door.

'Hey!’

As I turned, something'hit me in the chest and then fell at my feet.

'You've forgotten your pass-key,' he said.