thought we'd given them his name; we hadn't. I hadn't.'
'No one else would...' The girl stopped. 'But everyone's... from all over.'
'Yes. Almost evenly divided. The States, England, France, West Germany, and; . . Haiti.'
'What's your point?' asked the girl, seeing the concern on Durell's face.
'I have a strange feeling that all our guests for the week are acquainted. But they don't want us to know it.'
London, England
The tall, light-haired American in the unbuttoned Burberry trench coat walked out the Strand entrance of the Savoy Hotel. He stopped for an instant and looked up at the English sky between the buildings in the court. It was a perfectly normal thing to do - to observe the sky, to check
the elements after emerging from shelter - but this man did not give the normally cursory glance and form a judgment based primarily on the chill factor.
He looked.
Any geologist who made his living developing geophysical surveys for governments, companies and foundations knew that the weather was income; it connoted progress or delay.
Habit.
His clear grey eyes were deeply set beneath wide eyebrows, darker than the light brown hair that fell with irritating regularity over his forehead. His face was the colour of a man's exposed to the weather, the tone permanently stained by the sun, but not burned. The lines at the sides and below his eyes seemed stamped more from his work than from age; again a face in constant conflict with the elements. The cheekbones were high, the mouth full, the jaw casually slack; for there was a softness also about the man... in abstract contrast to the hard professional look.
This softness, too, was in his eyes. Not weak, but inquisitive; the eyes of a man who probed... perhaps because he had not probed sufficiently in the past.
Things... things... had happened to this man.
The instant of observation over, he greeted the uniformed doorman with a smile and a brief shake of his head, indicating a negative.
'No taxi, Mr McAuliff?'
'Thanks, no, Jack. I'll walk.'
'A bit nippy, sir.'
'It's refreshing - only going a few blocks.'
The doorman tipped his cap and turned his attention to an incoming Jaguar sedan. Alexander McAuliff continued down the Savoy Court, past the theatre and the American Express office to the Strand. He crossed the pavement and I entered the flow of human traffic heading north towards Waterloo Bridge. He buttoned his raincoat, pulling the lapels up to ward off London's February chill.
It was nearly one o'clock; he was to be at the Waterloo intersection by one. He would make it with only minutes to spare.
He had agreed to meet the Dunstone company man this way, but he hoped his tone of voice had conveyed his annoyance. He had been perfectly willing to take a taxi, or rent a car, or hire a chauffeur... if any or all were necessary; but if Dunstone was sending an automobile for him, why not send it to the Savoy? It wasn't that he minded the walk; he just hated to meet people in automobiles in the middle of congested streets. It was a goddamn nuisance.
The Dunstone man had had a short, succinct explanation that was, for the Dunstone man, the only reason necessary - for all things: 'Mr Julian Warfield prefers it this way.'
He spotted the automobile immediately. It had to be Dunstone's - and/or Warfield's. A St James Rolls-Royce, its glistening black, hand-tooled body breaking space majestically, anachronistically, among the petrol-conscious Austins, MGs, and European imports. He waited on the kerb, ten feet from the crosswalk into the bridge. He would not gesture or acknowledge the slowly approaching Rolls. He waited until the car stopped directly in front of him, a chauffeur driving, the rear window open.
'Mr McAuliff?' said the eager, young-old face in the frame.
'Mr Warfield?' asked McAuliff, knowing that this fiftyish, precise-looking executive was not.
'Good heavens, no. The, name's Preston. Do hop in; I think we're holding up the line.'
'Yes, you are.' Alex got into the back seat as Preston moved over. The Englishman extended his hand.
'It's a pleasure. I'm the one you've been talking to on the telephone.'
'Yes... Mr Preston.'
'I'm really very sorry for the inconvenience, meeting like this. Old Julian has his quirks, I'll grant you.'
McAuliff decided he might have misjudged the Dunstone man. 'It was a little confusing, that's all. If the object was precautionary - for what reason I can't imagine - he picked a hell of a car to send.'
Preston laughed. 'True. But then, I've learned over the years that Warfield, like God, moves in