Free Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler Page B

you not think it would be good for my figure to starve a little? One grows fat in Istanbul.” She posed. “You see?”
    Graham nearly laughed. The picture being presented for his approval had all the simple allure of a full-page drawing in
La Vie Parisienne
. Here was the “business man’s” dream come true: the beautiful blonde dancer, married but unloved, in need of protection: something expensive going cheap.
    “A dancer’s must be a very hard life,” he said dryly.
    “Ah, yes! Many people think that it is so gay. If they knew!”
    “Yes, of course. It is getting a little cold, isn’t it? Shall we go inside and have a drink?”
    “That would be nice.” She added with a tremendous air of candour: “I am so glad we are travelling together. I was afraid that I was going to be bored. Now, I shall enjoy myself.”
    He felt that his answering smile was probably rather sickly. He was beginning to have an uncomfortable suspicion that he was making a fool of himself. “We go this way, I think,” he said.
    The
salone
was a narrow room about thirty feet long, with entrances from the shelter deck and from the landing at the head of the stairs to the cabins. There were grey upholstered
banquettes
round the walls and, at one end, three round dining tables bolted down. Evidently there was no separate dining-room. Some chairs, a card table, a shaky writing desk, a radio, a piano and a threadbare carpet completed the furnishings. Opening off the room at the far end was a cubby hole with half doors. The lower door had a strip of wood screwed to the top of it to make a counter. This was the bar. Inside it, the steward was opening cartons of cigarettes. Except for him, the place was deserted. They sat down.
    “What would you like to drink, Mrs.…,” began Graham tentatively.
    She laughed. “José’s name is Gallindo, but I detest it. You must call me Josette. I would like some English whisky and a cigarette, please.”
    “Two whiskies,” said Graham.
    The steward put his head out and frowned at them. “Viski?
? molto caro,”
he said warningly;
“très cher
.
Cinque lire
. Five lire each. Vair dear.”
    “Yes, it is, but we will have them just the same.”
    The steward retired into the bar, and made a lot of noise with the bottles.
    “He is very angry,” said Josette. “He is not used to people who order whisky.” She had obviously derived a good deal of satisfaction from the ordering of the whisky, and the discomfiture of the steward. In the light of the saloon her fur coat looked cheap and old; but she had unbuttoned it and arranged it round her shoulders as if it had been a thousand guinea mink. He began, against his better judgment, to feel sorry for her.
    “How long have you been dancing?”
    “Since I was ten. That is twenty years ago. You see,” she remarked, complacently, “I do not lie to you about my age. I was born in Serbia, but I say that I am Hungarian because it sounds better. My mother and father were very poor.”
    “But honest, no doubt.”
    She looked faintly puzzled. “Oh no, my father was not at all honest. He was a dancer, and he stole some money from someone in the troupe. They put him in prison. Then the war came, and my mother took me to Paris. A very rich man took care of us for a time, and we had a very nice apartment.” She gave a nostalgic sigh: an impoverished
grande dame
lamenting past glories. “But he lost his money, and so my mother had to dance again. My mother died when we were in Madrid, and I was sent back to Paris, to a convent. It was terrible there. I do not know what happened to my father. I think perhaps he was killed in the war.”
    “And what about José?”
    “I met him in Berlin when I was dancing there. He did not like his partner. She was,” she added simply, “a terrible bitch.”
    “Was this long ago?”
    “Oh, yes. Three years. We have been to a great many places.” She examined him with affectionate concern. “But you are tired. You look tired.