Free Assignment Madeleine by Edward S. Aarons Page A

of stone steps
scaled the outside wall ahead to a doorway on a balcony above.
    The bearded French driver said, “You go first, Zorah.”
    The Arab girl smiled scornfully. “The rebels are not here.
There is no trap. There is no need to be afraid.”
    “Nevertheless, you go first.”
    She shrugged and climbed the outside steps to the door and
opened it. When she had put on a light, Durell followed the soldier in and
closed the door behind him.
    There was a heavy baroque desk that looked incongruous amid
the delicately wrought Arab pieces. Durell went to it and opened several of the
drawers. The papers inside had been pawed around hurriedly. He looked in a
scented wardrobe closet. The fragments of a smashed radio tube glittered in
brittle silver slivers on the floor inside. That was all.
    “Captain DeGrasse went through everything, m’sieu ,”
    Zorah offered. She stood near the doorway, her arms folded
across her breasts, one hip askew. “There was nothing of importance here, I
heard him say.”
    Durell nodded and went to the window and looked out at the
courtyard they had entered. Darkness ruled down there. He couldn’t see
anything. He returned to the wardrobe and looked at Orrin Boston’s European
clothing and the fine Arab kachabia he must have worn often. Durell’s eyes were dark
and brooding. Boston had loved this Moslem world, and he had been doing a good
job for K Section here.
    He turned to the girl. “You were here the night he was
killed?”
    “Not here. Downstairs, entertaining.”
    “Do you work in the café regularly?”
    “Yes. I also cooked for Monsieur Boston and did his
laundry.”
    “You were fond of him?”
    The girl’s eyes were large and dark. “I loved him, m’sieu ."
    Durell was relentless. “How much did you love him?”
    “We were—I did everything I could for him. All that he
permitted and accepted. I knew about his wife and family. I think he loved them
and loved me, too. He was a deeply troubled man in that respect, living in two
worlds, yet drifting as one lost on the sea.”
    “Who killed him?”
    “It was Charles L’Heureux,” she said flatly.
    “Did you see it happen?”
    “I was one of the first to run up here when we heard
the shot in the café. They had been quarreling, and finally they began to
fight. We heard the sounds of the struggle and then the shot. It was over
very quickly, m’sieu .”
    “And L’Heureux was in this room when you came in?"
    “Yes. With the gun in his hand.”
    “Did he admit killing Orrin Boston?”
    “He is a devil, that one. A laughing devil. At first
he tried to say it was a terrorist. But we know no one was here from the
rebels. I—I tried to kill him.” She lifted her skirt and showed a long, thin
poniard strapped to her firm thigh. “With this, m’sieu .
But he is strong, that one. He laughed and took it away from me. Then the
soldiers arrived and they took him away. And the body.” She made a dim
swallowing sound and her face twisted
    with grief. “Orrin is buried in the military cemetery at the
command post.”
    Durell looked around the ornate Moorish room again. He
wondered who had taken Orrie’s radio. He tried to feel the presence of the man
who had lived here, to capture the sight and sound and look of him, but it was
difficult to place him in this alien environment.
    Nobody had mentioned the huge sum of American currency that
had vanished. He decided not to say anything about it, either. He looked at the
French jeep driver. “Let’s go, Jean."
    The bearded soldier turned his bulky form toward the door
and waved his carbine at the Arab girl. “Forward, petite.”
    “Don’t push me,” she said. “I live here.”
    “This place is restricted,” the soldier said. “Co first.”
    The girl looked resentful as she went out. The courtyard
below was filled with shadows that moved in the wind and the moonlight.
Durell closed the door and descended the stone stairway outside. The girl slipped
ahead through the gateway