Free Saturn Over the Water by J. B. Priestley, J.B. Priestley Page B

don’t, I know – yes, that’s it.’ Now she looked at me. ‘South America. I don’t know where, but I’m sure it’s South America. Why, what does that prove? Don’t say it doesn’t prove anything because I saw your eyes light up – they really did.’
    ‘That’s drink, you, and this Tahiti atmosphere, ducky. Lighting-up time for Bedford. But nothing’s been proved, not a thing. Perhaps I ought to talk to Inge.’
    ‘Let’s go and find her. And listen to me! Waiting on you hand and foot! It must be this ducky line of yours – and no passes being made. Come on, then.’
    But Inge wasn’t to be found. Neither was von Emmerick; and the next time I met him we were a hell of a long way from Mrs Tengleton’s château.
    I had to talk to somebody about it, and I felt I could trust Sam Harnberg, so later that night, after I’d told him he wasn’t to see me off at Idlewild next morning, when he had his own business to attend to, I explained what had happened so far about Joe Farne’s list.
    ‘Here’s a man – a steady, hard-working scientist – who disappears from one country, Peru, where nobody knows where he’s gone to, and then suddenly writes to his wife apparently from another country, Chile. And after telling her they should never have separated and that he still loves her and so forth, he scribbles as fast as he can remember them, obviously in a devil of a hurry, some names of people and places. Roughly about a third of them couldn’t be made out at all, neither by me nor by a typist who copied the list. So I’ll never know what they were.’
    He held out a big meaty hand. ‘Gimme, boy. I’ll take a look at ’em through a reading glass. I’ve had to cope with some terrible writing in my time. So hand it over.’
    ‘I can’t, Sam. I haven’t the one Joe originally wrote. It was stolen while I was out at a dinner party given by a man I didn’t know, who asked me at the last minute. And it’s my belief I was asked so they could be sure I wasn’t at home that night.’ And now I told him about Sir Reginald Merlan-Smith and how Nadia Slatina kept me on, probably because they weren’t sure then the job had been pulled off. ‘And then when Merlan-Smith did talk to me, he’d nothing much to say and obviously wanted to get rid of me. I couldn’t understand it at the time, naturally, but afterwards I felt certain he’d heard, probably over the phone, that they had Joe’s list, so there was no point in detaining me any longer. And a man called Mitchell comes into it somewhere.’ And then I explained about Mitchell.
    ‘It’s a hell of a note,’ said Sam, grinning. ‘You walked into something, Tim, but I wouldn’t know what.’
    ‘Yes, but this is what I wanted to say, Sam. Last night, you remember, General Giddings was mentioned – and I asked you about him afterwards. And his was the first name on the list. The next seems to be a Russian – V. Melnikov – I don’t know anything about him. But next to him, the third name, is von Emmerick. Now I met a von Emmerick – a German General Staff type if I ever saw one – this afternoon at Mrs Tengleton’s. And though he pays fairly regular visits to New York, he’s living in South America, where I’m going tomorrow. Now this may be all a coincidence – or a series of coincidences – ’
    ‘No, Tim boy, I don’t buy that. When old Sam Harnberg finds himself stuck with too many coincidences, he begins to smell something. There’s a setup here somewhere. What about the places – didn’t you say some places were on the list?’
    ‘One might be in South America – Chile, perhaps. The other three seem to be in Australia, a devil of a long way from anywhere else. And if there’s a setup of some sort, as you suggest, how could Australia come into the picture?’
    ‘I wouldn’t know. By the way, some good painting is coming out of there, Tim. I’ve been surprised lately. No, don’t tell me we’re not talking about painting. I’m