I left Paris a dandified young French-American, and I
sailed from Hamburg a Jew diamond merchant. In Norway I was an
English student of Ibsen collecting materials for lectures, but when I
left Bergen I was a cinema-man with special ski films. And I came
here from Leith with a lot of pulp-wood propositions in my pocket to
put before the London newspapers. Till yesterday I thought I had
muddied my trail some, and was feeling pretty happy. Then ...'
The recollection seemed to upset him, and he gulped down some
more whisky.
'Then I saw a man standing in the street outside this block. I
used to stay close in my room all day, and only slip out after dark
for an hour or two. I watched him for a bit from my window, and I
thought I recognized him ... He came in and spoke to the porter
... When I came back from my walk last night I found a card in
my letter-box. It bore the name of the man I want least to meet on
God's earth.'
I think that the look in my companion's eyes, the sheer naked
scare on his face, completed my conviction of his honesty. My own
voice sharpened a bit as I asked him what he did next.
'I realized that I was bottled as sure as a pickled herring, and that
there was only one way out. I had to die. If my pursuers knew I
was dead they would go to sleep again.'
'How did you manage it?'
'I told the man that valets me that I was feeling pretty bad, and I
got myself up to look like death.
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