Missing Person Read Online Free PDF

United States. In the U.S.A. she entered into marriage with a Mr. Waldo Blunt, then divorced.
    Miss Orlov resided successively at:
    The Hôtel Châteaubriand, 18 Rue du Cirque, Paris 8
    53 Avenue Montaigne, Paris 8
    25 Avenue du Maréchal-Lyautey, Paris 16
    Before coming to France, Miss Orlov was a dancer in the United States. In Paris, there was no visible source of income, although she led a life of luxury.
    Miss Orlov died in 1950 at her home, 25 Avenue du Maréchal-Lyautey, Paris 16, of an overdose of barbiturates.
    Mr. Waldo Blunt, her ex-husband, has resided in Paris since 1952 and has worked in various night club establishments as a professional pianist. He is an American citizen. Born 30th September 1910, in Chicago. Residence permit no. 534 HC 828.
    Attached to this typewritten memorandum, a visiting-card bearing Jean-Pierre Bernardy's name and the words:
    "This is all the information available. My best wishes.
    Regards to Hutte."

7
     
     
     A NOTICE on the glass-fronted door announced,"Waldo Blunt at the piano from six to nine every evening in the Hilton Hotel bar."
    The bar was packed and the only free seat was at the table of a Japanese with gold-rimmed spectacles. He did not seem to understand me when I bent over him and asked if I might sit down, and when I did, he took no notice.
    American and Japanese customers came in, hailed each other and spoke louder and louder. They stood about between the tables. Several, glass in hand, leaned on the backs or arms of chairs. One young woman was even perched on the knees of a gray-haired man.
    Waldo Blunt arrived a quarter of an hour late and sat down at the piano. A small plump man with receding hair and a thin moustache. He was wearing a gray suit. First he turned his head and cast a glance around the tables where people were crowding. He stroked the keys of the piano with his right hand and played a few random chords. I happened to be sitting at one of the closest tables.
    He began a tune which, I believe, was "Sur les quais du vieux Paris ," but the noise of conversation and the bursts of laughter made the music barely audible, and even close to the piano, I could not catch all the notes. He continued imperturbably, sitting bolt upright, his head bent. I felt sorry for him: I supposed that at one time in his life he had been listened to when he played the piano. Since then, he must have got used to this perpetual buzz, drowning out his music. What would he say, when I mentioned Gay Orlov's name? Would it temporarily jolt him out of the apathetic state in which he played? Or would it no longer mean anything to him, like these notes, unable to still the hum of conversation?
    The bar had gradually emptied. The only ones left now were the Japanese with the gold-rimmed spectacles, myself, and at the back of the room, the young woman I had seen perched on the lap of the gray-haired gentleman and who was now seated next to a fat, red-faced man in a light blue suit . . . They were speaking German. And very loudly. Waldo Blunt was playing a slow tune which I knew well.
    He turned toward us.
    "Would you like me to play anything in particular, ladies and gentlemen?" he asked in a cold voice with a trace of an American accent.
    The Japanese next to me did not react. He remained motionless, his face smooth, and I was afraid he might topple from his seat at the slightest breath of air, since he was clearly an embalmed corpse.
    "'Sag warum ,' please," the woman huskily called from the back.
    Blunt gave a slight nod and started playing "Sag warum" The light in the bar dimmed, as it sometimes does in dance halls at the first notes of a slow step. The couple took the opportunity to kiss and the woman's hand slid into the opening of the fat, red-faced man's shirt, then lower down. The gold-rimmed spectacles of the Japanese flashed. At his piano, Blunt looked like an automaton being jolted spasmodically: "Sag warum" requires an endless thumping out of chords.
    What was he thinking