Thieves Fall Out Read Online Free PDF

something in his room. Well, they knew he had nothing, he thought grimly, rearranging the bed. There was nothing they didn’t know about him now.
    It was not until he was about to get back into bed again that he detected a familiar, subtle odor in the room—a scent of jasmine, like that which Hélène had worn.

Chapter Two
    The next morning he was called to the telephone in the hall. It was Hastings, who made a date to meet him for lunch at Shepheard’s. Pete dressed and went downstairs, his soles flapping as he walked. He would get a new pair of shoes out of his mysterious employers, he decided, still irritated by what had been done to him during the night.
    After coffee, he strolled out into the burning street. He was the only person without a hat, he noticed, and since the direct sun was supposed to addle the brain, he kept to the shaded side of the streets, walking with his hands in his empty pockets.
    In spite of the unpleasant events of the previous evening, he was soon in a good mood. Even the sight of the bar where he had lost his money did not disturb him. On an impulse, he went in.
    Le Couteau Rouge was a dark, wine-smelling bar, very French, with many decrepit travel posters of France pasted to the walls. At this hour it was deserted except for a pair of tired-looking French women with frizzled blonde hair seated at one of the tables, drinking coffee sadly, and a half-dozen English and French derelicts leaning on the bar, talking among themselves.
    The bartender, small and fat and bald with a huge mustache and red cheeks crisscrossed with broken purple veins, nodded when he saw Pete. “You have good night Tuesday?” he asked, waddling over, polishing a glass as he talked.
    “No, a bad night. I was robbed.”
    “Quelle horreur!”
said the bartender, rolling his eyes. “How much?”
    “Everything I had, every cent.”
    “But this is terrible!”
    “That’s what I thought, too. You don’t happen to remember who I was with that night, do you? I don’t remember anything.”
    The bartender nodded and placed his finger against his nose craftily. “Absinthe,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Absinthe. You say you want to drink only that, and though I warn you because you seem good boy, you don’t listen, so I give you four. Four will make people crazy.”
    Now it was becoming clear. Pete was a light drinker, and he had assumed that his blackout had been the result of a drugging.
    “Your name Peter Wells?”
    “That’s right. How’d you know?”
    “I thought yes. Someone from the Consulate call up and ask about you, about the traveler’s checks. I say we never see them but we see you.”
    “
Did
you see them?”
    “Monsieur!”
The little man looked injured.
    “Just wondering. You remember who I left here with?”
    “I no notice. It is busy night. Ask one of these girls. They are here always, see all things.”
    Peter went over to their table. Both brightened up considerably; in fairly good English, they invited him to sit down. The bartender brought him coffee, implying tenderly that it was on the house. It was bitter and unpleasant but Pete drank it.
    The blonder of the two girls had a faint but unmistakable mustache, which shone dark blue against her heavily powdered skin; she knew more English than the other and she did the talking. “We talk to you ever so much Tuesday,” she said, patting his arm. “You promise to visit us sometime. We have charming flat.”
    Pete allowed he would like to visit the charming flat one day; meanwhile, he wanted to know if they could remember what he had done Tuesday night.
    The spokesman frowned thoughtfully. “You come in about five and have beer. We notice you immediately because there are so few American gentlemen here in this hot, hot month. Then, after a while, you ask for the absinthe and drink it. Then you talk to all the girls—very nice, though, not like so many American men, who shout and get sick. Then arrives Le Mouche, who plays at the piano nicely