Nightwork

I hoped that the thief would turn out to be as thrifty as I intended to be and wear the clothes he had no doubt by now found in my bag, even though they would only fit him approximately, as his fit me. I was sure that if I saw a suit of mine go past I would recognize it. I realized I was grasping at straws - with seventy-thousand dollars in his pocket, he was probably being measured at that moment by some of the best tailors in Europe. I had the same sense of pain that I imagined a husband might have knowing that at that moment his beautiful wife was in bed with another man. With anguish I realized I was married to a certain number of hundred-dollar bills. It wasn't rational. After all, I was richer than I had been only two weeks before. But there it was. I was beyond rationality.

Meanwhile I had about five thousand dollars in cash on me. I had five thousand dollars worth of time to find a man with a sixteen-and-a-half-inch neck, thirty-four-inch arms, a size ten shoe, and no intention of returning seventy thousand dollars that had fallen, almost literally, from the heavens into his hands.

As I repacked the bag carefully, putting the gaudy jacket on top, the way I had found it, I thought, well, at least there's one consolation - I won't have to spend any money on a new wardrobe to replace the one I had lost. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. I don't know what I would have done if the bag had been full of women's things.

* * *

I paid my bill and took a taxi to the Bahnhof and bought a first-class ticket for St Moritz. The only people I had spoken to on the plane coming over were the couple who were going to ski the Corvatch at St Moritz. They hadn't told me their names or where they were going to stay. I knew the chances of their being able to give me any useful information if I did find them were almost infinitesimal. But I had to start somewhere. Zurich had no further charms for me. It had rained the two days I had been there.

At Chur, an hour-and-a-half ride from Zurich, I had to change for the narrow-gauge railroad that mounted into the Engadine. I went down the first-class car until I saw an empty compartment and went in and put my coat and two bags on the rack over the seats.

The atmosphere on the new train was considerably different from the one on the express from Zurich, which had been businesslike and quiet, with solid, heavy types reading the financial pages of the Züricher Zeitung. Getting into the toy-like cars en route to the Alpine resorts, there were a lot of young people, many of them already in ski clothes, and expensively dressed pretty women in furs, with appropriate escorts. There was a feeling of holiday that I was in no mood to share. I was hunting and I wanted to think and I hoped that no one would come into my apartment to disturb me. Un-democratically, I closed the sliding door of the compartment, as a deterrent to company. But just before the train started, a man pulled the door open and asked, in English, politely enough, 'Pardon me, sir, are those seats taken?'

'I don't think so,' I said as ungraciously as possible.

'Honey,' the man called down the corridor. 'In here.' A fluffy blonde, considerably younger than the man, wearing a leopard coat and a hat to match, came into the compartment. I grieved briefly for all prowling animals threatened with extinction. The lady was carrying a handsome leather jewel case and smelled strongly of a musky perfume. A huge diamond ring graced the finger over her wedding band. If the world were better organized, there would have been a riot of porters and any other workers within a radius of ten blocks of the station platform. Unthinkable in Switzerland.

The man had no luggage, just some magazines and a copy of the International Herald Tribune under his arm. He dropped the magazines and paper on the seat opposite me and helped the lady off with her coat. Swinging it up to put it on the rack, the hem of the coat brushed against my face, tickling me and swamping me in a wave of scent.

'Oh,' the woman said, 'excuse, excuse.'

I smiled glumly, restraining myself from scratching at my face. 'It's a pleasure,' I said.

She rewarded me with a smile. She couldn't have been more than twenty-eight years old, and up to now she had obviously had every reason to feel that a smile of hers was indeed a reward. I was sure that she was not the man's first wife, maybe not even the second. I took an instant dislike to her.

The man took off the sheepskin coat that he was wearing, and the green, furry Tyrolean hat, with a little feather in the band, and tossed them up on the rack. He had a silk foulard scarf tied around his throat, which he didn't remove. As he sat down he pulled out a cigar case.

'Bill,' the woman said, complaining.

'I'm on a holiday, honey. Let me enjoy it.' Bill opened the cigar case.

'I hope you don't mind if my husband smokes,' the woman. said.

Not at all.' At least it would kill some of the overpowering aroma of the perfume.