The 27th adventure in detection and espionage of Rand, the head of the Department of Concealed Communications, known as the Double-C man... An urgent assignment brought Rand to the End of the Rainbow. Now, what should one expect to find at the end of the rainbow? A pot of gold, of course. But Rand found something else. Not gold-colored, but red, green, white, blue, orange, yellow, indigo, violet, and black — strangely enough, the colors of murder...
Rand was in Cairo looking for Leila Gaad when he first heard about the End of the Rainbow. It had been nearly two years since they had fled the city together by helicopter with half the Egyptian Air Force in pursuit, but a great many things had changed in those two years. Most important, the Russians were gone. Only a few stragglers remained behind from the thousands of technicians and military advisers who had crowded the city back in those days.
Rand liked the city better without the Russians, though he was the first to admit that their departure had done little to ease tensions in the Middle East. There were still the terrorists and the almost weekly incidents, still the killings and the threats of war from both sides. In a world mainly at peace, Cairo was still a city where a spy could find work.
He’d come searching for Leila partly because he simply wanted to see her again, but mainly because one of her fellow archeologists at Cairo University had suddenly become a matter of deep concern to British Intelligence. It was not, at this point, a case for the Department of Concealed Communications, but Hastings had been quick to enlist Rand’s help when it became obvious that his old friend Leila Gaad might have useful information.
So he was in Cairo on a warm April day. Unfortunately, Leila Gaad was not in Cairo. Rand had visited the University to ask about her, and been told by a smiling Greek professor, “Leila has gone to the End of the Rainbow.”
“The end of the rainbow?” Rand asked, his mind conjuring up visions of pots of gold.
“The new resort hotel down on Foul Bay. There’s a worldwide meeting of archeologists in progress, and two of our people are taking part.”
It seemed too much to hope for, but Rand asked the question anyway. “Would the person accompanying Leila be Herbert Fanger, by any chance?”
The Greek’s smile widened. “You know Professor Fanger, too?”
“Only by reputation.”
“Yes, they are down there together, representing Cairo University. With the meeting in our country we could hardly ignore it.”
“Are the Russians represented, too?”
“The Russians, the Americans, the British, the French, and the Chinese. It’s a truly international event.”
Rand took out his notebook. “I just think I might drop in on that meeting. Could you tell me how to get to the End of the Rainbow?”
Foul Bay was an inlet of the Red Sea, perched on its western shore in the southeastern corner of Egypt. (For Rand the ancient land would always be Egypt. He could never bring himself to call it the United Arab Republic.) It was located just north of the Sudanese border in an arid, rocky region that all but straddled the Tropic of Cancer. Rand thought it was probably the last place on earth that anyone would ever build a resort hotel.
But that was before his hired car turned off the main road and he saw the lush irrigated oasis, before he caught a glimpse of the sprawling group of white buildings overlooking the bay. He passed under a multihued sign announcing The End of the Rainbow, and was immediately on a rainbow-colored pavement that led directly to the largest of the buildings.
The first person he encountered after parking the car was an armed security guard. Rand wondered at the need for a guard in such a remote area, but he followed the man into the administrative area. A small Englishman wearing a knit summer suit rose from behind a large white desk to greet him. “What have we here?”
Rand presented his credentials. “It’s important that I speak to Miss Leila Gaad. I understand she is a guest at this resort.”
The man bowed slightly. “I am Felix Bollinger, manager of the End of the Rainbow. We’re always pleased to have visitors, even from British Intelligence.”
“I haven’t seen all of it, but it’s quite a place. Who owns it?”
“A London-based corporation. We’re still under construction, really. This conference of archeologists is something of a test run for us.”
“You did all this irrigation work, too?”
The small man nodded. “That was the most expensive part — that and cleaning up the bay. Now I’m petitioning the government to change the name from Foul Bay to Rainbow Bay. Foul Bay is hardly a designation to attract tourists.”
“I wish you luck.” Rand was looking out at the water, which still seemed a bit scummy to him.
“But you wanted to see Miss Gaad. According to the schedule of events, this is a free hour. I suspect you’ll find her down at the pool with the others.” He pointed to a door. “Out that way.”
“Thank you.”
“Ask her to show you around. You’ve never seen any place quite like the End of the Rainbow.”
“I’ve decided that already.”
Rand went out the door indicated and strolled down another rainbow-colored path to the pool area. A half-dozen people were splashing in the water, and it took him only a moment to pick out the bikini-clad figure of Leila Gaad. She was small and dark-haired, but with a swimmer’s perfect body that glistened as she pulled herself from the pool.
“Hello again,” he said, offering her a towel. “Remember me?”
She looked up at him, squinting against the sunlight. “It’s Mr. Rand, isn’t it?”
“You’re still so formal.”
Her face seemed even more youthful than he remembered, with high cheekbones and deep dark eyes that always seemed to be mocking him. “I’m afraid to ask what brings you here,” she said.
“As usual, business.” He glanced at the others in the pool. Four men, mostly middle-aged, and one woman who might have been Leila’s age or a little older — perhaps 30. One man was obviously Oriental. The others, in bathing trunks, revealed no national traits that Rand could recognize. “Where could we talk?” he asked.
“Down by the bay?” She slipped a terrycloth jacket over her shoulders.
“Bollinger said you might show me around the place. How about that?”
“Fine.” She led him back up the walk toward the main building where they encountered another man who looked younger than the others.
“Not leaving me already, are you?” he asked Leila.
“Just showing an old friend around. Mr. Rand, from London — this is Harvey Northgate, from Columbia University in the United States. He’s here for the conference.”
They shook hands and the American said, “Take good care of her, Rand. There are only two women in the place.” He continued down the walk to the pool.
“Seems friendly enough,” Rand observed.
“They’re all friendly. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had at one of these conferences.” Glancing sideways at him, she asked, “But how did you manage to get back into the country? Did they drop you by parachute?”
“Hardly. You’re back, aren’t you?”
“But not without the University pulling strings. Then of course the Russians left and that eased things considerably.” She had led him to a center court with white buildings on all sides. “Each building has nine large suites of rooms, and you can see there are nine buildings in the cluster, plus the administrative complex. Those eight are still being finished, though. Only the one we’re occupying has been completed.”
“That’s only eighty-one units in all,” Rand observed.
“Enough, at the rates they plan to charge! The rumor is that Bollinger’s company wants to show a profit and then sell the whole thing to Hilton.” They turned off the main path and she pointed to the colored stripes. “See? The colors of the rainbow show you where you’re going. Follow the blue to the pool, the yellow to the lounge.”
The completed building, like the others, was two stories high. There were four suites on the first floor and five on the floor above. “How are you able to afford all this?” Rand asked.
“There’s a special rate for the conference because they’re not fully open yet. And the University’s paying for Professor Fanger and me.” She led him down the hall of the building. “Each of these nine suites has a different color scheme — the seven colors of the spectrum, plus black and white. Here’s mine — the orange suite. The walls, drapes, bedspreads, shower curtain — even the ashtrays and telephone — are all orange.” She opened a ceramic orange cigarette box. “See, even orange cigarettes! Professor Fanger has yellow ones, and he doesn’t even smoke.”
“Who’s in the black suite?”
“The American, Harvey Northgate. He was upset when he heard it, but the rooms are really quite nice. All the black is trimmed with white. I like all the suites, except maybe the purple. I told Bollinger he should make that one pink instead.”
“You say Professor Fanger is in yellow?”
“Yes. It’s so bright and cheerful!”
“I came out from London to check on the possibility that he might be a former Russian agent we’ve been hunting for years. We arrested a man in Liverpool last week and he listed Fanger as one of his former contacts.”
Leila Gaad chuckled. “Have you ever met Herbert Fanger?”
“Not yet,” he admitted.
“He’s the most unlikely-looking spy imaginable.”
“They make the best kind.”
“No, really! He’s fat and over forty, but he still imagines himself a ladies’ man. He wears outlandish clothes, with loud colors most men wouldn’t be caught dead in, even these days. He’s hardly my idea of an unobtrusive secret agent.”
“From what we hear, he’s retired. He used the code name Sphinx while he was gathering information and passing it to Russia.”
“If he’s retired, why do you want to talk to him?”
“Because he knows a great deal, especially about the agents with whom he used to work. Some of those are retired now too, but others are still active, spying for one country or another.”
“Where do I come in?” she asked suspiciously. “I’ve already swum the Nile and climbed the Great Pyramid for you, but I’m not going to betray Herbert Fanger to British Intelligence. He’s a funny little man but I like him. What he was ten years ago is over and done with.”
“At least you can introduce me, can’t you?”
“I suppose so,” she agreed reluctantly.
“Was he one of those at the pool?”
“Heavens, no! He’d never show up in bathing trunks. I imagine he’s in the lounge watching television.”
“Television, this far from Cairo?”
“It’s closed-circuit, just for the resort. They show old movies.”
Herbert Fanger was in the lounge as she’d predicted, but he wasn’t watching old movies on television. He was deep in conversation with Bollinger, the resort manager. They separated when Rand and Leila entered the large room, and Bollinger said, “Well, Mr. Rand! Has she been showing you our place?”
“I’m doubly impressed now that I’ve seen it.”
“Come back in the autumn when we’re fully open. Then you’ll really see something!”
“Could I get a room for tonight? It’s a long drive back to Cairo.”
Bollinger frowned and consulted his memory. “Let me see... The indigo suite is still vacant, if you’d like that.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll get you the key. You can have the special rate, even though you’re not part of the conference.”
As he hurried away, Leila introduced Fanger. “Professor Herbert Fanger, perhaps the world’s leading authority on Cleopatra and her era.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Rand said.
Fanger was wearing a bright-red sports shirt and checkered pants that did nothing to hide his protruding stomach. Seeing him, Rand had to admit he made a most unlikely-looking spy. “We were just talking about the place,” he told Rand. “What do you think it cost?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Tell them, Felix,” he said as the manager returned with Rand’s key.
Bollinger answered with a trace of pride. “With the irrigation and landscaping, plus cleaning up the bay, it will come close to seven million dollars. The highest cost per unit of any resort hotel.”
Rand was impressed. But after a few more moments of chatting he remembered the reason for his trip.
“Could I speak to you in private, Professor, about some research I’m doing?”
“Regarding Cleopatra?”
“Regarding the Sphinx.”
There was a flicker of something in Fanger’s eyes. He excused himself and went with Rand. When they were out of earshot he said, “You’re British Intelligence, aren’t you? Bollinger told me.”
“Concealed communications, to be exact. I know this country, so they sent me to talk with you.”
“I’ve been retired since the mid-sixties.”
“We know that. It took us that long to track you down. We’re not after you, but you must have a great many names in your mind. We’d be willing to make a deal for those names.”
Fanger’s eyes flickered again. “I might be interested. I don’t know. Coming here and talking to me openly could have been a mistake.”
“You mean there’s someone here who—”
“Look, Rand, I’m forty-seven years old and about that many pounds overweight. I retired before I got myself killed, and I don’t know that I want to take any risks now. Espionage is a young man’s game, always was. Your own Somerset Maugham quit it after World War One to write books. I quit it to chase women.”
“Having any luck?”
“Here?” he snorted. “I think Leila’s a twenty-eight-year-old virgin and the French one is pure bitch. Not much choice.”
“Exactly what is the purpose of this conference?”
“Simply to discuss recent advances in archeology. Each of five nations sent a representative, and of course the University thought Leila and I should attend, too. There’s nothing sinister about it — of that I can assure you!” But his eyes weren’t quite so certain.
“Then why the armed guards patrolling the grounds?”
“You’d have to ask Bollinger — though I imagine he’d tell you there are occasional thieving nomads in the region. Without guards this place would be too tempting.”
“How far is it to the nearest town?”
“More than a hundred miles overland to Aswan — nothing closer except native villages and lots of sand.”
“An odd place to hold a conference. An odder place to build a plush resort.”
“Once the Suez Canal is back in full operation, Bollinger expects to get most of his clientele by boat — wealthy yachtsmen and the like. Who knows? He might make a go of it. Once it’s cleaned up, Foul Bay could make a natural anchorage.”
They had strolled out of the building and around the cluster of white structures still in various stages of completion. Rand realized the trend of the conversation had got away from him. He’d not traveled all the way from London to discuss a resort hotel with Herbert Fanger. But then suddenly Leila reappeared with another of the male conferees — a distinguished white-haired man with a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard. Rand remembered seeing him lounging by the pool. Now he reached out to shake hands as Leila introduced him.
“Oh, Mr. Rand, here’s a countryman of yours. Dr. Wayne Evans, from Oxford.”
The bearded Dr. Evans grinned cheerfully. “Pleased to meet you, Rand. I always have to explain that I’m not a medical doctor and I’m not with the University. I simply live in Oxford and write books on various aspects of archeology.”
“A pleasure to meet you in any event,” Rand said. He saw that Fanger had taken advantage of the interruption to get away, but there would be time for him later. “I’ve been trying to get a straight answer as to what this conference is all about, but everyone seems rather vague about it.”
Dr. Evans chuckled.
“The best way to explain it is for you to sit in at our morning session. You may find it deadly dull, but at least you’ll know as much as the rest of us.”
“I’d enjoy it,” Rand said. He watched Evans go down the walk, taking the path that led to the pool and then changing his mind and heading for the lounge. Then Rand turned his attention to Leila, who’d remained at his side.
“As long as you’re here you can escort me to dinner tonight,” she said. “Then your long drive won’t have been a total waste.”
He reacted to her impish smile with a grin of his own. “How do you know it’s been a waste so far?”
“Because I’ve known Herbert Fanger for three years and never gotten a straight answer out of him yet. I don’t imagine you did much better.”
“You’re quite correct,” he admitted. “Come on, let’s eat.”
He checked in at the indigo suite he’d been assigned and found it not nearly as depressing as he’d expected from the color. Like the black suite, the dominant color had been liberally bordered in white, and the effect proved to be quite pleasant. He was beginning to think that the End of the Rainbow might catch on, if anyone could afford to stay there.
Over dinner Leila introduced him to the other conferees he hadn’t met — Jeanne Bisset from France, Dr. Tao Liang from the People’s Republic of China, and Ivan Rusanov from Russia. With Fanger and Northgate and Evans, whom he’d met previously, that made six attending the conference, not counting Leila herself.
“Dr. Tao should really be in the yellow suite,” Rand observed quietly to Leila. “He would be if Bollinger had any imagination.”
“And I suppose you’d have Rusanov in red?”
“Of course!”
“Well, he is, for your information. But Dr. Tao is green.”
“That must leave the Frenchwoman, Jeanne Bisset, in violet.”
“Wrong! She’s white. Bollinger left indigo and violet empty, though now you have indigo.”
“He implied that was the only suite empty. I wonder what’s going on in violet.”
“Nameless orgies, no doubt — with all you Englishmen on the premises.”
“I should resent that,” he said with a smile. She put him at ease, and he very much enjoyed her company.
After dinner the others split into various groups. Rand saw the Chinese and the Russian chatting, and the American, Harvey Northgate, walking off by himself. “With those other suites free, why do you think Bollinger insisted on giving the black one to the American?” Rand asked Leila as they strolled along the edge of the bay.
“Perhaps he’s anti-American, who knows?”
“You don’t take the whole thing very seriously.”
“Should I, Mr. Rand?”
“Can’t you find something else to call me?”
“I never knew your first name.”
“C. Jeffery Rand, and I don’t tell anyone what the C. stands for.”
“You don’t look like a Jeffery,” she decided, cocking her head to gaze up at him. “You look more like a Winston.”
“I may be Prime Minister someday.”
She took his arm and steered him back toward the cluster of lighted buildings. “When you are, I’ll walk along the water with you. Till then, we stay far away from it. The last time I was near water with you, I ended up swimming across the Nile to spy on a Russian houseboat!”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Sure. So was climbing that pyramid in the middle of the night. My legs ached for days.”
It was late by the time they returned to their building. Some people were still in the lounge, but the lights in most suites were out.
“We grow tired early here,” she said. “I suppose it’s all the fresh air and exercise.”
“I know what you mean. It was a long drive down this morning.” He glanced at his watch and saw that it was already after ten. They’d strolled and chatted longer than he’d realized. “One thing first. I’d like to continue my conversation with Fanger if he’s still up.”
“Want me to come along?” she suggested. “Then we can both hear him say nothing.”
“Come on. He might surprise you.”
Fanger’s yellow suite was at the rear of the first floor, near a fire exit. He didn’t answer Rand’s knock, and they were about to check the lounge when Rand noticed a drop of fresh orange paint on the carpet under the door. “This is odd.”
“What?”
“Paint, and still wet.”
“The door’s unlocked, Rand.”
They pushed it open and snapped on the overhead light. What they saw was unbelievable. The entire room — ceiling, walls, floor — had been splashed with paint of every color. There was red and blue and green and black and white and violet and orange — all haphazardly smeared over every surface in the room. Over it all, ashtrays and towels meant for other suites had been dumped and scattered. Fanger’s yellow cigarette box was smashed on the floor, with blue and yellow cigarettes, green and indigo towels, even an orange ashtray, scattered around it. The suite was a surrealistic dream, as if at the end of the rainbow all the colors of the spectrum had been jumbled with white and black.
And crumpled in one corner, half hidden by a chair, was the body of Herbert Fanger. The red of his blood was almost indistinguishable from the paint that stained the yellow wall behind him. He’d been stabbed several times in the chest and abdomen.
“My God,” Leila breathed. “It’s a scene from hell!”
“Let’s phone the nearest police,” Rand said. “We need help here.”
But as they turned to leave, a voice from the hall said, “I’m afraid that will be impossible, Mr. Rand. There will be no telephoning by anyone.” Felix Bollinger stood there with one of his armed security guards, and the guard was pointing a pistol at them both.
Rand raised his hands reluctantly above his head, and at his side Leila Gaad said with a sigh, “You’ve done it to me again, haven’t you, Rand?”
They were ushered into Bollinger’s private office and the door was locked behind them. Only then did the security guard holster his revolver. He stood with his back to the door as Bollinger took a seat behind the desk.
“You must realize, Mr. Rand, that I cannot afford to have the End of the Rainbow implicated in a police investigation at this time.”
“I’m beginning to realize it.”
“You and Miss Gaad will be held here in my office until that room can be cleaned up and some disposition made of Herbert Fanner’s body.”
“And you expect me to keep silent about that?” Rand asked. “I’m here on an official mission concerning Herbert Fanger. His murder is a matter of great interest to the British government.”
“This is no longer British soil, Mr. Rand. It has not been for some decades.”
“But you are a British subject.”
“Only when it pleases me to be.”
“What’s going on here? Why the armed guards? Why was Fanger murdered?”
“It does not concern you, Mr. Rand.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Hardly!”
Rand shifted in his chair. “Then the killer is one of the others. Turn me loose and I might be able to find him for you.”
Bollinger’s eyes narrowed. “Just how would you do that?”
“With all that paint splashed around, the killer must have gotten some on him. There was a spot of orange paint on the carpet outside the door, for instance, as if it had come off the bottom of a shoe. Let me examine everyone’s clothing and I’ll identify the murderer.”
The manager was a man who reached quick decisions. “Very well, if I have your word you’ll make no attempt to get in touch with the authorities.”
“They have to be told sooner or later.”
“Let’s make it later. If we have the killer to hand over, it might not look quite so bad.”
Rand got to his feet. “I’ll want another look at Fanger’s room. Put a guard on the door and don’t do any cleaning up.”
“What about the body?”
“It can stay there for now,” Rand decided. “If we find the killer, it’ll be in the next hour or so.”
Leila followed him out of the office, still amazed. “How did you manage that? He had a gun on us ten minutes ago, and you talked your way out of it!”
“Not completely. Not yet. His security people will be watching us. Look, suppose you wake everyone up and get them down by the pool.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But what for?”
“We’re going to look for paint spots.”
The American, Harvey Northgate, refused to be examined at first. And the Russian demanded to call his Embassy in Cairo. But after Rand explained what it was all about, they seemed to calm down. The only trouble was, Rand and Leila could find no paint on any of them. It seemed impossible, but it was true. Rand’s hope of reaching a quick solution to the mystery burst like an over-inflated balloon.
It was Bollinger himself who provided an explanation, when the others had been allowed to return to their beds. “I discovered where the paint cans and the rest of it came from. Look, the side exit from this building is only a few steps away from the side exit to that building still under construction. Just inside the door are paint cans, boxes of towels and ashtrays, and even a pair of painter’s coveralls.”
“Show me,” Rand said. He looked around for Leila but she was gone. Perhaps the day really had tired her out.
The resort manager led Rand to the unfinished building. Looking at the piles of paint cans, Rand had little doubt that this was the source of the vandal’s supplies. He opened a box of red bath towels, and a carton of blue ashtrays.
“Anything else here?” he asked.
“Just drapes. Apparently he didn’t have time for those.”
“What about the carpeting? And soap and cigarettes?”
“They’re stored in one of the other buildings. He just took what was close at hand. And he wore a painter’s coveralls over his own clothes.”
“I suppose so,” Rand agreed. The splotches of paint seemed fresh, still tacky to his touch. “What I’d like to know is why... why risk discovery by going after that paint and the other things? He had to make at least two trips, one with the paint cans and the second to return the coveralls and probably gather up a few other things to throw around the room. Who knew these things were here?”
“They all did. I took them on a tour of the place the first day and showed them in here.”
“Coveralls,” Rand mused, “but no shoes. The shoes with the orange paint might still turn up.”
“Or might not. He could have tossed them into the bay.”
“All right,” Rand conceded. “I’m at a dead end. We’ll have to call in the authorities.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. The people here don’t want publicity. Nor do I.”
“They’re not archeologists, are they?”
“Not exactly,” Bollinger admitted.
“Then what were Leila and Fanger doing here?”
“A mistake. Cairo University believed our cover story and sent them down for the conference. Fanger, a retired agent himself, knew something was wrong from the beginning. Then you came, and it scared one of them enough to commit murder.”
“You have to tell me what’s going on here,” Rand said.
“A conference.”
“Britain, America, France, Russia, and China. A secret conference in the middle of nowhere, policed by armed guards.” He remembered something. “And what about the violet room? Who’s in there?”
“You ask too many questions. Here’s a list of all our guests.” Rand accepted the paper and scanned it quickly, refreshing his memory:
First Floor: Red — Ivan Rusanov (Russia)
Orange — Leila Gaad (Egypt)
Yellow — Herbert Fanger (Egypt)
Green — Dr. Tao Liang (China)
Second Floor: Blue — Dr. Wayne Evans (Britain)
Indigo — Rand
Violet—
White — Jeanne Bisset (France)
Black — Harvey Northgate (U.S.)
“The violet suite is empty?” Rand questioned.
“It is empty.”
Rand pocketed the list. “I’m going to look around.”
“We’ve cut the telephone service. It will do you no good to try phoning out. Only the hotel extensions are still in operation.”
“Thanks for saving me the effort.” He had another thought. “You know, this list doesn’t include some very good suspects — yourself and your employees.”
“I would never have created that havoc. And my guards would have used a gun rather than a knife.”
“What about the cooks and maids? The painters working on the other buildings?”
“Question them if you wish,” he said. “You’ll discover nothing.”
Rand left him and cut through the lounge to the stairway. He was anxious to check out that violet suite. It was now after midnight, and there was no sign of the others, though he hardly believed they were all in their beds.
He paused before the violet door and tried the knob. It was unlocked, and he wondered if he’d find another body. Fanger’s door had been left unlocked so that the killer could return with the paint cans. He wondered why this one was unlocked. But he didn’t wonder long.
“Felix? Is that you?” a woman’s voice called from the bedroom. It was the Frenchwoman, Jeanne Bisset.
“No, just me,” Rand said, snapping on the overhead light.
She sat up in bed, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s as much my room as yours. I’m sorry Felix Bollinger was delayed. It’s been a busy night.”
“I...”
“You don’t have to explain. I was wondering why he kept this suite vacant, and now I know.” He glanced around at the violet furnishings, deciding it was the least attractive of those he’d seen.
“Have you found the killer?” she asked, recovering her composure. She was a handsome woman, older than Leila, and Rand wondered if she and Bollinger had known each other before this week.
“Not yet,” he admitted. “It might help if you were frank with me.”
She blinked her eyes. “About what?”
“The purpose of this conference.”
She thought about that. Finally she said, “Hand me a cigarette from my purse and I’ll tell you what I know.”
He reached in, found a case full of white cigarettes ringed in black, and passed her one. “Is the house brand any good?” he asked. “I used to smoke American cigarettes all the time, but I managed to give them up.”
“They’re free and available,” she said, lighting one. “Something like Felix Bollinger himself.”
“You were going to talk about the conference,” he reminded her.
“Yes, the conference. A gathering of do-gooders trying to change the world. But the world cannot be changed, can it?”
“That all depends. You’re not archeologists, then?”
“No. Although the Russian, Rusanov, knew enough about it to fake a few lectures after Fanger and Miss Gaad turned up. No, Mr. Rand, in truth we’re nothing more than peace activists. Our five nations — America, France, Britain, China, Russia — are the only ones who have perfected nuclear weapons.”
“Of course! I should have realized that!”
“We are meeting here — with funds provided by peace groups and ban-the-bomb committees in our homelands — to work out some coordinated effort. As you can see, we’re no young hippies but sincere middle-aged idealists.”
“But why only the five of you? And why out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“A larger meeting would have attracted the press — which would have been especially dangerous for Dr. Tao and Ivan when they returned home. We heard of this place, just being built, and it seemed perfect for our purpose.”
“Do you remember who actually suggested it?”
She blushed prettily. “As a matter of fact, I did. I’d met Felix Bollinger in Paris last year, and—”
“I understand,” Rand said. “You sent out some sort of announcement to the press to cover yourselves, and Cairo University believed it.”
“Exactly.”
“Which one of you did Fanger recognize?”
She looked blank. “He didn’t admit to knowing any of us.”
“All right,” Rand said with a sigh. “Thanks for the information.”
He left and went in search of Leila Gaad.
He found her finally in her room — the last place he thought of looking. The orange walls and drapes assaulted his eyes, but she seemed to enjoy the decor. “I think I’ve found our murderer,” she announced. “And I’ve also found a concealed communication for you to ponder.”
“I thought this was going to be one case without it. First tell me who the killer is.”
“The American — Northgate! I found this pair of shoes in the rubbish by the incinerator. See — orange paint on the bottom! And they’re American-made shoes!”
“Hardly conclusive evidence. But interesting. What about the concealed communication?”
She held a little notebook aloft triumphantly. “I went back to Professor Fanger’s room and found this among his things. He was always writing in it, and I thought it might give us a clue. Look here — on the very last page, in his handwriting. Invite to room, confirm tritan.”
“Tritan? What’s that?”
“Well, he spelled it wrong, I guess, but Triton is a mythological creature having the body of a man and the tail of a fish — sort of male version of a mermaid. That would imply a good swimmer, wouldn’t it? And seeing them all around the pool, I can tell you Northgate is the best swimmer of the lot.”
“Fanger was going to confirm this in his room? How — by flooding the place?”
“Well...” She paused uncertainly. “What else could it mean?”
Rand didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Come on. Let’s go see Northgate.”
The American answered the door with sleepy eyes and a growling voice. “Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?” Rand held out the shoes for him to see, and he fell silent.
“Going to let us in?”
“All right,” he said grudgingly, stepping aside.
“These are your shoes, aren’t they?”
There was little point in denying it. “Yes, they’re mine.”
“And you were in the room after Fanger was murdered?”
“I was there, but I didn’t kill him. He was already dead. He’d invited me up for a nightcap. The door was unlocked and when I went in I found him dead and the room a terrible mess. I was afraid I’d be implicated so I left, but I discovered later I’d stepped in some orange paint. When you got us all out by the pool to search for paint spots I panicked and threw the shoes away.”
Rand tended to believe him. The real murderer would have done a better job of disposing of the incriminating shoes. “All right,” he said. “Now let’s talk about the conference. Jeanne Bisset has already told me its real purpose — to work for nuclear disarmament in your five nations. Did Fanger have any idea of this?”
“I think he was onto something,” the American admitted. “That’s why he wanted to see me. He wanted to ask me about one of the others in the group — someone he thought he knew.”
“Which one?”
“He was dead before he could tell me.”
“What damage could a spy do at this conference?” Rand asked.
Northgate thought about it. “Not very much. I suppose if he was in the pay of the Russians or Chinese he could report the names of Rusanov and Dr. Tao to their governments, but that would be about all.”
“I may have more questions for you later,” Rand said.
“He was probably killed by one of the Arab employees,” Northgate suggested as Rand and Leila headed for the door.
Back downstairs, Leila said, “Maybe he’s right. Maybe it was just a robbery killing.”
“Then why go to such lengths with the paint and the other things? There was a reason for it, and the only sane reason had to be to hide the killer’s identity.”
Leila took out one of her orange cigarettes. “Splashing paint around a hotel room to hide a killer’s identity? How?”
“That’s what I don’t know.” He produced the dead man’s notebook again and stared at the final message: Invite to room, confirm tritan. It wasn’t Triton misspelled. A professor at Cairo University wouldn’t make a mistake like that.
His eyes wandered to Leila’s cigarette, and suddenly he knew.
Dr. Wayne Evans opened the door for them. His hair and beard were neatly in place, and it was obvious he hadn’t been sleeping. “Well, what’s this?” he asked. “More investigation?”
“The final one, Dr. Evans,” Rand said, glancing about the blue suite. “You killed Professor Fanger.”
“Oh, come how!” Evans glanced at Leila to see if she believed it.
“You killed him because he recognized you as a spy he used to deal with. He invited you to his suite to confirm it, and when he confronted you with it there was a struggle and you killed him. I suppose it was the beard that made him uncertain of your identity at first.”
“Is this any way to talk to a fellow countryman, Rand? I’m here on an important mission.”
“I can guess your mission — to sabotage this conference.”
Evans took a step backward. He seemed to be weighing the possibilities. “You think I killed him and messed up the room like that?”
“Yes. The room was painted like a rainbow, and strewn with towels and things from the next building. But just a little while ago I remembered there were cigarettes strewn on that floor too, next to the broken ceramic box they were in. There were no cigarettes stored in the next building. I think while you were struggling with Fanger he ripped your pocket. The cigarettes from your suite tumbled out, just as the table was overturned and his own cigarette box smashed. Your cigarettes and his cigarettes mingled on the floor. And that was the reason for the entire thing — the reason the room had to be splashed with paint and all the rest of it. To hide the presence of those blue cigarettes.”
Dr. Wayne Evans snorted. “A likely story! I could have just picked up the blue ones, you know.”
“But you couldn’t have,” Rand said. “Because you’re color-blind.”
That was when Evans moved. He grabbed Leila and had her before Rand could react. The knife in his hand had appeared as if by magic, pressed against her throat. “All right, Rand,” he said very quietly. “Out of my way or the girl dies. Another killing won’t matter to me.”
Rand cursed himself for being caught off guard, cursed himself again for having Leila there in the first place.
“Rand,” she gasped as the blade of the knife pressed harder against her flesh.
“All right,” he said. “Let her go.”
“Call Bollinger. Tell him I want a car with a full petrol tank and an extra emergency can. I want it out in front in ten minutes or the girl dies.”
Rand obeyed, speaking in clipped tones to the manager. When he’d hung up, Evans backed against the door, still holding Leila. “Can’t we talk about this?” Rand suggested. “I didn’t come to this place looking for you. It was only chance — what happened, I mean.”
“How’d you know I am color-blind?”
“Fanger left a notation in his notebook. Invite to room, confirm tritan. He was simply abbreviating tritanopia — a vision defect in which the retina fails to respond to the colors blue and yellow. It’s not as common as red-green blindness, and when Fanger thought he recognized you he knew he could confirm it by having you up to his yellow room. By a quirk of fate you’d been placed in the blue suite yourself. And when you dropped the cigarettes during the struggle, you had only two choices — pick up all the cigarettes, blue and yellow alike, or leave them all and somehow disguise their presence.”
“Make it short,” Evans said. “I’m leaving in three minutes.”
“If you took all the cigarettes you risked having them found on you before you could dispose of them. Even if you flushed them down the toilet, a problem remained. Fanger was a known nonsmoker. The broken cigarette box would call attention to the missing cigarettes, and the police would wonder why the killer took them away. If your color blindness became known, someone might even guess the truth. But splashing the room with paint, using every color you could find, not only camouflaged the cigarettes but also directed attention, in a very subtle manner, away from a color-blind person.”
Evans reached behind him to open the door. “You’re too smart, Rand.”
“Not really. Once I suspected your color blindness, I remembered your momentary confusion on those rainbow-colored paths yesterday, when you started down the blue path to the pool and then changed your mind and took the yellow one to the lounge. Of course both colors only looked gray to your eyes.”
“Walk backward,” Evans told Leila. “You’re coming with me.”
“Who paid you to spy on the conference?” Rand asked. “What country?”
“Country?” Evans snorted. “I worked for countries when Fanger knew me. Now I work where the real money is.”
He moved down the hall, dragging Leila with him, and Rand followed. Felix Bollinger was standing by the door, holding it open, the perfect manager directing a departing guest to his waiting car.
“Out of my way,” Evans told him.
“I hope your stay was a pleasant one,” Bollinger said. Then he brought a gun from behind his back and shot Evans once in the head...
Leila Gaad downed a stiff shot of Scotch and said to Rand, “You would have let him go, just to save me! I must say that wasn’t very professional of you.”
“I have my weaknesses,” Rand admitted.
Felix Bollinger downed his own drink and reached again for the bottle he’d supplied. “A terrible opening for my resort. The home office won’t be pleased.”
“Who was paying Evans?” Leila asked. “And paying him for what?”
“We’ll have to check on him,” Rand said. “But I suppose there are various pressures in today’s world working against disarmament. In America sometimes they’re called things like the military-industrial complex. In other nations they have other names. But they have money, and perhaps they’re taking over where some of the governments leave off. When we find out who was paying Evans, it might well be a company building rockets in America, or submarines in Russia, or fighter planes in France.”
“Is there no place left to escape?” Leila asked.
And Felix Bollinger supplied the answer. “No, my dear, there is not. Not even here, at the End of the Rainbow.”