By the time Maman tapped at the door to let Annette and me know it was time to go down for dinner, we’d washed off the dust from our day’s outing and changed into our good dresses. This was the last night of our family holiday and it felt like a special occasion. It also felt like the final opportunity for the real purpose of our trip to reveal itself, unless any of the red herrings we’d encountered turned out to be a cunning double bluff, which, as I know from Dorothy L. Sayers, can sometimes happen. So I was determined to remain on high alert for anything out of the ordinary happening or for the appearance of any of those brown envelopes.
In the end I didn’t need to be on high alert for very long at all, though, because when we walked into the restaurant there was Papa sitting at a table in the corner and seated alongside him was the vulture man from the café across the way.
Papa looked a little uncomfortable and Maman looked distinctly unimpressed as the man was even more rough-looking when you saw him close up. His hair was shaved close to his head but what there was of it was very pale, as if the sun had bleached it the colour of desert sand. His hooked nose added to his vulture-like appearance and his eyes were the cold, hard blue of ice. He grinned at us as we approached and his teeth were yellow and pointed, reminding me a bit of the wolf in the fable of The Wolf and the Lamb. Papa introduced us and the man grinned even more. His name was Monsieur Guigner, which sounded a bit suspicious to me, meaning as it does to wink an eye. As Lord Peter Wimsey would have observed, winking often indicates that someone is either telling a joke or being a bit sly.
We stood by the table, waiting for the man to get up and leave, but he just stretched out his long legs and settled himself even more comfortably in his seat, taking a leisurely sip from the glass of pastis in front of him, so Papa had to be polite and ask him if he would care to join us for supper. He said yes, of course, and I got the impression he was quite enjoying the obvious discomfort that his presence was causing. I noticed that his eyes slid sideways towards Annette every now and then when he was pretending to be listening to what Papa and Maman were saying about all the fun we’d been having on our family holiday and how interesting it was to see a bit more of Morocco. He told us he himself was just back from a long trip to the desert, actually, and so Taza was the first bit of civilisation he’d seen for a while. He pricked up his ears （just like the Wolf） when Maman mentioned Casablanca. ‘And where exactly do you live in that fair city, Madame Duval?’ he enquired. I felt very uneasy again when she told him rather reluctantly and he said that by an amazing coincidence he had friends who lived on the Boulevard des Oiseaux and what number was our house? He didn’t look like the sort of person who would have any friends at all really.
When our supper was served, his table manners left a good deal to be desired. He talked with his mouth full and waved his fork around while he was chewing, which are things we’d been taught not to do when we were very young. I saw Maman shoot another very annoyed look at Papa, who just shrugged very slightly as if to say, ‘Well, what can I do?’ I don’t think Monsieur Guigner noticed as he was busy reaching past Annette to help himself to more of the lamb tajine, as if it was the first proper meal he’d eaten in days.
At last, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and stretched out in his chair again. The rest of us had already finished our meal and Annette and I politely declined Papa’s offer of dessert. The grown-ups ordered coffee and then Annette set aside her napkin and asked to be excused as she said she felt a little tired after our day of exploring. Maman nodded at her, and at me too, but I’d decided to stay put if Monsieur Guigner was going to, just in case anything interesting happened. After Annette left, he stood up suddenly and said he had very much enjoyed the meal and our company but if Papa and Maman would excuse him he thought it was time he got back to his lodgings too. They looked very relieved and relaxed a lot more as the waiter arrived with their coffee. But I was watching Monsieur Guigner leave and I noticed that, instead of turning right out of the restaurant door towards the exit, he turned left into the corridor leading to the hotel bedrooms. Something in the way he moved reminded me of the way the scorpion had scuttled across the floor of our bedroom towards Annette with its evil intent. I quickly put my own napkin on the table and excused myself, saying, ‘I think I will go up to the room, after all, and read my book for a while.’
Papa and Maman nodded, scarcely glancing at me, and I hurried off in the wake of the vulture man.