Amazing Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman Page A

her mind on Henry it was difficult to think what package she could have left behind when she visited Colin that afternoon. She tried to remember what she’d carried with her to Ramsey Studios but aside from the signet ring, which belonged to Colin, there had been only her purse. Lost package! She’d lost nothing today.
    Nothing except a defecting counteragent, she thought in horror, and forgetting Henry she snatched up her purse and fled the room, almost overturning several people on the stairs in her haste to reach the street and find a taxi.

CHAPTER 6
    By night, Zikzak alley looked desolate and sinister, its buildings ghost-haunted. No light at all came from number twenty-three. A little worldlier now, however, Mrs. Pollifax walked down the narrow drive to the courtyard and was relieved to see thin stripes of light showing through the shutters of the kitchen window. She knocked on the door and it was opened at once by Colin. “What lost package?” demanded Mrs. Pollifax breathlessly.
    Colin held the door wide and beckoned her in. “I say—I do hope they didn’t give you a hard time!”
    “Who?” she said, blinking at him.
    “The police.”
    “You
saw
?” she flung at him accusingly. “You
knew
I was picked up by the police and you left? Just
left
?”
    He was bolting the door behind him. “Of course,” he said. “I was afraid you’d head for the jeep and talk to me. In that case the police would have headed for the jeep too, and would have noticed your friend—that woman who was sitting with you in the hotel window.”
    Mrs. Pollifax stared at him incredulously.
    “I had her hidden in the back seat of the jeep, covered with a sheepskin,” he explained calmly. “She was in a spot of trouble, wasn’t she? Running out like that, looking like death itself—”
    Appalled, Mrs. Pollifax stared at him. “You mean she was in your jeep when you drove
away
?”
    He said patiently, “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, yes. She came flying out, I leaned over and opened the door, said, ‘Hop in—I’m Mrs. Pollifax’s driver’ or some such words. She fell in, I dropped the robe over her and that was that. A few seconds later the policeman followed and asked me if I’d seen a woman run from the hotel. I pointed out that I couldn’t possibly see the entrance from where I was sitting without turning my head, but that no one had run up the street
past
me. Se he went the other way.”
    Mrs. Pollifax faltered, “But then—what did you do with her?”
    He looked surprised. “Nothing at all—she’s here. She’s still in the jeep.”
    “Still in the jeep!”
    “I couldn’t rouse her so I simply locked the garage and left her there, and—what’s the matter?”
    Mrs. Pollifax had sat down very suddenly in the nearest chair. “You mean she’s here? In that garage in back? In your jeep?”
    Puzzled, Colin said, “Yes, of course. She
is
your friend, isn’t she? I saw you together in the lobby and—”
    Mrs. Pollifax began to laugh, she couldn’t help herself. The laugh was a mixture of relief and hysteria but if it had a disquieting effect on Colin it was extremely therapeutic for her. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose she said, “I simply can’t thank you enough, Colin.”
    “Yes you can—you can tell me what the hell this is all about,” he said, sitting down and looking at her sternly.
    “About?” she echoed.
    “That woman is no tourist. She needs blood transfusions at a hospital, not shish kabob at Pierre Loti’s. What did the police want of you?”
    “My passport,” said Mrs. Pollifax sadly.
    “Passport! You mean they took it away from you?”
    “Yes, but only until they’ve investigated me.”
    He looked appalled. “But good heavens, you can’t do anything without a passport—this isn’t America, you know. You can’t even change hotels without your passport!” He stared at her incredulously. “Doesn’t the seriousness of this seep through to you at all? What on