The Adventures of Hiram Holliday by Paul Gallico Read Free Book Online Page B

the spectators back, the silver, Air France, stubby-winged plane roared its engines and moved off. All the people stood on the airport apron and waved their hats and their handkerchiefs as the ship raised itself from the ground and disappeared towards the east.
    The flight was what might be described as routine and uneventful, most of it being conducted above the clouds. Some of the passengers stared curiously at Grognolle, who dozed part of the way, or sat quietly and read out of a book. Five hours later they felt their way down through the cloud bank into rain and landed at the Prague airport. The travellers stretched themselves and climbed out of the ship. A Czech immigration official in khaki collected their passports as they descended the steps from the plane, and directed them to the waiting-room. The immigration official checked and stamped the documents quickly in his little office, the Dutchman, the French couple, the American lady with her daughters, the German business man, and the American by the name of Hiram Holliday. Because it seemed a curious name, the official thumbed through the pages - 'Hiram Holliday - height, five feet, eleven inches; hair, sandy; eyes, blue; scar on right wrist. Place of birth, New York City, August 10, 1899; Occupation - copy-reader,' and then the picture of an inoffensive-looking, sandy-haired man with a round face, bespectacled and with a good mouth.
    He stamped a page, pencilled his initials, stuck his head close to the little window and called:'Meester Holliday ?'
    The man known as Grognolle started a little, and then said: *Yes ?' and moved forward to the window.
    The official, quickly checked the picture in the passport with the man who stood before him.
    'Have you any Czech crowns with you, Mr Holliday ?'
    The man who had been Grognolle said: 'Three hundred.'
    The official made a notation and then handed the little red booklet through the window, and said: 'Your passport, Meester Holliday. I hope you enjoy your stay in Prague. Proceed now to the baggage examination inside.'
    'Thank you very much,' said Hiram Holliday, with something of a sigh. He went to the counter where a bored Douanier marked his bag with an' X' in chalk, without bothering to open it. Then he went out, climbed into a taxicab and said: 'Ambassador Hotel.' He slumped back in the seat as the cab jerked forward. He noticed that his hand was shaking a little.
    How Hiram Holliday Came to Paris
    It all began, the whole, absurd, fantastic, unbelievable adventure, in the smart, glittering Dunhill shop at the top of the rue de la Paix, where Hiram Holliday exchanged apologies and umbrellas with the large man with the spade beard, the morning coat and striped trousers and a bowler hat, a pleasant and polite gentleman with kind eyes shining behind gold pince-nez attached to a black ribbon, rather a fatherly sort of character, and the last person in the world Hiram would have suspected of being capable eventually of trying to kill him.
    Or perhaps the unseen strands of the dangerous web began to weave about him much earlier, even shortly after he arrived from London, to report for orders at the Paris Bureau of the New York Sentinel For, Hiram Holliday was not exactly received with open arms by his colleagues in Paris.
    Clegg, the Paris Bureau Chief, was a tired man of some twenty-three years of experience in the French capital, and he was having troubles of his own, when Holliday arrived and asked for orders. A new man on a foreign beat is practically worthless the first two or three years until he begins to get the hang of things and makes contacts and friends. Also, Beauheld, the managing editor of the Sentinel, had been little less than vague in his instructions for Holliday. Truth to tell, now that the first enthusiasm over the remarkable story Holliday had filed from London had died down, the editor was slightly at a loss as to how exactly to use him. He was even in some doubt as to whether Holliday could do it again,