The Double Image E-Book

Helen MacInnes

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

While carrying out research in Paris, American historian John Craig is surprised when he runs into his old college professor. Sussman is a worried man. A survivor of Auschwitz, he is in shock, having seen and been seen by one of the Nazis who tortured him in the camp. But SS Colonel Berg has been dead for ten years - or has he? Before Craig can help solve the riddle, Sussman is found dead and Craig is being questioned by the police. As various international organisations are drawn into the hunt for Sussman's killer, he realises that the ex-Nazi is far more than just a wanted war criminal. Soon Craig's search for the truth takes him from Paris to the island of Mykonos, where he must unmask a dangerous and powerful foe.

Leseprobe

ALSO BY HELEN MacINNES

AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Pray for a Brave Heart

Above Suspicion

Assignment in Brittany

North From Rome

Decision at Delphi

The Venetian Affair

The Salzburg Connection

Message From Málaga

While We Still Live

Neither Five Nor Three

Horizon

Snare of the Hunter

Agent in Place

The Double Image

Print edition ISBN: 9781781163283

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781164419

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: December 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

© 1966, 2012 by the Estate of Helen MacInnes. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Did you enjoy this book?

We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at:

[email protected] or write to us at the above address.

To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website.

www.titanbooks.com

To the men who don’t get medals

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About the Author

1

April in Paris, and a sprinkle of rain, a sudden whip of cool breeze, a greying sky to end the bright promise of the evening. John Craig decided that his saunter along the Boulevard Saint-Germain might come to a quick end any moment now, and began looking in earnest for a place of retreat.

He stretched his spine, bringing his height up to six feet, to let him look over the heads of the crowd and search for the café he wanted. His face, rugged in its features, was normally pleasant in expression, as if he were trying to soften the starker effect of a strong jaw and firm mouth. His eyes, under well-marked brows, were grey and alert; his neatly cut hair was dark and thick. He carried himself well, shoulders straight, waistline taut. He had the easy stride of an athlete; and yet, here again, he underplayed the effect by avoiding any flamboyance or overconfidence in his movements. An amiable young man, strangers thought when they met him, rather quiet on the whole. Later, they might change that opinion: he underplayed his real interests, too, as if he thought intellectual display was just another form of boasting, unnecessary if you were any good, embarrassing if you weren’t. At this moment, the expression on his face was one of minor irritation. Damned fool, he told himself, to leave his raincoat back at the hotel.

The cafés were numerous along this stretch of the boulevard, some big and brassy, others dim and dreary, most of them with rows of little outside tables nudging the traffic on the broad pavement into a narrow stream. People hurried, either because of the time of day (half-past five, a home to reach, friends to meet) or because of the threat of a soaking. Only one man, walking slowly towards Craig, seemed totally purposeless. He came to a halt, oblivious of the people behind, of their jostling and open annoyance as they manoeuvred around him. Craig, his own path blocked by the bottleneck, drew aside to the kerb and let three pretty girls regain their flouncing formation, then a stout woman pass with a bulging shopping bag and a bouquet of celery, then an old muttering man, then two young bearded men who had seized the chance to squeeze by, then—hey, enough of that! Craig stopped being polite and pushed on, glancing reprovingly at the day-dreamer who had started it all. Dreamer? No. The man’s face was pale, worried, frightened. His fine dark eyes, deep set, stared unseeingly at Craig. And at that instant, Craig recognised the high broad brow, the long narrowing face, the prominent nose and vanishing hairline. “Why,” he said in complete astonishment, “it’s Professor Sussman—” and broke off, embarrassed. Sussman, at the sound of his name, at the friendly voice, had left his own world of dark thought. His eyes stopped staring blindly; now they were alive again, but puzzled, half-recognition dawning.

Craig wished he had just walked on and left the eminent Professor of Art and Archaeology formulating some new idea about Etruscan tombs right on a busy Paris street. “I took one of your courses at Columbia,” he said awkwardly, “just the year before you left for Berkeley.” He made a quick grab for Sussman’s arm as the man’s small thin body was shouldered aside, almost off the pavement.

Sussman was smiling, the old warmth back in his eyes. “I remember, I remember. Carr, isn’t it?”

“Craig. John Craig.”

Sussman’s quick rushing voice said impatiently, “Carr or Craig, I am still sorry I did not convince you to become an archaeologist. You had the proper questioning mind. Modern History, weren’t you? See, I do remember!” His hand was tight, his voice suddenly intense.

Craig’s embarrassment deepened. There was too much emotion here for his taste. He tried, politely, to disengage his hand from Sussman’s grip. A strange city, taken at its most blaring and bustling hour, might bewilder an elderly scholar, but surely not to this point of despair. “There’s the second rain warning. I think I’d better—”

“Have a drink with me. You have time?” Again there was that pleading urgency in Sussman’s voice.

Craig nodded. He is the drowning man and I am the lifebelt, he thought. “If you don’t mind retracing your steps, we might just manage to reach the Deux Magots before the rain really sets in. Actually, I was heading there when I—”

Professor Sussman looked back along the boulevard, shook his head. “Too busy, too noisy. I know of another place.”

You do? wondered Craig. So you aren’t lost in Paris? But he said nothing, found he was retracing his steps with Professor Sussman’s arm guiding his elbow.

“Around the corner,” Sussman directed. “I used to come here when I lived in Paris. That was in the days of my exile. Just before the war. In fact, it was the favourite café of the young intellectuals in the thirties.” He stopped in surprise, perhaps even in dismay, as they saw a narrow faded awning stretched over two miserable rows of small zinc tables. The tables were empty except for one couple, a young bearded man and a girl in a belted coat, sitting in gloomy silence. “Oh, well,” said Professor Sussman philosophically, “everything changes, nothing stays the same. Shall we sit outside, until the rain drives us in?”

That shouldn’t be long, Craig thought wryly; the narrow awning over the pavement of this dingy little side street wouldn’t give much protection. Sussman, anyway, seemed improved in spirits; he was almost back to normal, a little lost in thought, but with no more blank fear staring nakedly out of his face. He had chosen a chair that let him watch the boulevard some fifty feet away, which left Craig with a view of the narrow street curving down towards some thin bare trees faintly touched with green. Its buildings were old and grimy with city air, too unimportant to be scrubbed and polished like the grand monuments of the New Paris. Across the street was a small night club which might be interesting six hours from now, a dingy printing shop, a battered-looking school resting from its labours. But there was also a clear view of the girl who sat five tables away, and even if she was sad and her lips drooping and her large eyes only aware of the knucklehead opposite her—what else could you call a man who’d make a girl like that look so unhappy and, judging by the angry tilt of his jaw, meant to keep her that way?—she was still a very pleasant view indeed.

Craig settled back in his chair, ordered Scotch, was surprised to hear Professor Sussman echo that. (Strange how you could attend a year of a man’s lectures, admire his books, stand in awe of his international reputation as a scholar, be amused by his ideas, and still not know one real thing about his personal tastes or his private life.) Craig lit a cigarette, listened to the soft fall of rain on the awning above him, studied the view. She was talking, now, in a voice too low to be identified. Was she French? English? There was no doubt about her companion: he had just raised his voice sharply, “For Christ’s sake—” The rest of the sentence was lost as he dropped his voice again.

Craig shook his head, half-smiled, looked at Professor Sussman for an acid comment. But the professor had been watching his own view—the corner of the boulevard, less busy now with people although the cars and buses still charged along its broad length like a herd of elephants stampeding from a forest fire. Strain had come back into Sussman’s face, but he was in control of his emotions. “No, don’t look round,” he warned quickly, as Craig shifted his chair a little to let him see the boulevard, too. “He has gone,” Sussman said softly. “He didn’t see us.” He was speaking almost to himself.

“Are you being followed?” Craig was incredulous enough to be blunt.

“I don’t know. Perhaps. It could be likely.”

“But why—”

“No matter now. He didn’t see us. Let’s talk about something more civilised. What are you doing in Paris? Are you working here, or visiting?”

“I’m on my way to the Mediterranean—Italy and Greece. Perhaps to Turkey, if the money holds out. I’d like to see Troy.”

“So! Perhaps I converted you a little?” Sussman was pleased. “Let me see—it is five years since you were coming to my lectures—the First World War, that was your field. Or have I forgotten?”

No, the professor was completely right. But he can’t be interested in me, Craig thought; he is really only trying to forget something else. All right, let’s take it from there. This may not be the way I planned to spend my first evening in Paris, but it seems I’m stuck with it, and I might as well make the most of it. What would Sussman think of my idea for a book?

Sussman was remembering hard. “Yes, that was it! Blockade as a weapon of war. Did you finish your thesis on that?”

Craig nodded. He smiled at himself a little. “Never could find a more appealing title.”

“We leave that to the historical novelists. And now you are travelling, and you will write a book?”

“If all goes well.” He felt pleased, flattered. Old Sussman really did remember him and some of his little ambitions.

“On more blockades? No, no—I am not laughing. It is an important subject. Anything that can help to decide the outcome of any war is something to be treated most seriously.” Sussman was speaking rapidly, with real interest, his own problem seemingly forgotten.

“I’m thinking not so much about the endings of war, now, as its beginnings. I’ve been doing some work on trade routes as motives for war.”

“Beginning with the Trojan War?” Sussman was even smiling broadly. “So you did believe some of my theories—”

“Couldn’t forget them,” Craig admitted with a grin. He hadn’t accepted all of them, but Sussman had certainly opened the doors of history wide.

“Then ancient historians have some use, even to young economists? And where will you end your book? Trade routes and colonies and coaling stations have had their eras. Of course, you might say that today the new control points for extension of power are newspapers, radio, televis—Something wrong?”

“Nothing.” Craig hoped his voice was nonchalant enough. Better, he decided quickly, to appear inattentive and stupid than have Sussman turn his head to look down the little street. “Just watching the rain, and wondering if it will clear before I have to leave.” Just watching the rain and the narrow curve of street, and the man who had come walking slowly into view, then stopped, looking at the café, and stepped back into a doorway. “If I can’t get a taxi over to the Tuileries, is there any short cut I could take? You know Paris well, don’t you? This little street—where does it lead?” His suspicion was idiotic, he told himself, but he waited anxiously for the answer to his apparently innocent question.

“Back to the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It wanders around like so many little Paris streets.” Sussman shook his head, looking at Craig’s flannel suit. “Americans always think Europe in spring means sunshine and warm evenings.” He himself was wearing heavy tweeds under his raincoat, even rubbers over his shoes.

“How long did you live in Paris?” The man in the doorway was lighting a cigarette. And what was abnormal about that, or even the fact that he waited in a doorway on a rain-soaked street? Craig tried to concentrate on his drink, to ignore the fact that the man could have been the same one who had worried Sussman. Idiotic, he told himself again.

“I left Germany in 1934. I went to Rome, then Athens. In 1936, I came here. I taught, and wrote my first articles, and married a French girl, and had two children. And then, in 1940—” Sussman threw up his hands. “Friends sheltered my wife and children, got them false names, false papers, saved them. There wasn’t much that could be done to disguise me.” He tapped his nose, smiling, but watching Craig closely. “I almost reached the Swiss border. I ended in Auschwitz. And that is why, my friend, I am in Europe. To bear witness. I have been in Frankfurt—”

“The trials?” Good God, no wonder Sussman had looked as if he had been visiting a mortuary. “That must have been a painful experience.”

“It had to be done. I am one of the survivors of Auschwitz who could testify against a certain group of Nazis.”

“And they pleaded they were only taking orders?” Craig asked in derision.

Sussman nodded. “Their plea was true. That is one of the grim aspects of that trial. Because the man who directed their operations, or at least the man who seemed to be in charge when I saw him at Auschwitz—” He paused, his eyes staring at the table. “That man is buried in the British sector of Berlin. I went there to see that grave.” He closed his eyes. “His name was Heinrich Berg.”

“Well, that’s all over now. You’ve only to finish your visit to Paris and go back to California. How do you like Berkeley?” The man in the doorway was still there. Waiting for a friend? The rain had almost stopped.

Sussman’s instant look of delight, almost child-like in its wonder, transformed his face. “We live on top of a hill. We have a view of the Bay, of the sunset over the Pacific. And in the garden—did you know you can have an orange fruit and blossom both on the same tree at the same time?”

Craig had to smile, too.

“And tulips bloom at the same time as roses!”

“I didn’t know you were a gardener.” And when did tulips usually bloom anyway?

“Oh, Marie is the gardener. I watch from my study, and give advice. I’m leaving Paris tomorrow. I’ll be home by Friday.”

Home... So the exile had found his refuge.

“I wouldn’t have come to Paris, except Marie wanted me to visit her people, bring back a first-hand report. I shall have to invent a lot of nice things about them. I never liked them, and now they are more stupid and selfish than ever. It was fortunate I had the good sense to stay at a hotel. Families!” He shook his head over them. Then he noticed that Craig’s interest had been slipping away. He gazed over his shoulder to look, too, at the table where the couple sat. “I don’t think their talk has been so friendly as ours,” he said. “Shaw was right: youth is much too good to be wasted on the young. And she is quite beauti—” He did not finish the word. His eyes dilated; he turned back to face Craig. From the doorway down the street, the man had stepped out and was walking towards the café.

“Shall we leave? Can I take you back to your hotel?” Craig suggested. The man was still some distance away, walking slowly.

“No. That would be an admission... Besides, I must make sure I was not wrong when I saw him the first time.”

“An admission of what?” Craig’s concern grew as he noticed the return of fear in Sussman’s eyes.

“That I have recognised him. If it is he. Perhaps it isn’t.” There was more self-encouragement than real hope in that phrase.

Or perhaps Sussman had been thinking too much about Auschwitz. “When did you first see this character?”

“On the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I was buying a paper. Suddenly, he stood beside me. He waited for me to look at him.”

“Waited?” This is crazy, thought Craig. He looked at Sussman’s long, intent face, uncomfortably, nervously.

“I don’t think he saw my panic. I think—I hope I kept my face frozen. I walked away. And then, only a few minutes later, the shock really struck me.” Sussman’s voice was almost in a whisper now.

“But why?”

“Because I had just seen a dead man walking the streets of Paris.”

The slow footsteps stopped. A chair scraped as the man sat down. He took off his hat, shook off raindrops, turned down the collar of his black coat. He was fairly tall, well fed and well exercised, somewhere around fifty, with a slight wave in his dark hair, touched with grey at the temples, and a calm, almost benign look on a remarkably handsome face. He ordered a vermouth cassis in quick authentic French, and paid no attention at all either to the young couple or to Sussman and Craig. He could have been a lawyer or a diplomat or a business executive or—as things went nowadays—a leader of a large trade union. Successful and tactfully prosperous and, certainly at this moment, no threat to anyone. A man who had been caught in a heavy shower of rain, taken shelter, stopped at the nearest café for a drink just like a dozen other people—for there were others appearing in the little street, now that the rain had ended, and several were even heading towards the awning.

Craig relaxed. Everything was beginning to look more normal, even to the cheerful voices of two women who had just entered the café with two joking escorts, a bitter look following them through the doorway from the unhappy young man who was still arguing with his girl. Next came two more men, talking earnestly. Then a man with fair hair and a tightly belted trench coat, soaking wet. All these entered the café, too. “Things are looking up,” Craig said. I guess we got here too early.”

Sussman was recovering. He even made an effort at normal conversation. “I’ve been thinking about your book,” he said, as if to excuse his silence. “It is a good subject, rich enough for five books. Perhaps you will do that? Now, I think I could help you a little. I still have friends in Italy and Greece who are working on archaeological sites. Some are historians, others are art experts. Would you like me to give you their names? I shall write them to let them know you may call on them.”

“That would be very useful indeed. Thank you—”

“I thank you,” Sussman said very softly. “Besides, scholarship is not much different from business or politics—the right connections are always necessary, and usually rewarding.” He pulled out several letters from his jacket pocket, selected an envelope, took out a pencil and glasses. “Give me your address in Paris.”

“Hotel Saint-Honoré. Rue de Castiglione.” Craig watched his name and address being carefully written on the back of a business envelope.

“I shall think of the people who would be most interesting for you to meet,” Sussman said, as he put letters and pencil and glasses carefully back into their proper places, “and I shall mail you the list tomorrow, before I leave. When do you expect to be in Greece?”

“In a couple of weeks. I had the idea—”

“Excuse me,” a voice said in French. “My watch seems to have stopped. I wonder if you could tell me the right time?” The man in the black coat was standing at Sussman’s elbow.

It was Sussman, surprisingly, who recovered first. While Craig was still startled by the abrupt interruption, Sussman was taking out a heavy silver watch from an inside pocket. He studied it, looked up at the smiling, polite face looking down at him. “It is exactly twenty-two minutes past six.”

“Thank you.” The man was on his way, pulling down his hat as he began the short walk towards the boulevard.

“I didn’t even notice him leave his table,” Craig said, glancing towards it with amazement. In the doorway of the café, he saw the fair-haired man in the wet raincoat watching them. Or perhaps the man had been only gauging the weather, or expecting a friend, for he lit a cigarette as he moved back into the room. Sussman, his eyes on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, was quite silent.

“So it was the wrong man. You didn’t know him.”

Sussman said slowly, “On the contrary. That was Heinrich Berg.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“But it’s twenty years since you saw him at Auschwitz.”

“And thirty years since we were students at Munich University. And fifty-two years since we were born in the little town of Grünwald, not far from Munich. As young boys, we used to play together. Did you notice the twist on his left eyebrow—just a small thin scar, not too noticeable except when he is under tension? He got that from a piece of broken glass when we were climbing over a wall into an orchard. Oh yes, I was quite acceptable then: my father had won a medal in the First World War; my mother had plenty of food on the dinner table for my friends to eat. What astonishes you? That we lived so well? Or that Berg and I are the same age? Or that I remember the expression of his eyes when he was calculating how far he could push me? Clever blue eyes, giving nothing away, hiding his real thoughts, looking so innocent. Yes, he has changed a lot. Once, he was very thin, very blond. But he has not changed in his eyes or in that little twist of the eyebrow where the hair never grew straight again. I know that man. The question is: did he learn that I know him?”

“You had me convinced that you didn’t.”

“Then I have to thank you again.”

“For what?”

“For my recovery from shock.” Sussman smiled in his relief. “Yes, I handled that quite well, I think. But it was typical... The way he tried to force recognition.”

Craig felt a little uneasy. The incident had seemed insignificant, normal. He hadn’t noticed any secret challenge in the stranger’s face, or voice. “You are sure that he is Berg?”

“Positive.”

“One of those who should be on trial?”

“Most definitely.”

Craig, sensing the painful memories that the Frankfurt trials must have aroused in Sussman, said as tactfully as he knew how, “Couldn’t it be possible that you might be—”

“Mistaken? No. He knew I was in Paris. He probably followed me from my hotel, chose the moment to confront me at the newspaper kiosk. He wasn’t quite sure, he followed me again, and made me face him once more. You saw that part, at least.”

“But how could he know you were in Paris or where—”

“It was no secret that I was coming to Paris,” Sussman said angrily. “I was interviewed by a reporter in Frankfurt; I spoke of my plans quite naturally. Why not?”

Why not, indeed? “Well,” said Craig slowly, uncertainly, “what are you going to do?” There might be a good deal of embarrassment for the professor if he couldn’t bolster his assertions with some solid proof. Suspicions could become a neurosis, even a mania. They could destroy his work, all his career.

“I’m going back to my hotel and telephone the Embassy. If it is closed, I shall visit it tomorrow morning on my way to the airport. If I get no action there, I shall send a telegram to Frankfurt.”

Craig was startled by all this unexpected efficiency. The old boy (not so old, if he was the same age as Berg—if that stranger had been Berg, if Berg were still alive and not six feet under Berlin soil) was not only aroused but determined.

“You are thinking it is all water under the bridge? That I am foolish to take action?”

“No, no. Not that, exactly. I just see you back at another trial in Frankfurt.” Craig smiled to ease the small tension that had arisen between them.

“It would be worth it,” Sussman said grimly. Then he smiled, too, rising to his feet, holding out his hand. “Water under the bridge flows on. There are other bridges, other people standing on them such as you and your generation, my friend. You think I should cling to the wreck of my bridge and not try to warn you of the hidden strength of that water?” He was shaking hands with great warmth. “Thank you again. Your moral support was all I needed, it seems.”

“I’ll walk part of the way with you. How far is your hotel?”

“Just a short block beyond the boulevard.” He listened to the renewed pattern of rain on the awning overhead, gestured to the splashing downpour on the street. “You stay here, I see.”

“We’d better have another drink,” Craig suggested. “It can’t last long.”

Sussman was buttoning his raincoat, pulling a small blue beret out from his pocket. “I’m prepared for it. Good luck, Craig. Write a fine book. Send me the proofs if you want an outside eye to read them.” And he was off, stepping briskly up the street towards the bright boulevard.

As he stood watching Sussman’s determined stride, Craig listened impatiently to the argument still coming from the bearded young man and his girl. Was this some new way of making love? Idiots, he thought, and turned away from the darkening street and the chill of the pavement to the warmly lit café. Another drink, even of that atrocious Scotch, would be welcome. He stepped quickly aside to avoid a collision with a man in a hurry—the fair-haired man in the damp raincoat, who was too busy looking up the street to notice Craig. Everyone’s crazy except me, he thought in amusement, and I’m beginning to have some doubts about myself. For he was standing at the door, watching Sussman reach the boulevard, and behind him the man who had urgently remembered he had a train to catch. But the man’s pace was more normal, now, and he started crossing the boulevard ahead of Sussman, who must have seen him and yet did not swerve or change direction. If Sussman paid no attention to this man, why should you? Craig asked himself: relax, fellow, relax.

He had his drink at the bar. The room was small, fairly clean, cosy enough, but sadly needing customers. It was just as well that Sussman hadn’t come in here. The talk around the sparsely filled tables was uninspired, and even if French always gave an interesting flavour to the smallest remarks, they were still, when translated, just of the So-I-said-to-him and So-he-said-to-me variety. A large wooden Buddha was fixed up against one wall, smiling down at the tables through his coating of dust. Over the bar, above the bottles and new cheap chrome, hung a large yellowed lithograph of Socrates lifting his cup of hemlock in a farewell toast to his pupils. A little more of this cute irony, Craig thought, and it won’t be this sickly tasting ice that makes me gag. He didn’t finish his drink, but left in almost as great a hurry as the man in the wet raincoat.

The shower was tapering off. The awning dripped. Only the girl was sitting out there, now. She was sitting very still, hunched together, staring at the blackness of the night. How long had she been alone like this?

Craig hesitated under the awning’s edge, glanced at her face. She was crying quite soundlessly. He looked away, but he didn’t leave. His excuse could be that he was waiting for the last few splatters of rain to thin into nothing. But the silent crying troubled him. He hesitated, looked again. She seemed aware of nothing. She was trying to rise, stumbling against the corner of a chair. He caught her arm and steadied her. “Are you all right?”

She understood English, for she nodded. She drew her arm away, took a steadying breath, averted her face. The waiter, apologetic but insistent, called as he hurried out to them, “Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!”

Craig looked at the tab on her table, left under a saucer, completely forgotten in her man’s Grand Exit. What does Sir Walter Raleigh do, he wondered now: pretend he has noticed nothing and stop embarrassing her? So Craig looked at the street, wet and shining, pulled up the collar of his jacket to protect his shirt from the last drops. She was fumbling with her purse. It dropped and scattered its contents. Sir Walter could at least bend his back and pick up the collection of small objects that bounced and rolled under the chairs. By the time she had paid the waiter, Craig had retrieved a compact, a lipstick, cigarette case and lighter.

“Anything else missing?”

First she shook her head, not looking at him. Then she said, in English, “Oh! My keys!” So he found them, too, after a little search. She was in control of herself by the time he had handed them over. She could face him for a moment, saying, “Thank you,” before she stepped out into the street. Quite beautiful, Sussman had said, and the old boy had been right. Smooth black hair, pale fine skin, lips soft in colour and in shape, dark eyes perhaps blue or grey. She drew the heavy collar of her sweater more closely around her neck, tightened the belt of her raincoat for warmth, shivered, and then started up towards the boulevard. Below the coat, her legs were slender, excellently shaped; her feet neat in high-heeled and very thin shoes.

He caught up with her near the corner. She hesitated there, as if the bright lights and the rush of traffic and the crowd of people, all purposeful, all knowing where they were going, had completely sapped the last remnants of decision. “If,” he said as he stood beside her, “I’m lucky enough to get a cab, can I drop you somewhere?”

“No thank you.”

“If I’m lucky enough to get a cab, will you take it?”

She looked down at her purse, briefly, shook her head.

He remembered the bill she had given the waiter, not even bothering to wait for her change. Only a couple of francs, a few centimes left? As if to force the issue, he saw a taxi and signalled. Miraculously, it stopped.

“I’ll give you a lift,” he said firmly.

“No, thanks. I’ll walk. Thank you.” The quiet voice was less icy.

“Oil those wet streets, in these shoes? You’re crazy.” He held the door open. The driver looked round impatiently, firing off a staccato burst of short sharp syllables. “Get in,” Craig told her. “I won’t bite. I won’t even bark.” She stepped in.

“Now where?” he asked more gently. It would be just his luck if she lived out by the Champs-Elysées, or somewhere high on Montmartre. He would be late for Sue and George: a fine way for young brother to welcome them back from Moscow; a first meeting in almost four years and he wouldn’t even have time to change his shirt and brush his hair. He glanced at his watch, but—he hoped—not too noticeably. “Where do I drop you?”

“Rue Bonaparte at the Quai Malaquais.”

“That’s no detour at all. Right on my way.” And somehow, he was very sorry about that.

She sat very still, head up, eyes front, her arms tightly folded as if to warm her body. He didn’t press her for an exact address. He didn’t ask her name, or where she lived in the United States. He kept his promise, and did not talk at all. He had a feeling she was very close to a second bout of tears. When he helped her out of the taxi, he only said, “I’d recommend two aspirin and a hot toddy.”

She tried to smile, gave him her hand. “I hope I didn’t make you late. I—” She turned away quickly, cutting her goodbye short. He watched her for a brief moment, and then got back into the cab.

Blue eyes. Of that, he was sure now. And a pity, a pity about everything. He hoped she’d have better luck with her next young man. Or perhaps tomorrow night she’d be sitting at another café table taking another emotional beating. Sussman, echoing Shaw, had been right: youth was far too good to be wasted on the young. Of course, Sussman probably included him among the oblivious; thirty-two would seem almost juvenile to Sussman. Good God, he thought suddenly, Sussman was just about my age when he was caught by the Gestapo. A cold finger touched his spine. If I had been he, would I have made as good a showing with my next twenty years? Some generations really got the sharp-toothed end of the stick.

He put these thoughts aside as they crossed the Seine. They were hardly good preparation for a family reunion. So he concentrated on the buildings rising around him, scrubbed back to the colour they had been centuries ago. Calculated lights outlined their proportions, discovered their detail, added drama and grace to their solid strength. Trees along the winding river were covering bare arms with bright spring dresses. And above the rooftops, above the glow of a large city, high overheard in a clearing sky, there were the first stars shining into view. Paris in April. This was how it should be.

2

When a man was thirty minutes late for a party, he might as well take ten more and arrive in a clean shirt—especially when he was armed with a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck, 1955, to launch his apologies. The Farradays were at the Meurice, probably because that was the place most diplomats seemed to drift into. Fortunately, it was only a short distance from Craig’s hotel, although a long way in price and style. But as his brother-in-law explained once the exuberant welcome eased off, he was celebrating hard, and Sue deserved a suite no less, and in any case it was only for one night, and even a press attaché who didn’t rate this splendour could damned well dip into his own pocket for that length of time.

Craig had never heard so much rush of self-explanation from George. He was a lot thinner and looked more than his thirty-eight years. Sue, on the other hand, had put on some weight, cut her fair hair short and brushed it straight. Not pregnant, John Craig decided, glancing at her thickened hip line; just an excess of solid-silhouette food, and not enough exercise. That accounted also for the loss of colour in her face. Her lipstick was much too dark and vivid, a remembrance of days past. It was the shadows under her eyes that really troubled him, along with the worry creases on her brow. But she was still as quick and sensitive as ever, still with her sense of humour. For she was laughing in the old way, pulling down the skirt of her dress from its wrinkles around the waist, guessing his thoughts correctly, saying, “George is the lucky one. When he worries, he loses weight. All I do is eat and eat. And sit brooding. Don’t be so alarmed, John. I’ll soon get rid of this.” She smacked her waistline lightly, threw her arms wide. “I’m free, I’m free, I’m free! Oh, it’s wonderful; wonderful. Wonderful to see you, wonderful to talk my head off, wonderful to go where I want when I want, wonderful—” She broke off, almost in tears. “John, you look exactly the same, and thank God for that.” She gave him a very intense hug: he had always been her favourite brother.

Craig patted her shoulder, ruffled her hair, and looked over her head at George. “What was that you said about one night?” he asked, trying to get emotions calmed down. “I thought you were planning to be here for a week.” And that’s why I had planned two weeks in Paris, he thought ruefully: one week for family, one week to recover and see the town on my own.

“We’re leaving tomorrow for Washington. Say, you got this champagne iced!”

“Four hours, courtesy of the barman at my hotel.” And a nice-sized tip.

“Then it’s just right for drinking. Sue, get some glasses—sure, these will do, over on the table.”

Craig noticed that a little dining table, places for three, flowers, candles and all, had been set up near the window of the sitting-room.

“We thought we’d have supper here, easier for talking, less waste of time,” George said. “And we are having a few friends drop in here afterwards. Just some men who have been stationed at one time or another in Moscow.”

“They belong to the I-Was-There Club,” Sue said cheerfully. She had quite recovered. She noticed the expression on her brother’s face. “I’m sorry, John; we had to see them tonight—but you know how it is. There really is quite a bond between men who have lived through the same tensions—”

“A bond of curiosity,” George said drily. “They want to hear the latest inside gossip and informed guesses.”

“Veterans of Foreign Peace?” Craig suggested.

“They’d never have forgiven us if we had slipped through Paris without seeing them,” Sue went on. She had a habit of over-explaining out of sheer politeness.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Craig assured her.

“But you look so astonished.”

“Well, after all—one night in Paris!” And that really did amaze him. There must be some kind of emergency, he thought. “Why, you only got here a couple of hours ago.”

“And we very nearly didn’t,” Sue burst out.

Craig stared.

George said quickly, “Now let’s not exaggerate. We’d have got here eventually.” He looked at the astounded Craig, gave a thin smile. “We were almost detained.” His hand was steady as he poured the champagne and offered a glass to Craig.

Almost detained? Craig regained his breath. He raised the glass. “Then here’s to your safe arrival!” He noticed that both drank to that without one smile. He tried to make a joke of it and lighten the heavy moment. “Don’t tell me you were doing some cloak-and-daggering.”

“Haven’t the training, or the stamina. But that’s the label Moscow wanted to pin on me.”

“Don’t you see,” Sue said impatiently, “so many of their embassies are engaged in active espionage that every now and again they have to polish up their public image? So they tarnish ours.”

“Now, Sue,” Craig said, “we do have spies floating around. You know that.”

“And that makes us just as bad as them? So there are no good ones and bad ones, and we are all equally to blame? Oh, John! Leave that kind of folk to the neutralists who want to justify their evasions!”

“Darling,” George said quickly, “have some more champagne. We said we wouldn’t talk about this, remember?”

“I think we’d better,” Sue said determinedly, “or else we’ll leave John thinking his sister is filled with prejudices instead of experiences. Dear John, I’m still me—just a lot older, a little wiser and much sadder. Come on, choose a Louis Fifteenth chair, and listen to George before you start judging me.” She sat down, tried to relax, act normally. “George was arrested four days ago,” she said.

“What?” Craig almost spilled his champagne over the blue-and-gold rug. He sat down, carefully, on a yellow satin sofa, placed his glass safely on a smoked-glass table top, lit a cigarette. “Ready and waiting,” he said.

George Farraday chose to pace slowly around the room as he talked. He, too, had abandoned his glass for a cigarette. He tried to keep his voice light, as if to play down his memories. “Oh, it wasn’t much. I was released in five hours. And I have to thank Sue for that.”

“Wasn’t much!” That was Sue, indignant. “Why, they hadn’t even notified the Embassy that they had picked you up.”

“That couldn’t have been very pleasant,” Craig said.

“No,” Farraday admitted. “I kept thinking of Barghoorn, the Yale professor who got arrested last November. Not one of us knew about it for a couple of weeks. He wasn’t guilty of a damned thing, either. That’s one thing you’ve got to remember, John. When we detain a Russian or satellite citizen in the United States, we have an honest case against him. We have real evidence. The Russians invent evidence. So that is a big difference between them and us. Apart from all that good-ones and bad-ones talk, and God knows there are plenty of both groups in every country, there are some very big differences indeed between us and them.” He looked at his brother-in-law, waiting.

There was no argument in Craig’s eyes, simply curiosity.

“All right,” Farraday went on, “then I can tell you what happened.” He stopped at the mantelpiece to drain his glass and set it back on the marble top. “I had been having lunch with one of our visiting newsmen. I left him, and got on to a bus to get home. The bus was crowded. I was standing half-way down the aisle. A woman who had followed me on to the bus was standing beside me. Suddenly she whispered, in English, ‘Mail this to my daughter in America for me. Please!’ And she shoved an envelope into my hand. Now my arm was down by my side, just like this, and as she looked away I opened my hand and let the letter drop on the floor. No one noticed that. It was lost under the feet as I pushed towards the door, anywhere to get away from that letter. Almost at once, the bus stopped. And strange, strange—a black car was waiting just ahead of it. Two men got on to the bus, knew me at once, hustled me off. I made a bit of a protest. No one moved, no one did anything. The men strong-armed me into the car. I was taken to headquarters and charged with receiving secret information from one of my agents who had already confessed. They were annoyed a little—” George paused to savour his understatement—“when they didn’t find the envelope in any of my pockets. However, they found it in the bus, and then charged I had got rid of the ‘evidence’ when I saw I was about to be arrested. It could have been nasty. I kept demanding to get in touch with our Embassy but no one seemed to listen.”

“Could they do that?” Craig was horrified.

“As long as the Embassy wasn’t asking about me, they weren’t worrying about protocol.”

“Then how—”

“Sue. Your sister has brains; did you ever appreciate that?” George was smiling broadly, now, ready to tell the more pleasant part of his story. “She had been wary for the last few weeks, expected something to happen to someone at the Embassy—”

“I was only remembering their usual tit-for-tat diplomacy,” Sue broke in, disclaiming any sixth sense. “After all, we had recently arrested some spies of theirs, and they would be looking for someone to hold as future exchange if he hadn’t diplomatic immunity—”

But George has that,” Craig interrupted.

“Let me finish, my bright young brother! Someone as an exchange if he hadn’t diplomatic immunity, or someone with diplomatic immunity whom they could boot out of the country in disgrace. Get it now?”

“I get it. And you were booted out?”

Farraday said, “I just scraped through, there: no envelope on me, and the Embassy taking a very firm line. If you act fast enough, you can assert your rights.”

“Well, congratulations to the Embassy!”

“The minute Sue told them I must be in trouble, they moved.”

Sue? Craig looked at her in amazement. Old scatterbrained, happy-go-lucky, pink-bespectacled Sue?

“As I said, she had been expecting something. She had talked me into promising to telephone her every hour on the hour, no matter where I was. And a damned fool I felt keeping that promise. So, when three o’clock came that afternoon and no ’phone call, she got in touch with the Embassy, told them where I had lunched and with whom, told them she’d give me until four o’clock and if no call came from me by that time, she was pressing every panic button in sight. However, they took charge. We didn’t even make the newspapers, thank God.”

“She certainly deserves a suite at the Meurice,” Craig conceded. He rose and went over to Sue, and kissed the tip of her nose. “That’s for you, bright eyes. You can dine out for six months om that story.”

“No, no. I keep my little lips tightly buttoned, even in Washington. There’s always some goony bird who’ll believe that if George was arrested, there must be a real reason and it’s possible he was a spy; dear me, the Russians would never behave that way if he were not, now would they?”

“Let’s finish the champagne,” George said. “There will be more arriving with dinner any minute now.”

“Cue to drop all interest in your story? But as family, George, and I hope not as a goony bird”—Craig shook his head over his sister’s slang, as out-of-date as her lipstick—“why did the NKVD choose you? Or is it now the MVD? Or KGV? Never could keep those initials straight.”

“Smart to change them,” Sue said with one of her old light laughs. “Rouses hope way back in our minds that the secret police changes its nature along with its name. But security remains security, whether it’s KGV or any other title. And one thing that’s maintained is ‘No ideological coexistence.’ That’s why they didn’t like George.”

George said briefly, “I just kept trying to persuade them to let a free flow of newspapers and magazines come in from the West. We can buy their newspapers in Times Square; why not our newspapers on sale in Moscow?”

“And they won’t allow it?”

George shook his head. “Some of our representatives at that cultural-exchange meeting in Moscow, last January, pressed this point. All they got was a bang on the table and an angry ‘There is no ideological coexistence possible!’ I’ve had the same treatment twice. Really ends all conversation. As one of my British chums said, ‘If that’s final, what price peaceful coexistence?’ Which, of course, is the sixty-four-dollar question.” He fell silent, frowning. Then he forced a pretty good smile. “Where’s that dinner, blast it? I’m hungry. What did you order, Sue?”

“What you used to like: oysters, langoustes and some Sancerre nicely chilled, tournedos with insertions of pâté Strasbourg and a Nuits-Saint-Georges, asparagus with drawn butter, followed by a little Brie just properly flowing, and brandied cherries straight from the flames.”

“We’ll be eating hamburger for the next three weeks.” But his warning was decorated with a large and happy smile.

“We’re celebrating,” she said firmly, and laughed. She got up, and danced round the room. “Wonderful, wonderful night!” The waiter, whose well-trained knock had been lost in Sue’s improvised singing, recovered his well-trained face after the initial shock of entry. Dinner was served.

* * *

And now there were only the pleasant things to be discussed: the comic things that had happened in Moscow, the kindly people, the family at home (Father Craig still being sought for advice by the old patients in his little town in Ohio; a country doctor never could retire, it seemed), and all the nephews and nieces scattered around the country (three brand new since Sue had last seen her four other brothers). Then there were John’s plans to be talked over. Sue was relieved, tactfully, that her youngest brother had at last made up his mind what he wanted to do with his life. George was still enough of an old newspaperman to have some practical reservations.

“I suppose,” he said, “this book will be read by five hundred people instead of five hundred thousand? In a way, that’s a pity. You can write, John.”

Sue said, “But they will be the most important five hundred.”

“I guess so,” George conceded. It had been an excellent dinner. “In fact, he’ll probably end up in Washington as one of those whiz-bang economic historians telling all the rest of us what to do.”

John Craig was amused, shook his head. There were some plans you couldn’t formulate, not at this early stage of the game. It took a long time to build up any reputation, any standing in his world. He thought of Professor Sussman. There had been some pretty hideous and violent interruptions in Sussman’s life, of course, but he was now becoming a “world authority” in his field. A head phrase, world authority...

“A nice racket, anyway. You can choose where you want to travel,” George said amiably. “Before you start writing a book, you say, ‘Now let’s see: what places do I want to visit?’ And then you get hold of a map, and start planning your chapters. Back in my young days, there weren’t so many foundations willing to give travelling fellowships for a tour through the Greek Islands. It’s the splurge in culture.”

“High time there was an explosion in that, too,” Sue said. She was watching John. He had always had too many interests, spread his talents too widely, but now he was concentrating. She hoped it wasn’t too narrowly. She remembered the slight family panic, some ten years ago, when a talent scout had offered John a test in Hollywood. “And to think you might have become one of those television stars with a long, lean look and a quizzical expression in your quiet grey eyes,” she murmured. She studied him with approval. “You haven’t altered, did I tell you? How nice that some people don’t change much! Reassuring, somehow. But what are you thinking about, John?” It certainly wasn’t about college dramatics, or week-end skiing parties, or all the girls he hadn’t married.

“Actually, I was thinking of a professor I met today; bumped into him on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.” He noticed the solemn polite silence settling on both their faces, and decided to startle them out of their incipient boredom. “He was on his way home to Berkeley from the Frankfurt trials. He had been giving evidence on Auschwitz. A strange mixed-up world, isn’t it? He is an archaeologist.”

“A cruel mixed-up world,” Sue said softly. “That must have been a frightful experience, remembering all those hideous details.”

“I’d like to have met him,” George said, definitely interested. “A pity we aren’t staying longer. What’s his name?”

“Sussman. He’s leaving tomorrow anyway. You might meet him on the plane. His flight leaves at noon.”

“Must be hitchhiking, courtesy of army or air force,” George decided. “We leave by regular flight in the evening. What was his impression of the trials? The Germans really do mean business?”

“He didn’t talk so much about the trials—”

“Is archaeology as engrossing as all that?” George asked, astounded. “My God, those scholars—”

“He had his worries. He was sure he had just seen one of the important Nazis walking free on the streets of Paris.”

“Well, that could be. There are several quiet ones who escaped in the general collapse.”

“But this one is dead. At least, he has a grave, tombstone and all, in Berlin.”

“Dead, and alive? Are you sure Professor Sussman hadn’t been under too much strain?”

Craig didn’t answer.

“That can happen, you know. When I got off the plane today I kept looking at every face, wondering who was friend or foe. Nerve ends rubbed just a little bit too raw. That’s all.”

Sue said, “If your professor really did see a war criminal, he’d better report it. Don’t you think?”

“He was going to telephone the Embassy here.”

“Poor old Embassy,” George said. “It gets every travelling citizen’s troubles.”

“But where else can a citizen go? When we’re up against something unexpected, what can we do? We don’t know the proper channels.”

George admitted that, with pursed lips and a shrug of his shoulders. “Oh, well, anyway, I think he’d have done better to get in touch with Frankfurt.”

“He will do that if necessary.”

“He really believes his story?”

“He’s completely convinced.”

“And you?”

Craig was saved by the ring of a telephone from the embarrassment of openly admitting his doubts. He had believed, and then he had retreated from that belief. All those details about being followed, tracked down from Frankfurt... Sussman had only been guessing; how could he have known? Yes, it had been the details that had stopped Craig believing. And yet, and yet... Why else would he have mentioned Sussman at all to George and Sue if he didn’t deep down, somewhere inside his mind, believe part of the story?

George said from the telephone, “They are on their way. Let’s get rid of that table, Sue. And where’s the coffee? Perhaps we should order brandy, too.”

“Scotch,” Sue corrected. “They don’t sip. They drink. Who’s arriving first?”

“Bob and Ed. Val is on their heels, they say.”

Sue, amid the flurry of waiters and table removal, of coffee tray brought in, of orders for extra ice and soda, briefed her brother. Bob Bradley was now with NATO; he had been with the State Department, for a short time; stationed in Moscow when they first arrived there. Ed Wilshot was a newsman, who also had been in Moscow then. Val Sutherland was another reporter, who had taken Wilshot’s place after he had been asked to leave, and was now in transit to another post. Then there would be Tom O’Malley, an Australian journalist; and Joe Antonini, who had been one of the experts in tracking down all the hidden microphones that had recently been discovered in the US Embassy in Moscow.

It was, thought John Craig, going to be a merry, merry evening for everyone except him. He had that stranger-at-the-reunion feeling even now as Farraday greeted the first arrivals. The Old Boys’ Club, most definitely. Sue seemed to know what he was thinking. “You won’t be the only one who hasn’t been to Moscow,” she told him gently. “Frank Rosenfeld is going to drop in. He’s a business-man—refrigeration—used to be in charge of his firm’s office in Saigon when George was a reporter there. Goodness, that’s over ten years ago, when Viet Nam was still Indo-China! Then Rosie was moved to the head office in Paris, and George was transferred to the Embassy here, so they got together again. He’s not really very bright about the things that matter—”

“Snob,” he told her.

“I mean, he’s inclined to repeat this morning’s editorial as his views on the world situation. But he’s very sweet and helpful. About finding you an apartment, or a hotel at short notice. You know...”

“He sounds as if he needed someone to be nice to him in this setup. Me?” He grinned widely, and pushed her off to welcome the rest of her guests. They were all here except the business-man. None of them looked as if they needed any help at all in feeling right at home. They were introduced to him, gave him a warm handshake and an appraising look, friendly enough; made a brief attempt at general remarks; and then grouped together talking their heads off. Once the questions they were firing at George Farraday were answered, or fended off (no mention, Craig noted, of the arrest), and the general talk of Moscow had simmered down, there might be some reasonable conversation.

Craig settled himself near the window, where Sue joined him tactfully. She wasn’t much needed either, at this moment. She talked and he watched. It was interesting, in a way, to place character by voice, manner and face. It was dangerous, too, of course: the mildest-mannered man could turn out to be a roaring lion; the bellowing bull could be a braying donkey. And what do they think I am? he wondered with some amusement. A little frog puffed up in his own puddle of scholarship? Someone who was putting his brains and energies, such as they were, into tracking down facts that would never make tomorrow’s headlines? And yet, the past was prologue.

The last guest arrived, and the tight group around the fireplace broke their close formation. He wasn’t known to any of them, for George was making careful introductions all round. He was a heavyset, dark-haired man in a quiet, dark grey suit, slightly formal in manner, almost solemn, although—as George made a few jokes—his grave politeness could ease into a beaming smile. They were talking as old friends do; no serious discussion about world-shaking problems there. The others drifted away, once the phrase “...sales conferences all week...” dropped like a dud bomb into the room’s sudden silence. Frank!” Sue called delightedly, and her sweet and helpful business-man started towards her with hands outstretched. His grip was strong, Craig noticed when his turn came to have his hand pumped. His smile divided his face into two camps: below, was a rounded jaw line, a full underlip, a chin with a marked cleft; above, was a sharp nose, clever brown eyes, a remarkable brow. He’d probably sell a lot of refrigerators, Craig decided. But what the hell do I talk to him about? The question was answered by Rosenfeld (after a warmly expressed welcome to Paris) wandering away towards Bradley and Antonini. Craig repressed a wry smile, caught Sue’s worried eyes for a second, then looked round the blue-and-gold sitting-room. There were more interesting prospects tonight than a slightly strayed scholar.

She went into action. “I’ll get you another drink, John.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m all right.” But his protest didn’t stop her. He knew what would come next, and wished he was a couple of miles away, walking along the Boulevard Saint-Germain to have that drink at a crummy little bar. What was that girl with the blue eyes and smooth dark hair doing now?

Sue was saying, “Don’t you men ever get tired standing around talking? It really is more comfortable to sit. We have plenty of chairs. George, help me.” So the wide circle was formed, men sitting down around Craig in silence. Now what? he wondered. He thought he might try a question to start them off again; they were looking at him with polite expectancy. What about something wild like when will Stalin become an okay word again? Or, How many agents have the Russians infiltrated into NATO?

But Sue rushed on, most charmingly. “John was telling us about a very odd thing that happened to him today. He met one of his old professors who insisted that he had just seen a Nazi walking the streets of Paris. A supposedly dead