Decision at Delphi (32 page)

“The first floor,” Tommy insisted.

“I think—” Cecilia called across the room, and then stopped apologetically. It was difficult to contradict such a patient host. “I’d have called it the second floor,” she ended tactfully.

“Oh, you Americans!” Tommy said delightedly, as the truth dawned. “Why don’t you call things by their right names? There’s the ground floor, then the first floor, then the second, then the third, where you now are. Naturally! I suppose you’d call this the fourth?”

Strang smiled politely. “That’s right. Now let’s straighten me out. No one has gone to Christophorou’s apartment, which is on the first floor, American style. Both visitors have gone to Drakon’s, on the second. Right?”

“American style? Right!” Tommy said, still diverted. “And so we return Michalopoulos to his usual state of virtue. I must admit I was rather surprised.”

Strang glanced at his watch. “Feeling better?” he asked Katherini. “All right, here’s the latest news: I saw Nikos Kladas get out of the car—yes, the same green car that chased you and Petros all over Athens—and come into this house. He is in Drakon’s apartment, right now, along with your aunt.”

Katherini surprised him. She said, with an interest that chased her fears away, “And the green car?”

“It left. Andreas was driving. I don’t think there was anyone else in the car, for Andreas got out to help Nikos Kladas into the hall. That leg must have been badly hurt.”

Katherini laughed. “Then Petros escaped. He escaped! They didn’t find him. I knew it!” She looked at Strang triumphantly.

“You were right and I was wrong,” he said, thinking, as he watched her, that there was nothing like two thick slabs of butter-coated bread to soothe raw nerves. But he wished he didn’t always get a feeling of some underbattle of the sexes between that girl and him. All right, all right: so men were stupid oafs, bumbling braggarts. Who had taught her to dislike men so much? Men? Or her aunt? “And now—if you’ll go on eating?” He picked up the telephone. Cecilia had laughed, and
perhaps that cheered him up. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that Petros had managed to evade the great Nikos. One thing was quite certain: Nikos wouldn’t be here if Petros had been caught. Katherini was right about that. He waited impatiently for Pringle to answer at his end.

“See—you
are
safe here,” Cecilia was reassuring Katherini. “They think you are with Petros. And now they’ll be scared— they’ll think you and Petros are both in some police station, talking a hundred and twenty words to the minute.”

I wish that were so, Strang thought; that would have solved a lot of problems, but we had Miss Katherini’s tangled loyalties to treat lightly. Still, we’ve managed one thing: somehow, in our stumbling, improvising way, we have sent Madame Duval into temporary hiding; the house on Kriton Street is no longer so safe. That’s why she came here. And now Nikos, too. They are off balance. They’ve got to decide what to do next, if Petros and Katherini can’t be found. They don’t know how catastrophic, or how negligible, Katherini’s escape may be for them. And in spite of the nagging anxiety of this long wait by the telephone, Strang’s spirits began to lift. Good for old Petros, he thought with sudden and intense gratitude.

At last, Pringle’s receiver was lifted, and Pringle’s voice came through, brusque, important. “Later—” Pringle cut him short. “I’m busy right now. Got someone here. See you tomorrow.”

“Is that Christophorou with you?”

“No. He left ten minutes ago. He’s probably—”

“Good! Now listen—”

“I can’t. Not right now.” Pringle dropped his voice. “The Colonel is here.”

“The rows of medals I met last night? Is he still dragging his feet?”

“Far from it. I underestimated that situation, I’m glad to say.”

“So did someone else, I think.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I have urgent news for the Colonel. Better listen and pass it on.”

“About what?”

“The conspiracy.”

There was a silence more explicit than words. Then Pringle
^?
s voice said sharply, “Shut up, you damn fool! How do you know about that?”

“Through the old confidence game. He tells me all; I trust him completely; I hand over the documents. What’s more, how could this damn fool get you to listen, unless he mentioned the unmentionable? We are at Tommy’s apartment, beleaguered. Yes, Tommy’s. Miss Hillard is with me. And a girl who can tell you a lot about the people involved in the unmentionable you-know-what. We’re trying to keep her hidden, and alive, until we can bring her around to your place.”

“Not here!”

“But—”

“Not here! There’s trouble starting up—rumours that I’ve been interfering in Greek affairs.”

“That’s nonsense!”

“But dynamite. Christophorou was worried enough by it to come around this evening and tip me off.”

“He would.”

“What do you mean?” Pringle’s voice was very quiet. “That’s the third crack you have made this—”

“It’s a scare job.”

“The Colonel agrees with you. But the embassy won’t take it quite so calmly. There is a pretty unpleasant paragraph in a newspaper, tomorrow, that—”

“Who planted it? And why? It’s a scare job, I tell you. You have every right to work on Steve’s case. He’s an American.”

“You seem to forget he is dead.”

“He isn’t. At least, he was alive last night. Katherini Roilos can tell you all about him. Also about Madame Duval and Nikos Kladas, who are in an apartment, right this moment, second floor, this building. Tenant’s name is Demetrius Drakon. Also, there is a house on Kriton Street, newly renovated, cream colour, brown shutters, white-walled garden. Rented by Evgenia Vasilika for Duval as her headquarters in Athens. Inside that house, you’ll find...”

“Good God!” Pringle said. “Stay there! Do nothing! I’ll call you right back.” The line went completely blank.

“Damn,” Strang said to the receiver, and replaced it. He looked over at the others ruefully. The girls were talking, close-cosseted. Tommy had picked up a magazine and was concentrating on it with studied politeness. Strang thought, I’ll give Pringle exactly three minutes to tell the Colonel all that, and then I’ll call back. And, this time, I’ll finish what I have to say. What did people do in emergencies before the telephone was invented? Bless Mr. Alexander Graham Bell for solving people’s problems so quickly. And then he wondered, what problems were being solved downstairs in the Drakon apartment, right now, by the speed of telephone? Whatever we can do, they can do, he reminded himself. Then he resisted this gloomy idea and forced himself to remember
that, whatever was happening in that apartment downstairs, they were still off balance.

Katherini had interrupted a long flow of words to Cecilia. She rose, looked at Strang. “Did you tell them about Maria?”

“Not yet. I was cut off. They will call me back.” And then, as a look of distress passed over her pale face, he said, “Don’t worry, Katherini, I shan’t forget. And the other news is good. There is a colonel in Greek Intelligence right now with my friend Pringle. I think we’ll see some quick action.” He picked up the telephone again, but there was only that old depressing sound of a line already engaged. He replaced the receiver and tried to look cheerful, for Katherini was still watching him. “The Colonel is working on that, right now,” he told her. “This waiting will soon be over.”

She said slowly, “And after they listen to me? What then?” She didn’t wait for his answer. She turned back to Cecilia, sat down beside her.

Cecilia said gently, “Don’t worry, Katherini. We’ll see that...”

“Don’t worry?” It was the first time that Katherini had snapped at Cecilia. “Everyone keeps saying
don’t worry, don’t worry!”
She bit her lip, regained control. “Let me talk some more. Then I forget to worry.”

Cecilia said, “Are you sure you want to—”

“Yes.” Katherini sat down, and began talking, almost in a whisper.

Tommy came forward, the magazine open in his hands. “So we’re locked out, are we?” he asked, with a humorous glint in his eyes as he glanced briefly at the two girls on the sofa. “All right, let’s adjourn to the smoking-room.” He drew Strang over toward his arm-chair. “Pull in a chair and make yourself
comfortable. If Pringle is ringing you here, it would be wiser simply to wait; his telephone may be needed, at any moment. You’ve probably stirred up quite a little hornet’s nest with that call of yours. Oh, yes, indeed, I was listening. But it’s always important to appear not to listen. A conspiracy, you said. How interesting—”

Strang stopped looking at the telephone, and took a chair opposite Tommy.

“Now this is very Greek,” Tommy said genially. “Men here; women there.” He waited. The word “conspiracy” was still in his eyes.

“I’ll have to disappoint you, at the moment,” Strang said. “But I’ll promise one thing: as soon as I can, and when I can—” he paused.

“You’ll tell me the whole story?” Tommy was not quite believing.

“As much as I know of it. That’s possibly very little.”

Tommy glanced at him in surprise, his disbelief now evident.

“Look—” Strang said, “I’m only an architect who is interested in Greek temples.”

Tommy looked. His sharp eyes studied the American. Then he smiled. “I’ve seen stranger incidents than this. During the German occupation, and in the Communist troubles afterwards—” He broke off, remembering. “Yes, most of us have strange stories to tell, many of them incomplete, fantastic, with at least five explanations. I sometimes think that normal, everyday life is only a delusion. We walk on a thin crust of earth which we call peace; and every now and again we can hear a rumble below our feet; and sometimes the crust splits and we see that, underneath, there is a glowing inferno ready to erupt. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, but it is always there.” He glanced over at Katherini, who was still talking intently to Cecilia. His tone changed. “At least she
is
calmer now. It’s a very difficult thing, you know, to be a refugee. At first, all you want to do is to escape. Once you have escaped, you start to think about the friends who didn’t escape. And you’re torn between staying and returning, and you don’t know what to do. There’s a very bad hour, indeed, when you ask yourself the question she asked tonight. You noticed it?”

Strang nodded.
What
then? “And I couldn’t answer it.”

“Just as well. No one can answer it for any refugee. It is a cruel question. You ask it when you realise that escape is not enough. You have exchanged one set of problems for another, that is all. Are you brave enough to start all over again? That’s the real question. And a refugee has to answer that for himself.” He shook his head, sadly.

“I think,” Strang said, groping tactfully for the right words, “that it would be best for everyone if you didn’t mention the fact that we brought Katherini here tonight. Not even to a very close friend, like Aleco Christophorou.”

“I shouldn’t dream of discussing this with anyone,” Tommy said stiltedly. He was hurt at the unnecessary suggestion.

“I didn’t mean a discussion,” Strang said hastily. “What I had in mind was more of a—well, a neighbourly little chat in the front hall, one morning.”

“I hardly ever see Aleco”

“I thought he was a friend,”

A shadow drifted over Tommy’s brow. “He was one of the brightest pupils I ever had.”

“How long did he hold his professorship?”

“Professorship?”

“Professor of Law at Athens University, wasn’t he?”

“Where on earth did you pick up that idea?” Tommy had recovered his equanimity as Strang looked completely dumbfounded. “No, he never was given any appointment at the University, although I think he would have liked one. It was a bit of a disappointment, I gather. But he
would
spread his talents around as if they were butter. I warned him repeatedly when he was a boy. He never would listen to anyone, though.” Tommy sighed “First he was going to be an archaeologist. Then he went to Oxford and read history. Then to the Sorbonne. Then to Geneva and political science. Then back to Athens— for law. We all thought he was settled in a career, at last. But he had that disappointment, and then he went off to fight in the war. He did very well in it, I hear. He’s extraordinarily brave, you know.”

“And after that?”

“Politics. He made some excellent speeches, stood for election to parliament, and lost. I rather think the voters couldn’t take an existentialist quite seriously. Oh, yes, that had become his postwar enthusiasm.” Tommy shook his head. “Life to most Greeks may be either tragic or comic or a mixture of both; but one thing it never is—and that is, meaningless. They would never have survived if they had believed that.”

“And since then?”

“I’ve rather lost track of him. Travelled a good deal, I heard. Now, he is a freelance journalist, writes very superior articles on international politics. If he doesn’t watch out, he will end as a pundit.” Tommy laughed. “Careers are extraordinary things. So much wasted—then so much retrieved, unexpectedly.”

So much wasted? Strang wondered about that. Or had everything contributed its share to the complete education of Aleco Christophorou? “What about his family?” Strang asked “How do they feel about all this?”

Tommy said, “Now there’s one situation that
is
completely meaningless.” He pushed himself out of his comfortable chair. “Let me give you another drink, Strang.” Then he looked at the magazine still lying open on his table. “Dear me! I meant to show you where I first heard about you.” He pointed to a column of print, took Strang’s glass, and walked across to his cupboard.

The opened page seemed to deal with notes on art and music, each given a separate paragraph under its own headline. But at this hour of the morning, it was indeed all Greek to Strang.

“Can you understand it, or shall I translate?” Tommy called over his shoulder.

“Which paragraph is it?”

“The one beginning ‘Famous Greek photographer commissioned by
Perspective,
renowned American magazine.’ Clumsy, but appropriately exuberant. You are mentioned, too, in the last line. But you aren’t a Greek.”