The Avignon Quintet (100 page)

Finally Toby appeared, stalking gravely into the establishment; he so much enjoyed being a spy, albeit a desk-bound spy. He wore dark glasses and a hat with a huge brim; he looked over his shoulder all the time, sure that he was being “shadowed”. He looked under the table for gunmen and under the bed for kidnappers. He was the fully fashioned operational secret service man. Sutcliffe was bored with all this absurd behaviour and had started to play tricks with him, to give him something substantial to fear instead of these fantasies of power.

He told him lies about odd phone calls, and spoke of the mysterious presence of a black saloon car, a German Horch with bullet-proof windows which patrolled their street sometimes after dark. It was full of armed men; he strongly advised his friend to ask the service for a bullet-proof waistcoat, lest he be attacked on his walk back from the office. At this however Toby demurred – the waistcoats were heavy, he said, and might give him a hernia. However he was impressed by this propaganda and wore an air of nervous precaution when he walked the open street.

Now he entered the old bar in high good humour, hanging up his coat and hat as he boomed a welcome full of gratitude. “My dear fellow, how to thank you..? Your rubber bands … a wonderful contrivance worthy of the best civil service in the world … secret service too … saved my honour this very lunch hour … Miss Farthingale was able to say with Galileo,
eppur si muove
… it obviated the need for her to wear spurs, thank goodness, and carry the good news from Ghent to Aix …”

He placed his briefcase in a strategic place where he could keep an eye on it, and motioned Sutcliffe away to the pool table for a game of French billiards, switching on the lights and checking over the balls which clustered in their wooden triangle, a formation suggesting the symbolic properties of the Grand Pyramid’s square root of five: Symbol which faraway Blanford was even then thoughtfully contemplating in a big book of engravings concerned with such abstruse matters. From time to time they talked a small bit of shop, but for the most part they pursued this wholly absorbing occupation in silence, enjoying the long meditations between strokes, between remarks. Then once they were relaxed they replaced their cues in the rack and resumed their places at their customary table where Toby looked at his watch and said that there was just time for a stirrup-cup before they must face the awkward problem of a dinner neither knew how to cook. “I see your Ryder is in for a gong,” he said. “It won’t do him any good; the damned military don’t like civilian gongs being dished out to their people by poor old ambassadors.” Sutcliffe said, “He could hardly refuse.” Toby wagged his head and added: “The man has a poorly aspected Saturn I suspect.” The door opened with a clink and Toby exclaimed: “There you are! I was wondering what had happened to you.” It was Constance! Sutcliffe looked reproachfully at his friend, since he had obviously expected this visit – doubtless she had telephoned him. “You could have told me,” he growled.

Toby looked haughty and said, “It was all top secret – so she told me – and I respected her confidence, didn’t I, my dear?”

Constance looked more rested and better groomed than upon a previous occasion, or perhaps it was simply that with the familiarity of their friendship she had flowered. On the other hand it may have been that expurgating her conscience with Sutcliffe through alcohol and conversation had acclimatised her feelings of reticence. But whatever it might have been the warmth and simplicity with which she took her place between them spoke of an affectionate complicity. Moreover she now had a topic of interest, of burning interest, to discuss. To Toby she said, “I am sure you have heard my news independently, because for some reason not clear to me everybody seems to suspect the Prince of being a double agent.” Toby nodded gravely. “It is absolutely false,” she said. “He criticises us very harshly at times but he is completely pro-Allied in sentiment. Anyway, he is the topic of my chatter – because I have just had a long communication on the teleprinter saying that he wants permission to land here for discussions.” All this Toby knew, as the old Prince had been the subject of some highly confidential exchanges with Cairo, from which it had become clear that his movements were causing concern and alarm since he threatened to return to the unoccupied zone in France for reasons unspecific enough to be described as “business consultations”. Toby had no fast views on the matter himself but he was in honour bound to echo the sentiments of his office, which in turn relayed the sardonic suspicions of Cairo, whose saturnine Brigadier Maskelyne could see no virtue in the old man, nor any sense in letting him gallivant about Europe conveying, no doubt, military appreciations and perhaps even coded messages to the Germans. Maskelyne wanted his journey blocked if possible, and proposed that once in Geneva he might be snowed under with prevarications and visa problems. But this was easy to say, harder to execute, for the Ambassador in Egypt was very much on the side of the Prince and, if appealed to, would certainly try and facilitate his request in the teeth of Army Intelligence. The only thing to do to achieve the desired end was to cause muddle and as much bureaucratic confusion as possible around the matter in the hope that the discouraged old Prince might get bored and renounce the journey. This Toby expounded to Constance with care, watching her ever-growing impatience as he outlined the business. “You don’t know the old man,” she said, “he is not only an absolute darling but also very pig-headed; and he has plenty of people who would be on his side and against your detestable short-sighted Intelligence Branch. Mark my words.”

Toby sighed and called for drinks, in order as he put it to himself to give her time to cool off; but she returned almost at once to the attack with: “Anyway, the die is cast, for the Swiss have given him a visa and the Red Cross have cabled the Ambassador.” Toby nodded and sighed. “But the army controls transport on a priority basis. If they pretended that there is no room for two months … that is what Maskelyne is wondering … How much power does the Red Cross carry, I wonder, in Cairo?”

She chuckled. “You will soon see. The old boy will be in the air tomorrow and through Turkey by the weekend. He has already asked me to call a meeting, and I have alerted Felix Chatto to convoke it.”

“Another name I seem to know,” said Sutcliffe, feeling rather out of his depth. “Isn’t that the consul? I thought so.”

“Of course, you know perfectly well. I have no further doubts about your identity. You were with Aubrey in Vienna when Livia, my sister … She who disappeared just when war broke out.”

“Did Aubrey really love her?” To her surprise the girl found herself blushing as she replied hotly, “Of course he did. Who else?”

“And Felix also?”

“You can ask him that yourself. He is here in the Consulate, open to the public all morning.”

“And Livia?”

“Vanished. I saw her in a newsreel film of a great Nazi rally. She was in uniform. After that no news. I don’t dare to speculate, Robbie.” He was delighted by this mark of intimacy. “Yes, do call me Robbie, that is what Aubrey calls me; it brings me closer to him. After all we owe you a great debt, your Freud sent us to Vienna. Poor stricken Pia! Not that it did any good, alas!” She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. “I am sorry,” she said. And now Toby called them to order. “We are wandering from the point, which is this: is the old bugger going to get through and start up all sorts of conspiracies and projects? I have no one to shadow him.” She laughed and replied confidently, “He won’t need it. I can guarantee his
bona fides
if you wish. He is staying at the Orion where he has always had accommodation set aside for him since he left Egypt years ago.”

“And he will have the latest news of Aubrey,” said Sutcliffe, and then stopped short, confused, for the remark seemed to raise up between them the ghost of the vanished Sam. The girl nodded. She looked a trifle pale. She added that the Red Cross was anxious that whatever proposals the Prince might have should receive the attention of the security authorities, “Therefore I ask your department to send a representative to the first general meeting where he will give an account of our work in Egypt and then raise whatever else he has in mind. I only come into it as a medical adviser to the organisation for the Swiss area. I have no sort of jurisdiction outside it. But I have been invited to form the meeting in this way so as not to waste time.”

“I can’t blame Cairo for being thoughtful about the old boy,” said Toby. “If I had Farouk on my card index, working day and night to help the Germans, I would be very thoughtful too. Yes, of course we’ll send someone, probably me, since I know something about how you spent your summer before the war, and we are having quite a business getting agents into the unoccupied zone before the door shuts, as it soon must.”

“Why must it?” asked Sutcliffe and his friend replied, “There is too much going on. Finally they will get fed up and occupy the whole place. Meanwhile we are making hay despite the French who are making things hell for us and collaborating very nicely with the Boche.”

Sutcliffe was secretly piqued that Toby should have kept the arrival of Constance secret from him, and in revenge felt bound to make them laboriously explain everything to him – to expiate their sin of collusion. His friend, feeling the reasons behind his testiness, resolved to take them all out to dinner at the Lucrèce where, despite rocketing prices, good food was still to be had. The question of the Prince was for the moment shelved, and the evening passed in friendly persiflage and banter.

SIX

A New Arrival

B
UT CONSTANCE
’
S PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE PRINCE
and his powers proved well founded, for within the week they found themselves standing on the windy airfield in a darkness punctured only by the runway flare path, waiting for the aircraft which was bringing him to Geneva. He had evaded every obstacle with ridiculous ease. “My boss is in anguish,” said Toby. “He has forbidden me to mention the Prince’s name in the office as it gives him toothache. Cairo is furious.”

“Everyone is always furious with him,” said Constance, “but it does no good.” The reception committee consisted of Constance and a ventripotent Swiss banker, representing the Red Cross, Felix Chatto from the Consulate, Toby with his elaborate air of spycraft, and the Egyptian Chargé d’Affaires, smooth as an egg. They could hear the noise of a plane droning about among the mountain peaks, its note altering with altitude and position – presumably it was the old English Ensign crammed with passengers. So they hoped at any rate. The airport buildings were in darkness except for a few dimmish lights in the lounge. It was cold, the smell of autumn was in the air. It was not hard to imagine the dark freezing cities of Europe which must already, due to curfews and food shortages, have huddled themselves down to sleep or watch through the silent friendless hours of the Nazi night. The bar was not open in the lounge or they would have drunk a defensive coffee or whisky against this notion of vicarious misery. At last out of the darkness of the sky a plane materialised and they realised that it must be theirs. It rolled quietly to a halt at the end of the runway to disgorge its passengers, for the most part military or diplomatic figures, but among whom, very sprucely clad, and with a fresh buttonhole in his lapel, walked the Prince with an unhurried gracefulness. The little group formed a semi-circle into which he came smiling from face to apparently familiar face; but he stopped when he saw Constance and gave a sudden little leap of recognition. In a moment he had his arms round her, squeezing her shoulders until it hurt her. At last when they disengaged and he had freed her she saw with emotion that his eyes were full of tears. “There is no doubt that it was our fault,” he said under his breath, “the Princess said to be sure to hide nothing from you. It was my fault and hers, that dreadful picnic. His death,
aïe!”
He raised his finger and tapped it softly upon his forehead.

She squeezed his hands, as if to comfort and exonerate him from so much feeling, so that he at last felt free to turn his attention to the others, to greet each and every one of them with the punctilio due to his condition. He had a special word of acknowledgement for Felix Chatto, whom he remembered from Provence. The young man was delighted to meet with acclaim for his political percipience. “I remember your political judgements,” said the Prince, “and I took good note of them while your foolish uncle made one bloomer after another.” It was music to the ears of Felix. Having done his duty thus the Prince then made his excuses for the lateness of the hour and for the fact that he was too tired to prolong the evening. If he was to be fresh for the meeting on the morrow he must really get a little sleep – and who could begrudge him this?