The Venetian Affair (19 page)

“How?”

“Trouin had asked for an appointment—the place and time to be chosen by the British agent who would meet him discreetly and hear the details about the Pole’s plan to escape. Everything had to be arranged with great secrecy and precaution—Trouin even gave a poste restante address for the reply to his letter. He did not want any telephone call to his home or office. The reason for that was obvious: complete security. He had to visit Warsaw once more, quite soon. He didn’t want the Russians to learn he had been in communication with the British.”

“So the appointment was made, and Trouin didn’t turn up?”

A small gleam, perhaps of approval, sparkled in Rosie’s eye. “You’ve got it.”

“And Lenoir got the British reply at a poste restante.”

“That’s right.”

“And the Brits felt no alarm when Trouin didn’t show?”

“He could have had a bad scare or an attack of cold feet. That happens, you know: people do chicken out of situations like that. The secret meeting with a British Intelligence officer was supposed to be yesterday morning. The Brits were going to give Trouin a couple of days to calm down, before they tried approaching him again. Their involvement seemed little enough: just a letter suggesting the time and method of meeting for discussion of his problem. It also assured him that he could report to his friend that all his conditions had been accepted, and the Americans would co-operate fully; he would be given every assistance, with the utmost discretion.”

“When did the alarm sound?”

“Last night.”

“After Carlson had learned from Vaugiroud that the wine merchant was more than ultraconservative?”

“Partly that. Partly—well, I picked up some extra information, too, yesterday evening.” Rosie fell silent: discussion on that point was barred; meanwhile, at least.

Fenner was tactful. “A very double-crossed conspirator,” he said, returning to Trouin. “I suppose, when the British reply is published, it will be used with some other letter—not about a man defecting from Poland, but dealing with something really damning.”

“That’s the plan. The letter about Warsaw will be destroyed: its purpose was achieved in getting a reply out of the British.
In its place, Lenoir is substituting a real beauty. I haven’t seen it, but I can guess. It will make the British officer who wrote to Trouin look as if he were the intermediary between Trouin and the Americans. The hundred thousand dollars deposited in Trouin’s bank account will appear to be the purchase price of an assassination.” Rosie took a deep breath. “Neat, isn’t it?”

“If I were you,” Fenner said slowly, “I’d nail Trouin right away. If he sees he is the sacrificial goat, he may bleat. Come to think of it, I’d nail them all.”

“We tried that. Last night. The Sûreté sent men to arrest Wahl. But he walked out of the Café Racine just five minutes after Lenoir, and disappeared completely. It’s my guess he has left the country. Trouin has already left—yesterday afternoon. His friend the industrialist is somewhere in Spain. And Lenoir is on the vacation he has been planning for some weeks. They are, in fact, all out of the country.”

“Sudden alarm?”

“Only in Wahl’s case, perhaps. The others had made their arrangements in advance. This was a scattering by plan.”

“And you haven’t an idea where any of them can be found?”

“We know where Lenoir is.”

“Have him picked up.”

“It isn’t as simple as that.”

“How?” Fenner asked sharply. Then he eased his voice and smiled. “Or is that none of my blasted business?”

“It could be your business in Venice,” Rosie said, and wiped the smile from Fenner’s face. “I want you to go there. But before you give me an answer on that, there are some things you should know. You see, this concerns Sandra Fane. Now, now, hold on, hear me out!” Rosie’s hand was up, like a
traffic policeman, pacifying, bringing order. “We are in debt to Sandra,” he told Fenner, “we owe her something.”

Bill Fenner stared at the serious face opposite him. “She’s lying to you, Rosie,” he said warningly.

“I don’t think so.”

“She never defected. No one who defects can live such a cosy and carefree life as she does on the Avenue d’Iéna. Especially a defector like Sandra. She was important in the party. She still must be. Or she wouldn’t be working with Lenoir. She may even be working with Wahl—Kalganov himself, isn’t he?” For Rosie hadn’t mentioned Kalganov by name.

Rosie nodded. “I believe Wahl is Kalganov. But we’ve no factual proof, have we? We need someone like Sandra who could identify him for us.”

“She wouldn’t! Stop kidding yourself, Rosie.”

“She has already given me a lot of information. In fact, without her help, we wouldn’t have been able to fit the pieces of this puzzle together. I met her yesterday evening near the children’s puppet show in the Tuileries.”

“She really did defect?” Fenner asked slowly. It was a complete reversal of his guesses.

“No. She is defecting
now.
Next week, to be exact. In Venice. She needs help, a lot of help—”

“Look,” Fenner said, “I told you yesterday, and I meant it—I’m not going either to help or to hinder Sandra Fane.” He rose abruptly to his feet. “I don’t want to see her. Ever. Not even from a distance.”

“Why?” Was he still in love with her? Rosie wondered anxiously. Some men could take an awful beating and still be afraid of asking for more.

“Because,” Fenner said, with a rush of truth, “I have felt like a big-enough god-damned fool without being reminded of it all over again. She never married me for love. Did you know that? Oh, she liked me. That was lucky, she told me on that last night. I hadn’t been repulsive. Most fortunate for her. She had been told to marry me. Get that, Rosie? On orders. For political advantages. I was on my way up, in line for news editor at the
Chronicle
. I could be manipulated. I could be useful.” Fenner’s voice halted. “No, Rosie, don’t keep reminding me of that sleazy little bitch.”

“I must.”

“No!”

“Hear me out, Bill.” Rosie’s voice was sympathetic. “Just hear me out, will you?”

Fenner’s lips closed tight.

Rosie’s mood changed. He began to laugh. And as Fenner looked at him angrily, ready to walk out, Rosie said, “I was just remembering the way the Communists even put sex to work for the revolution.”

“That’s funny as hell,” Fenner said savagely.

“Sure. But it’s true. They have a School for Seduction in the Soviet Union. Special Intelligence agents take a course there. They have lectures and practical demonstrations. There’s one instructor who shows the class how to make love to seven consecutive women without even staggering. He teaches mind control. It’s useful, too, when a student is ordered to make love to a beautiful woman—mustn’t enjoy it, might become involved; or to some old bag of lard—no flinching allowed. So they graduate, come out into the big simple-minded world, with a diploma in how to make a woman and influence people. Seduce some women thoroughly, and you’ve got them: they’ll do
anything in return—even to borrowing documents, searching files, reporting on their husband’s work. That’s the theory. In practice? It has worked.” Rosie shook his head. “In fact, it has been one of the minor headaches for Counter Intelligence in non-Communist countries. But it also gives us a laugh, now and again. Especially when I think of that instructor. A dedicated man.” Rosie’s hilarity broke out again, and this time Fenner almost smiled. Rosie noted the improvement, the easing of tension. “Clinical and cynical, and oh, so earnest!”

Fenner shook his head, began to laugh in spite of himself.

“Picture of two men discussing an impending threat to Western unity,” Rosie said when their laughter died away. There was no amusement in his eyes, though. “Will you hear me out, Bill?” he asked quietly.

Fenner nodded and sat down. He noticed, then, that he must have upset the ashtray when he had risen. “Clumsy beggar, I’ve ruined her white rug, damn it!” He picked up the stubs and burned matches, tried to blow the grey ash away. By the time he had finished, he could face Rosenfeld again quite normally. “Go ahead,” he said briskly. “But I still don’t think Sandra is being honest with you. It’s a trick, Rosie. She has fed you some information, yes. But it could be the old confidence game: you hold my money and I’ll hold yours.”

“I am going to tell you exactly what happened. After that, you can judge. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.”

“Well, it was this way—” Rosie said, and began the story of his meeting with Sandra Fane.

The story, itself, began at Sandra Fane’s party on the night before Fenner arrived in Paris.

She had invited Stanfield Dade, along with several other attachés of various embassies, and had asked Mike Ballard to persuade him to accept. Sandra was an expert hostess, with five minutes neatly devoted to each of her forty guests. It was perfectly natural that Dade was given his quota of conversation. Only, what she had to say to him was unexpected. First, she emphasised that it was confidential. Next, she said a friend of hers—an American woman—needed help. The friend was a Communist, on an important mission in France. The friend wanted to get out of the party, get out of Europe. Would the Americans be interested enough to help? In return for their help, Sandra’s friend would be willing to tell them something of great interest. Would Dade give her the telephone number and name of anyone who could help her friend? She asked
him to think over this—he was speechless with astonishment, actually—and because she must leave him to speak to another guest, he could quietly pass her the name and telephone number later in the evening, when she was talking to Ballard. She left him with the same bright smile with which she had talked—gaily, expressively, but with her voice carefully lowered, a contrast which impressed Dade so much by its technique and desperation that, after an hour of brooding inwardly, he decided to take a chance. Or rather, to let Frank Rosenfeld take a chance; what was there to lose, except the hope of valuable information, if this defector turned out to be less interesting than Sandra Fane had so quietly implied? So when Sandra and Ballard were chitchatting, he had joined them. And when Sandra asked Ballard to bring her another glass of champagne, Dade had given her Frank Rosenfeld’s business name and his firm’s telephone number.

“So there’s Act One of our little drama,” Rosie said to Fenner. “The exposition, you would call it. Any comment so far?”

“Only that Sandra was always her own best friend,” Fenner said wryly.

“Ah!” said Rosie, eyes approving. “You jump ahead of me. I didn’t find that out until the next day. Dade sent me a cryptic message; he’s a cautious man, doesn’t like involvement, just warned me I might get a call sometime from a woman who needed help in escaping from political entanglements. But I was too busy with Mr. Goldsmith’s arrival and disappearance to pay much attention. There was nothing urgent in Dade’s message.”

“He didn’t think the woman could be Sandra herself?”

“No. Remember, she is generally supposed to have already defected.”

“And he doesn’t question that?”

“His not to reason why; his but to do, up to a point. Which was me.”

“And when did you get her call?”

“The first one reached my office just after noon, while I was at the Embassy meeting you. No name was left, only a message that the woman would call again at four o’clock. I was to make sure to be there, because she had to put in the calls from a public telephone. She had vital information to give me. My secretary said the woman sounded urgent and capable—she could mean business. So I was in my office just before four o’clock, cursing Dade for dragging me away from the Goldsmith problem, but curious, too. Information, even if it isn’t as vital as its donor thinks, may still be interesting. But as soon as this woman’s voice began talking to me, I knew she was someone important. Because, although she was asking my help, she was giving me orders. She couldn’t get away from the habit.” Rosie laughed softly. “I was told where to meet her, and how. She asked my height and weight and general description: and what was I wearing? I was to carry a newspaper, a copy of
Time
, and a rolled umbrella. Just before five o’clock, I was to stroll around the open-air puppet theatre in the Tuileries Gardens, choose a path among the trees in a direction away from the Rue de Rivoli. She would follow me. I was to hire a couple of seats under a tree, and as soon as the attendant was paid and moved away, she would join me. I was to meet her alone. Tell no one. Have no one watching me, so that he would not attract attention to us. If I thought I was being followed, I was to read
Time.
If I was sure it was safe, I was to read my newspaper. And I would easily recognise her from her photograph in our files.” Rosie enjoyed that bit. “She has a sense of humour.”

That’s something new, Fenner thought. But her way of flattering—that had always been peculiarly Sandra’s. Even Rosie had been pleased that his powers of deduction were not underestimated. “Where did you find a rolled umbrella?” Fenner asked.

“I called in at the Embassy and borrowed Dade’s,” Rosie admitted. “Forgot to tell him. I guess he wouldn’t like having even his umbrella involved.”

“You’re too hard on him.”

“Why not? If everything turns out well, he’ll get all the credit.”

“Will he?”

“He’ll take it anyway, in his memoirs. He is one of those now-it-can-be-told guys, and wasn’t-I-right-all-along?”

Fenner laughed. “Okay. So there you were, with a rolled umbrella, strolling among the neatly spaced trees. Background of children playing, nurses gossiping, mothers comparing clothes and manners, wandering couples holding hands, older people renting chairs to rest their legs for a blessed hour.” And the time was almost five o’clock, and Vaugiroud and I were talking.

“Not bad, not bad at all. Just add some spotty sunlight, distant shrieks of laughter from the open-air Punch and Judy show, two chairs nicely protected by several prim trees, and you’ve got me waiting, reading a newspaper. She didn’t take long. It was Sandra Fane, all right, although I didn’t recognise her until she had almost reached me. She was dressed in black, unrelieved; and she wore no jewellery, no make-up. That makes a big difference in her type. She was just a white-faced, faded
blonde with no eyes or lips. A ghost in mourning.”