The Venetian Affair (37 page)

Wahl said slowly, as if she had left the room, “Sandra is worrying too much. She needs a rest. A change of air. There is a ship sailing from here—a pleasant voyage through the Corinth Canal, the Greek Islands, to Istanbul.” He paused. “And to Odessa.” He paused again. “Sandra will sail on it. Tomorrow morning at eight. From the Giudecca.”

“Tomorrow morning?” her voice faltered. She looked at Lenoir, who avoided her eyes. “Hasn’t my work pleased you?”

The telephone rang. Lenoir jumped to his feet. “I’ll take the call next door,” he said. “And put these safely away.” He lifted the seven envelopes, and hurried from the room.

“My dear Sandra,” Wahl said, “your recall is in no way a reprimand. It will lead to promotion.” He watched her carefully. “Don’t you want to return to Russia?”

“It’s—it’s just so unexpected.”

There was no doubt of her blank astonishment, numbed shock. Wahl was well pleased. We’ll have her safely on board
before she realises all the implications, he thought. “I think you should leave here when it’s dark. Around midnight.”

Tonight. Leave tonight... She could only stare at him.

“There will be a motorboat waiting for you at the canal door. Twelve o’clock. You will be ready?”

She nodded. Lenoir had returned to the room. She looked down at the emerald ring. I have until midnight, she was thinking. Until midnight.

Wahl was asking Lenoir about the call. It had been a report on a brief conversation between Fenner and Langley in her terrace room at the Vittoria. “Nothing very much,” Lenoir judged. “The girl was very upset about some other man. I’ve given orders to stop watching them. We are wasting our—”

“Upset?” Wahl asked quickly. That was always a vulnerable time. “Did you make a transcript?”

“Of course.” Lenoir handed over a few scrawled sentences. Wahl frowned over them.

“A lover’s quarrel, perhaps,” Lenoir suggested.

“As meaningless as most,” Wahl agreed. Who didn’t have to come to Venice? he wondered. Who wouldn’t have—if it hadn’t been for Claire Langley? Whose death was her fault? Death. Had she known Carlson? If only we had time to check on all her past history, he thought. “I’ll take this with me,” he said, pocketing the piece of paper. “I must leave. The gondola is waiting?”

“For the last hour. But that’s quite usual in Venice.”

“And it isn’t your private gondola,” he told Sandra, smiling. He patted her shoulders. “My congratulations. And a very pleasant journey.”

Congratulations? On the promotion he had dangled before her? She could have struck these smirking lips. “Goodbye,
Comrade Kalganov,” she said. He stopped, looked at her, his face frozen for one brief instant. Then he was walking to the door, his arm around Lenoir’s shoulders. They were talking of other matters.

“She took it very well,” Lenoir remarked as they went down the curving sweep of grand staircase into the dark, flagstoned hall.

“Just treat her normally. Keep her calm. Arouse no animosity. Women have long claws.”

“She’ll give no trouble,” Lenoir assured him.

“I wish we could say the same for that American newspaperman, Ballard. I thought it was rash of you, Fernand, to bring him to Venice.”

“Not too rash. He tried to discharge André Spitzer yesterday. So I had no choice. I had to make direct personal contact with him. Don’t worry, Robert. I know how to approach that type of man.”

“It might help if Aarvan were to make the first approach, so that by the time you see Ballard tonight, he would be more—malleable. At least you would know what to expect from him. If he is totally intransigent with Aarvan, I would advise you do not see him at all. We’ll deal with him.”

“All right. But you had better tell Aarvan to contact him at once. He is staying at the Danieli.”

“I know. I have already told Aarvan to keep an eye on him.” Wahl’s smile was disarming. “By the way, I may need one of your attic rooms, with a strongly shuttered window. Someplace where we could keep a guest hidden until tomorrow evening.”

“Who?” Lenoir was still annoyed with Wahl’s interference in the handling of Ballard.

“Fenner’s little friend. That should immobilise them both for the next twenty-four hours, quietly, efficiently.”

“Quietly? He will go to the police—”

“He will not. Because if he does, he will never see her again. He will be so informed.”

“I don’t like this—”

“She will never know where she was held, or who was her host. Instruct a servant to guard her room. That’s all you have to do.
You
keep out of sight.”

“But how—?”

“I shall make the arrangements.”

Lenoir stared at him. There was no arguing with Wahl in this mood. What had he against this girl?

“That terrace room at the Vittoria would have made everything simpler,” Wahl was saying, “but there are other means. Expect her some time after ten o’clock. By the canal door. Don’t worry. Just keep her out of sight and hearing.”

They had been talking quietly in the centre of the round hall. Now Wahl moved toward the door that opened on the narrow street, picking up his coat and hat from a chair.

“This way,” Lenoir said, pointing to the door that led out onto the canal.

“I shan’t use the gondola. It has waited too long.”

“As you wish.” Strange man; I shall never know him, Lenoir was thinking as he followed Wahl across the stone floor and between the pillars that circled the hall. Suddenly, he felt alone. Without Sandra, he would be very alone. “Do you really think that Fenner and Claire Langley are dangerous?” he tried.

Wahl only shrugged his shoulders. He opened the door slightly, and listened. “I am making sure that they won’t be. That is all.” He looked out into the small, narrow street, sadly lighted by one lamp placed high on a far corner wall. “Cats,” he said contemptuously, as shadows stirred and snarled to defend the food they had found in a black doorway, “cats and cold spaghetti.” He glanced back at Lenoir. “I may send Aarvan to question the girl,” he said softly. He pulled his hat well over his brow, turned up the collar of his coat, and stepped into the night. He walked quickly along the narrow
calle
, past the shuttered windows, still and dark. The cats were silent again.

Lenoir closed the heavy door. Strange man... He had walked in the direction of the canal, after all. Had he some other gondola or motorboat waiting for him? He trusts no one, Lenoir thought. Not even me?

The cats snarled, and two men in a darkened ground-floor room were sharply alert. Through the inch-wide crack of shutter, two pairs of eyes watched a man leave the Ca’ Longhi. When he had passed, only an arm’s length away, one of them moved carefully over to a telephone. His voice was low, English. “Gino? Roger here. Unidentified man has just left. Hat pulled down. Dark coat, collar turned up. About five feet six. Weight around thirteen stone. That’s right, solid construction but light on his feet. Proceeding toward the canal. You’ll pick him up at the bridge.” He put down the receiver.

“Will they?” his companion asked. His voice also was low, but American. “Listen!” The roar of a motorboat was funnelled along the little
calle
, and receded.

American and Englishman both cursed softly.

“Slippery beggar, whoever he was,” the Englishman said. He made his way back to the window. “Any guesses?”

“We didn’t see him enter. Must have been there before we got here. That’s a long time.”

“He sounds important. A motorboat waiting, ready to leave at high speed. Most illegal, The Gondoliers’ Association will disapprove.”

“Sounds like Wahl,” the American said gloomily, “but he is in Switzerland.” They settled into boredom again, to wait for the next visitor to Ca’ Longhi.

Lenoir locked and bolted the heavy door before he hurried back upstairs. He found Sandra still in the sitting-room. She hadn’t moved. There were no tears, he noted in relief, no imploring eyes. “I must pack,” she said, becoming aware of him. She rose, drawing her cardigan around her, cradling her handbag in her arms. “Or would you take me out to dinner for my last night?”

“You can’t be serious!” He was aghast.

“Why not? You and I are known to be in Venice. Weren’t we supposed to appear together, to look as if we were on vacation?”

“That was the plan.” He emphasised the past tense. But within this last week there had been discovery of Vaugiroud, Roussin. Even Carlson’s presence on a train that could take him to Venice had sounded an alarm. Perhaps needlessly. Still—“Be sensible, Sandra! I begin to see why Wahl wanted you recalled.”

“Do you?” she asked, and paused at the door.

He frowned, puzzling out her hidden meaning.

“Strange,” she murmured, “how everyone who can identify
Kalganov is eliminated. Vaugiroud and Roussin. Carlson. They knew, didn’t they?”

“Nonsense,” he said stiffly.

“They are dead, aren’t they?” She looked so wide-eyed and innocent, standing there at the door. “Is Kalganov so important? To whom? I’ll tell you: he is important to Kalganov. That is his own private personality cult. You know,
he
could be recalled—for Leftish deviationism.”

“Shall I tell him that?” he asked bluntly, and hoped the threat would silence her.

“But you couldn’t, without mentioning his real name. You haven’t done that once, to his face, in the three years I’ve known you. Stay clever, Fernand, and keep alive.” She laughed unsteadily. “Good night. Or shall I see you again?”

“I have much to do,” he said. “Good night, my dear.”

He is afraid to see me again, she thought, afraid to listen. “Please try. It’s our last evening together.” She smiled and was gone. Good night and goodbye, she thought. She climbed the stairs toward the bedroom floor, her face white and haggard.

She heard the echoing clang of a doorbell: Fernand’s first visitor. That would give her at least an hour. Until half-past nine. She had no plan, but time was more precious than any plan. First, get her coat, money, jewellery. Get away from this house, get out of Venice. She was on her own: Rosenfeld and all his schemes would have to take care of themselves. The hell with him and everything else. On the floor below her, she heard Fernand coming out to greet his visitor. An effusive welcome. Yes, this meeting would last a full hour; the stranger must be important. She wasted no more time, but quietly moved into her bedroom, quietly closed the door, quietly locked it.

At the Hotel Vittoria, Bill Fenner unpacked and surveyed his new room. There was not much of a view, but it was a comfortable place, all the more so because Claire was safely next door, and close by two of Rosie’s men were installed. So Chris Holland had said. And that compensated for the dull courtyard outside, with its tightly shuttered dead windows.

He had a shower, shaved, and dressed slowly. There was no need to hurry. Claire needed some time to steady herself and be able to face the Piazza San Marco. She had insisted on keeping to his plans for the evening, and he hadn’t argued with that. It was important, he knew, to establish the custom of having a drink at Florian’s; even more so to stick to the timetable he had given Holland. That was a kind of insurance, he felt. He wondered, as he chose his best blue tie to add some newness to his stand-by dark-grey flannel suit, how many men and women were keeping an eye on their wanderings. “We” was a word
that Chris had used constantly. Who were “we”? British and French, as well as Americans? Italians, too? Whoever we are, he decided, we have a comforting sound.

You’ve come a long way, he told the grave, worried face in the looking-glass as he knotted his shantung tie neatly, a long way, indeed. You didn’t find Holland’s order to change rooms one bit comic or unnecessary. You just acted on it: and your only question is “What did happen in Budapest?”

I wish, he thought as he turned away from the glass to find his jacket, I wish that Claire would develop a howling cold, something to keep her safely in bed and out of all this. Damn Rosie for sending her along. Yet without her, I’d have been lost. In every way.

He checked his pockets. It was twenty-five minutes past six. Time to move. He glanced around the room again, wishing that Sandra had chosen this evening for the meeting instead of tomorrow. Even the idea of another day’s waiting was becoming intolerable.

The telephone rang. He thought it would be Claire, letting him know she was ready. But it was a man’s voice. “Bill?” It said quickly.

“Speaking.”

“Look, can I drop around and see you?”

It was Mike Ballard’s voice. Fenner said in astonishment, “What the hell are you doing in Venice?”

“I flew in an hour ago. Look, Bill—”

“I’m just going out.”

“This is so damned urgent—”

“You can’t talk on the ’phone?”

“No.” Ballard heaved a worried sigh.

“Why don’t you join us at Florian’s? We’ll be at a table there in ten minutes or so.”

“Who’ll be with you?” Ballard was anxious.

“Claire Langley.”

“Just the two of you?” Ballard asked in relief.

“Yes.”

“Sorry if I intrude—but I’ll take your suggestion.”

“You can take it for half an hour. Then get lost,” Fenner said cheerfully.

“Thanks, Bill,” Ballard’s voice said earnestly. “Thanks a lot.”

“It probably was a mistake. But I was caught at the end of a telephone, and couldn’t think of an excuse,” Fenner told Claire as they walked toward the Piazza. “He sounded so damned pathetic with that sigh of his.” But there was no doubt that Ballard had made himself a useful topic of conversation. Claire had done her best to look normal: she was as smartly turned out as ever in a softly flowered dress of blues and greens, with her blue coat draped over her shoulders; her hair was perfect, brushed high yet neat, gleaming, smooth; her skin glowed, her make-up was skilful—there was no sign of her violent tears; her eyes were clear and brilliant. This time, Fenner’s admiration was not only for her beauty. He wondered a little, though, if this outward calm could last. It would not if she had really been in love with Carlson.

They made their way through a crowded little street filled with the sound of high heels and soft footsteps, with Sunday dresses and freshly pressed suits taking their small frills and
furbelows for the weekly family stroll. (Walk a little, stop a little, talk a little, a pleasant evening to you and to me and to you, here we are all washed and polished, no work today, no worry, a man can saunter along with the richest of them and be proud of his own.) They squeezed through a cohort of families, and at last had some free space for talking.