The Confidential Agent (14 page)

D. said, ‘I have been persuading him that I didn't steal your car.'

‘Of course you didn't.'

L. bowed. He said, ‘I mustn't keep Lord Benditch waiting,' the servant opened the door, and he was engulfed in the big room.

‘Well,' she said, ‘you remember what you said – about celebrating.' She faced him with bogus bravado. It couldn't be easy – your first meeting again after telling a man you loved him; he wondered whether she would introduce some reason – ‘I've got such a head. Was I very drunk?' But she had an appalling honesty. She said, ‘You haven't forgotten about last night?'

He said, ‘I remember everything if you do. But there's nothing to celebrate. They got my papers.'

She asked quickly, ‘They didn't hurt you?'

‘Oh, they did it painlessly. Is the man who opened the door new here?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Surely . . .'

She said, ‘You don't think, do you, that I live in this place?' But she swept that subject aside. ‘What did you tell them?'

‘The truth.'

‘All the melodrama?'

‘Yes.'

‘I warned you. How did Furt take it?'

‘Furt?'

‘Forbes. I always call him Furt.'

‘I don't know. Brigstock did most of the talking.'

‘Furt's honest,' she said, ‘in his way.' Her mouth was hard as if she were considering his way. He felt again an immense pity for her, standing harshly in her father's house with a background of homelessness, private detectives and distrust. She was so young; she had been a child when he married. It takes such a short time to make appalling changes. She said, ‘Isn't there anybody who'll answer for you at your Embassy?'

‘I don't think so. We don't trust them – except perhaps the Second Secretary.'

She said, ‘It's worth trying. I'll get Furt. He's not a fool.' She rang the bell and said to the servant, ‘I want to see Mr Forbes.'

‘I'm afraid, madam, he's in conference.'

‘Never mind. Tell him I want to speak to him urgently.'

‘Lord Benditch gave orders . . .'

‘You don't know who I am, do you? You must be new. It's not my business to know your face, but you'd better know mine. I'm Lord Benditch's daughter.'

‘I'm very sorry, miss. I didn't know . . .'

‘Go in and take that message.' She said, ‘So he's new.'

When the door opened they could hear Fetting's voice, ‘No hurry. Better sleep . . .' She said, ‘If he stole your papers . . .'

‘I'm sure of it.'

She said furiously, ‘I'll see he starves. There won't be a registry office in England . . .' Mr Forbes came out. She said, ‘Furt, I want you to do something for me.' He closed the door behind him and said, ‘Anything.' He was like an oriental potentate in plus-fours, ready to promise the most fantastic riches. She said, ‘Those fools don't believe him.' His eyes were moist when he looked at her; whatever the detectives reported, he was a man hopelessly in love. He said to D., ‘Excuse me, but it
is
a tall story.'

‘I found the bullet,' Rose said.

Away from the others, standing up, he looked older and more Jewish – there was the shape of the paunch as well as the shape of the head. He replied, ‘I said a tall story, not an impossible one.' Very far back in the past was the desert, the dead salt sea, the desolate mountains and the violence on the road from Jericho. He had a basis of belief.

‘What are they doing in there?' Rose asked.

‘Not much. Old Fetting is a wonderful brake – and so is Brigstock.' He said to D., ‘Don't think you are the only man Brigstock distrusts.'

Rose said, ‘If we can prove to you that we are not lying . . .'

‘We?'

‘Yes, we.'

‘If I'm satisfied,' Forbes said, ‘I'll sign a contract for as much as I can supply. It won't be all you need, but the others will follow.' He watched them anxiously, as if he were afraid of something: perhaps the man lived in perpetual fear of the announcement to the press – ‘A marriage has been arranged,' or of the ugly rumour, ‘Have you heard about Benditch's daughter?'

‘Will you come to the Embassy now?' she asked.

‘I thought you told us . . .'

‘This isn't my idea,' D. said. ‘I don't think it will be any use. You see, at home they don't trust the Ambassador. . . . But there's always a chance.'

They drove in silence, slowly, through the fog. Once Forbes said, ‘I'd like to get the pits started. It's a rotten life for the men there.'

‘Why should it bother you, Furt?'

He grinned painfully across the car at her. ‘I don't like being disliked.' Then his dark raisin eyes stared out again into the yellow day with some of the patience of Jacob who served seven years. . . . After all, D. thought, it was possible that even Jacob kept some consolation in a tent. Could you blame him? He felt almost envious of Forbes: it was something to be in love with a living woman, even if you got nothing from it but fear, jealousy, pain. It wasn't an ignoble emotion.

At the door of the Embassy he said, ‘Ask for the Second Secretary. . . . There's a chance.'

They were shown into a waiting-room. The walls were hung with pre-war pictures. D. said, ‘That's the place where I was born.' A tiny village died out against the mountains. He said,
‘They
hold it now.' He walked slowly round the room, leaving Forbes alone, as it were, with Rose. They were very bad pictures, very picturesque, full of thick cloud effects and heavy flowers. There was the university where he used to lecture . . . empty and cloistered and untrue. The door opened. A man like a mute in a black morning coat and a high white collar said, ‘Mr Forbes?'

D. said, ‘Pay no attention to me. Ask what questions you like.' There was a bookshelf: the books all looked unused in heavy uniform bindings – the national dramatist, the national poet. . . . He turned his back on the others and pretended to study them.

Mr Forbes said, ‘I've come to make some inquiries. On behalf of myself and Lord Benditch . . .'

‘Anything we can help you in . . . we shall be so pleased.'

‘We have been seeing a gentleman who claims to be an agent of your government. In connection with the sale of coal.'

The stiff Embassy voice said, ‘I don't think we have any information . . . I will ask the Ambassador, but I am quite certain . . .' His voice took on more and more assurance as he spoke.

‘But I suppose it's possible that you would not be informed,' Mr Forbes said. ‘A confidential agent.'

‘It is most improbable.'

Rose said sharply, ‘Are you the Second Secretary?'

‘No, madam, I'm afraid he is on leave. I am the First Secretary.'

‘When will he be returning?'

‘He will not be returning here.'

So that, probably, was the end of things. Mr Forbes said, ‘He claims that his credentials were stolen.'

‘Well . . . I'm afraid . . . we know nothing . . . it seems, as I say, very improbable.'

Rose said, ‘This gentleman is not completely unknown. He is a scholar . . . attached to a university . . .'

‘In that case we could easily tell you.'

What a fighter she was, he thought with admiration: she picked the right point every time.

‘He is an authority on the Romance languages. He edited the Berne MS. of the Song of Roland. His name is D.'

There was a pause. Then the voice said, ‘I'm afraid . . . the name's completely unfamiliar to me.'

‘Well, it might be, mightn't it? Perhaps you aren't interested in the Romance languages.'

‘Of course,' he said with a small self-assured laugh, ‘but if you will wait two minutes, I will look the name up in a reference book.'

D. turned away from the bookshelf. He said to Mr Forbes, ‘I'm afraid we are wasting your time.'

‘Oh,' Mr Forbes said, ‘I don't value my time as much as all that.' He couldn't keep his eyes off the girl; he followed every move she made with a tired sad sensuality. She was standing by the bookcase now, looking at the works of the national poet and the national dramatist. She picked a book out of a lower shelf and began to turn the pages. The door opened again. It was the secretary.

He said, ‘I have looked up the name, Mr Forbes. There is no such person. I'm afraid you have been misled.'

Rose turned on him furiously. She said, ‘You are lying, aren't you?'

‘Why should I be, Miss . . . Miss . . . ?'

‘Cullen.'

‘My dear Miss Cullen, a civil war flings up these plausible people.'

‘Then why is his name printed here?' She had a book open. She said, ‘I can't read what it says, but here it is. . . . I can't mistake the name. Here's the word Berne too. It seems to be a reference book.'

‘That's very odd. Can I see? Perhaps if you don't know the language . . .'

D. said, ‘But, as I do, may I read it out? It gives the dates of my appointment as lecturer at the University of Zed. It refers to my book on the Berne MS. Yes, it's all here.'

‘You are the man?'

‘Yes.'

‘May I see that book?' D. gave it him. He thought, by God! she's won. Forbes watched her with admiration. The secretary said, ‘Ah, I am sorry. It was your pronunciation of the name, Miss Cullen, which set me wrong. Of course we know D. One of our most respected scholars. . . .' He let the words hang in the air; it was like a complete surrender, but all the time he kept his eyes on the girl, not on the man concerned. Somewhere there was a snag: there must be a snag. ‘There,' the girl said to Forbes, ‘you see.'

‘But,' the secretary went gently on, ‘he is no longer alive. He was shot by the rebels in prison.'

‘No,' D. said, ‘that's untrue. I was exchanged. Here – I have my passport.' He was thankful that he hadn't kept it in the same pocket as his papers. The secretary took it. D. said, ‘What will you say now? That it's forged?'

‘Oh no,' the secretary said, ‘I think this is a genuine passport. But it isn't yours. You have only to look at the photograph.' He held it out to them: D. remembered the laughing stranger's face he had seen in the passport office at Dover. Of course, nobody would believe . . . He said hopelessly, ‘War and prison change a man.'

Mr Forbes said gently, ‘There's a strong resemblance, of course.'

‘Of course,' the secretary said. ‘He would hardly choose . . .'

The girl said furiously, ‘It's his face. I know it's his face. You've only to look . . .' but he could read the doubt somewhere behind which whipped up anger only to convince herself.

‘How he got it,' the secretary said, ‘one doesn't know.' He turned on D. and said, ‘I shall see you are properly punished. . . . Oh yes, I shall see to it.' He lowered his voice respectfully, ‘I am sorry, Miss Cullen, but he was one of our finest scholars.' He was extraordinarily convincing. It was like hearing yourself praised behind your back. D. felt an odd pleasure: it was, in a way, flattering.

Mr Forbes said, ‘Better let the police get to the bottom of this. It's beyond me.'

‘If you will excuse me I will ring them up at once.' He sat down at a table and took the 'phone.

D. said, ‘For a man who's dead I seem to be accumulating a lot of charges.'

The secretary said, ‘Is that Scotland Yard?' He began to give the name of the Embassy.

‘First there was stealing your car.'

The secretary said, ‘The passport is stamped Dover: two days ago. Yes, that's the name.'

‘Then Mr Brigstock wanted to have me up for trying to obtain money on false pretences – I don't know why.'

‘I see,' the secretary said, ‘it certainly seems to fit in. Yes, we'll keep him here.'

‘And now I'm to be charged with using a false passport.' He said, ‘For a university lecturer it's a dark record.'

‘Don't joke,' the girl said. ‘This is crazy. You are D. I know you are D. If you aren't honest, then the whole putrid world . . .'

The secretary said, ‘The police were already looking for this fellow. Don't try to move. I have a gun in my pocket. They want to ask you a few questions.'

‘Not so few,' D. said. ‘A car . . . false pretences . . . the passport.'

‘And about the death of a girl,' the secretary said.

[4]

The nightmare was back. He was an infected man. Violence went with him everywhere. Like a typhoid-carrier he was responsible for the deaths of strangers. He sat down on a chair and said, ‘What girl?'

‘You'll know very soon,' the secretary said.

‘I think,' Mr Forbes said, ‘we'd better go.' He looked puzzled, out of his depth.

‘I would much rather you stayed,' the secretary said. ‘They will probably want an account of his movements.'

Rose said, ‘I shan't go. It's fantastic, mad . . .' She said, ‘You can tell them where you've been all day?'

‘Oh yes,' he said. ‘I've got witnesses for every minute of the day.' Despair began to lose its hold: this was a mistake, and his enemies couldn't afford many mistakes. But then, he remembered that somebody, somewhere, must be dead: that couldn't be a mistake. He felt more pity than horror. One got so accustomed to the deaths of strangers.