Bedtime Audio Story Book | Passenger To Frankfurt By Agatha Christie | Complete And Unabridged

[Music] passenger to frankfurt by agatha christie read by hugh frazer book one interrupted journey chapter one passenger to frankfurt fasten your seat belt please the diverse passengers in the plane were slow to obey there was a general feeling that they couldn't possibly be arriving at geneva yet the drowsy groaned and yawned the more than drowsy had to be gently roused by an authoritative stewardess your seat belts please the dry voice came authoritatively over the tannoy it explained in german in french and in english that a short period of rough weather would shortly be experienced sir stafford nye opened his mouth to its full extent yawned and pulled himself upright in his seat he had been dreaming very happily of fishing an english river he was a man of 45 of medium height with a smooth olive clean-shaven face in dress he rather liked to affect the bizarre a man of excellent family he felt fully at ease indulging any such sartorial whims if it made the more conventionally dressed of his colleagues wince occasionally that was merely a source of malicious pleasure to him there was something about him of the 18th century buck he liked to be noticed his particular kind of affectation when traveling was a kind of bandit's cloak which he had once purchased in corsica it was of a very dark purpley blue had a scarlet lining and had a kind of bernous hanging down behind which he could draw up over his head when he wished to so as to obviate drafts so stafford and i had been a disappointment in diplomatic circles marked out in early youth by his gifts for great things he had singularly failed to fulfill his early promise a peculiar and diabolical sense of humor was one to afflict him in what should have been his most serious moments when it came to the point he found that he always preferred to indulge his delicate pakish malice to boring himself he was a well-known figure in public life without ever having reached eminence it was felt that stafford nye though definitely brilliant was not and presumably never would be a safe man in these days of tangled politics and tangled foreign relations safety especially if one were to reach ambassadorial rank was preferable to brilliance so stafford nye was relegated to the shelf though he was occasionally entrusted with such missions as needed the art of intrigue but were not of too important or public in nature journalists sometimes referred to him as the dark horse of diplomacy whether says stafford himself was disappointed with his own career nobody ever knew probably not even sir stafford himself he was a man of a certain vanity but he was also a man who very much enjoyed indulging his own proclivities for mischief he was returning now from a commission of inquiry in malaya he had found it singularly lacking in interest his colleagues had in his opinion made up their minds beforehand what their findings were going to be they saw and they listened but their preconceived views were not affected so stafford had thrown a few spanners into the works more for the hell of it than from any pronounced convictions at all events he thought it had livened things up he wished there were more possibilities of doing that sort of thing his fellow members of the commission had been sound dependable fellows and remarkably dull even the well-known mrs nathaniel edge the only woman member well known as having bees in her bonnet was no fool when it came down to plain facts she saw she listened and she played safe he had met her before on the occasion of a problem to be solved in one of the balkan capitals it was there that sir stafford and i had not been able to refrain from embarking on a few interesting suggestions in that scandal-loving periodical inside news it was insinuated that cestaf's presence in that balkan capital was intimately connected with balkan problems and that his mission was a secret one of the greatest delicacy a kind of friend had censor staffed a copy of this with the relevant passage marked so stafford was not taken aback he read it with a delighted grin it amused him very much to reflect how ludicrously far from the truth the journalists were on this occasion his presence in sofia grad had been due entirely to a blameless interest in the rarer wild flowers and to the urgencies of an elderly friend of his lady lucy kleckhorn who was indefatigable in her quest for these shy floral rarities and who at any moment would scale a rock cliff or leap joyously into a bog at the sight of some flowerlet the length of whose latin name was in inverse proportion to its size a small band of enthusiasts had been pursuing this botanical search on the slopes of mountains for about ten days when it occurred to stafford that it was a pity the paragraph was not true he was a little just a little tired of wild flowers and fond as he was of dear lucy her ability despite her 60 odd years to race up hills at top speed easily outpacing him sometimes annoyed him always just in front of him he saw the seat of those bright royal blue trousers and lucy though scraggy enough elsewhere goodness knows was decidedly too broad in the beam to wear royal blue corduroy trousers a nice little international pie he had thought in which to dip his fingers in which to play about in the airplane the metallic tannoy voice spoke again it told the passengers that owing to heavy fogger geneva the plane would be diverted to frankfurt airport and proceed from there to london passengers to geneva would be re-routed from frankfurt as soon as possible it made no difference to the stafford nye if there was fog in london he supposed they would re-route the plane to prestwick he hoped that would not happen he had been to breastwick once or twice too often life he thought and journeys by air were really excessively boring if only he didn't know if only what it was warm in the transit passenger lounge at frankfurt so says stefanie slipped back his cloak allowing its crimson lining to drape itself spectacularly around his shoulders he was drinking a glass of beer and listening with half an ear to the various announcements as they were made flight 4387 flying to moscow flight 2381 band for egypt and calcutta journeys all over the globe how romantic it ought to be but there was something about the atmosphere of a passenger's lounge in an airport that chilled romance it was too full of people too full of things to buy too full of similarly colored seats too full of plastic too full of human beings two full of crying children he tried to remember who had said i wish i loved the human race i wish i loved its silly face chesterton perhaps it was undoubtedly true put enough people together and they looked so painfully alike that one could hardly bear it an interesting face now thoughts are stafford what a difference it would make he looked disparaging there two young women splendidly made up dressed in the national uniform of their country england he presumed of shorter and shorter mini skirts and another young woman even better made up in fact quite good looking who was wearing what he believed to be called a culotte suit she had gone a little further along the road of fashion he wasn't very interested in nice looking girls who looked like all other nice looking girls he would like someone to be different someone sat down beside him on the plastic covered artificial leather settee on which he was sitting her face attracted his attention at once not precisely because it was different in fact he almost seemed to recognize it as a face he knew here was someone he had seen before he couldn't remember where or when it was but it was certainly familiar twenty-five or six he thought possibly as to age a delicate high-bridged aqualine nose a black heavy bush of hair reaching to her shoulders she had a magazine in front of her but she was not paying attention to it she was in fact looking with something that was almost eagerness at him quite suddenly she spoke it was a deep contralto voice almost as deep as a man's it had a very faint foreign accent she said can i speak to you he started her for a moment before replying no not what one might have thought this wasn't a pickup this was something else i see no reason he said why you should not do so we have time to waste here it seems [ __ ] said the woman [ __ ] geneva fog in london perhaps fog everywhere i don't know what to do oh you mustn't worry he said reassuringly they'll land you somewhere all right they're quite efficient you know where are you going i was going to geneva well i expect you'll get there in the end i have to get there now if i can get to geneva it will be all right there is someone who will meet me there i can be safe safe he smiled a little she said safe is a four-letter word but not the kind of four-letter word that people are interested in nowadays and yet it can mean a lot it means a lot to me then she said you see if i can't get to geneva if i have to leave this plane here or go on in this plane to london with no arrangements made i shall be killed she looked at him sharply i suppose you don't believe that i'm afraid i don't it's quite true people can be they are every day or who wants to kill you does it matter or not to me you can believe me if you wish to believe me i'm speaking the truth i want help help to get to london safely and why should you select me to help you because i think that you know something about death you have known of death perhaps seen death happen he looked sharply at her and then away again any other reason he said yes this she stretched out her narrow olive skinned hand and touched the folds of the voluminous cloak this she said for the first time his interest was aroused no what do you mean by that it's unusual characteristic it is not what everyone wears true enough it's one of my affectations shall we say it's an affectation that could be useful to me what do you mean i am asking you something probably you will refuse but you might not refuse because i think you are a man who is ready to take risks just as i am a woman who takes risks i'll listen to your project he said with a faint smile i want your cloak to wear i want your passport i want your boarding ticket for the plane presently in 20 minutes or so say the flight for london will be called i shall have your passport i shall wear your cloak and so i shall travel to london and arrive safely you mean you'll pass yourself off as me my dear girl she opened a handbag from it she took a small square mirror look there she said look at me and then look at your own face he saw then i saw what had been vaguely nagging at his mind his sister pamela who had died about 20 years ago they had always been very alike he and pamela a strong family resemblance she had had a slightly masculine type of face his face perhaps had been certainly an early life of a slightly effeminate type they had both had the high bridged nose the tilt of the eyebrows the slightly sideways smile of the lips pamela had been tall five foot eight he himself five foot ten he looked at the woman who had tended him the mirror there is a a facial likeness between us and that's what you mean isn't it but my dear girl it wouldn't deceive anyone who knew me or knew you of course it wouldn't don't you understand it doesn't need to i'm traveling wearing slacks you have been traveling with the hood of your cloak drawn up around your face all i have to do is cut off my hair wrap it in a twist of newspaper throw it in one of the litter baskets here then i put on your banus i have your boarding card ticket and passport unless there is someone who knows you well on this plane and i presume there is not or they would have spoken to you already then i can safely travel as you showing your passport when it's necessary keeping the banus and cloak drawn up so that my nose and eyes and mouth are about all that are seen i can walk out safely when the plane reaches its destination because no one will know i have traveled by it walk out safely and disappear into the crowds of the city of london and what do i do ask to stafford with a slight smile i can make a suggestion if you have the nerve to face it suggest he said i always like to hear suggestions you get up from here you go away and buy a magazine or a newspaper or a gift at the gift counter you leave your cloak hanging here on the seat when you come back with whatever it is you sit down somewhere else say at the end of that bench opposite here there will be a glass in front of you this class still in it there will be something that will send you to sleep sleep in a quiet corner what happens next you will have been presumably the victim of a robbery she said somebody will have added a few knockout drops to your drink and will have stolen your wallet from you something of that kind you declare your identity say that your passport and things are stolen you can easily establish your identity you know who i am my name i mean not yet she said i haven't seen your passport yet i have no idea who you are and yet you say i can establish my identity easily i am a good judge of people i know who is important or who isn't you are an important person and why should i do all this perhaps to save the life of a fellow human being isn't that rather a highly colored story oh yes quite easily not believed do you believe it he looked at her thoughtfully you know what you're talking like a beautiful spy in a thriller yes perhaps but i am not beautiful and you're not a spy i might be so described perhaps i have certain information information i want to preserve you will have to take my word for it it is information that would be valuable to your country don't you think you're being rather absurd yes i do if this was written down it would look absurd but so many absurd things are true aren't they he looked at her again she was very like pamela her voice although foreign in intonation was like pamela's what she proposed was ridiculous absurd quite impossible and probably dangerous dangerous to him unfortunately though that was what attracted him to have the nerve to suggest such a thing to him what would come of it all it would be interesting certainly to find out what do i get out of it he said that's what i'd like to know she looked at him consideringly diversion she said something out of the everyday happenings an antidote to boredom perhaps we've not got very long it's up to you and what happens to your passport do i have to buy myself a wig if they sell such a thing at the counter do i have to impersonate a female no there's no question of exchanging places you have been robbed and drugged but you remain yourself make up your mind there isn't long time is passing very quickly i have to do my own transformation you win he said one mustn't refuse the unusual if it's offered to one i hoped you might feel that way but it was a toss-up from his pocket stafford and i took out his passport he slipped it into the outer pocket of the cloak he had been wearing he rose to his feet yawned looked round him looked at his watch and strolled over to the counter where various goods were displayed for sale he did not even look back he bought a paperback book and fingered some small woolly animals a suitable gift for some child finally he chose a panda he looked around the lounge came back to where he had been sitting the cloak was gone and so was the girl a half glass of beer was still on the table here he thought is where i take the risk he picked up the glass moved away a little and drank it not quickly quite slowly it tasted much the same as it had tasted before now i wonder said sir stafford now i wonder he walked across the lounge to a far corner there was a somewhat noisy family sitting there laughing and talking together he sat down near them yawned let his head fall back on the edge of a cushion a flight was announced leaving for tehran a large number of passengers got up and went to queue by the requisite numbered gate the lounge still remained half full he opened his paperback book he yawned again he was really sleepy now yes he was very sleepy he must just think out where it was best for him to go off to sleep somewhere he could remain trans-european airways announced the departure of their plane flight 309 for london quite a good sprinkling of passengers rose to their feet to obey the summons by this time though more passengers had entered the transit lounge waiting for other planes announcements followed as to fog geneva and other disabilities of travel a slim man of middle height wearing a dark blue cloak with its red lining showing and with a hood drawn up over a close cropped head not noticeably more untidy than many of the heads of young men nowadays walked across the floor to take his place in the queue for the plane showing a boarding ticket he passed out through gate number nine more announcements followed swissair flying to zurich ba to athens and cyprus and then a different type of announcement will miss daphne theodophonus passenger to geneva kindly come to the flight desk plane to geneva is delayed or into fog passengers will travel by way of athens the aeroplane is now ready to leave other announcements followed dealing with passengers to japan to egypt to south africa airlines spanning the world mr sydney cook passenger to south africa was urged to come to the flight desk where there was a message for him daphne theodorus was called for again this is the last call before the departure of flight 309 in a corner of the lounge a little girl was looking up at a man in a dark suit who was fast asleep his head resting against the cushion of the red seti in his hand he held a small woolly panda the little girl's hand stretched out towards the panda her mother said now joan don't touch that the poor gentleman's asleep where is he going perhaps he's going to australia too said the mother like we are has he got a little girl like me i think he must have said her mother the little girl sighed and looked at the panda again sir stafford and i continued to sleep he was dreaming that he was trying to shoot a leopard a very dangerous animal he was saying to the safari guide who was accompanying him a very dangerous animal so i've always heard you can't trust a leopard the dream switched at that moment as dreams have a habit of doing and he was having tea with his great-aunt matilda and trying to make her here she was deafer than ever he had not heard any of the announcements except for the first one for miss daphne theodores the little girl's mother said i've always wondered you know about a passenger that's missing nearly always whenever you go anywhere by air you hear it somebody they can't find somebody who hasn't heard the call or isn't on the plane or something like that i always wonder who it is and what they're doing and why they haven't come i suppose this miss what's a name or whatever it is we'll just have missed her plane what will they do with her then nobody was able to answer her question because nobody had the proper information chapter 2 london so stafford nye's flat was a very pleasant one it looked out upon green park he switched on the coffee percolator and went to see what the post had left him this morning it did not appear to have left him anything very interesting he sorted through the letters a bill or two a receipt and letters with rather uninteresting postmarks he shuffled them together and placed them on the table where some mail was already lying accumulating from the last two days he'd have to get down to things soon he supposed his secretary would be coming in sometime or other this afternoon he went back to the kitchen poured coffee into a cup and brought it to the table he picked up the two or three letters that he had opened late last night when he arrived one of them he referred to and smiled a little as he read it 11 30 he said quite a suitable time i wonder now i expect i'd better just think things over and get prepared for chatwind somebody pushed something through the letterbox he went out into the hall and got the morning paper there was very little news in the paper a political crisis an item of foreign news which might have been disquieting but he didn't think it was it was merely a journalist letting off steam and trying to make things rather more important than they were must give the people something to read a girl had been strangled in the park girls were always being strangled one a day he thought callously no child had been kidnapped or raped this morning that was a nice surprise he made himself a piece of toast and drank his coffee later he went out of the building down into the street and walked through the park in the direction of whitehall he was smiling to himself life he felt was rather good this morning he began to think about chatwind chatwind was a silly fool if ever there was one a good facade important seeming and a nicely suspicious mind he'd rather enjoy talking to chatwind he reached whitehall a comfortable seven minutes late that was only due to his own importance compared with that of chetwind he thought he walked into the room chetwind was sitting behind his desk and had a lot of papers on it and the secretary there he was looking properly important as he always did when he could make it hello nye said chetwin smiling all over his impressively handsome face glad to be back how is malaya hot said stafford nye yes well i suppose it always is you meant atmospherically i suppose but not politically oh purely atmospherically said stafford nye he accepted the cigarette and sat down got any results to speak of oh hardly not what you'd call results i've sent in my report all a lot of talky talky as usual how's lazenby oh a nuisance as he always is he'll never change said chetwin no that would seem too much to hope for i haven't served on anything with bascom before he can be quite fun when he likes kenny i don't know very well yes i suppose he can well well well no other news i suppose no nothing nothing i think that would interest you you didn't mention in your letter quite why you wanted to see me oh just to go over a few things that's all you know in case you'd brought any special dope home with you anything we ought to be prepared for you know questions in the house anything like that yes of course came home by air didn't you had a bit of trouble i gather stafford and i put on the face that he had been determined to put on beforehand it was slightly rueful with the faint tinge of annoyance oh so you heard about that did you he said silly business yes yes must have been extraordinary said stafford and i how things always get into the press there was a paragraph in the stop press this morning a you'd rather they wouldn't have i suppose well makes me look a bit of an ass doesn't it said stafford and i got to admit it at my age too now what happened exactly i wondered if the report in the paper had been exaggerating well i suppose they made the most of it that's all you know what these journeys are down boring and there was fog at geneva so they had to re-route the plane then there was two hours delay at frankfurt is that when it happened yes once board stiff in these airports planes coming planes going tan away going full steam ahead flight 302 leaving for hong kong flight 109 going to ireland there's that and the other people getting up people leaving and you just sit there yawning what happened exactly said chetwin well uh i got a drink in front of me pilsner as a matter of fact and i thought i'd got to get something else to read i'd read everything i've got with me so i went over to the counter bought some wretched paperback or other detective story i think it was and i bought her wooly animal for one of my nieces then i came back finished my drink opened my paper back and then i went to sleep yes yeah i see you went to sleep well very natural thing to do isn't it i suppose they caught my flight but if they did i didn't hear it i didn't hear it apparently for the best of reasons i'm capable of going to sleep in an airport anytime but i'm also capable of hearing an announcement that concerns me or this time i didn't when i woke up or came to however you like to put it i was having a bit of medical attention somebody apparently had dropped a mickey finn or something or other than my drink must have done it when i was away getting the paper back rather an extraordinary thing to happen wasn't it said chairman well it's never happened to me before said stafford and i i hope it will never again it makes you feel an awful fool you know besides having a hangover there was a doctor and some nurse creature or something anyway there was no great harm done apparently my wallet had been pinched with some money in it and my passport it was awkward of course fortunately i hadn't got much money my traveler's checks were in an inner pocket there always has to be a bit of red tape and all that if you lose your passport anyway i had letters and things and identification was not difficult and in due course things were squared up and i resumed my flight still very annoying for you said a person of uh your status i mean his tone was disapproving yes said stafford and i it doesn't show me in a very good light does it i mean not as bright as a fellow of my uh status ought to be the idea seemed to amuse him does this happen often did you find out i don't think it's a matter of general occurrence it could be i suppose any person with a pickpocket trend could notice a fellow asleep and slip a hand in a pocket and if he's accomplished in his profession get hold of a wallet or a pocketbook or something like that i hope for some luck pretty awkward to lose a passport yes i shall have to put in for another one now make a lot of explanations i suppose as i say the whole thing's a damn silly business and let's face it chadwind it doesn't show me in a very favorable light does it yeah not your fault my dear boy not your fault could happen to anyone anybody at all oh very nice of you to say so said stafford nye smiling at him agreeably teach me a sharp lesson wouldn't it you don't think anyone wanted your passport especially well i shouldn't think so said stafford and i why should they want my passport unless it was a matter of someone who wished to annoy me and that hardly seems likely or somebody who took a fancy to my passport photo and that seems even less likely did you see anyone you knew with this uh where did you say you were frankfurt no no nobody at all talk to anyone oh not particularly said something to a nice fat woman who'd got a small child she was trying to amuse going to australia i think don't remember anybody else you're sure there was some woman or other who wanted to know what she did if she wanted to study archaeology in egypt said i didn't know anything about that i told her she'd better go and ask the british museum and i had a word or two with a man who i think was an anti-vivisectionist very passionate about it one always feels said chatwind that there might be something behind these things things like what well things like what happened to you i don't see what can be behind this said sir stafford i dare say journalists could make up some story they're so clever of that sort of thing still it's a silly business oh for goodness sake let's forget it i suppose now it's been mentioned in the press all my friends will start asking me about it how's old leyland what's he up to nowadays i heard one or two things about him out there leyland always talks a bit too much the two men talked amiable shop for 10 minutes or so then sir stafford got up and went out i've got a lot of things to do this morning he said presents survive of my relations the trouble is that if one goes to malaya all one's relations expect you to bring exotic presence to them i'll go around to liberties i think they have a nice stock of eastern goods there he went out cheerfully nodding to a couple of men he knew in the corridor outside after he had gone chetwynd spoke through the telephone to his secretary ask colonel monroe if he can come to me colonel monroe came in bringing another tall middle-aged man with him i don't know whether you know horsham he said insecurity i think i've met you said chetwin nai's just left hasn't he said colonel monroe anything in this story about frankfurt anything i mean that we ought to take any notice of it doesn't seem so said chadwind he's a bit put out about it thinks it makes him look as silly as which it does of course the man called horsham nodded his head that's the way he takes it is it well he he tried to put a good face upon it said gentlemen all the same you know said horsham he's not really a silly ass is he jetwind shrugged his shoulders are these things happen he said i know said colonel monroe yes yes i know all the same well i've always felt in some ways that nye is a bit unpredictable but in some ways you know he might be really sound in his views the man called horsham spoke or nothing against him he said nothing at all as far as we know oh i didn't mean there was i didn't mean that at all said monroe it's just uh how shall i put it he's not always very serious about things mr horsham had a moustache he found it useful to have a moustache it concealed moments when he found it difficult to avoid smiling he's not a stupid man said monroe got brains you know you don't think that well i mean you don't think there could be anything at all doubtful about this on his part it doesn't seem so you've been into it all horsham well we haven't had very much time yet but as far as it goes it's all right but his passport was used used in what way it passed through heathrow you mean someone represented himself as the stafford nye no no said horsham and not in so many words we could hardly hope for that it went through with the other passports there was no alarm out you know he hadn't even woken up by gather at that time from the dope or whatever it was he was given he was still in frankfurt but someone could have stood in that passport and come on the plane and so got into england yes said monroe that's the presumption either someone took a wallet which had money in it and a passport or else someone wanted a passport and settled on sir stafford nye as a convenient person to take it from a drink was waiting on a table put a pinch in that wait till the man went off to sleep take the passport and chance it but after all they look at a passport must have seen it wasn't the right man said chetwin well there must have been a certain resemblance certainly said horsham but it isn't as though there was any notice of his being missing any special attention drawn to that particular passport in any way a large crowd comes through on a plane that's overdue a man looks reasonably like the photograph in his passport that's all brief glance and it back pass it on anyway what they're looking for usually is the foreigners that are coming in not the british lot dark hair dark blue eyes clean shaven 5 foot 10 or whatever it is that's about all you want to see not on a list of undesirable aliens or anything like that i know i know still you'd say if anybody wanted millie to pinch a wallet or some money or that they wouldn't use the passport would they too much risk yes said horsham yes that is the interesting part of it of course he said we're making investigations asking a few questions here and there and what's your own opinion i wouldn't like to say yet said horsham it takes a little time you know one can't hurry things they're all the same said colonel monroe when horsham had left the room they never tell you anything those damn security people if they think they're on the trail of anything they won't admit it well that's natural said chadwick because they might be wrong it seemed a typically political view orshim's a pretty good man said monroe they think very highly of him at headquarters he's not likely to be wrong chapter three the man from the cleaners so stafford and i returned to his flat a large woman bounced out of the small kitchen with welcoming words see you got back all right sir those nasty planes you never know do you quite true mrs warred said sir stafford and i two hours late the plane was same as cars aren't they said mrs warwick i mean you never know do you what's going to go wrong with them only it's more worrying so to speak being up in the air isn't it can't just draw up to the curb not the same way can you i mean there you are i wouldn't go buy one myself um i've ordered in a few things i hope that's all right eggs butter coffee tea she ran off the words with the liquacity of a near eastern guide showing a pharaoh's palace there said mrs warwick pausing to take breath i think that's all as you're likely to want i've ordered the french mustard uh not diesel is it they always try and give you dijon i don't know who he was but it says to dragon the one you like isn't it quite right said sir stafford you're a wonder mrs warrett looked pleased she retired into the kitchen again as the stafford nye put his hand on his bedroom door handle preparatory to going into the bedroom all right to give your clothes to the gentleman what called for them i suppose sir you hadn't said or left word or anything like that but what clothes said the stafford knife pausing at two suits it was the gentleman said has called for them twist and bony work it was i think that's the same name is called before we'd had a bit of a dispute with the white swan laundry if i remember rightly two suits said sir stafford knight which suits well there was the one you traveled home in sir i made out that would be one of them i wasn't quite so sure about the other but there was the blue pinstripe that you didn't leave no orders about when you went away it could do with cleaning and there was a repair wanted doing to the right hand cuff but i didn't like to take it on myself while you were away i never liked to do that said mrs worried with an air of palpable virtue so the chap whoever he was took those suits away oh i hope i didn't do wrong sir mrs warwick became worried i don't mind the blue pinstripe i daresay is all for the best uh the suit i came home in well it's a bit thin that suit so for this time of year you know sir all right for those parts as you've been in when it's hot and it could do with a clean he said as you'd rang up about them that's what the gentleman said is called for them did he go into my room and pick them out himself yes sir i thought that was best very interesting said to stafford yes very interesting he went into his bedroom and looked round it it was neat and tidy the bed was made the hand of mrs warwick was apparent his electric razor was on charge the things on the dressing table were neatly arranged he went to the wardrobe and looked inside he looked in the drawers of the tall boy that stood against the wall near the window it was all quite tidy it was tidier indeed than it should have been he had done a little unpacking last night and what little he had done had been of a cursory nature he had thrown under clothing and various odds and ends in the appropriate draw but he had not arranged them neatly he would have done that himself either today or tomorrow he would not have expected mrs warren to do it for him he expected her merely to keep things as she found them then when he came back from abroad there would be a time for rearrangements and readjustments because of climate and other matters so someone had looked round here someone had taken out drawers looked through them quickly hurriedly and replaced things partly because of his hurry more tidily and neatly than he should have done a quick careful job that he had gone away with two suits and a plausible explanation one suit obviously worn by sir stafford when travelling and a suit of thin material which might have been one taken abroad and brought home so why because said sir stafford thoughtfully to himself because somebody was looking for something but what and who and perhaps why yes it was interesting he sat down in a chair and thought about it presently his eyes strayed to the table by the bed on which sat rather pertly a small furry panda it started a train of thought he went to the telephone and rang a number and that's you on matilda he said stafford here ah my dear boys so you're back i'm so glad i read in the paper they'd got cholera in malaya yesterday at least i think it was malaya i always get so mixed up with those places i hope you're coming to see me soon but don't pretend you're busy you can't be busy all the time one really only accepts that sort of thing from tycoons people in industry you know in the middle of mergers and takeovers i never know what it all really means it used to mean doing your work properly but now it means things all tied up with atomic bombs and factories in concrete said out matilda rather wildly and those terrible computers that get all one's figures wrong to say nothing of making them the wrong shape really they have made life so difficult for us nowadays you wouldn't believe the things they've done to my bank account and my postal address too well i suppose i've lived too long don't you believe it all right if i come down next week come down tomorrow if you like i've got the vicar coming to dinner but i can easily put him off oh look here no need to do that oh yes that is every need he's a most irritating man and he wants a new organ too but this one does quite well as it is i mean the trouble is with the organist really not the organ an absolutely abominable musician the vicar is sorry for him because he lost his mother whom he was very fond of but really being fond of your mother doesn't make you play the organ any better does it i mean one has to look at things as they are are quite right it'll have to be next week i've got a few things to see too how sybil dear child very naughty but such fun i brought her home a woolly panda said sir stafford and i will that was very nice of you dear i hope she'll like it said stafford catching the panda's eye and feeling slightly nervous well denny rich has got very good manners said aunt matilda which seemed a somewhat doubtful answer the meaning of which sir stafford did not quite appreciate and matilda suggested likely trains for next week with the warning that they very often did not run or change their plans and also commanded that he should bring her down a camel bear cheese at half a stilton impossible to get anything down here now our own grocer such a nice man so thoughtful and such good taste in what we all liked turned suddenly into a supermarket six times the size all rebuilt baskets and wire trays to carry around and try to fill up with things you don't want and mothers always losing their babies and crying and having hysterics most exhausting well i'll be expecting you dear boy she rang off the telephone rang again at once hello stafford eric pugh here heard you were back from malaya what about dining tonight i like to very much good limpets club 8 15. mrs warred panted into the room as sir stafford replaced the receiver a gentleman downstairs waited to see you sir she said at least i mean i suppose he's that anyway he said he was sure he wouldn't mind what's his name horsham sir just like the place on the way to brighton awesome sir stafford and i was a little surprised he went out of his bedroom and down a half flight of stairs that led to the big sitting room on the lower floor mrs warrett had made no mistake horsham it was looking as he had looked half an hour ago stalwart trustworthy cleft chin rubicon cheeks bushy grey moustache and a general heir of imperturbability hope you don't mind he said agreeably rising to his feet hope i don't mind what said the stafford knight seeing me again so soon we met in the passage outside mr gordon chetwin's door if you remember no objections at all said to stafford knight he pushed a cigarette box along the table and sit down something forgotten something left unsaid very nice man mr chetwind said horsham we've got him quietened down i think he and colonel monroe they're a bit upset about it all you know about you i mean really sir stafford and nye sat down too he smiled he smoked and he looked thoughtfully at henry horsham and where do we go from here he asked i was just wondering if i might ask without undue curiosity where you're going from here delighted to tell you said sir stafford and i i'm going to stay with an aunt of mine lady matilda click heaton i'll give you the address if you like i know it said henry horsham well uh i expect that's a very good idea she'll be glad to see you've come home safely all right might have been a near thing minded is that what colonel monroe thinks and mr chatwind well uh you know what it is sir said horsham you know well enough they're always in a state gentlemen in that department they're not sure whether they trust you or not trust me said to stafford nye in an offended voice what do you mean by that mr horsham mr horsham was not taken aback immediately grinned you see he said you've got a reputation for not taking things seriously oh i thought you meant i was a fellow traveller or a convert to the wrong side something of that kind oh no sir they just uh don't think you're serious they think you like having a bit of a joke now and again one cannot go entirely through life taking oneself and other people seriously said sir stafford and i disapprovingly i know but you took a pretty good risk as i've said before didn't you i wonder if i know in the least what you're talking about i'll tell you things go wrong sir sometimes and they don't always go wrong because people have made them go wrong what you might call the almighty takes a hand or the other gentleman other one with the tail i mean sir stafford nye was slightly diverted are you referring to fog at geneva he said exactly sir there was fog at geneva and that upset people's plans somebody was in a nasty hole tell me all about it said sir stafford and i i really would like to know well uh a passenger was missing when that plane of yours left frankfurt yesterday you drunk your beer and you were sitting in a corner snoring nicely and comfortably by yourself one passenger didn't report and they called her and they called her again in the end presumably the plane left without her ah and what had happened to her it would be interesting to know in any case your passport arrived at heathrow even if you didn't and where is it now am i supposed to have got it no i don't think so that would be rather too quick work good reliable stuff that dope just right if i may say so it put you out and it didn't produce any particularly bad effects it gave me a nasty hangover said sir stafford oh well you can't avoid that not in the circumstances what would have happened sir stafford asked since you seem to know all about everything if i had refused to accept the proposition that may i will only say may have been put to me it's quite possible that it would have been curtains for marianne marianne who's marianne a miss daphne's theodophodus that's the name i do seem to have heard being summoned as a missing traveler yes so that's the name she was traveling under we call her marianne who is she just as a matter of interest in her own lines she is more or less the tops and what is her line is she ours or is she theirs if you know who theirs is i must say i find it a little difficult myself when making up my mind about that yes it's not so easy is it what with the chinese and the ruskies and the rather queer crowd that's behind all the student troubles and the new mafia and the rather odd lot in south america and the nice little nest of financiers who seem to have got something funny up their sleeves yes it's not easy to say mary anne said to stafford nye thoughtfully it seems a curious name to have her if her real name is daphne theodorphinus well her mother's greek her father was german and her grandfather was an austrian subject what would have happened if i hadn't made her a a loan of a certain garment she might have been killed come come not really we're worried about the airport at heathrow things have happened there lately things that need a bit of explaining if the plane had gone via geneva as planned it would have been all right she'd have had full protection all arranged but this other way there wouldn't have been time to arrange anything and you don't know who's who always nowadays everyone's playing a double game or a treble game or a quadruple one you allow me said sir stafford knight but she's all right is she is that what you're telling me i hope she's all right we haven't heard anything to the contrary if it's any help to you said sir stafford nice somebody called here this morning while i was out talking to my little pals in whitehall he represented that i telephoned a firm of cleaners and he removed the suit i wore yesterday and also another suit of course it may have been merely that he took a fancy to the other suit or he may make a practice of collecting various gentleman suitings who have recently returned from abroad or well perhaps you've got an oar to add he might have been looking for something yes i think he was somebody's been looking for something all very nice and tidily arranged again not the way i left it all right he was looking for something what was he looking for i'm not sure myself said horsham slowly i wish i was there's something going on somewhere there are bits of it sticking out you know like a badly done up parcel you get a peep here and a peep there one moment you think it's going on at the beirut festival and the next minute you think it's tucking out of a south american estancia and then you get a bit of a lead in the usa there's a lot of nasty business going on in different places working up to something maybe politics maybe something quite different from politics it's probably money he added are you know mr robinson don't you or rather mr robinson knows you i think he said robinson stafford and i considered robinson nice english name he looked across to horsham large yellow face he said fat finger in financial pies generally he asked is he two on the side of the angels uh is that what you're telling me i don't know about angels said henry horsham he's pulled us out of a hole in this country more than once people like mr chetwind don't go for him much think he's too expensive i suppose inclined to be a mean man mr chairman a great one for making enemies in the wrong place one used to say poor but honest said to stafford and i thoughtfully i take it that you would put it differently you would describe our mr robinson as expensive but honest or shall we put it honest but expensive he sighed i wish you could tell me what this is all about he said plaintively here i seem to be mixed up in something and no idea what it is he looked at henry horsham hopefully but horsham shook his head or none of us knows not exactly he said what am i supposed to have got hidden here that someone comes fiddling and looking for frankly i haven't the faintest idea sir stafford well that's a pity because i haven't either as far as you know you haven't got anything nobody gave you anything to keep to take anywhere to look after nothing whatsoever if you mean marianne she said she wanted her life saved that's all and unless there's a paragraph in the evening papers you have saved her life it seems rather the end of the chapter doesn't it a pity my curiosity is rising i find i want to know very much what's going to happen next all you people seem very pessimistic or frankly we are things are going badly in this country can you wonder i know what you mean i sometimes wonder myself chapter 4 dinner with eric do you mind if i tell you something old man said eric pugh sir stafford and i looked at him he had known eric pugh for a good many years they had not been close friends old eric or so sir stafford thought was rather a boring friend he was on the other hand faithful and he was the type of man who they're not amusing had a knack of knowing things people said things to him and he remembered what they said and stored them up sometimes he could push out a useful bit of information come back from that malay conference haven't you yes said sir stafford anything particular turn up there oh just the usual said sir stafford oh i wondered if something had well you know you know what i mean anything had occurred to put the cat among the pigeons what at the conference no just painfully predictable everyone said just what you thought they'd say only they said it unfortunately at rather greater length than you could have imagined possible i don't know why i go on these things eric pugh made a rather tedious remark or two as to what the chinese were really up to i don't think they're really up to anything said to stafford all the usual rumors you know about the diseases poor old mao has got and who's intriguing against him and why and what about the arab israeli business well that's proceeding according to plan also their plan that's to say and anyway what's that got to do with malaya well uh i didn't really mean so much malaya you're looking rather like the mock turtle said sir stafford nigh soup of the evening beautiful soup where for this gloom well uh i just wondered if you'd you'll forgive me won't you i mean you haven't done anything to blot your copybook have you in any way me said sir stafford looking highly surprised well you know what you're like staff you like giving people a jolt sometimes don't you i have behaved impeccably of late said sir stafford what have you been hearing about me i hear there was some trouble about something that happened in a plane on your way home oh who did you hear that from oh well you know i saw old carson terrible old boar always imagining things that haven't happened yes i know i know he is like that but he was just saying that somebody or other uh winterton at least seemed to think you'd been up to something up to something i wish i had said to stafford and i there's some espionage racket going on somewhere and he got a bit worried about certain people what do they think i am another filby something of that kind you know you're very unwise sometimes in the things you say the things you make jokes about it's very hard to resist sometimes his friend told him all these politicians and diplomats and the rest of them so bloody solemn you'd like to give them a bit of a stir up now and again your sense of fun is very distorted my boy it really is i worry about you sometimes they wanted to ask you some questions about something that happened on the flight back and they seem to think you didn't well that perhaps you didn't exactly speak the truth about it all ah that's what they think is it interesting i think i must work that up a bit now don't do anything rash i must have my moments of fun sometimes look here old fellow you don't want to go and ruin your career just by indulging your sense of humor i'm quickly coming to the conclusion that there is nothing so boring as having a career i know i know you're always inclined to take that point of view and you haven't got on as far as you ought to have you know you were in the running for vienna at one time i don't like to see you muck things up i am behaving with the utmost sobriety and virtue i assure you said sir stafford and i he added cheer up eric you're a good friend but really i'm not guilty of fun and games eric shook his head doubtfully it was a fine evening so stafford walked home across green park as he crossed the road in bird cage walk a car leaping down the street missed him by a few inches sir stafford was an athletic man his leap took him safely onto the pavement the car disappeared down the street he wondered just for a moment he could have sworn that that car had deliberately tried to run him down an interesting thought first his flat had been searched and now he himself might have been marked down probably a mere coincidence and yet in the course of his life some of which had been spent in wild neighborhoods and places so stafford and i had come in contact with danger he knew as it were the touch and feel and smell of danger he felt it now someone somewhere was gunning for him but why for what reason as far as he knew he had not stuck his neck out in any way he wondered he let himself into his flat and picked up the mail that lay on the floor inside nothing much a couple of bills and a copy of lifeboat periodical he threw the bills onto his desk and put a finger through the wrapper of lifeboat it was a cause to which he occasionally contributed he turned the pages without much attention because he was still absorbed in what he was thinking then he stopped the action of his fingers abruptly something was taped between two of the pages taped with adhesive tape he looked at it closely it was his passport returned to him unexpectedly in this fashion he tore it free and looked at it the last stamp on it was the arrival stamp at heathrow the day before she had used his passport getting back here safely and had chosen this way to return it to him where was she now he would like to know he wondered if he would ever see her again who was she where had she gone and why it was like waiting for the second act of a play indeed he felt the first act had hardly been played yet what had he seen an old-fashioned curtain razor perhaps a girl who had ridiculously wanted to dress herself up and pass herself off as of the male sex who had passed the passport control of heathrow without attracting suspicion of any kind to herself and who had now disappeared through that gateway into london no he would probably never see her again it annoyed him but why he thought why do i want to she wasn't particularly attractive she wasn't anything no that wasn't quite true she was something or someone or she could not have induced him with no particular persuasion with no overt sex stimulation nothing except a plain demand for help to do what she wanted a demand from one human being to another human being because or so she had intubated not precisely in words but nevertheless it was what she had intimated she knew people and she recognized in him a man who was willing to take a risk to help another human being and he had taken a risk too thoughts are staffing i she could have put anything in that bare glass of his he could have been found if she had so willed it found as a dead body in a seat tucked away in the corner of a departure lounge in an airport and if she had as no doubt she must have had a knowledgeable recourse to drugs his death might have been passed off as an attack of heart trouble due to altitude or difficult pressurizing something or other like that oh well why think about it he wasn't likely to see her again and he was annoyed yes he was annoyed and he didn't like being annoyed he considered the matter for some minutes then he wrote out an advertisement to be repeated three times passenger to frankfurt november 3rd please communicate with fellow traveller to london no more than that either she would or she wouldn't if it ever came to her eyes she would know by whom that advertisement had been inserted she had had his passport she knew his name she could look him up he might hear from her he might not probably not if not the curtain raiser would remain a curtain raiser a silly little play that received latecomers into the theater and diverted them until the real business of the evening began very useful in pre-war times in all probability though he would not hear from her again and one of the reasons might be that she might have accomplished whatever it was she had come to do in london and have now left the country once more flying abroad to geneva or the middle east or to russia or to china or to south america or to the united states and why thoughts are stafford do i include south america there must be a reason she had not mentioned south america nobody had mentioned south america except horsham now that was true and even horsham had only mentioned south america among a lot of other mentions on the following morning as he walked slowly homeward after handing in his advertisement along the pathway across in james's park his eye picked out half unseeing the autumn flowers the chrysanthemums looking by now stiff and leggy with their button tops of gold and bronze their smell came to him faintly a rather goat-like smell he always thought a smell that reminded him of hillsides in greece he must remember to keep his eye on the personal column and not yet two or three days at least would have to pass before his own advertisement was put in and before there had been time for anyone to put in one in answer he must not miss it if there was an answer because after all it was irritating not to know not to have any idea what this was all about he tried to recall not the girl at the airport but his sister pamela's face a long time since her death he remembered her of course he remembered her but he could not somehow picture her face it irritated him not to be able to do so he had paused just when he was about to cross one of the roads there was no traffic except for a car jigging slowly along with the solemn demeanor of a board dowager an elderly car he thought an old-fashioned daimler limousine he shook his shoulders i stand here in this idiotic way lost in thought he took an abrupt step to cross the road and suddenly with surprising vigor the dowager limousine as he had thought of it in his mind accelerated accelerated with a sudden astonishing speed it bore down on him with such swiftness that he only just had time to leap across to the opposite pavement it disappeared with a flash turning round the curve of the road further on i wonder said to stafford to himself now i wonder could it be that there is someone that doesn't like me someone following me perhaps watching me take my way home waiting for an opportunity colonel pike away his bulk sprawled out in his chair in the small room in bloomsbury where he sat from 10 to 5 with a short interval for lunch was surrounded as usual by an atmosphere of thick cigar smoke with his eyes closed only an occasional blink showed that he was awake and not asleep he seldom raised his head somebody had said that he looked like a cross between an ancient buddha and a large blue frog with perhaps as some impudent youngster had added just a touch of a bar sinister from a hippopotamus in his ancestry the gentle bars of the intercom on his desk roused him he blinked three times and opened his eyes he stretched forth a rather weary looking hand and picked up the receiver well he said his secretary's voice spoke the minister is here waiting to see you busy now said colonel pike away and what minister is that the baptist minister from the church around the corner oh no colonel pikeaway it's a george packham pretty said colonel pike away breathing asthmatically great pity the reverend mcgill is far more amusing there's a splendid touch of hellfire about him shall i bring him in colonel packaway i suppose he will expect to be brought in at once under secretaries are far more touchy than secretaries of state said colonel pike away gloomily all these ministers insist on coming in and having kittens all over the place sir george packham was shown in he coughed and wheezed most people did the windows of the small room were tightly closed colonel pikeaway reclined in his chair completely smothered in cigar ash the atmosphere was almost unbearable and the room was known in official circles as the small cat house ah my dear fellow said sir george speaking briskly and cheerfully in a way that did not match his ascetic and sad appearance quite a long time since we've met i think sit down sit down do said bike away never saga so george shuddered slightly i know thank you he said i know thanks very much he looked hard at the windows colonel pikeaway did not take the hint so george cleared his throat and coughed again before saying i believe horsham has been to see you yes horsham's villain said his peace said colonel pikeaway slowly allowing his eyes to close again i i thought it was the best way i mean that he should call upon you here it's most important that things shouldn't get round anywhere ah said colonel back away uh but they will weren't there uh hi baker button they will said colonel pike away i i didn't know how much you were well i know about this last business we know everything here said colonel pacquiao that's what we're for oh oh yeah yes certainly about sir s n uh you know who i mean a recently a passenger from frankfurt said colonel pike away the most extraordinary business most extraordinary one wonders one really does not know one can't begin to imagine colonel pike away listened kindly what does one to think pursued sir george do you know him personally i've come across him once or twice said colonel pike away one really cannot help wondering colonel packaway subdued a yawn with some difficulty he was rather tired of sir george's thinking wondering and imagining he had a poor opinion anyway of sir george's process of thought a cautious man a man who could be relied upon to run his department in a cautious manner not a man of scintillating intellect perhaps thought colonel pike away all the better for that at any rate those who think and wonder and are not quite sure are reasonably safe in the place where god and the electors have put them one cannot quite forget continued sir george the disillusionment we have suffered in the past colonel pike away smiled kindly charleston conway and courtfold he said fully trusted vetted and approved of all beginning with sea all crooked as sin sometimes i wonder if we can trust anyone said sir george unhappily that's easy said colonel pike away you can't now take stafford nye said sir george good family excellent family knew his father his grandfather often a slip up in the third generation said colonel away the remark did not help sir george i cannot help doubting and i mean sometimes he doesn't really seem serious i took my two nieces to see the shadow of the loire when i was a young man said colonel pike away unexpectedly man fishing on the bank i had my fishing rod with me too he said to me um you mean you think says stafford no no never been mixed up with women much irony is his trouble like surprising people he can't help liking to score off people well that's not very satisfactory is it why not said colonel pikeaway liking a private joke is much better than having some deal with the defector if one could feel that he was really sound what would you say your personal opinion sound as a bell said colonel pike away if a bell is sound it makes a sound ah but that's different isn't it he smiled kindly shouldn't worry if i were you he said so stafford nye pushed aside his cup of coffee he picked up the newspaper glancing over the headlines then he turned it carefully to the page which gave personal advertisements he looked down that particular column for seven days now it was disappointing but not surprising why on earth should he expect to find an answer his eye went slowly down miscellaneous peculiarities which had always made that particular page rather fascinating in his eyes they were not so strictly personal half of them or even more than half were disguised advertisements or offers of things for sale or wanted for sale they should perhaps have been put under a different heading but they had found their way here considering that they were more likely to catch the eye that way they included one or two of the hopeful variety young man who objects to hard work and who'd like an easy life would be glad to undertake a job that would suit him girl wants to travel to cambodia refuses to look after children firearm used at waterloo what offers glorious fun fur coat must be sold immediately owner going abroad do you know jenny capstone her cakes are superb come to 14 lizard street sw3 for a moment stafford nye's finger came to a stop jenny capstone he liked the name was there any lizard street he supposed so he had never heard of it with a sigh the finger went down the column and almost at once was arrested once more passenger from frankfurt thursday november 11th hungerford bridge 720 thursday november 11th that was yes that was today so stafford and i leaned back in his chair and drank more coffee he was excited stimulated hungerford hungerford bridge he got up and went into the kitchenette mrs warrit was cutting potatoes into strips and throwing them into a large bowl of water she looked up with some slight surprise anything you want sir yes said sir stafford and i if anyone said hungerford bridge to you where would you go where should i go this is what it considered you mean if i wanted to go do you we can proceed on that assumption well then i i suppose i'd go to angerford bridge wouldn't i you mean that you would go to hungerford in berkshire where is that said mrs warrid eight miles beyond newbury i've heard of newbury my old man bagged a horse there last year did well too so you'd go to hungerford near newbury well no of course i wouldn't said mrs warrid go all that way what for i'll go to ungerford bridge of course you mean well it's near charing cross you know where it is over the thames yes said sir stefan i yes i do know where it is quite well thank you mrs worried it had been he felt rather like tossing a penny heads or tails an advertisement in a morning paper in london meant hungerford railway bridge in london presumably therefore that is what the advertiser meant although about this particular advertiser says stafford nye was not at all sure her ideas from the brief experience he had had of her were original ideas they were not the normal responses to be expected but still what else could one do besides there were probably other hungerfords and possibly they would also have bridges in various parts of england but today well today he would see it was a cold windy evening with occasional bursts of thin misty rain so stafford nye turned up the collar of his macintosh and plodded on it was not the first time he had gone across hungerford bridge but it had never seemed to him a walk to take for pleasure beneath him was the river and crossing the bridge were large quantities of hurrying figures like himself their macintoshes pulled round them their hats pulled down and on the part of one and all of them an earnest desire to get home and out of the wind and rain as soon as possible it would be thought sustained nigh very difficult to recognize anybody in this scurrying crowd 720 not a good moment to choose for a rendezvous of any kind perhaps it was hungerford bridge in berkshire anyway it seemed very odd he plodded on he kept an even pace not overtaking those ahead of him pushing past those coming the opposite way he went fast enough not to be overtaken by the others behind him though it would be possible for them to do so if they wanted to a joke perhaps thought stafford nigh not quite his kind of joke but someone else is and yet not her brand of humor either he would have thought hurrying figures passed him again pushing him slightly aside a woman in a macintosh was coming along walking heavily she collided with him slipped dropped to her knees he assisted her up all right yes thanks she hurried on but as she passed him her wet hand by which he had held her as he pulled her to her feet slipped something into the palm of his hand closing the fingers over it then she was gone vanishing behind him mingling with the crowd stafford and i went on he couldn't overtake her she did not wish to be overtaken either he hurried on and his hand held something firmly and so at long last it seemed he came to the end of the bridge on the surrey side a few minutes later he had turned into a small cafe and sat there behind a table ordering coffee then he looked at what was in his hand it was a very thin oil skin envelope inside it was a cheap quality white envelope that too he opened what was inside surprised him it was a ticket a ticket for the festival hall for the following evening chapter five motif sir stafford nye adjusted himself more comfortably in his seat and listened to the persistent hammering of the knee belonging with which the program began though he enjoyed wagnerian opera siegfried was by no means his favorite of the operas composing the ring reingold and gotta damarang were his two preferences the music of the young secret listening to the songs of the birds had always for some strange reason irritated him instead of filling him with melodic satisfaction it might have been because he went to a performance in munich in his young days which had displayed a magnificent tenor of unfortunately over magnificent proportions and he had been too young to divorce the joy of music from the visual joy of seeing a young secret that looked even possibly young the fact of an outsized tenor rolling about on the ground in an excess of boyishness had revolted him he was also not particularly fond of birds and forest murmurs no give him the rhine maidens every time although in munich even the rhine maidens in those days have been a fairly solid proportions but that mattered less carried away by the melodic flow of water and the joyous impersonal song he had not allowed visual appreciation to matter from time to time he looked about him casually he had taken his seat fairly early it was a full house as it usually was the intermission came so stafford rose and looked about him the seat beside his had remained empty someone who was supposed to have arrived had not arrived was that the answer or was it merely a case of being excluded because someone had arrived late which practice still held on the occasions when wagnerian music was listened to he went out strolled about drank a cup of coffee smoked a cigarette and returned when the summons came this time as he drew near he saw that the seat next to his was filled immediately his excitement returned he regained his seat and sat down yes it was the woman the frankfurt air lounge she did not look at him she was looking straight ahead her face in profile was as clean cut and pure as he remembered it her head turned slightly and her eyes passed over him but without recognition so intent was that non-recognition that it was as good as a word spoken this was a meeting that was not to be acknowledged not now at any rate the lights began to dim the woman beside him turned excuse me could i look at your program i have dropped mine i'm afraid coming to my seat of course he said he handed over the program and she took it from him she opened it studied the items the lights went lower the second half of the program began it started with the overture to learn grin at the end of it she handed back the program to him with a few words of thanks thank you so much it was very kind of you the next item was the siegfried forest murmur music he consulted the program she had returned to him it was then that he noticed something faintly penciled at the foot of a page he did not attempt to read it now indeed the light would have not been sufficient he merely closed the program and held it he had not he was quite sure written anything there himself not that is in his own program she had he thought had her own program ready folded perhaps in her handbag and had already written some message ready to pass to him altogether it seemed to him there was still that atmosphere of secrecy of danger the meeting on hungerford bridge and the envelope with the ticket forced into his hand and now the silent woman who sat beside him he glanced at her once or twice with the quick careless glance that one gives a stranger sitting next to one she lolled back in her seat her high necked dress was of dull black crepe an antique torque of gold encircled her neck her dark hair was cropped closely and shaped to her head she did not glance at him or return any look he wondered was there someone in the seats of the festival hall watching her or watching him noting whether they looked or spoke to each other presumably there must be or there must be at least the possibility of such a thing she had answered his appeal in the newspaper advertisement let that be enough for him his curiosity was unimpaired but he did at least know now that daphne theodophanus alias marianne was here in london there were possibilities in the future of his learning more of what was afoot but the plan of campaign must be left to her he must follow her lead as he rebated the airport so he would obey her now and let him admitted life had become suddenly more interesting this was better than the boring conferences of his political life had a car really tried to run him down the other night he thought it had two attempts not only one it was easy enough to imagine that one was the target of assault people drove so recklessly nowadays that you could easily fancy malice a forethought when it was not so he folded his program did not look at it again the music came to its end the woman next to him spoke she did not turn her head or appear to speak to him but she spoke aloud with a little sigh between the words as though she was communing with herself or possibly to her neighbor on the other side the young siegfried she said and sighed again the program ended with the march from de meistersinger after enthusiastic applause people began to leave their seats he waited to see if she would give him any lead but she did not she gathered up her wrap moved out of the row of chairs and with a slightly accelerated step moved along with other people and disappeared in the crowd stafford nye regained his car and drove home arrived there he spread out the festival hall program on his desk and examined it carefully after putting on the coffee to percolate the program was disappointing to say the least of it there did not appear to be any message inside only on one page above the list of items were the pencil marks that he had vaguely observed but they were not words or letters or even figures they appeared to be merely a musical notation it was as though someone had scribbled a phrase of music with a somewhat inadequate pencil for a moment it occurred to stafford nye that there might perhaps be a secret message he could bring out by applying heat rather gingerly and in a way rather ashamed of his melodramatic fancy he held it towards the bar of the electric fire but nothing resulted with a sigh he tossed the program back onto the table but he felt justifiably annoyed all this rigmarole a rendezvous on a windy and rainy bridge overlooking the river sitting through a concert by the side of a woman of whom he yearned to ask at least a dozen questions and at the end of it nothing no further on still she had met him but why if she didn't want to speak to him to make further arrangements with him why'd she come at all his eyes passed idly across the room to his bookcase which he reserved for various thrillers works of detective fiction and an occasional volume of science fiction he shook his head fiction he thought was infinitely superior to real life dead bodies mysterious telephone calls beautiful foreign spies in profusion however this particular elusive lady might not have done with him yet next time he thought he would make some arrangements of his own two could play at the game that she was playing he pushed aside the program and drank another cup of coffee and went to the window he had the program still in his hand as he looked out towards the street below his eyes fell back again on the open program in his hand and he hummed himself almost unconsciously he had a good ear for music and he could hum the notes that were scrawled there quite easily vaguely they sounded familiar as he hummed them he increased his voice a little what was it now tum [Music] yes definitely familiar he started opening his letters they were mostly uninteresting a couple of invitations one from the american embassy one from lady athelhampton a charity variety performance which royalty would attend and for which it was suggested five guineas would not be an exorbitant fee to obtain a seat he threw them aside lightly he added very much whether he wished to accept any of them he decided that instead of remaining in london he would without more to do go and see his aunt matilda as he had promised he was fond of his aunt matilda though he did not visit her very often she lived in a rehabilitated apartment consisting of a series of rooms in one wing of a large georgian manor house in the country which he had inherited from his grandfather she had a large beautifully proportioned sitting room a small oval dining room a new kitchen made from the old housekeeper's room two bedrooms for guests a large comfortable bedroom for herself with an adjoining bathroom and adequate quarters for a patient companion who shared her daily life the remains of a faithful domestic staff were well provided for and housed the rest of the house remained under dust sheets with periodical cleaning stafford nye was fond of the place having spent holidays there as a boy it had been a gay house then his eldest uncle had lived there with his wife and their two children yes it had been pleasant there then there had been money and a sufficient staff to run it he had not specially noticed in those days the portraits and pictures there had been large-sized examples of victorian art occupying pride of place overcrowding the walls but there had been other masters of an older age yes there had been some good portraits there a raven two lawrences a gainsborough a lily two rather dubious van dykes a couple of turners too some of them had had to be sold to provide the family with money he still enjoyed when visiting their strolling about and studying the family pictures his aunt matilda was a great chatterbox but she always enjoyed his visits he was fond of her in a deserty way but he was not quite sure why it was that he had suddenly wanted to visit her now and what was it that had brought family portraits into his mind could it have been because there was a portrait of his sister pamela by one of the leading artists of the day 20 years ago you would like to see that portrait of pamela and look at it more closely see how close the resemblance had been between the stranger who had disrupted his life in this really outrageous fashion and his sister he picked up the festival hall program again with some irritation and began to hum the penciled notes [Music] then it came to him and he knew what it was it was the secret motif secretes horn the young siegfried motif that was what the woman had said last night not apparently to him not apparently to anybody but it had been the message a message that would have meant nothing to anyone around since it would have seemed to refer to the music that had just been played and the motif had been written on his program also in musical terms the young siegfried it must have meant something well perhaps further enlightenment would come the young siegfried what the hell did that mean why and how and when and what ridiculous all those questioning words he rang the telephone and obtained aunt matilda's number oh but of course steffi dear it would be lovely to have you take the 4 30 train it still runs you know but it gets here an hour and a half later and it leaves paddington later at 5 15. that's what they mean by improving the railways i suppose stops at several most absurd stations on the way all right horace will meet you at king's marston he's still there then well of course he's still there i suppose he is said to stafford nye horace once a groom then a coachman had survived as a chauffeur and apparently was still surviving he must be at least eighty said sir stafford he smiled to himself six portrait of a lady you look very nice and brown dear said aunt matilda surveying him appreciatively well that's malaya i suppose if it was malaya you went to or was it siam or thailand they changed the names of all these places and it really makes it very difficult anyway it wasn't vietnam was it you know i didn't like the sound of vietnam at all it's already confusing north vietnam south vietnam the viet cong and the viet whatever the other thing is and all wanted to fight each other and nobody wanted to stop they won't go to paris or wherever it is and sit round tables and talk sensibly don't you think really dear i've been thinking it over i thought it would be a very nice solution couldn't you make a lot of football fields then they could all go and fight each other there but with less lethal weapons not that nasty palm burning stuff you know just hit each other and punch each other and all that they'd enjoy it everyone would enjoy it and you could charge admission for people to go and see them do it i do really think that we don't understand giving people the things they really want i think it's a very fine idea of yours on matilda said sir stafford and i as he kissed a pleasantly perfumed pale pink wrinkled cheek and how are you my dear when i'm old said lady matilda clerk heaton yes i'm old of course you don't know what it is to be old if it isn't one thing it's another rheumatism or arthritis or a nasty bit of asthma or a sore throat or an ankle you've turned always something you know nothing very important there it is why have you come to see media so stafford was slightly taken aback by the directness of the query i usually come and see you when i return from a trip abroad you'll have to come one chair nearer said aunt matilda i'm just that bit deafer since you saw me last you look different why do you look different because i'm more sunburned you said so nonsense that's not what i mean at all don't tell me it's a girl at last a girl well i've always felt it might be one someday the trouble is you've got too much sense of humor now why should you think that well it's what people do think about you oh yes they do your sense of humor is in the way of your career too you know you're all mixed up with all these people diplomatic and political what they call younger statesmen and elder statesmen and middle statesmen too and all these different parties really i think it's too silly to have too many parties first of all those awful awful labor people she raised her conservative nose into the air why when i was a girl there wasn't such a thing as a labor party nobody would have known what you meant by it they'd have said nonsense it wasn't nonsense too and then there's the liberals of course but they're terribly wet and then there are the tories or the conservatives as they call themselves again now and what's the matter with them asked stafford and i smiling slightly too many earnest women makes them not get you know oh well no political party goes in for getty much nowadays just so sit down bethelda and then of course that's where you go wrong you want to cheer things up you want to have a little gaiety and so you make a little gentle fun of people and of course they don't like it they say snipers are so serious like that man in the fishing sir stafford and i laughed his eyes were wandering around the room what are you looking at said lady matilda your pictures oh you don't want me to sell them do you everyone seems to be selling their pictures nowadays old lord grampian you know he's held his turners and he sold some of his ancestors as well and jeffrey goldman all those lovely horses of his my stubs weren't there something like that really the prices one gets but i didn't want to sell my pictures i like them most of them in this room have a real interest because they're ancestors i know nobody wants ancestors nowadays but then i'm old-fashioned i like ancestors my own ancestors i mean what are you looking at pamela yes i was i was thinking about her the other day astonishing how like you two are i mean it's not even as though you were twins that they say that different sex twins even if they are twins can't be identical if you know what i mean so shakespeare must have made rather a mistake over viola and sebastian well ordinary brothers and sisters can be like can't they you and pamela were always very like to look at i mean not in any other way don't you think we're like in character no not in the least that's the funny part of it but of course you and pamela have what i call the family face not a knife face i mean a baldwin white sir stafford and i had never quite been able to compete when it came down to talking on a question of genealogy with his great aunt i've always thought that you and pamela both took after alexa she went on which was alexa your great great i think one more great grandmother hungarian a hungarian countess or baroness or something your great-great-grandfather fell in love with her when he was at vienna in the embassy yes hungarian that's what she was very sporting too they are sporting you know hungarians she wrote to hans wrote magnificently is she in the picture gallery she's on the first landing just over the head of the stairs little to the right i must go and look at her when i go to bed why don't you go and look at her now then you can come back and talk about her well i will if you lie he smiled at her he ran out of the room and up the staircase yes she had a sharp eye old matilda that was the face that was the face that he had seen and remembered remembered not for its likeness to himself not even for its likeness to pamela but for a closer resemblance still to this picture here a handsome girl brought home by his ambassador great great great grandfather if that was enough great aunt matilda was never satisfied with only a few about 20 she had been she had come here and been high-spirited and rode a horse magnificently and danced divinely and men had fallen in love with her but she had been faithful so it was always said to great great great grandfather a very steady and sober member of the diplomatic service she had gone with him to foreign embassies and returned here and had had children three or four children he believed through one of those children the inheritance of her face her nose the turn of her neck had been passed down to him and to his sister pamela he wondered if the young woman who had doped his beer and forced him to lend her his cloak and who had depicted herself as being in danger of death unless he did what she asked had been possibly related as a fifth or sixth cousin removed a descendant of the woman pictured on the wall at which he looked well it could be they had been of the same nationality perhaps anyway their faces had resembled each other a good deal how upright she'd sat at the opera how straight that profile the thin slightly arched aqualine nose and the atmosphere that hung about her find it asked lady matilda when her nephew returned to the white drawing room as her sitting room was usually called interesting phase isn't it yes quite handsome too it's much better to be interesting than handsome but you haven't been in hungary or austria have you you wouldn't meet anyone like her out in malaya she wouldn't be sitting around a table there making little notes or correcting speeches or things like that she was a wild creature by all accounts lovely manners and all the rest of it but wild wild as a wild bird she didn't know what danger was how do you know so much about her oh i agree i wasn't a contemporary of hers i wasn't born until several years after she was dead all the same i've always been interested in her she was adventurous you know very adventurous very queer stories were told about her about things she was mixed up in and how did my great great great grandfather react to that i expected what is him to death said lady matilda they say he was devoted to her though by the way staffy did you ever read the prisoner of zender prisoner of zender sounds very familiar well of course it's familiar it's a book yes yes i realize it's a book you wouldn't know about it i expect after your time but when i was a girl that's about the first taste of romance we got not pop singers or beatles just a romantic novel we weren't allowed to read novels when i was young not in the morning anyway you could read them in the afternoon extraordinary rules said sir stafford why is it wrong to read novels in the morning and not in the afternoon when in the mornings you see girls were supposed to be doing something useful you know doing the flowers or cleaning the silver photograph frames all the things we girls did doing a bit of studying with the governors all that sort of thing in the afternoon we were allowed to sit down and read a storybook and the prisoner of zendo was usually one of the first ones that came our way a very nice respectable story was it i seem to remember something about it perhaps i did read it all very pure i suppose not too sexy certainly not we didn't have sexy books we had romance the prisoner of zender was very romantic one fell in love usually with the hero rudolph resindil i seem to remember that name too bit florid isn't it well i still think it was rather a romantic name 12 years old i must have been it made me think of it you know you're going up and looking at that portrait princess flavia she added stafford and i was smiling at her you look young and pink and very sentimental he said well that's just what i'm feeling girls can't feel like that nowadays they're swooning with love or they're fainting when somebody plays the guitar or sings in a very loud voice but they're not sentimental but i wasn't in love with rudolph rasendell i was in love with the other one he's double did he have a double oh yes a king the king of rotitania ah of course now i know that's where the word ruritania comes from one's always throwing it about yes i think i did read it you know the king of ruritania and rudolf resindil was stand in for the king and fell in love with princess flavia to whom the king was officially betrothed lady matilda gave some more deep sighs yes rudolph rasnil had inherited his red hair from an ancestress and somewhere in the book he bows to the portrait and says something about the uh i can't remember the name now the count is emilia or something like that from whom he inherited his looks and all the rest of it so i looked at you and thought of you as rudolph rasendell and you went out and looked at a picture of someone who might have been an ancestors of yours and saw whether she reminded you of someone so you're mixed up in a rebels of some kind aren't you what on earth makes you say that well there aren't so many patterns in life you know one recognizes patterns as they come up it's like a book on knitting about 65 different fancy stitches well you know a particular stitch when you see it your stitch at the moment i should say is the romantic adventure she sighed but you won't tell me about it i suppose there's nothing to tell said sir stafford you always were quite an accomplished liar well never mind you bring her to see me sometime that's all i'd like before the doctors succeed in killing me with yet another type of antibiotic that they just discovered the different colored pills i've had to take by this time you wouldn't believe it i don't know why you say she and her don't you oh well i know a she when i come across as she there's a she somewhere dodging about in your life what beats me is how you found her in malaya at the conference table ambassador's daughter or minister's daughter good looking sex drive from the embassy pool no none of it seems to fit ship coming home no we don't use ships nowadays plane perhaps you're getting slightly nearer so stafford and i could not help saying ah she pounced air hostess he shook his head oh well keep your secret i shall find out mind you i've always had a good nose for things going on where you're concerned things generally as well of course i'm out of everything nowadays but i meet my old cronies from time to time but it's quite easy you know to get a hint or two from them people are worried everywhere they're worried you mean there's a general kind of discontent upset no i didn't mean that at all i mean the high ups are worried our awful governments are worried the dear old sleepy foreign off is worried there are things going on things that shouldn't be at rest student unrest oh student unrest is just one flower on the tree it's blossoming everywhere in every country also it seems i've got a nice girl who comes you know and reads the papers to me in the mornings i can't read them properly myself she's got a nice voice takes down my letters and she reads things from the papers she's a good kind girl she reads the things i want to know not the things she thinks are right for me to know yes everyone's worried as far as i can make out and this mind you came more or less from a very old friend of mine one of your old military cronies he's a major general that's what you mean retired good many years ago but still in the know youth is what you might call the spearhead of it all but that's not really what's so worrying they whether they are work through youth youth in every country youth urge on youth chanting slogans slogans that sound exciting though they don't always know what they mean so easy to start a revolution that's natural to youth all youth has always rebelled you rebel you pull down you want the world to be different from what it is but you're blind too there are bandages over the eyes of youth they can't see where things are taking them what's going to come next what's in front of them and who it is behind the merging them on that's what's frightening about it you know someone holding out the carrot to get the donkey to come along and at the same time there is someone behind the donkey urging it on with a stick you've got some extraordinary fancies they're not any fancies my dear boy that's what people said about hitler hitler and the hitler youth but it was a long careful preparation it was a war that was worked out in detail it was a fifth column being planted in different countries already for the superman the superman would be the flower of the german nation that's what they thought and believed in passionately somebody else is perhaps believing something like that now it's a creed that they're willing to accept if it's offered carefully enough what are you talking about do you mean the chinese or the russians what do you mean i don't know i haven't the faintest idea but there's something somewhere and it's running on the same lines patton again you see patton the russians bogged down by communism i think they're considered old-fashioned the chinese i think they've lost their way too much chairman now perhaps i don't know who these people are who are doing the planning as i said before it's why and where and when and who very interesting it's so frightening this same idea that always occurs history repeating itself the young hero the golden superman that all must follow she paused then said same idea you know the young siegfried chapter 7 advice from great aunt matilda great aunt matilda looked at him she had a very sharp and shrewd eye stafford and i had noticed that before he noticed it particularly at this moment so you've heard that term before she said i see what does it mean you don't know she raised her eyebrows crossed my heart and wished to die said sir stafford in nursery language yes we always used to say that didn't we said lady matilda do you really mean what you're saying i don't know anything about it but you'd heard the time before yes someone said it to me anyone important it could be i i suppose it could be what do you mean by anyone important well you've been involved in various government missions lately haven't you you represented this poor miserable country as best you could which i shouldn't wonder wasn't rather better than many others could do sitting around a table and talking i don't know whether anything's come for that probably not said stafford and i after all one isn't optimistic when one goes into these things one does one's best said lady matilda correctively a very christian principle nowadays if one does one's worst one often seems to get on a good deal better what does all this mean aunt matilda i don't suppose i know said his aunt well you very often do know things not exactly i just pick up things here and there yes i've got a few old friends left you know friends who are in the know of course most of them are either practically stoned deaf or half blind or a little bit gone in the top story or unable to walk straight but something still functions something shall we say up here she hit the top of her neatly arranged white head there's a good deal of alarm and despondency about more than usual that's one of the things i've picked up isn't there always yes yes but this is a bit more than that active instead of passive as you might say for a long time as i've noticed from the outside and you no doubt from the inside we have felt that things are in a mess rather bad mess but now we've got to the point where we feel that perhaps something might have to be done about the mess there's an element of danger in it something is going on something is brewing not just in one country in quite a lot of countries they've recruited a service of their own and the danger about it is it's the service of young people and the kind of people who will go anywhere do anything unfortunately believe anything and so long as they are promised a certain amount of pulling down wrecking throwing spanners in the works then they think the cause must be a good one and that the world will be a different place they're not creative that's the trouble only destructive the creative young write poems write books probably compose music paint pictures just as they've always done they'll be all right but once people learn to love destruction for its own sake evil leadership gets its chance you say they or them who do you mean wish i knew said lady matilda yes wish i knew very much indeed if i hear anything useful i'll tell you then you can do something about it unfortunately i haven't got anyone to tell i mean to pass it on to yes don't pass it on to just anyone you can't trust people don't pass it on to any one of those idiots in the government or connected with the government or hoping to be participating in the government after this slot runs out politicians don't have time to look at the world they're living in they see the country they're living in and they see it as one vast electoral platform that's quite enough to put on their plates for the time being they do things which they honestly believe will make things better and then they're surprised when they don't make things better because they're not the things that people want to have and one can't help coming to the conclusion that politicians have a feeling that they have a kind of divine right to tell lies and a good cause it's not really so very long ago since mr baldwin made his famous remark if i had spoken the truth i should have lost the election prime ministers still feel like that now and again we have a great man thank god but it's rare well what do you suggest ought to be done are you asking my advice mine do you know how old i am getting on for 90 suggested her nephew not quite as old as that said lady matilda is slightly affronted do i look at my dear boy no darling you look a nice comfortable 66. that's better said lady may told her quite untrue but better if i get a tip of any kind for one of my dear old admirals or an old general or even possibly an air marshal they do hear things you know they've got cronies still and the old boys get together and talk until it gets around there's always been the grapevine and there still is a grapevine no matter how elderly the people are the young siegfried we want a clue to just what that means i don't know if he's a person or a password or the name of a club or a new messiah or a pop singer but that term covers something there's the musical motif too i've rather forgotten my wagnerian days her aged voice croaked out a partially recognizable melody secret's horn call isn't that it get a recorder why don't you do i mean a recorder i don't mean a record that you put on a gramophone i mean the things that school children play they have the classes for them i went to a talk the other day arvika got it up quite interesting you know tracing the history of the recorder and the kind of recorders there were from the elizabethan age onward some big some small all different notes and sounds very interesting very interesting hearing in two senses the recorders themselves some of them give out lovely noises and the history yes well what was i saying uh you told me to get one of those instruments i gather yes get a recorder and learn to blow siegfried's horn call on that your musical you always were you can manage that i hope well it seems a very small part to play in the salvation of the world but i dare say i could manage that and have the thing ready because you see she tapped on the table with her spectacle case you might want it to impress the wrong people sometime might come in useful they'd welcome you with open arms and then you might learn a bit you certainly have ideas said sir stafford admiringly what else can you have when you're my age said his great aunt you can't get about you can't meddle with people much you can't do any gardening all you can do is sit in your chair and have ideas remember that when you're 40 years older one remark you made interested me only one said lady matilda that's rather a poor measure considering how much i've been talking what was it you suggested that i might be capable of impressing the wrong people with my recorder did you mean that well it's one way isn't it the right people don't matter but the wrong people well you've got to find out things haven't you you've got to permeate things rather like a death watch beetle she said thoughtfully so i should make significant noises in the night well that sort of thing yes we had a death watch beetle in the east wing here once very expensive it was to put it right i dare say it will be just as expensive to put the world right in fact a good deal more expensive said stafford nye well that would matter said lady matilda people never mind spending a great deal of money it impresses them it's when you want to do things economically they won't play we're the same people you know in this country i mean we're the same people we always were what do you mean by that we're capable of doing big things we were good at running an empire we weren't good at keeping an empire running but then you see we didn't need an empire anymore and we've recognized that too difficult to keep up robbie made me see that she added robbie it was faintly familiar robbie shawram robert shawrom he's a very old friend of mine paralyzed down the left side but he can still talk and he's got a moderately good hearing aid besides being one of the most famous physicists in the world said stafford nye so he's another of your old cronies is he known him since he was a boy said lady matilda i suppose it surprises you that we should be friends have a lot in common and enjoy talking together well i shouldn't have thought that that we had much to talk about it's true i could never do mathematics fortunately when i was a girl one didn't even try mathematics came easily to robbie when he was about four years old i believe they say nowadays that that's quite natural he's got plenty to talk about he liked me always because i was frivolous and made him laugh i'm a good listener too and really he says some very interesting things sometimes so i suppose said stafford night riley now don't be superior malia married his housemate didn't he made a great success of it if it is mollier i mean if a man's frantic with brains he doesn't really want a woman who's also frantic with brains to talk to it would be exhausting he much preferred a lovely initiate who could make him laugh i wasn't bad looking when i was young said ladybut told her complacently i know i have no academic distinctions i'm not the least intellectual but robert has always said that i've got a great deal of common sense of intelligence you're a lovely person said sir stafford and i i enjoy coming to see you and i shall go away remembering all the things you've said to me there are a good many more things i expect that you could tell me but you're obviously not going to not until the right moment comes said lady matilda but i've got your interests to heart let me know what you're doing from time to time you're dining at the american embassy aren't you next week how did you know that i've been asked and you've accepted i understand well it's uh all in the course of duty he looked at her curiously how do you manage to be so well informed no millie told me millie millie jean cortman the american ambassador's wife the most attractive creature you know small and rather perfect looking oh you mean mildred cortman she was christen mildred but she preferred millie jean i was talking to her on the telephone about some charity matinee or other she's what we used to call a pocket venus a most attractive term to use said stafford nye chapter eight an embassy dinner as mrs cortman came to meet him with outstretched hand stafford nye recalled the term his great aunt had used millie jean cortman was a woman of between 35 and 40. she had delicate features big blue gray eyes a very perfectly shaped head with bluish gray hair tinted to a particularly attractive shade which fitted her with a perfection of grooming she was very popular in london her husband sam cortman was a big heavy man slightly ponderous he was very proud of his wife he himself was one of those slow rather over emphatic talkers people found that attention occasionally straying when he was elucidating at some length a point which hardly needed making back from malaya aren't you sir stafford it must have been quite interesting to go out there though it's not the time of year i'd have chosen but i'm sure we're all glad to see you back now let me see now you know lady albarra and sir john and here von rogen frau von roecken mr and mrs staggenham they were all people known to stafford nye in more or less degree there was a dutchman and his wife whom he had not met before since they had only just taken up their appointment the stagnames were the minister of social security and his wife a particularly uninteresting couple he had always thought and the count is renata zerkovsky i think she said she'd met you before it must be about a year ago when i was last in england said the countess and there she was the passenger from frankfurt again self-possessed at ease beautifully turned out in faint grey blue with a touch of chinchilla her hair dressed high a wig and a ruby cross of antique design around her neck senor gasparro count reigner mr and mrs r buffnut about 26 in all at dinner stafford nye sat between the dreary mrs tagnum and senora gasparo renata sakovsky sat exactly opposite him an embassy dinner a dinner such as he so often attended holding much of the same type of guests various members of the diplomatic corps junior ministers one or two industrialists a sprinkling of socialites usually included because they were good conversationalists natural pleasant people to meet though one or two thought stafford and i one or two were maybe different even while he was busy sustaining his conversation with senora gasparo a charming person to talk to a chatterbox slightly flirtatious his mind was roving in the same way that his eye also roved though the latter was not very noticeable as it drove around the dinner table he would not have said that he was summing up conclusions in his own mind he had been asked here why for any reason or for no reason in particular because his name had come up automatically on the list that the secretaries produced from time to time with checks against such members as we do for their turn or is the extra man or the extra woman required for the balancing of the table he had always been in request when an extra was needed oh yes a diplomatic hostess would say stafford and i will do beautifully you will put him next to madame so-and-so or lady somebody else he had been asked perhaps to fit in for no further reason than that and yet he wondered he knew by experience that there were certain other reasons and so his eye with its swift social amiability its hair of not looking really at anything in particular was busy amongst these guests there was someone perhaps who for some reason mattered was important someone who had been asked not to fill in on the contrary someone who had had a selection of other guests invited to fit in around him or her someone who mattered he wondered he wondered which of them it might be cortman knew of course millie jean perhaps one never really knew with wives some of them were better diplomats than their husbands some of them could be relied upon merely for their charm for their adaptability their readiness to please their lack of curiosity some again he thought ruefully to himself were as far as their husbands were concerned disasters hostesses who though they may have brought prestige or money to a diplomatic marriage were yet capable at any moment of saying or doing the wrong thing and creating an unfortunate situation if that was to be guarded against it would need one of the guests or two or even three of the guests to be what one might call professional smoothers over did this dinner party this evening mean anything but a social event his quick and noticing eye had by now been around the dinner table picking out one or two people whom so far he had not entirely taken in an american businessman pleasant not socially brilliant a professor from one of the universities of the middle west a married couple the husband german the wife predominantly almost aggressively american a very beautiful woman too sexually highly attractive so stafford thought was one of them important initials floated through his mind fbi cia the businessman perhaps the cia man therefore a purpose things were like that nowadays not as they used to be how had the formula gone big brother is watching you yes well it went further than that now transatlantic cousin is watching you i finance for middle europe is watching you a diplomatic difficulty has been asked here for you to watch him oh yes there was often a lot behind things nowadays but was that just another formula just another fashion could it really mean more than that something vital something real how did one talk of events in europe nowadays the common market well that was fair enough that dealt with trade with economics with the interrelationships of countries that was the stage to set but behind the stage backstage waiting for the queue ready to prompt if prompting when needed what was going on going on in the big world and behind the big world he wondered some things he knew some things he guessed at some things he thought himself i know nothing about and nobody wants me to know anything about them his eyes rested for a moment on his vis-a-vis a chin tilted upward a mouth just gently curved in a polite smile and their eyes met those eyes told him nothing the smile told him nothing what was she doing here she was in her element she fitted in she knew this world yes she was at home here he could find out he thought without much difficulty where she figured in the diplomatic world but would that tell him where she really had her place the young woman in the slacks who had spoken to him suddenly at frankfurt had had an eager intelligent face was that the real woman or was this casual social acquaintance the real woman was one of those personalities apart being played and if so which one and there might be more than just those two personalities he wondered he wanted to find out or had the fact that he had been asked to meet her been pure coincidence millie jean was rising to her feet the other ladies rose with her then suddenly an unexpected clamor arose a climber from outside the house shouts yells the crash of breaking glass in a window shouts sounds surely pistol shots senora gasparo spoke clutching stafford nye's arm what again she exclaimed dio again it is those terrible students it is the same in our country why do they attack embassies they fight resist the police go marching shouting idiotic things lie down in the streets see see we have them in rome in milan we have them like a pest everywhere in europe why are they never happy these young ones what do they want stafford nigh sipped his brandy and listened to the heavy accents of mr charles staggering who was being pontifical and taking his time about it the commotion had subsided it would seem that the police had marched off some of the hot heads it was one of those occurrences which once would have been thought extraordinary and even alarming but which were now taken as a matter of course a larger police force that's what we need a larger police force it's more than these chaps can deal with it's the same everywhere they say i was talking to hello it's the other day they have their troubles so of the french not quite so much of it in the scandinavian countries what do they all want just trouble i tell you if i had my way stafford and i removed his mind to another subject while keeping up a flattering pretence as charles stagnum explained just what his way would be which in any case was easily to be anticipated beforehand shouting about vietnam and all that what do any of them know about vietnam none of them have ever been there have they one would think it very unlikely said sir stafford and i man was telling me earlier this evening i've had a lot of trouble in california in the universities if we had a sensible policy presently the men joined the ladies in the drawing room staff at night moving with that leisurely grace that air of complete lack of purpose he found so useful sat down by a golden haired talkative woman whom he knew moderately well and who could be guaranteed seldom to say anything worth listening to as regards ideas or wit but who was excessively knowledgeable about all her fellow creatures within the bounds of her acquaintance stafford and i asked no direct questions but presently without the lady being even aware of the means by which he had guided the subject of conversation he was hearing a few remarks about the countess renato zakovsky still very good looking isn't she she doesn't come over here very often nowadays mostly new york you know or that wonderful island place you know that one i mean not binocular um one of the other ones in the mediterranean her sisters manage that soap king at least i think it's a soap king oh not the greek one he's swedish i think rolling in money and then of course she spends a lot of time in some castle place in the dolomites or near munich very musical she always has been she said you'd met before didn't she yes uh a year or two years ago i think hey yes i suppose when she was over in england before they say she was mixed up in the czechoslovakian business or do i mean the polish trouble oh dear it's so difficult isn't it all these names i mean huh they have so many z's and k's most peculiar and so hard to spell she's very literary you know gets our petitions for people to sign to give writers asylum here or whatever it is not that anyone really pays much attention i mean what else can one think of nowadays except how one can possibly pay one's own taxes the travel allowance makes things a little better but not much i mean you've got to get the money haven't you before you can take it abroad i don't know how anyone manages to have money now but there's a lot of it about oh yes there's a lot of it about she looked down in a complacent fashion at her left hand on which were two solitaire rings one a diamond and one in emerald which seemed to prove conclusively that a considerable amount of money had been spent upon her at least the evening drew to its clothes he knew very little more about his passenger from frankfurt than he had known before he knew that she had a facade a facade it seemed to him very highly faceted if you could use those two alliterative words together she was interested in music well he had met her at the festival hall had he not fond of outdoor sports rich relations who own mediterranean islands given to supporting literary charities somebody in fact who had good connections was well related had entries to the social field not apparently highly political and yet quietly perhaps affiliated to some group someone who moved about from place to place in country to country moving among the rich amongst the talented about the literary world he thought of espionage for a moment or two that seemed the most likely answer and yet he was not wholly satisfied with it the evening drew on it came at last to be his turn to be collected by his hostess billie jean was very good at her job i've been longing to talk to you for ages i wanted to hear about malaya i'm so stupid about all those places in asia you know i mix them up tell me what happened out there anything interesting or was everything terribly boring i'm sure you can guess the answer to that one well i should guess it was very boring but perhaps you're not allowed to say so oh yes i can think it and i can say it it wasn't really my cup of tea you know why did you go then oh well i'm always fond of traveling i like seeing countries you're such an intriguing person in many ways really of course all diplomatic life is very boring isn't it i ordered to say so i only say it to you very blue eyes blue like bluebells in a wood they opened a little wider and the black brows above them came down gently at the outside corners while the inside corners went up a little it made her face look like a rather beautiful persian cat he wondered what millie jean was really like her soft voice was that of a southerner the beautifully shaped little head her profile with the perfection of a coin what was she really like no fool he thought one who could use social weapons when needed who could charm when she wished to who could withdraw into being enigmatic if she wanted anything from anyone she would be a droid at getting it he noticed the intensity of the glance she was giving him now did she want something of him he didn't know he didn't think it could be likely she said have you met mr staggenham ah yes i was talking to him at the dinner table i hadn't met him before he is said to be very important said millie jean he's the president of pbf as you know one should know all these things said sir stafford and i pbf and dcv lyh and all the world of initials hateful said millie jean hateful all those initials no personalities no people anymore just initials what a hateful world that's what i sometimes think what a hateful world i wanted to be different quite quite different did she mean that he thought for one moment that perhaps she did interesting grosvenor square was quietness itself there were traces of broken glass still on the pavement there were even eggs squashed tomatoes and fragments of gleaming metal but above the stars were peaceful car after car drove up to the embassy door to collect the homegoing guests the police were there in the corners of the square but without ostentation everything was under control one of the political guests leaving spoke to one of the police officers he came back and murmured not too many arrests eight they'll be up at bow street in the morning more or less the usual lot petronella is here of course and stephen and his crowd oh well one would think they'd get tired of it one of these days you live not very far from here don't you said a voice since the stafford nice ear a deep contralto voice i can drop you on my way no no i can walk perfectly it's only 10 minutes or so it will be no trouble to me i assure you said the countess zakovsky she added i'm staying at the st james's tower this in james's tower was one of the newer hotels you're very kind it was a big expensive looking hire car that waited the chauffeur opened the door the countess renata got in and sir stafford and i followed her it was she who gave sir stafford nai's address to the chauffeur the car drove off so you know where i live he said why not he wondered just what that answer meant why not why not indeed he said you know so much don't you he added it was kind of you to return my passport i thought it might save certain inconveniences it might be simpler if you burned it you've been issued with a new one i presume you presume correctly your bandits cloak you will find in the bottom draw of your tall boy it was put there tonight i believe that perhaps to purchase another one would not satisfy you and indeed that to find one similar might not be possible it'll mean more to me now that it has been through certain adventures said stafford and i he added it has served its purpose the car purred through the night the countess zakovsky said yes it has served its purpose since i am here alive sir stafford nye said nothing he was assuming rightly or not that she wanted him to ask questions to press her to know more of what she had been doing of what fate she had escaped she wanted him to display curiosity but sir stafford nye was not going to display curiosity he rather enjoyed not doing so he heard her laugh very gently yet he fancied rather surprisingly that it was a pleased love a laugh of satisfaction not of stalemate did you enjoy your evening she said a good party i think but millie jean always gives good parties you know her wealth i knew her when she was a girl in new york before she married a pocket venus she looked at him in faint surprise is that your term for her actually no it was said to me by an elderly relative of mine yes it isn't the description that one here's given often of a woman nowadays it fits her i think very well only anywhere venus is seductive is she not is she also ambitious you think millie gene cortman is ambitious oh yes that above all and you think to be the wife of the ambassador tison james's is insufficient to satisfy ambition oh no said the countess that is only the beginning he did not answer he was looking out through the car window he began to speak then stopped himself he noted her quick glance at him but she too was silent it was not until they were going over the bridge with the thames below them that he said so you're not giving me a lift home and you're not going back to this and james's tower we're crossing the thames we met there once before crossing a bridge where are you taking me do you mind i think i do yes i can see you might well of course you are quite in the mode hijacking is the fashion nowadays isn't it you've hijacked me why because like once before i have need of you she added and others have need of you indeed and that does not please you it would please me better to be asked if i had asked would you have come perhaps yes perhaps no i am sorry i wonder they drove on through the night in silence it was not a drive-through lonely country they were on a main road now and then the lights picked up a name or a signpost so that stefan and i saw quite clearly where their route lay through surrey and through the first residential portions of sussex occasionally he thought they took a detour or a side road which was not the most direct route but even of this he could not be sure he almost asked his companion whether this was being done because they might possibly have been followed from london but he had determined rather firmly on his policy of silence it was for her to speak for her to give information he found her even with the additional information he had been able to get an enigmatic character they were driving to the country after a dinner party in london they were he was pretty sure in one of the more expensive types of hire car was something planned beforehand reasonable nothing doubtful or unexpected about it soon he imagined he would find out where it was they were going unless that is they were going to drive as far as the coast that also was possible he thought he saw on a signpost now they were skirting goblin all very plain and above board the rich countryside of monet suburbia agreeable woods handsome residences they took a few side turns and then as the car finally slowed they seemed to be arriving at their destination gates a small white lodge by the gates upper drive well-kept rhododendrons on either side of it they turned round a bend and drew up before a house stockbroker tudor murmured sir stafford nye under his breath his companion turned her head inquiringly oh just a comment said stafford and i pay no attention i take it we are now arriving at the destination of your choice and you don't admire the look of it very much well the ground seemed well kept said to stafford following the beam of the headlights as the car rounded the bend takes money to keep these places up and in good order i should say this was a comfortable house to live in comfortable but not beautiful the man who lives in it prefers comfort to beauty i should say perhaps wisely said sir stafford and yet in some ways he's very appreciative of beauty of some kinds of beauty they drew up before the well-lighted porch so stafford got out and tended an arm to help his companion the chauffeur had mounted the steps and pressed the bell he looked inquiringly at the woman as she ascended the steps but you won't be requiring me again tonight milady no that's all for now we'll telephone down in the morning a good night good night sir there were footsteps inside and the door was flung open so stafford had expected some kind of butler but instead there was a tall grenadier of a parliament grey-haired tight-lipped eminently reliable and competent he thought an invaluable asset and hard to find nowadays trustworthy capable of being fierce i am afraid we are a little late said renata the master is in the library he asked that you and the gentleman should come to him when you had arrived chapter nine the house near gothaming she led the way up the broad staircase and the two of them followed her yes thought stafford nigh a very comfortable house jacoby and paper a most unsightly carved oak staircase but pleasantly shallow treads pictures nicely chosen but of no particular artistic interest a rich man's house he thought a man not of bad taste a man of conventional tastes good thick pile carpet of an agreeable plum colored texture on the first floor the grenadier-like parlormaid went to the first door along it she opened it and stood back to let them go in but she made no announcement of names the countess went in first and sir stafford nye followed her he heard the door shut quietly behind him there were four people in the room sitting behind a large desk which was well covered with papers documents an open map or two and presumably other papers which were in the course of discussion was a large fat man with a very yellow face it was a face her staff at nigh had seen before though he could not for the moment attach the proper name to it it was a man whom he had met only in a casual fashion and yet the occasion had been an important one he should know yes definitely he should know but why why wouldn't the name come with a slight struggle the figure sitting across the desk rose to his feet he took the countess renata's outstretched hand you've arrived he said splendid yes let me introduce you though i think you already know him mr robinson of course in sastafati's brain something clicked like a camera that fitted in too with another name pike away to say that he knew all about mr robinson was not true he knew about mr robinson all that mr robinson permitted to be known his name as far as anyone knew was robinson though it might have been any name of foreign origin no one had ever suggested anything of that kind recognition came also of his personal appearance the high forehead the melancholy dark eyes the large generous mouth and the impressive white teeth false teeth presumably but at any rate teeth of which it might have been said like in red riding hood the better to eat you with child he knew too what mr robinson stood for just one simple word described it mr robinson represented money with a capital m money in its every aspect international money worldwide money private home finances banking money not in the way the average person looked at it you never thought of him as a very rich man undoubtedly he was a very rich man but that wasn't the important thing he was one of the arrangers of money the great clan of bankers his personal tastes might even have been simple but sir stafford and i doubted if they were a reasonable standard of comfort even luxury would be mr robinson's way of life but not more than that so behind all this mysterious business there was the power of money i heard of you just a day or two ago said mr robinson as he shook hands from our friend pike away you know that fitted in thought stafford nigh because now he remembered that on the solitary occasion before that he had met mr robinson colonel pikeaway had been present horsham he remembered had spoken of mr robinson so now there was marianne or the countess sirkovsky and colonel pike away sitting in his own smoke-filled room with his eyes half closed either going to sleep or just waking up and there was mr robinson with his large yellow face and so there was money at stake somewhere and his glance shifted to the three other people in the room because he wanted to see if he knew who they were and what they represented or if he could guess in two cases at least he didn't need to guess the man who sat in the tall porter's chair by the fireplace an elderly figure framed by the chair as a picture frame might have framed him was a face that had been well known all over england indeed it still was well known although it was very seldom seen nowadays a sick man an invalid a man who made very brief appearances and then it was said at physical cost to himself in pain and difficulty lord altamonte a thin emaciated face outstanding nose gray hair which receded just a little from the forehead and then flowed back in a thick grey mane somewhat prominent ears that cartoonists had used in their time and a deep piercing glance that not so much observed as probed probed deeply into what it was looking at at the moment it was looking at sir stafford nye he stretched out a hand as stafford and i went towards him i don't get up said lord altamant his voice was faint an old man's voice a far away voice my back doesn't allow me you just come back from malaya haven't yours have at night yes was it worth your going uh i expect you think it wasn't you're probably right too still we have to have these excrescences in life these ornamental trimmings to adorn the better kind of diplomatic lies i'm glad you could come here or were brought here tonight mary ann's doing i suppose so that's what he calls her and thinks of her as thought staff at night himself it is what horsham had called her she was in with them then without a doubt as for alderman he stood for what did he stand for nowadays stafford and i thought himself he stands for england he still stands for england until he's buried in westminster abbey or a country mausoleum whatever he chooses he has been england and he knows england and i should say he knows the value of every politician and government official in england pretty well even if he's never spoken to them lord altman said this is our colleague sir james clique stefan and i didn't know clique he didn't think he'd even heard of him a restless fidgety type sharp suspicious glances that never rested anywhere for long he had the contained eagerness of a sporting dog awaiting the word of command ready to start off at a glance from his master's eye but who was his master altamonte or robinson stafford's eye went round to the fourth man he had risen to his feet from the chair where he'd been sitting close to the door bushy moustache raised eyebrows watchful withdrawn managing in some way to remain familiar yet almost unrecognizable so it's you said sir stafford and i how are you horsham very pleased to see you here sir stafford quite a representative gathering stafford and i thought with a swift glance round they had set a chair for renata not far from the fire and lord altamant she had stretched out a hand her left hand he noticed and he had taken it between his two hands holding it for a minute then dropping it he said you took risks child you take too many risks looking at him she said it was you who taught me that and it's the only way of life lord alterman turned his head towards the stafford knight it wasn't i who taught you to choose your man you've got a natural genius for that looking at staffordnai he said i know your great-aunt or your great-great-aunt is she great aunt matilda said stafford and i immediately yes that's the one one of the victorian tour de force of the 90s she must be nearly 90 herself now he went on i don't see her very often once or twice a year perhaps but it strikes me every time that sheer vitality of hers that outlives her bodily strength they have the secret of that those indomitable victorians and some of the edwardians as well so james clique said let me get you a drink now what will you have a gin and tonic if i may the countess refused with a small shake of the head james clique brought nigh his drink and set it on the table near mr robinson stafford nye was not going to speak first the dark eyes behind the desk lost their melancholy for a moment they had quite suddenly a twinkle in them any questions he said too many said sir stafford and i wouldn't it be better to have explanations first questions later is that what you'd like it might simplify matters well we start with a few plain statements of facts you may or you may not have been asked to come here if not that fact may rankle slightly he prefers to be asked always said the contest he said as much to me naturally said mr robinson i was hijacked said stafford nye a very fashionable i know one of our more modern methods he kept his tone one of light amusement which invites surely a question from you said mr robinson just one small word of three letters why quite so why i admire your economy of speech this is a private committee a committee of inquiry an inquiry of worldwide significance sounds interesting said sir stafford and i it is more than interesting it is poignant and immediate four different ways of life are represented in this room tonight said altmont we represent different branches i have retired from active participation in the affairs of this country but i am still a consulting authority i have been consulted and asked to preside over this particular inquiry as to what is going on in the world in this particular year of our lord because something is going on james here has his own special task he is my right hand man he is also our spokesman explain the general set out if you will jamie to say stafford here it seemed to staff an eye that the gun dog quivered at last at last i can speak and get on with it he leaned forward a little in his chair if things happen in the world you have to look for a cause for them the outward signs are always easy to see but they're not also the chairman he bowed to lord artamont and mr robinson and mr horsham believe important it's always been the same way you take a natural force a great fall of water that will give you turbine power you take the discovery of uranium from pitch blend and that will give you in due course nuclear power that had not been dreamt of or known when you found coal and minerals they gave you transport power energy there are forces at work always that give you certain things but behind each of them there is someone who controls it you've got to find who's controlling the powers that are slowly gaining ascendancy in practically every country in europe further afield still in parts of asia less possibly in africa but again in the american continents both north and south you've got to get behind the things that are happening and find out the motive force that's making them happen one thing that makes them happen is money he nodded towards mr robinson mr robinson here knows as much about money as anybody in the world i suppose it's quite simple said mr robinson there are big movements afoot there has to be money behind them we've got to find out where that money's coming from who's operating with it where do they get it from where are they sending it to why it's quite true what james says i know a lot about money as much as any man alive knows today then there are what you might call trends it's a word we use a good deal nowadays trends or tendencies there are innumerable words one uses they mean not quite the same thing but they're in relationship with each other a tendency shall we say to rebellion shows up look back through history you'll find it coming again and again repeating itself like a periodic table repeating a pattern a desire for rebellion the means of rebellion the form the rebellion takes it's not a thing particular to any particular country if it arises in one country it will arise in other countries in less or more degrees that's what you mean sir isn't it a half turn towards lord altamont that's the way you more or less put it to me yes you're expressing things very well james it's a pattern a pattern that arises and seems inevitable you can recognize it where you find it there was a period when a yearning towards crusades swept countries all over europe people embarked in ships they went off to deliver the holy land all quite clear a perfectly good pattern of determined behavior but why did they go that's the interest of history you know seeing why these desires and patterns arise it's not always a materialistic answer either all sorts of things can cause rebellion a desire for freedom freedom of speech freedom of religious worship again a series of closely related patterns it led people to embrace emigration to other countries to formation of new religions very often as full of tyranny as the forms of religion they had left behind but in all this if you look hard enough if you make enough investigations you can see what started the onset of these and many other i'll use the same word patterns in some ways it's like a virus disease the virus can be carried around the world across seas up mountains it can go and infect it goes apparently without being set in motion but one can't be sure even now that that was always really true there could have been causes causes that made things happen one can go a few steps further there are people one person 10 persons a few hundred persons who are capable of being and setting in motion a cause so it is not the end process that one has to look at it's the first people who set the cause in motion you have your crusaders you have your religious enthusiasts you have your desires for liberty you have all the other patterns but you've got to go further back still further back to a hinterland visions dreams the prophet joel knew it when he wrote your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and of those two which are the more powerful dreams are not destructive but visions can open new worlds to you and visions can also destroy the world that already exist james cleek turned suddenly towards lord altamonte i don't know if it connects up sir he said but you told me a story once of somebody in the embassy at berlin a woman oh that yes i found it interesting at the time yes it has a bearing on what we're talking about now one of the embassy wives clever intelligent woman well educated she was very anxious to go personally and hear the fuhrer speak i'm talking of course of a time immediately preceding the 1939 war she was curious to know what oratory could do why was everyone so impressed and so she went she came back and said it's extraordinary i wouldn't have believed it of course i don't understand german very well but i was carried away too and i see now why everyone is i mean his ideas were wonderful they inflamed you are the things he said i mean you just felt there was no other way of thinking that a whole new world would happen if only one followed him though i i can't explain properly i'm going to write down as much as i can remember and then if i bring it to you to see you'll see better than my just trying to tell you the effect it had i told her that it was a very good idea she came to me the next day and she said i don't know if you'll believe this i started to write down the things i'd heard the things hitler had said what they'd meant but it was frightening there wasn't anything to write down at all i didn't seem to be able to remember a single stimulating or exciting sentence i have some of the words but it doesn't seem to mean the same thing as when i wrote them down they're just oh they're just meaningless i don't understand that shows you one of the great dangers one doesn't always remember but it exists there are people capable of communicating to others a wild enthusiasm a kind of vision of life and of happening they can do that though it is not really by what they say it is not the words you hear it is not even the idea described it is something else it is the magnetic power that a very few men have of starting something of producing and creating a vision by their personal magnetism perhaps a tone of voice perhaps some emanation that comes forth straight from the flesh i don't know but it exists such people have power the great religious teachers had this power and so has an evil spirit power also belief can be created in a certain movement in certain things to be done things that will result in a new heaven and a new earth and people will believe it and work for it and fight for it and even die for it he lowered his voice as he said jan smutz puts it in a phrase he said leadership besides being a great creative force can be diabolical stafford and i moved in his chair i understand what you mean it is interesting what you say i can see perhaps that it might be true but you think it's exaggerated of course i don't know that i do said stafford and i things that sound exaggerated are very often not exaggerated at all there are only things you haven't heard said before or thought about before and therefore they come to you as so unfamiliar that you can hardly do anything about them except accept them by the way may i ask a simple question what does one do about them if you come across the suspicion that this sort of thing is going on you must find out about them said lord ultimate you've got to go like kipling's mongoose go and find out find out where the money comes from and where the ideas are coming from and where if i may say so the machinery comes from who is directing the machinery there's a chief of staff you know as well as a commander-in-chief that's what we're trying to do we'd like you to come and help us it was one of the rare occasions in his life when sir stafford nye was taken aback whatever he may have felt on some formal occasions he had always managed to conceal the fact but this time it was different he looked from one to the other of the men in the room at mr robinson in passive yellow yellow-faced with his mouth full of teeth displayed to sir james clique a somewhat brash talker says david and i had considered him but nevertheless he had obviously his uses master's dog he called him in his own mind he looked at lord alderman the hood of the porter's chair framed around his head the lighting was not strong in the room it gave him the look of a saint in a niche in a cathedral somewhere acetic 14th century a great man yes altamonte had been one of the great men of the past stafford and i had no doubt of that but he was now a very old man hence he supposed the necessity for sir james clique and lord aldeman's reliance on him he looked past them to the enigmatic cool creature who had brought him here the countess renato zakovsky alias marianne alias daphne theodorus face told him nothing she was not even looking at him his eyes came round at last to mr henry horsham of security with faint surprise he observed that henry horsham was grinning at him but look here said stafford and i dropping all formal language and speaking rather like the schoolboy of 18 he had once been where on earth do i come in what do i know quite frankly i'm not distinguished in any way in my own profession you know they don't think very much of me at the ever never have oh we know that said lord alterman it was sir james cleek's turn to grin and he did so all the better perhaps he remarked and added apologetically as lord alterman frowned at him sorry sir this is a committee of investigation said mr robinson it is not a question of what you have done in the past of what other people's opinion of you may be what we are doing is to recruit a committee to investigate there are not very many of us at the moment forming this committee we ask you to join us because we think that you have certain qualities which may help in an investigation stafford and i turned his head towards the security man what about it horsham he said i can't believe you'd agree with that why not said henry orsham indeed what are my qualities as you call them i can't quite frankly believe in them myself you're not a hero worshipper said horsham that's why you're the kind who sees through humbug you don't take anyone at their own or the world's evaluation you take them at your own valuation the words floated through stafford ny's mind a curious reason for which to be chosen for a difficult and exacting job i've got to warn you he said that my principal fault and one that's been frequently noticed about me and which has cost me several good jobs is i think fairly well known i'm not i should say a sufficiently serious sort of chat for an important job like this believe it or not said mr horsham that's one of the reasons why they want you i'm right my lord aren't i he looked towards lord altamonte public service said lord altamonte let me tell you that very often one of the most serious disadvantages in public life is when people in a public position take themselves too seriously we feel that you won't anyway he said marianne thinks so sir stafford and i turned his head so here she was no longer a countess she had become mary ann again you don't mind my asking he said but who are you really i mean are you a real countess absolutely gaboren as the germans say my father was a man of pedigree a good sportsman a splendid shot and had a very romantic but somewhat dilapidated castle in bavaria it's still there the castle as far as that goes i have connections with that large portion of the european world which is still heavily snobbish as far as birth is concerned a poor and shabby countess sits down first at the table whilst the rich american with a fabulous fortune in dollars in the bank is kept waiting what about daphne theodores where did she come in a useful name for a passport my mother was greek and marianne it was almost the first smile stafford and i had seen on her face her eyes went to lord altamonte and from him to mr robinson perhaps she said because i am a kind of maid of all work going places looking for things taking things from one country to another sweeping under the map do anything go anywhere clear up the mess she looked towards lord altamonte again am i right uncle ned quite right my dear mary ann you are and always will be to us were you taking something on that plane i mean taking something important from one country to another yes it was known i was carrying it if you hadn't come to my rescue if you hadn't drunk possibly poisoned beer and handed over your bandit cloak of bright colours as a disguise well accidents happen sometimes i shouldn't have got here what were you carrying or mustn't i ask are there things i shall never know there are a lot of things you will never know there are a lot of things you won't be allowed to ask i think that question of yours i shall answer a bear answer of fact if i'm allowed to do so again she looked at lord altamont i trust your judgment said lord altamant go ahead give him the dope said the irreverent james clique mr horsham said i suppose you've got to know i wouldn't tell you but then i'm security go ahead marianne one sentence i was bringing in a birth certificate that's all i don't tell you any more and it won't be any use you're asking any more questions stafford and i looked round the assembly all right i'll join i'm flattered that you're asking me where do we go from here you and i said renata leave here tomorrow we go to the continent you may have read or know that there is a musical festival taking place in bavaria it is something quite new which has only come into being in the last two years it has a rather formidable german name meaning the company of youthful singers and is supported by the governments of several different countries it is in opposition to the traditional festivals and productions of beirut much of the music given is modern new young composers are given the chance of their compositions being heard whilst thought of highly by some it is utterly repudiated and held in contempt by others yes said sir stafford i've read about it are we going to attend it we have seats booked for two of the performances has this festival any special significance in our investigation no said renata it is more in the nature of what you might call an exit and entry convenience we go there for an ostensible and true reason and we leave it for our next step in due course he looked round instructions do i get any marching orders uh am i to be briefed not in your meaning of those terms you are going on a voyage of exploration you will learn things as you go along you will go as yourself knowing only what you know at present you go as a lover of music as a slightly disappointed diplomat who has perhaps hoped for some post in his own country which he has not been given otherwise you will know nothing it is safer so but that is the sum of activities at present germany bavaria austria the tyrol that part of the world it is one of the centers of interest it is not the only one indeed not even the principal one there are other spots on the globe all of varying importance and interest how much importance each one holds is what we have to find out and i don't know or i'm not to be told anything about these other centers only in cursory fashion one of them we think the most important one has its headquarters in south america there are two with headquarters in the united states of america one in california the other in baltimore there is one in sweden there is one in italy things have become very active in the latter in the past six months portugal and spain also have smaller centers paris of course there are further interesting spots just coming into production as you might say as yet not fully developed you mean malaya or vietnam no no all that lies rather in the past it was a good rallying cry for violence and student indignation and for many other things what is being promoted you must understand is the growing organization of youth everywhere against their mode of government against their parental customs against very often the religions in which they have been brought up there is the insidious cult of permissiveness there is the increasing cult of violence violence not as a means of gaining money but violence for the love of violence that particularly is stressed and the reasons for it are to the people concerned one of the most important things and of the utmost significance permissiveness is that important it is a way of life no more it lends itself to certain abuses but not unduly what about drugs the cult of drugs has been deliberately advanced and fermented vast sums of money have been made that way but it is not or so we think entirely activated for the money motive all of them looked at mr robinson who slowly shook his head no he said it looks that way there are people who are being apprehended and brought to justice pushers of drugs will be followed up but there is more than just the drug racket behind all this the drug record is a means and an evil means of making money but there is more to it than that but who stafford and i stopped who and what and why and where the four w's that is your mission sir stafford said mr robinson that's what you've got to find out you and marianne it won't be easy and one of the hardest things in the world remember is to keep one's secrets stafford and i looked with interest at the fat yellow face of mr robinson perhaps the secret of mr robinson's domination in the financial world was just that his secret was that he kept his secret mr robinson's mouth showed its smile again the large teeth gleamed if you know a thing he said it is always a great temptation to show that you know it to talk about it in other words it is not that you want to give information it is not that you have been offered payment to give information it is that you want to show how important you are yes it's just as simple as that in fact said mr robinson and he half closed his eyes everything in this world is so very very simple that's what people don't understand the countess got to her feet and stafford knife followed her example i hope you will sleep well and be comfortable said mr robinson this house is i think moderately comfortable stafford and i murmured that he was quite sure of that and on that point he was shortly to be proved to have been quite right he laid his head on the pillow and went to sleep immediately book two journey to siegfried chapter 10 the woman in the schloss they came out of the festival youth theater to the refreshing night air below them in a sweep of the ground was a lighted restaurant on the side of the hill was another smaller one the restaurants varied slightly in price though neither of them was inexpensive renato was an evening dress of black velvet so stafford nye was in white tie and full evening dress a very distinguished audience muhammad stuff at night to his companion plenty of money there a young audience on the whole you wouldn't think they could afford it oh that can be seen too it is seen to a subsidy for the elite of youth that kind of thing yes they walk towards the restaurant on the high side of the hill they give you an hour for the meal is that right technically an hour actually an hour in the quarter that audience said sir stafford and i most of them nearly all of them i should say are real lovers of music most of them yes it is important you know know what you mean important that the enthusiasm should be genuine at both ends of the scale she added what do you mean exactly by that those who practice and organize violence must love violence must want it must yearn for it the seal of ecstasy in every movement of slashing hurting destroying and the same thing with the music the ears must appreciate every moment of the harmonies and beauties there can be no pretending in this game can you double the roles do you mean you can combine violence and a love of music or a love of art it is not always easy i think but yes there are many who can it is safer really if they do not have to combine roles it's better to keep it simple as our fat friend mr robinson would say let the lovers of music love music let the violin practitioners love violence is that what you mean i think so i'm enjoying this very much the two days that we have stayed here the two nights of music that we have enjoyed i have not enjoyed all the music because i am not perhaps sufficiently modern in my taste i find the clothes very interesting are you talking of the stage production no no i was talking of the audience really you and i the squares the old-fashioned you countess in your society gown i in my white tie and tails not a comfortable get-up it never has been and then the others the silks and the velvets the ruffled shirts of the men real lace i noticed several times and the plush and the hair and the luxury of avant-garde the luxury of the eighteen hundreds or you might almost say the elizabethan age or van dyke pictures yes you are right i know nearer though to what it all means i haven't learned anything i haven't found out anything you mustn't be impatient this is a rich show supported asked for demanded perhaps by youth and provided by by whom we don't know yet we shall know i'm so glad you're sure of it they went into the restaurant sat down the food was good though not in any way ornate or luxurious once or twice they were spoken to by an acquaintance or a friend two people who recognized sir stafford nye expressed pleasure and surprise at seeing him renata had a bigger circle of acquaintances since she knew more foreigners well-dressed women a man or two mostly german or austrian stafford and i thought one or two americans just a few deserty words where people have come from what we're going to criticism or appreciation of the musical fair nobody wasted much time since the interval for eating had not been very long they returned to their seats for the two final musical offerings a symphonic poem disintegration in joy by a new young composer salukenov and then the solemn grandeur of the march of the meistersingers they came out again into the night the car which was at their disposal every day was waiting there to take them back to the small but exclusive hotel in the village street stafford nye said good night to renato she spoke to him in a lowered voice 4 am she said be ready she went straight into her room and shut the door and he went into his the faint scrape of fingers on his door came precisely at three minutes to four the next morning he opened the door and stood ready the car is waiting she said come they lunched at a small mountain inn the weather was good the mountains beautiful occasionally stafford and i wondered what on earth he was doing here he understood less and less of his travelling companion she spoke little he found himself watching her profile where was she taking him what was her real reason at last as the sun was almost setting he said where are we going can i ask you can ask yes but you do not reply i could reply i could tell you things but would they mean anything it seems to me that if you come to where we are going without my preparing you with explanations which cannot in the nature of things mean anything your first impressions will have more force and significance he looked at her again thoughtfully she was wearing a tweed coat trimmed with fur smart traveling clothes foreign in make and cut mary anne he said thoughtfully there was a faint question in it no she said not at the moment ah you are still the countess zirkovsky at the moment i am still the countess zakovsky are you in your own part of the world more or less i grew up as a child in this part of the world for a good portion of each year we used to come here in the autumn to a schloss not very many miles from here he smiled and said thoughtfully what a nice word it is a schloss so solid sounding schlosser are not standing very solidly nowadays they are mostly disintegrated this is hitler's country isn't it we're not far away from berchtesgaden it lies over there to the northeast did your relations your friends did they accept hitler believe in him perhaps i ought not to ask things like that they disliked him and all he stood for but they said hitler the acquiesced in what had happened to their country what else could they do what else could anybody do at that date we're going towards the dolomites are we not does it matter where we are or which way we are going well this is a voyage of exploration is it not yes but the exploration is not geographical we are going to see a personality you make me feel stafford and i looked up at the landscape of swelling mountains reaching up to the sky as they were we were going to visit the famous old man of the mountain the master of the assassins you mean who kept his followers under drugs so that they died for him wholeheartedly so that they killed knowing that they themselves would also be killed by believing too that that would transfer them immediately to the muslim paradise beautiful women hashish and erotic dreams perfect and unending happiness she paused a minute and then said spellbinders i suppose they have always been there throughout the ages people who make you believe in them so that you are ready to die for them not only assassins the christians died also the holy martyrs lord alderman why do you say lord ultimate i saw him that way suddenly that evening carved in stone in a 13th century cathedral perhaps one of us may have to die perhaps more she stopped what he was about to say there is another thing i think of sometimes a verse in the new testament luke i think christ at the last supper saying to his followers you are my companions and my friends yet one of you is a devil so in all probability one of us is a devil you think it possible almost certain someone we trust and know but who goes to sleep at night not dreaming of martyrdom but of 30 pieces of silver and who wakes with the feeling of them in the palm of his hand the love of money ambition covers it better how does one recognize a devil how would one know a devil would stand out in a crowd would be exciting would advertise himself with exercise leadership she was silent a moment and then said in a thoughtful voice i had a friend once in the diplomatic service who told me how she had said to a german woman how moved she herself had been at the performance of the passion play at obaramaga but the german woman said skonkfully you do not understand we germans have no need of a jesus christ we have our adult hitler here with us he is greater than any jesus that ever lived she was quite a nice ordinary woman but that is how she felt masses of people felt it hitler was a spellbinder he spoke and they listened and accepted the sadism the gas chambers the tortures of the gestapo she shrugged her shoulders and then said in her normal voice all the same it's odd that you should have said what you did just now what was that about the old men of the mountain the head of the assassins are you telling me there is an old man of the mountain here no not an old man of the mountain but there might be an old woman of the mountain an old woman of the mountain what's she like you'll see her this evening what are we doing this evening going into society said renato it seems a long time since you've been marianne you'll have to wait till we are doing some air travel again i suppose it's very bad for one's morale stafford nice said thoughtfully living high up in the world are you talking socially no geographically if you live in a castle on a mountain peak overlooking the world below you well it makes you despise the ordinary folk doesn't it you're the top one you're the grand one that's what hitler felt in berchtesgaden that's what many people feel perhaps who climb mountains and look down on their fellow creatures in valleys below you must be careful tonight renata warned him it's going to be ticklish any instructions you're a disgruntled man you're the one that's against the establishment against the conventional world you are a rebel but a secret rebel can you do it well i can try the scenery had grown wilder the big car twisted and turned up the roads passing through mountain villages sometimes looking down on a bewilderingly distant view where lights shone on a river where the steeples of churches showed in the distance where are we going marianne to an eagle's nest the road took a final turn it wound through a forest stafford and i thought he caught glimpses now and again of deer or of animals of some kind occasionally too there were leather-jacketed men with guns keepers he thought and then they came finally to a view of an enormous schloss standing on a crag some of it he thought was partially ruined though most of it had been restored and rebuilt it was both massive and magnificent but there was nothing new about it or in the message it held it was representative of past power power held through bygone ages this was originally the grand duchy of lichtenstein's the schloss was built by the grand duke ludwig in 1790 said renata who lives there now the present grand duke no they are all gone and done with swept away and who lives here now then someone who has present-day power said renata money yes very much so shall we meet mr robinson flown on ahead by air to greet us the last person you'll meet here will be mr robinson i can assure you a pity said stafford and i i like mr robinson he's quite something isn't he who is he really what nationality is he i don't think anybody has ever known everyone tells one something different some people say he is a turk some that he's an armenian some that he's dutch some that he's just plain english some say that his mother was a circassian slave a russian grand duchess an indian begum and so on nobody knows one person told me that his mother was a miss mcclellan from scotland i think that's as likely as anything they had drawn up in either large portico two men servants in livery came down the steps their bowels were ostentatious as they welcomed the guests the luggage was removed they had a good deal of luggage with them stafford nye had wondered to begin with why he had been told to bring so much but he was beginning to understand now that from time to time there was need for it there would he thought we need for it this evening a few questioning remarks and his companion told him that this was so they met before dinner summoned by the sound of a great resounding gong as he paused in the hall he waited for her to join him coming down the stairs she was in full elaborate evening dress tonight wearing a dark red velvet gown rubies round her neck and a ruby tiara on her head a manservant stepped forward and conducted them flinging open the door he announced the griffin zerkovsky sir stafford nigh here we come and i hope we look the part said sir stafford nigh to himself he looked down in a satisfied manner at the sapphire and diamond studs in the front of his shirt a moment later he had drawn his breath in an astonished gasp whatever he had expected to see it had not been this it was an enormous room rococo in style chairs and sofas and hangings of the finest brocades and velvets on the walls there were pictures that he could not recognize all at once but where he noted almost immediately or he was fond of pictures what was certainly a suzanne a matisse possibly a renoir pictures of inestimable value sitting on a vast chair thrown like in its suggestion was an enormous woman a whale of a woman stafford and i thought there was really no other word to describe her a great big cheesy looking woman wallowing in fat double treble almost quadruple chins she wore a dress of stiff orange satin on her head was an elaborate crown-like tiara of precious stones her hands which rested on the brickated arms of her seat were also enormous great big fat hands with great big fat shapeless fingers on each finger he noticed was a solitaire ring and in each ring he thought was a genuine solitaire stone a ruby an emerald a sapphire a diamond a pale green stone which he did not know a chris apres perhaps a yellow stone which if not a topaz was a yellow diamond she was horrible you thought she wallowed in her fat a great white creased slobbering mass of fat was her face and set in it rather like currents in a vast current bun were two small black eyes very shrewd eyes looking on the world are praising it appraising him not appraising renata he thought renato she knew renata was here by command by appointment however you liked to put it renata had been told to bring him here he wondered why he couldn't really think why but he was quite sure of it it was at him she was looking she was appraising him summing him up was he what she wanted was he yes he'd rather put it this way was he what the customer had ordered i'll have to make quite sure that i don't know what it is she does want he thought i'll have to do my best otherwise otherwise he could quite imagine that she might raise a fat ringed hand and say to one of the tall muscular footmen take him and throw him over the battlements it's ridiculous thought stafford and i such things can't happen nowadays where am i what kind of a parade a masquerade or a theatrical performance am i taking part in you have come very punctual to time child it was a hoarse asthmatic voice which at once had an undertone he thought of strength possibly even of beauty that was over now renata came forward made a slight curtsy she picked up the fat hand and dropped a courtesy kiss upon it let me present to you sir stafford nigh the griffin charlotte von the fat hand was extended towards him he bent over it in the foreign style then she said something that surprised him i know your great aunt she said he looked astounded and he saw immediately that she was amused by that but he saw too that she had expected him to be surprised by it she laughed a rather queer grating laugh not attractive shall we say i used to know her it is many many years since i have seen her we were in switzerland together at lausanne as girls matilda lady matilda balden white what a wonderful piece of news to take home with me said stafford nye as she is older than i am she is in good health for her age in very good health she lives in the country quietly she has arthritis rheumatism ah yes all the ills of old age she should have injections of procaine that is what the doctors do here in this altitude it is very satisfactory does she know that you are visiting me i imagine that she has not the least idea of it said sir stafford nye she knew only that i was going to this festival of modern music which you enjoyed i hope oh enormously it is a fine festival opera hall is it not one of the finest it makes the old beruth festival hall look like a comprehensive school and do you know what it cost to build that opera house she mentioned a sum in millions of marks it quite took stafford ny's brother way but he was under no necessity to conceal that she was pleased with the effect it made upon him with mommy she said if one knows if one has the ability if one has the discrimination what is there that money cannot do it can give one of the best she said the last two words with a rich enjoyment a kind of smacking of the lips which he found both unpleasant and at the same time slightly sinister i see that here he said as he looked around the walls you are fond of art yes i see you are there on the east wall is the finest cezanne in the world today some say that the uh i forgot the name of it at the moment the one in the metropolitan in new york is fine that is not true the best mates the best cezanne the best of all that great school of art are here here in my mountain erie it is wonderful said sir stafford quite wonderful drinks were being handed round the old woman of the mountain so stafford and i noticed did not drink anything it was possible he thought that she feared to take any risks over her blood pressure with that vast weight and where did you meet this child asked the mountainous dragon was it a trap he did not know but he made his decision at the american embassy in london ah yes so i heard and how is uh uh i forget her name now ah yes miley jean a southern heiress attractive did you think a most charming she has a great success in london and poor dal sam cortman the united states ambassador a very sound man i'm sure said stafford knife politely she chuckled you're tactful are you not ah well he does well enough he does what he is told as a good politician should and it is enjoyable to be ambassador in london she could do that for him millie jean ah she could get him an embassy anywhere in the world with that well-stuffed purse of hers her father owns half the oil in texas he owns land goldfields everything of course singularly ugly man but what does she look like a gentle little aristocrat not blatant not rich that is very clever of her is it not sometimes it presents no difficulties said sir stafford and i and you you are not rich i wish i was the foreign office nowadays it is not shall we say very rewarding oh well i would not put it like that after all one goes places one meets amusing people one sees the world one sees something of what goes on something yes but not everything that would be very difficult have you ever wished to see what uh how shall i put it what goes on behind the scenes in life one has an idea sometimes he made his voice noncommittal i have heard it said that that is true of you that you have sometimes ideas about things not perhaps the conventional ideas there have been times when i've been made to feel the bad boy of the family said stafford and i and laughed old charlotte chuckled you don't mind admitting things now and again do you why pretend people always know what you're concealing she looked at him what do you want out of life young man he shrugged his shoulders here again he had to play things by ear nothing he said come now come now am i to believe that yes you can believe it i'm not ambitious do i look ambitious no i will admit that i ask only to be amused to live comfortably to eat to drink in moderation to have friends who amuse me the old woman leant forward her eyes snapped open and shut three or four times then she spoke in a rather different voice it was like a whistling note can you hate are you capable of hating to hate is a waste of time i see i see there are no lines of discontent in your face that is true enough all the same i think you are ready to take a certain path which will lead you to a certain place and you will go along it smiling as though you did not care but all the same in the end if you find the right advices the right helpers you might attain what you want if you are capable of wanting as to that said stafford and i who isn't he shook his head at her very gently you see too much he said much too much footman threw open a door dinner is served the proceedings were properly formal they had indeed almost a royal tinge about them the big doors at the far end of the room were flung open showing through to a brightly lighted ceremonial dining room with a painted ceiling and three enormous chandeliers two middle-aged women approached the grave in one on either side they wore evening dress their gray hair was carefully piled on their heads each wore a diamond broach to the stafford nigh all the same they brought a faint flavor of war dresses they were he thought not so much security guards as perhaps high-class nursing attendants in charge of the health the toilet and other intimate details of the grief in charlotte's existence after respectful boughs each of them slipped an arm below the shoulder and elbow of the sitting woman with the ease of long practice aided by the effort which was obviously as much as she could make they raised her to her feet in a dignified fashion we will go into dinner now said charlotte with her two female attendants she led the way on her feet she looked even more a mass of wobbling jelly yet she was still formidable you could not dispose of her in your mind as just a fat old woman she was somebody knew she was somebody intended to be somebody behind the three of them he and renata followed as they entered through the portals of the dining room he felt it was almost more a banquet hall than a dining room there was a bodyguard here tall fair-haired handsome young man they wore some kind of uniform as charlotte entered there was a clash as one and all drew their swords they crossed them overhead to make a passageway and charlotte steadying herself passed along that passageway released by her attendance and making her progress solo to a vast carved chair with gold fittings and a postered in golden brocade at the head of the long table it was rather like a wedding procession stafford and i thought a naval or military one in this case surely military strictly military but lacking a bridegroom they were all young men of super physique none of them he thought was older than thirty they had good looks their health was evident they did not smile they were entirely serious they were he thought of the word for it yes dedicated perhaps not so much a military possession as a religious one the servant has appeared old-fashioned servators belonging he thought to the schloss's past to a time before the 1939 war it was like a super production of a period historic play and queening over it sitting in the chair or the throne whatever you like to call it at the head of the table was not a queen or an empress but an old woman noticeable mainly for her avuardi poi weight and her extraordinary and intense ugliness who was she what was she doing here why why all this masquerade why this bodyguard a security bodyguard perhaps other diners came to the table they bowed to the monstrosity on the presiding throne and took their places they wore ordinary evening dress no introductions were made stafford nigh after long years of sizing up people assessed them different types a great many different types lawyers he was certain several lawyers possibly accountants or financiers one or two army officers in plain clothes they were of the household he thought but they were also in the old-fashioned feudal sense of the term those who sat below the salt food came a vast boar's head pickled in aspect venison a cool refreshing lemon sorbet a magnificent edifice of pastry a super meal furry that seemed of unbelievable confectionary richness the vast woman ate ate greedily hungrily enjoying her food from outside came a new sound the sound of the powerful engine of a super sports car it passed the windows in a white flash there came a cry inside the room from the bodyguard a great cry of heil heil france the bodyguard of young men moved with the ease of a military maneuver known by heart everyone had risen to their feet only the old woman sat without moving her head lifted high on her dares and so stafford and i thought a new excitement now permeated the room the other guests or the other members of the household whatever they were disappeared in a way that somehow reminded stafford of lizards disappearing into the cracks of a wall the golden-haired boys formed a new figure their swords flew out they saluted their patroness she bowed her head in acknowledgement their swords were sheathed and they turned permission given to march out through the door of the room her eyes followed them then went first to renata and then to stafford nye what do you think of them she said my boys my youth corps my children yes my children have you a word that can describe them i think so said stafford nye magnificent he spoke to her as to royalty magnificent mom ah she bowed her head she smiled the wrinkles multiplying all over her face it made her look exactly like a crocodile a terrible woman he thought a terrible woman impossible dramatic was any of this happening he couldn't believe it was what could this be but yet another festival hall in which a production was being given the doors clashed open again the yellow-haired band of the young supermen marched as before through it this time they did not wield swords instead they sang sang with unusual beauty of tone and voice after a good many years of pop music stafford and i felt an incredulous pleasure trained voices these not raucous shouting trained by masters of the singing art not allowed to strain their vocal chords to be off-key they might be the new heroes of a new world but what they sang was not new music it was music he had heard before an arrangement of the price lead there must be a concealed orchestra somewhere he thought in a gallery round the top of the room it was an arrangement or adaptation of various wagnerian themes it passed from the prize lead to the distant echoes of the rhine music the elite corps made once more a double lane where somebody was expected to make an entrance it was not the old empress this time she sat on her dais awaiting whoever was coming and at last he came the music changed as he came it gave out that motif which by now stafford and i had got by heart the melody of the young sikh freed secret horn call rising up in its youth and its triumph its mastery of a new world which the young secret came to conquer through the doorway marching up between the lines of what were clearly his followers came one of the handsomest young men stafford and i had ever seen golden haired blue eyed perfectly proportioned conjured up as it were by the wave of a magician's wand he came forth out of the world of the myth myth heroes resurrection rebirth it was all there his beauty his strength his incredible assurance and arrogance he strode through the double lines of his bodyguard until he stood before the hideous mountain of womanhood that sat there on her throne he knelt on one knee raised her hand to his lips and then rising to his feet he threw up one arm in salutation and uttered the cry that stafford and i had heard from the others heil his german was not very clear but stafford and i thought he distinguished the syllables heil to the great mother then the handsome young hero looked from one side to the other there was some faint recognition though an uninterested one of renata but when his gaze turned to stafford nye there was definite interest and appraisal caution thought stafford he must play his part right now play the part that was expected of him only what the hell was that part what was he doing here what were he or the girl supposed to be doing here why had they come the hero spoke so he said we have guests and he added smiling with the arrogance of a young man who knows that he is vastly superior to any other person in the world welcome guests welcome to you both somewhere in the depths of the schloss a great bell began tolling it had no funeral sound about it but it had a disciplinary air the feeling of a monastery summoned to some holy office we must sleep now said old charlotte sleep we will meet again tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock she looked towards renata and sir stafford nigh you will be shown to your rooms i hope you will sleep well it was the royal dismissal stafford nye saw renata's arm fly up in the fascist salute but it was addressed not to charlotte but to the golden-haired boy he thought she said hile france joseph he copied her gesture and he too said i'll charlotte spoke to them would it please you tomorrow morning to start the day with a ride through the forest i should like it of all things said stafford and i and you child yes i too very good then it shall be arranged good night to you both i am glad to welcome you here franz joseph give me your arm we will go into the chinese boudoir we have much to discuss and you will have to leave in good time tomorrow morning the men's servants escorted renata and stafford nigh to their apartments nye hesitated for a moment on the threshold would it be possible for them to have a word or two now he decided against it as long as the castle walls surrounded them it was well to be careful or never knew each room might be wired with microphones sooner or later though he had to ask questions certain things aroused a new and sinister apprehension in his mind he was being persuaded invageld into something but what and who's doing was it the bedrooms were handsome yet oppressive the rich hangings of satin and velvets some of them antique gave out a faint perfume of decay tempered by spices he wondered how often renata had stayed here before chapter 11 the young and the lovely after breakfasting on the following morning in a small breakfast room downstairs he found renato waiting for him the horses were at the door both of them had brought riding clothes with them everything they could possibly require seemed to have been intelligently anticipated they mounted and rode away down the castle drive renato spoke with the groom at some length he asked if we would like him to accompany us but i said no i know the tracks around here fairly well i see you've been here before and not very often of late years early in my life i knew this place very well he gave her a sharp look she did not return it as she rode beside him he watched her profile the thin aqualine nose the head carried so proudly on the slender neck she rode a horse well he saw that all the same there was a sense of illese in his mind this morning he wasn't sure why his mind went back to the airport lounge the woman who had come to stand beside him the glass of pilsner on the table nothing in it that they shouldn't have been either then or later a risk he had accepted why when all that was long over should it rise uneasiness in him now they had a brief canter following a ride through the trees a beautiful property beautiful woods in the distance he saw horned animals a paradise for a sportsman a paradise for the old way of living a paradise that contained what a serpent as it was in the beginning with paradise went a serpent he drew rain and the horses fell to a walk he and renata were alone no microphones no listening walls the time had come for his questions who is she he said urgently what is she it's easy to answer so easy that it's hardly believable well he said she's oil copper gold mines in south africa armaments in sweden uranium deposits in the north nuclear development vast stretches of cobalt she's all of those things and yet i hadn't heard about her i didn't know her name i didn't know she has not wanted people to know can one keep such things quiet easily if you have enough copper and oil and nuclear deposits and armaments and all the rest of it money can advertise or money can keep secrets can hush things up but who actually is she her grandfather was american he was mainly railways i think possibly chicago hogs in those times it's like going back into history finding out he married a german woman you've heard of her i expect a big belinder they used to christen her armaments shipping the whole industrial wealth of europe she was her father's heiress between those two unbelievable wealth said sir stafford and i and so power is that what you're telling me yes she didn't just inherit things you know she made money as well she'd inherited brains she was a big financier in her own right everything she touched multiplied itself turned to incredible sums of money and she invested them taking advice taking other people's judgment but in the end always using her own and always prospering always adding to her wealth so that it was too fabulous to be believed money creates money yes i can understand that wealth has to increase if there's a superfluity of it but what did she want what has she got you said it just now power and she lives here or does she she visits america and sweden oh yes she visits places but not often this is where she prefers to be in the center of a web like a vast spider controlling all the threads the threads of finance other threads too when you say other threads the arts music pictures writers human beings young human beings yes one might know that those pictures a wonderful collection there are galleries of them upstairs in the schloss there are rembrandts and giottos and raphaels and there are cases of jewels as some of the most wonderful jewels in the world all belonging to one ugly gross old woman is she satisfied not yet but well on the way to being where is she going what does she want she loves youth that is her mode of power to control youth the world is full of rebellious youth at this moment that's been helped on modern philosophy modern thought writers and others whom she finances and controls but how can he stop i can't tell you because i don't know it's an enormous ramification she's behind it in one sense supports rather curious charities earnest philanthropists and idealists raises innumerable grants for students and artists and writers and yet you say it's not no it's not yet complete it's a great upheaval that's being planned it's believed in it's the new heaven and the new earth that's what's been promised by leaders for thousands of years promised by religions promised by those who support messiahs promised by those who come back to teach the law like the buddha promised by politicians the crude heaven of an easy attainment such as the assassins believed in and the old man of the assassins promised his followers and from their point of view gave to them is she behind drugs as well yes without conviction of course only a means of having people bent to her will it's one way too of destroying people the weak ones the ones she thinks are no good although they had once shown promise she'd never take drugs herself she's strong but drugs destroy weak people more easily and naturally than anything else and force what about force you can't do everything by propaganda no of course not propaganda is the first stage and behind it there are vast armaments piling up arms that go to deprived countries and then on elsewhere tanks and guns and nuclear weapons that go to africa in the south seas and south america in south america there's a lot building up forces of young men and women drilling and training enormous arms dumps means of chemical warfare it's a nightmare how do you know all this renata partly because i've been told it from information received and partly because i have been instrumental in proving some of it but you you and she there's always something idiotic behind all great and vast projects she laughed suddenly once you see she was in love with my grandfather a foolish story he lived in this part of the world he had a castle a mile or two from here was he a man of genius not at all he was just a very good sportsman handsome dissolute and attractive to women and so because of that she is in a sense my protectress and i am one of her converts or slaves i work for her i find people for her i carry out her commands in different parts of the world do you what do you mean by that but i wondered said sir stafford and i he did wonder he looked at renata and he thought again of the airport he was working for renata he was working with renata she had brought him to this schloss who had told her to bring him here big gross charlotte in the middle of her spider's web he had a reputation a reputation of being unsound in certain diplomatic quarters he could be useful to these people perhaps but useful in a small and rather humiliating way and he thought suddenly in a kind of fog of question marks renata i took a risk with her at frankfurt airport but i was right it came off nothing happened to me but all the same he thought who is she what is she i don't know i can't be sure one can't in the world today be sure of anyone anyone at all she was told perhaps to get me to get me into the hollow of her hand so that business at frankfurt might have been cleverly thought out it fitted in with my sense of risk and it would make me sure of her it would make me trust her let's canter again she said we've walked the horses too long i haven't asked you what you are in all this i take orders from whom there's an opposition there's always an opposition there are people who have a suspicion of what's going on of how the world is going to be made to change of how with money wealth armaments idealism great trumpeting words of power that's going to happen there are people who say it shall not happen and you're with them i say so what do you mean by that renata she said i say so he said that young man last night franz joseph is that his name it is the name he is known by but he has another name hasn't he do you think so he is isn't he the young siegfried you saw him like that you realized that's what he was what he stands for i think so youth heroic youth aryan youth it has to be aryan youth in this part of the world there is still that point of view a super race the supermen they must be of an aryan descent oh yes it's lasted on from the time of hitler it doesn't always come out into the open much and in other places all over the world it isn't stressed so much south america as i say is one of the strongholds and peru and south africa also what does young siegfried do what does he do besides look handsome and kiss the hand of his protectors oh he's quite an orator he speaks and his following would follow him to death is that true he believes it and you i think i might believe it she added oratory is very frightening you know what a voice can do what words can do and not particularly convincing words that that the way they are said his voice rings like a bell and women cry and scream and faint away when he addresses them you'll see that for yourself you saw charlotte's bodyguard last night all dressed up people do love dressing up nowadays you'll see them all over the world in their own chosen getup different in different places some with their long hair and their beards and girls in their streaming white nightgowns talking of peace and beauty and the wonderful world that is the world of the young which is to be theirs when they have destroyed enough of the old world the original country of the young was west of the irish sea wasn't it a very simple place a different country of the young from what we're planning now it was silver sands and sunshine and singing in the waves but now we want anarchy and breaking down and destroying only anarchy can benefit those who march behind it it's frightening but it's also wonderful because of its violence because it's bought with pain and suffering so that is how you see the world today sometimes and what am i to do next come with your guide i'm your guide like virgil with dante i'll take you down into hell i'll show you the sadistic films partly copied from the old ss show you cruelty and pain and violence worshiped and i'll show you the great dreams of paradise in peace and beauty you won't know which is which and what is what but you'll have to make up your mind do i trust you renata that will be your choice you can run away from me if you like or you can stay with me and see the new world the new world that's in the making paste board said sir stafford and i violently she looked at him inquiringly like alice in wonderland the cards the pasteboard cards all rising up in the air flying about kings and queens and knaves all sorts of things you mean what do you mean exactly i mean it isn't real it's make-believe the whole damn thing is make-believe in one sense yes all dressed up playing parts putting on a show i'm getting nearer aren't i to the meaning of things in a way yes and in a way no there's one thing i'd like to ask you because it puzzles me big charlotte ordered you to bring me to see her why what did she know about me what use did she think she could make of me i don't quite know possibly a kind of eminous cris working behind the facade that would suit you rather well but she knows nothing whatever about me oh that suddenly renata went into peals of laughter it's so ridiculous really the same old nonsense all over again i don't understand you renata no because it's so simple mr robinson would understand would you kindly explain what you're talking about it's the same old business it's not what you are it's who you know your grand aunt matilda and big charlotte were at school together you actually mean girls together he stared at her then he threw his head back and roared with laughter chapter 12 caught jester they left the schloss at midday saying goodbye to their hostess then they had driven down the winding road leaving the schloss high above them and they had come at last after many hours of driving to a stronghold in the dolomites an amphitheater in the mountains where meetings concerts and reunions of the various youth groups were held renata had brought him there his guide and from his seat on the bare rock he had watched what went on and had listened he understood a little more what she'd been talking about earlier that day this great mass gathering animated as all mass gatherings can be whether they are called by an evangelistic religious leader in madison square new york or in the shadow of a welsh church or in a football crowd or in the super demonstrations which marched to attack embassies and police and universities and all the rest of it she had brought him there to show him the meaning of that one phrase the young siegfried franz joseph if that really was his name had addressed the crowd his voice rising falling with its curious exciting quality its emotional appeal and held sway over that groaning almost moaning crowd of young women and young men word that he had uttered that seemed pregnant with meaning had held incredible appeal the crowd had responded like an orchestra his voice had been the battle of the conductor and yet what the boy said what had been the young siegfried's message there were no words that he could remember when it came to an end but he knew that he had been moved promised things roused to enthusiasm and now it was over the crowd had surged around the rocky platform calling crying out some of the girls had been screaming with enthusiasm some of them had fainted what a world it was nowadays he thought everything used the whole time to arouse emotion discipline restraint none of these things counted for anything anymore nothing mattered but to feel what sort of a world thought stafford nigh could that make his guide had touched him on the arm and they had disentangled themselves from the crowd they had found their car and the driver had taken them by roads with which he was evidently well acquainted to a town and an inn on a mountain side where rooms had been reserved for them they walked out of the inn presently and up the side of a mountain by a well-trodden path until they came to a seat they sat there for some minutes in silence it was then that stafford nye had said again pasteboard for some five minutes or so they sat looking down the valley then renata said well what are you asking me what do you think so far of what i have shown you i'm not convinced said stafford and i she gave a sigh a deep unexpected sigh that's what i hoped you would say it's none of it true is it it's a gigantic show a show put on by a producer a complete group of producers perhaps that monstrous woman pays the producer hires the producer we've not seen the producer what we've seen today is the star performer what did you think of him he's not real either said stefan i he's just an actor a first-class actor superbly produced a sound surprised him it was renata laughing she got up from her seat she looked suddenly excited happy and at the same time faintly ironical i knew it she said i knew you'd see i knew you'd have your feet on the ground you've always known haven't you about everything you've met in life you've known humbug you've known everything and everyone for what they really are no need to go to stratford and see shakespearean plays to know what part you are cast for the kings and the great men have to have a jester the king's jester who tells the king the truth and talks common sense and makes fun of all the things that are taking in other people so that's what i am is it a court jester can't you feel it yourself that's what we want that's what we need pasteboard you said cardboard a vast well-produced splendid show and how right you are but people are taken in they think something's wonderful or they think something's devilish or they think it's something terribly important of course it isn't only only one's got to find out just how to show people that the whole thing all of it is just silly just damn silly that's what you and i are going to do is it your idea that in the end we debunk all this it seems wildly unlikely i agree but you know once people are shown that something isn't real that it's just one enormous leg pull well are you proposing to preach a gospel of common sense of course not said renata nobody'd listen to that would they not just a present no we'll have to give them evidence facts truth have we got such things yes what i brought back with me via frankfurt what you helped me to bring safely into england i don't understand not yet you will know later for now we've got a part to play we're ready and willing fairly panting to be indoctrinated we worship youth with followers and believers in the young siegfried you can put that over no doubt i'm not so sure about myself i've never been very successful as a worshiper of anything the king's jester isn't he's the great debunker nobody's going to appreciate that very much just now are they of course they're not no you don't let that side of yourself show except of course when talking about your masters and betters politicians and diplomats foreign office the establishment all the other things then you can be embittered malicious witty slightly cruel i still don't see my role in the world crusade that's a very ancient one the one that everybody understands and appreciates something in it for you that's your line you haven't been appreciated in the past but the young siegfried and all he stands for will hold out the hope of reward to you because you give him all the inside dope he wants about your own country he will promise you places of power in that country in the good times to come you insinuate that this is a world movement is that true of course it is rather like one of those hurricanes you know that have names flora or little annie they come up out of the south or the north or the east or the west but they come up from nowhere and destroy everything that's what everyone wants in europe and asia and america perhaps africa although there won't be so much enthusiasm there they're fairly new to power and graft and things oh yes it's a world movement all right run by youth and all the intense vitality of youth they haven't got knowledge and they haven't got experience but they've got vision and vitality and they're backed by money rivers and rivers of money pouring in there's been too much materialism so we've asked for something else and we've got it but as it's based on hate it can't get anywhere it can't move off the ground don't you remember in 1919 everyone going about with a wrapped face saying communism was the answer to everything that marxist doctrine would produce a new heaven brought down to a new earth so many noble ideas flowing about but then you see whom have you got to work out the ideas with after all only the same human beings you've always had you can create a third world now or so everyone thinks but the third world will have the same people in it as the first world or the second world or whatever names you like to call things and when you have the same human beings running things they'll run them the same way you've only got to look at history does anybody care to look at history nowadays no they'd much rather look forward to an unforeseeable future science was once going to be the answer to everything freudian beliefs and unrepressed sex would be the next answer to human misery there'd be no more people with mental troubles if anyone had said that mental homes would be even fuller as a result of shutting out repressions nobody would have believed them stafford and i interrupted her i want to know something what is it where are we going next south america possibly pakistan or india on the way and we must certainly go to the usa there's a lot going on there that's very interesting indeed especially in california universities it's a stafford side one gets very tired of universities they repeat themselves so much they sat silent for some minutes the light was failing but a mountain peak showed softly red stafford nye said in a nostalgic tone if we had some more music now this moment you know what i'd order more wagner or have you torn yourself free from wagner no you're quite right more wagner i'd have hans sachs sitting under his elder tree saying of the world mad mad all mad yes that expresses it it's lovely music too but we are not mad we are sane eminently sane said stafford and i that is going to be the difficulty there's one more thing i want to know well perhaps you won't tell me but i've got to know is there going to be any fun to be got out of this mad business that we're attempting of course there is why not mad mad all mad but we'll enjoy it all very much will our lives be long marianne probably not said renata that's the spirit i'm with you my comrade and my guide shall we get a better world as a result of our efforts i shouldn't think so but it might be a kinder one it's full of beliefs without kindness at present good enough said staff at my onward book three at home and abroad chapter 13. conference in paris in a room in paris five men were sitting it was a room that had seen historic meetings before quite a number of them this meeting was in many ways a meeting of a different kind and yet it promised to be no less historic monsieur grosjean was presiding he was a worried man doing his best to slide over things with facility and a charm of manner that had often helped him in the past he did not feel it was helping him so much today senor vitelli had arrived from italy by air an hour before his gestures were feverish his manner unbalanced it is beyond anything he was saying it is beyond anything one could have imagined these students said monsieur grosjean do we not all suffer it is more than students it is beyond students what can one compare this to a swarm of bees a disaster of nature intensified intensified beyond anything one could have imagined they march they have machine guns somewhere they have acquired planes they propose to take over the whole of north italy but it is madness that they are children nothing more and yet they have bombs explosives in the city of milan alone they outnumber the police what can we do i ask you the military the army to it is in revolt they say they are with legend they say there is no hope for the world except in anarchy they talk of something they call the third world but this cannot just happen mr grosjo side it is very popular among the young he said the anarchy a belief in anarchy we know that from the days of algeria from all the troubles from which our country and our colonial empire has suffered and what can we do the military in the end they back the students are the students ah the students said monsieur poissonne he was a member of the french government to whom the word student was anathema if he had been asked he would have admitted to a preference for asian flu or even an outbreak of bubonic plague either was preferable in his mind to the activities of students a world with no students in it that was what was your poissonia sometimes dreamt about they were good dreams those they did not occur often enough as for magistrates said monsieur grosjean what has happened to our judicial authorities the police yes they are loyal still but the judiciary they will not impose sentences not on young men who are brought before them young men who have destroyed property government property private property every kind of property and why not one would like to know i have been making inquiries lately the prefecture have suggested certain things to me an increase is needed they say in the standard of living among judiciary authorities especially in the provincial areas come come said monsieur poissonne you must be careful what you suggest why should i be careful things need bringing into the open we have had frauds before gigantic frauds and there is now money circulating around money and we do not know where it comes from but the prefecture have said to me and i believe it that they begin to get an idea of where it is going do we contemplate can we contemplate a corrupt state subsidized from some outside source in italy too said signo vitelli in italy ah i could tell you things yes i could tell you of what we suspect but who who is corrupting our world a group of industrialists a group of tycoons how could such a thing be so this business has got to stop said mr crochet action must be taken military action action from the air force these anarchists these marauders they come from every class it must be put down controlled by tear gas has been fairly successful said poisonier dubiously diagnose is not enough said monsieur cruz the same result can be got by setting students to peel bunches of onions tears would flow from their eyes it needs more than that mr poisonier said in a shocked voice you you are not suggesting the use of nuclear weapons nuclear weapon skill blog what can we do with nuclear weapons what would become of the soil of france of the air of france if we use nuclear weapons we can destroy russia we know that we also know that russia can destroy us or you're not suggesting that groups of marching and demonstrating students could destroy our authoritarian forces that is exactly what i am suggesting i have had a warning of such things of stockpiling of arms and various forms of chemical warfare and of other things i've had reports from some of our eminent scientists secrets are known stores held in secret weapons of warfare have been stolen what is to happen next i ask you what is to happen next the question was answered unexpectedly and with more rapidity than mr grajon could possibly have calculated the door opened and his principal secretary approached his master his face showing urgent concern monsieur grojo looked at him with displeasure did i not say i wanted no interruptions yes indeed mr levrezino but this is somewhat unusual he bent towards his masters here and the marshal is here he demands entrance and the marshall oh you mean the secretary nodded his head vigorously several times to show that he did mean monsieur poissonne looked at his colleague in perplexity he demands admission he will not take refusal the two other men in the room looked first at grosjean and then at the agitated italian would it not be better said mr acquire the minister for home affairs if he paused at the if as the door was once more flung open and a man strode in a very well-known man a man whose word had been not only law but above law in the country of france for many past years to see him at this moment was an unwelcome surprise for those sitting there ah i welcome you dear colleagues said the marshall i come to help you our country is in danger action must be taken immediate action i come to put myself at your service i take over all responsibility for acting in this crisis there may be danger i know there is but honor is above danger the salvation of france is above danger they march this way now a vast horde of students of criminals who have been released from jails some of them who have committed the crime of homicide men who have committed incendiarism they shout names they sing songs they call on the names of their teachers of their philosophers of those who have led them on the path of insurrection those who will bring about the doom of france unless something is done you sit here you talk you deplore things more than that must be done i have sent for two regiments i have alerted the air force special coded wires have gone out to our neighboring ally to my friends in germany or she is our ally now in this crisis riot must be put down rebellion insurrection the danger to men women and children to property i go forth now to quell the insurrection to speak to them as their father their leader these students these criminals even they are my children they are the youth of france i go to speak to them of that they shall listen to me governments will be revised their studies can be resumed under their own auspices their grants have been insufficient their lives have been deprived of beauty of leadership i come to promise all this i speak in my own name i shall speak also in your name the name of the government you have done your best you have acted as well as you know how but it needs higher leadership it needs my leadership i go now i have lists of further coded wires to be sent such nuclear deterrences can be used in unfrequented spots can be put into action in such a modified form that though they may bring terror to the mob we ourselves shall know there is no real danger in them i have thought of everything my plan will go come my loyal friends accompany me marshall we cannot allow you cannot imperil yourself we must i listen to nothing you say i embrace my doom my destiny the marshal strode to the door my stuff is outside my chosen bodyguard i go now to speak to these young rebels this young flower of beauty and terror to tell them where their duty lies he disappeared through the door with the grandeur of a leading actor playing his favorite part he means it said monsieur poissonne he will risk his life said signo vitelli who knows it is brave he is a brave man it is gallant yes but what will happen to him in the mood legendary now they might kill him a pleasurable sigh fell from mr poisson's lips it might be true he thought yes it might be true it is possible he said yes they might kill him one cannot wish that of course said monsieur grosjean carefully mr grosjean did wish it he hoped for it though a natural pessimism led him to have the second thought that things seldom fell out in the way you wanted them to indeed a much more awful prospect confronted him it was quite possible it was within the traditions of the marshal's past that somehow or other he might induce a large pack of exhilarated and bloodthirsty students to listen to what he said trust in his promises and insist on restoring him to the power that he had once held it was the sort of thing that had happened once or twice in the career of the marshall his personal magnetism was such that politicians had before now met their defeat when they had least expected it we must restrain him he cried yes yes said senor vitelli he cannot be lost to the world one fears said messier poisoning he has too many friends in germany too many contacts and you know they move very quickly in military matters in germany they might leap at the opportunity said mr grosjean wiping his brow and what shall we do what can we do what is that noise i hear rifles do i not no no said monsieur poisonier concerningly it is the canteen coffee trays that you hear there is a quotation i could use said monsieur grosjean who is a great lover of the drama if i could only remember it a quotation from shakespeare will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest said mr possagne from the play beckett a madman like the martial is worse than a priest a priest should at least be harmless though indeed even his holiness the pope received a delegation of students only yesterday he blessed them he called them his children a christian gesture though said mr choir dubiously one can go too far even with christian gestures said mr grosjean chapter 14 conference in london in the cabinet room at 10 downing street mr cedric lazenby the prime minister sat at the head of the table and looked at his assembled cabinet without any noticeable pleasure the expression on his face was definitely gloomy which in a way afforded him a certain relief he was beginning to think that it was only in the privacy of his cabinet meetings that he could relax his face into an unhappy expression and could abandon that look which he presented usually to the world of a wise and contented optimism which had served him so well in the various crises of political life he looked round at gordon chetwind who was frowning and sir george packham who was obviously worrying thinking and wondering as usual at the military imperturbability of colonel monroe at air marshall kenwood a tight-lipped man who did not trouble to conceal his profound distrust of politicians there was also admiral blunt a large formidable man who tapped his fingers on the table and bided his time until his moment should come it is not too good the air marshal was saying one has to admit it four of our planes hijacked within the last week flew him to milan turned the passengers out and flew them on somewhere else actually africa had pilots waiting there black men black power said colonel monroe thoughtfully or red power suggested lazenby i feel you know that all our difficulties might stem from russian indoctrination if one could get into touch with the russians i really think uh a personal visit at top level you stick where you are prime minister said admiral blunt don't start asking around with the ruskies again all they want at present is to keep out of all this mess they haven't had as much trouble there with their students as most of us have all they mind about is keeping an eye on the chinese to see what they'll be up to next i do think that personal influence you stay here and look after your own country said admiral blunt true to his name and as was his won't he said it bluntly uh hadn't we better here have a proper report of what's actually been happening gordon chetwind looked towards colonel monroe one facts quite right they're all pretty unpalatable i presume you want to not particulars of what's been happening here so much as the general world situation quite so well in france the marshall's in hospital still two bullets in his arm else going on in political circles large tracts of the country are held by what they call the youth power troops you mean they've got arms said gordon chetwind in a horrified voice they've got a hell of a lot said the colonel i don't know really where they've got them from there are certain ideas as to that a large consignment was sent from sweden to west africa what's that got to do with it said mr lazenby who cares let them have all the arms they want in west africa they can go on shooting each other well there's something a little curious about it as far as our intelligence reports go here is a list of the armaments that were sent to west africa the interesting thing is they were sent there but they were sent out again they were accepted delivery was acknowledged payment may or may not have been made but they were sent out of the country again before five days had passed they were sent out rerouted elsewhere but what's the idea of that the idea seems to be said monroe that they were never really intended for west africa payments were made and they were sent on somewhere else it seems possible that they went on from africa to the near east to the persian gulf to greece and to turkey also a consignment of planes was sent to egypt from egypt they were sent to india from india that were sent to russia well i thought they was in from russia and from russia they went to prague nothing's made i don't understand said sir george one wonders somewhere there seems to be some central organization which is directing the supplies of various things planes armaments bombs both explosive and those that are used in germ warfare all these consignments are moving in unexpected directions they are delivered by various cross-country routes to trouble spots and used by leaders and regiments if you like to call them that of the youth power they mostly go to the leaders of young guerrilla movements professed anarchists who preach anarchy and accept that one doubts if they ever pay for some of the latest most up-to-date models do you mean to say we're facing something like war on a world scale cedric lazenby was shocked the mild man with the asiatic face who sat lower down at the table and had not yet spoken lifted up his face with the mongolian smile and said that is what one is now forced to believe our observations tell us please be interrupted you all have to stop observing uno will have to take arms itself and put all this down the quiet face remained unmoved that would be against our principles he said colonel monroe raised his voice and went on with his summing up there's fighting in some parts of every country southeast asia claimed independence long ago and there are four five different divisions of power in south america cuba peru guatemala and so on and as for the united states you know washington was practically burnt out the west is overrun with youth power armed forces chicago's under martial law you know about sam cortman shot last night on the steps of the american embassy here he was to attend here today said lazenby he was going to have given us his views of the situation i don't suppose that would have helped much said colonel monroe quite a nice chap but hardly a live wire but who's behind all this lazenby's voice rose fretfully it could be the russians of course he looked hopeful he still envisaged himself flying to moscow colonel monroe shook his head doubted he said a personal appeal said lazenby his face brightened with hope an entirely new sphere of influence of the chinese nor the chinese said colonel monroe but you know there's been a big revival in neo-fascism in germany you don't think the germans could possibly i don't think they're behind all this necessarily but when you say possibly yes i i think possibly they easily could they've done it before you know prepared things years before planned them everything ready waiting for the word go good planners very good planets staff work excellent i admire them you know can't help it but germany seemed to be so peaceful and well run oh yes of course it is up to a point but do you realize south america is practically alive with germans young neo-fascists and they've got a big youth federation there call themselves the super aliens or something of that kind you know a bit of the old stuff still swastikas and salutes and someone who's running it called the young wotan or the young siegfried or something like that a lot of aryan nonsense there was a knock on the door and the secretary entered professor eckstein is here sir we'd better have him in said cedric lazenby after all if anyone can tell us what our latest research weapons are he's the man we may have something up our sleeve that can soon put an end to all this nonsense besides being a professional traveler to foreign parts in the role of peacemaker mr lazenby had an incurable fund of optimism seldom justified by results we could do with a good secret weapon said the air marshal hopefully professor eckstein was considered by many to be britain's top scientist when you first looked at him he seemed supremely unimportant he was a small man with old-fashioned mutton chop whiskers and an asthmatic cough he had the manner of one anxious to apologize for his existence he made noises like blew his nose coughed asthmatically again and shook hands in a shy manner as he was introduced to those present a good many of them he already knew and those he greeted with nervous nods of the head he sat down on the chair indicated and looked round him vaguely he raised a hand to his mouth and began to bite his nails the heads of the services are here so it's a george packham we're very anxious to have your opinion as to what can be done oh said professor eckstein done yes yes done there was a silence the world is fast passing into a state of anarchy said sir george it seems so doesn't it at least from what i read in the paper not that i trusted that and really the things journalists think up never any accuracy in their statements i understand you've made some most important discoveries lately professor said cedric glazenby encouragingly ah yes say we have so we have professor eckstein cheered up a little got a lot of very nasty chemical warfare fixed up if we ever wanted it germ warfare you know biological stuff a gas laid on through normal gas outlets air pollution and poisoning water supplies yes if you wanted it i suppose we could kill half the population of england given about three days to do it in he rubbed his hand is that what you want no indeed no dear of course not mr lazenby looked horrified well em that's what i mean you know it's not a question of not having enough lethal weapons we've got too much everything we've got is too lethal the difficulty would be in keeping anybody alive even ourselves eh all the people at the top you know well um us for instance he gave a wheezy happy little chuckle but that isn't what we want mr lazenby insisted it's not a question of what you want it's a question of what we've got everything we've got is terrifically lethal if you want everybody under 30 wiped off the map i expect you could do it mind you you'd have to take a lot of the old ones as well it's difficult to segregate one lot from the other you know personally i should be against that we've got some very good young research fellows bloody minded but clever what's gone wrong with the world asked kenwood suddenly that's the point said professor eckstein we don't know we don't know up at our place in spite of all we do know about this that and the other we know a bit more about the moon nowadays we know a lot about biology we can transplant hearts and livers brains too soon i expect though i don't know how that'll work out but we don't know who is doing this somebody as you know it's a sort of high-powered background stuff oh yes we've got it cropping up in different ways you know crime rings drug rings all that sort of thing a high powered lot directed by a few good shrewd brains behind the scenes we've had it going on in this country or that country occasionally on a european scale but it's going a bit further now other side of the globe southern hemisphere down to the antarctic circle before we finished i expect he appeared to be pleased with his diagnosis people of ill will well you could put it like that ill willfully will sake or ill will for the sake of money or power difficult to know to get at the point of it all the poor dogs bodies themselves don't know they want violence and they like violence they don't like the world they don't like our materialistic attitude they don't like a lot of our nasty ways of making money they don't like a lot of the fiddles we do they don't like seeing poverty they want a better world well you could make it a better world perhaps if you thought about it all long enough but the trouble is if you insist on taking away something first you've got to put something back in its place nature won't have a vacuum an old saying but it's true does it all it's like a heart transplant you take one heart away but you've got to put another one there one that works and you've got to arrange about the heart you're going to put there before you take away the faulty heart that someone's got a present matter of fact i think a lot of those things are better off left alone altogether but nobody would listen to me i suppose in any way it's not my subject a gas suggested colonel monroe professor eckstein brightened oh we've got all sorts of gases in stock mind you some of them are reasonably harmless my descendants should we say we've got all those he beamed like a complacent hardware dealer a nuclear weapons suggested mr lazenby oh don't you monkey with that you don't want a radioactive england do you or a radioactive continent for that matter so you can't help us said colonel monroe and not until somebody's found out a bit more about all this said professor eckstein well i'm sorry but i must impress upon you that most of the things we're working on nowadays are dangerous he stressed the word really dangerous he looked at them anxiously as a nervous uncle might look at a group of children left with a box of matches to play with and who might quite easily set the house on fire well thank you professor eckstein said mr lazenby he did not sound particularly thankful the professor gathering correctly that he was released smiled all round and trotted out of the room mr lazenby hardly waited for the door to close before venting his feelings we're all like these scientists he said bitterly never any practical good never come up with anything sensible all they can do is split the atom and then tell us not to mess about with it just as well if we never had said admiral blunt again bluntly what we want is something homely and domestic like a kind of selective weed killer which would he paused abruptly now what the devil yes admiral said the prime minister politely well nothing just reminded me of something can't remember what the prime minister sighed any more scientific experts waiting on the mat ask gordon chetwin glancing hopefully at his wristwatch old pike away is here i believe said lazenby got a picture or a drawing or a map of something or other he wants us to look at or what's it all about i don't know it seems to be all bubbles said mr laysenbee vaguely why bubbles i have no idea well he sighed we'd better have a look at it a horsham's here too he may have something new to tell us said chadwind colonel pikeaway stumped in he was supporting a rolled up burden which with horsham's aid was unrolled and which with some difficulty was propped up so that those sitting around the table could look at it not exactly drawn to scale yet but it gives you a rough idea said colonel pikeaway what does it mean if anything bubbles moments are george an idea came to him is it gas a new gas you'd better deliver the lecture horsham said pike away you know the general idea i only know what i've been told it's a rough diagram of an association of world control by whom by groups who own or control the sources of power the raw materials of power and the letters of the alphabet stand for a person or a code name for a special group they are intersecting circles that by now cover the globe the circle marked a stands for armaments someone or some group is in control of armaments all types of armaments explosives guns rifles all over the world armaments are being produced according to plan dispatched ostensibly to underdeveloped nations backward nations nations at war but they don't remain where they are sent they are re-routed almost immediately elsewhere to guerrilla warfare in the south american continent to rioting and fighting in the usa to depots of black power to various countries in europe d represents drugs a network of suppliers run them from various depots and stockpiles all kinds of drugs from the more harmless varieties up to the true killers the headquarters seem likely to be situated in the levant and to pass out through turkey pakistan india and central asia they make money out of it enormous sums of money but it's more than just an association of pushers it has a more sinister side to it it's being used to finish off the weaklings amongst the young shall we say to make them complete slaves slaves so that they cannot live and exist or do jobs for their employers without a supply of drugs kenwood whistled that's a bad show isn't it don't you know at all who those drug bushes are or some of them yes but only the lesser fry not the real controllers drug headquarters are so far as we can judge in central asia and the levant they get delivered from there in the tyres of cars in cement in concrete in all kinds of machinery and industrial goods they're delivered all over the world and passed on as ordinary trade goods to where they are meant to go f stands for finance money a money spider's web in the center of it all you will have to go to mr robinson to tell you about money according to a memo here money is coming very largely from america and there's also a headquarters in bavaria there's a vast reserve in south africa based on gold and diamonds most of the money is going to south america one of the principal controllers if i may so put it of money is a very powerful and talented woman she's old now must be near to death but she is still strong and active her name was charlotte crap her father owns the vast crop yards in germany she was a financial genius herself and operated in wall street she accumulated fortune after fortune by investments in all parts of the world she owns transport she owns machinery she owns industrial concerns all these things she lives in a vast castle in bavaria from there she directs a flow of money to different parts of the globe s represents science the new knowledge of chemical and biological warfare various young scientists have defected there is a nucleus of them in the u.s we believe vowed and dedicated to the cause of anarchy fighting for anarchy contradiction in terms can there be such a thing you believe in anarchy if you're young you want a new world and to begin with you must pull down the old one just as you would pull down a house before you build a new one to replace it but if you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you were being lured to go or even pushed to go what will the new world be like and where will the believers be when they get it some of them slaves some of them blinded by hate some by violence and sadism both preached and practiced some of them and god help those still idealistic still believing as people did in france at the time of the french revolution that that revolution would bring prosperity peace happiness contentment to its people and what are we doing about all this what are we proposing to do about it it was admiral blunt who spoke what are we doing about it all that we can i assure you all you that are here we are doing all that we can we have people working for us in every country we have agents inquirers those who gather information and bring it back here in the meantime this is what we know of the ring f is big charlotte bavaria a is eric olefson sweden industrialist armaments d is said to go by the name of demetrius smyrna drugs s is dr saralinsky colorado usa physicist chemist suspicion only jay is a woman goes by code name of juanita said to be dangerous no knowledge of her real name oh which is very necessary said colonel pikeaway first we've got to know know who's who who's with us and who's against us and after that we've got to see what if anything can be done our name for this diagram is the ring here's a list of what we know about the ring leaders those with a query mean that we know only the name they go by or alternatively we only suspect that they are the ones we want chapter 15 aunt matilda takes a cure a cure of some kind i thought lady matilda has it a cure said dr donaldson he looked faintly puzzled for a moment losing his heir of medical omniscience which of course so lady matilda reflected was one of the slight disadvantages attached to having a younger doctor attending one rather than the older specimen to whom one has been accustomed for several years that's what we used to call them lady matilda explained in my young days you know we went for the cure marrying bad carlsbad barden barton all the rest of it just the other day i've read about this new place in the paper quite new and up to date said to be all new ideas and things like that not that i'm really sold on new ideas but i wouldn't really be afraid of them i mean they would probably be all the same things all over again water tasting of bad eggs the latest sort of diet and walking to take the cure or the waters or whatever they call them now at a rather inconvenient hour in the morning and i expect they give you a massage or something it used to be seaweed but this place is somewhere in the mountains bavaria or austria or something like that so i don't suppose it would be seaweed shaggy boss perhaps sounds like a dog and perhaps quite a nice mineral water as well as the eggy sulfury one i mean superb buildings i understand the only thing one is nervous about nowadays is that they never seem to put banisters in any up-to-date modern buildings flights of marble steps and all that nothing to hang on to i think i know the place you mean said dr donaldson it's been publicized a good deal in the press well you know what one is at my age said lady matilda one likes trying new things really i think it is just to amuse one it doesn't really make one feel one's health would be any better still you don't think it would be a bad idea do you dr donaldson dr donaldson looked at her he was not so young as lady matilda labelled him in her mind he was just approaching 40 and he was a tactful and kindly man and willing to indulge his elderly patients as far as he considered it desirable without any actual danger of that attempting something obviously unsuitable i'm sure it wouldn't do you any harm at all he said might be quite a good idea of course travel's a bit tiring that one flies to places very quickly and easily nowadays quickly yes easily no said lady midsolder ramps and moving staircases and in and out of buses from the airport to the plane and the plane to another airport and from the airport to another bus all that you know but i understand one can have wheelchairs at airports of course you can excellent idea if you promise to do that and not think you can walk everywhere i know i know seth is patient interrupting him you do understand you're really a very understanding man one has one's pride you know and while you can still hobble around with a stick or a little support you don't really want to look absolutely a crock or bedridden or something it would be easier if i was a man she mused i mean one could tie up one's leg with one of those enormous bandages and padded things as though one had the gout i mean gout is all right for the male sex nobody thinks anything the worst of them some of their older friends think they've been tucking into the port too much because that used to be the old idea though i believe it is not really true at all port wine does not give you a gout yes a wheelchair and i could fly to munich or something like that one could arrange for a car or something at the other end you'll take miss sletherin with you of course amy of course i couldn't do without her anyway you think no harm would be done i think it might do you a world of good you really are a nice man lady matilda gave him the twinkle from her eyes with which he was now becoming familiar you think it'll amuse me and cheer me up to go somewhere new and see some new faces and of course you're quite right but i like to think i'm taking a cure there really there's nothing for me to be cared of not really is there i mean except old age unfortunately old age doesn't get cured it only gets more so doesn't it well the point is really will you enjoy yourself well i think you will when you get tired by the way when doing anything stop doing it i shall still drink glasses water if the water tastes of rotten eggs not because i like them because frankly i think they do me any good but it has a sort of mortifying feeling it's like old women in our village always used to be they always wanted a nice strong medicine either coloured black or purple or deep pink heavily flavoured with peppermint they thought that did much more good than a nice little pill or a bottle that only appeared to be full of ordinary water without any exotic coloring you know too much about human nature said dr donaldson you're very nice to me said lady matilda i appreciate it amy yes lady matilda get me an atlas will you i've lost track of bavaria and the countries around it let me see now an atlas there'll be one in the library i suppose there must be some old atlases about dating back to about 1920 or thereabouts i suppose i wonder if we had anything a little more modern atlas said amy deep in reflection if not you can buy one and bring it along tomorrow morning it's going to be very difficult because all the names are different the countries are different and i sure know where i am but you'll have to help me with that find a big magnifying glass for you i have an idea i was reading in bed with one the other day and it probably slipped down between the bed and the wall her requirements took a little time to satisfy but the atlas the magnifying glass and an older atlas by which to check were finally produced and amy nice woman that she was lady matilda thought was extremely helpful yes here it is it still seems to be called monbruga or something like that it's either in the tyrol or bavaria everything seems to have changed places and got different names lady matilda looked around her bedroom in the gust house it was well appointed it was very expensive it combined comfort with an appearance of such austerity as might lead the inhabitant to identify herself with an acetic course of exercises diet and possibly painful courses of massage its furnishings she thought were interesting they provided for all tastes there was a large framed gothic script on the wall lady matilda's german was not as good as it had been in her girlhood but it dealt she thought with the golden and enchanting idea of a return to youth not only did youth hold the future in its hands but the old were being nicely indoctrinated to feel that they themselves might know such a second golden flowering here there were gentle aids so as to enable one to pursue the doctrine of any of the many paths in life which attracted different classes of people always presuming that they had enough money to pay for it beside the bed was a gideon bible such as lady matilda when traveling in the united states had often found by her bedside she picked it up approvingly opened it at random and dropped a finger on one particular verse she read it nodding her head contentedly and made a brief note of it on a pad that was lying on her bed table she had often done that in the course of her life it was her way of obtaining divine guidance at short notice i have been young and now i'm old yet have i not seen the righteous forsaken she made further researches of the room handily placed but not too apparent was an amenactagota modestly situated on a lower shelf on the bedside table a most invaluable book for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the higher strata of society reaching back for several hundred years and which was still being observed and noted and checked by those of aristocratic lineage or interested in the same it will come in handy she thought i can read up a good deal on that near the desk by the stove of period porcelain were paperback editions of certain preachings and tenets by the modern prophets of the world those who were now or who had recently been crying in the wilderness were here to be studied and approved by young followers with halos of hair strange raymond and ernest hearts marcusa guevara levi strauss fennel in case she was going to hold any conversations with gold and youth she had better read up a little on that also at that moment there was a timid tap on the door it opened slightly and the face of the faithful amy came round the corner amy lady matilda thought suddenly would look exactly like a sheep when she was 10 years older a nice faithful kindly sheep at the moment lady matilda was glad to think she looked still like a very agreeable plump lamb with nice curls of hair thoughtful and kindly eyes and able to give kindly bars rather than to bleed i do hope you slept well yes my dear i did excellently have you got that thing amy always knew what was meant she handed it to her employer ah i die cheat i see lady matilda perused it then said i'm incredibly unattractive but what's this water like one supposed to drink it doesn't taste very nice no i didn't suppose it would come back in half an hour i've got a letter i want you to post moving aside her breakfast tray she moved over to the desk she thought for a few minutes and then wrote her letter it ought to do the trick she murmured i beg your pardon lady matilda what did you say i was writing to the old friend i mentioned to you oh the one you said you hadn't seen for about 50 or 60 years later matilda nodded i do hope amy was apologetic i mean i it's such a long time people have short memories nowadays i do hope that she'll remember all about you and everything of course you will said lady matilda the people who don't forget the people you knew when you were about 10 or 20 they stick in your mind forever you remember what hats they wore and the way they laughed you remember their faults and their good qualities and everything about them now anyone i met 20 years ago shall we say i simply can't remember who they are not if they mentioned me and not if i saw them even oh yes she'll remember about me and all about lazanne you get that letter posted i've got to do a little homework she picked up the almanac de gota and returned to bed where she made a serious study of such items as might come in useful some family relationships and various other kinships of the useful kind who had married whom who had lived where what misfortunes had overtaken others not that the person whom she had in mind was herself likely to be found in the almanac de gota but she lived in a part of the world had come there deliberately to live in a schloss belonging to originally noble ancestors and she had absorbed the local respect and adulation for those above all of good breeding to good birth even impaired with poverty she herself as lady matilda knew had no claim whatever she had had to make do with money oceans of money incredible amounts of money lady matilda clark heaton had no doubt at all that she herself the daughter of an eighth duke would be bitten to some kind of festivity coffee perhaps and delicious creamy cakes lady matilda kleck heaton made her entrance into one of the grand reception rooms of the schloss it had been a 15-mile drive she had dressed herself with some care though somewhat to the disapproval of amy amy seldom offered advice but she was so anxious for her principal to succeed in whatever she was undertaking that she had ventured this time on a moderate reminiscence you you don't think your red dress is really a little worn if you know what i mean i mean just beneath the arms and well there are two or three very shiny patches i know my dear i know it is a shabby dress but it is nevertheless a tattoo model it is old but it was enormously expensive i'm not trying to look rich or extravagant i am an impoverished member of an aristocratic family anyone under 50 no doubt would despise me but my hostess is living and has lived for some years in a part of the world where the rich will be kept waiting for their meal while the hostess will be willing to wait for the shabby elderly woman of impeccable descent family traditions are things that one does not lose easily one absorbs them even when one goes to a new neighborhood in my trunk by the way you will find a filibur are you going to put on a feather bower yes i am an ostrich feather one oh dear that must be years old it is but i've kept it very carefully you'll see charlotte will recognize what it is she will think one of the best families in england was reduced to wearing her old clothes that she had kept carefully for years and i'll wear my seal skin coat too that's a little worn but such a magnificent coat in its time thus a raid she set forth amy went with her as a well-dressed though only quietly smart attendant matilda clay heaton had been prepared for what she saw a whale a stafford had told her a wallowing whale a hideous old woman sitting in a room surrounded with pictures worth of fortune rising with some difficulty from a throne-like chair which could have figured on a stage representing the palace of some magnificent prince from any age from the middle ages down matilda charlotte after all these years how strange it seems they exchanged words of greeting and pleasure talking partly in german and partly in english lady matilda's german was slightly faulty charlotte spoke excellent german excellent english though with a strong guttural accent and occasionally english with an american accent she was really lady matilda thought quite splendidly hideous for a moment she felt a fondness almost dating back to the past although she reflected the next moment charlotte had been a most detestable girl nobody had really liked her and she herself had certainly not done so but there is a great bond say what we will in the memories of old school days whether charlotte had liked her or not she did not know but charlotte should remember it had certainly what used to be called in those days sucked up to her she had had visions possibly of staying in a ducal castle in england lady matilda's father though of most praiseworthy lineage had been one of the most impecunious of english dukes his estate had only been held together by the rich wife he had married whom he had treated with the utmost courtesy and who had enjoyed bullying him whenever able to do so lady matilda had been fortunate enough to be his daughter by a second marriage her own mother had been extremely agreeable and also a very successful actress able to play the part of looking at duchess far more than any real duchess could do they exchanged reminiscences of past days the tortures they had inflicted on some of their instructors the fortunate and unfortunate marriages that had occurred to some of their schoolmates matilda made a few mentions of certain alliances and families called from the pages of the almanac de gota but of course that must have been a terrible marriage for elsa one of the bourbon de pan wasn't it yes well well one knows what that leads to most unfortunate coffee was brought delicious coffee plates of meal furry pastry and delicious cream cakes oh i should not touch any of this cried ladybuttholder no indeed my doctor he's most severe he said that i must adhere strictly to the cure while i was here but after all this is a day of holiday is it not of renewal of youth that is what interests me so much my great nephew who visited you not long ago i forget who brought him here the count is uh began with a zed i cannot remember her name the count is renata zarkovsky ah yes that was the name a very charming a woman i believe and she brought him to visit her it was most kind of her he was so impressed impressed too with all your beautiful possessions your way of living and indeed the wonderful things which he had heard about you how you have a whole movement of oh i don't know how to give the proper term a galaxy of youth golden beautiful youth they flock around you they worship you what a wonderful life you must live not that i could support such a life i have to live very quietly rheumatoid arthritis and also the financial difficulties difficulty in keeping up the family house oh well you know what it is in england our taxation troubles i remember that nephew of yours yes he was agreeable a very agreeable man the diplomatic service i understand yes but it is well you know i cannot feel that his talents are being properly recognized he does not say much he does not complain but he feels that he is well he feels that he has not been appreciated as he should the powers that be those who hold office at present what are they can i said big charlotte intellectuals with no several fairy life 50 years ago it would have been different said lady matilda but nowadays his promotion has been not advanced as it should i will even tell you in confidence of course that he's been distrusted they suspect him you know of being in with them what shall i call it rebellious revolutionary tendencies and yet one must realize what the future could hold for a man who could embrace more advanced views you mean he is not then uh how do you say it in england in sympathy with the establishment as they call it hush hush we must not say these things at least i must not said lady matilda you interest me said charlotte matilda clark heat inside put it down if you like to the fondness of an elderly relative staffy has always been a favorite of mine he has charm and wit i think also he has ideas he envisages the future a future that should differ a good deal from what we have at present our country allows us politically in a very bad state stafford seems to be very much impressed by things you said to him or showed to him you've done so much for music i understand what we need i cannot but feel is the ideal of the super race there should and could be a super race adolf hitler had the right idea said charlotte a man of no importance in himself but he had artistic elements in his character and undoubtedly he had the power of leadership arias leadership that is what we need you had the wrong allies in the last war my dear if england and germany now had arrayed themselves side by side if they had had the same ideals of youth strength the two aryan nations with the right ideals think where your country and mine might have arrived today if perhaps even that is too narrow a view to take in some ways the communists and the others have taught us a lesson workers of the world unite but that is to set one's sights too low workers are only our material it is leaders of the world unite young men with the gift of leadership of good blood and we must start not with the middle aged men set in their ways repeating themselves like a gramophone record that has stuck we must seek among the student population the young men with brave hearts with great ideas willing to march willing to be killed but willing also to kill to kill without any compunction because it is certain that without aggressiveness without violence without attack there can be no victory i must show you something with something of a struggle she succeeded in rising to her feet lady matilda followed suit underlining a little her difficulty which was not quite as much as she was making out it was may 1940 said charlotte when hitler youth went on to its second stage when himmler obtained from hitler a charter the charter of the famous ss it was formed for the destruction of the eastern peoples the slaves the appointed slaves of the world it would make room for the german master race the ss executive instrument came into being a voice dropped a little it held for the moment a kind of religious or lady matilda nearly crossed herself by mistake the order of the death's head said big charlotte she walked slowly and painfully down the room and pointed to where on the wall hung framed in guilt and surmounted with a skull the order of the death's head see it is my most cherished possession it hangs here on my wall my golden youth band when they come here saluted and in our archives in the castle here are folios of its chronicles some of them are only reading for strong stomachs but one must learn to accept these things the deaths in gas chambers the torture cells the trials at nuremberg speak venomously of all those things but it was a great tradition strength through pain they were trained young the boys so they should not falter or turn back or suffer from any kind of softness even lenin preaching his marxist doctrine declared away with softness it was one of his first rules for creating a perfect state but we were too narrow we wish to confine our great dream only to the german master race but there are other races they too can attain masterhood through suffering and violence and through the considered practice of anarchy we must pull down pull down all soft institutions pull down the more humiliating forms of religion there is religion of strength the old religion of the viking people and we have a leader young as yet gaining in power every day what did some great man say give me the tools and i will do the job something like that our leader has already the tools he will have more tools he will have the planes the bombs the means of chemical warfare he will have the men to fight he will have the transport he will have shipping and oil he will have what one might call the aladdin's creation of genie you rub the lamp and the genie appears it is all in your hands the means of production the means of wealth and our young leader a leader by birth as well as by character he has all this she wheezed and coughed and let me help you lady matilda supported her back to her seat charlotte gasped a little as she sat down it is sad to be old but i shall last long enough long enough to see the triumph of a new world a new creation that is what you want for your nephew i will see to it power in his own country that is what he wants is it not you would be ready to encourage the spearhead there i had influence once but now lady matilda shook her head sadly all that is gone it will come again dear said her friend you are right to come to me i have certain influence it is a great cause said lady matilda she sighed and murmured the young siegfried i hope you enjoyed meeting your old friend said amy as they drove back to the guest house if you could have heard all the nonsense i talked you wouldn't believe it said lady matilda clark heaton chapter 16 pike away talks uh the news from france is very bad said colonel pike away brushing a cloud of cigar ash off his coat i heard winston churchill say that in the last war there was a man who was speaking plain words and no more than needed it was very impressive it told us what we needed to know well it's a long time since then but i say it again today the news from france is very bad he coughed wheezed and brushed a little more ash off himself the news from italy is very bad he said the news from russia i imagine could be very bad if they let much out about it they've got trouble there too marching bands of students in the street shop windows smashed embassies attacked news from egypt is very bad news from jerusalem is very bad news from syria is very bad that's all more or less normal so we didn't worry too much news from argentine is what i'd call peculiar very peculiar indeed argentine brazil cuba they've all got together call themselves the golden youth federated states or something like that it's got an army too properly drilled properly armed probably commanded they've got planes they've got bombs they've got god knows what and most of them seem to know what to do with them which makes it worse there's a singing crowd as well apparently pop songs old local folk songs and bygone battle hymns they go along rather like the salvation army used to do no blasphemy intended i'm not grabbing the salvation army jolly good work they did always and the girls prettiest punch in their bonnet he went on i've heard that something's going on in that line in the civilized countries starting with us some of us can be called civilized still i suppose one of our politicians the other day i remember said we were a splendid nation chiefly because we were permissive we had demonstrations we smashed things we beat up anyone if we hadn't anything better to do we got rid of our high spirits by showing violence and our moral purity by taking most of our clothes off i don't know what he thought he was talking about politicians seldom do but they could make it sound alright that's why they are politicians he paused and looked across at the man he was talking to distressing sadly distressing said sir george packham one can hardly believe one worries if one could only is that all the news you've got he asked plaintively isn't it enough you're hard to satisfy world anarchy well on its way that's what we've got bit wobbly still not fully established yet but very near it very near indeed but action can surely be taken against all this not so easy as you think tear gas puts a stop to rioting for a while and gives the police a break and naturally we've got plenty of germ warfare and nuclear bombs and all the other pretty bags of tricks what do you think would happen if we started using those mass massacre of all the marching girls and boys and the housewives shopping circle and the old age pensioners at home and a good quota of our pompous politicians as they tell us we've never had it so good and in addition you and me and anyway added colonel pikeaway if it's only news you're after i understand you've got some hot news of your own arriving today top secret from germany here heinrich peace himself how on earth did you hear that it's supposed to be strictly we know everything here said colonel pikeaway using his pet phrase that's what we're for bringing some tame doctor too i understand he added yes a doctor reichhardt top scientist i presume no no medical doctor looney bins oh dear a psychologist probably the ones that run loony bins are mostly that with any luck he'll have been brought over so he can examine the heads of some of our young firebrands stuffed full they are of german philosophy black power philosophy dead french writers philosophy and so on and so forth possibly they'll let him examine some of the heads of our legal lights who preside over judicial courts here saying we must be very careful not to do anything to damage a young man's ego because he might have to earn his living we'd be a lot safer if they sent them all around to get plenty of national assistance to live on and then they could go back to their rooms not do any work and enjoy themselves by reading more philosophy however i'm out of date i know that you didn't tell me sir one has to take into account the new modes of thought said sir george beckham one feels i mean one hopes well it's difficult to say must be very worrying for you said colonel pikeaway finding things so difficult to say his telephone rang he listened then handed it to sir george yes said sir george yes oh yes yes i agree i uh i suppose no uh no not the home office no privately you mean well i suppose we'd better use uh sir george looked around him cautiously oh the place isn't bugged said colonel pike away amiably code word blue danube said to george packham in a loud horse whisper yes yes i'll bring pike away along with me oh yes of course yes yes get on to him yes say you particularly want him to come but to remember our meeting has got to be strictly private we can't take my car then said pike away it's too well known henry horsham's coming to fetch us in the volkswagen fine said colonel pike away interesting you know all this you don't think said sir george and hesitated i don't think what i mean just really well i mean if you wouldn't mind my suggesting uh a clothes brush oh this colonel pacquiao hit himself lightly on the shoulder and a cloud of cigar ash flew up and made sir george choke nanny colonel pikeaway shouted he banged a buzzer on the desk a middle-aged woman came in with a clothes brush appearing with the suddenness of a genie summoned by aladdin's lamp hold your breath please sir george she said this may be a little pungent she held the door open for him and he retired outside while she brushed colonel pikeaway who coughed and complained oh damn nuisance these people are always wanting you to get fixed up like a barber's dummy i should not describe your appearances quite like that colonel pike away you ought to be used to my cleaning you up nowadays and you know the home secretary suffers from asthma well that's his fault not taking proper care to have pollution removed from the streets of london come on sir george let's hear what our german friend has come over to say sounds as though it's a matter of some urgency chapter 17 her heinrich peace was a worried man he did not seek to conceal the fact he acknowledged indeed without concealment that the situation which these five men had come together to discuss was a serious situation at the same time he brought with him that sense of reassurance which had been his principle asset in dealing with the recently difficult political life in germany he was a solid man a thoughtful man a man who could bring common sense to any assemblies he attended he gave no sense of being a brilliant man and that in itself was reassuring brilliant politicians had been responsible for about two-thirds of the national states of crisis in more countries than one the other third of trouble had been caused by those politicians who were unable to conceal the fact that although duly elected by democratic governments they had been unable to conceal their remarkably poor powers of judgment common sense and in fact any noticeable brainy qualities ah this is not in any sense an official visit you understand said hershby's no quite quite a certain piece of knowledge has come to me which i thought is essential we should share it throws a rather interesting light on certain happenings which have puzzled as well as distressed us this is dr reichardt introductions were made dr reichardt was a large and comfortable looking man with the habit of saying from time to time dr reichhat is in charge of a large establishment in the neighborhood of khalsa he treats their mental patients i think i am correct in saying that you treat there between five and six hundred patients am i not right ah so said dr reichardt i take it that you have several different forms of mental illness ah so i have different forms of mental illness but nevertheless i have a special interest in and treat almost exclusively one particular type of mental trouble he branched off into german and harsh peace presently rendered a brief translation in case some of his english colleagues should not understand this was both necessary and tactful two of them did in part one of them definitely did not and the two others were truly puzzled dr reichardt has had explained hershby's the greatest success in his treatment of what as a layman i describe as megalomania they believe that you are someone other than you are ideas of being more important than you are ideas that if you have persecution mania ah no said dr reichardt persecution mania no that i do not treat there is no persecution mania in my clinic not among the group with whom i am specially interested on the contrary they hold the delusion that they do because they wish to be happy and they are happy and i can keep them happy but if i cure them see you they will not be happy so i have to find a cure that will restore sanity to them and yet they will be happy just the same we call this particular state of mind he uttered a long and ferocious sounding german word of at least eight syllables for the purpose of our english friends i shall still use my term of megalomania though i know continued hair space rather quickly that that is not the time you use nowadays dr reichardt so as i say you have in your clinic 600 patients and at one time the time to which i'm about to refer i had 800. 800 it was interesting most interesting you have such persons to start at the beginning we have god almighty exclaimed dr reichardt you comprehend mr lazenby looked slightly taken aback oh yeah yes yes very interesting i'm sure there are one or two young men of course who think they are jesus christ but that is not so popular as the almighty and then there are the others i had at the time i'm about to mention 24 adolf hitler's this you must understand was at the time when hitler was alive yes 24 or 25 adult hitler's he consulted a small notebook which he took from his pocket i have made some notes here yes 15 napoleons napoleon is always popular ten mussolinis five reincarnations of julius caesar and many other cases very curious and very interesting but that i will not weary you with at this moment not being specially qualified in the medical sense it would not be of any interest to you we will come to the incident that matters dr reichardt spoke again at rather shorter length and hersh peace continued to translate there came to him one day a government official hardly thought of at that time this was during the war mind you by the ruling government i will call him for the moment martin b you will know who i mean he brought with him his chief in fact he brought with him well we will not beat about the bush he brought the fuhrer himself ah said dr reichardt it was a great honor you understand that he should come to inspect went on the doctor he was gracious mindful he told me that he had heard very good reports of my successes he said there had been trouble lately cases from the army there more than once there had been men believing they were napoleon sometimes believing they were some of napoleon's marshals and sometimes you comprehend behaving accordingly giving out military orders and causing therefore military difficulties i would have been happy to give him any professional knowledge that might be useful to him but martin b who accompanied him said that would not be necessary our great fuhrer however said dr reichardt looking at hash peace slightly uneasily did not want to be bothered with such details he said that no doubt it would be better if medically qualified men with some experience as neurologists should come and have a consultation what he wanted was to ah well he wanted to see round and i soon found what he was really interested to see it should not have surprised me oh no because you see it was a symptom that one recognizes the strain of his life was already beginning to tell on the fuhrer i suppose he was beginning to think he was god almighty himself at that time said colonel pike away unexpectedly and he chuckled dr reichardt looked shocked she asked me to let him know certain things he said that martin b had told him that i actually had a large number of patients thinking not to put too fine a point on it that they were themselves adolf hitler i explained to him that this was not uncommon that naturally with the respect the worship they paid to hitler it was only natural that the great wish to be like him should end eventually by them identifying themselves with him i was a little anxious when i mentioned this but i was delighted to find that he expressed great signs of satisfaction he took it i am thankful to say as a compliment this passionate wish to find identity with himself he next asked if he could meet a representative number of these patients with this particular affliction we had a little consultation martin b seemed doubtful but he took me aside and assured me that hitler actually wished to have this experience what he himself was anxious to ensure was that hitler did not meet well in short that a hitler was not to be allowed to run any risks if any of these so-called hitlers believing passionately in themselves as such were inclined to be a little violent or dangerous i assured him that he need have no worry i suggested that i should collect a group of the most amiable of our fuhrers and assemble them for him to meet abby insisted that the fuhrer was very anxious to interview and mingle with them without my accompanying him the patients he said would not behave naturally if they saw the chief of the establishment there and if there was no danger i assured him again that there was no danger i said however that i should be glad if her bee would wait upon him there was no difficulty about that it was arranged messages were sent to the fuhrers to assemble in a room for a very distinguished visitor who was anxious to compare notes with them also martin b and the fuhrer were introduced into the assembly i retired closing the door and chatted with the two adcs who had accompanied them the fuhrer i said was looking in a particularly anxious state he had no doubt had many troubles of late this i may say was very shortly before the end of the war when things quite frankly were going badly the fury himself they told me had been greatly depressed of late but was convinced that he could bring the war to a successful close if the ideas which he was continually presenting to his general staff were acted upon and accepted promptly and the fuhrer i presume said to george packham was at that time i mean to say no doubt uh he was in a state that uh we need not stress these points said hershby's he was completely beyond himself authority had to be taken for him on several points but all that you will know well enough from the researchers you have made in my country one remembers that at the nuremberg trials there's no need to refer to the nuremberg trials i'm sure said mr lazenby decisively all that is far behind us we look forward to a great future in the common market with your government's help with the government of monsieur grosjean and your other european colleagues the past is the past a quite so said hashbees and it is of the past now that we talk martin b and hitler remained for a very short time in the assembly room they came out again after seven minutes herbie expressed himself to dr reichardt as very well satisfied with their experience if their car was waiting and he and her hitler must proceed immediately to where they had another appointment they left very hurriedly there was a silence and then asked colonel pike away uh something happened or had already happened the behavior of one of our hitler patients was unusual said dr reichardt he was a man who had a particularly close resemblance to hitler which had given him always this special confidence in his own portrayal he insisted now more fiercely than ever that he was the fuhrer that he must go immediately to berlin that he must preside over a council of the general staff in fact he behaved with no signs of the former slight amelioration which he had shown in his condition he seemed so unlike himself that i really could not understand this change taking place so suddenly i was relieved indeed when two days later his relations called to take him home for future private treatment there and you let him go said hershbis or naturally i let him go they had a responsible doctor with them he was a voluntary patient not certified and therefore he was within his rights so he left oh i don't see again sir george packham hershbis has a theory it is not a theory such piece what i am telling you is fact the russians concealed it we've concealed it plenty of evidence and proof has come in hitler our fuhrer remained in the asylum by his own consent that day and the man with the nearest resemblance to the real hitler departed with martin b it was that patient's body which was subsequently found in the bunker i will not beat about the bush we need not go into unnecessary details we all have to know the truth said lazenby the real fuhrer was smuggled by a pre-arranged underground route to the argentine and lived there for some years he had a sun there by a beautiful aryan girl of good family some say she was an english girl hitler's mental condition worsened and he died insane believing himself to be commanding his armies in the field it was the only plan possible by which he could ever have escaped from germany he accepted it and you mean that for all these years nothing has leaked out about this nothing has been known there have been rumors there are always rumors if you remember one of the tsar's daughters in russia was said to have escaped the general massacre of her family but that was george packham stopped false quite false it was proved false by one set of people it was accepted by another set of people both of whom had known her that anastasia was indeed anastasia or that anastasia grand duchess of russia was really only a peasant girl which story was true rumors the longer they go on the less people believe them except for those who have romantic minds who go on believing them it has often been ruined that hitler was alive not dead there is no one who has ever said with certainty that they have examined his dead body the russians declared so they brought no proofs though do you really mean to say dr reichardt do you support this extraordinary story ah said dr reichardt you ask me but i have told you my part it was certainly martin b who came to my sanatorium it was martin b who brought with him the fuhrer it was martin b who treated him as the fuhrer who spoke to him with the deference with which one speaks to the fuhrer as for me i lived already with some hundreds of fuhrers of napoleons of julius caesar's you must understand that the hitlers who lived in my sanatorium they looked alike they could have been nearly all of them could have been adolf hitler they themselves could never have believed in themselves with the passion the vehemence with which they knew that they were hitler unless they had had a basic resemblance with makeup clothing continual acting and playing of the part i had had no personal meeting with her adolf hitler at any previous time one saw pictures of him in the papers when you roughly what our great genius looked like but one knew only the pictures that he wished shown so he came he was the fuhrer martin b the man best to be believed on that subject said he was the fuhrer no i had no doubts i obeyed orders a hitler wished to go alone into a roon to meet a selection of his what sherman say his plaster copies he went in he came out an exchange of clothing could have been made not very different clothing in any case was it he himself or one of the self-appointed hitlers who came out rushed out quickly by martin b and driven away while the real man could have stayed behind could have enjoyed playing his part would have known that in this way and in this way only could he manage to escape from the country which at any moment might surrender he was already disturbed in mind mentally affected by rage and anger that the orders he gave the wild fantastic messages sent to his staff what they were to do what they were to say the impossible things they were to attempt were not as of old immediately obeyed he could feel already that he was no longer in supreme command but he had a small faithful two or three and they had a plan for him to get him out of this country out of europe to a place where he could rally around him in a different continent his nazi followers the young ones who believed so passionately in him the swastika would rise again there he played his part no doubt he enjoyed it yes that would be in keeping with a man whose reason was already tottering he would show these others that he could play the part of adolf hitler better than they did he laughed to himself occasionally and my doctors my nurses they would look in they would see some slight change one patient who seemed unusually mentally disturbed perhaps there was nothing in that it was always happening with napoleons with the julius caesars with all of them some days as one would say if one was a layman they are madder than usual that is the only way i can put it so now it is for hesh beast to speak fantastic said the home secretary yes a fantastic said hashbees patiently but fantastic things can happen you know in history in real life no matter how fantastic and nobody suspected nobody knew it was very well planned it was well planned well thought out the escape route was ready the exact details of it are not clearly known but one can make a pretty good recapitulation of them some of the people who are concerned who passed a certain personage on from place to place under different disguises under different names some of those people are now looking back at making inquiries we find did not live as long as they might have done you mean in case they should give the secret away or should talk too much the ss saw to that rich rewards praise promises of high positions in the future and then death is a much easier answer and the ss were used to death they knew the different ways of it they knew means of disposing of bodies oh yes i will tell you that this has been inquired into for some time now the knowledge has come little by little to us and we have made inquiries documents have been acquired and the truth has come out adolf hitler certainly reached south america it is said that a marriage ceremony was performed that a child was born the child was branded in the foot with the mark of the swastika branded as a baby i have seen trusted agents whom i can believe they have seen that branded foot in south america there that child was brought up carefully guarded shielded prepared prepared as the dalai lama might have been prepared for his great destiny for that was the idea behind the fanatical young the idea was greater than the idea that they had started out with this was not merely a revival of the new nazis the new german super race it was that yes but it was many more things besides it was the young of many other nations the super race of the young men of nearly every country in europe to join together to join the ranks of anarchy to destroy the old world that materialistic world to usher in a great new band of killing murdering violent brothers bend first on destruction then on rising to power and they had now their leader a leader with the right blood in his veins and a leader who though he grew up with no great likeness to his dead father was no is a golden-haired fair nordic boy taking presumably after the looks of his mother a golden boy a boy whom the whole world could accept the germans and the austrians first because it was the great article of their faith of their music the young siegfried so he grew up as the young siegfried who would command them all who would lead them into the promised land not the promised land of the jews whom they despised where moses led his followers the jews were dead under the ground killed or murdered in the gas chambers this was to be a land of their own a land gained by their own prowess the countries of europe were to be banded together with the countries of south america there already they had their spearhead their anarchists their prophets their guevaras the castros the guerrillas their followers a long arduous training in cruelty and torture and violence and death and after it glorious life freedom as rulers of the new world state the appointed conquerors absurd nonsense said mr lazenby once all this is put a stop to the whole thing will collapse this is all quite ridiculous what can they do cedric glazenby sounded merely queryless hershbys shook his heavy wise head you may ask i tell you the answer which is they do not know they don't know where they are going they don't know what is going to be done with them you mean they're not the real leaders they are the young marching heroes trading their path to glory on the stepping stones of violence of pain of hatred they have now there following not only in south america and europe the cult has traveled north in the united states there too the young men riot they march they follow the banner of the young siegfried they are taught his ways they are taught to kill to enjoy pain they are taught the rules of the death's head the rules of himmler they are being trained you see they are being secretly indoctrinated they do not know what they are being trained for but we do some of us at least and you in this country four or five of us perhaps said colonel pikeaway in russia they know in america they have begun to know they know that there are the followers of the young hero siegfried based on the norse legends that a young secret is the leader that that is their new religion the religion of the glorious boy the golden triumph of youth in him the old nordic gods have risen again but that of course said hershbis dropping his voice to a commonplace tone that of course is not the simple prosaic truth there are some powerful personalities behind this evil men with first-class brains a first-class financier a great industrialist someone who controls mines oil stores of uranium who own scientists of the top class and those are the ones a committee of men who themselves do not look particularly interesting or extraordinary but nevertheless have got control they control the sources of power and control through certain means of their own the young men who kill and the young men who are slaves by control of drugs they acquire slaves slaves in every country who little by little progress from soft drugs to hard drugs and who are then completely subservient completely dependent on men whom they do not even know but who secretly own them body and soul their craving need for a particular drug makes them slaves and in due course these slaves prove to be no good because of their dependence on drugs they will only be capable of sitting in apathy dreaming sweet dreams and so they will be left to die or even helped to die they will not inherit that kingdom in which they believe strange religions are being deliberately introduced to them the gods of the old days disguised and permissive sex also plays its part i suppose sex can destroy itself in old roman times the men who steeped themselves in vice who were oversexed who ran sex to death until they were bored and weary of sex sometimes fled from it and went out into the desert and became anchorites like sin simeon stylites sex will exhaust itself it does its work for the time being but it cannot rule you as drugs rule you drugs and sadism and the love of power and hatred a desire for pain for its own sake the pleasures of inflicting it they are teaching themselves the pleasures of evil once the pleasures of evil get a hold on you you cannot draw back my dear chancellor i i really can't believe you i mean well i i mean that if there are these tendencies they must be put down by adopting strong measures i mean really one one can't go on pandering to this sort of thing one must take a firm stand a firm stand oh shut up george mr lazenby pulled out his pipe looked at it put it back in his pocket again the best plan i think he said his e-defeats reasserting itself it would be for me to fly to russia i understand that well that these facts are known to the russians they know sufficient said her speech how much they will admit they know he shrugged his shoulders that is difficult to say it is never easy to get the russians to come out in the open they have their own troubles on the chinese border they believe perhaps less in the far advanced stage into which the movement has got than we do i should make mine a special mission i should i should stay here if i were you cedric lord altamonte's quiet voice spoke from where he leaned rather wearily back in his chair we need you here cedric he said there was gentle authority in his voice you are the head of our government you must remain here we have our trained agents our own emissaries who are qualified for foreign missions agents sir george packham dubiously demanded what can agents do at this stage we must have a report from ah horsham there you are i didn't notice you before tell us what agents have we got and what can they possibly do we've got some very good agents said henry horsham quietly agents bring you information here spies also has brought you information information which his agents have obtained for him the trouble is always has been you've only got to read about the last war nobody wishes to believe the news the agents bring surely intelligence nobody wants to accept that the agents are intelligent but they are you know they are highly trained and their reports nine times out of ten are true what happens then the high ups refuse to believe it don't want to believe it go further and refuse to act upon it in any way really my dear horsham i can't horsham turn to the german even in your country sir didn't that happen true reports were brought in but they weren't always acted upon people don't want to know if truth is unpalatable i have to agree that can and does happen not often of that i assure you but yes sometimes mr lazenby was fidgeting again with his pipe let us not argue about information it's a question of dealing of acting upon the information we've got this is not merely a national crisis it's an international crisis decisions must be taken at top level we must act monroe the police must be reinforced by the army military measures must be set in motion her speech you have always been a great military nation rebellions must be put down by armed force before they get out of hand you would agree with that policy i'm sure the policy yes but these interactions are already what you term out of hand they have tools rifles machine guns explosives grenades bombs chemical and other gases but with our nuclear weapons a mere threat of nuclear warfare and these are not just disaffected school boys with this army of youth there are scientists young biologists chemists physicists to start or to engage in nuclear warfare in europe ashby shook his head already we have an attempt to poison the water supply at cologne tie for it the whole position is incredible cedric glazenby looked round him hopefully chetwin monroe blunt admiral blunt was somewhat to lazenby's surprise the only one to respond i don't know where the admiralty comes in and not quite our pigeon i'd advise you cedric if you want to do the best thing for yourself to take your pipe and a big supply of tobacco and get as far out of range of any nuclear warfare you're thinking of starting as you can go and camp in the antarctic or somewhere where radioactivity will take a long time catching up with you professor eckstein warned us you know and he knows what he's talking about chapter 18 pike away's postscript the meeting broke up at this point it split into a definite rearrangement here spies and the prime minister sir george packham gordon chetwind and dr reichardt departed for lunch at downing street admiral blunt colonel monroe colonel pikeaway and henry horsham remained to make their comments with more freedom of speech than they would have permitted themselves if the vips had remained the first remarks were somewhat disjointed well thank goodness they took george packham with them said colonel pike away worry fidget wonders surmise gets me down sometimes you ought to have gone with him admiral said colonel monroe can't see gordon chetwind or george packham being able to stop our cedric from going off for a top-level consultation with the russians the chinese the ethiopians the argentinians or anywhere else the fancy takes him i've got other kites to fly said the admiral gruffly going to the country to see an old friend of mine he looked with some curiosity at colonel pike away was the hitler business really a surprise to you by the way colonel pacquiao shook his head no not really we've known all about the rumors of our adolf turning up in south america and keeping the swastika flying for years 50 to 50 chance of its being true whoever the chap was madmen play acting imposter or the real thing he passed in his checks quite soon nasty stories about that too he wasn't an asset to his supporters whose body was it in the bunker is still a good talking point said blunt never been any definite identification russian sort of that he got up nodded to the others and went towards the door monroe said thoughtfully i suppose dr reichardt knows the truth though he played it cagey what about the chancellor said horsham sensible man grunted the admiral turning his head back from the doorway he was getting his country the way he wanted it when this youth business started playing fun and games with the civilized world pity he looked shrewdly at colonel monroe what about the golden-haired wonder hitler's son know all about him no need to worry said colonel pike away unexpectedly the admiral let go of the door handle and came back and sat down all me i and betty martin said colonel pikeaway hitler never had a son well you can't be sure of that we are sure france joseph the young sea creed the idolized leader is a common organ fraud a rank imposter he's the son of an argentinian carpenter and a good looking blonde a small part german opera singer inherited his looks and his singing voice from his mother he was carefully chosen for the part he was to play groomed for stardom in his early youth he was a professional actor he was branded in the foot with a swastika story made up for him full of romantic details he was treated like a dedicated dalai lama and you've proof of this full documentation colonel pacquiao grinned one of my best agents got it affidavits photostats signed declaration including one from the mother and medical evidence says to the date of the scar copy of the original birth certificate of carl aguileros and signed evidence of his identity with the so-called france joseph the whole bag of tricks my agent got away with it just in time they were after her might have got her if she hadn't had a bit of luck at frankfurt oh and where are these documents now in a safe place waiting for the right moment for a spectacular debunking over first-class imposter do the government know this a prime minister i never tell all i know to politicians not until i can't avoid it or until i'm quite sure they'll do the right thing you are an old devil by the way said colonel monroe well somebody has to be said colonel pike away sadly chapter 19 sir stafford nye has visitors so stafford and i was entertaining guests they were guests with whom he had been previously unacquainted except for one of them whom he knew fairly well by sight they were good-looking young men serious-minded and intelligent or so he should judge their hair was controlled and stylish their clothes were well cut they're not unduly old-fashioned looking at them stafford and i was unable to deny that he liked the look of them at the same time he wondered what they wanted with him one of them he knew was the son of an oil king another of them since leaving the university had interested himself in politics he had an uncle who owned a chain of restaurants the third one was a young man with beetle brows who frowned and to whom perpetual suspicion seemed to be second nature it's very good of you to let us come and call upon you stafford said the one who seemed to be the blonde leader of the three his voice was very agreeable his name was clifford bent uh this is roderick catelli and this is jim brewster we're all anxious about the future shall i put it like that i suppose the answer to that is aren't we all said sir stafford and i we don't like the way things are going said clifford bent rebellion anarchy all that well it's all right as a philosophy frankly i think we may say that we all seem to go through a phase of it but one does come out the other side we want people to be able to pursue academic careers without they being interrupted we want a good sufficiency of demonstrations but not demonstrations of hooliganism and violence we want intelligent demonstrations and what we want quite frankly or so i think is a new political party jim brewster here has been paying serious attention to entirely new ideas and plans concerning trade union matters they've tried to shut him down and talk him out but he's gone on talking haven't you jim muddled headed old fools most of them said jim brewster we want a sensible and serious policy for youth a more economical method of government we want different ideas to obtain in education but nothing fantastic or high for looting and we shall want if we win seats and if we're able finally to form a government and i don't see why we shouldn't to put these ideas into action there are a lot of people in our movement we stand for youth you know just as well as the violent ones do we stand for moderation and we need to have a sensible government with a reduction in the number of mps and we're noting down looking for the men already in politics no matter what their particular persuasion is if we think they're men of sense we've come here to see if we can interest you in our aims at the moment they're still in a state of flux but we've got as far as knowing the men we want i may say that we don't want the ones we've got at present and we don't want the ones who might be put in instead as for the third party it seems to have died out of the running though there are one or two good people there who suffer now for being in a minority but i think they would come over to our way of thinking we want to interest you we want one of these days perhaps not so far distance you might think we want someone who'd understand and put out a proper successful foreign policy the rest of the world's in a worse mess than we are now washington's raised to the ground europe has continual military actions demonstrations wrecking of airports oh well i don't need to write you a newsletter of the past six months but our aim is not so much to put the world on its legs again as to put england on its legs again to have the right men to do it we want young men a great many young men and we've got a great many young men who aren't revolutionary who aren't anarchistic who will be willing to try and make a country run profitably and we want some of the older men i don't mean men of 60 odd i mean men of 40 or 50 and we've come to you because well we've heard things about you we know about you and you're the sort of man we want do you think you are wise said to stafford well we think we are the second young man laughed silently we hope you'll agree with us there i'm not sure that i do you're talking in this room very freely it's your sitting room yes yes it's my flat and it's my sitting room but what you are saying and in fact what you might be going to say might be unwise that means both for you as well as me oh i think i see what you're driving at you're offering me something a way of life a new career and you're suggesting a breaking of certain ties you're suggesting a form of disloyalty we're not suggesting you're becoming a defector to any other country that's what you mean no no this is not an invitation to russia or an invitation to china or an invitation to other places mentioned in the past but i think it is an invitation connected with some foreign interests he went on i've recently come back from abroad a very interesting journey i've spent the last three weeks in south america there's something i would like to tell you i have been conscious since i returned to england that i have been followed followed you don't think you imagined it no i don't think i've imagined it those are the sort of things i have learned to notice in the course of my career i've been in some fairly distant and shall we say interesting parts of the world you chose to call upon me to sound me as to a proposition it might have been safer though if we had met someone else he got up opened the door into the bathroom and turned on the tab from the films i used to see some years ago he said if you wish to disguise your conversation when a room was bugged you turned on taps i have no doubt that i am somewhat old-fashioned and that there are better methods of dealing with these things now but at any rate perhaps we could speak a little more clearly now though even then i still think we should be careful south america he went on is a very interesting part of the world the federation of south american countries spanish gold has been one name for it comprising by now cuba the argentine brazil peru one or two others not quite settled and fixed but coming into being yes very interesting and what are your views on the subject the suspicious looking jim brewster asked what have you got to say about things i shall continue to be careful said sir stafford you will have more dependence on me if i do not talk in advisedly but i think that can be done quite well after i turn off the bath water turn it off jim said cliff bent jim grinned suddenly and obeyed stafford and i opened a draw at the table and took out a recorder not a very practiced player yet he said he put it to his lips and started a tune jim brewster came back scouting what's this bloody concert we're going to put on shut up said cliff bend you ignoramus you don't know anything about music stafford and i smiled you share my pleasure in wagnerian music i see he said i was at the youth festival this year and enjoyed the concerts there very much again he repeated the tune not any tune i know said jim brewster it might be the international or the red flag or god save the king or yankee doodle or the star-spangled banner what the devil is it it's a motif from an opera said catelli and shut your mouth we know all we want to know the horn call of a young hero said stafford nye he brought up his hand in a quick gesture the gesture from the past meaning hitler he murmured very gently the new siegfried all three rows you're quite right said clifford bent we must all i think be very careful you shook hands we are glad to know that you will be with us one of the things this country will need in its future its great future i hope will be a first-class foreign minister they went out of the room stafford nye watched them through the slightly open door go into the lift and descend he gave a curious smile shut the door glanced up at the clock on the wall and sat down in an easy chair to wait his mind went back to the day a week ago now when he and marianne had gone their separate ways from kennedy airport they had stood there both of them finding it difficult to speak stafford and i had broken the silence first do you think we'll ever meet again i wonder is there any reason why we shouldn't every reason i should think she looked at him then quickly away again [Music] these partings have to happen it's part of the job the job it's always the job with you isn't it it has to be you're a professional i'm only an amateur you're a he broke off what are you who are you i don't really know do i no he looked at her then he saw sadness he thought in her face something that was almost pain so i have to wonder you think i ought to trust you i suppose no not that that is one of the things that i have learned that life has taught me there is nobody that one can trust remember that always so that is your world a world of distrust of fear of danger i wish to stay alive i am alive i know and i want you to stay alive i trusted you in frankfurt you took a risk it was a risk well worth taking you know that as well as i do you mean because because we've been together and now that is my flight being called is this companionship of ours which started in an airport to end here in another airport you're going where to do what to do what i have to do to baltimore to washington to texas to do what i've been told to do and i i've been told nothing i am to go back to london and do what there wait wait for what for the advances that almost certainly will be made to you and what am i to do then she smiled at him with the sudden gay smile that he knew so well then you play it by ear you'll know how to do it none better you'll like the people who approach you they'll be well chosen it's important very important that we should know who they are i must go goodbye marianne i'll feed the scene in the london flat the telephone rang at a singularly opposite moment stafford and i thought bringing him back from his past memories just at the moment of their farewell i'll feed the zane he murmured as he rose to his feet crossed to take the receiver off let it be so a voice whose wheezy accents were quite unmistakable stafford and i he gave the requisite answer no smoke without fire my doctor says i should give up smoking poor fellow said colonel pike away you might as well give up hope of that any news oh yes 30 pieces of silver promised that is to say damned swine yes yes keep calm and what did you say i played them a tune siegfried's horn motif i was following an elderly aunt's advice it went down very well sounds crazy to me do you know a song called juanita i must learn that too in case i need it don't you know who one eater is i think so hmm i wonder heard of in baltimore asked what about your greek girl daphne theodophonus where is she now i wonder sitting in an airport somewhere in europe waiting for you probably said colonel pike away most of the european airports seem to be closed down because they've been blown up more or less or damaged high explosives hijackers hijinks the boys and girls come out to play the moon doth shine as bright as day leave your supper and leave your sleep and shoot your play fellow in the street the children's crusade ala mode not that i really know much about it i only know the one that richard curder leon went to but in a way this whole business is rather like the children's crusade starting with idealism starting with ideas of the christian world delivering the holy city from pagans and ending in death death and again death nearly all the children died or were sold into slavery this will end the same way unless we can find some means of getting them out of it chapter 20 the admiral visits an old friend thought you must all be dead here said admiral blunt with a snort his remark was addressed not to the kind of butler which he would have liked to see opening this front door but to the young woman whose surname he could never remember but whose christian name was amy wrong you up at least four times in the last week gone abroad that's what they said uh we have been abroad we've only just come back matilda ordered to go rampaging about abroad not at her time of life she'll die of blood pressure or heart failure or something in one of those modern aeroplanes cavorting about full of explosives put in them by the arabs or the israelis or somebody or other not safe at all any longer her doctor recommended it to her oh well we all know what doctors are and she has really come back in very good spirits oh where's she been then oh taking a cure in germany or i can never quite remember whether it's germany or austria that new place you know the golden gust house oh yes i know the place you mean costs the earth doesn't it well it's said to produce very good results probably only a different way of killing you quicker said admiral blunt how did you enjoy it well not really very much the scenery was very nice but an imperious voice sounded from the floor above amy amy what are you doing talking in the hall all this time bring admiral blunt up here i'm waiting for him gallivanting about said admiral blunt after he had greeted his old friend that's how you'll kill yourself one of these days you mark my words now i shan't there's no difficulty at all in traveling nowadays running about all those airports ramps stairs buses not at all i had a wheelchair a year or two ago when i saw you you said you wouldn't hear of such a thing you said you have too much pride to admit you needed one well i've had to give up some of my pride nowadays philip come and sit down here and tell me why you wanted to come and see me all of a sudden you've neglected me a great deal for the last year well i've not been so well myself besides i've been looking into a few things you know the sort of thing when they ask your advice but don't mean in the least to take it they can't leave the navy alone keep on wanting to fiddle about with it draft them you look quite well to me said lady midsolder well you don't look so bad yourself my dear you've got a nice sparkle in your eye i'm devil than when you last told me you'll have to speak up more all right i'll speak up what do you want gin and tonic or whiskey or ram you seem ready to dispense strong liquor of any kind if it's all the same to you i'll have a gin and tonic amy rose and left the room and when she brings it said the admiral get rid of her again will you i want to talk to you talk to you particularly is what i mean refreshment brought lady matilda made a dismissive wave of the hand and amy departed with the heir of one who is pleasing herself not her employer she was a tactful young woman nice girl said the admiral very nice is that why you asked me to get rid of her and see she shut the door said that she mightn't overhear you saying something nice about her no i wanted to consult you what about your health or where to get some new servants or what to grow in the garden i want to consult you very seriously i thought perhaps you might be able to remember something for me dear philip how touching that you should think i can remember anything every year my memory gets worse i've come to the conclusion that one only remembers what's called the friends of one's youth even horrid girls one was at school with one remembers that one doesn't want to that's where i'd be now as a matter of fact a wave we know visiting schools no no no i went to see an old school friend whom i hadn't seen for 30 40 50 that sort of time or what was she like enormously fat and even nastier and horrider than i remembered her you've got very queer tastes i must say matilda well go on tell me tell me what it is you want me to remember i wondered if you remembered another friend of yours robert shawram probably shoreham of course i do the scientist fellow top scientist of course he wasn't the sort of man one would ever forget i wonder what put him into your head public need funny you should say that said lady matilda i thought the same thing myself the other day you thought what that he was needed or someone like him if there is anyone like him there isn't now listen matilda people talk to you a bit they tell you things i've told you things myself i've always wondered why because you can't believe that i'll understand them or be able to describe them and that was even more the case with robbie than with you i don't tell you naval secrets well he didn't tell me scientific secrets i mean only in a very general way yes but he used to talk to you about them didn't he well he liked saying things that would astonish me sometimes all right then here it comes i want to know if he ever talked to you in the days when he could talk properly for devil about something called project b project b matilda clay keaton considered thoughtfully sounds vaguely familiar she said he used to talk about project this or that sometimes or operation this or that but you must realize that none of it ever made any kind of sense to me and he knew it didn't but he used to like oh how should i put it astonishing me rather you know sort of describing it the way that a conjurer might describe how he takes three rabbits out of a hat without you knowing how he did it project b yes that was a good long time ago he was wildly excited for a bit i used to say to him sometimes how's project b going i know i know you've always been a tactful woman you could always remember what people were doing or interested in and even if you don't know the first thing about it you'd show an interest i described a new kind of naval gun to you once and you must have been bored stiff but you listened as brightly as though it was the thing you'd been waiting to hear about all your life as you tell me i've been attacked for a woman and a good listener even if i've never had much in the way of brains well i want to hear a little more about what robbie said about project b he said well it's very difficult to remember now he mentioned it after talking about some operation that they used to do on people's brains you know the people who were terribly melancholic and who were thinking of suicide who were so worried and neuroethanic that they had awful anxiety complexes stuff like that the sort of thing people used to talk about in connection with freud and he said that the side effects were impossible i mean the people were quite happy and meek and docide didn't worry anymore or want to kill themselves but they well i mean they didn't worry enough and therefore they used to get run over and all sorts of things like that because they weren't thinking of any danger and didn't notice it no i'm putting it badly but you do understand what i mean and anyway he said that was going to be the trouble he thought with project b did he describe it at all more close to that he said i'd put it into his head said matilda clay keaton unexpectedly what do you mean to say a scientist a top flight scientist like robbie actually said to you that you would put something into his scientific brain we should tell you the first thing about science of course not but i used to try and put a little common sense into people's brains the cleverer they are the less common sense they have i mean really the people who matter are the people who thought of simple things like perforations on postage stamps or like somebody adam or whatever his name was they know mcadam in america who put black stuff on road so the farmers could get all their crops from farms to the coast and make a better profit i mean they do much more good than all the high powered scientists do scientists can only think of things for destroying you well that's the sort of thing i said to robbie quite nicely of course there's a kind of joke he'd just been telling me that some splendid things have been done in the scientific world about germ warfare and experiments with biology and what you can do to unborn babies if you get out them early enough but also some peculiarly nasty and very unpleasant gases and saying how silly people were to protest against nuclear bombs because they were really a kindness compared to some of the other things that had been invented since then and so i said it to be much more to the point if robbie or someone clever like robbie could think of something really sensible and he looked at me with that you know little twinkle he has in his eye sometimes and said well what would you consider sensible and i said well instead of inventing all these germ warfares and these nasty gases and all the rest of it why don't you just invent something that makes people feel happy i said it wouldn't be any more difficult to do i said you've talked about this operation where i think you said they took a bit out of the front of your brain or maybe the back of your brain but anyway it made a great difference in people's dispositions they'd become quite different they hadn't worried anymore or they hadn't wanted to commit suicide but i said well if you could change people like that just by taking a little bit of bone or muscle or nerve or tinkering up a gland or taking out a gland or putting in more of a gland i said if you can make all that difference in people's dispositions why can't you invent something that will make people pleasant or just sleepy perhaps suppose you had something not a sleeping draft but just something that people sat down in a chair and had a nice dream 24 hours or so and just woke up to be fed now and again i said it would be a much better idea and uh is that what project b was well of course he never told me what it was exactly but he was excited with an idea and he said i'd put it into his head so it must have been something rather pleasant i'd put into his head mustn't it i mean i hadn't suggested any ideas to him of any nasty ways for killing people and i didn't want people even you know to cry like tear gas or anything like that perhaps laughing yes i believe i mentioned laughing ass i said well if you have your teeth out they give you three sniffs of it and you laugh well surely surely you could invent something that's as useful as that but would last a little longer because i believe laughing gas only lasts about 50 seconds doesn't it i know my brother had some teeth out once the dentist's chair was very near the window and my brother was laughing so much while he was unconscious i mean that he stretched his leg right out and put it through the dentist's window and all the glass fell in the street and dentist was very cross about it your stories always have such strange sidekicks said the admiral anyway this is what robbie shawram had chosen to get on with from your advice well i don't know what it was exactly i mean i don't think it was sleeping or laughing at any rate it was something it wasn't really project b and it had another name what sort of name well he did mention it once i think or twice the name he'd given it uh rather like benja's food said aunt matilda considering thoughtfully some uh soothing agent for the digestion i didn't think it had anything to do with the digestion i rather think it was something you sniffed or perhaps it was a gland you know we talked of so many things that you never quite knew what he was talking about at the moment benjamin's food ben ben it did begin with ben and there was a pleasant word associated with it is that all you would remember about it i think so i mean this was just a talk we had once and then quite a long time afterwards he told me i'd put something into his head for project ben or something and after that occasionally if i remembered i'd ask him if he was still working on project ben and then sometimes he'd be very exasperated and say no he'd come up against the stag and he was putting it all aside now because it was in well i mean the next eight words were pure jargon and i couldn't remember them and you wouldn't understand them if i said them to you but in the end i think dear oh dear this is all about eight or nine years ago and in the end he came one day and said do you remember project ben i said well of course i remembered it are you still working on it he said no he was determined to lay it all aside i said i was sorry sorry if he'd given it up and he said well it's not only that i can't get what i was trying for i know now that it could be god i know where i went wrong i know just what the snag was i know now just how to put that snag right again i've got lisa working on it with me yes it could work it would require experimenting on certain things but it could work well i said to him what are you worrying about and he said because i don't know what it would really do to people well i said something about his being afraid it would kill people or maim them for life or something no he said it's not like that he said it's a oh of course now i remember he called it project benvo yes and that's because it had to do with benevolence benevolence said the admiral highly surprised benevolence or do you mean charity no no no i think he meant simply that you could make people benevolent feel benevolent peace and good will towards men well he didn't put it like that no that's reserved for religious leaders they preach that to you and that if you did what they preached it'd be a very happy world but robbie i gather was not preaching he proposed to do something in his laboratory to bring about this result by purely physical means that's the sort of thing and he said you could never tell when things are beneficial to people or when they're not they are in one way and they're not in another and he said things about oh penicillin and sulfonamides and heart transplants and things like pills for women though we hadn't got the pill then but you know things that seem alright and they're wonder drugs or wonder gases or wonder something or other and then there's something about them that makes them go wrong as well as right and then you wish they weren't there and had never been thought of well that's the sort of thing that he seemed to be trying to get over to me it was all rather difficult to understand i said do you mean you don't like to take the risk and he said you're quite right i don't like to take the risk that's the trouble because you see i don't know in the least what the risk will be that's what happens to us poor devils of scientists we take the risks and the risks are not in what we've discovered it's the risks of what the people will have to tell about it will do with what we've discovered i said now you're talking about nuclear weapons again and atom bombs and he said oh to hell with nuclear weapons and atom bombs we've gone far beyond that but if you're going to make people nice tempered and benevolent i said what if you want to worry about and he said you don't understand matilda you'll never understand my fellow scientists in all probability would not understand either and no politicians would ever understand and so you see it's too big a risk to be taken at any rate one would have to think for a long time but i said you could bring people out of it again just like laughing gas couldn't you i mean you could make people benevolent just for a short time and then they'd get all right again or all wrong again it depends which way you look at it i should have thought and he said no this will be usually permanent quite permanent because it affects the um oh and then he went into jargon again you know long words and numbers formulas or molecular changes something like that i expect really it must be something like what they do to cretins you know to make them stop being cretins like giving them thyroid or taking it away from them i forget which it is something like that well i expect there's some nice little gland somewhere and if you take it away or smoke it out or do something drastic to it but then people are permanently permanently benevolent you're sure that's the right word benevolence yes because that's why he nicknamed it benvo but what did his colleagues think i wonder about his backing out i don't think he had many who knew lisa what's her name the austrian girl she'd worked on it with him and there was one young man called leadentor or something like that but he died of tuberculosis and he rather spoke as though the other people who worked with him were merely assistants who didn't know exactly what he was doing or trying for i see what you're getting at said matilda suddenly i don't think he ever told anybody really i mean i think he destroyed his formulas or notes whatever they were and gave up the whole idea and then he had his stroke and got ill and now poor dear he can't speak very well he's paralyzed one side he can hear fairly well he listens to music that's his whole life now his life's works ended you think he doesn't even see his friends i think it's painful to him to see them he always makes some excuse but he's alive said admiral blunt he's alive still got his address it's in my address book somewhere he's still in the same place north scotland somewhere but who do understand he was such a wonderful man once he isn't now he's just almost dead for all intents and purposes there's always hope said admiral blunt and belief he added faith and benevolence i suppose said lady matilda chapter 21 project benvo professor john gottlieb sat in his chair looking very steadfastly at the handsome young woman sitting opposite him he scratched his ear with a rather monkey-like gesture which was characteristic of him he looked rather like a monkey anyway a prognathus jaw a high mathematical head which made a slight contrast in terms and a small wizard frame it's not every day said professor gottlieb that a young lady brings me a letter from the president of the united states however he said cheerfully presidents don't always know exactly what they're doing what's this all about i gather your vouched for on the highest authority i've come to ask you what you know or what you can tell me about something called project benvo are you really countess renata zakovsky technically possibly i am i am more often known as mary anne yes that's what they wrote me under separate cover and you want to know about project benvo well there was such a thing now it's dead and buried and the man who thought of it also i expect you mean professor shorum that's right robert chorum one of the greatest geniuses of our age einstein niels bohr and some others but robert shorrum didn't last as long as he should a great loss to science what is it shakespeare says of lady macbeth she should have died hereafter he's not dead said marianne oh sure of that nothing's been heard of him for a long time he's an invalid he lives in the north of scotland he is paralyzed can't speak very well can't walk very well he sits most of the time listening to music yes i can imagine that well i'm glad about that if he can do that he won't be too unhappy otherwise it's a pretty fair hell for a brilliant man who isn't brilliant anymore who's as it were dead in an inflated chair there was such a thing as project benvo yes he was very keen about it he talked to you about it he talked to some of us about it in the early days you're not a scientist yourself young womanizer no i'm you're just an agent i suppose i hope you're on the right side we still have to hope for miracles these days but i don't think you'll get anything out of project benvo why not you said he worked on it it would have been a very great invention wouldn't it or discovery or whatever you call these things yes it would have been one of the greatest discoveries of the age i don't know just what went wrong it's happened before now a thing goes along all right but in the last stages somehow it doesn't click breaks down doesn't do what's expected of it and you give up in despair or else you do what shauram did what was that he destroyed it every damn bit of it he told me so himself burnt all the formulas all the papers concerning it all the data three weeks later he had his stroke i'm sorry you see i can't help you i never knew any details about it nothing but its main idea i don't even remember that now except for one thing benvo stood for benevolence chapter 22 juanita lord altamonte was dictating the voice that had once been ringing and dominant was now reduced to a gentleness that had still an unexpectedly special appeal it seemed to come gently out of the shadows of the past but to be emotionally moving in a way that a more dominant tone would not have been james clique was taking down the words as they came pausing every now and then when a moment of hesitation came allowing for it and waiting gently himself idealism said lord altamant can arise and indeed usually does so when moved by a natural antagonism to injustice that is a natural revulsion from crass materialism the natural idealism of youth is fed more and more by a desire to destroy those two phases of modern life injustice and crass materialism that desire to destroy what is evil sometimes leads to a love of destruction for its own sake it can lead to a pleasure in violence and in the infliction of pain all this can be fostered and strengthened from outside by those who are gifted by a natural power of leadership this original idealism arises in a non-adult stage it should and could lead on to a desire for a new world it should lead also towards a love of all human beings and of good will towards them but those who have once learned to love violence for its own sake will never become adult they will be fixed in their own [ __ ] development and will so remain for their lifetime the buzzer went lord altamonte gestured and james clique lifted it up and listened mr robinson is here ah yes bring him in we can go on with this later james cleak rose laying aside his notebook and pencil mr robinson came in james clique set a chair for him one sufficiently widely proportioned to receive his form without discomfort mr robinson smiled his thanks and arranged himself by lord altamont's side well said lord altermont got anything new for us diagrams circles he seemed faintly amused are not exactly said mr robinson invertebrately it's more like plotting the course of a river river said lord altamant what sort of river a river of money said mr robinson in the slightly apologetic voice he was going to use when referring to his speciality it's really just like a river money is coming from somewhere and definitely going to somewhere really very interesting that is if you are interested in these things it tells its own story you see james cleek looked as though he didn't see but alderman said i understand go on it's flowing from scandinavia from bavaria from the usa from southeast asia fed by lesser tributaries on the way and going where mainly to south america meeting the demands of the now securely established headquarters of military youth and representing four of the five intertwined circles you showed us armaments drugs scientific and chemical warfare missiles as well as finance yes we think we know now fairly accurately who controls these various groups what about circle j juanita asked james cleek as yet we cannot be sure james has certain ideas as to that said lord altermatt i hope he may be wrong yes i hope so the initial j is interesting oh what does it stand for justice judgment a dedicated killer said james cleek the female of the species is more deadly than the male there are historical precedents admitted out mount jail setting butter in a lordly dish before sisera and afterwards driving the nail through his head judith executing hallofenus and applauded for it by her countrymen yes you may have something there so you think you know who juanita is do you said mr robinson that's interesting well perhaps i'm wrong sir but there have been things that have made me think yes said mr robinson we have all had to think haven't we better say who you think it is james the countess renata zakovsky what makes you preach upon her the places she's been the people she's been in contact with there's been too much coincidence about the way she's been turning up in different places and all that she's been in bavaria she's been visiting big charlotte there what's more she took stafford nigh with her i think that's significant do you think they're in this together asked altamonte i wouldn't like to say that i didn't know enough about him but he paused yes said lord altamont there have been doubts about him he was suspected from the beginning by henry horsham henry horsham for one perhaps colonel pike away isn't sure i imagine he's been under observation probably knows it too he's not a fool another of them said james clique savagely extraordinary how he can breed them how we can trust them tell them our secrets let them know what we're doing go on saying if there's one person i'm absolutely sure of it so mclean or burgess or philby or any of the lot and now stafford nigh stafford nye indoctrinated by renata alias juanita said mr robinson there was that curious business at frankfurt airport said clique and there was the visit to charlotte stafford niagara has since been in south america with her as for she herself do we know where she is now i dare say mr robinson does said lord artamant do you mr robinson she's in the united states i've heard that after staying with friends in washington or near it she was in chicago then in california and that she went from austin to visit a top-flight scientist that's the last i've heard what's she doing there one would presume said mr robinson in his calm voice that she is trying to obtain information what information mr robinson said that is what one wishes one knew one presumes that it is the same information that we are anxious to obtain and that she is doing it on our behalf but one never knows it may be for the other side he turned to look at lord altamant tonight i understand you are traveling to scotland is that right quite right i don't think he ought to sir said james cleek he turned an anxious face to his employer you've not been so well lately sir it'll be a very tiring journey whichever way you go air or train can't you leave it to monroe and horsham at my age it's a waste of time to take care said lord altamonte if i can be useful i would like to die in harness as the saying goes he smiled at mr robinson you'd better come with us robinson chapter 23 journey to scotland the squadron leader wondered a little what it was all about he was accustomed to being left only partly in the picture that was securities doing his opposed taking no chances he'd done this sort of thing before more than once flying a plane of people out to an unlikely spot with unlikely passengers being careful to ask no questions except such as word of an entirely factual nature he knew some of his passengers on this flight but not all of them lord altamonte he recognized an ill man a very sick man he thought a man who he judged kept himself alive by sheer willpower the keen hawk-faced man with him was his special guard dog presumably seeing not so much to his safety as to his welfare a faithful dog who never left his side he would have with him restorative stimulants all the medical box of tricks the squadron leader wondered why there wasn't a doctor also in attendance it would have been an extra precaution like a death's head the old man looked a noble death's head something made of marble in a museum henry horsham the squadron leader knew quite well he knew several of the security lot and colonel monroe looking slightly less fierce than usual rather more worried not very happy on the whole there was also a large yellow faced man foreigner he might be asiatic what was he doing flying in a plane to the north of scotland the squadron leader said deferentially to colonel monroe everything laid on sir the car is here waiting how far actually is the distance a 17 miles a roughish road but not too bad there are extra rugs in the car uh you have your orders repeat please if you will squadron leader andrews the squadron leader repeated and the colonel nodded satisfaction as the car finally drove off the squadron leader looked after it wondering to himself why on earth those particular people were here on this drive over the lonely moor to a venerable old castle where a sick man lived as a recluse without friends or visitors in the general run of things horsham knew he supposed horsham must know a lot of strange things oh well horsham wasn't likely to tell him anything the car was well and carefully driven it drew up at last over a gravel driveway and came to a stop before the porch it was a turreted building of heavy stone lights hung at either side of the big door the door itself opened before there was any need to ring a bell or demand admittance an old scottish woman of 60 odd with a stern doer face stood in the doorway the chauffeur helped the occupants out james clique and horsham helped lord altamonte to a light and supported him up the steps the old scottish woman stood aside and dropped a respectful curtsy to him she said good evening your lordship the master's waiting for you he knows you're arriving we've got rooms prepared and fires for you in all of them another figure had arrived in the hall now a tall lean woman between 50 and 60 a woman who was still handsome her black hair was parted in the middle she had a high forehead an aqualine nose and tanned skin here's miss newman to look after you said the scottish woman thank you janet said miss newman be sure the fires are kept up in the bedrooms i wear that lord altamonte shook hands with her a good evening miss newman good evening lord altamont i hope you are not too tired by your journey we had a very good flight this is colonel monroe miss newman this is mr robinson sir james clique and mr horsham of the security department i remember mr horsham from some years ago i think i hadn't forgotten said henry horsham it was at the leaveson foundation you were already i think professor shauram's secretary at that time i was first his assistant in the laboratory and afterwards his secretary i am still as far as he needs one his secretary he also has to have a hospital nurse living here more or less permanently there have to be changes from time to time miss ellis who is here now took over from miss budd only two days ago i have suggested that she should stay near at hand to the room in which we ourselves shall be i thought you would prefer privacy but that she ought not to be out of call in case she was needed is he in very bad health ask colonel monroe he doesn't actually suffer said miss newman but you must prepare yourself if you have not seen him that is for a long time he is only what is left of a man a just one moment before you take us to him his mental processes are not too badly depleted he can understand what one says to him oh yes he can understand perfectly but as he is semi-paralyzed he is unable to speak with much clarity though that varies and is unable to walk without help his brain in my opinion is as good as it ever was the only difference is that he tires very easily now now would you like some refreshment first no said lord altamonte no i i don't want to wait this is a rather urgent matter on which we have come so if you will take us to him now he expects us i understand he expects you yes said lisa newman she led the way up some stairs along a corridor and opened a room of medium size it had tapestries on the wall the heads of stags looked down on them the place had been a one-time shooting box it had been little changed in its furnishings or arrangements there was a big record player on one side of the room the tall man sat in a chair by the fire his head trembled a little so did his left hand the skin of his face was pulled down one side without beating about the bush one could only describe him one way as a wreck of a man a man who had once been tall sturdy strong he had a fine forehead deep-set eyes and a rugged determined looking chin the eyes below the heavy bras were intelligent he said something his voice was not weak it made fairly clear sounds but not always recognizable ones the faculty of speech had only partly gone from him he was still understandable lisa newman went to stand by him watching his lips so that she could interpret what he said if necessary a professor shawam welcomes you he is very pleased to see you here lord altamont colonel monroe sir james clique mr robinson and mr horsham he would like me to tell you that his hearing is reasonably good anything you say to him he will be able to hear if there is any difficulty i can assist what he wants to say to you he will be able to transmit through me if he gets too tired to articulate i can lip read and we also converse in a perfected sign language if there is any difficulty i shall try said colonel monroe not to waste your time and to tie you as little as possible professor shorum the man in the chair bent his head in recognition of the words some questions i can ask of miss newman joram's hand went out in a faint gesture towards the woman standing by his side sounds came from his lips again not quite recognizable to them but she translated quickly he says he can depend on me to transcribe anything you wish to say to him or i to you you have i think already received a letter from me said colonel monroe that is so said miss newman professor shawam received your letter and knows its contents a hospital nurse opened the door just a crack but she did not come in she spoke in a low whisper is there anything i can get or do miss newman for any of the guests or for professor shorum i don't think that is anything thank you miss ellis i should be glad though if you could stay in your sitting room just along the passage in case we should need anything certainly i quite understand she went away closing the door softly uh we don't want to lose time said colonel monroe and no doubt professor shorum is in tune with current affairs entirely so said miss newman as far as he is interested does he keep in touch with scientific advancements and such things robert shorum's head shook slightly from side to side he himself answered i have finished with all that but you know roughly the state the world is in the success of what is called the revolution of youth the seizing of power by youthful fully equipped forces miss newman said he is in touch entirely with everything that is going on in a political sense that is the world is now given over to violence pain revolutionary tenets a strange and incredible philosophy of rule by an anarchic minority a faint look of impatience went across the gaunt face uh he knows all that said mr robinson speaking unexpectedly no need to go over a lot of things again he's a man who knows everything he said do you remember admiral blunt again the head bowed something like a smile showed on the twisted lips admiral blunt remembers some scientific work you had done on a certain project i think project is what you call these things project benvo they saw the alert look which came into the eyes a project benvo said miss newman you're going back quite a long time mr robinson to recall that it was your project wasn't it said mr robinson yes it was his project ms newman now spoke more easily for him as a matter of course we cannot use nuclear weapons we cannot use explosives or gas or chemistry but your project benvo we could use there was a silence and nobody spoke and then again the queer distorted sounds came from professor shorum's lips he says of course said miss newman venvo could be used successfully in the circumstances in which we find ourselves the man in the chair had turned to her and was saying something to her he wants me to explain it to you said miss newman project b later called project benvo was something that he worked upon for many years but which at last he laid aside for reasons of his own because he had failed to make his project materialize and no he had not failed said lisa newman we had not failed i worked with him on this project he laid it aside for certain reasons but he did not fail he succeeded he was on the right track he developed it he tested it in various laboratory experiments and it worked she turned to professor shawnam again made a few gestures with her hand touching her lips ear mouth in a strange kind of code signal i'm asking if he wants me to explain just what benvo does we do want you to explain and he wants to know how you learnt about it uh we learnt about it said colonel monroe through an old friend of yours professor shawram not admiral blunt he could not remember very much but the other person to whom you had once spoken about it lady matilda clay heaton again miss newman turned to him and watched his lips she smiled faintly he says he thought matilda was dead years ago as she is very much alive it is she who wanted us to know about this discovery of professor shoram's professor shawn will tell you the main points of what you want to know though he has to warn you that this knowledge will be quite useless to you papers formulae accounts and proofs of this discovery were all destroyed but since the only way to satisfy your questions is for you to learn the main outline of project benvo i can tell you fairly clearly of what it consists you know the uses and purposes of tear gas is used by the police in controlling riot crowds violent demonstrations and so on it induces a fit of weeping painful tears and sinus inflammation and this is something of that kind no it is not in the least of that kind but it can have the same purpose it came into the heads of scientists that one can change not only men's principal reactions and feeling but also mental characteristics you can change a man's character the qualities of an aphrodisiac are well known they lead to a condition of sexual desire there are various drugs or gases or glandular operations any of these things can lead to a change in your mental vigor increased energy as by alterations to the thyroid gland and professor shawron wishes to tell you that there is a certain process he will not tell you now whether it is glandular or a gas that can be manufactured but there is something that can change a man in his outlook on life his reaction to people and to life generally he may be in a state of homicidal fury he may be pathologically violent and yet by the influence of project benvo he turns into something or rather someone quite different he becomes there is only one word for it i believe which is embodied in its name he becomes benevolent he wishes to benefit others he exudes kindness he has a horror of causing pain or inflicting violence benvo can be released over a big area it can affect hundreds thousands of people if manufactured in big enough quantities and if distributed successfully how long does it last said colonel monroe 24 hours longer you don't understand said miss newman it is permanent permanent you've changed a man's nature you've altered a component a physical component of course of his being which has produced the effect of a permanent change in his nature and you cannot go back on that you cannot put him back to where he was again it has to be accepted as a permanent change yes it was perhaps a discovery more of medical interest at first but professor shoram had conceived of it as a deterrent to be used in war in mass risings riotings revolutions anarchy he didn't think of it as merely medical it does not produce happiness in the subject only a great wish for others to be happy that is an effect he says that everyone feels in their life at one time or another they have a great wish to make someone one person or many people to make them comfortable happy in good health all these things and since people can and do feel these things there is we both believed a component that controls that desire in their bodies and if you once put that component in operation it can go on in perpetuity wonderful said mr robinson he spoke thoughtfully rather than enthusiastically wonderful what a thing to have discovered what a thing to be able to put into action if but why the head resting towards the back of the chair turned slowly towards mr robinson miss newman said he says you understand better than the others but it's the answer said james clique it's the exact answer it's wonderful his face was enthusiastically excited miss newman was shaking her head project benvo she said is not for sale and not for the gift it has been relinquished are you telling us the answer is no said colonel monroe incredulously yes professor shawram says the answer is no he decided that it was against she paused a minute and turned to look at the man in the chair he made quaint gestures with his head with one hand and a few guthral sounds came from his mouth she waited and then she said he will tell you himself he was afraid afraid of what science has done in its time of triumph the things it is found out and known the things it is discovered and given to the world the wonder drugs that have not always been wonder drugs the penicillin that has saved lives and the penicillin that has taken lives the heart transplants that have brought disillusion and the disappointment of a death not expected he has lived in the period of nuclear fission new weapons that have slain the tragedies of radioactivity the pollutions that new industrial discoveries have brought about he has been afraid of what science could do used indiscriminately but this is a benefit a benefit to everyone cried monroe so have many things been always greeted as great benefits to humanity as great wonders and then come the side effects and worse than that the fact that they have sometimes brought not benefit but disaster and so he decided that he would give up he says she read from a paper she held whilst beside her he nodded agreement from his chair i am satisfied that i have done what i set out to do that i made my discovery but i decided not to put it into circulation it must be destroyed and so it has been destroyed and so the answer to you is no there is no benevolence on tap there could have been once but now all the formulae all the know-how my notes and my account of the necessary procedure are gone burnt to ashes i have destroyed my brainchild robert shorrham struggled into raucous difficult speech i have destroyed my brain child and nobody in the world knows how i arrived at it one man helped me but he is dead he died of tuberculosis a year after we had come to success you must go away again i cannot help you but this knowledge of yours means you could save the world the man in the chair made a curious noise it was laughter the laughter of a crippled man save the world save the world what a phrase that's what your young people are doing they think they're going ahead in violence and hatred to save the world but they don't know how they will have to do it themselves out of their own hearts out of their own minds we can't give them an artificial way of doing it no an artificial goodness an artificial kindness none of that it wouldn't be real it wouldn't mean anything it would be against nature he said slowly against god the last two words came out unexpectedly clearly enunciated he looked around at his listeners it was as though he pleaded with them for understanding yet at the same time had no real hope of it i had a right to destroy what i had created i doubt it very much said mr robinson knowledge is knowledge what you have given birth to what you have made come to life you should not destroy you have a right to your opinion but the fact you will have to accept no mr robinson brought the word out with force lisa newman turned on him angrily what do you mean by no her eyes were flashing a handsome woman mr robinson thought a woman who had been in love with robert shawrom all her life probably had loved him worked with him and now lived beside him ministering to him with her intellect giving him devotion in its purest form without pity there are things one gets to know in the course of one's lifetime said mr robinson i don't suppose mine will be a long life i carry too much weight to begin with he sighed as he looked down at his bulk but i do know some things i'm right you know you'll have to admit i'm right too you're an honest man you wouldn't have destroyed your work you couldn't have brought yourself to do it you've got it somewhere still locked away hidden away not in this house probably i'd guess and i'm only making a guess that you've got it somewhere in a safe deposit or a bank she knows you've got it there too you trust her she's the only person in the world you do trust shauram said and this time his voice was almost distinct who are you who the devil are you i'm just a man who knows about money said mr robinson and the things that branch off from money you know people and their idiosyncrasies and their practices in life if you liked to you could lay your hand on the work that you put away i'm not saying that you could do the same work now but i think it's all there somewhere you've told us your views and i wouldn't say they were all wrong said mr robinson possibly you're right benefits to humanity are tricky things to deal with for old beverage freedom from want freedom from fear freedom from whatever it was he thought he was making a heaven on earth by saying that and planning for it and getting it done but it hasn't made a heaven on earth and i don't suppose your benvo or whatever you call it sounds like a patent food will bring heaven on earth either benevolence has its dangers just like everything else what it will do is save a lot of suffering pain anarchy violence slavery to drugs yes it'll save quite a lot of bad things from happening and it might save something that was important it might just might make a difference to people young people this benvolio of yours now i've made it sound like a patent cleaner is going to make people benevolent and i'll admit perhaps that it's going to make them condescending smug and pleased with themselves but there's just a chance too that if you change people's natures by force and they have to go on using that particular kind of nature until they die one or two of them not many might discover that they had a natural vocation in humility not pride for what they were being forced to do really change themselves i mean before they died not just be able to get out of a new habit they'd learnt colonel monroe said i don't understand what the hell you're all talking about miss newman said he's talking nonsense you have to take professor shawn's answer he will do what he likes with his own discoveries you can't coerce him no said lord altamonte we're not going to coerce you or torture your robert or force you to reveal your hiding places you'll do what you think right that's agreed it would said robert shurim his speech failed him slightly again his hands moved in gesture and miss newman translated quickly edward he says you are edward altamonte shauram spoke again and she took the words from him he asks you lord altman if you are definitely with your whole heart and mind asking him to put project benvo in your jurisdiction he says she paused watching listening he says you are the only man in public life that he ever trusted if it is your wish james clique was suddenly on his feet anxious quick to move like lightning he stood by lord altman's chair let me help you sir you're ill you're not well please stand back a little miss newman i i i must get to him i i have his remedies here i know what to do his hand went into his pocket and he came out again with a hypodermic syringe unless he gets this at once it'll be too late he had caught up lord alterman's arm rolling up his sleeve pinching the flesh between his fingers he held the hypodermic ready but someone else moved orsham was across the room pushing colonel monroe aside his hand closed over james cliques as he wrenched the hypodermic away clique struggled but horsham was too strong for him and monroe was now there too so it's been you james cleek he said you who've been the traitor a faithful disciple who wasn't a faithful disciple miss newman had gone to the door had flung it open and was calling nurse come quickly nurse the nurse appeared she gave one quick glance to professor shauram but he waved it away and pointed across the room to where horsham and monroe still held a struggling clique her hand went into the pocket of her uniform sure him stammered out it's ultimate a heart attack heart attack my foot rord monroe it's attempted murder he stopped hold the chap he said to horsham and left across the room mrs cortman since when have you entered the nursing profession we'd rather lost sight of you since you gave us the slip in baltimore millie jean was still wrestling with her pocket now her hand came out with a small automatic pistol in it she glanced towards shoreham but monroe blocked her and lisa newman was standing in front of shorum's chair james cleek yelled get out to mount when eater quick get out amount her arm flashed up and she fired james clique said damn good shot lord alderman had had a classical education he murmured faintly looking at james clique jamie it too brotee and collapsed against the back of his chair dr mcculloch looked round him a little uncertain of what he was going to do or say next the evening had been a somewhat unusual experience for him lisa newman came to him and set a glass by his side hot toddy she said i always knew you were a woman in a thousand lisa he sipped appreciatively i must say i'd like to know what all this has been about but i gather it's the sort of thing that's so hush-hush that nobody's going to tell me anything the professor he's all right isn't he the professor he looked at her anxious face kindly oh he's fine if you ask me it's done of a world of good i i thought perhaps the shock i'm quite all right said chorum shock treatment is what i needed i i feel how shall i put it alive again he looked surprised mcculloch said to lisa notice how much stronger his voice is it's apathy really that's the enemy in these cases what he wants is to work again the stimulation of some brain work music is all very well it's kept him soothed and able to enjoy life in a mild way but he's really a man of great intellectual power and he misses the mental activity that was the essence of life to him get him started on it again if you can he nodded encouragingly at her as she looked doubtfully at him i think dr mcculloch said colonel monroe that we owe you a few explanations of what happened this evening even though as you surmise the powers that be will demand a hush-hush policy lord alterman's death he hesitated uh the bullet didn't actually kill him said the doctor death was due to shock that hypodermic would have done the trick strychnine other young man i only just got it away from him in time said horsham been the fly in the ointment all along asked the doctor yes regarded with trust and affection for over seven years the son of one of lord altaman's oldest friends uh it happens and the lady in it together do i understand yes she got the post here by false credentials she is also wanted by the police for murder yes murder of her husband sam cortman the american ambassador she shot him on the steps of the embassy and told a fine tale of masked young men attacking him why did you have it in for him political or personal he found out about some of her activities we think i'd say he suspected infidelity said horsham instead he discovered a hornet's nest of espionage and conspiracy and his wife running the show he didn't know quite how to deal with it nice chap but slow thinking and she had the sense to act quickly wonderful how she registered grief at the memorial service memorial said professor shawnam everyone slightly startled turned around to look at him difficult word to say memorial but i mean it lisa you and i are going to have to start work again but robert i'm alive again ask the doctor if i ought to take things easy lisa turned her eyes inquiringly on mcculloch if you do you'll shorten your life and sink back into apathy there you are said shoram fresh fashion medical fashion today make everyone even if they're at death's door go on working dr mcculloch laughed and got up not far wrong i'll send you some pills along to help i shan't take them you'll do at the door the doctor paused i just want to know where how did you get the police along so quickly squadron leader andrews said monroe had it all in hand arrived on the dot we knew the woman was around somewhere but had no idea she was in the house already well i'll be off is all you have told me true feel i shall wake up any minute having dropped off to sleep halfway through the latest thriller spies murders traitors espionage scientists he went out there was a silence professor shauram said slowly and carefully back to work lisa said as women have always said you must be careful robert no not careful time might be short he said again memorial what do you mean you said it before memorial yes to edward his memorial always used to think he had the face of a martyr joram seemed lost in thought i'd like to get hold of gottlieb maybe dead good man to work with with him and with you lisa get the stuff out of the bank professor gottlieb is alive in the baker foundation austin texas said mr robinson what are you talking of doing said lisa benvo of course memorial to edward altamont he died for it didn't he nobody should die in vain epilogue so stafford nye wrote out a telegraph message for the third time have arranged for marriage ceremony to be performed on thursday of next week at saint christopher's in the veil of lower staunton 2 30 p.m stop ordinary church of england service if rc or greek orthodox desired please wire instructions stop where are you and what name do you wish to use for marriage ceremonies top naughty niece of mine five years old and highly disobedient wishes to attend as bridesmaid rather sweet really name of sybil stop local honeymoon as i think we have traveled enough lately stop signed passenger to frankfurt to stafford nye accept sybil as bridesmaid suggest great aunt matilda as matron of honor stop also accept proposal of marriage though not officially made stop c of e quite satisfactory also honeymoon arrangements stop insist panda should also be present stop no good saying where i am as i shan't be when this reaches you stop signed marianne do i look all right asked stafford nine nervously twisting his head to look in the glass he was having a dress rehearsal of his wedding clothes no worse than any other bridegroom said lady matilda they're always nervous not like brides who are usually quite blatantly exultant suppose she doesn't come oh she'll come i feel i feel rather queer inside well that's because you would have a second helping of pate de foiegra you've just got bridegroom's nerves don't fuss so much staffy you'll be quite all right on the night i mean you'll be all right when you get to the church oh that reminds me you haven't forgotten about the ring no no it's just i forgot to tell you that i've got a present for you i'd be told oh that's really nice of you dear boy you said the organist had gone yes thank goodness i've brought you a new organist really staffy it's an extraordinary idea where did you get him bavaria he sings like an angel but we don't need him to sing he'll have to play the organ oh he can do that too he's a very talented musician why does he want to leave the ferry and come to england his mother died oh dear that's what happened to our organist organists mothers seem to be very delicate will he require mothering i'm not very good at it i dare say some grandmothering or great-grandmothering would do the door was suddenly flung open and an angelic looking child in pink pajamas powdered with rosebuds made a dramatic entrance and said in dulcet tones as of one expecting a rapturous welcome it's me a sybil why aren't you in bed things aren't very pleasant in the nursery that means you've been a naughty girl and nanny isn't pleased with you what did you do sybil looked at the ceiling and began to giggle it was a caterpillar a furry one i put it on her and it went down here sibyl's finger indicated a spot in the middle of her chest which in dressmaking violence is referred to as the cleavage i don't wonder nanny was cross said lady matilda and he entered at this moment said that miss sybil was over excited wouldn't say her prayers and wouldn't go to bed sybil crept to lady matilda's side i want to say my prayers with you telda very well but then you go straight to bed oh yes tilter sybil dropped on her knees clasped her hands and uttered various peculiar noises which seemed to be a necessary preliminary to approaching the almighty in prayer she sighed groaned grunted gave a final qatar or snort and launched herself please god bless daddy and mommy in singapore and aunt tilda and uncle staffy and amy and cook in ellen and thomas and all the dogs and my pony grizzle and margaret and diana my best friends and joan the last of my friends and make me a good girl for jesus sake amen and please god make nanny nice sibyl rose to her feed exchanged glances with nanny and with the assurance of having won a victory said good night and disappeared someone must have told her about benvo said lady matilda by the way staffy who's going to be your best man forgot all about it have i got to have one it's usual sir stafford and i picked up a small furry animal panda shall be my best man it'll please sybil it'll please mary anne and why not panda's been in it from the beginning ever since frankfurt [Music] um [Music] hmm [Music] you

Channel: Full Audiobooks Library

Views: 83,249

Rating: 4.6484985 out of 5

Keywords: Bedtime Audio Story Book, Passenger To Frankfurt By Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Story, Complete And Unabridged, Full Audiobooks Library, Learn English from audio books, Learn English with audio books, Learn English through audio story, Learn English from audio story, Learn English through story, Learn English while you sleep, Learn English audiobook, Learn English literature with story, Learn English literature with audiobook, Learn English literature books

Id: 71hrmF5ttwg

Length: 420min 15sec (25215 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021