The Confidential Agent

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

  ‘I thought you told us . . .’

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

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

  ‘Why should it bother you, Furt?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘It is most improbable.’

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

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

  ‘When will he be returning?’

  ‘He will not be returning here.’

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

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

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

  ‘In that case we could easily tell you.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Cullen.’

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

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

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

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

  ‘You are the man?’

  ‘Yes.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘First there was stealing your car.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  [4]

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Rose said, ‘Furt, you don’t believe all this?’ He could read doubt again in her exclamation.

  ‘Well,’ Forbes said, ‘I don’t know. It’s very odd.’

  But she was on again to the right fact, at the right moment: ‘If he’s a fraud, why should anyone take the trouble to shoot at him?’

  ‘If they did.’

  The secretary sat by the door with a polite air of not listening.

  ‘But I found the bullet myself, Furt.’

  ‘A bullet, I suppose, can be planted.’

  ‘I won’t believe it.’ She no longer said, D. noticed, that she didn’t believe it. She turned back to him, ‘What else are they going to try now?’

  Mr Forbes said, ‘You’d better go.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘Home.’

  She laughed – hysterically. Nobody else said a thing; they all just waited. Mr Forbes began to look at the pictures carefully, one after the other, as if they were important. Then the front-door bell rang. D. got to his feet. The secretary said, ‘Stay where you are. The officers will be coming through.’ Two men entered; they looked like a shopkeeper and his assistant. The middle-aged one said, ‘Mr D.?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you mind coming along to the station to answer a few questions?’

  ‘I can answer any you like here,’ D. said.

  ‘As you please, sir.’ He stood and waited silently for the others to go. D. said, ‘I have no objection to these people being present. If it’s a case of wanting to know my movements, they’ll be of use to you.’

  Rose said, ‘How can he have done a thing? He can bring witnesses any moment of the day . . .’

  The detective said with embarrassment, ‘This is a serious matter, sir. It would be better for all of us if you came to the station . . .’

  ‘Arrest me, then.’

  ‘I can’t arrest you here, sir. Besides . . . we haven’t got that far.’

  ‘Go on, then. Ask your questions.’

  ‘I believe, sir, you are acquainted with a Miss Crole?’

  ‘I have never even heard of her.’

  ‘Oh yes, you have. You are staying at the hotel where she worked.’

  ‘You don’t mean Else?’ He got up and advanced towards the officer with his hands out, imploring him. ‘They haven’t done anything to her, have they?’

  ‘I don’t know who “they” are, sir, but the girl’s dead.’

  He said, ‘O God, it’s my fault.’

  The officer went gently on, like a doctor with a patient. ‘I ought to warn you, sir, that anything you say . . .’

  ‘It was murder.’

  ‘Technically perhaps, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean? Technically?’

  ‘Never mind that now, sir. All that concerns us at the moment is – the girl seems to have jumped out of a top-floor window.’ He remembered the look of the pavement far below, between the shreds of fog. He heard Rose saying, ‘You can’t implicate him. He’s been at my father’s since noon.’ He remembered how the news of his wife’s death had come to him; he thought that news of that kind would never hurt him again. A man who has been burnt by fire doesn’t heed a scald. But this was like the death of an only child. How scared she must have been before she dropped. Why, why, why?

  ‘Were you intimate with the girl, sir?’

  ‘No. Of course not. Why, she was a child.’ They were all watching him closely; the police officer’s mouth seemed to stiffen under the respectable shopkeeper’s moustache. He said to Rose, ‘You had better go, ma’am. This isn’t a case for lady’s ears.’

  She said, ‘You’re all wrong. I know you’re all wrong.’ Mr Forbes took her arm and led her out. The detective said to the secretary, ‘If you would stay, sir. The gentleman may want to be represented by his Embassy.’

  D, said, ‘This isn’t my embassy. Obviously. Never mind that now. Go ahead.’

  ‘There is an Indian gentleman, a Mr Muckerji, staying in your hotel. He has made a statement that he saw the girl in your room this morning, undressing.’

  ‘It’s absurd. How could he?’

  ‘He makes no bones about that, sir. He was peeping. He said he was getting evidence – I don’t know what for. He said the girl was on your bed, taking down her stocking.’

  ‘Of course. I see now.’

  ‘Do you still deny intimacy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was she doing, then?’

  ‘I had given her some valuable papers the night before to hide for me. She carried them in her instep under her stocking. You see, I had reason to suppose that my room might be searched or I might be attacked.’

  ‘What sort of papers, sir?’

  ‘Papers from my Government establishing my position as their agent, giving me power to conclude certain business.’

  The detective said, ‘But this gentleman denies that you are – in fact – Mr D. He suggests that you are travelling with the passport of a dead man.’

  D. said, ‘Oh yes, he has his reasons.’ The toils were round him now all right; he was inextricably tied.

  The detective said, ‘Could I see those papers?’

  ‘They were stolen from me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Lord Benditch’s house.’ It was, of course, an incredible story. He said, with a kind of horrified amusement at the whole wild tale, ‘By Lord Benditch’s manservant.’ There was a pause: nobody said anything: the detective didn’t even trouble to make a note. His companion pursed his lips and stared mildly round as if he were no longer interested in the tales criminals told. The detective said, ‘Well, to come back to the girl.’ He paused as if to give D. time to reconsider his story. He said, ‘Can you throw any light on this – suicide?’

  ‘It wasn’t suicide.’

  ‘Was she unhappy?’

  ‘Not to-day.’

  ‘Had you threatened to leave her?’

  ‘I wasn’t her lover, man. I don’t pursue children.’

  ‘Had you, by any chance, suggested that you should both kill yourselves?’ The cat was out of the bag now: a suicide pact: that was what the detective had meant by ‘technically murder’. They imagined he had brought her to that pitch and then climbed down himself: the worst kind of coward. What, in heaven’s name, had put them on that track? He said wearily, ‘No.’

  ‘By the way,’ the detective said, looking away at the bad pictures on the walls, ‘why were you staying at this hotel?’

  ‘I had my room booked before I came.’

  ‘So you knew the girl before?’

  ‘No, no, I haven’t been in England for nearly eighteen years.’

  ‘You chose a curious hotel.’
>
  ‘My employers chose it.’

  ‘Yet you gave the Strand Palace as your address to the passport officer at Dover.’

  He felt like giving up; everything he had done since he landed seemed to add a knot to the cord. He said stubbornly, ‘I thought that was a formality.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The officer winked at me.’

  The detective sighed, uncontrollably, and seemed inclined to shut his notebook. He said, ‘Then you can throw no light on this – suicide?’

  ‘She was murdered – by the manageress and a man called K.’

  ‘What motive?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘Then it would surprise you, I suppose, to hear that she left a statement?’

  ‘I do not believe it.’

  The detective said, ‘It would make things easier for all of us if you would make a proper statement yourself.’ He said with contempt, ‘These suicide pacts are not hanging matters. I only wish they were.’

  ‘Can I see the girl’s statement?’

  ‘I don’t mind reading you a few extracts – if it’ll help you to make up your own mind.’ He leant back in his chair and cleared his throat as if he were going to read a poem or an essay of his own composition. D. sat with his hands hanging down and his eyes on the secretary’s face. Treachery darkened the whole world. He thought, this is the end. They can’t kill a young child like that. He remembered the long drop to the cold pavement. How long did two seconds seem when you were helplessly falling? A dull rage stirred him. He had been pushed about like a lay figure long enough; it was time he began to act. If they wanted violence let them have violence. The secretary stirred uneasily under his gaze. He put his hand in his pocket where the revolver lay; presumably he had fetched it when he went out to speak to the Ambassador.

  The detective read, ‘I can’t stand this any longer. To-night he said we would both go away for ever.’ He explained, ‘She kept a diary, you see. Very well written, too.’ It wasn’t: it was atrocious like the magazines she read, but D. could hear her tone of voice, the awkward phrases stumbling on the tongue. He swore hopelessly to himself: somebody has got to die. That was what he had sworn when his wife was shot, but nothing had come of it. ‘To-night,’ the detective read, ‘I thought he loved another, but he said No. I do not think he is one of those men who flit from flower to flower. I have written to Clara to tell her of our plan. She will be sad, I think.’ The detective said with emotion, ‘Wherever did she learn to write like that? It’s as good as a novel.’