‘You know why. I needed the money.’ He found himself taking to truth like a tranquillizer.
‘I would have lent you money. I offered to.’
‘I needed more than you could lend me.’
‘For Milly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take good care of her, Mr Wormold. You are in a trade where it is unsafe to love anybody or anything. They strike at that. You remember the culture I was making?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps if they hadn’t destroyed my will to live, they wouldn’t have persuaded me so easily.’
‘Do you really think …?’
‘I only ask you to be careful.’
‘Can I use your telephone?’
‘Yes.’
Wormold rang up his house. Did he only imagine that slight click which indicated that the tapper was at work? Beatrice answered. He said, ‘Is everything quiet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait till I come. Is Milly all right?’
‘Fast asleep.’
‘I’m coming back.’
Dr Hasselbacher said, ‘You shouldn’t have shown love in your voice. Who knows who was listening?’ He walked with difficulty to the door because of his tight breeches. ‘Good night, Mr Wormold. Here is the Lamb.’
‘I won’t need it any more.’
‘Milly may want it. Would you mind saying nothing to anyone about this – this – costume? I know that I am absurd, but I loved those days. Once the Kaiser spoke to me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “I remember you. You are Captain Müller.” ’
INTERLUDE IN LONDON
When the Chief had guests he dined at home and cooked his own dinner, for no restaurant satisfied his meticulous and romantic standard. There was a story that once when he was ill he refused to cancel an invitation to an old friend, but cooked the meal from his bed by telephone. With a watch before him on the bed-table he would interrupt the conversation at the correct interval, to give directions to his valet. ‘Hallo, hallo, Brewer, hallo, you should take that chicken out now and baste it again.’
It was also said that once when he had been kept late at the office he had tried to cook the meal from there, dinner had been ruined because from force of habit he had used his red telephone, the scrambler, and only strange noises resembling rapid Japanese had reached the valet’s ears.
The meal which he served to the Permanent Under-Secretary was simple and excellent: a roast with a touch of garlic. A Wensleydale cheese stood on the sideboard and the quiet of Albany lay deeply around them like snow. After his exertions in the kitchen the Chief himself smelt faintly of gravy.
‘It’s really excellent. Excellent.’
‘An old Norfolk recipe. Granny Brown’s Ipswich Roast.’
‘And the meat itself … it really melts …’
‘I’ve trained Brewer to do the marketing, but he’ll never make a cook. He needs constant supervision.’
They ate for a while reverently in silence; the clink of a woman’s shoes along the Rope Walk was the only distraction.
‘A good wine,’ the Permanent Under-Secretary said at last.
‘’55 is coming along nicely. Still a little young?’
‘Hardly.’
With the cheese the Chief spoke again. ‘The Russian note – what does the F.O. think?’
‘We are a little puzzled by the reference to the Caribbean bases.’ There was a crackling of Romary biscuits. ‘They can hardly refer to the Bahamas. They are worth about what the Yankees paid us, a few old destroyers. Yet we’ve always assumed that those constructions in Cuba had a Communist origin. You don’t think they could have an American origin after all?’
‘Wouldn’t we have been informed?’
‘Not necessarily, I’m afraid. Since the Fuchs case. They say we keep a good deal under our own hat too. What does your man in Havana say?’
‘I’ll ask him for a full assessment. How’s the Wensleydale?’
‘Perfect’
‘Help yourself to the port.’
‘Cockburn ’35, isn’t it?’
‘’27.’
‘Do you believe they intend war eventually?’ the Chief asked.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘They’ve become very active in Cuba – apparently with the help of the police. Our man in Havana has had a difficult time. His best agent, as you know, was killed, accidentally of course, on his way to take aerial photographs of the constructions – a very great loss to us. But I would give much more than a man’s life for those photographs. As it was, we had given fifteen hundred dollars. They shot at another of our agents in the street and he’s taken fright. A third’s gone underground. There’s a woman too, they interrogated her, in spite of her being the mistress of the Director of Posts and Telegraphs. They have left our man alone so far, perhaps to watch. Anyway he’s a canny bird.’
‘Surely he must have been a bit careless to lose all those agents?’
‘At the beginning we have to expect casualties. They broke his book-code. I’m never happy with these book-codes. There’s a German out there who seems to be their biggest operator and an expert at cryptography. Hawthorne warned our man, but you know what these old merchants are like; they have an obstinate loyalty. Perhaps it was worth a few casualties to open his eyes. Cigar?’
‘Thanks. Will he be able to start again if he’s blown?’
‘He has a trick worth two of that. Struck right home into the enemy-camp. Recruited a double agent in the police-headquarters itself.’
‘Aren’t double agents always a bit – tricky? You never know whether you’re getting the fat or the lean.’
‘I trust our man to huff him every time,’ the Chief said. ‘I say huff because they are both great draughts players. Checkers they call it there. As a matter of fact, that’s their excuse for contacting each other.’
‘I can’t exaggerate how worried we are about the constructions, C. If only you had got the photographs before they killed your man. The P.M. is pressing us to inform the Yankees and ask their help.’
‘You mustn’t let him. You can’t depend on their security.’
Part Five
CHAPTER 1
‘HUFF,’ SAID CAPTAIN Segura. They had met at the Havana Club. At the Havana Club, which was not a club at all and was owned by Baccardi’s rival, all rum-drinks were free, and this enabled Wormold to increase his savings, for naturally he continued to charge for the drinks in his expenses – the fact that the drinks were free would have been tedious, if not impossible, to explain to London. The bar was on the first floor of a seventeenth-century house and the windows faced the Cathedral where the body of Christopher Columbus had once lain. A grey stone statue of Columbus stood outside the Cathedral and looked as though it had been formed through the centuries under water, like a coral reef, by the action of insects.
‘You know,’ Captain Segura said, ‘there was a time when I thought you didn’t like me.’
‘There are other motives for playing draughts than liking a man.’
‘Yes, for me too,’ Captain Segura said. ‘Look! I make a king.’
‘And I huff you three times.’
‘You think I did not see that, but you will find the move is in my favour. There, now I take your only king. Why did you go to Santiago, Santa Clara and Ciefuegos two weeks ago?’
‘I always go about this time to see the retailers.’
‘It really looked as though that was your reason. You stayed in the new hotel at Ciefuegos. You had dinner alone in a restaurant on the waterfront. You went to a cinema and you went home. Next morning …’
‘Do you really believe I’m a secret agent?’
‘I’m beginning to doubt it. I think our friends have made a mistake.’
‘Who are our friends?’
‘Oh, let’s say the friends of Dr Hasselbacher.’
‘And who are they?’
‘It’s my job to know what goes on in Hav
ana,’ said Captain Segura, ‘not to take sides or to give information.’ He was moving his king unchecked up the board.
‘Is there anything in Cuba important enough to interest a Secret Service?’
‘Of course we are only a small country, but we lie very close to the American coast. And we point at your own Jamaica base. If a country is surrounded, as Russia is, it will try to punch a hole through from inside.’
‘What use would I be – or Dr Hasselbacher – in global strategy? A man who sells vacuum cleaners. A retired doctor.’
‘There are unimportant pieces in any game,’ said Captain Segura. ‘Like this one here. I take it and you don’t mind losing it. Dr Hasselbacher, of course, is very good at crosswords.’
‘What have crosswords to do with it?’
‘A man like that makes a good cryptographer. Somebody once showed me a cable of yours with its interpretation, or rather they let me discover it. Perhaps they thought I would run you out of Cuba.’ He laughed. ‘Milly’s father. They little knew.’
‘What was it about?’
‘You claimed to have recruited Engineer Cifuentes. Of course that was absurd. I know him well. Perhaps they shot at him to make the cable sound more convincing. Perhaps they wrote it because they wanted to get rid of you. Or perhaps they are more credulous than I am.’
‘What an extraordinary story.’ He moved a piece. ‘How are you so certain that Cifuentes is not my agent?’
‘By the way you play checkers, Mr Wormold, and because I interrogated Cifuentes.’
‘Did you torture him?’
Captain Segura laughed. ‘No. He doesn’t belong to the torturable class.’
‘I didn’t know there were class-distinctions in torture.’
‘Dear Mr Wormold, surely you realize there are people who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea. One never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement.’
‘There’s torture and torture. When they broke up Dr Hasselbacher’s laboratory they were torturing …?’
‘One can never tell what amateurs may do. The police had no concern in that. Dr Hasselbacher does not belong to the torturable class.’
‘Who does?’
‘The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with émigré from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides. Catholics are more torturable than Protestants, just as they are more criminal. You see, I was right to make that king, and now I shall huff you for the last time.’
‘You always win, don’t you? That’s an interesting theory of yours.’
‘One reason why the West hates the great Communist states is that they don’t recognize class-distinctions. Sometimes they torture the wrong people. So too of course did Hitler and shocked the world. Nobody cares what goes on in our prisons, or the prisons of Lisbon or Caracas, but Hitler was too promiscuous. It was rather as though in your country a chauffeur had slept with a peeress.’
‘We’re not shocked by that any longer.’
‘It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.’
They had another free daiquiri each, frozen so stiffly that it had to be drunk in tiny drops to avoid a sinus-pain. ‘And how is Milly?’ Captain Segura asked.
‘Well.’
‘I’m very fond of the child. She has been properly brought up.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘That is another reason why I would not wish you to get into any trouble, Mr Wormold, which might mean the loss of your residence-permit. Havana would be poorer without your daughter.’
‘I don’t suppose you really believe me, Captain, but Cifuentes was no agent of mine.’
‘I do believe you. I think perhaps someone wanted to use you as a stalking-horse, or perhaps as one of those painted ducks which attract the real wild ducks to settle.’ He finished his daiquiri. ‘That of course suits my book. I too like to watch the wild duck come in, from Russia, America, England, even Germany once again. They despise the poor local dago marksman, but one day, when they are all settled, what a shoot I will have.’
‘It’s a complicated world. I find it easier to sell vacuum cleaners.’
‘The business prospers, I hope?’
‘Oh yes, yes.’
‘I was interested that you had enlarged your staff. That charming secretary with the siphon and the coat that wouldn’t close. And the young man.’
‘I need someone to superintend accounts. Lopez is not reliable.’
‘Ah, Lopez. Another of your agents.’ Captain Segura laughed. ‘Or so it was reported to me.’
‘Yes. He supplies me with secret information about the police-department.’
‘Be careful, Mr Wormold. He is one of the torturable.’ They both laughed, drinking daiquiries. It is easy to laugh at the idea of torture on a sunny day. ‘I must be going, Mr Wormold.’
‘I suppose the cells are full of my spies.’
‘We can always make room for another by having a few executions.’
‘One day, Captain, I am going to beat you at draughts.’
‘I doubt it, Mr Wormold.’
From the window he watched Captain Segura pass the grey pumice-like figure of Columbus on the way to his office. Then he had another free daiquiri. The Havana Club and Captain Segura seemed to have taken the place of the Wonder Bar and Dr Hasselbacher – it was like a change of life and he had to make the best of it. There was no turning time back. Dr Hasselbacher had been humiliated in front of him, and friendship cannot stand humiliation. He had not seen Dr Hasselbacher again. In the club he felt himself, as in the Wonder Bar, a citizen of Havana; the elegant young man who brought him a drink made no attempt to sell him one of the assorted bottles of rum arranged on his table. A man with a grey beard read his morning paper as always at this hour; as usual a postman had interrupted his daily round for his free drink: all of them were citizens too. Four tourists left the bar carrying woven baskets, containing bottles of rum; they were flushed and cheerful and harboured the illusion that their drinks had cost them nothing. He thought, They are the foreigners, and of course untorturable.
Wormold drank his daiquiri too fast and left the Havana Club with his eyes aching. The tourists leant over the seventeenth-century well; they had flung into it enough coins to have paid for their drinks twice over: they were ensuring a happy return. A woman’s voice called him and he saw Beatrice standing between the pillars of the colonnade among the gourds and rattles and negro-dolls of the curio-shop.
‘What are you doing here?’
She explained, ‘I’m always unhappy when you meet Segura. This time I wanted to be sure …’
‘Sure of what?’ He wondered whether at last she had begun to suspect that he had no agents. Perhaps she had received instructions to watch him, from London or from 59200 in Kingston. They began to walk home.
‘Sure that it’s not a trap, that the police aren’t waiting for you. A double agent is tricky to handle.’
‘You worry too much.’
‘And you have so little experience. Look what happened to Raul and Cifuentes.’
‘Cifuentes has been interrogated by the police.’ He added with relief, ‘He’s blown, so he’s no use to us now.’
‘Then aren’t you blown too?’
‘He gave nothing away. It was Captain Segura who chose the questions, and Segura is one of us. I think perhaps it’s time we gave him a bonus. He’s trying to compile a complete list for us of foreign agents here – American as well as Russian. Wild duck – that’s what he calls them.’
‘It would be quite a coup. And the constructions?’
‘We’ll have to let those rest a while. I can’t make him act against his own country.’
Passing the Cathedral he gave his usual c
oin to the blind beggar who sat on the steps outside. Beatrice said, ‘It seems almost worth while being blind in this sun.’ The creative instinct stirred in Wormold. He said, ‘You know, he’s not really blind. He sees everything that goes on.’
‘He must be a good actor. I’ve been watching him all the time you were with Segura.’
‘And he’s been watching you. As a matter of fact he’s one of my best informers. I always have him stationed here when I meet Segura. An elementary precaution. I’m not as careless as you think.’
‘You’ve never told H.Q.’
‘There’s no point. They could hardly have traces of a blind beggar, and I don’t use him for information. All the same if I had been arrested you’d have known of it in ten minutes. What would you have done?’
‘Burnt all records and driven Milly to the Embassy.’
‘What about Rudy?’
‘I’d have told him to radio London that we were breaking off and then to go underground.’
‘How does one go underground?’ He didn’t probe for an answer. He said slowly as the story grew of itself, ‘The beggar’s name is Miguel. He really does all this for love. You see, I saved his life once.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, it was nothing. An accident to the ferry. It just happened that I could swim and he couldn’t.’
‘Did they give you a medal?’ He looked at her quickly, but in her face he could see only innocent interest.
‘No. There was no glory. As a matter of fact they fined me for bringing him to shore in a defence zone.’
‘What a very romantic story. And now of course he would give his life for you.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that.’
‘Do tell me – have you somewhere a small penny account-book in black wash-leather?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Why?’
‘With your first purchases of pen-nibs and india-rubbers?’
‘Why on earth pen-nibs?’
‘I was just wondering, that’s all.’
‘You can’t buy account-books for a penny. And pen-nibs - nobody uses pen-nibs nowadays.’
‘Forget it. Just something Henry said to me. A natural mistake.’