“No matter,” said Jacobs, “there was a mistake. Two strong men were set to wait for Walker one night when he was returning from his walk to the Palace Paramount where he had a fine apartment for himself—my grandfather was very benevolent towards him. The men clubbed him to death, only it wasn’t Walker, it was Lucan. Such a quantity of blood, my grandfather said . . . The lords were practically identical, except that Lucan was a better teacher. Walker did not have much to teach except fear of the stars.”
“Lucan is dead and buried, then?”
“Lucan is dead, not buried. He was roasted and consumed by all the male children of Delihu. Some of them were rather unwell after the feast, but they are all partly little Lord Lucans now.”
“And Walker?”
“My grandfather discerned that Walker had been spared by unseen spirits of destiny. He has gone to Mexico. My kind grandfather paid his fare. I traveled to Kanzia myself to escort him to an airport. The tribes-people did not care for him at all. They preferred Lucan. But Walker got away. I even helped him to pack his few poor things, and I gave him some of my grandfather’s dollars to help him out.”
“It’s good of you to come and tell me this, Dr. Jacobs.”
“Oh, but I like you so much, Dr. Wolf. You’ve given me such courage to work here in Paris. What I especially came for was to bring you a message that Walker gave me with instructions to send it by e-mail to the German and French consuls in Chad.” He handed over to Hildegard a handwritten sheet of blue Basildon Bond writing paper. On it was written:
Pappenheim Beate, fraudulent stigmatic of Nuremberg, year 1978 forward, is now a successful psychiatrist in Paris under the false name of Dr. Hildegard Wolf. Her sumptuous offices are in the Boulevard St. Germain.
“You promised to send this?” said Hildegard.
“Of course. But again, of course, I didn’t. In any case the consuls would have thought it mad.”
Hildegard said, “I appreciate your kindness,” but she obviously meant much more.
“Tear it up,” said Karl K. Jacobs.
She did just that. She looked round the office. It looked cleaner than usual.
Also by Muriel Spark
FICTION
* * *
The Comforters
Robinson
Memento Mori
The Ballad of Peckham Rye
The Bachelors
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Girls of Slender Means
The Mandelbaum Gate
The Public Image
The Driver’s Seat
Not to Disturb
The Hothouse by the East River
The Abbess of Crewe
The Takeover
Loitering with Intent
The Only Problem
A Far Cry from Kensington
Symposium
The Collected Stories of Muriel Spark
Reality and Dreams
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
* * *
Curriculum Vitae
About the Author
Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1918. She is the author of twenty-one novels as well as collections of short stories, criticism, and poetry. Her most celebrated works include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Comforters (1957), The Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), The Driver’s Seat (1970), Memento Mori (1959), Loitering with Intent (1981), and A Far Cry from Kensington (1988). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993 and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1996. She died in 2006.
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spark, Muriel.
Aiding and abetting / by Muriel Spark.
p. cm.
1. Lucan, Richard John Bingham, Earl of, 1934—Fiction. 2. Psychotherapist and patient—Fiction. 3. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Fiction. 5. Uxoricide—Fiction. 6. Murderers—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6037.P29 A74 2000
823’.914—dc21
00-055559
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2001 by Dame Muriel Spark
eISBN: 978-0-385-50364-8
v3.0_r1
Muriel Spark, Aiding and Abetting
(Series: # )
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