The Venetian Affair

  “Meaning?”

  “What story are you after? This Secret Army Organisation? Doesn’t old Penneyman trust me to handle it?” Ballard was smiling broadly.

  Fenner’s astonishment gave way to perception. Was this the reason why he had been met at Orly? “I’m after no story. All I’m interested in is a book. Eventually.”

  “Wish I had time to write a book.”

  “Yes, that’s all it takes.”

  Ballard glanced at him quickly.

  Fenner was studying the invasion of suburban houses, glimpsed briefly before the expressway burrowed more deeply between its high banks. “Am I wrong, or didn’t there use to be a lot of woods around here?” That would turn the conversation nicely, he thought.

  “There are still plenty of forests around Paris,” Ballard said defensively. “We’ve rented a place out on the Bois. You must come and visit us when Eva and the kids get back from Brittany.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Three. Four in December.”

  “Busy man.”

  “Too busy to take a vacation this year—there’s a lot to handle at the office, with Keir sick.”

  “How is he?”

  Ballard shook his head, pursed his lips. “Old Penneyman had better stop hoping.” He hesitated. Then, “Keir has been off the job since April. When is Penneyman going to admit that Keir is never going to get back on it?”

  “When Keir admits it, probably. Heart attacks aren’t always the end of a man’s career. Relax, Mike. You’re in line for the job when it’s declared vacant. By the way, there was a case of heart attack, or something pretty close to it, at Orly this morning. Fellow just folded up—”

  “In line for the job—” Ballard laughed briefly, bitterly.

  Fenner kept his eyes on the cars they were passing.

  “Or perhaps he just likes to keep me dangling,” Ballard added, but genial again, as if to sweeten his criticism of Walter Penneyman.

  Fenner moved a cramped leg. “He likes Keir a lot,” he said uncomfortably. “Keir isn’t old. If he makes a good recovery, he could go on for another fifteen years at least. If he were ditched now, he’d probably be dead in six months.”

  “Sure, sure,” Ballard said. He lapsed into unusual silence. When they reached the Porte d’Italie and the beginning of the city proper, he came to life. “Cut left as soon as you can,” he told the driver, “and get on to the Boulevard Raspail.” But the driver had his own ideas of a quick route. Ballard didn’t argue. He laughed and shook his head. “We’ll take almost as long to reach the Place de la Concorde as we took to get here,” he predicted. “By the way, did you see Walt Penneyman before you left?”

  “Yes.”

  Ballard’s gloom returned.

  Fenner said, “But he didn’t talk about Keir. Or the Paris office. He is making a speech next week in Washington, and that’s filling his mind.” But as he spoke he began to wonder why Mike Ballard had not been given the job of visiting Professor Vaugiroud. Or perhaps it wasn’t an important-enough assignment. “I have a professor to visit—”

  “I’ve told my secretary to give you all help with the addresses of people you have to see. I’ll be out of Paris for the week-end.”

  “Belgrade?”

  Ballard shook his head. “I’ve got a man there covering that neutralists’ conference. Nothing important is going to happen anyway. It will be a nice long week-end with not one screaming headline in sight.” The prospect pleased him. He slapped Fenner’s knee. “Even the acting head of the Paris Bureau has to get off the chain now and again. Right?”

  Perhaps... and perhaps not. It depended on how much the acting head wanted to be head.

  “So old Penneyman is giving another speech in Washington. What’s his subject this time? Don’t tell me—I can guess.” Ballard struck a pose of upward and onward. “The freedom of the Press depends on its integrity!”

  “Something like that.”

  “He never gives up, does he? He was harping on that back in April, when he flew over here for two days. Two days—imagine that—for Paris! I thought he was going to give all of us heart attacks. I’m just getting the office back into shape now.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “He didn’t tell you?” There was a look of relief in Ballard’s eyes. “Oh, you know—the Great Rumour of April. CIA urging French generals to revolt in Algiers. Remember?”

  “Oh yes. That was the rumour an Australian journalist flattened out for us.”

  “Not quite. He just forced the French into admitting that they had no evidence at all.”

  But the rumour had been allowed to run wild, gathering momentum, a nasty piece of international suspicion that could have been disastrous. “So Walt Penneyman came over himself to see what it was all about?”

  “Found out nothing, of course. None of us could. If he had paid attention to my reports, he could have saved himself a journey.”

  If Ballard imagined that Penneyman had lost interest in finding out, he couldn’t be very much in Penneyman’s confidence. It was just as well, Fenner decided, that Mike Ballard’s garrulity had interrupted his remark on Professor Vaugiroud. “Well,” he said, “Walt Penneyman has always been a great Francophile. You can’t blame him for being upset when his favourite foreigners seemed to be spitting right in America’s eye.”

  “Oh,” Ballard said with a laugh, “it would have all ironed out anyway.” And he really believed that. It made crises easier to bear, perhaps. Certainly it made life simpler. “Walt Penneyman fusses too much. Well—here’s the hotel. I’ll see you in and if you ask me to stay for a cup of coffee, I won’t refuse. Can’t wait long, though. I’ve got to clear some things up at the office and catch a plane by noon. No, this is mine!” He had his black crocodile wallet out with a flourish. Changed days, Fenner thought as Ballard paid their driver, changed days from New York and Ballard’s dogged news coverage over at the United Nations when he had always looked as if he needed a good square meal, a haircut, and still more information. “Don’t worry about your luggage,” Ballard was telling him. “This place really takes care of its guests.”

  Fenner repressed his amusement. Was he just the New York country boy come to town? He gave a last look at the Place de la Concorde, with its sea of cars flowing in a steady surge, their chrome and glass flickering like the ripple of small dancing waves in the early sunlight. The man-made sea with its man-made roar, he thought: I’ll probably end up as a true country boy on a Vermont farm.

  “There’s no place like it,” Ballard said at his elbow as they crossed the broad sidewalk, newly watered and swept. He looked around at his adopted city with proprietary pleasure. “Ever think of coming to work here?”

  “No.”

  But Ballard didn’t quite believe him. He is coming up for that cup of coffee, Fenner thought, just to make sure where I stand with Penneyman. How do I make it clear that I’ve no interest in his job without showing him I know the real reason why he met me at the airport? This called for more tact than he felt capable of mustering after a night journey. Besides, he was handicapped by a qualm of memory: Walt’s words, yesterday, at the end of their meeting. “You used to be good at finding the threads of a story, Bill. Never feel the itch to get back to international politics again? No? Well, enjoy your trip. Call me as soon as you’ve talked with Vaugiroud.” He had thought nothing of that casual question at the time. Now, it had taken on more meaning. So had the Vaugiroud assignment. Was Walt Penneyman trying to make him feel that itch again?

  “There’s no place like it,” Ballard was repeating.

  “It has its points,” Fenner agreed, his eyes following two pretty girls for a brief but adequate moment. Two very pretty girls, neatly cinched at the waist, dark hair piled high, slender legs under floating skirts.

  Ballard said, “I’m old-fashioned in one thing: I still prefer blondes. By the way, did you know your wife was living in Paris?”

  Fenner’s step hesitated. Then he went i
n through the giant doorway, past the elegant waiting-rooms and the colonnades and the elevators. Behind him, Ballard greeted someone in the lobby, stopped to speak. Fenner had finished all the usual routine at the reception desk before Ballard rejoined him.

  “Sorry about that,” Ballard said awkwardly.

  “I had no trouble. You laid it on well.”

  “About Sandra, I meant.” There was no malice, only curiosity glancing out of his dark eyes. “I thought I’d better tip you off, in case you ran into her.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I did. And,” Fenner added pointedly, “it is eight years since she was my wife.” He moved toward the elevators. “I may go bankrupt, but I’ll do it in comfort,” he said as he looked around him. Soft rugs underfoot, soft air, soft voices. Deceptive. “Everyone looks so damned important. Are they?”

  Ballard wasn’t to be sidetracked. “You know, I’ve often wondered why Sandra left America. I know it’s none of my business, but—”

  “That’s right,” Fenner said with a quiet smile. “It was no one’s business. What about that coffee? And I need a shower and a shave.” But both elevator doors were now closed.

  “Look”—Ballard was glancing at his watch—“do you mind if I take a rain check? I’ve just met a man who has some good contacts with the Quai d’Orsay. He’s waiting for me.” He nodded toward a room near the entrance. “You know how it is, Bill.”

  “That’s all right. Thanks for delivering me intact.”

  “Use the office whenever you need it. I’ll be back on Monday. And the Embassy is across the street”—the old smile was back again—“just in case you need to take refuge.”

  “From a bomb, or Sandra?”

  Ballard looked at him. “You don’t have to worry about Sandra. She has no hard feelings about you.”

  Wasn’t that generous of her? “That’s kind of her.”

  “No, believe me. I was at a party last night at her place—she has a big apartment out on the Avenue d’Iéna, been living there for the last three years—”

  “That’s nice.” Glutinous word, “nice”, applicable all the way from rice pudding to sun tans.

  “She entertains a lot, you know. Not theatre stuff—she’s given up the stage—only politicians, diplomats, a few journalists, that kind of thing—”

  “Policy-making level,” Fenner suggested. That sounded like Sandra, all right. Poor Ballard, didn’t he know what he was getting into?

  “Not quite,” Ballard said modestly. “But an interesting bunch.” He dropped his voice. “She’s the very good friend of Fernand Lenoir.”

  “Is she?” And who was Monsieur Lenoir, who rated a dropped voice? Fenner looked at the returning elevator. “I’d better take this one,” he said. “We can’t keep the Quai d’Orsay waiting, can we?”

  Ballard held his arm, his voice hurrying. “Sandra and I had a little talk last night. She had some pretty nice things to say about you. In fact, she—“

  “Now,” Fenner remarked and freed his arm, “that really is worrying news.” Sandra at her sweetest was Sandra at her most dangerous. “I’ll call you,” he told Ballard as he stepped into the car. From the background, one of the assistant room clerks, with Fenner’s room key in his hand, moved forward to join him.

  “Any time,” Ballard said, “any time at all, Bill.” He looked disappointed, as if he still had one more question to ask. Or perhaps he was disappointed in Fenner, the man who had never appreciated such a sweet and generous woman as Sandra Fane. The name, Fenner reflected as he came out of the elevator and followed his guide through half a mile of carpeted corridors, had been as bogus as her life, and as carefully planned. He wondered how long Sandra had stayed in Czechoslovakia? All of the five years between her quiet exit from America and her descent on Paris? Perhaps she had changed. People did. But Sandra?

  The clerk hurried ahead of him with the key held ready, an elderly maid with folded towels over her arm moved out of a pantry to appraise the new arrival discreetly, a door opened and a waiter pushed a breakfast cart into the corridor. A young woman followed it, calling back to someone in the room, “All right, I’ll have the sketches ready for you by noon.”

  “No later, honey,” a querulous female voice reminded her.

  “No later,” the girl said calmly. “Thanks for the breakfast.” She closed the door, shaking her pretty blonde head, almost blocked Fenner’s path as she adjusted a large black portfolio to fit more comfortably under her arm, said “Excuse me” in her charming voice, glanced at him with large grey eyes, and walked quickly away toward the elevators. It seemed unfair, Fenner thought, that anyone as young and decorative as that should have to be so crisp and business-like at half-past nine in the morning. A waste of natural resources.

  His room was comfortable and handsome. There was not much view—a side street, with some small cafés and shops topped by two or three stories of nineteenth-century façade now converted from private homes into offices and dressmaking work-rooms—but there was a shower, in a bathroom as large as his bedroom in New York. His suitcase and week-end bag were placed on luggage racks; his raincoat was already in one of the huge wardrobes. He tipped the elderly porter, thanked the room clerk, locked the door, and began throwing off his clothes. He ordered breakfast to be sent up in half an hour, and felt pleasantly efficient. The shaving lights were excellent. The shower worked. He even burst into a brief aria from Tosca.

  He breakfasted in the bathrobe the hotel had so obligingly provided, the warm air floating in from open French windows along with the grind and shriek of buses and cars. If it hadn’t been for them, he might have fallen into a pleasant sleep: the beds were as soft as everything else in this hotel. He opened his suitcase and began dressing. Fresh clothes made a new man. He even decided he would call Professor Vaugiroud and arrange an appointment for—well, not for this morning; that was being too damned efficient. This afternoon would give him time to collect Vaugiroud’s remarks, simplify them into basic points, and cable them to Walt Penneyman. It was only the beginning of the day in New York right now. He had at least twelve hours before he needed to call Penneyman and tell him the information was on its way.

  He lit a cigarette (the last one in this pack, he noted with a touch of annoyance), found the telephone number that Penneyman had given him, and got through to Vaugiroud with only reasonable delay. Professor Vaugiroud spoke good English, if a little impatiently. “Yes, yes,” he said as soon as Fenner had identified himself. “I had a cable last night to tell me to expect you. Is Mr. Penneyman ill?”

  “No. He just could not get away himself.”

  “I am sorry,” Vaugiroud said with marked disappointment.

  “He was, too. Could I see you this afternoon?”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere you like. And whenever it suits you.”

  Vaugiroud thawed a little. “Come to my apartment at four o’clock. You have my address.”

  “Yes.”

  “At four, then.”

  So that was that. Fenner looked thoughtfully at some of the other addresses in his note-book: most of them he would have to see toward the middle of September, when they were back at work in Paris. There were only three—one a director, another a playwright, one an assistant to the Minister of Cultural Affairs—whom he knew well enough to be able to visit even while they were on vacation. He had their invitations in that folder in his suitcase. He could reach them easily by telephone. No, he decided, today I relax and walk around Paris. I’ve got to find another hotel anyway, or else I’ll have to cut my vacation to a week. For like most Americans abroad, well-dressed, educated, seemingly carefree millionaires from the land of give-away, Fenner had to keep an eye on his traveller’s checks.

  He got out a map of Paris and tracked down Vaugiroud’s address. It was across the Seine, not far from the Sorbonne, where Vaugiroud had once taught Philosophy. It would make a long, but pleasant, walk among some of his favourite streets. He might even revisit the bullet hole, unless they had p
lastered it over, although he had still seen it—and the other bullet holes from a Nazi sniper—on his last visit here, in ’58. It wasn’t every tourist who could look at a wall in Paris and say, “And that was the bullet that nearly got me.” My first visit to Paris, he thought, just ten days before the Germans left. He looked around his elegant and peaceful room; and he shook his head slowly.

  He rose to find another cigarette. There should be a couple, at least, left in the pack in his raincoat pocket. As his hand touched the coat, he had his first suspicion. He pulled the coat off its hanger, and the suspicion was a fact. It wasn’t his.

  There was no identification mark, not even the usual label at the back of the collar. He dug his hand into the deep pockets to find some scrap of information, but there were only two folded sheets of blank airmail paper, as if someone had meant to write a letter and never got around to it. And that was all.

  He looked at the coat again—same colour and same shape, but many raincoats were. Only the texture of the fabric was different. Hell and damnation, he thought, this takes care of my morning. I’ll have to start telephoning around. Where do I begin? He stared angrily at the coat, at his shattered plans. One of those efficient prize packages who shuttled luggage in and out of this hotel must have mixed up—no, possibly not. It could have happened back at the airport, with that other efficient prize package of a porter. And Fenner’s attention had been wandering; first with the man who had collapsed; second, with Ballard’s unexpected appearance; third, with Ballard’s constant stream of questions; fourth, with talk of Sandra.

  He cursed himself for an idiot, sighed wearily and telephoned the baggage porter downstairs.

  Had any guest returned a wrongly delivered raincoat this morning? No one had.

  Would the porter check and find out? The raincoat would have to belong to someone who had arrived or departed around half-past nine.

  The porter could tell him that right away. There had been several early departures this morning before eight o’clock, and some arrivals around ten o’clock. Only four people had had their luggage moved between nine-fifteen and nine-forty-five. One was Monsieur Fenner, the other three were ladies. He would investigate further if necessary.