Decision at Delphi

  “Go and—”

  “Later. Meanwhile, meet my friends.”

  Three faces looked up at Strang. Beaumont sprinted over the names, so well known to him, and left Strang with a clear impression only of their occupations: an Australian historian; an American who was some kind of attaché at the embassy; an elderly Englishman, schoolmaster retired. Then their argument continued. It dealt with the Long Walls which Athens had built some two thousand five hundred years ago to keep the Spartans out.

  Strang listened (all four men were on their own particular hobby horses, rocking off in every direction) and was grateful for a chair at the table. He could see, from here, that the doorway was no place to linger unless one wanted a marked entrance. Even the Long Walls discussion ebbed a little as each newcomer filtered into the room and stood a little uncertainly as his eyes searched for a place to sit.

  “There’s the new English attaché,” the Australian said. “Not a bad sort, I hear.”

  “Pretty wife,” the American attaché observed, quickly finishing his drink, looking at his watch. “Which reminds me—” He called the waiter to pay, the bill before he left.

  The elderly Englishman said, “I heard he married Peter Martinson’s daughter.” He put on his glasses, making his round jovial face still rounder, to have a sharper view. “Charming,” he decided as he looked at Caroline Ottway. “Used to know her husband. He was a captain, then. Army man. Met him here, in the, war, odd as that may seem.” He turned to Strang. “This hotel was almost the only part of Athens that was not taken over in the first surprise attack by the Communists in 1944. Actually, this bar was the headquarters of the resistance to them. In fact, you might say the resistance began here— What, are you all leaving?”

  The American—a tall, light-haired man with pleasant grey eyes, pleasant features, pleasant smile, probably about thirty years old, quietly dressed—said diplomatically, “My wife has been waiting—”

  The Australian said, “Beaumont and I were due at the American School ten minutes ago.”

  Beaumont said, “Call me at the School, Strang, whenever you have a free moment. No, no, you stay here and Tommy will put you in the picture about everyone and everything. He taught school in Athens for forty years. All those English accents you hear around you can be blamed on him.”

  The old schoolmaster’s face beamed. “There is a touch of Paul Bunyan in most Americans,” he said as he watched Beaumont and his two friends leave. His blue eyes rested on George Ottway. “Strange. I thought he had seen me.” He was more than a little disappointed as the Ottways found seats at a table some distance away. His amiable, red face frowned.

  “What are you drinking? Scotch?” Strang asked tactfully, and caught a waiter’s quick eye.

  “Thank you.” The Englishman was still looking perturbed. “I hope Ottway didn’t choose to sit at that table over there. Do you see that elderly female who has begun talking to him?”

  “I had the impression she sent a waiter to ask them to join her. Perhaps they couldn’t refuse.”

  “Most unfortunate, most unfortunate.”

  Strang looked surprised. The elderly lady was Greek, dressed like all the other elderly ladies. Her only difference was that she had sat alone, rather proudly, almost defiantly.

  “She is quite the most objectionable person in all Athens,” the Englishman said with marked distaste. “Really, one would think our attachés would be adequately briefed.” He pursed his lips. “Ah, well, where were we? Oh, yes... In this bar, December, 1944.”

  And Strang sat and listened to a description of the hotel, and its bar, exactly as he had seen it for himself in 1944. He ought to have said, right at the beginning, “I know. I was here.” But having let the chance slip, he was stuck with his Ancient Mariner. The old man, gentle-voiced, courtly in his manners, was not to be interrupted. At last, he ended. “You don’t believe me,” he said, quite equably, as if he had met disbelief too often to become indignant any more.

  Strang stopped watching Caroline Ottway being extremely polite to the most objectionable person in all Athens. (George Ottway had refused a drink and was obviously waiting for the first possible moment of disengagement.) “But I do,” Strang answered.

  Surprise and pleasure swept over the retired schoolmaster’s face. “What’s your name again?”

  “Strang.”

  “You probably did not catch mine, either. Thomson. How long are you staying here?”

  “A few months in Greece. Some weeks in Athens.”

  Thomson nodded in approval. “People nowadays have such an odd idea of travel, never settle in one place, take countries as if they were vitamin pills—one with breakfast each morning.” He studied Strang for a moment. “You must come and see me. I have a little flat, just across the street and up the hill.”

  “I’d like to,” said Strang. He was watching Alexander Christophorou as he circulated among the tables and talked briefly to friends. (But he passed the Ottways’ table without one glance, very marked this was, at their companion. So he shared Thomson’s dislike.)

  “I have lived there for years,” Thomson went on. “Except, of course, during the war, when I had to go into hiding from the Nazis. My friends risked a great deal to keep me safe. “He was looking at Alexander Christophorou. “There’s the son of one of them. I stayed with his family for almost four months, at one time.” He shook his head. “Strange,” he said slowly, “strange to think that they all escaped imprisonment and death throughout the war. Then, at the end, when all the Nazis had gone—” Thomson’s placid face clouded over. “An appalling story, really. But when one makes friends here, one finds that all have a story to tell. If one could make them talk about it, which I rather doubt.” He fell silent for a moment. “Now, where was I?”

  “You were talking about the family who hid you from the Nazis.”

  “Oh, yes. The name is Christophorou. They were a large family. The parents, three unmarried sisters; two other sisters, widowed by the war, and their five children. And Aleco, of course, who spent most of the war in the mountains. That’s another grim story—he was with the guerrillas under Colonel Psarros. They were practically all killed in a surprise attack by other guerrillas under the command of a terrorist called Ares. Ares...” Thomson shook his head.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Strang said grimly.

  “Aleco was one of the few survivors of that slaughter. Their escape was pure luck. They had been away from camp on some mission. They came back to find their comrades murdered. On a slope of Mount Parnassos itself.” The place chosen for the massacre seemed to horrify the old schoolmaster almost as much as the treachery involved.

  “What about his family’s story?” Strang asked.

  “Ares was to blame for that, too. You see, when the Communist attack on Athens failed, the terrorists took hostages along with them on their retreat. Some fifteen thousand civilians, stripped of coats and shoes. They were herded toward the mountains. Aleco’s family was seized, all of them. It was a January of bitter weather, sleet and rain; many froze to death. The weaker ones—the old and the very young and the wounded—were shot if they couldn’t keep up with the retreating partisans.”

  The crowded room, with its warmth and lights and amused voices, was suddenly suffocating. Strang said, “How many of that family survived?”

  “The father. Two unmarried girls. One of the married daughters—although she has died since.”

  “And the children?”

  “Two were found frozen in a ditch with their mother. The other three—no one knows what happened to them.”

  And all that, thought Strang, was in January, 1945, a few weeks after I first met Christophorou. No wonder he blanched when I talked in Taormina of the mass kidnapping three years later. Good God, what made me do such a thing? Strang stared at the old schoolmaster.

  Thomson, who had been sipping his Scotch decorously, took a large gulp. “I spent forty years of my life trying to teach character as well as English prose
style. A man must be honourable or he is not a man. Gentleness makes strength bearable. Politeness is thoughtfulness. Truth is wisdom...” He shook his head, sadly. “Perhaps I ought to have taught my pupils how to use a machine gun, how to expect treachery and practise hate. Some of them might have been better prepared.” He lapsed into his own dark shadows.

  Strang said nothing at all. He finished his drink. He saw that Aleco Christophorou has stopped to talk at the next table. “I have to leave, I’m afraid.” He signalled to the waiter and rose. And at that moment Christophorou’s elbow caught the small of his back. “Sorry,” Strang said, glancing round.

  “I beg your pardon,” Christophorou said with exact politeness. “Hallo, Tommy!”

  “Aleco!” Thomson said, rousing himself. “If you would stop bumping into this agreeable American, I should like him to meet one of my old pupils.”

  “Very, very old,” Christophorou added, abandoned his friends at the other table completely, and bowed to Strang. “How do you do?”

  “Strang is leaving, but do sit down, Aleco. What have you been up to recently? Travelling again?” And then, to Strang as he started a firm good-bye, “If ever you need a guide to the Acropolis, Aleco is your man. He used to know a great deal about the excavations. Long, long ago. Before he became a journalist. But I don’t suppose he has much time left for ruins— or old friends—nowadays.”

  “Now, Tommy!” Christophorou shook hands in a formal good-bye with Strang, bowed once more, and sat down. And Strang, as he left, hoped Thomson wasn’t hurt because he hadn’t shaken hands with him, too. But he couldn’t; in his right palm was the small slip of paper which Christophorou had left there.

  Out from the crowded bar into the crowded lobby, nonchalantly, not too eagerly, the note still concealed in his hand, Strang stopped to look at a concert advertisement, light a cigarette, and read Christophorou’s message. “Meet you in ten minutes. Your room.”

  Strang turned toward the group of people waiting at the elevators. One of them, a thin-faced man, seemed to decide that walking might be quicker, and made a dash for the staircase that encircled the elevators. An original type, Strang thought idly; the lobby might be busy, but no one hurried. He forgot the man, until he had reached his own floor and set out for his room. He had made one false turn, retraced his steps back to a junction of corridors, started down the right direction at last, when there— coming to meet him—was the original type, still hurrying.

  The man had company. His friend was small, nattily dressed in silver grey, light on, his quick-stepping feet, his grey-gloved hand carrying a neat attaché case. As soon as they saw Strang, the two men began to talk suddenly—much too suddenly—in a fast flow of Greek. The little man’s voice was thin and high and sibilant. The other spoke Greek as if he really belonged to the language. Their look of blank innocence was strangely mixed with wariness.

  Strang had his own mask in place—a careful pretence that he had not even noticed them. For the small, globular man, sallow-faced, with thin black moustache and glove-button eyes, well-oiled hair in perfect place and no longer blown into thick strands by an Atlantic wind, was the same little Kewpie doll who had pattered after Strang on a liner’s top deck. It took more than a little restraint not to say, “Private, private!” as the neat feet passed him and hurried around the corner.

  Now Strang’s corridor was deserted. And quiet. From a distant pantry came a subdued murmur of maids’ voices. That was all. Deserted and quiet enough to suit any intruders. Strang entered his room, a little worried.

  But the room was in good order. One of the maids had drawn the shades, transformed the couch into a bed. Everything else was exactly as he had left it, except that his soiled shirt had been hung up neatly on the bathroom door.

  Strang stood in the middle of his room, considering. It could be that the impatient man whom he had noticed downstairs had come hurrying here to warn his light-footed friend that Strang had left the bar. Or perhaps I just dislike that little man, Strang thought, and don’t believe he ever did a day of honest work. He recognised me, certainly. But more important, he hoped I did not recognise him. All right; foolish or not, I’d better make sure.

  He had made it easy for any thief, though. Tonight he had been in a hurry. His portfolio and brief case were unlocked, his suitcase open. He examined their contents carefully. I’m being foolish, he decided as he found nothing apparently disturbed. The wave of suspicion ebbed, but methodically he finished his check. He inserted Steve’s key in the good lock of the small case and heard it click obediently. He pressed with his thumb on the other latch, reminding himself for the tenth time that he had better get an expert to attend to it, so that it could be locked with a key again. To his amazement, it wouldn’t unlatch.

  He tried again, pressing harder with his thumb. It was stuck fast. Hell, he thought, that penknife really wrecked it. Yet it had opened easily enough at the customs shed. He stared at it, not quite believing his new thought: was it locked? He tried the key. It could turn. It could, and did, unlock.

  His astonishment gave way to a vision of the little round man with his neat small hands hastily working on the broken lock, cursing at his bad luck in having damaged it, congratulating himself on his skill when he managed to fix it, smiling in triumph as he locked it, thinking now that nobody would ever guess.

  The vision was too much for Strang. He began to laugh. He hadn’t laughed as much as this in weeks.

  Then Alexander Christophorou slipped quietly into the room, looked at his helpless friend, and stood, astounded and worried.

  “I’m all right,” Strang assured him. “Come in, Aleco. Let me tell you a funny story.”

  9

  The story was told, but Christophorou was more horrified than entertained. He looked at Strang incredulously; at the case, now safely locked, thanks to the expert; at Strang again. “Never,” he said at last,” shall I understand American humour.”

  Strang began, with a trace of disappointment in Christophorou’s own sense of humour, to tell the story another way. But Christophorou cut him short. “I grasped its significance, Kenneth,” he said quietly. “But do you? They thought your luggage was worth searching.”

  “I got that message, too,” Strang said abruptly. Had he appeared as stupid as that? “I have been put back on their doubtful list, whoever they are.” He looked at Christophorou, but there was evidently no explanation forthcoming about the people called “they.”

  “In spite of all my efforts to keep everything as secret, as innocent as possible—” Christophorou was worried.

  “I still think it’s comic, the expert who came prepared to botch a job.”

  “I shall laugh later, I think.” Christophorou glanced at the case again. “At least you could not have had anything valuable in it, if you are so amused.”

  Strang thought of the envelope now sitting in the manager’s safe. “That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “It wasn’t my case, anyway.”

  “What?”

  “It was Steve’s.”

  Christophorou stared at him. “What?” he asked again. “When did he give it to you?”

  “In New York.”

  “And you have not met him since?”

  “Yes. Briefly in Naples.”

  “Were you seen together?”

  “Obviously. Or why am I now back on that doubtful list?” Strang looked at Steve’s case and frowned. “George Ottway and his wife met us, by accident, in Naples. But I’m pretty sure Ottway is not going around talking about that.”

  “No,” agreed Christophorou.

  “Do you know Ottway?”

  “By reputation. He is discreet.” Christophorou smiled. “He was with British intelligence at one time.”

  Strang was startled, not so much by the information as by the casual way it had been dropped. But it was always easy to be indiscreet with other people’s secrets. Or perhaps Christophorou was really saying, “See, I am being frank with you. Be frank with me.” What is so damned
painful, Strang thought, is that I like Aleco Christophorou, I like him and I trust him. But when I’m talking to him, I’m not talking for myself alone. If I were, it would be easy. I have no problems such as Steve must have, no emotional involvements in past politics, no secret fears for any brother whose war record in killing went far beyond military duty. So I hedge, and wait, and play safe for Steve. I wish to God he’d appear and do his own answering. He has weighed me down with more than that damned case. Strang looked over at it again, with annoyance and dislike.

  Christophorou noted the quick glance. He sat down, and searched for his cigarettes. He had decided to stay a while, evidently. He looked at the case, too. “Nothing in it except unused film?” he asked, with a smile.

  Strang smiled back. “That’s a pretty good guess.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “What else would you expect?”

  Christophorou studied him thoughtfully. He appeared to be making a difficult decision. He said very quietly, “Documents. Photographs and letters, which Stefanos Kladas was bringing to Greece. So he told the agent who met him in Taormina when he first arrived there. They concern his brother, Nikos Kladas.” There was a definite pause. Another difficult decision was made. Then, grimly, Christophorou added, “I am interested in Nikos Kladas.”

  “So he has got himself involved again, has he? What is it now?”

  At first, Christophorou said nothing. He was studying Strang again. Then, slowly, he answered, “Conspiracy. Conspiracy against the state.”

  Strang took a deep breath.

  “I can only add,” Christophorou went on, “that it is a serious conspiracy. Well-planned, well-organised, dangerous. Not only for Greece.”

  “Steve didn’t know anything about a conspiracy. I’m sure of that.”

  “He only knew that his brother Nikos had joined a group of people who seemed to him to be—undesirable. He could guess that there might be serious trouble, but he had no idea of the extent of his brother’s involvement. Or he would never have wasted any time on the idea of arguing with his brother. Yes, that is what he wanted to do: persuade his brother to leave his friends, get away to America, start a new life. And if persuasion failed, Stefanos Kladas was going to use these documents— whatever they are—to expose his brother’s friends.” There was a small smile hovering around Christophorou’s lips. “He blamed everything on those friends.”