verify the story of a Polish submarine which was said to have arrived at Scapa; to give him a pass to go there and see for himself; to provide him with a Polish interpreter; to explain why in hell that little runt Pappenhacker of the Hearst press had been told of this submarine and not himself.
“Oh dear?” said Mr. Bentley. “Why have they sent you to me?”
“It seems I’m registered with you and not with the Press Bureau.”
This proved to be true. As the author of Nazi Destiny, a work of popular history that had sold prodigiously on both sides of the Atlantic, this man had been entered as a “man of letters” instead of as a journalist.
“You mustn’t mind,” said Mr. Bentley. “In this country we think much more of men of letters than we do of journalists.”
“Does being a man of letters get me to Scapa?”
“Well, no.”
“Does it get me a Polish interpreter?”
“No.”
“To hell with being a man of letters.”
“I’ll get you transferred,” said Mr. Bentley. “The Press Bureau is the place for you.”
“There’s a snooty young man at that bureau looks at me as if I was something the cat brought in,” complained the author of Nazi Destiny.
“He won’t once you’re registered with him. I wonder, since you’re here, if you’d like to write a book for us.”
“No.”
“No? Well I hope you get to Scapa all right… He won’t, you know,” added Mr. Bentley as the door closed. “You may be absolutely confident that he’ll never get there. Did you ever read his book? It was exceedingly silly. He said Hitler was secretly married to a Jewess. I don’t know what he’d say if we let him go to Scapa.”
“What do you think he’ll say if you don’t?”
“Something very offensive I’ve no doubt. But we shan’t be responsible. At least, I wonder, shall we?”
“Geoffrey, when you say well known as a Left Wing writer, do you suppose that if the fascists got into power here, I should be on their black list?”
“Yes, certainly, my dear fellow.”
“They did frightful things to the Left Wing intellectuals in Spain.”
“Yes.”
“And in Poland, now.”
“So the Press Department tells me.”
“I see.”
The Archimandrite dropped in for a few moments. He expressed great willingness to write a book about Axis intrigues in Sofia.
“You think you can help bring Bulgaria in on our side?” asked Mr. Bentley.
“I am spitting the face of the Bulgar peoples,” said His Beatitude.
“I believe he’d write a very good autobiography,” said Mr. Bentley, when the prelate left them. “In the days of peace I should have signed him up for one.”
“Geoffrey, you were serious when you said that I should be on the black list of Left Wing intellectuals?”
“Quite serious. You’re right at the top. You and Parsnip and Pimpernell.”
Ambrose winced at the mention of those two familiar names. “They’re all right,” he said. “They’re in the United States.”
Basil and Ambrose met as they left the Ministry. Together they loitered for a minute to watch a brisk little scene between the author of Nazi Destiny and the policeman on the gates; it appeared that in a fit of nervous irritation the American had torn up the slip of paper which had admitted him to the building; now they would not let him leave.
“I’m sorry for him in a way,” said Ambrose. “It’s not a place I’d care to spend the rest of the war in.”
“They wanted me to take a job there,” said Basil, lying.
“They wanted me to,” said Ambrose.
They walked together through the sombre streets of Bloomsbury. “How’s Poppet?” said Basil at length.
“She’s cheered up wonderfully since you left. Painting away like a mowing machine.”
“I must look her up again sometime. I’ve been busy lately. Angela’s back. Where are we going to?”
“I don’t know, I’ve nowhere to go.”
“I’ve nowhere to go.”
An evening chill was beginning to breathe down the street.
“I nearly joined the Bombardier Guards a week or two ago,” said Basil.
“I once had a great friend who was a corporal in the Bombardiers.”
