The Old Vengeful

He sat down unwillingly. 'What can I do for you?'

What indeed! The rich woman had to think—and that was another lesson, to be learnt as she went along.

'You said . . . Danny Kahn doesn't matter—?'

'Oh. . . Del Andrew will get Danny Kahn—don't you worry about him!'

'So what does matter?' Desperation honed up her wits to a razor edge. 'What—what on earth was there on board the Vengeful, that Colonel Suchet wanted so badly?'

For a moment he didn't reply—he was staring fixedly at the low frills on Madame Hortense's nightie. Then he shook his head and concentrated on her.

'Ah . . . well, that may not prove such an overwhelming mystery, Bertrand thinks—he was the first one I phoned after dinner.' He smiled at her a little ruefully. 'Contacts again, Elizabeth: it seems that Bertrand put his friend's colleague on his mettle—the one who knows all about Napoleon's times. Experts like demonstrating their expertise, I know the feeling all too well, it's quite irresistible . . . Apart from which, Bertrand shrewdly suspects, the mysterious Colonel Suchet sounds interesting in his own right— and I know that feeling, too.'

But if he knew it he wasn't demonstrating it now, as he had done at Coucy le Chateau, Elizabeth observed: if anything, he looked tired and rather worried, and somehow younger dummy3

because of that, not older.

'The long and short of which is that we have a name and an address in Paris—and an appointment for 11 o'clock: Professor Louis Belperron, of the Sorbonne, editor of the Annales historiques de l'Empire, and author of books too numerous to mention—not to add innumerable contributions to the Revue des etudes napoleoniennes, and so on and so forth.''

'Paul, that's wonderful—' Only his lugubrious expression cautioned her. '—isn't it?'

'Yes. It's wonderful.' Whatever it was, said his face, it wasn't wonderful.

'Then . . . what's the matter?'

'The matter, Elizabeth ... is that I spoke to David Audley last of all, after Bertrand and Del Andrew . . . that's the matter.'

Elizabeth frowned. 'But why . . . ? Doesn't he want us to see ... Professor Belperron?' A spark of anger kindled suddenly on Paul's behalf. 'Isn't he pleased with you—with us?'

'Pleased? No, he's not pleased—he's bloody delighted!! He's so damn pleased he's busy galvanising his Professor Wilder on the Vengeful back in England . . . and probably half the research section as well, for all I know.' He drew a deep breath. 'He's so pleased that I've got to send Aske to Charles de Gaulle Airport tomorrow afternoon to collect him, so he can tell us in person how pleased he is ... among other dummy3

things.'

'He's coming to France?'

'And then we're all going on a jaunt to Lautenbourg—'Tell Aske to book rooms in a Michelin-recommended hotel—

somewhere where the food's good' . . . sweet Jesus Christ!

Where the food's good!'

In any other circumstances the prospect of actually visiting the scene of the great escape would have overjoyed her, but Paul's misery was infectious. 'That's bad, is it?'

'Yes, it's bad.' He fell silent for a moment. 'You don't know David Audley as I do.'

He made the prospect of Audley daunting. And yet at the same time the memory of that big man, with his strange handsome-ugly face and rough-gentle manner, excited her intensely: wherever Audley was, that would be the centre of things and the answers would be there.

'I know he likes you, Paul.' She tried to reassure him and to make amends for her treachery. 'In fact, I think he's fond of you, even.'

For an instant he stared at her incredulously, and then his expression blanked out; and she knew, but too late, that she'd said exactly the wrong thing.

'If I may say so, Elizabeth . . . that's a damn silly remark—'

'I mean—I meant, he respects you—'

'I don't care if he worships the ground I tread on.' He bulldozed over her. 'What I mean is what I said last night, dummy3

only more so: I think the Russians are making a fool of him.

The difference is that now I'm not just guessing. Because now the evidence points that way.'

'What evidence?'

'What evidence . . .' He got up, and walked round the end of the bed towards the open window. And then stopped suddenly. 'Put the light out, Elizabeth.'

She fumbled for the switch. 'What is it, Paul?'

'Nothing. Just a precaution.' He waited, and she guessed that he was accustoming his eyes to the darkness. 'In the field you take precautions, that's all. And this is the field, Elizabeth—'some foreign field' . . . but that's not what I intend it to be, for either of us . . . so, as of now, we take the proper precautions—okay? I should have done it before . . .