voice, _'Dr Lamartine, s'il sous plaоt,' _to which the porter shouted distractedly, '_Numero trente-cinq.'_
We all three crammed into the rickety, creeping, lattice-sided lift. Lamartine responded to our knock at once. He must have been expecting someone. He was in trousers, braces and a white shirt without its collar, a towel round his neck and flecks of lather on his cheeks. He stared blankly at us. Madame Chalmar broke into sobs.
We held a confused conversation in French and English. Commendably recovering himself, Lamartine embraced Madame Chalmar, whose carefully prepared face now had red blotches with the mascara starting to run. He agreed to see me alone in half an hour's time at the cafe next door.
He appeared punctually, sitting down with an affable, businesslike air, as though we were still in Oxford. 'You've had some difficulty in finding me, Mr Elgar,' he apologized. 'Well, I've permitted myself some rather irregular behaviour. When a man sees a risk to his life, he becomes impatient with the influences which normally direct his movements.'
I felt this excuse inadequate for my trouble. 'But
'The lives of all Frenchmen are in danger. The Germans must have thrown 100 divisions into their attack this morning. Weygand has 40, 45 at the most. I've good contacts in the War Ministry. And that leaves out of the calculations the Nazi air force. France is finished, my friend. We shall be asking for an Armistice before summer is out.' He turned to order some coffee.
I suspected him of playing the alarmist for his own ends. 'But even the Nazis don't kill their beaten enemies.'
'I should have expected you, of all Englishmen, to be realistic about the Nazis. My particular speciality would hardly endear me to them. They know all about me, I can be quite confident of that. They know all about you too, I'm equally sure. I advise you and your young Miss to get out of France before they come and arrest you.'
This gave me a horribly sickly feeling.
'Though I doubt if they would shoot me out of hand,' he continued calmly. 'The Germans would want my knowledge, and the SS would be only too happy to extract it from me. I certainly couldn't guarantee, sitting here in the sunshine, that I would never give in to threats I knew were far from empty. That I would never collaborate with the Germans to produce bacterial weapons for use against you British and the Russians-'
'The Russians? But nobody attacks his own allies.'
The cup of black coffee appeared. Lamartine tore the paper off his cube of sugar. 'Wait and see, as you say in England. You've read _Mein Kampf,_ I believe? Hitler said then that an alliance with Russia would be the end of Germany. If he has changed his mind since he wrote it, he has certainly changed his mind about nothing else. And the steppes of Russia always have had an irresistible fascination for European conquerors. But of course, no sane man waits to be faced with the tormenting choice between his own painful death and treating with the enemy,' he continued more reflectively. 'Therefore I am shortly going to Marseilles and then to Africa. I have friends organizing my arrangements. I am speaking to you in the greatest confidence, Mr Elgar. I still hold a commission in the Army.' I had never known this. 'So I could be shot for desertion. Life is very difficult.'
'You haven't asked why I put myself in such danger to follow you here.'
'Brigitte said you wanted the papers given me by Professor Florey.' He jerked his head towards the hotel, where Elizabeth and I had left Madame Chalmer alone with him. 'I destroyed them before leaving Paris. All I have is up here.' He tapped his forehead.
'But have you the mould?' I insisted. 'We simply can't give the Germans a chance to develop it. Florey's penicillin is highly experimental, but there's at least a likelihood that in a few years' time-if the war's still going on-it could be used on casualties.'
'I saw its possibilities at once,' Lamartine said quietly.
'Well, where is it?' I asked brusquely.
'In a safe place.'
'Not safe from the Germans, though.'
He drained his shallow cup of coffee. 'I'll be frank with you, _cher confrиre._ In my desperation, I had been looking upon that mould as my saviour with the Germans.'
'I thought as much.' I was unable to keep disgust from my voice. 'If you're prepared to hand over your bacteriological knowledge to the Germans, you might at least give the penicillin back to France's own allies.'
He lit a Weekend. 'You can save your indignation. I told you, everything is changed. I shall soon be across the Mediterranean, perhaps tomorrow night. You shall have your precious mould.'
I did not trust him. 'I want it now, this very morning,' I insisted. 'We too must be on our way urgently, you just said as much yourself.'
'It will take a little time to recover. I shall have to use my car and my precious petrol. A day will make no difference.' He gave a slight smile. 'Hitler is hardly in that hurry. Meet me at my hotel, nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Now I must hurry back to look after Brigitte. She is unhappily suffering from _une crise de nerfs.'_
27
We spent not one night in Tours, but six. Madame Chalmar's _crise de nerfs_ evaporated rapidly. During the afternoon she called at the Perronets' for her luggage, to move into the hotel with Lamartine. 'I don't really need my heavy clothes,' she informed me archly in German. 'This winter we'll be sitting where it's hot and safe.'
I appeared at the hotel at nine the next morning. In response to the porter's telephone call Madame Chalmar came downstairs, still radiant and overdressed. 'Henri says will you please come back tomorrow,' she announced in German, dropping her voice to a whisper in the crowded lobby. 'He has had to leave for the day on urgent business connected with our departure.'
'Tomorrow!' I exclaimed impatiently. 'But we've got to get back to England while the going's good-'
'Ssh!' She laid a hand with long scarlet nails on my arm. 'It doesn't do to be heard speaking German. We could be taken for spies, and lynched on the spot. There're Nazis everywhere, you know how the wireless keeps warning us about the Fifth Column. How do you suppose the German tanks would have got so far, if there hadn't been plenty of agents to stop the bridges being blown up?'
Elizabeth asked when I got back, 'Do you think we should give up the idea of this beastly mould?'
'To be perfectly clearheaded,
'We can hang on for another day or two, I suppose,' she said sulkily.
'I think we must. I just hate the idea of Lamartine and his awful girl-friend getting away with anything.'
During the next two days Madame Chalmar reappeared several times at the Perronets'. She was always smiling, always calm, always explaining that Henri was occupied with urgent business, that she would quite certainly bring the mould within twenty-four hours. I had the depressing feeling that the safety of Elizabeth and myself depended on the domestic arrangements of Lamartine and his mistress. 'It's always me who runs his life,' she explained serenely. 'Henri is far too intellectual for practical affairs. He has learned to do absolutely everything I tell him.'
The Germans were then attacking violently in the Champagne area east of Paris, and General Rommel had reached the Seine south of Rouen-but this time, the bridges were blown up under his nose. Le Bourget aerodrome was repeatedly bombed, and Tours was full of rumours that the Government were leaving for the chвteaux of the Loire. 'I hope the chвteaux are on the telephone,' said Elizabeth morosely. But General Weygand was full of confidence. 'My orders are still for every man to fight without thought of retreat,' he declared. 'The enemy will soon reach the end of his tether. We are on the last lap.
On the Sunday morning, the Germans were in Soissons, 75 miles from Paris. We decided to go, mould or not. We would make for St Nazaire, Cherbourg being uncomfortably near the battle. The Germans already had their hands on Dieppe. Incredibly, I had sailed into it with perfect safety only a fortnight before. We shared the feeling of everyone else in France-when Hitler's finger-tips brush the nape of your neck, you jump from the nearest window.
We went to the hotel in a last speculative, unconfident chance of catching Lamartine.
