The Only Problem

typewriter rang to wake him up to the phone and the doorbell.

He looked out of the window while Ruth went to answer the phone. Reporters, at least eight, some with cameras, some with open umbrellas or raincoats over their heads to shield them from the pouring rain. Up the drive came a television van. Behind him, through the door of the room, Ruth called to him, ‘Harvey, it’s urgent for you, from London.’

‘Get dressed,’ Harvey said. ‘Don’t open the door. Those are reporters out there. Keep them in the rain for a while, at least.’

Clara began to wail. The doorbell pealed on. From round the side of the chateau someone was banging at another door.

On the phone was Stewart Cowper from London.

‘What’s going on there?’ said Stewart.

Harvey thought he meant the noise.

‘There’s been a bit of trouble. Reporters are at the doors of the house and the baby’s crying.’

‘There are headlines in all the English papers. Are you coming back to England?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Harvey said. ‘I don’t know about Ruth and the child; but we haven’t discussed it. What are the headlines?’

‘Headlines and paras, Harvey. Hold on, I’ll read you a bit:

Millionaire’s religious sect possibly involved in French terrorist activities. Wife of English actor involved …

And here’s another:

Playboy Harvey Gotham, 35, with his arsenal of money from Gotham’s Canadian Salmon, whose uncles made a fortune in the years before and during the second world war, has been questioned by the gendarmes d’enquetes of the Vosges, France, in connection with hold-ups and bombings of supermarkets and post offices in that area. It is believed that his wife, Mrs Effie Gotham, 25, is a leading member of FLE, an extreme leftist terrorist movement. Mr Gotham, who has recently acquired a base in that area, denies having in any way financed the group or having been in touch with his estranged wife. He claims to be occupied with religious studies. Among his circle are his sister-in-law, Ruth, 28, sister of the suspected terrorist, and Nathan Fox, 25, who disappeared from the Gotham chateau on the eve of the latest armed robbery at Epinal, capital of the Vosges.

There’s a lot more,’ said Stewart. ‘If you’re not coming back to England I’d better come there. Have you got hold of Martin Deschamps?’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘Your Paris lawyer.’

‘Oh, him. No. I don’t need lawyers. I’m not a criminal. Look, I’ve got to get rid of these reporters. By the way,’ Harvey continued, partly for the benefit of the police who had undoubtedly tapped the phone, and partly because he meant it, ‘I must tell you that the more I look at La Tour’s “Job” the more I’m impressed by the simplicity, the lack of sentimentality above all. It’s a magnificent —’Don’t get on the wrong side of the press,’ shouted Stewart.

‘Oh, I don’t intend to see them. Ruth and I have had very little sleep.’

‘Make an appointment for a press conference, late afternoon, say five o’clock,’ said Stewart. ‘I’ll send you Deschamps.’

‘No need,’ said Harvey, and hung up.

None the less, he managed to mollify the soaking pressmen outside his house, speaking to them from an upstairs window, by making an appointment with them for five o’clock that afternoon. They didn’t all go away, but they stopped battering at the doors.

Then, to Ruth’s amazement their newly-engaged, brisk domestic help, Anne-Marie, arrived, with a bag of provisions. It was her second week on the job. She managed to throw off the reporters who crowded round her with questions, by upbraiding them for disturbing the baby, and by pushing her way through. Inside the front door, Harvey stood ready to open it quickly, admitting her and nobody else.

‘The police,’ Anne-Marie said, ‘were at my house yesterday for hours. Questions, questions.’ But she seemed remarkably cheerful about the questions.

SEVEN

A long ring at the front doorbell. Outside in the pouring rain a police car waited. From the upper window Harvey saw the interrogator he had left less than twelve hours ago in the headquarters at Epinal.

‘Ah,’ said Harvey from the window. ‘I’ve been missing you dreadfully.’

‘Look,’ said the man, ‘I’m not enjoying this, am I? Just one or two small questions to clarify —’

‘I’ll let you in.’

The policeman glanced through the open door at the living room as he passed. Harvey conducted him to a small room at the back of this part of the chateau. The room had a desk and a few chairs; it hadn’t been furnished or re- painted; it was less smart and new than the police station at Epinal, but it was the next best thing.

‘You have no clue, absolutely no idea where your wife is?’

‘No. Where do you yourselves think she is?’

‘Hiding out in the woods. Or gone across into Germany. Or hiding in Paris. These people have an organisation,’ said the inspector.

‘If she’s in the woods she would be wet,’ said Harvey, glaring at the sheet rain outside the window.

‘Is she a strong woman? Any health complications?’

‘Well, she’s slim, rather fragile. Her health’s all right so far as I know,’ Harvey said.

‘If she contacts you, it would be obliging if you would invite her to the house. The same applies to Nathan Fox.’

‘But I don’t want my wife in the house. I don’t want to oblige her. I don’t need Nathan Fox,’ Harvey said.

‘When things quieten down she might try to contact you. You might oblige us by offering her a refuge.’