yards behind me. After a minute or two, a man got out of it and walked towards the Lincoln. He was carrying a leather binocular case. He handed it to me without a word and went back to the Opel.
I put the binoculars on the seat and drove on. They were too big to put in my pocket. I would either have to smuggle them up to my room somehow, or hide them in the garage. I was annoyed with myself. I should have known better. Any sort of map is catnip to intelligence people. I should have kept quiet about it.
Even without the binoculars, though, I would have been irritated, and I did have sense enough to realize that. The binoculars were only a nusiance. It was really the conclusion he had come to that bothered me.
What he’d wanted to see all along, and, quite evidently, what he now did see, was yet another conspiracy against the Committee of National Union, yet another coup in preparation. The last attempt to overthrow the Committee had been made by a group of dissident army officers inside the country. What more likely than that the next attempt would be made with the help of money and hired terrorists from outside the country? What more likely than that it would begin with a daring rescue of officer prisoners awaiting trial? As he had said: “A boat, the chart of an island, grenades, respirators, guns, surrender.” It all added up so neatly.
The trouble was, as it had been all along, that he didn’t know the people concerned. I did. I knew how vile they were, too. In fact, there was nothing I wanted more at that moment than to see them get hell. But they just didn’t strike me as the sort of people who would be hired terrorists. I could not have said why. If he had countered by asking me what sort of people were hired terrorists and how many I had met, I would have had no sensible answer. All I could have said would have been: “These people wouldn’t take that kind of risk.”
When I got back to the villa, Fischer was standing on the terrace at the top of the steps. He motioned to me to pull up there. As he came down the steps, I remembered, just in time, to shove the binoculars onto the floor by my feet.
“You will not be wanted today, Simpson,” he said. “We are going on a private excursion. I will drive the car.”
“Very good, sir. It is full of petrol, but I was going to dust it.” I was all smiles above, and all binoculars below.
“Very well.” He waved me off in his highhanded way. “The car must be here in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
I drove round the courtyard into the garage, and hid the binoculars behind an empty oil drum before I gave the car a flickover with a wet duster.
Just before ten I drove it to the courtyard and left it there with the ignition key in. Then, I went back to the yard, through the door into the orchard, and found a place from which I could see the car without being seen. When they went out, I wanted to make sure that they had all gone-Fischer, Harper, Miss Lipp, and Miller.
After forty minutes or so, all four came out and got into the car. As soon as they had gone, I went to the kitchen. Geven was there chopping meat and sipping brandy. I had a drink myself and let him talk for a while before asking whether they were expected back for lunch. They were not. He would make an omelet pour le personnel.
I went upstairs to the bedroom floor. At the head of the back stairs the corridor ran left and right, parallel to the rear wall of the villa. If you turned right, you came to my room and Geven’s, among others; if you turned left, you were faced by a pair of double doors. Beyond them were the master bedrooms and guest suites.
The double doors were half open when I went up. Through the opening, I caught a glimpse of a wickerwork trolley full of dirty linen, and of old Hamul working on the floor of the corridor with a carpet sweeper. Mrs. Hamul was presumably changing the sheets on the beds.
I went to my room, waited an hour, and then strolled back along the corridor.
The door was still open and the Hamuls were still messing about in the bedrooms. I went down to the kitchen and had another drink with Geven. He was busy with the stewpot and another hour went by before he decided to make the omelet. I heard the Hamuls come down at about the same time and go through to the laundry. As soon as I had finished eating, I told Geven that I was going to have a sleep and went upstairs again.
First, I locked my room from the outside in case he looked in to see if I were there; then I went through the double doors and shut them behind me.
What I was looking for was the map, and it was difficult to know where to start. There were about eighteen rooms there, and they were of all shapes and sizes. Some were bedrooms, some sitting rooms; some were so sparsely furnished that it was hard to tell what they had been. Where there was furniture, it was all in the same bilious-looking French-hotel style. The only things not in short supply were mirrors and chandeliers; every room had those.
I identified Miller’s room first, because his suitcase was open on the bed, then Fischer’s because of the shirts in one of the drawers. I found no map in either room. Miss Lipp’s suite was over the center portico, with Harper’s next to it on the corner. There was a connecting door. I looked through all the drawers and cupboards, I looked inside the suitcases, I looked above and below every piece of furniture. The only maps I found were in a copy of Europa Touring that was on Miss Lipp’s writing desk, along with some Italian paperback novels.
Beyond Harper’s suite, and on the side of the building overlooking the orchard, there was a room that had been fitted up as a studio. Architect’s drawers had been built along one wall. It seemed a good place to look for a large flat map, and I was carefully going through every drawer when I heard the sound of car doors slamming.
I scrambled through Harper’s bedroom, which had windows onto the courtyard, and saw the roof of the Lincoln in front of the portico. Then I panicked. I missed the door which led to the passage and got into his bathroom instead. By the time I had found the right door, I could hear Fischer’s voice from the stairs. It was hopeless to try to dodge round through the rooms. I didn’t know the way well enough. All I could do was retreat back through Harper’s bedroom into the studio and shut the door. From there, there was no other way out, except through the window; but it was the only hiding place I could find.
I heard him come into the room, then a clink of money, then a sort of slap. He was emptying his pockets onto the table. The door didn’t latch properly and I could hear every move he made. I knew that he would hear any move I made, too. I froze there.
“My God, that city’s worse than New York in August,” he said.
I heard Miss Lipp answer him. The door connecting the suites, which I had shut, must have been opened by her.
“I wonder if Hamul fixed that water. Undo me, will you, Liebchen ?”
He moved away. I tiptoed over to the studio window and looked out. There was a small balcony outside and, a few feet below, the roof of the terrace. If I could get down there, I thought it might be possible to reach the orchard without breaking my neck. The trouble was that I would have to open the french window to get to the balcony. It had one of those long double bolts that you work by twisting a handle in the center. They can make a clattering noise when they spring open, and this one looked as if it would. I went back to the door.
It sounded as if they were in his sitting room. I heard her give a soft chuckle.
“Too many clothes on,” she said.
He came back into the bedroom and, then, after a moment or two, went into the bathroom. Water began to run. I went to the window again and gingerly tried the handle. It moved easily enough. The bottom bolt slid out and the door sprang inward with a slight thud; but then I saw that one side of the connecting link was broken and that the top bolt hadn’t moved. I tried to pull it down by hand, but it was too stiff. I would have to push it down through the slot at the top. I put a chair against the window and looked about for something metal I could use to push with.
The noise of running water from the bathroom stopped, and I stood still again. I tried to think what I had in my pockets that might move the bolt; a key perhaps.
“I will have to do something about my tan when we get back,” said Miss Lipp. She was in the next room now.
“It’s holding up.”
“Your hair’s wet.”
Silence, then a deep sigh from her and the bed creaked.
For about two minutes I clung to the hope that they were going to have a siesta. Then movements began. After a while I could hear their breathing and it wasn’t the breathing of sleep. More minutes went by and there were other sounds. Then, the beast with two backs was at work, and soon it was making its usual noises, panting and grunting and moaning, while I stood there like a half-wit, picturing her long legs and slim thighs and wondering
