information you required without jeopardizing the chances of catching the spy when he had been identified, I should receive some consideration at the hands of the police. If I had known just how badly you were going to bungle your end of the business, I doubt if I should have bothered. However, I obtained the information about the cameras by the simple process of using my eyes. When, as was inevitable, the fake robbery was discovered to be a fake, I managed to retrieve the situation by confusing the others’ minds sufficiently to make them-or at any rate most of them-accept the story that the whole thing was a mistake. Now, of course, the fat is in the fire. This time I can’t retrieve your mistake. You’ve given the alarm. The Clandon-Hartleys are leaving tomorrow in any case. I don’t suppose any of them will care to stay after this. You’ve lost your suspects. Still,” I shrugged, “I don’t suppose you care. The Commissaire will be satisfied. You’ve got someone to convict. That’s all you policemen want, isn’t it?” I stood up. “Well, now that’s over. I’ve been wanting to get that off my chest. If you don’t mind, and have quite finished gloating, I’d like to be locked in my cell now. For one thing, this room is stuffy; for another, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’ve got a headache and I’m tired.”
He took out a packet of cigarettes.
“Cigarette, Vadassy?”
I sneered. “The last time you said that you had something dirty up your sleeve. What do you want now, a signed confession? Because if you do you’re not going to get it. I absolutely refuse. Understand that, I absolutely refuse.”
“Take a cigarette, Vadassy. You’re not going to sleep yet.”
“Oh, I see! Third degree, eh?”
“Sacre chien!” he squeaked. “Take a cigarette.”
I took one. He lit his and tossed me the matches.
“Now!” He blew a cloud of smoke in the air. “I have an apology to make to you.”
“Oh?” I put all I could into the word.
“Yes, an apology. I made a mistake. I overrated your intelligence. And I underrated it. Both.”
“Splendid! And what am I supposed to do, Monsieur Beghin? Burst into tears and sign the confession now?”
He frowned. “You listen to me.”
“I am listening-fascinated.”
He ran his handkerchief round the inside of his collar. “That tongue of yours, Vadassy, will get you into trouble one of these days. Has it not occurred to you that it is a little unusual for a prisoner to be sitting where you are now instead of in a cell?”
“It has. I’m wondering where the trick is.”
“There is no trick, you fool,” he squeaked angrily. “Listen. The first thing you ought to know is that every one of the instructions you have been given has had one object-that of making the spy leave the Reserve. You were told to make those inquiries about the cameras with just that object in view. We wanted to alarm him. When that failed-and I can see now why it did fail-we told you to report the faked robbery. The man had searched your room; he had searched your pockets. I say we wanted to alarm him, not enough to put him to flight-that is why we ourselves kept away from the Reserve-but just enough to make him think that he was running a risk by staying. Again we failed. The first time I had failed to reckon on your reasoning the way you did from the facts in your possession. That was my fault. I had forgotten how little you knew. The second time I failed to reckon with your inexperience. Koche saw through you too quickly.”
“But,” I protested, “how on earth did you expect to catch the spy like that? What was your idea? Arrest the first man to pack up and leave the Reserve? If so, you’d better arrest Major Clandon-Hartley. He’s leaving first thing in the morning. If that’s your idea of catching a spy, then heaven help France.”
To my surprise, I saw the beginnings of a grin at the corner of his mouth. He drew at his cigarette, inhaled deeply and let the smoke trickle out through his nose.
“But then, my dear Vadassy,” he said sweetly, “you do not know all the facts. In particular, you are ignorant of one very important one-the fact that we had discovered the identity of the spy before you left here three days ago, that we could have arrested him at any time we wanted to do so.”
It took me a moment or two to take this in. Then hope and despair began to chase themselves through my brain. I looked at him.
“Who is the spy, then?”
He was leaning back, watching me with obvious interest. He flapped his hand airily. “Oh, we’ll come to that later.”
I swallowed hard. “Is this another trick?”
“No, Vadassy, it isn’t.”
“Then,” my temper rose again, “will you explain what the devil you mean by-by torturing me like this? If you knew what I’ve been through these last three days you wouldn’t be sitting there like a fat, complacent slug, grinning as though it were a good joke. Do you know what you’ve done to me? Do you realize, damn you? You-you…”
He tapped me on the knee. “Now, now, Vadassy! This is a waste of time. I know that I am fat, but I am certainly not complacent. Nor am I a slug. What I have done I have had to do, as you will see if you will give me time to explain instead of losing your temper.”
“Why have you arrested me? Why are you keeping me here?”
He shook his head protestingly. “Just be quiet, my good Vadassy, and listen. You’ve broken your cigarette in your emotion. Have another.”
“I don’t want a cigarette.”
I watched him, cold hatred in my heart, while he lit his second cigarette. When he had done so he sat for a moment staring at the match-stalk.
“I was quite sincere,” he said at last, “when I apologized to you. I had a job to do. You will see.”
I was about to speak, but he waved me into silence.
“About nine months ago,” he went on, “one of our agents in Italy included in his report news of a rumor that the Italian Intelligence Department had established a new base in Toulon. In my business, of course, we hear many such rumors, and I paid little attention to this one at the time. Subsequently, however, I was compelled to take it seriously. Information about our defenses along this coast was finding its way into Italy with disconcerting regularity. Our agent in Spezia, for instance, reported that particulars of a secret change in the fortifications of an island near Marseilles were being freely discussed by Italian naval officers three days after it was made. Worse, we had absolutely no clue to the source of this information. We were very worried. When that chemist walked in here with those negatives we seized the opportunity with both hands.” Dramatically his fat, babylike hands tightened on an imaginary object.
“Naturally, you came under suspicion. When, however, we found out what had happened, how the cameras had been changed, we discarded you as unimportant. To be truthful, we nearly released you then and there. Fortunately,” he added blandly, “we decided to wait for a few hours until the report on the camera came in.”
“Report on the camera?”
“Oh, yes. You see, that is something else you do not know about. As soon as we knew of the change we telephoned to the makers of the camera and asked who had bought the particular camera with that serial number. The reply was that it had been supplied to a dealer in Aix. The dealer in Aix remembered it quite well. As luck would have it, he was a small man and it was the only camera of that value he had sold for two years. He had had to get it specially, and was able to supply us with the name of the man who had bought it. The name corresponded with that of one of the guests at the Reserve. Meanwhile we had had the photographs examined by an expert. He was able to tell us by the position of the shadows that the photographs had been taken at about half past six in the morning, and that they had been taken with a telephoto lens attachment from a certain angle. Reference to the map, plus the fact that in some of the photographs portions of foilage were visible, showed that the photographer could have been in only one place. That place was a small, high headland, almost unapproachable except by sea.
“We consulted the fishermen in the harbor. Yes, the man in question had taken Koche’s boat out at five o’clock on the previous morning. He had said that he was going fishing. One fisherman remembered it because, usually, when Koche or his guests went fishing, this fisherman would go with them to bait the hooks and look after the engine. This particular guest had preferred to go alone.
“So, we had our man. We could arrest him. The Commissaire was impatient to do so. But we did not arrest
