'Good man.'
'I like her-she reads detective stories. We're going to swap books.'
'That's grand. Have you done your prep?'
'Yes-French vocab.'
'Want me to test you?'
'It's all right, Gaafar tested me. I say, she's ever so pretty, Isn't she.'
'Yes. She's working on something for me-it's a bit hush-hush, so. . .'
'My lips are sealed.'
Vandam smiled. 'That's the stuff.'
Billy lowered his voice. 'Is she, you know, a secret agent?'
Vandam put a finger to his lips. 'Walls have ears.'
The boy looked suspicious. 'You're having me on.'
Vandam shook his head silently.
Billy said: 'Gosh!'
Vandam stood up. 'Lights out at nine-thirty.'
'Right-ho. Good night.'
'Good night, Billy.' Vandam went out. As he closed the door it occurred to him that Elene's good-night kiss had probably done Billy a lot more good than his father's man-to-man chat.
He found Elene in the drawing room, shaking martinis. He felt he should have resented more than he did the way she had made herself at home in his house, but he was too tired to strike attitudes. He sank gratefully into a chair and accepted a drink.
Elene said: 'Busy day?'
Vandam's whole section had been working on the new wireless security procedures that were being introduced following the capture of the German listening unit at the Hill of Jesus, but Vandam was not going to tell Elene that. Also, he felt she was playacting the role of housewife, and she had no right to do that. He said: 'What made you come here?' 'I've got a date with Wolff.'
'Wonderful!' Vandam immediately forgot all lesser concerns. 'When?' 'Thursday.' She handed him a sheet of paper.
He studied the message. It was a peremptory summons written in a clear, stylish script. 'How did this come?'
'A boy brought it to my door.'
'Did you question the boy? Where he was given the message and by whom, and so on?'
She was crestfallen. 'I never thought to do that.'
'Never mind.' Wolff would have taken precautions, anyway; the boy would have known nothing of value.
'What will we do?' Elene asked.
'The same as last time, only better.' Vandam tried to sound more confident than he felt. It should have been simple, The man makes a date with a girl, so you go to the meeting place and arrest the man when be turns up. But Wolff was unpredictable. He would not get away with the taxi trick again:
Vandam would have the restaurant surrounded, twenty or thirty men and several cars, roadblocks in readiness and so on. But be might try a different trick. Vandam could not imagine what-and that was the problem. As if she were reading his mind Elene said: 'I don't want to spend another evening with him.'
'He frightens me.'
Vandam felt guilty-remember Istanbul-and suppressed his sympathy 'But last time he did you said no to him.'
'He didn't try to seduce me, so I didn't have to say no. But he will and I'm afraid he won't take no for an answer.'
'We've learned our lesson,' Vandam said with false assurance. 'There'll be no mistakes this time.' Secretly he was surprised by her simple determination not to go to bed with Wolff. He had assumed that such things did not matter much, one way or the other, to her. He had misjudged her, then. Seeing her in this new light somehow made him very cheerful. He decided he must be honest with her. 'I should rephrase that,' he said.
'I'll do everything in my power to make sure that there are no mistakes this time.'
Gaafar came in and said: 'Dinner is served, sir.' Vandam smiled: Gaafar was doing his English-butler act in honor of the feminine company.
Vandam said to Elene: 'Have you eaten?'
'No.'
'What have we got, Gaafar?'
'For you, sir, clear soup, scrambled eggs and yoghurt. But I took the liberty of grilling a chop for Miss Fontana.'
Elene said to Vandam: 'Do you always eat like that?'
