Neil nodded and drank his brandy. So he was in for a second interrogation, this time from his own colleagues. He said, ‘Well, what of it?’
‘What of it!’ cried Hudson. ‘Look here, Ingleby, you must know the score in this place. You arrive here with a man who just about tops the Secret Army’s black list. Did you know that? He’s seen coming into this hotel with a journalist! Where do y’think that puts the rest of us? We don’t like these Secret Army boys, but we got to live with ’em!’
St. Leger nodded: ‘I’m afraid he’s right, Ingleby. This man Charles Pol could be very dangerous for us all. I don’t know how he picked you up, but I do know that he must have had some very good motive.’
‘He picked me up,’ said Neil, with an edge coming into his voice, ‘because he wanted someone to help him cross from Greece in a small boat. The Secret Army know all this, I’ve already explained it to them this morning.’
‘Who did y’see?’ asked Hudson.
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘You can trust us,’ St. Leger said again.
‘I trust you,’ said Neil, ‘I just think it would be safer for us all if I didn’t tell you.’
St. Leger nodded solemnly and there was a pause. Neil felt that he had won the discussion. He disliked being criticized by his colleagues for what amounted to professional ineptitude.
Then St. Leger said, ‘It wasn’t by any chance a gentleman called Colonel Le Hir whom you met this morning?’
Neil stared at him in shocked silence: ‘How did you know?’
‘I guessed,’ said St. Leger, ‘if you went to see anyone, he was the most likely person. He deals with what is politely called counter-espionage.’
Hudson had drawn in his breath and gave a little whistle: ‘You saw the Colonel! O Jesus!’
‘You know him?’
‘I know of him,’ said Hudson, ‘did he tell you to get out of the country?’
‘No,’ said Neil, ‘he was very civil to me, we had coffee together, he asked me how I knew Pol, I told him, and he left it at that.’
St. Leger smiled: ‘My dear fellow, if you imagine that Colonel Le Hir was prepared to “leave it at that”, as you put it, then — if you’ll excuse my being blunt — you must have a very simplified view of what is going on in this city.’
Neil flushed but said nothing. Van Loon just stared at his empty brandy, hoping to be bought another. St. Leger was studying another olive, his face old and delicate and relaxed. ‘If Colonel Le Hir did not call you this morning in order to expel you,’ he went on, ‘then it’s not difficult to guess what he really wanted. Certainly not his picture in the paper.’
‘He wanted an explanation of how I came to know Pol,’ said Neil, ‘that was all.’
St. Leger shook his head: ‘No, Mister Ingleby, that was not all. I think Colonel Le Hir asked you to get him information about Pol.’
Neil said nothing. St. Leger continued, ‘And yesterday Pol asked you to get information for him — information about people you meet here in the course of your work. Isn’t that so?’
‘No,’ said Neil, ‘all he did was ask me to ring him this afternoon. He said he might have something to tell me for my paper.’
‘In exchange for what?’
‘For nothing — as a simple favour.’
St. Leger had taken out his toothpaste tube and was sucking it thoughtfully. ‘Monsieur Charles Pol is a very deceptive man,’ he said at last. ‘I knew him in Barcelona in 1936. He was a leading Anarchist then, quite a flamboyant character. Among other escapades he organized the kidnapping of one of Franco’s generals. Then during the last war he became one of the Allies’ most successful double agents, working for the Vichy Government and spying for the Free French. He’s come out here to help break the Secret Army. And the fact that he arrives in a private boat with a well-known British journalist doesn’t strike me as altogether a coincidence. The Secret Army won’t think so either.’
Neil finished his brandy and stared glumly at the bar: ‘So what do you suggest I do?’
‘Leave the country — before you get yourself, and perhaps the whole Press Corps, into serious trouble.’
CHAPTER 5
Neil lay on his bed smoking. It was now 12.40. He had one hour and twenty minutes left before telephoning Pol and finally committing himself.
All morning he had worried over what action he should take. So far he had not been directly threatened; all he had been asked to do was to make a phone call and report on it. It was possible that Winston St. Leger had been wrong. Neil knew from experience that journalists are essentially creatures of temperament, enjoying a world of melodrama often of their own making, and often given to irresponsible judgments. St. Leger and Hudson had perhaps been in this city too long. What happened to luckless Moslems in the street was one thing; as Pol had said, the Secret Army did not harm distinguished members of the foreign Press. On the other hand, if Pol and Le Hir were seriously intending to use Neil as a pawn between them, then clearly he should swallow his pride, take St. Leger’s advice, and get out.
Later in the morning he had gone to the offices of Agence France-Presse and studied the teleprinter reports. Several hundred new security troops were being flown in from France during the
