I began to fix the drink.
“I’ve been told to keep off the streets as much as possible.”
“We can eat here. A cold supper has been sent up to the diningroom.”
“We shall miss our dancing.” I went over to her with the drink. She was different. I could read it all over her. Maybe she really was tired of flying against the wind. But I didn’t ask her.
She said, “We can dance here afterwards.”
“Why is he letting me have my head? No awkward questions.”
“He has many contacts. Or maybe it is instinct. And he thinks highly of you.”
I looked at her over my glass. “You gave him a report on me?”
“Yes.”
“Top of the class?”
“Not quite. They’ve found Spiegel. It’s in the late editions today.”
“The Melita Mystery. I’ll bet the Jugs* are tipped off to let it die down. There’s a lot of international wire-pulling going on. What time does Malacod get back here tonight?”
“He doesn’t. He changes here – then goes to his house at Neuilly at the end of the evening. You sleep here and go straight to the airport tomorrow morning. I’ve had all your stuff sent along from the hotel.”
“And you’re coming to Venice?”
“Yes.”
I put my arm round her and kissed her again and she held her glass away carefully so that it would not spill. After a moment, she said, “Aren’t you hungry?”
I nodded.
We had avocado pears, Scotch salmon with a cucumber salad, and a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé to go with it, then Cona coffee and a glass of Rémy Martin. She sat across the table from me and in the mirror with its ormolu frame, swagged with fruit and flowers and Napoleonic bees, I could see the reflection of the back of her head and the line of her shoulders.
We danced for a while, then watched the television, and then at eleven o’clock she looked at her little gold bracelet watch and said, “You have an early start in the morning.”
“I’ll see you home,” I said.
“No. You keep off the streets.”
I let myself be directed because I knew that I was in her hands.
She showed me my bedroom, all my stuff from the hotel was there, including an express letter which had arrived from Wilkins. I kissed her before she left the room and she ran the palm of her hand down the side of my face slowly and said, “You know the nicest thing about you?”
“My table manners. I don’t gobble my food.”
She gave a little chuckle, shook her head, and said, “No. You know when not to ask questions. Is that instinct or cleverness?”
I shrugged my shoulders. I knew when not to answer questions, too.
I undressed slowly, wandering around the room. It made my place by the Tate look like a dog kennel. You can say what you like about being rich, but you can’t deny the fact that with everything it brings you have more chance of being in a good mood than a bad one. The sheets were silk and the lampshade was held by a jade figure a foot high, and there was a small Corot over the fireplace that would have made a handsome dowry for Wilkins. I got into bed with a hiss of protest from the silk sheets. I thumped the pillow into shape to show who was master and lay back, wondering why I felt happy – since none of this belonged to me.
For bedtime reading I opened the letter from Wilkins.
Wilkins had been to the Stigmata publishing offices – three rooms above a shop near the British Museum. The shop was used for display and also as their trade counter. I had wanted her to go through their pamphlets on European political parties on the odd-ball fringe to see if she could pick up anything on a party which used a whip as its sign – the memory of which had been worrying me for a long time – an organization that might be referred to shortly as the A. Party. She had found what I wanted. She enclosed a short pamphlet in German and there on the front was the sign of a whip. Since she knew I couldn’t speak German she had given me a breakdown of the contents.
Behind every screwball organization in the world there is usually a purpose not written into the declaration at the head of the pamphlet. Also behind each such organization there is usually some unnamed person putting up more money than could ever be collected in subscriptions and hoping to get a fat return on it. The Sühne Partei smelt like that to me. Atonement – said Wilkins – was the nearest she could get to the translation of the party name.
The head offices were in Munich, on the Königinstrasse. The Director of the Party was a Herr Friedrich Nackenheim, the Secretary was Professor Carl Vadarci, and then there was a list of names, chiefly German, of a Committee of Management, none of which said anything to me. There were branch offices in most of the big German towns.
The party declared
