‘What?’ said Charles-Edouard, still on the telephone. ‘No! Are you sure?’
He was listening with all his ears. Grace could hear Albertine’s voice, quack, quack, quack, down the receiver, but could not hear what she was saying. Charles-Edouard seemed entranced by whatever it was.
‘Oh how interesting. Go on. Yes. What a sensation! Don’t you know any more? Don’t cut off – wait while I tell Grace. The Dexters,’ he said to Grace, ‘have flown to Russia. They’ve been Communist spies from the very beginning, and they’ve gone. It will be in the papers tomorrow. Salleté has just told Albertine the whole story. Well then, Albertine dearest, good-bye, and we’ll count on you Thursday at eleven. Saint Louis des Invalides. Nobody at all except Tante Régine and my father-in-law. Good-bye.’
‘So –?’ said Grace, all agog.
‘Well, it seems the Americans have been rather suspicious of your friend Heck for quite a long time. At last they had enough evidence to arrest him – he must have got wind of it and he flew to Prague the day before yesterday. The latest information is that he has turned up in Moscow.’
‘And Carolyn?’
‘With Carolyn and little Foss.’
‘Rather a comfort,’ said Grace, ‘to think that little Foss won’t be ruling the world after all.’
‘Rather a comfort,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘to think that we shall never have to listen to Hector’s views on anything again.’
‘Poor Carolyn, will she like living in Russia? One thing, the Russians can’t get on her nerves more than the French used to. So I was quite right, you see, she was a Communist at school. No wonder she got so cross when I reminded her.’
‘And it seems that his real name is Dextrovitch.’
‘He told me his mother was a Whale.’
‘She was. His father, Dextrovitch, became an American just before he was born. They say they have evidence now that Hector has been a Bolshevist all his life, his father brought him up to be one. It’s a most interesting story really. The father saw his two brothers shot by the Tsarist police, he escaped to America, married this rich Whale, and had Hector.’
‘Can you beat it,’ said Grace. ‘Where’s Papa – do let’s go and tell him.’
Of course the journey to Paris was greatly enlivened for Grace, Charles-Edouard, and Nanny by the Dexter story, which now filled all the newspapers. Hector Dexter, it seemed, was worth at least ten atom bombs to the Russians. He had held jobs of the highest responsibility for years, had always been persona grata at the White House, where he knew his way about better than anybody except the President himself, had never been denied access to any information anywhere, and was one of the most brilliant of living men. Great stress was laid upon how deeply he was beloved by his countless friends (good old Heck) in London, Paris, and New York. Many of these refused to believe that he had gone to Russia of his own accord, but were quite certain that the whole family must have been kidnapped, putting forward as evidence that Carolyn had left her fur coat behind. ‘I suppose they’ve never heard of Russian sables,’ Charles-Edouard said when Grace read this out to him.
Asp Jorgmann and Charlie Jungfleisch were interviewed in Paris. ‘Whatever Heck may have done,’ they said, ‘he remains a very very good friend of ours.’
But the French Ambassador to London, who was on the train and with whom Charles-Edouard went to sit for a while, told him that his American colleague regarded it as worth quite a lot of atom bombs to be relieved of good old Heck’s company for ever. ‘He’s supposed to have gone straight off for a conference with Beria. Well, I feel awfully sorry for Beria.’
‘Perhaps he won’t mind as much as we do; we’re always told the Russians have no sense of time,’ said Charles-Edouard.
‘It does seem strange, dear, such a good daddy. And fancy Mrs Dexter too. What will Nanny Dexter say?’
‘You must ring her up the very minute we arrive and see if she’s still there.’
Sigi sat by his mother in a fit of deep sulks, his mouth down at the corners, his clever little black eyes roving to and fro like those of an animal cornered at last. When the train was nearly at Dover the clever little black eyes suddenly had their attention fixed. The Bunbury burglar was walking up the Pullman on his way, no doubt, to the Trianon bar. Charles-Edouard was asleep in his corner, and Grace half-asleep in hers.
‘Where are you going, Sigi?’ she said, as he slipped out of his seat.
‘Just to stretch my poor scar.’
‘Well don’t be long, we’re nearly at Dover. You’ll be able to lie down on the boat,’ she said, ‘poor darling.’
He sidled off, and found his burglar alone in the bar, drinking whisky.
‘Good Lord,’ said the burglar. ‘It’s you! Where are you off to?’
‘Paris. I’m a French boy, like I told you. And I’m going home with my father and mother, but leaving my appendix in London.’
‘Oh dear. They ought to have given it you in a bottle.’
‘Are you coming to Paris too?’
‘I hope so. If nothing awkward happens on the way.’
Sigi got very close to him and said confidentially, ‘Have you got anything you’d rather I carried through the Customs for you? My papa travels to and fro the whole time, they all know him, he never has anything opened.’
The burglar looked at him and said, ‘Whose side are you on now?’
Sigi began twisting up his curls. ‘On your side, like I was last time, if you remember, until you sausaged me. But although it was very treacherous, what you did, I do feel I owe you a good turn to make up for shutting you in the cupboard.’
‘Mm,’ said the burglar doubtfully. They were passing through
