Now R. quite distinctly chuckled. Ashenden sighed.
“She’ll want to titivate a little before you come, I expect. You know what she is, she likes to make the best of herself. Shall we say half-past ten, and then when you’ve had a talk to her we might go out and lunch together somewhere.”
“All right,” said Ashenden. “I’ll come to the Lotti at ten-thirty.”
When Ashenden, clean and refreshed, reached the hotel an orderly whom he recognised met him in the hall and took him up to R.’s apartment. He opened the door and showed Ashenden in. R. was standing with his back to a bright log fire dictating to his secretary.
“Sit down,” said R. and went on with his dictation.
It was a nicely furnished sitting-room and a bunch of roses in a bowl gave the impression of a woman’s hand. On a large table was a litter of papers. R. looked older than when last Ashenden had seen him. His thin yellow face was more lined and his hair was greyer. The work was telling on him. He did not spare himself. He was up at seven every morning and he worked late into the night. His uniform was spick and span, but he wore it shabbily.
“That’ll do,” he said. “Take all this stuff away and get on with the typing. I’ll sign before I go out to lunch.” Then he turned to the orderly. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
The secretary, a sublieutenant in the thirties, obviously a civilian with a temporary commission, gathered up a mass of papers and left the room. As the orderly was following R. said:
“Wait outside. If I want you I’ll call.”
“Very good, sir.”
When they were alone R. turned to Ashenden with what for him was cordiality.
“Have a nice journey up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you think of this?” he asked, looking round the room. “Not bad, is it? I never see why one shouldn’t do what one can to mitigate the hardships of war.”
While he was idly chatting R. gazed at Ashenden with a singular fixity. The stare of those pale eyes of his, too closely set together, gave you the impression that he looked at your naked brain and had a very poor opinion of what he saw there. R. in rare moments of expansion made no secret of the fact that he looked upon his fellow men as fools or knaves. That was one of the obstacles he had to contend with in his calling. On the whole he preferred them knaves; you knew then what you were up against and could take steps accordingly. He was a professional soldier and had spent his career in India and the Colonies. At the outbreak of the war he was stationed in Jamaica and someone in the War Office who had had dealings with him, remembering him, brought him over and put him in the Intelligence Department. His astuteness was so great that he very soon occupied an important post. He had an immense energy and a gift for organisation, no scruples, but resource, courage and determination. He had perhaps but one weakness. Throughout his life he had never come in contact with persons, especially women, of any social consequence; the only women he had ever known were the wives of his brother officers, the wives of Government officials and of business men; and when, coming to London at the beginning of the war, his work brought him into contact with brilliant, beautiful and distinguished women he was unduly dazzled. They made him feel shy, but he cultivated their society; he became quite a lady’s man, and to Ashenden, who knew more about him than R. suspected, that bowl of roses told a story.
Ashenden knew that R. had not sent for him to talk about the weather and the crops, and wondered when he was coming to the point. He did not wonder long.
“You’ve been doing pretty well in Geneva,” he said.
“I’m glad you think that, sir,” replied Ashenden.
Suddenly R. looked very cold and stern. He had done with idle talk.
“I’ve got a job for you,” he said.
Ashenden made no reply, but he felt a happy little flutter somewhere about the pit of his stomach.
“Have you ever heard of Chandra Lal?”
“No, sir.”
A frown of impatience for an instant darkened the Colonel’s brow. He expected his subordinates to know everything he wished them to know.
“Where have you been living all these years?”
“At 36, Chesterfield Street, Mayfair,” returned Ashenden.
The shadow of a smile crossed R.’s yellow face. The somewhat impertinent reply was after his own sardonic heart. He went over to the big table and opened a dispatch-case that lay upon it. He took out a photograph and handed it to Ashenden.
“That’s him.”
To Ashenden, unused to Oriental faces, it looked like any of a hundred Indians that he had seen. It might have been the photograph of one or other of the Rajahs who come periodically to England and are portrayed in the illustrated papers. It showed a fat-faced, swarthy man, with full lips and a fleshy nose; his hair was black, thick and straight, and his very large eyes even in the photograph were liquid and cow-like. He looked ill-at-ease in European clothes.
“Here he is in native dress,” said R., giving Ashenden another photograph.
This was full-length, whereas the first had shown only the head and shoulders, and it had evidently been taken some years earlier. He was thinner and his great, serious eyes seemed to devour his face. It was done by a native photographer in Calcutta and the surroundings were naively grotesque. Chandra Lal stood against a background on which had been painted a pensive palm tree and a view of the sea. One hand rested on a heavily carved table on which was a rubber-plant in a flowerpot. But in his turban and long, pale tunic he was not without dignity.
“What d’you think of him?” asked R.
“I should have said he was a man not without personality.
