When Ashenden read over the letter he was not altogether satisfied. But it was the best he could do. It had an air of verisimilitude which the words lacked because, knowing little English, she had written phonetically, the spelling was atrocious and the handwriting like a child’s; she had crossed out words and written them over again. Some of the phrases he had put in French. Once or twice tears had fallen on the pages and blurred the ink.
“I leave you now,” said Ashenden. “It may be that when next you see me I shall be able to tell you that you are free to go where you choose. Where do you want to go?”
“Spain.”
“Very well, I will have everything prepared.”
She shrugged her shoulders. He left her.
There was nothing now for Ashenden to do but wait. He sent a messenger to Lausanne in the afternoon, and next morning went down to the quay to meet the boat. There was a waiting-room next to the ticket-office and here he told the detectives to hold themselves in readiness. When a boat arrived the passengers advanced along the pier in line and their passports were examined before they were allowed to go ashore. If Chandra came and showed his passport, and it was very likely that he was travelling with a false one, issued probably by a neutral nation, he was to be asked to wait and Ashenden was to identify him. Then he would be arrested. It was with some excitement that Ashenden watched the boat come in and the little group of people gathered at the gangway. He scanned them closely but saw no one who looked in the least like an Indian. Chandra had not come. Ashenden did not know what to do. He had played his last card. There were not more than half a dozen passengers for Thonon, and when they had been examined and gone their way he strolled slowly along the pier.
“Well, it’s no go,” he said to Félix, who had been examining the passports. “The gentleman I expected hasn’t turned up.”
“I have a letter for you.”
He handed Ashenden an envelope addressed to Madame Lazzari on which he immediately recognised the spidery handwriting of Chandra Lal. At that moment the steamer from Geneva which was going to Lausanne and the end of the lake hove in sight. It arrived at Thonon every morning twenty minutes after the steamer going in the opposite direction had left. Ashenden had an inspiration.
“Where is the man who brought it?”
“He’s in the ticket-office.”
“Give him the letter and tell him to return to the person who gave it to him. He is to say that he took it to the lady and she sent it back. If the person asks him to take another letter he is to say that it is not much good as she is packing her trunk and leaving Thonon.”
He saw the letter handed over and the instructions given and then walked back to his little house in the country.
The next boat on which Chandra could possibly come arrived about five and having at that hour an important engagement with an agent working in Germany, he warned Félix that he might be a few minutes late. But if Chandra came he could easily be detained; there was no great hurry since the train in which he was to be taken to Paris did not start till shortly after eight. When Ashenden had finished his business he strolled leisurely down to the lake. It was light still and from the top of the hill he saw the steamer pulling out. It was an anxious moment and instinctively he quickened his steps. Suddenly he saw someone running towards him and recognised the man who had taken the letter.
“Quick, quick,” he cried. “He’s there.”
Ashenden’s heart gave a great thud against his chest.
“At last.”
He began to run too and as they ran the man, panting, told him how he had taken back the unopened letter. When he put it in the Indian’s hand he turned frightfully pale (“I should never have thought an Indian could turn that colour,” he said), and turned it over and over in his hand as though he could not understand what his own letter was doing there. Tears sprang to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. (“It was grotesque, he’s fat, you know.”) He said something in a language the man did not understand and then in French asked him when the boat went to Thonon. When he got on board he looked about, but did not see him, then he caught sight of him, huddled up in an ulster with his hat drawn down over his eyes, standing alone in the bows. During the crossing he kept his eyes fixed on Thonon.
“Where is he now?” asked Ashenden.
“I got off first and Monsieur Félix told me to come for you.”
“I suppose they’re holding him in the waiting-room.”
Ashenden was out of breath when they reached the pier. He burst into the waiting-room. A group of men, talking at the top of their voices and gesticulating wildly, were clustered round a man lying on the ground.
“What’s happened?” he cried.
“Look,” said Monsieur Félix.
Chandra Lal lay there, his eyes wide open and a thin line of foam on his lips, dead. His body was horribly contorted.
“He’s killed himself. We’ve sent for the doctor. He was too quick for us.”
A sudden thrill of horror passed through Ashenden.
When the Indian landed Félix recognised from the description that he was the man they wanted. There were only four passengers. He was the last. Félix took an exaggerated time to examine the passports of the first three, and then took the Indian’s. It was a Spanish one and it was all in order.
