“It’s the greatest grief of my life that owing to my wife’s nationality I was unable to do any war work. I tried to enlist the day war broke out, but they wouldn’t have me on account of my age, but I don’t mind telling you, if the war goes on much longer, wife or no wife, I’m going to do something. With my knowledge of languages I ought to be of some service in the Censorship Department. That’s where you were, wasn’t it?”
That was the mark at which he had been aiming and in answer now to his well-directed questions Ashenden gave him the information that he had already prepared. Caypor drew his chair a little nearer and dropped his voice.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t tell me anything that anyone shouldn’t know, but after all these Swiss are absolutely pro-German and we don’t want to give anyone the chance of overhearing.”
Then he went on another tack. He told Ashenden a number of things that were of a certain secrecy.
“I wouldn’t tell this to anybody else, you know, but I have one or two friends who are in pretty influential positions, and they know they can trust me.”
Thus encouraged Ashenden was a little more deliberately indiscreet and when they parted both had reason to be satisfied. Ashenden guessed that Caypor’s typewriter would be kept busy next morning and that extremely energetic Major in Berne would shortly receive a most interesting report.
One evening, going upstairs after dinner, Ashenden passed an open bathroom. He caught sight of the Caypors.
“Come in,” cried Caypor in his cordial way. “We’re washing our Fritzi.”
The bull-terrier was constantly getting himself very dirty, and it was Caypor’s pride to see him clean and white. Ashenden went in. Mrs. Caypor with her sleeves turned up and a large white apron was standing at one end of the bath, while Caypor, in a pair of trousers and a singlet, his fat, freckled arms bare, was soaping the wretched hound.
“We have to do it at night,” he said, “because the Fitzgeralds use this bath and they’d have a fit if they knew we washed the dog in it. We wait till they go to bed. Come along, Fritzi, show the gentleman how beautifully you behave when you have your face scrubbed.”
The poor brute, woebegone but faintly wagging his tail to show that however foul was this operation performed on him he bore no malice to the god who did it, was standing in the middle of the bath in six inches of water. He was soaped all over and Caypor, talking the while, shampooed him with his great fat hands.
“Oh, what a beautiful dog he’s going to be when he’s as white as the driven snow. His master will be as proud as Punch to walk out with him and all the little lady-dogs will say: good gracious, who’s that beautiful aristocratic-looking bull-terrier walking as though he owned the whole of Switzerland? Now stand still while you have your ears washed. You couldn’t bear to go out into the street with dirty ears, could you? like a nasty little Swiss schoolboy. Noblesse oblige. Now the black nose. Oh, and all the soap is going into his little pink eyes and they’ll smart.”
Mrs. Caypor listened to this nonsense with a good-humoured sluggish smile on her broad, plain face, and presently gravely took a towel.
“Now he’s going to have a ducking. Upsy-daisy.”
Caypor seized the dog by the forelegs and ducked him once and ducked him twice. There was a struggle, a flurry and a splashing. Caypor lifted him out of the bath.
“Now go to mother and she’ll dry you.”
Mrs. Caypor sat down and taking the dog between her strong legs rubbed him till the sweat poured off her forehead. And Fritzi, a little shaken and breathless, but happy it was all over, stood, with his sweet stupid face, white and shining.
“Blood will tell,” cried Caypor exultantly. “He knows the names of no less than sixty-four of his ancestors, and they were all nobly born.”
Ashenden was faintly troubled. He shivered a little as he walked upstairs.
Then, one Sunday, Caypor told him that he and his wife were going on an excursion and would eat their luncheon at some little mountain restaurant; and he suggested that Ashenden, each paying his share, should come with them. After three weeks at Lucerne Ashenden thought that his strength would permit him to venture the exertion. They started early, Mrs. Caypor businesslike in her walking boots and Tyrolese hat and alpenstock, and Caypor in stockings and plus-fours looking very British. The situation amused Ashenden and he was prepared to enjoy his day; but he meant to keep his eyes open; it was not inconceivable that the Caypors had discovered what he was and it would not do to go too near a precipice; Mrs. Caypor would not hesitate to give him a push and Caypor for all his jolliness was an ugly customer. But on the face of it there was nothing to mar Ashenden’s pleasure in the golden morning. The air was fragrant. Caypor was full of conversation. He told funny stories. He was gay and jovial. The sweat rolled off his great red face and he laughed at himself because he was so fat. To Ashenden’s astonishment he showed a peculiar knowledge of the mountain flowers. Once he went out of the way to pick one he saw a little distance from the path and brought it back to his wife. He looked at it tenderly.
“Isn’t it lovely?” he cried, and his shifty grey-green eyes for a moment were as candid as a child’s. “It’s like a poem by Walter Savage Landor.”
“Botany is my husband’s favourite science,” said Mrs. Caypor. “I laugh at him sometimes. He is devoted to flowers. Often when we have hardly had enough money to pay the butcher he has spent everything in his pocket to bring me a bunch of roses.”
“Qui fleurit sa maison
