'Yes, yes, it's my flat and it's my sitting-room. But what you are saying, and in fact what you might be going to say, might be unwise. That means both for you as well as me.'
'Oh! I think I see what you're driving at.'
'You are offering me something. A way of life, a new career and you are suggesting a breaking of certain ties. You are suggesting a form of disloyalty.'
'We're not suggesting your becoming a defector to any other country, if that's what you mean.'
'No, no, this is not an invitation to Russia or an invitation to China or an invitation to other places mentioned in the past, but I think it is an invitation connected with some foreign interests.' He went on: 'I've recently come back from abroad. A very interesting journey. I have spent the last three weeks in South America . There is something I would like to tell you. I have been conscious since I returned to England that I have been followed.'
'Followed? You don't think you imagined it?'
'No, I don't think I've imagined it. Those are the sort of things I have learned to notice in the course of my career. I have been in some fairly far distant and — shall we say? — interesting parts of the world. You chose to call upon me to sound me as to a proposition. It might have been safer, though, if we had met elsewhere.'
He got up, opened the door into the bathroom and turned the tap.
'From the films I used to see some years ago,' he said, 'if you wished to disguise your conversation when a room was bugged, you turned on taps. I have no doubt that I am somewhat old-fashioned and that there are better methods of dealing with these things now. But at any rate perhaps we could speak a little more clearly now, though even then I still think we should be careful. South America ,' he went on, 'is a very interesting part of the world. The Federation of South American countries (Spanish Gold has been one name for it), comprising by now Cuba, the Argentine, Brazil, Peru, one or two others not quite settled and fixed but coming into being. Yes. Very interesting.'
'And what are your views on the subject,' the suspicious looking Jim Brewster asked. 'What have you got to say about things?'
'I shall continue to be careful,' said Sir Stafford. 'You will have more dependence on me if I do not talk unadvisedly. But I think that can be done quite well after I turn off the bath water.'
'Turn it off, Jim,' said Cliff Bent.
Jim grinned suddenly and obeyed.
Stafford Nye opened a drawer at the table and took out a recorder.
'Not a very practised player yet,' he said.
He put it to his lips and started a tune. Jim Brewster came back, scowling.
'What's this? A bloody concert we're going to put on?'
'Shut up,' said Cliff Bent. 'You ignoramus, you don't know anything about music.'
Stafford Nye smiled.
'You share my pleasure in Wagnerian music, I see,' he said. 'I was at the Youth Festival this year and enjoyed the concerts there very much.'
Again he repeated the tune.
'Not any tune I know,' said Jim Brewster. 'It might be the Internationale or the Red Flag or God Save the King or Yankee Doodle or the Star-Spangled Banner. What the devil is it?'
'It's a motif from an opera,' said Ketelly. 'And shut your mouth. We know all we want to know.'
'The horn call of a young Hero,' said Stafford Nye. He brought his hand up in a quick gesture, the gesture from the past meaning 'Heil Hitler'. He murmured very gently,
'The new Siegfried.'
All three rose.
'You're, quite right,' said Clifford Bent. 'We must all, I think, be very careful.'
He shook hands.
'We are glad to know that you will be with us. One of the things this country will need in its future — its great future, I hope — will be a first-class Foreign Minister.'
They went out of the room. Stafford Nye watched them through the slightly open door go into the lift and descend. He gave a curious smile, shut the door, glanced up at the clock on the wall and sat down in an easy chair — to wait…
His mind went back to the day, a week ago now, when he and Mary Ann had gone their separate ways from Kennedy Airport . They had stood there, both of them finding it difficult to speak. Stafford Nye had broken the silence first.
'Do you think well ever meet again? I wonder…'
'Is there any reason why we shouldn't?'
'Every reason, I should think.'
She looked at him, then quickly away again.
'These partings have to happen. It's — part of the job.'
'The job! It's always the job with you, isn't it?'
'It has to be.'
'You're a professional. I'm only an amateur. You're a –' he broke off. 'What are you? Who are you? I don't really know, do I?'
'No.'
He looked at her then. He saw sadness, he thought, in her face. Something that was almost pain.
'So I have to — wonder… You think I ought to trust you, I suppose?'
'No, not that. That is one of the things that I have learnt, that life has taught me. There is nobody that one can trust. Remember that — always.'
'So that is your world? A world of distrust, of fear, of danger.'
'I wish to stay alive. I am alive.'
'I know.'
'And I want you to stay alive.'
'I trusted you — in Frankfurt …'
'You took a risk.'
'It was a risk well worth taking. You know that as well as I do.'
'You mean because –?'
'Because we have been together. And now — That is my flight being called. Is this companionship of ours which started in an airport, to end here in another airport? You are going where? To do what?'
'To do what I have to do. To Baltimore , to Washington , to Texas . To do what I have been told to do.'
'And I? I have been told nothing. I am to go back to London — and do what there?'
'Wait.'
'Wait for what?'
'For the advances that almost certainly will be made to you.'
'And what am I to do then?'
She smiled at him, with the sudden gay smile that he knew so well.
'Then you play it by ear. You'll know how to do it, none better. You'll like the people who approach you. They'll be well chosen. It's important, very important, that we should know who they are.'
'I must go. Goodbye, Mary Ann.'
'Auf Wiedersehen.'
In the London flat, the telephone rang. At a singularly apposite moment, Stafford Nye thought, bringing him back from his past memories just at that moment of their farewell.
'Auf Wiedersehen,' he murmured, as he rose to his feet crossed to take the receiver off, 'let it be so.'
A voice spoke whose wheezy accents were quite unmistakable.
' Stafford Nye?'
He gave the requisite answer: 'No smoke without fire.'
'My doctor says I should give up smoking. Poor fellow,' said Colonel Pikeaway, 'he might as well give up hope of that. Any news?'
'Oh yes. Thirty pieces of silver. Promised, that is to say.'
