Dark Wanton E-Book

Peter Cheyney

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

LADIES and gentlemen, I present to you Vincente Maria Jesu Callao.
The business of a personal introduction seems necessary because he was the spring— however unconscious— that set in movement the rather peculiar actions of most of the people concerned in the business of the Dark Wanton.
A relatively uninteresting person, he becomes interesting, not for what he was, but rather for what he was not. Callao was born in Andalusia in 1913. There appeared to be some doubt about his parentage— a matter which repercussed on his mother, who was adequately catered for by her husband with a seven-inch Spanish sailor's knife five days after the birth of the child. His education was nondescript, but with the passage of years he developed certain attributes, many of which made him attractive to women. He developed little else except perhaps the one sincere thing in his life— an honest love of music and the making of music.

Leseprobe

DARK WANTON

Peter Cheyney

1948

© 2022 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383835752

Contents

1: Tango

2: Beguine

3: Rumba

4: Samba

5: Conga

1: Tango

Thursday

LADIES and gentlemen, I present to you Vincente Maria Jesu Callao.

The business of a personal introduction seems necessary because he was the spring— however unconscious— that set in movement the rather peculiar actions of most of the people concerned in the business of the Dark Wanton.

A relatively uninteresting person, he becomes interesting, not for what he was, but rather for what he was not. Callao was born in Andalusia in 1913. There appeared to be some doubt about his parentage— a matter which repercussed on his mother, who was adequately catered for by her husband with a seven-inch Spanish sailor's knife five days after the birth of the child. His education was nondescript, but with the passage of years he developed certain attributes, many of which made him attractive to women. He developed little else except perhaps the one sincere thing in his life— an honest love of music and the making of music.

When he was sixteen he was playing the trap drums in a three-piece amateur syncopated orchestra. By the time he was eighteen he was a superb guitarist. At twenty-five he was an expert musician with a flair for controlling the unruly Latin temperaments of a small rumba band— a semi-professional affair which he directed.

Four years later, financed by a woman who thought she knew what she wanted, he had a good rumba band in New York. At the beginning of 1948 he descended upon London with a ten-piece rumba band which was, to my mind, the best of its kind.

Vincente was the type of man that all normal men consider in their secret hearts to be an utter bastard. Normal men thought about Vincente like that first of all because they were entirely unable to understand him and secondly because they thought he looked like that. He seemed to be— and probably was— everything that a normal Englishman or American— or any other man for that matter— dislikes. There was a certain sinuosity— a feminine grace— in his movements; a suggestion of leopard or puma in his walk and the way he put his feet on the ground. His wrists and ankles were slender and well shaped, although very strong. He was well made. He had slim buttocks, a thin waist, a deep chest and fine shoulders. Incongruously enough, his neck was inclined to shortness and thickness. His round, olive face was jowled but his nose was well shaped and sensitive. His mouth was one of those mouths which give women who are interested in men's mouths a good deal to think about, and the curved line of his short upper lip was accentuated by a pencil-line black moustache. His eyes were large; sometimes soft, sometimes very hard and cynical, and his hair of the sort you would expect to adorn such a type— black, patent-leather hair, very well-kept, with a decided, immaculate parting.

Beyond these things there was little to him except his voice, and that deserves especial mention. Vincente possessed one of those strangely attractive voices which seem to thicken almost imperceptibly during talking or singing. A peculiar husky note dominated his vocal cords. At first you thought that this annoyed you, but after a little while you found yourself rather liking it. Most women began by being fascinated by his voice, which led them on to a consideration of his other qualities of appearance. Usually, when they arrived as far as that they were utterly lost. Because very few women escaped from Vincente without leaving something desirable in one form or another behind them.

His attitude towards them was peculiar. At first, after he had made a small success in the United States, he was surprised and amused by the interest which they took in him. Afterwards, and by the time he arrived in England, he had become satiated, and almost bored with women ("choosy" he called it), but used to them in very much the same way as a brandy drinker goes on drinking brandy, not because he gets any of the original kick out of the business, but because he is used to the process of drinking brandy and because he thinks that one day, by some happy chance, he may discover a brandy that tastes better.

Vincente always saw himself in an important light. But he was clever enough to conceal this attitude of mind. In speaking and in his general behaviour he usually produced an effect of humility and diffidence— almost of modesty— which was delightful and which made females believe that in no circumstances could he consider doing anything that was not correct and charming. The incongruity of the quiet sadism and more blatant physical toughness which he eventually showed them was possibly fascinating to ladies who, by the time they became aware of this part of his character, were usually too far gone to be able to do very much about it, even if they had been able to do anything about it.

And in these days, because of the way things are, there are many women who are prepared to be fascinated too quickly by men like Callao. The experience of many young women in the war, their bravery, initiative, their heightened instinctiveness, the result of the part they played, has left its effect, I have been told, on their post-war mentalities. Because they were used to taking one sort of risk some of them seem prepared nowadays to take other chances. The idea appeals to them. As abnormal risks seldom come the way of women in peace time, those of them who are emotional, appreciative of male attraction, lonely or unhappy, often delude themselves into a belief that, in some extraordinary way, or because of some attribute peculiar to their character which they imagine themselves to possess, they may be able to excite and hold the passion of a man like Vincente Callao. Women, even if they are very intelligent in other things, are sometimes, in affairs of the heart, particularly stupid.

After all, nobody can prevent an ostrich from burying its head in the sand, a process which everyone knows is quite stupid— everyone, that is, except the ostrich.

Callao fascinated women. Even those who were sensitive enough to become aware of the danger of Vincente were often too intrigued or interested or curious to go whilst the going was good.

He seldom lost his temper with them. If he had kept it during his quarrel with Kiernan he would, in all probability, be alive to-day, singing those attractive songs set to good rumba music and accompanied by the deadened tom-tom with which his expert trap drummer accentuated the perfect time of that delightful dance; looking with his soft brown eyes at the couples who danced on the small but crowded floor of the Cockatoo; allowing himself to be persuaded (he always allowed himself to be persuaded) to take some lady to his apartment in Clarges Street to see his Mexican art collection.

In his own profession he was important. And, at this time, in the early part of 1948, his rumba band was engaged on a year's contract at the Cockatoo— probably the most fashionable night club in London.

Perhaps I should also say that he had been co-respondent in no less than five divorce cases, in all of which he had really not the slightest interest in the unfortunate women, each of whom lost most of the things which women like to have for something which she thought she would like to have.

I do not think an apology is necessary for this lengthy dissertation on the characteristics of the late Vincente Maria Jesu Callao. As I said, the introduction seemed necessary because the background of the man who was drawn into curious but very vital contact with such persons as Quayle, Frewin, Ernest Guelvada, Aurora Francis, Kiernan, Kospovic and the Practical Virgin, should be made plain from the start.

So much for Vincente. Let us imagine him stepping on to the band platform at the Cockatoo on the evening of Thursday, the 29th January, smiling his own small, diffident, smile at the faces expectantly raised to greet his appearance, bowing with the quick, jerky inclination of the head peculiar to him. And let us think as well of him as we can. We know that he had not long to live, but to him death was a thing unknown and unthought of. Vincente did not like things to last too long. And death is so very permanent that the idea of it would not have appealed to him. It would have made him feel sick, as women who tried to be permanent made him feel sick.

Friday

IF Mr. Everard Peter Quayle presented the picture of a normal successful business man of fifty years of age, it is probably because he wished to present such a picture. He could look like other things. He could also be all sorts of things except a business man— which he was not. Quayle spent most of his time sitting in a large office in the International Export Trust Company, which existed purely for the purpose of providing him with a façade behind which he could carry out those rather peculiar activities which caused so much consternation to all sorts of people during the war years and which, it must be admitted, still continue to cause a certain amount of trouble to ladies and gentlemen who have decided inclinations to interfere with the peace of the world for sinister motives best known to themselves.

Quayle was burly and bald. An active-minded person, his thoughts were continuously ahead of the matter he was considering at any given moment. Secretive— as was necessary— to a degree, it was said of him that he never let one hand know what the other was doing, and that, in his particular profession, was perhaps a good thing.

At eleven o'clock on Friday morning he pressed a button on his desk. After a moment a woman secretary came in. Quayle asked for the files on Rumania. When they were brought he sat for an hour, turning over the pages, studying the papers in the folders, making mental notes. It was just after twelve when he sent for Frewin.

Frewin came into the room, shut the door quietly behind him and stood leaning against the wall opposite Quayle's large mahogany desk.

Quayle thought that Michael Frewin was an odd bird. He thought, simultaneously, that it would be strange if he were not. He thought too, with an interior grin, that anybody who rated as being his— Quayle's— principal assistant must, of necessity, be an odd bird.

Frewin was tall, lithe, wavy-haired, very well dressed in a manner which was entirely his own, and apparently lazy. Looking at him, Quayle thought that Frewin spent a whole lot of his life thinking about clothes. He wondered why. Then he thought that after all a man must think about something. Clothes certainly appeared to take a decided part in the mental peregrinations of his assistant.

There was a reason for it. Frewin, as Quayle knew, was a man intelligent enough to hide a direct and peculiarly vibrant and sensitive mentality behind a mask of appearances. These carefully calculated appearances deluded most people— as Frewin intended they should be deluded— into believing him a poseur, a dilettante, a well-dressed executive who did his work satisfactorily and spent his leisure hours in the most futile, tortuous or artistic pursuits possible.

Quayle, however, who had seen Frewin kill four men in difficult circumstances with the utmost indifference, realised exactly what went on under the sometimes cool, sometimes apparently emotional exterior. Frewin must have known this. He had been working with Quayle too long not to know it. But it made no difference. Even when, in intimate and secret conversations with his chief, Frewin still maintained one or other of the many poses which had become second nature to him. Quayle was never for one moment deluded.

Frewin wished people to think of him as being lazy, quasi-artistic and vaguely intelligent. Quayle knew him to be clever, quick-thinking, sensitive to every influence and, if occasion demanded, damned dangerous. One other person was to discover these attributes during the Dark Wanton business; Miss Antoinette Brown was to realise the efficacy of Frewin from quite a different angle and with quite different results.

Quayle said: "Michael, I had a telegram at home last night. Those damned lists haven't got to Rumania yet."

Frewin raised his eyebrows. He took a cigarette case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette. He seldom stopped smoking.

He said: "That means that somebody is still trying to negotiate them; that the job hasn't been done; that they're not actually sold yet."

"That's what I think," said Quayle. "I'm going to do something about it."

Frewin said nothing. He continued to lean against the wall and smoke.

Quayle went on: "I've got an idea that Kiernan's coming to England. I thought we might use him in this."

Frewin asked: "Why? You know he finished after Nüremberg. He got a gratuity, and that was that!"

Quayle grinned. "I don't think he was very pleased with the gratuity. I'm rather inclined to agree with him that it wasn't worth the work he'd done. He took an awful lot of chances in the war, you know."

Frewin nodded. "You feel you want to use him?"

Quayle got up. He walked over to the window and stood looking out. He asked: "Why not? Kiernan's got all the qualifications. He's tough, tenacious, very intelligent."

Frewin said: "All right. I think he's on holiday in France. You want me to let you know when he arrives; where he is?"

Quayle nodded. "Just let me know when he gets here and his whereabouts. I'll do the rest."

Frewin pushed himself lazily away from the wall. He asked: "Anything else?"

Quayle said: "Yes. Can you remember off-hand any women who worked for us in the war— one or two? People who would rate as first-class?"

Frewin smiled reminiscently. "There's one," he said. "You remember her? She was pretty good, that one— Antoinette Brown. I think she's more or less got everything you want."

Quayle said: "I remember her vaguely. Isn't she doing some sort of job in a Government office somewhere?"

Frewin nodded. He knew that Quayle knew perfectly well just where she was and what she was doing.

He said: "Yes. Do I get her?"

"Yes," said Quayle. "Arrange that she has leave of absence. Let her come here and work for a bit. Have you anybody in your mind for a second string?"

Frewin said: "No. Most of the girls we used in the war who were lucky enough to come out of it decided they'd like a quiet life. Most of them are married or doing some normal sort of job. I might think of somebody."

"Well, think about it," said Quayle. "I'll think too. We'll compare notes. But you'd better arrange this Brown transfer as soon as you can." He went on casually: "If I remember rightly, she was rather a nice girl."

Frewin opened the door. He looked over his shoulder. He said: "Very nice. I believe they call her the Practical Virgin."

Quayle said: "No! Why?"

Frewin shrugged his shoulders as he went out. "I don't know," he said in his affectedly quiet voice. "I suppose because she's practical and a virgin."

He closed the door.

Quayle lighted a cigarette and began to think about the lists. He realised grimly that for the six years when the war was on and even now, when it wasn't supposed to be on, he had been thinking in terms of lists. Lists of agents, parachute Intelligence details, lists of espionage and counter-espionage details, lists of people who were too dangerous to everybody to go on living, lists of people who were so valuable to everybody that they must be kept living. He sighed.

Now there were two more lists. Just two. One containing seventeen names, the other four names. Twenty-one names in all. Two lists that had been collected after a comb-out search by one of the best mixed Allied Intelligence details in operation immediately after the war. Two lists that had got as far as the G.I. office in Nüremberg and had then disappeared into thin air. Two pieces of paper which silently revealed the identity of twenty-one individuals who were very badly wanted for all sorts of nastiness. Twenty-one individuals who were being hidden away in some place in some country so that, at some time or other, they could use their own special techniques for the purpose of starting some more trouble.

Quayle stubbed out his cigarette. He began to map out a plan of campaign.

There might be a development at any time now. Why not?

He went out to lunch.

On that afternoon at four o'clock a telephone call came through to Quayle. When the voice came through he listened, drawing easily on his cigarette, his eyes quietly regarding the blotter before them. After a few minutes he hung up the receiver. Then he got up; began to walk about the office impatiently. Now vague ideas began to take shape in his mind.

Quayle's secretary came into the room. She was a tall, thin girl. She appeared dull and uninteresting. To look at her you would find it difficult to believe that she had been parachuted behind enemy lines seven times during the war.

She said: "A Miss Brown to see you. Mr. Frewin said you'd see her."

Quayle nodded. "Ask her to come in. And bring some tea."

She went away.

Antoinette Brown came into the room. She was quietly dressed in black with a smart black hat, and her shell-rimmed glasses had slipped a little on her nose.

Quayle grinned at her. "There'll be some tea in a minute. Sit down and smoke a cigarette if you want to."

She sat down placidly. The secretary came in with the tea.

Quayle went back to his chair. When the secretary had gone, he said: "You worked for me during the war, Antoinette. You did very well."

She said: "Thank you, Mr. Quayle."

He went on: "Something's turned up in which you can help. I asked Michael Frewin to get in touch with you and get you away from that department where you've been so efficiently working at an uninteresting civil service job"— he smiled at her—"because I think that I've got something that's a little more up your street."

"If you say so I'm sure that's right, Mr. Quayle," she said.

Quayle flipped open the folder on his desk. He asked: "When you were in Nüremberg you met Anthony Kiernan, didn't you— that would be about two months after the war ended in Europe? You knew what he was doing of course?"

She nodded. "I assisted him in a secretarial capacity for a little while. I knew he was one of your principal agents, Mr. Quayle; he carried out four or five important assignments whilst I was there."

He asked: "Did you like him?"

"Yes, I always try to like the people I work with. It's so much easier. And Mr. Kiernan was quite a pleasant person."

Quayle grinned. "He never made a pass at you?"

She shook her head. "No."

He went on: "Kiernan's going to do a job for me. You'll be helping him in a rather indirect way. I thought I'd get you to come here this afternoon so that I might have a general talk with you about it, because there won't be any necessity for you to be seen in or around this office while this particular work is in progress. Do you understand?"

She said: "I understand."

"You'll get your instructions through Michael Frewin," said Quayle. "He'll contact you outside."

She said: "Oh!" There was something in her voice.

Quayle grinned again, "You don't like Frewin?"

"No, Mr. Quayle, not very much. Not that that makes any difference."

Quayle said: "Exactly." He went on: "I'll give you an outline of the business. We're looking for two lists— mixed lists of secondary war criminals and enemy agents. The two lists were made in the first place by one of the Allied Investigation teams that went into Europe looking for these men. There were no duplicates. The lists went to 21 Army Group Headquarters in Nüremberg and disappeared. There could be only one reason for their disappearance. Somebody was looking after the people whose names were on those lists. They're being hidden somewhere in Rumania or the Russian satellite countries. Somebody feels that some time they might be useful for something or other, Understand?"

She said: "Yes."

Quayle continued: "I've got good reason to believe that the lists were stolen so that somebody could make quite a piece of money out of them. It would be worth a great deal of money to conceal the identity of the men whose names were on those lists. Somebody knew that, but as far as I know— and I have no reason to believe to the contrary— the lists are still in existence." He smiled a trifle whimsically. "Possibly," he said, "because the man or the woman who stole them is holding out for a lot of money."

He lighted a fresh cigarette. "I want those two lists," he said. "I want them badly. I want them before the sale is completed and they are handed over to the purchaser. I haven't very much information but I have a little. And I have decided to use Kiernan in this matter. He is, as you know, tough and extremely intelligent. There's another reason that I have for wanting to use him. He was supposed to finish with us over a year ago. He's been on holiday ever since. I think he's in France at the moment. The fact that he's left my own particular organisation will certainly be known to people who may be interested. That's going to make it easier for him if this thing is played the way I want it played. Understand?"

She said. "Yes, Mr. Quayle."

He smoked silently for a few moments; then: "I'm probably going to want to use another woman. I asked Frewin about it this morning. He couldn't think of one"— he smiled at her—"not of one who had the necessary qualifications. Can you think of one?"

She said: "No, Mr. Quayle."

He went on ruminatively: "Actually the second woman doesn't matter an awful lot. One might almost say that she matters very little. Tell me, Antoinette, when you were in Nüremberg did you know any of Kiernan's women friends? Was there anybody that he was fond of— someone who might be expected to be seen in his company to-day?"

She thought for a moment; then: "Mr. Quayle, there was a woman. I met her. I rather liked her. I think that Mr. Kiernan seemed rather fascinated by her. She was doing some work in Germany under the Control. Her name was Aurora Francis."

Quayle asked: "Do you know where she is?"

"Yes. I had a letter from her the day before yesterday. She's finished her job in Germany, She's coming back to England to-morrow."

She smiled. "She's a fearfully attractive person." There was a pause; then: "Mr. Quayle, are you thinking of using her in any confidential capacity?"

He said: "No." He grinned at her. For a moment his expression was almost mischievous. "Why did you ask?"

She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly. "Only that I think she is fearfully attracted to men. Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Quayle. She's very efficient and awfully good at any work she does. She's well educated. She's good-looking, but I think she's too much interested in men generally all the time."

Quayle asked: "Exactly what do you mean by that?"

She said vaguely: "I don't really know. I suppose I meant just what I said."

Quayle sat drumming quietly on the blotter with his fingertips. After a long silence he said: "Where are you living?"

She told him.

Quayle said: "You'd better leave there on some pretext or other. Go and stay at some good second-class hotel, some place where you'll be on your own and which you could use as a headquarters. You can arrange that to-day. Come back here in about an hour's time and see Frewin. You'll find him in his office. I shall have had a chance to talk to him before then. You'll get your further instructions from him. He'll arrange about money and a banking account for you. He'll tell you just what you have to do. Understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Quayle." She got up.

Quayle said: "Thank you, Antoinette."

She adjusted her glasses. She smiled a small, vague smile. She said: "Thank you, Mr. Quayle."

She went out.

Quayle lighted a cigarette. He thought to himself that in any event he had started something which must, of necessity, lead somewhere or other. The thing to do was to get started.

He began to think about Antoinette Brown. He grinned. He told himself that one day Antoinette was going to make a lot of trouble for some man. One day... when she began to get wise to herself...

At six o'clock Quayle sent for Frewin.

Frewin came into the office; closed the door quietly behind him; stood in his usual indolent manner, leaning against the wall.

Quayle asked: "Have you talked to Antoinette?"

Frewin nodded.

Quayle said: "The position's clarified a little. Now I know more or less what I'm doing." He told Frewin about the telephone call he had received in the early part of the afternoon.

Frewin said: "I see. So it's like that. Did you think it was like that— before you had the call, I mean?"

"I've always had the idea more or less," said Quayle, "but nothing much to support it." He went on: "You can carry on from there." He grinned. "I think this is one of those things that you'll handle very successfully, Michael. You know what must happen?"

Frewin nodded. "I know what you mean."

Quayle said: "I'll be going away for a few days. I'm going to Germany. I may be away two days; I may be away a week. I don't know. But I'd like this thing cleared up quickly."

Frewin smiled. He asked: "How do I clear a thing like this up quickly? All sorts of things will have to happen."

"Maybe," said Quayle. "But I have no doubt you'll make them happen."

Frewin said: "All right. Tell me something— why are you using this girl Brown on this thing?"

Quayle cocked one eyebrow. "You suggested her, I didn't. It was you who said she rated as one of our best operatives."

Frewin said: "I know. But I didn't understand the implications of this job then."

Quayle lighted a cigarette. He settled himself back comfortably in his chair. He smiled almost benignly at his assistant.

He said: "You don't like Antoinette Brown, do you, Michael?"

Frewin shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose I don't. But that doesn't mean that she's not a good operative for normal work.

Quayle asked softly: "Why don't you like her?"

Frewin shrugged his shoulders again. "She's either too good to be true or she's one hell of a hypocrite. And I don't like women who are hypocrites."

Quayle's smile broadened. "Do we care," he said; "provided they do their job as efficiently as Antoinette Brown does, and keep their mouths shut as tightly as she always has? But tell me why she's either too good to be true or a hypocrite, Michael."

Frewin said: "It's her general attitude towards life. I've watched her for quite a while— especially during the Nüremberg days. She doesn't seem at all interested in any of the things that interest a normal woman. But she's too uninterested. No ordinary normal woman can be as uninterested in the things that make people tick over as she is, without either being slightly mental or fearfully hypocritical."

Quayle said: "You're talking about sex of course, aren't you, Michael?"

Frewin nodded. "Of course I am. Everybody in the world thinks somehow— sometime— about sex except, apparently, Miss Brown. Yet, if she wants to produce some feminine attribute that's going to get her some place in her job she can produce it."

Quayle asked quietly: "Then why worry?"

Frewin frowned a little. "I'm not worrying," he said.

Quayle knocked the ash from his cigarette delicately into the ash-tray in front of him. "Well, so long as the job's done, your likes and dislikes don't matter. In point of fact I think when people are doing the sort of work that you and she will be doing a little dislike doesn't hurt." He grinned mischievously. "She doesn't like you a lot," he concluded.

"I know. The fact doesn't keep me awake at night."

Quayle said: "I thought it wouldn't."

"And," continued Frewin, "I'm not interested in what she does or she doesn't think, because she's not working with me; she's going to do what she's told."

Quayle nodded. "Precisely," he said.

Frewin asked: "Anything else?"

Quayle said: "About the other woman, something interesting has turned up having regard to that telephone call. If you want anybody to use as a stooge— if you know what I mean— it seems that Kiernan was attracted to a woman called Aurora Francis who worked under the Control in Germany when he was out there. Brown told me that. It seems that Francis is coming back to England to-morrow. Now, if it's of any use to you, and you feel that you'd like to use her as an unconscious contact, do so."

Frewin said: "I'll remember that."

Quayle got up and stretched. "Good luck, Michael," he said. "Keep it as clean as you can. And I'd like it all tied up in three or four days whichever way you have to do it."

Frewin moved away from the wall. He asked: "Even if it's the hard way?"

"Even if it's the hard way," said Quayle. "Life's hard anyway."

Frewin nodded. He went out.

Quayle sat down at his desk; lighted another cigarette.

The Mordaunt Hotel is a very good hotel of the second class sort. An old-fashioned family hotel, its suites are comfortable and the service still good and respectful in days when suites are usually small and stuffy and service exists when you can get it— if you can.

At seven-thirty Antoinette Brown was looking at herself in the cheval mirror in her bedroom on the first floor. She was wearing an attractive black evening frock. She thought she looked "very nice." She came as near to feeling annoyed as she ever did when the telephone rang and reception told her that Mr. Michael Frewin wanted to see her.

She asked that he should be sent up to her sitting-room; then she powdered her nose; put on her glasses; looked at herself in the mirror; took the glasses off; went into the sitting-room.

When Frewin came in she was sitting demurely in an arm-chair reading a copy of the Tatler. He closed the door behind him; put his hat on a chair.

He said: "Good evening. I hope I'm not disturbing you. But it was important to see you."

She got up. "If you say so, it must be important, Mr. Frewin."

He wondered for a moment whether there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

She went on: "Please sit down and I'll get you a cigarette."

Frewin said: "Thanks. I'll smoke one of my own." He took his case from his pocket; lighted a cigarette. He went on: "I had a talk with Mr. Quayle this afternoon. It seems that you told him that a woman named Aurora Francis who knew Mr. Kiernan in Nüremberg would be arriving to-morrow afternoon at Victoria. Is that right?"

She nodded.

Frewin said: "I haven't quite made up my mind exactly what action I'm going to take, but in the meantime I think it would be a very good idea if you confined yourself to some general tactics without particularising too much, and you can report to me all the time. When the situation hardens— if it does harden— I'll be able to give you more definite instructions."

"Very well, Mr. Frewin." Her voice was efficient.

He took a sheet of closely-typed quarto paper out of his pocket. He said: "I've made some notes here. Some general notes of what's in my mind. Some notes on what one might call the opening gambit in this business. I want you to read them, memorise them; then destroy the paper. Really, everything's rather vague at the moment. I can't help that. I don't suppose it'll be vague for very long." He smiled at her.

She said: "I don't suppose so, Mr. Frewin. I've noticed in any operation where you've been concerned, everything is inclined to be very definite."

Frewin thought there was something in her voice that he didn't like. He said: "I don't know that I'm particularly interested in what you notice or don't notice. All I'm interested in is that you do what you're told."

"Quite. I always do, don't I, Mr. Frewin? In any event, I've never had any complaints from Mr. Quayle about the methods I've used in my work. I've often wondered..." Her voice tailed off into nothingness.

Frewin asked: "You've often wondered what?"

"I've often wondered why you are so unnecessarily unpleasant. One would have imagined that in our sort of work a normal co-operation would have been much more desirable than the sort of armed neutrality"— she smiled quickly at him—"which you always manage to bring into any working association with me."

For some reason which he didn't know Frewin found himself rather angry. He thought that Antoinette Brown was rather like an eel— something that you could never quite get hold of.

He got up. "I'm sorry if you don't like working with me. But that's how it is. We've got to work together, and things being as they are you'll work in my way."

She said quietly: "If you say so, Mr. Frewin."

He asked: "You don't like me, do you?"

She said softly: "No, Mr. Frewin."

He picked up his hat. "If you have anything to-morrow night you'd better ring through to my apartment. You've got the number. You've got all the places where I'm likely to be at any time during next week. Good-night."

She said: "Good-night."

Frewin went out. In the corridor, for some inexplicable reason, he felt a sense of frustration and annoyance. He wondered why.

Saturday

IT is doubtful if any one would have noticed Miss Antoinette Brown sitting at the corner table in the refreshment room at Victoria Station. But there are not a very great number of people extraordinarily sensitive to the auras of young women who used the refreshment room at Victoria Station at four o'clock in the afternoon.

If it is difficult to give a picture of Antoinette it is because she was a difficult person to describe. In the office of the Civil Service department to which she had been attached until the day before, she was nicknamed, as Michael Frewin had told Quayle, the Practical Virgin. The reason for that nickname was obvious. Antoinette was practical and she was a virgin.

She was practical because she possessed a quiet analytical mind and an extremely active brain. She knew a lot because she liked knowing things and if she didn't know anything about any given subject she looked it up. In this manner one may acquire a great deal of extraneous knowledge; a certain philosophy of life. I am not suggesting for one moment that Antoinette Brown's philosophy of life was even plausible, but it was definitely hers and she liked it.

Women liked her because they trusted her, because she was honest— or seemed to be honest— and because she never attempted to steal their men. But, in fact, this was not a virtue on her part, because her attitude towards men was somewhat strange as we shall see. I do not mean that she disliked men as a sex. She merely disliked sex.