The Double Image

by Helen Macinnes

  With his hooded flashlight, and his two master keys ready, he began his journey. Quickly he passed through the bathroom, locked its door behind him. Quickly along the carpeted corridor, with the children’s empty rooms staring blankly after him. Quickly through the small kitchen, out by its service door, into the back hall with its stone floor and garbage cans. Eight silent paces and he was at the service entrance of another apartment. He had every right to enter it. It was his.

  He had leased it under another name, for a bachelor who only wanted a very small pied-à-terre in Paris. (The bachelor even made an appearance, now and again, whenever it seemed necessary.) The place was basically furnished and looked as heartless as that sounded. But even if it had no stretch of front windows, or no view of the rear courtyard, its position was good: it lay along the side wall of the apartment house, right up against the four-storey building of Androuet’s garage. And the chief asset was its bathroom window, standard in size, easily negotiated. It looked out over the flat crest of Androuet’s roof.

  Rosenfeld locked and bolted the bathroom door, swung open the bathroom window, stepped up on the toilet seat, climbed over the window sill, and was on the stretch of flat roof. A clutter of tipsy chimney pots, poking their ancient heads through the blue slate tiles, protected him from any watcher across the street. Eleven quiet paces towards the back of the building and he had reached the small attic door that had once let chimney sweeps and roof repairers get to work. He had a key for that, too. The inside ladder was short, thank God; that always seemed the worst part of this journey. He lowered himself carefully.

  He was now on the top landing of the old house, blocked off from the staircase by a very solid door so that this small area had become a private hall for the two studio doors. He stood in the darkness, by the ladder’s bottom rung, and took out his flashlight again. The door that led into the front studio had an elegant sign in sixteenth-century cursive, no less, YVES DUCLOS, FURNITURE REPAIRS, ANTIQUES BOUGHT AND SOLD, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. But it was to the other studio, at the back of the building, that Rosenfeld turned. He pressed the button beside the door. There was no sound of ringing. Instead, a small flashing light would now be signalling inside Duclos’ living quarters. Duclos must have been waiting for it. The door opened at once. Rosenfeld stepped inside, glancing at his watch. Four and a half minutes, all told, since he had stood in his bedroom. Not bad, he thought, for a man in his forties. And five pounds overweight, too, he added, just to cut down his vanity.

  Duclos said, “Don’t worry about being late. I knew you were at the Farraday party.” He spoke English fluently, without any trace of French accent. He was in his mid thirties, of medium height and weight, with the dark hair, bright blue eyes and fresh complexion of a true Celt. He had brought some Breton touches into this large room, too, with a tier of heavy box beds blocking the fireplace completely (he distrusted chimneys), faded red linen covered every inch of the giant windows, heavy candlesticks on a long table (he also distrusted electric light bulbs in places where talk might be serious), a couple of carved wooden screens to give some tactful privacy as well as to break up the vast floor space. “How did it go?”

  “Always good to see them.” Rosenfeld was keeping his voice low as he took off his coat and threw it on the nearest chair. There were two men sitting behind the screen that lay farthest from the window. He could see their shapes through the latticework, but the candlelight wasn’t strong enough to let them be identified. He nodded his head in their direction, cocked an eyebrow.

  “Got in from Berlin today,” Duclos murmured. “I told you this meeting was urgent.”

  Rosenfeld thought of Androuet. “When did they get here?” he asked, frowning.

  “I picked them up this afternoon near Versailles, where I was buying a couple of chairs at an auction. They came here, inside the truck. No one saw them.”

  “What about Androuet?”

  “Is he causing trouble?”

  “No, but he’s watching my times of arrival and departure. Someone is curious about me. You’ve had no signs?”

  Duclos shook his head. “Androuet didn’t see them, anyway. I drew him out of the garage by pretending to notice something interesting on the street, and then wandering out to have a look at it. He followed me like a lamb.”

  “I hope it was a good excuse, something that will stand up in Androuet’s afterthoughts.”

  “It was a very handsome woman. Don’t worry. My guests were out of the truck and upstairs before he stopped thinking of hips. I even got his help to carry the chairs upstairs to the landing.”

  It was possibly all right, Rosenfeld thought. Duclos had a lot of panache to disguise his essential caution. His chief, Bernard, over at the Sûreté, wouldn’t have selected him to work on this special job of co-operation with the Americans if he wasn’t one of his most careful, as well as diplomatic operatives.

  “Don’t worry,” Duclos repeated softly. “I’ll watch Androuet from now on. How did they hook him? Women, or money?”

  “I don’t know if he is hooked yet. Probably just accepting a hefty bribe, and finding reasons to excuse himself.”

  “That’s always the first step in being hooked,” Duclos said, and he was right. It was one of the first steps, anyway, Rosenfeld thought, and—his warning about Androuet given and taken—he began walking towards the screen. Duclos caught his arm gently, and asked again, “How did the Farraday party go? I know who was there. Was Antonini questioned?”

  Okay, okay, Rosenfeld thought: he co-operates with me and I co-operate with him. That’s Bernard’s bright idea, and it has been a good one so far. “Only in a general chitchat kind of way. He dodged giving any serious answers.”

  “Did no one show special interest in him?”

  “No approaches that I saw, except normal friendly ones.”

  “Yet we had information that a Communist agent was going to be at that party tonight.”

  Rosenfeld halted completely. “Are you serious?”

  “Never more serious.”

  “Any name?”

  “No. But there was a photograph of the man. Our agent was bringing it to us yesterday morning. A truck smashed his small car to pieces.”

  Rosenfeld glanced over at the screen.

  “Tell me quickly.”

  “He was following one of their couriers, saw him make a drop in the Bois de Boulogne at eight in the morning. He decided to stay around and see who would pick up the message. That’s generally a long wait. So he took a chance, walked past the seat where the courier had sat and found an old pencil stub lying on the ground.”

  “Did he examine it?”

  “Yes, he knew what to do. He pulled out the false lead to check if there was the usual roll of microfilm inside. Instead, there was a thin roll of paper with very small writing.”

  “What?” This was wrong, this was all wrong...

  “It read: Get invitation for Farraday party tonight. Call us six o’clock further instructions. He replaced it, sealed it with the lead, dropped it where he had found it. Then he waited almost two hours behind some trees, until a man stopped at the seat, picked up the pencil, and strolled off. He just had time to photograph the man—one shot caught him full face.”

  “How tall?” The French agent must have made some contact with the Sûreté before he was killed, Rosenfeld guessed, or else Duclos wouldn’t know so much.

  “Height was difficult to estimate accurately. Around average, perhaps a little over. He stooped, carried himself badly. Clever? Also, he wore a shapeless coat. So his weight and build were impossible to judge at that distance.”

  “Not six foot three, with white hair, deeply tanned complexion?”

  “Nothing like that. Nothing particularly noticeable.”

  That eliminated Tom O’Malley, the Australian, from the Meurice gathering. “Then he was an American,” Rosenfeld said. He sighed.

  “Our agent got back to his car, and radiophoned us from there. He decided to bring in the photogra
ph rather than try to follow the American. Ten minutes later, our man was dead.”

  “What about the camera?” A brutal question, but needed. “Lifted from his pocket before we got to him.”

  They knew what they wanted, Rosenfeld thought. They must have seen him use it, probably were watching him ever since he picked up the pencil stub. Time enough, in those two hours, to sound an alert and be ready to act. It was the American they were protecting, not the simple little message. Yet it still baffled him, or, rather, the manner of delivery puzzled him. The Communists used such pencils, but only for some really important message, microfilmed, lengthy, usually filled with items about highly secret matters.

  Duclos was saying, “The truck was stolen, of course. The driver and his helper vanished after they lifted the camera. There was a terrific uproar, complete traffic jam, shrieking women, crowds of people. If we hadn’t received the radio report, we might have thought they were only two hijackers who panicked after an accident and ran. That is what we were supposed to think, I’m sure. And that’s how we gave it out to the press.”

  Rosenfeld was still thinking about the pencil stub. “It’s all wrong—using a valuable drop for a simple message like that. They could have telephoned him quite safely if that was all they had to say. D’you think—is it possible that they had no other way of contacting him that day, no way of instructing him to get an invitation to the Farraday party?”

  “Just as we,” suggested Duclos, “couldn’t reach you before the party began to warn you who might be there?”

  “Wednesday was my day off the chain this week,” Rosenfeld said lightly. “I didn’t expect business to pick up so—” He paused.

  “Perhaps it was the American’s day off, too?” Duclos asked thoughtfully. “We might begin from there.”

  Rosenfeld nodded. His lips tightened as he recalled the faces of the men he had met less than three hours ago. His eyes narrowed. He felt, as he always did when he found an American involved in such work, just a little sick.

  Duclos probably suffered from French traitors in the same way, for he said tactfully, “Perhaps he didn’t go to the party. The action today might have scared them off. His instructions could have been changed on that six o’clock call, you know.”

  That could be. Sue Farraday had mentioned three guests who had to beg off at the last minute. Poor Sue...she had been happy about reaching Paris, getting away from mystery and threat. And a man had died because of her little party, and what more would come of it? Rosenfeld decided he had better find out the names of the three missing guests. His feeling of sickness increased.

  A cheerful voice said, “Haven’t you chaps finished your local gossip? Hello, Rosie! Come in and join our little séance. We need help with an obstreperous ghost.” The Englishman had risen and was standing at one side of the screen. He laughed with real pleasure as he saw the astonishment on Rosenfeld’s face. “Rosie!” he said again, coming forward with his light step, his hand outstretched.

  “Chris Holland!”

  “Three years, isn’t it? Well, well...”

  “Two and a half.”

  “You’ve been taking it easy, I see. Putting on a little weight?”

  “I can still buckle the same belt around my waist,” Rosie protested. “With a struggle.” As they shook hands, and kept shaking hands (Duclos was much impressed by this Anglo-American display of real affection), Rosenfeld was studying Holland’s face. He was thinner, with a little more grey sprinkled through his neatly cut well-brushed hair. His skin, over the even, pleasant but unremarkable features, was now less tanned. Some lines had been added, too, around the greyish-brown eyes. But he still had that same amused look in them, that same quiet smile. “And how are the savage and licentious soldiery? Made you a colonel, yet?”

  “Half-colonel,” Holland murmured.

  Not bad, not bad at all, thought Rosenfeld: British Intelligence didn’t hand out promotions like petits fours with the ice cream. It must be some really big piece of news that had brought Holland to Paris, something that concerned the Americans and French as well as the British. And his feeling of urgency was increased as the other visitor from Berlin stepped forward and Holland introduced him, “Here is Partridge. We’ve been doing a little work together recently.” Michael James Partridge, American, thirty-seven; Korea; then counter-intelligence training at Fort Holabird in Maryland; became a civilian, moved to Berlin; past five years there spent in putting his education at the Army Intelligence School to very practical use. A good man, on his way up.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Rosenfeld said as he shook hands with the American. He looked at the light sandy hair, the grey eyes behind the thin-framed glasses, the lean face with its high brow, the shy smile, the casual clothes that increased the college-teacher look. So here, thought Rosenfeld, is my replacement. Once I get him squared away, show him the files, explain matters pending, instruct him in the local difficulties, this man will take over here when I go back to Washington. He smiled amiably. “Planning to stay long?” he asked casually.

  “That depends.” Partridge was equally casual. “Chris is going back to Berlin in a few days. We thought it better if we met you here, very quietly. After that Venetian affair—” He didn’t end the sentence, just smiled pleasantly and led the way back to the four chairs grouped behind the screen around a small table.

  Duclos looked enquiringly at Rosenfeld, who explained, “The last time Chris and I met was in Venice.”

  “September, 1961,” Chris said smoothly. “That was a nice little job of co-operation.”

  Duclos caught on. “Ah—the plot to assassinate De Gaulle which you uncovered?” He relaxed and asked no more questions.

  “And so,” continued Chris, “Rosie and I must not even seem to meet again. We might alarm some more conspirators, and we don’t want to warn them, do we? Really, by this time”—he was looking at Rosie, now—“I thought the cold war might actually have melted.” He sighed. “They never give up, do they?”

  “Some always keep trying. What is it now?”

  “We have quite a story to tell you. Take place, as we say in Berlin.” So they all sat down around the table. “This is highly classified information, old boy. Jim, have you got that damned gadget working?”

  “It’s working,” Partridge said. Acquaintances making an effort to seem close to him would call him “Mike.” His real friends knew better. Now, he pointed to the small box that lay beside his ashtray. “Present for you,” he told Rosie. “Just something our engineers were fooling around with. It scrambles the sound waves within a twenty-foot radius.”

  “That’s going to ease a lot of headaches. Sure it works? Okay, okay... And thanks.” Rosenfeld was relaxing visibly. But he was still trying to guess what news from Berlin was so important that Holland had decided to bring it himself. “Don’t you trust even a coded message any more?” he asked jokingly.

  Chris Holland threw him a sharp look. Partridge’s eyebrows went up for a split second. “Not at the moment,” Chris said very evenly. “Because it happens to be a very special code that starts my story. A Russian code, only used since last November. A real puzzler.” He smiled happily. “Fortunately, we had a warning about its importance along with information about its peculiar difficulties.”

  So, thought Rosie, as he translated from Holland’s under-statement into more exact language, the British have a Soviet code clerk working for them, a defector in place. He knew better than to ask Holland the where or the how of the situation, far less the defector’s name. But as he nodded approvingly and murmured “Congratulations,” his mind went into high speed. A code as difficult and special as this one must have been or would be used for high-priority messages from Moscow Central. And if it had come to Holland’s attention, then the messages were being sent to Berlin; that was obvious. Possibly to the Soviet Intelligence establishment there, the highly secret Rezidentura, with a senior Intelligence agent in charge. “Sounds very high-level, indeed,” Rosie said. But how, h
e wondered, did a Soviet code clerk manage to hear about such a special code? The master spy in charge of the Rezidentura would have memorised it, received all its messages himself. Unless, of course, the code had been so difficult that he had used the code clerk to help him break out the message—a violation of security regulations, certainly, but that had happened before.

  Holland had been watching Rosie. The slight frown combined with the inflection in Rosie’s voice when he had used the words “high level” were enough for Holland’s own quick mind. “Our information was reliable,” he said quietly. “So we found out.”

  “You managed to catch some of those coded messages coming into Berlin? That was a hell of a job. The directors of spy networks get three or four every week, don’t they?”

  “It was quite a job of work,” Holland conceded. He glanced at Partridge. “We had some excellent co-operation, too. But even if it was difficult, it’s still easier than catching the master spy with his little receiver. I wish, just once, that I could walk right in at the moment he was listening to Moscow.”

  Rosenfeld and Duclos both nodded. The director of a network, always a Russian, had several receiving sets in different parts of the foreign city in which he worked; he would even use a car for mobility, so that he couldn’t be tracked down to one spot. And, because he had entered that foreign country illegally—on a false passport and with a carefully invented personal history—and then used various names and identities once he had established himself, he was difficult to uncover. Especially when none of the groups he organised ever knew who he was. To them, he was only one of his code names. Not even the leaders of those groups knew him, far less the exemplary citizens they had recruited as “sources” of information. He, and possibly the two other Russians who were assistants (they had come into the country legally, as diplomats or trade representatives or newsmen for a Russian paper), knew the extent of the network that spread out from him. He alone knew all its members. And just as none knew him, so also none understood the real purpose of all the small bits and pieces of information they were instructed to collect, of the small actions they were called upon to perform. Theirs but to do, and protest their innocence when arrested. Or catch the public’s tender emotions with a plea of blackmail or duress. It was, thought Rosenfeld, a sad, sad world.