The Venetian Affair

by Helen Macinnes

  “That’s going to be difficult.” Fenner took a deep breath. “How do you get me off this hook?”

  “That’s why I’m standing here, wasting time,” Carlson said sharply. “The process is known as creative thought.”

  “He’s a sick man,” Fenner suggested. “He is in no shape to play detective.”

  “His friends may be in very good shape.”

  “If it’s any aid to your attack of thought, there’s no address in my coat. No telephone numbers. No note-book.”

  “No name?”

  “My initials. And the maker’s name, of course. Nothing in the pockets except cigarettes and a lightweight edition of a Molière play with some notes I was making in the margins. I’m hoping to see a production of it in Avignon. But none of that would tell very much.” He looked at Carlson hopefully.

  “It tells something. An American who is interested in the French theatre... One inquiry at Orly, with a good excuse behind it, will soon add a name to your initials. It isn’t a totally unknown name, either. They could find it in one of the Who’s Who series in any reference library. Next step, the Chronicle office. And so—to here.”

  “A bit awkward for me,” Fenner admitted. He liked the idea less and less. “Let’s hope he’s working alone, with no one to run errands for him.”

  Carlson’s eyes measured Fenner. “I’m going to give it to you straight. If he is alone, he will hire some help. You’re in for trouble, friend, unless—” His eyes brightened. He picked up the coat and handed it to Fenner. “On your way out, you are going to stop at the porter’s desk to pick up your passport. Tell him not to worry about your lost coat—”

  “Like hell he is.”

  “Because it must be at Orly. So you’re taking the wrong coat back and getting your own.”

  “I can answer that one: he will offer to send a boy out to Orly.”

  “You have to identify it, haven’t you? And be identified? That’s why you want your passport. It fits, doesn’t it?”

  “It fits,” Fenner had to admit. “But supposing this fellow and his friends or his hired help go chasing out to Orly?”

  “They will. So we’ll get the coat out there, after we have finished with it.”

  “It won’t be exactly as they expect to find it. What then?”

  “At Orly, they will learn that the Sûreté arrived and confiscated the coat. My friend Bernard is very adept at arranging that kind of thing. In fact, I think he would like one of them to go chasing out to Orly. That would give his boys someone to follow.”

  Carlson opened the door. “I know it isn’t brilliant,” he said as Fenner still hesitated, “but can you think of anything better to get them off your back?”

  Fenner couldn’t.

  “Well, what’s worrying you?”

  “The scene at the porter’s desk. I’m no actor.” I’ll play it loose, keep it brief, he decided. Perhaps the porter will fall for my story.

  “You’ll do all right,” Carlson told him. “Just use the Method.”

  The baggage porter accepted Fenner’s offhand remarks with the impassive, drooped eyelids of a man who saw no other sensible course. Carlson was at Fenner’s elbow. “Come on, Bill, we’ll never make that lunch date,” he was saying with all the sharpness that a very old friend, almost family, could be allowed. “Yes, we’ll need a taxi,” he told one of the doormen, “for Orly.”

  As they stood on the sidewalk, a girl came out of the hotel. The girl, Fenner saw. She was now wearing a grey linen dress, straight sleeveless, and simple. Her hands, in short white gloves, were carrying her large black portfolio. She glanced at the two men and looked away, far far away, across the stretch of traffic toward the trees of the Champs-Elysées. “Punctual as well as pretty,” Fenner observed. “She had her sketches all finished by noon, I see.”

  “You know her?”

  Fenner shook his head. “Should we offer her this taxi? Better still, share it?” He grinned at the nervous look in Carlson’s eyes, and climbed into the cab as the doorman announced their destination to the driver, and the driver announced in turn that he would have to make a detour—one-way streets and don’t blame me. He repeated his self-clearance in basic English. A cautious man, this Frenchman, with not much trust in foreigners’ comprehension.

  “Then detour around by the Fauboug-Saint Hononré,” Carlson said. His French was fluent and authoritative, even if the accent was still Midwest. “I have to buy some shaving cream.” He glanced back at the girl. “For a moment, I thought you meant it,” he told Fenner.

  “I did, but this isn’t the day for it.” In fact, this wasn’t his day at all. “I’ve got an appointment at four. Unpostponable. If I miss it, I’ll never get another.” That much he could tell from Vaugiroud’s voice on the telephone.

  “You’ll get there,” Carlson promised. They had travelled about five hundred yards, and were now in a narrow street with smart shops. The driver was slowing up in front of an English apothecary, and looked around for approval.

  “Fine,” Carlson said, and paid the man, overtipping handsomely to calm his grumbles about their change in plans. Their visit to the shop was brief. After that, they retraced their route, nicely mingling in the lunch-time stroll of clerks, and salesgirls, until they had almost reached the Embassy grounds. “The side entrance is easier,” Carlson said, and guided Fenner expertly, quickly. “This won’t take long. Just tell your story. Play it straight down the middle. Keep out the jokes. Sign it, and that’s that. No sweat.”

  “It won’t take long?” Fenner asked blandly.

  “Not for you. You’ll be out of all this in an hour.”

  “In one way, I’m sorry. I’ve got my feet wet, and the water looks inviting.”

  “You’re an ungrateful son of a gun,” Carlson said with a broad smile. “I’ve been spending the last half-hour scrubbing you clean. Stay clean, dammit. Don’t waste Auntie’s efforts.”

  5

  Carlson’s efforts were certainly impressive. Fenner had a small, quiet room to himself, with old acquaintance Dade keeping so much in the background that he was practically a crack in the plaster. There was a stenotypist tapping noiselessly on a small machine that obediently sucked in every syllable and spewed out a continuous sheet of paper covered with compressed symbols. It was a magic palaver, Fenner thought, fascinated by its speed. Sometimes it seemed as if the machine were even ahead of him. “Beats Indian sign language, any day,” he observed to Dade when the stenotypist left to have fair copies made. Dade smiled faintly. Perhaps he was hungry. Perhaps he wished he could have been in the other room, where four sedate and thoughtful men had gathered. “This will soon be over,” Fenner reassured him.

  “You know,” Dade said with some reproach, “this is not really my line.”

  “Sorry, but I didn’t know anyone else to call around here.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. It has been a devil of a day. Carlson has been digging into my files all morning, my chief is still on vacation, and now this envelope business. Haven’t got one stroke of my own work done.”

  Fenner commiserated with him, tactfully. Dade might really be upset if you took his crying-towel away from him. Fenner made a mental note—he did this periodically in order to tighten up the weak strands in his own character, of which, he was convinced, he had too damn many—never to complain aloud, never to enjoy complaining. “How’s the family?” he tried. Everyone had a family, except him.

  That launched Dade. He was talking quite happily about German measles and French poodles when the stenotypist returned. He and Fenner read over the copy of the statement (Dade caught a misplaced comma), and Fenner signed.

  “All clear?” Fenner asked. “Thanks a lot, Dade.”

  “We must have lunch some day.”

  “We must do that.” Fenner opened the door and almost walked into a heavy-set, dark-haired man with a beaming smile.

  “Just got you in time,” the newcomer said. “Hi, Stan!”

  Dade said with marked
coldness, “Hello, Rosie!” but whether it was for the form of greeting or for Rosie, Fenner couldn’t quite guess. “Did you receive my earlier message to you, this morning?”

  “Sure, sure. Don’t fret. I’ll listen to her if she calls me. What’s her name?”

  “I didn’t get it,” Dade said stiffly.

  Rosie looked hard at him. He turned to Fenner. “For you,” he said, “I bring good news.” He handed over a slip of paper. “Don’t wait for us, Stan. We’ll show each other out.”

  Stanfield Dade and the stenotypist left. “So he didn’t get the name,” Rosie said pleasantly as the door closed behind them. “Well, that’s one way of keeping yourself clean. Cautious son of a.” Rosie was amused by some thoughts of his own.

  The note, which Fenner was reading, was equally cheerful. Coat problem solved. Told you, didn’t I? Auntie.

  “I’m Frank Rosenfeld,” the dark-haired man said. “Can you talk to me for two minutes? Then I’ll conduct you to the street. Quietly. No use disturbing the masterminds at the front gate: what never came in can’t go out.” He observed Fenner looking at him. “Carlson warned me that you’re curious. All right, I’ll tell you and save time. I don’t belong here at all. I come from the big bad world outside, and Dade doesn’t approve of me or it.”

  “On special assignment from NATO, too?” Fenner tried.

  “Do I look like a military type?”

  He did not. “Then you are CIA?” persisted Fenner. He wanted to know exactly who was going to talk with him for those two minutes.

  There was a slight inclination of Rosenfeld’s head, but no direct answer. His smile broadened, splitting his face into two camps; below, was a rounded jaw line, a full underlip, a chin with a marked cleft; above, was a sharp nose, clever brown eyes, a remarkable brow. He said crisply, “I’ve read your statement. My particular interest is Mr. Goldsmith—the little man in the brown suit. Describe him as exactly as you can. Take your time to remember. Exactly.”

  Fenner did all that.

  “Good. That tallies.” He offered Fenner a cigarette, lit it for him. He seemed to be making up his mind. “Let me explain a little,” he said at last. “I had word from New York last night about Mr. Goldsmith. So this morning, bright and early, I had someone out at Orly, just to keep Mr. Goldsmith in sight. But he didn’t show. My friend waited for almost an hour. He made some tactful inquiries, and heard that our man was ill, would probably be taken to hospital. He telephoned me. By the time he got back to the first-aid station, Mr. Goldsmith had walked out. My friend was too far away to catch up or get the taxi number. But he did see that there was someone helping Mr. Goldsmith into the cab. I’m telling you about this slip-up for one reason. Did you see, among the people waiting to welcome their friends in the entrance hall at Orly, a man with white hair and a yellow tie?”

  Fenner thought back. “Yes.”

  “Close enough to describe him?”

  Fenner considered. “In a way. I wasn’t looking much at him—I was trying to get my porter’s attention. I remember thinking he was a pretty cool character, not easily jolted or startled. That was strange, come to think of it. He looked like a painter, or a poet. An amateur artist with some money of his own—you know the type.”

  “I know the colour of his clothes—blue shirt, yellow tie, grey suit. And that they looked fairly expensive. And that his white hair was long. But what about his eyes, features, complexion?”

  “Eyes blue; features blunt and blob-shaped; complexion very sallow.”

  “Are you sure?” Rosenfeld was dubious of the quick answer.

  “I remember saying to myself, ‘Well there’s a chap who not only matched his shirt to his eyes, but his face to his tie.’ Then I didn’t give him another thought.”

  Rosenfeld was amused. “Just one more question: what is blob-shaped?”

  “Sort of—well, a pin-cushion effect. The opposite of taut, tightly drawn. Sponge under the skin instead of bone.”

  “Thanks. I get the picture. Where did you learn to use your eyes?”

  “It’s my trade. When I sit in a theatre, I have to look as well as listen. But tell me—this character in the yellow tie, why does he interest you? Was he the friend who helped Goldsmith into a taxi? That’s not in the tradition, is it?”

  “Tradition?” Rosenfeld’s eyes opened in bland astonishment.

  “If he was waiting to contact Goldsmith, they should never have seemed to meet at all. At least, that’s the way I thought those things were worked.”

  “You go to a lot of movies, too, I see.”

  “How to be successful in espionage without really trying—just break the accepted patterns?”

  “Not funny, my friend. And who said this had anything to do with espionage?”

  “Are there other forms of international understanding?” Fenner asked with mock innocence.

  Rosenfeld smiled amiably.

  Surely the two minutes are almost up, Fenner thought. If he left now, he could have a decent lunch before he saw Vaugiroud. He looked at his watch, and rose. Rosenfeld made no move. Fenner tried some sympathetic talk to ease old Rosie toward the street. “I don’t think you should feel too upset about losing Goldsmith. The mistake was in New York.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why did they let him leave? Easier for everyone if they had stopped him at Idlewild.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “They don’t know what his business is?”

  “No.”

  “But surely they must know who he is, what he is?”

  “Not even that.”

  “In that case, why alert you to keep an eye on him?”

  “Well,” said Rosie, with his sharp brown eyes gleaming, “you know how stupid we all are.”

  Fenner smiled. “That must be the explanation.”

  Rosenfeld offered him another cigarette. “Since I’ve answered your questions—well, some of them at least, didn’t I?”

  Fenner nodded and took the cigarette.

  “I’d like you to answer a few of mine,” Rosenfeld ended. “Fair enough?”

  “If I can answer them.”

  “Sit down. This will only take a couple of minutes. Did you ever hear of a man called Bruno?”

  “Bruno what?”

  “Just Bruno.”

  Fenner shook his head.

  “Or of a man called Geoffrey Wills?”

  “No.”

  “Who sometimes used the name of George Williston?”

  Fenner’s eyes went cold.

  “He was a very close friend of your wife’s ten years ago.” Rosenfeld was lighting his cigarette carefully. “In fact, they both belonged to the same group.”

  “I was in Korea,” Fenner said. “She had many friends I knew nothing about.”

  “But you did meet Williston?”

  “For five minutes, one night. I had the pleasure of throwing him out of my apartment. Him and three others.”

  Rosenfeld raised an eyebrow.

  “Not physically. I just told them pretty forcibly to get out, and stay out.”

  “Why?”

  “Not my type,” Fenner said briefly. “A man has the right to decide who is to be invited into his home and who is not. Hasn’t he? That’s one freedom of choice that hasn’t been taken away from us yet.”

  “A Constitutional right,” Rosenfeld agreed. He rose and paced around the small bleak room, as if he were marshalling his thoughts with each even step. “The next question—I hope you’ll answer it—did you come to Paris to see Sandra Fane?”

  “I didn’t even know she was here until Ballard told me this morning.”

  “Sorry—I just thought—well, after all, there isn’t much going on in the theatre here at present.”

  “People connected with the theatre are still going on,” Fenner reminded him angrily. He mastered his irritation. “I haven’t seen Sandra since the night I told Williston to leave.”

  “Were they having a meeting of some kind in your apartment?”r />
  So Rosenfeld knew about Sandra; more, probably, than I do, Fenner thought. “You might call it that.”

  “With you around?” Rosenfeld was amazed.

  “I was supposed to be covering one of those late-night emergency sessions at the UN—I had just got back, the week before, from Korea—but I went home at ten o’clock. I felt I was coming down with an attack of grippe. And the emergency session was getting nowhere—” He halted. He was remembering the long dark hall of the apartment, the sound of subdued voices from the living-room at its far end. He was standing there pulling off his coat, cursing the idea of a party and people to face, feeling the ache in his bones and his tight throat, wondering if he could slip unnoticed into the bedroom and fall asleep. He needed Scotch and aspirin. He went to get them quietly, just outside the living-room door. There was one voice speaking, clear, authoritative. My God, he thought, ready to laugh, someone’s giving an imitation as his parlour trick; Sandra has developed a strange taste in entertainment since I’ve been away. But the parlour trick went on and on. My God, he thought, no longer ready to laugh, and what’s this about germ warfare, what’s this about arranging protests and demonstrations? The voice ended its instructions, and it was Sandra who was talking the same vicious nonsense, with a seriousness, an intensity he had never heard before. He came out of his trance. He could see, even now, the startled faces staring at him in the doorway; and Sandra, reverting automatically from the agitprop activist into the fluttering hostess. “Darling, but how wonderful! You’re just in time to hear us read Act Three of George’s new play. George Williston—my husband. And this is Jenny— Why, Bill, Bill! Bill, these are my friends, will you shut up?” The sweet hostess words had ended in a shout of anger, but he finished what he had to say. And so began the Grand Exit. Followed by the Great Quarrel. That lasted until three in the morning. It was more than a quarrel: it was, in the unguarded heat of Sandra’s anger, a revelation.

  And then he had left, his body shivering with fever, head throbbing, heart sick. He spent one day in a hotel, four days in a hospital. When he returned to the apartment to pick up his clothes, it was empty. Sandra had gone. On orders, he thought bitterly, like everything else in her well-controlled career. He had been a useful name to cover her real life; he had become a positive handicap, perhaps even a possible danger.