The Venetian Affair

by Helen Macinnes

  Fenner looked across at the table. It was the nearest one to Madame’s desk, separated from it by a tactful screen of potted plants. “I’d like that very much. But another night. I have a telephone call to make before dinner.”

  Roussin took that as a rebuff. “You are welcome to use the telephone at the desk,” he said stiffly.

  “This is a call to New York. If you aren’t too busy, why don’t you sit down, and we can have a drink together?” Fenner glanced over at Madame.

  Roussin noticed his look. His manner had eased again. “No one would be astonished if I did. In fact, they might be astounded if I did not. I like Americans. I like to practise my English. And I like to sit down. These habits are well established. Also, I have already dropped a hint that you were recommended to dine here by one of my old English friends who now lives in New York. So we have much to talk about.”

  He pulled a chair to face Fenner, and lowered his enormous bulk carefully. All his movements were calculated and slow.

  “I have a feeling,” Fenner said, “that Madame does not like Americans as much as you do.”

  “True. We disagree about most things.”

  “Difficult.” Fenner was embarrassed.

  “Ah, you think Angélique is my wife? Not at all. She is my sister-in-law. A widow. Her husband was killed in Algiers.”

  “Oh, one of those OAS attacks.”

  “No. By the Algerians, in 1958. In an ambush. He was a soldier.”

  “And that makes your sister-in-law anti-American?”

  “That is part of it. She thinks you forget about atrocities unless the Rightists commit them. The other part? Simply that I like Americans.”

  Does Angélique take opposite sides just to feel she is at least that much independent? Fenner wondered.

  “After all,” Roussin was saying, “I owe them my life. And they salvaged enough of my face to let me come back into the world. Seventeen years ago, they found me.” He fingered his right cheek thoughtfully. “I was more like a lump of hamburger than a man. I never forget the words I heard from the American soldier who first saw me. ‘Holy Christ!’ he kept saying, just those two words over and over again. There was a very encouraging sound in the way he spoke them—with awe and admiration—as if he were pinning medals on my chest. Most flattering. I began to feel that by simply staying alive, I had triumphed. And so, I decided not to die. What man wants to be cheated of his medals?”

  “Yet, in one sense, you have cheated yourself.”

  “That was necessary. I might not be alive to talk with you tonight if the true story of these injuries had been known.” He tapped the damaged side of his face. “A bad car accident in a London blackout. I spent the war years in England, didn’t you know? Later, when all danger was over, I returned here to inherit my father’s restaurant. On the whole, I am considered a lucky man—one who has arranged his life very comfortably, except for a silly accident.”

  Fenner was beginning to like Henri Roussin. “So that’s where you spent the war. I’ll remember.”

  “Please do,” Roussin said very quietly, all the humour drained out of his eyes. “This deception is not a joke that the professor and I have played all these years. We had a purpose.”

  “I know. And you hooked your fish.”

  Roussin showed frank shock for the second time that evening. Then he narrowed his eyes, studying Fenner’s face. “And how did you extract so much information from the professor?”

  “Does he let anyone extract anything, unless he wants them to?”

  Roussin nodded his agreement on that. “Now I would like to do some extraction. Why did you come here? It did not puzzle the professor. But it puzzles me.”

  “Oh—just checking on the story I had heard. It becomes a habit with newspapermen.”

  “And how could I help you to check on the story?” Roussin asked with mock concern. “Shall I point out the table where we hooked our fish, and caught three minnows as well?”

  “Minnows—” Fenner repeated the word, searching for some way to turn Roussin’s distrust back to amiability once more. “You don’t think they are important?”

  “To me? No.” Roussin’s eyes were hard. “First things first. That is my way. My main interest is the man who was the cause of this.” Once more his hand went up to his face. “The professor is a philosopher. He thinks mostly of the future. But I am a practical man: I find the past enough to think about.”

  “So you don’t always agree with the professor’s ideas?”

  There was a pause. “Common Market. European unity? Nonsense! But what are friends for, except to enjoy disagreement? All day, with my guests, I have to agree, agree, agree. It is a relief to disagree. A necessity, perhaps. What are friends for if they can’t help?”

  Fenner studied his drink. He said lightly, “I guess I’m almost a friend. At least I’m disagreeing with you.”

  Roussin laughed, a strange, strangled gasp heaving out from his massive chest. “We might be very good friends. Indeed, if I show you the table where one of our minnows is sitting at this minute, will you answer a question I would like to ask you?”

  “Right now? I thought they only came here at lunchtime.”

  “Right now,” Roussin repeated firmly, watching only Fenner. “The pattern is broken. Interesting? I do not think our film producer has merely developed a taste for my cuisine. He has postponed ordering. He is waiting, I think.” Roussin was enjoying himself. “He arrived only two minutes before you did. In fact, before I went off to telephone the professor about this strange development, I wondered if you might not be following him.”

  “What?”

  “But the professor reassured me about you.”

  “What worried you?” Fenner asked sharply.

  “You could have been on either side: his or ours.”

  “Watchdog or bloodhound, is that it?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Four tables to your right, Mr. Fenner,” Roussin said, still keeping his eyes on the American’s face.

  Fenner glanced casually around the room. A well-dressed man, with receding red hair and a handsome profile, sat at the fourth table. He was studying a menu, sipping a glass of wine, looking remarkably at ease. “A most affluent Communist. What’s his name?”

  “You are a very inquiring journalist, Mr. Fenner.”

  Yes, thought Fenner, I had better stop being so interested: I am letting myself become too involved in something that goes deeper and farther than Walt Penneyman’s assignment. “Thanks for the reminder,” he said dryly. “It’s none of my affair.”

  “Most wise. But before you put all this out of your mind, you still owe me an answer. Why did you come here?”

  “Let’s say I was trying to find an answer to a question of my own.”

  “And that was?”

  “Who told Jacques that Vaugiroud and you are still alive?” Fenner asked very quietly.

  “Jacques—” The name jerked out under Roussin’s breath. “So the professor even told you that? He must trust you.”

  And perhaps that’s the reason why I’ve been worrying about him, Fenner thought. “He is being closely watched.”

  “So I heard,” Roussin said quietly, grimly.

  “He is not the man to be panicked by the threat of danger.”

  “No.”

  “So he must have recognised some real danger.”

  “When?”

  “This evening.” When he so suddenly reversed himself about a telephone call to Carlson.

  “Is this a guess, Mr. Fenner?” Roussin asked shrewdly.

  “What we call an educated guess. I was given the impression that he felt time might be running out, and that he had better make sure that others knew about Fernand Lenoir.”

  “Yes,” Roussin said slowly. “If Lenoir knew who we were—Yes, there would be real danger for both the professor and myself. But he does not.”

  “You are sure of that?”

  “Wi
th this face? With my story about London? I don’t even look the right age. I was twenty when the Gestapo caught me. Do I look thirty-seven, Mr. Fenner?”

  Fenner shook his head. “I still think Lenoir knows.”

  “Someone told him? Is that what you have been trying to say? No one could tell him. No one.”

  Fenner said nothing. Perhaps, he thought, I’ve said too much. Roussin was angry.

  “No one,” repeated Roussin. “For the simple reason that the men who worked with me in Paris during the war have died, either then or since. Jacques himself is the only survivor, besides the professor, of those who knew me; and he believes that the Gestapo finished me.” Roussin studied Fenner with impatience. “Do not blame me for any carelessness. I learned English to prove I had spent the war years there. I even go back to London every autumn for a week’s holiday to see my war-time friends. I leave, in fact, for this year’s visit on Monday.” The impatience turned to annoyance. “I am not an indiscreet man, Mr. Fenner.”

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  “Then why blame me for this real danger?”

  “There’s no blame—”

  “Yet you came here thinking you would find the answer to your question. You could have found it in the Rue Jean-Calas. And why? The professor has drawn danger upon himself. All those intellectuals who come to talk with him, all those anti-Communists, anti-fascists, anti-OAS, anti-this, anti-that—”

  “Anti-totalitarian,” Fenner suggested quietly. “That sums it up.”

  Roussin paid no attention: the exact meaning within a phrase did not seem important to him. “They have made many enemies for themselves. Why are intelligent men so stupid? It is enough to be clever, and live. Politics! Can a man eat politics, sleep with politics?”

  This, thought Fenner, is where all rational discussion ends. Nothing I could say would either impress or change Roussin. His link with Vaugiroud is an emotional one—an old comradeship, loyalties based on danger and sufferings shared. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. But with Roussin, it can’t go much farther. He hasn’t the mental equipment, clever fellow as he is, to grasp half the implication of Vaugiroud’s ideas. No doubt Roussin hates Communists because Jacques was one. When he looks at Jacques, he sees the traitor who caused death to his friends, torture for himself. But Vaugiroud—he sees Jacques not so much as the man from the past who deserves punishment, but, rather, as a clear and present danger that must be fought for the sake of the future. “Well,” Fenner said evenly, “it’s possible that Professor Vaugiroud believes that men who have learned something about power politics have a special duty to share that knowledge.”

  Roussin turned his head to eye the clock above Angélique’s desk. “Almost eight. The beginning of a very busy hour. The tables will all be filled by nine.” He rose to his feet. “I shall reserve one for you, just in case you decide to stay. My private office is at your disposal if you wish to telephone New York. Meanwhile, let me order that other drink. With more ice this time?”

  “Thanks,” Fenner said, and had to smile.

  Roussin snapped his fingers impatiently for a waiter. He dropped one last thought before he turned to the door, where some newcomers had entered. “Look around you, Mr. Fenner. The professor is being watched. But who is watching me?” And then he was moving away, welcoming the arrivals, checking Angélique’s list of reservations, a very perfect host.

  True, thought Fenner, no one here seems to be watching anything beyond the aphorism on his tongue or the food on his fork. Except Angélique. Perhaps that was part of her job. But why that sudden stare at Roussin’s back as he led his guests toward a table? Had he corrected her for some mistake? Not in front of any customers, Fenner decided. As he watched her, she looked sharply over at him. For a brief instant, he could see the tense look on her face, something more bitter than angry, before she even became aware of him. Her expression changed, falling back into its pattern of frown and suspicion.

  What was her trouble? Widowhood? Dislike of a job handed out by her husband’s brother? Or resentment that this restaurant had been inherited by her brother-in-law, who was alive because he had not been a soldier in Algeria? The French had a strong sense of possession and property. Whatever Angélique’s feelings were, she barely hid a seething contempt for the world around her. There’s a volcano here, Fenner thought, about to erupt.

  The waiter brought him his drink, and—from one extreme to the other—a bowl of ice. The old man hovered around anxiously, emptying the ashtray, making sure that monsieur had the right newspaper. “Everything’s fine,” Fenner was reassuring him as another guest arrived—a tall man, distinguished in dress and manner, dark of hair and eyes, thin-faced. He gave Angélique a pleasant good evening, received a smile in return, looked around for Roussin, who seemed much engaged with a recent batch of arrivals, quickly set out for his table by himself. Angélique’s voice sharply summoned the waiter: “Auguste! Conduct Monsieur Lenoir to his table!”

  The old man hurried after Lenoir into the dining-room, catching up with him in time to pull out a chair. It was, of course, at the fourth table on Fenner’s right. So that is Jacques, he thought, and gave a good pretence of being absorbed by his newspaper. It was hard to believe that anyone so well groomed, so well dressed, with such a pleasant smile on his intelligent face, could be anything else than what he wanted the world to believe: a man of honourable career, a foreign-affairs specialist or perhaps a press officer or a confidential secretary, with government security and private means to cushion him comfortably against the sharp edges of life. Fenner had to smile to himself. If those two men talking so quietly at the fourth table had been poorly or carelessly dressed, gaunt, white-faced, intense of eye, bitter-mouthed, would he have been asking himself if Vaugiroud’s information could be true? The nihilists of the mid-twentieth century had taken a lesson from confidence men; merge, and you’ll be accepted; be accepted, and your battle is half won. No one bought the Brooklyn Bridge or the Eiffel Tower from a man who looked like a crook. And then his amusement changed to amazement. When he had seen Lenoir, he had immediately remembered Vaugiroud. Only now did he think of Sandra Fane, who entertained so successfully for Lenoir in his apartment on the Avenue d’Iéna. I really am cured of Sandra, he thought, and relief swept over him like a cold clean draught of fresh air.

  The doors shook against their anchoring chains in the sudden gust of wind from the street. There was a muted ruffle of drums from the sidewalk. Rain? Fenner looked up at the high window. Rain it was, a thundering downpour. The newest guest had just managed to arrive in time to save her blonde hair and smart black dress. Yes, Fenner thought approvingly as she hesitated within the entrance, you’re as neat and pretty a piece of honey cake as I’ve ever seen, but don’t be so scared, my pet; I know how you feel, but they don’t chew you into actual pieces; Angélique at the desk is not old Cerberus himself even if— My God, it’s the girl I saw at the Crillon!

  She stood there, one short white glove smoothing back a lock of hair that the wind had blown wild, hesitating, looking at the dining-room. Her eyes swept around to Fenner. There was a spark of recognition, a smile of relief. She came toward him, ignoring Roussin, who was looming up with unusual speed, her hand outstretched. “I am sorry to be late,” she said, her grey eyes pleading from under dark lashes, the smile on her lips widening as he rose to meet her. “Have you been waiting long?”

  8

  “I am Claire Connor,” she said in a low voice as she took the chair that Fenner offered her. Colour was high on her cheeks, her eyes were embarrassed, but otherwise she seemed perfectly natural. She pulled off her white kid gloves, frowned briefly at three rain spots, and said she would prefer Dubonnet. He ordered, talked, and gave her time to catch her breath again. The colour subsided in her cheeks, her eyes could meet his, her pretty hands (no nail polish, no rings) were relaxed as he lit her cigarette, she even laughed. But a shadow of worry, of strain still lurked in her eyes.

  “Please forgive m
e,” she said when the waiter had come and gone.

  “My pleasure.” Indeed it was. Close up, her skin was as flawless as he had thought, with a touch of colour in her cheeks to give it life. The eyes were large, darkly lashed, warm. Chin and nose and cheek and brow were all moulded by some master hand. Fair hair had been piled high to crown her finely shaped head. Her lips—yes, pretty lips that knew how to smile. “And don’t explain,” he told her quickly. “In fact, you were just the explanation I was needing. Madame at the desk has stopped wondering why I am here.”

  “Is she the wondering type?”

  “That, among other things. My name is Fenner, by the way. Bill Fenner.”

  “I know. I read your reviews, Mr. Fenner. They tell me what I’m missing by living abroad.”

  “You haven’t missed much in the last year. So you live in Paris?”

  “Off and on.” She glanced back to her own thoughts. “Actually, I have been doing some work for the Chronicle in the last month.”

  “I’m in luck. Small worlds aren’t usually filled with colleagues that look like you.”

  “But that was only a temporary job—an emergency. I was filling in.”

  “You got the drawings finished in time?”

  She looked a little startled. “You actually noticed—”

  “That large portfolio was very impressive.”

  “Just some illustrations from the latest Paris showings.”

  I might have guessed that, he thought. Her simple black dress, sleeveless to show slender tanned arms, her pearls at the neck and on her ears, her smooth fair hair once more in perfect place, were all part of the pattern of the fashion world.

  “The man who usually draws them for your fashion editor went for a week-end to Switzerland and fell from an alp. Broke his shoulder. So Mike Ballard thought of me.”

  “Very knowledgeable fellow, Mike Ballard.”

  “Fashions aren’t really my line,” she admitted. “But half the battle of getting a job is just to be there. Like Everest.”