The Venetian Affair

by Helen Macinnes

  “And wine, signore?” the waiter murmured politely, bringing them back from that long moment of discovery.

  “And wine,” said Fenner absent-mindedly, forgetting the small pride he took in vineyard and vintage. Tonight, water would have tasted like champagne.

  So they dined and talked, their small table an island unto itself, the rest of the room forgotten.

  And suddenly Mike Ballard stood beside them, signalling the waiter for another chair. “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked. He was too worried to enjoy the amazement on their faces. “Hello, beautiful,” he said to Claire. He was never too worried for that.

  “It seems as if you have,” Fenner said coldly as Ballard sat down, his back to the room, and switched off the small pink lamp. He moved away the waiter’s outheld menu. “Haven’t much time.”

  “Better order something,” Claire said. It wasn’t only a conditioned reflex springing to work: to make the unusual seem perfectly normal. He’s ill, she was thinking. Not drunk, as she had first thought: something was very wrong with Mike Ballard.

  He took the menu, placed it in front of him, rested his elbow on it. “Double Scotch and soda,” he told the waiter. He looked at Fenner. “I’m taking the first plane I can get back to Paris. But there are two things I’ve got to do right away.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “How do we get help to Sandra Fane?”

  Fenner recovered quickly. “Why ask me?”

  “Cut it out, cut it out,” Ballard said irritably. “She told me to get in touch with you if she escaped. She wasn’t dousing me with eyewash this time. Not tonight.”

  Fenner and Claire exchanged a glance. He said, “She escaped? Where is she?”

  “She tried to. It didn’t work. When I left that place—it’s called Ca’ Longhi—they had started beating her. Or something.” He could still hear the scream. “They are putting her on board a freighter at midnight—it sails tomorrow morning. I guess you don’t think you owe her much. Still—she delivered half a story. It could have got me dumped into a canal, it’s true,” he smiled grimly, “but she did make sure it got out of that house. So you owe her—”

  Claire had seen the waiter arriving. “Bill was explaining to me,” she cut in quickly, “why he is all in favour of a repertory theatre in New York. Don’t you agree that if we could alternate a popular play with a classic each week, we could make one pay for the other?” She watched the waiter leaving. “Yes, Mike?” she asked softly.

  “So you owe her something,” he told Fenner. “That’s how I see it.” He didn’t touch his drink. He had slipped one hand into his pocket and brought out a map. Quietly, he inserted it between the pages of the menu, put his elbow back on top of it. “What about it, Bill?”

  Fenner looked at Claire. Is this true? he seemed to be asking her. Can we really take his word?

  Claire said, “Couldn’t we send the police in?” But on what excuse? she wondered.

  “And tell them that a Frenchman is having his mistress beaten up by two servants? They would think it just some new angle in French fun and games. Besides, Lenoir would find an excuse for anything.” He stared hard at Fenner. “I’ve learned,” Ballard said bitterly. He looked down at the menu. “Can you help?”

  “We’ll get word to some people who might be able to.”

  “That’s a promise? You’ll get word to them right away?”

  Fenner nodded. “You said something about half a story. What is it?”

  “A letter. You’ll find it inside this menu. Tell me one thing: is it real or is it a fake?”

  “A fake.”

  Ballard took a deep breath of relief. “It shook me,” he admitted. He picked up his drink and swallowed a large gulp. “Sure, I read it. I thought I might as well know what I was dying for.” His smile was brief. “Also, I thought I could use it, perhaps. But”—he shook his head—“half a story could be the wrong story. I’ll wait for the whole of it.”

  “You’ll get it,” Fenner promised him.

  “If it can be told,” Ballard said gloomily. But at least, he thought, Bill Fenner can’t use it at all. That’s certain. He brightened, and finished his drink. “Well—see you in Paris.”

  “Not if you go back to your hotel,” Fenner said very quietly.

  “You mean—? But I talked my way out of Ca’ Longhi without a slip. And I wasn’t tailed. I am pretty sure of that.”

  “Because Lenoir knows where he can find you.” Fenner let that fact sink in, and added, “Wait for us downstairs. Outside. Be careful, Mike. Follow us at a safe distance. We’ll take you to our hotel. You can’t walk the streets all night, or sit at a café, or try to register at another hotel.” His passport would give his name away, and Lenoir’s men would soon track him down. “I’ll smuggle you up to my room. And I’ll pass word to our friends that you may need a little help, too.”

  Ballard’s face was pale. “Me?” He sounded almost indignant.

  “Sandra is being questioned right now, isn’t she?”

  Ballard nodded. “You think she will break?”

  Fenner said nothing. Yes, she probably will. She is being interrogated by experts. How much will she tell? Everything? Or just enough to make a deal with Lenoir? We feel we owe her something, but there is one thing certain: Sandra feels no obligation, no loyalty to us.

  “I get you,” Ballard said dully. “If I tried to check out of my hotel tonight—” He didn’t finish. “I get you,” he said again, and rose.

  He hadn’t bargained for that, Fenner thought, as he watched Ballard leave. But he would rally, like the rest of us, when he had got accustomed to the idea of more trouble ahead. Fenner lifted the menu, felt for the map, slid it quietly under his napkin, called for the check, added a handsome tip, and pocketed the map along with his wallet. “How do we reach Rosie?” he asked as he helped Claire slip into her coat.

  “Arnaldi’s.”

  The camera shop near the bridge. It was on the way to the Vittoria, thank heaven. “It’s twenty minutes of ten,” he said as they went down the narrow flight of stairs into the small ground-floor room. “I think we had better cut out that gondola ride.”

  She nodded. Not many people down here in this room, she noted, and no one who seemed interested in them. No one was hastily calling for his check, leaving his drink unfinished. No one followed them, either, from the brightly lit arcade, except Mike Ballard, who had waited sensibly on the shadowed side of one of the arches, and was keeping at a reasonable distance. No one was interested in them at all now. Why? Were they out of suspicion? Perhaps. It was ironic that at this point, when they had managed to free themselves of suspicion, Sandra should have been trapped. What was Bill thinking, feeling? she wondered. His face was expressionless. He hadn’t spoken since they had come down Quadri’s stairs. He was walking quickly, though, his arm through hers, drawing her along. Sandra, she realised, that’s what is driving him like this. I’ll have to start planning for both of us again, she thought unhappily: emotions, in this job, only led to mistakes.

  In silence, Fenner made a cautious detour once they had left the Piazza, choosing a calle that seemed to lead them away from Arnaldi’s shop. But in Venice there was always another calle to lead back. The crowds had thinned out: most Venetians were already home, thinking of tomorrow’s early start to work. The visitors still window-shopped or wandered leisurely in a happy daze. No one was following them, except Mike Ballard. Of that, Claire was sure. And somehow it worried her. She remembered Bill’s good reason why Mike hadn’t been trailed from Ca’ Longhi: they knew where he could be found. That same reason could apply to us, she thought. As they came back on to the street that would lead them over the bridge, she said, “Is our hotel safe, Bill?”

  “If I see anyone hanging around watching for us, I won’t leave Mike there.”

  “Then what?” We can’t take him near Arnaldi’s. That is definite. We don’t even know if his story is true: there may be no letter inside that map. And yet we’ve got to assume the story is rea
l; and hurry; and act, perhaps even rashly. Because of Sandra, because of what she may be suffering.

  “I’ll think of something,” Fenner said worriedly. Perhaps I’ll send him off with Zorzi, and let them drift around the lagoon for a couple of hours. “First, I’ll see you safely into the shop. You know what to do?”

  “Telephone Chris, and have him contact Rosie. When Rosie comes, I hand over the letter.”

  “If there is a letter,” Fenner said quietly.

  “Be careful, Bill,” she said, remembering the approach to the hotel’s courtyard. By night, there must be patches of pitch blackness in that narrow alley. She opened her handbag. “Take this,” she said, slipping her small automatic into his jacket pocket.

  “What—?” Then he knew. So she had been thinking, too, of that dark approach to the hotel’s back door.

  “The Little Comforter,” she said, half-smiling. She was looking at the camera shop, no more than forty feet ahead of them. “If it’s closed, there’s a back entrance on an alley. We’re just passing it, Bill. See it?”

  It was a narrow strip of darkness, wide enough for a lean Venetian to squeeze his way through. He hoped they wouldn’t have to use it. You could waste a lot of time searching for the right doorway, or courtyard, or whatever particular whimsy the ingenious architects of Venice had thought up. “We’re in luck,” he said thankfully. The shop ahead, about to close, was still half-open. The boy, Luigi, was fastening a strong grille over its window, already darkened. Fenner’s pace slowed, so that Ballard caught up with them. “Walk on,” he told him, “to that shop window over there. Keep inside its doorway. I’ll be with you in one minute.” He watched to make sure that Ballard didn’t look back at them, before he steered Claire quickly into the camera shop. Luigi’s broad face brightened as he saw them, but he went on with his job.

  Inside, there was one dim light shining down on the counter where Arnaldi, in shirt sleeves, was checking the day’s earnings. The rest of the shop was in deep shadow. Fenner chose a corner hidden from the street by a display of photographs. He said, “We have to make an emergency ’phone call to our friend. Urgent. Most urgent. Can you get him for us? The signora will talk to him. I’m leaving. But I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Arnaldi nodded—perhaps in his life he had seen so much that was unexpected that he had reached the limit of surprise—and limped toward the back sitting-room.

  “Take this.” Fenner gave her the map. “Check the letter before you talk with Chris. Tell him Ballard’s story, too.” He gripped her arms.

  “Highest urgency.” She looked at his face in the half-darkness. “I know, Bill. And they’ll get Sandra out of that house, somehow.” She felt his hands tighten on her arms.

  “I’m worrying about you,” he said quietly.

  For a moment, she said nothing. “I’ll be safe.” Safer than you, she thought miserably.

  “Take care—”

  “And you take care—”

  His arms went around her, holding her close, crushing her body against his. He kissed her, a long kiss, deep and strong, that took her life and gave her his, a plea and a promise, a beginning. Just as suddenly, he freed her, and was gone.

  She heard the door close gently. She stood very still. Then she flung her arms wide, threw her head back, and laughed with sheer joy.

  Behind her, Arnaldi cleared his throat. “Your friend is waiting.”

  She turned, still smiling, but in control of her emotions again, to slip quietly into Arnaldi’s back room. He had got that call through quickly, she thought. She still had to check on the letter inside the map. She halted abruptly. “Chris!” she said unbelievingly.

  “The bearer of joyful tidings, I see, all rosy and wreathed in smiles and properly tousled. Come in, sweetie, and share this pew, and tell Uncle Chris all about it.” He was sitting on the bottom step of a narrow staircase that climbed up the back wall of the room to the bedroom overhead, dressed in wildly striped pyjamas and a bright dressing-gown, both too loose and long. “Vincente,” he addressed Arnaldi, “you go back to your counting-house. And thank you for wakening me so effectively. A cold-water sponge,” he explained to Claire. “Never fails.” He was making conversation until Arnaldi closed the door.

  She took his cue. “Asleep at this hour?” She opened the map and found the letter. She glanced through it quickly, raising an eyebrow as she saw the name of Major Christopher Holland. He wasn’t going to like that. She shook her head.

  “What else was there to do? I’ve been quarantined, put out of sight for twenty-four hours. Seemed safer for all of us. I’m hot, my dear; I’m a wanted man. But I scored a little bullseye, I think. I hope so. If I guessed wrong, I’ll be rusticated permanently—back to the old Finance Division, tracking down dead Nazis’ loot.” He paused, watching her replace the letter carefully. “All right,” he said most seriously. “What’s up?”

  “Get Rosie here.”

  “Rosie is having a very busy night, my pet. Must we—?”

  “Get him, Chris. We have the letter.”

  He stared at her. “Good God,” he said slowly. Then quickly, “How?”

  “Telephone, first. I’ll explain, once you’ve tracked down Rosie.”

  He got up and padded over to the telephone in his bare feet. He hadn’t been able to borrow slippers that would fit. As he waited for his call to go through, he eyed the map she held most firmly in her hand. “I couldn’t pinch-hit for Rosie, could I?”

  She smiled at the mixture of phrase and accent, and reciprocated. “That wouldn’t be cricket. He is my boss.”

  “I can read, too, you know.”

  “You can’t expect to hit the bullseye twice in one night.”

  “Why not?” He conceded his defeat with a grin. “It was a nice try, anyway. Where’s your devoted American?” He started to talk into the receiver, something about a fishing boat having docked with a full catch; immediate delivery advisable in this warm weather.

  The call was over. “Rosie is on his way,” Chris told her. “He won’t take long. Is Bill all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, “he’s all right.” She was thinking, our job is over. Bill and I are free. The job is over. I give this letter to Rosie, and the job is over.

  Chris Holland, watching the emotion on her face, said quietly, “Come along, Scheherazade. Tell me the end of this story. How did you get that letter?”

  Fenner found Ballard mesmerised before a window of velvet slippers, beaded and bejewelled, red, blue, green, pink. “Can’t make up your mind? Take the blue.”

  “Sharks,” Ballard said, walking on with him. “Three dollars here. I know a place I can get them for two.” He sounded more like himself now. “That was the longest minute I ever lived through,” he said reproachfully. “Spooky place, Venice, when the crowds leave the streets. Chilly, too.” He turned up the collar of his silk tweed jacket.

  “The minute stretched a little,” Fenner admitted with a grin. “You’re lucky I didn’t take ten.”

  “You sound pretty cheerful.”

  “I am.”

  Ballard relaxed still more. “You know, Bill—if you had only tipped me off when I met you at Orly, everything would have been simpler for all of us.”

  Fenner didn’t answer. They were starting up the steps of the bridge over the canal. Three men were standing together on its other side, one of them a gondolier. They interrupted their talk as the two Americans came up and over the bridge, and in that brief look, Fenner could feel their surprise. Surprise? I’m getting too damned sensitive, he thought.

  As he and Ballard came down the steps, and left the street to turn on to the quay, he saw that the gondolas which usually clustered there were all out on hire except the one that belonged to the gondolier at the bridge. No Zorzi? It was five minutes before ten. Zorzi had possibly picked up another fare. And yet Zorzi had struck him as a man who’d keep his word, just as he’d expect others to keep theirs.

  “Something wrong?” Ballard asked,
nervous again. On the street, there had been strolling footsteps and talking voices. Down here on this empty quay, which ran briefly along the canal and then dodged under the cover of overhanging houses to become a sotto portico, there was nothing but the sound of water slapping idly against stone.

  “It’s all right,” Fenner said reassuringly. He paused beside one of the heavy squat pillars that supported the low, ill-lit arches of the sotto portico, to watch a gondola come gliding up from the Grand Canal, floating out of the darkness, passing them silently, the gondolier not even breaking the slow rhythm of his oar as he bent low to slip under the bridge and vanish. Not Zorzi, anyway.

  “Come on,” Ballard urged. “What has got into you?”

  I don’t know, Fenner thought, but the sooner I deposit Ballard safely in my room, the sooner I can find out. So quickly he led Ballard away from the canal and the vaulted porch, into the narrow dark alley lined with two rows of shuttered windows. People lived here, for there was music from one room, faint laughter from another, and an occasional ribbon of light where a shutter was left one inch open. But he kept his hand in his pocket.

  Ballard was mumbling in a husky whisper, as if the privacy around him was closing in on his voice too. “As I was saying, if you had only tipped me off when I met you at Orly—”

  “About what?”

  “That you were with Intelligence.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  Ballard laughed shortly. “That’s what they all say. But if you had told me, then we wouldn’t be prowling down this godforsaken alley. Because I wouldn’t have come to Venice—” He tripped and clutched Fenner for balance. “What’s that?”

  “A cat. Or your own big feet.”