Decision at Delphi

by Helen Macinnes

  “But this visit to his Greek friends was not about his problems. It was about Yannis—Steve, I mean.”

  “He probably wants a full inquiry. Not a bad idea, either. Steve wasn’t likely to commit suicide.”

  “There’s much more to his death than all this,” she declared, and tapped the newspaper.

  “And how did you get that fancy idea?” he asked.

  She waited until the waiter had set down fresh coffee for her, beer for Strang. Softly, when they were alone again, she said, “Last night, Mr. Pringle had a talk with George about Steve. Then Mr. Christophorou dropped in, and he had a quiet talk with George. Then George lay awake most of the night. He always does that when he is working out some problem. This morning, he went to see his friends. And when he came back from that visit, he started packing. He has left. For Cyprus. He would only say something about a little difficulty that had come up. He always talks understatement when he’s really worried. And so I’m worried.”

  She was, too. Strang said more gently, “Now, Caroline—you know that’s his job: to ease out any difficulties.”

  “I know, I know. But—” she looked at him— “he didn’t think of going to Cyprus until he had that meeting with his Greek friends. How do you jump to Cyprus from Steve’s death?”

  Not from Steve’s death, Strang thought; from information about a conspiracy, perhaps. He remembered, now, the jubilation in the Colonel’s voice when he had talked about the raid, a most successful raid, on the Kriton Street house, about the captured and incriminated Boris... Had some incident been planned in the Cyprus area, too? Then he shook himself free of his speculations. I’m as bad as Caroline, he thought angrily, always curious, always questioning. One thing is certain: I’ll never know the full scope of the conspiracy. Neither I nor the millions of people on the outside. Only the insiders, like the Colonel, and not many of them, would ever know the full truth. But the Colonel was stretching even his knowledge when he called Christophorou a monster.

  “How?” repeated Caroline, still worrying about Cyprus.

  “You don’t,” he said, “you just don’t. Unless you are Caroline Ottway.” Her instinct was uncanny, he thought worriedly.

  “Did you know Steve really well? I mean—”

  He cut her short. “Let’s not talk about Steve. Not today.”

  “Nor ever,” she said, challenging him. “Why won’t you talk about him to me?”

  “Because,” he said, taking off the velvet glove, “you really don’t like Steve. You resent him.”

  “What absolute nonsense!” Her cheeks were bright with a moment’s sharp confusion. Then she said in surprise, “Steve is dead. How extraordinary to use the present tense about him.”

  He recovered quickly. “I was talking about you. And you are very much alive.” Her reaction was favourable, and he took a deep breath of relief. “I begin to think you only talk to me because I was a friend of Steve’s.”

  She shook her head, but the retreat was complete.

  “Cheer up,” he said, “you’ll soon be in your new apartment, and then you won’t have time to invent worries over a café table.”

  She tried to smile, but it was a sad effort. Her eyes were too bright. “You must think me a very foolish woman,” she said, looking down at her untouched cup of coffee. “But I don’t really enjoy this life of wandering, of acquaintances, of living in rented furnished flats, hotels, restaurants. I had too much of it when I was young. Now, all I want is quite simple. I’d like to be able to hear my husband talk over his business, meet his friends, have a real house to worry about, and—” she hesitated, ended evasively—“everything that goes with a proper home. Isn’t life funny? All I want is so simple—” She shrugged her shoulders, laughed a little unsteadily. “Or perhaps I’m just a morbid type, always wanting what I can’t get.” She looked at her watch. “Dear me! It’s time to put in an hour on Greek verbs before lunch. I promised Yorghis to get them straight before he gets back from Yugoslavia.”

  “You are in no mood for verbs today. Have some sherry.” Strang signalled to the waiter. “Yugoslavia? He won’t be back for days. You’ll have plenty of time.”

  “He had better be back before Friday. George and I are going to have a week-end at Delphi—probably, that is—and I’ll need my camera for my own use.” Then as, Strang looked quickly at her, she added, “What could I do? Refuse to lend my camera? But he can’t afford one, you know. And he did want to take some photographs of the celebrations, tomorrow, in Yugoslavia. There’s some terrific opening of a new highway up there—”

  “He has borrowed your camera?” Strang interrupted, horrified. Her camera’s serial number would be easily traced.

  “Oh, I’ll get it back all right. But what could I do when he asked me, so shyly, if he could borrow it?”

  “You could have told him to go jump in the Aegean.”

  She laughed. “How could I? A foreigner? And practically a millionairess by Yorghis’s count? Now don’t worry about such a silly thing. Yorghis is honest.”

  Strang hoped he looked noncommittal.

  “I do wish people wouldn’t put me in the position of being unable to refuse; though.” She sighed.

  “If he can afford to take off on a vacation to Yugoslavia, he might have rented his own camera.”

  “Not on a vacation; on a job. He is interpreter for some foreign journalist.” The waiter had brought the glass of sherry. She tasted it, doubtfully. “It’s real!” she said in surprise.

  “What did your husband have to say about the camera?” Strang could imagine what Ottway must have said, but the question served to point the conversation back in the right direction.

  Caroline looked a little vague.

  “You did not tell him?” Strang was dumbfounded.

  “Well, what with all the excitement this morning—” she began evasively.

  “Caroline,” he said, “you have one good habit that you had better never drop. You’re the kind of girl who has got to tell her husband everything.”

  “You are joking. Surely?”

  “Far from it.”

  “What is so wrong about lending an old camera?” She was silent and worried. At last she said, “It’s all so silly. When George got back this morning from seeing his Greek friends, he was so angry about Yorghis and Evgenia Vasilika that—well how could I tell him about the camera?”

  “What did he say about them?”

  “I wasn’t to take any more lessons from Yorghis.”

  “But you are getting up those damned verbs for your next lesson.”

  “Just to finish the course, that’s all. The lessons are all paid for.”

  She is in revolt, Strang thought. A week ago, she would have cut off the lessons at once. “What’s the hidden fascination of a Greek verb?” he asked quietly.

  Her cheeks coloured. She said, “And I mustn’t see Evgenia Vasilika again, either. That will be difficult. Evgenia found our new flat for us.”

  They really have wrapped you up, he thought as he looked at her. “Then find another one.”

  “You’re in league with George,” she said, trying to be unconcerned, succeeding only in being annoyed.

  “Then I’m in good company. He is no fool.”

  “But he gives no explanation, no reason. I’m not a child—”

  “Just take a tip from Uncle Ken: don’t be so damned independent all of a sudden.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is one time not to throw a rebellion. Who is more important to you? Yorghis and Vasilika or your husband?”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” she said, and started gathering her handbag and gloves.

  “Relax, relax,” he said gently. “If you can’t tell George about it, tell me. You’ve got to tell someone, haven’t you?”

  “No!” she flashed at him. But she didn’t rise, after all. “It is just all so silly. Evgenia Vasilika has been kinder to me than anyone else—taken more trouble—couldn’t have been more thoughtful
. It is difficult to refuse kindness, isn’t it? And now I’ve got to tell her we don’t want that flat, and I can’t see her again. It’s a horrible position to be in.”

  He asked, “And has Yorghis been helpful, too?”

  She said nothing.

  “How can you stand that little runt? He’s on the make. Anything for quick money. What does he spend it on? Wine, women—?”

  “The race track,” she said. “And don’t be so contemptuous. He wasn’t always so pathetic.”

  “Yes,” Strang said, “I bet he has a fine record behind him.”

  “He has a very good war record,” she said defensively.

  “Selling paper boots to the army.”

  “No, Kenneth! He was with the andartes. In the mountains. He was one of the interpreters for the British there.”

  “Oh,” said Strang, “for the British there? And, of course, he knew your husband.” So that was it: not Greek verbs, but recollections. “You really have that piece of history on the brain,” he told her. “What do you expect to find out?”

  She looked at him in surprise and indignation.

  “I’ll bet my last dollar that little Yorghis never was near your husband.”

  She was on the defensive at once. “He certainly was! He knew Yannis. And Sideros. And—”

  “Boy, oh boy!” he said, looking away from her, shaking his head.

  “You know what?” she told him icily. “You are quite impossible. I don’t know why I ever bothered talking to you in the first place.”

  “You know why,” he reminded her, his eyes watching the streams of people flowing over the broad and busy street.

  “Because you knew Steve, I suppose?” she asked bitterly. But behind the fine indignation was a lurking shadow.

  He didn’t need to answer that. In any case, his eyes had found something surprising and delightful. He rose, a sudden smile breaking over his face.

  Caroline looked at him sharply, raised her eyebrows. Then she watched him step forward to meet the dark-haired girl. Tall, slender, good skin, good features, good everything. Clothes simple; good, too, even if on the understated side. But carrying a camera; oh, you Americans! Who was she, anyway? Caroline drew off a glove, and sipped the sherry. Really magnificent eyes, she admitted as she flickered her own long eyelashes at the introduction. “Do join us,” she said. “Are you staying in Athens, or just passing through, Miss Hillard?”

  “Miss Hillard is taking Steve’s place,” Strang said, “on the Perspective job.”

  Caroline looked at Cecilia with unfeigned surprise. “I am impressed. But weren’t you quick—getting here, I mean.”

  “Steve resigned last week,” Strang said. “Miss Hillard arrived yesterday.” He looked at Cecilia critically. “I thought you were going to sleep all day. And what will you have to drink?”

  “I’ve just had coffee, thank you.”

  “Didn’t you get much sleep?” he asked anxiously. She looked fine. Rested. Yet she seemed a little strained.

  “Seven wonderful hours. Complete oblivion. Then I half woke. There was no sleeping after that. Naturally. There was too much happening outside my window. And so I am out, wandering.” She looked at them both, a little uncertainly. “And now I think I’ll wander on. Good-bye, Mrs. Ottway.” She rose.

  “You’re headed in the wrong direction for the Parthenon,” Strang told her, catching her gently by the arm, coaxing her back on to her chair. “Just let me pay the check, and I’ll set you straight.”

  “Yes,” Caroline said, as she slipped her glove back on her elegant little hand, “Kenneth is awfully good at setting other people straight.” She laughed very sweetly, and rose. “I have to dash. You must come to dinner, Miss Hillard, as soon as George and I get settled.”

  “Good luck,” Strang said, rising and offering his hand. Caroline looked at him sharply.

  “With finding a new apartment.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “First I must find a new apartment.” Her green eyes widened, and now they were looking at him with amusement. “And perhaps a new tutor in Greek? Oh, really, Kenneth—what harm is there in a pathetic little man like Yorghis?” She looked down at Cecilia and surprised a look of recognition. “Do you know him, too?”

  “If it is the Yorghis who used to work for the Spyridon Makres Agency—yes.”

  “Used to work?” Caroline looked puzzled.

  “Well, I called them up just half an hour ago. About arrangements for my trip to Nauplion tomorrow. And they told me he had been discharged.” And that, thought Cecilia, saved me a lot of embarrassment explaining I didn’t want him as an interpreter. “I’ve arranged for a woman interpreter,” she told Strang.

  “But why,” demanded Caroline, “why discharged?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Caroline looked puzzled, troubled. Perhaps the good name of the Spyridon Makres Agency had been a recommendation for Yorghis. And then, just as Strang was thinking hopefully that this might decide the question of Yorghis completely, she made one of her hundred-and-eighty-degree turns. “It seems so—so unjust,” she said. Then she was walking quickly away, her head high, her heels clacking in light indignation.

  “Yes,” said Strang, watching her go, “so unjust. Poor little Yorghis, who needs his job so badly.” He drained his glass. “Let’s hope that doesn’t make her rally to his defence.”

  “Is she like that?”

  “A warm heart and a light head. It’s a deadly combination.”

  “But attractive.”

  “Half of the time. The other half? I could throttle her, out of sheer exasperation.”

  “Oh—” That wasn’t too good, she thought, and felt the little chill of despondency strike her. You had to like someone before you could be exasperated. Because when you were exasperated, you kept thinking about her (or him), worrying about her, hoping you could find what you thought was there; and so you kept trying and trying. Exasperation might be constant disappointment, but it was also a perpetual challenge. You ought to know, she told herself, remembering some of her own inexplicable perseverances. Now if only Ken had used the word “irritation,” she would have felt much happier. Irritation meant mosquitoes, bothersome flies, something you smacked down or learned to ignore. “She likes you,” Cecilia said. That was obvious.

  Strang looked up in surprise from calculating the waiter’s tip. “Yes,” he said without any enthusiasm, “I’m the fatherly type, it seems.”

  “Oh?”

  “Am I?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. She has got me almost believing that I am.”

  “Interesting technique,” Ceciha observed. “Needs lots of advice, and help, and—” She paused. Dear dear me, she thought, how could I dislike another woman so quickly?

  Strang looked at her. “That’s it. But it’s not technique, exactly. She just can’t help it. She’s really a sort of complicated simplicity.”

  No comment, Cecilia, she warned herself. But she couldn’t resist saying, “She sounds a thoroughly muddled Martini.”

  “That’s just about it,” he said, and laughed, and then grew thoughtful. “If I hadn’t met Caroline Ottway in a bookshop in Taormina, life would have been simpler for—” He broke off, wondering about that. Simpler for whom? Myself, certainly. If Caroline hadn’t met me, I wouldn’t have started worrying about Steve, or even remembering his story about the mountains; I wouldn’t have heard about Sideros, or started wondering about George Ottway’s curiosity in the house opposite his hotel; I wouldn’t have been up in the Greek theatre, late on a Saturday afternoon, trying to meet Katherini Roilos, and, instead, seeing the Medea sail from Messina. In fact, I wouldn’t even have known Katherini was in Taormina at all if I hadn’t carried Caroline Ottway’s magazines back to her hotel. That simple stroll had started a chain reaction of curiosity, uncertainty, worry, doubt. And without all that, there would have been a very different first meeting with Alexander Christophorou: he would have learned quite easily that I was
carrying Steve’s documents. So what then? They would have been stolen before I left Taormina, and Steve would have been murdered right then. No need for any further postponement...

  “Odd,” he said, “to think what might not have happened, what did. But perhaps it was just as well my life was thoroughly complicated.” Except for Katherini Roilos. Would she have been alive today if I hadn’t been drawn into this whirlpool?

  “Sorry,” he said, noticing Cecilia’s still silence. “It is always painful to try to reshape the past. It should never be done in public.” He thought of Colonel Zafiris, who wouldn’t approve of such indiscretion. “I had a strange kind of morning. I’m sorry.” He gathered together the papers and magazines and books. He said, much more cheerful, almost back to normal, “Oh, here’s a present!” He placed the slim edition of the Cavafy poems in front of her.

  “For me?” She was surprised and then pleased; at least he hadn’t forgotten her completely this morning, even if Caroline Ottway seemed to take more than her fair share of his thoughts. She looked at the book. It’s always the way, she told herself: you meet a man you like, a man you like very much, and he is already tangled up with someone else. Someone who is so damned obvious that she has got to wear jade ear-rings...

  “But I thought you would like it,” he was saying anxiously, watching her.

  “I do. Very much. Thank you.”

  “Then where’s your smile?”

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  “I bought you that present for completely selfish reasons,” he told her. “I wanted one of those smiles you keep for thank-you occasions.”

  “Oh, Ken!” She smiled, a little embarrassed but mostly delighted.

  “Much better,” he pronounced. “You’ve the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen on any woman’s face.”

  She began to laugh. “A smile is a smile—”

  “It isn’t. It’s a display of teeth, a show of gums, a simper, a crack, a collection of wrinkles, a sag of double chin. And only now and again, if a man is lucky, he sees a real smile.” And his heart stops for three seconds. Particularly, he thought, when there are eyes to match that smile. She was sitting quite still, holding the book against her breast, her hands folded across its back. “All right,” he said brusquely, “let’s find someplace to eat.” He rose and gathered up her camera on his arm. “And then, we’ll climb up to the Acropolis. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”