Spy Who Read Latin: And Other Stories

by Edward D. Hoch

  The girl’s name was Naomi Smith, and she liked to laugh a lot. Rand waited till she went off to the Ladies’ Room before fixing Harry with an icy stare. “Where’d you pick her up?”

  “I checked out that address. There’s a Kane Mander staying on the top floor. But he seemed to be out.”

  “And the girl?”

  Harry Truce smiled slightly. “I didn’t think you’d mind. She got there just ahead of me, and she was asking questions about Mander.”

  Rand grunted. It might mean anything. “Did you ask her about it?”

  “I was working up to it.”

  Naomi Smith came back then, threading her way between tables and sitting down with a bit of a laugh. “Hi! Back again!”

  Rand offered a cigarette. “You’re American, aren’t you?”

  “Does it show?”

  “Just a little. Do you work in Paris?”

  “Here and in London. I’m the European representative of Cage Publications in New York. We have a biweekly news magazine and a chain of newspapers through the midwest. I’m about all they can afford in the way of a foreign correspondent. But Paris is still a great place to work—memories of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, all that.”

  “It was a long time ago, Miss Smith. There was a war in between.”

  “Call me Naomi—everyone does. There are so many Smiths, but not many Naomis outside of the Bible.” She paused to light another cigarette. “I know there was a war, and now there are all sorts of interesting people around. Did you know that Hemingway covered the liberation of Paris in 1944? I think his generation is still here in spirit.”

  Rand sipped his drink. There was no point in fencing any longer. “Would one of those interesting people be Kane Mander?”

  She looked blank, as if she’d never head the name. “I really don’t know.”

  “You were looking for his apartment.”

  The big eyes widened further. “Well, I know that, but I haven’t been able to meet him yet.” Another little laugh, as she brushed a vagrant strand of hair from her eyes. “But that’s business and I never talk business this late at night.”

  A sleepy bellboy appeared with a message for Rand. There was a phone call for him in the lobby. He excused himself and went to answer it. It was no real surprise to hear the voice of Taz on the other end.

  “You have been out of your room, Mr. Rand.”

  “Doing a little sightseeing.”

  “At night? In the bar with Mr. Truce and a young lady?”

  Rand smiled slightly. “You don’t miss much.”

  “We have the money for you. For tomorrow.”

  “Where is it?”

  “There is a white envelope near your left hand at this moment. In it is a quantity of Swiss banknotes, enough to meet Mander’s asking price. Close the deal at noon and return to your hotel room with the report. I will get in touch with you there.”

  “All right,” Rand said. He hung up and pocketed the white envelope without opening it. He knew one of Taz’s men must be close at hand, watching.

  One more quick drink and they were seeing Naomi Smith into a taxi. But Harry was in no mood for sleep when they returned to the room. “She’s quite a girl, isn’t she? Think she could be a Chinese agent?”

  Rand shook his head. “Her eyes don’t slant.”

  “No, really! Why else would she be looking for Mander?”

  “She’s heard about the report and wants to buy it for her magazine.”

  Rand was busy counting the Swiss banknotes. They came to almost £35,000—about $100,000. It was a great deal of money for Taz to entrust to him.

  Saturday was sunny, and warmer than the previous day. When they reached the address on the Rue de Varenne, the place seemed quiet and respectable, with only a few children playing a sidewalk game in front. The time was exactly noon when they walked through the doorway of Kane Mander’s apartment.

  He was a strange-looking man, with a completely bald head and tiny eyes barely visible beneath layers of fat. His English was poor, and he suggested at the outset that they converse in French. “Whom do you represent?” he asked.

  Rand patted the thick envelope of banknotes. “A combine of interested buyers.”

  “I will not sell to the Russians. The Communists were responsible for Father Howard’s death.”

  “We’re sorry about Father Howard,” Rand told the bald man. “It must have been hard on you.”

  “I watched them take him off the plane. I think I knew they were after the report, and he must have, too. It was like a silent movie, because our propellers were still running and I couldn’t even hear the sound of the shots. I just saw him topple, and then they carried him away.”

  Rand gestured toward Harry Truce. “This man will inspect the report. He reads Latin.”

  “You haven’t yet told me whom you represent.”

  Rand handed over some routine credentials. “British Intelligence. To be exact, the Department of Concealed Communications.”

  He was beginning to understand at least a part of Taz’s scheming. The man would not have dealt with a Russian. Still, he felt he was being loyal to Father Howard’s memory. The report would be delivered where it would do the most good.

  “All right,” Kane Mander decided. “And the money?”

  Rand handed it over. “You didn’t mention an amount.”

  “I told them on the telephone—is it all here?”

  “You can count it while my friend reads the report.”

  Mander nodded his bald head and disappeared into the bathroom. He returned almost at once with a sheaf of handwritten pages. Rand guessed there must be 25 or 30 in all, and he could see only that the unfamiliar words had been written in a strong, priestly hand.

  “There’s a lot to it,” Harry said with a frown.

  “Just skim through it. Make sure of what we’re getting.”

  Mander finished his moneycounting first. “The amount is correct,” he announced, slapping down the last of the banknotes.

  “You’ll be leaving Paris now?”

  “After I get some sleep. In a day or so.”

  Harry Truce finished skimming the last of the sheets. “It’s hard to tell, but it looks all right to me. They’re certainly not Latin prayers.”

  “Let’s go,” Rand decided. There was nothing more to be accomplished here. “It was a pleasure dealing with you, Mr. Mander.”

  “My pleasure, certainly. And Father Howard would have been pleased.”

  “You going to use the money for a fancy gravestone?” Rand asked.

  Mander reddened slightly. “He was my friend. He would have wanted it this way.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  In another moment they were back on the quiet street.

  “That was easy,” Harry said.

  “Easy,” Rand agreed.

  Back at the hotel they waited for the Russian’s call. It came in less than an hour. “You have it, Mr. Rand?”

  “I have it.”

  “Authentic?”

  “Authentic. Verified.”

  “I assume you will copy it before delivering the original to me.”

  Rand glanced over at the desk where Harry had set up a miniature camera and was already photographing the pages. “Naturally. When do I deliver the original?”

  “I cannot come there myself in daylight. A Chinese agent arrived in Paris two days ago, and he may be watching your hotel.” Taz hesitated and then said, “Tonight, just after dark. Be at the Eiffel Tower when they turn on the lights. Then begin walking due south until I stop you.”

  “All right,” Rand said, and hung up. He hoped the phone was safe.

  “We all set?” Harry asked.

  “I am. How about you?” Rand walked over to the table and glanced down at the sheet of paper positioned under the camera. The Latin script covered the page from top to bottom, with the number 23 at the top right corner in a slightly darker ink. “How many more pages?”

  “There are twenty-seven pages
altogether. I’m almost finished.”

  “Good. We’ll send the film to London by courier. Give it to me when you finish.” He walked over to the window and stared down at the river. It was muddy and winding, like the Thames. Like all rivers.

  “When do we go back?” Harry asked.

  “Tonight, on the late flight. But I don’t want to take a chance carrying this film around. I’ll pass it to our man at the Embassy and then give the original to Taz. You get us some plane tickets and meet me at the airport.”

  Harry Truce grunted. “There’s something I want to do first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s just an idea I have. I’d like to check it out.”

  “They don’t pay us to be heroes,” Rand reminded him. “Just to do a job. Pick up the tickets and meet me at the airport.”

  After Harry left, Rand checked his suitcase and removed the flat automatic pistol which he always carried in an inner compartment. He didn’t particularly like the weight of it under his arm, but the meeting with Taz presented too many unanswered questions.

  The Russian had wanted someone who could read Latin. He’d obviously wanted the deal handled by the British rather than the Russians. Did he want something else, too? Rand was inclined to trust him, but he took the gun anyway.

  Back in the sunshine, walking across the nearly deserted Rue de la Cité, where the rear view of Notre Dame Cathedral was almost as spectacular as the front, he decided to deliver the film to the courier before he did anything else. It took him only ten minutes to complete that mission, and as he left the drop point near the Embassy, he heard someone call his name. “Mr. Rand!”

  He turned and saw a breathless Naomi Smith running down the sidewalk toward him. “Miss Smith. How are you today?”

  “Not very good,” she admitted. “What are you and Harry trying to pull with Kane Mander?”

  “Do we have to be pulling anything?”

  “My boss talked to Mander by trans-Atlantic phone three days ago. He agreed to see me and listen to my offer before doing anything with the report. I just reached him and he told me he’d sold it to you.”

  Rand smiled slightly. “We weren’t completely honest with each other last evening, were we?”

  “Mr. Rand, we’re willing to go as high as fifty thousand dollars for first publication rights to Father Howard’s report.”

  “It’s not mine to sell, Miss Smith.”

  “Could we talk to your superiors?”

  “I’m sorry. It would do no good.”

  She seemed almost ready to stamp her foot in frustration. “This could cost me my job!”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” he said, and left her standing alone on the sidewalk.

  He’d walked another few blocks when he saw the crowd in the street. It was the direction Naomi Smith had come from—back toward the apartment on the Rue de Varenne. Rand would have passed by without a second thought except that something drew him to the spot.

  He pushed through the crowd, past the little ambulance with its flashing light, and saw the body on the pavement. It was Harry Truce.

  “What happened?” he asked a bystander.

  “Accident—hit and run.”

  “Is he dead?”

  The Frenchman nodded. “He’s dead. These Englishmen never look the right way when they’re crossing.”

  “I saw the whole thing,” a woman said. She was fat and sweating. “He ran right at the car and it hit him.”

  Rand’s mouth was very dry. “Was there a woman driving?”

  The fat woman bumped against him. “What does that mean? You think only women run down pedestrians in the street? You Englishmen are all alike, all—”

  He walked away, pushing back through the crowd, avoiding the uniformed policeman who was taking statements. There was nothing he could do for Harry Truce. Perhaps he had done too much already.

  It was a dirty business at best, and the Paris assignment with Taz was no different from all the rest of it. The Russian had somehow double-crossed him, in a manner he still did not understand, and now Harry Truce was dead. But the original of Father Howard’s report was still in his breast pocket. They hadn’t got it from Harry, if that was what they’d been after.

  He took a taxi to the Palais de Chaillot, across the river from the Eiffel Tower, and found a public restroom. He locked himself in the little cubicle and examined the original report once more. If there was any secret communication in it, the Latin words effectively screened it. He looked through the 27 pages one at a time, finding nothing. And yet there was something that bothered him, something not quite right.

  In a few hours the report would be in Taz’s hands. Would he have killed Harry just to get it a little bit sooner? Or had Harry died because of some discovery he’d made about the whole affair and Taz’s part in it?

  He wondered what Harry would have done with the report if the choice had been his. Give it to Taz as promised? More likely, he’d have let Naomi Smith use it for her magazine. Sometimes wars really were lost by a general’s hangover, or won by the smile of a pretty girl.

  Rand barely glanced at the Eiffel Tower as he crossed the bridge and walked among the strollers and lovers and tourists with their cameras. Already it was dusk, and soon the lights would come on. Taz would be waiting—to kill him too?

  Rand felt the gun heavy beneath his arm. No one could live on trust forever, not Rand or the world. He would have to shoot first, if Taz made the slightest suspicious move.

  Presently he saw the man, sitting on one of the benches in a shabby workingman’s costume. The Russian pretended not to notice him as Rand walked on past, waiting for the spotlights to strike out at the Tower when darkness fell. Finally the lights came on. Rand turned to retrace his steps, and saw the Russian rise to greet him.

  He was twenty feet away when Taz’s hand emerged from his pocket, holding a small pistol that was almost invisible in the gloom. Rand dropped to the pavement, clawing at his own weapon. But then in an instant he saw the third figure behind him. It was Kane Mander, and he too had a gun.

  Taz shouted something in Russian as Mander fired two wild shots. Then Rand rolled over, prayed he was making the right choice, and shot Kane Mander through the forehead.

  They held their final meeting in a private room at Orly Airport, just before midnight that evening. It was very different from the hour they’d spent in Berlin together. Taz and his party were departing for East Berlin, while Rand was on his way back to London. The report of Father Howard had already changed hands.

  “Perhaps you saved my life,” Taz said.

  “He was blinded by the lights,” Rand pointed out. “It gave me a split second to decide.”

  “But how did you know it was Kane Mander who killed your friend, and not me?”

  Rand leaned back in his chair, tired of it all, wondering what awaited him back in London. There’d be formalities with the Paris police, reports to be completed. “It wasn’t Kane Mander, that’s the point. It was the Red Chinese agent who arrived a few days ago. The real Mander is probably at the bottom of the Seine.”

  “But how did you know?”

  “The same way Harry Truce knew, except that I was a bit slower catching on. When we met the supposed Kane Mander, he described the killing of Father Howard and mentioned the noise of the plane’s propellers. But the plane was a jet, and a jet has no propellers—which he certainly would have known if he’d made the trip with Father Howard. If he didn’t make the trip, then he wasn’t the real Kane Mander—simple as that.

  “The girl Naomi Smith gave me a bit of verification when she said her publisher had phoned Mander, that he’d agreed to see her and listen to her offer before closing a deal with anyone else. Again this appeared to be the action of an impersonator, a false Kane Mander.”

  “But why sell you the report if he was a Chinese agent?” Taz argued.

  “Two reasons—for the money, mainly, but also to have a try at killing us both. He must have had someone o
n my tail all day, waiting for me to make contact with you. If we could both be killed, and it could look as if we had shot each other—”

  “He knew we were working together?”

  “He knew, or guessed. Don’t they always suspect you Russians of such things with the West?”

  “But the report was truly valuable—” Taz was still puzzled.

  “Not in the form he supplied it to me today. We received Father Howard’s fifteen-page introduction and twelve-page conclusion. The meat of the report, running to thirty-five more pages, was removed by the false Mander before he delivered it. Harry Truce only skimmed through it, and failed to realize that such a large chunk was missing. But there was a clue to it—the clue that must have sent Harry to his death.”

  “What clue?”

  “The page numbers were in a darker ink, indicating they were written at a different time from the text, and they were in Arabic numerals—I remember seeing the number 23 while Harry was photographing the pages. Would Father Howard have numbered a Latin manuscript in Arabic numerals, in other than Roman numerals? Possible, but unlikely. Either the original manuscript was unnumbered, or else the Chinese agent merely cut off the tops of the pages and renumbered them. If the manuscript pages were renumbered, the implication was that something had been removed. Harry must have thought of that, along with Mander’s mistake about the plane’s propellers, and gone back to confront him—or to search for the missing pages.”

  “And was killed.”

  Rand nodded. “And was killed. He saw the man who called himself Mander leaving in a car and tried to stop him. He was run down for his trouble. I knew the accident took place near the apartment, but I didn’t connect Mander with it till I saw him at the Tower tonight.”

  “Surely our people in Moscow and London would have discovered the missing pages of manuscript.”

  “Yes, and accused each other of stealing them. Neither of us would have been alive to say differently.”