Collected Short Stories Volume 3 Page 12

'He said he couldn't risk it.'

  'Yes?'

  The little agent gave his shoulders a slight shrug and smiled.

  'She's asked him to meet her on the road that leads to Évian at ten o'clock tonight so that they can talk of it again, and she's given him to understand that she will not repulse too fiercely the advances of a lover. I have told him to do what he likes so long as he comes and tells me everything that is of importance.'

  'Are you sure you can trust him?' asked Ashenden.

  'Oh, quite. He knows nothing, of course, but that she is under surveillance. You need have no fear about him. He is a good boy. I have known him all his life.'

  Ashenden read Chandra's letter. It was eager and passionate. It throbbed strangely with the painful yearning of his heart. Love? Yes, if Ashenden knew anything of it there was the real thing. He told her how he spent the long hours walking by the lakeside and looking towards the coast of France. How near they were and yet so desperate parted! He repeated again and again that he could not come, and begged her not to ask him, he would do everything in the world for her, but that he dared not do, and yet if she insisted how could he resist her? He besought her to have mercy on him. And then he broke into a long wail at the thought that he must go away without seeing her, he asked her if there were not some means by which she could slip over, he swore that if he could ever hold her in his arms again he would never let her go. Even the forced and elaborate language in which it was written could not dim the hot fire that burned the pages; it was the letter of a madman.

  'When will you hear the result of her interview with the boatman?' asked Ashenden.

  'I have arranged to meet him at the landing-stage between eleven and twelve.'

  Ashenden looked at his watch.

  'I will come with you.'

  They walked down the hill and reaching the quay for shelter from the cold wind stood in the lee of the customhouse. At last they saw a man approaching and Felix stepped out of the shadow that hid them.

  'Antoine.'

  'Monsieur Félix? I have a letter for you; I promised to take it to Lausanne by the first boat tomorrow.'

  Ashenden gave the man a brief glance, but did not ask what had passed between him and Giulia Lazzari. He took the letter and by the light of Felix's electric torch read it. It was in faulty German:

  On no account come. Pay no attention to my letters. Danger. I love you. Sweetheart. Don't come.

  He put it in his pocket, gave the boatman fifty francs, and went home to bed. But the next day when he went to see Giulia Lazzari he found her door locked. He knocked for some time, there was no answer. He called her.

  'Madame Lazzari, you must open the door. I want to speak to you.'

  'I am in bed. I am ill and can see no one.'

  'I am sorry, but you must open the door. If you are ill I will send for a doctor.'

  'No, go away. I will see no one.'

  'If you do not open the door I shall send for a locksmith and have it broken open.'

  There was a silence and then he heard the key turned in the lock. He went in. She was in a dressing-gown and her hair was dishevelled. She had evidently just got out of bed.

  'I am at the end of my strength. I can do nothing more. You have only to look at me to see that I am ill. I have been sick all night.'

  'I shall not keep you long. Would you like to see a doctor?'

  'What good can a doctor do me?'

  He took out of his pocket the letter she had given the boatman and handed it to her.

  'What is the meaning of this?' he asked.

  She gave a gasp at the sight of it and her sallow face went green.

  'You gave me your word that you would neither attempt to escape nor write a letter without my knowledge.'

  'Did you think I would keep my word?' she cried, her voice ringing with scorn.

  'No. To tell you the truth it was not entirely for your convenience that you were placed in a comfortable hotel rather than in the local gaol, but I think I should tell you that though you have your freedom to go in and out as you like you have no more chance of getting away from Thonon than if you were chained by the leg in a prison cell. It is silly to waste your time writing letters that will never be delivered.'

  'Cochon.'

  She flung the opprobrious word at him with all the violence that was in her.

  'But you must sit down and write a letter that will be delivered.'

  'Never. I will do nothing more. I will not write another word.'

  'You came here on the understanding that you would do certain things.'

  'I will not do them. It is finished.'

  'You had better reflect a little.'

  'Reflect! I have reflected. You can do what you like; I don't care.'

  'Very well, I will give you five minutes to change your mind.'

  Ashenden took out his watch and looked at it. He sat down on the edge of the unmade bed.

  'Oh, it has got on my nerves, this hotel. Why did you not put me in the prison? Why, why? Everywhere I went I felt that spies were on my heels. It is infamous what you are making me do. Infamous! What is my crime? I ask you, what have I done? Am I not a woman? It is infamous what you are asking me to do. Infamous.'

  She spoke in a high shrill voice. She went on and on. At last the five minutes were up. Ashenden had not said a word. He rose.

  'Yes, go, go,' she shrieked at him.

  She flung foul names at him.

  'I shall come back,' said Ashenden.

  He took the key out of the door as he went out of the room and locked it behind him. Going downstairs he hurriedly scribbled a note, called the boots and dispatched him with it to the police-station. Then he went up again. Giulia Lazzari had thrown herself on her bed and turned her face to the wall. Her body was shaken with hysterical sobs. She gave no sign that she heard him come in. Ashenden sat down on the chair in front of the dressing-table and looked idly at the odds and ends that littered it. The toilet things were cheap and tawdry and none too clean. There were little shabby pots of rouge and cold-cream and little bottles of black for the eyebrows and eyelashes. The hairpins were horrid and greasy. The room was untidy and the air was heavy with the smell of cheap scent. Ashenden thought of the hundreds of rooms she must have occupied in third-rate hotels in the course of her life wandering from provincial town to provincial town in one country after another. He wondered what had been her origins. She was a coarse and vulgar woman, but what had she been when young? She was not the type he would have expected to adopt that career, for she seemed to have no advantages that could help her, and he asked himself whether she came of a family of entertainers (there are all over the world families in which for generations the members have become dancers or acrobats or comic singers) or whether she had fallen into the life accidentally through some lover in the business who had for a time made her his partner. And what men must she have known in all these years, the comrades of the shows she was in, the agents and managers who looked upon it as a perquisite of their position that they should enjoy her favours, the merchants or well-to-do tradesmen, the young sparks of the various towns she played in, who were attracted for the moment by the glamour of the dancer or the blatant sensuality of the woman! To her they were the paying customers and she accepted them indifferently as the recognized and admitted supplement to her miserable salary, but to them perhaps she was romance. In her bought arms they caught sight for a moment of the brilliant world of the capitals, and ever so distantly and however shoddily of the adventure and the glamour of a more spacious life.

  There was a sudden knock at the door and Ashenden immediately cried out:

  'Entrez.'

  Giulia Lazzari sprang up in bed to a sitting posture.

  'Who is it?'

  She gave a gasp as she saw the two detectives who had brought her from Boulogne and handed her over to Ashenden at Thonon.

  'You! What do you want?'

  'Allons. levez-vous,' said one of them, and his voice had a sharp abruptness t
hat suggested that he would put up with no nonsense.

  'I'm afraid you must get up, Madame Lazzari,' said Ashenden. 'I am delivering you once more to the care of these gentlemen.'

  'How can I get up! I'm ill, I tell you. I cannot stand. Do you want to kill me?'

  'If you won't dress yourself, we shall have to dress you, and I'm afraid we shouldn't do it very cleverly. Come, come, it's no good making a scene.'

  'Where are you going to take me?'

  'They're going to take you back to England.'

  One of the detectives took hold of her arm.

  'Don't touch me, don't come near me,' she screamed furiously.

  'Let her be,' said Ashenden. 'I'm sure she'll see the necessity of making as little trouble as possible.'

  'I'll dress myself.'

  Ashenden watched her as she took off her dressing-gown and slipped a dress over her head. She forced her feet into shoes obviously too small for her. She arranged her hair. Every now and then she gave the detectives a hurried, sullen glance. Ashenden wondered if she would have the nerve to go through with it. R. would call him a damned fool, but he almost wished she would. She went up to the dressing-table and Ashenden stood up in order to let her sit down. She greased her face quickly and then rubbed off the grease with a dirty towel, she powdered herself and made up her eyes. But her hand shook. The three men watched her in silence. She rubbed the rouge on her cheeks and painted her mouth. Then she crammed a hat down on her head. Ashenden made a gesture to the first detective and he took a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and advanced towards her.

  At the sight of them she started back violently and flung her arms wide.

  'Non, non, non. Je ne veux pas. No, not them. No. No.'

  'Come, ma fille, don't be silly,' said the detective roughly.

  As though for protection (very much to his surprise) she flung her arms round Ashenden.

  'Don't let them take me, have mercy on me, I can't, I can't.'

  Ashenden extricated himself as best he could.

  'I can do nothing more for you.'

  The detective seized her wrists and was about to affix the handcuffs when with a great cry she threw herself down on the floor.

  'I will do what you wish. I will do everything.'

  On a sign from Ashenden the detectives left the room. He waited for a little till she had regained a certain calm. She was lying on the floor sobbing passionately. He raised her to her feet and made her sit down.

  'What do you want me to do?' she gasped.

  'I want you to write another letter to Chandra.'

  'My head is in a whirl. I could not put two phrases together. You must give me time.'

  But Ashenden felt that it was better to get her to write a letter while she was under the effect of her terror. He did not want to give her time to collect herself.

  'I will dictate the letter to you. All you have to do is to write exactly what I tell you.'

  She gave a deep sigh, but took the pen and the paper and sat down before them at the dressing-table.

  'If I do this and . . . and you succeed, how do I know that I shall be allowed to go free?'

  'The Colonel promised that you should. You must take my word for it that I shall carry out his instructions.'

  'I should look a fool if I betrayed my friend and then went to prison for ten years.'

  'I'll tell you your best guarantee of our good faith. Except by reason of Chandra you are not of the smallest importance to us. Why should we put ourselves to the bother and expense of keeping you in prison when you can do us no harm?'

  She reflected for an instant. She was composed now. It was as though, having exhausted her emotion, she had become on a sudden a sensible and practical woman.

  'Tell me what you want me to write.'

  Ashenden hesitated. He thought he could put the letter more or less in the way she would naturally have put it, but he had to give it consideration. It must be neither fluent nor literary. He knew that in moments of emotion people are inclined to be melodramatic and stilted. In a book or on the stage this always rings false and the author has to make his people speak more simply and with less emphasis than in fact they do. It was a serious moment, but Ashenden felt that there were in it elements of the comic.

  'I didn't know I loved a coward,' he started. 'If you loved me you couldn't hesitate when I ask you to come . . . Underline couldn't twice.' He went on. 'When I promise you there is no danger. If you don't love me, you are right not to come. Don't come. Go back to Berlin where you are in safety. I am sick of it. I am alone here. I have made myself ill by waiting for you and every day I have said he is coming. If you loved me you would not hesitate so much. It is quite clear to me that you do not love me. I am sick and tired of you. I have no money. The hotel is impossible. There is nothing for me to stay for. I can get an engagement in Paris. I have a friend there who has made me serious propositions. I have wasted long enough over you and look what I have got from it. It is finished. Good-bye. You will never find a woman who will love you as I have loved you. I cannot afford to refuse the proposition of my friend, so I have telegraphed to him and as soon as I shall receive his answer I go to Paris. I do not blame you because you do not love me, that is not your fault, but you must see that I should be a stupid to go on wasting my life. One is not young for ever. Good-bye. Giulia.'

  When Ashenden read over the letter he was not altogether satisfied. But it was the best he could do. It had an air of verisimilitude which the words lacked because, knowing little English, she had written phonetically, the spelling was atrocious and the handwriting like a child's; she had crossed out words and written them over again. Some of the phrases she had put in French. Once or twice tears had fallen on the pages and blurred the ink.

  'I leave you now,' said Ashenden. 'It may be that when next you see me I shall be able to tell you that you are free to go where you choose. Where do you want to go?'

  'Spain.'

  'Very well, I will have everything prepared.'

  She shrugged her shoulders. He left her.

  There was nothing now for Ashenden to do but wait. He sent a messenger to Lausanne in the afternoon, and next morning went down to the quay to meet the boat. There was a waiting-room next to the ticket-office and here he told the detectives to hold themselves in readiness. When a boat arrived the passengers advanced along the pier in line and their passports were examined before they were allowed to go ashore. If Chandra came and showed his passport, and it was very likely that he was travelling with a false one, issued probably by a neutral nation, he was to be asked to wait and Ashenden was to identify him. Then he would be arrested. It was with some excitement that Ashenden watched the boat come in and the little group of people gathered at the gangway. He scanned them closely but saw no one who looked in the least like an Indian. Chandra had not come. Ashenden did not know what to do. He had played his last card. There were not more than half a dozen passengers for Thonon, and when they had been examined and gone their way he strolled along the pier.

  'Well, it's no go,' he said to Felix, who had been examining the passports. 'The gentleman I expected hasn't turned up.'

  'I have a letter for you.'

  He handed Ashenden an envelope addressed to Madame Lazzari on which he immediately recognized the spidery handwriting of Chandra Lal. At that moment the steamer from Geneva which was going to Lausanne and the end of the lake hove in sight. It arrived at Thonon every morning twenty minutes after the steamer going in the opposite direction had left. Ashenden had an inspiration.

  'Where is the man who brought it?'

  'He's in the ticket-office.'

  'Give him the letter and tell him to return to the person who gave it to him. He is to say that he took it to the lady and she sent it back. If the person asks him to take another letter he is to say that it is not much good as she is packing her trunk and leaving Thonon.'

  He saw the letter handed over and the instructions given and then walked back to his little house i
n the country.

  The next boat on which Chandra could possibly come arrived about five and having at that hour an important engagement with an agent working in Germany he warned Felix that he might be a few minutes late. But if Chandra came he could easily be detained; there was no great hurry since the train in which he was to be taken to Paris did not start till shortly after eight. When Ashenden had finished his business he strolled leisurely down to the lake. It was light still and from the top of the hill he saw the steamer pulling out. It was an anxious moment and instinctively he quickened his steps. Suddenly he saw someone running towards him and recognized the man who had taken the letter.

  'Quick, quick,' he cried. 'He's there.'

  Ashenden's heart gave a great thud against his chest.

  'At last.'

  He began to run too and as they ran the man, panting, told him how he had taken back the unopened letter. When he put it in the Indian's hand he turned frightfully pale ('I should never have thought an Indian could turn that colour,' he said), and turned it over and over in his hand as though he could not understand what his own letter was doing there. Tears sprang to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. ('It was grotesque, he's fat, you know.') He said something in a language the man did not understand and then in French asked him when the boat went to Thonon. When he got on board he looked about, but did not see him, then he caught sight of him, huddled up in an ulster with his hat drawn down over his eyes, standing alone in the bows. During the crossing he kept his eyes fixed on Thonon.

  'Where is he now?' asked Ashenden.

  'I got off first and Monsieur Felix told me to come for you.'

  'I suppose they're holding him in the waiting-room.'

  Ashenden was out of breath when they reached the pier. He burst into the waiting-room. A group of men, talking at the top of their voices and gesticulating wildly, were clustered round a man lying on the ground.

  'What's happened?' he cried.

  'Look,' said Monsieur Felix.

  Chandra Lal lay there, his eyes wide open and a thin line of foam on his lips, dead. His body was horribly contorted.

  'He's killed himself. We've sent for the doctor. He was too quick for us.'