Passenger to Frankfurt

The gentle buzz of the intercom on his desk roused him. He blinked three times and opened his eyes. He stretched forth a rather weary-looking hand and picked up the receiver.

‘Well?’ he said.

His secretary’s voice spoke.

‘The Minister is here waiting to see you.’

‘Is he now?’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘And what Minister is that? The Baptist minister from the church round the corner?’

‘Oh no, Colonel Pikeaway, it’s Sir George Packham.’

‘Pity,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, breathing asthmatically. ‘Great pity. The Reverend McGill is far more amusing. There’s a splendid touch of hell fire about him.’

‘Shall I bring him in, Colonel Pikeaway?’

‘I suppose he will expect to be brought in at once. Under Secretaries are far more touchy than Secretaries of State,’ said Colonel Pikeaway gloomily. ‘All these Ministers insist on coming in and having kittens all over the place.’

Sir George Packham was shown in. He coughed and wheezed. Most people did. The windows of the small room were tightly closed. Colonel Pikeaway reclined in his chair, completely smothered in cigar ash. The atmosphere was almost unbearable and the room was known in official circles as the ‘small cat-house’.

‘Ah, my dear fellow,’ said Sir George, speaking briskly and cheerfully in a way that did not match his ascetic and sad appearance. ‘Quite a long time since we’ve met, I think.’

‘Sit down, sit down do,’ said Pikeaway. ‘Have a cigar?’

Sir George shuddered slightly.

‘No, thank you,’ he said, ‘no, thanks very much.’

He looked hard at the windows. Colonel Pikeaway did not take the hint. Sir George cleared his throat and coughed again before saying:

‘Er—I believe Horsham has been to see you.’

‘Yes, Horsham’s been and said his piece,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, slowly allowing his eyes to close again.

‘I thought it was the best way. I mean, that he should call upon you here. It’s most important that things shouldn’t get round anywhere.’

‘Ah,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘but they will, won’t they?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They will,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.

‘I don’t know how much you—er—well, know about this last business.’

‘We know everything here,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘That’s what we’re for.’

‘Oh—oh yes, yes certainly. About Sir S.N.—you know who I mean?’

‘Recently a passenger from Frankfurt,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.

‘Most extraordinary business. Most extraordinary. One wonders—one really does not know, one can’t begin to imagine …’

Colonel Pikeaway listened kindly.

‘What is one to think?’ pursued Sir George. ‘Do you know him personally?’

‘I’ve come across him once or twice,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.

‘One really cannot help wondering—’

Colonel Pikeaway subdued a yawn with some difficulty. He was rather tired of Sir George’s thinking, wondering, and imagining. He had a poor opinion anyway of Sir George’s process of thought. A cautious man, a man who could be relied upon to run his department in a cautious manner. Not a man of scintillating intellect. Perhaps, thought Colonel Pikeaway, all the better for that. At any rate, those who think and wonder and are not quite sure are reasonably safe in the place where God and the electors have put them.

‘One cannot quite forget,’ continued Sir George, ‘the disillusionment we have suffered in the past.’

Colonel Pikeaway smiled kindly.

‘Charleston, Conway and Courtfold,’ he said. ‘Fully trusted, vetted and approved of. All beginning with C, all crooked as sin.’

‘Sometimes I wonder if we can trust anyone,’ said Sir George unhappily.

‘That’s easy,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘you can’t.’

‘Now take Stafford Nye,’ said Sir George. ‘Good family, excellent family, knew his father, his grandfather.’

‘Often a slip-up in the third generation,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.

The remark did not help Sir George.

‘I cannot help doubting—I mean, sometimes he doesn’t really seem serious.’

‘Took my two nieces to see the châteaux of the Loire when I was a young man,’ said Colonel Pikeaway unexpectedly. ‘Man fishing on the bank. I had my fishing-rod with me, too. He said to me, “Vous n’êtes pas un pêcheur sérieux. Vous avez des femmes avec vous.”’

‘You mean you think Sir Stafford—?’

‘No, no, never been mixed up with women much. Irony’s his trouble. Likes surprising people. He can’t help liking to score off people.’

‘Well, that’s not very satisfactory, is it?’

‘Why not?’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Liking a private joke is much better than having some deal with a defector.’

‘If one could feel that he was really sound. What would you say—your personal opinion?’

‘Sound as a bell,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘If a bell is sound. It makes a sound, but that’s different, isn’t it?’ He smiled kindly. ‘Shouldn’t worry, if I were you,’ he said.

Sir Stafford Nye pushed aside his cup of coffee. He picked up the newspaper, glancing over the headlines, then he turned it carefully to the page which gave Personal advertisements. He’d looked down that particular column for seven days now. It was disappointing but not surprising. Why on earth should he expect to find an answer? His eye went slowly down miscellaneous peculiarities which had always made that particular page rather fascinating in his eyes. They were not so strictly personal. Half of them or even more than half were disguised advertisements or offers of things for sale or wanted for sale. They should perhaps have been put under a different heading but they had found their way here considering that they were more likely to catch the eye that way. They included one or two of the hopeful variety.

‘Young man who objects to hard work and who would like an easy life would be glad to undertake a job that would suit him.’

‘Girl wants to travel to Cambodia. Refuses to look after children.’

‘Firearm used at Waterloo. What offers.’

‘Glorious fun-fur coat. Must be sold immediately. Owner going abroad.’

‘Do you know Jenny Capstan? Her cakes are superb.

Come to 14 Lizzard Street, S.W.3.’

For a moment Stafford Nye’s finger came to a stop. Jenny Capstan. He liked the name. Was there any Lizzard Street? He supposed so. He had never heard of it. With a sigh, the finger went down the column and almost at once was arrested once more.

‘Passenger from Frankfurt, Thursday Nov. 11, Hungerford Bridge 7.20.’

Thursday, November 11th. That was—yes, that was today. Sir Stafford Nye leaned back in his chair and drank more coffee. He was excited, stimulated. Hungerford. Hungerford Bridge. He got up and went into the kitchenette. Mrs Worrit was cutting potatoes into strips and throwing them into a large bowl of water. She looked up with some slight surprise.

‘Anything you want, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘If anyone said Hungerford Bridge to you, where would you go?’

‘Where should I go?’ Mrs Worrit considered. ‘You mean if I wanted to go, do you?’

‘We can proceed on that assumption.’

‘Well, then, I suppose I’d go to Hungerford Bridge, wouldn’t I?’

‘You mean you would go to Hungerford in Berkshire?’

‘Where is that?’ said Mrs Worrit.

‘Eight miles beyond Newbury.’

‘I’ve heard of Newbury. My old man backed a horse there last year. Did well, too.’

‘So you’d go to Hungerford near Newbury?’

‘No, of course I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Worrit. ‘Go all that way—what for? I’d go to Hungerford Bridge, of course.’

‘You mean—?’

‘Well, it’s near Charing Cross. You know where it is. Over the Thames.’

‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Yes, I do know where it is quite well. Thank you, Mrs Worrit.’

It had been, he felt, rather like tossing a penny heads or tails. An advertisement in a morning paper in London meant Hungerford Railway Bridge in London. Presumably therefore that is what the advertiser meant, although about this particular advertiser Sir Stafford Nye was not at all sure. Her ideas, from the brief experience he had had of her, were original ideas. They were not the normal responses to be expected. But still, what else could one do. Besides, there were probably other Hungerfords, and possibly they would also have bridges, in various parts of England. But today, well, today he would see.

It was a cold windy evening with occasional bursts of thin misty rain. Sir Stafford Nye turned up the collar of his mackintosh and plodded on. It was not the first time he had gone across Hungerford Bridge, but it had never seemed to him a walk to take for pleasure. Beneath him was the river and crossing the bridge were large quantities of hurrying figures like himself. Their mackintoshes pulled round them, their hats pulled down and on the part of one and all of them an earnest desire to get home and out of the wind and rain as soon as possible. It would be, thought Sir Stafford Nye, very difficult to recognize anybody in this scurrying crowd. 7.20. Not a good moment to choose for a rendezvous of any kind. Perhaps it was Hungerford Bridge in Berkshire. Anyway, it seemed very odd.

He plodded on. He kept an even pace, not overtaking those ahead of him, pushing past those coming the opposite way. He went fast enough not to be overtaken by the others behind him, though it would be possible for them to do so if they wanted to. A joke, perhaps, thought Stafford Nye. Not quite his kind of joke, but someone else’s.

And yet—not her brand of humour either, he would have thought. Hurrying figures passed him again, pushing him slightly aside. A woman in a mackintosh was coming along, walking heavily. She collided with him, slipped, dropped to her knees. He assisted her up.

‘All right?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

She hurried on, but as she passed him, her wet hand, by which he had held her as he pulled her to her feet, slipped something into the palm of his hand, closing the fingers over it. Then she was gone, vanishing behind him, mingling with the crowd. Stafford Nye went on. He couldn’t overtake her. She did not wish to be overtaken, either. He hurried on and his hand held something firmly. And so, at long last it seemed, he came to the end of the bridge on the Surrey side.

A few minutes later he had turned into a small café and sat there behind a table, ordering coffee. Then he looked at what was in his hand. It was a very thin oilskin envelope. Inside it was a cheap quality white envelope. That too he opened. What was inside surprised him. It was a ticket.

A ticket for the Festival Hall for the following evening.

CHAPTER 5

Wagnerian Motif

Sir Stafford Nye adjusted himself more comfortably in his seat and listened to the persistent hammering of the Nibelungen, with which the programme began.

Though he enjoyed Wagnerian opera, Siegfried was by no means his favourite of the operas composing the Ring. Rheingold and Götterdämmerung were his two preferences. The music of the young Siegfried, listening to the songs of the birds, had always for some strange reason irritated him instead of filling him with melodic satisfaction. It might have been because he went to a performance in Munich in his young days which had displayed a magnificent tenor of unfortunately over-magnificent proportions, and he had been too young to divorce the joy of music from the visual joy of seeing a young Siegfried that looked even passably young. The fact of an outsized tenor rolling about on the ground in an access of boyishness had revolted him. He was also not particularly fond of birds and forest murmurs. No, give him the Rhine Maidens every time, although in Munich even the Rhine Maidens in those days had been of fairly solid proportions. But that mattered less. Carried away by the melodic flow of water and the joyous impersonal song, he had not allowed visual appreciation to matter.

From time to time he looked about him casually. He had taken his seat fairly early. It was a full house, as it usually was. The intermission came. Sir Stafford rose and looked about him. The seat beside his had remained empty. Someone who was supposed to have arrived had not arrived. Was that the answer, or was it merely a case of being excluded because someone had arrived late, which practice still held on the occasions when Wagnerian music was listened to?

He went out, strolled about, drank a cup of coffee, smoked a cigarette, and returned when the summons came. This time, as he drew near, he saw that the seat next to his was filled. Immediately his excitement returned. He regained his seat and sat down. Yes, it was the woman of the Frankfurt Air Lounge. She did not look at him, she was looking straight ahead. Her face in profile was as clean-cut and pure as he remembered it. Her head turned slightly, and her eyes passed over him but without recognition. So intent was that non-recognition that it was as good as a word spoken. This was a meeting that was not to be acknowledged. Not now, at any event. The lights began to dim. The woman beside him turned.

‘Excuse me, could I look at your programme? I have dropped mine, I’m afraid, coming to my seat.’

‘Of course,’ he said.

He handed over the programme and she took it from him. She opened it, studied the items. The lights went lower. The second half of the programme began. It started with the overture to Lohengrin. At the end of it she handed back the programme to him with a few words of thanks.

‘Thank you so much. It was very kind of you.’

The next item was the Siegfried forest murmur music. He consulted the programme she had returned to him. It was then that he noticed something faintly pencilled at the foot of a page. He did not attempt to read it now. Indeed, the light would have not been sufficient. He merely closed the programme and held it. He had not, he was quite sure, written anything there himself. Not, that is, in his own programme. She had, he thought, had her own programme ready, folded perhaps in her handbag and had already written some message ready to pass to him. Altogether, it seemed to him, there was still that atmosphere of secrecy, of danger. The meeting on Hungerford Bridge and the envelope with the ticket forced into his hand. And now the silent woman who sat beside him. He glanced at her once or twice with the quick, careless glance that one gives to a stranger sitting next to one. She lolled back in her seat; her high-necked dress was of dull black crêpe, an antique torque of gold encircled her neck. Her dark hair was cropped closely and shaped to her head. She did not glance at him or return any look. He wondered. Was there someone in the seats of the Festival Hall watching her—or watching him? Noting whether they looked or spoke to each other? Presumably there must be, or there must be at least the possibility of such a thing. She had answered his appeal in the newspaper advertisement. Let that be enough for him. His curiosity was unimpaired, but he did at least know now that Daphne Theodofanous—alias Mary Ann—was here in London. There were possibilities in the future of his learning more of what was afoot. But the plan of campaign must be left to her. He must follow her lead. As he had obeyed her in the airport, so he would obey her now and—let him admit it—life had become suddenly more interesting. This was better than the boring conferences of his political life. Had a car really tried to run him down the other night? He thought it had. Two attempts—not only one. It was easy enough to imagine that one was the target of assault, people drove so recklessly nowadays that you could easily fancy malice aforethought when it was not so. He folded his programme, did not look at it again. The music came to its end. The woman next to him spoke. She did not turn her head or appear to speak to him, but she spoke aloud, with a little sigh between the words as though she was communing with herself or possibly to her neighbour on the other side.

‘The young Siegfried,’ she said, and sighed again.

The programme ended with the March from Die Meistersinger. After enthusiastic applause, people began to leave their seats. He waited to see if she would give him any lead, but she did not. She gathered up her wrap, moved out of the row of chairs, and with a slightly accelerated step, moved along with other people and disappeared in the crowd.

Stafford Nye regained his car and drove home. Arrived there, he spread out the Festival Hall programme on his desk and examined it carefully, after putting the coffee to percolate.

The programme was disappointing to say the least of it. There did not appear to be any message inside. Only on one page above the list of the items, were the pencil marks that he had vaguely observed. But they were not words or letters or even figures. They appeared to be merely a musical notation. It was as though someone had scribbled a phrase of music with a somewhat inadequate pencil. For a moment it occurred to Stafford Nye there might perhaps be a secret message he could bring out by applying heat. Rather gingerly, and in a way rather ashamed of his melodramatic fancy, he held it towards the bar of the electric fire but nothing resulted. With a sigh he tossed the programme back on to the table. But he felt justifiably annoyed. All this rigmarole, a rendezvous on a windy and rainy bridge overlooking the river! Sitting through a concert by the side of a woman of whom he yearned to ask at least a dozen questions—and at the end of it? Nothing! No further on. Still, she had met him. But why? If she didn’t want to speak to him, to make further arrangements with him, why had she come at all?

His eyes passed idly across the room to his bookcase which he reserved for various thrillers, works of detective fiction and an occasional volume of science fiction; he shook his head. Fiction, he thought, was infinitely superior to real life. Dead bodies, mysterious telephone calls, beautiful foreign spies in profusion! However, this particular elusive lady might not have done with him yet. Next time, he thought, he would make some arrangements of his own. Two could play at the game that she was playing.

He pushed aside the programme and drank another cup of coffee and went to the window. He had the programme still in his hand. As he looked out towards the street below his eyes fell back again on the open programme in his hand and he hummed to himself, almost unconsciously. He had a good ear for music and he could hum the notes that were scrawled there quite easily. Vaguely they sounded familiar as he hummed them. He increased his voice a little. What was it now? Tum, tum, tum tum ti-tum. Tum. Yes, definitely familiar.

He started opening his letters.

They were mostly uninteresting. A couple of invitations, one from the American Embassy, one from Lady Athelhampton, a Charity Variety performance which Royalty would attend and for which it was suggested five guineas would not be an exorbitant fee to obtain a seat. He threw them aside lightly. He doubted very much whether he wished to accept any of them. He decided that instead of remaining in London he would without more ado go and see his Aunt Matilda, as he had promised. He was fond of his Aunt Matilda though he did not visit her very often. She lived in a rehabilitated apartment consisting of a series of rooms in one wing of a large Georgian manor house in the country which she had inherited from his grandfather. She had a large, beautifully proportioned sitting-room, a small oval dining-room, a new kitchen made from the old housekeeper’s room, two bedrooms for guests, a large comfortable bedroom for herself with an adjoining bathroom, and adequate quarters for a patient companion who shared her daily life. The remains of a faithful domestic staff were well provided for and housed. The rest of the house remained under dust sheets with periodical cleaning. Stafford Nye was fond of the place, having spent holidays there as a boy. It had been a gay house then. His eldest uncle had lived there with his wife and their two children. Yes, it had been pleasant there then. There had been money and a sufficient staff to run it. He had not specially noticed in those days the portraits and pictures. There had been large-sized examples of Victorian art occupying pride of place—overcrowding the walls, but there had been other masters of an older age. Yes, there had been some good portraits there. A Raeburn, two Lawrences, a Gainsborough, a Lely, two rather dubious Van Dycks. A couple of Turners, too. Some of them had had to be sold to provide the family with money. He still enjoyed when visiting there strolling about and studying the family pictures.

His Aunt Matilda was a great chatterbox but she always enjoyed his visits. He was fond of her in a desultory way, but he was not quite sure why it was that he had suddenly wanted to visit her now. And what it was that had brought family portraits into his mind? Could it have been because there was a portrait of his sister Pamela by one of the leading artists of the day twenty years ago? He would like to see that portrait of Pamela and look at it more closely. See how close the resemblance had been between the stranger who had disrupted his life in this really outrageous fashion and his sister.

He picked up the Festival Hall programme again with some irritation and began to hum the pencilled notes. Tum, tum, ti tum—Then it came to him and he knew what it was. It was the Siegfried motif. Siegfried’s Horn. The Young Siegfried motif. That was what the woman had said last night. Not apparently to him, not apparently to anybody. But it had been the message, a message that would have meant nothing to anyone around since it would have seemed to refer to the music that had just been played. And the motif had been written on his programme also in musical terms. The Young Siegfried. It must have meant something. Well, perhaps further enlightenment would come. The Young Siegfried. What the hell did

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.