Mediterranean Nights Read Free Page B

it.
    â€˜All right,’ I agreed reluctantly, ‘where?’
    He told me he would send along a man in a red muffler and black cap to pick me up.
    When I rejoined her I suggested another ration of the Old Original Chartreuse. I wanted to give Harvey’s man time to reach the Tour d’Argent, and as we weren’t going on anywhere she agreed, so we sat there for a bit drinking that marvellous liqueur, which the old monks made before they were kicked out of France. I lit another cigarette and endeavoured to make amusing conversation, but it was a poor effort. She pursed up that big generous mouth of hers with a humorous look and accused me of having spotted someone more attractive than herself when I went out to telephone.
    I laughed it off, of course, but I was glad when I felt enough time had elapsed to send for the bill.
    Outside on the doorstep I had a quick look round—Harvey had done his job and there was the taxi. The driver’s language was a joy as he wangled his cab in front of two others—I recognised him immediately by the cap and muffler.
    She didn’t notice that we had veered away from the direction of the Ritz until we crossed to the Place de la Concorde. Then she gave me a sharp look and asked where he was taking us. I apologised blandly enough—said I’d forgotten it before, but a friend of mine had asked me to deliver a letter personally in Paris; as I was leaving very early next day I’d thought she wouldn’t mind if I dropped it on the way back that night.
    She sank back in her corner with a little shrug, and I smothered a sigh of relief at her acquiescence—at least I had escaped the wretched business of holding her down for the rest of the journey. You see, I had the rotten job of getting her to a certain house where we could commit the quite illegal act of having her searched.
    A few minutes later the driver gave a sharp toot on his horn and swung the cab through a pair of big gates into the courtyard of a private house.
    I got out and ran up the steps, the frost glass door wasopened almost immediately—Harvey stood waiting for me in the hall.
    â€˜Got her?’ he asked at once.
    I nodded. His lined face lit up with one of those rare smiles. ‘Good boy,’ he said, ‘bring her in.’
    I waited a moment, then I went out again and spoke to Lisabetta, told her a story about a business deal in which we were all interested—that the chap who owned the house wanted to write a note for me to take south, and pressed her to come in for five minutes while he did it.
    She leant forward, and I just caught her smile in the light from the open doorway. ‘Colonel Thornton,’ the eyebrows rose, ‘this is Paris—a strange house—and it is late! But I think it would be amusing to trust you!’
    A fat, motherly old person showed us into a room on the ground floor. Harvey was standing in front of the fireplace—and he wasted no time in formalities.
    He said straight out that he was there to safeguard certain interests of his Government. That he knew she had travelled from Calais with a man named Essenbach, who was in the German Secret Service, and that she must hand over anything with which she had been entrusted by him.
    As I watched her face I saw a barely perceptible tightening of the mobile mouth. She knew that she’d been trapped, and she swung round on me.
    â€˜So it was for this that the kind Colonel asked me to dine? What a humiliation, and what foolishness on my part to assume that it was gallantry!’
    Harvey had the grace to say that I had been acting under his instructions and that it was a service matter. Then he told her firmly that unless she did what he asked he would have her searched.
    â€˜I know nothing of Essenbach,’ she flared. ‘If you detain me here I will complain to my ambassador.’
    He explained to her quite patiently that it wouldn’t do her any good. The house was taken