The Venetian Affair Read Free Page B

face was set. “Are you all right?” Fenner asked him. He got no answer. Just a look that told him to mind his own business and get on with it.
    “In French,” the Customs official observed. He smiled. “You are preparing yourself?”
    “That’s my homework,” Fenner agreed, and jammed the small, thin edition of Le Misanthrope back into its hiding place. He dropped his coat on the low counter and began locking his cases. He glanced at the impatient stranger beside him as if to say, “There now, I’m hurrying, can’t you see?” He looked more closely. This man is ill, he thought worriedly; he won’t admit it, but he is ill. Fenner caught the eye of the Customs official, and nodded toward Mr. Goldsmith’s white face. “Where can I find a glass of water?” he asked.
    The Frenchman pointed to a gendarme who was patrolling the background in quiet boredom. “He will show you.” And then, to Mr. Goldsmith, “Would you like to rest? Please sit down over there.” He turned to a woman whose bracelets jangled as she searched for her keys half-heartedly, hoping her sweet smile would save her trouble. “Open everything, madame.”
    “No,” Mr. Goldsmith said angrily. “No, I am first.” And indeed, he had his suitcase unlocked.
    At that moment, three short and violent explosions burst savagely into the quiet room. Everyone jumped. Two of the officials ducked automatically. The woman with the bracelets screamed. Fenner spilled the water he was carrying. Mr. Goldsmith, after a violent start, stood rigid. The gendarme, the least perturbed—either he had been the first to realise the explosions were outside on the street or he had become accustomed to such disturbances—noticed Fenner’s accident. Quietly, he himself brought another cup of water for the man who stood at the counter. “ Le voici! ” he said crisply, tapping the man’s shoulder to draw his attention.
    Mr. Goldsmith’s head made a slow half-turn. Suddenly, the ridges of agony on his face were no longer controlled. He moaned and slipped to the ground, his eyes staring with incredulity at the ceiling.
    “We shall take care of him. Please continue!” the gendarme told Fenner and the woman, and signalled to the nearest porter to help him lift Mr. Goldsmith away from the counter. Fenner obeyed: the order made good sense; those who had been cleared were to move out; those still to be examined were to stay where they were, under the official eye. A little commotion like this one would be made to order for any smuggling. So he looked around for another porter.
    The Customs official was repeating “Everything to be opened, madame!” The woman recovered herself sufficiently, bracelets jangling with haste, but first, as her gesture of sympathy to the poor man who had collapsed almost at her feet, she lifted his raincoat from the floor and placed it neatly on the counter beside some luggage.
    Mr. Goldsmith’s eyes watched her. He tried to speak. Heshivered. He managed the word “coat”.
    “His coat!” the gendarme said to one of his helpers. “He wants his coat over him.” The porter moved quickly to the counter—the woman was anxiously explaining the contents of several plastic jars; the Customs official was opening them carefully—and seized a coat lying near the sick man’s suitcase, bringing it quickly back to throw over the inert legs. Mr. Goldsmith was quite helpless now, his eyes closed, one hand feebly clutching the edge of his raincoat as if it comforted him.
    Fenner had found a young and agile porter. “Over there,” he said, pointing. “A brown suitcase, a brown bag, and a raincoat. That’s all.” The porter darted ahead of him, toward the counter. There, the Customs official was looking dubiously at the contents of a jar, trying to reason out why one woman could need so much face cream for a two weeks’ stay in a city that had practically invented cosmetics. The woman was saying anxiously, “It’s only night cream, the kind I