FIVE

It was three-thirty in the morning when Petersen woke. His watch said so. He should not have been able to see his watch because he had switched the light off before going to sleep. It was no longer off but it wasn’t the light that had wakened him, it was something cold and hard pressed against his right cheek-bone. Careful not to move his head. Petersen swivelled his eyes to take in the man who held the gun and was sitting on a chair beside the bed. Dressed in a wellcut grey suit, he was in his early thirties, had a neatly trimmed black moustache of the type made famous by Ronald Colman before the war, a smooth clear complexion, an engaging smile and very pale blue, very cold eyes. Petersen reached across a slow hand and gently deflected the barrel of the pistol.

‘You need to point that thing at my head? With three of your fellow-thugs armed to the teeth?’

There were indeed three other men in the bedroom. Unlike their leader they were a scruffy and villainous looking lot, dressed in vaguely paramilitary uniforms but their appearance counted little against the fact that each carried a machine-pistol.

‘Fellow thugs?’ The man on the chair looked pained. ‘That makes me a thug too?’

‘Only thugs hold pistols against the heads of sleeping men.’

‘Oh, come now, Major Petersen. You have the reputation of being a highly dangerous and very violent man. How are we to know that you are not holding a loaded pistol in your hand under that blanket?’ Petersen slowly withdrew his right hand from under the blanket and turned up his empty palm. ‘It’s under my pillow.’

‘Ah, so.’ The man withdrew the gun. ‘One respects a professional.’

‘How did you get in? My door was locked.’

‘Signor Pijade was most cooperative.’ “Pijade” was Josip’s surname.

‘Was he now?’

‘You can’t trust anyone these days.’

‘I’ve found that out, too.’

‘I begin to believe what people say of you. You’re not worried, are you? You’re not even concerned about who I might be.’

‘Why should I be. You’re no friend. That’s all that matters to me.’

‘I may be no friend. Or I may. I don’t honestly know yet. I’m Major Cipriano. You may have heard of me.’

‘I have. Yesterday, for the first time. I feel sorry for you, Major, I really do, but I wish I were elsewhere. I’m one of those sensitive souls who feel uncomfortable in hospital wards. In the presence of the sick, I mean.’

‘Sick?’ Cipriano looked mildly astonished but the smile remained. ‘Me? I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

‘Physically, no doubt. Otherwise a cracked fiddle and one sadly out of tune. Anyone who works as a hatchet-man for that evil and sadistic bastard, General Granelli, has to be sick in the mind: and anyone who employs as his hatchet-man the psychopathic poisoner, Alessandro, has to be himself a sadist, a candidate for a maximum security lunatic asylum.’

‘Ah, so! Alessandro.’ Cipriano was either not a man easily to take offence or, if he did, too clever to show it. ‘He gave a message for you.’

‘You surprise me. I thought your poisoner – and poisonous – friend was in no position to give messages. You have seen him, then?’

‘Unfortunately, no. He’s still welded up in the fore cabin of the Colombo. One has to admit, Major Petersen, that you are not a man to do things by half-measures. But I spoke to him. He says that when he meets you again you’ll take a long time to die.’

‘He won’t. I’ll gun him down as I would a mad dog with rabies. I don’t want to talk any more about your psycho friend. What do you want of me?’

‘I’m not quite sure yet. Tell me, why do you keep referring to Alessandro as a poisoner?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I might. If I knew what you were talking about.’

‘You know that he carried knockout gas-grenades with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You knew that he carried a nice little surgical kit with him along with hypodermics and liquids in capsules that caused unconsciousness – some form of scopolamine, I believe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know that he also carried capsules which, when injected, led to the victims dying in screaming agony?’

Cipriano had stopped smiling. ‘That’s a lie.’

‘May I get out of bed?’ Cipriano nodded. Petersen crossed to his rucksack, extracted the metal box he had taken from Alessandro, handed it to Cipriano and said: ‘Take that back to Rome or wherever and have the contents of those capsules analyzed. I would not drink or self-inject any of them if I were you. I threatened to inject your friend with the contents of the missing capsule and he fainted in terror.’

‘I know nothing about this.’

‘That I believe. Where would Alessandro get hold of such lethal poison?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘That I don’t believe. Well, what do you want of me?’

‘Just come along with us.’ Cipriano led the way to the diningroom where Petersen’s six companions were already assembled under the watchful eye of a young Italian officer and four armed soldiers. Cipriano said: ‘Remain here. I know you’re too professional to try anything foolish. We won’t be long.’

George, inevitably, was relaxed in a carver chair, a tankard of beer in his hand. Alex was looking quietly murderous. Giacomo just looked thoughtful. Sarina was tight-lipped and pale while the mercurial Lorraine, oddly enough, was expressionless.

Petersen shook his head. ‘Well, well, we’re a fine lot. Major Cipriano has just said I was a professional. If –’

‘That was Major Cipriano?’ George said.

‘That’s what he says.’

‘A fast mover. He doesn’t look like a Major Cipriano.’

‘He doesn’t talk like one either. As I was about to say, George, if I were a professional, I’d have posted a guard, a patrolling sentry. Mea culpa. I thought we were safe here.’

‘Safe!’ Sarina spoke with a wealth of contempt.

‘Well, no harm done, let’s hope.’

‘No harm done!’

Petersen spread his hands. ‘There are always compensations. You – and Lorraine – wanted to see me in, what shall we say, a disadvantaged position. Well, you see it now. How do you like it?’ There was no reply. ‘Two things. I’m surprised they got you, Alex. You can hear a leaf fall.’

‘They had a gun at Sarina’s head.’

‘Ah! And where is our good friend Josip?’

‘Your good friend,’ Sarina said acidly, ‘will be helping Cipriano and his men to find whatever they’re looking for.’

‘My goodness! What a low opinion – what an immediate low opinion – of my friend.’

‘Who tipped them off that we were here? Who let them in? Who gave them the keys – or the master key – to the bedrooms?’

‘One of these days,’ Petersen said mildly, ‘someone’s going to clobber you, young lady. You’ve a waspish tongue and you’re far too ready to judge and condemn. If that soldier with the gun at your head had taken the second necessary to pull the trigger he’d be dead now. So, of course, would you. But Alex didn’t want you to die. Nobody let them in – Josip never locks his front door. Once in, getting the keys would be no trouble. I don’t know who tipped them off. I’ll find out. It could even have been you.’

‘Me!’ She stared at him, at first stunned and then furious.

‘No-one’s above suspicion. You’ve said more than once that I don’t trust you. If you said that, you must have had reasons to think that I have reservations about you. What reasons?’

‘You must be out of your mind.’ She wasn’t mad any more, just bewildered.

‘You’ve turned pale very suddenly. Why have you turned pale?’

‘Leave my sister alone!’ Michael’s voice was an angry shout. ‘She’s done nothing! Leave her alone. Sarina? A criminal? A traitor? She’s right, you must be out of your mind. Stop tormenting her. Who the hell do you think you are?’

‘An army officer who wouldn’t hesitate to instruct a very raw enlisted man – boy, I should say – in the elements of discipline. Mind you, a show of spirit at last, but I’m afraid it’s mistimed and misplaced. Meantime, you should rest content with the knowledge that you are not under suspicion.’

‘I’m supposed to be pleased with that while Sarina is under suspicion?’

‘I don’t care whether you’re pleased or not.’

‘Look here, Petersen –’

‘Petersen? Who’s Petersen? “Major Petersen” to a ranker. Or “Sir”.’ Michael made no reply. ‘You’re not under suspicion because after you’d transmitted this message to Rome yesterday morning I rendered your radio inoperable. You could have used your sister’s tonight, but you wouldn’t have had the guts, not after being caught out the previous night. I know you’re not very bright but the inference is obvious. Alex, a word with you.’

As brother and sister looked at each other in mingled apprehension, incomprehension and dismay, Alex crossed the room and listened as Petersen began talking to him.

‘Stop!’ The young Italian officer’s voice was sharp.

Petersen looked at him patiently. ‘Stop what?’

‘Stop talking.’

‘Why ever should I? You just let me talk to that young man and girl.’

‘I understood that. I don’t understand Serbo-Croat.’

‘Your lack of education doesn’t concern me. To compound your ignorance, we’re not talking Serbo-Croat but a Slavonic dialect understood only by this soldier here, the fat gentleman with the beer glass and myself. You think, perhaps, that we are planning a suicidal attack on you, three unarmed men against four machineguns and a pistol? You can’t possibly be so crazy as to think we’re so crazy. What rank are you?’

‘Lieutenant.’ He was a very stiff, very correct and very young, lieutenant.

‘Lieutenants don’t give orders to majors.’

‘You’re my prisoner.’

‘I have yet to be informed of that. Even if I were, which legally I’m not, I’d be Major Cipriano’s prisoner and he would regard me as a very important one and one not to be molested or harmed in any way, so don’t bother looking at your men. If any of them comes over to try to stop or separate us I’ll take his gun from him and break it over his head and then you might shoot me. You’d be courtmartialled, cashiered and then, by the stipulations of the Geneva Conventions, face a firing squad. But you know that, of course.’ Petersen hoped the lieutenant didn’t, for he himself had no idea, but apparently the young man didn’t either for he made no further attempt to pursue the matter.

Petersen talked to Alex for no more than a minute, went behind the bar, picked up a wine bottle and glass – this without even a raised eyebrow from the young lieutenant who might have been wondering how many men it took to constitute a firing squad and sat down at the table with George. They talked in low and seemingly earnest tones and were still talking when Cipriano returned with his three soldiers, Josip and his wife, Marija. Cipriano not only looked less buoyant and confident than he had done when he had left the dining-room: he was still smiling, because he was an habitual smiler, but the smile was of such a diminished quality that he looked positively morose.

‘I am glad to see that you are enjoying yourselves.’

‘We might be just a little justifiably annoyed at having our sleep disturbed.’ Petersen replenished his glass. ‘But we are of a forgiving nature, happy and relaxed in our carefree conscience. You will join us in a nightcap? I’m sure it would help you to frame a more graceful apology.’

‘No nightcap, thank you, but you are correct in saying that an apology is in order. I have just made a telephone call.’

‘To the wise men of your intelligence HQ, of course.’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘Where else does all the misinformation come from? We, as you know, are in the same line of business and it happens to us all the time.’

‘I am genuinely sorry to have inconvenienced you all over a stupid false alarm.’

‘What false alarm?’

‘Papers missing from our Rome HQ. Some misguided genius on General Granelli’s staff – I don’t know, yet, who it was but I’ll find out before the day is over – decided that they had fallen, if that’s the word, into the hands of either yourself or one of your group. Very important papers, very top-secret.’

‘All missing papers are top-secret. I have some papers with me myself, but I assure you they’re not stolen and how top-secret or important they may be I don’t know.’

‘I know about those papers.’ Cipriano waved a dismissive hand and smiled. ‘As you’re probably well aware. Those other, and much more important papers have never left their safe in Rome. A topsecret filing clerk careless about filing top-secret documents.’

‘May one ask what they are about?’

‘You may and that’s all the answer you’d get. I don’t know and even if I did I couldn’t tell you. I wish you an undisturbed night – or what’s left of it. Again, my apologies. Goodbye, Major Petersen.’

‘Goodbye.’ Petersen took the extended hand. ‘My regards to Colonel Lunz.’

‘I will.’ Cipriano frowned. ‘I hardly know the man.’

‘In that case, my regards to Alessandro.’

‘I’ll give him more than that.’ He turned to Josip and took his hand. ‘Many thanks, Signor Pijade. You have been most helpful. We will not forget.’

It was Sarina, nothing if not resilient, who broke the conversational hiatus that followed the departure of Cipriano and his men. ‘“Thank you, Signor Pijade. Most helpful, Signor Pijade. We won’t forget, Signor Pijade.”’

Josip looked at her in puzzlement then turned to Petersen. ‘Is the young lady talking to me?’

‘I think she’s addressing the company.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t think she does either. The young lady, as you call her, is under the ridiculous impression that you notified Major Cipriano – one assumes she thinks it was by telephone – of our presence and then took him and his men on a guided tour of the premises, distributing keys where necessary. She may, of course, be trying to divert from herself the suspicion that she is the guilty party.’

Sarina made to speak but an outraged Marija gave her no chance. Three quick steps and she was before the suddenly apprehensive Sarina. The ivory-knuckled fists and arms held rigidly by her sides spoke eloquently of her outrage: her eyes were stormy and her clenched teeth remained that way even when she spoke.

‘Such a beautiful face, my dear.’ It is difficult not to hiss when one’s teeth are clenched. ‘Such a delicate complexion. And I have long nails. Should I tear your face because you insult the honour of my husband? Or would a few slaps – hard slaps – be enough for a creature like you?’ In the technique of expressing contempt, Marija Pijade had nothing to learn from anyone.

Sarina said nothing. The apprehensive expression on her face had given way to one of near shock.

‘A soldier – not the Major, he’s a civilized man and was not there – pointed a gun at me. Like this.’ Dramatically, she swung up her right arm and pressed her forefinger against her neck. ‘Not pointed. Pushed. Pushed hard. Three seconds, he said, for my husband to hand over the master key. I am sure he would not have fired but Josip handed over the key at once. Do you blame him for that?’

Slowly, dumbly, Sarina shook her head.

‘But do you still think Josip betrayed you?’

‘No. I don’t know what to think, but I don’t think that any more. I just don’t know what to think. I’m sorry, Marija, I’m truly sorry.’ She smiled wanly. ‘A soldier threatened me with a gun, too. He pressed it in my ear. Maybe that doesn’t make for very clear thinking.’

The cold fury in Marija’s face gave way to speculation then softened into concern. She took an impulsive step forward, put her arms round the girl and began to stroke her hair.

‘I don’t think any of us is thinking very clearly. George!’ This over Sarina’s shoulder. ‘What are you thinking of?’

‘ljivovica,’ George said decisively. ‘The universal specific. If you read the label on a Pellegrino bottle –’

‘George!’

‘Right away.’

Josip rubbed a blue and unshaven chin. ‘If Sarina and I are not the culprits, then we’re no nearer to an answer. Who did talk? Have you no suspicions, Peter?’

‘None. I don’t need any. I know who it is.’

‘You know – ’ Josip turned to the bar, picked up a bottle of ljivovica from a tray George was preparing, filled a small glass, drained it in two gulps and when he’d finished coughing and spluttering said: ‘Who?’ ‘I’m not prepared to say at the moment. That’s not because I’m intending to prolong anxiety, increase tension, give the villain enough rope to hang him – or herself – or anything stupid like that. It’s because I can’t prove it – yet. I’m not even sure I want to prove it. Perhaps the person I have in mind was misguided, or the action may have been unintentional, accidental, inadvertent or even done from the best motives – from, of course, the viewpoint of the person concerned. Unlike Sarina here, I don’t go in much for premature judgments and condemnation.’

‘Peter!’ Marija’s voice held a warning, almost peremptory, note. She still had an arm around Sarina’s shoulders.

‘Sorry, Marija. Sorry, Sarina. Just my natural nastiness surfacing. By the way, if you people want to go to bed, well of course, go. But no hurry now. Change of plan. We won’t be leaving until the late forenoon tomorrow. Certainly not before. Giacomo, could I have a quiet word with you?’

‘Have I any option?’

‘Certainly. You can always say “no”.’

Giacomo smiled his broad smile, stood up and put his hand in his pocket. ‘Josip, if I could buy a bottle of that excellent red wine –’

Josip was mildly affronted. ‘Peter Petersen’s friends pay for nothing in my hotel.’

‘Maybe I’m not his friend. I mean, maybe he’s not my friend.’ Giacomo seemed to find the thought highly amusing. ‘Thanks all the same.’ He picked up a bottle and two glasses from the bar, led the way to a distant table, poured wine and said admiringly: ‘That Marija. Quite a girl. Not quite a tartar but no shrinking violet. Changes her mind a bit quick, doesn’t she?’

‘Mercurial, you’d say?’

‘That’s the word. Seems to know you pretty well. Has she known you long?’

‘She does and she has.’ Petersen spoke with some feeling. ‘Twenty-six years, three months and some days. The day she was born. My cousin. Why do you ask?’

‘Curiosity. I was beginning to wonder if you knew everyone in the valley. Well, on with the inquisition. Incidentally, I would like to say that I’m honoured to be the prime suspect and/or the chosen villain.’

‘You’re neither a suspect nor villain. Wrong casting. If you wanted, say, to dispose of George or Alex or myself, or get your hands on something you thought we had, you’d use a heavy instrument. Surreptitious phone calls or secret tip-offs are not in your nature. Deviousness is not part of your stock-in-trade.’

‘Well, thank you. It’s a disappointment, though. I take it you want to ask some questions?

‘If I may.’

‘About myself, of course. Fire away. No, don’t fire away. Let me give you my curriculum vitae. Behind me lies a blameless existence. My life is an open book.

‘You’re right, I’m Montenegrin. Vladimir was my given name. I prefer Giacomo. In England they called me “Johnny”. I still prefer Giacomo.’

‘You lived in England?’

‘I am English. Sounds confusing, but not really. Before the war I was a second officer in the Merchant Navy – the Yugoslav one, I mean. I met a beautiful Canadian girl in Southampton so I left the ship.’ He said it as if it had been the most natural thing in the world to do and Petersen could readily understand that for him it had been. ‘There was a little difficulty at first at staying on in England but I’d found an excellent and very understanding boss who was working on a diving contract for the Government and who was one experienced diver short. I’d qualified as a diver before joining the merchant marine. By and by I got married –’

‘Same girl?’

‘Same girl. I became naturalized in August 1939 and joined the services on the outbreak of war the following month. Because I had a master’s ocean-going ticket and was a qualified diver who could have been handy at things like sticking limpet mines on to warships in enemy harbours and was a natural for the Navy, it was inevitable, I suppose, that they put me into the infantry. I went to Europe, came back by Dunkirk, then went out to the Middle East.’

‘And you’ve been in those parts ever since. No home leave?’

‘No home leave.’

‘So you haven’t seen your wife in two years. Family?’

‘Twin girls. One still-born. The other died at six months. Polio.’ Giacomo’s tone was matter-of-fact, almost casual. ‘In the early summer of ’41, my wife was killed in a Luftwaffe attack on Portsmouth.’

Petersen nodded and said nothing. There was nothing to say. One wondered why a man like Giacomo smiled so much but one did not wonder long.

‘I was with the Eighth Army. Long-Range Desert Group. Then some genius finally discovered that I was really a sailor and not a soldier and I joined Jellicoe’s Special Boat Service in the Aegean.’ Both those hazardous services called for volunteers, Petersen knew: it was pointless to ask Giacomo why he had volunteered. ‘Then the same genius found out some more about me, that I was a Yugoslav, and I was called back to Cairo to escort Lorraine to her destination.’

‘And what happens when you’ve delivered her to her destination?’

‘When you’ve delivered her, you mean. Responsibility over, from here on I just sit back and relax and go along for the ride. They thought I was the best man for the job but they weren’t to know I was going to have the good luck to meet up with you.’ Giacomo poured some more wine, leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly. ‘I haven’t a single cousin in the whole of Bosnia.’

‘If it’s luck, I hope it holds. My question, Giacomo.’

‘Of course. Afterwards. I’d happily turn back now, conscience clear, but I’ve got to get a receipt or something from this fellow Mihajlovi. I think they want me to take up diving again. Not hard to guess why – must have been the same genius who found out that I was an ex-sailor. As Michael said in that mountain inn, it’s a funny old world. I spent over three years fighting the Germans and in a couple of weeks I’ll be doing the same thing. This interlude, where I’m more or less fighting with the Germans – although I don’t expect I’ll ever see a German in Yugoslavia – I don’t like one little bit.’

‘You heard what George said to Michael. No point in rehashing it. A very brief interlude, Giacomo. You bid your charge a tearful farewell, trying not to smile, then heigh-ho for the Aegean.’

‘Trying not to smile?’ He considered the contents of his glass. ‘Well, perhaps. Yes and no. If this is a funny old world, she’s a funny young girl in a funny old war. Mercurial – like your cousin. Temperamental. Patrician-looking young lady but sadly deficient in patrician sang-froid. Cool, aloof, even remote at one moment, she can be friendly, even affectionate, the next.’

‘The affectionate bit has escaped me so far.’

‘A certain lack of rapport between you two has not escaped me either. She can be sweet and bad-tempered at the same time which is no small achievement. Most un-English. I suppose you know she’s English. You seem to know quite a bit about her.’

‘I know she’s English because George told me so. He also told me you were from Montenegro.’

‘Ah! Our professor of languages.’

‘Remarkable linguist with a remarkable ear. He could probably give you your home address.’

‘She tells me you know this Captain Harrison she’s going to work for?’

‘I know him well.’

‘So does she. Used to work for him before. Peacetime. Rome. He was the manager of the Italian branch of an English ball-bearing company. She was his secretary. That’s where she learned to speak Italian. She seems to like him a lot.’

‘She seems to like men a lot. Period. You haven’t fallen into her clutches yet, Giacomo?’

‘No.’ Again the broad smile. ‘But I’m working on it.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Petersen stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He crossed to where Sarina was sitting. ‘I’d like to talk to you. Alone. I know that sounds ominous, but it isn’t, really.’

‘What about?’

‘That’s a silly question. If I want to talk to you privately I don’t talk publicly.’

She rose and Michael did the same. He said: ‘You’re not going to talk to her without me.’

George sighed, rose wearily to his feet, crossed to where Michael was standing, put his two ham-like hands on the young man’s shoulders and sat him in his chair as easily as he would have done a little child.

‘Michael, you’re only a private soldier. If you were in the American army you’d be a private soldier, second class. I’m a Regimental Sergeant-Major. Temporary, mind you, but effective. I don’t see why the Major should have to be bothered with you. I don’t see why I should have to be bothered with you. Why should you bother us? You’re not a boy any more.’ He reached behind him, picked up a glass of Maraschino from the table and handed it to Michael, who took it sulkily but did not drink. ‘If Sarina’s kidnapped, we’ll all know who did it.’

Petersen took the girl up to her room. He left the door ajar, looked around but not with the air of one expecting to find anything and sniffed the air. Sarina looked at him coldly and spoke the same way.

‘What are you looking for? What are you sniffing for? Everything you do, everything you say is unpleasant, nasty, overbearing, superior, humiliating –’

‘Oh, come on. I’m your guardian angel. You don’t talk to your guardian angel that way.’

‘Guardian angel! You also tell lies. You were telling lies in the dining-room. You still think I sent a radio message.’

‘I don’t and didn’t. You’re far too nice for anything underhand like that.’ She looked at him warily then almost in startlement as he put his hands lightly on her shoulders, but did not try to flinch away. ‘You’re quick, you’re intelligent-unlike your brother but that’s not his fault – and I’ve no doubt you can or could be devious because your face doesn’t show much. Except for the one thing that would disqualify you from espionage. You’re too transparently honest.’

‘That’s a kind of left-handed compliment,’ she said doubtfully.

‘Left or right, it’s true.’ He dropped to his knees, felt under the foot of the rather ill-fitting door, stood, extracted the key from the inside of the lock and examined it. ‘You locked your door last night?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did you do with the key?’

‘I left it in the lock. Half-turned. That way a person with a duplicate key or a master can’t push your key through or on to a paper that’s been pushed under the door. They taught us that in Cairo.’

‘Spare me. Your instructor was probably a ten-year-old schoolboy. See those two tiny bright indentations on either side of the stem of the key?’ She nodded. ‘Made by an instrument much prized by the better-class burglar who’s too sophisticated to batter doors open with a sledge-hammer. A pair of very slender pincers with tips of either Carborundum or titanium stainless steel. Turn any key in a lock. You had a visitor during the night.’

‘Somebody took my radio?’

‘Somebody sure enough used it. Could have been here.’

‘That’s impossible. Certainly, I was tired last night but I’m not a heavy sleeper.’

‘Maybe you were last night. How did you feel when you woke up this morning – when you were woken, I mean?’

‘Well.’ She hesitated. ‘I felt a bit sick, really. But I thought I was perhaps over-tired and hadn’t had enough sleep or I was scared – I’m not a great big coward but I’m not all that brave either and it was the first time anyone had ever pointed a gun at me – or perhaps I just wasn’t used to the strange food.’

‘You felt dopey, in other words.’

‘Yes.’

‘You probably were doped. I don’t suggest flannel-foot crept stealthily in and applied a chloroform pad or anything of the kind, for the smell of that lingers for hours. Some gas that was injected through the keyhole from a nozzled canister that may well have come from the chemist’s joker shop where Alessandro buys his toys. In any event, I can promise you that you won’t be disturbed again tonight. And you rest easy in the knowledge that you’re not on anyone’s black list. Not judged, not condemned, not even suspected. You might at least have the grace to say that I’m not such an awful monster as you thought.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Maybe you’re not even a monster at all.’

‘You’re going to sleep, now?’ She nodded so he said goodnight and closed the door behind him.

Almost an hour elapsed before Petersen, George and Josip were left together in the dining-room. The others had been in no hurry to depart. The night’s events had not been conducive to an immediately renewed slumber and, besides, they were secure in the knowledge that there would be no early morning start.

George, who had returned to his red wine, was making steady inroads on his current uncounted bottle, looked and spoke as if he had been on mineral water all the time. There was, unfortunately, not the same lack of evidence about his cigar-smoking: an evilsmelling blue haze filled the upper half of the room.

‘Your friend, Major Cipriano, didn’t over-stay his welcome,’ Josip said.

‘He’s no friend of mine,’ Petersen said. ‘Never seen him before. Appearances mean nothing but he seems a reasonable enough character. For an intelligence agent, that is. Have you known him long?’

‘He has been here twice. As a bona-fide traveller. He’s no friend. Thanking me for my help was just an attempt to divert suspicion from whoever tipped him off. A feeble attempt, he must have known it would fail but probably the best he could think up at the time. What was his object in coming here?’

‘No mystery about that. Both the Germans and Italians are suspicious of me. I have a message to deliver to the leader of the etniks. On the boat coming across from Italy one of his agents, an unpleasant character called Alessandro, tried to get this message from me. He wanted to see if it was the same as a copy he was carrying. He failed, so Cipriano got worried and came across to Ploe. He was tipped off as to our whereabouts, came up here – almost certainly by light plane – and, when we were herded down here, went through our possessions, steamed open the envelope containing my message, found that it was unchanged and resealed it. Exit Cipriano, baffled but satisfied – for the moment anyway.’

George said: ‘Sarina?’

‘Someone got into her room in the early hours of this morning. That was after she had been doped. Her radio was used to call up Cipriano. Sarina says she trusts me now. I don’t believe her.’

‘It is as always,’ George said mournfully. ‘Every man’s – and woman’s – hands are against us.’

‘Doped?’ Josip was incredulous. ‘In my hotel? How can anyone be doped in my hotel?’

‘How can anyone be doped anywhere?’

‘Who was this villain?’

‘Villainess. Lorraine.’

‘Lorraine! That beautiful girl?’

‘Maybe her mind is not as beautiful as the rest of her.’

‘Sarina. Now Lorraine.’ George shook his head sadly. ‘The monstrous regiment of women.’

Josip said: ‘But how do you know?’

‘Simple arithmetic. Elimination. Lorraine went for a walk tonight and returned very hurriedly. She didn’t go for the walk’s sake. She went for something else. Information. You went with her, Josip. Do you recall her doing or saying anything odd?’

‘She didn’t do anything. Just walked. And she said very little.’

‘That should make it easy to remember.’

‘Well, she said it was odd that I didn’t have the name of the hotel outside. I told her I hadn’t yet got around to putting it up and that it was the Hotel Eden. She also said it was funny that there were no streets signs up, so I gave her the name of the street. Ah! So she got the name and address, no?’

‘Yes.’ Petersen rose. ‘Bed. I trust you’re not going to stay here for the remainder of the night, George.’

‘Certainly not.’ George fetched a fresh bottle from behind the bar. ‘But we academics must have our moments for meditation.’

At noon that day, Petersen and his six companions had still not left the Hotel Eden. Instead, they were just sitting down to a lunch which Josip had insisted they have, a meal that was to prove to be on a par with the dinner they had had the previous evening. But there was one vacant seat.

Josip said: ‘Where is the Professor?’

‘George,’ Petersen said, ‘is indisposed. In bed. Acute stomach pains. He thinks it must have been something he had to eat last night.’

‘Something he had to eat!’ Josip was indignant. ‘He had exactly the same to eat as anyone else last night – except, of course, a great deal more of it – and nobody else is stricken. My food, indeed! I know what ails the Professor. When I came down early this morning, just about two hours after you went to bed, the Professor was still here, still, as he said, meditating.’

‘That might help to account for it.’

That might have accounted for it but it didn’t account for George’s appearance some ten minutes after the meal had commenced. He tried to smile wanly but he didn’t look wan.

‘Sorry to be late. The Major will have told you I was unwell. However, the cramps have eased a little and I thought I might try a little something. To settle the stomach, you understand.’

By one o’clock George’s stomach seemed to have settled in a most remarkable fashion. In the fifty minutes that had intervened since his joining the company he had consumed twice as much as anyone else and effortlessly disposed of two large bottles of wine.

‘Congratulations are in order, George,’ Giacomo said. ‘One moment at death’s door and now – well, an incredible performance.’

‘It was nothing,’ George said modestly. ‘In many ways, I am an incredible man.’

Petersen sat on the bed in George’s room. ‘Well?’

‘Satisfactory. In one way, not well. There were two items that one would not have looked for in such an aristocratic young lady’s luggage. One was a very small leather case with a few highly professional burglarious tools. The other was a small metal box with some sachets inside, the sachets containing a liquid. When squeezed, the liquid turned into a gas. I sniffed only a very tiny amount. An anaesthetic of some kind, that’s certain. The interesting thing is that this little box, though smaller than Alessandro’s, was made of and lined with the same materials. What do we do with this young charmer?’

‘Leave her be. She’s not dangerous. If she were, she wouldn’t have made so amateurish a mistake.’

‘You said you knew the identity of the miscreant. She’s going to wonder why you haven’t disclosed it.’

‘Let her wonder. What’s she going to do about it?’

‘There’s that,’ George said. ‘There’s that.’