GOOD MANNERS REQUIRED THAT I meet again with the young American journalist David Herschel in light of the effort he has put into this project of his. Which project, though I’m still amazed by it, is me. He is an enthusiastic young fellow, quite pleasant really, and intent on impressing me with the seriousness of his suggestions. He’s succeeded, so far as that goes, but he cannot quite understand my hesitancy to leap in. I suppose he thinks it’s a matter of age; and it’s a delicate business conveying the vigor I still feel at seventy to a bustling young fellow of thirty or so.

It was a lovely soft October afternoon, and we were sitting outside on the terrace of the Ritz by the pool, with Eduard VII Park across the way, richly green at the top of the Avenue de Liberdade. David Herschel had not, I think, been prepared for the gentle beauty of Lisbon, nor for the exceptional splendor of the Ritz. My own preference is still the Avenida Palace. But if I were Herchel’s age I suppose I’d stay at the Ritz, too. In any case, it made an exceedingly pleasant spot for an afternoon libation. I took a sip of soda and lime, feeling the sunshine on my face, wishing I didn’t have to disappoint him.

“I can’t quite bring myself to say yes, I’m going to write the story of my life. …” I felt his eyes on me, sensed his frustration. “Forgive me, David, but I find it rather difficult to believe anyone will remember our little scheme—or care, for that matter.”

“Nonsense, Alves! In Europe they remember—maybe not the specifics, but Christ, man, they remember the Portuguese banknote—” He stopped short, nervously.

“Ah, go ahead, say it … ‘scandal.’ There’s certainly no denying it was a scandal.” Ever since he’d arrived in Lisbon to talk with me, I’d been trying to put him at his ease. He saw me in a peculiar light, one I could barely understand, but he was so earnest.

He nodded. We’d spent several hours together and I’d told him most of the story; it had held his interest. Maybe he was right; maybe people would respond to the story. Life takes such ornate, ironic turns. Maybe that’s why even now, nearing the end, I enjoy it so much. A slight breeze rippled the water in the pool, moved along the shadowed terrace. “Everybody’s going to know the story of Alves Reis. …” His enthusiasm shone through each word.

“But it is all ancient history,” I insisted one last time. “Forty years ago. We were all different people then. … Nobody cares now. That’s the way it should be. What do people care about what happened in the Twenties?”

“Everybody I’ve talked to in Lisbon remembers. The story has been passed on from one generation to the next.”

“You don’t say,” I said, laughing. “You talked with Arnaldo, did you?”

“Well, that estate of his—I damned near got lost looking for it.”

“Yes, I know. Arnaldo bought it years ago from José, a very kind gesture. As usual, José needed money. … Poor José.”

“This Arnaldo—he’s the one who quit on you, right? He finally saw me, but he’s not a very public man, is he?”

“Well, he’s a very wealthy man. He was never a very gregarious sort, and money makes a person even less so, don’t you think?”

“Well, he said he would not presume to speak for so great a man as Alves Reis. I would have to ask you.”

“He was always a kind, loyal friend.”

“And Salazar. … I saw him.”

“Don’t joke with me, David.”

“I’m not joking. All it took was the mention of your name. Alves Reis! Doors opened, the Premier could see me after all.”

“Incredible. What did he say?”

“He sort of croaked. Said I was wasting my time.” Herschel made a face, shaking his head. “Called you a reprobate, a disgrace to the Church … licentious. He seemed to think that was the perfect word for you.”

Once again I couldn’t help laughing. The old man never forgives; he was always the same. How could a man be so sure he was right? If I took politics seriously, with my brilliance and determination, I’d have assassinated the man long ago … but politics is a fool’s game.

“You know, David,” I mused, “there are certain scholars who say that Salazar owes everything to me. I’m sure that overstates the case. But there could have been no Salazar without an Alves Reis. Flattering but most regrettable in light of what he has done to Portugal. True or not, David, that has always amused me.”

He was straining at the chair as if he wanted to leap about with excitement. “You, Alves Reis, are the heart of Portugal. … Mankind deserves to know your story! You’ve got to put your mind to writing the book. And we’ve prepared to do it any way you want to do it. You can use a tape recorder, or we can provide you with a full-time secretary. Alves,” he said, “we’d be working together every step of the way. … What’s it gonna be?” He had insisted his publisher had given him the okay, was waiting for word that he’d convinced me.

“I must think about it, David,” I said. “I’ll give you an answer as soon as I can. But this involves my entire family, many dear friends, and I have to ask myself certain questions. Will anyone be hurt by telling the story again? Will my sons be discomfited by the inevitable notoriety? Would it, in fact, be better to let the past simply swallow the story?”

He gave me a somewhat baleful look. We sat quietly a bit longer, the business part of our meeting clearly completed. Did I know what answer I would finally give him? Yes, I think maybe I did; but I wanted to be sure, to make certain that it truly reflected the way I felt.

We walked to the end of the terrace. Our footsteps echoed on the floor. In the main lobby I saw my son’s car pulled up outside waiting for me. He was sitting behind the wheel intent on reading his book. I had finally succeeded in getting him to read P. G. Wodehouse.

Herschel saw me to the car, shook hands, and then, as we were pulling away, I heard his voice calling.

“Alves—one last question! Did you ever see her again?”

I leaned my head out the window; we were driving away. “Who, David?”

His voice sounded hoarse and distant.

“The actress, Greta Nordlund—did you ever see her again?”

I called back to him, couldn’t be sure whether he heard me, and then he was gone, out of sight as we turned the corner and headed out along the park. My son was a good driver, and I leaned back, only half conscious of Lisbon passing. Herschel’s questions had set me thinking, for better or worse. It was all coming back to me, echoes from across the gulf of time. …

When they came to get me at the harbor I was improvising an appropriate response and, all things considered, I don’t regret the way I handled it. It was the sixth of December, 1925, a sad and rainy winter morning. The old S. S. Adolf Woerman was anchored in the bay at Cascais, awaiting the pilot boat. Through the fog and mist I saw that familiar stretch of beach that had been the setting for so many enjoyable moments. It was six in the morning. I was standing at the rail wondering what the future held for Maria and me when I noticed a boat coming toward us across the bay. As they drew closer I heard my name called. Some friends had come to warn me that handcuffs awaited me in Lisbon. They suggested I flee.

It all seemed so absurd, particularly in light of our recent triumphs in Angola. From that to this, well, it struck me as exceedingly unlikely. But the story they told had the ring of truth. An investigation into the affairs of my bank in Oporto had turned up counterfeits in the vaults. There was also a warrant for Hennies.

Once the boat had departed, Hennies, who had joined me on deck to hear the news, turned to me with a weary smile, adjusted his monocle and said, “Well, it was too good to last, old man. We’d better get out of here. Every great man knows when to make a strategic withdrawal.”

“But, Adolf, I have committed no crime. I refuse to let myself become the sacrificial goat just because my friends at the Bank of Portugal lost to the other faction.”

There was, I fancied, a twinkle of recognition in his eyes. I suspect it was dawning on him just how well I had laid my defenses.

“Wouldn’t it be better to continue the fight and help your friends from abroad?”

“No, I must stay and fight,” I said calmly. My mind, however, was racing. “I have photographic copies of the contracts and all the supporting evidence I need to prove that I was ordered to carry out the banknote issues by the governor and vice-governor of the Bank of Portugal.”

“Alves, there isn’t much time to sort this out. But you must listen to me. … Admiralty lawyers have an expression—peril point, when you pass the point at which you cannot recover from your own peril. Damn it, if you wait until they come and arrest you, you’ll be bloody well past the peril point. … You’ll have to prove your innocence from a jail cell! You can avoid the peril simply by coming away with me and fighting from Paris or Berlin.”

I was adamant. Perhaps it was vanity. And anger, too. Here they were, coming to arrest me for no more than what the Bank of Portugal, with governmental approval, had been doing ever since the turn of the century—putting some new money into the economy. The only difference was that I knew what to do with it, for the betterment of both Portugal and Angola as well as for myself. But I wasn’t one of them: I had to go to jail. Well, there was going to be a fight.

Hennies was in an altogether different position. It made good sense for him to get out. Once they had him in jail, God only knew what they would start digging up. He had a past of extraordinary complexity, and it wouldn’t bear scrutiny. He wisely made a deal with the German ship’s captain. For a small cash consideration he arranged to leave the ship on the pilot boat at seven. He had with him a large cash reserve, letters of credit and a very old passport. He was a remarkable man, old Adolf. I wished him luck and went to our cabin to tell Maria what was going on.

The new Maria took it well. We had grown closer again, but neither of us was clear about the future. I missed Greta, and Maria was not at all sure she wished to return to Lisbon in my shadow. She was no longer dependent on me to see her through. I thanked God just then that she was as she was. There were no tears. She listened carefully as I told her what she must say in the future—lies, yes, but crucial to the defense I was already planning in detail. She would have to attest at all times that Camacho Rodrigues and Mota Gomes had dined at our home, all the secret meetings they attended in my library at the Menino d’Ouro. “And,” I cautioned her, “you must recount these tales with conviction.” She nodded. She understood.

At various times I’ve asked myself, when did she realize the fact of my crime? In Paris, when she found the fake stationery? On the S. S. Adolf Woerman? I never asked her.

In any case, I kissed her goodbye, told her to give the children my love and handed her over to Adolf for the trip to shore. I wasn’t sure when I’d see her again, but I had no doubt that it would be soon. After all, there were limits in Portugal to holding a man, and with the case I had there really wasn’t anything to worry about.

The police came on board at nine o’clock and I was waiting for them, trunks packed, freshly bathed, talcumed, cologned. I wished there was a fresh flower for my lapel. I was optimistic.

On shore they took me to a police car. There was no need for handcuffs, and they treated me with respect, as if they were embarrassed by what they were doing. I sat alone in the rear seat. The car moved slowly through the rain, passing the waterside cafés. Looking out through the streaked window, I saw Adolf sitting inconspicuously by himself, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. The Adolf Woerman rode quietly past the quayside, a ghost ship in the fog. It wouldn’t be leaving until its wealthy German traveler was back on board.

I didn’t find out until later that I was arrested on purely trumped-up charges stemming from the Bank of Portugal idiots in Oporto calling the Lisbon police on Saturday! It wasn’t until nearly noon on Sunday, three hours after my arrest, that Smythe-Hancock found the first counterfeit.

I was taken to the civil governor of Lisbon and then by order of Dr. Crispiniano da Fonseca, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, I was transferred to the questioning cell of the Pampulaha precinct, where I would be questioned by Dr. Fonseca on the morrow.

My spirits took a resounding fall. It reminded me too much of the Oporto jail. The horrible hole I was thrust into poisoned every decent instinct in my heart. The damp, infected and morbid atmosphere of a cell with no light and no air revealed the inhumanity of the Republic. If such methods were to be used to wrench my secret from me … well, it stiffened my resolve not to surrender.

That was when I began to commit my greatest crime—I would not give up. My blood was at the boil, sitting there in my best suit in that wretched stinkhole. How curious fate is! If they had treated me like the Hero of Angola, the greatest financial genius in Portugal, how much trouble everyone might have been saved. …

But life develops its own rhythms, as I have come to learn over these forty years. Scandal was going to be my revenge, and I coolly, quite calmly, began to conceive an all-out-attack—on innocent men, yes, innocent in this instance, but hardly innocent in any larger moral sense. The governor and vice-governor of the Bank of Portugal, the High Commissioner of Angola, the politicians—and I wanted to drag them all down in the wake of Alves Reis.

That is, if I was about to go under. … And if I were to survive, well, somebody else would have to pay up. It would have to be Camacho Rodrigues, Mota Gomes and their flunkies. In this manner, occupied with these less than uplifting thoughts, I passed the hours on my filthy cot.

It was late that afternoon that Campos e Sa got the word to Camacho. By then they had found several counterfeit notes.

The next day, Monday, the Bank of Portugal wired all their branches that all holders of the Vasco da Gama notes could exchange them for new notes of a different face. Camacho wired Sir William Waterlow that falsifications had been discovered; an expert from London was required. On Tuesday Sir William wired that a deputation from Waterlow was preparing to leave for Lisbon.

While people gathered at banks all over Portugal to wait in exchanging lines, the rumors flew in considerable profusion: the Bank of Portugal itself was involved in the counterfeiting scheme and several directors were already on their way to jail … or it had been a German plot to acquire Portugal’s colonies … the notes were imported from Russia. … With each telling the rumors grew. In Lisbon and Oporto there were riots at the banks.

Incredibly enough, I had not yet begun my campaign.

Under the law I could be held under suspicion for a total of eight days; I might legally be held incommunicado only forty-eight hours. In my case the laws were a mockery, no better than a police state whether it was called a republic or not. I was held a week without recourse to a lawyer. I knew nothing of Maria or José. Had he been arrested? Were Hennies and Marang under arrest? Most people have never spent time in prison. They do not know precisely what it is like, but for the clever and resourceful fellow, many things are possible. Once I was removed from the interrogation quarters, I found myself in a more commodious cell, still poorly ventilated but not entirely uninhabitable. I still had the contents of my trunk from the ship, and I made the best of it. Though I was being held without external communications, the quick arrests of Camacho and Mota Gomes cast me in a new, somewhat more favorable light. Thinking it possible I might indeed be innocent, my jailors made certain amenities available to me. Bearing my bank draft, one of them went shopping to furnish my cell as I wished. I was also allowed paper, pens and other normal office supplies.

I was so indignant at the complete disregard of my rights as a Portuguese citizen that I began to fight them on their own level. Given my office supplies and confidence, I falsified documents and letters, including receipts allegedly signed by Camacho and Mota Gomes. I knew their signatures as well as I knew my own. With a few well-placed bribes, I had some smuggled out to The Hague to convince Marang that my story was indeed a true one; others I used on the spot.

I wanted to revenge myself at all costs on a justice that sought the severest punishment for an Alves Reis, while others who had long held positions of power and influence were given carte blanche to do with Portuguese laws as they wished. Did I think I could win in the end? It was a very long time ago. …

Dr. Costa Santos, Attorney General of the Republic, was in charge of the investigation. In our interviews he was not a congenial fellow, not the chap you’d want investigating you if you’d pulled the greatest swindle since the invention of paper money. In a matter of a few minutes, secure in my little forgery factory, I created a receipt proving that he had once received a twenty-five-thousand-dollar gift from Alves Reis. When I bestowed it upon my captors poor Dr. Costa Santos was at once removed from the case. A lunatic replaced him.

Dr. José Pinto Magalhaes and I got along famously. He interviewed me in my cell for several hours as soon as he was assigned the job—Chief Investigating Judge. A high-strung gentlemen, he was wholly sympathetic to my unhappy plight. He kept telling me he knew an honest man when he saw one, that throughout his career he’d time and again been proven an infallible judge of character. “I’ve based my entire career on my instincts, young man!” he would say, puffing a great drooping briar, filling my cell with pungent latakia fumes. “Tell me your story. And before I walk out this door I’ll tell you whether you’re guilty or innocent. How’s that for a bargain, eh?”

He was a large man, rotund, with a red rash on the back of his hands, and shoes that squeaked. I remember the rash because he was always picking at it, flaking off bits of dead skin. I remember the squeaking shoes because, as I talked, he was constantly leaping thunderously from his chair—yes, I’d had a pair of very nice club chairs installed in my cell—and pacing about the available space.

When the story was over he fixed me with a burning stare from beneath wild, bushy eyebrows.

“By God, man!” he bellowed, like a great animal rattling his cage. “You’re the scapegoat. It’s perfectly obvious. Only a madman would have tried what they say you did … and you’re as sane as I am! Your story is obviously true.” He charged about the cell, ashes dribbling from his pipe.

It was the first night I slept soundly.

In the morning—of the day Camacho and Mota Gomes were arrested—Judge Pinto Magalhaes returned to my cell, full of high spirits and eager to get to work on my behalf. Rather to my amazement he insisted on calling me “your excellency.” He finally informed me about what was happening to my friends and family. Maria was worried, but he assured me that she would soon be visiting me—later in the day perhaps. José was under arrest, held only one floor away from me, and as a surprise he’d arranged for José to join me in my cell for lunch. He wondered if there were any other comforts he might provide me. I requested that he send over the newspapers dating from the time of my arrest and make sure that henceforth they be delivered daily.

My meetings with Maria and José were unproductive. She was numb from the turn life had taken, and José was struck virtually dumb by the tidal wave of events. While José possessed a native shrewdness that occasionally served him well, the fact was he simply wasn’t very bright. Dapper, handsome, stylish: a bit of a dim bulb, unfortunately. He thought he’d left all this prison stuff behind him, and he was frightened. He could hardly speak. I suppose I should have been thankful he didn’t babble.

In the morning I read the Diario de Noticias with more than a little interest.

ACT OF INSANITY?

A serious occurrence took place yesterday which can only be attributed to a sudden disturbance in the mind of the Chief Investigating Judge, Dr. Pinto Magalhaes. During an exchange of conversation with a Foreign Ministry Official, the latter asked the judge what he believed was the consensus of opinion in the Bank of Portugal regarding the counterfeit note case. The judge grew suddenly excited and with wild gestures shouted to the Foreign Office official that he had naturally come to make insinuations on behalf of the government. “I am working hard to do my duty, and if I am not doing any more it’s because I cannot.” He then shouted very loudly that he couldn’t stand it anymore. A crowd of people flocked into the room. The judge then dashed over to Dr. Camacho Rodrigues and Dr. Mota Gomes, who were also present, and, grabbing them by their coat lapels, he cried out in a voice that was heard all over the building: “You are under arrest! At my orders!” Then addressing a policeman who was there, the judge said: “Take them to a police station. Right away.” The two bank officials were taken to a room next to the Civil Governor’s office.

This rapid and unexpected scene left everyone astounded, and the judge’s excitement continued. Questioned by some present who pointed out the gravity of his order, the judge said: “You are right! This is really serious. If there is nothing in the investigation that is against these men, I’ll put a bullet in my brain.”

The newspapers had become obsessed with me. Those sent to my cell included a complete set of O Seculo’s attacks on me while I was in Angola. The mere fact of my arrest and imprisonment had not satisfied them. Presumably the name of Alves Reis on the front page sold newspapers.

REIS: SPECIAL STATUS?

It is strange that the judge should have authorized Alves Reis to furnish in princely fashion the jail at the Lapa Police Station in which he is held and which already contains sofas, a dressing table, mirrors, rugs, etc. We don’t know whether he installed central heating, but it seems nothing is missing for one who is used to the social amenities and receives frequent visitors. He enjoys a special status that softens imprisonment and encourages him to stand up to all endeavors to force him to speak the truth. Despite his incommunicability Reis knows all that goes on outside, reads the papers and receives the visits of his wife, who is in touch with his lawyer. In the Chief Investigator, Judge Pinto Magalhaes, Reis has found the ideal lawyer for his defense and his great protector. Were it not for him, the mystery of the A and M Bank would have been unraveled long ago.

There was a good deal of truth in the O Seculo piece. If anything they underestimated the extent to which the Chief Investigator had fallen under my spell. Shortly after I read of the arrest of Camacho and Mota Gomes the judge told me his version of the events of the previous afternoon and pleaded with me: “I’ve taken a great step in your behalf. Don’t let me down, Alves.”

“You are doing a magnificent job, Judge,” I said. “Rest easy. You’ve got the two men who perpetrated this crime. In a few days there’ll be irrefutable evidence.”

While the judge was quite possibly a certifiable lunatic, he wasn’t alone in his belief in me. All over Lisbon and throughout Portugal our cause had caught the fancy of the people. Rallies were held in cities, towns and villages. The people clearly believed I had been the tool of a real but utterly incredible plot concocted by the governor and vice-governor of the Bank of Portugal.

After a week of imprisonment, even with the surroundings I had arranged for myself, I was beginning to feel an immense loneliness. I could hear the shouts outside, at least in my mind, and I was growing acutely aware of the world I was missing and which I had grown to enjoy so much of late. Maria, what to do and feel about her? I was in a quandary. I was growing desperate, however, from want of word from Greta. But there was nothing.

The Waterlow party arrived on Sunday evening, the thirteenth of December. Normally I would have been limited to whatever was reported in the papers, but I had a special correspondent of my own, the judge himself, who spent the entire week questioning Sir William and his associates. Most of the week’s events were carried off in a manner I had thought existed only in the novels of the immortal Wodehouse. Ridiculous confusion and missed appointments between the bank’s board and Sir William, mistaken identities and the virtual arrest of Sir William by the judge. Most days he found time to stop by the cell and fill me in on Sir William’s difficulties.

“He’s all right, for an Englishman,” he said one day. “Stuffed shirt, but I don’t suppose he’s used to dealing with slippery bastards like these bank fellows. The fact is, there are no honest trade practices in our country, and he just got caught in one of the biggest swindles of all. Would you care to join us tomorrow? You might help clear up a few points.” I assented and he filled his pipe, settling in for another half hour. He sighed resignedly, laughing softly. “The reporters are waiting nervously each day. They don’t want to be somewhere else when I shoot myself!”

My appearance was simple enough. Sir William and I shook hands soberly.

“Sorry to see you in this state, Senhor Reis,” he said.

“These things happen,” I said. “I have been used by these criminals at the bank, but it will all straighten itself out in the end. I thank you for your concern, Sir William.” His face was terribly red. I had the feeling that he was a sick man, whether he knew it or not.

Under the judge’s questioning I merely stated that the contracts on which we had acted were genuine, given me by the governor of the Bank of Portugal. That seemed to satisfy everyone. Sir William’s main concern was clearly how much he might be judged to owe the Bank of Portugal, if it came to that. How much was Waterlow going to have to make good on?

Very little was actually decided when the Waterlow party departed a week later. But their presence had caused a stir in the press, and the judge suggested that to avoid a scene in Rossio Station they make their exit under assumed names. Sir William used the name of “Smith,” but the judge and some of his investigators saw them off, focusing attention on their much photographed faces and causing a huge onrush of the curious. My one greatest fear at that moment was that Judge Pinto Magalhaes would foul things up so badly that he would be removed from the case. That would be very bad luck for Alves Reis.

On the day Waterlow left Lisbon, O Seculo called all of Portugal to the barricades of outrage at the state of things.

THIS IS MORALITY?

We shall say it again: the Angola and Metropole Bank scandal could only be possible in a country such as ours, where misery prevails. In another country of sound morality, or even a less venal morality, the Reises and their ilk could never put into practice such a large-scale plan. This could only happen in a country where rottenness has corrupted all the fibers that make up the honor, the dignity and the prestige of a nation. All of the collective virtues have vanished. All of the basic qualities of the race, maintained by tradition through the centuries, through every calamity and sacrifice, have been throttled and despised by political gangs, greedy for money, no matter how acquired. Then there appeared Marang, a diplomat from a republic of blacks; Bandeira, the South African convict and then the Oporto thief, and then their trunks of 500-escudo notes. Everyone bowed low before them. The gang’s success was complete.

Up in Coimbra at the university a pale, intense professor of economics was reading the accounts of the banknote case with more than routine interest. His doctoral thesis had dealt with the evolution of Portuguese currency; he was, at thirty-six, one of the country’s leading economists. Not without political ambitions of his own, it had not struck him yet how my difficulties might involve him, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, personally.

During my first weeks in prison I found the time going quickly, rather to my surprise. There was so much intrigue: the friendship and confidences extended me by Judge Pinto Magalhaes, the messages I was sending to Hennies and Marang in hopes that we might all buttress one another’s defenses, the messages Maria would take out to my lawyer, the purchasing of furniture for my cell, the odd relationship developing between José and me, the longing I felt regarding Greta, who had vanished from my life, though I knew perfectly well she was in Paris performing in Outward Bound. I suppose at such moments I’d have given ten years of my life to spend whatever remained with her in Paris, having our picnics and walking by the bookstalls along the Seine and riding her horses on the cold, foggy mornings in the Bois de Boulogne. That was the life I wanted.

Maria remained in the Menino d’Ouro. Once again her parents were called on to comfort her. She was not the same helpless child they had always known, and that no doubt made their job easier, though I suppose they also found it sad, too.

One day under a bright, chilly sky José and I walked in the small exercise yard. We were allowed our own clothing, and he was surely the best-dressed prisoner in the world, though in my Parisian suits I was a good deal more stylish than I had once been. Regrettably there was a small round smudge on José’s pearl-gray Borsalino.

“It’s almost Christmas,” he said glumly.

“Happy Christmas,” I said.

“We’re never going to get out of here. …” He was near tears. “Damn it, Alves, I’m so afraid. …”

“Of course we are. Trust me, José. Have I ever let you down?”

“No, but I’ve let you down in so many ways.” He kicked a stone that bounded against the high brick wall. “I never gave you back the money you sent me in Mozambique. …” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ve let you down in more ways than you know. …” He couldn’t look me in the eye.

“Is that right, José? You want to get it off your chest? You can always confide in me. Remember that, José. Come on,” I said, cuffing him on the shoulder. We were being watched by officers behind the glass, smoking cigarettes. “We’ve been down before and come back.”

“Not this time,” he said. “I’m going to die in here.”

There was no consoling him.

Much of our finances were locked up tight, but I had taken precautions; there were other accounts elsewhere, under a variety of names. My agents made certain that Maria had plenty of money for the children’s Christmas. I tried not to worry about them.

Judge Pinto Magalhaes visited me on Christmas Day, bringing with him an English plum pudding and hard sauce. Ceremoniously he stuck a candle in the center and lit it. I couldn’t help shedding a tear. This man believed in me.

After I’d cut the plum pudding, he withdrew a fine port from his overcoat pocket and we toasted our Savior.

“It makes me think,” he said, half to himself. “They’re crucifying me, too.” He laughed mirthlessly. “There’s no doubt about it. They’re out to get me.”

I leaned back in my deep club chair, sinking a fork into the rich sweet as I listened to his story.

The directors of the bank had been threatening to resign for a week or so, blaming their persecution by the judge. Yesterday they had called a meeting in the directors’ room at the bank, making sure that the press and the judge were there. They began by steadfastly proclaiming their innocence of any wrongdoing of any kind.

After interjecting the suggestion that the Communists were probably behind it, they got to the real purpose of the meeting. They announced their joint resignations!

By now it was becoming apparent that this was indeed the most dramatic moment in the bank’s history. The group adjourned for the length of time it took to march to a larger meeting room, where a stockholders’ meeting had been convened. Pandemonium. Our shares, officially owned by the Bank of Angola and Metropole, were now in the custody of the Liquidating Commission and would not be voted.

Vice-Governor Mota Gomes—both he and Camacho had been released from prison several days before, the Premier overruling the judge’s orders—spoke first, sobbing openly as he described the insane judge’s behavior. His chins quivered, enveloping his collar, the knot in his tie. His pudgy hands trembled as he fought to control himself.

“There gradually appeared in the press,” Gomes said, voice choked with emotion, “and in the streets a campaign of discredit against this great institution. They accuse it of a crime of which it was the sole immediate victim. … Not only in our country but also abroad, newspapers with wide circulation have no hesitation in presenting the Bank of Portugal as swindlers. This was the result of a gesture by a magistrate absolutely unworthy of occupying such a position!”

The judge’s eyes misted over as he revealed the calumny to which he had been subjected on Christmas Eve. Then came Governor Innocencio Camacho Rodrigues, and the applause that had rattled the room following Gomes’ remarks was redoubled as the crowd spotted him! He cried, too. What a scene! The judge grimaced over his plum pudding, re-creating it for me. Camacho gathered his composure and began with an apology, babbled on in an excess of self-pity as the crowd cheered.

“Anyway,” the judge said, preparing to take his leave, “there are other crowds in other places cheering your name, Alves.” He looked at me in an almost fatherly way, this strange and inexplicable man. “Don’t lose faith. You will be vindicated yet. …”At the door he whispered, “Merry Christmas.”

His belief in me was touching.

In London Edgar Waterlow had successfully challenged Sir William’s control of the firm over the issue of a company committee resolved to investigate the “facts and circumstances” surrounding their dealings with us. Sir William fought it, proposing instead that he have ten days to draw up his own complete report. The issue was joined, and Edgar’s supporters carried the day, five votes to four. To all intents and purposes, Sir William’s control of the company was finished. His bitterest enemy was now in effective command.

New Year’s Eve was a low point. José came to my cell and we drank champagne. He was more talkative than he’d been lately. He wanted to reminisce, and we naturally turned to the New Year’s Eve exactly a year before. The party at Greta’s apartment, the snow drifting down through the glow of street lamps outside the cafés …

José chuckled. “God, how I misbehaved that night.”

“You were a very bad boy,” I agreed.

“I’d gladly go through it again if we could be back in Paris tonight.” His grin faded. Reality was a little closer each day. “Those days are gone forever.”

“No, no, we’ll see Paris again.”

“Tell me, Alves, did you forge the contracts? Was it all a swindle?”

“Of course,” I said.

“By God! You really did it!” Life filled his face again.

He threw his arms around me, hugged me to him, kissed my cheeks like a French politician dispensing the Legion of Honor.

Late that night, as 1925 passed on into 1926, the year of my thirtieth birthday, I sat by myself. I’d been reading my dear Wodehouse. I was finally beginning to understand his books; perhaps I was going crazy myself. But I put the book aside and rubbed my tired eyes. Then I went to my small writing desk and took a sheet of stationery, uncapped my Big Red.

Dear Greta, I began. It is 1926, my love, and I am beginning it with thoughts of you. …

1926 did not begin well for any of us.

In The Hague the authorities celebrated New Year’s Day by arresting Marang. Up to the last minute Hennies had urged him to disappear into Germany with him, but Marang demurred. Thirty minutes before the police came for Karel, Adolf slipped away, resumed one of his previous identities, fading into the crowd.

The judge sent Antonio to The Hague to get the contracts from Marang, and that was another mess. José finally got word to him that Greta had the contracts in Paris. Antonio went to Paris to get them.

The Lisbon daily ABC had sent a reporter to Paris, and much to my surprise the copy that was delivered to my cell on January 3 featured a front-page interview with Greta.

When she was visiting in Lisbon last summer, the elegant actress was a woman of mystery. Her picture appeared regularly in the papers in the company of the notorious Reis and his partner in rascality, José Bandeira. She became a subject of gossip and speculation. Where was Senhora Reis? Who was the famous actress really visiting? There were stories that she left her hotel late at night for secret trysts. But with whom? All was forgiven her, then, however. She was daring, vivacious, world-famous. We expected excitement where she was involved.

But with the uncovering of Senhor Reis’s unusual manipulations of the Portuguese economy, the gossip and rumor turned against Greta Nordlund. Praise in Lisbon became insults, admirers turned into accusers.

“Tell me, what will the future hold for Alves?” she asked when contacted by our reporter in Paris, where she is currently starring in a successful production of Outward Bound. “Is it true that he is being harshly treated? Has he done anything wrong? And poor petit José, what of him? They’ve told me what the Portuguese papers are saying about me—that I wasn’t even an actress, had only walk-on parts. They called me a cocotte and said that everything I did was for their money, that I am responsible for wrecking Alves Reis’s marriage, that I spent all his money. What nonsense!

“When I was in Lisbon they called me the Scandinavian Sarah Bernhardt! But from such people it was silly praise! What did they know of my art, my class, my position? And now they insult me. But I don’t care. What hurts me is not that they should doubt me as a woman but as an actress. You’ve seen for yourself. All Europe honors me. In the streets, in hotel lobbies, in restaurants, wherever I go, people whisper about me: ‘It’s Greta, it’s Greta!’ For them I mean nights of emotion, tears and happiness. To think they consider me in Lisbon a grasping, ambitious, wasteful woman. … They slander me. All I want to know is what is to become of my dear friend Alves Reis.”

It was very good to hear of her, and her concern buoyed my spirits. Soon I would hear from her personally, obviously. I was amused by her question: has he done anything wrong? I could imagine the performance she gave for the reporter, knowing the truth the whole time. What a remarkable creature!

The worst news of all came the same day. Pressure from the Bank of Portugal had led to the removal of Judge Pinto Magalhaes from the case. My last, best ally was gone! His replacement was Dr. Joaquim Augustes Alves Ferreira, an Inspector of the Courts, a Judge of the Supreme Court—an impressive fellow and distressingly sane. He forbade Judge Magalhaes even to visit my cell to say farewell.

With Ferreira heading the investigation I began to feel the full force of the state. I was cut off from the outside world; the more they questioned me, the more implacable my reserve became. Police Chief José Xavier stormed into my cell one day to tell me that not only had Maria been arrested but was being held in a filthy, rat-infested cell. They had been questioning me—two teams working in relays—for twenty hours. I was exhausted; finally I broke down, sobbing. I told them that Maria was innocent, that only I was guilty.

An hour later I was myself again. It had been a trick. I was not at all sure they had even arrested Maria. I retracted my confession. “Not another word,” I told them, “until I am brought to trial.”

January 11 found Sir William and his Scottish attorneys back in Lisbon at Dr. Ferreira’s request. Sir William wanted to make a settlement with the bank, but reaching a sum of indemnity agreeable to both parties was a difficult task, indeed. Both parties saw different animals. Waterlow saw a small skunk, not too dangerous but potentially awfully smelly. The bank looked about fearfully and saw an enormous monster, so big and dangerous they hadn’t even been able to establish its measurements. They suspected that it might be getting bigger and more destructive all the time. Obviously Waterlow and the bank were on a collision course to litigation; in the meantime Waterlow would get no more business from Portugal.

Marang hired the best lawyers in Holland, and he remained utterly loyal to me. Although we were in jails hundreds of miles apart we managed to stay in contact by means of secret couriers. We prearranged our defenses. He cleverly guarded his money and its whereabouts. Unlike poor, foolish José, Marang never for a moment lost his head. Some of mine had been seized, but I had other accounts they simply could not find.

January passed into February, February into March. I learned that the international police were after Hennies. They knew he was in Berlin and were using an old mistress in their attempts to find him. I wrote to Marang, asking him somehow to get word to Hennies if he had a way to keep in touch. The Bank of Portugal also sent an agent to Berlin.

By now I knew for certain that Maria—my sweet little Maria, who had been through so much—was being held in Ajube Women’s Prison. Through our courier system I had Marang give the messenger the money to stop in Paris for the purchase of six brassieres and matching vests in good crepe de Chine embroidered in pink from the Galeries Lafayette; also six boxes of Doge face powder, twelve pairs of silk stockings. … I was deeply concerned about keeping her spirits up.

The Bank of Portugal opposed her release, believing still that she was their only hope of getting a confession out of me. They knew of my love for her and the children; they were counting on my nature to collapse my resolve. Bravely Maria clung to the stories I had told her to tell the investigators. Not until late March did she break down and tell the truth, after being held almost ninety days.

Antonio Horta Osario, the Bank of Portugal’s attorney, argued vehemently against her release.

The consequences of my acts against the Bank of Portugal kept spreading even wider. Even in my cell I could hear the mobs outside in the streets. From them I drew the strength to go on. I heard them chant my name, heard myself become a symbol, a rallying cry. … On May 28 the government was overthrown! The revolution was led by General Gomes da Costa, who issued a proclamation in the city of Braga, up in the northeast corner of Portugal, calling on his countrymen to join the struggle for national honor and dignity by throwing out the incumbent Democratic Party. It wasn’t much of a revolution, nothing compared to what we experienced in Angola during the 1960s. But between May 28 and 31 the country did rise more or less in arms—at least most of the army garrisons mobilized and the government in Lisbon went down without a casualty. During the days of the revolution no one made the slightest effort to save the government! There was simply no will to survive. It was like a dead, hollow tree slowly toppling over in nothing more than a high wind. The woodsman’s ax wasn’t needed. What had been done to me—the Hero of Angola—had brought Portugal back to life. What had been done to me and what the people knew I had tried to do for Portugal. …

Coming down from Coimbra was the new Finance Minister, Professor Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

My fame and the public support I received was growing. A novel was published stating the popular viewpoint, proclaiming me the potential—but thwarted—savior of the country. It was a fantasy, of course, but the people took it seriously. In their fervor, the fact that I was just a man never crossed their minds.

The night sky over Lisbon glowed with bonfire rallies in my behalf. The people sustained me as I realized that I was in fact being denied the opportunity to serve Portugal.

The Chamber of Deputies agreed with the populace at large on at least one point: I was no ordinary criminal. The Chamber passed a new law by which I would be tried not by a jury but by a panel of judges.

There were no laws in the Criminal Code to cover what I had done.

So they made some up.

If the state was going to convict me, it would have to be done with unconstitutional ex post facto laws.

Marang was tried in The Hague at the beginning of December 1926. My lawyers, however, had concluded that a speedy trial was bound to work against me. They undertook a series of delaying actions, hoping the case would grow cold with the passing of time, hoping that the passions would burn themselves out.

Marang’s trial lasted six days. On December 10 the three judges found him guilty on one charge of receiving stolen property. The four trunks of Bank of Portugal notes that served as the evidence in the case were ordered destroyed. He was sentenced to eleven months.

Since he had already spent eleven months in jail awaiting trial, he was ordered released at once. Before the prosecution could get the matter before the Court of Appeals, Marang took his wife and four children to Brussels. Under Belgian law no extradition of criminals was possible for sentences of less than four years.

When I wasn’t thinking about my own delicate situation I tried to distract myself with newspapers and books, much as I had done when confined in the Oporto jail. When I concerned myself with what was going on in the great world, I could almost feel part of it. Even now, in 1966, I can recall the great hum and buzz of the world beyond my cell.

Ibn Saud became King of Saudi Arabia, Pilsudski staged his coup in Poland, Abd-el-Krim’s Riff war ended, everyone seemed to be singing the music from The Desert Song, and Dr. Paul Joséf Goebbels was named Gauleiter of Berlin. Harry Houdini and Valentino died, and I read a brand-new book by one of Greta’s friends, The Sun Also Rises. Germany was admitted to the League of Nations. On my radio I heard a new song that wouldn’t leave my head: “I Found a Million Dollar Baby in the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store.” I experienced it all, sitting in my club chair, having my meals brought in from Lisbon’s best restaurants. Sometimes the unreality of it almost drove me mad.

In the summer I received the first letter from Greta.

My dearest Thunderbolt,

No, my darling, I have not forgotten you, nor have my feelings for you changed. I have followed your case as closely as possible. My tardiness in writing was planned—I knew you had a great deal on your mind and needed to concentrate fully on your difficulties. Now, you must have a plan of action to follow and I do not feel as if I am intruding.

Also, I had no idea what your trip to Angola with Maria had led to, in terms of your relationship. Well, I still don’t know but I had to write to you—almost to remind myself as well as you of all that we have been to each other.

My work goes well. I will be making another film soon, possibly with a man named Fritz Lang directing. He is very good. A.H. turned up in Paris one day, incognito. We talked—all seems to be going quite well for him.

What to say, my darling? There is no other man in my life. How is poor little José? Give him my love. Write to me if you wish. Alves, my life is so much less without you.

Your Greta

I was overjoyed to hear from her. I had never accepted my feeling for her so completely as I did now that she was out of my reach.

She was the great love of my life: I admitted it now without a qualm.

It was not as easy for me to admit the truth about Maria and José. They had become lovers in Carlsbad, not, I think, out of any great attraction but from their own personal needs to revenge themselves on me. José saw himself closed out of Greta’s affections; Maria … well, she took José as her lover out of loneliness and spite. If it had been an act of love, then she would have chosen Arnaldo.

No, I never spoke to either Maria or José about it. What good would it have done? I wasn’t at all sure that I minded. What I was sure of was my feeling for Greta. I think the key is simply—December to December, 1924 to 1925—we were all becoming people we had not been before.

I wrote to Greta, a warm, friendly letter. I was afraid of expressing too much sentiment. It might frighten her off. After all, she was free and successful and well off. There was no need to make her feel bound to me. If I were set free soon I would simply go to her; if my defense failed and I faced a lengthy imprisonment, she would be free to carry on with her own life. I was behaving as decently as I knew how.

We began a regular correspondence. We seldom touched on the future. We were waiting. She may have had lovers. I don’t really know. I do know that her letters kept me alive.

As for Maria, the government kept our contact to a minimum. I saw her twice during the last half of 1926. Her moods would shift wildly even during the course of an hour’s chat. One moment rational and stable, the next weeping over the wreckage of our lives. Our meetings did little to sustain either of us, I’m afraid.

I got a long letter from Arnaldo, as well. He was living with Silvia in Luanda, making a success of his business. He told me I should never hesitate to make any request of him. He told me to have faith, to remember my own resilience that had never let me down. He said that he loved me as only one man could love another. The letter made me cry.

In May 1927, still awaiting trial, I had a visit from a friend just returning from rural Germany who told me the story of Hennies’ recent life, which was tied intimately to that part of his life that even our detectives had been unable to uncover.

He was forty-six now, well-to-do and lonely. His name was Johann Georg Adolf Doring, the name he was born with in Friedrichsbruck. He was the fifth of seven children born to a German peasant family of Huguenots, just as Sir William Waterlow’s ancestor had been. Now Hennies had gone back to the Friedrichsbruck and Helsa area. He had been a bright boy, a voracious reader highly thought of by his teachers and the townspeople. But there was no future for him there since he was not interested in the family farm and there was no money. He had apprenticed himself to a cigar maker and moved to Helsa; he was nineteen. He married a local girl, Anna Schminke, in 1905; their first child, Anna Elizabeth, was born in 1907. Using his wife’s small dowry, he opened a tobacco shop in Kassel that was not particularly successful. Then came the act of cowardice that changed his life and which he had hidden so well.

It was May 1909, and his wife was pregnant again. They were just scraping along, and stretching ahead he saw decades of children and poverty. He deserted his family. Frankfurt, Hamburg, a steamer to New York, working for a cigar maker and saving his money, securing the Singer Sewing Machine agency in Manaos, Brazil … Rio de Janeiro in 1914. Selling everything from toothbrushes to locomotives. The Great War. I pretty much knew that part of the story, but the beginning—well, it was odd, placing the Adolf I knew against that humble background.

Now his wife was dead and he had returned to Helsa. He lavished money on his old friends and his daughters. The reunion had been a happy one. When my friend the salesman happened across him in a Helsa tavern, the Goldener Anker, Hennies pretended not to know him. Well, that was all right; it was the fellow’s own business. Late into the night my friend chatted with the tavern owner, who had known Doring as a boy; thus, he heard the story.

Adolf was now living in a suite at the Hotel Schirmer in Kassel. He was obviously rich. He was also restless, looking about for a business opportunity.

In July 1927 Edgar Waterlow forced Sir William out of the chairmanship of the firm and into the co-equal position of joint managing director. The Bank of Portugal was still insisting that only five million dollars would satisfy them; Waterlow was thinking in terms of one hundred thousand. There was no room for compromise. Obviously.

I read my newspapers, as many as six a day. The German economy collapsed on “Black Friday.” The Socialists rioted in Vienna, and a general strike took place following the acquittal of Nazis for political murder. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party. In America, a country I increasingly wished I might someday visit, a grown man called Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs in a game called baseball, and the papers from New York, which I frequently perused, were full of accounts of the feat. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, and that was news in every newspaper I read. Lizzie Borden, whom I also read about in the New York Times, died, as did the great dancer Isadora Duncan. I suppose the most inspiring event of the year was Colonel Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic to Paris in “The Spirit of St. Louis.” He must, I reasoned, have been a good deal like me. He would have understood what happened at the High Bridge.

Greta sent me Hemingway’s Men Without Women with a clever inscription relating to the title. She sent me several other new books: Steppenwolf and The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Elmer Gantry caught my imagination most thoroughly, as did an odd, ironic novel that struck me as a little too close to home—The Treasure of Sierra Madre. She told me about the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer, and wrote a capsule review of Flesh and the Devil with Garbo, to whom she bore a slight resemblance. How I wished I could be with her in the darkened movies palaces, holding her hand, knowing that life was better than any screen fantasy.

And so 1927 was gone.

The government that had been proclaimed in 1926 has hardly improved the state of the nation. Many sound fiscal heads acknowledged that there was only one way to get Portugal back on its feet … and he was in jail! Living costs in 1928 were thirty times what they had been in 1914.

In an attempt to get the country back on the path I’d set it on, General Oscar Carmona was proclaimed President of the Republic. On April 15 he made an announcement that would seal Portugal’s fate for the next half century. The new Permanent Secretary of Finance would be “a man of the highest personal morality, a man of the most informed competence and deepest commitment, a man in whom the whole nation could have confidence.”

When Salazar took the oath as Permanent Secretary of Finance he was forty-one; he wore the conventional sober black suit expected of our officials. He was thin, pallid; one of the papers of the day remarked that he looked like an “underpaid funeral parlor assistant who would bury Portugal’s finances for good.”

Carmona held the position of President from 1928 until his death fifteen years ago, in 1951—some twenty-three years. But even to the most naïve observer it was obvious almost from the beginning that Salazar was the complete, unquestioned dictator of Portugal. He retains the position as I write this, thirty-eight years after taking the job offered by Carmona.

Still in preventive detention, I went on laboring tirelessly to prove the iniquities of the Bank of Portugal. But, as my lawyers hoped, the whole thing was slowly losing the attention of the press and the public. Which was all well and good so far as their strategy was concerned, but it gave me a bit of a chill. I had always counted on the Robin Hood factor among the general public to see me through. If I were their hero, the man who had struck a blow for the common man, then all would finally come right. But the lawyers had told me that none of that public support would do me a bit of good before the tribunal that would judge me. “Time,” they said, “is your only hope. The whole business shrinks as time goes on.”

“Be calm, Alves,” my lawyers said. They would playfully punch my arm; I would smile weakly. “The criminal always values delay.” They would nod among themselves. “Witnesses die or disappear. Officials who remember the worst lose office. Prosecutors move on, to bigger jobs or the anonymity of retirement. As long as we can postpone the trial there is still hope!”

But my will was starving to death.

I was transferred to the Cadeia Penitenciaria de Lisboa, a fortress complete with battlements overlooking the Eduardo VII Park. I believed I had been abandoned by all. I had lost all hope and confidence in myself. I believed I had finally failed. I was through. …

For months I had been carrying an extremely active poison, stropine. When the cell door was locked at eleven o’clock on the night of May 31 I dissolved the poison in a glass of water. My mind wandered through the past; I composed myself. I thought of meeting Maria that day at the beach, of the first day in Luanda when I had been awash in my confidence. … I remembered the night I had walked the streets of Lisbon and found myself at the Castle of San Jorge and realized my destiny. … I thought of Greta with the lavender scarf blowing in the breeze at Biarritz, the first time I ever set eyes on her. …

At four o’clock I wrote a brief confession of my crimes, addressed to the Attorney General. I placed it in an envelope and put it in the desk next to my cot. I drank the potion and went to the washstand to rinse out the cup. I went back to the cot, lay down and closed my eyes. I was ready to die.

Incredibly enough I awoke on the afternoon of June 10, bright sunshine streaming through the windows. Maria was sitting beside the bed, holding my hand. The light made a halo around her head. I thought for a moment she was an angel. …

She told me that on the first of June, at eight o’clock in the morning, they opened my cell door to deliver breakfast and found me stretched out on the floor wrapped in my own bedsheet.

They called the prison doctor, and my own physician came at ten o’clock. My condition grew worse. Only the strong body of a man of thirty-two wrenched me from the arms of death.

As I listened to Maria’s account I was suddenly struck by what she was saying—no one realized it was a suicide attempt! The whole incident was attributed to a mysterious brain disease.

Once I was well enough to be returned to my cell, I opened the desk drawer. Thank God, there was the envelope containing my confession. I tore it to bits. I had been spared to keep up my fight.

I pulled myself together and launched a devilish plan to prove my innocence. I organized another full-scale attack on the Bank of Portugal.

I only wanted a great scandal, nothing less. I no longer even cared about the fates of my accomplices.

Almost three years to the day after my return from Luanda Sir William’s departure from the family firm became final. The work of a lifetime had ended in defeat, humiliation, a shambles. Not even his son would enter the firm. In a way it had all been for nothing. Sir William would become Lord Mayor in 1929. Customarily a man’s firm bore the cost of that ceremonial and hugely expensive position. Sir William, however, would be paying for it himself. He had had to sell Whyte Ways, the family estate at Harrow Weald. I never had gotten to see it.

I heard from Marang in January 1929. He was living with his family in a pleasant Paris flat at 96 Boulevard Richard Lenoir. He was forty-five. He saw Greta every six months or so, said she seemed well and told him that she was in regular touch with me. Soon I would be out of prison and it was good to keep up one’s old friendships.

As for himself, he had learned of a small electric chandelier manufacturing business that needed capital. He bought the business and soon had a modest plant at 34 Rue Brequet, not far from his flat. He walked to work.

He and his wife had just become members of the Dutch Reformed Church of Paris.

It was the late fall of 1929 when Manoel dos Santos came to see me. He was a pustule of hate and fitted my requirements perfectly.

Manoel had once been a messenger for the Bank of Portugal; he had been fired when he tried to get the proceeds of a winning lottery ticket that the owner had sent in to be collected. He had been unable to get another job; his children were hungry, he said, and his wife had turned to prostitution. He came to my cell to offer his services to me in my fight against the bank. He wanted no payment. He wanted only revenge. It was the saddest story imaginable.

After a few visits, however, his hatred and cynicism began to shock me. I was thrown off, gave him some fatherly advice—he was only twenty. He insisted that I hear him out when I’d finally said he must go. He took out his wallet, which contained a sheet bearing the signatures of several Bank of Portugal directors which he said he had forged.

Well, that caught my attention. I was astounded at the perfection of his work. I gave him my Big Red and asked him to reproduce the same signatures. He did so without a flaw! I decided to use him, personal distaste quite aside.

I planned a large-scale forgery establishing my own innocence and the directors’ guilt beyond any imaginable question. This time I had a real Bank of Portugal letterhead, which I had obtained some months before through the bribery of a clerk.

I had fallen very heavily into a trap.

Manoel dos Santos had been sent to me as an agent provocateur through the disgusting and unethical connivance of a newspaperman and Antonio Horta Osorio, the bank’s attorney. Naturally the story was spewed across the front pages of Lisbon’s newspapers. In my cell I wept.

Everyone agreed that it was the strangest trial in the history of Portugal. The court had been specially constituted to deal with my case under laws which, since they had been written specifically to cover this one particular instance, were new both to accusers and accused. Being a special court, it had no regular meeting place. For some reason I was tried in the Hall of the Military Tribunal at Santa Clara, in Lisbon.

From the beginning our quarters were ridiculously crowded and hot. Batteries of electric fans kept blowing out the fuses. There was no place for any members of the public; it became quickly apparent that not even all the witnesses could be accommodated. The atmosphere in the room was wildly confused.

Dr. Simao was president of the court, and I felt sorry for him. What could he do to impose his will on the cramped room? José, Maria and I were represented by fifteen attorneys. There were six other defendants, all on minor counts, who were paying the price for merely having worked for us. But it was Alves Reis they were really after. José’s fate was bound indivisibly to mine.

“Your Excellency,” one of our counsel complained, his voice shaking with rage, “I have no place to sit! I demand a chair!”

Over the laughter the judge urged patience all around and himself left the room in search of more chairs.

Thirty-nine of Portugal’s most distinguished judges packed the room. From among them seven, in addition to Dr. Simao, would be chosen to hear the case. The method of selection brought a smile to every face: Dr. Simao’s son, nine years old, pulled the names out of a hat.

This procedure was followed by a roll call of the eighty-five witnesses. The room reeked of sweat, cologne, cigarette smoke. There was a steady jumble of conversation; insects buzzed steadily. Electric fans whirred in the corners. I was vaguely sick to my stomach. I had not been able to eat before we’d been called to order at noon. Late in the afternoon an Army major entered the room and explained that the space would be needed at once for a courtmartial! Judge Simao sighed patiently, nodded and announced that the court would stand adjourned until four o’clock on May 8. The twenty reporters leaped up and clogged the doorways.

Looking up, I saw Maria, her fingers knotted in a white handkerchief, her face gray, ravaged by the strain. Her eyes and hair had lost their luster, her face had lost its youth. I sat down beside her, just long enough to hold her hand and kiss her cheek. She looked at me blankly, then forced a smile. “Alves,” she said softly, “are you all right?”

“Of course, my dear,” I said. “Maria, listen to me carefully. Very soon, a couple of weeks at most, you will be free … out of prison. You must take care of yourself, use some makeup, have your hair done, have your parents ready to receive you … if you can hold on just a bit longer.”

“Will you be free then, too?” Her eyes pleaded with me.

“I don’t know.” She wanted me to tell her yes, but I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure. I kissed her cheek again.

There were twelve charges against me, only one against Maria. I was almost certain that even if she were found guilty Maria would be released, having already served more of a sentence than she would have received from the single guilty verdict.

Alves Reis, the indictment read, was charged with conspiracy, falsifying contracts, forgery of everything from letters to the Oxford diploma, to banknotes, bribery and fraud. …

Eight charges were leveled against José. Maria was charged only with having received stolen property.

Adolf Hennies had five of the charges read against him, but it was irrelevant: he no longer existed.

Since Marang had already been tried and convicted in a foreign court, he was not charged in Lisbon.

The prosecution was conducted on behalf of the public by Dr. Jeronimo de Sousa, on behalf of the bank by Antonio Osorio and Dr. Barbosa de Magalhaes.

I had two more days of waiting. I knew what I had to do. Not even my attorney was aware of my plans.

The trial went much as I expected. After all, they did have rather a weighty case to make, and they made the most of it. I couldn’t blame them. This sort of opportunity came once in a lifetime. They took their time.

Dr. Nobrega Quintal defended me. He was not an eloquent man, but he made the best case possible while I sat and watched, almost certain of the result. I alone knew what I would say to the court at the end.

Dr. Quintal spoke with fervor, kept their attention.

“We are not dealing with merely a criminal, Your Excellencies.” He nodded vigorously, agreeing with himself. He fanned himself with several sheets of his notes. “We are dealing with a great man … without offending anyone, I believe I can say he is the greatest man in this room! The man who has dreamed the greatest dreams, dared the greatest adventures and made for himself the largest place in Portugal’s history. He is not unlike the greatest of our navigators, men who straddled the globe in the name of our country.

“But … but … Alves Reis, the Hero of Angola, was born in a smaller and entirely less heroic age. In another day great men saw obstacles and overcame them. But today such men are discouraged, brought to trial. …

“He saw no good reason for Portugal to grow poorer each day, drifting helplessly without leadership. And with his brilliant mind he created the means to scale the mountains again, to sweep power fully and with vision across the seas, to bring Portugal back from the brink of the abyss. … And we bring him to trial. …

“And he was right! You need only look back to the movement in Portugal during his heyday … the burgeoning prosperity, the optimism, the hope! Compare that to the Portugal of today—upon which I will not dwell. … And we bring such a man to trial!” He was trembling with emotion.

He summed up the points in my favor: my previous good character, the important services I had rendered to society, my intention of averting the economic and financial crisis that was bringing Angola into a desperate condition, the long imprisonment I had already undergone, my precarious economic circumstances.

“Oh, yes, by all means,” Dr. Osorio snapped, outraged. “Reis seems to be in desperate straits, all right! But we know he has spent more than one hundred thousand dollars—that is two million escudos, Your Excellencies—in his own defense! We are still uncovering secret bank accounts all over Europe in the name of Alves Reis or his wife—and, frankly, I can’t imagine that we’ll ever find them all! No, not ever. …”

Dr. Quintal pressed on.

“In reality, Senhor Reis was an inflationist, not a counterfeiter, an inflationist who was merely carrying out unofficially the fixed policies of the Bank of Portugal … at no cost to the bank! Remember, Alves Reis and his associates had paid Waterlow’s for printing the banknotes.” He gave me a sidelong glance at the next point: “It is against the law to imitate the banknotes … but the law says nothing about actually duplicating the notes!”

Dr. Osorio rolled his eyes, smiting his forehead.

“And, finally,” Dr. Quintal said, his voice beginning to give way, “may I remind Your Excellencies of the extraordinary measures taken by the Chamber of Deputies in passing retroactive laws solely for the purpose of covering Alves Reis—so that the crime of counterfeiting, which had been punishable by a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, can now bring twenty-five years. …”

I remember him now, years after I last saw him. He did his best for me, and no man can do more than that. I listened to him with interest, but I was thinking about the next day when I would finally have my say.

When it came to my day in court Antonio Ferro recounted the events in Diario de Noticias. I had known Ferro in passing ever since we had been classmates as children. He had turned up again in Angola years later and had written about our final triumphant tour. Years after he covered my appearance in court in 1930, he wrote an enormously popular biography of Salazar. In 1930 he was covering his old schoolmate.

Everyone now knows Alves Reis is a criminal, the best of all. He has confessed it with unique pride, punishing himself publicly. There is no doubt Alves Reis succeeded in impressing—even overwhelming—the court yesterday. Perhaps he failed to convince it of his good intentions, but he unquestionably held all who heard him spellbound—with his intelligence, his eloquence, his ability and his admirable lawyer’s temperament.

There was no defendant, no court, no jury. There was a free man before free men. A minister in the Chamber of Deputies replying to a question, an orator at a rally, a captain of industry explaining his business. There was only admiration when he began speaking, and soon the court was his. Reis related his great adventure, with energy unbelievable in a man who has rotted in prison nearly five years, with a brilliant literary flavor at times—he dazzled everyone with articles and clauses, his overall knowledge of the law.

He related how he committed the fraud, how he discovered the numbers and series of the notes, how he forged the signatures, how he found out there was no “control” of the notes in the Bank of Portugal, explaining all this as an engineer might elucidate an intricate machine.

His sincerity astounded the court. The surprising thing was that a man who should appear beaten, timid, humiliated following his confession of a terrible crime instead stood with his head up, in a fighting mood, almost jovial, without any cynicism.

He dedicates himself with ardor to a new cause, the defense of his companions, whom he tries to clear of all guilt. This discredited and finished man suddenly became transformed into a terrible defender of his own victims. There is a certain moral grandeur in his attitude to the unfortunate men: “It was I who dragged them in here! Ruined five years of their lives. … Now I shall do everything to free them!” When a judge asked why he had changed his attitude so suddenly, Reis’s answer was simple and moving: “You are here to judge only the men, not their souls!”

Yes, isn’t it time to seek the human truth instead of the judicial truth? To give up the old clichés that a man who lies once is always a liar … 25,000 pages to find the truth! And has it been found? The Alves Reis of the Bank of Angola and Metropole has been tried and will be sentenced. … But this Reis, this great spirit who confronted us today as no judge in the nation’s history has ever been confronted, does not this Alves Reis deserve our respect and our mercy? Our compassion?

Throw stones at him if you will. I cannot.

The days of waiting for the verdict of the judges were long and nervous. I was not in the least afraid of the result. I knew the Portuguese character, the role of law. As Greta wrote to me while I waited: “My love, remember what I’ve always told you. What will be will be. We are given our lines and we must say them.” She still loved me; I wrote her long letters.

Ivar Kreuger had a courier bring me a handwritten note.

“Never forget that greatness is always under attack, Senhor Reis. It is a test of men such as ourselves, how far we rise above it. My thoughts are with you.”

It was, I thought, very kind of him.

The word reached us at midnight that the judges would deliver their verdicts at one o’clock on the morning of July 19. We were all taken to the same cramped room, and after a brief wait the Attorney General entered. The clerk followed and took his seat.

The presiding judge was ushered in, followed by the other members of the tribunal. Our lawyers got the attention of the court, thanked the judges for their fairness in the conduct of the trial and retired from the room as the reporters buzzed among themselves, scribbling.

Dr. Simao calmly read the verdicts.

Maria Luisa Jacobetti Alves Reis was found guilty and sentenced to the time she had already served in prison. My wife was free.

Artur Virgilio Alves Reis, José dos Santos Bandeira and Adolf Hennies (in absentia) were found guilty on all counts, each to serve eight years in prison to be followed by twelve years of exile.

It was over.

Maria recovered her physical health; it was her mind that had suffered the real damage. She moved in with her parents and was allowed to visit me weekly, and more often than not she brought some or all of the children. Her eyes were often distracted, glazed, her face hollowed and wan, her hair dull and uncared for. Sometimes she barely spoke, searching my face with those empty eyes, looking for answers I didn’t have. At other times she babbled uncontrollably about the minutiae of her daily life. Although the meetings were a strain, there was no alternative. Our lives were still bound together … and the children could not be left to forget their unfortunate father.

As her condition slowly improved, she needed to find a job, both for the money and her own state of mind. Left to spend her days lost in reflection, she had little hope for recovery. Jobs were hard to find now that Salazar had embarked on a course of drastic deflation. For the wife of Alves Reis matters were even more difficult. More than once she heard a prospective employer reason: “If I give you a job everyone will say I once got money from your husband.” Eventually she did find work as a clerk in the government navy yard. The pay was twenty dollars a month. The money I had put away in foreign banks had either been found or couldn’t be gotten out. Another irony in an absolute deluge.

The first three years of my sentence were spent in solitary confinement. There were constant rumors of my supporters planning dramatic escapes. To guard against that, an outside spotlight was focused on my cell window every night. Finally I asked to see the warden.

“If I wanted to escape,” I told him, “I would first speak to you. I’m not the type to scale walls. If I get out of here it will only be because I have bribed you. So please, remove the searchlight so I can get some sleep. …”

It was removed.

The Bank of Portugal’s case against Waterlow was heard in the late fall. On Monday, December 22, Justice Wright was ready with his judgment. He was sixty-one, a Trinity College man, a vastly successful King’s counsel in his day. He had a dry sense of humor and a well-defined streak of irritability. He had heard the arguments with great care. Obviously a great deal was at stake, in terms of money, the impartiality of English law and the stature of a great London firm. He spent the morning outlining the case, and in the afternoon he was gathering steam.

“This crime is unique. Unique. … It is not a thing that will ever happen again. We may be sure of that. But we must decide this question—who was negligent, if anyone, and to what degree. …

“What damage was done by exchanging the da Gama notes for others? A very great loss, as I see it. These notes are currency in Portugal. They can purchase commodities, including gold; they can buy foreign exchange—and they can do this because they have behind them the credit of the Bank of Portugal.

“I cannot grant the bank interest on its claim. And the realizable assets of the liquidated Bank of Angola and Metropole—nearly half a million pounds—must be deducted from the claim. This leaves, if my arithmetic is correct, a balance of five hundred thirty-one thousand, eight hundred fifty-one pounds, or approximately two million six hundred thousand dollars, for which, in my view, there ought to be a judgment for the plaintiff.”

The bank had won. Of course, Waterlow’s would appeal, but their position was weak.

Greta was vastly amused by the verdict against Waterlow. “Bill was always a great one to overstep himself,” she wrote, “and his natural greed finally got him. Well, my darling Alves, they say that we are each born with the seeds of our fate planted within us. Who are you and I to doubt it? Next month I am going all the way to Hollywood! How I long for your company … your touch, your strong arms around me, your lips—don’t scold me, my love. I’ve not forgotten our pledge and I try not to write such things. But I think of them always and sometimes they flow from my pen onto the paper. … Remember that I am yours forever. … I will write from California.”

Early in July 1931 Sir William was stricken by severe abdominal pains. Following surgery, peritonitis set in. On July 6 he was dead. That great pink-faced Englishman who had found us all such odd little foreigners … Sir William Waterlow was sixty at the time of his death.

His death represented one more remove into the past from what had come to seem in my mind’s eye glorious, disreputable, exciting days. …

The Times carried a full account of the funeral of the onetime Lord Mayor. St. Paul’s Cathedral, great pomp, a personal condolence from the Royal Family; The Times’s guest list was more than a column long. Waterlow and Sons was represented by a very junior chap called Smith. The Times called Sir William’s reign as Lord Mayor “one of the most brilliant of modern times.” He was buried in the Harrow Weald Churchyard, not far from the great house he had once owned.

When I close my eyes now and try to bring him back in my mind the picture I summon is the first. He comes forward, hand extended, booming, “I am Waterlow!” For me he is there, frozen in time. Forever.

In 1932 I also noticed with a kind of wistfulness that is not my custom that with the crash of his economic colossus Ivar Kreuger shot himself to death in his apartment in Paris. I can see him even now, leaning toward me, the large, pale face beaming. “Do you know, Reis, that a hundred million matches are struck every hour. …” Maria still has the jeweled matchstick he gave her, diamonds with rubies at the tip. It was one trinket that somehow survived.

Salazar officially became Premier in 1932, an absolute dictator. His new constitution was full of Fascistlike bits and pieces cribbed from the vile Mussolini. In January 1934 the General Confederation of Labor and the Communists staged a revolution that Salazar ground out in a manner so brutal and bloody that it drew warm approval from Adolf Hitler. At the next elections there were candidates only from the National Union Party, Salazar’s party.

The tyrant did balance Portugal’s budget, and the inflation of the escudo was brought to a halt; but the cost was very high unemployment.

Maria was now visiting me several times each week. She was getting along well enough, though she was never really able to understand how the glories that were ours that one incredible year could vanish so quickly. Her father had died, leaving a decent estate, and now she and her mother and the children lived in a modest but pleasant apartment on the outskirts of Lisbon. We were growing closer again, now that her reason had returned. They allowed her to enter my cell so that we eventually came to embrace rather shyly. We walked in the sunny exercise yard, holding hands, almost with the innocence of our first meeting on the beach at Cascais. I began to see again why I had fallen in love with her. … Her gentle goodness, which I believed I had killed, had returned. She brought tenderness with her to the prison. …

One day she told me a popular joke.

Salazar was upset by the sad condition of Portugal’s economy. An old friend said: “It’s no problem at all. I can solve it for ten escudos.” How? asked Salazar. “We just spend it on cab fare,” his old friend replied. “We go to the prison by cab, take out Alves Reis … put you in his place and him in yours!”

Maria smiled. Salazar was said not to be amused.

Time remained abstract for me, at least for the most part. Salazar’s personal attitude toward me was utterly unforgiving. There were too many people in Portugal who still felt that I had been better for the country’s economy than he. As repression and depression increased, he increasingly viewed my very existence as a slap in the face to him, to his authority. Driven by this hatred and a desire for revenge, he decreed that there could be no exile for Alves Reis, despite the suggestion of the sentencing.

I would serve my full twenty years. In prison. At such moments time was less abstract, but in prison you accustom yourself, you adapt.

When I looked back on the past, as I inevitably did, it seemed to have been a kind of glorious celebration, a long party illuminated by the people around me. Waterlow presiding over the first delivery of banknotes, the New Year’s Eve in the streets of Paris, Kreuger treating me as an equal, the cars and the jewels and the Menino d’Ouro … but it was the people who made it real, who provided the candlepower, who made it a life lived within a coruscating, glittering chandelier.

Now, as the years were passing and I was being preserved, almost like a specimen in a laboratory or a zoo, I was struck by the growing shadows. The lights, like lanterns on a receding pier, were growing dim, flickering out one at a time.

Sir William. Ivar Kreuger. Both before their time, victims of themselves, their own flaws.

Chaves, the Angolan railway man, was stricken appropriately enough on a train outside Luanda and expired before reaching the city. Terreira, he of the vast white mustaches, died peacefully, having spent his retirement in the Azores. So it went. …

Hennies—I could never think of him as Doring—suffered a series of business reverses during the Thirties. He tried to make use of his old espionage contacts from the Great War: little aid there. He then ingratiated himself with the Nazis, who found certain not very important uses for a shady old rascal who didn’t ask questions. On one occasion, having worked a small confidence trick, his Nazi friends saved him from jail.

But, in the end, they couldn’t save him from his Byzantine past. Out of the night came a man in a raincoat, never identified, with a score to settle. He settled it with a knife, and no one ever knew for sure who had been murdered—Hennies or Doring or someone else who at one time or another had occupied that body, looked at life through that monocle.

When I think of him now the images blur together. I see him the night we met in the courtyard of our house in Luanda. He was a rascal, God knows, but I think of him fondly. I liked the man. … The lights kept going out, the shadows reaching out like lengthening fingers, seductive, promising the final rest.

My years in prison came to an end on May 7, 1945, at four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was shining brightly, the sky a transparent blue. The past five years I had been a trustee, and the warden had become very much like an old friend. We bade each other farewell in his office. There were tears in our eyes.

“They are celebrating in the streets, Alves,” he said. “Bands are playing, Rossio Square is alive with people, dancing. … It’s the day Alves Reis is coming out of jail.”

“You are pulling my leg, my friend. The war has ended today—that’s a real reason for celebration.”

We laughed together.

Maria and the boys met me. We had not stood together outside prison walls, in the sunshine, in nearly twenty years. I held her in my arms, my full-grown sons watching. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against the tears, clinging to me.

“There’s someone else who wants to see you,” Maria said at last, wiping her cheeks with a frail lace handkerchief while I kissed my boys. Her hair was quite gray. But there was the glaze of innocence in her eyes that had been lost for a time but was back now, her nature asserting itself. Oh, she was not a child, but neither had the hardness of the bad times remained. She pointed out, “See …”

I looked down the street where a black Rolls-Royce shone like ebony in the sun. Slowly the door swung open, a man in a black business suit, a tycoon, stood before me, a shy smile on his face. He held out his arms.

“Arnaldo,” I said.

The years since then have not been unkind. I have done some writing, helped Arnaldo—out of the goodness of his heart. I have assisted my sons in their various small business enterprises. We have managed to live.

Arnaldo and I have been close friends, almost like brothers. His wife Silvia passed away during the war, leaving him with a son and a daughter. He has prospered beyond imagining. He has given us free run of his estates, and he remains in robust good health. We have discussed the banknote business in detail, almost academically, and he has expressed wonder more than anything else.

Many an evening the three of us—Maria, Arnaldo and I—have sat around the dining-room table with the photograph albums I so assiduously filled in the old days. Then for an evening the room is full of people and there is no pain for us, not anymore. There Arnaldo and I stand again before the giant locomotive at the High Bridge, Maria sits so elegantly atop the white horse, Greta stands languidly between Marang and me at the Longchamps races. … No, there is no pain anymore.

The three of us laugh at remembered moments, and sometimes the laughter fades into wistful silences. But Maria will point at a picture of José with his wolfish grin and we will find ourselves on the snow-slick Paris streets, the crowd gathering, the headlamps of the taxis making it daylight in the middle of the night as José and I punch each other.

Maria, Arnaldo and I, now almost at the end, still inseparable. Perhaps the French are right: the more things change, the more they stay the same. …

There is little to say of José, who drifted off into his own circle. He bought a small bar, lost it, and the new owners hired him as a greeter. He became something of a figure in Lisbon’s nightlife, with his reputation and ornate tales from his past.

In March 1960 he had a bad fall, broke his hip and thigh. I went to visit him in the hospital. He looked like what he was, an elderly white-haired man who had lived a full and somewhat exhausting life.

“Alves Reis,” he said, as if he hadn’t spoken my name in years. “I’ve been meaning to call you, have you to the club. …” He shrugged. I remembered him kicking a stone in the Luxembourg Gardens when he’d capitulated to me, given up Greta. I remembered him as a young man, telling me about women and drinking too much wine. …

“How are you?”

“How do I look?” He laughed harshly, but his face softened when he looked up. “I understand these things happen when you get old, eh? Look at the present I got today.” He pointed to a handsome Grundig radio on the stand near his bed. “Greta sent it to me.”

“That’s very nice,” I said. “She is quite a woman, our Greta.”

“Do you write to her?”

“Oh, yes, sometimes. … Yes, we write. She called on New Year’s Eve. I’ve seen some of her movies. … She’s very famous, isn’t she, José?”

“More famous even than Alves Reis,” he said. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes, I did,” I said. “It was all very romantic.”

“I never loved her.” José said with a small shrug. “Love … I hardly know what it is.” Then his face brightened. “But I liked her more than any other woman I ever knew.”

I don’t know if his body had just worn out, or if there was some complication I never heard about. But José died on March 29. Under his hospital pillow they found a tattered, dog-eared memento—a photograph of Greta Nordlund standing in riding clothes beside one of her horses in the Bois de Boulogne.

He left a scribbled note. He wanted me to have the Grundig radio. Another light had gone out.

About the same time I learned, by an odd chance, that Smythe-Hancock had perished long, long ago. The Blitz, London … Friends and enemies, time was making them all equal.

A week after José’s passing I got word of Marang. Business had been good: he was a multimillionaire, retired for many years to the Riviera, where he and Madam Marang lived regally at Cannes.

Now I received a clipping from Le Figaro, sent by Greta.

Mme. Karel Marang, Mr. & Mrs. Karel Marang, Mr. and Mrs. Florent Marang, Mr. and Mrs. R. H. MacDonald and Mr. and Mrs. Ido Marang and his twelve grandchildren announce with great sorrow the death of Mr. Karel Marang, who died at his home, 8 rue du Canada, on February 13 after a long illness. He was 76.

Greta’s note was typical: ironic, amused, loving.

Hold on, Thunderbolt! There aren’t many survivors. I still love you. Greta.

Along the way, Waterlow and Sons had ceased to exist.

Greta called one night in 1965. She was well past seventy by then, but her voice was strong, still husky and remarkably sensual. She had never married, not since we had met. … Maria answered the telephone, and I heard a cry of delight: “Greta!” They must have chatted for half an hour, Paris to Lisbon. A fortune, but Greta can no doubt afford it. She still appears in films regularly, the grande dame. Maria handed me the telephone, smiled, her fingers lingering on mine for an instant.

Greta was full of life, making small jokes. She teased me, called me Thunderbolt, wished me a happy birthday. I had completely forgotten. It was September 8. I had embarked on my own seventieth year.

She made me promise we would come to Paris for a reunion at Christmas. “Even better, New Year’s Eve.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, the joking gone. We were young again for a moment. “We became lovers on New Year’s Eve,” she said, “forty-one years ago. Come to see me.”

I said we would try.

But Greta and I belonged to the past. I had my memories. I didn’t have to see her again. I loved her, and that would never change.