Epitaph for a Spy (27 page)

“Under the circumstances,” I interrupted him acidly, “a theft, an arrest, and a violent death all in one day would have been bad for business, so you got in first with a cock-and-bull story about my being a counter-espionage agent. Roux is politely forgotten. The police are happy.
I
am caught between two fires. Either I have to go on lying like a trooper and explain what the famous counter-espionage agent is doing back at the Réserve or I have to crawl out without anyone seeing me. Nice work!”

He shrugged. “That is one way of looking at it. But I should like to ask you just one question. Would you prefer to make up your own explanation?”

“I should prefer to tell the truth.”

“But the police—”

“Damn the police!”

“Yes, of course.” He coughed a little self-consciously. “I shall have to tell you, I am afraid, that the Commissaire left a message for you.”

“Where is it?”

“It was verbal. He told me to remind you that a citizen of France must be ready to assist the police on all possible occasions. He added that he hoped soon to be in touch with the Bureau of Naturalization.”

I drew a deep breath. “I suppose,” I said slowly, “that you didn’t, by any chance, discuss your little story with the Commissaire?”

He reddened. “I did, I believe, mention it in passing. But—”

“I see. You both worked it put between you. You—” I stopped. A sudden feeling of helplessness swept over me. I was tired, tired, sick to death of the whole wretched business. My limbs were aching, my head felt as if it were falling in two. “I’m going to bed,” I said firmly.

“And what shall I tell the servants, Monsieur?”

“The servants?”

“About calling you, Monsieur. Their present instructions are that you are officially no longer here, that your breakfast will be served discreetly in your room, that when the car arrives to take you to Toulon in time to catch the Paris train, none of the other guests is to see you leave. Am I to alter those instructions?”

I stood there in silence for a moment. So it was all arranged. Officially, I was no longer at the Réserve. Well—what did it matter? In my mind’s eye I saw myself walking on the terrace the next morning, I heard the exclamations of surprise, the questions, the cries of astonishment, my explanations, more questions, more explanations, lies and more lies. This way was the easier. Köche knew that, of course. He was right and I was wrong. Heavens, how tired I was!

He was watching my face. “Well, Monsieur?” he said at last.

“All right. Only don’t let them bring the breakfast too soon.”

He smiled. “You may be sure of that. Good night, Monsieur.”

“Good night. Oh, by the way!” I turned at the door and drew Beghin’s envelope from my pocket. “The police gave me this. It contains five hundred francs for my expenses during the last few days. I haven’t spent anything like that amount. I should like you to give the envelope to Herr Heinberger. He might be able to make use of it, don’t you think?”

He stared at me. For a moment I had the curious impression that I was looking at an actor who with one movement had wiped the make-up off his face—an actor who had been playing the part of a hotel manager. Slowly he shook his head.

“That is very generous of you, Vadassy.” He no longer addressed me as “Monsieur.”

“Emil told me that you and he had talked together. I am afraid I was annoyed. I see now that I was wrong. However, he no longer needs the money.”

“But—”

“A few hours ago, perhaps, he would have been glad of it. As it is, he is returning to Germany in the morning. It was arranged early this evening that they should leave by the nine o’clock train from Toulon.”

“They?”

“Vogel and his wife will be going with him.”

I was silent. I could think of nothing to say. I picked up the envelope from the table and put it back in my pocket. Absently, Köche splashed some more wine into his glass, held it up to the light, then glanced at me.

“Emil always said that those two laughed too much,” he said. “I found them out yesterday. A letter arrived. They
said it was from Switzerland, but it had a German stamp. While they were out of their room I had a look at it. It was quite short. It said that if they wanted more money they must offer immediate proof that they needed it. They did so. Emil is right. They laugh, they are grotesque. No one suspects that they are also obscene. That is her secret.” He drank the wine and put the glass down with a bang. “In Berlin, years ago,” he said, “I heard Frau Vogel give a recital. Her name then was Hulde Kremer; I didn’t remember her until she played tonight. I had often wondered what happened to her. Now I know. She married Vogel. It’s very odd, isn’t it?” He held out his hand. “Good night, Vadassy.”

We shook hands. “And,” I added, “I shall hope to see the Réserve again.”

He inclined his head. “The Réserve is always here.”

“You mean that you won’t be here with it?”

“In confidence, I shall leave for Prague next month.”

“Did you decide that this evening?”

He nodded. “Just so.”

As I climbed slowly to my room I heard the clock in the writing-room strike two. A quarter of an hour later I was asleep.

At noon that day I drank the remains of my breakfast coffee, strapped my suitcase together, and sat down by the window to wait.

It was a glorious day. The sun was pouring down and the air over the stone windowsill was quivering, but the sea was slightly ruffled by a breeze. The red rocks glowed. In the garden, the cicadas were droning. Down on the beach I could see
two pairs of brown legs beyond the shadow of a big striped sunshade. On the lower terrace, Monsieur Duclos was addressing some new arrivals, a middle-aged couple still in their traveling clothes. As he talked he stroked his beard and adjusted his pince-nez. The couple listened intently.

There was a knock at the door. Outside was a waiter.

“The car is here, Monsieur. It is time for you to go.”

I went. Later, from the train, I caught a glimpse of the roof of the Réserve. I was surprised to see how small it looked among the trees.

T
he emergence of the detective story in the nineteenth century has been accounted for satisfactorily enough by Mr. Howard Haycraft. “Clearly,” he says, “there could be no detective
stories
until there were detectives. This did not occur until the nineteenth century.”

The belated appearance of the spy story is harder to explain.

Prostitution may be the oldest profession in the world, but that of the spy cannot be much younger. Long before Moses sent spies into Canaan (at Jehovah’s suggestion, it will be remembered) and Joshua’s agents were hidden by Rahab in Jericho, the Sumerian rulers of Mesopotamia, who flourished a thousand years or so before the traditional date of Adam, were sending out undercover operators to bedevil their opponents. There seems, in fact, to have been no period in recorded history during which secret agents have not played a part in political and military affairs.

And yet, it is difficult to think of any fictional spy story of note written more than fifty years ago; or before the scandal of the Dreyfus case provided a stimulus. The detective story can point to decent literary forebears in the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. From the Gothic vapors of
Horace Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe and the dark flummery of Sheridan Le Fanu even the “horror” story can claim respectability. The spy story remains disreputable. And it remains so not merely because many spy stories have been bad. Some critics have declared
The Secret Agent
to be Joseph Conrad’s best novel; but the
Biographical Dictionary of English Literature
that I am looking at
^*
does not even list it among his works. Indeed, the attitude of many literary persons towards stories about spies is curiously like that of many generals and statesmen towards the spies of real life. It was Napoleon who said that one spy in the right place was worth twenty thousand men in the field. He was speaking of his own spy, Schulmeister, a man of amazing courage, skill, and loyalty. But when the time came to reward Schulmeister for his services it was the same Napoleon who refused him the Legion of Honor for which he had been recommended, and the same Napoleon who commented that money was the only suitable reward for a spy.

In most human beings ideas of spying and being spied upon touch fantasy systems at deep and sensitive levels of the mind. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the Edwardian spy story well removed from reality and set against the simple, safe, black and white backdrop of Anglo-German rivalries. The familiar cloak and dagger stereotypes—the black-velveted seductress, the British secret-service numbskull hero, the omnipotent spymaster—were created in this period, mainly by William Le Queux and his imitators. E. Phillips Oppenheim was a better storyteller, and his private world of diplomatic salons, cosmopolitan hotels, and suave, stiff-shirted
intrigue was more engaging. But there have been few good spy stories. Erskine Childers’s
The Riddle of the Sands
(published in 1903, it is not only a good spy story but also one of the finest tales about small sailing-craft ever written), Conrad’s
The Secret Agent
(1907), John Buchan’s
The Thirty-Nine Steps
(1915), and W. Somerset Maugham’s
Ashenden
(1928) are, though by no means all of the same quality, the books that seem to me to demonstrate best the possibilities of the
genre
. Some fanciers might add W. F. Morris’s
Bretherton
to the list.

I wrote
Epitaph for a Spy
in 1937 and it was a mild attempt at realism. The central character is a stateless person (fairly unusual then), there are no professional devils, and the only Britisher in the story is anything but stalwart. I still like bits of it.

Reviewing the British edition of the book, a Communist periodical called
Challenge
let its hair down.

“We must revise our ideas about foreign spies,” wrote the reviewer tremulously. “Mr. Ambler convinces us that they must no longer be associated with silky whiskers, leers and sneers, and prolonged ‘Ha-ha’s.’ They are the people who walk abroad with us, work with us and lie in wait for us in a thousand odd, familiar corners. At a price they will betray us to our enemies. We must seek them out and punish them as they are punished in the Soviet Union. Not murder for murder, but the prevention of murder is the argument for harsh punishment of the offenders.”

But that was in 1938, of course.

ERIC AMBLER

London 1951

BACKGROUND TO DANGER

Kenton’s career as a journalist depended on his exceptional facility with languages, his knowledge of European politics, and his quick judgment. Where his judgment sometimes failed him was in his personal life. When he finds himself on a train bound for Austria after a bad night of gambling, he eagerly takes an opportunity to earn money helping a refugee smuggle securities across the border. He soon discovers that the documents he holds have more than monetary value, and that European politics has more twists and turns than the most convoluted newspaper account.

Fiction/suspense

CAUSE FOR ALARM

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He’s engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiancée points out the Italian Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and can endure Milan long enough to save some money. Soon after he arrives, though, he learns the sinister truth of his predecessor’s death and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes it’s not so simple just to do the job he’s paid to do in fascist Italy on the brink of war

Fiction/Suspense

A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS

A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel who has a penchant for British crime novels leads mystery writer Charles Latimer into a world of menacing political and criminal maneuvers throughout the Balkans in the years between the world wars. Hoping that the career of the notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue, will inspire a story line for his next book, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a shadowy web of murder, espionage, drugs, and treachery.

Fiction/Suspense

JOURNEY INTO FEAR

Returning to his hotel room after a late-night flirtation with a cabaret dancer at an Istanbul nightspot, Graham is surprised by an intruder with a gun. What follows is a nightmare of intrigue for the English armaments engineer as he makes his way home aboard an Italian freighter. Among the passengers are a couple of Nazi assassins intent on preventing his returning to England with plans for a Turkish defense system, the seductive cabaret dancer and her manager husband, and a number of surprising allies.

Fiction/Suspense

JUDGMENT ON DELTCHEV

Foster is hired by an American newspaper to cover the trial of Yordan Deltchev, who faces charges of treason. Accused of masterminding a plot to assassinate his country’s leader, Deltchev may in fact be a pawn and his trial all show. But when Foster meets Deltchev’s powerful wife, he becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy that is more life-threatening than he could have imagined.

Fiction/Suspense

THE LIGHT OF DAY

When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with the city and in need of a private driver. In other words, the perfect mark for Simpson’s brand of entrepreneurship. But Harper proves to be more the spider than the fly when he catches Simpson riffling through his wallet for traveler’s checks. Soon Simpson finds himself blackmailed into driving a suspicious car across the Turkish border. Then, when he is caught again, this time by the police, he faces a choice: cooperate with the Turks and spy on his erstwhile colleagues or end up in one of Turkey’s notorious prisons. The authorities suspect an attempted coup, but Harper has something much bigger planned.