He looked for matches to light the gas fire, but there were none. He sat in an armchair in the living-room and his eyes wandered over the bookshelves and the odds and ends he had collected on his travels. When Ann had left him he had begun by rigorously excluding all trace of her. He had even got rid of her books. But gradually he had allowed the few remaining symbols that linked his life with hers to reassert themselves: wedding presents from close friends which had meant too much to be given away. There was a Watteau sketch from Peter Guillam, a Dresden group from Steed-Asprey.
He got up from his chair and went over to the corner cupboard where the group stood. He loved to admire the beauty of those figures, the tiny rococo courtesan in shepherd’s costume, her hands outstretched to one adoring lover, her little face bestowing glances on another. He felt inadequate before that fragile perfection, as he had felt before Ann when he first began the conquest which had amazed society. Somehow those little figures comforted him: it was as useless to expect fidelity of Ann as of this tiny shepherdess in her glass case. Steed-Asprey had bought the group in Dresden before the war, it had been the prize of his collection and he had given it to them. Perhaps he had guessed that one day Smiley might have need of the simple philosophy it propounded.
Dresden: of all German cities, Smiley’s favourite. He had loved its architecture, its odd jumble of medieval and classical buildings, sometimes reminiscent of Oxford, its cupolas, towers and spires, its copper-green roofs shimmering under a hot sun. Its name meant “town of the forest-dwellers” and it was there that Wenceslas of Bohemia had favoured the minstrel poets with gifts and privilege. Smiley remembered the last time he had been there, visiting a university acquaintance, a Professor of Philology he had met in England. It was on that visit that he had caught sight of Dieter Frey, struggling round the prison courtyard. He could see him still, tall and angry, monstrously altered by his shaven head, somehow too big for that little prison. Dresden, he remembered, had been Elsa’s birthplace. He remembered glancing through her personal particulars at the Ministry: Elsa née Freimann, born 1917 in Dresden, Germany, of German parents; educated Dresden: imprisoned 1938–45. He tried to place her against the background of her home, the patrician Jewish family living out its life amid insult and persecution. “I dreamed of long golden hair and they shaved my head.” He realized with sickening accuracy why she dyed her hair. She might have been like this shepherdess, round-bosomed and pretty. But the body had been broken with hunger so that it was frail and ugly, like the carcass of a tiny bird.
He could picture her on the terrible night when she found her husband’s murderer standing by his body: hear her breathless, sobbing explanation of why Fennan had been in the park with Smiley: and Mundt unmoved, explaining and reasoning, compelling her finally to conspire once more against her will in this most dreadful and needless of crimes, dragging her to the telephone and forcing her to ring the theatre, leaving her finally tortured and exhausted to cope with the inquiries that were bound to follow, even to type that futile suicide letter over Fennan’s signature. It was inhuman beyond belief and, he added to himself, for Mundt a fantastic risk.
She had, of course, proved herself a reliable enough accomplice in the past, cool-headed and, ironically, more skilful than Fennan in the techniques of espionage. And, heaven knows, for a woman who had been through such a night as that, her performance at their first meeting had been a marvel.
As he stood gazing at the little shepherdess, poised eternally between her two admirers, he realized dispassionately that there was another quite different solution to the case of Samuel Fennan, a solution which matched every detail of circumstance, reconciled the nagging inconsistencies apparent in Fennan’s character. The realization began as an academic exercise without reference to personalities; Smiley manoeuvred the characters like pieces in a puzzle, twisting them this way and that to fit the complex framework of established facts—and then, in a moment, the pattern had suddenly reformed with such assurance that it was a game no more.
His heart beat faster, as with growing astonishment Smiley retold to himself the whole story, reconstructed scenes and incidents in the light of his discovery. Now he knew why Mundt had left England that day, why Fennan chose so little that was of value to Dieter, had asked for the eight-thirty call and why his wife had escaped the systematic savagery of Mundt. Now at last he knew who had written the anonymous letter. He saw how he had been the fool of his own sentiment, had played false with the power of his mind.
He went to the telephone and dialled Mendel’s number. As soon as he had finished speaking to him he rang Peter Guillam. Then he put on his hat and coat and walked round the corner to Sloane Square. At a small newsagent’s beside Peter Jones he bought a picture postcard of Westminster Abbey. He made his way to the underground station and travelled north to Highgate, where he got out. At the main post office he bought a stamp and addressed the postcard in stiff, continental capitals to Elsa Fennan. In the panel for correspondence he wrote in spiky longhand: “Wish you were here.” He posted the card and noted the time, after which he returned to Sloane Square. There was nothing more he could do.
He slept soundly that night, rose early the following morning, a Saturday, and walked round the corner to buy croissants and coffee beans. He made a lot of coffee and sat in the kitchen reading The Times and eating his breakfast. He felt curiously calm and when the telephone rang at last he folded his paper carefully together before going upstairs to answer it.
“George, it’s Peter”—the voice was urgent, almost triumphant: “George, she’s bitten, I swear she has!”
“What happened?”
“The post arrived at exactly 8.35. By 9.30 she was walking briskly down the drive, booted and spurred. She made straight for the railway station and caught the 9.52 to Victoria. I put Mendel on the train and hared up by car, but I was too late to meet the train this end.”
“How will you make contact with Mendel again?”
“I gave him the number of the Grosvenor Hotel and I’m there now. He’s going to ring me as soon as he gets a chance and I’ll join him wherever he is.”
“Peter, you’re taking this gently, aren’t you?”
“Gentle as the wind, dear boy. I think she’s losing her head. Moving like a greyhound.”
Smiley rang off. He picked up his Times and began studying the theatre column. He must be right … he must be.
After that the morning passed with agonizing slowness. Sometimes he would stand at the window, his hands in his pockets, watching leggy Kensington girls going shopping with beautiful young men in pale blue pullovers, or the car-cleaning brigade toiling happily in front of their houses, then drifting away to talk motoring shop and finally setting off purposefully down the road for the first pint of the week-end.
At last, after what seemed an interminable delay, the frontdoor bell rang and Mendel and Guillam came in, grinning cheerfully, ravenously hungry.
“Hook, line and sinker,” said Guillam. “But let Mendel tell you— he did most of the dirty work. I just got in for the kill.”
Mendel recounted his story precisely and accurately, looking at the ground a few feet in front of him, his thin head slightly on one side.
“She caught the 9.52 to Victoria. I kept well clear of her on the train and picked her up as she went through the barrier. Then she took a taxi to Hammersmith.”
“A taxi?” Smiley interjected. “She must be out of her mind.”
“She’s rattled. She walks fast for a woman anyway, mind, but she damn nearly ran going down the platform. Got out at the Broadway and walked to the Sheridan Theatre. Tried the doors to the box office but they were locked. She hesitated a moment then turned back and went to a café a hundred yards down the road. Ordered coffee and paid for it at once. About forty minutes later she went back to the Sheridan. The box office was open and I ducked in behind her and joined the queue. She bought two rear stalls for next Thursday, Row T, 27 and 28. When she got outside the theatre she put one tic
ket in an envelope and sealed it up. Then she posted it. I couldn’t see the address but there was a sixpenny stamp on the envelope.”
Smiley sat very still. “I wonder,” he said; “I wonder if he’ll come.”
“I caught up with Mendel at the Sheridan,” said Guillam. “He saw her into the café and then rang me. After that he went in after her.”
“Felt like a coffee myself,” Mendel went on. “Mr Guillam joined me. I left him there when I joined the ticket queue, and he drifted out of the café a bit later. It was a decent job and no worries. She’s rattled, I’m sure. But not suspicious.”
“What did she do after that?” asked Smiley.
“Went straight back to Victoria. We left her to it.”
They were silent for a moment, then Mendel said:
“What do we do now?”
Smiley blinked and gazed earnestly into Mendel’s grey face.
“Book tickets for Thursday’s performance at the Sheridan.”
They were gone and he was alone again. He still had not begun to cope with the quantity of mail which had accumulated in his absence. Circulars, catalogues from Blackwells, bills and the usual collection of soap vouchers, frozen pea coupons, football pool forms and a few private letters still lay unopened on the hall table. He took them into the drawing-room, settled in an armchair and began opening the personal letters first. There was one from Maston, and he read it with something approaching embarrassment.
My dear George,
I was so sorry to hear from Guillam about your accident, and I do hope that by now you have made a full recovery.
You may recall that in the heat of the moment you wrote me a letter of resignation before your misfortune, and I just wanted to let you know that I am not, of course, taking this seriously. Sometimes when events crowd in upon us our sense of perspective suffers. But old campaigners like ourselves, George, are not so easily put off the scent. I look forward to seeing you with us again as soon as you are strong enough, and in the meantime we continue to regard you as an old and loyal member of the staff.
Smiley put this on one side and turned to the next letter. Just for a moment he did not recognize the handwriting; just for a moment he looked bleakly at the Swiss stamp and the expensive hotel writing paper. Suddenly he felt slightly sick, his vision blurred and there was scarcely strength enough in his fingers to tear open the envelope. What did she want? If money, she could have all he possessed. The money was his own, to spend as he wished; if it gave him pleasure to squander it on Ann, he would do so. There was nothing else he had to give her—she had taken it long ago. Taken his courage, his love, his compassion, carried them jauntily away in her little jewel case to fondle occasionally on odd afternoons when the time hung heavy in the Cuban sun, to dangle them perhaps before the eyes of her newest lover, to compare them even with similar trinkets which others before or since had brought her.
My darling George,
I want to make you an offer which no gentleman could accept. I want to come back to you.
I’m staying at the Baur-au-Lac at Zurich till the end of the month. Let me know.
Ann
Smiley picked up the envelope and looked at the back of it: “Madame Juan Alvida.” No, no gentleman could accept that offer. No dream could survive the daylight of Ann’s departure with her saccharine Latin and his orange-peel grin. Smiley had once seen a news film of Alvida winning some race in Monte Carlo. The most repellent thing about him, he remembered, had been the hair on his arms. With his goggles and the motor oil and that ludicrous laurel-wreath he had looked exactly like an anthropoid ape fallen from a tree. He was wearing a white tennis shirt with short sleeves, which had somehow remained spotlessly clean throughout the race, setting off those black monkey arms with repulsive clarity.
That was Ann: Let me know. Redeem your life, see whether it can be lived again and let me know. I have wearied my lover, my lover has wearied me, let me shatter your world again: my own bores me. I want to come back to you … I want, I want …
Smiley got up, the letter still in his hand, and stood again before the porcelain group. He remained there several minutes, gazing at the little shepherdess. She was so beautiful.
15
THE LAST ACT
The Sheridan’s three-act production of Edward II was playing to a full house. Guillam and Mendel sat in adjacent seats at the extreme end of the circle, which formed a wide U facing the stage. The left-hand end of the circle afforded a view of the rear stalls, which were otherwise concealed. An empty seat separated Guillam from a party of young students buzzing with anticipation.
They looked down thoughtfully on a restless sea of bobbing heads and fluttering programmes, stirring in sudden waves as later arrivals took their places. The scene reminded Guillam of an Oriental dance, where the tiny gestures of hand and foot animate a motionless body. Occasionally he would glance towards the rear stalls, but there was still no sign of Elsa Fennan or her guest.
Just as the recorded overture was ending he looked again briefly towards the two empty stalls in the back row and his heart gave a sudden leap as he saw the slight figure of Elsa Fennan sitting straight and motionless, staring fixedly down the auditorium like a child learning deportment. The seat on her right, nearest the gangway, was still empty.
Outside in the street taxis were drawing up hastily at the theatre entrance and an agreeable selection of the established and the disestablished hurriedly over-tipped their cabmen and spent five minutes looking for their tickets. Smiley’s taxi took him past the theatre and deposited him at the Clarendon Hotel, where he went straight downstairs to the dining-room and bar.
“I’m expecting a call any moment,” he said. “My name’s Savage. You’ll let me know, won’t you?”
The barman turned to the telephone behind him and spoke to the receptionist.
“And a small whisky and soda, please; will you have one yourself?”
“Thank you sir, I never touch it.”
The curtain rose on a dimly lit stage and Guillam, peering towards the back of the auditorium, tried at first without success to penetrate the sudden darkness. Gradually his eyes accustomed themselves to the faint glow cast by the emergency lamps, until he could just discern Elsa in the half-light; and still the empty seat beside her.
Only a low partition separated the rear stalls from the gangway which ran along the back of the auditorium, and behind it were several doors leading to the foyer, bar and cloakrooms. For a brief moment one of these opened and an oblique shaft of light was cast as if by design upon Elsa Fennan, illuminating with a thin line one side of her face, making its hollows black by contrast. She inclined her head slightly, as if listening to something behind her, half rose in her seat, then sat down again, deceived, and resumed her former attitude.
Guillam felt Mendel’s hand on his arm, turned, and saw his lean face thrust forward, looking past him. Following Mendel’s gaze, he peered down into the well of the theatre, where a tall figure was slowly making his way towards the back of the stalls; he was an impressive sight, erect and handsome, a lock of black hair tumbling over his brow. It was he whom Mendel watched with such fascination, this elegant giant limping up the gangway. There was something different about him, something arresting and disturbing. Through his glasses Guillam watched his slow and deliberate progress, admired the grace and measure of his uneven walk. He was a man apart, a man you remember, a man who strikes a chord deep in your experience, a man with the gift of universal familiarity: to Guillam he was a living component of all our romantic dreams, he stood at the mast with Conrad, sought the lost Greece with Byron, and with Goethe visited the shades of classical and medieval hells.
As he walked, thrusting his good leg forward, there was a defiance, a command, that could not go unheeded. Guillam noticed how heads turned in the audience, and eyes followed him obediently.
Pushing past Mendel, Guillam stepped quickly through the emergency exit into the corridor behind. He followed the corridor down some ste
ps and arrived at last at the foyer. The box office had closed down, but the girl was still poring hopelessly over a page of laboriously compiled figures, covered with alterations and erasions.
“Excuse me,” said Guillam; “but I must use your telephone— it’s urgent, do you mind?”
“Ssh!” She waved her pencil at him impatiently, without looking up. Her hair was mousy, her oily skin glistened from the fatigue of late nights and a diet of chipped potatoes. Guillam waited a moment, wondering how long it would be before she found a solution to that tangle of spidery numerals which would match the pile of notes and silver in the open cash box beside her.
“Listen,” he urged; “I’m a police officer—there’s a couple of heroes upstairs who are after your cash. Now will you let me use that telephone?”
“Oh Lord,” she said in a tired voice, and looked at him for the first time. She wore glasses and was very plain. She was neither alarmed nor impressed. “I wish they’d perishing well take the money. It sends me up the wall.” Pushing her accounts to one side she opened a door beside the little kiosk and Guillam squeezed in.
“Hardly decent, is it?” the girl said with a grin. Her voice was nearly cultured—probably a London undergraduate earning pin-money, thought Guillam. He rang the Clarendon and asked for Mr Savage. Almost immediately he heard Smiley’s voice.
“He’s here,” said Guillam, “been here all the time. Must have bought an extra ticket; he was sitting in the front stalls. Mendel suddenly spotted him limping up the aisle.”
“Limping?”
“Yes, it’s not Mundt. It’s the other one, Dieter.”
Smiley did not reply and after a moment Guillam said: “George—are you there?”
“We’ve had it, I’m afraid, Peter. We’ve got nothing against Frey. Call the men off, they won’t find Mundt tonight. Is the first act over yet?”
“Must be just coming up for the interval.”
“I’ll be round in twenty minutes. Hang on to Elsa like grim death—if they leave and separate Mendel’s to stick to Dieter. You stay in the foyer for the last act in case they leave early.”
A Murder of Quality AND Call for the Dead Page 26