The Venetian Affair

by Helen Macinnes

  That’s something new, Fenner thought. But her way of flattering—that had always been peculiarly Sandra’s. Even Rosie had been pleased that his powers of deduction were not underestimated. “Where did you find a rolled umbrella?” Fenner asked.

  “I called in at the Embassy and borrowed Dade’s,” Rosie admitted. “Forgot to tell him. I guess he wouldn’t like having even his umbrella involved.”

  “You’re too hard on him.”

  “Why not? If everything turns out well, he’ll get all the credit.”

  “Will he?”

  “He’ll take it anyway, in his memoirs. He is one of those now-it-can-be-told guys, and wasn’t-I-right-all-along?”

  Fenner laughed. “Okay. So there you were, with a rolled umbrella, strolling among the neatly spaced trees. Background of children playing, nurses gossiping, mothers comparing clothes and manners, wandering couples holding hands, older people renting chairs to rest their legs for a blessed hour.” And the time was almost five o’clock, and Vaugiroud and I were talking.

  “Not bad, not bad at all. Just add some spotty sunlight, distant shrieks of laughter from the open-air Punch and Judy show, two chairs nicely protected by several prim trees, and you’ve got me waiting, reading a newspaper. She didn’t take long. It was Sandra Fane, all right, although I didn’t recognise her until she had almost reached me. She was dressed in black, unrelieved; and she wore no jewellery, no make-up. That makes a big difference in her type. She was just a white-faced, faded blonde with no eyes or lips. A ghost in mourning.”

  “She’d have make-up and earrings in her purse, all ready to doll her up once the meeting was over.”

  “No doubt. She did say she was on her way to an art-gallery opening, where she’d meet Fernand Lenoir. Cool customer,” Rosie said admiringly. “Our meeting was fairly brief, no more than thirty-five minutes, but her thoughts were well organised. She didn’t waste any time. And she had several surprises to deal out. Several...”

  Sandra Fane had begun with a very direct question. “How,” she asked, in a low calm voice, “could I get back to America?”

  “Take the first plane.” Rosenfeld wasn’t even troubling to be polite: he might admire her technique, but he hadn’t any sympathy for her problem.

  “You know it isn’t as easy as that.”

  “Perhaps not, but your chief difficulty will be in leaving the Avenue d’Iéna. Or is your friend Lenoir behind this idea?”

  “No. Could you help me reach America?”

  “Why should we?”

  “I’m getting out. I’m no longer a Communist.”

  “Since when?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for the last six weeks. I was supposed to have quit the party three years ago, when I came to Paris. It was only a cover story. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Why are you deciding to leave, just at this time?”

  “Two reasons. I’m getting in too deeply, the kind of thing”—she looked at him frankly, her blue eyes pale and tired under the uncoloured eyebrows and lashes—“that I never have been involved in, don’t want to be involved with.”

  “Turned squeamish?”

  “And also,” she said, ignoring that, “I have been recalled to Moscow.” She had kept her voice calm, but her eyes looked away. Her hands tightened on her bag. Their knuckles, under the black gloves, would be white.

  “When do you leave?”

  “Next week. From Venice, where Fernand and I are supposed to be on vacation. He has engaged a suite at the Danieli. The plan is this: he will be out of France when the assassination takes place; then return at once to Paris to take full advantage of the situation.”

  “What assassination?” Rosenfeld asked quickly.

  But she wanted his promise first. She had merely ensured he would listen to her. “Will you help me escape from Venice? I leave Paris tonight with Fernand. I’ll spend this week-end with him; and on Monday, I escape. Monday evening. The assassination attempt is late in the week. That’s how I’ve calculated it. Because Fernand plans to return to Paris by next Friday. He must be here as soon as the assassination is a fait accompli, but not before.”

  “What assassination?” Rosenfeld repeated.

  “I am not in their confidence.”

  Like hell you aren’t, Rosenfeld thought. “Who are they aiming at? De Gaulle?”

  “Perhaps. Their plans are big enough for that.”

  “When? Where?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’ll know by Monday. I can tell you then.”

  She knows all right, Rosie thought. She is safeguarding herself, wants to establish that she isn’t guilty of conspiring to assassinate. He restrained his impatience, his shock and excitement. He shrugged his shoulders. “You haven’t left us much time to arrange an escape. It will take some planning. You are important to them: they won’t let you just walk out.”

  “I know. That is why I ask you for help. It is the only way. I would have asked you before, except”—and the pale lips half-smiled—“I had nothing to bargain with. I have no illusions. If I buy help from you, the price will be steep. Ordinary information would not be enough—not to get the kind of immunity I want.”

  “No one could promise you complete immunity.”

  “But if I make this gesture—surely I’ll be given some consideration? I am thirty-five. By the time I am fifty, perhaps even before, I shall have a new name, a new life. Some quiet, some safety... I’ll have earned that, I think.”

  “So far,” he reminded her pointedly, “your information isn’t worth much. An assassination, with no date, no place, and a big perhaps around the victim’s name.”

  Quickly she said, “I know who has planned it. I know who is implicated. Why else do you think I’m being recalled?”

  “You know too much?”

  She dodged that answer. “Once it is over, Lenoir doesn’t need me to do any more entertaining for him. He has other plans.” She looked at him. “Are you interested in helping me?”

  “As you said, ordinary information will not be enough. Why did you wait so long before you contacted us? An assassination isn’t planned in a week.” Not even in a month. Not this kind of job, obviously.

  “I told you. I needed bargaining power.”

  “Show me it.”

  “Are you interested in helping me, if I do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you persuade Washington to be equally interested?”

  “I think so.”

  “The escape and transport to America could be arranged—even at such short notice?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll take your word,” she said softly. “And you have mine. I’ll tell you what I know, what I can do for you. And you’ll do your best for me. A bargain?”

  Rosenfeld nodded.

  “The assassination is to be entrusted to the OAS. It was planned by Robert Wahl, a naturalised Frenchman, a Communist. He is supplying money—in American dollars, a large amount but easily handled, which came into the country this morning. This will be used as part evidence of American complicity. The other part is being provided by Fernand Lenoir, also a Communist, in the shape of a letter that will implicate the British and the Americans.”

  “A letter?”

  “It will look like part of a correspondence between Trouin, a wine merchant and secret backer of the OAS, and a British Intelligence agent named Holland. That correspondence exists: I have brought copies of Trouin’s letter and Holland’s reply, so that you can check with the British on my story.”

  “And the implicating letter that Lenoir is concocting?”

  “It will be substituted for Trouin’s letter. It will appear to be the letter that received the British reply.”

  “And where is this fake letter?”

  “I shall have it for you in Venice.” Something almost amused her. “I shall have the original fake itself.”

  “How can you be sure that Lenoir will take it there?”

  “Why else are we va
cationing in Venice? There he will meet several of his prize neutralists, some of his pet pro-Communists. As soon as the news of the assassination breaks, he will show them two letters: the one he invented and the British reply. He will show the originals, and give them copies for publication.” She smiled. “Lenoir’s ‘original’ will certainly be in Venice. I know. Now about my escape—”

  “First, what about that money you mentioned? Has it been delivered to you?” Rosenfeld asked, interested in the shape of the lie he expected.

  But she was telling the truth, at least in this. “There has been some delay. It was to have been delivered at my apartment by my masseur, who visits me regularly. Instead, it will be handed to me, this evening, at an art-gallery reception for a new showing of pictures which”—she pulled back her glove and glanced at her wrist watch—“I’ll attend, after I leave you and spend half an hour in the Métro.” Her sense of humour was returning with her confidence. “How I am going to miss dodging back and forth in the subway just when I have perfected the art! In Venice—”

  “You’re way ahead,” Rosenfeld cut in, and brought back her tense look again. “Is Lenoir going to be at this art-gallery?”

  “I meet him there. Then we leave for Venice.”

  “Taking the money with you?”

  “No. Fernand Lenoir will see that it is hidden in the wine merchant’s private safe.”

  “And the wine merchant?”

  “He doesn’t know. And when it’s found, he may have already committed suicide. Of course, that’s only a guess—I don’t know.”

  That’s right, Rosenfeld thought: you know nothing about any form of murder. Bright girl, aren’t you? “Who is delivering the money to you at the gallery?”

  “The owner. His present name is Anton Mehr.” She spelled his second name carefully.

  “What does he look like?”

  She said impatiently, “He is of no importance. White hair, blue eyes, yellow complexion. Liver trouble. He worked for many years in French Indochina.”

  Rosenfeld studied his hands. Blue eyes, yellow skin, and a blob-shaped face, I bet. “Why don’t I have the Sûreté pick you all up at the gallery? Right there and then? That’s one simple way of arranging your escape from them.”

  “Yes. You would get Mehr, Lenoir, and the money. And me. But you would not get the letter. You would not get Wahl. You would never get him. One warning, and he would disappear, go underground, work from there. You would not stop the assassination. You would not stop other money being used—oh, it would take a less dramatic form, perhaps a bank deposit in Trouin’s account—but it still could be dynamite when used with the fake letter asking for one hundred thousand dollars as expenses.” She knew she had made a good point there. Very quietly, she added, “You need that letter, don’t you?”

  “You can’t hand it over now?”

  “If I could, I’d walk away with you. Wouldn’t I? So it has to be Venice. Here is how I escape. I stroll into the Piazza San Marco on Monday, just before half-past six. And you will have someone waiting there for the letter. You must send someone I know, someone I might stop and talk to, quite naturally, without arousing any suspicion. I have three names to suggest: Mike Ballard, who would do it if you promised him first rights to the story; your little moon-struck blonde, who has come to my last parties with various attachés attached—she’s on your team, isn’t she? The one whose husband was killed in Indochina some years ago? She always was a straight-down-the-middle little patriot. Oh, don’t look so worried—I didn’t share my suspicions with Fernand Lenoir, who finds her delightful but stupid. Why should I, when I might need her help some day?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Rosenfeld noncommittally. “And the third suggestion?”

  “My ex-husband, William Fenner, who is in Paris and might be persuaded. Not because of me; because of America. He has a quiet sense of patriotism, which once I found amusing. Now, I see it as—well, a little touching, too.”

  “His beliefs seem to have lasted longer than yours.”

  Her eyes stared at the empty path lying between the trees. Then, abruptly, she said, “Have one of them meet me. On Monday. In the Piazza, at Florian’s Café at half-past six. We meet, we talk briefly. I pass the letter. When I start to leave, your other operators, the serious professionals, can pick me up. There will be several around, I’m sure.” She smiled. “But how they do it, how they get me out of Venice—that I leave to their ingenuity. They can appear to intercept me, kidnap me, arrest me—anything that seems most convincing. I don’t care. Do you agree to all that?”

  “Agreed. We’ll get you out. But what about the time and place of the assassination attempt? Will you pass that along with the letter?”

  She looked at him, amused.

  “You may not have that information?” he insisted. The Sûreté would want this most of all. They’d have their agents in Venice, if they could be sure of that. The Italians would help, too: they never approved of foreign conspiracies being hatched on their soil. The British were already in, of course, with that reply of theirs to Trouin—My God, thought Rosenfeld, I am actually believing her.

  “I shall have it. I give the letter to the amateur help. But the other information can wait—for the professionals.”

  “Once you are safe, you’ll give it to us?”

  “Is that unreasonable?” She lifted his magazine, pretended to look at it, laid it on her lap.

  “No. You are a very cautious woman.”

  “I have to be.”

  “You seem to be taking a very big chance today.” He glanced around at the trees, at the other chairs, within seeing distance.

  She opened her handbag as if she needed her handkerchief. “I had a lot of last-minute shopping for my vacation. Even Wahl’s men lose their quarry between the beachwear and lingerie departments. Besides, his best man of all is on another job this afternoon.” Her fingers pulled out two letters from her bag, slipped them quietly between the pages of Time.

  “Wahl doesn’t trust you?”

  “Robert Wahl is much too important to trust anyone.”

  “Thanks for that tip. Who is he, actually?”

  “I may even tell you that, some day.”

  “When you reach America? And we deposit twenty-five thousand dollars in your new name?”

  “And a passport to match the name. I shan’t bother America very long. Or in any way. I have had my dream. I have had my beliefs.” She closed her eyes wearily, the lines at the sides of her mouth deepened, her lips drooped. “Robert Wahl does not know that I have learned about my recall to Moscow. He intends to catch me off guard in Venice, no doubt. So he does not expect trouble from me. And don’t you make him expect trouble! Keep the French from gossiping about an assassination plot. Stop the American leaks and the English hints. Handle this with the greatest care. If you don’t you will never see me on Monday. Robert Wahl will make sure of that.” She rose. “Don’t forget your magazine,” she said. She walked away, a fragile woman dressed in unrelieved black like so many Frenchwomen in mourning, taking her late-afternoon stroll under the shade of the trees.

  Rosenfeld let her drift out of sight before he rose and sauntered away in the opposite direction. He did not forget his magazine. He almost forgot Dade’s umbrella, though. He didn’t waste any time on returning it to the Embassy. He had much too much to do. Besides, it did rain, that evening.

  “Well?” Rosie asked, after he had given Fenner the main points of that meeting.

  “She is hiding a lot.”

  “She is safeguarding herself.”

  “You think she will tell you Wahl’s true name, for instance?”

  “Yes. And more quickly than she plans. We can bargain, too. The French might just be willing to drop extradition charges against her if she can identify Wahl as Kalganov. He is the man we all want to get.”

  “Extradition—she hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Oh yes, she had. She took care to give the impression that she is not one of the act
ual conspiracy.”

  “Is she?” Fenner asked.

  “Of course she is. Wahl, Lenoir, Fane; Committee of Three. If she hadn’t been recalled, she would still be with them. And don’t ask me why she has been recalled. Wahl’s responsible, I think. It may be some personal clash between them. And if he is Kalganov, he certainly has the power to have her silenced permanently. These people live in such a surrealist world...” Rosie shook his head. “Well?” he asked again.

  Fenner had risen. He moved restlessly around the room. He stopped at the desk and looked at the clock. Ten past eleven, he noted. He could feel Rosie’s impatience reach across to nudge his shoulder. “You can’t send Ballard.”

  “No. His mistress would have the story out of him before he could turn on the pillow. Bed is a place where men let down their defences.”

  “Sandra Fane didn’t know about that mistress, obviously.”

  “Nor does she know the girl was recruited by Lenoir.”

  “Anything else that Sandra slipped up on?”

  “No. We’ve checked her story. Anton Mehr, for instance, is the man who met Goldsmith yesterday morning. And Lenoir did join her at Mehr’s art-gallery, as she said he would. He arrived in good spirits, but—after a telephone call around twelve minutes past seven, just the right time to let a report about a missing coat come from Orly—he left in a decidedly grim mood. He even let Sandra find her own taxi. He changed his, three times, and eventually arrived at the Café Racine. He stayed there, briefly, just long enough to tell Robert Wahl the bad news. No ten-thousand-dollar notes. Scratch play one, start play two. When he left, he went straight to Le Bourget, where Sandra was waiting for him with their baggage. She had plenty too.”

  “It would have seemed simpler to telephone the Racine.” Rosie raised one eyebrow.

  Fenner reconsidered quickly. “He knows Angélique is not a trustworthy type?” And there would be new instructions to receive, perhaps, before leaving for Venice. Fenner remembered the way Wahl had had the last word. “He took a risk, though.”