Decision at Delphi

by Helen Macinnes

  “No need at all.”

  “Have you considered Henry Beaumont, by the way?” Pringle’s voice was normal again. “He is just the man to write the text for your drawings. He’s a missionary really. Wants to convert everyone to the beauty of the classics. Hallo, Aleco! No, I can’t sit down. Just leaving.”

  “Hallo!” Strang said. Then to Pringle, “But are you sure Beaumont can write English?”

  “He is one of the chosen few.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll pass it on to Perspective."

  “Delighted to give it. Good-bye, both! See you...”

  “You know,” Strang said to Christophorou, “if Beaumont can really write, then that is a big headache solved for Lee Preston.”

  “Is it so difficult to find a scholar who knows how to express himself?” Christophorou was bland. And yet there was a certain curiosity in the way he was watching the retreating Pringle.

  “That’s something we inherited from the German universities—the more difficult, and therefore unreadable, we make our writing, the greater our scholarship must seem.”

  “Only seem?” Christophorou was relaxing.

  “Appearance and reality,” Strang said, “sometimes have little connection. “He looked at Christophorou and forced a smile. “Take me for instance—”

  Christophorou looked worried. He glanced at the littered table and at Strang’s drink in particular.

  “Yes,” said Strang, “that’s just it. Everyone who looks at me thinks I’ve been having a whale of a time all afternoon. Actually this has been just as miserable a day as I can remember.”

  “Kenneth—”

  “I’m all right. Just a little delayed shock, I guess. Also—it’s sort of lonely. No one following me around, no one breaking and entering. Even you didn’t go to any trouble. You just came right over and sat down here.”

  “Only for a moment,” Christophorou said equably. “What have you to tell me?”

  “Nothing,” Strang said.

  “But you telephoned—”

  “Nothing to report; something to ask.”

  “Yes?” Christophorou’s eyes were puzzled.

  “I am calling Lee Preston in New York. What do I tell him about Steve? Can I break the news of the murder?”

  “Of course.”

  Strang pointed to the newspapers. “I thought it might still be classified material.”

  “No, no. But you’ll have to call it suicide. That is the way it will appear in the later editions.”

  “What?”

  “You and I don’t believe it was suicide, but who is going to believe you and me? And it’s a clever trick to play on the murderers. They will read of suicide and assume they are safe. You see?”

  “I also see that unless some others, besides you and me, don’t believe it, then the murderers will probably be quite right in their assumption.”

  “You are much too depressed, Kenneth.” He glanced at Strang’s drink, once more. “I know how you must feel. But that is not the way.” He was honestly perturbed.

  How do I feel? Strang wondered grimly. I need time to think this out. At the moment, I can’t quite believe he lied to me deliberately: Sunday was the day, he said. Sunday, quite definitely. The police were searching everywhere all Sunday, were they? Or had that been a slip of the tongue, a mistake in memory? Hardly. He was too insistent on the exact facts. Everything he told me was carefully selected, urgent, important. We weren’t discussing the weather, a new play, his vacation plans. We were talking about Steve’s disappearance, perhaps his death. A lie about a serious matter can be a dangerous lie. Or was he so eager to make me blurt out any information I had on Steve’s documents? And how many other equivocations, or lies, did I swallow? But why? Why did he have to bother to lie?...Strang said, keeping his voice lighter than his thoughts, “Oh, I haven’t been sitting here all day. I tried walking around the city. Saw some sights. Including the beautiful Ottway.”

  “Beautiful? No. Pretty—yes. But not beautiful. Her looks will disappear by the time she is fifty.”

  Strang looked at Christophorou in surprise. “You sound like a connoisseur. I didn’t think you left yourself much time for that.”

  Christophorou looked bland. “Did you talk to the pretty Mrs. Ottway?”

  “We talked. Or rather, she talked. About apartments and maids and parties.”

  “Parties? She seems to have made a quick start on her career.”

  “And she’s taking Greek lessons, right on Venizelou, over a café table! The real joke is that it makes good sense.”

  Christophorou’s interest died away as quickly as “parties” had aroused it. What had he expected to hear? Then Strang felt a little ashamed that he could even have thought of that interpretation. Christophorou was glancing at his watch. “The art of circulating is part of my job as a journalist. I must leave.” He smiled as he repeated, “Journalist. You won’t forget that, will you, Kenneth?”

  “What makes you think I’d forget that little detail?”

  “I hope you won’t. A lot depends on your silence and tact, you know. A misplaced word—“

  “I shan’t misplace any words,” Strang said sharply.

  “Thank you again, Kenneth.”

  “That sounds a very final good-bye. Is it?”

  “I hope not. But I may be prevented from seeing you for some time. You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  Christophorou began to rise, hesitated, sat down again. “Why are you so troubled, Kenneth?”

  Strang said, very softly, “Were they worth it all?”

  Christophorou looked at him quickly.

  “Steve’s death, all your efforts, all this upset in so many lives—were the documents worth all that? Are they of any use?” Anxiously, he waited for the answer, praying, it would come right.

  “You are being indiscreet.” There was a pause. “What made you doubt their usefulness?”

  “Not doubt. Just the usual human impatience to know how our side is doing.” Strang tried to smile.

  Christophorou seemed to relax. “It would be doing very much better,” he said quietly, “if Stefanos Kladas were alive to interpret his photographs. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “That’s all we needed,” Strang said bitterly. All that haste— and now, blank inaction. “But surely your experts—”

  “Oh, it’s only a short delay in solving the problem. Just a matter of much work, co-ordination, and a little time.” Christophorou got up and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Kenneth.”

  But, Strang wondered, have we got even a little time? Christophorou’s complete calm annoyed him. “Good-bye,” he said shortly, and his eyes drifted away from Christophorou to sweep around the room. He hoped he had hidden his feelings. He was looking with bogus interest at the doorway. Suddenly his interest was real. “Good God!” he said.

  “What?”

  “She’s here! She has arrived!”

  “Who?”

  “Steve’s replacement. The new photographer Preston was sending out.”

  “A woman?” Christophorou was openly startled. He turned to look. He was astounded now. “And, even from this distance, a beauty.”

  Strang gave him a grin, which—thank heavens—was completely natural. He started toward the doorway.

  “I think your luck is holding,” Christophorou called softly after him.

  11

  It was a slow journey from Strang’s corner to the entrance of the bar. Luck, he was thinking, as he made his way through the crowded tables past blocking chairs and burdened waiters, luck... What kind of luck? Good for me or good for Alexander Christophorou? Someone to help me get my mind back into my own world or someone who will stop me worrying about what progress Christophorou and his two chosen experts are making? “Blast all political ambitions,” Pringle had said. Could that be Christophorou’s own private weakness, too? After all, the Greeks had invented politics. And yet, he still couldn’t see Christophorou manoeuvring for person
al glory and the power that went with it. A political finagler might have had important papers turned over to a couple of prestige-boys who, he knew, couldn’t really cope with them; and then what easier than to step in, retrieve defeat, become the hero? But Christophorou wasn’t like that: he was too brilliant to play astute little games, too much the dedicated man to gamble with his country’s safety. The truth probably is, Strang told himself sharply, that your vanity is hurt because a friend told you a lie; and Pringle is hurt because he was given a very sudden brush-off; and between you and Pringle, you’re chin-deep in a bog of damn-foolish doubts. Come out of it, Strang, come out of it! And with that sharp injunction, he reached the doorway.

  She wasn’t there, of course. She probably wasn’t the kind of girl who stood waiting for any man. She was in the lobby, though, studying the list of concerts with great concentration.

  “Miss Hillard!”

  She turned, smiled, held out her hand.

  Yes, she looked exactly as he remembered her, with those deep-blue eyes shadowed by dark lashes. The eyes and the smile—that was what he had noticed first, and always: a warm smile, gentle and generous, making the pretty lips prettier. There were such other details as flawless skin, alive and glowing, smooth over finely proportioned bones, crowned by a shining cap of dark silken hair. Quickly he looked away, released her hand, brought himself back on to solid ground once again. “Well—it seems as if we are really going to be allowed to talk to each other, this time.” Not a brilliant opening, he admitted, but it was all he could think of, at this moment.

  “I was beginning to wonder,” she said, her smile breaking into a little laugh. “Every time I looked into the bar, you were much too busy. Did I interrupt something? I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all. Why didn’t you come in?”

  “I am not brave enough.” It was truth covered by a joke.

  “Come along now—if I’ve still got that table. You can drop in here any time by yourself without breaking any taboo. This place is a home away from home. You can get tea and bun, coffee and cakes, mothers’ meetings, breakfast at noon. But how they still keep it looking like a men’s club is something beyond me.” He steered her toward his corner, quite aware that Miss Hillard was having all the attention, covert or otherwise, that she merited. And then he thought, she must be accustomed to this kind of thing, accustomed to idiots like me gawking into those big beautiful eyes, and he felt less happy, somehow. His euphoria totally vanished when he saw that his table was still waiting for them simply because Alexander Christophorou was sitting guard. Christophorou rose as they reached him.

  “I fought everyone off,” he told Strang, but he was looking at Miss Hillard.

  “Thank you, friend,” said Strang, and rushed the introduction.

  “Also,” Christophorou said, “I wanted to see if my eyes were as good as I hope they are.” He smiled for Miss Hillard. “I am happy to say they were.”

  “He told me you were beautiful,” Strang said brusquely. “Now, Aleco, don’t let us detain you.” For Christophorou had pulled out a chair most gallantly. Christophorou glanced at him and turned to Miss Hillard.

  She thanked him as she took the chair he offered, but she avoided his eyes, looked only at Strang.

  Christophorou took her cue quickly. “Good-bye, Miss Hillard. You are staying at this hotel? Then we shall meet again, I hope.”

  She bowed and looked down at the table, breaking all contact.

  “We’ve said good-bye,” Strang told Christophorou. “It’s bad luck to repeat it.”

  “But in a way, you have,” Christophorou said gently, and left.

  Strang watched him for a moment. He felt tense and miserable. Then he sat down and looked at the blue eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “He didn’t like that very much,” she said reflectively, watching Alexander Christophorou walk over to the bar.

  “I expect he didn’t. But—oh well—” He fell silent.

  She glanced at him, and then looked around the room with interest. “Goodness, what a mixture! American Express grey flannel, Thomas Cook tweeds, faces straight out of Byzantine paintings, and even”—she noticed the dowagers at tea—“a get-together for the Daughters of the Greek Revolution. And who are the men ten-deep at the bar?”

  “Journalists, junior diplomats, professors, tentative businessmen, ex-playboys, writers.”

  “And not a secret agent among them? You disappoint me.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  “You can tell I’ve been on a plane trip,” she explained. “I’ve had a steady diet of magazines. There was one article, all very serious and fact-finding. Athens, it seems, is now one of the great espionage centres, like Rome and Berne. I don’t think the author could have been here at teatime, though.”

  “What will you have?” he asked her, as the waiter came over to them. “And how was the trip?”

  “The same as you, if it’s Scotch,” she said, glancing at his unfinished drink. “And the trip was bewildering. My last three meals have all been breakfasts.”

  “I didn’t know you were arriving so soon. You vaccinate very quickly.”

  “I was practically yanked off a plane to Mexico City, so I was all complete for travel. I only hope clothes for Mexico will be right for Greece, that’s all. But didn’t Lee Preston tell you I was coming?”

  “Only vaguely. Or else I’d have met you at the airport.”

  “Oh, that was all right. The travel agency had a man to steer me in the right direction. But how like Lee!” She shook her head. “He left the breaking of the bad news to me.”

  “What bad news?” he asked.

  “Me.”

  “Now—” he began awkwardly.

  “But,” she said quickly, “you didn’t really want me here, did you? I know that. But don’t worry, it won’t be so difficult to work with me. I do try to keep tantrums to a minimum. I hardly ever stamp my foot.” She was watching his face. “And I promise not to breathe down the back of your neck.”

  He recognised himself. “Where did you get that phrase?”

  “Lee. That’s why you liked working with Steve, wasn’t it? How is he, by the way?”

  He was grateful to the waiter for arriving at that moment. “Lee seems to have briefed you very fully about me. What else?”

  “You don’t like mixing business and pleasure. But I don’t, either.”

  “He got that slightly wrong. I don’t like business interfering with pleasure.”

  “Oh!” She showed the first sign of embarrassment, and the nervousness which she had been hiding so gaily forced itself to the surface. “I can be very businesslike,” she said. “I can be so impersonal that you’ll call me Hillard quite naturally.”

  “Heaven forbid!” he said with such dismay that she broke into a real smile. “We’ll manage this job,” he told her, “we’ll manage it very nicely.”

  “If my work is good enough—” she began, worriedly.

  “It is,” he said “Everyone knows that, except you, seemingly. But that’s all right, too. There’s only one direction for people who know they’re damned good, and that is backward. You’re hired, Miss Hillard. Will you take the job?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about me—am I hired?”

  “Yes.”

  “See,” he said, “how simple it all was!”

  “Not what I expected,” she admitted, and glanced at the doorway. “When I stood there, I was beginning to wonder when the next plane back to Rome would leave.”

  “Not what I expected, either,” he admitted, frankly, in turn. And if anyone had told him an hour ago that he would even now be planning an evening with actual enjoyment—“Incredible,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “I am.”

  “How?”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  She was wise enough not to trespass, and changed the subject. “I’d love to see your sketches of Sicily and Paestum.
And Lee told me you had a set of Steve’s first prints. He said you liked them.”

  He nodded. When do I tell her about Steve? he wondered. Now? No, don’t spoil her first day in Athens. “We could look at them before we go on to dinner,” he said. “But that will be some time away. Ten o’clock is about the usual hour.”

  “Ten?” She was horrified. “Don’t restaurants open before that?”

  “About half past eight, I’m told.”

  “And I am starving,” she said.

  “So am I. My last proper meal was in Taormina.”

  She gave that small quick glance which he was beginning to recognise. It will be difficult to keep all the truth about Steve from this girl, he thought, partly because she has a bright little intelligence burning behind those deceptively gentle eyes, partly because I don’t want to mislead her. She’s someone I want to keep liking me, somehow. No lies. They’re the deadliest sin between two people. No lies. But how? I can’t tell her much, that’s certain. What shall I tell her, and how?

  “When my father had a problem,” she said, “he used to take a long walk. Why don’t we do just that? I’d like to have my first look at the Acropolis.” Watching his face, she added, “But perhaps you’ve been spending all day wandering over it?”

  “No, I haven’t seen it yet. Not this trip.”

  She did more than glance at him this time, but she only said, walking lightly over the unknown ground, “Last time, you saw it by night, didn’t you?”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “Tom Wallis and Matt O’Brien. They make a very good story out of it.”

  “Don’t believe all they tell you,” he warned her.

  “No?” She looked at him thoughtfully. “But I just loved the bit about why you were chosen to go along with them and the J.G. on that mission.”

  “They have three versions of that story.” He sounded alarmed.

  “Then I was given the one about the lieutenant thinking you could speak Greek because you had a copy of Homer in your locker.”

  He could laugh over that memory. Then he frowned.

  “All right, I shan’t believe everything Matt and Tom told me. Is that better?”