Passenger to Frankfurt

by Agatha Christie

at any rate teeth of which it might have been said, like in Red

  Riding Hood, 'the better to eat you with, child!'

  He knew, too, what Mr Robinson stood for. Just one

  simple word described it. Mr Robinson represented Money

  with a capital M. Money in its every aspect. International

  money, worid-wide money, private home finances, banking,

  money not in the way that the average person looked at it.

  You never thought of him as a very rich man. Undoubtedly

  he was a very rich man but that wasn't the important thing.

  He was one of the arrangers of money, the great clan of

  bankers. His personal tastes might even have been simple, but

  Sir Stafford Nye doubted if they were. A reasonable standard

  of comfort, even luxury, would be Mr Robinson's way of life.

  But not more than that. So behind all this mysterious business

  there was the power of money.

  'I heard of you just a day or two ago,' said Mr Robinson,

  73

  as he shook hands, 'from our friend Pikeaway, you know.'

  That fitted in, thought Stafford Nye, because now he

  remembered that on the solitary occasion before that he

  had met Mr Robinson, Colonel Pikeaway had been present.

  Horsham, he remembered, had spoken of Mr Robinson. So

  now there was Mary Arm (or the Countess Zerkowski?) and

  Colonel Pikeaway sitting in his own smoke-filled room with

  his eyes half closed either going to sleep or just waking up,

  and there was Mr Robinson with his large, yellow face, and

  so there was money at stake somewhere, and his glance shifted

  to the three other people in the room because he wanted to

  see if he knew who they were and what they represented,

  pr if he could guess.

  In two cases at least he didn't need to guess. The man

  who sat in the tall porter's chair by the fireplace, an elderly

  figure framed by the chair as a picture frame might have

  framed him, was a face that had been well known all over

  England. Indeed, it still was well known, although it was

  very seldom seen nowadays. A sick man, an invalid, a

  man who made very brief appearances, and then it was

  said, at physical cost to himself in pain and difficulty. Lord

  Altamount. A thin emaciated face, outstanding nose, grey

  hair which receded just a little from the forehead, and

  then flowed back in a thick grey mane; somewhat prominent

  ears that cartoonists had used in their time, and a deep

  piercing glance that not so much observed as probed. Probed

  deeply into what it was looking at. At the moment it was

  looking at Sir Stafford Nye. He stretched out a hand as

  Stafford Nye went towards him.

  'I don't get up,' said Lord Altamount. His voice was

  faint, an old man's voice, a far-away voice. 'My back doesn't

  allow me. Just come back from Malaya, haven't you, Stafford

  Nye?'

  'Yes.'

  'Was it worth your going? I expect you think it wasn't.

  You're probably right, too. Still, we have to have these

  excresences in life, these ornamental trimmings to adorn

  the better kind of diplomatic lies. I'm glad you could come

  here or were brought here tonight. Mary Ann's doing, 1

  suppose?'

  So that's what he calls her and thinks of her as, thought Stafford Nye to himself. It was what Horsham had called

  her. She was in with them then, without a doubt. As foi Altamount, he stood for--what did he stand for nowadays?

  Stafford Nye thought to himself; He stands for England.

  74

  He still stands for England until he's buried in Westminster

  Abbey or a country mausoleum, whatever he chooses. He

  has been England, and he knows England, and I should say

  he knows the value of every politician and government official

  in England pretty well, even if he's never spoken to them.

  Lord Altamount said:

  'This is our colleague. Sir James Kleek.'

  Stafford Nye didn't know Kleek. He didn't think he'd

  even heard of him. A restless, fidgety type. Sharp, suspicious

  glances that never rested anywhere for long. He had the

  contained eagerness of a sporting dog awaiting the word of

  command. Ready to start off at a glance from his master's

  eye.

  But who was his master? Altamount or Robinson?

  Stafford's eye went round to the fourth man. He had

  risen to his feet from the chair where he had been sitting

  close to the door. Bushy moustache, raised eyebrows, watchful,

  withdrawn, managing in some way to remain familiar

  yet almost unrecognizable.

  'So it's you,' said Sir Stafford Nye, 'how are you, Horsham?'

  'Very pleased to see you here. Sir Stafford.'

  Quite a representative gathering, Stafford Nye thought,

  with a swift glance round.

  They had set a chair for Renata not far from the fire

  and Lord Altamount. She had stretched out a hand--her

  left hand, he noticed--and he had taken it between his

  two hands, holding it for a minute, then dropping it. He said:

  'You took risks, child, you take too many risks.'

  Looking at him, she said, 'It was you who taught me that, and it's the only way of life.'

  Lord Altamount turned his head towards Sir Stafford Nye. 'It wasn't I who taught you to choose your man. You've

  got a natural genius for that.' Looking at Stafford Nye, he

  said, 'I know your great-aunt, or your great-great-aunt, is

  she?'

  'Great-Aunt Matilda,' said Stafford Nye immediately.

  'Yes. That's the one. One of the Victorian tours-de-force of the 'nineties. She must be nearly ninety herself now.'

  He went on:

  'I don't see her very often. Once or twice a year perhaps. fiut it strikes me every time--that sheer vitality of hers

  that outlives her bodily strength. They have the secret of

  that, those indomitable Victorians and some of the Edwardians

  as well.'

  75

  Sir James Kleek said, 'Let me get you a drink, Nye?

  What will you have?'

  'Gin and tonic, if I may.'

  The Countess refused with a small shake of the head.

  James Kleek brought Nye his drink and set it on the table

  near Mr Robinson. Stafford Nye was not going to speak

  first. The dark eyes behind the desk lost their melancholy

  for a moment. They had quite suddenly a twinkle in them.

  'Any questions?' he said.

  Too many,' said Sir Stafford Nye. 'Wouldn't it be better

  to have explanations first, questions later?'

  'Is that what you'd like?'

  'It might simplify matters.'

  'Well, we start with a few plain statements of facts. You

  may or you may not have been asked to come here. If not,

  that fact may rankle slightly.'

  'He prefers to be asked always,' said the Countess. 'He

  said as much to me.'

  'Naturally,' said Mr Robinson.

  '�I was hi-jacked,' said Stafford Nye. 'Very fashionable. I

  know. One of our more modem methods.'

  He kept his tone one of light amusement.

  'Which invites, surely, a question from you,' said Mr Robinson.

  'Just

  one small word of three letters. Why?'

  'Quite so. Why? I admire your economy of speech. This
>
  is a private committee�a committee of inquiry. An inquiry

  of world-wide significance.'

  'Sounds interesting,' said Sir Stafford Nye.

  'It is more than interesting. It is poignant and immediate.

  Four different ways of life are represented in this room

  tonight,' said Lord Altamount. 'We represent different

  branches. I have retired from active participation in the

  affairs of this country, but I am still a consulting authority.

  I have been consulted and asked to preside over this par

  ticular inquiry as to what is going on in the world in thi;

  particular year of our Lord, because something is going

  on. James, here, has his own special task. He is my right

  hand man. He is also our spokesman. Explain the genera

  set-out, if you will, Jamie, to Sir Stafford here.'

  It seemed to Stafford Nye that the gun dog quivered

  At last! his eagerness seemed to be saying. At last! At las

  I can speak and get on with iti He leaned forward a litti'

  in his chair.

  It things happen in the world, you have to look for &

  76

  cause for them. The outward signs are always easy to see

  but they're not, or so the Chairman--' he bowed to Lord

  Altamount--'and Mr Robinson and Mr Horsham believe,

  important. It's always been the same way. You take a natural

  force, a great fall of water that will give you turbine power.

  You take the discovery of uranium from pitchblende, and

  that will give you in due course nuclear power that had not

  been dreamt of or known. When you found coal and minerals,

  they gave you transport, power, energy. There are forces at

  work always that give you certain things. But behind each

  of them there is someone who controls it. You've got to find

  who's controlling the powers that are slowly gaining ascendancy

  in practically every country in Europe, further afield

  still in parts of Asia. Less, possibly, in Africa, but again in the

  American continents both north and south. You've got to get

  behind the things that are happening and find out the motive

  force that's making them happen. One thing that makes

  things happen is money.'

  He nodded towards Mr Robinson.

  'Mr Robinson, there, knows as much about money as

  anybody in the world, I suppose.'

  'It's quite simple,' said Mr Robinson. There are big movements

  afoot. There has to be money behind them. We've

  got to find out where that money's coming from. Who's

  operating with it? Where do they get it from? Where are

  they sending it to? Why? It's quite true what James says:

  I know a lot about money! As much as any man alive knows

  today. Then there are what you-might call trends. It's a word

  we use a good deal nowadays! Trends or tendencies--there

  are innumerable words one uses. They mean not quite the

  same thing, but they're in relationship with each other. A

  tendency, shall we say, to rebellion shows up. Look back

  through history. You'll find it coming again and again, repeating

  itself like a periodic table, repeating a pattern. A desire

  for rebellion. A feeling for rebellion, the means of rebellion,

  the form the rebellion takes. It's not a thing particular to any

  particular country. If it arises in one country, it will arise in

  other countries in less or more degrees. That's what you mean,

  sir, isn't it?' He half turned towards Lord Altamount. 'That's

  the way you more or less put it to me.'

  'Yes, you're expressing things very well, James.'

  It's a pattern, a pattern that arises and seems inevitable.

  You can recognize it where you find it. There was a period

  when a yearning towards crusades swept countries. All over "urope people embarked in ships, they went off to deliver

  77

  the Holy Land. All quite clear, a perfectly good pattern

  of determined behaviour. But why did they go? That's the

  interest of history, you know. Seeing why these desires and

  patterns arise. It's not always a materialistic answer either.

  All s'orts of things can cause rebellion, a desire for freedom,

  freedom of speech, freedom of religious worship, again a

  series of closely related patterns. It led people to embrace

  emigration to other countries, to formation of new religions

  very often as full of tyranny as the forms of religion they

  had left behind. But in all this, if you look hard enough, if

  you make enough investigations, you can see what started the

  onset of these and many other--'I'll use the same word--

  patterns. In some ways it's like a virus disease. The virus can

  be carried--round the world, across seas, up mountains. It can

  go and infect. It goes apparently without being set in motion.

  But one can't be sure, even now, that that was always really

  true. There could have been causes. Causes that made things

  happen. One can go a few steps further. There are people. One person--ten persons--a few hundred persons who are

  capable of being and setting in motion a cause. So it is not

  the end process that one has to look at. It is the first people

  who set the cause in motion. You have your crusaders, you

  have your religious enthusiasts, you have your desires for

  liberty, you have all the other patterns but you've got to go

  further back still. Further back to a hinterland. Visions,

  dreams. The prophet Joel knew it when he wrote "Your old

  men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions."

  And of those two, which are the more powerful? Dream;

  are not destructive. But visions can open new worlds to you--

  and visions can also destroy the worlds that already exist ...

  James Kleek turned suddenly towards Lord Altamount 'I don't know if it connects up, sir,' he said, 'but you told

  me a story once of somebody in the Embassy at Berlin. A

  woman.'

  'Oh that? Yes, I found it interesting at the time. Yesit

  has a bearing on what we are talking about now. One o the Embassy wives, clever, intelligent woman, well educated

  She was very anxious to go personally and hear the Fiihre

  speak. I am talking, of course, of a time immediately preceding

  the 1939 war. She was curious to know what orator

  could do. Why was everyone so impressed? And so she wen

  She came back and said, "It's extraordinary. I wouldn't have

  believed it. Of course I don't understand German very we

  but I was carried away, too. And I see now why everyoc

  is. I mean, his ideas were wonderful . . . They inflamed yoi 78

  The things he said. I mean, you just felt there way no other

  way of thinking, that a whole new world would happen if

  only one followed him. Oh, I can't explain properly. I'm

  going to write down as much as I can remember, and then

  if I bring it to you to see, you'll see better than my just

  trying to tell you the effect it had."

  'I told her that was a very good idea. She came to me

  the next day and she said, "I don't know if you'll believe

  this. I started to write down the things I'd heard, the things

  Hitler had said. What they'd meant�but�it was frightening

  �there wasn't anything to w
rite down at all, I didn't seem

  able to remember a single stimulating or exciting sentence.

  I have some of the words, but it doesn't seem to mean the

  same things as when I wrote them down. They are just�oh,

  they are just meaningless. I don't understand."

  'That shows you one of the great dangers one doesn't

  always remember, but it exists. There are people capable of

  communicating to others a wild enthusiasm, a kind of vision

  of life and of happening. They can do that though it is not

  really by what they say, it is not the words you hear, it is not

  even the idea described. It's something else. It's the magnetic

  power that a very few men have of starting something, of

  producing and creating a vision. By their personal magnetism

  perhaps, a tone of voice, perhaps some emanation that comes

  forth straight from the flesh. I don't know, but it exists.

  'Such people have power. The great religious teachers

  had this power, and so has an evil spirit power also. Belief

  can be created in a certain movement, in certain things

  to be done, things that will result in a new heaven and a

  new earth, and people will believe it and work for it and

  fight for it and even die for it.'

  He lowered his voice as he said: 'Jan Smuts puts it in a

  phrase. He said Leadership, besides being a great creative

  force, can be diabolical.'

  Stafford Nye moved in his chair.

  'I understand what you mean. It is interesting what you

  say. I can see perhaps that it might be true.'

  'But you think it's exaggerated, of course.'

  'I don't know that I do,' said Stafford Nye. Things that

  ^nd exaggerated are very often not exaggerated at all.

  Ihey are only things that you haven't heard said before or

  thought about before. And therefore they come to you as so

  unfamiliar that you can hardly do anything about them

  ^cept accept them. By the way, may I ask a simple question?

  "'hat does one do about them?'

  79

  It you come across the suspicion that this sort of thing is going on, you must find out about them,' said Lord

  Altamount. 'You've got to go like Kipling's mongoose: g(

  and find out. Find out where the money comes from anc

  where the ideas are coming from, and where, if I may say so,

  the machinery comes from. Who is directing the machinery'

  There's a chief of staff, you know, as well as a commander

  in-chief. That's what we're trying to do. We'd like you to

  come and help us.'

  It was one of the rare occasions in his life when Sir

  Stafford Nye was taken aback. Whatever he may have felt

  on some former occasions, he had always managed to conceal

  the fact. But this time it was different. He looked from one

  to the other of the men in the room. At Mr Robinson, impassively

  yellow-faced with his mouthful of teeth displayed;

  to Sir James Kleek, a somewhat brash talker. Sir Stafford

  Nye had considered him, but nevertheless he had obviously

  his uses; Master's dog, he called him in his own mind. H;

  looked at Lord Altamount, the hood of the porter's cha"

  framed round his head. The lighting was not strong in the

  room. It gave him the look of a saint in a niche in a cathedral

  somewhere. Ascetic. Fourteenth-century. A great man. Yes,

  Altamount had been one of the great men of the past. St&fiord

  Nye had no doubt of that, but he was now a very old man.

  Hence, he supposed, the necessity for Sir James Kleek, an:'

  Lord Altamount's reliance on him. He looked past them to tt i

  enigmatic, cool creature who had brought him here; the

  Countess Renata Zerkowski alias Mary Arm, alias Daphre

  Theodofanous. Her face told him nothing. She was not even

  looking at him. His eyes came round last to Mr Henry Hersham

  of Security.

  With faint surprise he observed that Henry Horsha :

  was grinning at him.

  'But look here,' said Stafford Nye, dropping all forni^l

  language, and speaking rather like the schoolboy of eighteen

  he had once been. 'Where on earth do I come in? What do

  / know? Quite frankly, I'm not distinguished in any way :n my own profession, you know. They don't think very much .?�

  me at the FO. Never have.'

  'We know that,' said Lord Altamount.

  It was Sir James Kleek's turn to grin and he did so.

  'All the better perhaps,' he remarked, and added apologetically

  as Lord Altamount frowned at him, 'Sorry, sir.'

  "This is a committee of investigation,' said Mr Robinsc "

  'It is not a question of what you have done in the past, ^ 80

  what other people's opinion of you may be. What we are