The Whip Hand

by Victor Canning

  Vérité did not come down to dinner. She sent a message down to me to eat alone. I had an omelette, half a lobster, and half a bottle of wine, and then the schoolmistresses at the next table insisted that I had my coffee with them and wanted to know whether my fiancée were ill. I said no, she was just tired.

  The motor-boat took us across to the far side of the lake at ten, and we went down to Polace in the bus. There were half a dozen other people leaving the hotel and catching the boat. In Polace one of the hotel staff who had come down on the bus with us showed us to our temporary lodgings.

  Vérité and I were led up a flight of rough stone steps to a small house on the hillside, just above the landing stage. We were introduced to the woman of the house and the hotel man left us there.

  The woman took us through a spotless sitting-room, shining with new, highly varnished furniture, into a large bedroom. There was a new suite of bedroom furniture; a large bed, a wardrobe that rose into the lofty gloom of the ceiling like a polished cliff side, and two chairs that had white cloth covers over their tapestry to preserve them. There were no curtains at the windows, but large sheets of brown paper had been drawing-pinned across them. Against the window was a wash-stand with a yellow bowl and jug.

  Within a few moments it became clear that this was the only free bedroom in the house and that the hotel had made a mistake and assigned it to us on a man-and-wife basis. I tried to point this out to the woman. She thought that we had some objection to the room on the score of its furniture or cleanliness. In the end I had to let her retire hurt.

  Vérité, who had been quiet ever since we had left the hotel, said, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve only a few hours to spend, and I don’t mean to undress, do you?”

  “No. I’ll doss down on the floor.”

  She shook her head. “The bed’s big enough for two.”

  She went round the bed, slipped off her coat and shoes, and lay down.

  I padded over to the oil lamp which stood on the wash-hand stand and turned it out.

  I flopped back on the bed and we lay there with a good two feet of neutral ground between us.

  I said, “If I snore, just kick me and say, ‘Quiet.’”

  She said nothing.

  In five minutes I was asleep.

  I don’t know how much later it was that I awoke. At first I thought that I had been awakened by the brown paper at the window rattling. One of the windows behind it was slightly open and the night draught was playing a gentle drum-beat against the paper. Then I heard a noise from the other side of the bed and knew that it was Vérité who had awakened me. She made a noise, somewhere between a sob and a sigh, and I knew that she was lying there in the darkness, fighting something alone. The noise came again, and without thinking, I put out my hand and found hers.

  “What’s the trouble?”

  She made no answer, but her hand clung to mine tightly as though human contact now was the one thing she needed desperately.

  “Don’t think about Spiegel,” I said.

  “It’s not Spiegel....” I heard her force her voice to be normal.

  “What then? That’s if you want to talk.”

  “I don’t know....”

  I felt that I was holding her hand across a great pit of loneliness.

  “Sometimes it’s better ... to talk, I mean. Maybe you never have.”

  “It was the gun.... The noise, and seeing him there. Everything came back. A long time ago I said I would never let it come back.... But out there, it did....”

  “You loved him?”

  “Yes.... Oh, God, yes. But it was never any good.... No, no, that’s wrong. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes I could tell myself, fool myself, that it would go on being good. But it never lasted. It’s a most terrible thing to hate and love. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I was feeling. He brought other women into the house, kept them there....”

  “You needn’t tell me about that. I read about it.”

  “I knew you had. You’ve been nice and kind.... Maybe, it was just that. When people are like that, it brings it back. And then today ... the sudden noise of the gun in my ears....” She moved and her voice was suddenly higher, echoing fiercely in the dark room, “I want to forget.... I don’t want the coldness, the loneliness any longer.... Oh, God, why can’t it be taken from me...?”

  Maybe she moved, maybe I moved, maybe the earth just gave a compassionate lurch, but she was cradled in my arms and then holding on to me. I put my lips down and kissed her gently on the brow and then she put up her lips and kissed me, and I knew that it was not me she was kissing, not anyone. Her body, pressed against mine, trembled with an eagerness for warmth and comfort. I held her tightly to me, and talked to her gently, kissed her, and cursed the past, willing it to be exorcized from her, knowing it would be easy to give false comfort, knowing that this was not the moment. That was the way I saw it, and I knew that when the morning came that would be the way she would see it. This was a night for ghosts, a night for shriving.... I held her in my arms and I talked to her and the trembling faded, the fierceness died, and I could feel her tears against my cheek. I went on holding her until she slept.

  We made Dubrovnik about half-past seven that morning and took a taxi up over the hill from Gruz and down to the end of the tramlines by the Porto Ploce where were the tourist offices of Atlas. I left Vérité to deal with the question of getting an air booking, and said that I was going into town to have a shave and, maybe, a last taste of oysters before I left. I promised to meet her for coffee in an hour at the Gradska Kafana.

  I left her and went into the nearby Excelsior Hotel. On the way back in the boat I’d been thinking about the whip which I’d seen in Madame Vadarci’s room. It meant something to me, something to do with politics. I was curious, too, about Lancing’s reference to the “A. Party pamphlet”. I got through to Wilkins and unloaded my troubles on to her, suggesting that a visit to the publishers of Stigmata might help, and telling her to express anything she found to my Paris hotel.

  After that I headed straight for Michael Oglu’s place, hoping that he would have a razor I could borrow and knowing that I would have no time for oysters.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SLIDE OUT FROM UNDER

  It was a little house built close up against the city wall on the north side of the town where the ground rises. From the wide windows of Oglu’s studio I could look down across the red tiled roofs and the little vine and creeper bowered balconies to the sea.

  The studio was an absolute litter of junk ... paintings, canvases, old frames, a carpenter’s bench with not a clear inch on it, and a long divan on which a cat had scratched the stuffing from the upholstery to make a nest for a litter of kittens which had been born that morning. The range of colouring in the eight small kittens would have given Mendel something to think about.

  Oglu fussed around with the cat and kittens while I gave him a quick run down on the events at Melita. He kept nodding and making encouraging noises at the cat to drink milk from a saucer. But the moment I had finished he stood up and said, “Let’s see the stuff.” He put out a hand and swept the top of a small table free of junk.

  I put on the table all the stuff I had received from Lancing, except the mounted colour slide. In my report to Oglu I had made no mention of the slide or of Lancing’s comment on it. So far I’d just been beagling along, following a trail made only too obvious. Nobody was trusting me with anything. Now, for the first time, I was in on my own and my pride – or a sound commercial instinct – told me I’d do well to keep a hidden bargaining counter.

  Oglu went through it all, his lean Red Indian face suddenly grave and thoughtful. It was a good face and he looked like some Chief pondering the omens. As he skipped through the notes his face went graver and I expected him to say, “Much bad medicine here, brother.”

  Instead, he said, “Spiegel’s dead. No question?”

  “No question. Vérité is trying to get air tickets for us to leave today. She’
ll do it if anyone can.”

  “Paris?”

  “Yes. You’ll let them know?”

  “Yes. You want me to send this stuff?”

  “No. I can take it. Vérité knows what I’ve got. I’m working for Malacod. That means I must turn all this over to him.”

  “No problem. I’ll photograph the lot.”

  “Not the second sheet. That was private for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “WWK/2 – that’s Lancing’s tab?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s pretty far gone. What happened at Kotor?”

  “I was there – but some bastard jumped me. Drove me fifty miles into the hills and dumped me.”

  “Spiegel?”

  “Possibly. Old Baldy’s clearly kept him in touch. Ma Spiegel’s transistor must be a receiver.”

  He went to a cupboard and brought out a camera and a powerful desk lamp. “Negatives will get to Paris a day, maybe two days, after you. Pull the curtains, will you?”

  I went over and pulled the heavy curtains over the wide studio windows. A butterfly flew out of one of the folds. On the way back, a thought occurred to me. I bent over, patted the cat and made noises at the kittens.

  Oglu fiddled with the desk lamp and checked his camera. He worked quickly, expertly, completely at home with the white man’s magic. He said, “They’re not going to like the Spiegel business.”

  “They?”

  “Spiegel’s friends. They’ve got simple book-keeping minds. Account will have to be balanced. So expect a visit. Or am I teaching my grandmother?”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “Good. Keep your fingers off the text.”

  I held the notes and photo under the light, while he clicked away industriously.

  I said, “What’s all the Lottie Bemans angle?”

  “Don’t know. I’m on the fringe, like you.”

  “You can do better than that.”

  He said, “Her last known address was Munich. P.A.D. Chalkokondyli.A. That’ll be the Police Aliens’ Department, Chalkokondyli Street, Athens. I know it. Anyone staying for more than a month in Greece must get an identity card. Lancing checked her there and her card was overdue.”

  It was interesting, but not what I wanted to know. He picked up the sheet of notes and studied the script. I went over and started to pull the curtains back.

  He gave me a long hard look and said, “You’re sure that this is absolutely everything that you got from Lancing?”

  I turned. He had the notes in his hand and he was watching me, the sunlight striking full on his face as I drew the last curtain back.

  “Absolutely everything.”

  He said, “How did you cover this with the girl? Vérité?”

  I said, “I told her I took a row-boat for a look around the Komira and somebody tossed it over to me.”

  “She that gullible?”

  “I’m not worrying about her. Malacod’s the snag. I’ll have to expand it a little for him.”

  “You’re in trouble.”

  “I’ll work through it.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. Then suddenly he smiled, walked to the cupboard and put his equipment away, and came back with a bottle of brandy and two glasses.

  We drank to one another.

  As I lowered my glass, I found myself looking into the muzzle of an automatic.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, “that you carry that to protect the cat.”

  He smiled, shook his head and said quietly, “I may be doing you an injustice. Probably. But I have a job to do. If you were regular I wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Just what are you doing?”

  “Making sure that you didn’t get anything else from Lancing.”

  “So?”

  “Just strip off. The cat won’t mind. Starkers.” He fidgeted with the automatic.

  I stripped. Dropping it all in a heap on the floor.

  “Shoes and socks,” he said. “Take ’em off standing.”

  I started the necessary balancing act, and said, “I’m supposed to be getting a shave.”

  He motioned me away from the clothes and reached out without looking to the carpenter’s bench, his hand seeking for something. He tossed a small leather case to me. I caught it, and then unzipped it. There was a Philishave battery model inside.

  I began to shave while he went through the pile of clothing, the automatic on the floor, too close at hand for me to have tried anything if I had wanted to make an issue of things. But I didn’t. The colour slide was not on me.

  I shaved and, when he had finished with the clothes, he came over to me and made me turn my back to him. I felt as though I were up for sale in a slave market. One Anglo-Saxon, fit and sound, but only reasonably honest, and not to be trusted in the harem. The cat – kittens butting at her dugs – watched me, but she didn’t make any bid. Oglu’s hand finished feeling around the bandage on my arm.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I turned. “A pleasure.”

  He shrugged. “My apologies.”

  I dressed. We had another brandy and parted friends.

  I went over and patted the cat and kittens good-bye, and palmed the colour slide which I had hidden under them.

  At the door, as he saw me out, he said, “For God’s sake don’t try anything clever. The whole thing’s too big for that. And don’t worry about the air tickets. I’ll phone and check whether she’s got them. If she hasn’t, just come back here in two hours and they’ll be waiting.”

  But Vérité had got them, and we caught an afternoon flight to Zagreb, changed to Air France, and were in Paris in time for dinner. Vérité had booked a room for me at the Castiglione Hotel. After dinner, I took her with her cases to her flat and told her I’d be round in the morning. When I got back to my hotel Casalis was waiting for me, which didn’t surprise me. That side of the organization was sound enough.

  I said, “If you think I’m going back to that flat, you’re crazy. Spiegel’s stiff and Howard Johnson has a broken arm. They’re the kind that like to even the score. I feel safer here.”

  He nodded, and said, “Up to you – until Sutcliffe arrives tomorrow.”

  “What time?”

  “Afternoon. I’ll come and fetch you after lunch.” He got up from my bed where he had been sitting and cocking his head owlishly went on, “Where have you put all the stuff you brought back?”

  I flicked an eye at my case on the luggage stool and knew he had been through it.

  “I took a box at the American Express and left it there. For safety.”

  When he was gone I telephoned Vérité and told her not to let anyone in until I arrived the next morning. Myself, I slept happy in the knowledge that the colour slide was already on the way to Wilkins with very explicit instructions as to what I wanted done about it. Express delivery. Mailed at the airport.

  I went round to Vérité’s flat early the next morning and had breakfast with her. I don’t know whether it was because she was back in Paris, close to her employer, and the old personality had claimed her again, or whether she had decided that the Melita affair and the night at Polace had lowered her defences too much and the breaches must be built up ... anyway, she was friendly but cool and slightly standoffish. There was no question of giving her a slap on the bottom and asking her if she had slept well.

  She gave me bacon and eggs with their eyes shut and some excellent coffee made from a Cona which saved my hand from all that tin-top bashing.

  I said, “You’ve passed the stuff to Malacod?”

  She nodded. “Last night.”

  I said, “Will you ring Malacod and tell him I want to see him this evening at six o’clock. After that I’ll take you out to dinner and dancing at the Lido on the Champs Élysées – fifty-four francs all in and half a bottle of champagne. So you can see I want to be generous and nice.”

  She looked at me for a long time and then very quietly she said, “You’ve been very generous and very nice. I wouldn
’t want you to be anything else.”

  She got up and went to the telephone. It took her some time to get him and when she did she spoke in German. And that took some time too. But when it was over, she turned to me and said, “Herr Malacod agrees. He’ll see you at half-past six. I am to take you.”

  “To the same place?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t sound very friendly.

  I said, “What’s eating you?”

  She said, “Herr Malacod is no fool.”

  “I never thought so. Not with all that money.”

  “These notes were written by a British agent.”

  “So?”

  “How can you explain that to Herr Malacod?”

  “Carver luck. It happens.”

  I went across to her and she stood her ground. I put my hands on her arms, leaned forward and kissed her chastely on the cheek.

  Wilkins came on the telephone half an hour after I got back to the hotel. We had five minutes’ skirmishing about whether I was changing my socks regularly, not letting my hair grow too long, and why had I said I’d paid the electric light bill for the office when I hadn’t – and then she got down to business. She’d had the slide on the big office projector and had spent an hour with it and various reference books. She gave me her findings under different headings, and she had made a good job of it. But then she never did any other kind of job. I finished up with a page of notes that read:

  GENERAL

  Picture taken some time in spring. Larch in pines background just breaking. Gentians, small crocuses, cowslips along foot of wall. Shadows, early morning or late evening.

  MAN

  Fiftyish. Five ten, brown eyes. Dress – French, Swiss, Austrian better working class. Smoking dropped-stem, big-bowled pipe – German, Austrian type. Sole, right boot, built up, probably walks slight limp.

  WALL NICHE