“I? I took them? How can you even think of such a thing? I’m doing my best to help you!” Her big blue eyes were shocked; her lips trembled. “If you don’t trust me, then let us both go together and look for them. I was only...”
It was now she who began to open the front door and he who slammed it shut.
“Give me those films!” His voice was thick with fury, “I won’t tell you a second time! I’ll strip every shred of clothing off you until I find them! Give them to me!”
She stared for a long moment at him. There was a crazy, furious light in his eyes that made her flinch. She backed away, then lifting her shoulders in a gesture of surrender, she forced a smile.
“I did nearly get away with it, didn’t I?” she said. “I really thought I was going good. All right, you can have them.” She dropped her hand into her coat pocket and lifted out a .38 Smith and Wesson automatic which she levelled at his chest. “Don’t move, Mr. Cade. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
Cade looked at the gun, rock steady in her gloved hand, then he looked directly into the blue eyes that had suddenly become cold and hard.
“Just who are you?” he said. “I should have guessed you were too damned convenient. Who are you?”
“Back into that room behind you, please. You may as well make yourself comfortable. I am sure you are cold. You can light a fire in there.” She waved the gun at him. “Don’t try anything heroic.”
Cade made a grimace of disgust. He turned and walked into the living-room clicking on the light. There was a large fireplace, laid with logs at the far end of the room. He walked to it and applied the flame of his cigarette lighter to the wood shavings that caught, and in a few moments, flames were blazing around the logs.
Ginette tossed the half-empty bottle of whisky onto the settee.
“Amuse yourself with that,” she said. “I have a telephone call to make.”
She backed to where the telephone stood on the sideboard, dialled a number, the gun in her hand still covering Cade who took a long drink of whisky. He shuddered as he replaced the cap.
Ginette said, “Is Nicki there?” She listened. “In ten minutes? Tell him to call me. I’m at his place. Tell him it is very urgent,” and she replaced the receiver.
Feeling the heat of the fire, Cade took off his wool-lined coat and dropped it on the floor, then he sat on the settee, nursing the whisky bottle.
“Are you working for the Russians?” he asked, looking at Ginette, mild interest on his white face.
She studied him, then smiled.
“Perhaps. I shall be leaving you in a little while. I don’t know what will happen to you. You will be safer if you stay here. If you leave, you will almost certainly be caught. They will probably kill you. If you will take my advice, stay right here.”
“Your anxiety for my welfare is most touching,” Cade said. He lit a cigarette and was pleased to see his hands were steady. “I am trying to work out this little puzzle. Since you have my films, do you see any reason why you shouldn’t explain to me how you come into all this?”
She thought for a long moment as she regarded him, then she shrugged.
“No. It’s fair. Anita Strelik and I have worked together for a long time. We have been trying to get evidence of Hardenburg’s treachery. Anita dangled her charms before him and he fell for her. She convinced him she was against the present Russian Government and regretted the old régime. Hardenburg was so infatuated with her that he confided to her that he was planning to put Duslowski back into power. It was such a far-fetched story, we needed tangible proof to support it. It wasn’t difficult to bait a hook for Mr. Braddock of Whisper. He became curious and sent you here to take photographs... and we needed the photographs which we weren’t capable of getting ourselves. I reserved a room below yours at the hotel and waited hopefully. You obligingly took the photographs and I now have them. It is really very simple, isn’t it?”
Cade thought this over.
“How did you know I would blunder into your room the way I did?”
“Know? I didn’t. It was sheer luck. You don’t imagine I would have been in bed if I thought you would be arriving? I had been up all night watching you in that tree and I just had to get some sleep. When you turned up, I couldn’t believe my luck!”
“Who is Nicki?”
“You are curious, aren’t you? He owns this villa. He will take one of your films by road. I’ll take the other by train. I believe in spreading the risk.”
“And I remain here, toasting my toes by the fire until Hardenburg’s thugs find and kill me. Is that the idea?”
She lifted her shoulders indifferently.
“I’m sorry for you. A year ago I would never have put you in danger, but you are expendable now. You can’t consider yourself anything but unimportant now, can you?”
“That seems to be the idea most people have of me,” Cade said, staring into the fire.
She studied him, then leaning forward, she said, “You have always interested me. I think you are a great artist and I admire your work. Is it really true you ruined your life because of some slut in Mexico?”
Cade continued to stare into the fire.
“You are amusing as a spy,” he said, “and you are quite picturesque with your gun and your sleazy methods of sexual awareness, but would you please keep your bitchy nose out of my past?”
She flushed.
“I’m sorry... really I mean that.”
“That’s nice of you.” He glanced at her and smiled. “I can understand your morbid interest. I have become a museum-piece to be stared at and wondered at.” He lifted the bottle and took a long drink, then as he replaced the cap, he went on, “What really surprises me is your faith in me as a photographer. I should have thought you, with your intelligence, your sophistication and your quite impressive courage, would have had more psychological awareness. Didn’t it occur to you that I was so goddamn drunk that I just didn’t get any photos?”
She became motionless, her fingers tightening on the gun, her blue eyes widening.
“What are you saying?”
“Baby, my heart bleeds for you,” Cade said, still staring into the fire. “You claim to know something about me, but your research has been very superficial. Didn’t you hear about my débâcle with General de Gaulle? I had the exclusive on him, but I was so plastered at the time, the pictures were completely out of focus. Do you imagine I sat up in that tree without getting plastered? Don’t puff out that pretty little chest of yours. Wait until the films you have stolen from me have been processed. It’s my bet they will be as useless as I am: probably a little more useless, if that is possible.”
He watched her lose colour and confidence. She put her hand inside her coat as if the touch of her fingers on the two film cartridges would work a miracle.
“I have a sneaking feeling you have backed the wrong horse,” Cade said, stretching his feet out towards the fire. “For the past six months, people have been making the same mistake about me. A man on the bottle is always a rotten bet. I don’t know who your Russian boss is, but he won’t be at his amiable best when he finds out you picked on Cade of all the photographers to get vitally important photos.”
She sat for a long moment, still and tense, then she said, “You know how to talk, don’t you? You think my psychology is all wrong, but I don’t. No matter how drunk you were, you would have taken good pictures. This happens to be one of the biggest news scoops ever. You don’t bluff me. You — Cade — wouldn’t have fallen down on an assignment this important.”