On our way back to the offices, however, he fell silent again. I concluded that he was regretting his earlier enthusiasm and suggested again that to-morrow would do just as well. The response was a stream of reassurance. He would not hear of my waiting. Besides, there was the cognac. He had been trying to remember exactly where he had put the photographs, that was all. We walked on. He was, I decided, a very curious man; not at all my idea of an American. But, then, the Englishman’s idea of what an American ought to look like and how an American ought to behave was notoriously wide of the mark. Still, he was odd. And there was a quality about him that attracted you. It wasn’t so much in what he said, but in the manner in which he said it. He had a way of disconcerting you with a gesture, with the way he timed his phrases. Yet you could not quite discover just why you had been disconcerted. You received the impression that you were watching a very competent actor using all the technical tricks in his repertoire in an effort to make something of a badly written part. There was something about him which cried out for analysis and yet defied it. I glanced sideways at him. His chin was tucked inside the thick grey muffler that he wore coiled twice round his neck; and he was staring fiercely at the ground in front of him as though he suspected the presence of a man-trap in the pavement. It was a portrait of a man with something on his mind.
In his office, he switched on the desk lamp.
It was a large room, larger than mine, and very neat and tidy, with a row of steel filing cabinets along one wall and a green steel desk to match. But on the wall behind the desk was a dreadful tinted photograph of the Venus de Medici. He saw me looking at it.
“It’s a honey, isn’t it, Mr. Marlow? I keep it in memory of Mister Saponi. One day I’m going to give her a moustache and a monocle. Sit down and make yourself at home.”
He got out a bottle of cognac, half-filled two wine glasses with it and pushed a box of cigarettes towards me. Then he went to one of the cabinets and began to go through the files in it.
“By the way,” he murmured over his shoulder, “have you decided to accept Vagas’ invitation?”
The question irritated me. “I really haven’t thought about it. Why?”
But at that moment he gave vent to an exclamation of satisfaction. “Ah! here it is.” He drew a large card out of the file and brought it over to the light. “There you are. The late Mr. Ferning.”
I took the card. Gummed in the top right-hand corner was a hard, flat head-and-shoulders photograph of a middle-aged man. Except for a fringe of hair above his ears, he was quite bald. The face was round and podgy with small anxious eyes and an indeterminate mouth that seemed on the point of framing a protest. It was a weak and ordinary face. I looked at the rest of the card. In the top left-hand corner was written “F326.” The lower half was taken up by a strip of typewritten paper pasted on by the corners.
Sidney Arthur Ferning (I read). Born London 1891. Engineer. Representative of Spartacus Machine Tool Co. Ltd. of Wolverhampton, England, in Milan. Killed in street, Milan. (Here followed the date.) See V. 18.
I read it through once more, then I looked at the photograph again. One corner of it had come adrift from the card. Without thinking I pressed it back into position. As it did not stick, I lifted it to moisten the gum.
It was done almost subconsciously; to play for time. There was very obviously nothing casual, nothing unpremeditated about this formidable card. My mind went back to the restaurant. So he had forgotten all about the photograph. A few minutes ago he had been “trying to remember” exactly where it was.
Then I had my second shock. As I lifted the corner of the photograph I saw that there was a red rubber stamp mark on it. The stamp consisted of the name and address of a London passport photographer. I put the card down. So much for the “Kodak snap.”
I looked across the desk. Zaleshoff was watching my face and on his lips was a faint smile. I had a sudden desire to go. There was something here that I did not understand, that I did not want to understand. I got to my feet.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Zaleshoff. It’s good of you to take so much trouble to satisfy my curiosity. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going. I have to be up early in the morning.”
“Yes, of course. You have an appointment with the police, you said.”
“I have also some work to do.”
“Naturally. But don’t forget your brandy, Mr. Marlow.”
I glanced at the glass. I had not touched it. I picked it up.
“Have another cigarette while you’re drinking it.” He held the box out. I hesitated. I could not very well swallow the brandy at a gulp and leave. To leave it untouched would be rude. I took a cigarette and sat down again. He blew the match out and examined the stalk. “You know,” he said pensively, “I wouldn’t, if I were you, bother to go to the police to-morrow.”
“They have my passport.”
He dropped the match. “I’ll make a bet with you, Mr. Marlow. I’ll bet you a thousand lire to a cake of soap that the police have mislaid your passport.”
“Good Heavens, why?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a hunch.”
“A bad one, I hope. I won’t take your bet. It would be sheer robbery. By the way”-I glanced at the card lying on the desk-“do you card-index all your acquaintances?”
He shook his head. “No, not all of them, Mr. Marlow. Only some of them. It’s a sort of hobby with me, you see. Some people collect sea shells. I collect photographs.”
He leaned forward suddenly, his jaw thrust out pugnaciously. “Mr. Marlow, this evening is, to all intents and purposes, the first time we’ve met and I’ve spent most of it so far in telling you a pack of lies. You’ve probably guessed that already, because you’ve caught me out in one that I hadn’t meant you to catch me out in. I didn’t know that that photograph wasn’t fixed properly. Well, all right. That’s about as bad a way of starting up a life-long friendship as I can think of off-hand. There’s a nice atmosphere of skulduggery and mistrust about it. You realise that you don’t know who the Hell I am and decide that you don’t want to know. You’re probably thinking that I must be some sort of crook. Splendid! And now I’m going to ask you to let me give you a piece of advice. I’m going to tell you that it won’t cost you a cent, that, on the contrary, you stand to make big money by taking the advice, and you’re going to wonder what my game is. And now, the whole thing is sounding to you about as phoney as a glass eye, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I said firmly; “what is it to be, a vacuum cleaner or a refrigerator? I don’t need either.”
He frowned. “Do you mind being serious for a moment, Mr. Marlow?”
“I’m sorry. All this disarming candour has been a little too much for me.”
“Well now, I’m going to ask you to trust me and take the advice.”
“I’m always ready to listen to advice.”
“Good. Then my advice to you is to accept General Vagas’ invitation. He might have a proposition for you.”
I faced him squarely. “Now look here, Mr. Zaleshoff. I don’t know what you’ve got in the back of your mind and I really am not interested. Furthermore, I quite fail to see what on earth an invitation issued to me has to do with you.”
“I still ask you to accept it.”
“Well, it may interest you to know that I have already decided to refuse it.”
“Then change your mind, Mr. Marlow.”
I rose. “I feel sure you will excuse me, Mr. Zaleshoff. I’ve had a tiring day and I’m not very fond of round games, even in the morning. Thank you for your dinner and for your very pleasant brandy. Perhaps you will allow me to return your hospitality some time. At the moment I’m afraid I must go. Good night to you.”
He stood up. “Good night, Mr. Marlow. I shall look forward to seeing you again soon and having another chat.”
I went to the door.
“Oh, by the way.”
I turned. He picked the card up from his desk and flicked it with a finger-nail. “You may have noticed,” he said slowly, “that at the foot of this card there is a note. It says: ‘See V. 18.’ Card V. 18 is in one of those filing cabinets. If, after you see General Vagas next time, you would like to inspect that card, I shall be delighted to get it out for you.”