“But I don’t understand.”
“Enough! I have wasted enough time. I should, properly, now leave you to the police, but I do not wish to abandon you just yet. For the tavern and the thieves within, I can do nothing now. Perhaps another time after another complaint. Let us, however, find your hotel. — Tell me anything you remember — the decor — the position of the registration desk — the hair color of the man behind it — were there flowers? Come, come, Mr. Smith, what kind of street was it on? Were there shops? Was there a doorman? Anything!”
I wondered if it were a scheme to trap me into something, but I saw no alternative but to try to answer the questions. I tried to picture everything as it had been when I had walked into the hotel for the first time less than twelve hours before. I did my best to describe it and he hurried me on impatiently, asking questions faster than I could answer.
He then looked at the hurried notes he had taken and whispered them to another official of some sort, who was on the spot without my having seen him enter — a hotel expert, perhaps. The newcomer nodded his head wisely and whispered back.
Vee said, “Very well, then. We think we know which hotel it was, so let us go. The faster I locate your passport, the better all around.”
Off we went in an official car. I sat there, fearful and apprehensive, fearing that it was a device to break my, spirit by offering me hope only to smash it by taking me to prison instead. God knows my spirit needed no breaking. — Or what if they took me to a hotel, and it was the wrong one, would they then listen to anything at all that I had to say?
We did, however, speed to a hotel. I shrugged helplessly when Vee asked if it was the hotel. How could I tell in pitch-darkness?
But it was the correct hotel. The night man behind the desk didn’t know me, of course, but there was the record of a room for a John Smith of Fairfield. We went up there and behold — my luggage, my passport, my papers. Quite enough.
Vee shook hands with me and said in a low voice, “A word of advice, Mr. Smith. Get out of the country quickly. I shall make my report and exonerate you, but if things go wrong in some ways, someone may decide you should be picked up again. You will be better off beyond the borders.”
I thanked him and never took anyone’s advice so eagerly in all my life. I checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the nearest station, and I don’t think I breathed till I crossed the border.
To this day I don’t know what it was all about — whether the United States really had an espionage project under way in that country at that time or whether, if we did, we succeeded or failed. As I said, some official asked me to keep quiet about the whole thing, so I suppose the suspicions of Vee’s government were more or less justified.
In any case, I never plan to go back to that particular country.
Avalon said, “You were fortunate, Mr. Smith. I see what you mean when you said you were puzzled by the ending. Vee, as you call him, did make a sudden about-face, didn’t he?”
“I don’t think so,” interposed Gonzalo. “I think he was sympathetic to you all along, Mr. Smith. When you passed oat, he called some superior, convinced him you were just a poor guy in trouble, and then let you go.”
“It might be,” said Drake, “that it was your fainting that convinced him. If you were actually an agent, you would know the dangers you ran, and you would be more or less steeled for them. In fact, he said so, didn’t he? He said you couldn’t fake fear so convincingly and therefore had to be what you said you were — something like that.”
Rubin said, “If you’ve told the story accurately, Mr. Smith, I would think that Vee is out of sympathy with the regime or he wouldn’t have urged you to get out of the country. I should think he stands a good chance of being purged, or has been since that time.”
Trumbull said, “I hate to agree with you, Manny, but I do. My guess is that Vee’s failure to hang on to Smith may have been the last straw.”
“That doesn’t make me feel very good.” muttered Smith.
Roger Halsted pushed his coffee cup out of the way and placed his elbows on the table. He said earnestly, “I’ve heard the bare bones of the story before and I’ve thought about it and think there’s more to it than that. Besides, if all five of you agree on something, it must be wrong.”
He turned to Smith, “You told me, John, that this Vee was a young man.”
“Well, he struck me as being in his early thirties.”
“All right, then,” said Halsted. “If a youngish man is in the secret police, it must be out of conviction and he must plan to rise in the ranks. He isn’t going to run ridiculous risks for some nonentity. If he were an old man, he might remember an earlier regime and might be out of sympathy with the new government, but—”
Gonzalo said, “How do you know this Vee wasn’t a double agent? Maybe that’s why our government doesn’t want Smith to be talking about the matter.”
“If Vee were a double agent,” said Halsted, “then, considering his position in the government intelligence there, he would be enormously valuable to us. All the more reason that he wouldn’t risk anything for the sake of a nonentity. I suspect that there’s more than sympathy involved. He must have thought of something that authenticated John’s story.”
“Sometimes I think that’s it,” said Smith morosely. “I keep thinking of his remark after I came out of my faint to the effect that I was too stupid to be guilty. He never did explain that remark.”
“Wait a minute,” said Rubin. “After you came out of your faint, you said you seemed to be in disarray. While you were out, they inspected your clothes, realized they were American made—”
“What would that prove?” demanded Gonzalo. “An American spy is as likely to wear American clothes as an American tourist.”
Mr. Smith said, “I bought the clothes I was wearing in Paris.”
Gonzalo said, “I guess you didn’t ask him why he thought you were stupid.”
Smith snorted. “You mean did I say to him, ‘Hey, wise guy, who’re you calling stupid?’ No, I didn’t say that, or anything like it. I just held my breath.”
Avalon said, “The comments on your stupidity, Mr. Smith, need not be taken to heart. You have said several times that you were not yourself at any time during that difficult time. After being drugged, you might well have seemed stupid. In any case, I don’t see that we’ll ever know the inwardness of Vee’s change of mind. It would be sufficient to accept it and not question the favors of fortune. It is enough that you emerged safely from the lion’s mouth.”
“Well, wait,” said Gonzalo. “We haven’t asked Henry for his opinion yet.”
Smith said, with astonishment, “The waiter?” Then, in a lower voice, “I didn’t realize he was listening. Does he understand this is all confidential?”
Gonzalo said, “He’s a member of the club and the best man here. — Henry, can you understand Vee’s change of heart?”
Henry hesitated. “I do not wish to offend Mr. Smith. I would not care to call him stupid, but I can see why this foreign official, Vee, thought so.”
There was a general stir about the table. Smith said stiffly, “What do you mean, Henry?”
“You say the events of the nightmare took place some time last year.”
“That’s right,” said Smith.
“And you say your pockets were rifled in the tavern. Were they completely emptied?”
“Of course,” said Smith.
“But that is clearly impossible. You’ve said you still carry the original vial of pills, and that you have carried it everywhere and at all times, so that I suppose you had it with you when you traveled abroad and that you had it with you when you entered the tavern — and therefore still had it with you when you left the tavern.”