'At this, Jocasta began to give a bit at the knees but she rallied sharply and declared that it could not possibly be Laius's son who had killed him, because his only son had been left as a babe to die of exposure on Mount Cithaeron. But up popped the old goat-herd with an account of how a pal of his had taken the babe to Corinth; and then, of course, the fat was properly in the fire.
'On discovering that she had been living with her son for the past twenty years, Jocasta went upstairs to her bedroom, locked herself in and hanged herself with her girdle. When they had broken down the door, Oedipus said death was too good for him; so, with the prong in the buckle of her girdle, he put out both his eyes.
'The next Act concerns their children. Oedipus's daughter, Antigone, was a very good sort of girl, and refused to desert him while he wandered about the world in this parlous state until he died. Meanwhile her twin brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, decided to take turns in ruling Boeotia year and year about; but after a bit Eteocles threw his brother out. Polynices took refuge in Argos. There he made a number of chums among the local bloods and between them they collected an army, to help him get back his kingdom. It was called the War of the Seven against Thebes, and . . .'
Robbie broke off. He had just caught a gentle snore from Stephanie. Looking down, he saw that her eyes were closed, her dark eyelashes making fans upon her cheeks, and that she was clearly sound asleep.
For a while, he continued to think about Thebes. How, eventually, the twin brothers had agreed to settle their quarrel in a duel to the death, and had killed one another. How Creon, who had taken over again, had refused to allow Polynices to be buried, because he had brought war to his mother city. How
Antigone had performed the last rites for her brother at dead of nigh? How Creon had found out and, because she had defied him had her wailed up in a cave to die of starvation. How the people had revolted and forced him to order her release and how, when her lover Haemon broke down the wall, he found that she had strangled herself; so he had drawn his sword, stabbed himself and fallen dead upon her body.
Even that Romeo-and-Juliet-like scene had not been the last act in the Theban tragedy. The Heirlooms—the magnificent necklace and wonderful veil that Aphrodite had given Harmonia as wedding presents—gave ri^e to endless quarrels. Still thinking vaguely of the welter of blood and death they had caused, Robbie, too, dropped off to sleep.
They woke about an hour later, finished the rest of the wine, spent another hour wandering about the ruins, then started for home. They were back at the Cecil by six o'clock, after a very pleasant day; but it had been a tiring one, so they decided to dine in and go early to bed.
Next morning, they took the car out on the coast road to the east of the city, where the road ran for several miles across fiat, low-lying ground and any approaching vehicle could be seen well away in the distance, There, Stephanie gave Robbie his first driving lesson. He was not very quick at picking up the use of the various controls but she found that, once he had got them fixed in his mind, he handled them firmly and she had no need to fear that he would suddenly do something that might land them in trouble. Whenever they were about to pass anything, she made him slow right down and put her hand on the wheel as a precaution; but he was not in the least troubled by nerves, so kept it perfectly steady. Moreover he proved a good pupil, in that he made no attempt to run before he could walk, and obeyed her every instruction. The willingness with which he accepted the limit of thirty miles an hour, to which she restricted him, showed that he was not of the stuff of which racing drivers are made. However, when Stephanie took over to drive them back to the hotel for lunch, she felt that he had done a good bit better than she had expected.
Over lunch, Robbie told her that he would be out during the afternoon and could not say when he was likely to be back. He added that he might not even be back for dinner. Seeing her look °f surprise he quickly averted his glance, showing that he did Qot wish to pursue the subject. But it struck him that, if his enquiries did give him a new lead, it might make it difficult for him to keep up a pretence with her that his business activities were no more than normal ones.
She suggested that, if he did not want to be driven anywhere, she should take the opportunity to start reading his manuscript; so, when he went up to his room, he got it for her. Then he changed into his oldest suit, which he had brought with him for just such an occasion, slipped out of the hotel by a side door and made his way along the water-front. He had purposely left the hotel bare-headed and, when he came to the market, he found a cheap clothing store at which he bought a soft cap with a shiny peak that gave him something of the appearance of a seaman. By then it was nearly three o'clock and, when he reached the far basin, he was only just in time to see the Bratislava dock.
As he came nearer, two Customs Officers went aboard her with two other men, the taller of whom he thought was probably Barak; but he could not be certain from that distance. After that* he had to kick his heels for an hour and a half. Several groups of men leaned over the Bratislava's rails, idly looking down on the water-front, occasionally exchanging a remark or spitting over the side; but nothing happened.
At last there was a stir of movement, both on the ship and ashore. The Customs men came off, a crane clanked into action, a gang of dockers came on the scene, the groups of loungers broke up and the Bratislava started to unload a part of her cargo. Some twenty big packing cases were lowered to the wharf and wheeled across it into a Customs shed. About half-way through this proceeding the tall man, whom Robbie now definitely identified as Barak, came down the gang-plank, followed by three others, and walked over to the shed. Evidently, they were going to clear the cargo and it would then be taken off somewhere.
Suddenly, it occurred to Robbie that his only means of finding out where the cargo went and of what it consisted was to follow it. Already three lorries had driven up, and Barak had emerged to speak to the leading driver. There was only one car in sight. It had already been parked near the Customs shed when Robbie arrived, and was a powerful-looking black six-seater; so obviously it was not a taxi. At a hurried walk, Robbie set off in the direction of the Citadel, hoping to pick up a taxi there. A quarter of an hour elapsed before he managed to find one and was driven back in it.
As his taxi approached the wharf at which the Bratislava was lying, he saw the six-seater begin to move. Another minute and it was running swiftly past him. The face of the man who had all along been sitting at the wheel looked vaguely familiar, but Robbie had only a glimpse of it as his glance moved on to the others in the body of the car. They were Barak and three quite well-dressed men; the same, Robbie thought, as those who had accompanied Barak into the Customs shed.
Robbie told his driver to pass the ship, run on for a hundred yards, then turn round. As the taxi came to a halt, a small, private bus appeared and pulled up opposite the gangway. From beside the driver, a big, middle-aged man scrambled down. Owing to his enormously broad shoulders, thick neck, short legs and porkpie hat, Robbie recognized him at once. He was a Sudetenlander, a German-Czech named Stoll, and had been employed by the Czech Travel Agency to take parties of tourists round Athens. He had been to the office only twice while Robbie was there, and they had never even exchanged greetings; so Robbie thought it unlikely that, if they did come face to face, Stoll would recognize him.