Robbie smiled. 'Oh, I can fix that, all right. I must get these photographs developed as soon as possible and send them in. Then, so far as I am concerned, that will be the end of the matter.'
She drove the car back through Pirgos then, when they were a little way out of town, let him take the wheel. The road back to Olympia was on low ground, so if he had run off it there would have been no great danger of a fatal accident; and by this time she felt that he was driving quite well enough to apply for a provisional licence as soon as they were again in a town where one could be obtained.
That evening, while he was lying in his bath before dinner, he took stock of the situation and found his feelings very mixed. For his self-imposed mission to be over was a great relief. On the other hand, it was annoying to think that for the past month he had been scheming and exerting himself to no purpose. His belief that there was some sinister design behind the Czech tobacco-oil deal had turned out to be only a figment of his imagination. That meant, too, that he would not now enjoy the triumph of having pulled off a fine coup as a secret agent and so gain the astonished respect of his uncle.
Then, as he thought further about it, he began to wonder if he really had got to the bottom of the matter. That the Czechs were definitely drilling indicated that he had, but the fact remained that Luke Beecham had assured him both that no one believed there was oil in Greece and, that if some new scientific device for discovering it had been invented, he would have heard about it. Could it be then that the Czechs were drilling for some other purpose—perhaps to sink concrete pylons on which rocket launchers could be based? That idea certainly gave much food for thought, and perhaps the photographs he had taken would provide the answer to it. Luke would know if the machinery in them was of a type used for sinking oil wells and, if not, he might be able to deduce from them what the Czechs were up to.
First thing next morning, Robbie walked down to the pharmacy in the village. Handing his camera to the man behind the counter, he asked him to take the spool out because, not being used to a camera, he was not quite certain how to do it. Then he asked that the film should be developed as quickly as possible.
After a glance at the camera, the man said: 'You have used only six of the eight films on the spool. Don't you wish to take something with the other two?'
'No,' Robbie told him. Tm in a great hurry for the six I've taken. How soon can you let me have two sets of prints? If possible I'd like to get one off to Athens by the evening post.'
The man wound up the unused part of the film, removed the spool, handed the camera back to Robbie, and said:
'Usually we ask people to call the following morning, but if it is all that urgent, I'll oblige you. Come back at half past four this afternoon and I'll have them ready.'
Returning to the hotel, Robbie collected Stephanie and they paid a visit to the little museum on the slope below it. The museum contained a number of fine Roman as well as Greek statues, but the outstanding exhibits were the world-famous Hermes of Praxiteles and the Victory of Paeonios. The former occupied a central position at the far end of the main hall, and its base was raised on a square, deep bed of sand that extended for some way all round it. On Stephanie's asking the reason for this, an attendant standing nearby told her that it was a precaution against earthquakes. Should one cause the masterpiece to be toppled over, the sand would save it from being damaged.
Going round the museum took them only three-quarters of an hour, so they had ample time for a bathe in the pool they had discovered. Then, after lunch, they went to their rooms for their usual read and nap. Soon after four, Robbie set off down to the village, eager to see the results of his first efforts as a photographer.
As he entered the pharmacy, the man behind the counter looked up and said: 'I'm sorry about your photographs, but the whole lot has been ruined.'
'Ruined!' exclaimed Robbie. For once there was anger in his voice.
'Oh, not by me,' the man retorted with asperity. 'You said you were not used to handling a camera, and you must have opened the back of it to have a look inside. If you remember, you hadn't used the whole of the film; so, until I wound it off to take out, it would have been loose. It was the light getting in that spoiled your pictures. The tops and bottoms are quite gone, and whichever way I held them up I couldn't make anything out of the middles. It would have been a waste of time and paper to print them.'
19
A Bolt from the Blue
Robbie had the man put a new film in his camera, then left the shop, angry and puzzled. He had certainly not opened the camera and he could not recall having dropped or knocked it— which the man had also suggested might account for light having filtered in.
When he joined Stephanie for tea on the broad terrace of the hotel his expression was so woebegone that she asked with quick concern what was the matter. On his telling her, she said:
'What rotten luck. But, of course, that is liable to happen at times with inexpensive cameras. Since you can't remember giving it a knock yourself that would have sprung its back, someone else must have. Perhaps when the chambermaid was in your room last night, turning down your bed, she moved and dropped it; or perhaps the man at the pharmacy made a mess of developing the film and told you this story to cover up his clumsiness.'
4Ah! Now I believe you've hit on it!' Robbie exclaimed. 'He seemed a bit on the defensive when he told me about it. That was probably because he had a guilty conscience. How infuriating— the results of the lucky break I had yesterday simply chucked away.'
'Do the photographs really matter?' Stephanie asked gently. 'After all, you have found out that these people are drilling for oil. Surely your firm will take your word for that.'
'Yes, I ... I suppose so,' he replied, a shade hesitantly. He had never even hinted to her his original belief that the Czechs might be up to something sinister, and was averse to mentioning that possibility now; so he added after a moment: 'All the same, I would like to have sent to Athens some photographs of the plant that is being used. I think I'll go to Pirgos again and take another lot.'
'Oh, Robbie!' she protested. 'You said yesterday that you were definitely finished with this dangerous business.'
He shrugged. 'Then, the photographs I took hadn't been ruined. But I won't risk going in while they are likely to be working on the site; so you've no need to worry about me. We'll think no more about it for the next few days.'
Next morning, after their swim, Robbie hired a guide to take them on a proper tour of the ruins. They lay between Mount Kronion and the river, on level ground covering an area of a quarter of a square mile. The whole of it was thick with the remains of temples, porticoes, baths, treasuries and other edifices, so that in its heyday it must have formed a great town consisting entirely of beautiful public buildings. Even in ruin, its broad flights of steps, huge, fluted pillars and still-standing arches were immensely impressive in the dappled shade of the tall Scotch pines that grew among them.
They visited in turn the Philippeion, the Heraion, the terrace with the twelve Treasuries, the great temple of Zeus, the house that had been built for the Emperor Nero, the Beuleuterion and the Leonidaion. This last had been a building as big as many modern hotels, in which distinguished guests lived while attending the Games. In its interior there had been small grass courts and round the outside a quadruple row of pillars supporting a shady colonnade, which must have made it very beautiful. Further on lay the workshop in which Phidias had carved his greatest masterpiece—the forty-foot-high ivory-and-gold statue of Zeus. Beyond it lay the gymnasia in which the athletes had practised under the eyes of their trainers before competing in the Games.