Without argument he did as she had told him, and five minutes later they were in the Ford, running down on to the main road. When they reached it, she said: 'You know, last night I would have bet any money that Barak would come after us as soon as he found out that you'd escaped. But I think now I was scaring myself unnecessarily. Either that, or he thought it more likely that we had taken the road via Patras round the Gulf. I had an early lunch and spent the whole afternoon watching the main road. If the Mercedes had come back along it, I couldn't have failed to see her; and, if they had pulled up where the road is hidden by the trees and one of them had walked the last half mile here to make enquiries, I should have been bound to see him, the hotel being perched up on a cliff as it is.'
Robbie nodded: 'If they did go as far as Tripolis, then turned back hoping to meet us, they would have passed here hours ago.
Anyhow, knowing nothing of our breakdown, they wouldn't expect us to spend the day at Olympia. Whether they ever left Pirgos or stayed put, they must be assuming that, by this time, we can't be far from Athens.'
For the first three-quarters of an hour the road ran through comparatively flat country, although rising all the time. Then it gradually became steeper and its curves more frequent until, by six o'clock, they were up to two thousand feet and still mounting by a long succession of hairpin bends. At times they could see the road ahead, shaking away higher and higher, a thin, yellow line etched in the precipitous sides of the mountain chain: at others the view ahead closed rapidly from a quarter of a mile to a matter of twenty feet as they approached some tall cliff of solid rock that formed a sharp corner, completely cutting off all sight of what lay beyond it.
Soon after six they passed through the little town of Tropaia, that clung so precariously to the mountain-side; but they did not pull up as they had done on their outward journey, because Stephanie wanted to make the most of the light. For another twenty minutes or so they ran on along the narrow shelf of road, beyond the edge of which lay seemingly bottomless gorges with, on their far side, range after range of rugged heights rising to peaks, many of which were capped with cloud.
It was then that Robbie at last plucked up the courage to say something that he had been contemplating saying for an hour or more. Unlike their journeys in the past, during which he had told Stephanie stories of the Immortals, or they had laughed together over all sorts of trivialities, they had exchanged hardly a word since leaving Olympia. Now he stammered out:
'On Thursday, after . . . after what happened down by the pool, I stayed there a long time. When at last I did get back to the hotel, I went along to your room.'
'And found me gone,' she volunteered. 'I packed at once. It didn't seem to me that there was much point in my remaining there till you put in an appearance just for us to have a slanging match.'
'I suppose not. To have found out about you was a shock . . . a most frightful shock. But, all the same, I wanted to apologize. I felt absolutely terrible.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' she said slowly. 'You know, for some girls an experience like that might spoil their whole lives—give them a hatred of men and warp their natures. It was very clear that, in spite of your age, you are still completely ignorant about that sort of thing. But that wouldn't have made it any the less terrifying for a girl who was as ignorant as yourself; so I hope you will never let yourself go like that again. As far as I am concerned, it was a beastly way in which to try and take your revenge. Fortunately, though, it did me no harm. It's quite a long time since I left my mother's apron strings, and I've seen enough of the world to make allowances for you.'
Robbie threw a quick glance sideways. Stephanie's eyes were fixed steadily on the road ahead. She had spoken without the least embarrassment and her face showed no trace of heightened colour. Yet what she had said amounted to a confession entirely out of keeping with the picture he had built up of her.
'D'you mean . . .' he stammered, 'do you really mean that . . . that you've often made love . . . well, not quite like that . . . but . . . but . . . ?'
'I didn't say that,' she replied. 'But, since you've found me out, hasn't it occurred to you that, as I am twenty-four, I might quite well be married?'
'Married! No! Are you?'
'Yes. My real name is Madame Vaclav Barak.'
'Good God!'
'What is there surprising in that? You must at least have realized that the story with which I took you in, about having a father who was forcing me into marriage with a rich cement manufacturer, was all nonsense; and that I'm not a Greek but a Czech. You seem to have known all along, too, that it is Barak who is responsible for establishing the groups of Czechs on special missions. When he learnt that you were spying on them, what could be more natural than that he should use his English-speaking wife to keep an eye on you?'
'It wouldn't seem natural to me,' Robbie commented. 'After all, before you came into the game, he can have known very little about me, I might have been much more attractive to women than I am, and a Don Juan by nature. To send you off round Greece with a man who might have turned out like that seems to me an extraordinary thing for a husband to have done.'
Stephanie gave a mirthless laugh. 'Oh, that side of the matter wouldn't have worried him. He was quite mad about me once, but he isn't any more. And I've long since lost the admiration I had for him in my teens, when we married. As I told you last night, he's quite capable of beating me when he's really angry, and that sort of thing is not calculated to turn schoolgirl hero-worship into love.'
'Why do you stick to him, then?' Robbie asked.
'Because it suits me to. And I don't think he would like to lose me, either. I'm a very useful wife to him in a lot of ways, and I've helped him quite a bit in his career. Until now, I've never actively gone against him in anything that is important. How he'll take it, I don't yet know; but I'm quite prepared to stand up to him because, provided you do as you have promised and leave Greece, no one can say I've let down my country. There is no sense in committing murder when it can be avoided, and I feel that all the Comrades at the Legation will back me up in what I've done.'
That's all very well,' said Robbie gloomily. 'But, as he is your husband, you'll have to face up to him when they are not there. I . . . well, it seems silly to talk hot air about wanting to be your champion, but all the same I wish to God that when you do meet him 1 could be there to protect you.'
'How nice of you, Robbie.' Her voice was softer and it was the first time she had used his Christian name since the affair at the pool. 'But,' she added, 'I don't think you need worry. I mean to keep away from him for the next few days, and by then several other people will have talked to him about all this, and his anger will have died down.'
For the past few minutes, they had been approaching one of the great cliffs of rock jutting out from the mountain-side and making a blind corner. The bend was a sharp one, so Stephanie took it slowly. As they rounded the mass of rock, they saw the black Mercedes parked behind it, only fifty feet away. Barak was in it and Cepicka was at the wheel. Its motor whirred and the big car slid forward, blocking the way.
22
Wanted for Murder
Stephanie was forced to pull up. With the long Mercedes drawn across the road, it was impossible for her to pass it either on the near side or the off. In the one case, she would have jammed the Ford between the rock face and the boot of the big black car, in the other gone over the edge of the precipice.