The wine arrived, and he raised his glass, after first sniffing it and looking through the dark red liquid. “Santé,” he said, “and damn this war.”
We both drained our glasses. He signaled for another, and I began to smile.
“You’re amused?” he asked.
“It seems strange,” I said, raising the second glass, “to find myself agreeing with a man whose major concern in the midst of European destruction is the lack of quality beer.”
“But you do agree.”
“Of course, damn it.” I smiled again. “The living must continue to live. But you are wrong about something,” I said.
“And that is…?”
“The dearth of good beer. There is a great quantity of excellent beer not four kilometers from where we sit. But it is not for sale.”
He looked at me patiently and warily. “Monsieur Giraud, I don’t know you, but you don’t seem given to idle jesting. I have been cooking here in Valence for the winter and have searched tirelessly for a supply of good beer, and to no avail. I have some talent at discovering things that people try to keep hidden, and there is no beer.”
“There is, and it is hidden, and privately brewed by a man who values his privacy. No more than six men know of it.”
“They are very discreet men,” he said.
“Very,” I continued. “They have to be, but that’s no matter. Even knowing that the beer exists, you would never find it, for you’re not likely to see me again and you don’t know the other five.” I drained my glass and got up to go. “It’s been a pleasant morning, sir,” I said. “Good luck.”
I hadn’t gone ten paces when he spoke.
“Monsieur Giraud.”
I turned. “Yes?”
“Would your chef mind terribly if you missed a meal?”
“He goes nearly mad,” I said, “but occasionally-” I stopped abruptly. “How did you know I had a chef?”
He nodded, his eyes narrowing somewhat, perhaps with humor. “You’ve just confirmed it.”
“Yes, but…”
“Monsieur Giraud,” he said. “There was nothing sinister, I assure you, in the question. It was mere conjecture.”
“But how…?”
“Simplicity itself. It’s clear that you are a man of taste regarding your palate. Your clothing further bespeaks a certain degree of wealth, and your accent-indeed, even the way you hold a wineglass-betrays good breeding. Finally, your coloring is pale.”
“Yes?”
“Surely that is enough.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
He ticked off the steps of his deduction with the fingers of his right hand. “First, you can afford a chef. Second, you would demand fine meals, especially at home. Third, if you yourself spent the required amount of time behind a hot stove, your complexion would be ruddy like my own. It is not. Ergo, you have a chef.”
“You’re very astute,” I said.
He waved it off. “It’s nothing. Child’s play. Literally, in my case. My father was something of a stickler for such matters. I’ve kept it up as a hobby, more or less. Just now I made an educated guess, and your reaction confirmed it. True deduction is a closed system-it confirms itself.”
“Still, I’m impressed.”
“Well, then perhaps you’ll permit me to impress you with my small skills as a chef. Would you care to lunch?” The eyes were sharp now, though the face was relaxed and friendly.
“It’s rather early,” I said, hesitating a moment.
He continued. “Egg of pigeon poached in red wine, escargots, rognons aux fines herbes, all accompanied by the finest wine on the Côte du Rhone, served at the chef’s table.”
“It is a great temptation,” I said. “You, of course, though you haven’t said it, would greatly appreciate an introduction to a certain local brewer I mentioned.”
He smiled. “Your deduction, though obvious, is flawless.”
“And your discretion?”
“Unimpeachable.”
I walked back to him.
“At what time shall we eat?” I asked. Later I would recognize that slight turn of the lips as a beaming smile.
“We can begin immediately, if you’d like to come down to the kitchen.”
“Gladly.”
We crossed through the tables to a door that didn’t leave much room to spare for us and opened it. A short stairway led to the kitchen. He stopped at the bottom.
“And the introduction?”
“Pardon?”
“To the brewer?”
“Ah yes. You’ve already met him.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”
I nodded. “A vôtre service.”
And so it was arranged that Auguste Lupa come to my house the next morning at ten for beer and a light lunch.
2
Espionage, like any other profession, has its ups and downs. Lately, though, it had taken a monotonous turn to the latter.
I’d been one of the few operatives who’d dared before August to suggest that the German thrust would be through Belgium. This was viewed as so outrageous that those of us who believed it were “transferred.” Even after the event came to pass, we were still regarded as second-class and relegated to desks or to the country. I should have been upset with the demotion, but in fact I’d been happy. I’d begun to feel constrained under the inflexibility of Joffre’s [1] yoke.
Consequently, I had spent the past autumn behind a desk, doing nothing worthwhile, and had finally, much to my relief, been called back to my hometown for this case. It was to be a break in my routine, a kind of forced vacation. No sooner had I returned to the little white house, nestled snugly amid grapevines and a small grove of oaks, however, than my contact had suddenly been taken dead-officially, an accidental drowning.
The next month I’d busied myself with the beer and light gardening, spending much time with my new chef, a young Swiss with extraordinary promise named Fritz Benet. It had been a pleasant enough time, or would have been without the specter of murder hanging over the house. Normally, living in an atmosphere where people tend to die unexpectedly didn’t overly disturb my peace of mind, but somehow, at home, I found it quite annoying.
There were, of course, my friends. Marcel Routier, my closest friend and fellow agent (though we rarely worked together) was now in Valence. My other friends, to whom we were traveling salesmen, included Henri Pulis, a Greek shop owner in town; Paul Anser, an American poet of some small repute; and Georges Lavoie, an Alsatian salesman who dealt in hospital supplies. Including Fritz, then, these were the other five men who knew about the beer.
There was also Tania. I had told Lupa that only five other men in town knew about the beer, and Tania-tall and slim, with long black hair and deep, deep eyes and voice-was as far from being a man as any creature on earth.
Marcel had been sent down after my original contact had “drowned” and had told me the problem. It was believed that the man behind most of the assassinations in the past two years-including Francis Ferdinand’s in Sarajevo -was now living and working out of Valence. How intelligence had come to believe that, I had no idea, since there wasn’t a shred of evidence that pointed to the involvement of a mastermind assassin. Yes, last spring an agent in Valence had been found with a bullet in his head two days after wiring that he was onto something big. But “something big” could mean just about anything these days, what with half the nations of Europe at war.
There was, in fact, only one event of importance, of real significance, attached to this locale, and that was the arrival, early the previous fall, of Auguste Lupa.
Obviously, that wasn’t his real name, but no one had any idea of what it really was, so it didn’t matter. In Belgrade, he’d been Julius Adler. At Sarajevo, he was Cesar Mycroft. In Milan… but the list is immaterial, though impressive. Always a reference to one of the Caesars in one of the names-perhaps some family connection. We’d followed him when he broke out of jail in Belgrade a year ago June, lost him briefly, found him again in Geneva, trailing him to Valence. When he actually took a job here, I’d been sent.