Arthur chose and divided another toothpick.
“I was just coming to that point, William.” His tone was carefully impersonal. “I’m afraid, you see, you’d have to go alone.”
“Alone with Kuno?”
“Yes.” Arthur began speaking with nervous rapidity. “There are a number of reasons which make it quite impossible for me to come with you, or to deal with this matter myself. In the first place, it would be exceedingly awkward, having once left this country, to return to it, as I should be obliged to do, even if only for a few days. Secondly, this suggestion, that we should go together to the winter sports, coming from me, would sound very odd. Pregnitz knows perfectly well that I haven’t the constitution or the taste for such things. Coming from you, on the other hand, what could be more natural? He’d probably be only too delighted to travel with such a young and lively companion.”
“Yes, I quite see all that … but how should I get into touch with Margot? I don’t even know him by sight.”
Arthur dismissed these difficulties with a wave of the hand.
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“Leave that to me, dear boy, and to him. Set your mind at rest, forget everything I’ve told you this evening, and enjoy yourself.”
“Nothing but that?”
“Nothing. Once you’ve got Pregnitz across the frontier your duties are at an end.”
“It sounds delightful.”
Arthur’s face lit up at once.
“Then you’ll go?”
“I must think it over.” )
Disappointed, he squeezed his chin. The toothpicks were divided into eighths. At the end of a long minute he said hesitantly: i
“Quite apart from your expenses, which, as I think 1 told you, will be paid in advance, I should ask you to accept a little something, you know, for your trouble.” ,
“No, thank you, Arthur.”
“I beg your pardon, William.” He sounded much relieved. “I might have known you wouldn’t.”
I grinned.
“I won’t deprive you of your honest earnings.”
Watching my face carefully, he smiled. He was uncertain how to take me. His manner changed.
“Of course, dear boy, you must do as you think best. I * don’t want to influence you in any way. If you decide against this scheme, I shan’t allude to it again. At the same time, you know what it means to me. It’s my only chance. I hate begging for favours. Perhaps I’m asking too much of you. I can only say that if you do this for me I shall be eternally grateful. And if it’s ever in my power to repay you …”
“Stop, Arthur. Stop! You’ll make me cry.” I laughed. “Very well. I’ll do my best with Kuno. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t build your hopes on it. I don’t suppose for a minute he’ll come. Probably he’s engaged already.”
On this understanding, the subject was closed for the evening.
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Next day, when I returned from the tea-party at Kuno’s flat, I found Arthur waiting for me in his bedroom in a state of the most extreme anxiety. He could hardly wait to shut the door before hearing my news.
“Quick, William, please. Tell me the worst. I can bear it. He won’t come? No?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’ll come.”
For a moment, joy seemed to have made Arthur quite speechless, incapable of motion. Then a spasm passed over all his limbs; he executed a kind of caper in the air.
“My dear boy! I must, I really must embrace you!” And he Kterally threw his arms round my neck and kissed me, like a French general, on both cheeks. “Tell me all about it. Did you have much difficulty? What did he say?”
“Oh, he more or less suggested the whole thing himself before I had opened my mouth. He wanted to go to the Riesengebirge, but I pointed out that the snow would be much better in the Alps.”
“You did? That was brilliant of you, William! Positively inspired… .”
I sat down in a chair. Arthur fluttered round me, admiring and delighted.
“You’re quite sure he hasn’t the least suspicion?”
“Perfectly sure.”
“And how soon shall you be able to start?”
“On Christmas Eve, I think.”
Arthur regarded me solicitously.
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, dear boy. I’d hoped this would be a pleasure to you, too. You’re not feeling ill, by any chance, I trust?”
“Not in the least, thank you.” I stood up. “Arthur, I’m going to ask you something.”
His eyelids fluttered nervously at my tone.
“Whyerof course. Ask away, dear boy. Ask away.”
“I want you to speak the truth. Are you and Margot going to swindle Kuno? Yes or no?”
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“My dear Williamerreally … I think you presume …”
“I want an answer, please, Arthur. You see, it’s important for me to know. I’m mixed up in this now. Are you or aren’t your
“Well, I must say … No. Of course not. As I’ve already explained at some length, I …”
“Do you swear that?”
“Really, William, this isn’t a court of law. Don’t look at me like that, please. All right, if it gives you any satisfaction, I swear it.”
“Thank you. That’s all I wanted. I’m sorry if I sounded rude. You know that, as a rule, I don’t meddle in your affairs. Only this is my affair too, you see.”
Arthur smiled weakly, rather shaken.
“I quite understand your anxiety, dear boy, of course. But in this case, I do assure you, it’s entirely unfounded. I’ve every reason to believe that Pregnitz will reap great benefits from this transaction, if he’s wise enough to accept it.”
As a final test, I tried to look Arthur in the eyes. But no, this time-honoured process didn’t work. Here were no windows to the soul. They were merely part of his face, light-blue jellies, like naked shell-fish in the crevices of a rock. There was nothing to hold the attention; no sparkle, no inward gleam. Try as I would, my glance wandered away to more interesting features; the soft, snout-like nose, the concertina chin. After three or four attempts, I gave it up. It was no good. There was nothing for it but to take Arthur at his word.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My journey with Kuno to Switzerland resembled the honeymoon trip which follows a marriage of convenience. We were polite, mutually considerate and rather shy. Kuno was a model of discreet attentiveness. With his own hands, he arranged my luggage in the rack, ran out at the last moment to buy me magazines, discovered by roundabout inquiries that I preferred the upper sleeping-car berth to the lower, and retired into the corridor to wait until I was undressed. When I got tired of reading, there he was, affable and informative, waiting to tell me the names of the mountains. We chatted with great animation in five-minute spasms, relapsing into sudden, abstracted silence. Both of us had plenty to think about. Kuno, I suppose, was worrying over the sinister manoeuvres of German politics or dreaming about his island of the seven boys: I had leisure to review the Margot conundrum in all its aspects. Did he really exist? Well, there above my head was a brand-new pigskin suitcase containing a dinner-jacket delivered from the tailor only the day before. Arthur had been positively lordly with our employer’s money. “Get whatever you want, dear boy. It would never do for you to be shabby. Besides, what a chance …” After some hesitation, I had doubtfully followed his advice, though not to the reckless extent which he urged. Arthur even went so far in his interpretation of “travelling expenses” as to press upon me a set of gold cufflinks, a wrist-watch, and a fountain-pen. “After all, William, business is business. You don’t know these people as I do.” His tone, when speaking of Margot, had become remarkably
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bitter: “If you asked him to do anything for you he wouldn’t hesitate to squeeze you to the last penny.”
On Boxing Day, our first morning, I awoke to the tinny jingle of sleigh-bells from the snowy street below, and a curious clicking noise, also metallic, which proceeded from the bathroom. Through the half-open door Kuno was to be seen, in a pair of gym shorts, doing exercises with a chest-expander. He was straining himself terribly; the veins in his neck bulged and his nostrils arched and stiffened with each desperate effort. He was obviously unaware that he was not alone. His eyes, bare of the monocle, were fixed in a short-sighted, visionary stare which suggested that he was engaged in a private religious rite. To speak to him would have been as intrusive as to disturb a man at his prayers. I turned over in bed and pretended to be asleep. After a few moments, I heard the bathroom door softly close.