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Authors: Eric Ambler
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tortuous way, giving me fair warning of what I could expect.
I did not guess, so I did not ask. He would not have answered anyway, but asked who I would like instead of Melanie. There would have been a reminder, too, that once he had delegated responsibility he never interfered. He might also have started quoting Baden-Powell on a Scout’s honour.
Instead, we discussed which old bones could best be used to satisfy Professor Krom’s appetite.
CHAPTER THREE
By the time Yves had cleared the visitors’ baggage, the sun was down behind the tamarisks on the headland; and, for the first time since Brussels, I was feeling something like my normal self.
Yves’s first report had made me too angry to think sensibly. It had not been until I had cooled off that I had perceived the obvious: that I had been presented with an opportunity of improving my position; not of escaping completely from the predicament I was in, but of improving my chances of surviving it without suffering permanent damage. I was certainly better off than I had been an hour earlier. How much better off would depend on how skilfully I could manipulate the modified situation.
Mat had spoken of tossing Krom some old bones as if all we had to do was to open some handy closet and dismantle one or two of the skeletons that had been hidden in it. I had gone along with the pretence, and he had let me do so; but we had both known that what Krom would expect and insist on getting was not a bag of old bones but his pound of raw, red flesh. It had also been tacitly understood that the only place from which the stuff could safely be extracted - safely, that is, from Mat’s point of view - was my own personal deep-freeze. As he had so charmingly pointed out, I was the one who was blown, not he.
That Krom might himself somehow make things easier for me, even unintentionally, was a possibility I had not even considered before.
Among the ground rules I had agreed with him in Brussels had been one that gave me the final say on all matters concerned with the security arrangements at our subsequent ‘conference’, and another that laid it down, as a precondition of my giving him any information in the presence of witnesses, that the witnesses would be bound in all respects by the same security restrictions as those he himself had accepted.
I had not needed Mat to tell me that I would have to do an awful lot of trusting. Well, I had trusted and at once I had been let down. Krom’s witnesses had turned out to be about as trustworthy as that legendary Lebanese scorpion. So what about Krom himself? Was it likely, really likely, that he, when it came later to publishing my confidences, would prove to be any more reliable? Perhaps, in the end, I would be less seriously injured if I simply called his bluff and told him to do his worst without my willing co-operation.
I could not really do that, of course, out of loyalty to Mat; but Krom could not be sure that I wouldn’t; he might well feel that he would be wise not to drive me too hard.
Anyway, Inow had him in the wrong and would shortly rub his nose in the fact. If he wanted his pieces of raw flesh he was going to have to sit up and beg. That meant that he would get tired sooner and possibly be more easily and uncritically satisfied. If my luck held, I might not have to throw him any of the juicier bits at all.
At least I now had a bargaining position, or thought that I had.
They were in the cool of the drawing-room off the terrace and sitting in a stiff little semi-circle. Melanie, petrified by having to pretend for an hour to be the hostess, was doing her impersonation of a grande-dame. I had warned her when we had worked together before that it made her sound like a retired poule-de-luxe hankering after the good old days, especially in her rather peculiar English, but she had convinced herself in the end that I had only been joking. It is odd that someone who can build up with such marvellous ingenuity roles for
I did not guess, so I did not ask. He would not have answered anyway, but asked who I would like instead of Melanie. There would have been a reminder, too, that once he had delegated responsibility he never interfered. He might also have started quoting Baden-Powell on a Scout’s honour.
Instead, we discussed which old bones could best be used to satisfy Professor Krom’s appetite.
CHAPTER THREE
By the time Yves had cleared the visitors’ baggage, the sun was down behind the tamarisks on the headland; and, for the first time since Brussels, I was feeling something like my normal self.
Yves’s first report had made me too angry to think sensibly. It had not been until I had cooled off that I had perceived the obvious: that I had been presented with an opportunity of improving my position; not of escaping completely from the predicament I was in, but of improving my chances of surviving it without suffering permanent damage. I was certainly better off than I had been an hour earlier. How much better off would depend on how skilfully I could manipulate the modified situation.
Mat had spoken of tossing Krom some old bones as if all we had to do was to open some handy closet and dismantle one or two of the skeletons that had been hidden in it. I had gone along with the pretence, and he had let me do so; but we had both known that what Krom would expect and insist on getting was not a bag of old bones but his pound of raw, red flesh. It had also been tacitly understood that the only place from which the stuff could safely be extracted - safely, that is, from Mat’s point of view - was my own personal deep-freeze. As he had so charmingly pointed out, I was the one who was blown, not he.
That Krom might himself somehow make things easier for me, even unintentionally, was a possibility I had not even considered before.
Among the ground rules I had agreed with him in Brussels had been one that gave me the final say on all matters concerned with the security arrangements at our subsequent ‘conference’, and another that laid it down, as a precondition of my giving him any information in the presence of witnesses, that the witnesses would be bound in all respects by the same security restrictions as those he himself had accepted.
I had not needed Mat to tell me that I would have to do an awful lot of trusting. Well, I had trusted and at once I had been let down. Krom’s witnesses had turned out to be about as trustworthy as that legendary Lebanese scorpion. So what about Krom himself? Was it likely, really likely, that he, when it came later to publishing my confidences, would prove to be any more reliable? Perhaps, in the end, I would be less seriously injured if I simply called his bluff and told him to do his worst without my willing co-operation.
I could not really do that, of course, out of loyalty to Mat; but Krom could not be sure that I wouldn’t; he might well feel that he would be wise not to drive me too hard.
Anyway, Inow had him in the wrong and would shortly rub his nose in the fact. If he wanted his pieces of raw flesh he was going to have to sit up and beg. That meant that he would get tired sooner and possibly be more easily and uncritically satisfied. If my luck held, I might not have to throw him any of the juicier bits at all.
At least I now had a bargaining position, or thought that I had.
They were in the cool of the drawing-room off the terrace and sitting in a stiff little semi-circle. Melanie, petrified by having to pretend for an hour to be the hostess, was doing her impersonation of a grande-dame. I had warned her when we had worked together before that it made her sound like a retired poule-de-luxe hankering after the good old days, especially in her rather peculiar English, but she had convinced herself in the end that I had only been joking. It is odd that someone who can build up with such marvellous ingenuity roles for
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