Read Online The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene - Free Book Online Page B

thief?’
    â€˜I began stealing cars before you were born.’
    â€˜But you have got an appointment with my father.’
    â€˜Did he tell you so?’
    An exclamation of impatience came up the wire. ‘Do you think father and I are on speaking terms? It was written down in your diary. You dropped it.’
    â€˜And this address too?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I’d like to have that back. The diary, I mean. It has sentimental associations with my other robberies.’
    â€˜Oh, for God’s sake,’ the voice said, ‘if only you wouldn’t try . . .’
    He stared gloomily away across the little hotel hall – an aspidistra on stilts, an umbrella rack in the form of a shell-case. He thought: we could make an industry out of that, with all the shells we have at home. Empty shell-cases for export. Give a tasteful umbrella stand this Christmas from one of the devastated cities. ‘Have you one to sleep?’ the voice asked.
    â€˜No, I’m just waiting to hear what you want. It is – you see – a little embarrassing. Our last meeting was odd.’
    â€˜I want to talk to you.’
    â€˜Well?’ He wished he could make up his mind as to whether she was L.’s girl or not.
    â€˜I don’t mean on the ’phone. Will you have dinner with me to-night?’
    â€˜I haven’t got the right clothes.’ It was strange – her voice sounded extraordinarily strained. If she was L.’s girl, of course, they might be getting anxious – time was very short. His appointment with Benditch was for to-morrow at noon.
    â€˜We’ll go anywhere you like.’
    It didn’t seem to him as if there would be any harm in their meeting as long as he didn’t take his credentials with him, even in his socks. On the other hand, his room might be searched again: it was certainly a problem. He said, ‘Where should we meet?’
    She said promptly, ‘Outside Russell Square Station – at seven.’ That sounded safe enough. He said, ‘Do you know anyone who wants a good maid? You or your father, for instance?’
    â€˜Are you crazy?’
    â€˜Never mind. We’ll talk about that to-night. Good-bye.’
    He walked slowly upstairs. He wasn’t going to take any chances; the credentials had got to be hidden. He had only to get through twenty-four hours, and then he would be a free man – to return to his bombed and starving people. Surely they were not going to throw a mistress at his head – people didn’t fall for that sort of thing except in melodrama. In melodrama a secret agent was never tired or uninterested or in love with a dead woman. But perhaps L. read melodramas – he represented, after all, the aristocracy – the marquises and generals and bishops – who lived in a curious formal world of their own jingling with medals that they awarded to each other: like fishes in a tank, perpetually stared at through glass, and confined to a particular element by their physiological needs. They might take their ideas of the other world – of professional men and working people – partly from melodrama. It was wrong to underestimate the ignorance of the ruling class. Marie Antoinette had said of the poor, ‘Can’t they eat cake?’
    The manageress had gone. Perhaps there was an extension and she had been listening to his conversation on another ’phone. The child was still cleaning the passage with furious absorption. He stood and watched her for a while. One had to take risks sometimes. He said, ‘Would you mind coming into my room for just a moment?’ He closed the door behind them both. He said, ‘I want to speak low – because the manageress mustn’t hear.’ Again he was startled by that look of devotion – what on earth had he done to earn it? a middle-aged foreigner with a face from which he had only recently cleaned the blood,