Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes Page B

you again soon, I hope.”
    “Yes.” The American’s voice didn’t seem overjoyed at the prospect. “Thanks for the beer. Goodbye.”
    Frances looked after him sadly. “He really was so nice, you know, before he got caught up in his theories. I suppose if your country is three thousand or whatever it is miles away you can afford the luxury of pros and cons. I think you punctured him, some place, Richard. He’s probably saying we are one of the ‘ bloody English’ at this moment.”
    “Nonsense. He handed criticism out. If you do that you havealso got to expect to take it. Anyway, hairsplittings are really becoming so very out of date. The time for theories is really past. But keep off politics after this, Frances, even if you feel you have got something approaching an answer. What do you say about something to eat, and then a movie, and then bed?”
    Frances nodded her approval. There was much she wanted to know about A. Fugger. She stopped worrying about van Cortlandt and began thinking of the little man who had walked with quick short steps into that back room. Had he got away? Could it be that the Nazis were already picking out each agent in the chain, or was A. Fugger wanted on another charge? They would find out, one way or another, but it would be unpleasant waiting.
    Richard had looked round the large room. At a discreet distance, the two men who had visited the Five-cornered Tower that afternoon were sitting at a table. They had become hungry, it seemed, and had just ordered food. Richard waited until the steaming plates were put in front of them, until they had taken their first mouthful.
    “Now’s the time, Frances.” She abandoned A. Fugger, and followed her husband quickly to the door. He seemed amused about something. As they left the room he turned back to see the two men rising angrily to their feet.
    “Would you mind, Frances, if we went to the flicks first of all and then ate when we came out? I think that would be an idea.” Frances saw the gleam in his eye. There was a joke somewhere.
    So they went to a picture house. After fifteen minutes Richard decided he couldn’t see through the large woman in front of them, so they moved quietly to different seats behindtheir original places. Richard’s joke seemed to be getting better and better.
    As he explained to Frances in bed that night, “They were hungry, and when we landed in the cinema they might have gone out in relays for their dinner. Then we moved our seats, and they didn’t notice it at first. It was pretty dark, you know. We were just sitting down behind them when they noticed we were no longer in our first seats. That was really funny. It was easy for them to find us again, as the place was almost empty, but for five minutes they had quite a bad time of it. That probably decided them to stay together, standing at the back of the theatre in case we changed our minds again. I could feel them getting hungrier.”
    “Why didn’t we lose them when we had the chance? “
    “And make them realise that we disliked being followed? They’d interpret that as a guilty conscience. Better pretend that it seems very harmless and amusing, the kind of silly adventure which you like to tell your friends about when you get home.”
    But about A. Fugger he wouldn’t say anything.
    “The less you know from now on the better for you, my sweet.” And that was that.
    It was Frances who lay awake tonight. She thought of the bookseller; of the tall American who had either been offended, or bored; of the constant rhythm of marching boots. When she fell asleep her thoughts were still with her, and chased her through the Five-cornered Tower. Richard was beside her, for she spoke to him and heard him answer, but she couldn’t see him. A. Fugger was there trying to show her the way out, but he spoke in a strange language and she kept straining to understand it. The American was there too, observing everything, butcontenting himself with a sad smile when