The Story of Henri Tod by William F. Buckley Page A

of Henri’s old guardian in London, the story about Henri’s spilling the beans to another schoolboy—which story had got to the Gestapo, it was assumed, there being no other explanation for the sudden detection of the Wurmbrands and Clementa’s hideout in Tolk. Blackford doubted he would ever be told the story by Henri himself. If ever that were to happen, he would deem it a form of initiation into the very closest company Henri Tod kept. But Henri’s emotional life was clearly imploded into that endless nightmare of self-reproach—Blackford had discussed the question with Rufus—at once the fountain of Henri’s personal melancholy and the dynamic cause of his agitated motivation, as if he intended to live out his life in hectic expiation for what he had done.
    It was nearly an hour before Blackford arrived at the apartment house, on Rheinstrasse. He didn’t know exactly what he would do that evening. He felt restless, felt like talking to someone as different from Rodino as he could find. Though not, he acknowledged, necessarily different from some of the ladies who, in the past, had dealt with Rodino. What were the nurses like? he wondered.
    He climbed the two sets of stairs to the entrance of his “uncle’s” flat. He had to admit it, the CIA was the most ingenious foster-parent finder in the history of hospitality. He could not count the uncles, aunts, cousins, stepfathers whose apartments, conveniently vacated because they had gone on extended vacations, had accommodatingly been turned over to him in the past ten years, no paperwork to be performed, not even any letters to be sent, no dunning landlords. “Dear Uncle Jack: It’s warm in Berlin. What a pity you had to go to the Antarctic? On the other hand, you were always a little queer for igloos. Love, Blacky.” Ah well.
    Blackford, unlike Rufus, was not given to rigorous self-scheduling. He managed to keep trim not by daily exercise, but because something within him, every three or four days, would begin to creak, and he would know it was time to visit the gymnasium or, if none such was about, to take his exercise wherever he might. He never knew exactly what book he was going to read next, but knew that when he was finished with his current book, the next one would be right there, intuitively situated in an erratic but ultimately dependable assembly line. He had, however, developed such habits as are inculcated in deep-cover agents. He never made entirely casual appointments, he routinely traveled by different routes, he was careful what he said over which telephone, that sort of thing.
    But one or two habits of a personal kind he did have, and one of these was, almost immediately on coming home to his apartment, whether in the late afternoon or at night, to walk into the bathroom, open the medicine-cabinet door, and reach for his toothbrush: he had got into the habit for some reason of brushing his teeth after getting home from work. This afternoon, stuck cockily inside his glass, the toothbrush protruding from either end of the sealed envelope was—a letter. Addressed, simply: “Mr. Oakes.”
    Oakes was registered, as the inhabitant of his uncle’s apartment, as John Jerome, with documents to match. His little apartment was in the Consolidated Insurance Building, subleased by Lloyd’s, where independent insurance agents wrote policies, conducted investigations, and made assessments, and a few kept living quarters. His cover had been done with some care.
    Now he reacted professionally. Without withdrawing the letter, he let himself carefully out of the apartment. He walked not down, but up the stairs, to the top level, the fifth floor, which accommodated a single tiny room under the gabled roof. Designed for a maid, or a grandmother, or a few trunks. He took the key from his ring, opened the door, and went to a dusty telephone. He dialed a number. He let it ring exactly three times, then