V for Vengeance by Dennis Wheatley Page A

it was he who had flung the water-bottle containing the pear which had landed in the middle of their table, evidently with intent to injure one of them. This Kuporovitch stoutly denied, and luckily for him the inspector’s notes read to the effect that the officer had
thought
that Kuporovitch had thrown the bottle, because it had come spinning through the air from his direction. Both Madeleine and Stefan seized on this to assert that the officer must have been mistaken, but the suspicion still lingered.
    Asked how he supported himself, Kuporovitch said that he had brought his savings with him out of Belgium, and as evidence of this produced the several thousand francs which still remained of his money from his pocket. Then, when it came to the question as to what his relations were with Madeleine, he showed uncanny shrewdness. So far, she had managed to maintain a fairly clear bill, whereas he was evidently subject to much permanent suspicion from the fact that he was a foreigner with no permanent address. He saw at once that the less connection there appeared to be between them the better it would be for her, and he felt it wiser to jeopardise her reputation than her safety; so after a well-acted little show of reluctance he said:
    â€˜Well, if you insist,
monsieur
, I really hardly know
Mademoiselle
here. The fact is that I’m a very lonely man, and she, too, perhaps is lonely, because although she was a stranger to me until this afternoon she graciously allowed me to speak to her while she was walking in the Jardin des Tuileries, and later permitted me to take her out to dinner.’
    The S.S. man’s hard face relaxed into a sudden grin, and he looked Madeleine up and down with an appreciative glance.
    â€˜So that’s how it is,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, I admire your choice, and I must say it’s hard luck that you’ve been deprivedof the pleasant ending which you doubtless anticipated for your evening with this young lady. Still, I’m by no means satisfied about you.’
    While the questioning had been in progress a short, dark French detective in plain clothes had come into the room and stood there listening intently. Suddenly he addressed the Major.
    â€˜If I may recommend,
Herr Major
, I would suggest that we let the woman go. Now that the food situation is becoming so difficult any number of our young women are willing enough to be picked up by a stranger for the sake of a good dinner, and evidently this is a case of that kind. We have nothing against the girl on our records, and we require all the room we have in our prisons for more serious cases. They’re terribly overcrowded as it is.’
    The Major nodded. ‘Yes, I think you’re right, Lieutenant Ribaud, but I don’t think that we should release the man without further investigation.’
    â€˜As you wish,
Herr Major.
’ replied the Frenchman. ‘But we are already overburdened with work as it is, and he’s probably no more dangerous than the majority of these homeless people who’re wandering about the city. These White Russians have no particular cause to enter into a conspiracy against the régime, but they’re all more or less undesirables, so I would suggest that since he is a vagrant without domicile we should expel him to Unoccupied France. That, at least, will mean one less mouth to feed, and once he’s out of our territory he won’t be able to do us any damage even if he wishes to.’
    â€˜That’s a very good idea,’ the German said at once. ‘All right then. Release the woman and have the man put across the frontier.’
    Major Schaub gave a curt nod of dismissal to Kuporovitch and favoured Madeleine with another lecherous leer. The inspector stepped forward, and they were both marched out of the room.
    The decision was a sad blow, both for Madeleine and Stefan, and they were denied even the consolation of taking a proper farewell of each