Unit 15
The Midnight Visitor (I)
James did not fit the description of any secret agent Fowler had ever read about. Following him down the corridor of the gloomy French hotel where James had a room, Fowler felt disappointed. It was a small room, on the sixth and top floor, and scarcely a setting for a romantic figure.
James was, for one thing, fat. And then there as his accent. Though he spoke French and German passably, he had never altogether lost the New England accent he had brought to Paris from Boston 20 years ago.
"You are disappointed," James said wheezily over his shoulder. "You were told that I was a spy, dealing in espionage and danger. You wished to meet me because you are a writer, young and romantic. You imagined mysterious figures in the night, the crack of pistols, drugs in the wine."
"Instead, you have spent a dull evening in a French music hall with a fat man who, instead of having mysterious messages slipped into his hand by dark-eyed beauties, gets only an ordinary phone call making an appointment in his room. You have been bored!" the fat man chuckled to himself as he unlocked th door of his room and stood aside to let his frustrated guest enter.
"you are disillusioned," James said. "But take cheer. Presently you'll see a paper, a quite important paper for which several people have risked their lives, come to me in the next-to-last step of its journey into official hands. Someday soon that paper may well affect the course of history. In that thought is drama, is there not?" as he spoke, James closed the door behind him. Then he switched on the light.
And as the light came on, Fowler had his first thrill of the day. For halfway across the room, a small pistol in his hand, stood a man. James blinked a few times.
"Max," he wheezed, "you gave me quite a start. I thought you were in Berlin. What are you doing in my room?" Max was slender, not tall, and with a face that suggested the look of a fox. Except for the gun, he did not look very dangerous.
"The report," he murmured, "the report that is about some new missiles. I thought I would take it from you. It will be safer in my hands than in yours."
James moved to an armchair and sat down heavily. "I'm going to raise the devil with management this time; I'm angry," he said grimly, "This is the second time in a month that somebody has got into my room off that balcony!" Fowler's eyes went to the single window of the room. It was an ordinary window, against which now the night was pushing blackly.
"Balcony?" Max asked curiously, "No, I had a passkey. I didn't know about the balcony. It might have saved me some trouble had I known about it." |