One

The nurse walked out of the room, closing the door behind her, and Mrs. Pollifax looked at the doctor and he in turn looked at her. He was a very nice young man, with black hair, very white teeth and horn-rimmed glasses that he removed now, placing the stem of the earpiece between his teeth. “Well, Mrs. Pollifax,” he said pleasantly, “I don’t know how you manage it, but for a woman of your age you’re in fantastically good health. I congratulate you.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax flatly, and the doctor glanced at her with such a peculiar expression that she added brightly, for his benefit, “Oh!”

He smiled and returned his glasses to his nose. “Which brings me to the fact that, although I find you in excellent health physically, I do note certain signs of depression. You’re not quite the same Mrs. Pollifax I saw last year. Anything in particular troubling you?”

She hesitated, wondering if he could possibly understand. He looked so absurdly young—he was young.

He added pointedly, “I had the distinct feeling that you were disappointed at being in such excellent health.”

She said guardedly, “I don’t believe I’ve ever cared about outliving my contemporaries, you know. I’ve never regarded life as a competition to see who can hold out the longest. I think one can sometimes have too much time.” She paused and then added recklessly, “I daresay it sounds terribly frivolous when people are starving in India, but I can’t help feeling I’ve outlived my usefulness.” There, she thought firmly, she had said it, the words were out and curdling the air.

“I see. Your children, Mrs. Pollifax, are … ?”

“Grown and far away. And visits aren’t the same, you know. One can never enter their lives.”

He was listening attentively—yes, he was a very nice young doctor. “I think you said you do a great deal of volunteer work?”

In a precise voice she ticked off the list of charities to which she gave her time; it was a long and sensible list.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, but do you enjoy volunteer work?”

Mrs. Pollifax blinked at the unexpectedness of his question. “That’s odd,” she said, and suddenly smiled at him. “Actually I suppose I loathe it.”

He could not help smiling back at her; there was something contagious about her smile, something conspiratorial and twinkling. “Then perhaps it’s time you looked for more congenial outlets,” he suggested.

Mrs. Pollifax said slowly, with a little frown, “I enjoy meeting the people, you know, it’s just that so often nothing more is needed for volunteer work than a good set of teeth.”

“I beg your pardon?”

‘Teeth—for smiling. There are rules, too. You can’t imagine how regimented some of the volunteer work can be. It’s very impersonal—not yours, somehow, because of all the restrictions.”

“Do  you  feel  you’re   a  particularly   creative   person?”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled. “Goodness, I don’t know. I’m just— me.”

He ignored that, saying very seriously, “It’s terribly important for everyone, at any age, to live to his full potential. Otherwise a kind of dry rot sets in, a rust, a disintegration of personality.”

“Yes,” she said simply. “Yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly on that, but what is one to do? After my husband died I set out to make a very sensible life for myself—I always intended to, you see—so that I would never be a nuisance to my children. It’s just that—”

“It’s too sensible, perhaps?” Caught by something in her eyes that did not match the light mockery of her voice, he said, “But isn’t there something you’ve always longed to do, something you’ve never had either the time or the freedom for until now?”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him. “When I was growing up— oh for years—I planned to become a spy,” she admitted.

The doctor threw back his head and laughed, and Mrs. Pollifax wondered why, when she was being her most serious, people found her so amusing. She supposed that her tastes always had been somewhat peculiar. Her husband’s favorite form of endearment for her had been “lovable little goose,” which was his way of forgiving the odd bent in her that he didn’t quite understand, and as they grew older the children, too, had acquired the habit of thinking her just a little absurd.

She could hear Jane now: “But mother, why on earth— why on earth—a dozen antimacassars? Nobody’s used antimacassars since Queen Victoria died!” How futile it had seemed even to explain the woman selling crochetwork at the door that morning, a dear, mangy little woman with a most fascinating story of being abandoned six years earlier on Mc-Govern Street. With no husband and four babies to support she had turned in desperation to the handwork learned as a child at a convent, and Mrs. Pollifax had listened with rapt attention, enjoying every minute of it. After buying the antimacassars, however, she had felt it only kind to make a suggestion. “When you go to the next house,” she had said tactfully, “it would be much wiser to call it McGivern Street, not McGovern. Strangers invariably make this mistake, but mere has never been a McGovern Street here, and if you’d lived on it for six years you’d have known this. Although otherwise,” she added warmly, “it’s a terribly good story. The tears came to my eyes, they really did.”

The woman had looked astonished, then confused, then badly frightened until she saw the twinkle in Mrs. Pollifax’s eye. “Well, if you aren’t the surprise,” she said, beginning to laugh. “I certainly had you down as an easy mark.”

They’d had a lovely talk over a cup of tea in the kitchen, and the woman’s real story had proven even more fascinating than her false one, and just to prove her basic honesty the woman had offered to sell Mrs. Pollifax the antimacassars at list price—they’d been made in Japan. But Mrs. Pollifax had firmly refused, feeling the morning was well worth the price. Jane would never have understood, however; Jane had sensible Pollifax blood flowing in her veins and Jane would have been deeply shocked. “What, you didn’t call the police?” she would have demanded. “Mother, honestly! That would have been the sensible thing to do.”

Mrs. Pollifax thought with astonishment, “I don’t suppose that I am a very sensible person actually. Perhaps the doctor’s right, I can’t be happy trying to be what I’m not.”

The doctor was still chuckling, his glasses off again as he polished them with his handkerchief, but the mood of confessional had ended with his roar of laughter and was not to be recaptured. He wrote out a prescription for antidepressant pills, they chatted a few minutes longer but without further rapport, and Mrs. Pollifax left his office.

“But I wasn’t joking,” she thought indignantly as she walked down the street. “I really was going to be a spy.” She had worked hard at it, too, going to the town dump every Saturday morning with her cousin John to watch him shoot rats, and proving such a persistent tag-along that he had condescended to show her how guns worked. On several glorious occasions he had allowed her to shoot with him. There were the maps, too, that she had pored over in her room year after year, and with such scholarly devotion that when the Second World War began she was able instantly to announce the longitude and latitude of obscure little islands nobody else had ever heard of. What a funny child she had been, she thought with affection, a lonely but very happy child. She was lonely now but so—so unused, so purposeless, she realized; and at the back of her mind lay the memory of last Monday when she had carried her geraniums to the roof of the apartment building and had stood at the edge of the parapet looking down, her mind searching for one good reason why she should not take a step forward into oblivion. And she had found none. Even now she was not sure what would have happened if young Mr. Garbor hadn’t seen her and called out, “Mrs. Pollifax! For heaven’s sake step back!” When she obeyed him she saw that he was trembling.

She hadn’t told the doctor this. Obviously she must find a way to instill novelty into her life or she would be afraid to carry her geraniums to the roof, and she was very fond of geraniums.

She walked up the steps to her apartment house and pushed aside the heavy glass door. Her mailbox produced an assortment of circulars, but no letters today. She stuffed them into her purse and unlocked the inner door to discover that Miss Hartshorne had preceded her to the elevator and was standing guard beside it. Immediately Mrs. Pollifax felt herself and her intentions shrivel. It was not Miss Hartshorne’s fault that she reminded Mrs. Pollifax of the algebra teacher who had nearly blighted her life at thirteen, but Mrs. Pollifax illogically blamed her for it nevertheless.

“Mrs. Pollifax,” boomed Miss Hartshorne in her quartermaster’s voice.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Pollifax, trembling a little. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. Thoroughly cowed, Mrs. Pollifax let Miss Hartshorne press the floor button and received a pitying glance in return. (“You have forgotten pi again, Emily”).

“It’s warm,” Miss Hartshorne announced as the elevator began to rise.

“Yes, warm. Quite humid, too,” contributed Mrs. Pollifax, and pulling herself together added, “Planning a trip this summer, Miss Hartshorne?” It was not so much a question as an exploratory statement, because Miss Hartshorne was always planning a trip and when she was not planning one she was showing colored slides of previous trips. Sometimes Mrs. Pollifax felt that her neighbor did not really see the countries through which she traveled until she came home to view them on a screen in her living room.

“In September,” said Miss Hartshorne crisply. “It’s the only month for the knowledgeable traveler.”

“Oh, I see,” replied Mrs. Pollifax humbly.

The door opened and Miss Hartshorne moved toward apartment 4-C and Mrs. Pollifax to 4-A. “Good day,” Miss Hartshorne said dismissingly.

“Yes—that is, to you, too,” mumbled Mrs. Pollifax, and opened the door of her apartment with a feeling of escape.

Nothing had changed in her three rooms except the slant of the sun, and Mrs. Pollifax adjusted the Venetian blinds before removing her hat. As she passed the desk the engagement calendar caught her eye and she stopped to glance at it with a sense of ennui. This was Monday; on Tuesday she wheeled the bookcart at the hospital, on Wednesday she rolled bandages, on Thursday morning there was a meeting of the Art Association and in the afternoon she worked in the gift shop of the hospital. On Friday the Garden Club met, on Saturday morning she would have her hair trimmed, and in the afternoon Elise Wiggin would come for tea—but Elise talked of nothing but her grandchildren and how joyously they embraced toilet training.

The doctor had said, “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time or freedom for?”

Mrs. Pollifax tossed the day’s newspaper on the couch, and then on second thought picked it up and leafed through its pages because it was important to be well informed and in touch with the world. On page three the photograph of a woman caught her eye. FINDS CAREER AT 63, said the words over the photograph, and Mrs. Pollifax, captured, immediately sat down to read. It was about a woman named Magda Carroll who had turned to “Little Theater” groups after her children married, and following only two plays she had been discovered by a Broadway casting director. Now she was performing in a play that had opened to rave reviews in New York. “I owe it all to my age,” she told the interviewer.

“The theater world is teeming with bright and talented young things, but there is a dearth of sixty-three-year-old character actresses. They needed me—I was unexpected.”

Mrs. Pollifax let the paper slide to the floor. ” They needed me—I was unexpected.’ How perfectly wonderful,” she whispered, but the words made her wistful. She stood up and walked to the mirror in the hall and stared at the woman reflected there: small, feminine, somewhat cushiony in figure, hair nearly white, eyes blue, a nice little woman unsuited for almost everything practical. But wasn’t there any area at all, she wondered, in which she, too, might be unexpected?

Nonsense, she told herself; what she was thinking was absolutely out of the question.

“You could always try,” she reminded herself timidly. “After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained—and you’re a taxpayer, aren’t you?”

Preposterous. Unthinkable.

But at the back of her mind there remained the rooftop and how very nearly her right foot had moved into space.

“Isn’t there something you’ve always longed to do?” the doctor had asked.

“Of course it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” she began again, feeling her way cautiously toward the idea once more. “Just looking into the idea would be a nice little vacation from volunteer work.”

Now she was rationalizing because it was insane, utterly.

“But I haven’t visited Washington, D.C., since I was eleven years old,” she thought. “Think of the new buildings I’ve not seen except in pictures. Everyone should remain in touch with their own Capitol.”

She would go. “Ill got” she announced out loud, and feeling positively giddy at her recklessness she walked to the closet and pulled down her suitcase.

On the following morning Mrs. Pollifax left by train for Washington. The first thing she did after registering at a hotel was to go by taxi to the Capitol building and visit her congressman. The next day was spent in sight-seeing and in restoring her courage, which had a tendency to rise in her like a tide and then ebb, leaving behind tattered weeds of doubt. But on Thursday, after lunch, she resolutely boarded the bus for the twenty-minute ride to Langley, Virginia, where the new headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency had been built. Its address and location had been discovered by Mrs. Pollifax in the public library, where she had exercised a great deal of discretion, even glancing over her shoulder several times as she copied it into her memo pad. Now she was astonished—even shocked—to see sign after sign along the road directing everyone, presumably Russians, too, to the Central Intelligence Agency. Nor was there anything discreet about the building itself.” It was enormous—”covers nine acres,” growled the bus driver—and with its towers, penthouses and floors of glass it fairly screamed for attention. Mrs. Pollifax realized that she ought to feel intimidated, but her courage was on the rise today—she was here now, and in such a glorious mood that only Miss Hartshorne could have squashed her, and Miss Hartshorne was several hundred miles away. Mrs. Pollifax walked through the gates and approached the guards inside with her head high. “I would like,” she said, consulting her memo pad, “to see Mr. Jaspar Mason.”

She was given a form to fill out on which she listed her name, her address and the name of Mr. Mason, and then a guard in uniform escorted her down the corridor. Mrs. Pollifax walked slowly, reading all the signs posted on how classified wastepaper should be prepared for disposal, and at what hours it would be collected, and she decided that at the very least this was something that would impress Miss Hartshorne.

The room into which Mrs. Pollifax was ushered proved to be small, bright and impersonal. It was empty of Mr. Mason, however, and from its contents—several chairs, a striped couch and a mosaic coffee table—Mrs. Pollifax deduced that it was a repository for those visitors who penetrated the walls of the citadel without invitation. Mr. Mason contributed further to this impression when he joined her. He carried himself like a man capable of classifying and disposing of people as well as wastepaper but with tact, skill and efficiency. He briskly shook her hand, glanced at his watch and motioned her to a chair. “I’m afraid I can give you only ten minutes,” he said. “This room is needed at two o’clock. But tell me how I can help you.”

With equal efficiency Mrs. Pollifax handed him the introduction that she had extracted from her congressman; she had not told the congressman her real reason for wishing to interview someone in this building, but she had been compelling. The young man read the note, frowned, glanced at Mrs. Pollifax and frowned again. He seemed particularly disapproving when he looked at her hat, and Mrs. Pollifax guessed that the single fuchsia-pink rose that adorned it must be leaning again like a broken reed.

“Ah—yes, Mrs. Politflack,” he murmured, obviously baffled by the contents of the introduction—which sounded in awe of Mrs. Pollifax—and by Mrs. Pollifax herself, who did not strike him as awesome at all.

“Pollifax,” she pointed out gently.

“Oh—sorry. Now just what is it I can do for you, Mrs. Pollifax? It says here that you are a member of a garden club of your city, and are gathering facts and information—”

Mrs. Pollifax brushed this aside impatiently. “No, no, not really,” she confided, and glancing around to be sure that the door was closed, she leaned toward him. In a low voice she said, “Actually I’ve come to inquire about your spies.”

The young man’s jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I was wondering if you needed any.”

He continued staring at her and she wished that he would close his mouth. Apparently he was very obtuse—perhaps he was hard of hearing. Taking care to enunciate clearly, she said in a louder voice, “I would like to apply for work as a spy. That’s why I’m here, you see.”

The young man closed his mouth. “You cant possibly— you’re not serious,” he said blankly.

“Yes, of course,” she told him warmly. “I’ve come to volunteer. I’m quite alone, you see, with no encumbrances or responsibilities. It’s true that my only qualifications are those of character, but when you reach my age character is what you have the most of. I’ve raised two children and run a home, I drive a car and know first aid, I never shrink from the sight of blood and I’m very good in emergencies.”

Mr. Mason looked oddly stricken. He said in a dazed voice, “But really, you know, spying these days is not bloody at all, Mrs.—Mrs.—”

“Pollifax,” she reminded him. “I’m terribly relieved to hear that, Mr. Mason. But still I hoped that you might find use for someone—someone expendable, you know—if only to preserve the lives of your younger, better-trained people. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but I am quite prepared to offer you my life or I would not have come.”

Mr. Mason looked shocked. “But Mrs. Politick,” he protested, “this is simply not the way in which spies are recruited. Not at all. I appreciate the spirit in which you—”

“Then how?” asked Mrs. Pollifax reasonably. “Where do I present myself?”

“It’s—well, it’s not a matter of presenting oneself, it’s a matter of your country looking for you.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s glance was gently reproving. “That’s all very well,” she said, “but how on earth could my country find me in New Brunswick, New Jersey? And have they tried?”

Mr. Mason looked wan. “No, I don’t suppose—”

“There, you see?”

Someone tapped on the door and a young woman appeared, smiled at them both and said, “Mr. Mason, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s an urgent telephone call for you in your office. It’s Miss Webster.”

“Miss Webster,” murmured Mr. Mason dazedly, and then, “Good heavens yes, Miss Webster. Where is Miss Webster?” He jumped to his feet and said hastily, “I must excuse myself, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Politick.”

“Pollifax,” she reminded him forgivingly, and leaned back in her chair to wait for his return.

Two

Carstairs was lean, tall, with a crew-cut head of gray hair and a tanned, weather-beaten face. He looked an outdoor man although his secretary, Bishop, had no idea how he managed to maintain such a facade. He spent long hours in his office, which was a very special room equipped to bring him into contact with any part of the world in only a few seconds time. He often worked until midnight, and when something unusual was going on he would stay the night. Bishop didn’t envy him his job. He knew that Carstairs was OSS-trained, and that presumably his nerves had long ago been hammered into steel, but it was inhuman the way he kept his calm—Bishop was apt to hit the ceiling if his pencil point broke.

“Anything from Tirpak?” asked Carstairs right away, as Bishop handed him reports that had been filtering in since midnight.

“Nothing from him since Nicaragua.”

“That was two days ago. No word from Costa Rica, either?”

Bishop shook his head.

“Damn.” Carstairs leaned back in his chair and thought about it, not liking it very much. “Well, business as usual,” he told Bishop. “It’s time I made arrangements for Tirpak at the Mexico City end. One must be optimistic. I’ll be in Higgins’ office.”

“Right.”

“And keep the wires open for any news from Tirpak; he’s overdue and if there’s any word I want to hear immediately.”

Carstairs opened and closed the door of his soundproof office and joined the life of the humming building. Higgins was in charge of what Carstairs—humorously but never aloud —called “Personnel”: those thousands of paper faces locked up in top-secret steel files and presided over by Higgins of the cherubic face and fantastic memory. “Good morning,” said Carstairs, peering into Higgins’ room.

“Actually it’s cloudy outside,” Higgins said mildly. “That’s the trouble with this modern architecture. But come in anyway, Bill. Coffee?”

“You’re saving my life.”

Higgins looked doubtful. “You’d better taste the swill before you say that, and you’ll have to manage your own carton, I’ve already lost a fingernail prying open the lid of mine. What can I do for you?”

“I need a tourist.”

“Well, name your type,” Higgins said dolefully, and lifting his coffee high murmured, “Skoal.”

“I want,” said Carstairs, “a very particular type of tourist.”

Higgins put down his coffee and sighed. “I was afraid of that. Tourists I can supply by the droves, but a particular type—well, go ahead, I’m free for half an hour.”

“He or she will have to come from your inactive list. This tourist must be someone absolutely unknown, Higgins, and that’s vital.”

“Go on. For what type of job, by the way?”

Carstairs hesitated. He always hated divulging information, a feeling bred into him during the war years, but Higgins was not likely to meet with torture during the next twenty-four hours. “There’s a package coming into Mexico City. This particular tourist is to be nothing but a tourist for several weeks but on a certain date stop in at a specified place and pick up said package—rendered innocuous for customs, of course—and bring it into the United States.”

Higgins lifted an eyebrow. “A regular courier won’t do?”

“Couriers are pretty well known to them,” pointed out Carstairs gently.

“And to mail it… ?”

“Far, far too risky.”

Higgins’ gaze grew speculative. “I see. I gather, then, that this package of yours is dynamite—not literally, of course, but figuratively—and that you are therefore reduced to being terribly ingenious and circumspect, but that the job is not dangerous so long as said tourist is utterly unknown to them.”

“Bless you for saving us both precious minutes,” said Car-stairs fondly.

“Have you considered someone not inactive but absolutely new—a fresh face?”

Surprised, Carstairs said, “No I hadn’t—that would mean someone totally unseasoned, wouldn’t it?”

Higgins shrugged. “If there’s no point of contact would it matter?”

“Mmmm,” murmured Carstairs thoughtfully.

“One has to sacrifice something for said tourist’s being unknown to anyone. I mean, that’s what you want to avoid, isn’t it—someone met in Vienna in 1935 suddenly popping up in Mexico City years later?”

Carstairs smiled faintly—he doubted if Higgins had even been born in 1935. “Suppose you show me the possibilities,” he suggested. “Very little is demanded of my tourist except accuracy, but he or she must look exactly right.”

They walked back into the files where photograph after photograph was drawn out, sometimes to be instantly withdrawn with a “Oh dear no, he won’t do, he broke his tibia in the Balkans,” or “Oops, sorry, this lady’s been loaned to the Orient.” When Carstairs left it was with five photographs and a soggy carton of cold coffee.

“Nothing yet,” said Bishop, glancing up from his typewriter.

“Damn,” said Carstairs again, checked his watch—it was just half-past nine—and went into the office. Bishop, bless his heart, had left a fresh carton of coffee on his desk and Carstairs peeled it open, brought a cube of sugar from his desk drawer and dropped it into the coffee. He reminded himself that Tirpak was good, one of his best men, but if Tirpak had reported from Nicaragua two days ago he should have been in Costa Rica by now. For eight months Tirpak had been on this job, and from the bits and pieces he’d sent out of South America by wireless and coded mail his eight months had been extremely fruitful. Visually Tirpak was only a photograph in the top-secret files, but Carstairs knew his mind very well—it was that of a computer, a statistician, a jurist. Months ago he had been fed all the tips, stories and rumors that reached the department and from these he was bringing back neat, cold, irrefutable facts on all of Castro’s secret operations in the hemisphere. But alone the facts were nothing; what was most vital of all was the proof that Tirpak was carrying with him out of South America, proof so concrete and detailed that each nation in the Alliance for Progress would know once and for all the face of its enemy and in exactly what form the Trojan horse of communism would appear in its country.

Coffee in hand Carstairs walked to the ceiling-high map on the wall and stared at it moodily. One might say that Tirpak’s job of work was finished now, and so it was in the literal sense, but actually it was only beginning. This was “phase two,” the most difficult of all, the getting of the proof into the right hands, moving it north, country by country, until it would arrive here on Carstairs’ desk to be forwarded upstairs. That was the difference between this particular job and the others, that it entailed quantities of documents, photographs, dossiers and descriptions of operating methods. It could only be expected that eventually the wrong people would get wind of Tirpak’s job, and it was no coincidence that several of Tirpak’s informants had begun disappearing. The wonder of it was that Tirpak had worked for so long in secrecy. Now time was against him and Carstairs realized that he was worried. He knew the shape that phase two ought to take if everything went off perfectly … the shabby photographic studio in Costa Rica where Tirpak’s bulky packages of material would be reduced to microfilm, and then the trip into Mexico to leave the microfilm with De-Gamez, for Tirpak was persona non grata in the United States, a myth that had to be perpetuated for his safety. Once the microfilm reached Mexico City it would be out of Tirpak’s hands and the rest would be up to Carstairs and his tourist—but Tirpak ought to have reached Costa Rica before now.

Restlessly, Carstairs lit a cigarette. This was when he sweated, this was when his own war experience went against him because he knew what it was like to be on the run. He wondered where Tirpak was on this humid July morning, whether he was running scared or still had the situation well in hand. If he couldn’t reach Costa Rica would he try to push through to Mexico? Was he being followed? Had he been killed, and all that documentation scattered and lost? This had happened before too.

The door opened and Carstairs immediately rearranged his features into their habitual mask. “Yes, Bishop,” he said.

Bishop was smiling. “Tirpak has reached Costa Rica.”

Carstairs’ reaction was fervent and brief. “Thank God,” he said, and then added savagely, “What took him so long?”

“They’re decoding the message now,” Bishop said. “It 11 be here in exactly five minutes.”

Five minutes later Carstairs was frowning over the message from Tirpak. It was the longest one that Tirpak had permitted himself, but Costa Rica was the safest place he had visited in eight months. In essence Tirpak said that it was Castro’s Red Chinese friends who were interested in him, and he had decided it was time for him to go into hiding. All the documents were being processed as planned, and would be forwarded to Mexico City, suitably camouflaged. Tirpak planned to throw them off the scent by remaining in Costa Rica for a week or two. Carstairs could absolutely (repeat, absolutely) count on the microfilms arriving in Mexico City between August 12 and August 18.

When he had finished reading the decoded words a third time Carstairs put down the sheet and lit a cigarette. Tirpak had obviously been having a rough time or he wouldn’t be planning to stay in Costa Rica to “throw them off the scent.” In a word, things were getting very hot for him. He must have been closely watched and followed, so closely that for him to travel any further would jeopardize both the documents and any other agents he contacted.

But Tirpak was a seasoned man, and not a giver of reckless promises. Carstairs had unalterable faith in Tirpak’s ingenuity, and if Tirpak said the microfilms would arrive in Mexico City between the twelfth and the eighteenth then the microfilms would be there. It was time for Carstairs to get his tourist moving.

“Bishop,” he said, arranging the five photographs on his desk, “Bishop, you know the setup. Which one?”

Bishop sat down and carefully scrutinized the five photos.

“I’m afraid I lack your imagination, you know. They all look like authentic, true-blue American tourists to me.”

Carstairs sighed. “Heaven knows that nobody should be judged by face alone, but this chap’s expression is too damn eager for me. Retired businessman, excellent background, but personality a bit—ingratiating, shall we say? Might get carried away in a foreign country and do some bragging—it’s amazing the loss of identity some people suffer in a strange country. This man might do except that he was in on some behind-the-line work in China during World War Two. If it’s the Red Chinese that have been hotly pursuing Tirpak we certainly can’t risk him.”

“And the woman?” Bishop asked only from curiosity. Car-stairs had an uncanny knack for assessing people; he was astonishingly perceptive and of course he was a perfectionist or he would never have gotten away with the outrageous operations he launched.

“Too young. I want someone over forty-five for this, especially if they’re inexperienced. This tourist must be absolutely right.”

Bishop stabbed the fourth picture with a finger. “How about this woman?”

“Mmm.” Carstairs studied the face. “Humorless, but not bad. Compulsive type. She’ll do the job, won’t mix, probably won’t talk to a soul.” His glance dropped to the data beneath the photo. “Charlotte Webster, age fifty-eight—” He frowned. “She’s not precisely what I had in mind, but she’s passable. Bishop, I’d like to take a look at Miss Webster without committing myself. Is there some way in which I could see her without being seen, so to speak?”

Bishop said promptly, “Yes, sir. I can ask Mason downstairs to set up an appointment to review her credentials. He can meet her in his first-floor interviewing room and you can stop in and look her over.”

“Absolutely inspired, Bishop. Excellent. Contact Mason and ask him to take over. Tell him he’s to handle it completely and without involving me. Tell him I’d like to see her today if it’s possible. I’ve a hectic afternoon ahead but I’m free for a few minutes at two o’clock. See if he can set up an appointment with her for two this afternoon.”

“Right, sir.”

When Bishop had gone Carstairs took a last look at the photograph, frowned, sighed heavily and then resolutely put it aside.

Carstairs went to lunch at forty minutes past one. The table-service rooms were filled and so he walked on to the cafeteria and picked up a tray instead. He finished eating at two, and after consulting his watch he hurried toward the first-floor interviewing room. To the guard stationed outside he said briefly, “Mason’s appointment in there?”

“Yes, sir. A woman.”

“Good.”

Carstairs opened the door. The woman was seated alone in the room, waiting, and she was at once so utterly and astonishingly right for the job that Carstairs could scarcely believe his eyes. He had always been extremely intuitive about his people: it was almost a psychic quality that enabled him to separate pretense from authenticity. His glance first noted the really absurd hat—it was difficult to overlook— with one fuchsia-colored rose completely askew; it then traveled over the wisps of white hair that refused to be confined, marked the cheerful mouth, and when it met a glance that was as interested and curious as his own he felt the triumph of a casting director who discovers the perfect actress for a pivotal role. He strode across the room with hand outstretched. “I’m Carstairs,” he said warmly. “I wanted to meet you while you’re here. We’re not really interested in your qualifications, you see, we want you for a job. Have you been talking with Mason?”

“Mr. Mason?” For just a moment she appeared bewildered. “Oh yes, but he was called to the telephone, and—”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll take over now.” He sat down beside her on the couch. “I realize that you’re inexperienced but this is the very simplest of jobs. The important thing from the very beginning has been that I find someone absolutely right. I think you’ll do. I think you’ll do very well indeed.”

“I will?” Her cheeks turned pink with pleasure.

“Yes. Are you free to work for us from August 3 to August 22?”

“Why—oh yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I’m quite free—I’d be delighted!”

“Excellent. Have you ever visited Mexico?”

”Mexico!” She looked positively radiant. “No, never. You’d like me to go to Mexico?”

He appreciated the quick response; there had been no hesitation at all. “Yes. You’ll be paid the usual fee for courier work, and of course all your expenses will be taken care of while you are there. It’s quite simple. You’ll be an American tourist and use your own name. The job consists of visiting a specific place in Mexico City at a specific date, and for the rest of the time you’ll be on your own.” She was listening with a look of wonder, as if she could not believe her good fortune. He reflected that an extremely bad photographer had taken her picture; Miss Webster was not only right but perfect. “You can handle this?” he added with a smile.

She drew a deep breath and nodded. “That’s why I came, you see—because I thought I could.” She added quickly, “Yes, I’m sure I can handle it. I will do my very, very best.”

“I think you will, too,” he said. “Look here, do you mind coming up to my office for a moment? I won’t have time to brief you this afternoon, and only my secretary can tell me when I’m free, but I’ll want to arrange an appointment with you as soon as possible.” With a nod Carstairs dismissed the guard outside the door and guided his companion toward the bank of elevators. “I’d like to wrap this up without delay. Ill need you for at least an hour and my schedule this afternoon is quite hopeless. I could see you this evening but I think tomorrow morning would be better. Would that be convenient?”

“It would be perfect,” she assured him, beaming. As they entered the elevator she had been fumbling in her purse; now she extracted a small white card and held it out to him. “I don’t believe you know my name,” she told him. “I always carry these with me.”

Carstairs was amused, but he dropped the card into his pocket. The doors slid open at his floor and he grasped the woman’s arm to escort her down the hall. “Here we are,” he said. “Bishop? Ah, there you are. Am I free tomorrow from nine to ten?”

Bishop sighed. “Are you ever7 Yes, technically you’re free.”

“Good. Nine it is then.” He held out his hand. “I’m terribly sorry to bring you back again but I always insist on very thorough briefings.”

“I think you should,” she told him approvingly. “And really, you have been so kind. So unexpectedly kind. Thank you.”

“Kind,” echoed Carstairs when she had gone. “She’s not only perfect but she appreciates my finer qualities. Well, Bishop, what do you think? I found my innocent tourist, didn’t I? In fact one so congenitally innocent that she’d baffle Mao Tse-tung himself.”

Bishop’s jaw dropped. He said in a hollow voice, “Sir—”

“What is it, Bishop, are you feeling ill?”

“That was your tourist?”

“Yes, isn’t she marvelous?”

Bishop swallowed. He said, “As you entered this office, sir, I was just putting down the receiver of the telephone. It was Mason calling to tell you that Miss Webster has just arrived.”

Carstairs frowned. “Webster? Webster?”

“He sent a message up earlier, telling of Miss Webster’s delay. I forwarded it to the table-service room.”

“I ate in the cafeteria.”

“Now Miss Webster is here.”

“Nonsense,” said Carstairs, “Miss Webster has just left”

“No, sir, Miss Webster has just arrived.”

Carstairs began, softly and vehemently, to swear. “Then will you do me the kindness, Bishop, of asking Mason just who the hell was waiting for me down there in his interviewing room at two o’clock, and who the devil I’ve just engaged for this job? On the double, Bishop. Ill be in my office.”

He strode into his office and sat down. Gingerly, reluctantly, he drew from his pocket the calling card that he had been given and placed it on the desk before him. He read it and frowned. He read it again and reached for the photograph of Miss Webster. There was a very superficial physical resemblance between her and his tourist but he knew now that Miss Webster was not going to do at all. Miss Webster was a dehydrated and flavorless copy of the original. “Well?” he growled as Bishop returned.

“Her name was Politick or Politflack, Mason can’t remember which, but they’d know in the lobby.”

“Pollifax,” said Carstairs. “Go on. What brought her here?”

Without expression Bishop said carefully, “Mason says that she came here to apply for work as a secret agent.”

Carstairs opened his mouth, closed it and stared incredulously at Bishop. “Impossible,” he said at last. “Nobody just walks in asking to be an agent”

“Mason was most emphatic—and still quite shaken by the incident.”

A full minute passed, and then the corners of Carstairs’ mouth began to twitch and he threw back his head and roared. When his laughter had subsided to a chuckle he said, “Unbelievable. Preposterous.” But he had reached a decision and he knew it “Bishop,” he said, “it’s unorthodox even for this unorthodox department, but damn it—order an immediate, top-priority security check run on”—he consulted the chaste white card on his desk—”on Mrs. Virgil Pollifax of the Hemlock Apartments in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I want the results before eight o’clock tomorrow morning. And when you’ve done that, Bishop, start praying.”

“Praying, sir?”

“Yes, Bishop. Pray that she’s never unwittingly contributed to subversive organizations, voted Socialist or entertained a Red bishop for dinner. After that,” he added flatly, “you can tell Mason to send Miss Webster home.”

Three

“Flight Number 51 loading at Gate Four… . Flight Number 51 … to Mexico City loading at Gate Four… .”

Mrs. Pollifax found her seat on the plane and sat down feeling suffused with an almost unbearable excitement. For days she had been practicing the inscrutable look of a secret agent, but now she found it impossible to sustain; she was far too enraptured by the thought of her first visit to Mexico and her first trip anywhere by jet. And it was just as well, she told herself sternly, for Mr. Carstairs had emphasized that she was not a secret agent but an American tourist. “You are to be yourself,” he had told her firmly, and had added, with a faint smile, “If I thought you capable of being anyone else I would never have given you this job to do.”

Mrs. Pollifax had listened to him with shining eyes.

“You will arrive in Mexico City on the third of August and you will check in at the Hotel Reforma Intercontinental. The reservations were made an hour ago, in your name. You will be Mrs. Virgil Pollifax, visiting Mexico for three weeks, and you will behave like any other tourist. Where you go is entirely up to you. You will be on your own completely, and I assume you’ll visit the usual tourist places, Taxco, Xochi-milco, Acapulco, and so on—whatever is of interest to Mrs. Virgil Pollifax. But on August 19, without fail, you will visit this book store on the Calle el Siglo in Mexico City.”

He had handed Mrs. Pollifax a slip of paper. “I want you to memorize this address before you leave the building,” he said quietly, and Mrs. Pollifax’s heart beat a little faster.

“You will not see me again but you will be visited once before you leave by one of the men in my department who will make certain you’ve forgotten nothing.”

Mrs. Pollifax had looked at the words on the piece of paper.

El Papagayo Libreri (The Parrot Bookstore) Calle el Siglo 14, Mexico City

Senor R. DeGamez, Proprietor—Fine Books Bought &. Sold

Carstairs had continued. “On the nineteenth of August you will walk into the bookshop and ask for Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.”

“The nineteenth,” Mrs. Pollifax repeated eagerly.

“The gentleman there, whose name as you can see is Senor DeGamez, will say with regret that he is very sorry but he does not have a copy at the moment.”

Mrs. Pollifax waited breathlessly.

“Whereupon you will tell him—with the proper apology for contradicting him—that there is a copy in his window. You will then go to the window with him and he will find the book there and you will say, ‘I think Madame Defarge is simply gruesome, don’t you?’”

Mrs. Pollifax repeated the words under her breath.

“These identifying phrases are a nuisance,” Carstairs told her. “The gentleman will be expecting you about ten o’clock in the morning, but it is always wiser to have a double check set up for you both. Your asking for A Tale of Two Cities and your reference to Madame Defarge are the important things to remember.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “And that’s all?”

“That is all.”

“And whatever I’m to bring you will be in the book?” she asked, and instantly covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh dear, I should never have asked that, should I.”

Carstairs smiled. “No, and I would not in any case tell you. Although actually,” he added dryly, “I can in all honesty say at this particular moment that I don’t know myself what he will give you. You will of course—as soon as you have paid for the book—leave and not return again. There will be nothing more asked of you but to continue your sight-seeing for two more days and return by jet on the twenty-first. You will receive your tickets and reservations by mail within the next few days, as well as the tourist card necessary for entering Mexico.”

She nodded. “What happens when I come home? What about Customs?”

Carstairs smiled, saying gently, “That need not concern you. Let’s just say that we will be aware of your arrival in this country, and there will be no problems for you. None at all.”

“Oh.”

“In the meantime I must emphasize that you are a tourist who happens merely to be dropping in at the Parrot Bookstore. I want you to think of it that way.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Pollifax said sadly, and as Carstairs lifted his brows inquiringly she added, “It doesn’t sound dangerous in the least.”

Carstairs looked shocked. “My dear Mrs. Pollifax, there is always risk—we discussed that—but if there was the slightest element of real danger involved I can assure you that I would never allow an amateur to be sitting here in my office. This is what we call simple courier work, and in this case your amateur status is especially useful. I know that I can trust you to follow directions intelligently—”

“Oh yes,” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“And out of it you will have a very nice little vacation in Mexico. We will both be satisfied.” He stood up, smiling lest he might have sounded reproving, and added, “Bishop will now show you to a quiet corner where you can memorize that address. I hope you weren’t insulted at taking a lie detector test?”

“Oh no, it was terribly interesting,” she told him, beaming.

“Good. Nothing personal, you understand, it’s routine for everyone, even our clerks.” He had held out his hand and shaken hers. “I won’t be seeing you again, Mrs. Pollifax— have lots of fun.”

She shrewdly suspected that he had used the word fun deliberately, to rid her of any lingering fancies concerning her trip. Well, she didn’t mind; she was going to have fun. Her suitcase was fairly bursting with tourist literature on Mexico City and its environs, and Miss Hartshorne had insisted upon giving her three rolls of color film. “As a bon voyage gift,” she explained, “because you will just adore having slides of your trip, they’re the perfect souvenir for your Memory Book.” Miss Hartshorne had insisted also upon coming to her apartment to instruct her, and had left telling Mrs. Pollifax she just knew she would come home with perfectly marvelous pictures of Mexico that everyone in the apartment house would enjoy viewing.

Mrs. Pollifax’s daughter had received the news with dismay. “But Mother,” Jane had wailed over the long-distance wires, “if you wanted to do some traveling why didn’t you tell us? You could have come out here to Arizona. I’ve hired Mrs. Blair to take care of the children while John and I are in Canada. If I’d only known—we’d feel so much better if it could be you, and the children just love it when you come.”

“It’s just a little trip I thought I’d take for myself,” Mrs. Pollifax told her gently, and wished her daughter a happy vacation in Canada.

Her son, Roger, on the other hand, had visited Mexico in his student days, and he told her that she must eat no green stuff and be terribly careful about the water. But there was a great deal more of his mother in him than in Jane, and he had added, “I was getting worried about you, Mother, you haven’t erupted in years. Godspeed and all that. See you at Christmas and if you get in a jam send me a wire.”

Dear Roger, she thought as she fastened her seat belt. She leaned forward to glance out of the window and saw a great many hands waving from the deck, and she fluttered her own with animation. As the plane began to taxi toward the runway Mrs. Pollifax thought with jarring abruptness, “I do hope I’m going to like this.” Sunlight caught a wing of the plane and the glare momentarily blinded her; then with a nearly overwhelming burst of sound the landscape beyond Mrs. Pollifax’s window began to move with dizzying speed, it blurred into a streak and dropped away. We’re in the air, she realized, and felt an enormous and very personal feeling of accomplishment.

“We’re airborne,” said the man sitting next to her.

Airborne … she must remember that. People like Miss Hartshorne knew these things without being told, and, after all, nothing was an experience unless there was a name for it. She smiled and nodded and brought out the latest copy of Ladies Home Journal and placed it in her lap. Presently, because she had not slept at all well the night before, Mrs. Pollifax dozed. …

As the plane banked and turned over Mexico City, Mrs. Pollifax peered down at its glittering whiteness and thought how flat the city looked, horizontal rather than vertical, and so different from New York with its skyscrapers rising like cliffs out of the shadows. A moment later Mrs. Pollifax was infinitely relieved to discover that landings were more comfortable than takeoffs, and presently she was breathing Mexico City‘s thin, rarefied mountain air. All the way to the hotel she kept her face pressed to the window of the taxi, but when she spied her first sombrero she gave a sigh of contentment and leaned back. Never mind if most of the women looked sleek and Parisian and the men dressed exactly like Americans—this was Mexico because she had seen a sombrero.

The hotel proved luxurious beyond Mrs. Pollifax’s dreams —almost too much so, thought Mrs. Pollifax, who would personally have preferred something native, but she recalled that the choice was not hers, and that this was where tourists stayed. “And I am a tourist,” she reminded herself.

Mrs. Pollifax had arrived in the late afternoon. She dined early at the hotel, had a lukewarm bath and, sensibly, retired at nine. The next morning she was first in line for the tour bus that promised to introduce her to Mexico City. On the tour she fell into conversation with two American schoolteachers, Miss Lambert and Mrs. Donahue, but in spite of exchanging pleasantries during the trip she was careful to note each street sign they passed. When the tour ended Mrs. Pollifax had learned the location of the Paseo de la Re-forma, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Palace of Justice, the National Pawnshop and the Zocalo; she had made two new friends and learned a great deal of Mexico’s history, but she had not discovered the whereabouts of the Calle el Siglo. Both Miss Lambert and Mrs. Donahue warned her of the change in altitude and the necessity of adjusting gradually to it. She therefore went no further than Sanborne’s that evening, where she ate dinner, admired the lavish gifts in their showcases, and went to bed early again.

The next day Mrs. Pollifax bought a map and after an hour’s study set out to find the Calle el Siglo and the Parrot Bookstore, for she was conscientious by nature and did not feel she could relax and really enjoy herself until she knew precisely where she must present herself on August 19. To her surprise she discovered that the street was in walking distance of the hotel, and that it was a perfectly respectable side street already found by the tourists, whom she could identify by the cameras strung about their necks on leather thongs. She wandered almost the length of it, and when she saw the Parrot Bookstore across the street she blushed and quickly averted her eyes. But that one swift glance told her that it was neither shabby nor neglected, as she had somewhat romantically imagined, but a very smart and modern store, small and narrow in width but with a very striking mosaic of a parrot set into its glittering cement facade.

On the following afternoon, returning to the hotel with her two friends after a visit to the National Palace, they found themselves momentarily lost and Mrs. Pollifax steered them all up the Calle el Siglo, saying with a ruthless lack of conscience that it was a direct route to the hotel. This time they passed the door of the Parrot, and Mrs. Pollifax glanced inside and took note of the man behind the counter. She thought he looked very pleasant: about her age, with white hair and a white moustache that was very striking against the Spanish swarthiness of his skin. Like a grandee, she decided.

During the week that Mrs. Pollifax spent sight-seeing in Mexico City she found the opportunity nearly every day to pass the Parrot Bookstore. She did not seek it out deliberately, but if it proved a convenient way to return to her hotel— and it often did—she did not avoid it. Once she passed it in the evening, when it was closed, in the company of Miss Lambert and Mrs. Donahue. Once she and Miss Lambert passed it in the morning when Senor DeGamez was just inserting the key in the door, and twice Mrs. Pollifax passed on the other side without giving it more than a glance. She realized that she was beginning to think of it as her shop, and to feel a proprietary interest in it.

When Mrs. Pollifax had enjoyed Mexico City for a week she bid her new friends adios and went by bus to Taxco, where for several days she wandered its crooked, cobble-stoned alleys, looked over bargains in silver, and sunned herself in the market plaza. She then returned by way of Acapulco, stopping there overnight. Everywhere she went Mrs. Pollifax found people charming and friendly, and this spared her some of the loneliness of traveling alone. On the bus returning to Mexico City she was entertained by a widower from Chicago who showed her pictures of his six grandchildren, and in turn Mrs. Pollifax showed him pictures of Jane’s two children and Roger’s one. From the gentleman’s conversation Mrs. Pollifax guessed that he was a professional gambler, but this in no way curtailed her interest—she had never before met a professional gambler.

As soon as she returned to Mexico City—it was August 15 on the day she came back—she found it convenient to walk down the Calle el Siglo and reassure herself about her store. It was still there, and Senor DeGamez looked just as elegant as ever. He really looked so pleasant that she thought, “Surely it wouldn’t hurt just to step inside for a minute and buy something? Other tourists do, and I pass here so often, and I haven’t a thing to read tonight.” As she paused, considering, a party of tourists came out of the Parrot laughing and talking and carrying packages that could only be books tied up in white paper. On impulse Mrs. Pollifax crossed the street and went inside.

Four

After the briefest of glances around her—Senor DeGamez was busy at the counter—Mrs. Pollifax hurried to a corner table that bore the placard LATEST BOOKS PROM USA, and plucked one from the pile. The only sounds in the shop were the crackling of fresh paper, as Senor DeGamez wrapped books, and the sound of his voice as he spoke to his customer. Unfortunately, however, he was speaking the language of his country and so Mrs. Pollifax could not eavesdrop. She selected a volume of memoirs by a well-known American actress and groped in her purse for currency; she was mentally translating dollars into pesos when a strident voice broke the hushed, literary atmosphere. “Old books, new books, read a book,” screeched the voice, and Mrs. Pollifax turned in astonishment to see a live parrot addressing her from a cage nearby.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” she gasped.

“You like my parrot?” asked Senor DeGamez from the counter. His customer had departed and they were alone. “But he startled you, I think. My customers, they are used to him, but Ole surprises the new ones. Come see,” he said, walking over to the cage. “You know parrots? Not many do —this one is exceptionally fine. Have you ever seen such color?”

“Beautiful,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a hushed voice. “But seeing him was what startled me, rather than hearing him. He is so brilliantly colored, like a sunset—or are parrots she’s rather than he’s?”

Senor DeGamez smiled, and with courtly, old-fashioned humor said, “Well, some are he’s and some are she’s, no? And so it must always be.”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled back at him. “Of course, I wasn’t thinking, was I? I do say things without thinking, it’s a very bad habit. And of course the name of your store is the Parrot. The bird adds just the right touch.”

He lifted a hand. “No, no, my store is named after 016, not the other way around. My Ole came first—she has been with me twelve years. What I do when she dies I don’t know.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded sympathetically. “What will you do —exactly! Of course they would say find another parrot, but it’s never the same, is it?”

He said gently, “That is so, never. You are very wise.”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax reflectively, “only experienced, which comes from living a good many years. Wisdom is something else, I think.” Her eyes returned admiringly to the gaudy bird. “She is company for you?” When he looked blank she said, “Your parrot keeps you from being lonely?”

“Oh—si,” he said, nodding in understanding. “Yes. My wife she is dead five years now, and my sons, they are grown and in business. When I wish to hear talk I uncover Olé’s cage and we speak together. She says a few words in English, a few in Spanish, and when we are finished speaking I cover her cage again and she stops.”

Mrs. Pollifax laughed. “The perfect companion!”

“Exactly. And you—you have children too perhaps?” Senor DeGamez was smiling.

Mrs. Pollifax gave her book and her money to him and they moved toward the counter. “Two,” she told him, “a boy and girl, both grown up now. I’ve been a widow for eight years.”

He at once looked compassionate. “I am so sorry. But you have surely not come to Mexico alone?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

“Then you are courageous. That is good, very good.”

“It’s sometimes a little lonely,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes, but like me with my Olé you can be alone when you choose. Some of these American women, they are like swarms of—you will forgive me—swarms of geese, always together, always making cackling noises.” Here the senor stepped back and did a very humorous imitation of chattering women.

Mrs. Pollifax burst out laughing. “I’m afraid you’re too good!”

“But think—when you are lonely you need only find some American geese and join them. And when you tire”—he snapped his fingers—”off you go. To read. You like to read? I understand that, or you would not be here. Solitaire? Do you play solitaire?”

Mrs. Pollifax shook her head.

“But senora,” he cried, “you are missing a delight. I myself treasure the solitary cards.” He tapped his forehead. “It clears the brain, it clears the thought, it is mentally sound, mentally healthy.”

Mrs. Pollifax said doubtfully, “I remember trying a few games when I was a child—”

“Si, but you are a grown-up lady now,” he told her, smiling. “Please—you are buying this book? Allow me then to add another as a small gift. No, no,” he said, putting up a hand to cut off her protests, and he walked to a shelf, fingered a few titles and chose one with a bright blue jacket. “This one,” he said, handing it to her with a flourish. “77 Ways to Play Solitaire.”

“Well,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, charmed but not sure what to say.

“For the loneliness, si? Because you like my parrot and you are not a geese.”

“Goose,” said Mrs. Pollifax and began to laugh. “All right, I’ll try it, I really will.”

“Good, you accept my gift then. Better yet you read it and use it. Remember,” he said as he finished tying up the book she had purchased, “remember you are not a child now, you will appreciate better the enjoyment.” He nodded affably to a man and a woman who had entered the store. “This has been a pleasure to me, senora, may you have a beautiful visit.”

Mrs. Pollifax felt deeply touched and warmed by his friendliness. “Thank you so much,” she said, “and thank you for the book.”

She had reached the door when he called across the store, “Oh, American senora …”

Mrs. Pollifax turned.

He was smiling. “How can you play seventy-seven games of solitaire without cards?” He had picked up a deck from below the counter and now he tossed the pack of playing cards the length of the room to her.

Mrs. Pollifax said, “Oh but …” and reached up and caught the cards in midair. Her son, Roger, would have been proud of her.

“How do you Americans say it—’on the house!’” he called out gaily.

How nice he was. Mrs. Pollifax gave in graciously—after all, he had other customers waiting. She held up the playing cards to show that she had caught them, dropped them into her purse and with a wave of her hand walked out.

Mrs. Pollifax had gone less than a block when she stopped, aghast, her mouth forming a stricken O. She had just realized that the charming gentleman with whom she had been chatting for half an hour was no other than Mr. Car-stairs’ Senor DeGamez. She had not intended to speak to him at all, she had meant only to walk in and very discreetly make a purchase and leave. How could she have allowed herself to be carried away like that? What on earth would Mr. Carstairs think of her now? For that matter what would Senor DeGamez think when on the nineteenth of August he looked for Mr. Carstairs’ courier and it turned out to be the American tourist lady who was not a geese.

“How awful,” she thought, hurrying along with burning cheeks. “How terribly undignified of me. This is not the way secret agents behave at all.”

Thoroughly penitent, Mrs. Pollifax returned to her hotel, and as punishment resolved not to go near the Calle el Siglo again until the nineteenth. To further punish herself she made a list of Things To Do during the next four days: souvenirs to be found for Roger, Jane and the grandchildren, postcards to be sent to friends at home, and she even went as far as to carry her camera with her to Xochimilco and take a few pictures. Dear Miss Hartshorne, she wrote without enthusiasm, Mexico is lovely. I have visited …” and she listed some of the places she had seen. / hope you are having a pleasant August. Sincerely, your neighbor, Emily Pollifax. All of this seemed to her exceedingly dull because it deprived her of the opportunity to observe the Parrot, toward which she felt an almost maternal solicitude after this length of time. It was this frustration that led her to open the book that Senor DeGamez had given her, and to her surprise she discovered that she really could enjoy solitaire. Instead of going to bed with a book each night she invested in a tray upon which she could spread out her playing cards. The first ten games in the book were quite easy and she quickly mastered them; as the nineteenth of August drew nearer and she became increasingly restless she went on to more difficult games, sometimes playing them in the hotel lobby after breakfast or carrying the cards in her purse to spread out on a park bench or a cafe table. She found that solitaire not only relaxed her nerves but entertained her mind, and she wondered if she ought to mention this to Senor DeGamez when they met again.

“Better not,” she decided regretfully; this time she really must play the part of secret agent to perfection. She would be cool, impersonal, businesslike.

On the eighteenth Mrs. Pollifax ventured out to complete her shopping for the family and when she retired that night there were serapes draped across desk, bureau and chairs. “Not the very best serapes,” reflected Mrs. Pollifax as she turned out the lights, “but buying six is so expensive and of course I’m paying for these myself.” She had kept a conscientious account of every dollar spent, recalling how grimly Jane’s husband talked of waste in Washington. She had the distinct feeling that as a taxpayer Jane’s husband would not enjoy contributing to her three-week holiday in Mexico. For the first time it occurred to Mrs. Pollifax to wonder why Mr. Carstairs had sent her here for three weeks. Why not one week, she wondered, or two at the most, and for a fleeting moment she toyed with the idea that her visit to the Parrot Bookstore might be more important than Mr. Carstairs had led her to believe.

Nonsense, she thought, he wanted to be sure everyone knew her as a tourist. Nothing was worth doing unless doing well, she added piously.

She fell asleep thinking of serapes and dreamed of serapes spread across chairs, desk and bureau with a talking parrot guarding them.

Five

When Mrs. Pollifax opened her eyes the next morning she knew it was The Day she had been waiting for, but she felt no fucker of excitement. She had waited too long, and during the last few days—she had to admit this—she had been quite bored. In fact nothing but her games of solitaire had kept her amused, and remembering this she tucked the playing cards into her purse to carry with her for the day. Glancing into the interior of the purse she noted that again it had become the repository of an astonishing assortment of odds and ends: a pocket knife for her grandson’s birthday, two chocolate bars, a package of paper handkerchiefs, a tin of Band-Aids, stubs of travelers’ checks, two new lipsticks and one old tube that was worn flat—she would have to clear this out soon. But not now. She zipped up the back of her best navy-blue dress, and because it was cool this morning she added the gorgeous hand-loomed Guatemalan wool jacket that she had given herself as a gift.

She ate a small breakfast in the hotel dining room and passed the hour that followed in playing solitaire in the lobby. At 9:45 she was walking up the Calle el Siglo and repeating to herself the words A Tale of Two Cities and Madame Defarge. The door of the Parrot Bookstore was open. Mrs. Pollifax walked in with what she believed to be exquisite casualness, blinked a little at the sudden change from sunlight to shadow and nervously cleared her throat.

“Buenos dias,” said the man behind the counter, looking up with a smile, and after a second glance he added, “Good morning.”

Mrs. Pollifax glanced uncertainly around the room, but there was no one else there. “Good morning,” she said. This was not her friend Senor DeGamez whom she had met on her earlier visit. This man was small and dapper, with black hair, spectacles and no moustache at all; when he smiled a gold tooth gleamed at one side of his lip. To cover her confusion she gave him a bright smile in return and moved to the table on which the books from America were displayed. She began picking up one volume after another.

“May I be of help?” suggested the man with a bow.

Mrs. Pollifax had gained a moment to reflect. She decided there was no alternative but to ask just when Senor DeGamez would be back. Perhaps he had been taken suddenly ill, or had run out for cigarettes. “When I was here before,” she told the man confidingly, “the proprietor was so helpful, he chose just the right book for me. Will he be in soon?”

The man looked surprised. “But I am the proprietor, senora. I am Senor DeGamez.”

Mrs. Pollifax, taken aback, said, “Oh.”

Smiling, the man added, “That would have been my cousin, I thin, who comes in to the store to help when I am away on business. It happens that way, you know? He is Senor DeGamez too. But he is not here.”

“He was so extremely charming and kind,” explained Mrs. Pollifax eagerly. “He gave me a book on solitaire—77 Ways to Play, and—” She gasped. “Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that. After all, it’s your shop—but I would be happy to pay you for it, indeed I insisted at the time—”

“Yes, that is Jose”,” said the man with a rueful smile. “Definitely that is Jose, but what is one to do with him?” He shrugged, his gold tooth gleaming. “Jose is always impulsive; if the store were his he would be bankrupt in one month. Still…” His second shrug was even more eloquent. “Still, it is Jos6’s charm that brought you back, no?”

“Yes indeed—and for A Tale of Two Cities,” she told him boldly.

“A Tale of Two Cities,” he mused. He returned to the counter to thumb through a pile of papers. Extracting one, he ran a finger down its list. “That book we do not have, I am so sorry.”

“I believe there’s a copy in your window,” she told him breathlessly.

“Si?” He said it with just the proper note of surprise and she walked with him to die low curtain that divided the window from the store.

“Yes.” They both looked, but Mrs. Pollifax could see no copy of A Tale of Two Cities and with a sinking sensation she realized that she ought to have looked for it before coming inside. Nothing seemed to be going well; it was as if fate was putting up little barriers everywhere to test her. She said with a frown, “It was here the other day, I ought to have stopped then. Or perhaps I have the wrong store. I think Madame Defarge is simply gruesome, don’t you?” She waited now for him to say something, her eyes alert.

Senor DeGamez continued to lean over the curtain and study the books in the window. When he stood erect he looked at Mrs. Pollifax and his eyes behind the glasses had grown thoughtful. She thought that he, too, appeared to be assessing. “It is not there,” he said, watching her.

“No, it is not there.”

He said quietly, “But I think that we understand each other nevertheless, you and I.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean that we have something in common, no? I have been expecting you. Please—a cup of tea while I get for you what you have come for. I was just brewing the tea in my little back room.”

Mrs. Pollifax said cautiously, “I’m sure that’s very nice of you.” She wasn’t sure that it was nice of him at all; the absence of the book in the window was a jarring note and made her feel like a fool. Yet the man said he had been expecting her. Perhaps the book had been accidentally sold or mislaid—even spies must have their bad days. “Very kind indeed,” she added more firmly, and since he was holding the curtain that separated the back room from the shop, she walked past him into the rear. There seemed nothing else to do.

“Please forgive the untidiness,” he said with a sweeping gesture.

It was indeed untidy, with cartons of books piled to the ceiling and the floor littered with scraps of wrapping paper. But Senor DeGamez had not lied, he really had been brewing tea on a Sterno and was not luring her behind the curtain to hit her over the head. The tea was here and visible, and at sight of this domestic detail—there was something so cozy about tea-making and all its accouterments—her confidence returned.

“Milk, lemon, sugar?” he asked, leading her to the desk and clearing a place for her.

“Milk and one sugar, please,” she said, sitting down in the swivel chair and looking around her with interest. “Although really I mustn’t stop more than a minute.”

“No, of course not, that would be most unwise,” he agreed, bringing her a steaming cup. “I will not take long. Tea is my breakfast I often share it with early customers.” He placed a paper napkin before her. “Please relax, I will be back in a minute.”

He disappeared behind the curtain and Mrs. Pollifax obediently relaxed by slipping off one shoe and sipping the tea. He was certainly a very polite man, she decided, but he lacked the warmth of his cousin. She wondered what he would bring her, another book or something in a package? Tiring of the calendars on the wall in front of her, she turned in the chair to regard the room behind her. Her glance roamed over the cartons, a smock hanging on a peg, a sink in the corner—a very dirty sink, she noted disapprovingly —and she thought what a hot and stuffy room this was. Very hot. She drained the cup of tea, wriggled into her shoe again and stood up. It was kind of him to have invited her back here, but it would have been kinder of him to open a window; she would wait for him in the shop. An odd but vaguely familiar shape caught her eye; it was domelike and mounted on a pedestal and covered with a cloth. She walked over to it and pulled the cloth aside. It was a large bird cage, empty now of all but one vivid blue feather.

“The parrot!” she thought in astonishment.

In her confusion she had forgotten the parrot, and remembering 016 she at once recalled the first Senor DeGamez with great clarity. “My store is named after 016, not the other way around,” he had said. “My Olé came first, she has been with me twelve years.”

My store … my Olé … yes, he had definitely referred to both of them as his. It was not so much that she had forgotten this as that today’s Senor DeGamez had not given her the time to think. Nor could she think clearly now for it was very close in this room and her head was beginning to ache. She stared at the cage and forced herself to think about it. The cage was here. The parrot was not here. “But if this is the Parrot Bookstore, and if the parrot belonged to the first Senor DeGamez …”

There was something else, too, and she struggled to think of it. If the parrot belonged to the first Senor DeGamez, and the shop belonged to the first Senor DeGamez—there was a conclusion that ought to be drawn but Mrs. Pollifax found that she could not draw it. Something was terribly wrong, and not only with this shop but with herself, for her mind felt dazed, groggy, unable to reason or to reach conclusions. And it wasn’t the heat, she realized, it wasn’t the heat at all. It was the tea. Mrs. Pollifax had been drinking tea for years and it had never before left such a very peculiar taste in her mouth.

“There was something in that tea,” cried Mrs. Pollifax, taking a step toward the door, but her words made no sound, her cry was only a whisper, and she took no more than the one step before she sank, unconscious, to the floor.

Mrs. Pollifax opened one eye, dimly aware that someone was methodically slapping her face, first the left cheek and then the right. She closed her eye and the rhythmic slapping began again. When she next roused Mrs. Pollifax made an attempt to focus on the face that loomed only a few inches away. “Fu Manchu,” she murmured wittily, and giggled a little.

“You will wake up now, pliss,” said a disembodied voice.

Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “Very well—except I don’t really want to, and certainly not when you keep slapping my face.” This time she made a distinct effort to open her eyes and keep them open, but the dismal sight that confronted her was not rewarding. She and the cheek slapper appeared to be sharing a small tar-paper shack that listed slightly to one side. A kerosene lamp hung from a rafter and sent grotesque shadows over the earthen floor and rough walls. There was a smell of kerosene and mustiness and wet earth. She saw no windows in the shack and the only bright new piece of equipment in the room was the lock on its door. Her eyes arrived at the cheek slapper and as she pondered him, too, she saw why she had burbled in her sleep about Fu Manchu: the man was Chinese. There the resemblance ended, however, because he was neatly dressed in Western clothes and looked like a serious and kindly young student.

Then Mrs. Pollifax realized that her hands were bound tightly behind her with wire and she decided that the young man was not so kind after all. “Where am I, anyway?” she asked indignantly.

“I wouldn’t bother asking if I were you,” said a voice behind her. The voice was male and very definitely American, and Mrs. Pollifax squirmed in her chair to look but discovered that she couldn’t.

“We’re tied together,” explained the voice. “Back to back, wrist to wrist—very chummy. Farrell’s my name, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice?” said Mrs. Pollifax weakly.

“I was only being polite, actually. Who the devil are you, anyway?”

She said stiffly, “Mrs. Virgil Pollifax from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Look here, young man,” she told their guard firmly, “I know enough about first aid to tell you that you will presently have to amputate my left hand if you don’t allow it some circulation.”

The man said calmly, “Soon you will eat and be given an opportunity to exercise the hands.”

As he said this the door opened and a man walked in, and Mrs. Pollifax, glancing beyond him, saw that it was dark outside. Night already! “Then I’ve been unconscious all afternoon,” she thought in astonishment. Her eyes fell to the tray the man carried and she realized how hungry she was. The cheek slapper brought a pair of pliers from his pocket, and while he leaned over to free her wrists Mrs. Pollifax kept her eyes on the food, which consisted of tired-looking tortillas, two slices of dry gray bread and two cups of either coffee or soup. It was just as well that she had this to divert her because her captor was none too gentle; tears rose in Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes as he worked, and when her numbed hands were free she placed them in her lap and tried not to notice the blood trickling into her palms.

The young Chinese said, “Eat,” and he and the other man walked to the door, glanced back at them once, and went out. Mrs. Pollifax could hear the grate of the key in the lock. She turned at once to look for the man behind her and found him staring at her incredulously. “Bless my soul,” he said, his jaw dropping.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life. Damn it, where do you fit into this? No, don’t touch the coffee,” he added quickly, “it’s probably drugged.”

Mrs. Pollifax regarded him with suspicion, his reference to drugs reminding her that not so long ago she had drunk tea with Senor DeGamez. Now she was less inclined to trust strangers. Nor was this man a type that she could approve of even though he was American; he had a lean, hard-bitten face—very hard, she thought severely, with a Hollywood kind of handsomeness about it that had grown worn from careless living. It was such a type face—such a ladies’ man’s face, she amended disapprovingly—that it lent itself to caricature. You could draw a perfect, deeply tanned oval for the face, square it a little at the jaw, cap it with an almost horizontal line of straight black hair, add an exquisitely slender black moustache to the upper lip and there was Mr. Farrell —tough, hard and an inhabitant of a world that Mrs. Pollifax knew would shock her: perhaps he even dealt in the drugs that he was mentioning so lightly. “But why?” she demanded. “Where are we, and who are these dreadful people?” The circulation was returning to her raw, chafed wrists and the pain of it brought fresh tears to her eyes. She picked up a tortilla and resolutely chewed on it.

“These are Mao Tse-tung’s boys,” said Farrell. “Cuba is full of them now, you know.” He put a finger warningly to his lips and tiptoed to a corner of the room where he pressed his face against the boards. He came back shaking his head. “Too dark. But I definitely heard a plane land outside while they were trying to bring you back to consciousness.”

“A plane?” said Mrs. Pollifax falteringly. “Then we’re at an airport? But what airport can this be?”

He shrugged and sat down to resume eating his tortilla. “If the stars had been out I could have done some figuring. I think they’ve brought us to some remote part of Mexico where the Reds have staked out a secret airfield. I’ve heard they have them.”

Mrs. Pollifax said stiffly, “You certainly seem well informed. How do you know all this unless you’re one of them?”

He grinned. “Don’t trust me? Now that makes me suspicious of you for the very first time, Duchess. But I’m being abducted, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. Whisked away from a theater date with the beautiful Miss Willow Lee— the bitch.”

“I beg your pardon!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“Sorry,” he said after one swift amused glance at her face. “But she is, you know. Very high connections in Peking.”

Mrs. Pollifax was astonished. “And you were going to take her to the theater?”

He grinned. “My dear lady, I knew all about her when I met her. What I didn’t realize until now—at least it’s beginning to dawn on me slowly here—is that she knew all about me too. Now just how did you land in this?”

The question startled Mrs. Pollifax. She thought to herself, “I’m here because I carried geraniums to the rooftop One day, and because there seemed no purpose in my life.” And Mrs. Pollifax, who had been feeling a little frightened and very small, suddenly laughed. She thought, “I have no right to complain, I don’t even have the right to be afraid. It’s true that I haven’t the slightest idea of what’s ahead for me—and at my age this can be especially disconcerting—but I asked for a little adventure and it’s precisely what I’m having.” She felt at once calmed and unafraid. “I don’t think it really matters how I got here,” she pointed out to Farrell. “But I think I’m here because I walked into a little shop in Mexico City to buy a book.”

Farrell was looking at her strangely. “Not El Papagayo,” he said slowly. “Not the Parrot Bookstore!”

His face swam toward her and then receded. She heard him say in a thick voice, “Damn it, they must have put it in the tortillas.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded wisely. Just enough food to keep them alive, and then new drugs in the food to dope them again. Very clever, she thought, and this time took the precaution of carefully sitting down so that she would not fall to the floor. “I’m becoming quite experienced,” she thought proudly, and even smiled a little as the familiar blackness descended, blotting out Farrell and all consciousness.

Six

Carstairs had spent most of the morning of August 20 conferring with a State Department official about a revolution that had erupted in one of the small South American countries. His was the only department with a comprehensive file on the very obscure young man who had emerged overnight as head of the junta. He was able to tell the official that this young man was not a Communist. He was not particularly democratic either, but he was definitely not a Communist.

Then Bishop brought him a carton of black coffee and a slip of paper from the teletype marked CARSTAIRS, URGENT. “Better have the coffee first,” he said dryly, and Carstairs gave him a quick glance before he picked up the message.

It said simply:

BODY IDENTIFIED AS RAFAEL DEGAMEZ PROPRIETOR PARROT BOOKSTORE, CALLE EL SIOLO, MEXICO CITY, FOUND DEAD IN CANAL   LAST   NIOHT   AUGUST   19   OF   KNIFE   WOUNDS   AND/OR DROWNING STOP POLICE ESTIMATE DEATH OCCURED TWO DAYS EARLIER    ON    AUGUST    17    STOP    INVESTIGATION    UNDERWAY.

Carstairs stared at the impersonal black letters and felt a hot rage grow in him. He knew that in time this rage in him would pass and that it would be supplanted, as it always was, by a cold and ruthless efficiency, but now he allowed himself this brief moment to mourn DeGamez, whom he had known personally. It was no way for any man to die and it was not always enough to remind himself that his people knew the risks.

When he was under control again Carstairs lifted his head and said coldly, “I want the complete file on this. And the message—did it come from the Mexico City police or from our friend in Monterey?”

”Monterey,” said Bishop, and slipped the file on DeGamez under Carstairs’ hand.

“I want a direct wire to Mexico City immediately to get this verified by the police. You know who to contact there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell them we have a definite interest in the man and want to be kept in touch. Oh God,” he added suddenly and explosively.

“Yes, sir?”

“Mrs. Pollifax.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She was to visit DeGamez yesterday.” He picked up the telephone and barked an order for a connection to the Hotel Reforma Intercontinental, and Bishop went out, marveling at Carstairs’ memory. The man must have nursed along half a dozen intricate operations since first meeting Mrs. Pollifax and yet he had remembered precisely the date on which she was to pick up Tirpak’s microfilm at the Parrot.

Five minutes later Bishop returned to verify the murder of DeGamez. Carstairs was still on the line to Mexico City, listening, giving orders in fluent Spanish and listening again. “Mrs. Pollifax is being paged at the hotel,” he told Bishop, hanging up. “Now get me Johnny at the Galeria de Artes in Mexico City.”

Bishop presently came back with the report that he had talked with the man who swept the floors at the Galeria de Artes and Johnny had not come in to open the gallery that morning. Carstairs picked up the connection and began speaking. Had this happened before? When had the sweeper last seen the owner of the Galeria? Carstairs began looking grim.

“Trouble,” said Bishop. He did not bother to make a question of it.

“Trouble,” repeated Carstairs flatly. He deliberated a moment, and then said, ‘Take this down, TEMPERATURE 102 IN MEXICO   CITY  WORRIED  ABOUT  HEALTH   OF   AUNT  JOSEPHINE SUGGEST COMPLETE REST IN HOSPITAL.” He wrote names on a sheet of paper. “Translate and send out at once, top priority, to these people.”

“Right,” said Bishop, and hurried out. No lunch today, he was thinking, and wondered how stale the peanut butter crackers were that he kept in his desk for such emergencies.

By two o’clock messages had begun filtering in from various points. Mrs. Pollifax had been paged but there was no answer. She was not in the hotel. She had not been seen in the hotel since the morning of the nineteenth when she had played solitaire in the lobby after breakfast.

“Damn,” said Carstairs. “Bishop, get me the hotel again— I want her room checked by the hotel detective, everything in it gone over thoroughly. And try the Galeria de Artes again, I’ve got to reach Johnny.” He could not face the thought yet that they might have snatched Johnny too. Damn it, if that had happened then the whole thing had blown higher than a kite.

The police in Mexico City called in to report that it was only by a freak accident that DeGamez’ body had been discovered at all. It had been weighted with cement and tossed into an abandoned canal which the sanitation department had just last week earmarked for drainage under a newly launched insect-control drive. DeGamez’ shop had been thoroughly checked. The peculiar thing there was that, although DeGamez had been murdered on the seventeenth, the Parrot Bookstore had been kept open until noon of August 19. They were looking into this and checking out descriptions of the man who had continued selling books there.

There was still nothing from the Galeria de Artes.

“Get me the police again,” he told Bishop. “I want Johnny’s apartment searched too. Tell them he lives behind the Galeria.”

More reports came in. The hotel detective had done a competent job at the Hotel Reforma Intercontinental. The chambermaid reported that on August 19, at her usual hour of eleven, she had arrived to clean the room that Mrs. Pollifax occupied. There had been a number of serapes hung over chairs, and there had been two books on the bureau that the maid remembered picking up to dust. The hotel detective, checking it today, found the books and the serapes gone. Clothes belonging to Mrs. Pollifax still hung in the closet but linings had been slit open in two coats and the clothes ruined. Her suitcase, the mattress of her bed and the pillow on it had also been slit with a knife and hurriedly searched.

“Hell,” said Carstairs, looking haggard.

At four o’clock the police reported again. They had searched Johnny’s apartment behind the Galeria de Artes. Nothing had been touched except a small safe in the kitchen. This had been tidily blown open with nitroglycerine.

Carstairs swore savagely. “They’ve got Johnny then,” he said. “Johnny and the code as well. More telegrams—take them down, REGRET TO INFORM YOU AUNT JOSEPHINE DIED …” He paused. “Bishop, Code Five is clear, isn’t it?

All  right,  REGRET TO INFORM  YOU  AUNT  JOSEPHINE  DIED  5 O’CLOCK   KINDLY VERIFY  ACKNOWLEDGMENT  OF  THIS   AT ONCE.

He now had to face the fact that they might have caught Tirpak too. “Get Costa Rica,” he told Bishop. “There must have been some kind of contact set up between Tirpak and our chap in San Jos6. Someone’s got to know where Tirpak is. We’ve got to break silence and locate him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Mexico City police were back on the wires at five o’clock to report that they now had descriptions of the man who had been running DeGamez’ shop for two days. He was short, of Spanish extraction, had receding black hair, was clean-shaven, well dressed, wore glasses and showed a gold tooth on the left side of his jaw when he smiled. No one in the neighborhood had ever seen him before.

The description made Carstairs thoughtful.

“Recognize him?” asked Bishop.

“God, I only hope I’m wrong. Get me File 6X.” It arrived and Carstairs scowled at two pictures of the same man, one an enlargement showing him standing in a crowd next to Mao Tse-tung, and the other a candid snapshot taken secretly in Cuba. “We’ll teletype these to Mexico City and have them shown for identification. Take away the glasses,” he said, holding a picture up to Bishop, “and who do we have?”

Bishop whistled. “Good God!”

Carstairs nodded. “Our brilliant and ruthless old friend General Perdido. Mao’s hand-picked man for his South American operations—the one person who’s responsible for bringing Castro closer to Red China than to Red Russia.” Now he knew they must have found Tirpak; he could feel it in his bones. “There’s only one very feeble hope,” he said at last. “General Perdido was in Cuba last week, wasn’t he?”

Bishop was glancing through innumerable reports. “Seen there on August 15.”

Carstairs said slowly, “He just might take one of them— Johnny or Tirpak or Mrs. Pollifax—back to Cuba with him. General Perdido has always enjoyed his little trophies. I’ll shortwave descriptions to agents in Cuba.” He glanced at Bishop and smiled faintly. “For heaven’s sake, go and have lunch or dinner or breakfast or whatever it’s time for, Bishop. You can bring me back some fresh coffee and a chocolate bar.” The door closed behind Bishop and Carstairs lit a cigarette, relieved at being alone for a few moments. Tirpak … DeGamez … Johnny … he thought about them, his face like granite as he weighed all the angles. From the point of view of the department it meant failure, of course—a clean sweep for the other side, an utter rout, eight months of invaluable work gone up in smoke, no microfilms and three top agents missing and presumed dead. But it was in the broader sense that it cut more deeply. He thought of the years that DeGamez and Johnny had spent in carefully building up their respective reputations in Mexico City as cover for their real work. They had been good, very good. All of this was gone now, swept away overnight, the work of years wiped out.

But in this game these things happened and Carstairs could accept the failure. One started all over again every day— Tirpak, DeGamez and Johnny had been aware of this. They had all—he was already using the past tense, he realized— been seasoned agents. They were trained and knowledgeable; once in trouble they would weigh the odds against themselves and the odds in their favor; they knew the tricks of the enemy, they had their own tricks and if all else failed they knew how to kill themselves quickly and efficiently. It was Mrs. Pollifax who must be on his conscience. He had misjudged the job he had given her. She had been exactly right for it and he had taken ruthless advantage of that lightness. He had not been able to resist the unexpected twinkle, the preposterous hat, the little absurdities that gave her so much character. Who would suspect her as anything but a tourist? She had been given the simplest, most routine job that any agent could be given. Nothing had been asked of her but accuracy, yet the fact remained that even as a courier he had sent her off totally unprepared and untrained for emergencies. She had not even been given a cyanide pill. She was not a woman of the world, nor was she even aware of General Perdido’s kind of world, and although he did not want to be ungallant she was an old woman, with neither the stamina nor the nerves to withstand these ruthless people. He had unwittingly sent a lamb into a wolves’ den—a fluffy, innocent, trusting white lamb, and the wolves would make short work of devouring his lamb.

God help her, Carstairs thought devoutly.

Seven

“I’m wondering if they’ll try to brainwash us,” Mrs. Pollifax was saying cheerfully. “Do you know anything about brainwashing, Mr. Farrell?”

“Uh—no,” Farrell said politely.

“It might prove rather interesting.” She was remembering the lie detector test she had been given in Washington, and she wondered if there were similarities. Life was really very scientific these days. She looked at Farrell because there was nothing else to look at. She had been alert for an hour now, and it was still night, and they were still flying through the air, and once she had examined the seats and the floor of the plane she had exhausted the possibilities. There was at least one blessing in being airborne, however—her wrists were no longer bound. Instead there was a very medieval-looking shackle around each of her ankles with a chain that led to a ring set into the seat. It was not uncomfortable but it did give her a perverse longing to cross her legs now that she couldn’t.

“Feeling better now?” she asked Farrell sympathetically. She had opened her eyes at least half an hour before he did.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said suddenly. “About that bookstore you walked into.”

“I don’t believe I heard you,” lied Mrs. Pollifax smoothly.

“I asked if it was El Papagayo.”

Tm afraid I didn’t notice its name. I seldom do, you know. Of course I know when I’m in Barn’s or Macy’s or Gimbels but this was a very little store. Very little.”

There was a glimmer of amusement in Farrell’s eyes. “I get the point—a very little store. And what happened there?”

“I went in,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “and I asked for a book and this man seemed very friendly. He invited me into his back room for tea, he said it was his breakfast and he often offered it to early customers. And I drank it and began to feel rather peculiar. That’s when I saw the—I mean, I suddenly realized the tea had left a very strange taste in my mouth. The next thing I knew I was tied up with you back in that dirty little shack.” Mrs. Pollifax suddenly remembered that the best defense was an offense and she said, “How did you come to be here?”

He shrugged. “I, too, entered a bookshop.”

“Are you a tourist then?”

He shook his head. ‘I’ve lived in Mexico since “45.” He reached into his pocket, searched and swore. “I did have a card,” he explained. “I run the Galena de Artes in downtown Mexico City. John Sebastian Farrell’s the name, Galena de Artes.”

Mrs. Pollifax, relieved, said, “Oh, I thought at first you might be a dope peddler, or—or …”

He grinned. “I’ve done some rum things in my life, and some of them outside the law, but I’ll be damned if anybody’s ever taken me for a dope peddler before.”

Mrs. Pollifax at once apologized. “I’ve lived a very sheltered life,” she explained, “and you do have a rather—well, I don’t think I’ve known anyone—I mean, you look as if you’d done some rum things, you see.”

“It’s beginning to show? Well, at forty-one I daresay it’s bound to—a pity.” He said it with mock despair.

Mrs. Pollifax paid his mockery no attention. “What are some of the rum things you’ve done?”

“Good heavens, should you be interested? I hope you’re not planning to write a book on your travels.” He was still grinning at her.

She considered this seriously and shook her head. “No, it had never occurred to me, although I’ll be very interested in seeing Cuba. You still believe it’s where they’re taking us?”

Farrell said irritably, “By all rights its where we ought to land, but it’s taking us a hell of a long time to get there. Sorry —what were you asking?”

“You were going to tell me what a rum life consists of.”

He grinned. “You don’t think I’d dare give you an unlaundered version, do you? After all, I’ve bummed around Mexico since ‘45, ever since I was discharged from the Marines, and that’s a long time. I used to run a charter boat out of Acapulco—at least until I lost the boat in a poker game. I’ve given painting lessons to debutantes—you may not believe it but I do occasionally move in the best circles.”

“As well as the worst?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, hoping he wasn’t going to disappoint her.

“As well as the worst. For a year I smuggled guns in to Castro before he won his revolution. Rather a good friend of mine although I’ve not seen him lately,” he added with a roguish glint. “And I might add modestly that women constantly fall at my feet. I have that effect on them.”

Mrs. Pollifax could not allow this weakness in her sex to go undefended. She said very blandly, “Like the Chinese woman you were going to take to the theater tonight?”

Farrell gazed at her for a moment and then said frankly, “Duchess—and I hope you don’t mind my calling you that— you interest and surprise me. I’ve decided you’re not a member of the D.A.R. after all.”

“No, I’ve never joined that one,” mused Mrs. Pollifax. “Do you think I should? But I am a member of the Garden Club, the Art Association, the Woman’s Hospital Auxiliary, the—”

“Good God, spare me,” he said, throwing up his hands. “If General Perdido knew these things he’d turn pale.”

“General who?”

He turned his glance to the window. “Just someone I know.” He leaned forward. “We’re still flying very high but I thought I saw some lights down there.” He added savagely, “You do understand what you’ve gotten yourself into, don’t you? You do know what the odds are?”

Mrs. Pollifax blinked. She thought of expressing ignorance of what he meant, but to feign innocence indefinitely was tiresome. She said very quietly, “Yes.”

“Yes what?” he demanded.

She did hope he wasn’t going to shout at her. She added with dignity, “I am quite aware that I have been abducted by dangerous people, and that it’s possible I may never see Mexico City again.”

“Or your Garden Club or your Hospital Auxiliary or your Art Association,” he told her flatly. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Mrs. Pollifax wanted to tell him that of course it bothered her. She had enjoyed herself very much in Mexico City and she had enjoyed being a secret agent and now she would like very much to be flying home to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to bandage her torn wrists and soak her bruises in a hot tub. There was, after all, a distinct difference between nearly deciding to step from the roof of an apartment house and in having such a decision wrested from her by men who appeared to be quite brutal. She did not want to die in a strange country and she did not labor under any illusions about Mr. Carstairs or her country coming to her rescue. If life was like a body of water, she had asked that she be allowed to walk again in its shallows; instead she had been abruptly seized by strong currents and pushed into deep water. It was a lonely situation, but Mrs. Pollifax was well acquainted with loneliness and it did not frighten her. What did frighten her was the thought of losing her dignity. The limits of her endurance had never been tested, and she had never met with cruelty before. If her life had to end soon she only hoped that it could end with dignity.

But she saw no point in saying these things to the man who shared her predicament and who must also be thinking of these matters. He had more to lose than she; his life was only half completed and he would be thinking of the women he would never make love to again, and the children he would never have. A pity about the children, she mused … but in any case she must be very careful not to display any unsteadiness; it was the very least that the old could do for the young. “There’s no point in your being angry at me,” she said calmly. Her gaze fell to the seat beside Farrell and she gasped. “Look —my purse! They haven’t taken it away, it’s squashed down between your seat and the next.”

“Thoroughly searched, of course,” he said, handing it to her. “What’s in it?” He leaned forward to watch as she opened the clasp.

She, too, felt as if she were opening a Christmas grab bag. “It’s a good deal emptier,” she agreed, peering inside. “Yes, they’ve taken things. Oh dear, my aspirin’s gone,” she said mournfully.

“Extremely suspect.”

“And they’ve taken Bobby’s pocket knife—he’s my eleven-year-old grandson,” she exclaimed.

“No, they wouldn’t approve of that at all.”

“But the Band-Aids are here, and my wallet and coin purse and lipsticks—oh, and look,” she cried happily, “they’ve left me my playing cards!” She greeted them as old friends, slipping them tenderly out of their box.

“Small comfort,” growled Farrell.

“Oh, but you don’t know how comforting they can be,” she told him with the enthusiasm of a convert. “I already know twenty-two games. It’s true there are fifty-five more to learn—I have a book on it, you see—but it’s so relaxing and it will give me something to do.” She was already laying out cards in a circle on the seat beside her for a game of Clock Solitaire. “They left the chocolate bars too,” she said absently. “You can eat one if you’d like.”

“You’re not particularly hungry, either?” he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes on the cards.

He said in a funny voice, “We ought to be hungry, you know. We ought to be terribly hungry.”

Mrs. Pollifax put down a card and looked at him. “Why, yes, that’s true, we should be,” she said wonderingly. She frowned. “I had breakfast, and then that man’s tea, and nothing until night, and then I had only a slice of bread and a stale tortilla—I ought to be ravenous.”

He hesitated and then said quietly, rolling up his sleeve, “I’m wondering if you have needle marks on your arm, too.”

“Marks?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax, and stared in dismay at the arm he showed her. There were several angry red dots there, and a faint outline of gum where adhesive tape had been affixed and then removed. It was all the more unnerving to Mrs. Pollifax because she had been idly scratching at her arm since she awoke. She slipped out of her jacket and stared at her arm. “What are they?” she asked at last.

“I think we’ve been fed intravenously.”

“Intravenously 1” she gasped. “But why?”

‘To keep us alive.” He leaned forward and said in a low voice, “That’s not all, there’s something else. The plane I heard landing back there in Mexico was a propeller job. The plane we’re traveling in now is a jet.”

In astonishment Mrs. Pollifax took note of the sound of the engines. “Why so it is!” She stared at him with incredulous eyes. “Wh-what does it mean, do you think?”

He said quietly, “I think we’ve been unconscious for a longer time than we realized. I think we’ve been unconscious for a whole day instead of a few hours. I think this must be another night, and we met yesterday in that shack, not today.

I think they must have landed us somewhere during the day where they switched planes and took the precaution of feeding us intravenously so that we wouldn’t die on their hands.”

Mrs. Pollifax put down her cards with finality. It was not difficult to follow his reasoning to its obvious conclusion. “But jets travel very fast,” she said, her eyes fastened on his face. “And if we have been traveling for such a long time—”

He nodded. “Exactly. I don’t think that you are going to see Cuba after all.”

“Not see Cuba,” she echoed, and then, “but where … ?” On second thought Mrs. Pollifax stifled this question; it was much better left unsaid. Instead she said in a voice that trembled only a little, “I do hope Miss Hartshorne is remembering to water my geraniums.”

Eight

It was still night when they began their descent through the clouds—through the very stars, seemingly—and Mrs. Pollifax felt a flutter of excited dread such as she had often felt as a child when the dentist beckoned her into his office, saying it was her turn now. She pressed her face to the glass, staring in amazement at the unearthly convolutions and formations below.

“Mountains,” said Farrell, frowning. “High ones, some of them snow-covered.” His gaze went from them to the stars, assessing, appraising, judging, his eyes narrowed.

Mrs. Pollifax watched him hopefully, but he did not say what he was thinking or on what continent such mountains might be. The flight continued, with Farrell’s glance constantly moving from earth to sky. “We’re going to land,” he said suddenly.

Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward. A scattering of lights increased in density, the plane wheeled and began its approach to the runway. Mrs. Pollifax braced herself—there were no seat belts on this plane—and suddenly the earth was rushing past her with dizzying speed, they touched land and taxied to a very bumpy stop. Mrs. Pollifax gathered up her playing cards and put them in her purse. The door to the cockpit opened and two men they had not seen before walked in, one of them carrying a revolver. The other drew out keys and unshackled their ankles. Both were Chinese. The door was pulled away and by gestures it was indicated that Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell were to get out This was accomplished only with difficulty because there was nothing more than a wooden ladder propped against the side of the plane, and for illumination a flashlight was shone on its rungs. Mrs. Pollifax descended into an oppressively warm night that gave the feeling of new heat lying in wait for sunrise. The two men waiting for them at die bottom of the ladder were not Orientals and she saw Farrell stare intently into their faces. To Mrs. Pollifax they looked—perhaps Greek, she decided, recalling an evening spent in Miss Hartshorne’s apartment viewing slides on Greece; at least to Mrs. Pollifax their skin had that same similarity to the skin of an olive, moist and supple and smooth. She saw Farrell glance from them to the mountains behind the plane and then again at the stars in the sky. She said anxiously, “It’s not Cuba, is it.”

He shook his head.

“Do you know—have you any idea where we may be?”

His eyes narrowed. He said grimly, “If my guess is right, Duchess—I hope to God it’s not—I should now turn to you and say, ‘Welcome to Albania.’ “

”Albania!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax, and peering incredulously into his face she repeated blankly, “Albania?”

”Albania.”

“But I don’t want to be in Albania,” Mrs. Pollifax told him despairingly. “I don’t know anything about Albania, I’ve scarcely even heard of the place, the idea’s preposterous 1”

“Nevertheless,” said Farrell, “I think it’s where we are.”

A long car, once black but nearly white with dust now, drew into the periphery of the flashlights and they were ushered to its door and prodded into the rear. “A Rolls,” Farrell said out of the corner of his mouth, and Mrs. Pollifax nodded politely. The two men with Grecian profiles climbed in and sat down on a drop seat facing them, guns in hand, and the car began to move at reckless speed over incredibly bumpy ground. Mrs. Pollifax clung to its sides and longed for an aspirin. The headlights of the car illuminated the road onto which they turned but the road held as many ruts as the airfield. They appeared to be entering a town, and presently they were threading narrow streets where garbage flowed sluggishly in gutters. They passed cobbled alleys and shuttered cafes and what appeared to be a bazaar. They met no other cars and saw no people. Even the homes that showed briefly in the glare of the headlights looked inhospitable, their rooftops barely seen over the tops of high walls that surrounded them. The walls were guarded by huge gateways with iron-studded doors—clearly not a trusting neighborhood, thought Mrs. Pollifax—and then they had left the town behind. Looking out of the window at her side Mrs. Pollifax. saw the mountains again silhouetted against the night-blue sky; not comfortable-looking mountains at all, but harsh craggy ones with jutting peaks and cliffs and towering, rocky summits. The mountains, decided Mrs. Pollifax, looked even less hospitable then the homes. It was toward these mountains that they appeared to be heading.

Their guards stared at them impassively and without curiosity. Mrs. Pollifax turned to Farrell and said, “But why Albania? Surely you’re wrong!”

“Well, this isn’t Cuba.”

“No,” responded Mrs. Pollifax sadly, “it isn’t Cuba.”

“I thought at first these mountains might be the Himalayas, but this isn’t China. The mountains aren’t high enough, there aren’t enough of them and the whole topography is wrong.”

“I shouldn’t care at all for China,” Mrs. Pollifax agreed.

“One has to think of the few parts of the world where the Red Chinese are welcome. There aren’t many, you know. That town we passed through was definitely not Chinese, it was Balkan in flavor. These mountains must belong to the Albanian Alps, and certainly these men are Europeans.”

Mrs.  Pollifax nodded.   “I thought they  looked  Greek.”

“If this is Albania then Greece is only a few hundred miles away,” he pointed out. “You saw how primitive the airport was, and you see how primitive the country is. If we’re in Europe there’s no other country but Albania where the Red Chinese can come and go at will.”

“I didn’t know they could come and go anywhere in Europe,” said Mrs. Pollifax indignantly.

“It happened about 1960,” he mused, his brow furrowed. “Until then Russia was Albania‘s big brother and pretty much in control of the country. Then Stalin was denounced—that was a surprise to the world, you must remember that. It rocked Albania, too—they’re Stalinists here, you see. I don’t recall the details, it happened at one of their Big Party Congresses, but there was rather ugly name-calling, with China and Albania siding against Khrushchev. Russia punished Albania by withdrawing all its aid, all its technicians, all its military, and China very happily moved in to help. The chance of a lifetime, giving Red China a toehold in Europe.”

“I didn’t know,” faltered Mrs. Pollifax. ‘The very idea— and to think that I subscribe to Time magazine. I really must stop skipping the Balkan news. But why bring us here? Why go to such a great deal of trouble?”

Farrell gave her a quick glance and looked away. “Perhaps they feel we’re worth the trouble,” he pointed out gently.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a small voice and was silent

The car had been climbing steeply for the past twenty minutes on a road that appeared to be carved out of the side of the mountain. On the left the car lights picked out weird rock shapes, on the right side nothing, and Mrs. Pollifax had a terrible suspicion that there really was nothing there, and that any nervous turning of the wheel would send them hurtling through space into the valley. Higher and higher they climbed until at last the car came to a stop and their two guards came to life and jumped out. They spoke rapidly to the driver in a strange, oddly nasal language, and gestured to Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax to leave the car. Once outside they found themselves in a vast basin of desolate gray rock, and noting this, Mrs. Pollifax realized the darkness was dissolving and that dawn must be near. Another day, she thought wonderingly, and suddenly, quite absurdly, recalled her son Roger telling her to wire him if she found herself in a jam.

“This is extremely sticky jam I’m in,” she reflected. “Treacly, oozy black raspberry, I think. And no Western Unions.”

One of the guards had disappeared behind a rock. Now he reappeared leading four donkeys, and to Mrs. Pollifax’s consternation the man signaled that she mount one of them. “I can’t,” she said in a low voice to Farrell, and to the guard she said in a louder voice, “I can’t.”

“I believe you’re going to have to,” Farrell pointed out in amusement.

She eyed the animal with distaste and in turn it eyed her with suspicion. Farrell moved forward to help; it was only with his intercession that a truce was accomplished between the two, and this was mainly because, once upon its back, the donkey could no longer see Mrs. Pollifax. When Farrell and the guards had also mounted donkeys they formed a procession and moved on.

The wilderness path along which they moved was desolate beyond belief. This was a country where all life had been extinguished, to be supplanted by rocks of every color, shape and formation. The air was thin but only a little cooler than the valley. There was no shade of any kind. Slowly, as they traveled, the sunrise spread a golden light across the valley and Mrs. Pollifax could look down upon green slopes and occasional trees, but the rising of the sun brought warmth as well, followed by heat, and between this and the donkey Mrs. Pollifax was soon extremely uncomfortable. Horseback riding had never been her m6tier, and sitting sidesaddle on a donkey was taxing; it took a great deal of energy simply to keep from falling off, and the donkey moved with unexpected lurches. They had traveled for perhaps an hour when Farrell said suddenly, “Psst—look.”

Mrs. Pollifax reluctantly lifted her eyes. They had left behind the bleak gray rocks and cliffs of the first leg of their journey and had come out upon a small plateau literally carpeted with stones. The ground was like a brook bed that had been emptied of silt and water—the stones were scattered everywhere in such profusion that not a blade of grass could grow. The sun beat down mercilessly on the landscape, turning everything into a tawny color of yellow dust. At the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley stood a square, fortresslike building made of stone piled upon stone, with only black slits for windows. It stood at the very edge of the precipice, and after a drop of a hundred or so feet the earth formed a rock-strewn terrace, and below this another, showing tentative signs of green, and then the earth flowed like a green river down to the floor of the valley. As her donkey picked its way over the stones Mrs. Pollifax saw a second, smaller building at some distance from the first, also built of rocks and precisely like the other except in size. If she were a tourist, thought Mrs. Pollifax wistfully, this would be a wild and romantic scene; one could imagine bandit chieftains holing up in these impregnable buildings, completely safe against attack. But unfortunately she was not a tourist, she was an American spy who had been abducted—no, captured, she thought uneasily —and no one on God’s green earth knew where she was except the people who had brought her here. For just the briefest of moments she allowed herself to think of her children, of Jane having a safe and happy vacation in Canada, of Roger, who had told her to wire him if she got into a jam. “If it just didn’t seem so unreal,” thought Mrs. Pollifax unhappily. “I mean—what on earth am I doing here? I’m in Albania—at least Farrell thinks it’s Albania.” And again she felt it was preposterous, her being in Albania. Why, she didn’t even own a passport

“Journey’s end,” commented Farrell dryly, with a nod at the smaller building toward which they were heading.

She said crossly, “I really don’t think you need put it in just that manner.” But as they approached the second of the two buildings she realized that unconsciously she had begun bracing herself for the worst. She drew herself up to her full height—it was a little difficult on a donkey—and said primly, “I have always found that in painful situations it is a sensible idea to take each hour as it comes and not to anticipate beyond. But oh how I wish I could have a bath!”

Someone must have noted their approach through the slits in the wall because the iron door of the building opened as they drew near. A man stepped out into the blazing sun with a rifle under his arm but Mrs. Pollifax was too busy to pay him any attention; she was involved in separating herself from the animal to which she had become welded during the past hour. No sooner did she stand upright, all her bones protesting, when the guard grasped her arm and led her into the building.

“Journey’s end,” she thought bleakly, looking around her at more stone—really she was growing very tired of stones. In shape the building was a rectangle about thirty feet long. The door through which they entered was set at one end of the long rectangle, and as they entered they faced a room that occupied the precipice end of the structure. On their left was a dark hall that ran across the front, and looking down it Mrs. Pollifax saw two iron cell doors opening from it. She quickly turned her gaze back to the room, which contained a desk, a chair, a water cooler, a well-stocked gun rack, a small switchboard and a gray-haired man dressed in a uniform. He greeted them curtly in English.

“I am Major Vassovic.” With this announcement he took a huge iron key from the wall and led them down the hall to the first door and opened it. “In, please,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you have an aspirin,” Mrs. Pollifax told him hopefully. “I’ve had the most ridiculous headache for hours. I don’t often get them, you know, and I don’t mean to complain, but I’ve been doped twice and apparently fed intravenously, and it’s been a rather exhausting plane ride—”

The major looked at her in astonishment, and then carefully wiped all expression from his face. “I have no orders to give you anything,” he told her stiffly.

Farrell gently pulled her into the room, the door clanged shut behind them and Mrs. Pollifax said, “I don’t see how one aspirin could …” Her voice died away at sight of their prison. It was quite decent in size, but so dark—lighted only by the two slits in the wall—that it was twilight inside. There was to be no privacy for her or Farrell, she noted; none at all except for the dimness. There was an iron cot at each end of the room, with a night chamber under each; there were two small tables and that was all. No chairs, no screens, no lavatory, no clothespegs, nothing else except the oppressive stone walls and floor.

“Well,” said Farrell, and sat down on a cot.

“Well,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and sat down on the other cot. They stared at each other through the gloom, a distance of perhaps twelve feet, and Mrs. Pollifax realized that the silence was becoming long and much too dismal. “Well,” she said again, briskly, and getting up she carried one of the tables to the cot, reached into her purse and began spreading out her deck of playing cards.

“Not again,” groaned Farrell. “Not here.”

“Whyever not?” said Mrs. Pollifax and was glad to see him diverted.

She had played three games when the door was unlocked and opened and a guard gestured that she come with him. Farrell also stood up but the guard shook his head. Farrell said lightly, “Well—I do feel snubbed. Good luck, Duchess.”

Mrs. Pollifax did not look back. Her knees were trembling, and this unexpected separation from Farrell—on whom she had once looked askance—left her feeling very lonely. She was led out into the blazing sun to stumble over the stones to the other, larger building. The door was opened from inside and Mrs. Pollifax was led into a large cool room of whitewashed stone. The room was furnished like Major Vassovic’s office except that everything was larger. There were two men in the room, both in uniform, but Mrs. Pollifax’s glance flew to the man seated at the desk.

“Why, Senor DeGamez,” she gasped. “How did you get here?”

His gold tooth flashed in a brief smile. “In the same manner that you did, Mrs. Pollifax. Allow me to present General Hoong, who is in charge of the—uh—buildings here.”

“How do you do,” Mrs. Pollifax said politely to the Chinese. He bowed, his expression remote, and Mrs. Pollifax immediately forgot him. “Except that of course you’re not the real Senor DeGamez, I know that now,” she went on. “I realized it as soon as I saw the empty parrot cage. It had one feather in it.”

“Actually I am General Raoul Perdido,” he said, motioning her to take the chair beside his desk. “Do sit down, Mrs. Pollifax, we have a few things to discuss. Pleasantly or unpleasantly, depending upon your attitude.”

Brainwashing, thought Mrs. Pollifax contemptuously, and suddenly realized that she was not afraid. She had endured other crises without losing her dignity—births, widowhood, illnesses—and she was experienced enough to know now that everything worthwhile took time and loneliness, perhaps even one’s death as well. “I don’t mean to be morbid,” she told herself. “It’s just that I refuse to be frightened by a man whose only weapon over me is the cessation of life. After all, I have nothing to hide. I only wish I did. I’m not even a spy. I almost was, but then this horrid man rushed in to spoil everything.” She sat down and faced him with growing indignation. Aloud she said, “May I ask, General Perdido, just why you had to abduct me like this?”

He leaned back in his chair, lit a cigar and suddenly impaled her with a sharp glance. “I had hoped for a more intelligent question from you than this, Mrs. Pollifax. I abhor pretended innocence.”

“And I have a great deal to complain about,” she retorted, “and no consul to whom I can complain. I was having a very pleasant vacation in Mexico, and now I am informed that I am in Albania. Is this true?”

“I am in charge of the questioning,” said General Perdido.

“Then you have been very extravagant,” she told him coldly. “You have flown me thousands of miles across the world to ask questions that could have been very easily asked in Mexico. I don’t know what country you work for, General Perdido, but your taxpayers would certainly have every right to be furious if they knew.”

The general’s face darkened. “I see that you are going to deny you are an American spy.”

Spy?” said Mrs. Pollifax scornfully. “Is that what you take me for? This is one more grievance I must hold against you, General.”

“Fool,” spat the general. “You are not in the United States now, and you are not in Mexico, Mrs. Pollifax, and—”

“Then I wish that you would tell me where I am,” she reminded him.

“Never mind,” he shouted. “Wherever it is, you are far from home and no one knows where you are. No one, do you understand? You are removed from all influence and all hope of rescue. I have methods for extracting the truth—very refined or very brutal but all of them painful. I am extremely accomplished in all of them.”

“I’m sure you are at the very top of your profession,” she said tartly, “but I do not find it a very admirable profession.”

General Hoong turned from the window and spoke rapidly to General Perdido. There was silence and then General Per-dido said reluctantly, “Let us try to be reasonable, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“Yes, let’s,” she agreed.

“You visited the Parrot Bookstore a few days ago, did you not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“For what purpose?”

‘To buy a book. Naturally.”

“At this time you confided in me that you had visited the Parrot Bookstore on a previous day, is this not correct?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

“Also at this time you inquired of me where the other Senor DeGamez was. You told me you had talked with him at some length, is this not so, Mrs. Pollifax?”

“But of course,” said Mrs. Pollifax warmly. “He was most enjoyable, a thoroughly charming man.”

The general said patiently, “You said he made you the gift of a book?”

“Yes, he did, it was very kind of him.” In this matter Mrs. Pollifax could be completely frank. “We began talking, you see—about his parrot, and then about grandchildren and traveling alone. That’s when he gave me the book. He told me that solitaire was something I would enjoy very much. Have you tried it, General? He was quite right, I have found it enormously stimulating.”

The general opened a desk drawer and brought out two books. “Then it is the book on solitaire that he gave you,” he said triumphantly.

He held up the books and Mrs. Pollifax gasped. “Why— you have both of them! You stole them from my hotel room.”

“But of course,” replied the general with a flash of gold tooth. “We are very thorough.”

Mrs. Pollifax said indignantly, “Of course it’s your conscience and you’ll have to live with it, but I would like to point out that those are my books.”

He nodded. “Yes, but one of them was presented to you by an extremely dangerous man.”

“Was he really?” said Mrs. Pollifax.

The general leaned back in his chair and studied her. “I think you are being a little ingenuous Mrs. Pollifax, I do not know. We have gone through these books with what you Americans call a fine-toothed comb and we have not found anything. For the moment it is sufficiently rewarding to learn that it is this particular book that he gave you. 77 Ways to Play Solitaire,” he read with distaste, and pushed it away from him. “We shall examine it many more times.”

Mrs. Pollifax said stiffly, “Really, General, don’t you think you can become too devious, too suspicious? That book was given to me out of kindness, I can assure you of that. If you insist that it is full of secret messages written in invisible ink—”

“Please,” said the general, looking pained.

“Well, whatever you people use these days,” she pointed out. “At any rate, his gift of a book to me a few weeks ago seems a very feeble reason for my abduction.”

The general stared at her with dislike. “If you are innocent you chose a most inauspicious morning to visit the Parrot Bookstore, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“On the contrary, I chose a most auspicious morning,” she said coldly. “The sun was shining and I wanted a book to read.”

“What is more you behaved very suspiciously when the book was not in the window.”

“I did not behave suspiciously at all,” replied Mrs. Pollifax. “I was in hopes that you might prove just as charming as the earlier Senor DeGamez. You didn’t,” she reminded him sternly.

“You did not so much as demur when I suggested I had something to give you.”

“I was allowing you every opportunity to be as hospitable as the first Senor DeGamez,” she snapped. “After all, he gave me a book.”

“Why did you accept tea from me?” he demanded. “Just what were you expecting?”

“A chat,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly.

“A what?”

“A little chat,” she said. “Is that so difficult for you to believe? My government expects each and every one of us to be traveling ambassadors when we go abroad. I was trying,” she added piously, “to know you better.”

General Perdido exploded in what sounded like an oath. He and General Hoong exchanged glances and General Perdido said bitterly, “You may go back to your cell.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded and arose. “There is one other matter,” she said. “Please could I be given one aspirin?”

Nine

The guard inserted the huge, comic-opera key in the lock and opened the door for Mrs. Pollifax, slamming it shut behind her. At once Farrell sprang to his feet. “Are you all right?”

Mrs. Pollifax was deeply touched by his concern. “Yes, I really am,” she told him. “I was asked questions by that man I met in a bookstore in Mexico City, except now he’s here in Albania. Imagine.” She sat down on her cot and picked up her playing cards and shuffled them. In a low voice she said, “Farrell, I must apologize to you for something quite dreadful.”

“Good heaven*, what can that be?”

Mrs. Pollifax tried to think of the word the professionals used. “Are we being bugged?” she asked.

Farrell walked over and sat down beside her on the cot “If you mean are there microphone’ Hidden in here I don’t know, but there must be some kind of listening device. I’m sure it’s why they put us together—but where on earth did you pick up that word bugging, Duchess?”

“At the hairdresser’s. One learns a great deal there about life.”

“And the apology?” Farrell whispered the question.

She turned and faced him. “It’s really quite terrible,” she whispered back. “It seems the reason they brought us here is that they believe I’m a dangerous American spy.”

“You?” The corners of his mouth twitched a little at this revelation. “You’re not, are you?”

Mrs. Pollifax hesitated. “In one sense, no,” she admitted. “In another, yes. But certainly not dangerous.”

Farrell said flatly, “I don’t like the way you say that, Duchess, you’d better be much more specific. Do you trust me?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

“Good. Then for heaven’s sake, are you or aren’t you?”

Still whispering, Mrs. Pollifax plunged into her confession, beginning with her visit to CIA headquarters, describing the simple courier work that she was to do and how this man with the gold tooth had totally ruined her assignment. “And he’s the same man who questioned me here, but now he calls himself General Raoul Perdido.”

“Oh God,” said Farrell.

“You mentioned his name once—quite lightly—on the plane. Do you know him too?”

He said grimly, “Nobody mentions Perdido lightly, and if I did I ought to have my head examined. Yes, I’ve heard of him, and he’s a cruel, vicious bas—sorry,” he added, and glancing at her face a smile lit up his eyes, “You of all people, Duchess!” The smile abruptly left his eyes and he became thoughtful. “You’ve certainly outflanked the general for the moment at least.” He frowned. “You’ve bought yourself more time, which is the most important concession, but I only wish —I’m very much afraid—”

“It’s all right,” she told him gently. “I know what you’re thinking. Even if they believe everything I’ve told them they can’t afford to let me go home again.”

He smiled wryly. “You continue to surprise me, Duchess, but let’s not be gloomy, they may save you for an international incident and trade you for one of their own.” Glancing up he said, “Oh-oh, we have company again.”

The door swung wide and a man walked in carrying a tray of food, followed by a guard who insisted upon dramatically covering them with his rifle. Mrs. Pollifax thought it extremely ill-bred of him and turned her back on him, ignoring him just as she would have ignored a rude waiter. “Can you explain this odd-looking food?” she asked Farrell conversationally, hoping he knew what lay on her dish like a piece of melted rubber. “And is it drugged, do you think?”

Farrell said evenly, “Not likely. They’ll be questioning me soon and I’d be no good to them drugged. It’s some sort of cheese dish,” he added, pushing a spoon into it. “Go ahead and try it. Not bad.”

“It just looks such a mess,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a sigh.

“Rather like Welsh rarebit,” he told her, nodding approvingly. “Cheese and milk cooked together.”

They ate quietly. There was coffee, very strong, and cakes drenched in honey. When they had finished Farrell brought out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, extracted one and lighted it, saying dryly, “The condemned man ate a hearty meal. And now, Duchess, there is something I believe I should tell you.”

Mrs. Pollifax was feeling much more cheerful now, and her headache was virtually gone. “Fire ahead,” she said gaily.

“You’ve been frank with me. I think it only politic to tell you what General Perdido already knows about me—namely that I, too, work for Carstairs.”

Mrs. Pollifax drew in her breath sharply.

“I’ve been an agent since ‘47 when the CIA was formed,” he went on. “You might say that I’m their man in Mexico City. Or one of them,” he added absently. “A long time ago I did a job with DeGamez, so I knew what his real work was, and therein lies the rub, as old Billy Shakespeare would say. I hadn’t seen DeGamez for years, not that we had to avoid each other, we just didn’t move in the same circles. But on the nineteenth, just after I’d finished lunch, I received a crazy, garbled message from him and I went off at once to his bookstore. You see, the message had a code word inserted into it, a word meaning SOS. All the words in the message should have been in code—I knew that when I set out—but when a friend sounds in trouble how can a guy hang back? I should have been more cautious; I was impulsive instead. I went to see what the hell DeGamez meant and walked right into their trap. I realize now that Perdido must have pried just that one word out of DeGamez or some poor soul who knew it, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk.. By going to the bookstore—by reacting to that code word—I proved I was just who they thought I was, an agent they’d been looking for since ‘47.” He was silent, smiling a twisted smile as he looked into his thoughts. “It takes only one goof and the others follow like one-two-three. The first thing they took from me was the cyanide pill I’m never without. The second thing they took from me was my identity, and then my freedom. So here I am, as full of information for them as Santa’s knapsack. A real Christmas present in August for General Perdido.”

Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in astonishment, understanding for the first time the hardness in him. “I thought him a reckless adventurer,” she remembered. “I thought him a philanderer and a professional charmer and a man of no scruples, and he is perhaps all of these things, but I completely missed the truth in him: namely that he is all of these things and yet none of them.”

To Farrell she said simply, “You are very brave.”

He lifted an eyebrow mockingly. “Not at the moment, Duchess, not at the moment. You see, I can’t allow General Perdido to question me. You understand what I’ve got to do, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

“I mean that no one can hold out indefinitely against their methods of torture, and the general is considered an expert in the field. I mustn’t be taken alive into that building.”

As the meaning of his words penetrated Mrs. Pollifax became very still.

Farrell got to his feet and began pacing the floor. “For me it’s part of the job,” he said, “but I hate leaving you in the lurch. It’s not very gallant of me, but under the circumstances—”

Mrs. Pollifax said breathlessly, “You mustn’t concern yourself with me at all. Please. But what do you intend to do?”

He shrugged. “Whatever presents itself. Try to break away between here and the other building and hope they’ll shoot me. Throw a rock at somebody.” He shrugged again. “Che sera, sera, as they say—except I must not enter that building and meet General Perdido.”

“You can’t think of any other way?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t think the general… ?”

He smiled cryptically. “Not on your life, Duchess, not on your life.”

She averted her eyes so that she need not embarrass him with her compassion. She thought of her son Roger and daughter Jane, of Miss Hartshorne in apartment 4-C, and of the simple life she herself had lived, and then she thought of men like Farrell who for years must have been dying in queer parts of the world without her ever knowing of their existence. Life was certainly very strange, she reflected, but in spite of its uncertainty she was extremely grateful to have known Farrell.

“I don’t know how to advise you,” he continued, pacing and frowning. “There’s no possibility of your getting away or being rescued. I hate deserting you. If I just didn’t know so much—but Carstairs would never approve of my staying alive, there’s too much at stake.” Hearing the guard at the door he stamped his cigarette out on the floor. “Take what’s left of them,” he said, handing her the flattened pack. “You never know who’s bribable in this world.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Pollifax, standing up, and as the door opened she and Farrell gravely shook hands.

This time the two guards were heavily armed. Major Vassovic had come as well to superintend Farrell’s removal. “It’s been so nice meeting you, Major,” said Farrell as he went out

“God go with you,” whispered Mrs. Pollifax, staring after him.

Major Vassovic pointedly coughed. “The—uh—order has been received now. One aspirin for you, to be taken in my presence. Come.”

Mrs. Pollifax realized that her headache had returned doublefold. She humbly followed the man into the guardroom and stood patiently while he brought her a cup of water and the pill. As she placed the tablet on her tongue her gaze came to rest on the collection of weapons on the wall, a number of guns and knives beautifully decorated with carved-silver ornamentation. They were works of art belonging in a museum and she told the major so.

“The long guns are called pushkas,” he said gruffly. “The sabres we call yataghans in this country.”

There were also an assortment of undecorated and very lethal-looking pistols and revolvers but she ignored these, her glance falling to the three drawers set into the base of the gun rack. One of them held a key in its lock; a small brass key, really quite distinctive. She kept her glance riveted to this, every nerve in her body waiting. “I am admiring a brass key,” she told herself. “I am in Albania and presently Farrell will be killed and I mustn’t think about it.” She did not have long to wait. Her concentration was interrupted by harsh shouts from outside the building, and then by the sound of guns being fired. Mrs. Pollifax very carefully placed the cup of water on the major’s desk and was pleased to see that her hand was not trembling. “I mustn’t look,” she told herself. “I don’t want to look. There was nothing else for him to do.”

At the sound of firing Major Vassovic uttered an explosive oath. After one glance from the window he said, “Back— back,” and roughly pushed Mrs. Pollifax down the hall to her cell and slammed the door upon her. The firing had not continued beyond that one frenzied burst. There was only silence now in the building. Mrs. Pollifax sat down on Farrell’s cot and said in a quiet voice, “I didn’t look.” For some reason this was very important to her. “I didn’t look,” she repeated in a louder voice, and fumbling in her purse she brought out a handkerchief and angrily blew her nose. Then she resolutely shuffled her deck of cards and laid them out for a game of Spider.

Mrs. Pollifax had played for several minutes, the silence like a shroud in the stone cell—like Farrell’s shroud, she thought bitterly—when slowly her thoughts became diverted by a small sound emanating from the wall behind her. She turned her head to hear it better. It was not a metallic noise, it was more like a clenched fist rhythmically striking the stone wall. Recalling the second iron door set into the hall outside Mrs. Pollifax frowned. Kneeling on Farrell’s cot she tapped with both hands. Immediately the sound stopped, as if in astonishment, and just when Mrs. Pollifax decided it must be someone repairing a drain, the fist beat an excited staccato reply. This fist had a personality all its own, thought Mrs. Pollifax in surprise; at first it had seemed to be hitting the wall in a monotonous rhythm of despair, then finding itself answered the Fist had panicked and stopped, afraid. But perhaps the Fist had remembered that another cell stood between it and Major Vassovic, for after its hesitation it had replied with joy.

“Yes with joy,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax firmly, and reflected that if this were anything but real life they would now exchange urgent messages in Morse code. Unfortunately Mrs. Pollifax knew no Morse. She tapped again once more and received a reply, but it was a little like communicating with a newly born infant or someone who spoke only Swahili; once the initial greeting had been made there was really not much more to manage. Besides, her mind was on Farrell and she returned sadly to her game of solitaire.

It seemed a long time later when the building filled with noise again. A number of booted feet tramped down the hall and Mrs. Pollifax heard Major Vassovic issuing orders in an irritable voice. He sounded like a frustrated and angry man. Mrs. Pollifax placed a black ace on a red two and waited for the inevitable grating of the key in the lock—it was a sound she was beginning to dread. The door swung open. Mrs. Pollifax looked up and the cards slipped from her hand to the floor.

“Farrel!” she gasped.

He was propped between two guards, one leg dangling uselessly, his clothes smeared with blood. At her cry he lifted his head and opened one eye. “Goofed again, Duchess,” he said, and as the men lowered him none too gently to the cot he added peevishly, “Damn cliff. If you jumped from a hundred-foot cliff wouldn’t you bloody well expect to be killed?” Having delivered himself of this diatribe he fell back unconscious on the bed.

Ten

The two slits in the wall of the cell gradually darkened as night fell. Mrs. Pollifax sat beside Farrell and listened to his ravings as he slipped in and out of feverish dreams. She knew his leg was broken in two places and she had neither water nor bandages for him. There was a great deal of blood all over him, but as far as she could see only one bullet had entered his body and this was embedded in his right arm above the elbow. She had staunched the bleeding by removing the coarse blanket from her cot and using it as a tourniquet. When General Perdido arrived she had worked herself into a cold fury over the cruelty of the situation and her own helplessness. “Good evening,” she said icily.

The guard accompanying Perdido carried a candle which he inserted into a metal ring set into the wall for this purpose. The general walked over to Farrell and looked down at him contemptuously. Clearly he, too, was furious.

Mrs. Pollifax said coldly, “I have asked for water and bandages and no one brings them. If I may be so presumptuous as to make a suggestion, General, why don’t you shoot Mr. Farrell? It would be much more efficient because he is making a great deal of bothersome noise and what’s worse he is bleeding all over your furniture.”

General Perdido turned on her angrily. “I find you insolent, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“I feel insolent,” retorted Mrs. Pollifax. “Perhaps you would like to shoot me as well.”

For a moment she thought that General Perdido was going to strike her. She almost hoped that he would for her rage was nearly unobtainable and she would have welcomed violence, even if directed at herself. But his hand fell. He glared again at the moaning Farrell and turned on his heel. At the door he said to Major Vassovic, “Give the woman the water and bandages she asks for. Perhaps she can revive the prisoner for questioning.” He turned and gave Mrs. Pollifax a tight, sadistic smile. “For questioning and other things.” With this he marched out.

Major Vassovic looked doubtfully at Mrs. Pollifax. “Water? Bandages? You are a nurse?”

“No, a human being,” she snapped, and sat down again beside Farrell’s cot.

The major returned with strips of cloth and a pitcher of water. He stood and watched while Mrs. Pollifax moistened Farrell’s lips and untied the tourniquet. “You have been loosening it?” he asked.

She nodded. The bleeding had stopped; Mrs. Pollifax placed the blanket to one side and walked over to her cot and rolled back the mattress. The cot was made of wood, with rough slats to support the thin hard mattress. She removed two of the slats and carried them back to Farrell’s bed.

“What do you do now?” asked Major Vassovic curiously.

“I intend to set his leg.”

Major Vassovic looked astonished. “Zott! You know how?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Pollifax, “but someone has to. I’m hoping you will help me.”

He said stiffly, “I have no orders.”

“But you are here, and you are a man and he is a man, and do you think any leg should look like that?”

“I have no orders,” he repeated, and went out.

Mrs. Pollifax felt suddenly very tired. She looked at Farrell and she looked at his leg and she knew that she would bungle the job alone. Gritting her teeth she leaned over him and began ripping away his trouser leg. “I will not faint,” she told herself, “I will not, I will not. Surely I can push one of those bones back myself. It certainly ought to be done now, while he’s unconscious.” She stood back and looked at the leg, already swollen and red and turning black and blue, and she thought forlornly, “I wish I had another aspirin.”

The door behind her opened so quietly that Mrs. Pollifax started when a low voice said, “Lulash.”

She turned. One of the guards stood there, his finger to his lips, nodding and smiling nervously. “My name is Lulash.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax blankly. “Lulash. Well, how do you do, Mr. Lulash.”

He tiptoed back to the door, listened a moment and gently closed it. “The major has gone for the night. He sleeps.”He walked to the cot and stared down at Farrell. “I have worked in hospital,” he said suddenly. “I can set this man’s leg. Zott, but it looks bad.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes weakly filled with tears at this offer of help. “He jumped from the cliff,” she explained in a strangled voice. “He was trying to kill himself.”

Lulash only nodded. “I wish him better good fortune the next time.” He leaned over to examine Farrell’s leg more closely. “Zott, but this is not good.”

“But you can do something?”

“Something, yes. Better a doctor, but they will not bring a doctor. I do my best.” His eyes fell to the slats that Mrs. Pollifax still held in her arms. He took them from her and leaned them against the wall. “Later,” he said. “Now you must sit on the man’s chest and hold him down. I bid you do it.” Numbly Mrs. Pollifax obeyed.

Ten minutes later Farrell’s leg was set and Mrs. Pollifax, feeling shaken and a little ill, sat on her cot and watched Lulash bind the slats against Farrell’s straightened leg. After one enraged scream Farrell had lost consciousness again, and he was still unconscious. Lulash placed a hand on Farrell’s heart and then on his pulse, counting the beat. With a nod he came to sit down beside Mrs. Pollifax and mop his brow with a soiled handkerchief.

“Would you like an American cigarette?” asked Mrs. Pollifax humbly. She brought from her purse the crumpled pack that Farrell had given her.

“Thank you.”

“We are both Americans,” said Mrs. Pollifax, with a nod toward Farrell. “Do you think—that is, is it all right for me to ask if this is Albania?”

The guard shrugged. “We call it Shkyperi, which in your language would mean Land of the Mountain Eagle. But yes, it is called Albania.”

“Where did you learn to speak such fine English? Do all the Albanians speak it? Major Vassovic does, and you.”

“I was brought here two days ago because I speak the English. Before then I was in Sarande. It was the same with Major Vassovic, who came from Tirana. They went searching for those of us in the Sigurimi who speak your language.”

“The Sigur—what?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“That is the name of the secret police in this country.”

Mrs. Pollifax gasped. “That means that you—I mean—”

He shrugged. “The time is very difficult here. Those of us who can read and write have two choices, to join the Sigurimi or not to join. Those who do not join can usually be seen on the roads any day. They smash rock. They carry rock. They have no hope.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “It sounds quite sad.” She looked at him with curiosity, studying him carefully because of his extraordinary kindness to Farrell, but unable to find anything in his face to explain him. It was a dark, secretive face with pointed features: black brows, a long, thin nose, a sharp thin jaw, a thin sharp mouth. She would not have taken him for a kind man or an unselfish one, and yet he had flouted orders to help a sick man.

“It was not always this way,” he said. “Albanians are a proud, fiercely independent people. But without luck,” he added. “First the Turks ruled us, then the Russians, now the Chinese. Whatever the master the country stays the same. Poor, primitive, frightened too.”

“You speak English so well,” she pointed out.

His face brightened. “My cousin and I learned the English as children from a man who had come here to write a book about the country. He was a travel man, you know. He wrote the book the year I was born but each year he came back to visit my father. It pleased him to teach us. He was friend to all the tribes, a very good man.”

•Tribes?” said Mrs. Pollifax.

He nodded. “You know nothing of our country?”

“Nothing at all, I’m afraid,” she admitted.

“The most beautiful country in the world,” he said firmly. “Here the rocks and the high mountains, below the flatlands, the valley, the rivers. And oh, the sea,” he added with nostalgia. “Patrolled now, of course. But the Adriatic is the most beautiful sea in the world.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” said Mrs. Pollifax quietly.

“This man, this Mr. Allistair, gave us the book he wrote of my country. He loved it too.” He pinched out the cigarette and placed the butt carefully in the pocket of his shirt. “Your friend is stirring, I will find for him one aspirin.”

He got up and opened the door to the hall and stood there, waiting. Mrs. Pollifax realized that he was waiting for her to accompany him, Surprised, she followed him out, quite touched by his trust. Once in the guardroom he began opening and closing drawers of the desk while Mrs. Pollifax stood beside him. She heard his murmur of satisfaction as he brought up a flask containing what looked to be brandy. While he attacked a new drawer Mrs. Pollifax’s glance wandered and came to rest, mesmerized, upon the gun rack behind the desk. The little brass key to the drawer in the gun rack was still there in its lock.

What, she wondered, would people keep in the drawer of a gun rack?

“If they put ammunition there they certainly wouldn’t be so careless as to leave the key in the lock,” she reflected. “It’s probably filled with paper clips or something idiotic. Except, why paper clips in a gun rack?”

It was an interesting thought. If it was a drawer for ammunition a person could steal the key and hide it and later hope to come back and remove whatever was there. Then perhaps some use could be made of it, or a gun taken from the rack—

She looked at Lulash, at his narrow back bent over the bottom drawer. Still watching him she took several steps backward, until she felt the gun rack between her shoulder blades. Fumblingly she tugged at the drawer and felt it slide open. Lulash was still leaning over the desk and she quickly turned and glanced down. She had been right about its holding ammunition: the drawer was filled with neat stacks of bullets, cartridges and clips, all of them unwrapped and accessible. She slid the drawer closed and placed her fingers around the key. Then she hesitated.

“I can’t” she thought bleakly. “I just can’t.

“Lulash would be blamed,” she realized. “It wouldn’t be fair. He would be blamed for its loss and punished and he has just set Farrell’s leg and now he is going to give him brandy and an aspirin.

“I am an utter failure as an agent,” she decided with anger. “It should have occurred to me before that I would have to be ruthless and unscrupulous. These people are planning to kill me and still I can’t steal this key or so much as a bullet because this man has helped me and would be blamed for it.”

Lulash stood erect, brandishing a bottle of white pills and smiling at her. Automatically she smiled back, her mind totally occupied with her defeat. Lulash found a paper cup and drew water from the cooler and she accompanied him back to her cell.

“What goes?” asked Farrell shakily.

“This gentleman set your leg,” she told him, patting his arm. “We’ve brought you some brandy for your nerves, and aspirin for your fever. Could you manage to sit up just a little if I help?”

Farrell struggled to one elbow. “I hope I haven’t given away any state secrets. I have the feeling I’ve been talking like an idiot.”

She smiled faintly. “Exactly like an idiot, but not like any friend of Mr. Carstairs.”

“Thank God for that.” He swallowed some brandy, winced, and saluted Lulash with a wave of a hand. “Does he speak English?”

“Yes.”

“The brandy isn’t bad. More?”

“Aspirin next,” she said firmly, and placed one tablet on his tongue. “If you prefer washing it down with brandy we can dispense with the water.”

“Loathe water,” he said, and gulped down two aspirin with huge draughts of brandy. “What are the prospects?” he gasped, lying back.

“Dim,” replied Mrs. Pollifax dryly. “General Perdido has been in to look you over. You have considerably frustrated him by injuring yourself so badly, and he left in disgust.” She added in a low voice that Lulash could not hear, “It might be wise of you, when anyone comes in again, to continue talking as wildly as possible, and to see things crawling up and down the walls.”

He whispered back, “That’s delirium tremens, not fever. You’ll make a bloody alcoholic out of me.”

In a louder voice, and tartly, she said, “In your weakened condition, and with all the brandy you’ve just consumed, you will soon be in precisely that state.”

Lulash slipped the aspirin bottle into his pocket and showed signs of leaving. Mrs. Pollifax arose and reached for his hand. “Thank you,” she said warmly, shaking it. “We both thank you very much.”

“Is all right,” he said, nodding and smiling.

When he had gone Mrs. Pollifax sat down abruptly on her cot, realizing how terribly tired she was. Farrell, watching her, said, “You look exhausted, Duchess, for God’s sake get some sleep. I’ll try to limit my ravings for a while.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him in the flickering eerie light of the candle and realized how very fond of him she was becoming. “It is comforting not to be alone,” she thought. She stood up and rolled back the mattress to arrange the slats around the two that were missing. “It has been rather a long day,” she admitted aloud, and lying down she fell at once into an exhausted sleep.

Eleven

On the twenty-third of August Carstairs sat down in his office to review the Mexico City fiasco with a man named Thaddeus Peattie. Peattie came from another department; he was extremely interested in all matters concerning Mao Tse-tung and he was one of the few Americans to have personally known Rauol Perdido—they had met frequently in China during the war when Perdido was a member of Mao’s guerrillas and Peattie was a liaison officer between Chiang Kai-shek and the guerrillas.

“There hasn’t been a sign of Farrell or Mrs. Pollifax being smuggled into Cuba,” Carstairs said, offering Peattie and Bishop cigarettes. “This doesn’t for a moment exclude their being there. They could have landed at night in some secluded area and been whisked into solitary confinement or killed at once. But General Perdido hasn’t been sighted in Cuba, either. I think we can say without any doubt at all that Perdido is not in Cuba at the moment.”

”South America?” suggested Peattie. “Mexico? Perdido is a Mexican by birth, after all. Need he have left Mexico at all?”

“He’s not particularly welcome there,” pointed out Carstairs. “If he’s still there he would certainly be in hiding. What we want to know is where he would go if he left the country. Where’s that report from Belmonte?” he asked of Bishop.

Bishop riffled through the pile of papers on his lap and efficiently extracted the needed sheet. Carstairs handed it over to Peattie. “It’s common knowledge that the Russians have used Mexico as a takeoff point for spies and defectors in this hemisphere. We know of two secret landing strips used by the Reds for smuggling people out. These strips,” he added pointedly, “are not entirely unobserved, as you will see by this report from—an observer, shall we say?”

Peattie picked up the report.

“As you will note,” continued Carstairs, “there has been some activity observed in this lower California landing strip. A plane—a four-engine prop—was reported landing there on the night of August 19. It was on this day that General Perdido closed the doors of the Parrot Bookstore and vanished from sight. It is also on this day that Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax visited the Parrot Bookstore and vanished.”

“Mmm,” murmured Peattie, frowning. “This report says that two people were carried aboard this plane.”

“Yes, carried. On stretchers.”

“Definitely a Russian-made plane,” read Peattie aloud. “Markings thought to be Cuban.” He returned the sheet to Carstairs. “You say that our beautiful Miss Willow Lee has also left Mexico City?”

Carstairs nodded. “Yes, but she left on a registered flight, destination Peking, and has already arrived in Hong Kong.”

“Then it’s not likely that she and General Perdido were the passengers taken aboard that plane,” mused Peattie.

“Not on stretchers,” remarked Carstairs dryly.

“No, not on stretchers,” agreed Peattie with a quick smile. “Perdido is of course the key to this. If he’s involved—and from what you’ve implied this whole affair is big enough to interest him—then he’s the man to trace, of course. The two others, dead or alive, could be anywhere but are doubtless with him. Or were.” He stood up and walked to the map on the wall and stood before it, his hands locked behind his back. “I hate to say this,” he remarked. “At least I assume you’re grimly hoping to regain or trace these two agents of yours. But if General Perdido is not in Cuba—and surely by now he would have been seen there by someone—then I fear the general would have headed for Red China.”

“This department does not grimly hope,” said Carstairs in a hard voice. “No, my dear Peattie, the names of Farrell and Pollifax have been crossed off all earthly lists as far as we are concerned.”

“Then I don’t think I understand,” said Peattie, returning to his chair and sitting down.

Carstairs hesitated. “You might call our investigation fifty per cent precaution and fifty per cent conscience. We don’t want any international incidents growing out of it, for instance.”

“You mean like the U-2 affair,” cut in Peattie dryly.

“Right. We want to”—his voice softened apologetically— “we have to be sure these two people are dead. We have to have proof. “Peattie nodded. “I’ll send out feelers at once, of course. I think that within four days—a week at the most—I can tell you whether General Perdido is or has been in China.” He gave Carstairs a curious glance and said, “And the fifty per cent conscience—or isn’t that any of my business?”

Carstairs sighed. “I’m thinking of Mrs. Pollifax. The late Mrs. Pollifax, I fear. You didn’t know her, of course. Perhaps I can give you a capsule picture of her if I tell you that she strolled in here one day and asked if we needed any spies.”

Peattie looked at Carstairs in open-mouthed astonishment

Carstairs nodded. “A comfortable little woman in her sixties, with a charmingly direct way of going about things. Asked Mason if there was something she could do for us. Rather like volunteering for work at a charity fete. Hellishly innocent and naive, but so patently right for the tourist I needed that I gobbled her up, so to speak.”

Peattie gave him a sympathetic glance. “I see,” he said quietly. “She knew the risks?”

“Oh yes, she knew the risks. But she left without indoctrination, without training, without a cyanide pill.”

“Fortunes of war,” pointed out Peattie softly. “Necessity is a ruthless mistress.”

Carstairs sighed. “No one knows that better than I, but I haven’t been sleeping too well these past three nights. From a practical viewpoint it’s she who could become the international incident—she is so clearly usable, because of her innocence. But what is far more likely—”

He stopped and Peattie said wryly, “Don’t torture yourself, my friend—don’t.”

“I try not to,” Carstairs said with a bitter smile. “Let us say very simply that I must now think of plausible telegrams to send to the woman’s relatives explaining why she is not en route home from Mexico at this moment, and that eventually—once her death is substantiated—I must arrange some plausible death for her in Mexico.”

“Stevens is working on that now,” put in Bishop. “A boating accident has been suggested, with no body recovered. Either a chartered boat off Acapulco or a freak drowning at Xochimilco. Mexico is being very helpful.”

“How nice,” said Carstairs sourly. “Then her son and daughter will hold a memorial service for her and have her name cut on a stone in the family plot and say ‘What a way for Mother to go’ and they will never guess how their mother did die, or for what purpose, or know that half a dozen people in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City worked over the details, making their mother’s death palatable and acceptable to them.”

“I get the point, you needn’t labor it,” said Peattie gently. “But you must know by now that inevitably there’s one person for whom one feels unusually responsible.”

Carstairs nodded, a faint smile on his lips. “I ought to know that by now, Peattie. Rum job, what?”

“Rum job,” agreed Peattie, and stood up. “I’ve got the picture now. I can promise you information, positive or negative, within the week. I wish it could be sooner but China still moves pretty much by oxcart in spite of Mao’s boasts to the contrary.”

“Thanks—well take anything we can get.”

When he had gone Carstairs lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and gave Bishop a weary smile. “I don’t know whether you saw the message that came in late last evening or not. Tirpak is dead. A knife in the back in Guatemala about a week ago, the identification just made.”

Bishop sighed. “What you’d call a clean sweep then. No, I haven’t had time to catch up on last night’s communiqués.”

“They make lively reading—there’s even more,” added Carstairs wryly. “Our photographic-supply friend in Costa Rica processed all the information that Tirpak brought him, and duly burned the papers. It took three days to get all of Tirpak’s documents on film. There were six microfilms, but here’s the sad news: Tirpak gave no indication of how these films were going to be conveyed to Mexico City, or in what form. Whatever he did next with them was done secretly. According to our friend in Costa Rica Tirpak picked up each microfilm with a pair of tweezers, dropped them one by one into a plain white envelope, and left.”

“Ouch,” said Bishop.

Carstairs nodded. “Three days later he was murdered, but he must have started moving them toward Mexico City before then. What he did with them is anybody’s guess but I would assume he planned to insert them into something printed— say a letter or a book.”

“You do think the microfilms reached Mexico City then.”

Carstairs nodded. ‘Tirpak would have seen to that even at the cost of his life. He was that kind of man. What he couldn’t have realized was just how closely he was being followed and watched—and just how closely those microfilms were being watched. Yes, I believe they reached Mexico City.

They reached the Parrot Bookstore and DeGamez was killed

because of them.”

“So General Perdido has the microfilms then.”

Carstairs frowned. “They’re lost to us in any case, Bishop,

but I’m not so sure that General Perdido has them, either.

Take a close look at this timetable of events I’ve written

out—see if it suggests anything to you.” Bishop took the memo and read:

August 17: probable date of DeGamez’ murder

August 17: General Perdido poses as DeGamez and installs  himself   at  the   Parrot   Bookstore

August 19: Mrs. Pollifax visits the Parrot Bookstore to pick up microfilms and vanishes

August 19: Farrell visits the Parrot Bookstore for unknown reasons, and also vanishes

August 19 Mrs. Pollifax’s room at the Hotel Reforma or 20: Intercontinental entered and searched.

Bishop was thoughtful. “I see what you mean. Why go to the bother of keeping the bookstore open after DeGamez’ demise, and why search Mrs. Pollifax’s room, if they’d gotten what they wanted.”

Carstairs nodded. “Exactly. It implies a certain lack of success. If General Perdido had gotten the microfilms from DeGamez before DeGamez was killed, then I don’t really see what purpose was served by his turning into a bookstore clerk to set a trap for Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell. And that’s another thing: their including Farrell bothers me very much. Farrell’s only link with the Chinese Reds was the friendship with Miss Willow Lee that he was busy cultivating at our orders. He had no knowledge of either Tirpak or Mrs. Pollifax, and as to the microfilms, he didn’t even know of their existence.”

Bishop nodded. “Snatching him does imply desperation on the part of General Perdido.”

“Yes. And that’s why I’m reasonably sure that he chose to keep Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax alive—at least for a day or two. And that, my dear Bishop, is why I am not sleeping well these nights, because General Perdido’s methods of extracting information are neither polite nor pretty.”

“But Mrs. Pollifax had no information to extract,” pointed out Bishop. Carstairs gave him a hard look. “Let’s not be naive, Bishop. Do you think Perdido would believe that?”

There was a long silence during which Bishop tried to think of something tactful to say. Finally, with a forced brightness, he concluded, “Well if Perdido doesn’t have the microfilms, that’s something, isn’t it?”

Carstairs gave a short laugh. “Oh yes—yes, indeed. It means they’re lost to everyone, floating in space, so to speak, and of no use to anyone. If they were appended to a book sold in DeGamez’ shop then someone at this very moment may be reading that book, never realizing that it’s the repository of secrets costing eight months work and the lives of innumerable people who would otherwise be alive today. And that is what I call waste. Where is the telegram sent to Mrs. Pollifax’s next of kin?”

Bishop drew copies from his file. “Here they are, sir. They went off late yesterday from Mexico City; this one to Mr. Roger Pollifax in Chicago, this one to Mrs. Conrad Kempf in Arizona.”

Carstairs read them with irony:

HAVING WONDERFUL TIME STOP POSTPONING RETURN A WEEK OR MORE STOP MEXICO CHARMING STOP LOVE TO ALL MOTHER

Twelve

General Perdido returned to the cell the next afternoon, but Mrs. Pollifax had been forewarned by the sound of his voice in the hall. The general, entering, found Mrs. Pollifax playing a quiet game of solitaire and Farrell tossing feverishly on his cot.

“Good afternoon,” said Mrs. Pollifax coldly.

“Where?” shouted Farrell, thrashing feebly. “Take the green ones away, for God’s sake!”

Both the general and Mrs. Pollifax turned to look at Farrell, one with exasperation, the other with admiration. To the general Mrs. Pollifax said bitingly, “I have set his leg but he still has a bullet in his arm and I am not Dr. Schweitzer. The wound is infected. “General Perdido crossed the cell to Farrell and looked down at him. “Senor Farrell,” he said harshly.

Farrell opened his eyes and stared into the face above him.

“Carmelita?” he said tenderly, and then, hopefully, “My darling?”

General Perdido drew back his arm and sent his fist crashing against Farrell’s cheekbone. There was a sickening sound of bone meeting bone. Mrs. Pollifax turned away and thought, “I really can’t bear this.”

There was, for the next few minutes, a great deal more to bear. The general was a thorough man, a determined and an intelligent man, and he intended to leave no stone unturned in his search to learn whether Farrell was shamming or if his mind could still be reached. Mrs. Pollifax moved to the attenuated window and forced herself to look beyond it to the narrow rectangle of stones glittering in the sun, and the thin slice of bleached white sky. “I won’t listen,” she thought. “I will detach myself forever from this room and this moment.” It was an exercise in deception that she had practiced before but never so desperately as now. But when at last the general desisted she was more calm than he—the general’s face was distorted with fury. Pausing with his hand on the cell door he said stiffly, “I will be going away until I am informed that Mr. Farrell is well enough to be questioned. You may tell him so. You may also tell him that I will look forward to his speedy recovery.” He opened the door and turned back dramatically. “As for you, Mrs. Pollifax, you have inconvenienced me so greatly that I resent your very existence.” The door slammed behind him and she heard the bolt drawn outside. Only then did she dare look at Farrell. “I think General Perdido has been seeing too many B movies,” she said lightly, and wanted to cry at the sight of Farrell’s battered face.

Farrell said evenly, his words slurred by two very puffy lips, “Let’s give him to Hollywood then with our compliments.” He sat up. “Did he break my nose, damn him?”

Mrs. Pollifax sat down beside him and for the next few minutes they took inventory. The list was encouraging: it consisted of bruises, two loosened teeth—both molars—and a split upper lip; but there appeared to be no bones broken and Mrs. Pollifax felt it was reasonable to hope there was no concussion of the cheekbone. She said gently, “You managed very well. Have you had to endure this sort of thing before?”

He glanced away. “Once, during the war. That was when I knew Carstairs.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “There are limitations, you know, especially after the first time. The second time the mind knows what to expect. It anticipates. Actually the mind can become a worse enemy than the person inflicting the pain. But this was brief—mercifully.”

Mrs. Pollifax considered his words and nodded. “Yes, I see how that can be.” She felt his forehead and sighed. “You still have a fever, you know. About a hundred and one, I’d guess.”

“But not the raving kind,” he said, and winced as he tried to smile.

“No, not the raving kind—you put on a very good act.” She brought from her purse the package of cigarettes he had given her and held out the last one to him. “Could you manage this with your torn lip?”

“Pure nectar,” he said longingly. He took it and began Stabbing his mouth with it to find a comfortable corner for it. She lighted it for him and he inhaled deeply. “Duchess,” he said gratefully, “I’ve known an incredible number of young, beautiful and nubile women—more than any one man deserves—but I would have to nominate you as the Woman I Would Most Like to Be Captured with in Albania. You are a true blessing to me in my old age—and I feel I’m aging pretty damn fast in this place.”

“Ah, you are feeling better, I’m delighted,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a twinkle. She returned to her own cot, carrying her small table with her, and laid out her playing cards for a game of Clock Solitaire. “How did you fall into this preposterous sort of life?” she asked, thinking he might like to talk now. “This preposterous life with beautiful nubile women and General Perdidos in it. You’re American, aren’t you?”

“As American as San Francisco,” he said, sending streams of blue smoke toward the ceiling from his horizontal position. “My mother was Spanish—I learned to speak Spanish before I knew English. And I got the wandering bug from them. They were both vaudeville people—dancers.”

“How very nice,” said Mrs. Pollifax, charmed by the thought. “I always did enjoy the flamenco. Did you live out of a suitcase?”

“Mmm, just about.”

“Do you dance?”

“Only a waltz,” he said cheerfully. “In me the talent came out in art. I was in the war very early, and when I got out I headed for Mexico to paint. It may surprise you to hear that I really do paint—off and on. By the time Carstairs found me I had already acquired just the reputation he wanted: half playboy, half adventurer, half artist.”

“You have too many halves there,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax primly.

“You don’t feel that exaggeration adds flavor?” he inquired.

Mrs. Pollifax struggled and lost. “Actually, I have been guilty of a small amount of exaggeration myself at times.”

He chuckled. “I’ll bet you have, Duchess, I’ll bet you have. But lived a very quiet and respectable life in spite of it?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Very quiet and very respectable. My husband was a lawyer, a very fine one. My son is a lawyer, too,” she added, and thinking back added with nostalgia, “Yes, it was a very pleasant and peaceful life.”

Farrell turned his head to look at her through the gloom. He said tactfully, ‘Think I’ll have a little nap now, Duchess.” Carefully adjusting his position to his wounded arm he left Mrs. Pollifax to her thoughts and pretended to fall asleep.

It was at mealtime that the new prisoner arrived. He was pushed in ahead of the trays and kicked ungenerously by Major Vassovic and apparently sworn at in the language of the country. A third cot was then brought in and placed along the third wall. Mrs. Pollifax was too busy feeding Farrell with a spoon to pay much attention, but while she ate her own meal—reluctantly putting away her playing cards to make room for it—she eyed the man curiously. He lay on his side, with his face resting on his two hands, but all that she could really see of him was a bristling, white, walrus moustache jutting up, and the top of a bald pink head fringed with white about the ears. It was a very elegant, splendidly Victorian moustache—she hadn’t seen one like it since she was a child. She realized that Farrell, propped against the opposite wall, was also studying the man. He said suddenly, “My name’s Farrell, what is yours, sir?”

The man’s head shifted, aware of Farrell’s voice, but his face remained blank and he said nothing.

“Speak English?” asked Farrell.

“Inglese?” repeated the man, and with a shake of his head added a jumble of words in a language that neither of them understood.

“He doesn’t speak English—that’s good,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “What did we eat tonight, by the way?”

Farrell said broodingly, “Heaven only knows.” He was still watching the stranger. He said suddenly, in a particularly meaningful voice, “Look at the candle!”

Mrs. Pollifax’s glance went at once to the candle over the newcomer’s head, and she frowned because there was nothing wrong with it, nothing to see but the one sputtering flame that gave little more than an illusion of lighting the shadows. Then she realized that the new man, who had been lying on his side, had thrown back his head so that he, too, was looking at the candle. How very curious, she thought, he had understood perfectly what Farrell said. It occurred to her that he was arriving in their cell just as General Perdido had announced that he was leaving for a few days, and she pondered the connection. Yes, it was quite possible; it would be very inefficient of the general to leave without making some arrangements to learn more about her and Farrell. The general would not care to waste time, and what better way to make time work for him than to place a spy in their cell to eavesdrop on them while he was gone? Apparently the general had unearthed another English-speaking member of the Sigurimi. She smiled at Farrell to show him that she understood his warning.

Tonight it was Lulash who came to remove their trays and he went first to Mrs. Pollifax after directing a quick glance at the new prisoner. “We are late tonight in collecting your tray. General Perdido had to be driven to his airplane.”

Mrs. Pollifax saw that he had deposited two aspirins on her table and she gave him a grateful glance.

“Also for you, to read in the English about my country.” He spoke in a very low voice, and with his back still to the new prisoner he leaned over and slipped a book under her pillow. “It is the book, the one I told you about,” he added reverently. “I carry it everywhere with me, it is even inscribed to me.”

Mrs. Pollifax had to content herself with another grateful glance, for she dared not speak. Lulash moved away to Farrell’s table and after removing his tray went out. With her table again empty Mrs. Pollifax arranged her cards for a new game of solitaire and played doggedly for an hour. Farrell was the first to fall into a restless sleep. Soon the stranger turned his back to the room and filled the air with rhythmic snores, and Mrs. Pollifax, growing drowsy herself, put away the cards and lay down.

The book that Lulash had placed beneath her pillow proved uncomfortable to lie upon—she had forgotten its existence as soon as Lulash went away. Since no one was awake to see her she brought out the book and opened it. It was an old volume; the first thing she noted was its copyright date—1919—and at sight of this Mrs. Pollifax was touched that it was still such a treasure to Lulash, and then she was disappointed because a book written forty-five years ago could not possibly be informative; too many wars had been fought since then, too many political parties gone from the scene, making the book a virtual antique. She thumbed through it, however, with a feeling of nostalgia, recalling books in her childhood with the same gray, sunless photographs, the same pictures of people in national costume, with the author himself posed artfully beside monuments and graves and on horseback. The book was entitled Albania: Land of Primitive Beauty, and it was written in the florid verbiage of the day. The plainest sentence in the book stated simply that in size the country was equal to the state of Maryland. Its last chapter ended with the words, “And so I bade farewell to the head of the clan of Trijepsi, leaving him by the leaping flames of his campfire, a real friend whom I must always cherish. Rough, yes; but a pearl among men, truly a chief among men.” Mrs. Pollifax winced at the style and turned a few more pages to come face to face with a very clearly rendered black and white map. A map … she idly turned another page and then came quickly back to the map. It was a very good, clear map. There was Albania fitted neatly between Greece to the south and what would now be Yugoslavia on the north, and there was the Adriatic Sea… . Water, thought Mrs. Pollifax, feeling her way toward a thought not yet expressible. Thoughtfully she turned the map closer to the light and began looking for mountains, wondering just where they might be at this moment. In the south there was a thin line of mountain range facing the sea, but according to the description these were hardly fifteen hundred feet in height—the ones they had traveled through were higher and so she ignored these for the time being. The central part of the country was flat and open with the exception of one mountain rising out of the plains, but she and Farrell had been brought to a very long, high range of mountains and she dismissed this solitary peak. Her glance fastened on the north, narrowing as she spied the words North Albanian Alps. Farrell had said something about Alps, and the mountains to which they had been brought resembled Switzerland in their naked ruggedness. These mountains ran from east to west across the top of the country like a necklace—a necklace extremely close to Yugoslavia, she noticed—and, if the country was no larger than Maryland, they were not excessively far from the Adriatic Sea, either.

“We have to be somewhere in these mountains,” she mused. She would have to begin reading the book tomorrow because in forty-five years the topography would remain the same. But still she lingered over the map. They had landed by plane in a town that was plainly old and well established, and after driving toward the mountains they had traveled for one or two hours by donkey. Would it be possible to figure out in what direction they had traveled?

“The sun,” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. From the heaving, slippery back of her donkey she had watched the sun rise and spread across the valley in a flood of gold. Sleep left her as she concentrated on remembering. Yes, the sun had definitely risen in front of her and slightly to the right. Therefore they had been traveling eastward. If she reversed this, moving her finger westward, there was only one city, named Scutari, printed in bold print, that would be large enough to sustain a crude airfield. The other towns were all in small print—villages, no doubt, none of them large enough to drive through for a period of ten minutes. If it was Scutari where they had landed then they must be about here, she decided, scratching an X with her fingernail. It was a point astonishingly close to Yugoslavia, and surprisingly near the Adriatic, and across the Adriatic lay Italy….

She placed the book carefully under the mattress at her feet and lay down, almost frightened by the thought that the map engendered. “But how very difficult it is to dismiss an idea once it has presented itself to the mind,” she mused. She would have to look at the map again more carefully tomorrow and read about the North Albanian Alps. Perhaps Farrell would have noticed landmarks she had missed. She tried to tame her thoughts, but it was a long time before she fell asleep.

Thirteen

“You may come out,” said Lulash the next afternoon, standing in the doorway and speaking to Mrs. Pollifax. “General Hoong has said you may have a little walk for the exercise.”

“How very kind,” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

Lulash said cheerfully, “General Hoong has wired for instructions about you. Everyone has wired for instructions about you. Now with General Perdido gone we only wait.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded and went to look at Farrell. During the night his temperature had flared dangerously and she was very worried about him. If he was to survive at all the bullet would have to be removed from his arm; for what purpose he must survive she did not know, but it went against all of her instincts to let a man die without making every effort to save him. He was flushed and drowsy and his appetite had vanished; his temperature must be 104 or 105, she judged, and he was not always lucid. Mrs. Pollifax leaned over him and said gently, “I will be back in a few minutes.”

Farrell opened one eye and grinned weakly. “Have fun.”

Before leaving Mrs. Pollifax went to her cot and picked up the Guatemalan jacket which an eternity ago she had worn when she left her Mexico City hotel room. She had lived in the same dress for six days and nights, and had passed the point of fastidiousness; but the jacket she guarded with feminine illogic. During the day it was spread carefully atop her pillow; at night it was folded across the table on which she played her card games—it had become almost a fetish with her. As she plucked it now from the pillow her left hand groped underneath for the book on Albania. She slipped it under the jacket and without even a glance at the Gremlin— this nickname had been bestowed upon their stool pigeon by Farrell—she walked out.

“Did you like my book, will you read it?” asked Lulash once they gained the hall.

She nodded with vivacity. She had already done much reading and she was in the process of assimilating some extremely interesting information. She had been wrong to think that a book written in  1919 could yield nothing pertinent; she had entirely overlooked the fact that political parties and wars could sweep like clouds across a country but leave its terrain untouched. Mrs. Pollifax was becoming very interested in Albania‘s topography and she eagerly welcomed a few minutes outside her prison to view it.

In the guardroom, as she passed through it, the key to the ammunition drawer had again been left in the lock.

Lulash led her outside. The sun, dazzling even to a normal eye, had an almost searing effect upon Mrs. Pollifax’s eyeballs after the darkness of the cell, and she covered both eyes with her hands, gasping at the pain.

“Here,” said Lulash, and gravely handed her his pair of dark glasses.

“Really you are so kind,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and found that a few seconds after putting them on she was able to look around her without discomfort. They were not a great distance from the precipice from which Farrell had jumped. From here to its edge there were nothing but yellow rocks— boulders, stones, pebbles of every possible shape and size and texture, some worn smooth, others sharp and jagged. On their left the larger stone building cast a sharp black shadow across the stones, its edges as precise as if they were lines drawn with a ruler. On Mrs. Pollifax’s right, not too far away, stood a hill of rock lightly screened by fir trees—it was from this direction that they had come. But Mrs. Pollifax was more interested in what lay in front of her. “I am to walk?” she asked of Lulash.

He nodded, and lowering himself to the bench beside the door he explained, “Better today if you walk within my eye, you understand? From there to there.” With his hands he indicated boundaries.

Mrs. Pollifax nodded, and limping over the uneven stones made her way to the edge of the cliff. There she began what she hoped looked like an aimless stroll back and forth but was in reality a reconnaissance. The valley especially interested her, and from this height she could look far across it. Some distance away she traced with her eyes the winding skein of a riverbed that ran from east to west across the plain. Between herself and the river she could see four small towns, clusters of buildings baking in the brutal heat. The floor of the valley was almost a checkerboard of symmetrical lines dividing field after field—or possibly rice paddies, decided Mrs. Pollifax, having already dipped into four chapters of the book. Off to her right—or to the west, if her reasoning was correct—a road ran toward her into the mountains, and on its surface she could see men at work, so tiny they resembled little black insects. Mrs. Pollifax turned to look at what lay behind her, beyond Lulash and the stone house, and her head had to go up and far back before her eyes found the sky—the mountain towered above her. She concluded that this stony cut upon which she stood, and into which the two fortresslike buildings had been inserted, was an accident of nature, the path of some long-ago landslide or avalanche that had killed the soil for every growing thing. But of one fact she was certain: there could be no efficient escape over the peak above them into Yugoslavia, the only possibilities lay to the west, along the route they had come, or below, through the valley.

Escape … for the first time she acknowledged the direction of her thoughts, and having at last formed the word in her mind she took it out and examined it. Escape … the idea was quite mad—she admitted this cheerfully—but surely some effort had to be made? It struck her as extremely characterless for any human being to sit around waiting for execution. It wasn’t that she had so much character, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but rather that always in her life she had found it difficult to submit. The list of her small rebellions was endless. Surely there was room for one more?

She smiled and waved at Lulash and sat down on a rock near the cliff’s edge, her back to him as she carefully removed the book from under her arm. She had already marked the map’s page and now she opened to it at once. A valley, an alp and a river … yes, there was a river in exactly the right place. On the assumption that her directions were correct she quickly compared its location on the valley’s floor with its location on the map.

“The River Drin,” she exclaimed in a pleased voice, memorizing the name, “Drin …” About fifteen miles away, according to the scale of the map, and if her sense of direction was accurate then it flowed westward into the Adriatic Sea.

Walking back to Lulash she said pleasantly, “The city with the airport, is that Scutari, your capital?”

His face lit up. “Ah, you really did read my book. No, it is not the capital any longer, nor is it called Scutari now,” he said. “Its name is Shkoder. But yes, that is where the airport is, in the north.”

“You are a mine of information about your interesting country,” Mrs. Pollifax told him with complete honesty. “I shall hope to learn much more from your book. Forgive me, but I think I will go inside now, this sun—this heat …” She placed a hand daintily on her brow, impatient to get inside and begin new calculations on her map.

Lulash jumped to open the door for her before he sat down again on his bench.

Considerably refreshed by her small excursion Mrs. Pollifax walked back into the ice-house coolness of the stone building, and closed the door behind her. “Oh—I do beg your pardon!” she said, discovering Major Vassovic kneeling in a corner on the floor. For one fleeting moment Mrs. Pollifax wondered if she had interrupted the major in prayer, but then she remembered where she was and put this thought aside. Curiosity drew her closer. “Is that some form of Yogi you’re practicing?” she asked.

“Zott, no,” he said heavily.

Mrs. Pollifax knew by now that Zott was a derivative of Zeus and a favored exclamation of the country; this much had not changed since 1919; and she nodded.

“The electric wire, there is only the one—ah! I have it!” The major climbed laboriously to his feet, and finding her still watching him he added, “For my heat brick. The electric is difficult here.”

“Yes, it would be,” she agreed. “How on earth do you get electricity? Surely not from the valley.”

“Zott, no,” he said, untangling the wire that ran from the floor to his desk. “We have, what do you call it, a big machine in the other building. But here, only the one wire.”

Mrs. Pollifax brightened. “Oh yes, a generator. That’s clever. And this is your heat brick?” She reached out and touched it. “Why, this is what we call a heating pad at home.”

“Yes, for the back,” he said, nodding. “These stones are hard to live with.”

“Back?” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, puzzled.

“My back. Very cold, very sore.”

Mrs. Pollifax understood at last “You mean a cold has settled in your back!”

He nodded morosely. ‘To get up, to get down, it hurts.”

“You poor man,” said Mrs. Pollifax, genuinely concerned. “I know exactly what that’s like. How long has it been bothering you?” “Since they moved me here.”

Mrs. Pollifax frowned. “Have you tried any deep heat, have you tried massage?”

He only stared at her, uncomprehending, and Mrs. Pollifax made an exasperated sound. ‘Take off your shirt,” she said firmly. “Yes, take it off, I won’t hurt you, it’s the only thing that really helps. Have you rubbing alcohol?”

“Alcohol?” He reached into a drawer of the desk and dubiously held up a flask of brandy.

“Yes, why not?” she said cheerfully. “Now the shirt, please, and if you would be so kind as to lie across your desk—”

He retreated in alarm.

“No, no, you don’t understand, I will rub your back. Massage it. This has …” She was making no headway with him. She went to the door and opened it. “Mr. Lulash,” she called, “could you please come and translate for me? I want to rub the major’s back.”

“You want to what?” said Lulash, entering.

“His heating pad will do very little for him, he needs a sound back rub. Please ask him to remove his shirt and lie across his desk.”

With a grin Lulash translated the words. Major Vassovic said, “Ah!” and then, “Oh?”

“He did not understand you,” said Lulash. “He thought you were insisting he lie down and drink the alcohol and his instructions are to never drink while on duty.”

“I see.” The major was removing his shirt.

“He says,” translated Lulash, “that he did not bring long winter underwear here because it is summer. He did not expect a stone house.”

“Nor did any of us,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, her eyes running expertly over his back. Once the major had lowered himself to the desk she rolled up her sleeves, poured brandy into the palm of one hand, and approached him. She was a knowledgeable back-rubber; at one period in her life she had visited a Swedish masseur and had seen no reason why she should not apply the same principles to the backs of her family. Experience added a special fillip to her technique, and now she pummeled, pushed, kneaded and slapped the major’s back with enthusiasm. His small shrieks of protest presently became sighs of joy.

“He will need a blanket now,” Mrs. Pollifax told Lulash. “He must lie still for several minutes before getting up.” Lulash nodded and returned with a blanket. Mrs. Pollifax threw it over the major and collapsed into the desk chair. “Now that was good exercise,” she said happily. “I haven’t done it in years.”

“Was good, good,” grunted the major from the desk.

“You must be extremely careful in getting up,” she told him sternly. “When the muscles are inflamed and swollen they push little bones out of place. This is what hurts you.”

Lulash went to the water cooler and brought back two paper cups. “Allow me,” he said, and with a bow poured brandy into each cup.

Mrs. Pollifax said doubtfully, “I suppose I could call it a late afternoon cocktail?” She accepted the drink with her right hand. Very casually she dangled her left hand in the vicinity of the ammunition drawer and felt for the protruding brass key.

“Half-past three,” said Lulash, and seated himself in the chair on the other side of the desk. He and Mrs. Pollifax exchanged friendly smiles across the lumpy, prostrate form of Major Vassovic. “Skoal!” called Lulash, lifting his cup.

“Skoal,” returned Mrs. Pollifax gaily, pulling open the drawer behind her. In the comfortable silence that followed she filled her hand with gun cartridges and pushed the drawer closed again.

The lumpy figure stirred and sat up. “But that was delicious,” gasped the major. “You do that for my back again sometime?”

Mrs. Pollifax beamed at him. She now had four gun clips in her lap and was feeling congenial indeed. “Of course, Major. At least until they decide how to dispose of me.”

Lulash said in surprise, “Dispose? Dispose?”

She said cheerfully, “Oh yes, I’m sure they’ll eventually have to kill me. What else can they do with me?”

“But you cannot be dangerous,” protested Lulash.

Mrs. Pollifax shrugged. “Does anyone care? This isn’t a democracy, you know.”

“They do not shoot people in a democracy?”

“Oh dear, no. Not unless they’ve committed a murder, and even then—no, really, people do not get shot as punishment in a democracy.” She sipped her brandy appreciatively. “And then it’s in the hands of a jury, you know. It takes twelve people to decide on a person’s guilt.”

Major Vassovic stared at her. ‘Twelve officers, you mean.”

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Pollifax. ‘Twelve people. Citizens. Ordinary people. Working people. “The two men stared at her incredulously. Major Vassovic said, “But then no one would ever be found guilty. Who instructs them?”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled forgivingly. “They are free to make up their own minds from the evidence that’s presented.”

Major Vassovic looked thoroughly alarmed; Lulash looked interested. “Explain to me how it works,” he said.

Mrs. Pollifax hesitated, not from any lack of articulateness but because she was holding four gun cartridges in her lap. She said, “First I must put on my jacket, I’m cold.” She left her chair and walked over to the stool upon which she had arranged her jacket so that it would conceal Albania: Land of Primitive Beauty. Slipping the gun clips into the pocket she shrugged on her jacket and managed to squeeze the book tightly under one arm. Her activity reminded Major Vassovic of his own condition and he started buttoning on his tunic.

“It works like this,” Mrs. Pollifax said, and returning to the desk drew pencil and paper toward her and began diagramming a courtroom. “The judge sits here,” she announced, drawing a circle, “and we will call this the jury box and put twelve circles here. You will be one of them, and I will be another, and the major will be a third.”

“Please no,” said the major in alarm.

“It’s only on paper,” she told him soothingly. “And we will pretend that you, Mr. Lulash, are a farmer, and I am a housewife, and Major Vassovic sells ties in a store.”

“What are our political affiliations?” asked Lulash quickly.

“Oh, but that doesn’t matter at all.”

“But it must.”

She shook her head. “No, because this is a court of law and justice. We would be concerned only with truth.”

Lulash said, “But surely the jury would have been appointed by party officials?”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly. “Not appointed at all. No commitments, no ties, no obligations. Absolute freedom to decide.”

“Zott,” cried Major Vassovic despairingly.

“Then surely the judge is appointed?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“Ah!” cried Lulash triumphantly.

“But the judge has nothing to do with the verdict,” emphasized Mrs. Pollifax. “He cannot decide whether a man is guilty or innocent. That responsibility rests with the twelve jurors. “Lulash looked bewildered. “He cannot tell the twelve jurors they’re wrong? He cannot punish them if they bring in the wrong verdict?”

“Absolutely not,” replied Mrs. Pollifax.

From the doorway General Hoong said coldly, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Pollifax.”

Mrs. Pollifax turned. She had not realized before how very much the general’s face resembled a fresh brown egg. The skin fitted his bones so snugly that she could not find a single line of laughter or of sadness, and she wondered if he could have had his face lifted. There was something very sinister about a man of forty or fifty who looked so remote and untouched by life. “Good afternoon,” she said.

His nostrils quivered fastidiously. “There is a smell of alcohol in this room. Private Lulash, Major Vassovic, have you been drinking?”

“It’s entirely my fault,” intervened Mrs. Pollifax. “I was allowed a small walk and I had a touch of sunstroke. They offered me the brandy for medicinal purposes.”

Seeing the general’s gaze drift from Lulash to Major Vassovic she continued in a firmer voice. “I’m glad you are here, General Hoong. I would like permission to extract the bullet from Mr. Farrell’s arm. You have seen Mr. Farrell today?”

The general’s glance rested upon her and his left eyebrow lifted. Mrs. Pollifax was relieved to see that this caused two lines above the brow without cracking the surface of his face.

“It is obvious to me,” she said in her most imperious Woman’s Club voice, “that he will die if the bullet is not removed. This will make General Perdido quite angry, don’t you think? I don’t believe he will appreciate his dying at all. Not at all.”

The general’s gaze lingered on her face. He might have been pondering a piece of rare jade, a beautiful sunset or the fish he was to eat for dinner.

“I will need a knife,” she went on recklessly. “A knife and some boiling water to sterilize it, and a bandage. This is possible?”

The general’s right eyebrow was lifted this time. His lips moved. “It is possible, yes.”

“Good.”

Gradually something resembling an expression stirred the shell-like surface of his face. ‘There is nothing else?” His voice was brushed with the most delicate sarcasm.

“I don’t believe so,” Mrs. Pollifax told him, ignoring the sarcasm. “Your food is quite good and I’m growing accustomed to the mattress. It’s not exactly posturpedic, but it’s firm. No, I think this is all.”

He bowed slightly. “I am so glad.”

“And now I believe I’d like to go back to my cell and lie down,” she finished. “If you will excuse me?”

Major Vassovic at once produced the key and led her down the hall. As he swung the cell door open for her he whispered, “Tomorrow, same time?”

Feeling like a paramour making an assignation Mrs. Pollifax told him gravely, ‘Tomorrow, yes.” She entered the cell to discover that the Gremlin had disappeared and Farrell was asleep. As soon as the door closed behind her she hurried to her cot and hid the book on Albania under the mattress. Only then did she bring from the pocket of her Guatemalan jacket the items she had stolen from the ammunition drawer. It was a little like opening up a mystery prize, she reflected, as she held them up to the light to see what she had won. Carrying them to the nearest window slit for a closer scrutiny she found that two belonged to a Beretta pistol, and two to something called a Nambu. Very good, she thought, nodding. Next she wondered where to hide them and she decided at last upon diversification; she placed one in her purse, another inside her underclothes in a time-honored place of concealment, a third she trusted to a hole in her mattress and the fourth she hid in Farrell’s mattress. Since Farrell was still asleep she took out Lulash’s book and turned again to the map.

“What, no solitaire?” asked Farrell suddenly from across the room, turning his head toward her.

“For the moment I have something better to do,” she told him absently. “Lulash has loaned me a book on Albania, much prized by him in spite of its being published in 1919. What is particularly interesting is that it has a very good map of the country. He really should have remembered it was there and removed it.”

Farrell’s mouth dropped open. “Good God,” he gasped, “you can’t possibly be thinking of escape!”

She thought it tactless to mention the alternative. Instead she said calmly, “But why not? You don’t think I want to spend my sunset years in Albania, do you? The winters are extremely cold, the book says so, as cold as the summers are hot. If I only apply myself there must be a way to get us out, preferably before General Perdido returns.” “Us?” echoed Farrell in astonishment. “You said us’?” Mrs. Pollifax looked up from her map in surprise. “You can’t possibly think I’d leave you behind!”

Farrell shook his head. “My dear Duchess, it must have escaped your notice that for most of today I’ve been off my rocker with fever. I also have a broken right leg and a bullet in my right arm.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded indifferently. “Yes, I’d noticed. But I’ve asked for permission to cut the bullet out of your arm, and if you can bear another operation—I know it won’t be pleasant—then your temperature ought to go down, and that will leave only the healing leg.”

“That’s right—only a broken leg,” rasped Farrell. Mrs. Pollifax returned impatiently to her book. “It isn’t clear to me yet, but I’m hoping it will come. The simplest way would be lowering you over the cliff, but we would need at least a hundred feet of rope for that. We ought to have a gun, too, and some sort of clothes for disguise, and food, and I suppose to be really efficient we ought to have a compass, although if the stars are out—”

She found that Farrell was regarding her as if she had gone mad. He said with sarcasm, “A rope, a gun, a disguise, food and a compass—anything else? How about ordering a limousine?”

“I don’t think you’re being at all receptive,” she told him stiffly.

It was their first quarrel. He said scornfully, “I think you’ve gone off your rocker, too, Duchess, but if it gives you something to keep your mind occupied—well, have lots and lots of fun. And now if you’ll forgive me I’ll go back to sleep, which is the best escape I can think of. You know—’sleep that knits the raveled sleeve of care’ and all that?”

“Coward,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a sniff, and then was sorry for the word as soon as it left her lips. But it was too late; Farrell’s eyes were closed and a kind of gentle snore was issuing from his half-open mouth. Mrs. Pollifax, watching him, wondered if he knew how becoming a beard would be to the shape of his face. A few more days, she mused, and he would have a very striking one, and then with a start she went back to Albania: Land of Primitive Beauty.

The boiling water, a penknife and a towel arrived at dusk, brought in by Major Vassovic, who looked disapproving and then somewhat distraught as he added that he had been ordered to remain behind to help with the operation. In a gruff, nervous voice he addressed the walrus-moustached man who now shared their cell. “His name is Adhem Nexdhet,” he told Mrs. Pollifax. “I have asked him to hold the candle for you, Lulash is not on duty tonight.”

“For me,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, “he means hold the candle for me,” and her knees suddenly felt very wobbly. She put down the pack of playing cards and stood up, trying to recall the dozens of splinters and the broken glass she had extracted from small knees and fingers in her lifetime, but finding little comfort in the thought. She remembered only one bit of advice given her by a doctor: never bleed for the patient, let him do the bleeding, you just get the job done.

Mrs. Pollifax took the knife from Major Vassovic, saw to its sterilization, glanced just once at Farrell, whose eyes were open, and proceeded to go about getting the job done. She mentally granted to Farrell his own right to dignity, assuming he could manage his own hell just as she must somehow manage hers. Quickly and ruthlessly, knowing that speed was kinder than gentleness, she probed the rotting flesh for the bullet. When the knife met its hard resistance she thanked heaven that it was not embedded in a muscle and with one swift, cruel turning of the knife she lifted the pellet to the surface and heard it drop to the stone floor. Not knowing how else to complete the job she poured the hot water over the infected skin, and this at last brought from Farrell a yelp of pain.

“I wondered when we’d hear from you,” she told him. “They’d never hire you at Mount Sinai, Duchess.” His face glistened with perspiration.

“Really? And I was planning to apply next week—what a pity.”

He grinned weakly. “Just can’t keep you from volunteering for things, can we. Have you finished your butchery?” “Quite.”

Farrell nodded and turned his face to the wall, and Mrs. Pollifax realized what he had already endured and must still face, and the resolve to escape hardened in her. She would not, must not, save Farrell only for General Perdido. Even if an escape attempt brought only death it was certainly a cleaner way to die than by whatever means the general was planning. In that moment she realized they were going to have to try it, and with this all her doubts ended; it was no longer a matter of whether but when and how. Major Vassovic had disappeared, leaving her the basin of water and several towels. Mrs. Pollifax dipped a towel into the water and began swabbing blood from Farrell’s mattress.

“You did that well,” said Adhem Nexdhet suddenly. “Without emotion.”

Mrs. Pollifax stepped back in surprise. “You really do speak English,” she said accusingly.

He smiled wryly. “But you already knew this, did you not? I am not unaware of the little trick Mr. Farrell played on me. Allow me,” he said, taking the towel from her. “You are not young, you must be tired.”

Mrs. Pollifax backed to her cot and sat down. “I suppose you’re also in the secret police then!”

“Yes, I am Colonel Nexdhet of the Sigurimi.”

Mrs. Pollifax winced. “I see. That makes you the major’s superior then.” She sighed. “It also makes it especially kind of you to help. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “A good officer knows when to break rules here and there. Major Vassovic is not a good officer, except for his rigid obedience, which is the mark of a follower, not a leader. He is afraid of life.” The colonel wrung out one towel and picked up another, saying over his shoulder, “There is one thing that General Perdido does not know about you, Mrs. Pollifax.”

Startled, she said, “Oh? What is that?”

He turned to look at her. “He does not know how well you perform under pressure.”

There was a long silence. Nexdhet’s words were ambiguous, but the man’s stare made Mrs. Pollifax feel distinctly uneasy. Until now the comic moustache had obscured the fact that his eyes were both penetrating and intelligent. As pleasantly as possible Mrs. Pollifax said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

“You are more than you appear to be,” he said, smiling.

“Really?” He was clearly testing her, she decided. “I have no idea how I appear.”

“It is very interesting to me,” continued Nexdhet. “I underestimated you at first glance. To General Perdido you are an embarrassing mistake. Now I wonder if he may not have underestimated you as well.”

“What you have underestimated,” retorted Mrs. Pollifax firmly, “is my experience in first aid. However, if it pleases you to think otherwise—”

The cell door opened. The guard who did not speak English came in to collect the dinner trays and the conversation was mercifully ended. Mrs. Pollifax spread out her playing cards for a last game of solitaire, but whenever she glanced up she was aware of Colonel Nexdhet watching her with a mixture of speculation and amusement.

Fourteen

The next morning Mrs. Pollifax began to plan in earnest. When Colonel Nexdhet was removed from their cell, presumably for his exercise, she brought from her purse everything that could be used as a bribe or trade, and spread the items across the little table. There were three lipsticks, two of them brand-new and in smart bejeweled gold cases; a tin of Band-Aids, her wallet containing five dollars and thirteen cents; travelers’ checks amounting to fifty dollars (the rest were in her suitcase in Mexico City) and a small memo pad with gold pencil. To these she reluctantly added her Guatemalan jacket, and distributed the small items between the two pockets of the jacket, keeping only the memo pad. On one of its pages she had jotted down the few Albanian words with which the author of Land of Primitive Beauty had salted his book. The words were as follows:

dunti—hope chest

shke—proc

kzee—voice

rhea—cloud

gjume—sleep

bjer—bring

pes’e—five

Zgarm—fire

nat’e—night

It was meager fare for her purposes, but after an hour spent in arranging and rearranging the words she had selected four of them for the message she wished to write in Albanian. It was a crude affair but it was the best that she could manage, and now she carefully copied out the four words on a fresh sheet of memo paper. Night—Sleep—Bring Voice. To this she added hopefully in English, since everyone else here seemed to speak it, “We are two Americans here, who are you?”

“What’s up?” asked Farrell from his cot, watching her.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Mrs. Pollifax hastily, and slipped the memo into her pocket. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak but human at last.”

She nodded. “Your temperature is almost normal, I felt your forehead while you were asleep.” She stood up as the cell door groaned open and a guard appeared. “I believe it’s time for my walk now,” she told Farrell.

From his cot he said dryly, “You look like a cat planning to swallow the canary, Duchess. Whatever you’re up to it won’t work, you know. This is Albania.”

“Yes, Albania, land of primitive beauty,” she told him, and swept from the cell.

She had no more than closed the door behind her, however, when a familiar voice said, “There you are, Mrs. Pollifax, I have been waiting for you.”

It was Colonel Nexdhet, the very man she would have preferred to avoid. He wore a pair of binoculars around his neck and carried a book under his arm. “We can walk together,” he said.

“You are to guard me?” she inquired coldly, and then as they entered the guardroom she said warmly, “Good morning, Major Vassovic, and how is your back today?”

“Ah, Zoje Pollifax,” said the major, beaming. “It is still sore, yes, but last night I sleep like the baby.”

“Mrs. Pollifax,” cried Lulash, coming in from outside and holding the door open for her. “You have good walk before the sun climbs high?”

“Thank you, I hope to,” replied Mrs. Pollifax.

‘Take my sunglasses, please,” insisted Lulash, peeling them from his eyes. He winked. “Remember we are jurors, you and I.”

“What did that mean?” asked Colonel Nexdhet as they emerged into the brilliant sun.

“Nothing important,” Mrs. Pollifax assured him airily. She stopped a moment, adjusting to the bright tawny landscape, and then moved on. “There are so many of you here to guard so few of us, it seems such waste.”

“We will go in this direction,” said Colonel Nexdhet, gesturing to the east. “No, it is not waste. There are other prisoners in the larger building.”

“I didn’t know that. How long have you been here, Colonel?”

“Oh, for several months. I was brought here to be second in command to General Hoong.”

“You must find it bleak?”

“At times. I take many walks, I fancy myself as a bird watcher.” He gestured toward the binoculars around his neck. “I enjoy walks.”

“So I gather,” she said dryly.

He helped her across a deep cut in the earth, and they began to climb a little, toward the forest.

“And do you enjoy being a colonel in the Sigurimi?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It is my job.” He looked at her and smiled. “You question everything, and this is good. But you doubt nobody, and this is bad. We are neither of us young, you and I, we are each nearing the end of long lives and so can speak frankly. I observe in you the desire to trust, even here. This is weakness in a human being, a foolish thing, the desire to lean.”

Mrs. Pollifax followed him among the trees, her face thoughtful. She had already forgotten that he made her uneasy. “No,” she said honestly, “no, 1 don’t think I agree with you. I don’t lean on people, as you put it. It only comforts me to know that people are there. You don’t find this to be so?”

He looked at her and again she was aware of the tired wisdom in his eyes. “Then it is because you are a woman.”

“Perhaps. You mean you trust no one at all?”

“No one but myself.”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

He shrugged, and helped her over a fallen log. “That is only common sense. Perhaps I have seen too much of life, I don’t know. I am sixty-three, I have perhaps watched too many knives in the back, too many sudden changes of the face. Nothing endures except the idea, the mind. I served Albania under the Turks, I served her under King Zog. We were friends with Mussolini and then Mussolini turned on us and conquered us and I fought in the resistance then, for communism. After the war it was Hoxher who came to power and ruled, with Russia our friend. Now we have quarreled with Russia and it is the Red Chinese who help us.” He shrugged again. “It is the way life is. Nothing endures except the idea. This alone is clear, pure, not soiled by change. “Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “Yes, you have seen too much of life—the bitter side, at least.”

“In the Balkans, in Albania, life is bitter,” he said.

Mrs. Pollifax considered. “Of course by the idea you mean the political idea—communism—but aren’t you wrong to say it never changes? There is this matter of Stalinism—”

“One adapts,” he said. With a wry smile twisting his preposterous moustache he asked, “Politically you are what?”

“Republican,” acknowledged Mrs. Pollifax. “Although twice I voted for Adlai Stevenson—such a charming man.”

He smiled. “Then you, too, adapt.” He touched her arm and directed her to the right. “We have gone far enough,” he said. “We will follow the cliff back. There is a good view here, you will see the valley from a new angle.”

There was indeed an excellent view, and she was grateful to stop walking for a minute. “Beautiful, is it not?” said Colonel Nexdhet, standing beside her. “And those men below, how small, like ants.”

“Yes, I just noticed them,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “What on earth are they building down there?”

“A missile site,” he said without interest. “Seeing Man like this reminds me always of Man’s fragileness, don’t you agree?”

A missile site, he had said. A missile site? A shock of excitement moved down Mrs. Pollifax’s spine disc by disc. The Chinese were building a missile site in Albania? She forgot her failure in Mexico; if she could bring news of a missile site to Mr. Carstairs then she would not have failed as a spy at all. It was obvious that Colonel Nexdhet would not have mentioned such a thing if he was not absolutely sure that both his secret and Mrs. Pollifax would remain in Albania, but this was only a new goad. Aloud she said disapprovingly, “They would do better to build roads, why do you need a missile site?”

Colonel Nexdhet gave her his arm. “Shall we start back? The Chinese are very patient, Mrs. Pollifax, they build for the future. They are not taken seriously yet as a major power, but see what they have already accomplished! They have fought and won a small slice of India. They have their finger in a dozen pies in southeast Asia. They are proving extremely successful in infiltrating Latin America—every Communist party there has its Mao-ist wing. They now have trade relations with most of western Europe and with Canada, Australia and Japan.  They have exploded a primitive atom bomb. But most of all they are here to help and to protect my country, which you must not forget is a European country. The Chinese have arrived in Europe.”

“Good heavens,” said Mrs. Pollifax as she absorbed the meaning of all that he said. “It’s really quite shocking.”

“If you are an American, yes,” he said with a shrug. “As for the Chinese—they look ahead.”

“Very enterprising of them,” she said weakly, and wondered how to change the subject before she gave away her profound interest. “But I have not seen any of your birds, Colonel Nexdhet.”

He said gravely, “That is what makes bird-watching so fascinating, Mrs. Pollifax. There are so few of them up here along the cliffs.”

Presently they came out into the hot sun again, and the stone buildings lay ahead.

Mrs. Pollifax had left her cell at half-past nine in the morning. It was quarter-past five when she returned, flushed from the sun and a string of small, happy accomplishments. She found Farrell livid.

“Don’t you ever do this to me again,” he sputtered, sitting up on his cot and glaring at her. “Don’t you dare.”

“Do what?” she said in astonishment.

“Go off for a whole day like this. I’ve been nearly out of my mind picturing you in front of a firing squad or being stretched on a rack somewhere being tortured. And now you have the audacity, the unmitigated gall to walk in here looking happy.”

She walked over and kissed him fondly on the top of his head. “Bless you for worrying. I’m sorry.”

“Then try to look sorry,” he snapped. “I’m a very sick man. Where have you been?”

“Oh, here and there,” she said airily. “Walking with Colonel Nexdhet, picnicking on the cliff with Lulash, rubbing Major Vassovic’s back. We have even been discussing holding a small party in the guardroom tomorrow night.”

“Party!” exploded Farrell.

“Yes, you see Lulash knows some old Albanian mountain songs and he wants to sing them to me, and Colonel Nexdhet will bring a musical instrument and Major Vassovic went so far as to volunteer something alcoholic for the occasion, and one thing led to another, and now it’s to be a party.”

Farrell stared at her open-mouthed. After a minute he closed his mouth with a snap. “All right,” he said crossly, “what exactly have you been up to, Duchess?”

She sat down beside him and drew from the pocket of her jacket a sheet of onionskin paper and placed it in his lap. “For tracing the map in Lulash’s book,” she whispered. Drawing out a flat, round, metal case she added it to the sheet of paper. “And I won’t have to tell you what this is.”

He pried open its lid and whistled. “A compass! But how on earth—and who—”

“I traded with the major after I rubbed his back. I said I was getting rid of my effects early. It cost two new lipsticks, one Petal Pink and one Hug Me.”

“Yes, but didn’t he wonder at a compass?”

She smiled reminiscently. “He gave me several things to choose from in return, it was quite fun. He offered an old watch, a pen and this surveyor’s compass that has been in the guardroom for years, he said. Does it work?”

“It moves,” Farrell said, frowning over it.

“East,” she told him, “would be in the direction of the guardroom, and west behind the wall you’re leaning against.”

He looked up. “And just how do you know that?”

“Because we traveled into the rising sun when we came here,” she said. “We arrived from the west, from the city of Shkoder, where our plane landed. And according to the map the River Drin, which I can see from the precipice, flows from east to west, into the Adriatic, which places Yugoslavia just behind us.”

She had captured his attention at last. He closed the lid of the compass with a snap and said quietly, “Perhaps you’d better tell me exactly what you’re thinking of, Duchess, if it’s not too late to ask. You really have been busy.”

“Of course I’ll tell you,” she said warmly. “I’m only an amateur, you know—although a very determined one, I warn you—and I desperately need your professional advice. Have you been trained in escape procedures?”

“Afraid not,” he said in amusement.

“Oh, what a pity. Well, I guess that can’t be helped.”

“Good of you to see it that way.”

“What I do think I ought to tell you, though—and I would have sooner if you hadn’t been in such a state—is about the person in the cell next to us.” She described in a whisper the rappings on the wall that had taken place on the day that Farrell jumped from the cliff. “I’ve heard nothing since, you understand, but this afternoon, walking around the building, I dropped a note through the window slit of the cell next to us.”

“A note?” echoed Farrell. “But this is Albania, and an Albanian jail. I really doubt that whoever it is would speak English, you know.”

“Well, it wasn’t the most articulate message, but I made it up out of scraps of Albanian from Lulash’s book,” explained Mrs. Pollifax. “It said night—sleep—bring voice, if I remember correctly, but I did rather hope our neighbor would get the point that we’d like to hear from him again somehow.” Footsteps echoed in the hall and Mrs. Pollifax seized compass and paper, stuffed them into her purse and moved back to her cot. She was seated on it fingering her deck of cards when the door opened and Adhem Nexdhet—no, Colonel Nexdhet, she remembered—walked in. “Have a good walk?” she inquired pleasantly, and was suddenly all too conscious of the contraband book under her mattress, the gun cartridges distributed around the cell, the food and compass in her purse.

“What is this game you always play?” he asked, stopping beside her table.

“Different kinds,” she told him. “All sorts of solitaire. Very healthy for the mind and the nerves, I enjoy it. Has General Perdido returned yet?” she added casually.

“He comes late Thursday, in the evening,” Adhem Nexdhet said absently, his eyes on the cards she was arranging.

Mrs. Pollifax managed a rueful laugh. “And I don’t even know what day it is today!”

“Tuesday.” Nexdhet abruptly sat down beside her. “Show me,” he said. “The cards in a circle, what is the key to this?”

“It’s called Clock Solitaire,” replied Mrs. Pollifax, and began to explain the rules. But her heart was thudding at the realization that General Perdido would return on Thursday, and already this was Tuesday. … At once the general’s face came very clearly to her mind: impassive and observant with only the eyes, sans spectacles, betraying shrewdness and cruelty. Over the cards she glanced at Farrell and saw him chewing reflectively on the moustache that would in time resemble Adhem Nexdhet’s walrus-type adornment—if ever given the time. Haste makes waste, she thought a little wildly; escape in haste, repent in leisure; she wondered if Farrell remembered any of General Perdido’s parting promises; he had been feverish and in pain and she hoped he did not recall them. It was far kinder for him not to know what lay ahead of him.

But only two more days, and they had made almost no arrangements…

Then something else occurred to her and she said in shocked astonishment, “But why is he coming back so soon? Is it you who told him Farrell is well enough to be questioned by then?”

Colonel Nexdhet met her glance with a faint smile. “I believe I warned you that you must trust no one,” he pointed out gently.

On Wednesday morning during her walk along the cliff Mrs. Pollifax selected two round, fist-sized rocks from the ground and took them back to the cell and hid them. She then borrowed Lulash’s sunglasses and walked a little farther, toward the clusters of fir through which she and Farrell had ridden on donkeys. What they needed most of all, she knew, was a crutch for Farrell; a very stout crutch or walking stick. Without this they might as well abandon all hope of reaching the valley.

“Lulash,” she called across the rocks. He was sunning himself on the bench outside while he cleaned his gun. “Lulash, I’ve had the nicest idea.” She walked up to him, smiling. “But first I’ll need your permission and your help.”

“What is that?” asked Lulash.

“It’s Mr. Farrell,” she explained. “He cannot take walks, as I do—”

“He would not be allowed,” Lulash said bluntly.

“I know that, and it’s very difficult for him, shut up all day in that cell. Lulash, I should so like to hang some branches in the cell. Fresh green branches.”

“Branches?” repeated Lulash, scowling.

“Yes, branches. Surely it would be all right? Surely no one would mind?”

Lulash’s brow cleared and he smiled indulgently. “Every woman, she likes to make things pretty, eh?”

“Uh, yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “You do understand, I’m so glad. Should I ask the major’s permission, too?”

“That I can do for you,” Lulash said gallantly.

Major Vassovic not only gave permission but announced that he would come too, and they set out for the line of scattered firs together, with Mrs. Pollifax pointing out the beauties of the sky—a horrid bleached blue—the uniqueness of the rocks, and the wild scenery above them. She talked mercilessly until they reached the trees, whereupon she became reverently silent, and for such a long time that the men became restive.

“This one—or this one?” she asked at last, touching first one branch and then another. She stood still, struck with apparently spontaneous inspiration. “Or do you suppose we could take back a very small tree?”

“Tree?” echoed Major Vassovic in astonishment

“Tree?” repeated Lulash.

“This little one, for instance. It looks just like a Christmas tree.”

“But this is summer,” pointed out Major Vassovic.

“Yes,” Mrs. Pollifax said, nodding, and then, ruthlessly, she delivered the coup de grace. “But I will not—I will not be here—I will not see another Christmas.”

That did it. Lulash angrily tightened his lips. “She will have the little tree,” he told Major Vassovic.

“Of course,” nodded the major, and at once twisted the tree to test the depth of its roots. Lulash gave a small assist and the young tree was uprooted.

“Lovely,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax with feeling, and with the tree between them like a fourth member of the party they marched back to the stone building.

“What on earth!” exclaimed Farrell as Lulash leaned the tree against the wall of the cell.

“Isn’t it beautiful? Christmas in August,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and added a warning frown because Colonel Nexdhet was seated on his cot reading a newspaper on which the banner head proclaimed the words ZERI I POPULIT. But he had already begun folding up his paper, and presently, with a nod, he went out wearing his binoculars.

When he had gone Mrs. Pollifax sat down on her cot and said tartly, “I loathe myself. I have just given the most nauseating performance of my life—I, Emily Pollifax! I was girlish, I was kittenish, I very nearly fluttered my eyelashes at those two men, and at my age! Sickening.”

“You didn’t,” exclaimed Farrell, grinning.

She nodded. “I pulled out all the stops. I nearly had them weeping for me.”

“Not over this—this ragged specimen of evergreen, I hope.”

Mrs. Pollifax said crossly, “That ragged-looking specimen of evergreen, my dear Farrell, is shortly going to be transformed into the crutch that is going to help you walk across Albania to the Adriatic Sea.”

Farrell whistled. “I’ve done it again, Duchess—my apologies.” His glance ran appraisingly over the trunk and he nodded. “Yes, the shape is there all right.”

“No crosspiece,” she explained, “but we can use pieces of mattress and blanket to wad the top and protect the arm. Did you finish tracing the map?”

“Yes, in spite of Nexdhet. That man wanders in and out— if he has to keep up the pretense of being a fellow prisoner I wish he’d put his heart into it and suffer along with me. He obviously has bathroom privileges, a discrimination I deeply resent, and he never speaks to me, he only grunts.”

“But you finished the tracing!”

“Oh yes. And something else happened, fortunately while Nexdhet wasn’t here. About half an hour ago this fluttered through the window.” He brought from his pocket a slip of paper.

“Our neighbor!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. “He did reply after all!”

“In a fashion,” said Farrell, and watched with ironic eyes as she held the slip of paper up to the light.

Fifteen

That evening Colonel Nexdhet followed their dinner trays out of the cell, and as soon as he had gone Mrs. Pollifax crossed the room to Farrell and sat down on the cot beside him. She had spent the afternoon in playing solitaire and doing some private assessing which had definitely not aided her digestive juices. She was also beginning to scratch and she feared that she had lice, but this did not concern her nearly so much as the knowledge that within twenty-four hours General Perdido would be appearing. The general, she reflected, was the more compelling irritant.

“He’s gone?” whispered Farrell, sitting up. They did little talking at all while Adhem Nexdhet was with them. “He may not be gone long,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded him. She thought that Farrell was no less haggard, but he looked brighter-eyed and more interested than she had seen him in a long time.

“All right, let’s go over the list.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “We have one tree.” She gave it a reproachful glance. “But no earthly way of cutting it down to a crutch.”

On her memo pad he wrote knife or facsimile. “Go on.”

She continued gloomily. “We have four magazine clips, apparently for Beretta or Nambu pistols but unfortunately we have no Beretta or Nambu pistols.”

Farrell winced as he made a note of this.

“We have enough cheese and stale bread for two people— two pygmies, really—for two days. But no water.”

“Mmm.”

“We have one compass that works—we think. And one tracing of a 1919 map of Albania. And two rocks.”

“Ah—rocks I” Farrell brightened. “But let’s take the items one by one. The tree first of all: they’d never allow us a saw or a knife. I don’t suppose you’ve seen one lying around that you could, uh, pinch? Make off with?”

“There are at least half a dozen knives in the gun rack in the guardroom,” Mrs. Pollifax told him. “But they’re under glass and locked up. There’s always someone with me, and I doubt if they’d trade a knife.”

“No, not likely. I could always ask to shave—”

“I’m sure they’d want the razor blade back.”

He nodded, but without appearing in the least discouraged, which pleased Mrs. Pollifax because she was beginning to feel very discouraged indeed. He said, “The branches we can tear off at the last minute with our hands, but we do need a cutting edge to shape the top.”

“How do we manage all this with Colonel Nexdhet here in the cell with us?” asked Mrs. Pollifax. “I thought—I mean I picked up one of those rocks thinking we could hit him over the head at the proper time but …” She shivered. “I couldn’t, you know, could you?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t even walk yet”

Farrell smiled faintly. “No, but I haven’t been completely idle, Duchess. At night while you and our spy friend are asleep I’ve been trying to get my strength back. I stand. I do crazy exercises. Look.” He got laboriously to his feet and stood, his weight on the good leg. “I don’t get dizzy any more. I nearly fell over the first time, I was so lightheaded. I’ve been exercising my hands and arms, too. Yes, I could hit our friend over the head, at least I can if he gets close enough to me. Let’s see those rocks, by the way, and whatever’s left of your trading goods.”

“Trading goods,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, smiling. “You mean for friendly natives?” She brought out the diminished contents of her pocket. “One lipstick, one handkerchief …”

He was examining both as if he had never seen either. “Always use men’s handkerchiefs?” he asked with amusement.

“For a number of years, yes. They were my husband’s, and so much more substantial.”

“Excellent gag,” he pointed out.

Mrs. Pollifax brightened. “I didn’t think of that.”

“One must,” he murmured. He had taken apart her lipstick case and was studying it. He ran a finger over the rim of the metal tube and said quickly, “Let’s see those rocks, are any of them rough?”

Mrs. Pollifax leaned eagerly over his shoulder. “You mean we may have found a cutting edge?”

“Only a peeling edge, I fear. I’ll see if I can chisel a sharper point with the rock. Try to bring back a few more rocks if you’re allowed a walk tomorrow. Except that without a gun…”

Mrs. Pollifax said reasonably, “But if we escape as far as the guardroom we can steal as many guns as we want.”

“Yes, and a knife, too, except we can’t leave the crutch until the last minute. It would take too long to make. We’re going to have to manage it somehow during the last hour we’re here, preferably after our spy has been rendered unconscious.”

“And he’s so pleasant, I like him,” mourned Mrs. Pollifax. “You will hit him gently, won’t you?”

“Gently, yes, but very thoroughly.”

“When should we—that is, what hour tomorrow should we plan on?” asked Mrs. Pollifax timidly. “It will have to be a time when someone unlocks the cell and comes in, Lulash with a tray or whoever’s on duty. We hit him over the head, too, I suppose?”

“Everybody. Major Vassovic, too—somehow.”

“I could scream or do something like that to bring him in,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax, getting into the spirit of the thing, “About six o’clock, do you think? “Farrell shook his head. “Dinnertime’s too early. Too light outside. We don’t know how many people are left in the other building, the big one. They might see us stumbling around on the rocks.”

Mrs. Pollifax said anxiously, “But if we wait until later, when they bring in the candle, that might be too late. General Perdido may have returned, and I’m sure he’ll want to see us right away.”

Farrell said firmly, “I’ll think of something. I’m better now, trust me. Just don’t worry.”

“Not worry,” echoed Mrs. Pollifax, and at once felt a trembling begin deep down inside her and run along her nerves until she began to shiver uncontrollably. Really this was madness, she realized—absolute madness, none of it could be real, neither Albania nor Farrell nor General Perdido nor this ridiculous cell in which she had been placed as a prisoner—and tomorrow evening they were going to try to escape with two rocks and a Christmas tree turned into a crutch. It was the final touch of madness.

The spasm passed, and Mrs. Pollifax regained her poise and was relieved to see that Farrell had not noticed her moment of weakness. He was staring at their pathetic heap of treasures and saying, “Not bad, really, not bad at all. Their letting you out for walks, and these rocks you picked up, are the two real miracles allowed us. Nobody can ask for more than two miracles, the rest is up to us.”

“I could ask for another,” said Mrs. Pollifax tartly.

He grinned. “Then go ahead, maybe you have more influence than I. But don’t turn gloomy on me suddenly. Thanks to that map you spotted in Lulash’s book we know fairly well where we are—”

“We think,” added Mrs. Pollifax warningly.

“And thanks to your ingeniousness we have weapons, a bit primitive but no less effective.”

“Yes, but if only we had a knife!”

Farrell said flippantly, “Maybe someone will start throwing knives at that party of yours and you can deftly catch one between your teeth and hide it in your pocket.”

Unfortunately there was not a knife to be seen at the party. There were forks—Mrs. Pollifax at once secreted two of them—and various-sized spoons, but no knives, not even dull ones. Mrs. Pollifax might have become despondent again if it were not for the raki that Lulash had filched from the wine cellar in the larger building. He and Major Vassovic had obviously begun sampling it already. “Join us,” said Lulash with shining eyes.

“I believe I will,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and startled them by emptying her glass. “It is extremely sweet of you to have a party for me,” she told him with feeling.

“Have an olive,” said Lulash, embarrassed. “Have more raki.”

“But you have no knives,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

“Why do you need a knife?”

“I always eat olives with a knife,” Mrs. Pollifax told him hopefully. “A sharp knife.”

“Americans do this?”

“Always.”

Major Vassovic shook his head. “We have no knives. Try a fork.”

Mrs. Pollifax philosophically accepted a second glass of raki instead, and was sipping it when Colonel Nexdhet arrived bearing a dish of cheese and what looked like a zither. Mrs. Pollifax’s reaction to his arrival was ambivalent: she felt extremely wary of him and yet as a human being she liked him.

“General Hoong will be coming too,” said the colonel. “It seems that he enjoys parties.”

“Then I will sing before he comes,” said Lulash, and promptly sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. “Please,” he told Mrs. Pollifax, gesturing her toward the desk chair. The colonel plucked a few strings of his peculiar-looking instrument and Lulash began to sing a song filled with weird half notes and pauses.

How beautiful is the month of May

When we go with the flocks to the mountains!

On   the  mountains   we  heard   the   voice   of  the   wind.

Do you remember how happy we were?

In  the  month  of May,   through   the   blossoming  trees, The sound of song is abroad on the mountains. The song of the nightingale, ge re ge re ge re. Do you remember how happy we were?

I would 1 had died in that month of May

When you leaned on my breast and kissed me, saying,“/ do not wish to live without you.” Do you remember how happy we were?

1 wish again the month of May That again we might be on the mountains, That again we might hear the mountain voices. Have you forgotten those days of beauty?

There was a long silence when he had finished. With his head still bowed Lulash said sadly, “There was a Russian engineer in Tirana, she once said to me those same words. Where is she now?”

Why was it, wondered Mrs. Pollifax crossly, that love songs everywhere had to be so terribly sad? Major Vassovic was noisily blowing his nose and Mrs. Pollifax realized that something was needed to cut the treacly sentiment that was submerging them. She herself did not feel sad; on the contrary the ruki had left her lightheaded and a little belligerent. She turned to Colonel Nexdhet and said with unsteady dignity, “Colonel Nexdhet, I have been thinking about your country and I have decided it was immoral of you to give it to China.”

Lulash looked appalled. “He gave us to China?”

The colonel said firmly, “Not personally, Private Lulash.”

“Then who did? That’s what I’d like to know, who did give us to China?”

The colonel shrugged. “Russia moved out, China moved in.”

Major Vassovic looked up and said piously, “We needed and wanted China to help us. We gave ourselves to her gratefully, willingly.”

Lulash looked insulted. “I didn’t have anything to say about it, Major—did you? What this country needs is a George, a George …” He turned to Mrs. Pollifax. “Whoever he was you told me about.”

”Washington.”

“Tha’s right, George Washington. And let me tell you something else, Colonel, if anybody was to ask me who to give this country to, I’d say, give it to Mrs. Pollifax.”

“Why, thank you, Lulash,” she said warmly.

Colonel Nexdhet said mildly, “Lulash, you have had too much raki.”

“I? Too much? It is a lie. I will sing to you another song.”

“Yes, please do,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “An old song,” announced Lulash defiantly. “Full of old heroes who belong to Albanians and nobody else. I will dedicate it to—”

The door opened and General Hoong entered in full dress uniform, medals pinned to his chest, a pistol strapped to his belt.

‘To democracy!” shouted Lulash, standing and emptying his glass of raki.

General Hoong looked around him and focused at last upon Lulash. He said distastefully, “Private Lulash, you are drunk.” To Mrs. Pollifax he bowed and said, “I have come to your party. I have brought for it a bottle of vodka.”

Mrs. Pollifax said eagerly, “Did you bring a knife with you to open the bottle?”

“A knife? No, a corkscrew,” said the general reprovingly. “Vassovic, open the vodka.”

“At once, General,” cried Major Vassovic.

General Hoong removed the pistol from his side, held it at arm’s length and fired six shots into the ceiling. “The party may begin now,” he announced. Seating himself next to Mrs. Pollifax he said, “I like noise with a party.”

“Yes, it is so convivial,” she admitted, her eyes on the pistol which rested upon his knee. “What an interesting-looking gun, General,” she said.

“Since it is empty you may look at it,” he said condescendingly. “It is a Japanese pistol, called a Nambu.”

“How very odd,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, and held it to the light admiringly. When she had finished admiring it she placed it carefully on the top of the desk between them.

“Some vodka?” suggested General Hoong.

“Oh, a very little,” she said, and as he leaned forward she neatly slid the Nambu into her pocket.

“I sing my next song,” cried Lulash, and reaching over to pluck the strings of the instrument on Nexdhet’s lap he began chanting loudly,

Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! Ahmet, the son of the Mountain Eagle …

From the stricken look on Major Vassovic’s face Mrs. Pollifax at once deduced that this was a subversive song. She moved closer to General Hoong and said, “It really is so very kind of you to join us. Very considerate.”

His empty eyes turned to look at her. “A general is always alone,” he said.

“But soon General Perdido will be back and you can be alone together.”

He said fastidiously, “Perdido is a barbarian.”

Mrs. Pollifax thought about this and nodded, “Yes, he is.”

General Hoong sighed. “I am not the happiest of men.”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Pollifax told him with sincerity. “I can quite understand why, of course. You live a very isolated life up here. Have you hobbies?”

“I have a mistress.”

Mrs. Pollifax considered this frank statement and gamely nodded. “Yes, that would help to pass the time.”

“And I write poetry.”

“Do you really! I wish that I might hear some.”

“My most recent one I have committed to memory. I will recite it for you.”

“Please do,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and wished that Lulash would end his interminable song about Ahmet Bey.

Closing his eyes General Hoong recited in a sonorous voice:

Pale moon torn by white clouds: Spool of purest light. Enchanted. Timeless. Without heart, lacking grief. 1 gaze, and wish my soul Lacked heart and bore no grief.

“But that is charming,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“I had no idea you were so sensitive, General Hoong. I had no idea you suffered so. You seem so—so impervious to the demands of. your job.”

“I suffer,” he announced firmly.

“Then you really must find another job,” she urged him sympathetically. “You certainly must be qualified for some work where you don’t have to shoot people, or beat them, or torture them to death.”

“Job?” he said, frowning. “Job?” He sighed and drained his glass of vodka. “There is nothing wrong with my job. It is my mistress who causes me torment.” He stopped talking and began staring broodingly into space.

Lulash had reached the end of his song. He said to Mrs. Pollifax, “Now you must take a turn and sing to us a song of your country.”

“I?” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes, yes, for it must be a beautiful country, a country of justice,” cried Lulash exuberantly. “Maybe one day Albania too will be like that, let us all drink a toast to that hope.”

Major Vassovic gently belched. “Shplcndid idea.” He lifted his glass.

Colonel Nexdhet was smiling mockingly. “Well, Mrs. Pollifax?”

Mrs. Pollifax accepted the challenge, arose and bowed to General Hoong. “We have your permission to drink Lulash’s toast, General Hoong?”

General Hoong roused a little from his reverie. “What? Oh yes, I like noise with a party.”

“To the United States of America,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a ringing voice. Remaining on her feet, however unsteadily, she sang one chorus of “God Bless America.” It was on this note, carrying with her the general’s Nambu pistol but still lacking a knife, that Mrs. Pollifax withdrew from the party, pleading weariness.

“I tried,” said Mrs. Pollifax, sitting on the edge of her cot and staring sadly at Farrell. “I tried to steal a knife, but all I could bring back was the pistol.”

Farrell was still admiring it. “At this moment, Duchess, the odds against our escaping have just shrunken by about five hundred.”

“But it isn’t a knife,” she pointed out. “It’s true that you could blow the top of the tree off with a pistol but you can’t make a crutch with a pistol.”

“Nevertheless, you can’t imagine how much more secure I feel,” said Farrell. “Get me the cartridges and I’ll load it.” She gave him the two Nambu clips and he grinned. “You’re turning into quite a scavenger, you know. How was the party?”

“Quite dismal, really. Except for Lulash.” Mrs. Pollifax smiled reminiscently. “Lulash would like a George Washington for Albania.”

“You haven’t been planting seeds of insurrection, have you, Duchess?”

“Well, it’s a change from planting geraniums,” she retorted.

He finished loading the pistol, patted it lovingly and slipped it beneath his mattress. “I strongly advise getting some sleep now, considering what’s ahead of us.”

The effects of the raki were wearing off, leaving Mrs. Pollifax  depressed.  “Sleep?” she said resentfully.  “Why?”

“Because if we’re going to be shot tomorrow trying to escape I’d much prefer dying with someone who can say something jaunty, like ‘I regret that I have only one life to give for my country,’ or—”

“Jaunty!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax, but she was smiling. “That’s all very well but I didn’t bring Bartlett’s Quotations with me, you know.”

“A pity. Do come up with something magnificent, though, will you? Surprise me,” he suggested with mischief in his eyes.

At that moment Colonel Nexdhet walked in, but Mrs. Pollifax’s sense of humor had returned—Farrell had seen to this—and she realized that she could face the next day, if not with equanimity, at least with a philosophic stoicism. Then she realized that Farrell was pointedly staring at her and she raised her eyebrows questioningly. Slowly and deliberately his glance moved to Nexdhet, who was removing his jacket in preparation for a night’s sleep. Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes followed and abruptly widened. Colonel Nexdhet was wearing a knife strapped to a sheath on his belt.

“Our third miracle,” said Farrell quietly.

Mrs. Pollifax could scarcely believe it, but being of a practical mind she at once said, “You or me?”

Farrell gestured ruefully toward his leg. “You, I’m afraid.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. She put away her table, yawned elaborately, scratched her leg—lice, obviously—and lay down. “Good night. Colonel Nexdhet,” she said sweetly. “It was a lovely party, wasn’t it?”

“Oh?” He looked surprised. “Oh yes, good night.” He nodded curtly to Farrell and stretched himself full length on his cot. It really was a pity, thought Mrs. Pollifax, that he had to continue sleeping in the cell with them; at his age he must long for clean pajamas, a comfortable mattress and a private room. Then she remembered that at least he had bathroom privileges, and this cut short her pity and she lay on her side with her eyes fixed upon the knife and tried, through the gloom, to figure just how it was affixed to his belt.

Farrell began to snore gently—she did not believe for a moment that he was sleeping—and Nexdhet began to snore loudly. There were no sounds from the hall or the guardroom. Mrs. Pollifax slowly sat up, the mattress producing even more ominous rustlings than usual, which only substantiated her suspicion that it was filled with corn husks. Once in a sitting position she remained so for a few minutes to make certain the snores continued. She stood up and waited again before moving slowly toward Nexdhet’s cot. She was nearly there when she was attacked by an almost irrepressible urge to giggle; she had just remembered that when she was a child she had been given a part in a school play where she had to glide like a wraith. After it had been explained to her just what a wraith was the result had been this same gliding, tight-hipped movement. Firmly she controlled herself and leaned over Nexdhet. Neither his breathing nor his snores changed. Her hands moved to his belt and she fumbled with the strap on the sheath, gently drawing it up and out. When this had been accomplished she sank to one knee, and with one hand steadying the bottom of the sheath she placed the other on the handle of the knife and pulled. The knife came out easily. Still Nexdhet had not stirred, and after a moment’s hesitation Mrs. Pollifax glided, still wraithlike, to Farrell’s cot.

He was still snoring softly but his left hand reached out, open-palmed, to accept the knife that she placed in it; then he turned on his side, his back to her, and Mrs. Pollifax knew he was hiding it under his mattress. She returned to her own cot and sank upon it with relief, corn husks and all. Two minutes later she was asleep.

Sixteen

In the morning when Mrs. Pollifax awoke she realized at once that a fateful day was beginning. She lay and thought about this dispassionately, almost wonderingly, because to every life there eventually came a moment when ore had to accept the fact that the shape, the pattern, the direction of the future was entirely out of one’s hands, to be decided unalterably by chance, by fate or by God. There was nothing to do but accept, and from this to proceed, doing the very best that  could be  done.  Without  knowing  the  end,   reflected Mrs. Pollifax; like being wheeled into an operating room and wondering if one would ever see this or any other ceiling again. Twenty-four hours from now would she and Farrell be staring at these same stone walls, or would they be free, or would they even have survived to see that next day?

Farrell was sleeping soundly. She momentarily begrudged him such discipline until she remembered that he did his exercising at night. Colonel Nexdhet was sleeping too, and suddenly she remembered the knife she had taken from him and was afraid. He would wake up soon and find it gone and know at once that she or Farrell had taken it—who else could have stolen it from him while he was asleep in a locked cell? She wondered why on earth they hadn’t thought of this last night. They had so badly wanted a knife and Nexdhet had walked in wearing a knife and it had seemed like their third miracle.

“When actually it may prove our undoing,” she thought

As if he had felt her thoughts Nexdhet sat up and yawned and rubbed his eyes. Meeting her gaze he nodded, and one hand went to his sweeping white moustache to smooth it. Mrs. Pollifax fought to keep her eyes from dropping to the empty knife sheath; she prayed that Colonel Nexdhet’s talents did not include mind reading. Nexdhet’s second move was to stand up and stretch, and then his hand went out to his jacket at the foot of the bed. While Mrs. Pollifax watched with alarm he lifted the jacket, patted one pocket and shrugged his arms into the sleeves. At least he had not seen the empty sheath, she thought wildly, and waited next for him to feel for the knife’s presence. But he didn’t. He leaned over and began tying his shoes.

Farrell sat upright. He, too, glanced quickly at Colonel Nexdhet and then anxiously at Mrs. Pollifax, who shook her head. At the same moment steps echoed in the hall, keys rattled, the door opened and the guard named Stefan walked in carrying breakfast trays. Nexdhet spoke curtly to him in Albanian, and then walked out.

“Bathroom privileges,” muttered Farrell darkly.

“You don’t suppose there’s a bathtub on the premises?” asked Mrs. Pollifax breathlessly.

“A shower maybe.”

Mrs. Pollifax closed her eyes and thought yearningly of hot water coursing down her body and taking with it the accumulation of dirt and dust, and then, most voluptuous of all, the feeling of being clean again and not itching. life was incredibly simple when stripped to its essentials, she reflected, and for a moment her thoughts lingered on luxuries taken for granted during a long life. Except it was not really a long life, she amended, certainly not if it was to end today, and she began to feel quite angry with these people for wanting to kill her. “After all, it’s my life, not theirs,” she thought peevishly, “and all I did was …”

All she had done, she added more reasonably, and with a faint wry smile, was to walk into CIA headquarters and offer her services as a spy. This made her at once feel better, since it was obviously a spy they would wish to kill rather than Emily Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Somehow this knowledge made it less personal; women were always so sensitive to snubs.

Stefan backed out, leaving the trays. Farrell whispered, “He doesn’t know it’s missing?”

“No, not yet. And now that he’s out of here he can’t blame it on us.”

“Hooray for our side.” Farrell stood up, wobbled dangerously but waved her away. “Let me show you what I did last night while you were sleeping.” He half crawled, half limped to the tree that leaned so idiotically against the wall. Grasping it at the top he neatly removed the last twelve inches like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.

“Why, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Pollifax said in pleased surprise.

“I hollowed one end and sharpened the other so the two pieces fit into each other. It’s a beginning, anyway, and just the right height now to fit under my arm. Later we’ll rip and cut the branches off. Think you can collect some padding?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “There’s a very nice hole in my mattress. Not nice for sleeping but nice for taking out what’s inside. Did you know we’ve been sleeping on horsehair? It may be why I itch.” She was already extracting it from the mattress and making a bundle to fit the top of his crutch-stick.

“What will you wrap it in?”

“My petticoat—and therein lies a tale.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pins,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “I never was good at sewing and both straps are pinned together.”

“I bless your sloppiness,” said Farrell reverently.

“If you’re going to call me sloppy I refuse to lend them to you,” she told him indignantly.

“All right then, your charming lack of housewifery.”

Much better. Now if you’ll turn your head I’ll remove my petticoat.”

“My head is turned. Better give me the stuff to work with, though, you may be summoned for your walk at any time.”

“You can turn around now,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and she presented him with slip, pins and horsehair, whereupon they both sat down to eat their breakfast, the bread and cheese disappearing automatically into Mrs. Pollifax’s handbag, leaving them only a thin porridge with which to begin their day. What was most nourishing, however—to Mrs. Pollifax at least—was the realization that this was the day they were going to do something about their fate. They were going to act. Her fears had evaporated now. She had faced them, made her obeisance to them and now she could dismiss them. Anything was preferable to submission, and now she began to feel almost reckless at the thought of their attempt at freedom. She cleared her throat. “You still feel we should wait for dark?”

“From what I remember of the terrain it struck me that anything else would be suicidal.”

Mrs. Pollifax put down her spoon and nodded. “Quite true. But in which direction should we head? Right away, I mean. They’ll expect us to leave the way we came, won’t they?”

“Yes, but can you think of anything better?” asked Farrell, and there was irony in his voice.

Mrs. Pollifax concentrated firmly on prospects she had entertained only lightly before, and she began to understand his irony. It would be very clever of them to head east, away from the sea, and throw General Perdido off the scent for a while, but eventually they would have to double back, either this way or through the valley, and in the end they would only have added extra miles to their journey. Farrell could never endure this. In fact it was doubtful whether he had the stamina to go anywhere at all, but the thought of leaving him behind was untenable; they had to try together or not at all. Then there was the mountain behind them, and the forest in which they could hide, but here, too, Farrell’s condition prevented them from going far and General Perdido would be very aware of this.

She said sadly, “No, I can’t think of anything better.”

“So all we need is darkness and a great deal of luck.” He smiled at her. “It’s not too late to change your mind, you know—about including me in this wild venture, I mean. I would feel a great deal of relief if you left me behind.”

“Absolutely not,” said Mrs. Pollifax flatly. “If I made it alone, which I doubt, I would only be extremely unhappy when I got there, which would defeat the whole purpose.” She rose to her feet as the door swung open and Lulash walked in. “Good morning, Lulash, I may go outside now?”

“Yes, Zoje Pollifax. It was a good party last night, was it not?”

“Every minute of it,” she told him with more cheerfulness than she possessed. “And you’re looking very well in spite of so much raki.”

“You make all of us feel like human beings again, Mrs. Pollifax.”

From his cot Farrell said, “Beware, Lulash, that is a very bad way to feel in a place like this.”

There was no one to guard her this morning, and it occurred to Mrs. Pollifax that she might try to find the missile site again and observe more closely how it fitted into the cliff. In some ways it made her uneasy to be given such freedom; it was pleasant to be considered harmless, but it also proved how secure her captors felt. She wondered whether she or her captors were the more naive, but unfortunately this would not be discovered until the escape had been committed. Life had never looked better than when death was imminent, and Mrs. Pollifax found herself looking long and ardently at earth, sky and clouds.

She cut across the seam in the rocks and climbed doggedly toward the slanting pines in the wood. Once she had reached the trees she stopped to recapture both her breath and her sense of direction; she and the colonel had entered the woods at this point, and gradually made their way downhill to meet the cliff again a half mile beyond; she would therefore follow the course that Colonel Nexdhet had set. Patting her moist temples with her handkerchief Mrs. Pollifax resumed her walk. She had moved only a few hundred yards deeper into the trees when she began hearing a very peculiar noise ahead. It was a familiar sound, but not customarily heard in a forest, so that she could not for the life of her identify its source. The feverish crackling sound came from between two large boulders that leaned toward each other up ahead.

Deeply curious, Mrs. Pollifax hesitated and then tiptoed across the fallen pine needles to the rocks. At once a voice broke the stillness of the woods but the crackling sounds continued without interruption.

“Static!” thought Mrs. Pollifax, brightening. Of course, it was static and someone had carried a radio here into the woods.

The canned voice stopped speaking, and to Mrs. Pollifax’s amazement a live voice began talking from behind the rock. Mrs. Pollifax poked her head between the two rocks and stared through the gloom at the man seated on the ground facing her in the small cavity there. “Why, Colonel Nexdhet!” she faltered. He was speaking into a telephone—no, a walkie-talkie, she recalled—and at the sound of her voice he dropped the mechanism as if it were a live coal.

“Mrs. Pollifax!” There was no doubt but that she was interrupting something clandestine; his eyes were blazing. He picked up the fallen walkie-talkie, spoke a stream of foreign words into it, and then placed the instrument in a hole of the rock.

“What are you doing here? Why are you allowed in the woods this morning?” he barked, crawling from the hole and standing beside her.

She said scornfully, “So this is how you report to General Perdido! And if you come out here to do it secretly then you must inform not only on Mr. Farrell and myself but on General Hoong as well. You’re nothing but a paid informer, Colonel Nexdhet! Shame.”

He glanced back once among the rocks and then firmly grasped Mrs. Pollifax by the arm. “I will take you back to your cell,” he said firmly.

“I trust you told General Perdido that Mr. Farrell is in glowing health, and can scarcely wait to see the general again? And that a party took place last night, with subversive songs being sung under the influence of raki? You quite disillusion me, Colonel Nexdhet!”

He remained silent, his mouth in a grim line. They reached the edge of the wood and emerged into the blinding sunshine. He helped her over the stones toward the two buildings, his hand tight on her arm. Both Lulash and Major Vassovic were in the guardroom but he did not so much as look at them. He marched Mrs. Pollifax straight to her cell, closed the door behind her and turned the key in the lock. She heard him issuing curt orders in the guardroom.

“He sounds peeved about something,” said Farrell pleasantly.

Mrs. Pollifax said indignantly, “  “Colonel Nexdhet is nothing more than a paid informer. A spy on his own men. An informer on everyone.”

Farrell said mildly, “What on earth makes you say that?”

“Never mind, just beware of him. He’s not to be trusted.”

She added in a kinder voice, “I’ll tell you about it when we

get out of here—if ever we do. Just remember he’s not to be trusted.”

“But I never did trust him,” pointed out Farrell logically. “He’s a colonel in their secret police, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax forlornly. She sat down on her cot and stared into the long, desolate and nerve-racking day that lay ahead of them and she wanted to cry. Instead she brought out her deck of playing cards and shuffled them.

At noon it was not Lulash who brought lunch to them but the guard who did not speak English, and when he left he carefully locked the door behind him. Nor did anyone else come. The afternoon wore on, hour by hour. Mrs. Pollifax played every game of solitaire that she had learned, and then played each one again, and then chose her favorites and played them until she was tired to death of cards. She reflected that Senor DeGamez could certainly not have foreseen the conditions under which she would play his cherished game, and remembering his kindness she thought of him for a moment. He had been a spy too; perhaps he had played his games of solitaire under precisely such conditions. She did hope he was in good health because obviously Mr. Carstaira’ friends proved very poor insurance risks.

The dinner trays arrived, and with them Colonel Nexdhet. “Good evening,” he said in a pleasant voice, as if nothing unusual had happened. “We are getting ready for General Per-dido’s return, he arrives by plane about half-past eight and should be with us by nine or half past.”

“That’s interesting,” said Mrs. Pollifax politely. It would be quite dark by then—good! “What time is it now, Colonel Nexdhet?”

“Half-past six.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I always thought we ate at five although I never really knew. Is it really so late?”

He said primly, “Usually the trays are brought to you by five, yes. We are late tonight because we are understaffed. General Hoong and Lulash have gone to meet General Perdido, leaving only myself, Major Vassovic and Stefan here, and two guards in the other building.”

Mrs. Pollifax met Farrell’s glance; the colonel was a veritable mine of information.

Nexdhet added casually, “And when you have completed the crutch you are making—and I advise you to finish it at once—I would appreciate your returning my knife to me. I am very fond of it and would prefer that you not take it with you.”

They stared at him incredulously—it was a full minute before his words were absorbed. Mrs. Pollifax gasped, “I beg your pardon?”

“You know?” said Farrell in a stunned voice.

“Of course.”

“But how?”

Colonel Nexdhet shrugged. “It is my business to know.”

Mrs. Pollifax was staring at him in astonishment. “You know and yet you’re not going to give  us away?”

“Give you away?” He frowned. “Like a bride?”

Farrell was studying the man intently. “She means you’re not going to inform on us, you’re not going to prevent us from this absolutely wild escape idea?”

“But how can I?” he inquired blandly. “I know nothing of such plans. And if I did I am quite weaponless, as you see, whereas you have my knife as well as a loaded Nambu pistol.”

“You know that, too?” gasped Farrell.

Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes narrowed. She took a deep breath. “Colonel Nexdhet,” she said, “just what were you doing in the woods this morning?”

“I am extremely sorry you saw that, Mrs. Pollifax, it would have been much safer for all of us if you had not.”

Farrell said, “What did you see in the woods this morning, Duchess?”

“I don’t know,” she faltered, watching the colonel. “That is, I must have leaped to the wrong conclusion. I thought —he was in the woods listening to a voice on the radio, and then he talked back into the radio. He was very upset when I saw him, he escorted me back here and locked the cell.”

“He was in the woods—secretly?”

She nodded. “Hidden under two rocks.”

Farrell drew in his breath sharply. “Over these mountains lies Yugoslavia, and to the east is Bulgaria; they’re both within reach of radio.” Farrell stared at Nexdhet and suddenly began laughing. “My God,” he gasped, “you’re a Russian agent!”

“He’s a what?” echoed Mrs. Pollifax in a shocked voice.

“Of course! They left him behind to report on the Red Chinese!”

Colonel Nexdhet walked to the door, placed his ear against it and listened. “No one is there,” he said, coming back, “but would you do me the kindness to speak in a lower voice?”

“My apologies,” said Farrell, his eyes still brimming with laughter. “Don’t you see, Duchess? He’s the only one here who goes for walks. Bird-watching, you said. He has radio contact with someone across the mountains.” To Nexdhet he said, “But why help us?”

Nexdhet sighed. “I strongly dislike the word help. I am not helping you.”

“All right, you’re not helping us.”

Mrs. Pollifax suddenly blurted out, “But you have been helping, Colonel Nexdhet! That knife—you deliberately wore that knife in here last night, you’ve never worn one before. And you showed up wearing it just after we’d been talking about how badly we needed one!”

The colonel winced. “Please, Mrs. Pollifax …”

“And it was you who told us General Perdido was coming on Thursday night, we’d never have known, otherwise.”

“Duchess,” said Farrell firmly, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He has told us he is not helping us.”

“And a Russian agent shouldn’t be helping us,” she added indignantly. “Why?”

“Yes, why?” asked Farrell. “Considering all we know about you already—”

The colonel sighed. “Far too much, I agree. Very well, I will say this much.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “You were brought to Albania because you are suspected of knowing the whereabouts of a missing report— well-documented—of Communist activities in Latin America.”

“Oh?” said Mrs. Pollifax with interest.

“Red China is extremely interested in seizing that report. Red China will do anything to prevent the United States from learning how heavily involved it has become in Latin America. Red China has still another interest in that report: she would like to learn what Russia is up to in Latin America.”

“Ah,” said Farrell.

”Russia in turn would enjoy knowing what Red China is secretly doing in Latin America.”

“Mmmm,” murmured Farrell.

“But if there is a choice between Red China reading that report, or the United States reading that report, Russia would infinitely prefer the United States to have it.”

Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, “But you are both Communist countries!”

Colonel Nexdhet’s voice was dry. “You bring up a subject that is—uh—very tender, Mrs. Pollifax, and one that I could wish we not explore. Let us simply say that between Red China and Russia there are certain conflicts. On the part of Russia,  a  certain   amount  of  alarm,  certain  suspicions—”

”Russia is more afraid of Red China than of Americal” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“In some areas, yes. There is something called the balance of power that must be preserved at all costs.”

Farrell nodded. “This I understand, yes. But what guarantee have we that Russians aren’t waiting somewhere to recapture us and throw us into a Russian prison?”

Nexdhet shrugged. “There are no guarantees at all, Mr. Farrell.”

Farrell considered for a long moment. “I’m afraid we’ll have to trust him,” he told Mrs. Pollifax.

She smiled. “Should we trust you, Colonel? You have repeatedly advised me to trust no one here.”

His answering smile was grave. “Nor should you even now, Mrs. Pollifax, for you must remember that I will be in the party that hunts you down after your escape.”

Mrs. Pollifax thought about this and nodded. “Then could you do one more thing for us—shoot to kill?”

He said simply, “If you are caught I could not afford to let you survive.”

“Thank you, that is all we can hope for.”

Nexdhet stood up. “I help you no further. In return I ask only that when you hit me with your rock you do not hit me here.” He pointed to the back of his skull. “I have already a small steel plate here from an old wound.”

“Better than that we will only gag you,” promised Farrell, taking out the knife and beginning to slash branches from the tree.

“With the male handkerchief?”

Farrell grinned. “No secrets at all. You have your own microphone in here?”

“Hidden in my cot, yes. You need not worry, however, I destroyed the tapes this afternoon.”

But Mrs. Pollifax’s mind was still fixed upon Colonel Nexdhet and she suddenly burst out again. “There’s the missile site, too!” She turned to Farrell. “I didn’t tell you about that because you still had a fever and might have babbled in your sleep, but the colonel took me for a walk a few days ago, a walk that just happened to include a missile site.” To the colonel she said, “You wanted me to see it!”

“See what?” exploded Farrell.

She nodded. “The Red Chinese are building a missile site only a mile away from here.”

“Good God,” gasped Farrell.

Nexdhet looked apologetic. “A small detail, but a vital one lest your country underestimate Red China.” He smiled wryly. “Russia no longer underestimates Red China.”

“You’ve known our plans that long then?” asked Farrell.

Nexdhet smiled. “I had no interest in your possibilities at all when I first met you. A badly wounded man, a woman no longer young—I thought your escape plans hopelessly naive, as they still are. It was after observing Mrs. Pollifax remove the bullet from your arm that I decided to do what I could for you. You were worth the risk.” Turning to Mrs. Pollifax he said with a smile. “Wherever there is violence there is absurdity, also. And now is there anything else you would like to mention as reminder to me of how dangerous you both are becoming? Certainly it will be to my benefit to see that neither of you is ever questioned by Perdido.”

Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. “I can’t think of anything else, except…” She frowned. “I am wondering if it is quite ethical to let you help us. It feels terribly unpatriotic.”

Farrell grinned. “World politics make strange bedfellows, Duchess. Do try to manage a small sense of expediency, will you?”

“If you think it’s proper,” she said doubtfully. Her eyes fell on the window slit and she jumped to her feet. “It’s already twilight,” she told Farrell in a shocked voice, and was suddenly struck by the meagerness of their preparations. “Is the crutch finished?”

“I’m just padding it,” he told her, and stood up and tested it “Not bad.”

Mrs. PolUfax opened her purse and brought out the rocks and the gag. She collected the Beretta gun cartridges, the map and the compass from their various hiding places and added the cheese from tonight’s dinner. She was contemplating them with a frown when Farrell said quietly, “Psst, they’re coming for the empty trays, I think.”

The trays… . She wondered what time it was, and at what hour the candle would be brought. To conceal the rocks she sat down on top of them just as Major Vassovic walked in rattling his keys. “Evening,” he said.

Nexdhet grunted; he had brought out a newspaper in which to bury his head. Farrell nodded; he had hidden his crutch under the bed but the tree’s absence was conspicuous, and Mrs. Pollifax decided she must divert the major’s attention. “How is your back?” she asked, and then saw the candle he was carrying and her eyes widened. “But you’re not—not going to light our cell so early?” she faltered.

“Busy tonight,” said Major Vassovic, and struck the candle in its round metal ring. “No time for it later.”

Farrell looked up, appalled, while Nexdhet put down his paper and regarded Mrs. Pollifax with a sardonic, challenging amusement. Mrs. Pollifax realized with a sinking heart that she was sitting on the rocks that were to knock their guard unconscious; the moment had come and neither of them was prepared. A fretful anger rose in her over changed plans, broken routines, unpredictable guards. It wasn’t dark yet. The candle had never before been brought in so early. It could not be more that eight o’clock but the cell door would not be opened again unless to admit General Perdido, and she was sitting here like a brood hen on the rocks that Farrell ought to have if he was to hit Major Vassovic over the head.

“Farrell has to do it,” she reminded herself. “He’s the only one who knows how.” But Farrell was across the room and without the rocks.

“I can’t,” she told herself fiercely—what on earth would the Garden Club think of her, or the pastor of her church?

Major Vassovic was bringing a match from his shirt pocket, his back turned to the room. In a moment he would strike that match against the wall, light the candle and then turn around. “I can’t,” she repeated to herself stubbornly.

He struck the match against the wall and Mrs. Pollifax watched it flame into life. “I’ve never hit anybody in my life,” she remembered. “Never,” she repeated. “Never never never.”

Quietly, rock in hand, Mrs. Pollifax rose from her cot, walked up to Major Vassovic and hit him on the head. To her utter astonishment he collapsed at once, falling to the ground to lie there like a suit of old clothes. “For heaven’s sake,” she said, staring down at him in fascinated horror.

“Good girl,” said Farrell, and reaching under the cot for his crutch he hobbled over to look at the major. “Out like a light.”

“I do hope I didn’t hurt his back again,” said Mrs. Pollifax anxiously. “It was coming along so well.”

Nexdhet said politely, “Not at all, I’m sure. What next?”

Farrell plucked Vassovic’s huge, comic-opera keys from the floor and dropped them into Mrs. Pollifax’s purse. “What next?” he repeated. “We call the other one in—Stefan—and to spare the Duchess I’ll try my skill with the rock.”

“Oh?” said Mrs. Pollifax wistfully. “Actually it was rather interesting.”

“Then you’ll jolly well have to sublimate, I’ll be damned if I’m going to encourage you to hit men over the head. Here, help me arrange Major Vassovic in a more sprawling position. We’ll say he’s fainted. I do beg your pardon, Nexdhet,” he added with a smile. “Damn funny doing all this in front of you.”

“But he’s isn’t helping, he’s just overlooking,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded them both. “Now?” Farrell had taken a position behind the cell door, a rock in his good hand. When he nodded, Mrs. Pollifax gave a squeal, held her breath and followed this with a penetrating scream. “Guard! Guard!” She ran to the door and pounded on it.

Footsteps hurried down the hall and the unlocked cell door was pushed open. Stefan walked in and Farrell stepped forward and hit him. Stefan also sank into a heap. “You’re quite right, it is fun,” Farrell said.

“I’ll go out and look for rope to tie them with,” said Mrs. Polh’fax, and hurried up the hall to the guardroom. It was not until she arrived there that she realized it might not have been empty; she made a mental note to develop more cunning, and at once locked the outside door so that no new guards could surprise them. Rummaging through the desk drawers she found a few lengths of rope and carried them back to Farrell.

Nexdhet said, “I really think you had better tie me up now, too, before I am tempted to change my mind or before General Perdido walks in. It surprises me, how alarmed I am beginning to feel.”

“Frankly, I’m a little alarmed myself,” said Farrell with a grin. “It’s the Duchess who gives this such an amateur quality. Delightful but alarming. Lie down, chum.”

Nexdhet gratefully lay down and Farrell began linking him by rope to Major Vassovic and Stefan. “I’ll gag you but not hit you. You’ll have to play dead,” explained Farrell. “Are you a good actor?”

“No, but I’m known as a very good Sigurimi man.”

Farrell gave a bleat of a laugh. “Let’s hope it protects you then. And Nexdhet—thanks.”

The colonel smiled faintly. “Just spare me the trouble of shooting you, that’s all.”

The gag went into his mouth and Farrell knotted it securely. Over his shoulder he asked of Mrs. Pollifax, “Where are you off to now?”

“To look for a Beretta. And it’s nearly dark!” With this Mrs. Pollifax left again, this time with her purse, to return to the guardroom and strip it. With the major’s keys she found a Beretta pistol and a second Nambu, and she double-checked both to be perfectly sure that her stolen gun clips fitted. Then she decided to load up on cartridges for them and reached down to the drawer beneath. This time it did not budge to her fingers. The drawer that for a week had held a key in its lock was now firmly closed and not a one of the major’s keys fitted. “What a pity,” she murmured, and turned back to the hall.

But first she had something else to do, something that had occupied her thoughts quite tantalizingly from time to time. This was her curiosity about their next-door neighbor who had rapped upon the wall. Mrs. Pollifax tiptoed past her own cell and down the hall, not at all sure that Farrell would approve of this side excursion. She inserted keys into the lock and opened the door upon a dark closet of a room. She stood there uncertainly, peering inside.

From the farthest corner there came a rustling sound, and Mrs. Pollifax’s instincts told her that something was moving. Suddenly the darkness expelled a form, a wraith, a gray genie of a man in flowing gray robes who began a repeated bowing of his head as he chattered to her eagerly in a melodic, singsong voice.

Mrs. Pollifax interrupted him. “Not now, please. We are going to try to escape. Escape,” she told him. “Would you like to come along with us?”

He stopped speaking and regarded her with great interest. His face was surprisingly long and Gothic for an Oriental; the mouth was thin and turned up at the corners into a fixed, tweet smile; his eyes were large and bright and childlike, with only a faint suggestion of an Oriental pouch above the lids. Between the pursed lips and the twinkling eyes he looked— Well, not quite responsible, thought Mrs. Pollifax; rather like a happy child in the guise of a man, all twinkles, smiles and curiosity.

“Come,” she said, as if to a child, and pulled him by the ileeve. He followed without protest, his eyes lively and curious. When they reached the cell Mrs. Pollifax said in a voice whose confidence was spurious, “Look what I found.”

“Good heavens,” said Farrell, staring at the little man be-iide her. “Who on earth is this birdlike creature?”

‘The man next door. Colonel Nexdhet can tell us who he is, I’m sure.” They both glanced at the colonel and saw that he was straining at his gag and ropes. Farrell bent over and slipped the gag from his mouth.

“No,” said Nexdhet harshly. “No, I will not tell you who he is. No, you must not take him, absolutely not.”

“Take him!” Comprehension was dawning upon Farrell, leaving him inarticulate. “You can’t possibly—you’re not thinking—?”

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“But who is he? You don’t know a damn thing about him. For heaven’s sake, Duchess, he may be a Commie worse than General Perdido.”

“Then why would he be in jail?”

“Who knows? He may have seduced somebody’s mistress or tried to organize a coup d’etat. He’s Chinese, isn’t he? He had to be somebody to get here.”

“I refuse to listen to you,” Mrs. Pollifax said indignantly.

‘Trusting, always trusting,” pointed out Colonel Nexdhet from the floor. “Now you are crazy.”

Farrell’s lips thinned in exasperation. “There’s another point, Duchess. If he doesn’t speak English he doesn’t understand that we’re escaping. When he does realize it he’s likely to let out one long bloody yell at the wrong moment. He may not want to escape.”

“Nonsense, everybody wants to escape,” said Mrs. Pollifax scornfully.

“Have you explained the odds to him? He just may not want to end up in front of a firing squad,” pointed out FarrelL

“Defeatist.”

“Her conscience again,” Farrell explained wearily to Nexdhet.

“You must put him back in his cell at once,” warned Nexdhet. “And remember, I know who he is.”

“You won’t tell us?”

“Absolutely not.” On this matter Nexdhet sounded unequivocal.

Both regarded him thoughtfully until Farrell, rousing, said, “Oh, to hell with it, Duchess, this whole thing is insane, anyway. Bring him along, damn it, we haven’t all the time in the world.”

Mrs. Pollifax wordlessly handed him the two pistols and helped him tie the last knot and stuff the gag in the colonel’s mouth. “Okay, let’s go,” Farrell said crisply, and they moved out into the hall with Mrs. Pollifax hanging onto the sleeve of her genie. Carefully Farrell locked the door of the cell behind them and restored the keys to Mrs. Pollifax’s purse. “Get rid of them later,” he told her, and limped into the guardroom. “What do we call this—this lamentable mistake of yours?”

“Our Genie,” said Mrs. Pollifax at once. “He reminds me of the one in Aladdin. Smaller, of course.”

“Our Genie with the light-brown hair,” quipped Farrell and ignored her cross glance. Leaning on his crutch he unlocked and pulled open the door to the outside. “Only two lights shining in the big building,” he said. “Shall we go?”

With charming gallantry he held open the door for Mrs. Pollifax and her charge, and they walked past him into the sultry night air. “We’re outside, we’re free, we’re no longer prisoners,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, and she drew a long deep breath. She was in the process of expelling it when a voice to her right said unpleasantly, “Well, well, my three prisoners, and no guard in sight! It seems that I have returned from Peking just in time.”

General Perdido had come back.

Seventeen

“Back—into   the   guardroom!”   barked   General   Perdido, drawing the gun from his belt holster. “I’ll have Vassovic’s head for this. Lulash, see what they’ve done with Vassovic. At once.”

As the general shouted orders, his attention distracted for a second, Mrs. Pollifax lifted her arm and threw the cell keys far into the night. She thought somewhat hysterically, “I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I know not where,” and she tried not to wince as she heard the sound of metal against rock. But neither her gesture nor the noise appeared to have been noticed by anyone, and Mrs. Pollifax began to feel more confident. She could not have said exactly why her courage revived except that two such unusual occurrences really ought to have been noticed by the general, and somehow this proved that he was not superhuman. A man who barked and shouted and popped up out of the dark could easily acquire such a reputation, she reflected; but these particular keys to the cells he would not get, and if there were duplicate keys they would require time to find.

And so, quite ignominiously, they were back in the guardroom, the three of them standing like naughty children before the desk at which the general had seated himself. Desperately Mrs. Pollifax tried to think: the electricity was primitive— only one line, the major had told her; it would be marvelous if she could hurl herself at the one power line and plunge the building into darkness. Unfortunately she was again without a knife, and totally without knowledge of power lines.

“What fools you are,” hissed the general. “I would never have believed it of you. I will take great delight, Mr. Farrell, in punishing you for this. As for you, Mrs. Pollifax—yes, what is it, Lulash?”

Lulash appeared in the hall, his eyes anxious as they encountered Mrs. Pollifax’s glance. “I can’t get in,” he said. “The doors to the cells are locked.”

The general muttered an oath and irritably opened one desk drawer after another. “They’re not here, one of these three must have them. Search them!”

Mrs. Pollifax’s heart sank, because a search of their persons would reveal two pistols. She said defiantly, “I was carrying the keys, but I threw them away. Outside, in the dark.”

The general stood up and walked around the desk to Mrs. Pollifax. He slowly lifted one arm and with precision struck her across the cheekbone.

Lulash looked stricken. Farrell cried angrily, “Hey!”

Mrs. Pollifax, reeling and a little faint, heard the general promise that this was only the beginning of what lay in store for them. The Genie spoke then, too, his eyes darting with interest from Mrs. Pollifax to the general. The general answered him in fluent Chinese, the Genie appeared satisfied and nodded.

“Go ahead, Private Lulash—search them,” said General Perdido harshly.

Lulash exchanged a long glance with Mrs. Pollifax, but she could not tell whether she read apology or a plea in that glance. He moved carefully to Farrell and stood before him. “Turn to the wall, please, and place your hands against the wall.”

It took a second before Mrs. Pollifax realized that Lulash stood squarely in front of Farrell, concealing him from General Perdido as well as protecting him from the general’s gun. There was a curious smile on Lulash’s lips as he looked into Farrell’s eyes. “Faster,” he said, “or I will shoot you.”

Farrell understood. One hand moved swiftly to his pocket, the other seized Lulash. Over Lulash’s shoulder he fired his pistol at the general, and then lightly tapped the guard on the head with the butt. The sound of the pistol’s discharge in the small room was deafening. Both Lulash and the general had fallen to the floor.

“Let’s go,” said Farrell, and headed for the door on his crutch. But the Genie reached it first and the three of them fled into the night. Or perhaps fled was not precisely the word, thought Mrs. Pollifax, as Farrell stumbled and tripped over the uneven rocks, muttering a variety of oaths at his clumsiness. She went back and took his arm and they struggled toward the fir trees. “I’m afraid I only winged him,” Farrell said furiously through his teeth. “I meant to kill him, but damn it I think I only got his shoulder or his arm.”

“He fell to the floor,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded him. “He disappeared behind the desk.”

“Pure instinct. Self-preservation. Give him a few minutes to stop the bleeding and catch his breath and he’ll be after us.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Pollifax said grimly, and realized that without Farrell to deter them they would already have reached the sanctuary of the fir trees. She took a long glance at this thought, examined it with brutal honesty, measured the difference this would make in both their small chance of escape and in their lives, and allowed herself one brief pang at being who and what she was. Then she put aside the thought forever. “Here we are,” she said with relief as they reached the thin cover of firs.

“My God, the donkeys,” gasped Farrell. “Look!”

Now that her eyes had adjusted themselves to the darkness Mrs. Pollifax could see at what he pointed: two donkeys were tied to a tree and were nibbling at the slender thread of green that separated the rocks from the forest of boulders beyond. “Luck,” she whispered.

“Plain bloody miracle,” growled Farrell, hobbling toward the animals. “Except of course with the general just arriving the donkeys had to be somewhere.”

“But we don’t have a knife to untie them,” wailed Mrs. Pollifax.

“Feels like a square knot,” murmured Farrell, working at it. “Tackle the center.”

The Genie stood back, not helping. When the donkeys were freed he stepped forward and put out his hand for the two ropes, gesturing to Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell to mount. At the same moment Mrs. Pollifax heard the sound of a gunshot behind them and she froze. “They’re after us!”

“Don’t panic, it could be someone signaling for help from the main building. For God’s sake jump on and let’s go.”

Mrs. Pollifax unfroze. She heard herself say calmly, “No, I will not mount one of these dreadful beasts again, I refuse. I believe the path or whatever it is lies to our right so we mustn’t go that way and how could I ever make the Genie understand this? He must climb on, I’ll do the leading. We have to find the edge of the cliff and follow it—it’s our only hope.” She was already tugging at the ropes and telling the Genie in frenzied sign language that he was to take her place. He climbed on at last, and with the two lead ropes in her hand Mrs. Pollifax set out to find the cliff and orient herself. There was now very little time left them—she could already hear shouts being exchanged behind them. The donkeys moved with maddening slowness. Without a flashlight Mrs. Pollifax could distinguish only the larger boulders, and her feet kept stumbling over those half buried in the earth. There was no moon; the stars covering the sky did no more than give her the ability to distinguish between a rock and a tree. Mrs. Pollifax was painfully aware of this, and of the fact that behind them a chase was being efficiently organized. The precipice, which they certainly ought to have reached by now, failed to materialize, and the rocks proved so abortive, so inconveniently placed, that Mrs. Pollifax soon wondered if in skirting the large boulders she might have begun circling back toward their starting point. It was not a happy thought.

No one spoke. At best they were only a few thousand yards from the main building and recklessly moving at right angles to it instead of away from it. “Where was that damn edge,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, and was appalled at her choice of language. She tugged mercilessly on the donkeys’ halters and quickened her step. It proved an ill-timed moment to increase her speed. Mrs. Pollifax’s right foot moved out into space, sought reassurance, came down in anticipation of solid earth or rock and found neither. With a startled gasp Mrs. Pollifax pitched forward, guide ropes still in her hand, and meeting no resistance that would save her she catapulted into space, the men and donkeys dragged with her.

It was not a long fall. Just as she assumed that the end had come, her jacket was seized by something knifelike, her fall suddenly broken and Mrs. Pollifax discovered that she was ignominiously straddling a creaking, groaning tree branch that threatened to break at any moment Mrs. Pollifax had found her cliff and walked over it. Mercifully she had also found a stunted tree branch that had grown perpendicular to the sides of the precipice. But where she was to go from here, and where Farrell, the Oenie and the donkeys had gone, she had no idea.

“Well!” exclaimed a voice nearby.

“F-F-Farrell?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax in astonishment

“Good God, you’re here too?”

At the same moment she heard both the melodious voice of the Genie, a trifle reproachful, and the faint, anguished bray of a donkey. “But where are we?” cried Mrs. Pollifax.

“I don’t think we should try to find out,” Farrell told her fervently. “And I think the first thing you’d better do is join us. There’s rock under me but what’s under you?”

Mrs. Pollifax said nervously, “A tree branch and—and really I don’t think there’s anything else. Only air.”

“Keep talking. Let me find you—this damn darkness—and I’ll see what I can do.”

Mrs. Pollifax began reciting poetry, first Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” and then “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” and tried not to consider her predicament if the branch broke or Farrell could not rescue her. When she felt a hand clutch her ankle a little sob of relief escaped her.

“You’re lying straight out on a branch,” he told her, as if she didn’t already know this. “I want you to very carefully, very gingerly, start shinnying in the direction of my voice. Don’t try to sit up and don’t move hastily. I’m going to keep my hands on your ankles and very gently pull. If the branch starts to go I think I can still hang on to you.”

“Think?” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, and felt like laughing hysterically because, of course, if the branch went, taking her with it, her brains would be dashed against the rock below no matter how tightly her ankles were held. But she obeyed, and thereby learned how subtly and sinuously a person could lift and move his hips if life depended upon it. After what seemed like hours her toes met the solid rock platform on which Farrell was kneeling. When at last she knelt beside him she allowed herself the luxury of feeling faint.

“It seems to be a small ledge we fell onto,” Farrell explained.

“You didn’t hurt your leg again?” she dared ask.

“I fell on one of the donkeys. The Genie wasn’t so lucky, he fell on the first donkey and then the second donkey fell on him, but he’s all right. Crazy. But from the feel of our fall I’d say we fell only about twenty feet or so.”

“Only that,” marveled Mrs. Pollifax, and then stiffened as she heard voices above.

“Back,” whispered Farrell urgently. “There’s a shallow overhang, and a hollow in the cliff. Find one of the donkeys and hold his mouth together, or whatever donkeys bray with. I’ll take the other.”

“The Genie?”

“Blast him, he doesn’t understand English so he can’t help. If we could see him I’m sure we’d find him bowing and scraping again.”

Mrs. Pollifax found a donkey and by the touch system managed also to find its lips and encircle them with both hands. The two donkeys had crawled into the shallow indentation of rock, leaving no room for humans; Mrs. Pollifax did all but climb on top of them for shelter as she heard the general’s voice querulously shouting orders. So Perdido was still alive—Farrell had been right about that. A powerful searchlight was turned on from above and directed downward, and Mrs. Pollifax closed her eyes, hoping this would make her even smaller as she pressed against the donkeys. Then the light moved farther along the cliff’s edge and the voices of the men diminished as they moved away. Mrs. Pollifax relaxed, and presently fell sound asleep.

It was the Genie who awakened her with a tap on the shoulder. Her head had been pillowed on the abdomen of a donkey, and when she lifted it she was startled to discover that she had slept through the whole night—the sky was perceptibly lightening in the east. In this first light of dawn she could see the appalling smallness of the ledge upon which they had fallen: it was no more than a lip on the side of the precipice, extending a bare seven feet from side to side. Below her, virtually at the edge of her shoes, lay a drop into the valley that turned her blood cold. Even the tree branch that had caught her looked no sturdier than an arm, and Farrell, noting her face, grinned. “The gods were with us, eh?”

Mrs. Pollifax replied with a shudder.

“The Genie donated his sleeves to tie up the donkeys’ mouths,” he pointed out. “Voices were heard now and then until about an hour ago. They’re probably wirelessing the news of our escape all over Albania now. We’d better move in a hurry, before it gets light and the search begins again.”

“Move!” repeated Mrs. Pollifax incredulously. “Move? Move where?”

He said mockingly, “Well, we absolutely can’t move up. Did you really plan to spend the rest of your life here? Besides, I’m getting hungry.”

“Hungry?” Mrs. Pollifax automatically groped for her purse, but stopped when she saw Farrell shaking his head.

“Your purse wasn’t so lucky,” he told her. “I’ve already looked, it’s gone. Down there, presumably.”

“I wish I could brush my teeth,” Mrs. Pollifax said suddenly and fretfully, thereby expressing her complete dissatisfaction with the situation. She leaned forward just a trifle— heights always made her dizzy—and looked down into the valley. Her first thought was that Farrell was feeling suicidal to believe they could ever negotiate such a cliff, but her resistance to the idea was inevitably overcome by curiosity and then interest. The cliff did not drop to the valley like a plumb line; it slanted almost imperceptibly, with avalanchelike beds of gravel and rock, then short drops, then more beds of stone gravel until it reached a green terrace below, the same pasture where on her walks she had seen goats grazing. “But you couldn’t make it with your leg,” she protested. “Absolutely not.”

Farrell smiled. “Look, you’ve forgotten something. Walking’s hard for me, but nobody walks down a cliff. One slides down backward, using arms and hands, not legs. Come on, let’s go.”

“Oh, these happy morning people,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, and then she realized that it was not simply a matter of temperament but of age; Farrell was younger and more flexible; Mrs. Pollifax at this moment felt unutterably weary and ancient. To be shot by a firing squad appeared absolute luxury compared to crawling down a precipice, even if it did slant. She had left a cell which from this distance appeared a haven of safety, had stumbled into space from the top of a cliff, been mercifully caught by good luck and a slender tree branch, and had endured the suspense of creeping inch by inch to this cliff ledge. What she wanted now was a great deal of reassurance, a hot bath, clean clothes and sleep. What Farrell wanted of her was more.

Very coldly she said, “All right, who leads the way, you or the Genie?”

Farrell said casually, “Neither, which brings up another subject. I don’t trust the Genie.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

Farrell shook his head. “He jolly well may have come along as a spy, and I won’t have you trusting him, either. I don’t speak his language, I don’t know what he said to General Perdido back there in the guardroom, I don’t know anything about him. All I know is, he’s here and we’re stuck with him. You go first, then the Genie, and I’ll go last because I still have the gun.”

Preposterous, absurd, decided Mrs. Pollifax furiously. Gritting her teeth she inched her body forward and dangled her feet over the edge of the cliff.

“Not that way, backward,” Farrell told her just as coldly. “Hang from the tree branch with your face to the cliff and reach with your feet for a toehold on the jut below.”

She said bitterly, “Great—I can join the circus when I get home.”

“If you get home,” Farrell pointed out curtly, and this had a galvanizing effect. She told herself that scarcely anyone died as dramatically as they wished and that her being shot by a firing squad had been no more than a wistful dream after all. Her anger gave her the recklessness to place both hands around the tree branch and to anxiously let her body swing in space—and there was a great deal of space. There she hung for a sickening moment, with Farrell hissing directions to her from the ledge. “There—now you’ve got it,” he said.

What she had gotten, as Farrell put it, was one foot on an outcropping of rock below her, but she could not share his jubilance over this. She glanced under her at the rock, then below to the valley, thought of depending upon that rock for her life and clung harder to the tree branch. “No, no, you’ve got to let go,” he told her.

“That rock will not support me,” she said furiously.

“It will if you move your hands to that stubby little root growing out of the rock over there.”

“I prefer staying with this tree branch, thank you.”

Farrell said nastily, “For how many years, Duchess?”

She saw his point; she had to go up or she had to go down, and since either course could bring about her violent demise she might as well try going down. She felt for the root with one hand, the other still grasping the branch, and closed her eyes. “One for the money,” she whispered, “two for the show, three to make ready and four to… .” She dropped her left hand from the branch, stoically endured that ghastly second when her weight was neither here nor there, and then she was clinging with both hands to the root, her feet braced on the rock jut below. Cautiously she opened her eyes to discover that she was still safe. What was more, her position had vastly improved, for instead of hanging from the branch, with nothing below her but ugly space, her body was now pressed tightly against the face of the cliff wall, which was just diagonal enough to give her some reassurance. She was even able to note a small hole in the cliff into which her hands could fit for the next move. Mrs. Pollifax was beginning to understand the mechanics of cliff-scaling.

In this manner the three of them descended inch by inch toward the valley, their cliff gradually changing in color from the luminous gray of dawn to a tawny gold as the sun discovered them. It was growing embarrassingly light when they reached the last slope, a charming easy hill of pebbles. They stopped here to catch their breath and to take stock of their surroundings.

This was the rocky pasture, usually alive with goats, that Mrs. Pollifax had seen on her walks along the top of the cuff. It lay just above another pasture, and then another, each terrace tipping a little drunkenly toward the floor of the flat dry valley. There were no goats now, and Mrs. Pollifax’s gaze moved westward, to the right, and she saw what had gone unnoticed before, the home of the man who tended the goats. She recalled from Lulash’s book that in this country a hovel like this was called a han. It was a small, primitive building built of rocks taken from the hillside; there were no windows. Then she drew in her breath sharply, for a woman stood in the doorway of the han watching them, her figure almost lost in the shadows cast by the cliff.

“What is it?” demanded Farrell.

Wordlessly Mrs. Pollifax pointed.

Farrell leaned on his crutch and slipped one hand into his pocket.

“No,” Mrs. Pollifax said slowly, “you mustn’t shoot her. Anyway, she can’t be alone at this hour, there must be others inside.”

“She’s seen us,” growled Farrell. “It’s her or us, Duchess.”

“At least let’s be sure she’s alone,” begged Mrs. Pollifax. “Then we could just tie and gag her if she’s by herself, couldn’t we? A gunshot would be heard for miles.” Her sympathy for the woman staring at them was instinctive and, in these circumstances, irrational. Still she could not help herself.

Farrell’s hand left his pocket and he sighed. “Woman to woman, eh? Have it your way, Duchess—in for a penny, in for a pound.”

Nervously Mrs. Pollifax led the way toward the han.

Eighteen

The woman looked as ageless and stoic as the rocks around her, nothing but her eyes alive in a watchful, sunburned face. When she was perhaps two feet from the doorway Mrs. Pollifax stopped, smiled wanly and pointed to the top of the precipice. Then she pointed to herself and to FarrelL “Inglese,” she said.

The woman’s impassive glance moved to the cliff above, returned to Mrs. Pollifax to examine her torn dress and Guatemalan jacket, roamed briefly over Farrell’s crutch and the Genie’s flowing garments. She made a sudden turn back into the han and Mrs. Pollifax’s heart constricted. Then the woman paused, holding back the goatskin at the door, and gestured to them to follow. Again Mrs. Pollifax led the way, aware that Farrell’s hand had slipped back into the pocket that held his pistol. It was like twilight inside, with a small fire burning in the center of the earthen floor. The first object that caught Mrs. Pollifax’s eye was her purse lying on the ground beside the fire, and she realized that their progress down the cliff must have been observed for some time. The woman spoke to the two men squatting near the fire: the younger was a boy of fifteen or so, the elder a tall, well-built man with a fierce-looking moustache and smoldering eyes. The three spoke together for several minutes, not heatedly, but in disjointed sentences interspersed with reflective pauses. Mrs. Pollifax wondered if Farrell and the Genie felt as edgy as she did standing there and being discussed with no knowledge of what was being said. There were no chains holding them here and yet the fact that they had been seen by the woman gave her the power of life or death over them. Were they going to have to kill the woman and her family? “I’m too old and too soft for all this,” she thought.

Suddenly the man of the hart stood up and went to the door, pushed aside the goatskin and went out, causing Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell to exchange alarmed glances. The boy also jumped to his feet and brought stools from the shadows, gesturing to them to sit. “What do you think?” asked Mrs. Pollifax in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Farrell said, and limped to the door and glanced outside.

The woman had gathered up three wooden bowls and was dishing into them something that resembled lumpy oatmeal drowned in oil. With a polite smile Mrs. Pollifax accepted hers and sat down. Farrell, too, came back and sat down beside the Genie. “I don’t know,” he repeated.

Mrs. Pollifax nodded, spooning up the honeyed grain but scarcely aware of its taste as her mind worried over the man’s disappearance. He had consulted and then left Where had he gone? What had been decided by these three people? She felt again that her fate was no more than a slender thread loosely held by indifferent strangers, yet there was nothing to do but wait. She sat and waited, having no idea what to expect. It was the woman who made the next move. She walked to a chest in the corner of the room and began pulling from it an assortment of clothes. Astonished, Mrs. Pollifax wondered if possibly these people were going to help them. She turned to Farrell and saw the same look reflected in his face: the confusion of a suspicious and desperate man confronted by hope. The woman had taken out a shabby, cone-shaped felt hat that she now clapped on the Genie’s head; then she held against Farrell the loose-flowing clothes and sash of an Albanian mountain man. To Mrs. Pollifax she handed two petticoats and a voluminous woolen dress with inserts of handmade lace. She gestured toward the blanket hung across one corner of the room.

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax, beaming at FarrelL

“Could still be a trap,” Farrell said.

“I refuse to think so,” she told him loftily, and retired behind the blanket to wrestle with the voluminous skirts.

A few minutes later they reassembled around the fire, their appearances strikingly changed. Because of his unshaven jaw, Farrell was clearly the most authentic of the three, looking as fierce and dangerous as a bandit. The Genie appeared much the same: small, birdlike, somehow transcending the absurdity of his costume. Mrs. Pollifax had no idea how she looked but she knew she felt very warm indeed under so many layers.

The woman held out Mrs. Pollifax’s purse to her, her fingers stroking the soft dark-blue calfskin. On impulse Mrs. Pollifax opened it, extracted the pistol and its clips, the compass, the map, the food and her pack of playing cards, and gave the purse back to the woman. “Keep it,” she said, smiling. “It doesn’t go with these new clothes. Ill use the pockets instead, there are so many of them. One in each petticoat,” she told Farrell in an aside. She showed the woman how to zip and unzip the purse, a feat that brought surprise and then delight to die woman’s face. Her smile was beautiful and Mrs. Pollifax realized that in years she was still only a young woman. She also pressed the Guatemalan jacket on her, hoping she would not wear it outside the han for a good many months.

Now it was the boy who flung back the goatskin at the door, and Mrs. Pollifax saw that his father had not gone to report them but to assemble his goats for the day. He had driven them to the door, where they were milling about bleating rudely and with no sense of direction or intelligence. With his shepherd’s crook the man prodded them even closer to the door. The boy turned to the three of them and with an eager face began explaining in pantomime what the family had decided. First he pointed to the cliff and crossed himself, grimacing, so that Mrs. Pollifax understood that General Perdido’s mountain eerie was known and disliked in the neighborhood. Then he pointed to the sun and appeared to be emphasizing the need for them to go quickly, before men came to the han. In their new clothes—he pointed to them and rubbed a piece of Mrs. Pollifax’s skirt between his fingers to prove he meant clothes—they might be able to reach the road unaccosted.

“Road?” said Farrell, startled.

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “It can’t be seen from here but I’ve spotted it from the cliff. It runs across the plain from south to north about five miles from here, I’d say.”

The problem was in getting unobserved to the floor of the valley but the boy had not finished. The pastures around them could all be seen very clearly from the buildings above —a fact to which Mrs. Pollifax could testify—and someone might be watching, perhaps even with binoculars. Here the boy made circles with his fingers and squinted through them. Today his father had decided to drive his goats beyond this pasture and down to the one nearest the valley. If Mrs. Pollifax and the Genie would become goats they could move with the herd and not be seen from above.

“Become goats,” said Mrs. Pollifax dazedly—obviously she had misunderstood his gestures. But again he dropped to his hands and knees, this time crawling into the center of the thickly clustered herd.

“Good heavens,” said Mrs. Pollifax faintly.

Scrambling to his feet again the boy pointed to Farrell’s leg and shook his head, seized his father’s crook and placed it in Farrell’s hand. The father in reply got down on his hands and knees.

“Well, I never,” breathed Mrs. Pollifax.

Farrell was grinning. “You really ought to see your face, Duchess. Do you get the same message I do? From the cliff above it will appear that Mac here and his son are taking their herd of goats out, as they do every morning at this hour. One man and a boy going out, one man and a boy coming home. But going out I will be the goatherder while he joins you and the Genie and the goats—pretty damn noble of him, I have to add—and in some convenient place we are left behind.”

Mrs. Pollifax found herself wishing she were back on the ledge. On the ledge she had wished herself back in her cell. What, she wondered crossly, must she endure next? She made only one comment and it was succinct. She said clearly and irritably, “Damn.”

“Acquiring some downright bad habits, Duchess,” grinned Farrell. ‘They’ll be blackballing you at the Garden Club this winter, won’t they? Hurry now, I think they’re waiting for you.”

The Genie was already crouched down among the goats, apparently undismayed by this new development; he glanced once over his shoulder, his eyes bright, twinkling and as interested as usual. Gingerly Mrs. Pollifax sank to her knees and crawled in among the beasts. “For heaven’s sake move them slowly,” she cautioned.

Farrell grasped the shepherd’s crook and the boy called out something in the high clear air and prodded the goats in the front. The herd, with Mrs. Pollifax, the Genie and the shepherd as its nucleus, began to move slowly out into the pasture.

The boy did most of the work, running backward and forward to keep the goats in a tight cluster. But it was the tightness of the cluster that soon became Mrs. Pollifax’s major concern, for although she had not crawled on hands and knees since she was a child—and never for any distance —it was the goats that proved especially unnerving. They stepped on her, they bleated alarmingly in first her left ear and then her right ear, they playfully nipped her, and over and above these hardships there was their smell. She had never thought of goats as smelling; she had never thought of goats at all, but of course no one bathed goats and this was the dry season. They had a particularly obnoxious odor, and she was surrounded by, and distressingly intimate with, an entire herd of them. From time to time Farrell and the boy would halt the procession so that the three humans in their midst could catch their breath, but Mrs. Pollifax found that catching her breath was the very last thing she wished to do. It was during these resting intervals that the goats butted her, licked her and stumbled over her. Nor was this all, for as the ground slanted more and more perceptibly the soft grass became thinner, to be replaced by pebbles that cut her knees, and once they left the shadow of the cliffs the sun beat down on them mercilessly. To walk on all fours was difficult enough for a child, but for a woman of her age it was quite mad. Yet as their queer progress continued and the time spent on hands and knees grew longer and less bearable all early reactions faded, even thought faded as Mrs. Pollifax’s mind fixed itself upon the next rest when she could throw herself full-length on the earth, indifferent at last to how many goats stepped on her. The slow, gradual descent into the valley must have taken them an hour, but after a long time Mrs. Pollifax became aware that the herd had come to a standstill and that she was being lightly touched by a shepherd’s crook. She looked up to see Farrell standing over her. “You can stand up now, Duchess,” he told her. “We’re hidden from the top of the cliff, we’ve reached the valley.”

He looked drained and white and Mrs. Pollifax realized that a shepherd’s crook was not the same as a crutch; he must have had to place his weight on a leg broken in two places, poorly set and unmended yet, and all this on a rocky downhill terrain. Pity brought her to her feet. “Where’s your crutch?”

“The man has it.”

The Genie’s head popped up from among the goats and he joined them looking so untouched and cheerful that Mrs. Pollifax began to feel almost hostile toward him. She took a step forward and almost fell, regained her balance and glanced furiously at her knees. But she had always been a gracious hostess; she tottered forward to wring the hand of the boy and his father who had helped them at so much risk to themselves.

“Det,” the man kept saying over and over again, pointing westward.

Mrs. Pollifax recalled that this word meant sea, and nodded, smiling. Farrell also shook their hands and the Genie, odd little man that he was, went into his bowing and nodding routine. Then the man and the boy strolled away toward the goats that had fanned out across the pasture, and Mrs. Pollifax, Farrell and the Genie were alone.

They were standing in the center of a dried-up brook bed at the base of the last terrace. Behind them rose scallop after scallop of rocky pasture culminating in the towering cliff above. In front of them stretched the flat dry valley, already shimmering in the morning heat. To the south, barely visible, lay a cluster of objects that might be tall rocks or a village. There were almost no trees. “Well,” said Mrs. Pollifax doubtfully, and then because it all seemed so overwhelming she suggested they sit down and rest.

“Not on your life,” said Farrell flatly. “They must be combing the mountains for us, they’ll be getting to the valley next.”

She nodded wearily. There seemed nowhere to hide in this naked countryside and she was bone-tired but they had come this far and somewhere to the west lay a road. She glanced at the Genie and he vivaciously smiled at her. Farrell, following her glance, sighed heavily. “Not a brain in his head, is there? You certainly picked a lemon, Duchess.”

She frowned. “I don’t know, sometimes there seem to be flashes of intelligence there.”

“An intelligent man would be tired or scared stiff. All this guy does is smile.”

“But the Chinese are always polite, aren’t they?” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax. “He may be just a little eccentric.”

“Eccentric!” barked Farrell. “Well, we’re stuck with him, anyway. Let’s get moving.”

They clung to the security of the creek bed, knowing without mentioning it that although they wore native clothes they were still three in number, and it was three for whom the general would be searching. The sun was searingly hot, for it was at least midmorning, and Mrs. Pollifax’s knees did not grow any more reliable. She stumbled along in the prison of her woolen dress and two petticoats, the old numbness reasserting itself. She longed for water—they had none—and for something green to look at, anything but this tawny, rocky, dusty hot August landscape around them. She was aware, too, of Farrell’s hobbling as she plodded. Only the Genie had the resilience to give the appearance of a man out for a morning stroll. She was beginning to feel very sorry that she had liberated this annoyingly tireless man.

They came in sight of the road very suddenly, so suddenly that Farrell, glancing up, gave a sibilant hiss through his teeth and dropped quickly to the ground behind a rock. The Genie promptly imitated him and Mrs. Pollifax gratefully sat down beside them. The road was still some distance away, perhaps half a mile, but it was overrun by men. These men, wearing the striped suits of prisoners, were spread out along the road for nearly a mile, listlessly splitting rocks and carrying them to the roadbed. What was most alarming was the number of guards posted near them; she could identify them because they were seated on the rocks with rifles across their knees, and several of them were sprawled in the shade of a large black car. The road ran in a straight line across their path, vanishing in the south against the horizon, while in the north it lifted gradually to begin a spiraling toward the cliffs from which they had escaped. This was the road by which the general had come from the airport, but with so many people rimming it the road might as well have been an insurmountable wall. “What can we do?” whispered Mrs. Pollifax helplessly.

Farrell ran a dusty hand across his eyes. He was terrible to look at with his week’s growth of beard, bloodshot eyes and a dreadful pallor that was new today. Mrs. Pollifax noted that his hand trembled and she shuddered at what he must be enduring. He said in a cracked, furious voice, “What rotten luck, well have to wait until dark to cross the road. Spend a whole bloody day here without water? God.”

Dear Farrell, she thought, poor Farrell, and then she glanced beyond him and stiffened. Her look of horror caused both Farrell and the Genie to look too. Men—half a dozen of them—were crossing the plain behind them, clearly visible in the brilliant sun and less than a mile away. What had first caught her eye, however, was the flash of a mirror that was shortly answered from a tree-lined foothill up on their right. The search for them was underway, obviously a methodical daylight search leaving no margins for error, one group combing the cliffs, the pastures and the foothills, another group taking the valley. She wondered if they had already been seen, she wondered if the message flashed from the bill was in fact reporting three suspicious shapes crouched beside a rock.

The Genie suddenly stood up.

“Hey,” yelped Farrell, reaching for him.

“Down—get down!” cried Mrs. Pollifax, forgetting that he couldn’t understand.

But the Genie backed away from their groping hands, jumped over the rock and began running toward the road and the men there. “What on earth,” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

“I told you I didn’t trust him,” snarled Farrell. With an oath he fumbled in his pocket for the pistol and drew it out. His shaky hands fumbled with the safety catch and Mrs. Pollifax, befuddled by sun, thirst, exhaustion and panic, watched him steady the gun on the top of the rock. Dimly she realized that she ought to stop him; they were already trapped on three sides and it was senseless to take the man’s life now. Yet she made no move to halt Farrell. The Genie was racing to betray them, he was running over to the enemy and because it had been her idea to bring the Genie with them it made his betrayal the more personal. She had no right to halt his execution; she could even share some of Farrell’s rage and frustration that all their suffering came to nothing. All wasted.

Farrell swore again and dropped the pistol. “Too late,” he groaned. “My hand shakes, damn it, damn it, damn it.”

She thought from his voice that he might be crying, so she was careful not to look at him. Instead she stared out across the dust and the heat at the Genie, who had slowed to a walk as he approached the guards. He was in conversation with them now. “Of course—he’s Chinese,” she remembered bleakly. This was a country controlled by the Chinese, naturally the guards would treat him with respect; perhaps they were Chinese too. She glanced behind her and saw the men in the valley walking with more purpose now, a few of them running. Her eyes moved to the hillside and she could see the men who had flashed the message; they, too, were hurrying down the slope toward the valley. She realized that within a few minutes the two groups would converge upon them.

“Well?” said Farrell grimly, holding up the pistol in a meaningful way and lifting his brows at her.

She said steadily, “Yes—yes, it’s really the only thing left to do, isn’t it. Except—I’m sorry but I’m afraid I couldn’t, you’ll have to be the one to—the one to—”

He said harshly, “I understand. But for God’s sake, Duchess, you realize it’s only to spare you worse. Tell me you understand that”

“I do realize it, of course I do.”

“Because I’ve grown damnably fond of you, you know.”

“Thank you,” she said gravely. The Genie and a guard with a rifle were climbing into the big dusty black car parked beside the road, the guard taking the driver’s seat, the Genie sitting beside him. The car started with a jerk, turned and left the road to bounce over the dry earth toward the rock that sheltered them. “They’re coming,” she said quietly. “They’re coming in the car, the Genie and another man. I think you’d better hurry.”

Fan-ell nodded and ran his tongue over parched dry lips. With one hand he lifted his gun, trying to steady it as he aimed at Mrs. Pollifax’s heart. “Is that really the best place?” she asked curiously. “Isn’t the brain faster?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” groaned Farrell, the pistol wobbling. “Just don’t talk, will you do me that favor please?”

Mrs. Pollifax sat up straight and primly folded her hands in her lap—as if she were about to be photographed, she thought—and waited patiently for oblivion. Again Farrell lifted the pistol and took aim. She did wish he would hurry because the car was racing toward them in a cloud of dust, but she feared reminding him of this lest she disconcert him again. Farrell carefully steadied his shaking hand and his lips thinned with the concentration this took. She could see the perspiration beading his nose and brow and watched a drop fall from his temple. Farrell lifted an elbow to clear his eyes and patiently took aim a third time.

But it was too late. The car was already upon them, and the Genie leaped from the opened door and knocked the pistol out of Farrell’s grasp. It fell into the dust, to be retrieved in an instant by the Genie. With a low moan Farrell hid his face in his hands, utterly drained and exhausted. It was the Genie who brandished the pistol now, gesturing them both into the car.

Mrs. Pollifax sat and regarded him without expression, her mind sifting a thousand reproaches and a few epithets, but if he was Chinese he would understand none of them. And if he was Chinese he could not really be called a traitor either, nor could she call him a fool when she had proven the greater fool. Silently and wearily she climbed to her feet and bent over Farrell. “Come, they want us in the car,” she said, and then in a whisper, “I still have the Beretta, you know.” Without looking at the Genie she walked past him and climbed into the back seat. It was a Rolls, she noticed, looking over the accouterments that reminded her of childhood rides in the park with an aunt. “A very ancient one,” she amended. “Highly appropriate for funerals.”

Farrell sank down beside her in the rear seat and the guard slammed the door. This time the Genie slid behind the wheel of the car and started the engine while the guard climbed in beside him and propped his rifle between his legs. With the motor idling the Genie turned his head and smiled at the guard, his eyes bright and fathomless.

“Snake-in-the-grass,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, watching him.

With one smooth and effortless movement the Genie Lifted the pistol he had taken from Farrell and astonished Mrs. Pollifax by shooting the guard between the eyes. As the guard slumped in his seat the Genie leaned across him, opened the door and pushed the man’s body into the dust. Slipping back behind the wheel he said over his shoulder in clipped, perfect English, “I think we’d better get the hell out of here, don’t you?”

Nineteen

Their shock was so complete that for a moment neither Mrs. Pollifax nor Farrell could utter a word. Then something like a small gasp escaped Mrs. Pollifax, and from Farrell came a brief, violent grunt. The Genie abruptly backed and turned the car and the sudden movement brought them to life. “Who the devil are you?” demanded Farrell.

“And why didn’t you tell us you speak English?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“Didn’t dare trust you—sorry,” the Genie said over his shoulder, and as the car regained the road he added, “I don’t know how long we can stick with this car. There are only something like four hundred cars in the whole country but there are wirelesses and things like roadblocks. And I’m not very good at driving the bloody thing, had to watch what buttons the guard pushed to learn how it started. Whole dashboard is full of buttons.”

He was leaning grimly over the wheel as he spoke, and noting the speedometer Mrs. Pollifax reached for Farrell’s arm. “We’re going one hundred miles an hour,” she told him in horror.

“That’s kilometers, not miles, Duchess. We’re in Europe now.”

It still felt alarmingly fast. Mrs. Pollifax turned to look out of the rear window, and the men who were scattered all over the landscape—guards, working prisoners and search party—were already receding into the distance.

Farrell said with his old briskness, “This road leads into Shkoder. Hell, we don’t want to go there, do we?”

Mrs. Pollifax, surrounded by so much masculine profanity, said firmly, “Hell, no.”

Farrell turned to stare at her and his old debonair smile crossed his face. Gently he said, “No, Duchess, absolutely no more swearing. Absolutely.”

“All right,” said Mrs. Pollifax meekly. To the Genie she said, “We have a map, you know. There look to be two villages between us and Shkoder, and to the west of us there’s a huge lake called Lake Scutari. Shkoder lies at the southern tip of it. Would you like to see the map?”

“They’re following us,” interrupted Farrell savagely. “Damn it, they’ve found one of those four hundred cars the country owns.” He had turned around to look through the rear window and Mrs. Pollifax turned too. It was all too true: she saw first the cloud of dust and then the small gray car racing in front of it.

“Three, maybe four miles behind us,” said the Genie, his eyes on the rearview mirror. “No time for maps. I say we stick to the car as long as we can. A car moves faster than six legs, one of them broken.”

“They must have wirelessed—”

“I know, I know.” The Genie was peering at the panel in front of him. “There’s plenty of gas, thank heaven.” He shoved the accelerator to the floor and the car surged ahead in a burst of speed.

“One hundred kilometers an hour,” thought Mrs. Pollifax in dismay, and wished that she dared close her eyes. The landscape moved past them like a projector that had run wild: olive trees, scattered farms and wells all blurred together. Ahead of them Mrs. Pollifax saw the outlines of a village and had no sooner seen it than they were upon it and the Genie was braking to avoid an oxcart plodding through its street. The next obstacle was a sheep that stood its ground in the center of the narrow road and baa-ed at them indignantly. They swerved around it and through a cobblestoned main street with stone houses on either side, and then the village was behind them and the Rolls resumed its breakneck speed. Mrs. Pollifax wondered how the Genie managed to hold tight to the wheel, for the ruts in the road, which could at best be called primitive, produced a strange undercurrent of jolts that not even the magnificent upholstery of a Rolls could overcome. At the same moment she heard a growing, indefinable noise and looked out and up in time to see a small plane zoom over them, bank and fly over them again at low altitude. Farrell said grimly, “They’ve heard about us in Shkoder, too.”

“Well have to ditch the car,” the Genie said. “But where and how I don’t know.”

Mrs. Pollifax didn’t know either, but her mind grasped at once that just ditching it wouldn’t be enough, not with a car following behind them and their progress observed from the air. They wouldn’t have a chance of getting away, not with Farrell unable to run. “An accident,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“An accident. Isn’t there some way to tip over the car and set it on fire? They would think for at least a few minutes that we were still inside.”

Both men were silent, fumbling with the idea, and then the Genie said, “You haven’t any matches, have you?”

“Two,” said Farrell.

“You said there’s a lake to the west of us, to the right?”

“Yes.”

The Genie had seen a cart track branching from the road into Shkoder and with a squeal of brakes the car slowed enough to turn its wheels down the track and head west. The car bounced hideously, and Mrs. Pollifax’s head hit the ceiling. “They’ll see our dust, won’t they?” she gasped. She had no sooner spoken than they left the cart track to plunge toward a copse of trees.

“In there looks the place,” said the Genie. “The trees will be cover for getting away. You’ll have to have a head start, Farrell—that’s your name, isn’t it? I doubt if any one of us has the strength to tip the car over but I’ll try to ram it into a tree. Start running as soon as we stop.”

As soon as they were in among the trees he braked the Rolls and jerked open the door next to Farrell. “Out,” he said. “Out and hurry in a straight line that way.” He pointed. “Go as fast as you can.”

“Me too?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

The Genie shook his head. “Out, but wait for me. I’ll need your help.”

They left the car, Mrs. Pollifax to stand uncertain and nervous as she watched Farrell hobble away for dear life. Dear dear life, she reflected, and how tenaciously people held on to it and what things they did to remain alive!—that is, physically alive, she amended, for to remain alive inside was far more intricate and difficult and defeating. Her thoughts were interrupted by the roar of the Rolls engine as the Genie pressed his foot to the accelerator. Aghast, she watched the car pass her at top speed, the Genie leaning half out of the door. Faster and faster it went, heading inexorably toward the largest of trees, and then the tree and the Rolls met with such force that the front of the Rolls crumpled like an accordion and the tree shuddered to its roots. Then Mrs. Pollifax saw the Genie, shaken but entirely whole. He had leaped at the last minute and now was fumbling for the matches Farrell had given him. She ran to help. “How? Where?” she cried.

He was wrestling with the cover to the gas tank, his hands trembling. Mrs. Pollifax gave it a twist and lifted it off. “Start running” said the Genie as he lighted one of the matches.

Mrs. Pollifax obeyed, too numb to protest. She did not look back until she heard the explosion, and then it was only to see if the Genie was still alive. He was both alive and running, with more vitality than she possessed, and she envied him. Together they came out into the open country beyond the copse of trees, and there they discovered Farrell leaning on his crutch and looking very ill again. It was obvious that he could go no farther.

The landscape offered no hope of concealment, and when it was discovered that their bodies were not in the Rolls General Perdido would expect to find them nearby. Mrs. Pollifax could see the roof of a han some distance away, a good many rocks, another dried-up creek bed, and a pen of some kind where goats or sheep were kept at night. Her eyes moved over and then swerved back to an object in the corner of that pen: a two-wheeled primitive wooden cart filled to the brim with hay.

“Look,” she whispered, and without a word they moved toward it, recognizing it as only a slim hope and not at all sure what to do with it. But it did have the advantage of being out of sight of the han, which presumably housed the owners of the farm, and it was the only object in sight that could possibly shield them. They stood and looked at it; rather stupidly, thought Mrs. Pollifax, until she realized that both Farrell and the Genie were exhausted and that as the senior member of the party—rather like a Scout leader, she thought with blurred, semihysterical humor—she was going to have to assume command whether she was exhausted or not. At that moment, as if to emphasize the need for decisiveness, she heard the plane returning. It was still some distance away but obviously it was flying back to scour the countryside for signs of life.

“Into the cart,” she cried, pulling out tufts of hay. “Quickly, both of you.” There was barely room for the two; both Farrell and the Genie had to curl up in womblike positions and she prodded them mercilessly.

“What about you?” demanded Farrell.

They don’t know I’m in peasant clothes,” she pointed out, devoutly hoping this was true. “And they’re looking for three people.” She was recklessly piling the hay back on top of them. “For heaven’s sake don’t move.”

One of them replied by sneezing.

“And don’t sneeze either,” she added crossly. The plane was circling now over the woods where they had abandoned the car and she saw what she had not noticed before—a plume of fading black smoke above the trees. The Rolls was still burning then, or had been until a moment ago, and presently the remains of it would be cool enough to examine. Hadn’t she read somewhere that bodies, turned to char, still held their shape until breathed upon or touched? She supposed it depended upon the heat of the fire. At any rate they couldn’t remain here indefinitely. The first time she was seen from the air she might be mistaken for the fanner’s wife contemplating clouds or earth, but if she was seen a second time in the same place such rootedness would be suspicious. Mrs. Pollifax regarded the cart speculatively, glanced over the terrain and then kicked the rock from under the wheels. Bracing herself she picked up the tongue of the axle, moved between its two shafts and tugged. Oddly enough the cart moved quite easily, being high enough from the ground to balance the weight of two grown men, and the earth sloped conveniently downward to aid momentum. With a squeak of wood against wood the cart began to make progress toward the next copse of trees with Mrs. Pollifax feeling rather like a ricksha boy. At any moment she expected to hear shouts from the direction of the han, but none occurred. Without any challenge, and having achieved a precarious speed, Mrs. Pollifax marched sturdily on, the cart at times pushing her in front of it. It was rough pastureland they crossed now, but a wood lay less than half a mile away. The noon-hot sun glared down but there was grass—green grass—in this pastureland and it led Mrs. Pollifax to hope that they were nearing the coast. She was in the middle of the pasture when another plane passed overhead. Its presence ought to have alarmed her, but as it roared over them and then headed west Mrs. Pollifax saw its pontoons and her heart quickened. “It’s a seaplane, and where there are seaplanes,” she thought with a flicker of excitement, “there has to be water.”

Water!

Twenty

After ten minutes of being pushed by the cart, and another ten minutes of pulling it, Mrs. Pollifax had to concede that she was neither an ox nor young enough to imitate one. The ground was rough, and after thoughtfully slanting downhill it had begun to slant uphill, but what was most discouraging was the field of maize that lay ahead directly in their path. She could not pull such a broad cart through narrow corn rows, and the field stretched from left to right almost as far as the eye could see: the thought of walking around it utterly dismayed her. Mrs. Pollifax stopped and laid down the shafts, wiped the sweat from her brow with a sleeve and said aloud, in an anguished voice, “I just can’t pull you any more.”

It was the Genie who emerged first from the straw. “Quite so,” he said in his clipped British voice. “Farrell badly needs a rest too. I suggest we crawl into the corn and rest a few minutes.”

It was a very bad idea. Mrs. Pollifax knew it and the Genie must have known it too, for if the burning Rolls had confused and diverted General Perdido it would not be for long. Ashes would be sifted: for rings—her wedding ring, for instance—or teeth or gold fillings or bone fragments. Even if the general remained in doubt he would be compelled to assume they had gotten away because he was not a man who could afford doubts; his reputation and his pride were too valuable and both would be at stake.

Yet Mrs. Pollifax conceded there was nothing else for them to do. Certainly she could not go on much longer in such an exhausted state, and what was worst of all her mind felt battered and senseless. It was a major effort even to weigh what the Genie was suggesting, and all of her instincts told her that a mind was needed to compete against the general’s cunning. “Yes,” she said simply, and stood back and let the Genie help Farrell out of the hay.

Farrell looked utterly ghastly but his mind at least was unaffected, for he took in the situation at a glance and said, “We’ll have to be careful not to break off any stalks as we enter. And the cart can’t be left here.”

The Genie’s eyes shone with their usual birdlike brightness, half mockery, half inquisitiveness. He bowed with his hands tucked into his sleeves and said, “I, too, have read your Leather-stocking tales. You go, I’ll move the cart and cover your trail as I join you.”

Together Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax tottered in among the cornstalks, each helping the other, but neither of them impressively secure. They did not stop until the rows of corn neared an end and then they fell apart and sank wordlessly to the ground. Here in the shade of the tall stalks there was at least shelter from the blazing sun and the illusion of a faint breeze as the stalks rustled and creaked and whispered. With a groan Farrell stretched out his damaged leg and studied it with bloodshot, menacing eyes. “Damn thing,” he growled. “Never gave it a thought before, but damned if legs aren’t pretty useful appendages. I’m hungry, by the way.”

Mrs. Pollifax roused enough to explore the capacious pocket of her first petticoat. She drew out the pistol, the map, the compass, and then one slice of stale bread and a small amount of cheese. “There isn’t much and we have to save some for later,” she reminded him.

“Later,” mused Farrell. “I can’t imagine anything more distant than ‘later.’”

They could hear the Genie looking for them, his footsteps stopping and then starting again as he peered into each aisle of corn without finding them. Mrs. Pollifax carefully put aside his portion of food, returned the remaining cheese and bread to her pocket, picked up the pistol to put it away, and hearing the Genie’s footsteps virtually at their door she glanced up smiling.

But it was not the Genie standing there and looking down at them, it was the guard Stefan who had accompanied General Perdido. He was staring at them with his mouth half open, his eyes incredulous and a look of blank stupidity on his face. For just the fraction of a second Mrs. Pollifax shared his stupidity, and then she realized that she was holding the pistol in her hand and without thinking she lifted the pistol, aimed it as her cousin John had taught her years ago and squeezed the trigger. The noise was deafening in the stillness of that hot, quiet, summer afternoon. The look of stupidity on Stefan’s face increased and Mrs. Pollifax realized with a feeling of nausea that she was going to have to shoot him again. She lifted the pistol but Farrell rolled over and clasped her wrist with his hand, deterring her, and that was when she saw the blood slowly spreading across Stefan’s chest. She watched with horrified fascination as be began to crumple, his knees carrying him steadily downward until they struck the earth and his hips and shoulders following. Farrell was already reaching for his crutch and struggling to get to his feet. Mrs. Pollifax said blankly, “I’ve killed him. I’ve killed a man.”

“He’d have gladly killed both of us in another minute,” gasped Farrell, standing upright “For heaven’s sake, don’t just sit there, Duchess, they must have heard that shot for miles.”

Certainly the Genie had heard it. Mrs. Pollifax became aware that he was with them again; he was kneeling beside the dead guard removing his pistol and checking his pockets. She stuffed pistol, map and compass away and stood up, curious as to whether her knees would hold her or if she would slowly sink to the ground as Stefan had done; Stefan, the man she had killed—she, Emily Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey. “Madness,” she muttered under her breath. “Madness, every bit of this.”

“They certainly know we’re alive now,” Farrell was saying grimly. “God how I wish I could run.”

“I saw him and had to hide,” the Genie said in a stunned voice. “There wasn’t a chance of warning you.” He was tugging at Mrs. Pollifax’s arm to get her moving, and Mrs. Pollifax automatically took a few steps, then turned to look back at the dead man, but Farrell reached over and forced her face to the west “Don’t ever look back,” he told her harshly.

So he understood in his rough, compassionate way. With an effort Mrs. Pollifax pulled herself together, lightheaded enough by now to see the three of them, blood-smeared, exhausted and harassed, as absurdities pitted against the whims of fate. They entered the forest of pines that lay beyond the cornfield but the shadows brought only meager relief and this was from the sun rather than the heat Yet it was lovely among the pines, the earth soft and springy with layer after layer of pine needles, some old and brown, others freshly green. It seemed very peaceful and Mrs. Pollifax yearned to forget General Perdido and sink to the ground to rest.

The Genie said suddenly, “I smell water,” and he began hobbling stiffly ahead, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to wonder how anybody could smell water. She stayed with Farrell, whose pallor alarmed her; he looked already dead, she thought, like someone embalmed and strung up on wires by a fiendish mortician. Then she realized that she, too, smelled water, except that smell was not quite the word, it was a change in the air, a freshness new to her nostrils. “Something’s ahead,” she gasped to Farrell, but he only grunted, not lifting his head. If it was the lake—and it could be nothing else from the look of the map—they must be very near Yugoslavia and very near to freedom. “Bless Tito and foreign aid,” she thought reverently, hope rising in her. The Genie was ahead of them waving his arms, but it seemed an eternity before they reached him. “Look,” he said.

Mrs. Pollifax lifted her head to see water glittering in the sunshine, water to bathe in, water to drink, water to cool overheated flesh and relax parched dry throats. Water—she wanted to stumble through the scrub to the shore and bury herself in it, but as she started forward the Genie clutched her arm and she heard the sound of the plane again. “This way,” he said, and led them back in among the pines to head north along the shore of the lake.

Lake Scutari, she remembered from the book … two hundred square miles in size, a large lake, half of it in Yugoslavia…. The plane roared over the lake at low altitude and it gave her a queer sense of panic to realize that it must be looking for them. Of course—she had shot a guard and advertised their aliveness. In this quiet, pastoral countryside the sound of a gunshot would be heard for miles. Not many natives would own guns, the country was too poor, too barren of life to supply money for such a luxury. There would be no explaining away such a provocative noise.

The plane disappeared to the north and the Genie stopped, one ringer on his lips, one hand on Mrs. Pollifax’s arm. She and Farrell halted. The floor of the forest had been sloping upward so that it was higher than the water on their left, causing a drop that made it less accessible from land. Apparently the Genie had thought of something, for removing his shoes and tying them around his neck he began retracing their steps. Mrs. Pollifax waited. She wanted to sit, she wanted to fall to the ground, but she knew instinctively that Farrell couldn’t sit down—mustn’t, in fact, lest he never get up again—and an innate courtesy kept her upright. Presently, much to her surprise, she saw the Genie wading toward them along the shallows of the lake. He appeared to be searching for something and she looked away without interest, all curiosity deadened by the stupor of her body. Minutes or hours later the Genie was touching her arm, and she and Farrell followed him to the bank. He gestured toward the water, directing them to sit down on the bank and them jump into the shallows. Mrs. Pollifax did so, obediently and humbly. Then he was guiding them back a few yards toward an old tree that hung over the lake, its roots exposed and rotting. There was no beach here; the water lapped the eroded banking and over the years had brought to it an accumulation of debris. The Genie parted the branches of a sumac that had grown from the gnarled roots and said in a low voice, “It’s not particularly dry but there’s room here for three people.”

“There is?” and then, “Will they think of it too?” Mrs. Pollifax asked anxiously, and then was sorry she had said this, for there was no safety anywhere in life, except as illusion, and she was surprised at herself for wanting a guarantee from the Genie. Perhaps it was her American blood, Americans were so very security-minded, or perhaps she was just too tired and stiff and afraid. But the Genie did not reply and she was grateful that he didn’t. Instead he pushed aside a stout log that had been caught in the flotsam and helped Farrell to kneel and crawl into the tiny cave under the bank. She followed, and the Genie squeezed in after her, taking care to bend back the branches of the sumac and to pull the log back to its original position.

The little cave was not dry. The earth was wet but at least there were no puddles. The ceiling was too low for sitting; they had to lie on their stomachs, Farrell pressed against the earth, Mrs. Pollifax in the middle and the Genie nearest the outside. It was a curiously womblike place: dark, quiet and blessed cool. Mrs. Pollifax felt her eyes closing. She knew there were questions unasked and things undone and yet her eyes simply would not remain open. Fatigue won and Mrs. Pollifax slept, not deeply and certainly not comfortably, but with a fitful, twitching, feverish need from exhaustion.

She was awakened not so much by sound as by the awareness of danger that emanated from Farrell and the Genie, a stiffening of their bodies and a lifting of heads. She, too, stiffened and lifted her head from her arms to hear the roar of a motor nearby. Straining, she realized it wasn’t a plane but a motorboat, and running so near to the shore that it was a wonder its propeller cleared the bottom. She lay inert, terrified that at any moment some trace of them be seen. The boat drew level with their hiding place, passed them by and in its wake came the waves. Mrs. Pollifax had not thought of waves and in any case would not have considered them a threat. All motorboats caused waves, some large, some small. Waves rippled charmingly as they swept toward shore, and always they made lovely sounds as they met the beach. She had forgotten that here there was no beach.

The water came with a rush, lifting the debris outside their hole and flinging twigs and leaves aside to sweep inside their tiny earthen cave. One moment Mrs. Pollifax was gazing at the entrance and the next moment she was totally submerged and without hope of escape as the water filled their cave from floor to ceiling. “This at last is the end,” she thought as she fought to hold her breath. As her lungs gasped for air she drew in the first water through her nostrils, found no sustenance in it and during the brief moment of panic that precedes drowning she arched her body for one last fight. The struggle brought her head up, and suddenly there came the near alien sensation of air entering her lungs again. Sputtering, choking and gasping she realized that the water had receded. She had just time enough to fill her lungs before the next wave entered. All in all there were six waves, three of them that filled the cave and three that came only to her shoulders before retiring. Then the surge of water desisted.

They were still alive. Farrell lay on his side, with only a weak smile to show that he survived. The Genie was vomiting water, his shoulders heaving, and she brought up one arm —it was difficult in so confined a space—and patted his shoulder in commiseration. The Genie gagged once and rolled over on his back, an arm across his face.

“Close,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

The Genie only nodded.

From far away came the sound of the airplane, its noise steadily increasing, and from above they heard the sound of men’s voices shouting, and Mrs. Pollifax conceded that the chase was on in earnest. Men called unintelligible orders above their heads, the launch came back, slowed for an exchange of shouts, then sped away sending fresh waves to torture them in their cave. The men along the shore moved away, their voices growing distant as they shouted back and forth in the forest, and as Mrs. Pollifax lifted a tired and dripping head a small lull occurred.

“I’m hungry,” said the Genie.

Slowly and stupidly Mrs. Pollifax realized that he had not shared in the small meal that she and Farrell had divided in the cornfield and she fumbled in her petticoats for food.

Sadly she drew out a sodden piece of cheese and handed it to the Genie—the bread had completely disintegrated and not a crumb of it was found. The pistol, too, was wet, and drearily she remembered that pistols did not usually function after being submerged in water. She turned her head and watched the Genie munch his cheese, very slowly, to make it last, and then her attention was distracted by the sound of gunshots from far away. This confused her tired mind; she wondered if only a part of herself and of Farrell and the Genie had hidden here in the cave while their physical selves had gone on and on through the pines and if somewhere along the shores of the lake the general was capturing them now. She pinched herself experimentally and it hurt, and this reassured her that she had not become disembodied after all.

“Must have caught some other poor devil in hiding,” Farrell said in a low voice.

Mentally Mrs. Pollifax thanked him for reassuring her.

The plane was returning, and the launch with it, and for the next ten minutes each of them fought mutely and individually to keep from drowning. Nor were there any lulls following, for it became obvious that a number of police launches had begun to patrol the shores of the lake. Whole centuries passed—what time had they crawled in here, wondered Mrs. Pollifax, at one o’clock in the afternoon, two o’clock?—and each century left her colder and wetter. In what other world had she yearned for cool water to drink and bathe in? Now she was sated with it, and she kept recalling an old saying that one should never wish too hard for something lest the gods bestow it.

“Rubbish,” she thought with a sniff, and wondered if next she might become delirious.

Then where patches of sunshine had illuminated the log outside and filtered through to the cave there was a deepening twilight. Farrell leaned across her and said to the Genie, “We have to leave soon.”

She could no longer see the Genie’s face but his voice said blankly, “Leave?”

Mrs. Pollifax turned her head back to Farrell. He said flatly, “Absolutely. I suggest we float that log that’s outside, and hang on to it all the way across Lake Scutari. If we’re lucky, if the wind isn’t against us, if we have enough strength, we might land in Yugoslavia.”

Mrs. Pollifax marveled at his resilience, that he could make plans after being so nearly embalmed, and then she realized that ever since this journey had begun there had been one of them to carry them a step farther when the other two could manage nothing more. How very surprising this was, she reflected, and again she pulled herself together to help and heard herself say, “Yes, of course, that’s what we must do.” Eight words and each of them labored, but at least she had said them.

“Police boats,” pointed out the Genie wanly.

“We’ll have to watch out for them, that’s all. And if they have powerful searchlights—can you swim, Duchess?”

“Feebly.”

“The same here,” contributed the Genie.

“Then we either hide behind the log, or under it, or—”

Or be seen and captured, finished Mrs. Pollifax silently, and asked, “How far?”

“Who knows?”

Mrs. Pollifax turned to the Genie. “We still know nothing at all about you, you haven’t told us even your name.”

“Smith will do nicely if you’d like a name.”

Mrs. Pollifax found herself reviving and bristling at such an insult. She said coldly, “I don’t think it will do at all unless your name really is Smith.”

“Nobody’s named Smith,” growled Farrell. “Not in my circle.”

“Much, much better if you don’t know my name,” replied the Genie. “Better for you if you meet General Perdido again. Safer. He’d never appreciate your knowing.”

“Can’t think why,” Farrell retorted.

“I was thinking of next of kin,” Mrs. Pollifax told the Genie reproachfully.

Something like a chuckle came from the Genie. “Bless you, they would have held the funeral for me two years ago. I’ve been dead a long, long time, Mrs.—Pollifax, is it?”

“Yes,” she said, thoroughly puzzled by now. “Well, no point in arguing.”

“Right, it’s time we go,” Farrell reminded them. “You want to stick your head out?”

The Genie began pushing at the twigs and branches and dead leaves that had returned to the bank after the last wave, and presently he crawled out. Mrs. Pollifax knew when he left because he kicked her in the face as he went. She heard him stand up outside, dripping only a little, and a few minutes later he reached in to place an icy hand on her shoulder. “All clear,” he whispered. “There are a few lights on the opposite shore but that’s a distance of miles. No police boats to be heard or seen at the moment”

Mrs. Pollifax grimly began the job of moving a body that had lain on its stomach for half a day, and after considerable manipulation and experimentation she managed to climb to her knees and then to squeeze through the opening under the bank. Farrell followed slowly, pushing his damaged leg and homemade crutch ahead of him. The darkness they met was dark and opaque, broken only by a scattering of stars in the sky and half a dozen lights shining across the lake. The air was soft as velvet. The faintly abrasive murmur of a motorboat came to them from a great distance and as they stood there, listening, a fish jumped in the lake and drops of water scattered behind it. There were no other sounds.

The Genie was wrestling with the log. It had the advantage of being large enough and high enough out of the water to give them sufficient cover, but on the other hand this had the disadvantage of making it harder for them to cling to it from the water. “Straddle if for now,” suggested the Genie. “We can paddle with our hands or feet and if a boat comes we can slip off and hide behind it.”

But for three exhausted people to mount a wet, round log proved not only difficult but nearly impossible; Mrs. Pollifax began to understand the problems of the logroller. No sooner had one of them climbed on than the others fell off, and they finally brought it back to shallow water and climbed on at the same moment.

“Everybody ready to set sail?” asked the Genie.

“As ready as well ever be,” sighed Mrs. Pollifax, thinking how hungry she was, how sleepy, how cold and bone-tired.

“Damn it, let’s go,” Farrell said fiercely.

Gingerly they paddled the log out from the shadows and into the breeze that had sprung up from the north, their destination Yugoslavia.

Twenty-one

In Washington, D.C., on the morning of that same day, Peattie notified Carstairs that he had received information from Peking concerning General Perdido. He would bring in the messages personally whenever Carstairs had the time to see him.

“Come along now,” said Carstairs, and hung up. As he sat back and lit a cigarette his eyes fell on the calendar and he realized it was now eight days since what he called the “Pollifax Affair” had erupted. Eight days was a long, long time in the life of his department, and he reviewed the facts. They did not cheer him and when Peattie was ushered in he had to forcibly remove the frown from his brow in order to appear civilized. “Good to see you,” he murmured, half rising to shake his hand. “Dropping in doesn’t inconvenience you, I hope.”

“Lord, no. The Operations Department always fascinates me. I suppose I’m hoping you’ll drop a few clues about how this is turning out.”

“Badly,” said Carstairs dryly. “What have you come up with?”

“Yes. Well.” Peattie put on his reading glasses. “It seems that General Perdido has been in Peking, yes, but he did not arrive there until August 24, five days after the kidnapping of your Mrs. Pollifax and Mr. Farrell.”

“Five days after,” mused Carstairs, frowning. “Was anyone with him?”

“No one, he arrived quite alone.”

“Hmmm. So presumably Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell were not taken to Cuba and not taken to China, either.”

“Also, and this you may find interesting,” went on Peattie, “he arrived in China on a jet that collected him in Athens.”

”Athens!” exclaimed Carstairs, visibly electrified. “Athens?” He leaned forward and briefly swore. “The Mediterranean —the Balkans—I never thought of Albania, although why on earth he’d take them so far—”

Peattie nodded and went on. “He remained in Peking until the middle of the week, leaving yesterday in a private plane, destination unknown except that a very reliable informant tells us the plane was heading for—care to guess?”

”Albania?”

“Right. But your friends were not with him, and have apparently not been in Peking at all.”

Carstairs stubbed out his cigarette. “No, obviously not Albania …” he repeated with a shake of his head. “Anything else?”

Peattie smiled with the pleasure of someone holding a very interesting card up his sleeve. “Yes, a little something more. I took the liberty of—well, after all, since Albania has become the prodigy of the Chinese Reds it has naturally fallen into my province and so I went ahead, that is—”

“That is, what?”

“I made inquiries. General Perdido did land in Albania last night, his plane came in at Shkoder, whereupon the car that met him took off immediately for the mountains.”

“Very interesting indeed,” said Carstairs. “So on the twenty-fourth, five days after the kidnapping, the general flies from Athens to Peking, remains a few days and then flies to Albania.” He frowned. “It could mean a great deal, it could mean nothing.”

Peattie nodded. “We know frustratingly little about Albania since the Red Chinese moved in, but there have been rumors that somewhere in the North Albanian Alps there is a building, a very primitive stone fortress originally built by bandits, where a few very top-secret political prisoners are kept The countryside is almost inaccessible: cliffs, gorges, crags, landslides, you name it, and the mountain people are a clannish bunch. Still, the rumor persists that such a place exists, and it was into these same mountains that the general disappeared.”

“Who’s the informant?” asked Carstairs idly. “Reliable?”

“An Orthodox Christian priest,” said Peattie. “You may or may not know that the churches have been closed and desecrated in Albania. Our friend’s mosque, for instance, has been turned into a bar and his own existence is precarious. Not too long ago he was put to work for a month on a road gang that repairs and builds roads in the north, and it’s there he heard stories about this place.”

“Any chance of pinpointing its whereabouts?” Carstairs was already out of his chair and crossing the room to the wall map.

With a shrug Peattie joined him. “Anywhere from here to there,” he said, tracing the line of the mountains in the north. “We know the road ends about here,” he added, “but of course that doesn’t mean anything, the roads are constantly coming to a crashing halt in these countries and life still goes on, by mule, donkey, bicycle, oxcart, et cetera, et cetera.”

Carstairs shook his head. “There’s not a chance in the world they could still be alive, not a chance, but is there any way of confirming the fact that they were taken there? That they were killed there?”

“Very difficult making inquiries,” Peattie said. “Take weeks, I’m afraid. Foreigners, of course, are immediately suspect and the few allowed into the country as tourists see very little. A good many Albanians are connected with the secret police, by membership, through relatives or marriage —the usual trick, you know, to keep the citizenry terrorized. I’m not sure …” He hesitated and then said firmly, “I’m very sure the agents we have over there wouldn’t be allowed to endanger themselves for the sake of—”

Carstairs bluntly completed the thought. “For the sake of two agents who have been at the mercy of General Perdido for more than a week. Quite right, I wouldn’t allow it myself.”

Peattie very pointedly looked away and added, “I think I should tell you that this mountain eerie has a most unsavory reputation. My informant tells us that those who are Catholics cross themselves when it’s mentioned. It’s spoken of in whispers, and said that no one has ever left it alive.”

“I get the point,” Carstairs told him harshly, and then, more gently, “I wonder …”

“Wonder what?”

“I’m curious about that mountain fortress.” He got up, excusing himself, and went out to confer with Bishop. He returned a few minutes later. “I had an idea,” he explained. “I’ve asked for a private seaplane to get lost over the Albanian Alps. They should have it there in an hour.”

“Reconnaissance?”

Carstairs nodded. “Strictly unofficial, of course—well share any information we get with you people, but if Perdido’s going to go on snatching Americans we’d jolly well better find out if he’s tucking them in there for the night.”

Peattie stood up. “You’ll keep me posted then. Good.”

Carstairs also stood. “And thank you for stopping in. Let’s get together for a drink one of these days.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Peattie with his wry smile. “One of these days or years…”

When he had gone Carstairs went back to his paper work, made a few telephone calls, went to lunch and conferred for an hour with his chief upstairs. It was after two o’clock when he returned to his office to be handed a radiogram by Bishop. It was a report from the pilot of the seaplane that had made a sortie over the Albanian Alps. No building of Carstairs’ description had been seen with the naked eye but the reconnaissance photographs would be dispatched as soon as they were developed. What had intrigued the pilot, however, was the activity going on in the area bounded by the Alps in the east, Shkoder in the south and Lake Scutari in the west. He had seen a large number of men scouring the area on foot, a stream of very black smoke rising from a wood—obviously something containing oil or gasoline had been set afire—and an unusual concentration of police launches patrolling Lake Scutari.

Carstairs frowned, wondering what the devil this would mean, if anything. He wished he knew more about Albania, he wondered if Peattie would have knowledge of whether this type of activity was normal or irregular for that country and he was about to pick up the phone when Peattie himself was ushered in again.

“This just came through,” Peattie said without preamble. “Something’s up all right in the north of Albania. One of our agents broke silence to send it—damned risky of him. Here, read it yourself, it’s fresh from the decoding room.”

Carstairs picked up the sheet and scanned it. It read:

GENERAL PERDIDO ARRIVED ALBANIA YESTERDAY, MYSTERIOUSLY SHOT AND WOUNDED DURING NIGHT, TODAY DIRECTING LARGE SEARCH PARTY FOR ENEMIES OF STATE ESCAPED MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY EN CAR, NUMBER IN PARTY UNCERTAIN STOP TWO GUARDS DEAD, ONE ESCAPEE RUMORED AMERICAN, GROUP ASSUMED STILL ALIVE AND HEADING WEST OR NORTHWEST TO COAST STOP

Carstairs leaped to his feet to look at the map. “Whoever these people are we’ve got to give them every possible help,” he sputtered. “If one of them’s rumored to be American there’s always a chance it could be Farrell, but even if it isn’t these people can give us valuable information. Look at this map, see how damn close they are to Yugoslavia, that’s where they’ll head, it’s their only chance. Bishop,” he bellowed into the intercom, “get me Fiersted in the State Department.” To Peattie he said, “If Fiersted will clear the way for us with the Yugoslavian Government we can scatter a few of our men along their border to watch for them. We can have men there by midnight—by midnight at the very latest,” he vowed.

By midnight Mrs. Pollifax, Farrell and the Genie were no longer adrift upon the waters of Lake Scutari. They were not in Yugoslavia, either. They had been blown by an ill wind in the opposite direction—south, and deeper into Albania— and at the stroke of midnight they were huddled behind a stone wall in the city of Shkoder at the southern tip of Lake Scutari. High above their heads stood the walls of a grim-looking, medieval castle. A fuzzy, heat-stricken pink moon shed a faint light on the scraps of wet paper that had once been their map, and by this light Mrs. Pollifax was trying to make some sense of the lines that had not been obliterated.

“The damn thing looks like a river,” the Genie was saying, regarding the water in front of them angrily. “It can’t belong to Lake Scutari. There’s a current, we felt it, and anything but a real river would have dried up in this heat a month ago.”

It had felt like a real river, too; in fact if the moon had not emerged from wisps of cloud their log would have sailed right out of Lake Scutari, past the castle on the hill and down this unidentifiable body of water. They had barely managed to propel the log toward land, and they were now hiding in the shadows of an ancient, cobbled alley while they desperately tried to think what to do. Their log had been lost in the darkness and they were back in the city where they had first met Albania. It was difficult to decide whether they had made progress or not.

“There is a line,” said Mrs. Pollifax, peering nearsightedly at the map. “The line goes from Shkoder to the Adriatic Sea but it has no label, nothing says it’s a river.”

“I copied every single word there was,” Farrell informed her stiffly.

“Of course you did, it’s just such a small map. But there Is a line, see?” She passed the scrap of paper around, and the two men took turns squinting at the line and pondering its significance. Mrs. Pollifax added hopefully, “The only other lines like that on the map are rivers. It even says they’re rivers.”

“And this does appear to be a river,” the Genie said, nodding. “Even if we didn’t expect a river here.”

“A very good river, too,” put in Farrell.

“But nameless, unknown and confusing,” said the Genie.

Mrs. Pollifax took back the wet piece of paper to study again. “There’s this to be considered,” she told them softly. ‘To go by land from Lake Scutari to the coast looks quite a distance, between ten and twenty miles, I’d say, and all of it to be done on foot. This funny line meanders a bit, but his line, if it really is a river, ends at the Adriatic. If one had a boat—”

“If one had a boat, and if this truly is a river, and if it should empty into the Adriatic—”

The Genie broke off without finishing his sentence and they were all silent, contemplating the succession of hazards. “So many ifs,” sighed Mrs. Pollifax at last. “A gamble in the most terrifying sense of the word.”

The Genie said soberly, “But that is precisely what life is, wouldn’t you agree? Everything is a matter of choice, and when we choose are we not gambling on the unknown and its being a wise choice? And isn’t it free choice that makes individuals of us? We are eternally free to choose ourselves and our futures. I believe myself that life is quite comparable to a map like this, a constant choice of direction and route.” He was silent a moment. “Stay here,” he added, standing up. “I will try to find a boat for us.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded, feeling a very deep relief that someone had told her to remain sitting. It was bliss not to move, and even greater bliss to be ordered not to move since this immediately eliminated all sense of guilt and responsibility. She closed her eyes, then opened them to see that Farrell was already asleep and with a sigh she forced her eyelids to remain open, knowing that someone had to remain on guard or all their previous efforts would come to nothing. To occupy herself she began figuring how many hours ago they had escaped. They had left their prison around nine o’clock Thursday night, hadn’t they? It had been roughly dusk, or nine of this day, when they had set their log afloat on Lake Scutari. This meant they had escaped only a little more than twenty-four hours ago, which was incredible because it already seemed a lifetime of nightmares. She then began figuring when they or she had last slept and when they had last eaten, but this was even more arduous and numbers kept slipping from her mind and her lids were just closing, her will power diminishing, when she heard the quiet drip-drip of an oar or paddle in the water nearby. She put out a hand to waken Farrell and when his eyes jerked open she placed a warning finger across her lips. They both turned to watch the silhouette of a long boat move across the path of weak moonlight. The boat looked a little like a Venetian gondola, its prow and stern sharp-pointed and high out of the water. A man stood in the center facing the bow, an oar in each hand, but Mrs. Pollifax couldn’t be sure it was the Genie until the boat drew in to the shore. She and Farrell went to meet it.

“Come aboard,” said the Genie, bowing as had been his custom, and Mrs. Pollifax could even see his old twinkle in the moonlight. The Genie was feeling pleased with himself, and quite rightly, she thought, wondering how he had found the londra and hoping he hadn’t been forced to kill for it. She moved to help Farrell—it was necessary for him to sit on the side of the boat and tumble in backward because of his bad leg. She, too, half fell into the boat and lay on the floor too exhausted to move or speak. It was the Genie who was taking over now, it had become his turn, and she lay on her back and stared up at the clouded moon and hoped her turn would never come. The Genie was at work with the oars again, giving the water quick, short jabs. Mrs. Pollifax said in a low, dreamy voice, “You found a boat.”

‘Tied up, not far away,” the Genie whispered over his shoulder. “Sleep a little, the current helps. With this moon I’ll keep close to the shore.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s gaze traveled from him to the shape of Shkoder‘s castle set high above them, its sides almost perpendicular, the lines of its buildings outlined black against the deep-blue night sky. There was a solitary star, and with her eyes upon it Mrs. Pollifax fell softly asleep. When she awoke both the castle and the star had disappeared and she thought the sky looked a shade lighter. Then she realized that what had awakened her was the sharp crack of a pistol shot from somewhere along the shore. She sat up at once.

“Down,” whispered the Genie violently.

Farrell, too, fell back, his eyes alarmed. “But what was it, who is it?”

“Someone on the shore. I think he wants us to stop.”

“Are we going to?” asked Mrs. Pollifax weakly.

“I haven’t seen him, it’s too dark,” the Genie said, speaking without moving his lips. “I heard something and glanced toward the shore. I could dimly make out a man waving his arms but I looked away. I am still looking away, I see nothing.”

“He may fire again and hit you the next time,” Farrell pointed out.

The Genie said pleasantly, “Yes, I know. But we are moving faster now, can you feel it? You mustn’t look but the river has been growing wider in the last ten minutes, and the earth flatter. These are rice paddies we are passing now. There is a definite change in the air, too—smell it?”

Both Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax sniffed. “Salt,” said Farrell wonderingly. “Salt? Am I right?”

“Yes.”

The pistol was fired again and something plunked against the sides of the boat. “Above water line, I hope,” said Farrell. “He’s a damn good shot in this light.”

“He’s running away now,” the Genie said casually. “He has begun thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“That he can’t question a man going toward the sea in a boat if the man in the boat refuses to stop. He will either find a boat himself or find a telephone and talk to people on the coast who will stop us.”

“May I sit up now?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes, he’s gone.”

She sat up and looked around her. The darkness was rolling back to uncover a very charming scene of springlike tender green, flat to the eye and stretching as far as the horizon. Ahead—Mrs. Pollifax wondered what lay ahead and beyond. From the boat she could see only a floor of water, a huge ceiling of brightening sky, and a number of birds. “But those are sea gulls!” cried Mrs. Pollifax.

“We’ve got to know what to do,” Farrell said in a brooding, nearly desperate voice. “Where we’re going, what we’re going to do. My God, to keep playing it by ear—”

”Yugoslavia is north,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded him. “We know that.”

“But we don’t even have a gun that’s dry!”

The Genie said, “Yes, we have.” The two turned to stare at him and he said, “The guard Stefan, do you remember my taking his pistol? His holster was the waterproof type. Remove it from my pocket and check it. There may be time, too, to clean the others. Know how?”

“No, damn it,” said Farrell. “You?”

The Genie shook his head. “Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid. Got the gun?”

Farrell was holding it and breaking it open. “Five cartridges.”

The Genie nodded. “And you?” he asked of Mrs. Pollifax.

She began emptying the various pockets in her petticoats. Out came the playing cards and Farrell exclaimed, “Not those! My God, Duchess, I won’t be able to see a deck of cards for the rest of my life—if I have a life—without thinking of you.”

“Well, that’s one form of immortality,” she retorted, and drew out the pistol, the magazine clip, the dried shreds of map, the compass. “And if I’m captured again perhaps they’ll spare me a few minutes for a game of solitaire instead of the usual last meal or cigarette. That’s all I have,” she added, gesturing toward the small pile. “No food. Not a crumb.”

“That damn lake,” sighed Farrell.

“Actually I’ve stopped feeling weak,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Rather like catching one’s second wind, I suppose, except of course we’ve had drinking water to sustain us.”

“The kind that will bring on dysentery in a week,” contributed Farrell gloomily. “It’s getting lighter.”

‘Too light,” said the Genie.

Mrs. Pollifax roused herself again. She said to the Genie, “You’ve been standing there all night, would you like me to take a turn? The current’s so strong now there’s really no need to row, is there?”

There’s still need for steering,” he pointed out dryly. “And I think we’re very near the Adriatic, near enough to walk to it if this river decides to turn and go elsewhere.”

Farrell said thoughtfully, “If they should know by now there’s a boat on this river, and be waiting to stop it, perhaps we should walk to the Adriatic.”

The Genie shrugged. “Maybe.”

Mrs. Pollifax said gently, “No, Farrell. I mean, your leg. I mean—”

“Then let me take my chances with the boat and you walk,” he said, and Mrs. Pollifax knew by the suppressed fury in his voice that his pride was quivering. On the other hand her amateur work in hospitals had taught her when a patient was on the verge of collapse, and Farrell’s nerves had reached a breaking point, gone beyond and returned. He had more stamina than most men, but even a Hercules would have had to admit that the past thirty-six hours were enervating.

Suddenly the gaudy, blood-red sun cleared the high cliffs behind them and the misty landscape lost its oriental quality and Mrs. Pollifax thought, “Why, this is the dawn I was sure I’d never see!” For a moment she was caught by the magic of life, its brevity and unpredictability, and she stared at this world as if just born into it The distant mountains were snow-capped, the nearer cliffs tawny with deep-purple shadows. Around her the ground mist that only a few minutes ago had been gray and tattered was transformed by light into silky clouds of pearl-white and palest pink. The air was cool, and smelled of damp earth and wet grass, and the river flowing around and past them contained in it mosaic patterns of sky and sun and shore. Mrs. Pollifax felt a stirring in her that was almost mystical; an exhilarating sense of freedom that she had never known before, as if in this moment all the rules and habits of a lifetime fell from her and she stood at the very core of life and felt its heartbeat. It came of experiencing dawn in this strange country a continent away from her own, it came of being still alive when she ought to have been dead; it was compounded of surprise, appreciation, exhaustion, hunger, the effects of danger and an unquenchability of the human spirit.

She heard Farrell say, “You all right, Duchess?”

She started. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

At that moment ahead of them the ground mist rolled away and they saw the sun shining on the clear, sparkling water of the Adriatic. Almost simultaneously Farrell cried, “Oh, God— look!” and Mrs. Pollifax glanced to the shore of the river on their right and saw a police boat setting out to intercept them, flags flying from its bow and stern, the spray rising majestically in an arc behind it

Twenty-two

There were two men in the boat, each of them faceless silhouettes from this distance, but it could be assumed they were well armed—police usually were—and each man was leaning forward with an intensity that suggested fixity of purpose. Their boat was too old and too broad in the beam to move with speed, but it took the waves like a sedate and experienced old dowager, and even a motor that kept missing and cutting out would make progress against a londra with one man at its oars. Mrs. Pollifax said anxiously, “They can’t possibly know who we are, they know only that we came down the river.” “They’ll find out who we are soon enough,” pointed out Farrell dryly, and he began to swear quietly and thoroughly at their impotence while the Genie frantically churned the water with the oars, his face grim.

Mrs. Pollifax glanced around, hoping for some wild improvisation or concealment to present itself but behind them the river was empty, and ahead of them the sea was open and boundless, furnished only with buoys noting the river’s entrance. Buoys … no, nothing could be done with buoys … Mrs. Pollifax’s gaze swerved to the left bank of the river and she gave an exclamation. “Look! There’s a wharf and a boat—a sailboat!” -

“So?” growled Farrell, snapping the safety on the gun.

“But sailboats go fast!” Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward and clutched the Genie’s arm. “Do look,” she begged. “The man’s getting ready to take the boat out, the sail’s already up, we have that gun and we can make him sail us out to sea, it’s our only chance!” She found herself standing and helping the Genie push and pull at the oars. “Faster,” she whispered. “Faster, faster, faster.” The Genie had backed one oar to change their direction but they were rowing against the current now and the police launch, coughing and sputtering, was nevertheless gaining on them with shocking speed. The wharf was a small one, a float, really, with a narrow catwalk leading over the water to it. The boat moored beside it looked heavy but certainly seaworthy; it was roughly twenty-five feet in length, with a sunlit white sail flapping gently in the wind as the man secured the halyards. Behind them the asthmatic whine of the motor launch grew louder, and now Mrs. Pollifax could see the two men clearly, one thin and dark-faced, the other fleshy and bald. Mrs. Pollifax began to tremble.

“Faster,” Farrell was saying sharply. “For God’s sake faster, we’re almost there and so are they.”

The fisherman wore a red jersey and a pair of tattered trousers. He seemed completely oblivious to the race being run nearby. In a leisurely fashion he reached from his boat to the dock, picked up a bucket and stowed it away, walked forward to untie the mooring lines, returned aft and pulled in the stern lines. Grasping the tiller he gave it a thrust, the sails filled with wind and the boat swung free of the wharf. The Genie had been aiming for the wharf; now he swerved to follow the sailboat out to sea, and both he and Mrs. Pollifax began shouting to the man at the helm. “Wait—wait for us,” cried Mrs. Pollifax, and the startled fisherman turned to look at them. They were very close to him now, and the motorboat was even closer behind them. “Wait,” shouted Mrs. Pollifax, waving violently. The fisherman scowled. Undecided, watchful, he gave the tiller a jerk and brought his boat about into the wind, sails luffing, bow pointed directly at them as he regarded them with suspicious curiosity. The Genie viciously thrust one oar back through the water and the londra shot across the bow of the fishing boat. Dropping both oars the Genie leaped over Mrs. Pollifax and jumped aboard the sailboat.

“Zott,” gasped the fisherman. He stood up and roared his indignation but the Genie ignored him and leaned over the water to pull the londra against the sailboat.

To Farrell the Genie shouted, “For heaven’s sake aim your gun at this man! And climb aboard before he kills me with his bare hands!” His voice mingled with shouts from the policemen behind them. Their launch was heading straight for the sailboat to ram it, but the Genie had now pulled the londra between the two boats as a buffer. “Hurry,” he told Mrs. Pollifax, and she stumbled toward Farrell to help him drag his useless leg over the side.

The fisherman had stopped bawling his indignation. He stood watching them with opened mouth, his stare moving ponderously from the gun in Farrell’s hand to Mrs. Pollifax. He glowered briefly at the Genie and then his eyes came to rest on the men in the launch and narrowed as he recognized their uniforms. Startled, confused, he glanced back at Farrell climbing aboard, looked again at the policemen and then decided that he was caught in an insoluble situation, and very sensibly chose a prudent course. He jumped overboard and began swimming toward the wharf.

“No, no, come back,” implored Mrs. Pollifax, seeing him slip through their fingers.

The tiller that he had deserted moved idly to one side and hung there a moment, then abruptly, savagely, the sails filled with a wind that sent the boom crashing, lifted one side of the boat and sent buckets skidding across the deck.

“Grab the tiller!” screamed Farrell from the bow.

“What’s a tiller?” screamed back Mrs. Pollifax hysterically.

“That things—for God’s sake hold it steady!”

Mrs. Pollifax retrieved the long arm of smooth wood that jutted from the deck and clung to it, the boom nearly decapitating the Genie before it settled, the sails flapping erratically, the boat threatening to turn over on its side before it steadied. What saved them was the londra, which the Genie held captive with both hands, and which the two policemen also held captive, having attached themselves to the other side of it like barnacles. Only a second earlier the bald man had started to climb across it to reach the sailboat—he was caught with one foot in the londra and one still in the police boat; jerking upright he waved both arms wildly in a fight for balance, lost the fight and fell ignobly to the floor of the londra. At once the thin man behind the wheel of the launch pulled out a revolver and fired across the boat at the Genie. Farrell returned the fire and the policeman slumped over the wheel. Mrs. Pollifax screamed, not because Farrell had shot the thin man but because the bald one in the bottom of the londra had climbed to his knees and was aiming a gun at Farrell. “Shoot,” she screamed at Farrell, pointing, and Farrell and the bald policeman exchanged shots simultaneously.

But the Genie’s clutch on the londra had weakened during the melee and it was the londra that had acted as a sea anchor. With nothing to hold them now the rigging tightened, the sails went taut and the wind carried them zooming off across the water with an abruptness that sent Farrell sprawling across the Genie on the deck. Mrs. Pollifax, holding tightly to the tiller, screamed for help.

“Let the tiller go! Drop it!” shouted Farrell, thereby totally confusing Mrs. Pollifax because earlier he had insisted that she grab it. She was further mystified when she let it go and the boat came about into the wind and ceased its reckless caroming. She said with interest, “Why does it…” and then stopped because Farrell had lifted himself from the Genie and was staring at him in horror. “Oh no,” she whispered, and both hands flew to her mouth to keep her lips from trembling. She understood now why the Genie had stopped holding the londra. Creeping over the coils of line she knelt beside him. “Is he dead?”

Farrell very gently placed the Genie’s head in his lap. “Not dead but very very badly hurt.”

“Oh God, you’re hurt too,” she told him, seeing blood well out of Farrell’s sleeve at the shoulder.

He nodded. “Not badly but I can’t risk moving and I don’t think it would be very healthy for the Genie, either. Duchess, you’re going to have to sail this boat”

“I?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax in a shocked voice. “Me?” “I can tell you what to do,” he pointed out. “Duchess, you’ve got to, you can’t fall apart now, you realize how far we’ve come, don’t you?”

She thought back to the night on the precipice, to the goats and the wild chase in the Rolls Royce and the guard shot in the cornfield, to the day spent in being periodically submerged by motorboat waves, and the night floating across Scutari on a log. She nodded wearily. There came a time when a person wanted desperately to give up; she supposed it was as good a time as any to rally; surely there must be a few ounces of overlooked iron in her soul. “I’ll try,” she said, and wiped a tear from what must be a very raddled cheek by now. “I can’t help crying,” she told Farrell. “I’m tired.”

“Can’t imagine why,” he said dryly. As she crawled drearily back toward the tiller he added casually, “Have any idea whether I winged that bald chap in the londra?”

Mrs. Pollifax looked back. “The boats are still there, bobbing around at some distance from each other. No head showing in the londra. You must have hit him a little.”

Farrell nodded. “There may not be much time before they’re discovered, and two boats, each with a wounded or dead policeman in them, will set off a merry chase. Duchess, before you take the tiller, do three things.”

“Yes?”

“Look for fresh water. Hand me that tarp over there so I can make a tent to keep the sun off the Genie. See if the fisherman packed a lunch.”

“Lunch?” said Mrs. Pollifax, brightening. “You mean food?”

“Naturally I mean food—the stuff we haven’t had since heaven knows when.”

Mrs. Pollifax, foraging around, was staggered by her success. She could not remember any triumph in her life that could possibly equal what she felt as she carried to Farrell the goatskin bag containing the fisherman’s noon meal. She brought from it a slab of cornbread, six olives and a square of cheese. From a smaller goatskin bag she poured a cup of goat’s milk. When she crept back to the tiller it was with her mouth full of flaky, exquisitely flavored cornbread and her heart filled with a faint hope that if the gods were smiling on them now their smiles might linger just a little longer.

“Okay, Duchess, full speed ahead.”

“But speed is what I’m afraid of,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax ruefully.

He paid this no attention. “Wind from the north. We can’t risk heading north to Yugoslavia, we might run into more police launches. We’ll have to head straight out to sea.”

Mrs. Pollifax gaped at him. “Out to sea!” Farrell grinned weakly. “We’ve been doing everything else the hard way, Duchess, why stop now? Give me that compass and turn the tiller to starboard—the right, I mean. And brace yourself first,” he added.

Mrs. Pollifax tossed him the compass and turned the tiller to the right At once the boat came to life; the wind seized them like a gigantic hand, the sail tightened, the rigging creaked and Mrs. Pollifax was overwhelmed by a feeling of total helplessness as wind, sail and boat combined to send them skimming the waves. “But how do you stop this thing!” she wailed. She had the feeling of being on a roller coaster, idle one moment, the next moment hurtling at breath-taking speed.

“Easy does it,” Farrell shouted to her over the wind. “Keep the tiller in the center. You’re broad-reaching now, the wind on your starboard side.” “Like this?” “Excellent.”

“Yes—oh yes” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. She had just felt the boat steady itself in response to a subtle turn of the tiller, had felt the boat under her become disciplined, the sails taut but not under strain, and she was delighted.

“Keep it that way,” Farrell told her. “If you hit a squall and get scared let the tiller go, the boat’ll come about by itself. If the wind increases but you’re not scared then move the tiller slightly left or slightly right—you’ll be tacking then. The important thing for now, though, is to get the hell out of sight of land as fast as possible.” With his one useful arm he was pulling the tarp over his head and shrugging it into position so that it would shade the Genie.

Mrs. Pollifax, tiller in hand, dedicated herself to getting them the hell out of sight of Albania as fast as possible.

Toward five o’clock that afternoon the Persephone, a seagoing tug returning to its home port of Otranto from Port of Venice, was making its way southward when the first mate sighted a sailboat with someone waving what looked to be a white petticoat. “Another damned tourist,” he growled, mentally and savagely condemning those pleasure-loving hordes that descended upon the Adriatic believing anybody could sail a boat. He reported it to the captain, who ordered their course slowed, and presently the small boat drew alongside the Persephone.

The first mate looked down into the boat and gasped. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered, for seated at the tiller was one of the wildest-looking women he had ever seen, white hair in shreds, face filthy and blistering from the hot sun. Yards of voluminous skirt surrounded her, but although he recognized the clothes as Greek or Albanian the woman’s features did not match them. Then he saw the tarpaulin lift and his eyes widened, his memory flashing back to the war years and to lifeboats found in the Mediterranean. Both men looked as if they’d had it but the bearded one at least was in motion; he was grinning broadly and waving an arm, although it was plain from the blood-stained cloth strapped around his other arm that he badly needed a doctor. The first mate gave a brief thought to the type of gunfighters they might be escaping, and hurried to report to the captain.

Mrs. Pollifax, gazing up at the ship from below, wondered why on earth the sailors along the rail were staring at her with horrified fascination. She had naively pictured them being welcomed back to civilization with delighted smiles and shouts of joy. Now it occurred to her that in the eyes of civilization she and Farrell and the Genie might just as well be returning from a trip to the moon: their experiences of the past fortnight were too exotic, too melodramatic for a prosaic world to digest It was the three of them who must adapt now; it was they whom violence had made foreign, and for the first time she conceded how tattered and bizarre they must appear to these well-scrubbed sailors just finished with their tea.

“We’re curiosities,” she realized.

Then the spell broke; a sailor shouted, “Inglese! Welcome!” Cheering broke out along the deck rail, and Mrs. Pollifax had to look away to conceal the tears in her eyes.

“Well, Duchess,” said Farrell, smiling at her.

“Well, Farrell,” she said, smiling back at him, and lifted a petticoat to wipe her eyes.

“You look like hell, Duchess,” he said fondly, “but you’re safe.”

“Safe,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, tasting the word on her tongue as if it was a rare wine.

A rope ladder was flung over the side and an officer with a medical kit descended hand over hand to their boat. He went at once to the Genie and bent over him. Two sailors followed down the ladder and in broken English instructed Mrs. Pollifax in the rudiments of rope climbing. With their help she began the ascent, a dozen men shouting words of encouragement from the rail. She would have preferred waiting for Farrell but an officer in a starched, white uniform insisted upon escorting her at once to the captain.

“I must request identification,” said the captain, and then, unbending a little at sight of her face he added, “There must be people you would like to notify?”

Mrs. Pollifax thought of her son and daughter and reluctantly put them aside. “If you would be so kind as to contact Mr. Carstairs at the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington,” she said.

The captain’s eyes flickered. “It’s that way, is it?” He looked at her with open curiosity. “Suppose you write the message. I ask only that it not be in code and that I see it before it is sent.”

Mrs. Pollifax sat down gratefully at his desk and tried to pull her thoughts together. After chewing on her pencil for a moment she wrote the following:

SIR: RESCUED FROM ADRIATIC SEA THIS AFTERNOON BY …

She looked up. “What ship is this, and where are you going?” “The Persephone, due to land at Otranto in two hours, or

at 1900 hours.”

Mrs. Pollifax began again:

SIR: RESCUED FROM ADRIATIC SEA THIS AFTERNOON BY S.S. PERSEPHONE ARRIVING OTRANTO AT 1900 HOURS. FARRELL AND SECOND COMPANION IN NEED OF MEDICAL ATTENTION, HAVE NO PASSPORT OR MONEY AND MUST REQUEST SOME HELP OTHERWISE IT HAS BEEN A MOST INTERESTING TRIP. SINCERELY YOURS, EMILY POLLIFAX.

The captain read it through and nodded. “It will be sent immediately,” he said. “I will also send word to Otranto that a doctor will be urgently needed. We do not have one aboard, unfortunately.” He looked at her and smiled faintly. “And you,” he added, “you would perhaps like to wash a little and comb the hair?”

Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes widened. “Wash a little,” she repeated. “Wash a little? Yes, that would be very nice,” she said politely, and suddenly began to laugh.

The boat had not yet docked when a harbor launch drew up beside the Persephone and requested permission for two passengers to come aboard. Both men wore business suits; one carried an attaché case up the rope ladder and the other a medical bag. They were escorted at once to the cabin where Mrs. Pollifax, Farrell and the Genie were resting, and without a word the doctor hurried to the berth where the Genie lay. The second man stood and looked appraisingly at Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax. Completing his scrutiny he said, “Ben Halstead’s my name, I believe we have a mutual friend named Carstairs.”

Mrs. Pollifax brightened. “Yes indeed,” she said, rising from her chair. “I am Emily Pollifax and this is Mr. Farrell, who has a broken leg and a fresh bullet wound in his shoulder and an old one in his arm; and this man …” She glanced toward the Genie, whose eyes were open now but vacant as he gazed at the doctor. “We don’t know who he is but we brought him along anyway. He’s a very peculiar but resourceful Chinese man who speaks English, except that he preferred keeping it a secret for quite a long time.”

“Oh? That’s interesting.” Halstead moved to the berth and over the doctor’s shoulder looked down at the Genie. “He dropped no clues at all, you don’t know anything at all about him?”

“Actually I didn’t trust him at first,” put in Farrell. “Nor did he trust us, which is provocative. But he’s not a Red, and he rescued us from a very sticky situation.”

Mrs. Pollifax said slowly, “Yes, and when I asked him yesterday about next of kin, in case anything happened, he gave a little chuckle and said nobody would miss him, they would have held his funeral two years ago. He’d been dead a long time, he said.”

Halstead frowned. “There’s something damn familiar about the look of him. What’s his condition, Bill, can he be questioned?”

The doctor removed the stethoscope from his ears. “Not for a day or two, sorry. He needs immediate attention and the best of care, but he can be moved. Stretchers, an ambulance, then blood transfusions and straight to the operating room.”

“Will he survive?” asked Mrs. Pollifax anxiously.

“The vital thing is removing the bullet and that’ll be a bit tricky. After that I could answer with more certainty. Some signs of malnutrition, of course; considerable patchwork needed after removal of the bullet, but the odds are in his favor. Barring anything unforeseen—yes, he’ll survive.”

“I’m so glad,” Mrs. Pollifax said warmly.

The doctor, standing erect, only nodded. “From the sound of it we’re docking now.” He pulled the blanket from the top berth and tucked it around the Genie. “The ambulance is waiting at the pier, I’ll send them word to hurry along with a stretcher and then I’ll take a look at you, Mr.—Farrell, is it?”

Farrell said cheerfully, “That’s me, but no need to hurry. I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable without a bullet in me somewhere.” He was watching Halstead, who kept staring at the Genie. “You recognize him, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Very astute of you,” said Halstead, not turning. “Except recognize isn’t precisely the word; it’s more a feeling of familiarity. If I could only—good grief!” He exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “Dr. Lee Tsung Howell!”

“I beg your pardon?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

“Considerably thinner, of course, that’s what fooled me. Good heavens, and it was exactly two years ago that he disappeared—that ties in—and a memorial service really was held for him. Every bit of evidence pointed to his murder by the Red Chinese. There were even two reputable witnesses to testify he was killed and his body carried off by his assassins.”

Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell glanced in astonishment at the Genie. “Who is he?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“And what?” asked Farrell.

“Dr. Howell, the scientist. Brilliant man. Born in China; father English, mother Chinese. English citizen. Made the mistake of traveling to Hong Kong two years ago. That’s when they murdered—except they didn’t murder him, did they? Snatched him.”

Farrell said incredulously, “You mean he’s the Dr. Howell? The protein man?”

“Please,” said Mrs. Pollifax despairingly, “please can someone tell me what we’re talking about, and why on earth a protein man would be locked up in a cell in Albania for two years?”

“Food,” said Halstead. “Can you think of anything China needs more desperately for her underfed millions? She needs food more than communism, guns, armies, factories. If I tell you that at the time of his disappearance Dr. Howell was at work on a method for extracting protein from a common weed—a protein that would feed hundreds of people for only a few pennies—does that explain Red China’s interest in him?”

Farrell whistled.

“Except,” added Halstead, glancing at the Genie, “except they did a fantastic job of covering their tracks. We knew they tried to kidnap him but we believed he fought for his life and was killed.”

“Except there was no body,” pointed out Farrell.

“No, two witnesses instead, each highly placed and of impeccable reputation.”

“Not so impeccable now,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“No indeed.”

“Do you think they tortured him?”

“Possibly at first, but he’d be no good to them dead. They probably settled for solitary confinement, or slow starvation.” He shook his head. “What a break for the world that you found him! The presses will be humming all night long.”

“Will they hum for us, too?” inquired Mrs. Pollifax.

Both men turned to look at her. “Good God, no,” said Farrell. “The Genie—that is, Dr. Howell—will have escaped by himself against impossible odds. As for Emily Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, who on earth is she?”

“But I feel like such a heroine,” confessed Mrs. Pollifax sadly.

“And so you are, Duchess, so you are. But you have never left Mexico City, remember? As for Albania, where is it? You haven’t even read about it in Time magazine, let alone visited it”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

Farrell grinned. “Cheer up, Duchess. Do you recall—and it pains me to do so—my suggesting that the Genie was mentally retarded?”

She smiled back. “Yes I do remember, and I believe I said there were flashes of intelligence now and then.”

Halstead laughed. “Just to be charitable I might add that he’s known as quite an eccentric. Would that help?” The stretcher was brought in by two orderlies and they were silent as the Genie was lifted very gently onto it. As he was carried out of the stateroom Mrs. Pollifax said suddenly, “Will I be able to send him get-well cards? I should like to very much if you’ll give me the name of the hospital here.”

Halstead said, “Actually you can learn the hospital’s name simply by reading your newspaper tomorrow morning in Washington, D.C.”

”Washington!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.

“My orders are to fly you at once, nonstop, to Washington.” Seeing their stunned faces he added, “Sorry. You can eat and sleep on the plane, you know, but Carstairs has to see for himself that you’re alive.” He gave them a crooked half-smile. “Apparently he can’t believe it. At any rate immediate questioning is in order. We leave as soon as Bill has taken a look at that arm and pumped Farrell full of anti-infection and anti-pain shots.”

Mrs. Pollifax groaned. “But I’m still wearing the clothes of a goatherder’s wife and I still haven’t had a bath—only a facewash—and the lice are back and I think they’ve multiplied. Is there no rest at all for the weary?”

“Never. Not in this job, anyway.” He added with a grin, “You may never be in the newspapers, but it isn’t everybody who has a jet plane specially commandeered for them.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s seven o’clock now, European time. There’s a car and a plane waiting, you’ll be in the air within the hour and land in America shortly before midnight—losing a few hours on the ocean, of course. Looks like Walter Reed Hospital for you, old chap.”

Farrell nodded. “Afraid so, yes.”

”America,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax nostalgically. “I feel like singing the national anthem.”

“Better not,” suggested Farrell mildly, and visibly braced himself as the doctor joined them.

Twenty-three

They sat in Carstairs’ office, each of them facing him across his broad desk. The lights had been turned low and there were cigarettes for Farrell and hot soup and coffee for them both. Farrell’s arm was in a sling and he had been given four injections and seven hours of drugged sleep on the plane, but still he looked white and frail. After one glance at him Carstairs said flatly, “I won’t keep you long. The important thing is to put the frame of this on tape before you forget; it will surprise you how unreal your adventures will seem to you once you reach a fairly normal state of recovery. At the moment it is only too fresh to you. We need that freshness. You’ve seen General Perdido—he’s important to us. You’ve been in Albania—you’ve experienced a country we know too little about.” His face softened. “And may I congratulate you both on rescuing Dr. Lee Tsung Howell?”

“You may,” said Farrell with a grin.

“And on coming back yourselves,” added Carstairs. “I don’t mind telling you that I gave you both up long ago.”

“Did you really!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax in a pleased voice.

“I’m going to call in Bishop now,” went on Carstairs. “Hell take a few notes but the bulk of it will be put on tape tonight, the rest of the picture can be filled in tomorrow. I hope a tape recorder doesn’t make you self-conscious?”

‘Too tired,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

He nodded. “I think we might give Johnny the rest he needs by letting you do most of the talking, Mrs. Pollifax. Johnny, you join in when it suits you, agreed?”

Bishop had come in, and Mrs. Pollifax noticed that his nostrils looked pinched during the introductions. “It’s the goats,” she told him forgivingly. “Just don’t sit too near me.” Half a day in the waters of Lake Scutari had subdued the smell but it was obvious that only a complete change of clothes and a vast amount of hot water and soap would ever make her acceptable to society again.

“Goats?” said Carstairs, startled.

She nodded. “Goats. Where would you like me to begin?”

“With your abduction—the rest can be filled in later,” said Carstairs. “Begin with your meeting Johnny. That would be the nineteenth of August?”

She nodded. “They gave us soup and coffee too—the men in the shack.” Awkwardly, and then with increasing absorption, she told of their flight to Albania and their subsequent days there, Farrell joining in occasionally to emphasize a point. Carstairs did not interrupt until Mrs. Pollifax mentioned the missile site.

“Missile site!” he exploded. “Missile site?”

“You didn’t already know about this?” asked Mrs. Pollifax demurely.

”Albania is not a country where the CIA is given much scope,” he said dryly. “No, we did not know about this, Mrs. Pollifax. Are you sure it was a missile site?”

“No,” she said, “but Colonel Nexdhet was.”

“Who … ?”

Farrell grinned. “Let her go on, it gets more and more interesting.”

Mrs. Pollifax continued, eventually concluding, “… and we think the two men were left dead in their boats so we sailed west, straight out to sea, and by that time the Genie—that is, Dr. Howell—was more unconscious than conscious. At first we avoided any boats we saw in the distance but when we finally decided it was safe to be rescued nobody paid the slightest attention to us. We’d wave at them and they’d just wave back.”

“Thought we were out for pleasure,” added Farrell wryly.

Carstairs smiled and flicked off the switch of the tape recorder. “Quite a story… . Let’s let it rest there for the moment. It’s a good place to stop. There’ll be many more details to clear up, more information on General Perdido, for instance, and I’d like that missile site pinpointed on a map if humanly possible. Those stone buildings, too. All this can wait, though. The important item—and after hearing what’s happened to you the most surprising item—is that you’re both alive.”

Farrell said soberly, “You’ve very carefully avoided the beginning of all this, haven’t you? Mexico City, I mean. I take it the whole thing blew up like a bomb and turned into a disaster area for us. They got DeGamez?”

Carstairs sighed. “I’m sorry you ask.” He bent over a cigarette and a lighter, carefully avoiding Farrell’s eye. “One thing lost, one thing found,” he said. “Let’s not underestimate what you accomplished in getting Dr. Lee Tsung Howell back, as well as yourselves.” He put down the lighter and looked directly at Farrell. “Yes, Johnny, DeGamez is dead. He was murdered on the seventeenth of August.”

“Damn,” said Farrell savagely.

Mrs. Pollifax felt a tremor of shock run through her. She said quietly, “I’m terribly, terribly sorry. General Perdido did this?”

Carstairs nodded. “Fortunes of war, Mrs. Pollifax. All our agents know the risk.”

She shivered. “Yes, but he was so kind, he was such a good man, he was such a gentleman.”

Carstairs suddenly became very still. Slowly he turned his head to stare at Mrs. Pollifax and his silence had a stunned quality. He said at last, very softly, “But how could you possibly know that, Mrs. Pollifax, when you never met the real Senor DeGamez?”

“Oh, but you see I did,” she told him eagerly. “Not on the nineteenth, of course, but a few days after arriving in Mexico City—well, I had to be sure I could locate the shop, don’t you see? And after finding it I passed it nearly every day. I really grew to think of it as my shop,” she confessed with a rueful laugh. “And that’s why—well, after passing it so many times and seeing him there I thought I would stop in one morning and browse around a little. I didn’t think it would hurt,” she added anxiously, suddenly noticing the intensity of Carstairs’ gaze.

“Go on,” he said in a stifled voice.

“So I went inside and we had a lovely chat, Senor DeGamez and I.”

“When? What date?” The voice had urgency behind it.

“When? Why, it must have been—let’s see, it was four days before the nineteenth, I believe. That would make it August IS when I stopped in. Yes, it was definitely the fifteenth.”

“What exactly did you ‘chat’ about?” demanded Carstairs, and so harshly that Farrell gave him a second glance and narrowed his eyes.

“Why, mostly about traveling alone, and the grandchildren we had, and did I play solitaire. He gave me a book called 77 Ways to Play Solitaire, and although at the time I didn’t warm to the idea—”

“Mrs. Pollifax,” interrupted Carstairs in a strangled voice.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Pollifax, DeGamez was given your photograph on the ninth of August.”

“My what?”

“Mrs. Pollifax, when you walked into the Parrot Bookstore on August 15 DeGamez knew who you were. Do you understand, he knew who you were?”

A small gasp escaped Mrs. Pollifax.

“He must also have had very strong suspicions by that date that he was being closely watched. Mrs. Pollifax, I want you to tell me every word he said, and just where I can find that book.”

“Oh, but there was nothing in the book,” she assured him. “They thought there was, I forgot to tell you that, but General Perdido spent days somewhere having it tested. They found nothing.”

Carstairs sat back and looked at her. He said carefully, “If DeGamez had received the microfilms, Mrs. Pollifax, I know that he would have found some way to give them to you on the fifteenth. I want you to think. I want you to go back and reconstruct that visit as closely as possible.”

Very soberly Mrs. Pollifax sent her thoughts back to that morning.

“Describe it, tell me everything that happened.”

Patiently and carefully Mrs. Pollifax began speaking of the morning when she first entered the shop. The book of memoirs. The parrot’s shout. The conversation about Olé, about traveling alone, about American geese, and the presentation of the book on solitaire. “He wrapped both books together in white paper,” she added, frowning. “But by that time two other customers had come in and so I left.”

‘Try again,” said Carstairs.

Again Mrs. Pollifax described her visit, and once again uncovered nothing. “The two other customers had walked in, and he said something to me—in a more public voice, you understand—about wishing me a beautiful visit in his country. And then I—oh,” she cried, “the cards!”

“Cards,” repeated Carstairs, and leaned forward.

“Yes, of course,” she said in a stunned voice. “How on earth could I have forgotten! It was just as I reached the door. He called out, ‘But how can you play solitaire without the cards, senora’—yes, those were his words—and he threw them to me. Just threw them to me across the store. And he said, ‘How do you Americans call it, on the house?’ and I caught them. I held up two hands and caught them like a ball and tucked them into my purse. But surely he wouldn’t throw anything of value like that, so casually, so impulsively, you don’t think…?”

Carstairs’ voice was filled with suppressed excitement. “That is precisely the way a man who is under surveillance would dispose of something dangerous. Mrs. Pollifax, what happened to those playing cards?”

Farrell said incredulously, “Duchess, that deck you played with in Albania, that’s surely not—?”

“But of course,” she told Farrell. To Carstairs she said, “I have them right here in my pocket.”

Carstairs stared at her in astonishment. “You mean you carried them with you? You mean they’re with you now? You still have them?”

Farrell began to laugh. “Have them! Carstairs, the Duchess here played solitaire with those playing cards day in and day out, endlessly, right under the guards’ noses, and in front of General Perdido, too. Have them! She drove everybody nearly crazy with them.”

Mrs. Pollifax gave him a reproachful glance. Reaching down to her second petticoat she brought out the deck of cards and placed them on the desk. For a long moment Car-stairs stared at them as if he could not quite believe they were there. Then he reached out and picked them up and ran his fingers over them. “Plasticized,” he said softly. “They’re enclosed in plastic. Bishop,” he said in a strange voice, “Bishop, take these to the lab on the double. On the double, Bishop— it’s microfilms we’re after.”

“Yes sir,” gasped Bishop, and the door closed behind him.

Carstairs sat back and stared at Mrs. Pollifax with a look of incredulity.

“I know just how you feel,” said Farrell, grinning. “She’s full of surprises, what?”

“Rather, yes.” Carstairs shook his head, a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “And ten days ago I believed I had sent an innocent lamb into a den of wolves. You seem to have great resources, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“It’s my age,” said Mrs. Pollifax modestly.

“And if those cards should turn out to be …” Again Carstairs shook his head. “Why, then, nothing would have blown up in Mexico at all. It’s incredible, absolutely incredible.”

“But I simply can’t think why I didn’t remember about those cards,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “In my mind I always identified them with Senor DeGamez, yet I completely overlooked his tossing them to me like that. Is this what’s called a mental block?”

The phone buzzed and Carstairs picked it up. “Carstairs.” He listened and grinned. “Right. Thanks, Bishop.” Hanging up, he smiled at both Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax. “They’ve found the first microfilm. Tirpak used two packs of very thin playing cards. He cemented the back of one card to the front of another, with the film between, and enclosed each in special plastic.” He added fervently, “If that was a mental block, Mrs. Pollifax, then bless it. Perdido would have sensed at once that you were concealing something—if you had consciously recalled how you received those cards. It very definitely saved your life when you were questioned, and it’s certainly recovered for this country a great amount of invaluable information.” He shook his head. “Mrs. Pollifax, we are in your debt.”

She smiled and said gently, “If I could just have a bath and a change of clothes … I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more.”

Carstairs laughed. “I’ll make certain you have both within the hour. And for you, Johnny—a bevy of beautiful nurses.” Farrell stumbled to his feet and walked to Mrs. Pollifax. He bent over and kissed her. “I won’t say good-bye, Duchess, I couldn’t. Just don’t you dare leave town without coming to see me on my bed of pain.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked up at him and beamed. “I’ll bring roses, I promise you, my dear Farrell, and just to prove how opinionated and shortsighted you’ve been I’ll also bring a deck of playing cards and teach you one or two games of solitaire.”

He didn’t smile. He said gravely, “A very small price to pay for my life, Duchess… . God bless you and have a wonderful bath.”

Mrs. Pollifax put down her suitcase in front of the door to apartment 4-A and groped in her purse for the key. It seemed a long, long time since she had last stood here, and it filled her with a sense of awe that the externals of life could remain so unchanged when she felt so different. Like a kaleidoscope, she thought, her imagination captured by the simile: one swift turn of the cylinder and all the little bits and pieces of colored glass fell into a different pattern. As she inserted her key into the lock a door across the hall flew open, spilling sunlight across the black and white tiles of the floor. “Mrs. Pollifax, you’re back at last!” cried Miss Hartshorne.

Mrs. Pollifax stiffened. She said, turning, “Yes, I’m home again, and how have you been, Miss Hartshorne?”

“As well as can be expected, thank you. You must have had a marvelous trip to stay so long.”

“Yes, marvelous,” agreed Mrs. Pollifax with a faint smile.

“I’ve a package for you, it came this morning and I signed for it.” Miss Hartshorne held up one hand dramatically. “Don’t go away, don’t even move, I’ll be right back.”

Mrs. Pollifax waited, and presently her neighbor reappeared carrying a box wrapped in brown paper and covered with seals. “It came special delivery all the way from Mexico City! I’m giving you last night’s newspaper, too, so you can catch up on our news here.”

“How very kind of you,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Won’t you come in and have a cup of tea with me?”

Miss Hartshorne looked shocked. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of bothering you now. As an experienced traveler myself I know how utterly exhausted you must be. But I hope you’ll invite me in soon to see your slides. I trust you don’t mind, I took it upon myself to tell the Lukes and Mrs. Ohrbach that they could see them too. We’re all looking forward to them so much.”

Mrs. Pollifax said quietly, “I’m afraid there’ll be no slides, Miss Hartshorne.”

Her neighbor’s jaw dropped. “No slides? You mean your pictures didn’t come out?” Her glance was stern. “Didn’t you study the lighting charts I gave you?”

You’ve forgotten pi again, Emily… . Mrs. Pollifax smiled and said gently, “I didn’t take any snapshots, I was too busy.”

‘Too busy?” Miss Hartshorne looked horrified.

“Yes, too busy. In fact it might surprise you how busy I really was, Miss Hartshorne.” She added firmly, “I believe I’ll insist that you come in for a cup of tea now if you have the time. I don’t believe we’ve ever had a cup of tea together, have we?”

Miss Hartshorne looked shaken. “Why—why, no,” she said in an astonished voice. “No, I don’t believe we have.”

Mrs. Pollifax pushed wide the door and walked inside. “Do sit down, I’ll put some water on to boil and then I’ll join you.” Leaving package and newspaper on the couch she hurried out to the kitchen to fill the tea kettle. ‘There,” she said, returning, “that won’t take but a minute.” From where she sat she could see the headline on the newspaper that Miss Hartshorne had given her: RESCUED SCIENTIST GAINS STRENGTH, DR. HOWELL TO MEET PRESS TOMORROW. Mrs. Pollifax smiled contentedly.

“Your package,” pointed out Miss Hartshorne.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The package. Aren’t you dying of curiosity or is it something you ordered from Mexico?”

Startled, Mrs. Pollifax turned to eye the box beside her. “No, I didn’t order it and yes, I am curious. Would you hand me the scissors on the table beside you, Miss Hartshorne? Ill attack this right now.”

Scissors in hand she cut the strings. The box inside bore the label of a very expensive shop near the Hotel Reforma Intercontinental. “What on earth,” she murmured, and eagerly tore it open. “Serapes!” she gasped.

“How beautiful,” said Miss Hartshorne in a hushed voice. “A gift? How many friends you must have made, Mrs. Pollifax.”

Mrs. Pollifax lifted out first one and then another until the couch was aflame with their brilliant colors.

“Six!” cried Miss Hartshorne.

“Why so there are,” beamed Mrs. Pollifax. “One for each grandchild, one for Roger, one for Jane and one for myself. Isn’t that lovely?” Then she saw the card that had been slipped between the folds of the last serape. It read very simply, “With mingled gratitude and apologies, Carstairs.”

Carstairs. … A great warmth filled Mrs. Pollifax at the thoughtfulness of such a busy man. She glanced around her apartment at the familiar furniture, the sunshine striping the rugs, the atmosphere of quiet security, and just for a moment a procession of unusual people trouped through her thoughts: a goatherder and his wife, a Genie who talked of life’s choices being like intersections on a road map, Colonel Nexdhet of the walrus moustache, Lulash, Major Vassovic and a man named John Sebastian Farrell who faced pain with gaiety. She said with a smile, “I met a great many unforgettable people on my trip, Miss Hartshorne. Somewhat eccentric people, perhaps, but extremely unforgettable, all of them.”

Simultaneously the tea kettle began to sing and the telephone rang. Mrs. Pollifax said hastily, “Oh, Miss Hartshorne, would you pour the tea? The tea bags are in the cupboard over the stove and so are the cups. Do you mind?”

Miss Hartshorne laughed. It was the first time that Mrs. Pollifax had ever heard her laugh. “How casually you live, Mrs. Pollifax. This takes me back to my college days. No, of course I don’t mind, this is really quite fun.” Over her shoulder she called, “Call me Grace, won’t you?”

But Mrs. Pollifax had already picked up the telephone. “Why Roger!” she exclaimed with pleasure. “How wonderful to hear from you, dear. Yes, I got in only a moment ago.” She listened attentively to her son. “Worried?” she repeated. “You worried about me when I telegraphed I was staying longer? Yes, I fully intended to write but I was so busy.” Mrs. Pollifax laughed suddenly and delightedly. “Roger dear, what possible trouble could I have gotten into at my age and in Mexico of all places… .” Her gaze fell to the serapes lying on the couch. With a small, very private smile Mrs. Pollifax picked up the card that had arrived with them and slipped it into her pocket.

CHAPTER 1

It was barely eight o’clock in the morning when the telephone call came in from Algiers, but Carstairs was already at his desk high up in the CIA building in Langley, Virginia. With his left hand he switched on a tape recorder, with his right be buzzed for his assistant while he listened with narrowed eyes. At one point he interrupted, saying, “Mind repeating that?” and scribbled several words on paper. When Bishop hurried into the office the call had just been completed.

“Sorry,” Bishop said breathlessly, “I was in the men’s room, sir. I’ve missed something?”

“You have every right to be in the men’s room,” Car-stairs told him reproachfully, “but you’ve missed an important call from Algiers. We may—just may, Bishop —have the first whisper of a breakthrough on the Aristotle case.”

“Good God,” said Bishop, staring at him incredulously. “After all these months?”

“It’s possible. Remember that fabric shop that Davis‘ department placed under surveillance in Algiers? The stolen bank-note job,” he added helpfully. “Bennet photographed some messages that were left out on a desk overnight and he decided, bless him, that one of them would interest us very much. Bright lad, Bennet. The cables and memos were in French and Arabic and he’s only just finished translating them.” Carstairs reached over and turned on the tape recorder. “Here we are,” he said, and accelerating and then slowing the machine, he signaled to Bishop to take the words down in shorthand.

They both listened carefully as Bennet’s clipped voice told them, “The original message, translated from the French, reads as follows: CONFIRM ORDER SEVENTY YARDS

BLACK ARISTOTLE SILKS TO ZAMBIA THREE BOLTS COTTON DUE KAFUE PARK TWO BOLTS CHUNGA MUSLIN TEN YARDS FIVE-DAY SAFARI DESIGN CHINTZ DELIVERABLE JUNE NINE REPEAT CONFIRM RE-CONFIRM. CHABO.”

“Right,” said Bishop, puzzled. “Any more?”

“Yes, if you’ve got that down.” Carstairs pressed the

button and the voice resumed … “and when the clutter

words have been extracted from the fabric order, using

their usual decoding technique, the message becomes:

CONFIRM ARISTOTLE TO ZAMBIA DUE KAFUE PARK CHUNGA FIVE-DAY SAFARI ON JUNE NINE REPEAT CONFIRM RECONFIRM.  CHABO.”

“Beautiful,” said Bishop with feeling.

“I rather like it myself,” said Carstairs. “Very promising indeed.”

“Aristotle,” Bishop mused, and shook his head. “I’d really begun to believe the man invisible, you know. All these assassinations and no one’s ever noticed him in the crowd or come up with a description. How does he do it? It took us four months just to learn he has a code name and he’s still a faceless, nameless Mr. X.”

“He may have the reputation of being invisible,” said Carstairs, “but damn it he’s not supernatural.” He pulled an atlas and a pile of maps from his desk drawer and began sorting through them. “Eventually somebody’s had to refer to him through channels accessible to us, and it’s possible that finally, at long last—” He pushed aside the atlas and began on the maps. “Here we are,” he said abruptly. “Take a look at this. Central Africa in detail.”

The two men bent over the map of Zambia and Carstairs pointed. “There’s Kafue National Park, twenty-two thousand five hundred square kilometers in size, six hundred varieties of game. Note the names of the safari camps.”

Bishop read aloud, “Ngomo, Moshi, Kafwala and Chunga.” He glanced at Bennet’s message and nodded. “Due Kafue Park Chunga . . . Chunga camp, that would mean. I must say it’s a rare day when something falls this neatly into our laps.”

“It hasn’t yet,” Carstairs reminded him, “but it’s certainly an exhilarating possibility.” He leaned back in his chair, his face thoughtful. “We do know a few things about our mysterious Aristotle. We know first of all that he’s a mercenary, up for hire to whoever bids the highest price … Look at his record: Malaga was a Liberal in Costa Rican politics, and Messague in France was a Communist. There was that British chap—Hastings, wasn’t it?—who was making some headway in Ireland on negotiations when he was assassinated, and the colonel in Peru whose politics were strictly middle-of-the-road, and then of course there was Pete.” His fact tightened. “Our agents may be fair game these days, but no man deserves to be shot as he walks out of church with a bride on his arm.”

“No, sir,” said Bishop. “However, there’s just one point—”

“Something bothering you?”

Bishop was frowning. “Very much so, now that I’ve caught my breath. What I mean is, a safari? An assassin going on safari!”

“We also know,” continued Carstairs, appearing to ignore this, “that Aristotle is intelligent, he has a strong instinct for survival, and he’s a complete loner or someone would have talked long ago. Tell me, Bishop,” he said, leaning forward and pointing a pencil at him, “if you were Aristotle, how would you negotiate your assignments? How would you make contact with your next employer?”

“How would I—” Bishop was silent, considering this. “Russian teahouse?” he said at last, flippantly. “Turkish bath? A funicular railway in the Swiss Alps? I see your point, sir. Tricky. Very, very tricky, and probably a hell of a lot more dangerous for him than actually shooting down politicians.”

“Exactly. It’s this touch that encourages me very much. Damned clever idea, choosing a safari, it’s perfect for a rendezvous. He’d have the chance to look over his potential employer before identifying himself, and then it gives them both plenty of leisure to haggle over terms and price. He’d be far removed from cities, with access to a wide area in case negotiations blow up, and what better protective cover than a small group moving through remote bush country? The man definitely has a flair for the artistic.”

“You sound as if you’re painting a portrait.”

“One has to,” Carstairs pointed out, “and then crawl inside it and puzzle out what he’ll do next, and at that stage you’ve pretty well got your man, Bishop.”

“Do we share this with Interpol?”

Carstairs shook his head. “No, definitely not. We first insert one of our own people into that safari. If we can pin down this man, find out what he looks like, identify him, learn where he comes from—”

“Not catch him?” said Bishop, startled.

Carstairs looked amused. “My dear Bishop, would you have us ask the Republic of Zambia to arrest everyone on next Monday’s safari? And on what charge? Uh-uh. This calls for the purest kind of old-fashioned intelligence-gathering, and don’t underestimate it.”

“I never have, sir,” Bishop said meekly.

“In fact, if you consider the world’s population at this given moment,” pointed out Carstairs, “you can understand how it narrows the field if Aristotle turns up at Kafue Park next Monday and we capture photographs of everyone on the safari. Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, we’ll have pictures of perhaps a dozen people to sort through, identify, trace and verify. Exposure does wonders for invisible men,” he added dryly, “and Interpol can take it from there. What’s the date today?”

“June first.”

Carstairs nodded. “We’ve got to move fast, then. We’ve barely time to find the right agent and get him over there. Set up the computer, Bishop, will you? We’ll run through the possibilities.”

“It’ll only take a minute, sir.” Bishop walked over to the closet where the machine they referred to as the Monster was housed. He punched MASTER LIST, fiddled with knobs, fed it classifications like Africa, Zambia and Tourist and called to his superior. “Here you are, sir. Beginning with A, right down to Z.”

“Always reminds me of a damn slot machine,” growled Carstairs, gazing up at the screen with its myriads of blinking lights, and then he said, “John Sebastian Farrell! What the hell’s he doing on this list when he hasn’t worked for us in three years?”

Bishop, who had a memory to equal any computer, said, “Hmmm … Well, I could hazard a guess, sir. In that letter of resignation he sent us three years ago from South America—scrawled, if I remember correctly, on a torn sheet of wrapping paper—he said he was off to Africa to reclaim his soul or some such thing, and we could send any sums owed him to Farrell, care of Barclay’s Bank, Lusaka, Zambia.”

Carstairs frowned. “Something about cleaner air and a cleaner life, wasn’t it? That still doesn’t explain what he’s doing on the computer list.”

“A mistake, I think.” Bishop left the computer, went to the phone, dialed a number and rattled questions into it. When he hung up he looked pleased. “Called Bookkeeping, sir. They tell me they’ve been regularly mailing Farrell’s pension checks to Zambia for three years, and  apparently  that’s  what  the  computer  picked  up.

They’re terribly sorry and his name is being removed at once.”

“He’s still there? Those checks are being cashed?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Farrell,” said Carstairs musingly, and returned to his desk and sat down. “Damn it, Bishop,” he said, scowling, “I’ve known Farrell since OSS days, he worked for this department for fifteen years, yet why is it I can no longer think of Farrell without thinking of Emily Pollifax?”

Bishop laughed. “That was her first assignment, wasn’t it? After she’d turned up in Mason’s office to naively apply for work as a spy? And you’d been looking for a cozy grandmotherly type for your courier job and you took her on, and when all hell broke loose you thought—”

“I know what I thought,” Carstairs said, cutting him off, and suddenly grinned. “Do you remember, Bishop? When it was all over they sat right here in this office. Farrell was in bandages, looking like death itself, and Mrs. Pollifax was in that damn Albanian goatherder’s outfit … they’d just been pulled out of the Adriatic and I’d given her up for dead, I’d given them both up for dead—and she sat here pulling rabbits out of a hat—”

“Out of her petticoats, wasn’t it?” said Bishop, smiling.

”—and it turned out that a complete amateur had duped all the professionals.” He stopped smiling and said abruptly, “Mrs. Pollifax, of course.”

Bishop, reading his mind, was shocked. “Tangling with a cold-blooded assassin, sir?”

“She’s tangled with them before,” pointed out Carstairs, “but this time she doesn’t have to tangle with anyone at all, just take photographs. Most of these safaris nowadays are camera-shooting, not hunting safaris, and there’ll be cameras in everybody’s pocket.”

“Maybe,” said Bishop grudgingly, and then, smiling, “Of course she’d be marvelous at it. Ingenuous, artless, the sort everyone confides in … Do you think Aristotle might confide in her, too?”

Carstairs gave him a sour glance. “Try not to be naive, Bishop,” and then as his gaze moved to the clock, “She’ll need a yellow-fever shot and someone will have to pull some strings to get her a visa in a hurry, and if that safari’s booked solid there’ll have to be more strings pulled, although thank heaven it’s early June and not the high season yet in Africa. Bishop—”

Bishop sighed. “New York, I suppose?”

“Right. Get the first plane over and start things moving. The Zambia National Tourist Bureau’s on Fifty-eighth Street, I think, and so is the embassy that will produce the visa. While you’re phoning about a plane reservation I’ll call Mrs. Pollifax and see if she can take this on. God, let’s hope so,” he said fervently. “After your business in New York you can go on to New Jersey and brief her.”

“Right. Oh, by the way,” said Bishop, pausing at the door. “If she’s available do I mention Farrell being in Zambia?”

Carstairs considered this judiciously. “You’d better, I suppose, just in case—heaven forbid—they accidentally bump into each other at the wrong time. It could give the whole show away.” He hesitated and then added, “Hold on a moment.” Smiling almost mischievously, be said, “I’ll go even further. Ask her to give Farrell a ring on the telephone when she arrives in Lusaka. He must be in the book. There might not be time for a reunion before her safari, but they could certainly get together afterward.”

Bishop looked at him curiously. “That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”

“Highly irregular but also crafty,” admitted Carstairs. “I’d like to know how our old friend Farrell is doing. Damn it, Bishop, I miss that man,” he said indignantly. “I can name half a dozen jobs in the past three years he would have done a hell of a lot better than anyone else. He must be bored to death with retirement.”

“It’s possible,” said Bishop.

“Of course it’s possible. Definitely get her to Lusaka early, Bishop, and ask her to look him up before she flutters about photographing everyone on safari. Now go away and let me tackle Mrs. Pollifax before she slips through our fingers… .”

At that particular moment Mrs., Pollifax was standing in the middle of her living room practicing the karate on-guard stance. One could never be too prepared, she thought, adjusting her balance so that her weight was placed equally on both feet, and when this had been accomplished she curled each hand into a fist and attempted a quick horizontal slash. More than this she dared not risk. Lorvale, her instructor, was currently enthusiastic about attacking with blood-curdling shouts of “Ki-ya!” but it seemed reasonable to suppose that this would bring her neighbors down upon her head.

The telephone began ringing and Mrs. Pollifax reluctantly disengaged her stance to answer it. She could tell at once from the rustling sounds in the background that the call was long distance. A muffled voice said, “Hold please,” and then a familiar one said, “Carstairs here. Mrs. Pollifax, could you leave for Africa this weekend?”

Mrs. Pollifax reflected that karate did help; this somewhat startling query did not unbalance her at all. “Yes, I think I could,” she told him. “How are you, Mr. Car-stairs?”

“Understaffed and terribly busy,” he snapped. “You did say yes?”

“It slipped out,” she said, “but if I can find someone to water my geraniums, yes I could go to Africa this weekend.”

“Then start looking,” he said, his voice a shade less harassed. “Although not for a few hours, because Bishop’s on his way to New York, or will be in a few minutes. He’ll make all the arrangements for you. Who’s your doctor?”

Startled, she told him.

“Good. Bishop will be around to see you. Sometime between one and two o’clock?”

“Either will be fine,” she told him, hung up and at once felt a shock tremor move inch by inch down her spine to her toes. What had possessed her to say yes? She couldn’t possibly leave for Africa this weekend, the idea was preposterous. Africa was halfway around the world and one prepared cautiously for such a trip, announcing it to friends, reading guidebooks, making lists in advance. That was how her neighbor Miss Hartshorne traveled, and at the moment it appeared to Mrs. Pollifax a very luxurious and sane way to do such things.

On the other hand, she could remember feeling exactly this way at other times when her tranquil world had collided with Carstairs’ rough and dangerous world, and acknowledging this she let her mind run back over past adventures. She was, miraculously, still alive and sound, with dimensions added to her life that brought a chuckle at rare moments, such as when the garden club had shown a prize-winning Colin Ramsey film on Turkey and she had recognized two of the women in baggy pants and veils drawing water from a well. This time it was to be Africa.

She said it aloud—”Africa“—and at the sound of the word her heart began to beat faster and she realized that she was smiling. Africa, the dark continent. Tarzan. She remembered that when her son Roger was a boy she had taken him to see every Tarzan film that came to the Rivoli theater, and when his tastes had begun to veer toward Rita Hayworth she had gone to see Tarzan alone, enchanted by the animals, the steamy jungles, poisoned arrows and roar of lions … Lions, she thought with a gasp. Even if Carstairs sent her to a bustling African city she must find a way to see lions. She would demand lions.

How dull her life had been growing lately, she thought, and how exciting to realize that she was going to see Africa. There suddenly seemed a great many things to do. She would have to sort through her entire collection of National Geographies, and there was all that material on game conservation in her desk drawer …

With a guilty start she realized that it was nine o’clock and the breakfast dishes were still unwashed. Bishop would be coming in a few hours too, and she wondered if he was still partial to chocolate éclairs—she would have to visit Mr. Omelianuk’s delicatessen at once. She reached for her coat, tucked her hair under a floppy straw hat, and went out.

It was a brilliant June morning but she walked carefully nevertheless, for the ground beneath her might be covered over with cement, and her eyes shaded by straw, but in Mrs. Pollifax’s mind she wore a cork helmet and moved soundlessly through tall grasses, her ears alert for the sound of native drums.

CHAPTER 2

Bishop arrived precisely at two o’clock, and although he looked harassed he had lost none of his insouciance, which, considering the years he’d spent as Carstairs’ assistant, always astonished Mrs. Pollifax. “Why don’t you look older?” she protested, taking his coat. “You never do, it’s disconcerting.”

“Nor do you,” he told her gallantly, giving her a kiss on the cheek, “but in my case I know I’m older because my pushups are growing lazier and when Carstairs loses his temper at me I sometimes feel an overwhelming urge to cry. Is that for me?” he asked, staring fascinated at the table in the living room set with damask linen, china teapot, flowered Haviland cups and pastries.

“Especially for you. Sit down and I’ll pour. There are five éclairs.”

“I count six.”

“One,” she told him reproachfully, “is for me. I suppose you’re understaffed and overworked because of last year’s congressional investigations? Which, I must add, was very shocking indeed. Even you need some checks and balances, you know.”

“We are not and were not being investigated,” he said, sitting down and picking up an éclair. “Carstairs asked me to tell you very firmly that his department has remained scrupulous to the letter in all its undertakings.” He hesitated and then said dryly, “At least as scrupulous as can be expected when our business is to gather information by nefarious means, hit troublesome people over the head, and indulge in other interesting forms of skullduggery.”

Mrs. Pollifax, recalling certain people that she herself had been forced to hit over the head, did not comment: it was a very modest number, of course, but one of which she was sure neither her garden club nor her pastor would approve. She continued pouring tea, noticing that Bishop was already devouring his second éclair. “You’ve not had lunch?”

“Clever of you to guess,” he said, swallowing. “Car-stairs packed me off at eight forty-five with a thousand errands to do, and presently you’ll have your share to do too. I don’t suppose he told you anything?”

“Not a thing, except it’s Africa.”

“He wants you to go on safari.”

“On safari!” Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in astonishment. “Safari?” she repeated incredulously.

Bishop watched her eyes subtly shift focus as if she gazed at something unseen to him and very far away. She looked, in fact, as if she were experiencing a beatific vision, and understanding the processes of her mind, he shook his head. “No, Mrs. Pollifax,” he said firmly, “they don’t wear cork helmets in Africa any more.”

She forgave him this underhanded remark but not without an indignant glance. She said with dignity, “I would be delighted to go on safari, cork hat or no. But why? Surely there’s more?”

“Naturally. It’s a very specific safari starting out next Monday in Kafue National Park in Zambia. That’s in Central Africa, and if you’re not up on your African countries, it was called Northern Rhodesia before it gained its independence in 1964. You can read all about it because I’ve brought you lots of pamphlets. It’s good safari country, not as well-known, perhaps, as Kenya or Tanzania just to the north, but it’s rapidly getting discovered. Less touristy, more relaxed and unspoiled … Actually, Kafue Park is one of the larger game parks in the world—half the size of Switzerland—and of course the Victoria Falls are in Zambia too.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “and the President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, recently visited Washington.”

He looked impressed. “I’d forgotten that. Well, we’d like you to hurry over there, join the safari, get acquainted with your companions and take pictures of them—every one of them—either openly or surreptitiously.”

“Is that all?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, puzzled.

“Believe me, it’s frightfully important,” he told her. “We want everyone on safari observed and recorded, and for this we need someone who has always dreamed of a safari, someone utterly charmed by a lioness in the bush, fond of birds and flowers, and of course given to compulsive picture-taking. In fact,” he said with a smile, “I’d urge you to carry along a stupefying number of snapshots of your grandchildren, and if you don’t have any, rent some. You know how to operate a camera?”

She nodded, and he slit open the mysterious package he’d brought with him. “Here’s a very good normal camera,” he said, handing it over to her. “Nothing fancy, you can buy it in any drugstore, easy to operate, small enough to tuck into your pocket. And here,” he added, bringing out a jeweler’s box, “is a different sort of camera, in case one of the group is camera-shy.”

“This is a camera?” said Mrs. Pollifax opening the box and staring at a brooch inside. “It can’t be, surely.”

“A bit vulgar, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully. “But you have to admit it doesn’t look like a camera.”

“It certainly doesn’t.” She lifted the lapel pin out of the box and examined it. It had been designed as a miniature clock with a pendulum, its total length about three inches, which included the pendulum from which hung two small gold balls. The face was a sunflower with gold petals surrounding it, and two glittering eyes were set into the center with a curved smile below them.

“Lacks only a cuckoo,” pointed out Bishop. “You pull on the chain to take a snapshot. Just a slight tug will do it, and then you touch the hands of the clock to move the film along for the next shot. The lenses are in the eyes. Takes forty snapshots, and then you bring it back to us and we smash it and remove the film.”

“Very ingenious,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, and then with a thoughtful glance, “Just who is going to be on this safari, Bishop?”

“It’s purest intelligence-gathering,” he assured her blithely. “Someone of interest to us may be popping up there. You know how it is, a rumor, a whisper … all in the name of the game.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s smile was gentle. “I’ve never heard you lean so heavily on clichés before, Bishop. In the name of the game?”

“Well, I can’t tell you much more,” he said candidly, “because Carstairs won’t allow it. But it won’t hurt to point out that there have been a number of assassinations in the past seven months that have never been solved. The most publicized were Malaga in Costa Rica and Messague in France.”

She nodded.

“According to the particular netherworld we’re in touch with—made up of criminals, spies, informants and hangers-on—they were accomplished by one man with the code name of Aristotle. We don’t know anything more about him but we’ve intercepted a message leading us to believe he’ll be on this safari Monday, and that’s all I can tell you.” He brightened. “But I can tell you what the computer announced this morning when we fed it a list of possibilities for the job. It seems an old friend of yours is in Zambia. He doesn’t work for us any more but you know him very well.”

“I do?”

Bishop grinned. “I’d assume that after sharing a cell together in Albania for two weeks you’d know each other pretty damn well.”

“Farrell?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. “John Sebastian Farrell?”

“None other.”

“But what’s he doing in Zambia, and why doesn’t he work for you any Ionger7”

“We haven’t the foggiest idea what he’s doing in Zambia,” said Bishop, “and he isn’t working for us any more because he resigned three years ago. All we know is that his pension—”

“His what?”

“We do pay pensions,” Bishop said, amused by the look on her face, “and his payments are being sent to Farrell in care of Barclay’s Bank, Lusaka, Zambia. Better make a note of that. Carstairs suggests you look him up when you get to Lusaka and see if he’s missing us as much as we’ve missed him. He should be in the phone book if he’s settled down.”

“Farrell,” said Mrs. Pollifax, her eyes shining. “That dear man. A scoundrel, of course, but I’d trust him with my life, you know. Although not,” she added thoughtfully, “with my daughter. No, definitely not with my daughter.”

“Mothers always trust me with their daughters,” Bishop said wistfully, and then, pulling himself together, unzipped his attaché case. “There’s a lot to be done,” he said briskly. “I’ve already visited the Zambia National Tourist Bureau today, as well as the Zambian Embassy. Mercifully, the tourist bureau has room for you in next Monday’s safari. Kafuc Park is opening only this week—the rainy season’s just ended, you see—so luck was with us. As for your visa, it took persuasion, but if you’ll let me carry your passport back to New York with me this afternoon they’ll issue you one immediately and return your passport to you by special delivery. That leaves your yellow-fever vaccination. Your doctor is being sent the vaccine and you’re to see him at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You leave Saturday night for London, and Sunday night for Lusaka, and here are your plane tickets,” he said, placing them on the table. “Here are also booklets and pamphlets and brochures about Zambia—” He placed these on the growing pile and glanced up at her. “Are you still with me? Am I forgetting something?”

“Clothes,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

Bishop understood at once; it was why mothers trusted him. “Go to New York early on Saturday before your plane leaves, if you can’t make it sooner. Slacks, a bush jacket, a sweater, good walking shoes … Abercrombie’s will be just the place for you. And oh yes, here are anti-malarial tablets, good God I almost forgot them. Start taking them at once.” He glanced at his watch and sighed. “I hope that’s all because damn it I’m already an hour behind schedule and I’ve got to be running along.”

“Oh Bishop, so soon?”

He nodded. “It’s one of the deficiencies of my life with Carstairs that I never see anyone for more than half an hour, and always on the run. Beautiful chocolate éclairs,” he said fervently. “All five of them.” Collecting his attach6 case, he arose. “Now I need your passport.”

She found it in the desk drawer and gave it to him. “I’ll send you a postcard from Zambia,” she told him.

“Better not,” he said regretfully. “Just take lots of snapshots for us—of everyone on that safari, barring no one—and have your reunion with Farrell and see if he’s bored yet. He called you the Duchess, didn’t he?”

“It seems a century ago,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax, following him to the door. “Do you remember how naive I used to be?”

“No, really?” said Bishop, amused. “Yes … Well, I don’t find you particularly hardened even now, but there’s always hope, isn’t there? Don’t forget that yellow-fever shot tomorrow and stay out of trouble, you hear?”

“Of course,” she told him, and watched him hurry down the hall to the elevator. When he had disappeared she closed the door, walked back into the living room, and remembering how her morning had begun, she nostalgically assumed the karate on-guard stance again. So much had changed, however—even to the slant of the sun through the windows—that as she cut the air with a horizontal slash she tried a small and daring “Ki-ya.” This proved unsatisfying. Drawing a deeper breath she braced herself and shouted triumphantly, “KI-YA!”

CHAPTER 3

On Saturday Mrs. Pollifax left early for New York to spend an afternoon at Abercrombie’s before her plane departure. She was already flushed with triumph at finding a new hat for traveling. It was not precisely a cork helmet but it looked so remarkably like one that she no longer felt deprived. It was a bulbous white straw with a single red feather that began in the back and ran up and across the top of the crown and down to the tiny brim in front, where it was held in place by a clip. The narrow line of scarlet relieved the hat’s austerity and added a dashing touch to her two-year-old blue-and-white-striped suit.

Nothing had prepared her for Abercrombie’s, however. It was true that she had once or twice poked her head in the door out of curiosity, but she had never before

entered the store with purpose, or with a safari waiting in the wings. Now, given carte blanche, she lost all inhibition, especially after discovering that the five pounds she’d lost during the winter placed her unexpectedly in a pair of size 12 slacks. In only half an hour she dealt with her wardrobe: two pairs of khaki slacks went into her suitcase, a trim bush jacket, a heavy turtleneck sweater, and a long pale-blue cardigan with a sash. Her remaining creativeness she saved for Abercrombie’s accessories, which left her in a state of ecstasy. She succumbed immediately to a pair of enormous tinted round sun-goggles which gave her the look of a Martian; she found herself wondering how she could have survived for so long without them. She bought a flashlight and then a pencil flashlight. Regretfully she decided against a set of aluminum dishes that folded one inside of another until they fitted into a small pouch. She bought a dust veil because there was always the chance that she might be caught in a dust storm; she added a silk kerchief with zebras racing across it, and believed that she had concluded her purchases until she saw the umbrella.

“It’s rather large,” the clerk pointed out, watching her with a fascinated eye.

“Yes, but isn’t it beautiful?” she said in an awed voice, admiring its rainbow effect of scarlets, yellows, blues, pinks and oranges.

“I believe the rainy season has ended in Zambia.”

“True,” she said reflectively, “but then it’s really a matter of semantics, don’t you think?”

“I beg your pardon?” he said, startled by the non sequitur.

“I mean that an umbrella could just as easily be called a parasol, don’t you think? If the rainy season’s over there’ll be sun. A great deal of sun, I should imagine.”

“Yes,” said the young man, intrigued. “Yes, that’s certainly true. Sun and dust.”

She nodded. “And I shall have my dust veil and a parasol.”

“Yes you will,” he said, beginning to follow her line of reasoning.

“And then if one falls in love with something,” she confessed, “one is always sorry later one didn’t buy it.”

“Exactly,” he said warmly. “Of course you must have it then.”

Mrs. Pollifax agreed, and bought it, and was not even sorry when the airline classified it as a weapon and she had to watch it dropped down baggage chutes all during her trip. It was, she thought, a very minor inconvenience when it was such a glorious umbrella. Or parasol.

And so at ten o’clock that evening Mrs. Pollifax set out on her flight to London, suitably vaccinated and carrying her suitcase full of drip-dries, khaki and other small treasures. Not for her the luxury of magazines: once in flight she efficiently brought out her book on Central Africa animals and read, “The roan antelope is, in general color, a pale reddish brown, slightly darker on the hind quarters, the hair short and coarse,” and then she fell asleep. Upon waking she read, “The sable antelope is rich deep brown, the old males jet black,” and fell asleep again. At Heathrow airport she napped for a few hours in a day room, and at eight o’clock in the evening she boarded the Zambia Airways plane and resumed her trip to Lusaka.

Here she met with her first disappointment.  Since Zambia was a new country, roughly a decade old and developing fast—the Third World, she thought solemnly— she had expected a few exotic companions on her flight, but instead she appeared to be surrounded by British families on holiday with babies and small children. The only bright notes provided were the lovely black stewardesses in their orange minidresses.

Mrs. Pollifax dozed and woke, determined not to miss her first glimpse of Africa. Very early in the morning, at first light, she opened her eyes and looked out over a floor of wrinkled clouds to see a bright-orange sun slip out of the dusk and trail a line of soft pink behind it. All drowsiness vanished as she sat up in anticipation. Gradually the clouds brightened and dispersed, the sun shed a warm clear light over the sky, and Mrs. Pollifax, looking down from the plane, saw Africa.

Africa at last, and not a dark continent at all, she thought exuberantly, staring at the strange world below. From this height it looked as if the earth’s skin had been peeled back and cooked into a dull-orange crust and then lightly sprinkled with green lichen. Oddest of all were the upheavals appearing here and there in the earth. Really, she thought, they looked just like bubbles in a thick stew on the stove.

Soon the view grew softer, and the pale dusty green turned into rich chenille, defined by narrow red-clay roads like seams in a garment stretching to the horizon. Once she leaned forward, certain that she saw a village of huts below, and it thrilled her to think of natives waking to the dawn without realizing that she saw them from the sky. She began to grow excited about landing on this earth spread out below her, she began to consider what lay ahead … In her purse she carried vouchers sent her by the tourist bureau in New York, and she recalled that she was to be met at the airport by a tourist guide and whisked off to the hotel (“Transfer from Lusaka International Airport to Hotel Intercontinental: $6.60”), and she would remain in Lusaka for roughly six hours (“1430 departure Hotel Intercontinental to Chunga Safari Village, KT/3”). But before she left for Kafue Park at half-past two this afternoon she had every hope of contacting Farrell, and this gave an added fillip to her arrival.

Ever since leaving New York she had found herself wondering what Farrell might be doing in Zambia, and now she tried once again to fit what she knew of him into the rust-colored terrain below her. She remembered that when she’d first met Farrell he’d been running an art gallery in Mexico City, but he’d also been a bona fide painter himself. He’d mentioned smuggling guns to Castro in the early days of the revolution, and she knew that at one time he’d operated a charter boat out of Acapulco, and somewhere in there he’d also begun to work for Car-stairs. Now he was retired.

Zambia was a land-locked country, so there would be no charter boats; its revolution had ended in 1964, so there were no guns to smuggle. What would Farrell have found here? “Perhaps an art gallery,” she thought, and as she turned this over in her mind she began to like it very much. He would collect Zambian art, she decided, specializing in wood carvings, thumb-pianos and spears, which he would sell to tourists; but of course he would paint his own pictures, too, and she would buy one. Definitely she would buy one and carry it home and hang it in her apartment. She continued weaving pleasant little fantasies about his new life in Zambia, adding a beautiful wife because he would, she felt, make an excellent husband—retired rakes so often did—and perhaps there was a child by now.

She realized the No Smoking-Fasten Seatbelts sign had been blinking at her for some time, and now a voice interrupted her speculations to announce their imminent landing. Mrs. Pollifax tucked away her book, fastened her seatbelt and tried to discipline her excitement. This was not easy, because after two nights spent on planes the effect of her arrival on a new continent was rather like an overdose of adrenalin laced by large amounts of caffeine.

The 707 descended, taxied past a line of Zambia Airways DC-8s and came to a stop before a handsome modern terminal building. Mrs. Pollifax disembarked and immediately learned that African mornings could be cold. Shivering, she moved through Passport Controls, where she filled out a tiresome number of forms in a room hung with signs that read PRACTISE HUMANISM, and HUMANISM

MUNTU UZYI BANTUIVYINA ULALEMEKA BACEMBELE.  She

then walked out into the waiting room to a wall of people waiting behind ropes. One of these people detached himself and moved toward her, a smiling young black man in a blue zip-up jacket tossed over a plaid shirt. “Mrs. Pollifax?”

“Yes,” she said in relief.

“I’m Homer Kulumbala. Welcome to Lusaka.”

“How do you do,” she said, beaming at him.

They waited for her suitcase, and then for her umbrella, which appeared to startle Homer. After one look at it he said sternly, “This could be easily stolen. You must guard it carefully while in the city. It is very beautiful.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed happily.

A few minutes later they were speeding toward town in a VW bus emblazoned with the tourist bureau insignia. Mrs. Pollifax’s first impressions were of space and newness, and a great deal of bougainvillea, and when they drew up to the hotel—which was also spacious, new and surrounded by bougainvillea—Homer told her that it was he who would be driving her to Chunga camp at half-past two, and that she would see more of the capital later, on the trip out of town. She thanked him and gave her suitcase to the porter, but the umbrella she carried herself.

As soon as Mrs. Pollifax reached her hotel room she did not stop to relax; she paused only long enough to extract her striped flannel pajamas from her suitcase and then she reached for the telephone directory on the shelf under the phone. Sitting down on the bed with the book on her lap—she was surprised to see by its cover that it encompassed the entire country—she eagerly turned the pages until she found Lusaka.

“A … B … C… D… E … F,” she murmured, and running a finger down the list of F’s she ticked off Farmer’s Co-operative Society of Zambia Ltd., Farmers Prime Butchery, Farmers Produce Association, Fashion Mart Ltd… . the name of Farrell was conspicuously missing.

Impossible, she thought, frowning, and resolutely began again, attributing the oversight to tiredness: Farmer’s Cooperative Society of Zambia Ltd., Farmers Prime Butchery …

There was no Farrell listed among the F’s.

Thoroughly frustrated now, she began thumbing through pages at random, checking out Fs in towns with names like Chingold, Kazimuli, Kitwe, Kabwe. There seemed to be very few family names listed, and a vast number of government offices and co-ops. In small towns with only a dozen or so entries she noticed that telephone service was available for only a few hours each day, but none of these listed a Farrell either. Extensive research lay ahead, and she realized that in only six and a half hours she would be leaving for Chunga.

This time she began at the very beginning of the directory, but after an hour’s diligent study she had still found no John Sebastian Farrell. Yet Bishop had reported that he was here, and that all of the checks sent to him in Lusaka had been picked up and cashed.

Barclay’s Bank, she thought abruptly and, reaching for the telephone, dialed the front desk to ask what hours the banks were open. From eight o’clock to twelve, the desk clerk informed her.

It was half-past eight now. “And the afternoon hours?”

There were no afternoon hours.

Mrs. Pollifax thanked him, and with a wistful glance at her pajamas she picked up her purse and went out

Cairo Road was a bustling main street lined with modern shops. A strip of green divided its double roadway, and there were pleasing, tree-lined cobbled spaces inserted between the buildings, restful to the eye. Women in long bright skirts, blouses and turbans mingled with women in smart frocks and sandals. Almost all of the faces were black, and almost all of the voices she overheard had unexpected and very charming British accents.

It was a noisy, cheerful scene, with a great deal of tooting from the small cars, motor scooters, Land Rovers and bicycles that streamed up and down Cairo Road.

Mrs. Pollifax paid her driver and walked into Barclay’s Bank to the window marked INQUIRIES—MAIL. The man behind the counter looked forbidding, his black face buttoned into bureaucratic aloofness. She cleared her throat to gain his attention. “This is where mail is picked up?”

“Yes, madam,” he said, regarding her with expressionless eyes. “Your name is—?”

She shook her head. “I’m not looking for mail, I’m looking for a man who receives his mail here. For three years his mail has been directed to him in care of Barclay’s Bank, Lusaka. I don’t have his address,” she explained, “and I’ve come all the way from America and I find he’s not listed in the telephone book.”

“This is rather interesting,” he said politely.

“His name is John Sebastian Farrell,” she told him. “I thought perhaps after three years you might be forwarding his letters to an address?”

His gaze remained aloof, but after a moment he turned and called, “Jacob?”

The beaming young man who appeared was of a different generation; his tie was flaming red and his face eager. Mrs. Pollifax repeated her query to him, and he promptly said, “No address, he still gets his mail here.”

“Personally?” asked his superior, who suddenly gave evidence of understanding exactly what Mrs. Pollifax wanted.

“I’ve never seen him,” said Jacob. “A boy picks it up.”

“Always?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

“I have never seen this man either,” said the older clerk. “There has been some curiosity about him, of course. I too have only seen a boy ask for Mr. Farrell’s mail. Not often, sometimes not for three months. A different boy each time.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax, her heart sinking. “Oh dear. Are there—perhaps I shouldn’t ask—but are there any letters waiting for him now, so that someone might be picking up his mail soon? I could write a note,” she explained.

Now they were both gripped by her problem, touched by her dismay, their eyes sympathetic. “It would be good for you to write a letter to your friend,” Jacob said earnestly, “but only two weeks ago Mr. Farrell’s mail was collected. I myself gave it out—a small boy again, with the note authorizing him to gather it—”

“I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Yes—well, I thank you very much, both of you.”

“You must write him,” the older man said firmly. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.” She walked outside into the sun again, crossed the road to the center strip and sat down on a bench under a tree. She felt almost inconsolable, and very close to tears, which was probably the result of two nights of spasmodic sleep, but it was also due to a sense of acute loss. It was not just that Farrell was part of her assignment, it had nothing at all to do with her assignment. She was genuinely fond of Farrell and she had anticipated seeing him.

A newspaper lay beside her on the bench and she picked it up and opened it to conceal her tears. She saw that it was this morning’s Times of Zambia, and out of some vague hope that she might find Farrell listed in it she turned to the back page and prepared to read the entire paper. On this last page, however, she found herself staring at CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS, and at a column marked Personals in particular. She read:

GOOD SAMARITAN: befriend suicidal and despairing. Write Box 1-A or telephone …

LOST: Mercedes keys left on counter National Commercial Bank Ltd. 10:30 Monday. Finder please return to …

Mrs. Pollifax turned thoughtful; she hadn’t lost any car keys but she’d lost Farrell; she wasn’t suicidal, but at the moment she felt disappointed almost to the point of despair. She glanced at the masthead of the newspaper and made her decision. Taking the paper with her she retraced her steps to the bank and inquired the way to the Times office. Directions were given her, and ten minutes later she entered the Times of Zambia building, only a few blocks down Cairo Road, and was given a form to fill out.

She wrote her name and her address in the United States, and then:

JOHN SEBASTIAN FARRELL: here for safari, love to see you. Back June 16 Hotel Intercontinental. Duchess.

As she completed this she became aware that a man had begun writing out a similar form across the desk from her, and glancing up she found him staring at her.

He was a big man, several inches over six feet tall, with a seamed, deeply tanned face and a thatch of white hair. Meeting her glance he nodded. “Good face.”

“I beg pardon?” she said, startled.

“Good face,” he repeated in a voice that marked him as American. “Look old enough to not mind my saying so.”

“Old enough, yes,” she said, smiling at him.

“Lost my wallet,” he explained with a huge gesture encompassing the desk, his pencil and the office.

“I’ve lost a friend,” she said, and carried her message to the young man at the counter. “How soon can you put this in your newspaper?” she asked him.

The young man accepted her copy and annoyingly read it back to her in a loud, clear voice. ” ‘John Sebastian Farrell: here for safari, love to see you. Back June 16 Hotel Intercontinental. Duchess.’” With a glance at his watch he assured her that it would be in tomorrow morning’s paper without fail, and that it would cost her one kwacha and twenty ngwee.

“Roughly two dollars American,” put in the huge American, waiting beside her, and peering into her change purse he pointed to one of the larger silver coins. “There’s your kwacha, the little one’s the twenty ngwee.”

“Yes—thank you,” she stammered, gave the coins to the man and hurried toward the door. Behind her she heard the American say, “Morning. Cyrus Reed’s my name. Lost a wallet.”

Out on the street she found a taxi discharging a passenger at the building next door and firmly captured it. Once back in her hotel room again, she climbed into her pajamas and resolved to put all thoughts of Farrell aside for the moment. She had done all that she could; if he was still in Zambia he’d see the advertisement, and the rest would be up to him. In the meantime, she thought, animals and Aristotle lay ahead of her. Smiling, she fell asleep.

CHAPTER 4

Her alarm awoke Mrs. Pollifax at one, and she jumped out of bed and eagerly approached her suitcase. She opened it lovingly and removed the new bush jacket and the new slacks, reached for a drip-dry blue turtleneck blouse and brought out her comfortable walking shoes. There was a small delay while she fumbled with price tags, but once she was in her safari clothes the effect was dazzling: the old Emily Pollifax, vice-president of the Save-Our-Environment Committee and secretary of the New Brunswick Garden Club had vanished along with the straw hat she’d packed away in her suitcase. She looked —swashbuckling, she thought, admiring herself in the mirror, yes, definitely swashbuckling. Tarzan, she felt, would have approved.

There was a further delay while she tried on the khaki     hat, the sun-goggles, the dust veil, and unfurled her parasol, but eventually she was packed and ready to leave. She descended in the elevator, paid her bill at the desk, left her bag with the porter at the front door and, still carrying her umbrella, headed for the Coffee Hut for lunch before her departure for Chunga. She was hesitating at the door when a man’s voice behind her said, “Ha— found you again. Lunching now?”

Mrs. Pollifax turned and found herself staring into a kelly-green shirt. Lifting her gaze she identified its owner as Cyrus Reed, last seen at the Times of Zambia. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Good. Have it with me,” he said, and taking a firm grip on her elbow he piloted her into the patio and seated her efficiently at an umbrella-shaded table. “Don’t give you a chance to refuse,” he said, taking the chair opposite her.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Don’t often ask women to lunch,” he said gruffly. “To dinner either, for that matter. Nuisance, that sort of thing. You aren’t, I hope, a real Duchess? Couldn’t help overhearing your classified advertisement in the news office.” “He did read it in a loud voice,” she admitted. “Actually I’m Emily Pollifax. Duchess was a—a sort of nickname.”

He extended an arm across the flowers and they gravely shook hands. He was certainly a large man; big was the only word for him, she decided, looking at him, but it seemed a matter of frame and muscle rather than fat. He moved and spoke slowly, as if stricken by lethargy, but he had whisked her to a table in seconds, and his smile, drowsy as it was, was singularly warm and responsive and his eyes shrewd. There was something very oriental about his eyes, she thought; it was because they were set into his face on the same plane as his brows, like almonds pressing into a snowman’s face. Those Chinese lids increased his sleepy look and gave him the appearance of a large and slightly rumpled mandarin.

He said now, observantly, “Eyes had a faraway look when you explained the nickname. Good friend, this Farrell?”

“A very good friend, yes.”

“Only kind to have,” he said, nodding. “Imaginative idea, advertising. Cyrus Reed’s my name, by the way. Lawyer, Connecticut. Care for a drink?”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled at the hovering waiter but shook her head. “I’ve not a great deal of time,” she explained. “I’m being called for at half-past two.”

“Then we’ll order. I can recommend the chicken because I’ve had it every day since my arrival. Tirelessly, one might say.”

Mr. Reed, it seemed, had been in Lusaka for four days. “My daughter,” he explained, “is exhausting. Insisted on our stopping in Rome on the way here, and now she’s gone off to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls while I catch my breath. Insisted on renting a car for the trip, said she’d see more of the country.”

“I expect she will,” said Mrs. Pollifax cheerfully. “Already late returning. Due back three hours ago. What brings you here?”

“I’m leaving on safari this afternoon,” she told him. His sleepy gaze sharpened. “This afternoon? Not by any chance the five-day Kafue Park safari starting officially tomorrow morning?”

She looked at him in astonishment “As a matter of fact, yes. You don’t mean—?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Arrival at Chunga camp in late afternoon, with game-viewing on the river tomorrow morning, followed by Kafwala camp in the afternoon?”

“Yes, with pickup at two-thirty here by Homer?”

He shook his head. “Sorry about that. We’re driving. Lisa’s idea.” He looked at her and added frankly, “Damn sorry about that, actually, but if I’ll see you again the fates are smiling. You’re—uh—what’s the word they use these days, unattached?”

“A widow.”

“Ought to say I’m sorry but can’t. I like you.”

She looked at him and began to laugh. “I really like your directness but I’m not accustomed, you know, to such—such—”

“Unabashed admiration? Can’t think why not. You look alive,” he said firmly. “Can’t stand dull people.”

“I’m very dull,” Mrs. Pollifax told him sincerely. “I do volunteer work—not very efficiently—and raise geraniums and really—that is, in general” she added conscientiously, “live a very quiet life.”

“Doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “You look interested, a sense of wonder lingers. True?”

“I feel like a witness being cross-examined on the stand.”

He nodded. “Bad habit of mine, the trouble with being a lawyer. My two children call it a deficiency—or rather, when they’re pleased with me they say I’m direct, when they’re angry I’m blunt.”

“You have two children, then?”

He nodded. “Boy’s thirty, the girl—that’s Lisa—twenty-six. Raised them myself since their mother died, which happened when Lisa was three years old, and then said hands off, at least until two years ago. You’ve children?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “Also a boy and a girl, both of them grown up and parents now. But what happened two years ago?”

“Had to rescue Lisa,” he said, leaning back for the waiter to deposit dishes in front of them. “You can’t imagine from what squalor,” he added, “which wouldn’t have mattered a tinker’s damn if she was happy. Found her living in the East Village in New York doing social work, weight down to ninety-six pounds and crying her heart out over a chap she’d been in love with.” He snorted indignantly. “Loved him, she said, because he cared. Trouble was the chap seems to have cared indiscriminately—about women mainly, I gather—and led her a merry chase. Considering Lisa graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe it seemed very unintelligent of her.”

“Emotions have nothing to do with intellect,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

“You understand that,” he said, nodding. “Lisa didn’t.”

“What’s happened to her since then?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“You’ll see her,” he reminded her. “Cool, brisk, businesslike, that’s Lisa. Liked her better when she tumbled for every cause that came along. Warm-hearted, ardent child.”

‘Then of course she still is,” put in Mrs. Pollifax.

“Somewhere, yes, but in the last two years she’s grown a shell three feet thick. Thought the trip might do her good. Not healthy for either of us, living together. Exhausting.”

Mrs. Pollifax put down her fork and smiled at him. “Is there anything that doesn’t exhaust you?”

He directed a sleepy glance at her and smiled. “As a matter of fact a few things … good food, good talk, collecting rare books … still play a decent game of tennis and I’ve been known to rouse myself at dawn for bird-watching.”

“That’s hard to imagine. Are you,” she asked sternly, “ecology-minded?”

“Passionately,” he said with a straight face.

Mrs. Pollifax laughed and decided at that moment that if she had been deprived of Farrell’s company during her few hours in Lusaka, then Cyrus Reed made a rather fair replacement. She also found herself hoping that Mr. Reed’s lethargy was genuine, his daughter bona fide, and that he had not acquired a nasty habit of assassinating people in his spare time.

“Dessert?” suggested Mr. Reed, offering her the menu.

She glanced at her watch and shook her head. “I can only thank you for a delicious lunch,” she told him, picking up her umbrella, “and see you next at Chunga.”

They said goodbye and she removed herself to the lobby, where she chose a chair in sight of the front door. There she sat, gazing with interest at a party of dark men in turbans. A porter walked past her ringing a bicycle bell and carrying a chalkboard on which were scrawled the words “Mr. Kaacha wanted at desk,” and then suddenly Homer Kulumbala appeared before her, smiling.

“Good afternoon, you are ready for Chunga?” he asked.

“Ready and waiting,” she told him.

“Your luggage?”

She pointed to her suitcase next the door and he picked it up and led her out to the hotel drive. The same VW bus was parked among the bougainvillea, and again she chose the front seat next to the driver. Homer went off to round up other members of the safari and presently returned escorting a narrow man in a pair of slacks and a bush jacket. “Oh dear, we’re twins,” thought Mrs. Pollifax ruefully, glancing from his bush jacket and slacks to her own, and wondered if everyone on safari would wear identical khaki clothes. “Hello,” she said as he reached the bus.

He was a prim-looking little man, perhaps forty-five or fifty, his one notable feature a reddish-brown goatee. He seemed an odd candidate for a safari: he looked fastidious and a trifle pinched about the nostrils, as if the world had a slightly rancid odor to him. At sight of Mrs. Pollifax he looked even more disapproving, or perhaps he resented her occupying the front seat. He stepped carefully into the rear and in faintly accented English called to Homer to be careful with his two suitcases. Only then —and after wiping the seat with his handkerchief—did he turn to Mrs. Pollifax and say peevishly, “They throw them, have you noticed?”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and introduced herself.

“Oh. Yes. Well.” He extended a thin dry hand and shook hers. “Kleiber here. Willem Kleiber.” He did not exactly wipe his hand after touching hers but she had the impression that he wanted to, and that the gesture was aborted only because he thought better of it.

“German?” she asked.

“No, no, Dutch,” he said firmly.

If Mrs. Pollifax had feared that all bush outfits might look alike, this idea was quickly dispelled now as Homer escorted a third member of the safari to the bus. The woman walking beside him made Mrs. Pollifax feel suddenly dowdy and not at all swashbuckling. In her forties, she wore her long platinum hair tied in the back with a scarlet silk kerchief. Her bush jacket and slacks were cut out of pale-beige gabardine that very nearly matched the color of her hair, and they had been tailored to outline every curve of her figure. Diamonds glittered on several fingers, and a stunning turquoise was pinned to her black turtleneck shirt. Everything about her was striking, from her outfit to her cool sapphire eyes, the clear-cut features, pale-pink mouth and subtly tanned face.

“… very nearly didn’t stop, you know, and I was afraid I’d not be here in time, and then—oh, two already here, isn’t this super,” she said, stopping by the bus and smiling at Mr. Kleiber. “I think we’d better introduce ourselves, don’t you?” Her voice was caressing, with a somewhat affected British accent, so that the word better emerged as baytor, spoken through the nose with a not unattractive nasal quality. “I’m Mrs. Lovecraft,” she said. “Amy Lovecraft.”

At this moment a tall, good-looking young man walked out of the hotel, shouted to Homer and then strode toward the bus calling, “I say, is this the transportation to Chunga camp for the KT/3 safari?”

“What a lovely man,” murmured Mrs. Lovecraft appreciatively.

“Yes, yes,” said Homer. “You are—?”

“John Steeves.” He was dressed very casually in a heavy turtleneck sweater and shabby twill slacks; he looked, thought Mrs. Pollifax, like a man who would know that African mornings were cold. He looked seasoned. His voice marked him as an Englishman, the patina on his boots marked him as a hiker. His face was long and intense, with a thick brown mustache and interesting dark eyes.

Homer’s face lighted up at the name. “Of course—yes, I was inquiring for you. Have you luggage?”

“A duffelbag, but Tom’s bringing it. He’s one of the party, too, we met in the Coffee Hut. Tom Henry.” He turned and gestured vaguely toward the hotel entrance. “There he is,” he said.

Mrs. Pollifax turned and saw a solid-looking young man walk out of the hotel carrying a suitcase and a duffelbag, followed by a barefooted black boy carrying a second suitcase. Tom Henry looked cheerful and uncomplicated, with sandy hair and a pair of level, candid gray eyes. No nonsense about him, thought Mrs. Pollifax, liking him at once; relaxed, stable and efficient. The boy walking beside him suddenly looked up at him and smiled. It was, thought Mrs. Pollifax, the most adoring glance that she’d ever seen a child give an adult, and she realized that the two belonged together.

“Henry?” said Homer, puzzled, and then, “Ah, this is Doctor Henry? Dr. Henry from the mission hospital?”

“And Chanda,” the young man said firmly. “Chanda Henry.”

The three men and the boy moved to the back of the bus to stow away their luggage, and Mrs. Lovecraft climbed in beside Mr. Kleiber, saying, “Isn’t this fun?”

Glancing toward the hotel Mrs. Pollifax saw Cyrus Reed walk out, looking vaguely concerned. He had exchanged his seersucker suit for a pair of new bluejeans that made his legs look very long indeed, and over this he wore a shirt and a shabby jacket. After noticing the bus he came toward it, and looking extraordinarily pleased at seeing her in it, he leaned over and spoke to her through the window.

“She’s five hours late now,” he said. “Difficulties mount.”

At that moment a small red Fiat raced into the drive of the hotel and came to a sudden stop, its tires protesting shrilly. A voice called, “Dad!” and a young woman as petite as Reed was enormous jumped out of the car and waved. “I’m here, Judge!”

“That,” said Cyrus Reed resignedly, “is Lisa.”

“Judge?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“Retired.”

She turned to look again at the young woman who was now opening the door of the car. She was slim and long-legged and difficult to overlook because her hair was bright auburn, the color of a new penny, and her face was round and pixie-like, with a dimple in the chin. Mrs. Pollifax said, “She doesn’t look at all cold and businesslike.”

“She doesn’t, does she,” said Reed. He looked surprised. “Something’s different. Like you to meet her. I’ll bring her back.”

Mrs. Pollifax watched as Lisa spoke to someone inside the car, and then from its confining interior crept a woman with a baby in a sling over her shoulders, followed by a small black man in a business suit and spectacles, three grinning barefooted boys, a bent old man carrying a crutch, and at last a young man in purple slacks and pink shirt. It was rather like that old circus act, thought Mrs. Pollifax, where dozens of people kept emerging from a tiny car, and she wondered how on earth they had all fitted inside. Lisa shook hands with each of them and then allowed herself to be led off to the minibus by her father.

“… a flat tire,” she was saying, “but Kanyama helped me change it and Mbulo was carrying firewood when I picked him up, so we had a jolly fire by the side of the road and cooked a breakfast. Really neat—and you should have seen the Falls!”

“I suppose you had to give rides to everyone?”

“Well, but wasn’t it providential that I did? Otherwise I’d still be down near Penga somewhere with a flat tire. It’s not at all like the States, Dad. Nobody asked for a ride, but how could I drive by them when I had a car and they didn’t? Hello,” she said, smiling warmly at Mrs. Pollifax. “Hello,” she added, nodding to Mrs. Lovecraft and Mr. Kleiber.

“Well, you’ve not made it with much time to spare,” said her father, sounding like fathers everywhere.

“Yes, but I made it, didn’t I?” said Lisa, grinning. “And who’s holding us up now? See you all later,” she called over her shoulder, and began propelling her father toward the hotel.

On the way to the entrance they passed Homer carrying luggage for another guest. The Reeds stopped to speak to him, leaving the newest member of the party waiting patiently, a faint smile on his lips. He was a man of average height, perhaps fifty, carrying an attach6 case and a battered trench coat over his arm. He was still dressed for traveling, Mrs. Pollifax noted, in a light suit that must once have been well-cut but was wrinkled now.

He wore his hair rather long; it was jet black, with streaks of pure white.

The group abruptly dissolved and Homer came toward them smiling. “We now have Mr. Mclntosh,” he said, gesturing at the man beside him. “We go. Gentlemen, if you will be so kind as to get in the bus now?”

The two men and the boy Chanda climbed into the seat in the far rear, next the luggage. Mr. Mclntosh crawled past Mrs. Lovecraft to sit in the space between her and Mr. Kleiber. Homer closed and locked the doors and a moment later they were off, driving on the left side of the road like the British.

They passed the National Assembly building with its roof sheathed in copper and gleaming in the sun. They passed neat rows of government housing and then a shantytown with thatched-roof huts, and finally, leaving the city behind, a satellite station that had been built by the Japanese, Homer told them. As the traffic thinned they sped past fields of cotton, sunflowers and maize, and the pedestrians along the side of the road increased: women walking with loads of firewood balanced carefully on their heads, a few men wheeling bicycles. Then these, too, vanished and they settled down to the long road ahead, moving steadily toward the Mungwa mountain range. The sun began to look surprisingly low on the horizon to Mrs. Pollifax, and when she commented on this she was startled to learn that in Zambia the sun set at six o’clock. She began to understand some of the urgency behind Homer’s driving; certainly he drove like a man pursued by something, and now it was heartening to realize the something was darkness, because she had no desire to be caught among wild  animals in the dark either. The excessive speed rendered conversation almost impossible, however; everything rattled and it was necessary to cling to one’s seat.

An hour later Mrs. Pollifax was still clinging to her seat when Homer placed his foot on the brake and nearly sent her through the windshield. Up ahead she saw a roadblock, a gaily striped red-and-white pole extending from one side of the road to the other.

From the rear Mr. Kleiber called, “And what is this?”

The bridge,” said Homer. “All our bridges are guarded by the police.”

“Good heavens why?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, turning to look at him in surprise.

“Rhodesian spies,” he said with a shrug. “They try to bomb our bridges. We have three in Zambia, all of them over the Kafue River.” He pronounced it Ka-jooey.

“Rhodesian spies!” repeated Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes, spies. They are everywhere.” With a jerk of his head to the left he added, “The police live over there.”

Mrs. Pollifax glanced to the left and saw a cluster of corrugated tin houses down near the river, shaded by a circle of acacia trees. She started to speak but Homer’s attention had turned to the guard who walked toward them, looking very official with a rifle strapped across his back. He wore a felt cavalry hat, blue khaki shorts and tunic, and around his legs a wrapping of heavy cloth from ankle to knee that could only be puttees, decided Mrs. Pollifax, remembering Kipling. He peered into the car and then shook hands with Homer and began talking in an incomprehensible language that Homer seemed to understand. At last the guard saluted, the bus was put into gear and they moved across the modest bridge over the river. “What language was it that you spoke back there?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“Nyanga,” said Homer. “I speak Tonga, he speaks Luvale but we both know Nyanga. All the government people know Nyanga.”

‘Those spies you mentioned,” began Mrs. Pollifax, and then found it even more difficult to be heard as they turned off the paved highway onto a dirt road marked by a sign that read CHUNGA CAMP. “Those spies,” she shouted above the rattles and bumps, hanging onto her seat with both hands to keep from hitting the roof of the bus.

“What?” shouted Homer.

“Spies,” she shrieked. Just as she decided that the road had been cut out of a pitted lava bed it changed to brown dust beaten hard into corrugated stripes that placed her more firmly in her seat but vibrated her spine like a massage.

Homer neatly steered the bus around a hole and shouted back, “They spy on freedom fighters. In the Southern Province they used to cross the border from Rhodesia and kidnap people, set land mines and kill. There is not so much there now, but still they sneak in. A month ago they set a bomb in Lusaka, at private home, and killed Mr. Chitepo, Rhodesian black nationalist in the African National Congress.”

“Who did?” shouted Mrs. Pollifax. “Who would do such a thing?”

Homer shrugged. “Mercenaries. Rhodesian police agents. Spies.”

Mrs. Pollifax rested her voice while she attached this diverting piece of news to certain facts casually mentioned in the pamphlets that Bishop had deposited with her last week. She remembered that until recently Zambia bad been a lonely bastion of black independence in the center of Africa, bounded on the east by Portuguese-ruled Mozambique, on the west by Portuguese-ruled Angola, with Rhodesia flanking its southern border, backed up by South Africa below it. That had been Zambia‘s situation when it finally threw off the last shackles of white rule in 1964.

At the time of its independence, however, Zambia had found itself still bound to Rhodesia by roads, electric power, rail routes and economic ties. A man who loathed apartheid and who dedicated himself to working against it, President Kaunda had set out at once to loosen those ties, enlisting the help of the Chinese to build a railway to the north, and the Italians to build a new dam. The price of rejecting any dependence on Rhodesia had been severe: during one crisis the country had been forced to export its copper by trucks over a road that came to be called the “Hell Run.” Zambia had survived, however, and she supposed that it was proof of President Kaunda’s genius that it had not only survived economically but had remained involved in and supportive of the liberation movements in her neighboring countries. Those were the words the pamphlet had used: involved and supportive. Embroiled sounded more appropriate, she thought dryly; certainly nothing had been said about spies, land mines and kidnappings.

Now of course, both Mozambique and Angola had won their independence after years of guerilla warfare and bloodshed, and Rhodesia and South Africa stood alone as rigid defenders of white supremacy. But she had forgotten—it came back to her now—that sometime during the worst of the infighting Rhodesia had angrily closed her borders to Zambia, precipitating even more strains on the Zambian economy. A pity, she thought, that taking a stand on moral issues had to prove so lonely these days, but apparently the closure was only a formal one if spies streamed back and forth. She remembered that the phrase “freedom fighters” had been mentioned, too, in one of those pocket histories.

“Freedom fighters,” she shouted at Homer’s profile. “Who are they?”

“Liberation leaders,” he called back at her. “Refugees. They escape to Zambia with a price on their heads, or prison sentences. They stay, they train, they go back. Quietly, you understand?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding. “I just didn’t realize it was still—uh—continuing.”

He nodded vigorously. “But the leaders begin to talk now. South Africa grows very worried, she fears a race war in Africa and pushes Rhodesia to talk, loosen up. We have a saying: ‘Ukupangile nsofu kano uli ne fumo. Before you can talk of killing an elephant you must first be equipped with a spear.’” He grinned and slowed the minibus. “And speaking of elephants, there is your first elephant, everyone. You wish pictures?”

Exclamations rose from the rear, but Mrs. Pollifax could only gasp and stare. Her first elephant stood scarcely fifteen feet away, grazing contentedly on the leaves at the top of a tree, his huge gray frame bleached by dust, his flaplike ears cocked as if he knew very well they were there. Slowly he turned his ponderous head and looked at the minibus with beady interested eyes. Mrs. Pollifax was certain that he stared directly at her. She gave him a delighted, grateful smile before she lifted her camera and snapped his picture.

They drove on, reaching another road barrier, this one manned by an amiable young park guard. After slowing down to allow a family of baboons to cross the road, Mrs. Pollifax glimpsed the thatched tops of buildings ahead. They entered a clearing, passed a gas pump, a cluster of rondevaals with thatched roofs, and coasted to a stop near a sloping riverbank.

“Is this Chunga camp?” called Mrs. Lovecraft.

Homer shook his head. “This is noncatering section, for weekend campers only. We wait now for the boat. There should be a boat,” he said, frowning, and climbed out and stared across the river at what looked to be an island.

Mrs. Pollifax opened the door beside her and jumped down to stretch her legs. The others stirred too, and climbed out, smiling at each other a little uncertainly. Mrs. Lovecraft strolled over to join Homer, and after a moment Mr. Mclntosh and Mr. Kleiber followed her. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, draining all color from the landscape, and Mrs. Pollifax felt suddenly very small under the huge silvery sky as she waited for a mysterious boat that showed no signs of appearing on that vast flat expanse of silky gray water.

‘There,” said Homer suddenly, pointing. “The boat.”

A small speck had appeared on the gray water, looking almost spectral as it rounded the point. It veered, grew larger, became an object totally unlike a boat, and then as it moved toward them, one man at the stern, she began to hear the sound of its motor and she realized it was a pontoon boat, nearly flat and propelled by an outboard motor.

“Good, let’s help with all this luggage,” Dr. Henry said, and walked around to the back of the bus and began handing suitcases to Chanda. There was a whispered discussion between them and then he said, “No, no, you give it to her.” Holding up Mrs. Pollifax’s gay umbrella he said, “Chanda tells me this is yours?”

“Yes, but how on earth did he know?” she asked in surprise.

Dr. Henry laughed. “I couldn’t possibly tell you, but he always knows these things. He says he looked inside of you and saw colors to match. Mukolamfula was the word which, if the little Bemba I’ve learned is right, means rainbow.”

“I’m very touched,” she said, smiling at Chanda.

The boy handed her the umbrella, grinned, ducked his head shyly and went back for another suitcase. Behind her the boat had just landed, the slant of its bow dovetailing perfectly with the slant of the riverbank. Homer said, “The boat will come back for the luggage, it is very safe here. You will get in now, please?”

They distributed themselves on packing cases; the boat was pushed away from the shore, the motor sputtered, they turned and began the trip toward the distant shore, any conversation rendered frivolous by the awesome silence of the river. The only sounds were of the water streaming past the bow, leaving a frothy wake behind them, and the murmur of Homer’s voice as he spoke quietly to the boy at the wheel. The air was cool, full of fragrances, and as they chugged their way toward the opposite bank the smell of a wood fire became distinct.

Suddenly the sun reappeared, very low on the horizon now, and as the boat rounded the point Mrs. Pollifax had her first view of Chunga camp. She saw another sloping riverbank cut out of the trees, with a narrow wharf jutting into the water. Smoke from a campfire drifted lazily across the clearing, threading its way through the palms. Off to the left there was a long white building with a thatched roof, and behind this, spaced at intervals up and down a gently sloping hill, stood narrow cabins built of reed and thatch.

The sound of the boat had brought a handful of people down to the landing, all of their faces black. One in particular stood out from the others, a broad-shouldered young man in forest-green tunic and shorts. His smile as the boat reached the weathered gray dock was as broad as his shoulders, a brilliant slash of white that met and warmed two laughing eyes.

“Welcome to Chunga,” he said as the boat slid up to the wharf. “I’m Julian, your safari manager. If you will come in and register—?”

Mrs. Pollifax was the first to enter the small office near the landing. Julian handed her registration forms and a pen and she brought out her passport and copied down its numbers. Over her shoulder Julian called instructions to the boy who had brought them in the boat, and a moment later she heard the sound of the motor on the water. “Besides the luggage,” he explained to her, “there are two more guests coming soon from Lusaka.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, “I met them.”

His huge white smile blossomed again. “Then you have already two friends, good. Moses takes you up now, you’ll be in Leopard cabin.”

Moses wore dusty sneakers and bright-blue slacks. She turned and followed him up a gravel path. The reborn sun was meeting the horizon now, its light no longer clear gold but a hot amber that rusted the soil a deeper red. Along the path leaves crackled underfoot like dry parchment, and Mrs. Pollifax shivered in the sudden coolness. When they reached the cabin marked Leopard, Moses carried her suitcase up four wooden stairs and placed it beside the door, and then he stood and explained that there was a shower and pointed vaguely off into the distance. Mrs. Pollifax, her mind now on sweaters, blankets and hot coffee, shook her head, thanked him and scurried up the steps into the cabin. As she turned to close the wooden door behind her the sun slipped over the horizon with finality. Homer had been absolutely correct: it was just six o’clock.

CHAPTER 5

It was dim inside the cabin. Two small screened windows were heavily shaded by the thatch roof but an electric-light bulb dangled over the night table and Mrs. Pollifax snapped it on. The pair of narrow beds looked oddly bridelike: they were sealed inside of white mosquito netting that flowed like bridal veils from the ceiling and were tucked firmly under each mattress, rendering each bed nearly inaccessible. Frustrated, she deposited her suitcase on the floor until she saw a luggage rack behind the door and placed it there instead, and then, looking around her she said aloud, “Well—I’m here.”

And so, presumably, was Aristotle, she reminded herself.

It was incredibly, starkly quiet … Something fell to the ground outside her cabin; it sounded like fruit dropping from a tree. A faint breeze rustled the reed walls and then subsided, and she could hear the distant hum of a generator. Presently voices inserted themselves into this bottomless quiet; she heard a girl laugh, a man reply and recognized Cyrus Reed’s voice: so he and Lisa had arrived. She opened her suitcase and quickly changed into a heavy sweater, combed her hair, checked the film in her camera and picked up her jacket. When she opened the door a lizard slid across the step and vanished under the cabin. Carrying her flashlight she walked down the path toward the water, hesitated, and then passed through an empty, brightly lighted bar into the dining hall. Just beyond its low wall a campfire was burning in the cleared area overlooking the river. A dozen chairs encircled it, and one of them was occupied by John Steeves.

Seeing her he rose and gave her a quick, rather shy smile that lighted up his serious face. “I don’t believe I know your name,” he said, holding out a hand. “I’m John Steeves.”

“Emily Pollifax,” she told him, shaking hands with him. “Do sit down. I love this fire. I’m going to sit as close as I dare because actually I’m freezing.”

“I know,” he said, nodding. “It’s really early spring here, and a rather late rainy season too, they tell me, which is why the roads haven’t been graded yet. As perhaps you noticed,” he said with a grin.

She realized that he was much older than she’d thought at first. Everything about him was boyish—his relatively unlined face, his slouch, his vitality—except for his eyes: there was something haunted about his eyes, as if they’d seen too much. They were what her son Roger would call the eyes of an old soul, so that she now added quite a few years to her original impression and guessed him to be in his middle thirties.

“Looking forward to the safari?” he asked, and Mrs. Pollifax realized that she’d been staring at him.

“Oh yes indeed,” she told him warmly. “And you?”

He nodded. “Bit of a rest for me. Too much traveling spoils one for resorts and the really plush places.”

“You travel a great deal, then?”

He nodded, extended one lean leg and poked at the fire with his shabby boot. “Write travel books,” he said.

“Steeves,” she mused. “I’m afraid—”

“I know,” he said with that sudden blaze of a smile that so transformed him. “People never remember authors’ names.”

“Tell me the titles of your books, then.”

“Mmmmm … Lost in the Himalayas, At Home in the Andes, followed by Over the Chinese Border and One Hundred Nights in a Mongolian Yurt.”

“But of course,” she exclaimed. “I read Over the Chinese Border and enjoyed it tremendously. You disguise yourself and live among the natives.”

He grinned. “You might say disguise is the main ingredient of my success, yes. A bit of the actor in me, you know, I love fooling around with makeup. Actually I began as an actor, but it’s much more fun applying it all to dangerous situations.”

“You like danger?” she asked curiously.

“It certainly beats the humdrum routine of ordinary living,” he said ruefully.

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Pollifax, smiling faintly. “The exhilaration. The things one learns about oneself. The total immersion in the moment.”

He looked at her in surprise, as if he’d not expected this from her. “You seem to have experienced something of it—” His glance moved beyond Mrs. Pollifax and he stopped speaking, a curious expression on his face. She turned and saw Lisa Reed walking toward them, her father just emerging from the dining hall behind her.

Steeves rose to his feet, looking impressed. “I say—good evening. You weren’t on the bus with us, are you in the safari group too?”

Lisa had changed into bluejeans and a denim shirt and in them she looked younger, more vulnerable, her fashionable leanness replaced by a fragile quality. It occurred to Mrs. Pollifax that she was blushing; certainly her gamine face had turned a darker color but her voice when she spoke was impersonal. “Yes, we came by car from Lusaka. I’m Lisa Reed.”

“And Cyrus Reed, parent,” added her father. Sinking into the chair beside Mrs. Pollifax he smiled at her and said, “Good to see you again.”

Steeves looked pleased. “Americans, are you? I do wish you’d sit down over here—I’ve not met an American in years. Perhaps you can explain to me what’s been happening in your country.”

“Lisa can if anyone can,” said Reed. “A biased account, naturally.”

Steeves flashed his quick, radiant smile. “But all accounts are biased, surely? You had something called a watershed affair?”

That won a smile from Lisa. “No, no,” she said, sitting down next to him, and began speaking with quick gestures, her face very serious, her slender hands cutting the air with incisive slashes.

Her father turned to Mrs. Pollifax. “Thought you’d like to know, by the way, that someone was asking for you at the hotel when I checked out.”

“Asking for me?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. “Was he tall, with dark hair and blue eyes and—”

Reed shook his head. “Zambian. Short black chap. Dressed in a kind of—well,” he said, looking pained, “it had hibiscus all over it. Or bougainvillea. That sort of shirt, with black trousers and sneakers.”

Puzzled, Mrs. Pollifax said, “And you’re quite sure he was asking for me!”

“Clearly,” nodded Reed. “Couldn’t help but overhear. Asked for your room number, the clerk said you’d already checked out, he left.”

“How very odd,” said Mrs. Pollifax, frowning. “There’s that advertisement, of course, but it won’t be published in the Times of Zambia until tomorrow morning.”

Her companion nodded. “Unless the typesetter knows someone who knows someone who knows your friend. Or perhaps the travel bureau sent a chap along to make sure you’d gotten off on time.” With a gesture toward the other two he said, “Damn glad to see there’s someone young and male for Lisa.”

Mrs. Pollifax wrenched her thoughts away from the mysterious man at the hotel. “I thought,” she said, “that your daughter blushed when she saw him.”

His brows lifted. “Thought so, did you?” He turned and gazed at Lisa with interest. “Amazing I missed that.”

“You were standing behind her.”

“So I was. Seems an engaging fellow, Steeves.”

John Steeves was certainly being very attentive, thought Mrs. Pollifax, glancing at the two across the campfire: those haunted eyes of his were fixed intently on Lisa’s face as he listened, his quick smile occasionally transforming their sadness. It was a rare person who listened like that, reflected Mrs. Pollifax, and thought it a quality difficult for any woman to resist.

“And you?” asked Reed, directing his quizzical glance at her. “Always travel alone?”

“Oh yes,” she said simply. “At least—”

“At least you start off alone,” he said with his slow smile, “and then collect people like a Pied Piper? Ah, here comes whatsisname. Dour fellow you rode out with.”

“Mr. Kleiber,” she reminded him. “Willem Kleiber.”

Mr. Kleiber approached the fire hesitantly, sat down two chairs removed from Cyrus Reed and said distastefully, “There is a complete absence of running water here. Exactly how does one wash?”

“The word safari,” said Reed in an offhand voice, “means camping, you know.”

Lisa had turned at the sound of his voice. “There are shower pipes behind those reed fences, you know. Hot water too.”

Mr. Kleiber’s nose looked, if anything, even more pinched; he had the most active nostrils of anyone she’d met, thought Mrs. Pollifax. “Anyone can walk in,” he said coldly. “Anyone. There’s no door, there’s no roof.”

In a rather amused voice Steeves said, “I really don’t think anyone would want to, you know. Try singing loudly while you’re under the tap.”

“That’s just what / did,” said Amy Lovecraft, strolling into the circle and joining them. She was looking very elegant in snug black pants, a cashmere sweater and a short suede jacket. She chose the seat on the other side of John Steeves and sat down, placed a hand on his arm and smiled into his face. “I do hope we’re on a first-name basis now so that I can call you John.”

“Please do,” he said politely. “Have you met Lisa Reed?”

“No, duck,” she said and, leaning forward, gave Lisa a much less enthusiastic smile. “I’ve not met that lovely huge man over there, either.”

“We’re both Reeds,” Lisa said shortly. Tm Lisa and he’s my father Cyrus, and that’s Mrs. Pollifax next him.”

“Delighted, Cyrus,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, giving him a warm smile and ignoring Mrs. Pollifax. “And here comes Tom Henry. I think it’s super our having a doctor with us as well as a noted travel writer, don’t you?”

This was tactless, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and quite enough to antagonize the remaining men, but if she decided to reserve judgment on Mrs. Lovecraft for the moment she could welcome Dr. Henry wholeheartedly. He sat down next to her, crossed his legs, gave her a cheerful smile and said, “I hope dinner’s soon, I’m starving.”

“About five more minutes,” Mrs. Pollifax told him after a glance at her watch. “Or just enough time to ask what Homer meant when he said you’re at a mission hospital. Does that mean you live here in Zambia?”

He wrenched his eyes from Lisa Reed and turned to give her his full attention. “Yes it does—the hospital’s over on the Zambesi River near the Angolan border. I came out from Canada three years ago and I’m sure all my friends expected me back in Windsor a week later.”

He gave her a sidelong boyish smile. “Needless to say I’m still here.” “You like it.”

“Love it,” he admitted. “So much so that I wanted to try a safari on my seven days’ leave. There’s so much about the bush I’ve been too busy to learn, and a great deal about wild animals I want to learn.”

“Including Homo sapiens?” said Cyrus Reed, leaning forward to enter the conversation.

“Well, I see a good many of them,” said Dr. Henry, smiling back, “but aside from several missionary families at the hospital it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a group like this. I’d forgotten,” he said dryly, “what a lot of nonsense people talk.”

Cyrus Reed smiled. “I agree with you completely.” “What do you talk about at your hospital when you’re relaxing?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

He grinned. “Oh—life, death, septicemia, who’s due to boil the next drinking water, or what the village witch doctor said that day.”

Mrs. Pollifax laughed. “Scarcely small talk.” “God, no.” He looked chagrined. “Obviously I’ll have to brush up on that.” He smiled at Chanda as the boy walked into the campfire circle and came to stand beside him. “Bweleniko,” he said. “Mwapoleni.”

“Kuntu kuli kusuma,” the boy said, smiling. “Endita.” Turning to Mrs. Pollifax he said, “Chanda talks Bemba but he speaks a little English now and understands it very well. When we first met I was struggling to learn Nyanga, and now I’m having to learn Bemba, and it all grows rather confusing. Chanda, you’ve not met this gentleman yet. He’s Mr. Cyrus Reed.”

Chanda stepped forward and shook hands with Reed and then, to their surprise, clapped his hands three times. “That’s the Zambian greeting,” explained Dr. Henry with a grin. “Chanda’s given you only the modified version. When it’s done properly it’s repeated three times … a handshake followed by three claps and then another round or two. Quite a ceremony.”

“Certainly feel thoroughly greeted,” admitted Reed. Somewhat removed from them, Willem Kleiber said in alarm, “He’s not—uh—yours, is he?”

Tom Henry’s smile was friendly. “He is now. He was brought into the hospital half-dead, his entire village wiped out by fighting on the Angolan border. Freedom fighters brought him in.”

Overhearing this, Lisa gasped, “You live there?” He nodded.

“But that must be fascinating.”

“It is,” he said, meeting her glance with a faint smile. At that moment a drum began beating to announce dinner. Mrs. Pollifax turned and saw that in the open-air dining room behind her a huge tureen was being carried in by a boy in a white jacket. She also saw Mr. Mclntosh standing on the step, hesitating between them and the dining hall. He had changed into khaki slacks over which he wore a white shirt open at the neck and a black V-neck sweater, and she wondered if he was going to appear late at every meal and leave early, like a shadow. Intuitively she felt that he was an intensely private, introverted man, but having decided this she wondered how: was it the manner in which he looked out from under his brows, head slightly bent? or was it that his smile, which was surprisingly sweet, never changed or wavered? He simply stood and waited, smiling, while they left their chairs and moved toward him, and then, still smiling, he turned and walked toward the buffet table and placed himself in line.

With the arrival of Mclntosh Mrs. Pollifax realized the safari group was now complete and she wondered, not for the first time, which of these people could be an assassin. Now that she’d met them all she found this a very jarring thought because they all looked so normal, even wholesome, and certainly all of them were—well, explainable, she reasoned, reaching for a word that eliminated the existence of sinister motives and facades. She could not imagine any of them a professional killer standing in a crowd with a gun in his pocket, waiting, measuring, judging, whipping out the gun and firing, then vanishing into the crowd. In the first place, none of these people looked capable of such brutal violence, and in the second place she couldn’t imagine any of them managing such a thing without being noticed.

Cyrus Reed would certainly be noticed, she thought with an amused glance at him towering over the soup tureen. It was possible that without his goatee Mr. Kleiber might look sufficiently nondescript; it was also possible that Tom Henry was not a doctor at all. Mclntosh, she thought, would certainly melt into a crowd—he was doing so right now; John Steeves was too distinguished to melt, but she knew from his books that he was a genius at disguising himself.

If Carstairs was right, she thought, one of them had to be wearing a devilishly clever mask … and then she recalled with interest Carstairs’ telephone call to her the evening before she left New Jersey. She had assured him that yes, her passport had been returned safely to her and that yes, Bishop had explained the importance of the snapshots, and then she had asked him the question that had begun to exasperate her. “I realize this is an insane world,” she had told him, “but can you please tell me why an assassin would go on a safari!”

“Why, to meet someone, I imagine,” Carstairs had said pleasantly. “Plan the next assassination, perhaps, or be paid for the last one. Certainly not for fun.”

If this was true—and Carstairs’ suppositions nearly always proved sound—there could be two people wearing masks on this safari, each watching the others and wondering, as she was doing … and this meant that eventually they would have to go off together for a good little chat, didn’t it? It occurred to her that if she was very observant and very discreet she might be able to do a little eavesdropping …

Of course Carstairs had made it very clear to her that she was to do nothing but take photographs, and she planned to do a very good job with her picture-taking, but now that she thought about it, it seemed incredible waste for her to be here on the spot and not do a little spying as well. After all, it was taxpayers’ money that was paying for her safari, she thought virtuously, and as a taxpayer herself she abhorred waste.

Besides, she added, dropping all pretense at justification, it would be such fun to surprise Carstairs and catch Aristotle.

CHAPTER 6

In the morning the safari officially began with the game-viewing excursion up the river before leaving for Kafwala camp. Mrs. Pollifax came to breakfast early and still a little sleepy, for it was barely seven and she’d not slept with any continuity. The walls of her cabin had rustled all night—she was convinced that some small animal lived in them—and at one point she had awakened to a loud animal cry, followed by a soft whistle and the pounding of feet. After this another fruit had dropped from the tree outside her cabin, and the reeds had begun to whisper again … At breakfast Julian told her that animals roamed freely through the camp at night, that a hippo had been heard and that pukus, who liked the safety of the camp at night, made soft whistling sounds. It was just as well she’d not known, she reflected, or she might never have dared fall asleep again.

“I want you to meet Crispin now,” Julian said as they rose from the breakfast table. “I will be staying at camp to make final arrangements for our trip at noon, and Crispin will take you game-viewing. He’s assistant safari manager and he’ll be with us for the entire safari.”

Crispin was not in uniform, and looked surprisingly like an eager schoolboy in his flowered shirt, dark trousers and sneakers. He had a long slender face and bright, interested eyes. He actually looked excited about taking them out game-viewing, and Mrs. Pollifax found this rather endearing.

John Steeves said, “Crispin’s even more English than Julian. What are your Zambian names?”

“Mine?” Julian laughed. “You want it all at once? Milimo Simoko Chikwanda.”

Steeves grinned. “I’ll call you Julian. And Crispin’s?” “Wamufu Chinyanta Muchona.” Steeves nodded. “Definitely Julian and Crispin.” “I think so,” Julian said in amusement. There was a charming picnic air about the excursion up the river. The sun was soft and golden, the river full of morning sounds,  and   they   traveled   on  a   splendid breakfast of bacon and eggs, sausage, toast and coffee. Mr. Kleiber, sitting next to Mrs. Pollifax, went so far as to confide that he would like to see a crocodile. Across the aisle Amy Lovecraft had blossomed out with a professional-looking camera loaded  with  all  kinds of attachments that she tried to explain  to John  Steeves. The Reeds sat together in front, both looking sleepy; Tom Henry and Chanda stood in the stern of the boat and Mclntosh by himself in the bow; he too bristled with cameras and light meters.

Abruptly Crispin called out to the boy at the wheel, gestured, and the launch headed across to the opposite bank, at which point Mrs. Pollifax lifted her camera and took a picture of the river ahead, managing to capture several profiles at the same time. She had already taken a snapshot of everyone climbing into the boat and no one seemed to have minded except Cyrus Reed, who had glanced at her reproachfully, as if he’d not expected this of her.

“Hippo,” said Crispin in a low voice, and pointed. Every head turned to the left, the launch slowed and they coasted toward a cleft in the tangle of roots and trees that lined the riverbank. Slowly they drew abreast of a dark, secret-looking inlet of water that flowed into the river, and as they reached this narrow tributary Mrs. Pollifax looked deep into its shadows and saw enormous shapes moving through the trees, and suddenly heard a thunderous roar as the first hippo plunged into the stream. Patches of sunlight glinted across monstrous black heads as the hippos floated and bobbed out into the river. She counted five, six, seven hippos and gave up counting at eleven. They kept coming, whole families snorting and cavorting with ponderous mischievousness, one of the bolder ones swimming out near the launch to give them all a curious stare.

Mrs. Pollifax laughed, and when the launch resumed its trip upriver the others were smiling too and began to talk and move about the boat. Mclntosh peeled off his jacket and came to stand next to Mrs. Pollifax, his camera at the ready. Without his jacket, only a short-sleeved polo shirt remained and she thought it made him look rather flat-chested. His posture was not good but then, she thought forgivingly, it would be impossible for anyone to stand erect if they insisted on peering out at the world from under their eyebrows; a certain amount of slumping was compulsive. She noticed that his longish black hair badly needed a shampoo but the threads of white in it were dramatic against his tanned face.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said with his faint smile, and sat down on the edge of the bench next her, his eyes on the shoreline.

“Not at all,” she said. “That’s a handsome camera you have. I’ve been admiring it.”

He glanced at her, his smile deepening, and told her what kind it was.

“Lovely,” she said, not understanding a word, and then with a bright smile, “Where do you make your home, Mr. Mclntosh?”

“Pretty much out of my attaché” case,” he said, smiling.

“But you’re American, aren’t you?”

“An American citizen, yes.”

“Then do you,” she asked reasonably, “live in the United States?”

“Not really,” he said, smiling. “I come and go.” He lifted his camera and snapped a picture of the riverbank, and then as Crispin called out “Egret!” he slipped away from her to the rear of the boat.

Behind her Amy Lovecraft leaned forward and said, “He’s impossible to talk to, isn’t he? I couldn’t even get a direct yes or no from him on whether he’s married. I mean, surely that’s something you could answer yes or no to? A man either has a wife or he hasn’t.”

Mrs. Pollifax turned to smile into her vivid sapphire-blue eyes. “You have a point there, although of course these days such matters are sometimes—”

“What’s more,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, lowering her voice, “I don’t think Mclntosh is his last name at all.”

At this Mrs. Pollifax turned completely to face her. “Good heavens,” she murmured, “really?”

Mrs. Lovecraft nodded. “When we registered at Chunga,” she said, her voice becoming conspiratorial, “I was standing next him and I caught a glimpse of his passport. Mclntosh is his first name. There was an entirely different name following it, something that began with an M too, but I couldn’t make it out. And,” she added indignantly, “I’ve never seen an American passport with the last name first. Julian may have accepted him as Mr. Mclntosh because he doesn’t know, but take a look at your own passport sometime: the last name doesn’t come first.”

“Amy,” called Steeves from across the aisle, “you wanted to see some impala, take a look over here.”

Mrs. Lovecraft jumped up, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to digest this interesting piece of information. Not a sensible woman, thought Mrs. Pollifax, watching her leave; stupid of her to go about saying such things, indebted as Mrs. Pollifax was to her for the news. She might have thought it exposed Mclntosh, but it also betrayed her spitefulness at being ignored by him. She wondered if Amy Love-craft’s life had been difficult: she was a very attractive woman and must once have been lovely, but so very often beautiful women grew up lopsided or didn’t grow at all. She thought there was a curious hardness about her, as if her beauty was a deceptively rich topsoil, thinly spread over rock… . Finding that no one was looking in her direction, Mrs. Pollifax reached into her purse and surreptitiously examined her passport. Mrs. Lovecraft was absolutely right: there was no juxtaposition of names, the given name came first.

“Having fun?” asked Cyrus Reed, walking up the aisle.

“Oh yes,” she said, beaming at him, and then, thinking of what Mrs. Lovecraft had just told her, she added, “and I’m learning so much, it’s really so educational.”

At midmorning they stopped briefly at an abandoned ferry crossing where the remains of a road cut like a knife through the tall grass. Crispin allowed them to climb out for a moment and walk a few cautious paces down the road. “But not far,” he said firmly. “Not without a guard.”

“Why should we need a guard?” protested Mrs. Pollifax.

“It’s dangerous.”

She looked out upon the peaceful scene, at bright petunia-like flowers blooming by the roadside, at a landscape empty of all movement, and she was incredulous. “But it looks so safe!”

Tom Henry grinned. “It does, doesn’t it? But we’re near the river, you know, which means if you left the road you might stumble across a crocodile sunning itself in the mud. Failing that, there are puff adders, pythons, black mambas and bushwangers, not to mention the possibility of a rhino or hippo who might be in an ugly temper.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax, taken aback.

Crispin said, “You treat many snake bites at your hospital, Doctor?”

“Maybe not so successfully as your village medicine men,” said Tom, “but we save a few. Speaking of medicine men, it’s certainly humbling to realize that people here evolved their own vaccine centuries before we did in the laboratories.”

Crispin said modestly, “We are in the position to learn, you know. We see the mongoose fight with a poisonous snake, he is bitten, he runs to a certain bush and eats the leaves and lives. The medicine man studies all these signs.”

Steeves said, “And which do you visit, Crispin, when you  feel  ill?”

Crispin grinned. “I would go first to the medical doctor,” he said, his eyes laughing, “and then I would visit the medicine man just to be sure.”

“Covering all your bets,” chuckled Dr. Henry as they climbed back into the boat.

Lisa, standing on the bank next to Mrs. Pollifax, said in a low voice, “Care to bet whose arms Mrs. Lovecraft is going to fall into?”

She had misjudged her, however; Amy Lovecraft graciously accepted Crispin’s hand, stepped onto the bow of the boat and remained there for a long moment, her profile turned to the sky, before allowing John Steeves to help her inside.

“What’s your deadliest snake?” Reed asked Crispin, which brought a laugh from Lisa.

“Oh the viper,” he said. “You are bitten, and in ten minutes you die.” “Good heavens!”

“The black mamba is second, killing in ten or fifteen minutes. If you go to the zoo in Lusaka the snake man will tell you all about it. He will also tell you snakes neither see nor hear, they only sense vibrations.” He grinned. “Therefore if you meet a snake and stand perfectly still it won’t find you.”

“I couldn’t possibly stand still,” said Lisa, shivering. “I’d run like blazes.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at Crispin, and then she looked at the dark, jungle-like banks of the river lined with twisted roots like claws, deep shadows, tangles of brush and palm and the white tracery of dead roots. She thought of the disciplines needed in this country to avoid sudden painful death and she acknowledged ruefully that survival here was a trifle different from crossing on the green light.

Some forty-five minutes later they reached Chunga camp again. They had seen an egret, a cormorant and a group of impala and hippos, and Julian was waiting on the dock to tell Mrs. Pollifax that a policeman from Lusaka had arrived to ask her questions.

“He arrived fifteen minutes ago,” Julian said, helping her out of the launch, “and I told him I will bring you to him. He’s seated over there in a chair behind the trees, very private.”

There was no curiosity in Julian’s candid gaze; in Mrs. Pollifax, however, there was considerable curiosity and she admitted to being startled. “You’re quite certain it’s me he wants to see?”

“Oh yes,” said Julian simply, “he has driven all the way from Lusaka to see you.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“Anything wrong?” asked Cyrus Reed.

Mrs. Pollifax realized that she had been the first person off the boat and now the others had arrived behind her and were listening. She smiled, shook her head and followed Julian to the appointed place, which was indeed private, being nearly encircled by palms. A slender young man in a dark-blue uniform rose. He looked self-contained and very polite, his black face thin and intelligent. “Mrs. Pollifax?”

She assured him that she was Mrs. Pollifax and sat down.

A small table had been placed in front of him on which rested a half-finished Coke and a notebook. He now placed the notebook on his lap and drew out a pen.

“I have come, madam,” he said, pronouncing the word m’domm, “to inquire about your advertisement in this morning’s Times of Zambia. A most curious advertisement, surely?”

“My adver—oh,” she said, comprehension dawning, “it’s been published today? I’m so glad. The young man said it would be, of course, but I’ve completely lost track of time, and—” She stopped, aware that her interrogator was waiting patiently for her to finish. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t break any law?”

He looked as if he were seated at a garden party balancing a cup of tea on his knees instead of a notebook but his eyes were very watchful. “This man John Sebastian Farrell.” He pronounced the name precisely and carefully. “You know this person?”

She nodded. “Yes, of course, or rather I used to. I’m trying to find him. You haven’t—haven’t come to tell me where he is, have you?”

“No, madam.”

“For that matter,” she added thoughtfully, “my name wasn’t mentioned in the advertisement at all.”

“The Times office gave me your name, madam, after which I contacted the tourist bureau to learn your itinerary. Now this man,” he continued, courteous but resolute. “What causes you to believe he is in Zambia?”

Mrs. Pollifax started to reply and then stopped, suddenly anxious. “Is there something wrong? I don’t understand—”

“If you will just answer—”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “A mutual friend told me that he’s living in Zambia and that he receives his mail in care of Barclay’s Bank in Lusaka. I looked first in the telephone directory, but since his name wasn’t listed I went to Barclay’s Bank, where they told me his mail is collected very seldom and they had no forwarding address for him. So I thought of advertising.” She paused, waiting, while he wrote this down. “Why?” she asked. “You surely haven’t driven all the way from Lusaka to—”

“May I ask the name of your friend?”

“Friend?” she repeated blankly. “You can’t possibly mean—”

“The mutual friend who told you this man lives in Zambia.”

This sounded serious indeed. She said after a moment’s hesitation, “Bishop. William Bishop.”

“His address, please?”

“Bishop’s address?” She was astonished but struggled gamely to remember where she sent Bishop’s Christmas card.  “Georgetown, in the District of Columbia,” she said at last. “The Laurel Apartments, I believe. In the United States.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“And now that I’ve told you all this,” she said firmly, “you will tell me, please, why it’s so important?”

He put down his pen and folded away his notebook. “You are aware, madam, that you register and show your passport everywhere you go, so that no one may enter this country illegally.”

“But I didn’t enter—” She stopped in dismay. “You mean Mr. Farrell may be in your country illegally?”

“I did not say that, madam,” he said politely. “I am checking into this matter.”

“I see,” she said, and then added accusingly, “Farrell is a very fine man, Lieutenant—”

“Lieutenant Bwanausi. Dunduzu Bwanausi.”

“Lieutenant Bwanausi,” she repeated bravely, and won a faint smile from him; in fact, he looked considerably friendlier as he rose from his chair. “That is quite possible, madam. We will see. I hope you enjoy your safari. Good day, madam.”

She watched him go, her face troubled as she thought of the long dusty trip he had made here from Lusaka, and the long dusty trip back; it certainly did not imply any casual interest in Farrell. She felt, too, that there was something that she had missed during the interview, something wrong about it that she couldn’t put her finger on. She sat and tried to reconstruct the interview.

A flock of tiny brilliant birds pecked at the earth around her. She heard the palms behind her stir once, convulsively, and then the sound of the launch starting up, followed by the steady putt-putt of its motor as it backed and headed downriver to return Lieutenant Bwanausi to his car. The sun was growing intense on the back of her neck, the air was dead-calm with a complete absence of wind or breeze.

There was no breeze, she thought, and yet the palms had rattled stridently a moment or two ago, a fact that her mind had registered without her being aware of it. Very odd, she decided, and swiftly, soundlessly left her chair. The palms were silent now, and quite empty. She moved in among them listening to the sound made as her shoulders brushed against the brittle dry fronds. She tried tapping a single branch with her fingers to see if a small bird or animal could have rustled them, but she found this quite impossible; someone human had to have disturbed the palms to make the sound she’d heard, someone standing and listening to Lieutenant Bwanausi.

She pushed through the bushes and out to the earthen path behind them and looked toward the dining hall. The distance was not far, and anyone could have reached it from this point in a matter of seconds. There was no one in sight. Walking quickly she passed the office and saw Mrs. Lovecraft leaning over the desk talking animatedly with Julian; she continued through the bar to the dining room and counted heads: the rest of the party were seated there waiting for lunch, relaxed, sprawling in their chairs, laughing at something Chanda had said.

She withdrew before she could be noticed, realizing that it could have been any one of them. It could have been Cyrus Reed, who seemed to be keeping a very firm eye on her, or it could have been Amy Lovecraft, who had already ferreted out something to gossip about in Mclntosh. But Amy so much preferred males that it was difficult for Mrs. Pollifax to imagine her curiosity extending to any female in the party.

Or it could, she reflected, have been the one person among them who would find the arrival of a policeman disturbing: Aristotle.

She did not like this thought. Remembering they were to leave for Kafwala immediately after lunch, she turned and hurried up the path to Leopard cabin to finish packing her suitcase.

CHAPTER 7

“The mwamfuli I could carry,” Chanda said as Mrs. Pollifax prepared to board the pontoon boat after lunch.

Mrs. Pollifax was about to say that one multicolored parasol was no bother at all for her, but seeing the look on Chanda’s face she promptly handed it over to him, and then demonstrated how it worked. The pontoon boat set off with them once again sitting on packing cases, but Chanda made the trip standing in the bow under her umbrella, a broad grin on his face.

There were three Land Rovers waiting for them when they reached shore. Mrs. Pollifax, who had not yet considered the logistics of supplying a safari, stood and watched as their luggage was piled into one of the Land Rovers, followed by a sack of potatoes, a huge bag of green beans, two cases of beer and an insulated box filled to the brim with frozen chickens and steaks.

“Looks as if we’ll eat well,” Mr. Kleiber said in a pleased voice.

“Yes, doesn’t it?” said Mrs. Pollifax, and recognizing the moment as an auspicious one—they were all standing in clusters watching—she lifted her camera and took a close-up picture of Mr. Kleiber.

“My yogurt lunches back home seem pathetic here,” Lisa told Dr. Henry, and Mrs. Pollifax snapped a picture of them too, smiling at each other in the sun.

It was not the first time that she had noticed them smiling at each other. It had happened during the trip upriver this morning, and again at lunch, yet so far as she knew Lisa and Dr. Henry had exchanged no more than a few pleasantries, and Lisa was nearly always in the company of John Steeves, who seemed quite stricken by her. Mrs. Pollifax waited now for Tom Henry’s response to this remark. He said, “Yes,” and continued looking at Lisa until her smile deepened and she turned away—as if, thought Mrs. Pollifax, an entire conversation had just passed between them.

“I hope you’re going to take my picture too,” said Steeves.

“Oh, especially yours,” Mrs. Pollifax told him, hating herself for gushing, “because my children will be so thrilled.” She was conscious as she said this of Cyrus Reed turning and observing her with some astonishment. Really, she thought, Mr. Reed’s attention, or rather his expectations of her, were going to prove extremely difficult on this trip. In a spirit of defiance she pointed her camera at him and took his picture too. She was completing her collection with a snapshot of Julian standing beside the Land Rover when he gestured to her to climb inside.

“You’ll ride with me,” he said, and helped her to climb up to the front seat.

She was joined almost immediately by a guard with a long rifle, the same guard who had opened the gate for them the day before, lean and graceful, dressed in khaki shorts and the same moth-eaten gray sweater. Then Lisa strolled over, followed by John Steeves, Mclntosh and Amy Lovecraft. The Land Rover with their luggage had already started; Julian shouted at Crispin, climbed in, waved, and they too were off, leaving the others still arranging themselves in the third vehicle.

“Will they have a guard too?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

Julian turned and looked at her with amusement. “Yes, of course. You still do not believe?”

Lisa leaned over and said, “Well, it is a park.”

“I’ve heard,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, “that Americans are accustomed to feeding the animals.”

Julian grinned and shook his head. “It is safe most of the time so long as one remains on the roads, and in daylight, but even on the road—one of the guides at Luangwa Park was driving along like this three years ago when he was charged by a wounded buffalo. There was not much left of the Land Rover, I can tell you, and if the buffalo had not been quickly shot by the guard there would have been not much left of my friend either.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax, blinking. “What—uh— happens if you do have an emergency out here in the bush?”

“Oh, we have marconis,” he explained, deftly steering the car around a hole. “At Chunga there is a first-aid station too.”

“Marconis?”

“Radio. Already this morning guests have used it. You sent a message to Lusaka, didn’t you, Mrs. Lovecraft?”

“Yes,” she said curtly.

“I did too,” volunteered Mclntosh.

“And if there is a serious emergency a Flying Doctor comes, but with Doctor Henry here—”

“Nyalugwe” said the guard sharply, and Julian braked.

“He says ‘leopard.’ ” Julian stopped the Land Rover, and the only sounds were of Mclntosh and Amy Love-craft bringing out cameras and checking them; Mrs. Pollifax already held hers in her lap.

“There,” said Julian, pointing, and on the crest of a small hill they saw a leopard standing in a tangle of thorn bush, his spots melting perfectly into the background. He turned and looked at them for a long moment, and then he lifted his magnificent blond head and walked away into the bush.

“My God how beautiful,” whispered Lisa. “When you think that some silly woman would turn that fabulous creature into a fur coat—”

“Thank heaven for game parks,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Did you see his eyes, did you see those muscles when he moved?”

“Splendid specimen,” said Steeves. “I’ve seen panthers before but never a leopard walking free.”

“I believe I caught him on film,” Mclntosh said with satisfaction.

“Me, too,” added Mrs. Lovecraft. “Thrilling.”

“I missed,” said Mrs. Pollifax sadly. “I was too busy looking.”

They drove on along the dusty, shadeless road, of necessity driving slowly. Ahead of them a dozen black-and-white pin-striped fowl broke into a hurried trot. “Guinea fowl,” said Julian, and honked the horn, which only caused the guinea fowl to scurry faster, their plump rear-ends registering their indignation until a second beep from the horn persuaded them to the right, and off the road. The Land Rover did not stop again, and as the road grew bumpier the interior of the car grew warmer; the guard in the rear slapped uninhibitedly at tse-tse flies and no one spoke. They came eventually to an intersection marked Kafwala 11 km. and headed down a new dirt road. Its surface was dotted with elephant droppings, and the Land Rover rattled ominously as it hit the holes left by their crossing during the rainy season. The terrain was becoming heavily wooded now, with trees on either side of the road.

It was nearing three o’clock when they reached Kafwala, entering it from the rear where a man stood patiently ironing clothes on a slab of wood with a heavy old-fashioned iron. Half a dozen men lazed around a fire watching him and talking; they looked up eagerly at the sound of the Land Rover, which bumped past them and came to a halt in the middle of a grassy compound encircled by tents and white cement huts with thatched roofs. Directly ahead of them stood a long white building with an arcade in its center; beyond it the earth sloped sharply down to the river. As soon as Julian cut the engine Mrs. Pollifax could hear the sound of rapids.

“This is Kafwala,” announced Julian, and jumped down from the Land Rover. “Here we stay for two days, game-viewing, before driving north to Moshe.”

“Now this looks like a real camp,” said Lisa with satisfaction. “Primitive. I think I’m going to like Kafwala very much.” She turned and gave Mrs. Pollifax a hand. “Can you still walk? I feel as if I’ve been massaged all over. Crispin said there’s a bathtub here, can you imagine? How on earth do you suppose they manage it?”

“They manage it,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, climbing down, “by heating the water in a Rhodesian oven.” She glanced around and pointed. “There it is, do you see? There’s a drum of water inside that huge square of cement, they light a fire under it and the pipes carry the hot water to the tub or shower.”

“Damned ingenious,” murmured Mclntosh. “I’ll have to take a look at that.”

“Yes, but how do you know such things?” asked Lisa.

“Oh my dear,” she said in her slightly nasal voice, “I’m what you’d call a Colonial, I’ve lived in Africa all my life. In the Sudan, in South Africa, in Zambia, in Kenya.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at her with interest; she thought this explained her air of being British without being English. “Army?”

Mrs. Lovecraft turned and looked at her. “My father, yes. Not my husband. We had a tobacco farm until his death. Not far from here, farther south.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh—sorry,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, and a scornful, bitter look crossed her face. “But you’re a widow, too, aren’t you?” She turned away abruptly and smiled at Mclntosh. “I’m ready for a drink, ducks, aren’t you?”

The Land Rover carrying their luggage bumped its way into camp and the Zambians surrounded it, laughing. Julian waved and then turned to Mrs. Pollifax. “Let me show you your room,” he said, leading her toward the arcade set into the center of the long building. “Here,” he said, pointing to a door set into the passageway, and then throwing open the opposite door he gestured to Lisa. “You and your father will be here, across from Mrs. Pollifax. Tea is at four, ladies,” and with this he hurried off to distribute the others.

Lisa said, “Care for a look at the river?”

Mrs. Pollifax had opened the door to her room— there were no locks or keys—and was peering inside. It was dim because of the tall trees surrounding the building, but she saw the usual two beds shrouded in netting with a chamber-pot under each, a nightstand with a candle, but, most delightful of all, frosted glass windows and thick white walls. There would be no rustling noises tonight.

“A bit dark but very snug,” said Lisa, looking over her shoulder. “I wonder if you’ll have a roommate?”

“There’s only Mrs. Lovecraft,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

She and Lisa exchanged a doubtful glance and Lisa laughed. “She’s rather awful, isn’t she? All that jewelry and pseudo-helplessness but under the fluff I’m beginning to sense the iron-hand-in-the-velvet-glove syndrome. My father had the effrontery to tell me last night that I’ll end up just like her if I’m not careful.”

“Now, that,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly, “is utterly impossible.”

Lisa laughed. “That’s because you didn’t meet me in my executive phase. I’ve really been quite a trial to Dad, I confess. He’s an absolute dear but a great worrier. Heaven knows I’ve given him cause, though. There was a man, you see, and until he decamped I thought he’d solve all my problems.”

“As no man can, of course,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

Lisa nodded. “Yes, I see that now but for a long time I blamed myself, I felt so—so unlovable, you know? So I went to the opposite extreme and—and amputated every emotion that bubbled up, but of course that was ridiculous. It’s taken me forever to understand that I’m still myself, and really a rather nice person, and that I just picked a lemon. I’m glad now,” she said, smiling warmly at Mrs. Pollifax. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this—probably because I’ll burst if I don’t tell someone, and you look so—so human—but Africa’s having the most tremendous impact on me. Ever since we arrived I’ve been having the strangest dreams at night, and seeing life and myself in the most astonishing perspective. This country’s returning me to something I lost, it’s disinhibiting me. Do you find this alarming?”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax, smiling as she considered it. “No, because I’ve been here just long enough to see what you mean. Time seems very different here, as if it stopped and has only just begun again, and everything’s new. And yet at the same time it’s very old, pre-Biblically old, as if the world itself began here.” She stopped and laughed. “Obviously I can’t put it into words.”

“One can’t,” Lisa said eagerly as they began walking down the path to the river under huge, ancient trees. “Not important emotions. And yet, you know, under the surface there seems to be a great deal going on here.

I had a very spooky thing happen to me yesterday when I was driving back to Lusaka. I thought I’d deliver this woman and her child directly to their village, which was about a mile off the main road, but after dropping them off I must have made a wrong turn because I couldn’t find my way back, not even to her village.” She paused and added with a shiver, “I kept driving until I was really lost, and then I came to a road-block on this dusty, deserted road and—really it was terrifying—I was suddenly surrounded by soldiers or police, I don’t know which they were.”

“Good heavens,” said Mrs. Pollifax, startled.

Lisa nodded. “About twenty of them, all with rifles. They were terribly nice but at the same time they checked everything, my passport and visa, my luggage, the car. They must have kept me there for nearly an hour answering questions: why I was on that road, and where I was going, where I’d been, how long I was to be in Zambia and why I’d come to Zambia in the first place.”

“Where did this happen?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

Lisa frowned. “Somewhere down in the Kafue Flats area—that’s what the map said, anyway.”

“The driver who brought us to Chunga,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “spoke of spies—Rhodesian spies—infiltrating Zambia.”

“Probably,” said Lisa. “There have been guerilla raids all along the Rhodesian border—except Africans call it Zambabwe, you know—and deep inside the country too. Not by Zambians but by revolutionaries crossing through Zambia, so I suppose the Rhodesians send people into this country as well. But if I lived next door to an apartheid country,” she said hotly, “I don’t think I’d sit on my hands either. I think it’s terribly unfair that a minority of two hundred and fifty thousand white people have absolute power over six million natives and squash them. After all, it’s their country.”

“In general,” said Mrs. Pollifax mildly, “the Golden Rule seems to be the last rule applied to any situation these days.” They had reached the riverbank and she thought how incongruous it was to speak of violence in such a setting. On their left the water raced over great primeval boulders, shooting up plumes of spray and caressing the ear with its stormy descent. Once beyond the rocks the water gentled, sending small ripples to the shore at their feet until on their right it flowed smoothly around an island and became almost a backwash before it continued on its way south, to Chunga camp and beyond. There were several rough chairs placed near the bank, and a circle of them at the empty campfire site. “Rhodesia is very near,” she said, sitting down in one of the chairs, “and Zambia used to be Northern Rhodesia, didn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” said Lisa, “but until you’ve visited Livingstone you’ve no idea how near. Half of Victoria Falls is in Rhodesia. I took one of those sundown cruises out of Livingstone, and one side of the river was Zambian and the other Rhodesian. The guide said we were under observation the entire time, because the river’s the only barrier, and people can cross at night. In fact—”

She stopped as a voice hailed them from the top of the hill: the third Land Rover had arrived and John Steeves was descending, followed by Amy Lovecraft, Dr. Henry and—very gingerly—Willem Kleiber. A multicolored parasol next came into view, with Chanda under it. A moment later Cyrus Reed and McIntosh began descending the hill too, as well as a young man wearing a white linen jacket and carrying a tray of glasses.

Dr. Henry sat down near Lisa and smiled at her. “We saw a water buffalo, a number of puce and some impala.”

She said, “We saw a leopard.”

“I think,” said John Stcevcs, taking the chair next to her, “that if you look very quickly into those palms to your left you can add a monkey to your list.”

“Never mind the monkey,” said Amy Lovecraft deflating. “Mrs. Pollifax, Julian asked me to tell you there’s hot water now, and because there are so many of us we have to stagger our baths.”

“And he’s giving me first crack?” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Except I haven’t the faintest idea where the bath is.”

Chanda looked up and said eagerly, “I know where the beta is, I will show you.”

“Good, let’s go,” she told him, and rose from her chair to follow him up the hill. He chose to ignore the path and to leap gracefully from rock to rock, and for the first time she noticed the long puckered seam of a scar that ran up the back of his leg from the ankle to his thigh. She remembered Dr. Henry saying that he’d been nearly dead when he was brought into the hospital, and she wondered how many more scars there were. At the top of the hill he turned and waited for her, his eyes as luminous as if incandescent bulbs shone behind them.

“I move fast, like monkey,” he said, grinning.

“You certainly do.” Pausing to catch her breath she noticed a small chamois bag suspended about his neck on a string. “What’s that, Chanda?” she asked, pointing.

He looked down in surprise, stuffed the bag quickly inside his shirt again and gave her a thoughtful look. “Como,” he said guardedly. Suddenly his enormous smile was back. “You like to see? It is my treasure.”

“Love to,” she told him. “Is it secret?”

“Very secret,” he said, and seemed grateful when she opened the door of her room and beckoned him inside. First he gravely returned her parasol to her. “Sand mao-tai,” he said, and then he removed the chamois bag from around his neck and knelt beside her bed to empty its contents across the blanket.

She found herself both touched and amused at what emerged, remembering her son Roger’s similar collection at this age, except that a more sophisticated society had rendered Roger’s treasures obsolete. In the bush, Chanda’s collection still had immediate value.

“From cifulo,” Chanda said, pointing past the wall of her hut. “Mushi. My home.”

“Do you mean your home before you met Dr. Henry?”

“Before this,” he said, pointing matter-of-factly to his scarred leg, and picking up objects from his collection he explained them one by one. “Munga—thorn,” he said.

“Munga,” she repeated, nodding.

“Bulobo—fishhook. Mwele—knife.” Mwando was a ball of string. Lino was a tooth—his own, she suspected, although his were white and gleaming. “And cibiliti,” he added, holding up two safety matches.

“Yes, and a snake,” she added, pointing to a dried skin.

“Nsoka,” he said, smiling and nodding. “My father give me nsoka. He was hunter, very big man. He track game— Ishanda lonshe nama. He teach me.”

“So you’ll be a hunter too?”

“Already a hunter,” he said, grinning. “Very good one.” She watched in silence as he returned his treasure to the chamois bag, his touch loving.

When he stood up she said quietly, “Thank you, Chanda.”

“You nunandi now,” he told her. “Friend. You and Dr. Henry. And now you have beta,” he said with his charming smile. “I show you.”

Ten minutes later Mrs. Pollifax was seated in a hot tub in a small thatched hut, contentedly humming a song and reflecting that she was having a very good time on her safari and taking some very good pictures. Twenty minutes later, dressed again, she returned to her room and sat down on her bed to do a little planning about those pictures. Yesterday, for instance, she had completed her first film, tucked away now in her suitcase, and this morning she’d begun her second. That left four untouched cartridges, which meant—she made rapid mathematical computations—ninety-three more snapshots, many of which would have to be spent on animals and scenery. She was quite certain, however, that she’d already captured each of her traveling companions at least once on film, and this pleased her very much. Some of the pictures might not come out well, of course, but statistically it was a good beginning, and she thought that by tomorrow she could relax and become more casual about her filming. She happily touched the four sealed yellow boxes of film lined up in her suitcase and then she slipped her hand into the pocket of her folded bush jacket to check the completed cartridge she’d packed away this morning.

The cartridge wasn’t there.

Startled, Mrs.  Pollifax picked up the jacket, turned each pocket inside out, shook the garment, tossed it across the bed and began digging through her suitcase. She could find no metal cartridge. She crawled under the bed and searched and then checked through her purse: no film. Thoroughly alarmed now, she picked up her suitcase and dumped the contents all over the bed and began a frenzied hunt.

Still there was no cartridge. Be calm, she thought, and sat down on the bed in the middle of bright sweaters, cold creams, slacks and sneakers, but there was no evading the fact that the film was missing. Yet she’d packed it this noon at Chunga camp before coming here, and several minutes later when the boy had come for her suitcase she’d reopened the bag to add her toothbrush, and the exposed film had still been there: she could see it now in her memory, sticking out of the pocket of her folded bush jacket. And since her suitcase had been locked during its journey to Kafwala there could have been no accident that would jar open the suitcase and scatter its contents. The film had been locked inside her suitcase when it left Chunga, and her suitcase had remained locked until she had opened it half an hour ago to extract a bar of soap for her bath. She’d reached inside without looking because she knew exactly where the soap was, but she’d had to unlock the suitcase to do so, and the lock had not been tampered with then …

But if the film wasn’t lost—and it couldn’t have been, she thought grimly, going over and over it-—then it had to have been stolen, and stolen while she was taking a bath.

She sat without moving, allowing the shock of this to catch up with her, and it was a very real shock, with implications that left her a little dizzy. How frightfully arrogant she’d been, she thought, dashing about taking her snapshots so openly while all the time someone on this safari didn’t want to be photographed. Someone had allowed her to snap as many of them as she pleased, and then her film had been quietly taken away from her. She had been discreetly and firmly put in her place.

Score one for Aristotle, she thought.

Brazen, of course, but so easy … an empty room with only an inside bolt on the door and no way of locking it on the outside, her suitcase unlocked and she in the bathtub …

A flicker of anger stirred in her, grew, and at last triumphed over her alarm: it appeared that she now had a definite adversary, faceless, nameless and observant. She could assume that her burglar knew nothing about her except that she preferred faces mixed in with her scenery, but her unknown antagonist was clever, she knew that now. He had moved in early, counting on her not noticing, counting on her being a dithery, rather silly woman addicted to snapshots. He would do better next time, she thought, to leave an unexposed film behind him, because even silly dithery women noticed when too many exposed films disappeared.

But in the meantime she had lost twenty valuable pictures, and unless she could outthink her burglar she was doomed to see her completed films picked off like flies. It was also disturbing to realize that her collection was reduced to the six or seven snapshots still in her camera … or had these been tampered with too? The camera still registered seven snapshots on its gauge, and the cartridge looked untouched, but just to be certain she removed the film, put in a fresh one and dropped the half-completed one in her purse. The sealed boxes she hid: one in her totebag, one in the toe of a sneaker, the last inside her purse.

Defiantly she decided that she would continue her snapshot-taking with an enthusiasm certain to annoy her adversary, but it was time now to turn to her lapel-pin camera. She had worn the latter pinned to her sweater and by now her companions must be accustomed to seeing her wear it, incongruous as it looked with casual clothes. She would continue to wear it doggedly.

Still shaken by her discovery she repacked her suitcase and locked it. As she left her room she found Cyrus Reed opening the door of the room on the other side of the arcade. He turned, looking genuinely surprised. “You’re there?” he said. “Good, we’re neighbors.”

Even if it was he who had stolen her film, she thought it might be wise to mention her discovery of its disappearance. “If you’ve been down by the river,” she said, “I wonder if you could tell me—or remember—just who left the group to walk up this way past my room?”

Reed looked from her to the door behind her and his brows lifted. “Something missing?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “Yes, while I was in that building over there taking a bath. But I don’t,” she added, “want to cause a fuss.”

“Quite right,” he said. “Very sensible. And you want to know who left the party … Have to say nearly everyone,” he said regretfully. “Let’s see … good lord, even I left. Spilled some beer on my slacks, came up to change. Steeves ran out of film—passed him coming up as I went back. Mclntosh left to take a nap—still gone. Kleiber came up for a map to prove some point or other, Lisa for a sweater. Chanda went with you and didn’t return. Yes, I’d say the only two who stayed by the river were Mrs. Lovecraft and Dr. Henry. Nothing too valuable, I hope?”

“Fairly so, yes. To me.”

“Don’t like to hear that. You gave a thorough search? But of course you would.” He placed the emphasis on you very flatteringly.

She gave him a smile and took a few steps toward the path. “A very efficient list, Mr. Reed. Thank you.”

“No,” he said firmly.

She turned in surprise.

“Not Mr. Reed. Call me Cyrus.”

“Oh.” She hesitated and then nodded. “And my name’s Emily.” As she descended the hill, leaving him behind, she realized that she felt obscurely better and was even smiling. A rather fatuous smile, she guessed, but still she was smiling.

By half-past six there was a crackling fire down by the river, the sole illumination except for a lantern hung from a post. They sat in a circle around the fire, drawn closer by the darkness beyond them and by the feeling of being very small under the huge trees and beside the roaring river. They sat and talked and sipped beer. The only activity came from two people: one the grave-faced young man in a white jacket who came down the hill bearing silverware, napkins and plates, then went up again and returned with cups and saucers, more beer and glassware. The other was Mrs. Pollifax who, with a flashcube attached to her camera, knelt, hovered, stood, sat and wickedly took picture after picture.

“Why do you bother,” asked Mr. Kleiber curiously, “when you don’t have a good German camera like Mr. Mclntosh or Mrs. Lovecraft?”

“Oh, but this camera is just fine for an amateur,” she said. “I snap pictures just for my children, you know. They’ll be fascinated, and then of course my grandchildren will love seeing the animals. I always try,” she told him firmly, “to create a total background, so that they can step into the adventure and experience it too.”

“And do you,” asked Cyrus Reed dryly, “show slides?”

She gave him a level glance and without batting an eyelash, for she loathed slides, said, “Of course.”

“Incredible,” he said, staring at her.

On an inspired note she added, “As a matter of fact after dinner I’ll bring down pictures of my grandchildren to show you. They’re very lovely grandchildren.”

“Really?” said Amy Lovecraft coldly.

The young waiter had just arrived bearing a large tray, followed by two young men carrying steaming dishes, and he chose this moment to announce that dinner was served. Mrs. Pollifax jumped up immediately and became the first to approach the food spread out on the table. She was not surprised when she returned to her chair to find herself something of a pariah after her announcement about snapshots. Mr. Kleiber chose a seat as far removed from her as possible, and Mrs. Lovecraft, who had shown no real interest in Mr. Kleiber before, eagerly took the chair next him. Lisa, assuming a more neutral corner, was joined by Steeves as usual. Tom Henry found a seat not far from Lisa, and Mclntosh, still smiling enigmatically, sat beside Julian.

Only Chanda and Cyrus Reed showed signs of not being infected. Chanda sat down cross-legged on the ground beside Mrs. Pollifax and gave her a dazzling white smile. “I sit here. You nunandi.”

“Damn awkward eating from one’s lap,” growled Reed. “Try a corner of this little table,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax. “After all, the word safari means camping.”

“Touché” he said, smiling. “Thanks. Incredibly good food. Can’t imagine how they do such a cordon bleu job out here without electricity.”

“There is big wood stove,” Chanda told him eagerly, “and very fine cook. Julian calls him a—a chef.”

Reed nodded. “That’s it, then. Saw you up there poking around. Anyone else speak Bemba here?”

“Cimo,” said Chanda, holding up one finger. “There is good life here in park, maybe I not be hunter.”

“Tom said you’re damn good at hunting and tracking and only twelve years old,” pointed out Reed, deftly spearing a piece of steak. “Said you went off to see what’s left of your old village on the Angolan border this spring, and hiked fifty miles through the bush alone.”

Chanda’s smile deepened. “Yes, that. He tell you about the lions?”

“Lions!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax. “Three of ‘em,” said Reed, nodding, “but how did you know they were following you, Chanda?”

“Because—” Chanda hesitated. “I do not know name for cula.”

Several chairs away, Julian said, “Frogs, Chanda.” “Ah! Yes. I hear them, you know. They make a frog sound, and then I cross kamana—” “Brook,” called Tom Henry. “Yes, brook, and frogs are very noisy talking to each other. T walk more, and then—” He lifted one hand and cut the air dramatically. “Cula sound stop. So I look for big tree to climb because it becomes dark, like now, and I know something follows me or the frogs would be making noise.”

“Good heavens,” said Lisa. They were all listening now. “Three lions try to climb tree for me, but I am too high. I sit all night for them to go away.” “I take it they did eventually,” said Steeves. “But not until  morning,” put in Tom Henry. “Yes,   I   climb   down   from   tree   but   cannot   walk. Mwcndo become like tree too.”

“He means he’d lost all circulation in his legs,” explained Tom. “His limbs had become like the tree.”

Chanda nodded. “So I hunt sticks and dry grass and after long time make fire rubbing sticks. This is very hard to do. For many hours I sit to warm myself at fire, and then I go.”

“Something I can’t imagine any American twelve-year-old doing,” said Reed.

“Still, Africa‘s a shade more hospitable a country than Mongolia,” put in Steeves. “There you’ve panthers and tigers, but even if the sun shines three hundred days a year you get tremendous winds and a horrendous wind-chill factor.”

“Tigers we don’t have,” said Julian, “but tomorrow we look for lion for you.”

“Oh, I do hope we see one,” cried Lisa eagerly. “What time do we start?” asked Mrs. Pollifax. “Directly after breakfast, about half-past seven.” “Early,” said Amy Lovecraft, making a face. The white-jacketed waiter had brought down a new tray which he set upon the table. Now he bowed, his face grave, and said, “Pudding is served, please, ladies and gentlemen.”

It was after the pudding that Tom Henry reminded Chanda he was tired today and it was time for him to invest in some sleep. The boy arose from his cross-legged stance on the ground, and at the same moment Mrs. Pollifax had a sudden, dazzling idea. She, too, arose. “I’ll go up with Chanda,” she said. “It’s so dark I couldn’t bring myself to go alone, but if we’re breakfasting at seven—”

“What, no snapshots of your grandchildren?” asked Reed mischievously.

“I’m still catching up on my sleep,” she said, ignoring him and picking up her purse. “Good night!”

A chorus of farewells followed her as she turned away from the fire. It was very dark outside the circle of light and Chanda took her hand and guided her. Pebbles slid underfoot; the sound of the rushing water behind them made a low musical backdrop, rather soporific, she thought, like the murmur of voices heard from a distant room. There was a lantern waiting at the top of the hill, placed on a table in the center of the arcade. She turned and looked back at the campfire, counting heads. They were all there, no one had left. She said, “Chanda …”

“Yes, madam.”

“Chanda, I wonder if you’d hide something for me— keep something for me—in your cwno bag.”

He stared at her, eyes clouded now, opaque, mysterious, so that she wondered if he understood.

“It’s something important and quite small. Only until the safari ends,” she added quickly. “It needs—needs hiding.” She walked around the corner of the passageway out of the lantern’s light and opened her camera and removed the film that she’d completed down by the camp-fire. When she held it out to Chanda he remained impassive, the expression in his eyes chilling, as if he looked into, through and beyond her into something she couldn’t see. Then abruptly the mask splintered into smiles, the strange effect was gone and an enormous smile lighted up his eyes.

“Yes, secret,” he said, nodding, and taking the cartridge from her hand he loosened the string of his chamois bag and dropped the film inside.

She realized that she had been holding her breath; she exhaled now in relief. “You’re a real friend, Chanda.”

“But of course—nunandi” he said, laughing, and raced off into the darkness, calling over his shoulder, “Good night, madam!”

She stared after him thoughtfully. She did hope he understood but at least in giving him one of her films she felt that she had diversified, and this lifted her spirits. Her glance moved to the fire at the rear of the camp where the silhouettes of half a dozen men crouched talking around the blaze. She turned to go to her room and jumped when she saw Cyrus Reed standing in the arcade watching her.

“Oh—you startled me,” she gasped, and wondered how long he’d been standing there and how much he’d seen.

He held out her sun-goggles and her umbrella. “Left these behind you,” he said, handing them to her, and then, “Care for a stroll around the compound before turning in?”

She hesitated. “I do feel rather unexercised,” she admitted.

“Good. Damn good display of Orion and the Pleiades if we can get away from the light of the fire. Tiresome down below after you left. Can’t help noticing that Mrs. Love-craft talks through her nose and Mr. Kleiber sniffs a great deal through his, and Steeves was running on about Mongolia, which is all very well but this is Africa.”

She laughed. “You poor man.”

“Not at all,” he said amiably, taking her arm. “Decided to look for better company.”

“1 think your daughter Lisa’s a darling, by the way.”

“She is, isn’t she? Seems to be thawing out now. Damn glad to see it.”

“And you,” she said, “are really a judge?”

He brought out his flashlight, checked it and nodded.

“A phungu, Julian tells me. The Nyanga word for judge or counselor.”

“Phungu” she repeated, trying it out on the tongue. “Sounds a little like fungus. What sort of phungu were you before you retired? Did you have hundreds of exciting cases?”

“Strictly routine,” he said, “except for the Rambeau-Jenkins case.”

Mrs. Pollifax stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “Oh,” she gasped, “do you think she murdered him?”

He had been staring up at the sky; now he turned and looked down at her and smiled his sleepy smile. “That, my dear, only God knows.”

“But you were there, you presided, and I’ve so often wondered—”

“Ha—common fallacy, that,” he told her. “We phungus never judge guilt or innocence, we judge evidence. The law isn’t emotional, you know, it’s cold and impersonal. Has to be.”

“But you’re not,” she told him indignantly.

She could see his smile in the light of the campfire. “Don’t ever tell anyone, my dear.” He stopped and said, “With you the ‘my dear’ just slips out.”

“Well, / think Nina Rambeau was innocent,” she said, and hoped he wouldn’t notice that she was blushing. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had called her “my dear.” “Have you found Orion yet?”

He shook his head. “Glow from the men’s campfire bleaches out the stars. Daresay if we wandered a little way up the road we could sec better.”

“Oh, do let’s,” she said.

He nodded pleasantly to the men around the campfire as they passed. “Just looking at the stars,” he told them, pointing at the sky.

The men burst into smiles and nods.

“Damn lot livelier up here than down by the river,” he said mildly as they left the fire behind and entered the road beyond.

They had ventured a few paces into the darkness when Mrs. Pollifax looked back and sighed. “It’s the guard,” she told Reed. “He’s following us, isn’t that ridiculous?”

“Not at all,” said Reed thoughtfully. “Can’t have it both ways, my dear.”

“Can’t—what do you mean by that?”

“Well,” he said in his mild voice, “if you want to observe wild animals in perfect safety you capture them, bring ‘em back to our world and look at them behind bars in a zoo. Here we’re their guests,” he pointed out.

“Trespassers, actually. They run free, wild and protected, but we do not.”

“Of course you’re right,” she said reluctantly. “It’s just that it’s so confining not to be able to leave camp without being followed.”

“Doubt if anyone could confine you, my dear. Ought to mind his presence far more than you since I’ve every intention of kissing you.”

She turned and looked at him in astonishment, which placed her in the perfect position for him to make good his intention. “Orion be damned,” he said, and swept her into his arms.

Mrs. Pollifax gave a small squeak of protest, resisted briefly and then discovered that she fitted very nicely into the curve of his arm and that she enjoyed being kissed very much. When he let her go she promptly dropped her sun-goggles, her kerchief and her umbrella. “Oh,” she stammered. “Oh dear.”

He patiently retrieved them and handed them back to her. “And there,” he said, grasping her hand and firmly holding it in his, “is Orion.”

“Yes,” she said, feeling very disoriented and breathless as she realized that she was not immune, after all, to huge and charming phungus. It was all very disconcerting, she thought—at her age, too—and then she lifted her gaze to the sky and was struck breathless all over again. “Oh,” she whispered.

It was like standing in the center of a planetarium, the sky a huge bowl turned upside down and fitted snugly to the horizon and then filled with thousands upon thousands of stars. This, surely, was infinity, she thought, gazing up in awe, and slowly became aware of the silence surrounding them, a silence like the beginning or the end of the world.

It was interrupted by a cough from the guard some distance behind them. Cyrus said dryly, “I think we’re keeping him, he’s been patient with us long enough.”

Without speaking they turned and walked back to camp.

When Mrs. Pollifax entered her room again it was already very cold and she paused only long enough to slip a new cartridge of film into her camera and to hide the camera under her pillow for the night. Blowing out the candle beside her bed she inserted herself between the blankets, tucked the mosquito netting around her and was surprised to find her room still filled with light. She noticed now what had escaped her by daylight: the wall of the room over her door rose only to a height of eight feet. Between this and the inverted V of the rafters there was only mosquito netting, so that she could see the glow of the lantern in the passageway outside.

She lay gazing up at this light and thinking about her strange day, about her film being stolen and then about Cyrus Reed, who was proving very distracting indeed. She realized that she was going to have to discipline herself very severely; after all, for her this was no ordinary safari. She was here for a purpose, and if she was not attentive and very clever, then Aristotle would continue wandering around the world negotiating contracts to shoot more people and this would never do.

Never, she thought, and resolved to put Cyrus Reed completely out of her mind. She closed her eyes and then opened them when she heard voices and footsteps outside on the path. A moment later she recognized Amy Lovecraft’s high-pitched laugh.

“I would have fallen, Mr. Kleiber, if you’d not rescued me like a knight in shining armor, you dear man. This path—”

Amy Lovecraft, thought Mrs. Pollifax, was definitely hunting something more than game.

“I do not understand,” Mr. Kleiber said in his pedantic, humorless voice, “why one bulldozer could not be assigned to this hill. They have the bulldozers, I know. They use them on the roads, and with only one hour of work—”

“Are you in the construction business, Mr. Kleiber? You seem to know so much about machinery.”

“Heavy machinery, yes. I sell worldwide. It’s—”

Their voices blurred as they passed from the arcade into the compound; she heard one more brittle laugh pierce the stillness and then there was silence. Mrs. Pollifax had closed her eyes again when she heard fresh pebbles crunching underfoot outside the building. “Really beautiful,” Lisa Reed was saying. “I love it, don’t you?”

It was Tom Henry who replied. “Absolutely.” A comfortable silence followed and then Tom said, “John Steeves is certainly very distinguished.”

Lisa said carelessly, “Oh—distinguished, yes.”

“As a matter of fact we’ve one of his paperbacks at the hospital. One Hundred Nights in a Yurt, I think. The chap who read it—”

“Tom.”

“Mmmm?”

“Don’t be a goose.”

Tom Henry laughed. “Have a good sleep, my dear.”

Mrs. Pollifax heard him walk away and Lisa open the door of the room opposite hers. A very interesting exchange of words, she thought, smiling, very interesting indeed, and wondered on whom she might eavesdrop next.

She was not kept waiting long: Mclntosh came next through the arcade, talking to Cyrus, and for a man of smiling silence Mclntosh had suddenly become very articulate. “… Monetary Fund, of course. You simply can’t cure inflation unless nations stop going to the printing press. The world is being drowned in worthless paper … Irresponsible. Expedient, of course, but disastrous. No discipline without paper being backed by something.”

“Gold?” inquired Cyrus.

“Probably, yes. We’ve not been on a gold standard since 1901. Governments sneer at it, of course, because it would force discipline on them. But mark my words, Reed, whole civilizations have become graveyards by corrupting their currency.”

“You do considerable business between countries?”

“Oh yes, quite international, but of course multinational’s the word these days. But I don’t want to hold you up, we can continue this another time. Good night, Reed.”

“Yes … Lions tomorrow. Good night.”

The last to pass by her door were Julian and John Steeves, and they were walking much faster. “… oh, much better here,” Julian was saying. “Too many young men of my country head for the cities, and this is bad. Lusaka is full of thieves and spies.”

“Excellent sense,” said Steeves. “I’m not very big on cities myself. I like your bush, it has a mystique …”

Mrs. Pollifax did not hear the rest because they had left the arcade and their voices faded. In any case she was growing warmer now, and with this came a voluptuous drowsiness: she closed her eyes and slept and dreamed of masks. In her dream she sat in a theater and one by one each member of the safari walked out on stage to form a single line facing her. It was only when they moved up to the footlights in unison that Mrs. Pollifax saw they were holding masks to their faces. At a given signal each mask was swept away, but underneath lay another mask, and then another and still another …

CHAPTER 8

When Mrs. Pollifax woke at half-past six the next morning it was bone-chillingly cold. The young waiter who brought coffee to her room on a tray said, “Good morning, madam,” and it was so cold that wisps of vapor curled from his lips to match the steam rising from the coffeepot. Mrs. Pollifax put one foot out of bed, poured coffee into a cup and carried it under the blankets with her, wondering if she would ever be warm again.

“I thought Africa was t-t-tropical,” she protested at breakfast, which was served down by the river in the morning mist.

“We’re four thousand feet above sea level,” Julian reminded her with a flash of white teeth. “You are ready for lion? Perhaps it will warm you to hear that Crispin took the Land Rover out at dawn and found lion tracks six miles north of camp.”

“Oh how wonderful!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

Almost as exciting was the news that overnight two of the Land Rover roofs had been removed so that they could ride standing up and scan the savannah for game, like professionals. Mrs.  Pollifax could scarcely wait.

But in spite of her excitement she had not forgotten her resolve of the night before, and between breakfast and departure time she retired to her room to make a list for the day and contemplate it. Find out, she wrote, who’s traveled widely during the past eight months (France—Costa Rica). To this she added: Try Mclntosh again, could be opening up. Mr. Kleiber: if good at machinery ask about guns. John Steeves: what disguises preferred? She studied this memo and then lit a match and burned it.

They set out shortly afterward in the two Land Rovers, the sun higher now and promising warmth soon. For this excursion Mrs. Pollifax had arranged her clothing in layers so that as the day advanced she could remove first her bush jacket, and then her heavy sweater, and then the pale-blue cardigan until eventually—it was rather like peeling an artichoke, she thought—she would be resplendent in striped shirt and kerchief before the process reversed itself. She also carried her bright parasol and two rolls of film for her camera and wore her lapel pin.

As they left Kafwala camp behind and headed for the open savannah Mrs. Pollifax realized that, like Lisa, Africa was having its charismatic effect upon her: the road wound ahead of the Land Rover like textured brown ribbon, the high grass tawny on either side and the earth flat under the incredible arc of blue African sky. There were also the surreal notes: a candelabra tree, its limbs perfectly splayed, its blossoms a dull orange; a baobab tree smooth and silvery in the warm morning light, and when Mrs. Pollifax inquired of Julian what the cement posts along the road meant, Julian laughed. “Not cement —termite nests.” Bringing the Land Rover to a halt he jumped out and kicked at the top one, exposing holes like a honeycomb.

It was Mrs. Pollifax who spotted the elephants first. “Oh look,” she cried, and in both Land Rovers heads swiveled to the left. At some distance away from them a line of elephants was moving across the savannah, an entire family with three young ones among them. “Baby nsofu,” said Chanda, pointing and grinning. “I count nine,” volunteered Cyrus, standing beside her. Mrs. Pollifax stood up on the seat and took three pictures in rapid succession, and then somewhat reluctantly slid down in the seat and snapped a close-up shot of John Steeves as he watched the procession.

“Can we get out?” called Amy Lovecraft, who was all beige and white today, with a green kerchief around her hair.

“Better if we drive ahead down the road,” said Julian. “They’re heading for water, we’ll see them closer farther along.”

The two Land Rovers inched ahead for half a mile and stopped, after which everyone climbed out and stood in a group waiting, cameras ready.

“This light,” said Mrs. Pollifax, gesturing widely toward the sky. “It so reminds me of the light in southern France. The same luminous quality. Has anyone been in France lately?”

No one appeared to pay her the slightest attention; John Steeves stared inscrutably into the distance; Mclntosh was busy with his light meter; Mr. Kleiber grunted noncommittally, while Amy Lovecraft simply ignored her. Only Cyrus turned and looked at her. “No,” he said. “Have you?”

Having never visited France in her life, Mrs. Pollifax found herself figuratively pinned to a wall and was happy to be rescued by the elephants. “Here they come,” she cried.

The elephants emerged from a copse of trees and lumbered toward them, trunks swinging. They crossed the road only twenty feet away from them without so much as a glance at their audience. The baby elephants brought a laugh from Lisa. “They’re darling!”

Satisfied, they climbed into the Land Rovers and drove on. Gradually the topography began to fold in upon itself, nurturing seams and hollows and small hills. The Land Rover coasted down an incline to a dried-up brook bed surrounded by tangles of thorn bush and twisted roots. It stopped and Julian climbed out. “Here,” he called, beckoning, and when they joined him it was to see the imprint of a lion paw in the dust.

The Land Rovers drove ahead in low gear, no one speaking now. Cautiously they rounded a wide curve, slowed as they approached a grassless area beside the road, and—Mrs. Pollifax caught her breath in awe— there lay two lions stretched out sleeping in the sun. The Land Rover coasted to a stop only eight feet away from the lions; beside Mrs. Pollifax the guard leaned forward and swung his rifle into horizontal position, his eyes watchful.

“A lioness and a male,” whispered Julian.

As the second Land Rover drew up behind them the lioness lifted her magnificent head, yawned and rose to her feet. She stretched, looked them over without interest and sniffed the air. The male stirred and rose to his feet too, massive, nearly nine feet in length, and Mrs. Pollifax held her breath as he stared unblinkingly at them. Remembering her camera just in time, she snapped a picture only a second before the two beautiful tawny creatures slipped away into the grass and vanished.

“Lion,” breathed Mrs. Pollifax, and felt that her cup was full to the brim.

At noon they came to Lufupa camp, which was small —for weekend people only, Julian said—and not yet open for the season. The camp occupied a point of land where the Kafue River curved and broadened, smooth as a millpond in the noon sun. They were to lunch here, Julian said, pointing to a picnic table under the acacia trees.

Mrs. Pollifax had now removed three of her layers of clothing and was happy to sit in the shade. It was a tranquil scene: not far away two men were painting chairs a bright blue in the grass, and mattresses were being aired in the sun. Up on the roof of the largest hut an old man was spreading out fresh thatch and tying it down with wire, like shingles. Finding herself next to Mr. Kleiber at the picnic table, she turned to him with a warm smile. “Do   you  know   much   about  guns,   Mr.   Kleiber?   I’m wondering if you can tell me what sort of rifle our guard carries.”

The man serving them their lunch chose this moment to place in front of Mr. Kleiber a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and fresh tomatoes. Mclntosh, seated across the table, answered instead. “A 3006, I’d say.”

“Oh—you know guns,” she said brightly.

“Or possibly a 3004,” Kleiber said with his mouth full.

“A 3004,” Crispin told them from the end of the table.

Very inconclusive, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and decided there was something far too relaxing about all this fresh air and that an evening campfire might be the better place for tactful  interrogations.

After lunch they strolled upriver a short distance, with guards at their front and rear, and watched hippos bathing in the shallows. This especially pleased Cyrus because there had been no ox-peckers on the backs of the hippos they’d seen at Chunga camp.

“Ox-peckers?” echoed Mrs.  Pollifax.

“Tick-birds,” he explained, and pointed. “Find them on rhinos’ backs too. Feed on their ticks and conveniently warn them of danger.” His glance moved to John Steeves, who was helping Lisa remove her sweater, and he frowned. “Chap really seems to be zeroing in on Lisa. Very confidently too.”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled. “If there’s one thing John Steeves has, I’m sure it’s confidence.”

“Seems a decent enough chap,” said Reed. “Just difficult to picture as a son-in-law. I mean—yurts?”

“Oh, I don’t think you need worry about that.”

“No?” said Reed, looking surprised. “Together all the time.”

“There are,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “undercurrents.”

“I’m overlooking something?”

“You’ve been watching Steeves and not your daughter. He’s with her, but she’s not with him, if you follow me. It’s a matter of the eyes. Glances.”

“You astonish me,” said Cyrus, and turning to her he added accusingly, “Matter of fact, you’ve astonished me ever since we met.”

Mrs. Pollifax found herself blushing—really it was very tiresome, she’d not blushed in years—and fielded this statement by turning to Mr. Kleiber, who was looking distinctly bored by the hippos. “Still no crocodiles, Mr. Kleiber?”

He looked startled. “Not yet, no. Dear me, I hope soon, though. What a hot sun, I think I’ve had enough of walking.”

She thought that Mr. Kleiber had begun thawing out a little today; the pinched look was no longer so pronounced, and occasionally he smiled at something said by the group. He appeared to like Mclntosh, whose reticence matched his own, and when something unusual occurred he would look first to Mclntosh, rock a little on his heels while he waited to catch his eye, and then deliver himself of a pithy comment in his dry, sarcastic voice. He had begun to tolerate Amy Lovecraft too, no longer looking frost-bitten when she took his arm and asked if he minded her walking with him.

“Crocodiles you will see at Moshe tomorrow,” said Julian, overhearing him. “The camp is very open, right on the river, and the crocodiles sun themselves on the banks.”

They turned to go back and Mrs. Pollifax fell into step beside Cyrus. Never having walked behind Mr. Kleiber before, she was amused now to see what an odd walk he had: a strut, she thought, with a stutter. He walked with his shoulders rigid, back straight and head high, but his right foot toed in slightly and threw the rhythm just a shade off balance, like one instrument in a band playing a beat behind the others.

“Looks like company up ahead,” said Cyrus.

A shiny beige Land Rover was parked next to the safari jeeps, and three men, all black, were talking to the workmen. As they drew nearer, one of them climbed back into the car and the other two could be seen shaking hands and saying goodbye. The man in the car leaned forward and gestured to them to hurry.

Reed said abruptly, “Chap on the left in the green shirt is the man who was asking for you at the hotel. In Lusaka, when I was checking out.”

Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, “Are you sure?”

“Never forget a face. Shall I give him a shout?”

“Oh yes, do,” she said, hurrying.

Reed began to shout, and Mrs. Pollifax waved frantically, but the two men gave them only a quick glance and then jumped into the Land Rover and the car sped away. A moment later it had vanished among the trees.

“Had his chance,” said Cyrus. “Muffed it.”

“But they must have heard you,” protested Mrs. Pollifax, “and if they were deaf they would have seen me waving, because  they  turned  and  looked.”

Approaching the Lufupa workers Cyrus said, “From the city, were they?”

“Oh yes, sir,” the elder said, beaming. “They did not know the camp is closed. Three gentlemen from Lusaka.”

“Didn’t they wonder what we’re doing here?” “Oh yes, missis. I told them you are all from Kafwala camp, on organized safari.”

Odd, thought Mrs. Pollifax, frowning, very odd, and could not quite shrug off the sensation that if Cyrus was accurate, then forces were in motion that she did not understand. Turning to him she said stubbornly, “I don’t —I really don’t—see how on earth you can be so certain it was the same man.”

“Could be wrong,” he said fairly. She looked at him quickly. “Are you often wrong?” “No. Study too many faces in court. Habit of mine.” She nodded. Nevertheless he’d admitted that he could be wrong and she clung to this, because otherwise she was left with the uneasy mystery of a man who wanted to see her in Lusaka and then, catching up with her, jumped into a car to avoid being seen.

Some hours later Mrs. Pollifax, happily showering back at camp, was tempted to break into song again. Life in the bush, she thought, certainly stripped one of inconsequentials: she had been hot and dusty for hours and now the cold water splashing over her heated skin brought a delightful tingly sensation. She had been out-of-doors since dawn, and soon there would be a feast around the campfire for which she already had a ravenous appetite. She wondered when she had felt so free … perhaps never … and running through her mind like a melody were little vignettes of the road at midday: the hot sun, dust, the orange trunk of a thorn tree as well as another tree they’d seen bearing long torpedo-shaped gray fruit that Julian had called a sausage tree. She had also learned to say thank you in Nyanga—zikomo kuambeia—and at Lufupa …

But it was better not to think of Lufupa, she reminded herself. The memory of it raised disturbing questions because they set in motion doubts that eventually, no matter how she reasoned them away, returned full circle to Cyrus. It was Cyrus, after all, who had told her that a man had asked for her at the hotel after she had left, and it was Cyrus who insisted now that it was this same man they’d seen at Lufupa camp, but she had only his word for there being such a man at all. What was she to make of it? If Cyrus was Aristotle … she shivered at this demonic thought and turned off the water and reached for a towel. But if Cyrus was Aristotle, it didn’t make sense his manufacturing a Mr. X who was looking for her, and if he had not fabricated this stranger—if there really was such a man …

“There you are!” said a man’s voice suddenly, and Mrs. Pollifax jumped.

Outside the shower hut Lisa’s voice replied. “Hello, John, I was just looking for a sunny spot to dry my hair.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Oh—around.” Lisa’s voice was vague. “Mrs. Pollifax was waiting to take a shower when I came out but she’s gone now. Dad and Chanda are over at the kitchen watching the chef start dinner on that funny stove they have here. Mr. Kleiber pricked a finger and Tom is assuring him that he’s not going to get a rare African disease. Mclntosh is napping and—”

“Enough, enough!” he said with mock despair. “What I really came to ask you is why you’ve been avoiding me since lunch. It made me wonder. Look here, was it a shock to you when I said I’d been married once, very briefly, years ago?”

“A shock? Good heavens, no, John!”

“What did you think?”

Mrs. Pollifax, torn between announcing herself and listening, opted for the latter and continued dressing.

“I thought,” Lisa was saying slowly, “if I remember correctly, that I wasn’t surprised it lasted only six months. I thought you must be a rather difficult person to be married to.”

“A rather difficult—! And here I was hoping—what on earth makes you say that?”

“Well—there’s something secret about you, isn’t there, John? Something concealed, a little room somewhere marked ‘Keep Out’?”

There was a long silence and then Steeves said lightly, “This is rather a setback for me, Lisa, I was hoping to ask you to marry me when the safari ends.”

“Me?”

“Did you really think I went about squiring beautiful young girls so attentively every day?”

“No—that is, surely you were just being friendly? John, I’m terribly flattered but let’s not talk about this any more. We shouldn’t do at all, you know.”

“Why wouldn’t we ‘do at all,’ as you put it?”

“Because … well, you don’t really have room in your life for marriage, do you?”

“I could change, you know,” he said. “I don’t have to go batting around the world forever.”

“Change into what?” she asked, and then, indignantly, “And why should you? You’re a beautiful person, John, just as you are. You give a great many people pleasure by doing all the wonderfully dashing things they daydream of doing. It’s marvelous.”

“And very lonely,” he pointed out.

At this moment Mrs. Pollifax decided that it was more than time to announce herself: she dropped her shoe on the cement slab and said, “Oh dear!” and continued dropping things and picking them up again to give Lisa and Steeves time to adjust to her presence. When she walked out of the shower hut John had vanished and Lisa was folding up her chair. She turned and smiled faintly. “I suppose you heard all?”

“It was impossible not to,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax. “I waited as long as I could, but it was growing very damp and cold in there. It’s nearing sunset time, I think.”

“Yes, time for sweaters again. Thank you for—well, rescuing me.” She fell into step beside her, absently carrying the chair along with her. “Isn’t life strange?” she asked. “I read John’s latest book this winter and his photograph occupied the entire back of the bookjacket and I used to look at it—those sad eyes practically stabbing my soul—and I’d say, ‘Now there’s a man, if only I could meet someone like that.’ “

“And now you have,” said Mrs. Pollifax, giving her an interested glance, “and you find a room inside of him marked ‘Keep Out’?”

“You really did hear everything.” Lisa sighed. “I wonder what made me say that. John strikes me—now that I’ve met him—as a character in a very contemporary novel, the kind that begins and ends in the same way, with the hero staring into his scotch and soda and about to leave another woman behind as he goes off to a new adventure. He seems—caught by something. And terribly sad about it.”

“Caught,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax musingly. “A strange word to use.”

“People do get trapped, I suppose. Inside of images, all kinds of things. But he is a lovely person, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “A very unusual man, yes, very charming and—as you suspected—very much a loner. But I think you’re looking for someone a little cozier, aren’t you?”

Lisa burst out laughing. “Cozier?”

“Someone warm and caring and devoted. Less complicated.” She reached her door and opened it. “It is sometimes,” she said, “very difficult to remain faithful to oneself.”

“Oh, 1 do hope you like Dad as much as he likes you,” Lisa blurted out, and then stopped, blushing. “Oh dear, I didn’t mean—What on earth am I doing carrying this chair with me?” she asked, noticing it for the first time. “I really must change for dinner. Which in this case,” she added, laughing, “means removing one sweater and adding another, or changing from jeans to corduroys!”

The sun had already set when Mrs. Pollifax descended the hill to join the group around the campfire, and the single lantern hanging from the post had been lighted. The flames of the fire held shades of blue in them tonight, and the wood crackled merrily.

“You missed an egret,” Cyrus told her with a welcoming smile. “Incredible sight.”

“And a family of monkeys scolding us from the trees,” put in Tom Henry. “They were certainly cross at finding us here again, this must be their playground.”

“A dozen at least,” added Lisa.

“God I’m hungry,” said Amy Lovecraft. She was wearing still another new outfit tonight, a blue Jacquard turtleneck and dark-blue slacks over which she’d thrown a fleecy red jacket. Mrs. Pollifax wondered how many suitcases she traveled with, and decided it was better not to know.

Julian said, “I’ve given orders that dinner be served early tonight—before seven—because everyone is so hungry.”

“Marvelous,” said Amy, pronouncing it mav-lus.

“And what time is it now?”

Julian glanced at his watch and frowned. “The men are late, they should have begun setting the table by now. I’d better go up and see what the matter is.”

“Yes, do,” said Amy. “Frankly we’re all starving.”

Julian half rose from his chair and then froze and fell back in astonishment. Following his gaze Mrs. Pollifax saw three men move out of the darkness toward the campfire, silently, like phantoms rising out of the mist. At first she didn’t understand, thinking them Kafwala workers whom she’d not seen before, and then the firelight picked out the long barrel of a rifle, and as the three black men moved to surround them she felt the first taste of fear in her throat.

Steeves said with a gasp, “I say, who the hell—what is this?”

They had arrived so silently, their steps muted by the sound of the rapids, that Mrs. Pollifax found it difficult to believe in their reality. It was like opening one’s door in July to find Hallo weeners on the doorstep. Then Julian, looking grim, said,  “Nguti?” and she knew these men were real  and dangerous.

In excellent English the leader said, “If you move we shoot. We wish only hostages. You,” he said, pointing to Mrs. Pollifax. “You—walk over here.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Cyrus, starting to rise from his chair, but one of the men reached out and pushed him down.

“And you,” said their spokesman, pointing to Amy Lovecraft.

Mrs. Pollifax stood up, acutely aware of how snug the circle around the campfire looked. As she reluctantly crossed that circle, about to leave it, she became equally aware of each person she passed: of John Steeves looking furious, of Willem Kleiber shrinking back in his chair as if to make himself invisible, Lisa open-mouthed and plainly frightened, and Tom Henry studying the faces of the men with guns. When she reached the leader and turned, she saw that Cyrus was looking so outraged that she would have smiled if she hadn’t felt so much like crying. It was, after all, dinnertime, and she was hungry and cold and she had the distinct feeling that she was not going to be fed.

And then Amy Lovecraft came up behind her and the leader said to his confederate, “Take them—quickly,” and turning back he spoke across the fire to Julian. “You will remain very still, please. Your men on the hill have all been locked into the kitchen, your marconi is broken and your Land Rovers put out of action. I will have my gun on you, watching. 1 warn you, don’t try to follow. Don’t move.”

“You’re not Zambians,” Julian said curtly, watching him. “How did you get into the park?” “That’s our business.”

Whatever else was said, Mrs. Pollifax was not destined to hear because she was being pulled away from the scene by one of the men. He gripped her tightly under one arm and dragged her in among the trees and along the river, then pulled her up a steep hill until she came face to face with a Land Rover waiting in the darkness. A rope was tied around her wrists, binding them together tightly behind her back, and then she was shoved into the rear of the car and a rifle held at her chest. The rifle was lowered for the arrival of Amy Lovecraft, who was pushed in beside Mrs. Pollifax, and then one of the men climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, the Land Rover backed, turned and waited.

“This is terrifying,” whispered Amy Lovecraft. “Isn’t there something we can do?”

“With our wrists tied and a rifle pointed at us?” said Mrs. Pollifax dryly, and concentrated on catching her breath after the rush up the hill.

She heard footsteps, a muffled laugh, and the third man swung into the scat behind them. “Let’s get out of here— fast,” he said. “Turn on the headlights and move it, we can’t keep Sikota waiting.”

CHAPTER 9

It was astonishing, thought Mrs. Pollifax, how furious she could feel at Aristotle as they bumped along the road in the darkness. It seemed to her the height of injustice that because of him she had come to Africa and now she was being carried off into the night while he remained back at the campfire safe, warm, unidentified and—most outrageous of all—looking forward to his dinner. Certainly Carstairs could never have foreseen such an ironic ending to her mission. Her first reaction to being abducted struck her now as tiresomely pious: she’d actually thanked heaven that Chanda had been given a film so that if anything happened to her there would be a record left behind for Carstairs. Her reaction now was much less noble: she felt that she would resent very much anything happening to her, she thoroughly resented being lifted out of her safari, and under no circumstances did she feel that a few snapshots were an adequate exchange for a life. She was also hungry.

She turned and looked at Amy Lovecraft in the dim light from the dashboard and noticed that her hands were tied in front instead of behind her, and Mrs. Pollifax resented this very much too. In fact the depth of her indignation surprised her. Her own hands were tied in the back, which made it impossible to lean against the seat or to relax for even a second; it also demanded a great deal of effort from her just to remain on the seat, which was slippery. It was depressing, too, to reflect that of all the people on safari Amy Lovecraft was the last person she would have chosen as companion in such a situation. The woman was incalculable.

Having brought out her grievances and inspected them, Mrs. Pollifax began to feel better. About her abduction and her hunger she could do nothing, but she could at least try to like Mrs. Lovecraft. There had to be something lovable about her, she thought, and if they were going to be captives together she’d jolly well better find it now. She said in a comforting voice, “They’ll come after us, you know, it will be all right.”

Amy Lovecraft turned and looked at her. “After us?” she said, her lip curling. “Yes, but when exactly? And what the hell do you mean by ‘all right’?”

Well, nothing lovable yet, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and decided to postpone any fresh attempt for the moment. Besides, she had discovered that by wedging herself sideways into the corner she could maintain a precarious balance, which was providential because the Land Rover suddenly turned off the road and plowed through the tall grass. They jolted ahead for several hundred feet and then came to a stop, went into reverse and backed out into the road again.

“I wonder what that was all about,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“I know a few words of Nyanga,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, and leaned forward and spoke to the driver. She appeared to know quite a number of words, and the driver to speak Nyanga, because he replied at some length.

“He refuses to say,” Mrs. Lovecraft told her, sinking back into her seat. “He doesn’t want us to talk either.”

“It was probably an attempt to confuse anyone following us,” said Mrs. Pollifax sagely. “I hope that at some point he’ll tell us why we’re hostages.”

Amy Lovecraft shrugged. “It’s usually money, isn’t it?” she said indifferently.

Mrs. Pollifax moved out of her corner and tried bracing herself with both feet against the floor. The road ahead was empty even of guinea fowl tonight, and she could see nothing on either side: there was only the dim light from the dashboard silhouetting the two men in front of her, and beyond this the bright twin beams of light combing the rough road. She and Amy Lovecraft huddled in the rear in darkness, with the third man crouched behind them; at times she could feel him breathing down her neck.

They were heading north, she knew, because they had made the same turn to the right after leaving camp that Julian had made this morning when he took them north to look for lions. She tried to recall her map of Kafue Park and, closing her eyes, remembered that it was shaped roughly like the state of Florida, that it was large and it was long, and that there were police posts at various intervals along its border. Only two roads entered it. The road that ran the length of the park from top to bottom, or south to north, was the road on which they were driving now, this narrow dirt road gutted with elephant holes which, for all its simplicity, remained the supply line that laced together the camps at Kafue Park.

The second road ran from east to west and was the paved Lusaka-Mumbwa highway by which they had entered the park on Monday, with its police stations at either end. Thinking about this, she decided that her abductors were either mad or uncannily shrewd, because they were heading precisely where they shouldn’t go. They had Lufupa camp somewhere ahead of them—the camp at which they’d picnicked at noon—and Moshecamp above that, near the top of the park, while behind them they had Kafwala camp and the Lusaka-Mumbwa highway. This left them with only one large tract of land in which to maneuver, and she wondered how they proposed to get out of it. She also began to wonder why they’d chosen to snatch their tourists in a park since there must be tourists in far more accessible places … Lusaka for one, or Livingstone. It was all very illogical and baffling.

She opened her eyes to discover that the Land Rover was leaving the road again and stopping. This time one of the men climbed out and walked back through the tall grass, and during the interval he was gone the driver had time to light a cigarette and smoke it. When the man returned, the driver snuffed out his cigarette and started the engine, but this time he didn’t slip the gear into reverse, he drove ahead into the bush, leaving the road behind. With this act something unalterably changed. It had been a modest road, thought Mrs. Pollifax wistfully, but it was a road that led back to Kafwala camp or ahead to Lufupa, or even indirectly to the city of Lusaka. Leaving it was like cutting an umbilical cord.

The ground was smoother now, but they drove fast and there were small hills and hollows to unsettle Mrs. Pollifax, so that at one point she ended up on the floor. Somewhere off in the distance a hyena howled, and Mrs. Pollifax longed to join with it and howl too. They drove on and on, it seemed interminable, the men occasionally exchanging sharp grunts or pointing up to the stars. It was a long time before they bumped to a halt, and before the headlights were extinguished Mrs. Pollifax glimpsed the shapes of two abandoned, crumbling huts inside a circle of trees.

The man sitting behind her said sharply, “Set up the radio, Reuben, we’re ten minutes late.”

“But Simon—”

“Later. Set up the radio—anywhere—but fast.”

From one of the huts the two men carried out a heavy dark object, set it down on the grass and leaned over it A candle was lighted, Simon squatted down in front of it, slid up an antenna and began fiddling with dials. His voice when he spoke was quite clear in the still night. Mrs. Pollifax heard, “Simon to Green-Bird, Simon to Green-Bird …”

Simon to Green-Bird suddenly broke off. “Got him,” Simon said triumphantly, and then, “All okay here, Green-Bird, couldn’t be better. What about your end?” He chuckled, listening. “Perfect. We follow through then as planned? My watch says 9:05 … Right. Twenty-one hours from now at Location B. Last contact, Green-bird. Signing off.”

He slid the antenna back and nodded with satisfaction. “Smooth as silk, Mainza. You and Reuben take the candle and hide the radio.” He paused, glancing around him. “I’ll take the hut on the right. Reuben, you guard its door.”

Turning back toward the Land Rover, his voice exhilarated, he said, “Out, ladies. Climb out and follow me.”

They were led inside, and when a lantern had been lighted its illumination proved beyond any doubt that the men had been here earlier, for besides the radio that had been magically produced, there were sleeping bags in the corner, two boxes and a tarpaulin. The hut was small, perhaps eight feet square, and only three of its walls remained standing. Simon unfurled the tarpaulin and hung it over the fourth wall, which had crumbled away leaving only the wooden framework.

“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Pollifax as the lantern shone on Simon’s face.

“It’s of no importance,” he told her.

“But you’re not Zambians?”

He laughed. “No, not Zambians.” Unrolling a sleeping bag he tossed it to Amy Lovecraft. “You—over there. Sit quietly, I wish to question this lady.”

Amy Lovecraft carried the sleeping bag to the corner and sat down, her back against the wall, her bound wrists held out in front of her. She had been silent for a long time, and she remained silent, her eyes watching Simon intently. Perhaps she was weighing the possibilities of using feminine wiles on him, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but this was pure conjecture: at least she was subdued and not hysterical.

Simon carried one of the two boxes to the center of the hut and gestured to her to sit down. She ignored this, saying stiffly, “My wrists hurt. You tied Mrs. Lovecraft’s wrists in front of her and 1 don’t see why mine can’t be tied that way too.”

Simon shot a quick glance at Amy Lovecraft and shrugged. He called, “Reuben?”

“Yes, Simon.”

“Come in and guard this woman while I change the ropes on her wrists.”

So much for that, thought Mrs. Pollifax, thinking wistfully of a back strangle, a front choke or a forearm slash; nevertheless, she was grateful to have her arms no longer pinned tightly behind her, and the relief to her shoulder muscles was exquisite.

“Now,” said Simon. He produced the other wooden box and sat down opposite her, so close that their knees touched.

“Yes, now,” said Mrs. Pollifax dryly. “What is it you want of us? What kind of ransom are you asking, and why?”

He brushed this aside indifferently. “The ransom requirements have already been delivered to the television station in Lusaka, madam. They became known at the precise moment we removed you from Kafwala camp. Now all you need do is co-operate. We wish information from you, it is a matter of photographs.”

“Photographs,” echoed Mrs. Pollifax, suddenly alarmed.

He did not notice her reaction, which was merciful, because a second later he was sliding four glossy six-by-ten-inch photographs from a crisp manila envelope, and Mrs. Pollifax could see at once that they were not hers.

“These,” he said, and placing his gun on the floor he handed her the pictures. “You will tell me which of these men is familiar to you.”

“Familiar?” she said blankly. “But you must know I can’t help you, I arrived in Zambia only Monday. It’s ridiculous to think I could identify—”

“You will look at the photographs,” he said flatly. “They are large and quite clear. We wish your impressions.”

As she picked them up he leaned closer, his eyes on her face, and she thought, Be careful, something is important here. Because of this, instead of rifling through them quickly she kept them one on top of the other and approached them warily. The first was a color photograph of a long-faced man with a sweeping handlebar mustache and curly gray hair. Nothing there. The second was of another mustached man, very swashbuckling, with a bold look. She eyed him politely and then turned to the third picture, which was of—of John Sebastian Farrell, she realized in astonishment—Farrell!—and with a desperate concentration she forced herself to look into his face without expression before she wrenched her gaze to the last photo, a black-and-white picture of a plumpish hard-faced man.

She said, “They all have mustaches. I’m supposed to know one of them?”

“You do know one of them,” he said, anger creeping into his cool voice. “You advertised for him in the Times of Zambia.”

She allowed her surprise to show; it was genuine but not for the reason he supposed. “I advertised for a man named John Sebastian Farrell,” she told him. “Is that why you abducted me? You’ve just told us it was for ransom.”

He shrugged. “The ransom scarcely matters. You know this Farrell, you can identify him for us, and that is what matters. The ransom is only—what do you call it, the red herring?”

This was rather staggering news. She gasped, “You amaze me,” and then, accusingly, “Why was it necessary to kidnap two of us, then? Why Mrs. Lovecraft as well?”

“Two are always better than one,” he said with a faint smile. “She will be hostage to you.”

Over his shoulder Mrs. Pollifax glanced at Mrs. Love-craft to see how she was taking this news of her expendability, but she appeared to have withdrawn into a world of her own, her brows knit together, her eyes blank. In the dim light of the lantern she looked bloodless, her face the same shade as her pale hair. “I didn’t realize Farrell was such an important person,” she said, turning back to Simon. “Why?”

“That is our business. Which of these four is he?” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “You understand we know one of these men is Mr. Farrell, we know this, so you will now tell us which he is.”

“But none of them is Mr. Farrell,” she lied.

He hit her hard across the face with the back of his hand, brutally, without emotion. “I don’t think you understood the question.”

She looked at him, blood running from her cut lip into her mouth, her anger matching his as their eyes met. She said steadily, “And you are not a very nice person.”

“You see that? Good. Now look again at these pictures.”

“No,” she said, turning away, “because those men are strangers to me.”

“Look at them,” he shouted, and held the first one in front of her eyes, one hand encircling her neck and forcing her to look. “This one?”

“No,” she gasped.

He held out the second. “This?”

She shook her head.

“This one, then?”

“I told you—none of them,” she cried, her fury outweighing her terror.

He hit her again, this time so savagely that she fell off the box to the floor. Behind him Mrs. Pollifax heard Amy Lovecraft begin to cough, and impatiently Simon leaned over and pulled her to her feet.

“Listen to me,” he said in a hard voice. “To me you are so much carrion. We do not leave this place until the sun rises tomorrow morning and there will be more of this, much more. I will drag this information from you the hard way or the easy way, but you will give me what 1 want. Think about this, it is your choice.”

He stalked out.

There was a long silence, and then in the corner of the hut Mrs. Lovecraft stirred and sighed, her trance ended. She lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Pollifax and she said, “You were absolutely super, you know. I hope I wouldn’t have told them what they want, either.”

Licking the blood from her broken lip, Mrs. Pollifax said angrily, “It’s ridiculous, I really believed we’d been kidnapped for money.”

“Yes, but what will you do when this Simon comes back?” she asked, looking at her curiously. “How long do you think you’ll be able to trick him?”

Mrs. Pollifax had been wondering why Simon chose such a strange moment to break off his interrogation when a few more blows might have broken her; it was odd, she thought, his giving her this time to convalesce. Now she reluctantly turned her attention to Amy Love-craft. “Trick him?” she said. If Amy believed that she could identify Farrell then this was a notion that had better be dispelled at once. Mrs. Lovecraft was speaking in a low voice but one of the walls was of canvas, and Simon—yes, Simon had definitely chosen a very curious moment to leave. “Trick him, Mrs. Lovecraft?”

“Oh call me Amy,” she said impatiently. “Of course you were tricking him, it’s what I would have done too, but you can’t keep it up forever. The man is frightening. What are we to do?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” she said, and sat down and faced her. “None of those men was Mr. Farrell.”

“Simon seemed certain of it.”

“That’s his problem.”

“But you must see that we’re in this terrible mess together,” cried Amy. “It’s so unfair. You have something to bargain with, but I—” She lifted her bound hands helplessly, her voice trembling. “I’ve nothing. I have to depend entirely on you because of this mysterious man they called Farrell. Who is he anyway? And how do you happen to know a man who lives in Zambia?”

“If he does live here,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax, and hoping that Simon was listening behind the tarpaulin she said in a clear voice, “Actually he’s a man who lived next door to us years ago in New Brunswick, New Jersey. That’s in the United States,” she added parenthetically “

A very delightful young man except of course he can’t be young now, for it must be twenty or twenty-five years since I’ve seen him. I’ll tell you how nice a person he is,” she confided. “He helped my son build a soapbox car when he was twelve years old. He was devoted to Roger.”

She saw that Mrs. Lovecraft—Amy—was regarding her with astonishment and she began to expand on this further, developing a touching story of boyhood escapades, of families moving and losing touch, and then, “It was Mr. McGillicuddy,” she said, beginning to enjoy herself. “I ran into him on the street in New Brunswick several weeks ago. He’d known the Farrells very well, and he was amazed to learn I was going to Zambia on safari. He said John Sebastian was living here; he knew because they still exchange Christmas cards, and for the past few years he’d sent his in care of Barclay’s Bank.”

Amy’s mouth, which had dropped open, closed with a snap. “And because of this you advertised for him in a newspaper? How could you be such a fool? How could you do such a thing? Just see what it’s led to!”

“Well, I certainly didn’t expect it to lead to this,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax reasonably. “But what Simon doesn’t understand,” she added, “is how very difficult it is to identify a man one hasn’t seen for years. Perhaps I’d recognize him if he walked into this hut, but from a photograph, after twenty-some years?” She hesitated and then added warmly, “He used to call me the Duchess, you know—quite teasingly, of course—but he was that sort of child, very affectionate with adults, and so aware. Such a nice boy,” she concluded, and her nostalgic smile was genuine enough: she was hearing Farrell roar with laughter at her story.

Amy appeared unmoved. She said, “I don’t know why you can’t trust me. I think you’re telling me a lot of nonsense. You were very brave with that terrible man Simon but you’re not talking to Simon now. I think you’re playing games with me.”

Mrs. Pollifax began to wish that Amy were a little more perceptive so that she would understand the situation. She said, “My lip is bleeding and my jaw hurts and I don’t feel very much like games, I can assure you.”

“But you must know one of those men,” said Amy, “and I mind very much your not being frank with me. My God, it’s my life too, you know. We ought to talk— make plans—because once you identify this man they’ll let us go free, they’ll return us to the safari, we’ll be out of this nightmare.”

Mrs. Pollifax doubted this very much but she thought that to say this would imply a working knowledge of evil that had best be concealed for the moment; it seemed far more sensible to maintain the façade of a woman who had never met with anything more violent than a snub from her garden club president over the identification of a knotweed. She felt it rather naïve of Amy to believe that Simon would return them to the safari if she identified Farrell. He had said the ransom was only a red herring; how would he explain this if she and Amy were returned to camp? It was more likely that he would simply abandon them in the bush and let them fend for themselves, and even this, she thought, was the happiest alternative; she could think of others far worse. She had not, for herself, detected any signs of altruism in the man. She said crossly, “That’s all very well but I can’t tell them what 1 don’t know.”

She stood up and began to walk restlessly around the hut, Amy’s eyes following her, and then she moved to the corner and pushed aside the tarpaulin with her bound hands and looked outside.

The first thing she discovered in the moment before the guard saw her was that Simon was riot, after all, glued to the canvas listening to their conversation. She could see this clearly because two lanterns hung suspended from the branch of a tree, creating a circle of light in which Simon and Mainza were siphoning gasoline from a drum into the tank of the Land Rover. Above the lanterns a tarpaulin had been clumsily rigged to conceal the light from above, suggesting that it was search planes that worried them.

But it literally staggered Mrs. Pollifax to realize that Simon had not been eavesdropping on them. When the guard turned and lifted his rifle threateningly she dropped the edge of the tarpaulin and returned to her orange crate, but she remained shaken by this discovery. Why hadn’t Simon been listening? He struck her as a very clever young man, and she simply couldn’t conceive of his missing such an opportunity. He’d left behind him two frightened women, alone together for the first moment since they’d been snatched from Kafwala camp. He’d made his demands and then he’d hit her and then he’d walked out, leaving behind him the perfect climate for confessional. He must have known that something would have to be said about Farrell, but he’d not even troubled to listen. He was either very sure that he had all the time in the world to extract information from her, or he was not so clever as she’d thought him, or—

“I’m going to get some sleep,” she said abruptly. “Simon said we’d be here until dawn, didn’t he?”

“Sleep!” cried Mrs. Lovecraft.

“Yes, sleep. I’m really very tired, and not as young as you are,” she pointed out, tugging at a sleeping bag. She pressed it flat with her bound hands, sat down and inserted herself into it. “If you wouldn’t mind extinguishing that lantern—”

“I would mind,” snapped Mrs. Lovecraft.

Mrs. Pollifax only nodded and turned her face to the wall away from the light. She stretched one leg and then the other; the ground was very hard and her bones sharp, but she had no intention of sleeping. Outside she could hear one or two murmurs from the men, and somewhere very far away the haunting cry of an animal. She attempted a gentle snore, moved and then settled down to the business of pretending sleep, surprised at how difficult it was.

What she wanted to think about in particular—and think hard—was the sobering fact that she had not, after all, been selected for this abduction at random. This needed growing used to, it changed every premise and, above all, her prospects. The kidnapping had been arranged exclusively for her, and because it was due entirely to her advertisement in the Times of Zambia on Tuesday morning it must also have been arranged very hastily. But this in turn led her thoughts to Farrell, and to the most pressing question of all: who was Farrell now, and what had he become that he was the object of a policeman’s inquiry and the motivation behind this insane abduction?

She tried bringing back into her mind the photograph of him she’d just been shown, but all she could remember of it was her response, the shock like a whiplash that had hit her. It had not been the clearest of pictures, she recalled, but she’d recognized him at once, for what was recognition, after all? Certainly it was not the shape of a nose or mouth or jaw but a matter of essence and of memory that stemmed from an organ far different from the eye. It was instant and it was inexplicable. And now, whatever he was up to, she was going to have to protect him for as long as she could, while she waited for deliverance or an opportunity to escape. It was not a pleasant thought.

She had been feigning sleep for perhaps fifteen minutes when she heard the sound she’d been waiting for. Amy Lovecraft rose from her sleeping bag, blew out the lantern and stood quietly in the middle of the hut, listening, and then she moved noiselessly to Mrs. Pollifax’s side and leaned over her. Hearing no change in her breathing, Mrs. Lovecraft tiptoed across the hut, lifted the tarpaulin and walked outside.

There was no outcry.

“She’s asleep,” Mrs. Lovecraft told the guard in a low voice, and then, “Where’s Simon?”

Mrs. Pollifax pushed back her sleeping bag and sat up.

“She’s asleep,” she heard Amy repeat.

“She’s talked? She’s told you everything?”

It was Simon speaking, but in so low a voice that Mrs. Pollifax left her sleeping bag and crept across the earth floor to place her ear against the tarpaulin.

“… some improbable story I don’t believe for a minute. How long do we have before we kill her?”

“Until Sikota comes. We meet him at nightfall across the Lusaka-Mumbwa road at an old burial ground. I have compass instructions. That gives us twenty hours and we’ll need them if they begin a search. But she could be useful, Tsa, like tethering the goat to capture the lion.”

Mrs. Lovecraft said impatiently, “We can’t linger, you know that. By Saturday I’ve got to be far away, and so must you. We can’t take her with us, she has to be disposed of inside of twenty hours whether she talks or not. I thought by now—”

“This was your idea, Tsa.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” she snapped. “If you do your work well she’ll talk, I promise you. She’s a fool, but she could be a clever fool. Hit her harder, Simon, and then I suggest …”

Their voices receded as they walked away and Mrs. Pollifax crept back to her sleeping bag and sat in it shivering. If you do your work well she’ll talk, I promise you … the words hung still in the air. It was not pleasant to realize that her wildest guess had turned into fact: there had been no need for Simon to eavesdrop because Amy Lovecraft had never been a hostage at all, she was only pretending to be one in the hope that Mrs. Pollifax might confide to her what she refused to tell Simon.

She ought to have realized the complicity earlier, she thought, considering this, and perhaps a part of her had, for she had minded very much—with an astonishing anger —that Mrs. Lovecraft’s wrists had been bound together in front of her, giving her so much more comfortable a ride. There had been a curious lack of alarm in her attitude too, and surely her exchange of words with the driver on the road had proven a lengthy one, considering the size of her query. There was Mrs. Lovecraft’s persistence in not believing her about the photographs … her performance had been convincing but her skepticism had continued for perhaps a shade too long in a situation where they both were victims. More than this, though, there had been a growing awareness in her that Simon had known just whom to abduct at Kafwala camp, which implied that someone on the safari had been involved.

She remembered now the palms rustling at Chunga camp after her interview with Lieutenant Bwanausi, and Mrs. Lovecraft in the office as she passed. There was the radio message that Julian had mentioned her sending too. Not your typical tourist, thought Mrs. Pollifax angrily, a woman who traveled on safari and then casually called in cutthroats from Lusaka for an abduction. Her talents as an actress had been superb too; in retrospect there seemed a downright innocence about Amy’s lusting after every man in the party.

But for how long could she hold out against torture, she wondered now, as she objectively examined a situation that was more hopeless than she’d realized. Simon had announced that they would stay in this hut until dawn, and soon he would come back primed by Amy to hit her harder, and with whatever fresh suggestions Amy had made after they passed beyond hearing. Twenty hours lay ahead of travel, alternated with torture, and at the end of them she was to be killed.

And no one but herself would ever know why. As a bona fide hostage there had always been hope, because many hostages survived, but she saw now that it was going to be Mrs. Lovecraft who survived this particular ordeal. She could even guess at a scenario: after she had been killed  tomorrow night there would  be  Sikota to smuggle Simon, Reuben and Mainza out of the park by some clever means, and then, following a suitable length of time, Amy Lovecraft would stumble out of the bush in a state of hysteria. There would be a few artful scratches and bruises, a terrifying tale of how Mrs. Pollifax had been murdered while attempting to escape. And who would not believe her? Amy would be a heroine.

And for so long as these wrists of hers remained bound, thought Mrs. Pollifax, that scenario was going to proceed very smoothly toward her murder and Amy Lovecraft’s elevation to sainthood. She minded this very much, but even more, she realized, she mourned the comfortable illusion that she’d just lost of having a confederate of her own here, however unstable. Until a moment ago she’d believed they were three men against two women. Now there were suddenly four people against one—and she was the one—and it felt lonely.

The tarpaulin opened—Mrs. Pollifax could see the dark sky and the stars beyond it—and Mrs. Lovecraft tiptoed back to her sleeping bag. She had just settled into it when someone outside gave a startled cry.

Simon called, “Ssh—no, leave the lights. Reuben?”

“Here, Simon.”

“Be silent. Wait.”

The shout did it; Mrs. Pollifax rose from her sleeping bag and went to the tarpaulin, leaving Amy to her own dissembling, which consisted of sharp gasps and, “What’s that? What woke me?” Ignoring her Mrs. Pollifax pulled back the flap and looked out. The lanterns were still lighted under the tree, but Simon and Mainza stood rigid now, both staring out into the bush. Following their gaze Mrs. Pollifax saw a large shape moving through the grass toward the camp, too tall to be a lion, too slender to be an elephant. The apparition moved steadily and noisily toward them, a bulky, man-shaped silhouette against the night sky, and then as it drew closer the farthest projection of the light picked out a pair of ragged sneakers, then a pair of bluejeans followed by a sweater and jacket until it reached the face of Cyrus Reed.

She had to be dreaming, thought Mrs. Pollifax.

He came to a stop and stood there, looking big and wondrously normal and not at all ruffled. “Hello,” he said amiably, blinking at the sudden brightness. “Saw your lights. Damn tiresome wandering about out there in the bush. Mrs. Pollifax around somewhere, and Mrs. Lovecraft?”

CHAPTER 10

Standing just behind Mrs. Pollifax, Amy said furiously, “Oh, the fool!” and then she recovered herself and added with less heat, “Now he’s a hostage too!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax dazedly, “but how do you suppose he ever found us?”

Reuben turned and saw them and waved his rifle menacingly. Mrs. Pollifax dropped the tarpaulin and retreated to her orange crate and sat down to wait, her heart beating very fast, her thoughts in a turmoil. Several minutes later the tarpaulin lifted and Cyrus stepped inside the hut with his wrists tied together. He stood in the improvised doorway, blocking it completely, and Mrs. Pollifax thought that she’d never been so glad to see anyone before in her life. His glance took in Amy Lovecraft, lingered a moment without expression on Mrs. Pollifax’s torn lip, and  en he said in his mild voice, “Damn good to see you.”

“Oh Cyrus,” she said simply, “how on earth did you get here?”

“More to the point,” interjected Amy sharply, “did you come alone?”

“Sorry about that,” he told her. “No U. S. Cavalry racing to the rescue but there should be soon. Chanda’s gone to get help.”

“Chanda?” said Mrs. Lovecraft incredulously.

Cyrus nodded, looking pleased. “Damn clever boy, Chanda, or ba na mdno, as he puts it in Bemba. Damn clever at tracking too. We were only half an hour behind you. Slowed us down a bit, that false turn off the road you made, but it took Chanda only a few minutes to look over the signs and guess the trick. Learning a lot on this safari,” he said, smiling at Mrs. Pollifax.

“But tell us how you got here,” cried Amy, looking as if she wanted to shake him. “You can’t have walked, and the Land Rovers—they said the Land Rovers—”

She had almost given herself away there, thought Mrs. Pollifax, watching her.

“Oh, yes, all the tires were slashed,” Cyrus told her cheerfully, “but these ruffians who carried you off didn’t realize there were spares in the storage hut. Julian took off in a great hurry for Chunga in one of the cars. Wanted to radio the police, he said … organize search parties. Seemed a damn shame nobody thought of following you while the trail was hot. / thought of it, and Chanda thought of it, so we had a little talk and stole a Land Rover.”

“Just like that,” said Amy with a hollow laugh. “How —how original! Then you’ve brought a Land Rover here?”

“Not exactly here,” he conceded. “Got mired in a swamp piece of land half a mile away. Thought we’d have to sit there until dawn, the two of us, but then we saw the light here. Chanda gave me escort—just to be sure I didn’t tangle with any lions—and then took off into the night for Kafwala.”

“On foot?”

“On foot,” nodded Cyrus, giving her a curious glance. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all, but what a story,” said Mrs. Lovecraft. “Then Chanda will be coming back with help very soon?”

Mrs. Pollifax wanted to cry out, Don’t say any more, but she sat helpless and irresolute, not wanting Amy to learn that her connivance was known.

“Afraid not soon,” confessed Cyrus. “Not that many spare tires. Julian’s got four on his Land Rover but he’s down at Chunga camp now. Other four are on the Land Rover stuck out there in the bush. Only a matter of hours, though.”

“How—how comforting,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, attempting another brittle laugh.

If Amy was laughing, Mrs. Pollifax was struggling against tears. Her emotions had never felt so battered; at sight of Cyrus her spirits had gone skyward, but now they were plummeting as she realized with a sense of horror what his arrival meant for him. She was touched by his courage, appalled by his recklessness and comforted by his reliable and enormous presence. At the same time—just to complicate the tangle—she wanted to laugh at the comic note he was introducing into the situation. For instance, he was blocking Simon’s entrance into the hut now, which became more and more obvious from the rude noises outside. Cyrus turned, looked down, said, “Oh—sorry,” and Simon emerged from behind him looking very much like an angry puppy riding herd on a Saint Bernard.

Simon said sharply to Mrs. Lovecraft, “Out—quickly. I separate you now. Into the other hut.”

Mrs. Pollifax had wondered how they would confer about this development, and she thought that Simon managed it very convincingly; in turn, Amy Lovecraft managed to look convincingly frightened as she walked out ahead of him. As soon as the tarpaulin fell in place behind them Mrs. Pollifax whispered, “Be careful what you say, he’s really taking Mrs. Lovecraft out to confer with her.”

“Confer?” said Cyrus, staring at her in astonishment.

She nodded. “When Amy thought I was asleep she walked out and began talking to them about me. It turns out that she’s in charge of the whole thing, except for someone called Sikota in Lusaka.”

“Good God,” said Cyrus, looking appalled. “And I was about to ask if we ought to worry about her being taken off alone like that. Glad you told me. Damn glad I came.”

“Yes, because if Chanda hurries—how long do you think it will take him to reach Kafwala on foot?”

Cyrus shook his head. “Too long,” he said uneasily. “And they’ll know it. Shouldn’t have told Amy about Chanda.”

“But how could you have not told her when you thought she was a hostage too?” protested Mrs. Pollifax. “And they would have insisted on knowing how you found us, Cyrus. If you’d refused to tell them they would have followed your tracks to the Land Rover.”

“Shouldn’t have mentioned there being so few spare tires, either,” Cyrus said gruffly. “Very bad. Who’s this Sikota chap you mentioned?”

“He must be the man who delivered a ransom note to the television station in Lusaka at the same time we were captured. They talked to him by radio,” she explained.

“Oh?” said Cyrus, digesting this. “Pity Julian couldn’t have known that before he went dashing off to get the news out. Done better, I’m thinking, to have followed you.”

“As you did,” she said, smiling.

“Yes.” He gave her a thoughtful glance. “Suppose you realize these are the same three men we saw at Lufupa camp this noon. Which of them hit you?”

“It doesn’t matter, Cyrus.”

“Try hitting you again,” he said sternly, “and they’ll have me to deal with.”

She said unsteadily, “You should never, never have come after us like this, Cyrus. It was madness.”

“Only thing I could think of to impress you, my dear.”

“Impress me!”

“Well,” he said with a boyish grin, “couldn’t believe you’d give me a thought, coping with this bunch of hoodlums. Rather hard to overlook if I’m here. Too big.”

She began to laugh, which tore open her cracked lip again and sent a stab of pain across her cheekbone, but it was amazing how much better she felt for it, and almost light-hearted. It fortified her for Simon’s reappearance.

He walked in and gave Cyrus a nasty glance. “We do not wait for dawn to leave,” he said coldly. “Because of you we go now.”

“Afraid of that,” sighed Cyrus. “Sorry, my dear.”

“It’s all right,” she said, but of course it wasn’t. For just a few brief moments there had been a flicker of hope that Chanda might be able to bring rescue before dawn. And really it was so unfair, she thought helplessly, to see all of her plans to uncover Aristotle aborted like this. By now, back at camp, who knew what arrangements were being made to assassinate some unknown and unknowing victim?

“Mainza—” Simon’s voice brought her back to the present, and she realized that her worries over Aristotle were a luxury just now. She had to resist distractions; her life and Cyrus’ life depended upon it.

“Mainza, remove all but this lantern.”

Mainza nodded and began rolling up the sleeping bags. “And while the car is being packed, we begin again,” Simon told her, looking grim. “Sit, please, and you—” He pointed at Cyrus. “You will stand in the corner over there where I can observe you.”

“Think not,” said Reed mildly. “Bigger than you are. Don’t plan to budge an inch.”

Simon gave him a long, measuring stare. “You prefer that we shoot you instead?”

Cyrus shrugged. “No need to, you know. Only came to keep the ladies company. I’ll stand where I am and watch—like a UN observer,” he added helpfully.

Perhaps it was Cyrus’ size or his mildness or a lingering sense of authority from his years on the bench, but it became obvious now to Mrs. Pollifax that Simon didn’t know how to handle him. Cyrus was large, he was amiable and he exuded kindness, but he had an air about him of being immovable. Simon eyed him with resentment and then apparently decided to ignore him because he turned away and gestured Mrs. Pollifax to sit down.

“As I started to say, we begin again.” He was forced to step back as Mainza passed him, his arms filled with sleeping bags. When Mainza had gone he sat down on the other box. “Now you will tell me exactly how you met this Mr. Farrell.”

“Farrell?” said Cyrus, lifting an eyebrow in surprise. “So that’s it!”

“Yes, Farrell,” Mrs. Pollifax said, nodding, and then, “all right,” and began her story again. She explained about the house in New Brunswick, New Jersey, her son Roger and the soapbox car, but this time she embellished the story with small artistic details. She added a soapbox derby in which Roger won a first prize of five dollars, and she gave Farrell a mother who played the piano and a father who owned a department store. “And then the father died,” she added, tiring of the story. “That’s when they moved away.”

Mainza tiptoed in again and then went out with the remaining sleeping bags and a lantern. Simon did not comment on her story. He drew out the four photographs again and held up the lantern for her to examine them by. “Which?” he demanded, handing them to her. “Perhaps it will improve your memory if I tell you that your life depends on it.”

Mrs. Pollifax examined them one by one, frowning appropriately while Simon studied her face. She noticed that numbers had suddenly appeared in pencil on the bottom corner of each photograph; Mrs. Lovecraft’s idea, no doubt. “I don’t recognize any of these men,” she said again with finality.

“Mind if I look?” asked Cyrus, and when Simon only shrugged he took the pictures, glanced through them and shook his head. “Absolutely impossible,” he said flatly. “None of these men could have lived next door to Mrs. Pollifax.”

“I may ask why?” Simon’s voice was biting.

“Look at her, look at them. Tough-looking chaps. You think she’d know such a person? None of them,” he added with authority, “built a soapbox car in his life.”

Smiling at him, Mrs. Pollifax thought, You dear man, there are so many things you don’t know about my friends, but you’ve become one. Solidly.

Simon leaned closer to her. “1 do not believe you understand me. If you remain stubborn we kill you— like that,” he told her, snapping his ringers. “We kill this man too.”

“Stay as stubborn as she pleases,” said Cyrus. “Why this passion for having Mr. Farrell identified?”

“So we will know which of these four men he is,” he said, exasperated. “Ah—Mainza, the Land Rover is ready?”

“Everything is inside, Simon.”

“Then we go. Take them out, Mainza, I’ll bring the lantern and tarpaulin. As for you,” he told Mrs. Pollifax, “we talk again, but if you do not talk for me, Sikota is the man with a genius. For him everyone talks.”

They climbed into the Land Rover. Apparently Amy’s role of innocent hostage was to be continued because she was led out of the second hut by Reuben, her wrists still bound, and inserted between Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus on the rear seat. A rope was threaded through each of their bound wrists and secured to either side of the car, giving them a primitive check against falling; evidently some rugged driving lay ahead.

Amy spoke only once. She turned her flawless profile to Cyrus and said coolly, “It was terribly sweet of you to come, Cyrus, but I hope you’ll realize what you’ve done. Now we’re both hostages to Mrs. Pollifax. They’ll kill us first to persuade her to talk, and believe it or not this woman seems very willing to sacrifice us. She doesn’t give a damn at all.”

“Ha,” was Cyrus’ only response.

The Land Rover started with a jolt, and following this, in proportion to the distance they covered, all sense of time diminished for Mrs. Pollifax. It was not that the Land Rover drove so fast but that a relentless speed of fifteen miles per hour over rough ground abused every bone in the body. The headlights had been taped so that only the immediate ground could be seen, and frequently the Land Rover swerved to avoid a rock, and once a startled wild beast. At some point during the first hour— she supposed it was an hour—Cyrus observed that they were heading west, and then after an interminable length of time he announced that they seemed to be veering south, but except for these comments no one spoke. Mrs. Lovecraft remained silent and Mrs. Pollifax reflected that if Kafue Park was half the size of Switzerland, this gave Simon a great deal of space in which to maneuver, and any search parties vast difficulties in finding them.

It was kinder not to think of Aristotle. She began to think instead of how far she could go in protecting Farrell’s life from whatever dangers these people represented, and she thought the dangers must be considerable if they would go to such lengths as an abduction. But there was Cyrus’ life too … He had wandered after her, heroic and innocent, and it was unthinkable that he might have to pay for it with his life. She felt responsible for him even if he would snort indignantly at such an idea. How could one choose? One could say that Farrell was the younger, with more years ahead of him to live, but balanced against this was the fact that Farrell had survived to his forty-some years by outwitting just such people as Simon, and how could she assume that he wouldn’t survive her identifying him? And on that score there rose the doubts—oh God, the doubts, she cried silently, those niggling, poisonous doubts that were perfectly logical but which she would do well to face now, and with honesty. Chance had brought her and Farrell together once in a very rare intimacy, but there was no overlooking the fact that their values had been different even then, and that four years had intervened since she’d known him. He might be smuggling drugs, or involved in something equally abhorrent to her. She could vividly remember her shock at first meeting him—that hardbitten face and those mocking eyes …

She discovered that she was smiling as she remembered those first reactions of a refugee from the New Brunswick, New Jersey, Garden Club. What a sheltered life she’d led before she met him, and how she must have amused him! It was preposterous to think he could change that much. He was a man who’d not broken under torture, and when he believed he was going to his death his first thoughts had been of her. No, she couldn’t betray him, she simply couldn’t …

She realized that she couldn’t betray Farrell and that she absolutely couldn’t sacrifice Cyrus. She was going to have to wait and trust to her instincts hour by hour, and in the end—if they weren’t found in time by a search party—there might be no choice at all, or very little, because even if she identified Farrell it might not save Cyrus’ life. She would simply have to wait, and in the meantime, just because it was night and she was cold and hungry, she mustn’t lose hope. In fact, if she could just get these ropes off her wrists, the bush country of Zambia would ring with her shouts of Ki-ya.

“Growing light,” said Cyrus, lifting his bound wrists and pointing toward the horizon. “Must be nearly four o’clock.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked up and for the first time since her capture saw the world around her. The light that he’d pointed out was murky, no more than a subtle diminishing of darkness, but it was enough to define thorn trees and tall grass and the slope of the ground. She felt totally unequipped for this new day, but slowly and softly a warm golden light stole over the earth, dissipating pockets of mist in the hollows, and then abruptly the sun spilled over the horizon, huge and orange, and Mrs. Pollifax’s spirits rose with it.

Simon and Mainza began chattering together in the front, and at length called in their own language to Reuben in the back. Mainza pointed to the left, they swerved in that direction, entered a copse of trees and came to a stop.

“We rest,” said Simon, turning off the ignition.

They climbed stiffly out of the Land Rover and were led  to  a  cleared  area  which,  mercifully,  received  the warmth of the sun. Reuben brought them sleeping bags which they spread on the ground, after which bathroom privileges were extended to them and they took turns going off, with Reuben as guard.

Simon and Mainza remained beside the car. As soon as Amy had gone, leaving her alone with Cyrus, she looked at him and said firmly, “It’s absolutely imperative that we get these ropes off our wrists.”

“Logical, my dear, yes,” he said, nodding, “but for the moment impossible.”

“Then, failing that,” she said earnestly, “there ought to be some way for us to capture Amy and use her as a shield or hostage.”

“Thought had occurred to me,” admitted Cyrus, “but not with any solution. Have to add I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

She smiled. “It may surprise you what you can accomplish if your life depends on it.”

“Yes, but say, for instance, I approach our friend Amy from the rear,” he said, “and fling my bound wrists over her head and hold her as a shield, what then?”

“Then I stand behind you—”

“Two of us hiding behind Amy?” He smiled faintly. “Bit of a stalemate, I’d say.”

“Why? They wouldn’t dare to shoot us,” she protested. “If they did they’d hit Amy.”

“Could stand facing each other for days, though,” pointed out Cyrus. “Or they’d circle us. Three against two, and they’ve guns.”

Mrs. Pollifax bit her lip. “You have a point there, unfortunately. Oh, if only there were some way to free our hands!”

“What then?” he asked, looking at her with amusement.

“Well, you see I’m rather good at karate.”

This startled him but there was no overlooking his gleeful appreciation of this. “Damned astonishing woman,” he said. “Enough to goad me into chewing off your ropes with my bare teeth.”

“I wish you could,” she said wistfully. “They plan to kill me when we reach the burial ground, you know.”

“Burial ground? Nothing,” protested Cyrus, “has been said about a burial ground.”

“That’s what I overheard … it’s across the Mumbwa-Lusaka highway, which we’ll have to cross at some point, apparently, and around darkness they meet Sikota there.”

“So,” mused Cyrus. “The longer it takes us to reach the burial ground—a macabre meeting place to say the least—the longer we have to exercise cunning, I take it?”

She nodded. “Why is Mainza climbing that tree now?”

He turned to look. “Could be lost. See better from a tree.”

“But they have a compass and maps.”

“Simon’s been poring over both since we sat down,” he told her. “Very heavy frown on his face.”

“I think it would be lovely if we’re lost,” she said, watching a scarlet butterfly hover over Amy’s sleeping bag, touch down and then twinkle away. “I’d like to see it happen to them, they deserve it.”

“Not so sure we deserve it,” he pointed out. “Very tiring sort of thing, being lost. Makes men like Simon irascible and insecure. Better sleep now, my dear, it may be your only opportunity.”

She nodded and lay down, and thinking how pleasant it was to be called my dear—and how fortifying Cyrus was—she closed her eyes and then opened them to watch Mainza climb down from his tree. Amy was returning from the bush—she could hear the crackle of dried leaves and the snap of twigs—with Reuben’s heavier footsteps behind her. The sun and the warmth of the sleeping bag combined to soothe her aching muscles and help her forget her hunger; she closed her eyes a second time, felt tiredness wash over her in waves and then engulf her, and she slept.

When she opened her eyes the clearing was empty of voices and she saw that Cyrus’ sleeping bag was unoccupied. Without moving her body she turned her head and saw Amy burrowed deeply in her sleeping bag with only strands of pale hair in sight. Over near the Land Rover, Simon and Mainza were stretched out asleep in the sun. Reuben sat dozing with his back against a tree, the rifle across his lap, his eyes closed, but of Cyrus there was no sign until a sudden stealthy movement from the Land Rover caught her eye. It was Cyrus, creeping around the back of the vehicle on hands and knees. Mrs. Pollifax glanced at the dozing Reuben and then at Cyrus, and held her breath in horror.

CHAPTER 11

She had no idea what Cyrus had been doing behind the Land Rover but he was in plain view of Reuben: only Reuben’s closed eyelids—a fragile barrier—lay between him and discovery, and Cyrus’ stealth was proof that he was up to something. She dared not lift her head lest the movement wake Reuben, who was obviously supposed to be thoroughly awake and guarding them. She lay very still and held her breath. Cyrus was still on his hands and knees, but when he reached the side of the Land Rover he slowly rose to his feet, glanced once at Reuben and then tiptoed soundlessly toward her, testing the ground underfoot at each step. Only when he had dropped to his sleeping bag did she sit up, and as she did so Reuben gave a start, opened his eyes and instinctively reached for his rifle.

“Feeling better?” asked Cyrus without expression. “About four hours’ sleep, I think.”

“Much better,” she said politely.

The others were stirring now too, sitting up, and stretching, yawning, their faces cleared of tension and hostility, so that for a moment they might have been a picnic party waking up from a nap out in the bush. Simon called out something to Reuben, who laughed and replied, and then Mainza and Simon both laughed, completely relaxed. Only when Simon’s glance fell on the map and the compass did his frown return. He picked them up and tension was visible again on his face.

Amy Lovecraft sat up and pushed back tangled hair with her tied wrists. “Oh God, how I’d love a bath,” she said.

But the only water they were to see this morning was brought to them by Reuben in a canvas bag. They took turns drinking from it, and then he opened his palm and revealed a handful of peanuts. “Ground nuts,” he said, dividing them equally among them.

“So that’s what they’re called here,” said Mrs. Pollifax. He had thoughtfully shelled them and she tried to chew each one carefully—there were only eight—because they were both last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast as well. In fact, if this was Thursday she remembered that it was time for another malaria tablet, but she supposed it was trivial to worry about malaria when she might not even survive the day. Perhaps it was also trivial to worry now about Aristotle … Cyrus was conspicuously silent; he looked tired, and she realized he’d probably not slept at all, and again she wondered what he’d been doing crouched behind the Land Rover. She turned her head and glanced at Amy, and not for the first time speculated about her motives in this insane abduction. She wondered if Amy could possibly be Aristotle. Women were assassins, and clever at disguise, but Aristotle—Aristotle, she felt, was different. Bishop had described him as a professional and a mercenary, with no ties to any particular country. She simply couldn’t imagine him involving himself in an abduction, and then there was the fact that Amy knew these men, and Aristotle always acted alone.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Simon, who shouted, “Up!” and once again they were herded to the Land Rover and loosely roped in place. They set off in the warm morning light, and Mrs. Pollifax noticed they avoided open spaces now, which she thought showed more faith in a search party than she could muster at the moment. Shortly after leaving they skirted another clearing and surprised a herd of zebra standing motionless in the sun. The herd took flight at once, their stripes dancing and blurring as they swept across the plain in a cloud of graceful motion, and then as they reached the edge of the clearing the Land Rover swerved and they came to a stop.

“Flat tire,” said Simon.

They climbed out and sat on the ground while Mainza jacked up the Land Rover and removed the tire. The spare was taken from its mounting on the hood and inserted on the rim, the jack was disengaged and the Land Rover lowered until it came to rest on the new tire, which slowly, comically, went flat too.

It was at this moment that Mrs. Pollifax sensibly added two and two together and glanced with interest at Cyrus. He was looking exceptionally sleepy and he refused to look at her. Deep inside of herself she smiled; really, she thought, Cyrus was going to be extremely useful now that he was getting into the swing of things. Simon, Reuben and Mainza were looking incredulous; they began talking accusingly among themselves, examining the two tires and gesticulating. She gathered that both tires had lost their valve caps but that the men found it difficult to understand how this could have caused so much leakage of air. Several suspicious glances were sent in their direction, but since no one could recall a moment when they were unguarded no one accused them.

“Into the car,” Simon said at last, his voice surly.

They climbed inside and bumped along on the naked rim of the wheel for several hundred feet until they hit a half-buried rock that bent the rim. The Land Rover at once acquired an unhealthy list that sent Amy and Mrs. Pollifax into Cyrus’ lap, and the car out of control. With a shout of frustration Simon fought the Land Rover to a stop. “We walk,” he said furiously.

“Sorry about this,” whispered Cyrus as he helped her down from the Land Rover.

She gave him a frankly admiring glance. “You make a lovely fly in the ointment.”

“You saw?” When she nodded he grinned. “Damn nuisance, walking, but makes me feel better. Vented my spleen, so to speak.”

“Do vent it again,” she shrugged over her shoulder as Simon commanded her to be silent and take her place in line.

They began their march with Simon in the lead. The terrain was a mix of flat ground and clusters of thorn trees, a combination not at all unpleasant for walking.

What Mrs. Pollifax minded was the silence in which they walked; a little conversation, she thought, would be a happy distraction, but Simon had placed her behind him and she was followed by Mainza; Amy and Cyrus came after him, and Reuben brought up the rear. It was so quiet that she could hear the swish of their trousered legs and the thud of Mainza’s rifle as it slapped his hip at each step; occasionally twigs snapped underfoot. As the sun rose higher, however, she became increasingly aware of a hollowness in the pit of her stomach that only food could alleviate, and the sun, which felt no warmer to her skin than a June sun in New Jersey, began to have a curious effect on her; her head felt light, but whether this was from hunger or the sun she didn’t know or, at the moment, care. She developed a nagging thirst, and after they had walked for an interminable length of time she suspected that she was also developing a blister on her right heel. The tse-tse flies gathered, and with her hands tied she could only swat at them blindly, but Simon showed no signs of halting for a rest and she found herself lacking even the energy to complain. It seemed simpler to plod dreamily along, her eyes mesmerized by the ground in front of her, her head floating along somewhere behind her, like a balloon on a string.

“Rest,” said Simon suddenly, and they sank to the ground under a tree, too tired to speak.

Mainza brought out the canvas bag of water and gave them each a few sips.

“Boiled, I hope,” said Cyrus.

Amy sniffed at this remark. “Even boiled water here can cause gastric trouble. If you’d only tell them what they want to know,” she snapped at Mrs. Pollifax, turning to face her, “we could be back on safari with the others now, instead of—of this!”

Mrs. Pollifax, feeling better, snapped back. “Nonsense. I don’t believe my telling them anything would free us now, because we can identify Simon and Mainza and Reuben, and why should they allow that?”

Amy moved closer and lowered her voice. ‘I’ve been trying to make friends with Simon, you may have noticed?”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

“Well, I have, and I think—” She smiled disarmingly and a little ruefully, “I think they might not kill me. It’s possible I could divert the three men so that you and Cyrus could get away. Not now but later.”

Shot while trying to escape, thought Mrs. Pollifax. For just the briefest of moments she looked at Cyrus, who was listening to this, and then she turned to Amy and said in a shocked voice, “Oh, I don’t think that would be sensible, do you? I suppose you mean an escape. I shouldn’t care for that at all, would you, Cyrus?”

“No indeed,” he said blandly. “Exhausting. Besides, our hands are tied.”

“So are mine,” said Amy, “but I might be able to persuade Simon to untie them.”

I’ll bet you could, thought Mrs. Pollifax. She said earnestly, “Well, it would certainly be lovely to have our hands free—it’s so difficult walking with them tied—but as for escape—” She shuddered. “I don’t know, the idea fills me with terror.” She realized that Cyrus was looking at her with a puzzled frown and she wondered what she’d just said that made him suddenly look so suspicious of her. “But if you could persuade him to free our hands,” she added wistfully.

“Yes,” said Amy, “but you simply must consider getting away if the occasion arises. You have to be more resolute.”

“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Pollifax.

A moment later Simon announced that it was time to move on, and she learned the reason for Cyrus’ peculiar expression. Helping her to her feet he said, “Beginning to wonder if you do show slides.”

“Slides!” she gasped. “Cyrus, what on earth—!”

“Same voice,” he said. “Both times. Been worrying about those slides.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “Oh—slides,” she said, realizing how alarmingly observant he was.

He added in a kind voice, “Try wrapping your bush jacket around your head. They didn’t wear cork hats for nothing here in Africa. Very strong sun.” He tugged loose the jacket that was knotted around her waist and she thanked him. Incapable of tying it around her head with her hands bound, she placed it there like a basket with trailing fronds and hurried off to obey Simon’s peremptory summons.

They resumed walking, they stopped … they walked, they stopped. She was becoming very familiar with the African soil, she thought; it was a vivid rust color, with the coarse-grained texture of an anthill, and although the rainy season had only recently ended it was dry, very dry, providing only a vaguely hospitable surface to the stalks of grass. The earth was in fact kinder to her than to the vegetation, for she rested on it, and when Simon ordered them up again her only anticipation was to sit on it again. It was level enough for walking but it was important to watch out for snakes, and so she walked with her head down, which was tiresome. The tse-tse flies kept biting, and when they stopped for a break the meager sip of water doled out to them was no longer enough, and at each stop Simon examined both compass and map with the same frown teasing his brows. Then it was up again to resume walking, the monotony of it interrupted only twice—once by a herd of impala racing in panic across their path, and once by the sight of a dead buffalo lying on its side under a tree, with only the shell, of its carcass untouched.

“Lion kill,” said Reuben from the rear.

Sometime after that Mrs. Pollifax became aware that Simon had stopped. She had been stumbling along behind him when she looked up to see that Mainza had left his place in line and was grasping Simon by the arm, pointing behind them.

“Something is following us,” Mainza said in a low voice.

“I see nothing. Animal or man?”

Mainza shook his head. “I don’t know, it moves when we move, stops when we stop. If I go ahead to that hill, Simon, and circle back—”

“Do that. Be careful. We will rest behind the hill.”

The word rest was all that mattered to Mrs. Pollifax and she followed Simon eagerly now. Mainza soon disappeared behind the swelling in the earth, and when they came abreast of it Simon led them around it and signaled them to stop. “Sit,” he said, “but not on the hill, this is an anthill.” Mrs. Pollifax sank gratefully to the ground and applied herself to resting with enormous concentration. Her shoulder bones, subtly hunched together by the pull of her tied wrists, were acquiring strange aches and pains; her feet hurt and her eyes felt like bruised grapes. This was having an effect on her thought processes that was alarming, and yet she felt incapable of any discipline at all; it was rather like watching oneself fall asleep in the snow and not caring. There would be no decent rest for her until they reached the burial ground, and she reminded herself that once they reached that destination her longed-for rest could very well become an Eternal Rest, but this reminder met with no response at all. It occurred to her to wonder if she was suffering from sunstroke. She saw Simon and Reuben level their rifles, suddenly tense, but she was only mildly interested when a man trudged unseeingly past them. She was grateful that he was not a lion, but the day held such a surrealistic quality that she found nothing surprising about their encountering a man here. Besides, he looked as if he belonged here and he was certainly not prepossessing. He was a native wearing torn black pants, cut off at the knee, a ragged pair of old sneakers on his feet and a brilliant plaid wool cap on his head that made him look ridiculous. A sweater had been rolled up and tied around his waist by the sleeves, and on his back he carried something wrapped in a bloody newspaper; it had weight to it, and there were a number of flies buzzing around it.  The  man  noticed  them  only  when  Simon stepped forward with his  rifle, but he looked startled rather than frightened. He gave Simon a radiant, uncertain smile and then  his gaze dropped  to  the rifle and he gaped at it, fascinated. Apparently the rifle was more amazing to him than the sight of five people crouched behind an anthill.

Mainza came up from the rear and pointed his gun at the man, searched his pockets and sniffed at the bloody package.

“Jonesi,” the young man said, beaming and pointing to himself. “Jonesi. Good evening.”

“Good evening,” however, turned out to be the only English that he knew. Mrs. Pollifax gathered that Nyanga was tried on him, as well as a few words of Luvale and Bemba, but these produced only excited nods from him and the words, “Jonesi. Good evening.”

“Don’t think he has all his wits about him,” suggested Cyrus.

Mainza peeled back a corner of the bloody package and said accusingly, “He’s been poaching, Simon. He’s a poacher, his name is Jonesi, and what do we do with him?”

“I don’t like him,” Amy said suddenly in a cold flat voice.

Simon shot her a quick glance and without appearing to answer her said to Reuben, “He knows the land, he could help us find the burial ground.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Pollifax, coming to life, “you don’t know where the burial ground is?”

“Of course we know,” snapped Simon, and then spoiled the effect by adding, “It’s only that we’ve never traveled this way before.”

“So you’re lost?” said Amy sarcastically. “How thoughtful of you to tell us all about it, Simon.”

“Don’t see how this Jonesi’s going to help if you can’t even communicate with him,” pointed out Cyrus.

But Mainza, having captured the poacher’s attention, sat down cross-legged on the ground and began digging in the earth with a stick, forming a series of small mounds. When he had created half a dozen of these he placed a twig on one, a button on another, and a shred of cloth on a third. The poacher squatted beside him, watching doubtfully, until suddenly he nodded and burst out talking, pointing to the south and laughing. After more sign language Jonesi took the stick from Mainza and drew the rough outline of an animal, after which they made more sign language and Mainza stood up. “He knows the burial ground,” he told Simon. “He’ll take us there if we don’t report his poaching. It’s antelope meat in his sack.”

Mrs. Pollifax thought about this carefully, aware of something there that she’d been too tired to catch. Antelope meat … She applied herself to this diligently: antelope meat, burial ground, poaching … but of course, she thought dizzily, Jonesi’s meat was butchered meat, and if it had been butchered, then it had to have been cut from the carcass with a knife … a knife.

Her tiredness fell away from her like an old coat that had been ready for the Salvation Army anyway. Hope was all that she’d needed, and now it began flowing through her bloodstream like adrenalin. A knife. With a knife they could assert themselves and get away. A knife would free their hands for all kinds of gloriously hostile purposes.

“You look,” said Cyrus as they rose to go, “like someone who’s just found the Holy Grail.”

She gave him a dazzling smile, and in the brief moment before Simon separated them she whispered, “Cyrus … the poacher has to be carrying a knife”

CHAPTER 12

Mrs. Pollifax reasoned that her first efforts, now that she was aroused, ought to go into establishing some kind of relationship with the poacher. Under the circumstances she felt she could at least extend to him a small but heartfelt welcome, and then slowly hope to impress on him the fact that she and Cyrus were captives. If sign language had succeeded once with him, she could see no reason why it shouldn’t succeed again.

She began to walk faster, accelerating her pace until she drew abreast of him. When he turned his head to look at her she smiled at him and won a huge and vacant grin in return. He was certainly the tallest Zambian she’d seen, probably six feet tall if he stood up straight, and so thin that his ribs could be counted under his flesh. His face was long and bony, and, combined with his protruding teeth, his senseless wide grin and that absurd green-and-black plaid wool cap, it gave him the look of a man definitely lacking in intelligence. Nevertheless he was not one of them, she had just deduced that he must be carrying a knife, and he was their only hope.

After they had exchanged a number of eager smiles, she felt that she had paved the way for a subtler message. When he turned again to look at her she lifted her tied wrists to his gaze. She did this discreetly. His eyes dropped to her hands, his smile broadened, and then he startled her by throwing back his head and laughing.

This was certainly depressing. The laugh drew a backward glance from Simon, and she had to pretend that she was lifting her wrists to push back her hair. She decided that making a bid for Jonesi’s friendship at this point could be dangerous, and she fell back behind him in line.

This left her with her second challenge: where did a man who wore only sneakers, cap and shorts carry a knife? She guessed it would have to be in one of the pockets of his disreputable shorts until she remembered that Reuben had searched both of Jonesi’s pockets and had seemed satisfied that he carried no weapons. If it wasn’t in his trousers, she decided, then the knife would have to be concealed either in the rolled-up sweater around his waist or in his cap, and of the two she thought that she would vote for the cap: there was an elemental logic in this because the cap was obviously a prized possession, and the knife would be equally valued. She began to play with possibilities for getting the cap on his head and discovered that this happily removed all thoughts of hunger and thirst from her mind.

In midafternoon they came to the road. Simon signaled them to stop, and once they had straggled to a halt Mrs. Pollifax heard the unmistakable sound of a truck in the distance. It soon passed. Simon waited for them to form a circle around him, rather like a Boy Scout leader preparing to give instructions to his troop. “The road is just ahead,” he explained. “We go two by two across it, and very quickly, you understand?” Pointing to Mrs. Pollifax he said, “You will go first, with Reuben and Mainza. Reuben, you will come back for the man, I will follow with the other woman. Listen before you cross, the wind blows from the west.”

Mrs. Pollifax was led forward through a screen of trees until they came to the road, a two-lane macadam highway stretching from east to west. It was depressingly empty of traffic now. Reuben grasped one of her arms, and Mainza the other, and they hurried her across and into the shelter of trees on the opposite side. When Reuben went back for the others Mrs. Pollifax sat down, hoping it wasn’t on an anthill, and tried not to think how near they must be to the burial ground now. How long before we kill her? Until Sikota comes, we meet at the burial ground across the Lusaka-Mumbwa road. It ran through her head like a macabre nursery jingle.

Seeing Reuben escort Cyrus to her through the trees, she thought now what an astonishing person Cyrus was and how comfortable he was just to look at, for nothing about him seemed changed. He might be tired but he remained completely unruffled, with the air of a solid man who knew exactly who and what he was even in the center of Zambia. It struck her suddenly that she would feel very lonely if she never saw him again.

“You look like a judge even here,” she told him, smiling.

“Feeling very unjudgelike at the moment,” he said, sitting down beside her. “I’d give each of these people six months in solitary. No bail, either. They walk too fast.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a rush of warmth, “that it’s terribly selfish of me, but I’m awfully glad that you came, Cyrus. You are hard to overlook.”

“Told you so,” he said in a pleased voice.

“It was so—so very gallant,” she explained. “Except that—if you should have to pay for it with—”

“No need to be tedious, my dear,” he interrupted quietly. “Entirely my own choice, you know, didn’t have to come. More to the point,” he added lightly, “is the dinner I plan to buy you when we get back to Lusaka. Menu’s been occupying me for hours.”

She realized in a sudden spasm of perceptiveness that Cyrus was only too aware of how near they were to the burial ground. “I think it has to be in either his sweater or cap,” she said in a lowered voice. “The knife, I mean —if he has a knife.”

“Mmmm,” murmured Cyrus. “Let’s hope it gets cold then, and soon.” He held up his wrists and scanned his watch. “Nearly four o’clock.”

“Oh dear, and dark in two hours?”

“Must have walked about twenty miles. Saw a data bird, by the way. Pity I couldn’t have pointed him out to you.” He broke off as Simon strode toward them, apparently tireless, with Jonesi loping along beside him and Amy a pace behind.

“On your feet,” said Simon, and that was the end of any further conversation.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that Jonesi called out sharply and pointed to the left, jabbering away in his language that no one understood. He appeared to know the terrain now because, once they veered off to the left, they encountered a narrow, hard-beaten path through the grass and soon came upon the ruins of several huts, their scaffolding lying in crazy patterns like jackstraws.

And then quite abruptly they reached the burial ground.

It lay in the sun at the edge of a broad savannah, and if Jonesi had not led them it was difficult to see how it could have been found. It was not large. Perhaps it marked the site of some ancient battle, or it was where chiefs or medicine men of this village were buried, for Mrs. Pollifax counted only twelve low mounds. There had once been the village, and people had lived here and guarded the graves, and then the villages had been moved when the land became a game park, but in the people’s minds the burial ground still existed, still mattered, for the stakes at either end of each grave stood erect and undisturbed, and no one had touched the round earthenware pots that had been broken at death and lay scattered between the sticks. She liked that touch, thought Mrs. Pollifax, it seemed so much more personal than flowers. A pot would be something of one’s own, used every day of one’s life, and what better symbolism than to end its existence along with the life of the man who had carried it, drunk from it, cooked in it and eaten from it.

Cyrus interrupted her trancelike musings with a nudge. She turned and, following his gaze, saw that Jonesi had sat down and was removing the sweater from around his waist. She watched with Cyrus as the man carefully unrolled the sweater, picked a dried leaf from it, blew on it, smoothed it out and then pulled it over his head and shoulders. There was no knife, which left only his cap as a possibility.

“We wait for Sikota now, he will come within the hour,” Simon said, and turning to Mrs. Pollifax, with a triumphant note in his voice, “No one has ever held out against Sikota. He knows many tricks, I promise you.” The menace of this unpleasant statement was only slightly undermined when he added, “You are now extended bathroom privileges.”

“Please,” said Amy, and jumped to her feet and followed Simon in among the trees.

When the two of them were out of sight, Mrs. Pollifax looked down at Jonesi, seated cross-legged on the ground, and then at Cyrus, sitting with his back to the tree. Not far away Mainza and Reuben sat talking earnestly together, their rifles beside them. She thought, It’s now or never for the cap, and meeting Cyrus’ glance she said aloud, “It’s now or never.”

“Oh?” he said, puzzled.

She walked around Jonesi, and when she was behind him she pretended to stumble. She thrust forward her bound wrists, fell against him and shoved his cap from his head. It dropped to the ground in front of him, and just as she recovered her balance a second object fell with it, making a solid plunk as it met the earth.

It was his jackknife, stained with blood.

Both Jonesi and Cyrus reached for the knife at the same time. “Hope you don’t mind,” Cyrus said courteously, picking it up with one hand, and with the other handing Jonesi his cap. “There’s a little matter of ropes, if you’ll bear with us for a moment. Emily?”

She sat down next to the poacher and held out her wrists to Cyrus. With his hands bound together it was slow work—”like sawing through a redwood tree with a handsaw,” he said grimly—but presently her bonds fell from her wrists and for the first time in twenty-four hours her hands were free. She flexed them with a sense of wonder and then took the knife from Cyrus and went to work.

“Of course they’re going to notice our hands when they come out of the woods,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, hacking at his ropes. “We’ve not much time, you know.”

“Jonesi is shielding us beautifully from the other two, but I wish he’d stop grinning at me,” complained Cyrus. “What do you suggest I do, my dear, take on Simon?”

“Oh no,” gasped Mrs. Pollifax. “Amy, please. Just move her out of the way somehow. Oh dear, they’re coming back now. Cyrus—”

“Yes, m’dear?”

“Good luck or goodbye, I don’t know which, but—”

“Steady there,” he said gravely, and climbed to his feet, keeping his wrists together as if they were still bound.

Mrs. Pollifax, too, arose, and stood beside the tree, her heart beating tumultuously.

“Who’s next?” asked Amy, walking toward them with Simon close behind her. She came to a stop and smiled up at Cyrus.

Casually Cyrus leaned over and encircled her with his freed hands, turned her around to face Simon and held her in front of him with a viselike grip. “Well, Simon?” he said.

Simon’s eyes dropped to Cyrus’ wrists and one hand moved toward his gun. Before he reached it Mrs. Pollifax stepped out from behind the tree and delivered her very best horizontal slash to the side of his throat. A look of utter astonishment passed over Simon’s face, he lifted a hand toward his throat and then sank to the ground like a crumpled paper bag.

“Incredible,” said Cyrus.

Amy said, “My God, what do you think you’re doing?” and then she looked toward Reuben and Mainza, who had seen none of this, and began screaming.

Mrs. Pollifax snatched up Simon’s rifle and called to Reuben and Mainza, “Don’t touch your guns or we’ll shoot!”

The two men gaped at her across the clearing, too surprised to move. Amy stopped screaming. Holding her tightly in front of him, Cyrus slowly advanced across the clearing toward the two men. Mrs. Pollifax followed with the rifle and Jonesi danced along beside her laughing.

“Feel like Jack Armstrong the ail-American boy,” growled Cyrus halfway across the clearing. “Damned if it isn’t working too. Pick up their rifles, my dear.”

“Gladly.”

Amy, struggling in Cyrus’ grasp, cried, “You’re fiends, both of you, they could have shot me.”

“Oh stop,” said Mrs. Pollifax crossly, “you know very well they’d never have shot you, Amy. I’ve known it since last night when you thought I was asleep.”

“Oh,” gasped Amy. “Oh!” and a string of expletives poured out of her, followed by a number of references to barnyard animals which Mrs. Pollifax thought showed a great paucity of imagination on Amy’s part.

“Amy’s wrists are still tied,” said Cyrus, ignoring the stream of obscenity. “Need rope now for Reuben and Mainza, and as soon as possible, I think.” Looking beyond them he called out, “Jonesi, be careful with that rifle.”

Jonesi had picked up Mainza’s gun before Mrs. Pollifax could reach it, and was cradling it lovingly in his arms. Hearing his name spoken, he backed away and sat down on the ground, the rifle across his knees, his face defiant.

“So long as he doesn’t accidentally pull the trigger …”

“Let him play with it for a few minutes, we can get it later,” Mrs. Pollifax told him. “We need that rope most of all.”

This problem occupied them for some moments, because there was no alternative but to knot together the sections of rope they’d cut from their own wrists. It was tedious work. When Reuben and Mainza had been rendered inactive Cyrus stepped back and said in a pleased voice, “Very, very good,” and then he asked, “Now what, my dear?”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him in dismay. “Now what?” she faltered. She realized that his question exposed a dilemma that seemed too distant an hour ago to ever become real. She was confronted with the fact that Sikota was still to be anticipated, they were lost in the bush, and the sun was already very low on the horizon and withdrawing light from the savannah. It would soon be dark. “Now what?” she repeated.

“I can answer that for you, madam,” said a voice behind them. “You will please drop the guns and lift your hands in the air.”

They spun around in astonishment. “Jonesi?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes, madam,” said Jonesi the poacher in excellent English. “You have been most helpful to me, I thank you.” Bringing a small object out of his pocket he put it to his lips and blew. A piercing whistle filled the air, and from the copse of trees several hundred yards away a number of men came running. In the growing dusk it was difficult to count heads but she thought there were six or seven of them, all carrying rifles. “Police?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“Not police, no madam,” said Jonesi, looking amused. “The police are in Lusaka far, far away. You are our captives now.”

“Oh no,” protested Mrs. Pollifax. “I thought—I hoped—”

“This,” said Cyrus, blinking, “is exactly like being swallowed by a shark, who’s then swallowed by a whale, who’s then swallowed by a—my dear, what is the matter?”

“I’m not sure,” whispered Mrs. Pollifax, staring at the men who had emerged out of the dusk and were fanning out to encircle them. One in particular among them had caught her eye, a man taller than the others, in khaki shorts, puttees, a thick sweater and a felt cavalry hat that heavily shadowed his face. Something about the way he moved. … He strode toward them now with a rifle slung across his shoulder, stopped to give Amy Lovecraft a long hard look, and then continued on to Jonesi.

Deep inside of her Mrs. Pollifax began to smile. The smile surfaced slowly, arriving on her lips at the same moment that the man saw her. He stopped in his tracks,

appalled. “My God I’m hallucinating,” he said.

“Absolutely not,” she told him, tears coming to her eyes.

“But—Duchess?” he said incredulously. “Emily Pollifax from New Brunswick, New Jersey? Here?”

He began to laugh. “I don’t believe it. Duchess, what in the name of all that’s holy are you doing in the middle of Africa with this bunch of cutthroats? Or to put it more bluntly,” he said, sweeping her off the ground in an exuberant hug, rifle and all, “what the hell are you up to now, Duchess?”

CHAPTER 13

When Farrell joined them some minutes later they were seated at a campfire, built for them by one of his young men. Farrell sat down, crossed his legs under him, and said, “There—business taken care of.” He looked at Cyrus and then he looked at Mrs. Pollifax and he grinned. “Never saw you look better, Duchess, except for the bruise that’s rapidly blossoming on your right cheekbone.”

“A souvenir from Simon,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Did I hear them call you Mulika?”

“It’s a name they’ve given me.” His smile was breathtaking, a flash of white in his tanned face. She’d forgotten how handsome he was. He looked ruddy and healthy, and his mustache was infinitely more dashing than she remembered. “And by the way, Jonesi begs me to apologize to you both. He asks you to remember that you traveled in bad company and if your hands were tied, so were the hands of the other lady.”

“Has a point there,” admitted Cyrus. “He found it a damn puzzling situation. Sorry, incidentally, that we’ve had to postpone dinner—” “Food?” breathed Mrs. Pollifax. “—but we’re expecting Sikota, you know, which is why you’ve been moved out of harm’s way. Now for heaven’s sake, Duchess, talk. Tell me how in hell you and Cyrus got here, and why.”

Mrs. Pollifax obligingly talked. She referred briefly to her arrival in Lusaka and then she concentrated on a description of their last twenty-four hours. When she had finished, Farrell looked stunned.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “You just walked into the Times of Zambia office and placed an advertisement for me in the personals column?”

“It seemed very logical,” she told him. “I couldn’t find you.”

He shook his head at her. “That directness of yours, Duchess, is going to cost you your life one of these days.” “Nearly did,” said Cyrus. “Apparently.” “And you didn’t even see the advertisement,” lamented Mrs. Pollifax. “I thought—just for a moment, you know —that you might have come to rescue us! Farrell, what did bring you here in the nick of time? And why shouldn’t I have advertised for you? And how do you come to be called Mulika?”

He hesitated and then he said flippantly, “Believe it or not, mulika means ‘shedder of light’ in the Nyanga language. Surprise you?” He looked at her and added soberly, “So help me I’ve tried to shed some, Duchess, because I’ve fallen in love with this country. You’ve heard of middle-age passion? Well, mine is directed at Africa in general—uncluttered, still unpolluted—and at Zambia in particular. Actually I came here to farm—”

“Not an art gallery,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

”—and I do own two hundred acres in the Southern Province, but I don’t see them very often these days because I’ve been helping train and instruct freedom fighters.”

“Freedom fighters!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax. “So that’s it … But surely—” She frowned over this, puzzled. “Surely that’s not enough to explain Simon’s abnormal interest in you? He and Amy were ready to commit murder to find out what you look like. There must be other men doing this who don’t—”

“Don’t have a price on their heads?” He grinned. “A pity you see that, Duchess. Yes, of course there’s more, because with passion one always gets involved. You see, it’s all very exciting to watch Zambia grow and develop, but next door you have Zambabwe—or Rhodesia, as you probably know it—and the people over there straggle across our border, some of them having been handled roughly, to say the least, most of them just out of prison or about to be arrested and sent off to prison, and the contrast isn’t very nice. These people want autonomy too, they wither under apartheid—God, it’s such a waste— and they need to be listened to.

“And so,” he went on, his eyes gleaming in the firelight, “I got involved. With my background and my white skin I became something of a spy. You’ve heard of spies?” he asked, his smile mischievous. “I began traveling back and forth across the border as a fake tourist, oh-ing and ah-ing at Zambabwe’s natural wonders, which are considerable, and I helped Jonesi set up a damn good underground escape route. Even lived briefly in Salisbury. Unfortunately it came to be known that a man named Mulika was guiding men out of Rhodesia, and then eventually that Mulika was a white man, and after that they learned my real name, I knew that. But your advertisement, Duchess, so direct and so naive—” He shook his head. “It must have caused a number of tidal waves in more than a few small ponds.”

“Including the Zambian police,” she told him. “I was interviewed by a—oh,” she gasped, “now I realize what was wrong with that interview. How blind of me! He didn’t want to know anything about you at all, only how I came to know that you were in Zambia.”

“Who?”

“A Lieutenant Dunduzu Bwanausi,” she said.

Farrell burst out laughing. “Dundu? God, you must have alarmed him. I’ll bet he thought you were a Rhodesian agent. I’ll have to radio him all’s well.”

“You know him?”

“A very good friend of mine. His brother Qabaniso happens to be half owner and partner in my farm.”

Their campfire was small, far removed from the burial ground, and on an incline from which they could watch a larger campfire being built some five hundred yards away. Mrs. Pollifax found her attention distracted now by Jonesi’s activities. Amy Lovecraft and her confederates had been placed around the fire, their wrists still bound, and Mrs. Pollifax saw that Jonesi was tying gags across their mouths.

Following her glance Farrell said dryly, “The goats are being tethered to catch the lion, Sikota being the lion.

And a rather big one, I suspect, well worth catching.”

“Rather hard on Mrs. Lovecraft, isn’t it?” asked Cyrus.

“No harder than for Simon and Reuben and Mainza,” pointed out Farrell, “but of course you’re still laboring under the illusion that she’s Amy Lovecraft, aren’t you. She’s not,” he said, his voice hardening.

“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“A Rhodesian by the name of Betty Thwaite. She’s given us a hell of a time catching up with her, because from what we’ve been told she certainly didn’t come to Zambia to abduct anyone, and the bush country is the last place we thought of looking for her.”

“It’s Amy you were hunting for, then?”

“Desperately,” he said. “Night and day and around the clock for the past six days.”

“Why?” asked Cyrus.

“Well, to give you her background, she’s the intelligence behind a fanatical right-wing group in Rhodesia, one of those situations where a group takes a more extreme stance than the government, and then, like the Herstigte Nasionale Party, breaks away to form its own party, which in turn provokes several more spinoffs, and by this time you’re deep among the fanatic fringe. That’s where you find Betty Thwaite’s group, all gung-ho for slaughtering anyone who suggests compromise or reason. Even the Rhodesian Government doesn’t claim Betty. All we knew,” he said, “was that she’d been smuggled across the border into Zambia last week, either by boat at night across the Zambesi River near Livingstone, or through the swamps into Botswana and then into Zambia. We also knew that she’d left Rhodesia with a forged Kenya passport and a change in name and in hair color, but why she decided to switch horses in midstream and kidnap you, Duchess, I just don’t know. It certainly wasn’t her purpose in coming here.”

“But she did kidnap me!”

“Yes, and that’s what baffles me,” he said, scowling. “Oh I have to admit there was some sense in her madness, because if you’d given them what they wanted it would have been a real coup for her, and she’s a very ambitious woman. The next time I crossed the border into Zambabwe—” He circled his throat with a finger. “Curtains.”

Cyrus said, “But she didn’t arrive here with that in mind?”

Farrell shook his head. “That’s what’s so damn puzzling. According to our informant—and he’s never been wrong before—she was coming to Zambia for the purpose of assassinating President Kaunda.”

“Assassinating?” said Mrs. Pollifax, suddenly alert

“Good God,” said Cyrus. “Why?”

“Why assassinate Kenneth Kaunda? Because KK, as he’s affectionately called, is a gentle but insistent force against apartheid, Cyrus. He’s been making behind-the-scene appeals to both Rhodesia and South Africa for diplomatic talks on compromise, and what’s more, they’ve begun listening to him.”

“Assassinate,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, frowning.

He nodded. “You can understand our panic. We had only an old photograph to work with, and time’s been against us. We batted zero until we found a waiter at the Livingstone airport restaurant who remembered her, and that’s when we learned she was a blonde, after which we linked her with the flight to Ngomo airstrip traveling as a Mrs. A. Lovecraft. She stayed a few nights at Ngomo Lodge and then flew to Lusaka, where we discover that she arrived just in time to join—of all things—a safari party.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It simply doesn’t make sense, her going off on a safari.”

“It could,” said Mrs. Pollifax softly, trying to control the excitement that had been rising in her. “It could, Farrell. It’s possible that Amy Lovecraft came on safari to meet the real assassin.”

“Meet the—what?” said Farrell.

“Because that’s why I’m here,” she told him, nodding. “I don’t know about your Betty Thwaite, but I do know about assassins. It’s why / joined the safari.” She glanced pointedly at Cyrus and then back at Farrell. “I was sent,” she added, “by a mutual friend of ours named Carstairs?”

“Good heavens,” said Farrell, and now they both turned and looked at Cyrus, who regarded them benignly but lifted one eyebrow, waiting.

Farrell said, “Do you tell him, or shall I?”

“Tell me what? That you didn’t,” said Cyrus, “live next door to Emily in New Brunswick, New Jersey, or build a soapbox car for her son? Already guessed that, young man. How did you two meet?”

Farrell grinned. “Would you believe tied back to back in Mexico, after being doped and carried off by the—”

“Farrell!” she gasped. “You’re overdoing this.”

“Nonsense,” said Farrell. “My dear Reed, if you’re so obtuse that you believe this charming but terribly resourceful lady does nothing but raise geraniums, then you’re not at all the man for her, and it strikes me from the way you look at her—”

“Farrell!” sputtered Mrs. Pollifax.

Cyrus said in his mild voice, “Certain—uh—arts have become apparent to me. A persuasive bending of truth, shall we say, and then there was the karate—”

“Karate!” It was Farrell’s turn to be surprised. “Duchess, you astonish me, you’re becoming a pro?”

“Pro what?” asked Cyrus quietly.

“She had this little hobby,” Farrell said blithely. “As CIA courier. Sandwiched in between—if I remember correctly—her garden club and hospital activities. That’s how I met her, except that three years ago I resigned from the CIA and wrote finis to that chapter. But if you don’t mind assimilating this little bombshell later, Cyrus, I want very much to learn about this safari. Enlighten me, please, Duchess. And fast.”

She told him all that she knew. “But Carstairs was certain enough of his informant to send me here. I was simply to take pictures of everyone on safari, nothing more, so that every member of the safari could be traced—”

She stopped as Cyrus let out an indiscreet roar of laughter. “Sorry,” he said, subsiding into chuckles. “Not really amusing except—those snapshots!”

Mrs. Pollifax gave him a reproachful glance before she added, “Carstairs seemed very sure that Aristotle would be on the safari to meet someone and discuss his next project, and if Amy Lovecraft’s been heavily involved in her Rhodesian group all this time I can’t see her wandering around the world shooting people. I’m only assuming, of course, but putting our two stories together—”

Farrell said abruptly, “I’m going to break radio silence and call Dundu. I’m stricken by the same assumptions, Duchess, because your story fits into mine like the one missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle.” He nodded. “It certainly explains why Betty Thwaite headed for a safari of all things, and if she’d already concluded her business with Aristotle, it also explains why she could go off on a tangent and take on an abduction. She eavesdropped on your interview with Dundu and realized that one of her traveling companions was a woman who actually knew and could identify me. She couldn’t resist. The abduction must have been done on impulse, and of course it was terribly unprofessional of her, but she thought she could handle both. Yes, very ambitious woman, Betty Thwaite. But I don’t like using the radio, damn it.”

“Why?” asked Cyrus.

“Because that’s how we discovered and pinpointed your party,” he said. “We’d left Chunga camp for Kafwala and stopped on the road to radio our whereabouts to headquarters, and that’s when we overheard Simon calling Green-Bird in Lusaka. The code name Green-Bird was not unfamiliar to us,” he went on, “so while we continued to Kafwala to look for Mrs. Lovecraft, Jonesi set out alone to track you down. Very good at that sort of thing, Jonesi. He wore a homing device in his cap so that we could find him again.”

“As a fool, Jonesi was certainly convincing,” commented Mrs. Pollifax.

“Oh God yes, he can go anywhere with that act, it’s saved his life innumerable times. But Duchess, let’s get back to basics: which of those people on safari do you suspect is Aristotle?”

“I’ve no idea,” she said truthfully. “I’d say none of them, except that my first film was stolen from my room at Kafwala camp, which implies that my picture-taking bothered someone a great deal. It had to have been Aristotle who stole the film because Cyrus told me that Amy Lovecraft and Dr. Henry stayed down at the campfire while I was gone. Amy could tell you who Aristotle is, of course.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” he said dryly. “So we can assume that Aristotle’s still with the safari, and the assassination’s already been scheduled?” He shivered. “I’m not sure that Zambia could survive as a country without President Kaunda. He’s a damn strong leader and a beloved president. Any leader’s a genius who can hold together a country of at least seventy different tribes speaking sixteen major languages and make it all work.” He stared into the fire, frowning, and then he looked up and said sharply, “All right, this is Thursday night. Where’s the safari now?”

”Camp Moshe,” said Cyrus promptly. “Tomorrow they make their way back to Chunga camp, remain there over Friday night, and then end the safari in Lusaka on Saturday.”

Farrell nodded. “Then I’ve definitely got to get a message to Dundu so the police can put everyone on safari under surveillance until they leave Zambia. Give me their names. It may save time to radio them now.** He drew pencil and paper out of his pocket.

“There’s Cyrus’ daughter, Lisa Reed,” began Mrs. Pollifax.

“And Dr. Tom Henry,” added Cyrus.

Farrell looked up. “Not the chap from the mission hospital over near the Angolan border?” When Mrs. Pollifax nodded he said, “Small world. Go on.”

“John Steeves, travel writer, and a very charming man. Willem Kleiber—Dutch I think he said, very prim and hygienic and in heavy construction work, whatever that means. And then there’s—well, Mclntosh.”

Farrell stopped writing. “Yes?”

“According to Amy Lovecraft, that’s only half his name. She peeked at his passport. Of course anything she said is suspect now, but I can’t see any ulterior motive in her saying that unless it was true.”

Farrell put down his pencil. “What sort of person is he?”

“Secretive,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

Cyrus cleared his throat and said cautiously, “Reserved, in my estimation. Businessman. American.”

“But always traveling,” added Mrs. Pollifax.

“All right, who else?” asked Farrell.

“Chanda,” said Cyrus. “Dr. Henry’s prot6ge\ who, I might add, tracked down Emily’s abductors for me, and then went back to camp on foot to guide any search parties. Age twelve.”

“Yes, and where are those search parties?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

“No idea, Duchess. I’m sorry, but it’s a damn big park.” He gave her a rueful smile. “When you were taken west they undoubtedly went east, and now that you’ve headed south they’re probably combing the north. That’s usually the way, isn’t it? Okay, we’ve Lisa Reed, Dr. Tom Henry, John Steeves, Willem Kleiber, the mysterious McIntosh, and young Chanda. Anyone else?”

“Amy Lovecraft, Emily and myself,” said Cyrus. “Nine in all.”

“Right.” Farrell pocketed the memo and rose to his feet. “I’m going to radio Dundu now. Sit tight and I’ll send a man over to guard you while I’m gone because this campfire has to be extinguished in a few minutes.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him in astonishment. “Guard us? Sit tight? But surely you want me down at the camp-fire with Amy and the others. Sikota will be expecting to see me there. He’ll count heads.”

Farrell shook his head. “Too dangerous for you, Duchess.”

“Dangerous!” she gasped, standing up. “Farrell, this is an assassination we’re trying to stop! Of course I’m going down there.”

Farrell sighed. “Look, Duchess,” he said patiently, “you’re tired, you need a rest. There are only seven of us men, and three are out scouting for Sikota, and anything could happen down there in the next hour.”

“Absolutely right,” agreed Cyrus. “Sit, Emily.”

“I refuse,” she told him, and grasping Farrell by the arm she turned him toward the campfire. “Look at them —four mannequins in a store window,” she pointed out hotly. “No movement at all, no one talking, eating, smiling or lifting their hands. Sikota isn’t a lion, he’s a man with a brain that reasons. Those people abducted me and I’m missing, and then he’ll wonder why nobody moves, but if Cyrus and I—”

“Ha,” snorted Cyrus.

“If Cyrus and I sit with them we can talk and—and pass things around, as if we’re eating, which heaven only knows I wish we could do, having eaten nothing all day.”

Farrell turned to Cyrus. “Well, Cyrus? Damn it, I’ve got to send this radio message.”

“Both of you absolutely right,” said Cyrus judiciously. “Dangerous place to be down there. Crossfire and all that if he slips past your men.” He considered this, sighed and climbed to his feet. “Have to admit Emily’s right, too,” he added, “and if all this helps—don’t happen to have a pistol, do you?”

“Take it with my blessing,” said Farrell, unbuckling a holster at his belt and handing over a gun. “Take this, too,” he said, reaching into his pocket, and gave him a chocolate bar.

“Food?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

“Food,” said Cyrus. “You go along and send your message, Farrell, we’ll wander along down.”

“Yes, but plain or almond?” asked Mrs. Pollifax happily.

Their move to the campfire had its ludicrous aspects; Mrs. Pollifax could see this at once. She sat down on one side of Amy Lovecraft, and Cyrus on the other side, while Amy made loud gurgling protests deep in her throat, and across the fire Simon glared at them both with bloodshot, outraged eyes. From five hundred yards away the campfire had looked brilliant but now that Mrs. Pollifax sat beside it the fire seemed astonishingly small, and the darkness around it like a black curtain. She felt exposed and horribly vulnerable.

“I believe we’re here to supply motion,” Cyrus reminded her. “What’s the matter—second thoughts, my dear?”

“You won’t,” she said in a small voice, “say ‘I told you so’?”

“Emily,” he said with a sigh, “this is no moment to become rational. I’ve walked twenty miles in the bush today, helped you turn the tables on these villainous creatures, I’ve been captured by guerillas and am now sitting here a target ripe for any passing gunman, and do you really think—can you have the effrontery to think— I would say ‘I told you so’?”

“You really are a darling, Cyrus,” she said, smiling.

“Thank you. Eat your chocolate.”

The moments passed slowly, each one seeming interminable. She and Cyrus passed twigs and pebbles back and forth and made flippant, imaginative conversation with a silent Amy, and then in turn with Simon, Reuben, and Mainza. In fact, as Mrs. Pollifax pointed out, they behaved like idiots, to which Cyrus replied that pantomime had always attracted him and that he enjoyed talking with people who couldn’t answer back.

It was twenty minutes later that Mrs. Pollifax became aware of Amy suddenly stiffening beside her. She turned and looked at Mrs. Lovecraft and found her staring off to the left, her eyes opened very wide and filled with alarm. Mrs. Pollifax followed her glance and she too saw something move: a shadow paler than the darkness of the trees. She said in a hushed voice, “Cyrus—over there,” and fell silent, suddenly afraid, because if this was Sikota then he had slipped past Farrell and Jonesi and the others without being seen. She saw the shadow pause and then start toward them from a new angle … the lion approaching the tethered goats, she thought, her throat suddenly dry, and at that moment he seemed exactly like a wild beast stopping to sniff the air for danger. She guessed that he was uneasy and felt a fleeting sense of pity for him, as if he really were a beast being drawn into a trap, and then her pity dissipated as she recalled that this was not a lion but Sikota, for whom everyone talked, which meant he was a man skilled in torture. He was entering now on the farthest reach of the firelight, which began to give his pale shadow some substance. Leaning forward to peer through the dusk, she saw the outlines of a short, grotesquely fat man stuffed into a pale business suit and carrying a long rifle under his arm. She realized in astonishment that he must have arrived by car—he had to have come by car in a suit like that, and Jonesi and Farrell had expected him on foot. Then as he took several new steps toward the fire she lifted her eyes to his face and saw that his skin was a dingy white, with a thin mouth almost drowned in pouches of fat.

He had stopped, his hand caressing the trigger of the rifle, still half in shadow but his pale suit gleaming in the dusky light. He knows something is wrong, she thought, feeling her heart beat faster. There was a terrifying intelligence about his stillness, as if he was sending out tentacles to weigh and test the atmosphere. And then, as he hesitated, he did the one thing that nobody had anticipated: he called out sharply in a clear, imperative voice, “Simon?” and then, angrily, “Simon?”

And Simon, bound and gagged, could neither turn nor reply.

There was an uncomfortable, suspenseful moment of silence during which a hyena howled in the distance, and then abruptly Jonesi stepped out of the bush off to the right and shouted, “Drop the rifle!” From the opposite side of the clearing Farrell called, “Drop it, Sikota, you’re surrounded!”

The man slowly turned toward Jonesi, and then he slowly turned toward Farrell. When he moved his action was sudden, all in one piece, and incredibly fast and graceful for a man of so much flesh. He lifted his rifle to his cheek, peered through the telescopic lens, pointed it at the campfire and pulled the trigger.

“Down!” shouted Cyrus.

Mrs. Pollifax agreed completely with this suggestion and rolled off to one side. Two other shots followed the first, but when she lifted her head she saw that it was not Sikota who had fired them. He lay crumpled on the ground, looking like a very large soft pile of laundry.

“Are you all right, Duchess?” shouted Farrell, and she heard the sound of running feet.

Mrs. Pollifax looked at Cyrus and he looked at her. He said unsteadily, “Well.”

“Yes,” she said, called to Farrell, “He missed,” and stood up, brushing the dust from her clothes.

But Cyrus was shaking his head. “He didn’t miss,” he told her, pointing.

For a moment she didn’t understand, and then she followed the direction of his pointing finger and gasped, “Oh no! Farrell? Jonesi?”

It was Jonesi who reached them first, and it was Jonesi who stepped carefully over Simon’s feet and knelt beside Amy Lovecraft. Amy looked as if she’d grown tired of sitting upright and had laid down to sleep, but when Jonesi lifted her head there was a bullet hole in the precise center of her forehead; her eyes were sightless.

“Damn,” exploded Farrell, coming up behind them, and he began swearing softly and relentlessly under his breath.

“Incredible shooting,” said Cyrus, looking a little sick.

“He had a telescopic lens. He got past us somehow, you know. Damn it—both of them dead!”

“He thought she would talk, Mulika.”

Cyrus snorted at this. “Couldn’t have known our Amy, then.”

“Perhaps he didn’t,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax, and turned away with tears in her eyes. “Sikota’s a white man, Farrell, I saw him.”

“Let’s have a look,” he said brusquely, and they followed him back to the crumpled body of Sikota. One of the men had turned him over and was staring down into his face.

“You know him, Patu?”

Patu nodded. “I know him, Mulika. He is the Portuguese who runs the curio shop on Cairo Road. Who would have thought he was a spy? He came in a truck, Mulika. Joshua is in the truck now, he says it has a false floor with space to hide people in it.”

“So that’s what he planned … Not exactly Betty Thwaite’s type,” Farrell said, staring down at the man, “but politics makes strange bedfellows.” He straightened, his face grim. “But we’ve no time for postmortems. I’ve talked to Dundu by radio, and as soon as I give him the all-clear he’s sending a helicopter for you both.” He turned to Mrs. Pollifax and said angrily, “Dundu told me over the radio that President Kaunda’s opening a new school in Lusaka on Sunday afternoon, the day after your safari ends. It’s his only public appearance until August, and it’s been heavily publicized.”

“Oh-oh,” said Cyrus.

“Yes. And if your Aristotle really exists,” he said, his face hardening, “then I can’t imagine his returning to Zambia at a later date when he’s already here now. Sunday would have to be the day.”

“Sunday?” said Mrs. Pollifax in horror. “So soon?”

“It gives us forty-eight hours.” He turned to look at Amy’s body and sighed. “Cover her with one of the sleeping bags, Patu. In her own way—I scarcely care to admit it—she was a warrior. At least she wasn’t a paid mercenary like Sikota and the rest of this unholy group.”

“Lieutenant Bwanausi has the list now?” asked Cyrus.

Farrell nodded. “He has the list and he’s probably circling now over Kafwala camp waiting to hear from me.

Chanda’s been of enormous help to them, but unfortunately they didn’t make contact with Chanda until this morning, and his information was outdated by then because you’d headed off in this direction. Incidentally, Duchess,” he added, and a faint smile softened the grim-ness of his face, “Dundu reports they asked a ransom for you of fifty thousand kwacha.”

“Now that’s positively insulting,” said Cyrus. “About thirty thousand in American dollars, isn’t it?”

“Never mind, I’m alive,” said Mrs. Pollifax, wrenching her gaze away from Amy’s shrouded figure. Her eyes moved from the dying fire to the sky overhead, and then to the burial ground hidden by darkness, and back to the man at their feet. She said bleakly, “The helicopter will come, then, and whisk us away from all this, but what happens next, Farrell?”

He nodded. “You go back to Lusaka and wait,” he told her. “Spend tomorrow and Saturday recovering. Do a little sightseeing and try to forget tonight, because it’s been a shock for you both. But I promise you this,” he said in a hard voice. “There’ll be no assassination, Duchess, and KK will safely open his school on Sunday afternoon. I’ll promise you another thing, too,” he added. ‘I’ll meet you and Cyrus for lunch at your hotel on Sunday and I’ll deliver to you the name and identity of Aristotle.”

“Just like that?” said Cyrus.

“Just like that,” promised Farrell, and turning to Patu he said, “Get me the radio now, Patu, we have a long night of work ahead.”

CHAPTER 14

It was Sunday morning and Mrs. Pollifax stood outside the hotel entrance watching Dr. Henry pack his ancient Land Rover. It was already filled to the roof with cartons of medical supplies and bolts of brightly colored cloth, and Cyrus was strapping the last suitcase to the luggage rack. The two days of hedonistic pleasure that Farrell had prescribed for them had never materialized. Much of Friday had been spent at police headquarters making and signing statements, followed by a highly censored interview with a Times of Zambia newsman and a great deal of picture-taking. She and Cyrus had briefly shopped for souvenirs yesterday, but it had been impossible to forget what was going on behind the scenes. The safari party’s return at midday, escorted by Lieutenant Bwanausi, had been a sufficient reminder, and Cyrus had not been allowed to see Lisa until late afternoon. Nor had she been able to sleep well: her dreams were haunted by fears that Aristotle would kill again and that the assassination, already set in motion, would somehow—in some mysterious way—take place in spite of the police.

Lisa, standing beside Mrs. Pollifax, turned and gave her a radiant smile. “It’s all so incredible, isn’t it?” she said. “Do you think that as soon as I arrived in Zambia something inside of me knew?”

“I think it’s wonderful, and just right for you,” Mrs. Pollifax told her warmly.

“And to think that it hit us both the same way,” Lisa told her in an astonished voice. “And frightened us so much we kept our distance, not trusting it. I know how / felt … I sat at the campfire that first night talking to John and thinking we were going to have a very pleasant safari flirtation, and then I looked up and saw Tom and I thought—I just thought, Oh, my God. Like that.”

Listening to her, Mrs. Pollifax could almost forget— but not quite—that in a few minutes she would be meeting Farrell. She smiled at Chanda, who was playing with her multicolored parasol, opening it and closing it and grinning, except that it was no longer hers because she had given it to Chanda at breakfast. “It’s a bupe,” she’d told him after conferring with Tom on the Bemba word for gift. Now she asked Lisa, “Will you be married here or in Connecticut?”

Lisa laughed. “All I know is that Tom, the scrupulous guy, insists that I first see his hospital—and the funny house with a tin roof we’ll live in—and then we’ll make plans and I’ll fly home and tell Dad.”

Her father, joining them, looked at his watch and said to Mrs. Pollifax, “Nearly time, my dear. Ten minutes to twelve.”

Lisa gave them each a curious glance. “You have a lunch date with that mysterious Mr. Farrell, haven’t you. Will you tell us someday—you and Dad—what really happened to you out in the bush?”

“I’d tell you now,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “except that it’s not our story to tell. Not yet, at least.” Not until we’ve seen Farrell, she reminded herself, and put this thought aside as Chanda came to say goodbye to her, the glorious multicolored parasol held high over his head.

“Goodbye, Chanda nunandi,” she told him, gravely shaking his hand. “It’s been a very real joy knowing you, and I hope—oh dear,” she gasped, feeling a spoke of the umbrella become entangled in her hat

Cyrus began to laugh.

“What is it?”

Cyrus and Tom surrounded her, and the umbrella was carefully disentangled from her hat. Lisa giggled. “It’s that red feather,” she told her. “It’s sticking straight up in the air, all fifteen or twenty inches of it. You look like an Indian chief.”

“Very charming Indian chief,” Cyrus said, grasping her arm. “No time to mend it, either. Goodbye, Tom … Lisa, keep in touch.”

“You too,” she called after them.

Hurrying through the lobby toward the Coffee Hut, Mrs. Pollifax, aware of a surprising number of glances directed at her, said, “Cyrus, my hat—?”

“Very eye-catching,” he told her truthfully. “Sets a new style. There—made it,” he said, seating her at a table and taking the chair opposite her. “Nervous?”

“Of course I’m nervous,” she told him, placing her sun-goggles and her purse on the table. “I’ve been nervous ever since Farrell  telephoned  to  say  they’ve  arrested Aristotle and he’d tell us about at twelve.”

“Should think you’d feel relieved, not nervous. Satisfied, happy.”

Of course I’m not being logical” she conceded, “but I find it so difficult to dislike people. I know they’re frequently

selfish or opinionated and  egotistical, or dull or contrary

and sometimes dishonest,   but if one expects nothing

from them it’s astonishing how fascinating they

are, and always full of surprises. You see, I liked everyone on our safari, which makes Farrell’s message very worrisome. It means I can expect to be upset soon.”

He said accusingly, “Couldn’t possibly have liked Amy Lovecraft.”

“No, but she—I do feel sorry for her, you know.”

“Ha,” snorted Cyrus. “Got herself into it. Who was it said ‘character is destiny’?”

“But that’s just it,” Mrs. Pollifax told him eagerly. “Life is so much a matter of paths chosen and paths not taken, and Amy seems unerringly to have chosen all the paths that would lead to her appointment with Sikota the other night. I can’t help feeling cosmic undertones, Cyrus. It’s like watching A lead to D, and then to M, and eventually to Z for all of us.”

“All of us?”

She nodded. “Yes, because six days ago at this hour Amy was still alive, and although we didn’t know it, Farrell was down south looking for her, and you and I were sitting here having lunch together—”

”—and Aristotle, whoever he is, was buckling on his moneybelt?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said earnestly. “It would be a numbered account in Switzerland, wouldn’t it?”

“Whatever you say, my dear,” he told her blandly, “since you’re so much more accustomed to this sort of thing than I. About that quiet life you said you lead… raising geraniums, was it?”

“I said that in general I live a very quiet life,” she reminded him virtuously. “I do think there’s a difference between living a quiet life and in general living a quiet life.”

“Splitting hairs, my dear.”

“Well, but—yes, I am,” she admitted, giving him a dazzling smile. “And you noticed, didn’t you.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Farrell interrupted, pulling up a chair and joining them. “I’m afraid I can’t stop for lunch with you, either, damn it, because I’ve got to head south and meet Jonesi in—” He stopped in midsentence, staring at Mrs. Pollifax. “Good God, Duchess, your hat?”

“Never mind the hat,” she pleaded. “Who is Aristotle?”

“John Steeves.”

“Steeves? Good heavens,” said Cyrus.

“Now I really do feel upset,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax. “I’m glad Lisa isn’t hearing this. Farrell, are the police sure? Has he confessed?”

“I don’t think you can expect a confession only hours after an arrest,” Farrell told her, and with a glance at the hovering waiter, “Later, if you don’t mind, we’re not ordering yet … No, Steeves hasn’t confessed, in fact he’s refused even to give his home address or next of kin. The man’s being completely uncooperative, which seems almost as incriminating as the parts of a gun and a silencer that were found in his luggage—apparently smuggled past Customs somehow—and the fact that, according to his passport, he was in France on the day that Messague was assassinated.”

He hesitated, and Mrs. Pollifax said, “There’s more?”

He nodded. “A notebook with scribblings in a code we’ve not been able to puzzle out yet, but on the last page—sorry, Duchess—a list of four names with dates: Messague, September fifth, which happens to be the day he was assassinated, Malaga, October thirtieth, and the names Hastings and O’Connell, which mean nothing to us at the moment but are being checked out. We think the last two were assassinations, too.”

“Unbelievable,” said Cyrus.

Farrell shrugged. “Perhaps, but would you have believed Amy Lovecraft was a Rhodesian named Betty Thwaite, or that the Duchess here was snapping pictures hoping to record an assassin’s face?”

“Steeves,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, trying to assimilate this. A room with a door marked Keep Out, and Lisa saying, He seems caught somehow—and terribly sad about it. “Farrell, he had to have been blackmailed into it,” she said. “There’s no other explanation. Have you met him?”

Farrell looked amused. “Those sad spaniel eyes of his, you mean? I’m told women always want to mother a man who looks as if he’s suffered, and perhaps he has, but I’d have to cast my vote for a troubled mind. Yes, I’ve met him.”

“I wonder why he doesn’t defend himself,” she said, frowning, “although I suppose if he’s Aristotle there’s not much he can say. He’s in prison?”

“Definitely in prison, yes, or President Kaunda wouldn’t be dedicating the Moses Msonthi School at one o’clock today. Duchess, you’ve too soft a heart, it’s time you retired too.”

“It’s just that he seemed genuinely fond of Lisa,” she pointed out, “and it’s so difficult to imagine any assassin being attracted to a woman and looking as if he cared.”

“Someone,” said Cyrus, “undoubtedly made the same remark about Jack the Ripper, my dear.”

“Yes, but—all right,” she conceded. “I’m sorry, it’s probably the shock. What will happen to him now, Farrell?”

“For the moment, not a great deal,” he said. “The man’s safely tucked away, which is the main thing, booked for illegal possession of a weapon, and for smuggling that weapon into the country. It was all very discreetly handled after the safari ended, and now they’ve gained time to collect further evidence. Your Mclntosh, by the way, turns out to be Mclntosh Magruder—I thought that might interest you.”

“The billionaire recluse?” said Mrs. Pollifax, startled.

”Multibillionaire recluse.”

“Thought he never came out of seclusion,” said Cyrus.

“Apparently even the Magruders of this world listen to their doctor. Magruder had been ill and his doctor advised some travel and a change of scenery. That’s who Mclntosh is, while Willem Kleiber jets around the world selling earthmoving machinery to developing countries.”

“Very appropriate for a man who is anything but earth-shaking,” commented Cyrus.

“Yes. Prim little man, isn’t he? Duchess, have you been in touch with Carstairs since you came out of the bush?”

She shook her head. “It costs twelve dollars to call the United States for three minutes,” she told him. “I asked. So I thought I’d wait until I could present him with Aristotle’s identity, which I think” she added, “he’d find well worth a twelve-dollar call.”

“Frugal to the end,” said Farrell, “except for those hats of yours. Duchess, what happened?” He stared fascinated at the feather that shot into the air like an antenna.

“Sorry you mentioned it,” Cyrus said in his mild voice. “Been trying not to notice it myself.”

“I had a small accident with a parasol,” she explained with dignity, “and I will presently find a safety pin and tie the feather down, since it’s the only real hat I brought. Farrell, do you think Carstairs will have heard about our abduction?”

He smiled. “Don’t sound so wistful, Duchess, I doubt it. You were in and out of the bush too fast to reach the American papers. Front-page news here, though. I can’t help noticing how the waiters are staring at you. Unless, of course, it’s the hat.” He glanced at his watch and sighed. “Duchess, I loathe goodbyes, but there’s this long drive ahead of me—”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “We’ve scarcely had time to talk, but I can’t complain when you and Jonesi saved our lives.”

“I owed you that, you know. It makes us even,” he told her with his quick smile. “Duchess, you’ll have to come back to Zambia soon. With Cyrus, perhaps, to visit Lisa? Only, for heaven’s sake don’t advertise for me in the newspaper next time, Duchess, or it’ll cost me my head. You can always reach me in care of Qabaniso Bwanausi at our farm, I’ve written down the address for you.” He opened her purse and slipped a piece of paper inside, and then he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Goodbye, Cyrus, I certainly like your style … As for you, Duchess, one of these days—oh to hell with it, I’ll just give you a quick kiss, a God bless and go.”

He leaned over and hugged her, and with a nod and a wave to Cyrus he walked away.

“Oh—Farrell!” called Mrs. Pollifax after him.

He turned. “Yes?”

“I was to ask you very formally and very officially if you’d like to return to your old job. Carstairs misses you.”

He grinned. “I’ll take care of that myself, Duchess. Same cable address?”

“Same cable address.”

He waved and walked out, and Cyrus said, “Damn decent chap, your Farrell, even if he doesn’t know a soapbox derby from a horse race.”

“Yes,” she said, blowing her nose, and then she gave him a distracted smile and said, “Cyrus, would you mind terribly if we don’t have lunch now? I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

“I don’t wonder,” he said, helping her up from her chair. “A walk should do us both good.”

“Thank you. I can’t say that I even arrived with an appetite,” she told him as they walked out of the restaurant into the lobby of the hotel. “The suspense made me edgy all morning, and now I simply can’t eat when John Steeves—when he—and then Farrell going, too—”

“Perfectly understandable,” he said.

He steered her through a crowd of people waiting for the elevator and came to a stop as the door of a descending elevator slid open and discharged a fresh crowd of people into the lobby. They stood patiently while the two groups exchanged places, the one swarming into the elevator, the other pushing their way through. Once in motion again, she and Cyrus fell into step behind a tall man in a turban who was hurrying toward the hotel exit. Just to one side of him walked a shorter man whose erect posture caught Mrs. Pollifax’s eye next, and she transferred her gaze to him. There was something very familiar about that walk,  she decided, and then she thought, Of course—a strut with a stutter. She said to Cyrus, smiling, “That’s Mr. Kleiber ahead of us, Cyrus, let’s catch up with him and ask—”

She stiffened as the man glanced off to the right and she saw his face. It wasn’t Mr. Kleiber, it was a black man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, and so it couldn’t be Mr. Kleiber, and yet—and yet it was Mr. Kleiber, she realized in astonishment, recognizing his nose and forehead, except that it was a Willem Kleiber without a goatee and changed, somehow, into a Zambian. She saw him walk through the glass doors and signal to a taxi and she gasped, “Cyrus, it is Kleiber—run!” and breaking free she raced after him.

“Taxi!” she cried as Mr. Kleiber drove away. A second taxi slid up to her, she fumbled with the door, jumped inside and gasped, “Please—follow the car that just pulled away. Hurry!”

The taxi shot ahead just as Cyrus reached the curb. Through the open window Mrs. Pollifax shouted to him, “Call Dundu—call someone! Help!”

CHAPTER 15

Cyrus, suddenly bereft of his lunch partner, stared after the vanishing taxi in horror. One moment Mrs. Pollifax had been with him, and the next not. He’d distinctly heard her say, “Cyrus, that’s Mr. Kleiber ahead of us,” and then the man had turned his head and revealed a gleaming black Zambian face, and obviously the man wasn’t Kleiber at all. But Emily had gasped, “It is Kleiber—run,” and had left his side with the speed of a gazelle and now she was gone, heaven only knew where, shouting something about Dundu and help.

He walked back into the lobby and sat down, mourning the slowness of his reflexes and reminding himself that six days with Emily Pollifax should have proven to him that he had to be on his toes every minute. No slides, he thought, grateful for this, but instead a woman who gave sudden shouts and vanished. He wished fervently that he’d reached the taxi in time to go with her.

Again he wondered why she’d jumped into that taxi, because there had to be a reason for it. What would Kleiber be doing wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a charcoal pin-striped suit and a black skin? He supposed that some sort of dye could be injected into the veins, or perhaps there were pills for that sort of thing, but the idea was insane. Still, Emily had believed it was Kleiber. Possibly she was overwrought after hearing the news about Steeves, but Emily, he decided, wouldn’t be overwrought. If nearly being killed by Amy and Simon hadn’t done the trick, he really didn’t suppose anything could. And of course she knew now that Steeves was Aristotle, so why—?

He sat considering this until he felt a chill run down his spine, and then race up again, and when it bit the base of his skull he rose and walked over to the desk. “Look here,” he said, “I want to put in a call to the police.”

“Something wrong, sir?”

“Don’t know but I want to call the police.”

“This way, sir.” The desk clerk led him into a private office and pointed to a telephone on the desk. “There you are, sir. Ring the operator and she’ll connect you.”

A moment later Cyrus was struggling to pronounce a name which he’d never seen spelled, and had only heard in passing. “A Lieutenant Dundu Bonozzi,” he said. “Have to speak to him right away.”

“Sorry sir, he’s not here,” said the man at the other end of the line.

“Could be a matter of life and death,” Cyrus told him, feeling damnably awkward at saying such a thing. “Any way of contacting him?”

“He’s at the Moses Msonthi School—guard detail, sir.

You can leave a message and we’ll try to get it to him if he phones in.”

“Yes,” said Cyrus, feeling this was reasonable and at the same time trying to think of a way to express his unease. “All right, let’s try this one. Ready?”

“Ready, sir.”

“Here we are: ‘Are you certain you have the right Aristotle? Kleiber left hotel as black man, Mrs. Pollifax in pursuit.”

“A very odd message, sir.”

“Indeed it is,” said Cyrus uncomfortably. “Look here, anybody else there I can speak to?” But even as he said this he realized how entangled he could become in trying to explain a European in blackface to a stranger; Dundu was the only person who would understand. “Never mind,” he said, “what’s the name of that school again?”

“The Moses Msonthi School, sir. Manchichi Road.”

“Right. I’ll look for him there.”

He hurried out to the entrance to find that, perversely, there were no taxis now. He paced and fumed, considered the state of his blood pressure and consulted his watch: it was 12:40 and Farrell had said the dedication ceremonies began at one o’clock … When a taxi finally arrived it was 12:45 and he was too grateful to express his sense of aggrievement. He climbed in and directed the driver to the school.

“Oh yes, sir, yes, sir,” the driver said with a big smile. “Our president opens the school today. Very nice, very beautiful school for girls.”

“Yes … well, see if you can get me there fast,” he told him, and tried to think of what he’d do when he reached the school. There’d be crowds, he supposed; a big event opening a new school, probably speeches, perhaps not, but certainly crowds. He hadn’t the slightest idea how he’d find Dundu, or whether Emily would turn up there too. Perhaps by now she’d discovered the man was a bona fide Zambian, except that if it really was Kleiber … Better not think about that, he decided, and practiced taking deep breaths to remain calm. The streets were relatively empty of traffic since it was Sunday and the shops were closed, but as they neared Manchichi Road the traffic increased. Cyrus paid off the driver a block away from the school and set out to find Dundu Bwanausi, not even certain that he’d mastered the man’s name yet.

Mrs. Pollifax sat on the edge of her seat watching the taxi ahead and contributing frequent comments to spur the driver on. “He’s wanted by the police,” she confided, feeling that some explanation was becoming necessary and hoping that what she said was true but hoping at the same time that it wasn’t. “Not too close, driver, we mustn’t be noticed. Have you any idea where they’re heading?”

“We are very near Manchichi Road, madam, perhaps he goes to watch our President dedicate a school.”

Oh God, she thought, and said aloud, “Do you mean the Moses Msonthi School?”

“Yes, madam. This is Manchichi Road we turn into now, and the taxi ahead is going to the school, see? It stops now.”

She began fumbling in her purse for money. “I’ll get out now, I hope this is enough,” she said, thrusting kwacha notes on him, and as he drew up to the curb she added, “But will you do something important for me, driver? Will you call the police and tell them—tell them Aristotle is at the Msonthi School? Aristotle.”

“Aristotle. Yes, madam.” He gave her a curious glance.

She climbed out and gave him a long, earnest look. “I’m depending on you, I’m depending desperately on you.”

“Yes, madam.”

Up ahead she saw Mr. Kleiber strolling around the edge of the crowd looking for a place to enter it. She hurried toward him, mentally rehearsing what possible karate blow might fell him before he could shoot President Kaunda, because of course that had to be the only reason he was here in his masquerade, which meant that her instincts about John Steeves had proven sound after all, except that Steeves was now in prison and here was Aristotle still free, and no one knew …

It was frightening.

The sun was glittering, and shone on women in colorful blouses and skirts with babies slung over their shoulders, on barefooted children and men in overalls and in solemn Sunday best. A very neat avenue had been left clear for the President, she noticed. She saw Kleiber examine it and then, before she could reach him, he slipped into the crowd and vanished from sight.

Lieutenant Bwanausi was idling near a police car at the southern corner of the crowd, waiting to see his President, whose photograph hung on every wall of his small home. One of his friends passed and called out a greeting, and then came over and shook hands with him, asking how things went with him. Dundu thought back on his week’s work, recalled how close an assassin had come to threatening the life of his President, and said that life went very well for him indeed. His friend strolled on, and hearing the crackle of static from the car radio behind him, Dundu reached for the microphone. “Bwanausi here.”

At first he didn’t understand what Soko was saying. “How is this, your speaking the name Aristotle, Soko,” he said. “Two messages?”

First, it seemed, there had been the message from a man at the Hotel Intercontinental, which Soko now read to him. “But Dundu,” he protested, “I thought the man was drunk. Now a second call has come in from a taxi driver. He says he and a woman chased a taxi to Man-chichi Road, and this woman pleaded with him to call us and say that Aristotle is at the school.”

Dundu felt a spasm of fear. Was this possible? Could John Steeves not be Aristotle after all? Yet how could this be, given the evidence? “Man, this is bad news,” he told Soko. “Is it too late to reach KK’s party? Aristotle is the code name of the assassin we thought we jailed last night.”

There was a stunned silence. “Oh God,” said Soko. “I’ll try, Dundu, I’ll try.”

“Do that, send out a—” He stopped as he heard the sirens. “Too late, the President’s here, Soko.” He dropped the microphone and began running …

Mrs. Pollifax pushed her way through the crowd trying to find Mr. Kleiber, but now in her panic everybody had begun to look like Mr. Kleiber and she couldn’t distinguish one face from the next. She stopped and forced herself to be calm, and instead of elbowing her way deeper into the crowd she turned and pushed her way toward the avenue down which the President would walk. Reaching the front row, she thanked a man who had let her pass and leaned out to look down the avenue. One glance was enough: she saw the President climbing out of a limousine and shaking hands with a number of people grouped around the car. She turned her head and looked to her left and saw Kleiber standing in line only twenty feet away from her, one hand in his pocket, a faint smile on his lips, his face remote, almost dreaming. Mrs. Pollifax turned and began to struggle toward him.

Cyrus had given up trying to find Lieutenant Bwanausi. He had withdrawn to a playground behind the crowd and had climbed to the top of a convenient jungle gym, from which he could sit and keep an eye out for a familiar face. He held little hope of finding one now, and if he didn’t he wondered if Emily would expect him to throw himself across the President’s path. Probably, he thought, and hearing a sudden ripple of cheers from off to his right, he realized that it was one o’clock and that President Kaunda must have arrived and that he’d better do something. Before climbing down he took one last look at the knots and clusters of people on the fringe of the crowd, framed against the wall of heads beyond, and then he realized that for several minutes he’d been absently watching something—a red stick or a pennant—move determinedly from a point on his right toward an unknown point on his left. Staring at it intently now, his eyes narrowing, it stirred his memory.

Emily’s feather, he thought in astonishment, and taking a quick fix on it he climbed down from his jungle gym and hurried to the edge of the crowd, entered it at some distance ahead of where he judged Emily to be, and alternately pushed and shoved his way inward. He was in luck: the first time he stopped to look for the feather he spotted it some twenty feet away. Assuming that Emily was under it, he moved forward to intercept her, and at that moment the crowd shifted and he saw her. He also saw, not far away from her, the back of a man wearing a charcoal pin-striped suit: Kleiber.

Emily had seen Kleiber too. She crept forward, the feather at a ridiculous slant now, and when she moved in beside the man, Cyrus, thrusting aside several small children to reach her, guessed what she was planning to do. She had just lifted her right hand when Kleiber turned his head and looked at her. Cyrus saw them exchange a long glance, and then he saw the gun in Kleiber’s hand and he caught his breath, appalled. Slowly Kleiber lifted the gun and pointed it at Mrs. Pollifax, who froze, staring at him in astonishment.

Cyrus gasped, “Not karate, Emily—judo now.” Memories of long-ago gymnasium classes came back to him, of a dreary evening spent in throwing and being thrown to the mat, and with only a fleeting thought to brittle bones, Cyrus hurled himself across the twelve feet of space that separated them. His shoulders met solid flesh, there was a crunch of bone meeting bone, several sharp cries, and he and Emily Pollifax, Willem Kleiber and two small boys fell to the ground together.

Only Dundu Bwanausi, racing to them from the opposite side, knew that five people had not been accidentally pushed to the ground by the crowd. He leaned over Kleiber with a grim face, pocketed the man’s gun and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. He picked up the two crying children and dusted them off. He gave Cyrus a hand, and then he helped Mrs. Pollifax to her feet and carefully restored her hat to her. Only when he looked into her face did his expression change. He said softly, fervently, “Oh madam, zikomo—zikomo kuambeia, ten thousand times zikomo …”

But Cyrus, too, had something to say. “Damn it, Emily,” he complained, “only way to keep an eye on you is marry you. Think we could find a quiet corner and talk about that?”

CHAPTER 16

In Langley, Virginia, it was Monday morning and Car-stairs, returning from an early conference Upstairs, was scowling.

“Something wrong?” asked Bishop, looking at him curiously. “Or wronger than usual?”

Carstairs poured himself a cup of coffee before answering. “Not really,” he said, “except that my ego’s suffered a small blow.”

“Oh?”

Carstairs made a face. “You know I’ve never enjoyed being outmaneuvered by the British … Upstairs asked for a review of the Aristotle file this morning, and damned if Liaison didn’t report that British Intelligence has a man on Aristotle’s trail too.”

Bishop began to understand. He said with a grin, “You mean one of Emily’s safari companions was an Ml agent?”

Carstairs nodded. “Some travel writer or other. Seems a damned waste of talent.”

Bishop chuckled. “Think he was taking snapshots too?” He had a sudden vivid picture of Mrs. Pollifax and a British agent swarming over the safari with their cameras.

“It’s no longer important,” Carstairs said, shrugging. “The safari ended Saturday and we’ll soon have Mrs. Pollifax’s photographs, and we can pool the results with London and Interpol. The pictures are what matter, although I’m certainly hoping she’ll bring us Farrell as a dividend. I wonder if they’ve had their reunion yet …”

“As a matter of fact they have, sir.”

Carstairs put down his cup of coffee and stared. “You’ve heard from her?”

“No,” said Bishop, “but this cable arrived from Zambia while you were in conference. It’s from John Sebastian himself, no less, datelined 2 P.M. yesterday Zambian time.”

Carstairs brightened. “Marvelous! Is he coming back to us?”

“No,” said Bishop, and read aloud:

SORRY CHAPS BOOKED SOLID FOR NEXT FEW YEARS STOP SUGGEST YOU BOOK EMILY HOWEVER BEFORE CYRUS BEATS YOU TO IT STOP DELIGHTED TO FIND DUCHESS STILL INDESTRUCTIBLE ALTHOUGH NOT FOR WANT OF TRYING STOP RETURNING HER TO YOU ONLY SLIGHTLY BRUISED WITH LOVE AND KISSES FARRELL.

“Now what,” said Carstairs, “is that all about?” “I suspect he’d been drinking, sir,” said Bishop, and tossed the cable into the wastebasket.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16