Passenger to Frankfurt Read online

47

  but she did not. She gathered up her wrap, moved out of

  the row of chairs, and with a slightly accelerated step, moved

  along with other people and disappeared in the crowd.

  Stafford Nye regained his car and drove home. Arrived

  there, he spread out the Festival Hall programme on his

  desk and examined it carefully, after putting the coffee to

  percolate.

  The programme was disappointing to say the least of it.

  There did not appear to be any message inside. Only on

  one page above the list of the items, were the pencil marks

  that he had vaguely observed. But they were not words or

  letters or even figures. They appeared to be merely a musical

  notation. It was as though someone had scribbled a phrase

  of music with a somewhat inadequate pencil. For a moment

  it occurred to Stafford Nye there might perhaps be a secret

  message he could bring out by applying heat. Rather gingerly,

  and in a way rather ashamed of his melodramatic fancy, he

  held it towards the bar of the electric fire but nothing resulted.

  With a sigh he tossed the programme back on to the table.

  But he 'felt justifiably annoyed. All this rigmarole, a rendezvous

  on a windy and rainy bridge overlooking the river! Sitting

  through a concert by the side of a woman of whom he

  yearned to ask at least a dozen questions--and at the end of

  it? Nothing! No further on. Still, she had met him. But why?

  If she didn't want to speak to him, to make further arrangements

  with him, why had she come at all?

  His eyes passed idly across the room to his bookcase

  which he reserved for various thrillers, works of detective

  fiction and an occasional volume of science fiction; he shook

  his head. -Fiction, he thought, was infinitely superior to

  real life,' Dead bodies, mysterious telephone calls, beautiful

  foreign spies in profusion! However, this particular elusive

  lady might not have done with him yet. Next time, he thought,

  he would make some arrangements of his own. Two could

  play at the game that she was playing.

  He pushed aside the programme and drank another cup

  of coffee and went to the window. He had the programme

  still in his hand. As he looked out towards the street below

  his eyes fell back again on the open programme in his hand

  and he hummed to himself, almost unconsciously. He had a

  good ear for music and he could hum the notes that were

  scrawled there quite easily. Vaguely they sounded familiar

  as he hummed them. He increased his voice a little. What was

  it now? Turn, turn, turn turn ti-tum. Turn. Turn. Yes, definitely

  familiar.

  48

  He started opening his letters.

  They were mostly uninteresting. A couple of invitations,

  one from the American Embassy, one from Lady Athelhampton,

  a Charity Variety performance which Royalty

  would attend and for which it was suggested five guineas

  would not be an exorbitant fee to obtain a seat. He threw

  them aside lightly. He doubted very much whether he wished

  to accept any of them. He decided that instead of remaining

  in London he would without more ado go and see his Aunt

  Matilda, as he had promised. He was fond of his Aunt Matilda

  though he did not visit her very often. She lived in a rehabilitated

  apartment consisting of a series of rooms in one

  wing of a large Georgian manor house in the country which

  she had inherited from his grandfather. She had a large,

  beautifully proportioned sitting-room, a small oval diningroom,

  a new kitchen made from the old housekeeper's room,

  two bedrooms for guests, a large comfortable bedroom for

  herself with an adjoining bathroom, and adequate quarters

  for a patient companion who shared her daily life. The remains

  of a faithful domestic staff were well provided for and housed.

  The rest of the house remained under dust sheets with periodical

  cleaning. Stafford Nye was fond of the place, having spent

  holidays there as a boy. It had been a gay house then. His

  eldest uncle had lived there with his wife and their two

  children. Yes, it had been pleasant there then. There had been

  money and a sufficient staff to run it. He had not specially

  noticed in those days the portraits and pictures. There had

  been large-sized examples of Victorian art occupying pride of

  place--overcrowding the walls, but there had been other

  masters of an older age. Yes, "there had been some good

  portraits there. A Raebum, two Lawrences, a Gainsborough,

  a Leiy, two rather dubious Vandykes. A couple of Turners,

  too. Some of them had had to be sold to provide the family

  with money. He still enjoyed when visiting there strolling about

  and studying the family pictures.

  His Aunt Matilda was a great chatterbox but she always

  enjoyed his visits. He was fond of her in a desultory way,

  but he was not quite sure why it was that he had suddenly

  wanted to visit her now. And what it was that had brought

  family portraits into his mind? Could it have been because

  there was a portrait of his sister Pamela by one of the leading artists of the day twenty years ago. He would like to see "lat portrait of Pamela and look at it more closely. See how

  close the resemblance had been between the stranger who

  49

  had disrupted his life in this really outrageous fashion an

  his sister.

  He picked up the Festival Hall programme again wi* some irritation and began to hum the pencilled notes. Tui

  turn, ti turn--Then it came to him and he knew what it was It was the Siegfried motif. Siegfried's Horn. The youi

  Siegfried motif. That was what the woman had said last nigh

  Not apparently to him, not apparently to anybody. But :

  had been the message, a message that would have mean nothing to anyone around since it would have seemed t

  refer to the music that had just been played. And the moti

  had been written on his programme also in musical termi

  The Young Siegfried. It must have meant something. Wel

  perhaps further enlightenment would come. The Youn

  Siegfried. What the heU did that mean? Why and ho^ and when and what? Ridiculous! All those questioning words

  He rang the telephone and obtained Aunt Matilda's numbel

  'But of course, Staffy dear, it will be lovely to have yol

  Take the four-thirty train, it still runs, you know, but i

  gets here an hour and a half later. And it leaves Paddingto

  later--five-fifteen. That's what they mean by improving th

  railways, I suppose. Stops at several most absurd stations o

  the way. All right. Horace will meet you at King's Marston

  'He's still there then?'

  'Of course he's still there.'

  'I suppose he is,' said Sir Stafford Nye.

  Horace, once a groom, then a coachman, had survive

  as a chauffeur, and apparently was still surviving. 'He mus

  be at least eighty,' said Sir Stafford. He smiled to bimsell

  Chapter 6

  PORTRAIT OF A LADY

  'You look very nice and brown, dear,' said Aunt Matild

  surveying him appreciatively. 'That's Malaya, I suppose. I it was Malaya you went t
o? Or was it Siam or Thailand

  They change the names of all these places and really i

  makes it very difficult. Anyway, it wasn't Vietnam, wa

  it? You know, I don't like the sound of Vietnam at al It's all very confusing. North Vietnam and South Vietnar

  and the Viet-Cong and the Viet--whatever the other thin is and all wanting to fight each other and nobody wantin

  50

  to stop. They won't go to Paris or wherever it is and sit

  round tables and talk sensibly. Don't you think really, dear

  --'I've been thinking it over and I thought it would be a

  very nice solution--couldn't you make a lot of football

  fields and then they could all go and fight each other there,

  but with less lethal weapons. Not that nasty palm burning

  stuff. You know. Just hit each other and punch each other

  and all that. They'd enjoy it, everyone would enjoy it and

  you could charge admission for people to go and see them

  do it. I do think really that we don't understand giving

  people the things they really want.'

  'I think it's a very fine idea of yours, Aunt Matilda,' said

  Sir Stafford Nye as he kissed a pleasantly perfumed, pale

  pink wrinkled cheek. 'And how are you, my dear?'

  'Well, I'm old,' said Lady Matilda Cleckheaton. "Yes, I'm

  old. Of course you don't know what it is to be old. If it

  isn't one thing it's another. Rheumatism or arthritis or a nasty

  bit of asthma or a sore throat or an ankle you've turned.

  ,' Always something, you know. Nothing very important. But

  there it is. Why have you come to see me, dear?'

  ' Sir Stafford was slightly taken aback by the directness of

  the query.

  J "I usually come and see you when I return from a trip I abroad.'

  'You'll have to come one chair nearer,' said Aunt Matilda.

  Tm just that bit deafer since you saw me last. You look

  different . . . Why do you look different?'

  'Because I'm more sunburnt. You said so.'

  'Nonsense, that's not what I mean at all. Don't tell me

  it's a girl at last.'

  A girl?'

  'Well, I've always felt it might be one some day. The

  trouble is you've got too much sense of humour.'

  'Now why should you think that?'

  'Well, it's what people do think about you. Oh yes, they

  do. Your sense of humour is in the way of your career, too,

  You know, you're all mixed up with all these people. Diplomatic

  and political. What they call younger statesmen and

  elder statesmen and middle statesmen too. And all those

  different Parties. Really I think it's too silly to have too

  many Parties. First of all those awful, awful Labour people.'

  She raised her Conservative nose into the air. 'Why, when

  I was a girl there wasn't such a thing as a Labour Party.

  Nobody would have known what you meant by it. They'd

  have said "nonsense". Pity it wasn't nonsense, too. And then

  51

  there's the Liberals, of course, but they're terribly wet. And

  then there are the Tones, or the Conservatives as they call

  themselves again now.'

  'And what's the matter with them?' asked Stafford Nye,

  smiling slightly.

  Too many earnest women. Makes them lack gaiety, you

  know.'

  'Oh well, no political party goes in for gaiety much nowadays.'

  'Just so,' said Aunt Matilda. 'And then of course that's

  where you go wrong. You want to cheer things up. You

  want to have a little gaiety and so you make a little gentle

  fun at people and of course they don't like it. They say "Ce

  n'est pas un gar if on serieux," like that man in the fishing.'

  Sir Stafford Nye laughed. His eyes were wandering round

  the room.

  'What are you looking at?' said Lady Matilda.

  'Your pictures.'

  'You don't want me to sell them, do you? Everyone

  seems to be selling their pictures nowadays. Old Lord

  Grampion, you know. He sold his Turners and he sold

  some of his ancestors as well. And Geoffrey Gouldman.

  All those lovely horses of his. By Stubbs, weren't they?

  Something like that. Really, the prices one gets!

  'But I don't want to sell my pictures. I like them. Most

  of them in this room have a real interest because they're

  ancestors. I know nobody wants ancestors'nowadays but

  then I'm old-fashioned. I like ancestors. My own ancestors,

  I mean. What are you looking at? Pamela?'

  'Yes, I was. I was thinking about her the other day.'

  'Astonishing how alike you two are. I mean, it's not even

  as though you were twins, though they say that different

  sex twins, even if they are twins, can't be identical, if you

  know what I mean.'

  'So Shakespeare must have made rather a mistake over

  Viola and Sebastian.'

  'Well, ordinary brothers and sisters can be alike, can't

  they? You and Pamela were always very alike--to look at,

  I mean.'

  'Not in any other way? Don't you think we were alike in

  character?'

  'No, not in the least. That's the funny part of it. But of

  course you and Pamela have what 1 call the family face.

  Not a Nye face. I mean the Baldwen-White face.'

  her something about it. Perhaps I did read it AD very pure, I suppose. Not too sexy?'

  Certainly not We didn't have sexy books. We had romance.:

  The Prisoner of Zenda was very romantic. One fell in love, usually, with the hero, Rudolf Rassendyll.'

  'I seem to remember that name too. Bit florid, isn't it?'

  'Well, I still think it was rather a romantic name. Twelve

  years old, I must have been. It made me think of it, you

  know, your going up and loolung at that portrait. Princess

  Flavia,' she added.

  Stafford Nye was smiling at her.

  "You look young and pink and very sentimental,' he said.

  Well, that's just what I'm feeling. Girls can't feel like

  that nowadays. They're swooning with love, or they're fainting

  when somebody plays the guitar or sings in a very loud

  voice, but they're not sentimental. But I wasn't in love with

  Rudolf Rassendyll. I was in love with the other one--his

  double.'

  'Did he have a double?'

  'Oh yes, a king. The King of Ruritania.'

  Ah, of course, now I know. That's where the word

  Ruritania comes from: one is always throwing it about.

  Yes, I think I did read it, you know. The King of Ruritania, and Rudolf Rassendyll was stand-in for the King and fell

  in love with Princess Flavia to whom the King was officially

  betrothed.'

  Lady Matilda gave some more deep sighs.

  'Yes. Rudolf Rassendyll had inherited his red hair from

  an ancestress, and somewhere in the book he bows to the

  portrait and says something about the--I can't remember

  the name now--the Countess Amelia or something like that

  from whom he inherited his looks and all the rest of it. So I looked at you and thought of you as Rudolf Rassendyll

  and,you went out and looked at a picture of someone who

  ought have been an ancestress of yours and saw whether ^e reminded you of someone. / So you're mixed up in a

  romance of some kind, are you?'

  'What on earth makes you s
ay that?'

  'Well, there aren't so many patterns in life, you know.

  One recognizes patterns as they come up. It's like a book

  on knitting. About sixty-five different fancy stitches. Well,

  you know a particular stitch when you see it. Your stitch,

  at the moment, I should say, is the romantic adventure.'

  She sighed. 'But you won't tell me about it, I suppose.'

  There's nothing to tell,' said Sir Stafford. 55

  'You always were quite an accomplished liar. Well, never mind. You bring her to see me some time. That's all I'd

  like, before the doctors succeed in killing me with yet another

  type of antibiotic that they've just discovered. The

  different coloured pills I've had to take by this timel You

  wouldn't believe it.'

  'I don't know why you say "she" and "her"--'

  'Don't you? Oh, well, I know a she when I come across

  a she. There's a she somewhere dodging about in your life.

  What beats me is how you found her. In Malaya, at the

  conference table? Ambassador's daughter or minister's daughter?

  Good-looking secretary from the Embassy pool? No,

  none of it seems to fit. Ship coming home? No, you don't

  use ships nowadays. Plane, perhaps.'

  You are getting slightly nearer,' Sir Stafford Nye could

  not help saying.

  'Ah!' She pounced. 'Air hostess?'

  He shook his head.

  ''Ah well. Keep your secret. I shall find out, mind you.

  I've always had a good nose for things going on where

  you're concerned. Things generally as well. Of course I'm

  out of everything nowadays, but I meet my old cronies

  from time to time and it's quite easy, you know, to get a

  hint or two from them. People are worried. Everywhere--

  they're worried.'

  'You mean there's a general kind of discontent--upset?'

  'No, I didn't mean that at all. I mean the highups are

  worried. Our awful governments are worried. The dear old

  sleepy Foreign Office is worried. There are things going on,

  things that shouldn't be. Unrest.'

  Student unrest?'

  'Oh, student unrest is just one flower on the tree. It's blossoming

  everywhere and in every country, or so it seems.

  I've got a nice girl who comes, you know, and reads the

  papers to me in the mornings. I can't read them properly

  myself. She's got a nice voice. Takes down my letters and she

  reads things from the papers and she's a good kind girl.

  She reads the things I want to know, not the things that

  she thinks are right for me to know. Yes, everyone's worried,

  as far as I can make out and this, mind you, came more or

  less from a very old friend of mine.'

  'One of your old military cronies?'

  'He's a major-general, if that's what you mean, retired

  a good many years ago but still in the know. Youth is

  what you might call the spearhead of it all. But that's not

  56

  really what's so worrying. They--whoever they are--work

  through youth. Youth in every country. Youth urged on.

  Youth chanting slogans, slogans that sound exciting, though

  they don't always know what they mean. So easy to start

  a revolution. That's natural to youth. All youth has always

  rebelled. You rebel, you pull down, you want the world to

  be different from what it is. But you're blind, too.''There

  are bandages over the eyes of youth. They can't see where

  things are taking them. What's going to come next? What's

  in front of them? And who it is behind them, urging them

  on? That's what's frightening about it. You know, someone

  holding out the carrot to get the donkey to come along and

  at the same time there is someone behind the donkey urging

  it on with a stick.'

  'You've got some extraordinary fancies.*

  They're not only fancies, my dear boy. That's what people

  said about Hitler. Hitler and the Hitler Youth. But it was a

  long careful preparation. It was a war that was worked out

  in detail. It was a fifth column being planted in different

  countries all ready for the supermen. The supermen were

  to be the flower of the German nation. That's what they

  thought and believed in passionately. Somebody else is perhaps

  believing something like that now. It's a creed that

  they'll be willing to accept--if -it's offered cleverly enough.'

  'Who are you talking about? Do you mean the Chinese

  or the Russians? What do you mean?'

  'I don't know. I haven't the faintest idea. But there's something

  somewhere, and it's running on the same lines. Pattern

  again, you see. Pattern! The Russians? Bogged down by