Free Siege at the Villa Lipp by Eric Ambler

She surveyed us challengingly. ‘The answer is that it was not my idea. The camera and other things were given to me, with instructions, by the head of my faculty, Professor Langridge.’
    Krom yelped again. ‘Langridge! You mean that you told him about this conference?’
    ‘Of course, I was taking a leave of absence. Short, yes, but at a time when I was expected to be present. Ought I to have disappeared mysteriously and drawn public attention to myself?’
    ‘You told Professor Langridge where you were going and on what errand? Couldn’t you have accounted for your absence in some other way? Was it necessary to be so indiscreet?’ Krom was becoming very angry indeed.
    ‘I don’t make a habit of lying to colleagues, Professor. Besides, I didn’t know where I was going until lunchtime today.’
    It was time for plainer speaking. ‘You told Professor Langridge that you were going first to join these two gentlemen in Amsterdam?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you know, when you told him, that he often does little jobs for British intelligence?’
    She flushed. Connell muttered, ‘Jesus!’ She still had the empty glass in her hands and for a moment I thought she was going to throw it at him. Instead, she put it down carefully.
    ‘I knew,’ she replied, ‘that he did some work for the government. But there’s nothing remarkable about that. Scholars of most disciplines sometimes accept research commissions from ministries or sit on official department committees. I had always assumed that what he did for the Home Office, or whoever it was, had something to do with his long-term study of the European probation service. A reasonable enough assumption, I think.’
    ‘When did you discover that it had been a false one?’
    ‘About a week after I told him that I was proposing to take this time off. One day he called me in and showed me the camera and other stuff.’
    ‘You didn’t object?’ This was Krom again.
    ‘Of course I objected!’ Dr Henson was nearly as angry as he was by now. ‘We had a flaming row about it, if you must know. An extremely unpleasant argument, anyway.’
    ‘Which he evidently won,’ said Krom bitterly. ‘How?’
    ‘He began by asking, yet again, what our exact intentions were. By “our”, he meant those of us who have concerned ourselves with investigations of the able criminal. What was our object? Did we intend merely to establish his existence, in the way, say, that a microbiologist might, having established the existence of a dangerous viral mutation, simply record the fact? Or did we intend to make use of any knowledge or proofs we might acquire about such persons to assist others in eradicating them?’
    Connell grunted sympathetically. ‘Yes. I’ve had that one. What did you reply?’
    ‘That I didn’t know, that the question was in any case both premature and hypothetical as well as grotesquely unfair to microbiologists. He then said that his “masters” - he actually used the word “masters” like some pompous senior official - that his masters were already convinced of the existence of this new kind of offender and were determined to eradicate him.’
    ‘Did he say what evidence they had?’ Krom was almost boyishly eager now. The tidings of yet another band of converts to his private religion had quite dissolved his anger.
    ‘Naturally, I asked, but I soon realized that he didn’t really know much. He did, though, make two statements of interest. This wasn’t a Home Office matter any longer because conventional police forces hampered by rules and restrictions were helpless in these areas. Not much in that. But he also said that for the less-inhibited forces acting on Treasury orders, and in concert with foreign counterpart services where collaborative relations existed, it would be a different story.’
    She paused. ‘And then he threatened me.’
    ‘Sounds a sweet guy,’ Connell remarked.
    ‘He said that if I refused to co-operate, that is endeavour to