Free Siege at the Villa Lipp by Eric Ambler Page A

get photographs and prints and report fully and secretly on my return, his so-called masters would place me under surveillance of a kind which would frustrate the whole exercise. It’s not as stupid as it may sound. He knows, you see, how I feel about our work in this field.’
    ‘I suppose he was talking about harassment, men in trench coats breathing down your neck.’
    ‘And your neck too, I imagine, Dr Connell.’ She turned to me. ‘What about it, Mr Firman? How far would we have got? Turin?’
    ‘No farther, certainly,’ I replied. ‘Naturally, the possibility of one or all of you being under surveillance had to be considered, and not necessarily surveillance of the obvious kind with which Dr Henson was threatened in order to ensure her co-operation. Professor Langridge’s masters had other options available to them. I had you very carefully watched all the way.’
    Connell snorted disbelievingly. ‘All the way, Mr Firman? Taking that amount of trouble to cover yourself costs money.’
    ‘Yes, the overheads on an operation of this sort can be quite heavy.’
    ‘Of this sort? I thought this operation was supposed to be one-off, unique.’
    ‘It is.’ I gave him the needed rap over the knuckles. ‘But I was speaking in general of operations involving inexperienced persons, for whom, or from whom, one needs protection. Naturally it is expensive, but you don’t have much choice. Either you accept the expense when the need for it arises or you resign yourself to the prospect of being very soon - what was Professor Langridge’s word for it? - oh yes, eradicated.’ I turned and looked Krom in the eyes. ‘A serious question must now be asked,’ I went on. ‘We have breaches of security on your side and also gross breaches of good faith. How, under these circumstances, can we possibly continue our conference as planned?’
    I did not really expect him to throw in his hand; he had too much at stake for that, but it was worth a try. The more defensive he was forced to become the better.
    He responded shakily at first. ‘I agree that you have cause for complaint, Mr Firman, but no damage has yet been done. Has it?’
    ‘No damage? I don’t understand. To me, the whole situation now seems completely compromised.’
    He rallied. ‘Why? Thanks to your own caution, security has been completely preserved. As for good faith, Dr Henson has admitted that she erred and satisfactorily explained the dilemma that led her to do so. You have the apparatus given her by Professor Langridge. What has been lost?’
    ‘Trust, Professor.’ In Brussels I had used Mat’s phrase about trusting on Krom. I had also used it several times on myself. I used it again now. ‘So far I have done an awful lot of trusting. In return I have been rewarded with deception and equivocation. As things stand at this moment, it seems to me that Ihave less to lose by telling you the deal is off and that you can do what you like with your researches to date, than by continuing to accept bland assurances that your side of the bargain will be kept because you are honest folk, and that it is only I and my associates here who are villains.’
    He showed his teeth. ‘Oh no, you don’t, Mr Firman. Who is deceiving or attempting to equivocate now? We on one side have been completely open and frank. Stop overstating your case.’
    I laughed shortly. ‘You’re bluffing, Professor. Shall I ask Dr Henson or will you? When she took that apparatus and agreed to use it, what did she intend? With whom did she mean to keep faith when she brought it here? Professor Langridge and his masters or you and me?’
    Connell said, ‘Oops!’
    Krom thought it through, then glowered at Henson.
    From her came a shrug and an exasperated spreading of the hands. ‘Several answers,’ she said, ‘all of them muddled. My first thought was simply to leave the camera and other stuff behind in England, but then I realized that leaving it would create complications.’ Another