Free The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes

It must have taken them weeks to collect them, using carefully chosen people to ask for them at their banks. The Treasury boys can trace them; the banks make a note of that kind of transaction.”
    “Glad to hear someone can get results.”
    “You’ve made a start yourself. You’ve got an adequate picture of yellow-tie. Bernard’s files over at the Sûreté may be of help on that—they’re pretty complete on the Communist underground.”
    “If Bernard will co-operate.”
    “He smells another of those one-for-all-and-all-for-one situations. Sure, old Bernie will co-operate.”
    “At least,” Rosie said, “I made certain that yellow-tie isn’t going to be forgotten by Fenner.”
    “You think he may be in danger?”
    “If this business is as urgent and important as I feel it is, anyone involved is in danger.”
    “He’s back to his own life again, seeing his friends in Paris, going to theatrical parties, talking about Molière and Anouilh and Beckett. His involvement is over.”
    “Certainly,” Rosenfeld said, “he isn’t going to let himself be involved with Madame Fane.”
    “Your suggestion fell flat?”
    Rosenfeld saw his waiter approaching. “Flatter than a jalopy’s tyre running on its rim.” He began talking about the Grand Canyon’s pitted walls. The omelette was served, and the waiter left, surrounded by Hopi Indians taking refuge in the Canyon’s holes from a Navajo raiding party striking across the Painted Desert.
    “So,” Carlson said, “he just clammed up when you started probing?”
    “About her, yes. He did say he had met Comrade Bruno. Not as Bruno. Nor as Geoffrey Wills. George Williston was the name he used on the night Fenner threw him out of the apartment.”
    “Dear old Bruno-Wills-Williston,” Carlson murmured, “what would you do without him to lead you to such interesting people?”
    Rosenfeld laughed. “You know, that’s one question Fenner forgot to ask: why didn’t we nail Williston if we knew he was such a bastard? But I agree with you; he has his uses.”
    “New York will be preening itself on following that hunch. Bruno suddenly turned aesthete, visiting the Museum of Modern Art, standing a long time in front of Guernica , very close to a quiet man. Meaning? Nothing. Quiet man unknown,innocent visitor; Bruno just an admirer of Picasso. But next day Bruno turns animal lover, walks in Zoo, seems to be keeping friendly watch. On whom? Same quiet man. Quiet man now interesting. Becomes more interesting when he jigs around town, takes three taxis to get to his hotel from a dentist’s office only a few blocks away.” He noticed Rosenfeld’s deep gloom. “Didn’t I get your story right?”
    “You tell it better than I do,” Rosenfeld said sourly.
    “All is not lost, Rosie. After all—”
    Rosenfeld said, “Yes, they had a good hunch in New York. They tipped us off. And we missed.” He pushed his plate aside. “Never thought a French omelette could taste like a piece of flannel.”
    “After all,” Carlson persisted, “the man wasn’t half so interesting as the envelope he carried. And you’ve got that, Rosie, my boy.”
    “Through pure luck. Where’s the credit?”
    “Everything is luck and unluck. We get the credit when we use them properly. The only thing we can’t deal with is the bullet that flattens us out. Stone dead hath no fellow.”
    Rosenfeld’s brooding face looked up. He almost smiled.
    “What would you rather have? Someone trailing the puzzling Mr. Goldsmith all over Paris? Or the envelope in good hands?” He had Rosie’s frown ironing out. “Well—your little ray of sunshine is about to depart and tend to his own business. Sometimes I wish I were back in West Berlin. Bloomers are made there, all the time, but no one has to be cheered up.”
    “I see your British contacts in West Berlin have enlarged your vocabulary, anyway. Yes”—Rosenfeld brightened visibly—“that was a real fast-blooming bloomer about theWall. There ought