Free Greek Fire by Winston Graham

reporter.”
    â€œI doubt if he ever did believe that.”
    Maria looked at him. “You suspect him of not being fair with me?”
    â€œWhat have you came to tell me?”
    â€œSomething it may be very necessary to tell you if that is true.”
    â€œWill you come back to my lodgings?”
    â€œNo. It is safe here. I—I don’t know how it is to begin.” Her thick lips, made for laughter, were pouting and strained. “You know that Juan was trying to—make money?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI am not quite so ignorant of it as I pretended. You know. If a man and a woman are in love, as we were, they do not have complete secrets. But it is true that I do not know much. He said it is better that I did not know much. I do not know what Juan had to sell. But I know of the—arrangements. He was crazy to paint; he didn’t wish for the life of a cabaret artist; he loved Spain and wished to settle in comfort in a small fishing village in Andalusia and spend the rest of his life there. You know. That was why he did this thing. I told him often in the last weeks, go carefully; it is better to work for one’s living in honour than to go to prison for a dishonourable thing. But he would not listen. He would say, this is my one chance; if I miss this one chance I shall be dancing until I am old.”
    â€œSo you came to Greece?”
    Maria Tolosa untied the knot of her scarf and pulled it off. Then she shook out her hair, scowling at the sculptured reliefs below the cornice of the tower, which were becoming harder to distinguish against the whitening evening sky. “He had made arrangements. These papers he had deposited in the Banca d’Espagna in Madrid. In the bank he has a cousin. Juan was to ask from this person in Greece that a large sum of money shall be paid into his account in Madrid. As soon as that was paid in, his cousin had agreed to send these documents to him here.”
    â€œYour husband was expecting the other side to trust him?”
    â€œI don’t know. It is that he may have had some surety which he could give them. You know. I told him; I warned him; I said, you are playing a risk.”
    â€œWas Philip Tolosa in this?”
    â€œHe knows the attempt to get this money is to be made. He does not know who is the man or what it is that Juan has to sell.”
    â€œHas something else happened now?”
    â€œYes.”
    Her bracelets jangled as she sat down on a piece of fallen masonry, and after a minute he squatted beside her. The noise and glitter of the city was not far away but seemed as remote as the sea on a frosty day.
    â€œOn Wednesday I have talked this over with Philip. We have agreed that now no question of money comes in. We are no longer wanting to sell the papers, we wish to use them. You know. That way we can get some revenge. We are agreed on that. And the only way to use them is while we are here.”
    â€œSo what have you done?”
    â€œI have sent for the papers.”
    â€œTo be posted here?”
    â€œYes.”
    Gene bit his lip. She was watching him closely. “ Was this your idea or your brother-in-law’s?”
    â€œPhilip’s.”
    â€œAnd why have you come to me now?”
    â€œBecause, now I have done it, I am not happy about it.”
    â€œYou think Philip wants the papers to sell himself?”
    â€œI am not sure if my suspicion of him is my own or whether you have planted it. But there is something very wrong with him. He is—going to pieces while I watch. Always he has been the high-strung kind; but now … While he was persuading me to do this I thought he was upset because he was burning for revenge. Now I do not know what to think. He lies on his bed smoking all day. He has fits of trembling, trying to keep still. You know. He will not even touch his harp. At night I hear him walking about.”
    â€œAnd so?”
    â€œIt may be grief for his brother that is