Free Tanner's Virgin by Lawrence Block Page B

are comrades of ours among the Breton peasantry. I know several, and Pendennis and Trelease know others, and for sure you’ve friends there yourself. We should hide you here as long as you wish, but this evil land’s no sanctuary for you. What we know as an act of political assassination those in power call a murder. It must be Brittany for you, Evan.”
    We had switched to English. Poldexter spoke a strongly accented English, but he was an educated man and was thus easier to follow than many of the locals might have been. He had not seen the newspapers yet. I gave him a version of the circumstances that was closer to the official story than the truth, figuring that the Jacobite League would get more of a response from him than some nonsense about white slavery in Afghanistan. He was instantly sympathetic and anxious to provide shelter. He went out to park the car where it would not be seen, and his little birdlike wife dished out a bowl of lamb stew and poured a huge mug of good brown ale for me.
    â€œI’ll be making inquiries,” he assured me. “It’s a smuggler’s coast, this one. We’re few of us in the movement, but every man has friends, and friends in this part of the world know when to ask questions and when to be still. There’s some I know that make night time voyages to the French coast, and what they take across is not what they bring back. Round Dover, now, is where the crossing’s easiest and the smuggling thickest. There ’tis twenty mile across, and here nearer a hundred mile, but then at Dover the officials keep a keener watch. We’ll lay a bed for you now and you’ll sleep the night, and in the morning we will see what’s to be done for you.”
    It was easier to let his wife make up a bed beside the fire than to explain why I didn’t need one. I nursed a jar of ale until sunrise. Arthur Poldexter left after breakfast, first furnishing me with his files of correspondence so that I might jot down some contacts in Brittany.
    I didn’t bother doing this—once across the Channel I could manage on my own—but I did get involved in the correspondence. The Celtic-Speaking Union seemed to be stronger in Brittany than I had realized. I was still reading when he returned.
    He brought good news and bad. The bad was in the morning paper, a copy of the Times with a story whichmade it obvious that the authorities were extremely interested in capturing me, and that both Nigel and Julia had been taken into custody. I felt bad about involving them and only hoped they would have the sense to throw all the blame upon me.
    But the bad news was predictable, and the good news was enough to offset it. A man named Trefallis or something like that knew a man who knew a man who was taking a midnight run to France that very night. The ship would leave Torquay in Devonshire after sunset and would arrive somewhere near Cherbourg before dawn. They would want money, he told me. Perhaps as much as thirty pounds. Had I that sum?
    â€œIn American dollars,” I said. “But it might be better if they didn’t know I was American.”
    â€œIt would be better if they knew nought of you. I’ve a friend who would change your dollars, but you’d lose some on the exchange.”
    Thirty pounds comes to seventy-two dollars. I gave Poldexter two fifties, figuring that even heavy robbery on the exchange wouldn’t net me less than thirty pounds. He came back with forty pounds and ten shillings and an apology, telling me sadly that I should be receiving another pound, three more shillings, and fourpence, or a hot $2.80. You can’t do better than that at a bank.
    It was a clear day, with fair weather forecast through the following afternoon. I passed the afternoon walking in the fields. It was beautiful country, rugged and windswept and raw, and at a better time I would have enjoyed myself greatly. But there were too many things on my mind.
    After