Free 20 - The Corfu Affair by John T. Phillifent Page A

deliberately neglecting to rinse it properly. As a consequence his hair was straw-yellow, dull and spiky. He wore a dark chunky sweater, a coarse-weave jacket with a touch of fur at the lapel, hairy pants and high boots. The overall effect was convincing, but highly uncomfortable to one of his temperament. He preferred to be inconspicuous.
    The taxi slowed, halted, and he scrambled out, dismissing his inner preoccupations and tensing himself to match wits with the people in charge, here at St. Denis Surgery-Cosmetique. From the outside, no one would have taken the dingy old building for a medical house of any kind, but once inside the funereal doors and into the lobby all was hygienic chrome and glass, plus efficiency. A lady receptionist advanced to take his card. She managed, without effort, to make her plain black dress look chic, as only a Parisienne can. After a glance she nodded, moved away, gesturing him to follow.
    " Venez avec moi, monsieur . I will discover if M. Lafarge is free to receive you. One moment."
    She went before him to a desk, touched an intercom button and spoke in a rapid undertone. Beyond the wall, in his luxurious paneled office, Managing-Director Louis Lafarge hushed his very important guest with an apologetic palm and attended to the call. Nodding, he made a quick decision, then turned again to his guest.
    "A thousand pardons, monsieur, but you will realize that business is business. If you will please retreat into the next room I will dispose of this matter very quickly and then we can talk more." The covering door had barely closed when a discreet tap at the outer door announced the receptionist.
    She entered one pace, stood aside, and announced, "Mr. Boris Krasnin, from Tashkent, M. Lafarge."
    " Bonjour, monsieur !" Kuryakin inclined his head, managed to convey the impression of a heel click without actually doing it, and advanced over the carpet. "I believe you are expecting me?"
    "Of course!" Lafarge beamed and made gestures, but his alert attention missed nothing of his visitor's appearance, or his faultless accent. "I have your dossier right here. Yvette! You will request Gerda to come to me, at once, please! Now, M. Krasnin. A seat? You would care for a cigarette, no? An aperitif, then? It is good!" He produced a bottle and poured busily while making conversation. "You will pardon if I seem naive, but it is a strange thing to me that your people should be interested in our kind of work. After all, the Soviet Union has a great name for medicine and surgery, and the many inventions of all kinds. Yet you wish to do business with us?"
    "It is not so strange. Tashkent may be just a name to you, monsieur, but think. That area is now Uzbekistan, a preferred name in the new regime, but it was once Bokhara, famous for arts, beauty, the bourgeois things. The spirit is still there, but driven underground. It is not healthy, nowadays, to want to be beautiful, or different. Yet people want it, and where there is a demand, there will be a supply."
    "Quite so!" Lafarge nodded agreement. "That is one rule which does not change." He looked up as a tap on the door heralded an interruption. With a scowl he called out, " Entrez !"
    The door opened to admit a lean, dark-haired woman whose face was set in a severe and suspicious expression. With no more than a glance at Lafarge, she advanced to where Kuryakin sat, brought her left hand from behind her back to thrust it in front of him, fist clenched.
    " Kak eto nazivayetsya po rooski ?" she demanded, and opened her hand to reveal a small gilt and red enameled tube.
    " Pomada dlya goob ," he sneered. "Are you trying to trick me, madam? Or you, monsieur?" He turned to spear Lafarge with an icy blue gaze. "This was so obviously prepared, to have this stupid woman brought here, and for her to ask me to give the Russian name for a lipstick. What are you trying to prove?"
    Lafarge spread his hands and shoulders in an eloquent shrug. "It was no more than a precaution,