Free Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene

help you to cut the housekeeping by fasting …’
    ‘What good …?’
    ‘Well, then, you might be able to afford to take a family-membership. You ought to enter me as Seraphina. It somehow sounds more suitable than Milly.’
    It seemed to Wormold that all she said had a quality of sense; it was Hawthorne who belonged to the cruel and inexplicable world of childhood.
     
    INTERLUDE IN LONDON
    In the basement of the big steel and concrete building near Maida Vale a light over a door changed from red to green, and Hawthorne entered. He had left his elegance behind in the Caribbean and wore a grey flannel suit which had seen better days. At home he didn’t have to keep up appearances; he was part of grey January London.
    The Chief sat behind a desk on which an enormous green marble paper-weight held down a single sheet of paper. A half-drunk glass of milk, a bottle of grey pills and a packet of Kleenex stood by the black telephone. (The red one was for scrambling.) His black morning coat, black tie and black monocle hiding the left eye gave him the appearance of an undertaker, just as the basement room had the effect of a vault, a mausoleum, a grave.
    ‘You wanted me, sir?’
    ‘Just a gossip, Hawthorne. Just a gossip.’ It was as though a mute were gloomily giving tongue after the day’s burials were over. ‘When did you get back, Hawthorne?’
    ‘A week ago, sir. I’ll be returning to Jamaica on Friday.’
    ‘All going well?’
    ‘I think we’ve got the Caribbean sewn up now, sir,’ Hawthorne said.
    ‘Martinique?’
    ‘No difficulties there, sir. You remember at Fort de France we are working with the Deuxième Bureau.’
    ‘Only up to a point?’
    ‘Oh yes, of course, only up to a point. Haiti was more of a problem, but 59200 stroke 2 is proving energetic. I was more uncertain at first about 59200 stroke 5.’
    ‘Stroke five?’
    ‘Our man in Havana, sir. I didn’t have much choice there, and at first he didn’t seem very keen on the job. A bit stubborn.’
    ‘That kind sometimes develops best.’
    ‘Yes, sir. I was a little worried too by his contacts. (There’s a German called Hasselbacher, but we haven’t found any traces of him yet.) However he seems to be going ahead. We got a request for extra expenses just as I was leaving Kingston.’
    ‘Always a good sign.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Shows the imagination is working.’
    ‘Yes. He wanted to become a member of the Country Club. Haunt of the millionaires, you know. Best source for political and economic information. The subscription’s very high, about ten times the size of White’s, but I’ve allowed it.’
    ‘You did right. How are his reports?’
    ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we haven’t had any yet, but of course it will take time for him to organize his contacts. Perhaps I rather over-emphasized the need of security.’
    ‘You can’t. No use having a live wire if it fuses.’
    ‘As it happens, he’s rather advantageously placed. Very good business contacts – a lot of them with Government officials and leading Ministers.’
    ‘Ah,’ the Chief said. He took off the black monocle and began to polish it with a piece of Kleenex. The eye that he disclosed was made of glass; pale blue and unconvincing, it might have come out of a doll which said ‘Mama’.
    ‘What’s his business?’
    ‘Oh, he imports, you know. Machinery, that sort of thing.’ It was always important to one’s own career to employ agents who were men of good social standing. The petty details on the secret file dealing with the store in Lamparilla Street would never, in ordinary circumstances, reach this basement-room.
    ‘Why isn’t he already a member of the Country Club?’
    ‘Well, I think he’s been rather a recluse of recent years. Bit of domestic trouble.’
    ‘Doesn’t run after women, I hope?’
    ‘Oh, nothing of that sort, sir. His wife left him. Went off with an American.’
    ‘I suppose he’s not anti-American? Havana’s not the place for