Free Night Journey by Winston Graham

am not is that way.”
    We had reached the open space before the art gallery and the old black wooden bridge of the Accademia. I realised more than ever that once she had turned back, nothing remained for me but the dark.
    â€œVernon will be home to-morrow forenoon,” she said. “ If he wants to send you a message … the telephone is dangerous. Go to Giorgio … We call him that because he looks after the San Giorgio dei Greci church and pesters everyone to let him show them round. Go there to-morrow at six, and if we have a message for you we’ll leave it with him.”
    â€œVery well,” I said.
    We had walked half way across the bridge. Here on a night of peace all the brightness of the Grand Canal would show, glittering like a golden snake. To-night there was nothing. The moon, more than half hidden, cast a grey shimmering smear over the canal like a reflection on an unpolished shield. Here and there subdued lights winked in the hotels. A great canopy of cloud lay over the city like a circus tent. It was very still, very quiet, no footsteps, no wind, no echoing voices.
    â€œThat’s all then … Robert. Good luck.”
    We stood there a minute or so in the warm dark. I put my hands on her shoulders.
    â€œYou have been a lot of help.”
    â€œHelp? I wish I could help more practically.”
    â€œYou can.”
    Back against the parapet of the bridge. Lips. Jasmine. Smooth cheek. Lips curiously fresh, unspoiled, as if never touched before—by Vemon Andrews, by Paul Howard, by anyone but Robert Mencken, the fool. Body against mine, very slight, boneless, full of promise. Lips. She moved her face away to breathe but I followed it. Face pale in moon, unformed, female, beautiful, full of promise.
    I put my head on her shoulders, nose against her necks, breathing deeply.
    â€œJane.”
    â€œTake care,” she said. “ This is a romantic city.”
    â€œI do not feel romantic.”
    â€œNo,” she said after a minute. “Neither do I.”
    â€œWhen can we meet again?”
    â€œI don’t know. How can we plan?”
    Someone was coming across the bridge. It was a policeman. I held her close. He came slowly, his feet heavy, pacing, taking his time. As he neared us, one of the larger vaporettos slid under the bridge: the pulsing of its engines, the sound of murmured voices on it, drowned his footsteps. When it had gone there were no footsteps. I lifted my head an inch and saw him leaning over the opposite parapet watching the boat draw in towards the Maria del Giglio stop. After a minute he straigntened up and went on his way.
    â€œIt’s not wise to linger here,” she said.
    â€œYou must go back?”
    â€œI must go back. We can’t afford to take risks.”
wondered which risks she meant: they were so varied and so
many. “ How can we meet?” I said.
    â€œI might be in Milan; I sometimes carry messages. But we can’t plan.”
    â€œNo,” I said, my face against hers. “We can’t plan.”
    I do not recall much of the solitary walk home except, near the hotel, reluctant to come under surveillance again, I stopped at a wine shop and sat down in the smoky warmth nest to a gondolier with gold ear-rings who wanted to tell me some story of a quarrel he had just had.
    Since a month, my world had been inchoate—scientist-pacifist-turned-spy made no reliable sense; but now while in the process of moving with the inevitability of Greek tragedy towards imprisonment and death, I was initiating, if it were at all possible, an affair with the mistress of the chief British agent in the area. This made nonsense by any standard: it would have been calculated idiocy for a practised roué; how much more so for a man of retiring habits with academic but little other experience.
    I was a fool, of course, masterfully overtaken by a mouth and eyes and a lovely skin and a scent of jasmine. She had been right to