Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [14]
‘Come back from that Malay Conference, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford.
‘Anything particular turn up there?’
‘Just the usual,’ said Sir Stafford.
‘Oh. I wondered if something had–well, you know what I mean. Anything had occurred to put the cat among the pigeons.’
‘What, at the Conference? No, just painfully predictable. Everyone said just what you thought they’d say only they said it unfortunately at rather greater length than you could have imagined possible. I don’t know why I go on these things.’
Eric Pugh made a rather tedious remark or two as to what the Chinese were really up to.
‘I don’t think they’re really up to anything,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘All the usual rumours, you know, about the diseases poor old Mao has got and who’s intriguing against him and why.’
‘And what about the Arab-Israeli business?’
‘That’s proceeding according to plan also. Their plan, that is to say. And anyway, what’s that got to do with Malaya?’
‘Well, I didn’t really mean so much Malaya.’
‘You’re looking rather like the Mock Turtle,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘“Soup of the evening, beautiful soup.” Wherefore this gloom?’
‘Well, I just wondered if you’d–you’ll forgive me, won’t you?–I mean you haven’t done anything to blot your copybook, have you, in any way?’
‘Me?’ said Sir Stafford, looking highly surprised.
‘Well, you know what you’re like, Staff. You like giving people a jolt sometimes, don’t you?’
‘I have behaved impeccably of late,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘What have you been hearing about me?’
‘I hear there was some trouble about something that happened in a plane on your way home.’
‘Oh?’ Who did you hear that from?’
‘Well, you know, I saw old Cartison.’
‘Terrible old bore. Always imagining things that haven’t happened.’
‘Yes, I know. I know he is like that. But he was just saying that somebody or other–Winterton, at least–seemed to think you’d been up to something.’
‘Up to something? I wish I had,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.
‘There’s some espionage racket going on somewhere and he got a bit worried about certain people.’
‘What do they think I am–another Philby, something of that kind?’
‘You know you’re very unwise sometimes in the things you say, the things you make jokes about.’
‘It’s very hard to resist sometimes,’ his friend told him. ‘All these politicians and diplomats and the rest of them. They’re so bloody solemn. You’d like to give them a bit of a stir up now and again.’
‘Your sense of fun is very distorted, my boy. It really is. I worry about you sometimes. They wanted to ask you some questions about something that happened on the flight back and they seem to think that you didn’t, well–that perhaps you didn’t exactly speak the truth about it all.’
‘Ah, that’s what they think, is it? Interesting. I think I must work that up a bit.’
‘Now don’t do anything rash.’
‘I must have my moments of fun sometimes.’
‘Look here, old fellow, you don’t want to go and ruin your career just by indulging your sense of humour.’
‘I am quickly coming to the conclusion that there is nothing so boring as having a career.’
‘I know, I know. You are always inclined to take that point of view, and you haven’t got on as far as you ought to have, you know. You were in the running for Vienna at one time. I don’t like to see you muck up things.’
‘I am behaving with the utmost sobriety and virtue, I assure you,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. He added, ‘Cheer up, Eric. You’re a good friend, but really, I’m not guilty of fun and games.’
Eric shook his head doubtfully.
It was a fine evening. Sir Stafford walked home across Green Park. As he crossed the road in Birdcage Walk, a car leaping down the street missed him by a few inches. Sir Stafford was an athletic man. His leap took him safely on to the pavement. The car disappeared down the street. He wondered. Just for a moment he could have sworn that that car had deliberately tried to run