Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [30]
That was the stage to set. But behind the stage. Back-stage. Waiting for the cue. Ready to prompt if prompting were needed. What was going on? Going on in the big world and behind the big world. He wondered.
Some things he knew, some things he guessed at, some things, he thought to himself, I know nothing about and nobody wants me to know anything about them.
His eyes rested for a moment on his vis-à-vis, her chin tilted upward, her mouth just gently curved in a polite smile, and their eyes met. Those eyes told him nothing, the smile told him nothing. What was she doing here? She was in her element, she fitted in, she knew this world. Yes, she was at home here. He could find out, he thought, without much difficulty where she figured in the diplomatic world, but would that tell him where she really had her place?
The young woman in the slacks who had spoken to him suddenly at Frankfurt had had an eager intelligent face. Was that the real woman, or was this casual social acquaintance the real woman? Was one of those personalities a part being played? And if so, which one? And there might be more than just those two personalities. He wondered. He wanted to find out.
Or had the fact that he had been asked to meet her been pure coincidence? Milly Jean was rising to her feet. The other ladies rose with her. Then suddenly an unexpected clamour arose. A clamour from outside the house. Shouts. Yells. The crash of breaking glass in a window. Shouts. Sounds–surely pistol shots. Signora Gasparo spoke, clutching Stafford Nye’s arm.
‘What again!’ she exclaimed. ‘Dio!–again it is those terrible students. It is the same in our country. Why do they attack Embassies? They fight, resist the police–go marching, shouting idiotic things, lie down in the streets. Si, si. We have them in Rome–in Milan–We have them like a pest everywhere in Europe. Why are they never happy, these young ones? What do they want?’
Stafford Nye sipped his brandy and listened to the heavy accents of Mr Charles Staggenham, who was being pontifical and taking his time about it. The commotion had subsided. It would seem that the police had marched off some of the hotheads. It was one of those occurrences which once would have been thought extraordinary and even alarming but which were now taken as a matter of course.
‘A larger police force. That’s what we need. A larger police force. It’s more than these chaps can deal with. It’s the same everywhere, they say. I was talking to Herr Lurwitz the other day. They have their troubles, so have the French. Not quite so much of it in the Scandinavian countries. What do they all want–just trouble? I tell you if I had my way–’
Stafford Nye removed his mind to another subject while keeping up a flattering pretence as Charles Staggenham explained just what his way would be, which in any case was easily to be anticipated beforehand.
‘Shouting about Vietnam and all that. What do any of them know about Vietnam. None of them have ever been there, have they?’
‘One would think it very unlikely,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.
‘Man was telling me earlier this evening, they’ve had a lot of trouble in California. In the universities–If we had a sensible policy…’
Presently the men joined the ladies in the drawing-room. Stafford Nye, moving with that leisurely grace, that air of complete lack of purpose he found so useful, sat down by a golden-haired, talkative woman