Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [40]
‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford, ‘I have read about it. Are we going to attend it?’
‘We have seats booked for two of the performances.’
‘Has this festival any special significance in our investigation?’
‘No,’ said Renata. ‘It is more in the nature of what you might call an exit and entry convenience. We go there for an ostensible and true reason, and we leave it for our next step in due course.’
He looked round. ‘Instructions? Do I get any marching orders? Am I to be briefed?’
‘Not in your meaning of those terms. You are going on a voyage of exploration. You will learn things as you go along. You will go as yourself, knowing only what you know at present. You go as a lover of music, as a slightly disappointed diplomat who had perhaps hoped for some post in his own country which he has not been given. Otherwise, you will know nothing. It is safer so.’
‘But that is the sum of activities at present? Germany, Bavaria, Austria, the Tyrol–that part of the world?’
‘It is one of the centres of interest.’
‘It is not the only one?’
‘Indeed, not even the principal one. There are other spots on the globe, all of varying importance and interest. How much importance each one holds is what we have to find out.’
‘And I don’t know, or am not to be told, anything about these other centres?’
‘Only in cursory fashion. One of them, we think the most important one, has its headquarters in South America, there are two with headquarters in the United States of America, one in California, the other in Baltimore. There is one in Sweden, there is one in Italy. Things have become very active in the latter in the last six months. Portugal and Spain also have smaller centres. Paris, of course. There are further interesting spots just “coming into production”, you might say. As yet not fully developed.’
‘You mean Malaya, or Vietnam?’
‘No. No, all that lies rather in the past. It was a good rallying cry for violence and student indignation and for many other things.
‘What is being promoted, you must understand, is the growing organization of youth everywhere against their mode of government; against their parental customs, against very often the religions in which they have been brought up. There is the insidious cult of permissiveness, there is the increasing cult of violence. Violence not as a means of gaining money, but violence for the love of violence. That particularly is stressed, and the reasons for it are to the people concerned one of the most important things and of the utmost significance.’
‘Permissiveness, is that important?’
‘It is a way of life, no more. It lends itself to certain abuses but not unduly.’
‘What about drugs?’
‘The cult of drugs has been deliberately advanced and fomented. Vast sums of money have been made that way, but it is not, or so we think, entirely activated for the money motive.’
All of them looked at Mr Robinson, who slowly shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it looks that way. There are people who are being apprehended and brought to justice. Pushers of drugs will be followed up. But there is more than just the drug racket behind all this. The drug racket is a means, and an evil means, of making money. But there is more to it than that.’
‘But who–’ Stafford Nye stopped.
‘Who and what and why and where? The four W’s. That is your mission, Sir Stafford,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘That’s what you’ve got to find out. You and Mary Ann. It won’t be easy, and one of the hardest things in the world, remember, is to keep one’s secrets.’
Stafford Nye looked with interest at the fat yellow face of Mr Robinson. Perhaps the secret of Mr Robinson’s domination in the financial world was just that. His secret was that he kept his secret. Mr Robinson’s mouth showed