An electric light fixed in the branches above the green-topped table shed a hard light on the faces of the players. They were Skelton and the Frenchman, Roux. Sitting on a stone rockery watching them were Mademoiselle Martin and Mary Skelton.
Roux played crouching in an attitude of fierce concentration, his protuberant eyes watching the ball as if it were a bomb on the point of exploding. He leaped about a great deal. In contrast, Skelton’s easy, lazy play looked wooden and ineffective. But I noticed that he seemed to gain most of the points. Mademoiselle Martin made no effort to disguise her chagrin at this, uttering loud cries of despair every time Skelton won. A Roux victory was received with corresponding jubilation. I saw that Mary Skelton was watching her with interest and amusement.
The game ended. Mademoiselle Martin cast a malevolent glance at Skelton and wiped her perspiring lover’s forehead with his handkerchief. I heard her assuring him that his failure made no difference to her affection for him.
“What about a game?” said Skelton to me.
Before I could reply, however, Roux had bounded to the other end of the table, flourishing his bat, and announced with a flashing smile that he wanted his revenge.
“What does he say?” muttered Skelton.
“He says he wants his revenge.”
“Oh, all right.” He winked. “I’d better see that he has it.”
They started to play again. I sat down beside Mary Skelton.
“Why is it,” she said, “that I can’t understand a word of what that Frenchman says? He seems to have a very peculiar accent.”
“He’s probably a provincial. Even Parisians can’t understand some provincial French.”
“Well, that’s comforting. You know, I think that if he goes on playing much longer his eyes will drop right out.”
I forget what I replied, for I was trying, for my own satisfaction, to identify Roux’s accent. I had heard another like it, and quite recently. I knew it as well as I knew my own name. A loud cry of delight from Mademoiselle Martin brought my thoughts back to the game.
“Warren can be a very convincing loser when he likes,” said the girl. “He lets me win a game sometimes, and I always feel that it’s my good play.”
He was convincing enough to lose by a very narrow margin of points, though not without having to referee a spirited argument between Roux and Monsieur Duclos, who had arrived on the scene halfway through the game and insisted on keeping the score. Mademoiselle Martin was triumphant, and kissed Roux on the lobe of the ear.
“You know,” murmured Skelton, “that old so-and-so with the white beard is a menace. I’ve seen him cheating at Russian billiards, but I didn’t think he’d try and cook other people’s ping-pong scores. I was keeping count myself. I was five points down, not two. If we’d gone on any longer he’d have won the game for me. Maybe he’s got some sort of inverted kleptomania.”
“And where,” the subject of this comment was demanding sportively, “are the English major and his wife this evening? Why are they not playing ping-pong? The Major would be a formidable opponent.”
“Silly old fool!” said Mary Skelton.
Monsieur Duclos beamed at her blankly.
“For goodness’ sake shut up,” said her brother; “they might understand you.”
Mademoiselle Martin, dimly comprehending that English was being spoken, said “Okay” and “How do you do?” to Roux, dissolved into laughter, and was rewarded with a kiss on the nape. It was evident that nobody had understood. Monsieur Duclos buttonholed me and began to discuss the affair on the beach.
“One would not have thought,” he said, “that in this cold military officer there was so much passion, so much love for this Italian woman, his wife. But the English are like that. On the surface, cold and businesslike. With the English it is always business, one thinks. But below, who knows what fires may slumber!” He frowned. “I have seen much of life, but one can never understand the English and the Americans. They are inscrutable.” He stroked his beard. “It was a beautiful blow, and the curious noise made by the Italian was very satisfactory. Straight to the chin. The Italian fell like a stone.”
“I heard that the blow was in the stomach.”
He looked at me sharply. “And to the chin, Monsieur. And to the chin. Two magnificent blows!”
Roux, who had been listening, intervened.
“There was no blow struck,” he said decidedly. “The English major used jiu-jitsu. I was watching closely. I am myself familiar with the hold.”
Monsieur Duclos put his pince-nez on his nose and glowered.
“There was a blow to the chin, Monsieur,” he said sternly.
Roux threw up his hands. His eyes bulged. He scowled.
“You could not have seen,” he said rudely. He turned to Mademoiselle Martin. “You saw, ma petite, did you not? Your eyesight is perfect. You have no glasses to confuse you like this old gentleman here. It was undoubtedly jiu-jitsu, was it not?”
“Oui, cheri.” She blew him a kiss.
“There, you see!” jeered Roux.
“A blow to the chin, without a doubt.” Monsieur Duclos’s pince-nez were quivering with anger.
“Bah!” said Roux savagely. “Look!”
He turned to me suddenly, grasped my left wrist, and pulled. Instinctively I drew back. The next moment I felt myself falling. Roux grasped my other arm and held me up. There was amazing strength in his grip. I felt his thin, wiry body stiffen. Then I was standing on my feet again.
“You see!” he crowed. “It was jiu-jitsu. It is a simple hold. I could have treated this Monsieur here as the English major treated the man from the yacht.”
Monsieur Duclos drew himself up and bowed curtly.
“An interesting demonstration, Monsieur. But unnecessary. I can see perfectly well. It was a blow to the chin.”
He bowed again and strode off towards the hotel. Roux laughed derisively after him and snapped his fingers.
“An old cretin, that one,” he said contemptuously. “Because we pretend not to notice when he cheats, he thinks we see nothing.”
I smiled noncommittally. Mademoiselle Martin began to compliment him on his handling of the situation. The two Skeltons had begun a game of ping-pong. I wandered down to the lower terrace.
Beyond the inky darkness of the trees I could see two silent figures leaning against the parapet. It was the Major and his wife. As my footsteps grated on the path he turned his head. I heard him say something softly to her, then the two of them moved away. For a moment or two I stood listening to their footsteps dying away up the path, and was about to move to where they had been standing when I saw the glow of a pipe in the blackness near the trees. I went towards it.
“Good evening, Herr Heinberger.”
“Good evening.”
“Would you care for a game of Russian billiards?”
There was a shower of sparks as he tapped the pipe on the side of the chair.
“No, thank you.”
For some unaccountable reason my heart began to beat faster. Words and phrases were rising to my lips. I had an overwhelming desire to blurt out my suspicions of him there and then, denounce him, this man here sitting in the darkness, this invisible spy. “Thief! Spy!” I wanted to shout the words at him. I felt myself trembling. I opened my mouth and my lips moved. Then, suddenly, a match spluttered and flared, and I saw his face, thin and drawn in the yellow light, curiously dramatic.
He raised the match to the bowl of his pipe and drew the flame into it. The match flamed twice and went out. The glowing bowl moved in a gesture.
“Why not sit down, Herr Vadassy? There is a chair there.”
And, indeed, I was standing gaping at him like a fool. I sat down, feeling as if I had only just escaped being run over by a fast car, and that it was the driver’s skill rather than my own agility that had saved me. For sheer want of something to say I asked him if he had heard about the English couple and the incident on the beach.