Mirror behind the counter?
Yes.
The Colonel found his pipe. He went over and sat down on the sofa, using his hands to move his false leg into a straight position.
Stern?
The grenade must have been coming directly at him. He had time to hit the Armenian and knock him clear, and that was that. Full in the chest probably. Nothing much left above the waist.
The Colonel struck a match. Ever been close to that? he asked. Had it happen right next to you?
No.
It's the worst sound in the world. Does something to your brain. For an instant you're no longer human.
It's another existence, primeval, black. You see something inside yourself. Go on.
There was the roar and the shattering glass and smoke and confusion, said the Major. When the owner showed his face, men were screaming and pushing out the door. Bits and pieces everywhere, and blood.
The Armenian was still sprawled in the corner where Stern's blow had sent him. Besides the two Arabs who were unconscious from opium on the far side, the Armenian was the only other man left in the room.
He lay there on the floor in the smoke, staring up at the spot where lie and Stern had been sitting. Slowly he got to his feet, dreamlike, and just stood there staring. The owner was dazed and he did the same thing, just stood there staring. But the owner was watching the Armenian.
Yes, said the Colonel, the fascination is incredibly intense. You don't know whether you're alive or dead and you're not in your own body at all. In fact you have no body. It's strange . . . a kind of sudden sense of pure consciousness. Your mind looks around and the first thing with any sign of life utterly captivates you. At that moment the merest flicker of an eye contains all the mystery of the universe. Go on.
The Armenian still didn't move, he just stood there staring. After a bit the owner came to his senses and began screaming himself. People shouted and stuck their heads in, and there was nothing really after that until the policeman arrived.
What kind of man?
Average, unfortunately. The confusion and damage got to him but not much else, except for one curiosity.
When he first came in, something about the Armenian struck him as peculiar. But only vaguely, he can't recall it exactly. It happened when he first glanced around the place and he might have only imagined it, or it could have been a trick of peripheral vision. Anyway, it was a sensation of something unusual, in the sense of inappropriate or out of place. At least that's my interpretation of it. The policeman isn't able to describe it with any degree of accuracy, apparently it only flashed through his mind. But what it amounts to is, he had the sensation the Armenian was smiling. Staring and smiling. And that's all we have on the incident itself.
The Colonel nodded.
But there's one other very curious fact, added the Major. The owner says the Armenian came to the bar yesterday morning, very early. There was nobody else there and he'd just started his cleanup when all of a sudden the Armenian came rushing in with a wild man.
A what?
That's how the owner describes him. A ghostlike figure in rags, an Arab, thin and small and caked with dust and dirt, hair matted and eyes bulging out of his head. According to the owner, he looked like a desert hermit who'd been off in a cave somewhere for years. He seemed deranged. He was clawing at the air and making strange sounds as if he couldn't breathe. The Armenian came rushing in with this wild man and ordered coffee and the two of them collapsed in a corner. Then the wild man began to sob and a moment later they were rushing out again, the Armenian in the lead, the wild man running after him.
Nothing more specific on this other man?
The owner kept mentioning his eyes, frantic bulging eyes. Frightening, wild. He was convinced the man was insane. That was the only time the owner has ever seen this other man, and it was the only other time he has ever seen the Armenian.
And lastly there's this, said the Major, placing a small length of worn curved metal in the Colonel's hand.
The bar owner found it on the floor after the policeman left. It was lying at the foot of the counter where Stern and the Armenian had been sitting. So far as I can see it's exactly what it appears to be, an old Morse-code key. From the last century, probably.
The Colonel turned the small piece of worn metal between his fingers. The key was highly polished from innumerable handlings.
Stern used to carry that, murmured the Colonel. It was a kind of good-luck charm. He was never without it.
The Colonel frowned. He took a bottle of whiskey from a cupboard and poured into two glasses. The Major sipped his whiskey, waiting. The room was in the heart of the building and few sounds reached it.
The Colonel worked on his pipe in silence. Finally he picked up the other glass.
Are you and Maud friendly these days?
Yes. Should I speak to her?
The Colonel shook his head.
No. You see, I think we've stumbled upon an operation that belongs to somebody else, and the reason we found out about it is because something went wrong in that bar. I'm sure the Armenian's name was never supposed to turn up in a police report. No, certainly not. As for Maud, it's not possible that she has anything to do with the operation, because if she did, I would have to have been told.
But she knew Stern had been killed, said the Major, and someone had to tell her. A Purple Seven alert comes directly to us. So we were the first to know of Stern's death, and we're still the only ones who do know. Unless, of course, you've already passed the information along.
I haven't, said the Colonel. I will tonight. But as for us being the first to know of Stern's death, that's not quite true, is it?
The first to know inside, I meant. The Armenian knew, of course.
Yes, our Purple Seven knew. Our man with the Armenian name who's conveniently in transit while dealing, in Coptic artifacts. Our small shabby European who wears a secondhand suit and likes to have his morning coffee in a Cairo slum with some wild Arab hermit from the desert, and who has all the signs of being an experienced professional. He knew.
And told Maud?
That's right, said the Colonel. But what I meant before is that she can't have anything to do with the operation itself, as such. It's obvious she must have a good deal to do with some of the people involved in it. From a personal point of view.
Wasn't her connection with Stern known from the beginning?
Oh yes. Stern was the one who recommended her to us, and he was right on target as usual. She's been a fine addition. But tell me, what do you know about Stern?
Only what comes through from the files, replied the Major. That he seemed to be able to find out almost anything.
Ever wonder why that was so?
Excellent contacts, I assume.
Yes, the best. The French and the Germans and the Italians, Turks and Greeks and Arabs and Jews—he had them all. And why was that, do you suppose?
Because he must have made it his business to have them, said the Major. Because that was what he did.
His life.
Yes, what he did. But I'm beginning to wonder about that . . . what Stern really did. Stern gave information as well as took it, but the real reason people trusted him was because they always felt, deep down, that he was working just for them. In the end, just for them. We believed that, didn't we?
In answer, the Major frowned. In the short time he had worked for the Colonel, there had been some extremely sensitive operations set in motion almost entirely on the basis of information supplied by Stern.
And there must have been many other such operations in the past, so he found it difficult to follow what the Colonel now seemed to be suggesting about Stern.
That's not to say he wasn't working for us, continued the Colonel. It's just that ultimately . . .