‘Yes.’
They both converged into the area of light. The professor wore a white dinner-jacket, his hair was white, he had white morning stubble on his chin, and he carried a revolver in his hand which he pointed at Wormold. Wormold saw that the woman behind him was very young and very pretty. She stooped and turned off the gramophone.
‘Forgive me for calling on you at this hour,’ Wormold said. He had no idea how he should begin, and he was disquieted by the revolver. Professors ought not to carry revolvers.
‘I am afraid I don’t remember your face.’ The professor spoke politely and kept the revolver pointed at Wormold’s stomach. ‘There’s no reason why you should. Unless you have a vacuum cleaner.’ ‘Vacuum cleaner? I suppose I have. Why? My wife would know.’ The young woman came through from the patio and joined them. She had no shoes on. The discarded shoes stood beside the gramophone like mousetraps. ‘What does he want?’ she asked disagreeably.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Senora Sanchez.’
‘Tell him I’m not Senora Sanchez,’ the young woman said. ‘He says he has something to do with vacuum cleaners,’ the professor said. ‘Do you think Maria, before she went away…?’
‘Why does he come here at one in the morning?’
‘You must forgive me,’ the professor said with an air of embarrassment, ‘but this is an unusual time.’ He allowed his revolver to move a little off target. ‘One doesn’t as a rule expect visitors…’
‘You seem to expect them.’
‘Oh, this -one has to take precautions. You see, I have some very fine Renoirs.’
‘He’s not after the pictures. Maria sent him. You are a spy, aren’t you?’ the young woman asked fiercely.
‘Well, in a way.’
The young woman began to wail, beating at her own long slim flanks. Her bracelets jangled and glinted.
‘Don’t, dear, don’t. I’m sure there’s an explanation.’
‘She envies our happiness,’ the young woman said. ‘First she sent the cardinal, didn’t she, and now this man… Are you a priest?’ she asked. ‘My dear, of course, he’s not a priest. Look at his clothes.’ ‘You may be a professor of comparative education,’ the young woman said, ‘but you can be deceived by anyone. Are you a priest?’ she repeated. ‘No.’
‘What are you?’
‘As a matter of fact I sell vacuum cleaners.’
‘You said you were a spy.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose in a sense..
‘What have you come here for?’
‘To warn you.’
The young woman gave an odd bitch-like howl. ‘You see,’ she said to the professor, ‘she’s threatening us now. First the cardinal and then ‘The cardinal was only doing his duty. After all he’s Maria’s cousin.’ ‘You’re afraid of him. You want to leave me.’
‘My dear, you know that isn’t true.’ He said to Wormold, ‘Where is Maria now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘But I’ve never seen her.’
‘You do rather contradict yourself, don’t you?’
‘He’s a lying hound,’ the young woman said.
‘Not necessarily, dear. He’s probably employed by some agency. We had better sit down quietly and hear what he has to say. Anger is always a mistake. He’s doing his duty which is more than can be said of us.’ The professor led the way back to the patio. He had put his revolver back in his pocket. The young woman waited until Wormold began to follow and then brought up the rear like a watchdog. He half expected her to bite his ankle. He thought, Unless I speak soon, I shall never speak.
‘Take a chair,’ the professor said. What was comparative education?
‘May I give you a drink?’
‘Please don’t bother.’
‘You don’t drink on duty?’
‘Duty!’ the young woman said. ‘You treat him like a human being. What duty has he got except to his despicable employers?’ ‘I came here to warn you that the police…’
‘Oh come, come, adultery is not a crime,’ the professor said. ‘I think it has seldom been regarded as that except in the American cobflies in the seventeenth century. And in the Mosaic Law, of course.’ ‘Adultery had got nothing to do with it,’ the young woman said. ‘She didn’t mind us sleeping together, she only minded our being together.’ ‘You can hardly have one without the other, unless you are thinking of the New Testament,’ the professor said. ‘Adultery in the heart.’ ‘You have no heart unless you turn this man out. We sit here talking as though we had been married for years. If all you want to do is to sit up all night and talk, why didn’t you stick to Maria?’
‘My dear, it was your idea to dance before bed.’
‘You call what you did dancing?’
‘I told you that I would take lessons.’
‘Oh yes, so as to be with the girls at the school.’
The conversation seemed to Wormold to be reeling out of sight. He said desperately, ‘They shot at Engineer Cifuentes. You are in the same danger.’ ‘If I wanted girls, dear, there are plenty at the university. They come to my lectures. No doubt you are aware of that, since you came yourself.’ ‘You taunt me with it?’
‘We are straying from the subject, dear. The subject is what action Maria is likely to take next.’
‘She ought to have given up starchy foods two years ago,’ the young girl said rather cheaply, ‘knowing you. You only care for the body. You ought to be ashamed at your age.’
‘If you don’t wish me to love you..
‘Love. Love.’ The young woman began to pace the patio. She made gestures in the air as though she were dismembering love. Wormold said, ‘It’s not Maria you have to worry about.’
‘You lying hound,’ she screamed at him. ‘You said you’d never seen her.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Then why do you call her Maria?’ she cried and began to do triumphant dance-steps with an imaginary partner.
‘You said something about Cifuentes, young man?’
‘He was shot at this evening.’
‘Who by?’
‘I don’t know exactly, but it’s all part of the same round-up. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but you really seem to be in great danger, Professor Sanchez. It’s all a mistake, of course. The police have been to the Shanghai Theatre too.’
‘What have I to do with the Shanghai Theatre?’
‘What indeed?’ cried the young woman melodramatically. ‘Men,’ she said, ‘men! Poor Maria. She hasn’t only one woman to deal with. She’ll have to plan a massacre.’
‘I’ve never had anything to do with anybody at the Shanghai Theatre.’
‘Maria is better informed. I expect you walk in your sleep.’ ‘You heard what he said, it’s a mistake. After all, they shot at Cifuentes. You can’t blame her for that.’
‘Cifuentes? Did he say Cifuentes? Oh, you Spanish oaf. Just because he talked to me one day at the Club while you were in the shower you go and hire desperadoes to kill him.’
‘Please, dear, be reasonable. I only heard of it just now when this gentleman…’
‘He’s not a gentleman. He’s a lying hound.’ They had again come full circle in the conversation.
‘If he’s a liar we need pay no attention to what he says. He’s probably slandering Maria too.’
‘Ah, you would stick up for her.’
Wormold said with desperation it was his last fling, ‘This has got nothing to do with Maria -with Senora Sanchez, I mean.’ ‘What on earth has Senora Sanchez to do with it?’ the professor asked.
‘I thought you thought that Maria…’
‘Young man, you aren’t seriously telling me that Maria is planning to do something to my wife as well as to my… my friend here? It’s too absurd.’ Until now the mistake had seemed to Wormold fairly simple to deal with. But now it was as though he had tugged a stray piece of cotton and a whole suit had begun to unwind. Was this Comparative Education? He said, ‘I thought I was doing you a favour by coming to warn you, but it looks as if death for you might be the best solution.’