The first familiar face he saw as he entered the auction house and registered for his plastic paddle was Harry Vestry, standing near the door and glancing at his watch. “I was hoping you’d be here, Rand.” He glanced at Rand’s paddle. “Number Seventy-seven! Sure to be lucky if you care to bid. If Cheever and Watkins get here too, I’d like to position us in different parts of the hall where we can keep track of the bidding. I know it’s often impossible to identify the high bidder, especially if it’s made by phone, but we can try.”
Still playing the old spy, Rand thought. “Simon Spalding is sure to be here, bidding on something. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Good! I saw him go in a few minutes ago. He took a paddle, so he plans to bid.”
But when Rand entered the large high-ceilinged auction room with its twin chandeliers and rows of folding chairs, the first person he saw was Magda Barnes, immaculate in a white summer suit. “We meet again, Mr. Rand.”
“So it seems.”
“Will you be bidding on any of my father’s items?”
“I may.” He lifted number seventy-seven and gave it a little twirl. “Good luck! You have a nice crowd.” Then he went off to find a seat.
The auction had already started and they were on the fifth item, Rand estimated there were about a hundred and fifty people in the room. Some, apparently the high bidders, were in glass booths above floor level. They seemed to be connected by telephone to their agents on the floor. Above the stage where the auctioneer stood, a large electronic sign gave the latest bids in pounds sterling, dollars, francs, yen, and other currencies. As each item was announced for bidding it was shown on a turntable next to the auctioneer. Spotters along each side of the room watched for bids that the auctioneer might miss.
Rand could see that the prices were running fairly high for the antique items. Personal items and office supplies brought less, although Simon Spalding, seated a few rows ahead of Rand, paid two hundred pounds for Barnes’s old manual typewriter. Rand was surprised when Colonel Cheever suddenly appeared, raising his paddle from a back row to bid on the collection of books. The bidding was lively but Cheever finally lost out.
The canopied four-poster bed, too large for the turntable, was wheeled onto the stage. It went to a dark-complexioned man who may have been an Arab. Barnes’s writing desk fetched a good sum from a neatly dressed young couple.
Finally Rand spotted Shirley seated On the aisle near the rear. He held a plastic paddle with the number sixty-eight on it. That probably meant he’d come in before Rand, yet Harry Vestry at the door hadn’t noticed him. It signified nothing, of course. Vestry might have stopped in the men’s room for a moment.
The collection of Cedric Barnes’s own books, in various languages, was the last item to be auctioned. This time Colonel Cheever tried again, with better results. He took the lot for eleven hundred pounds.
Several of the winning bidders went to the office to settle up and claim the items if they were small enough to carry. Rand was on his way out when he ran into Simon Spalding at the St. George Street entrance. “Did you bid on anything?” the columnist asked.
“Not a thing. But I see you picked up that old typewriter.” Spalding hefted it in its leather carrying case. “It’s worth about a tenth of what I paid, but I wanted a remembrance of the old guy. He was one of the tops in the business.”
Rand smiled in agreement. “He certainly was that.” He glanced at his watch. “Look here, Spalding, it’s nearly one o’clock. We both could stand a spot of lunch. The Old Spies Club, as you referred to it, is only a few blocks away, just across Piccadilly. Come along with me and I’ll treat you.”
Spalding quickly accepted. “That’s very generous of you, Rand. I’ll admit to being curious about the place.”
As they entered the club, he suggested that Spalding might want to leave the typewriter in the checkroom, but the columnist clutched it firmly. “Oh no! This cost me two hundred pounds and I’m hanging onto it.”
Rand chuckled and led the way into the dining room. After a luncheon of roast beef and blood pudding, topped with red wine and finished off with trifle for dessert, Spalding took out a cigar and they adjourned to the gentlemen’s smoking lounge. It was deserted at this hour of the afternoon except for one man sleeping in an armchair, his bald head visible over its top. The columnist lit his cigar, offering one to Rand, who declined. Then they settled back in the comfort of the overstuffed leather armchairs.
“I can see why you chaps like this place,” Spalding said. “It’s a perfect setting to wile away one’s retirement.”
Rand smiled slightly. “Now that we’re comfortable, suppose you show me the typewriter.”
“What? This thing?”
“The very same.”
“What for?”
“So I can confirm my suspicion as to the identity of the fabled double agent.”
Simon Spalding laughed. “You think this old manual typewriter of Barnes’s will tell you that?”
“I know it will, and so do you. Who ever saw a shiny plastic ribbon on a manual typewriter? They all used fabric ribbons.” He reached down and unzipped the leather carrying case. The columnist made no attempt to stop him. “It’s a bit narrower than the quarter-inch plastic ribbons that electric typewriters use. There was all this talk of a journal, but Cedric Barnes used a tape recorder for interviews, didn’t he? They even auctioned one off today.” Rand removed the ribbon from the machine. “It’s a tape, masquerading as a typewriter ribbon. The tape of Barnes’s infamous last interview with the double agent.”
“It’s going to make me a rich man,” Simon Spalding said.
“Or a dead one. Suppose I get a machine and we play this tape right now.”
“Here?”
“We’re alone except for that fellow sleeping in his chair. We won’t disturb him. Don’t you want to know the size of the fish you’ve landed?”
“I’d rather find out back in the office.”
“Funny thing,” Rand said, keeping his voice light. “You told me yesterday you only met Cedric Barnes once, at an awards dinner. But his daughter said you were at their house back around the time of Sadat’s assassination. That would have been nineteen eighty-one, wouldn’t it?”
“You have a better memory for dates than I do.”
“There were rumors about Barnes’s unpublished interview with a double agent, a defector who changed his mind at the last minute. Rumors of a journal Barnes kept of the interview. Only Barnes didn’t keep journals, he used a tape recorder. One person would have known that for sure, would have known exactly what to look for among the items to be auctioned, would have spotted that recording tape disguised as a typewriter ribbon. The man Barnes interviewed, the double agent himself.”
“Damn you, Rand!”
“If I’m wrong, play the tape for me.”
Spalding’s hand came out of his pocket holding a small automatic pistol. Rand remembered his own gun and wished now that he’d brought it.
“I’m a journalist, remember, not one of you spy boys!”
“You don’t look much like a journalist with that gun. I suppose the British and Russians used journalists occasionally, just as the CIA is sometimes accused of doing. Your job on the European desk was the perfect place to gather information. As for that interview, a journalist would be the most aware of a good news story, and the most likely to tell Barnes his side of the story before he defected.” Simon Spalding held the gun very steady. Behind him, Rand thought he could hear the sound of the bald man snoring. “If what you say is true, why would I change my mind after giving Barnes the interview?”