Chapter 3

Ashenden gave him one and on this the Colonel scribbled in pencil the
name of a street and the number of a house. When Ashenden walked along
next morning to keep his appointment he found himself in a street of
rather vulgar red-brick houses in a part of London that had once been
fashionable, but was now fallen in the esteem of the house-hunter who
wanted a good address. On the house at which Ashenden had been asked
to call there was a board up to announce that it was for sale, the
shutters were closed and there was no sign that anyone lived in it. He
rang the bell and the door was opened by a non-commissioned officer so
promptly that he was startled. He was not asked his business, but led
immediately into a long room at the back, once evidently a dining-room,
the florid decoration of which looked oddly out of keeping with the
office furniture, shabby and sparse, that was in it. It gave Ashenden
the impression of a room in which the brokers had taken possession.
The Colonel, who was known in the Intelligence Department, as Ashenden
later discovered, by the letter R., rose when he came in and shook
hands with him. He was a man somewhat above the middle height, lean,
with a yellow, deeply-lined face, thin grey hair and a toothbrush
moustache. The thing immediately noticeable about him was the
closeness with which his blue eyes were set. He only just escaped a
squint. They were hard and cruel eyes, and very wary; and they gave
him a cunning, shifty look. Here was a man that you could neither like
nor trust at first sight. His manner was pleasant and cordial.

He asked Ashenden a good many questions and then, without further
to-do, suggested that he had particular qualifications for the secret
service. Ashenden was acquainted with several European languages and
his profession was excellent cover; on the pretext that he was writing
a book he could without attracting attention visit any neutral country.
It was while they were discussing this point that R. said:

“You know you ought to get material that would be very useful to you in
your work.”

“I shouldn’t mind that,” said Ashenden.

“I’ll tell you an incident that occurred only the other day and I can
vouch for its truth. I thought at the time it would make a damned good
story. One of the French ministers went down to Nice to recover from a
cold and he had some very important documents with him that he kept in
a dispatch-case. They were very important indeed. Well, a day or two
after he arrived he picked up a yellow-haired lady at some restaurant
or other where there was dancing, and he got very friendly with her.
To cut a long story short, he took her back to his hotel–of course it
was a very imprudent thing to do–and when he came to himself in the
morning the lady and the dispatch-case had disappeared. They had one
or two drinks up in his room and his theory is that when his back was
turned the woman slipped a drug into his glass.”

R. finished and looked at Ashenden with a gleam in his close-set eyes.

“Dramatic, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Do you mean to say that happened the other day?”

“The week before last.”

“Impossible,” cried Ashenden. “Why, we’ve been putting that incident
on the stage for sixty years, we’ve written it in a thousand novels.
Do you mean to say that life has only just caught up with us?”

R. was a trifle disconcerted.

“Well, if necessary, I could give you names and dates, and believe me,
the Allies have been put to no end of trouble by the loss of the
documents that the dispatch-case contained.”

“Well, sir, if you can’t do better than that in the secret service,”
sighed Ashenden, “I’m afraid that as a source of inspiration to the
writer of fiction it’s a washout. We really can’t write that story
much longer.”

It did not take them long to settle things and when Ashenden rose to go
he had already made careful note of his instructions. He was to start
for Geneva next day. The last words that R. said to him, with a
casualness that made them impressive, were:

“There’s just one thing I think you ought to know before you take on
this job. And don’t forget it. If you do well you’ll get no thanks
and if you get into trouble you’ll get no help. Does that suit you?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then I’ll wish you good afternoon.”

II

_A Domiciliary Visit_