‘Paine here will show you the way to Sacher’s. You can get a bed and dinner there. I’ll see to that.’

He stepped to one side as though to make way for the waiter and slashed out at me. I just avoided him, but stumbled against the table. Before he could try again Paine had landed him one on the mouth. He went bang over in the alleyway between the tables and came up bleeding from a cut lip. I said, ‘I thought you promised not to fight.’

He wiped some of the blood away with his sleeve and said, ‘Oh, no, I said I’d rather make you a bloody fool. I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you a black eye as well.’

I had had a long day and I was tired of Rollo Martins. I said to Paine, ‘See him safely into Sacher’s. Don’t hit him again if he behaves,’ and turning away from both of them towards the inner bar (I deserved one more drink), I heard Paine say respectfully to the man he had just knocked down, ‘This way, sir. It’s only just around the corner.’

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT I didn’t hear from Paine but from Martins a long time afterwards, as I reconstructed the chain of events which did indeed – though not quite in the way he had expected – prove me to be a fool. Paine simply saw him to the head porter’s desk and explained there, ‘This gentleman came in on the plane from London. Colonel Calloway says he’s to have a room.’ Having made that clear, he said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and left. He was probably a bit embarrassed by Martins’ bleeding lip.

‘Had you already got a reservation, sir?’ the porter asked.

‘No. No, I don’t think so,’ Martins said in a muffled voice, holding his handkerchief to his mouth.

‘I thought perhaps you might be Mr Dexter. We had a room reserved for a week for Mr Dexter.’

Martins said, ‘Oh, I am Mr Dexter.’ He told me later that it occurred to him that Lime might have engaged a room for him in that name because perhaps it was Buck Dexter and not Rollo Martins who was to be used for propaganda purposes. A voice said at his elbow, ‘I’m so sorry you were not met at the plane, Mr Dexter. My name’s Crabbin.’

The speaker was a stout middle-aged young man with a natural tonsure and one of the thickest pairs of horn-rimmed glasses that Martins had ever seen. He went apologetically on, ‘One of our chaps happened to ring up Frankfurt and heard you were on the plane. H.Q. made one of their usual foolish mistakes and wired you were not coming. Something about Sweden, but the cable was badly mutilated. Directly I heard from Frankfurt I tried to meet the plane, but I just missed you. You got my note?’