I hit him. It was in better circumstances than the last time I'd tried, and I didn't even have to think about it; I just lashed out and my fist smashed into his face. With most people that would have been enough, but not with Lefevre. He was much tougher than most people. I had hurt him, but not enough to stop him. He took a step back, then came at me like a steam engine, grappling with me and knocking me against the chest-of-drawers in the hotel room. But if he had strength and years of bitterness on his side, I had agility and weeks of bubbling resentment on mine. I twisted, rammed his head against the wall and rolled across the floor. He hurled himself on me and began pounding at my face with his fists, while I instinctively kneed him in the stomach. The mirror fell off the wall and smashed onto the floor when he hurled me bodily across the room; the bed collapsed when we fell on it, my arm tight around his throat.
He won. He simply had more stamina, could take more punishment than I could. He left me, barely conscious, gasping for breath on the floor, standing over me but also only just able to keep upright, the blood pouring from his nose. The he kneeled down, and held a knife to my throat for a few seconds before stumbling out of the room.
'If I ever set eyes on you again, I will kill you, do you understand?'
I had no doubts that he meant it.
I did not see him again, not that night nor the next day. He simply vanished, leaving no note behind him, leaving me to pay the hotel bill and explain the destruction in the bedroom. In retrospect I accept that I was wrong. His life was more at risk than mine should anything go badly, and he had spent much of the last quarter century exercising caution and surviving. If he trusted no one it was not simply because of a fundamental ill-will in his nature, it was from bitter experience. And he was getting old; I reminded him of his failing powers, and how different his life had been from his earlier, more optimistic expectations. Had he been less closed, less distrustful, we might have established a useful co-operation based on mutual respect, if not warmth.
But then I was less understanding. We were now enemies on the same side and I was merely glad to see the back of him. His treatment of me in the previous few weeks had been monstrous, and contemptuous. He had cruelly and unnecessarily exposed me to all manner of hardships and even danger, had dismissed my successes and laughed at my failures, had been insulting in every way he could imagine, and I hated him more deeply than any man I had ever known before.
I refused to accept, even to consider, that he had been a very good teacher indeed.
My investment was a success; over the next few months Virginie sent a steady stream of information – some useful, some not – which demonstrated that I had judged rightly. It reinforced my views of Lefevre and of myself. The system I had was this: each missive was forwarded from the Bank of Bremen to Barings, and so on to me. I read it, then passed it to Mr Wilkinson, who bought those he considered useful – generally no more than a few hundred francs at a time, but on one occasion mounting up to a thousand. Small sums for a government, but large for a woman making her way on the borders of a foreign country. This money I paid into the account I had opened at a third bank to work off the opening deficit and cover interest payments back to Barings. Of such small details is the world of espionage truly composed. I had no direct communications with her except when the debt was finally discharged.
But I did read her letters. In all she showed great intelligence and skill. She had an instinctive understanding of what was required, and expressed herself with dispatch. Judging by the quality of the information, I could guess that her plan to improve her standing in the world was going well. After a month, information began to come in that was supplied by a major in the cavalry, talking about exercises, and new formations that were being practised. Then came details of a new cannon, supplied by a lieutenant-colonel in the artillery. And finally she achieved her goal – a whole stream of information supplied by an infatuated general of the Army of the East who had little else to do, as there was no intention of asking the army to do anything. In meticulous detail, she confirmed other evidence that France was currently determined to avoid war with Germany because of its pressing rivalry with England and a fear that it was nowhere near strong enough yet to renew the fight.
