Her fingers were closed over his. They pressed hard, with a surprising strength, as if she were trying to drive home a point of argument. But their touch was disturbing; it sent through Otto’s arm the tingling, crepitant little shock which he could not forget.
“I . . . I understand quite,” he said uncertainly. “It is good.”
The fingers released his hand, but he could still feel their touch. She moved away from him and leaned over the desk and pulled the folder towards her. She opened it, turning over its contents one by one.
“There’s another here,” she said, “which you could have . . . a speech I made to the main Committee of the Anglo-Saxon Union . . . against the Bunds. . . .”
She stopped abruptly, staring down at a large portrait which covered a full page. Otto moved closer to her and leaned one hand on the desk and peered at the picture.
It was of Charles De Gaulle—and at the head of the page was the word
There was odd silence while she stared down at the photograph. Otto’s mind was divided: half of it wondered what this interest in the Frenchman might portend, the other was lost in contemplative admiration of the amazing contrasts between firm white skin and soft black velvet.
She straightened and turned to face him in a single swift movement. He stepped back, staring at her. The eyes had changed again, and when she spoke it was in the voice which had kept him at attention. She said:
“I had forgotten that Nils Jorgensen was to be a
Otto forced himself to meet the eyes. “To-morrow,” he said. “In the morning. At eleven o’clock.”
She went around the desk and sat in the chair. The eyes seemed never to leave his face. She closed the folder and put it back into the drawer from which she had taken it. She said:
“This is a matter of importance. It was foolish of me to let it slip my mind—extremely foolish.”
She paused for a moment, drawing a hand across her forehead. Otto stood rigid before the desk again: it was as if there had been no interlude.
“They will want to take a full-face photograph of you.” The voice and eyes might never have been other than these. “But it cannot be allowed: the wide publication of an excellent portrait can fix a face too firmly in too many minds, Captain—and while just now it is desirable enough to have Nils Jorgensen well known, it might not always be so. You follow?”
“I understand,” Otto said slowly. “Yes.” He wondered what was to come.
“Turn around,” she said suddenly. “Sideways; so that I can see your profile.”
Otto did not move at once, and she said: “Quick!” in a tone which brought instant action. He turned smartly to his right, like a parade-ground soldier, so that his left shoulder was to the desk. Under his cheekbones were two dull red patches. He was elaborately at attention.
He stood motionless for minutes which might have been hours. But she said at last:
“Now the other side.” He heard the rasp of a striking match, and while he wheeled in a full about-turn, saw that she was lighting a cigarette.
He was motionless again, his right shoulder now to the desk.
“Better.” She spoke almost at once this time. “Less character than the other. . . . All right.”
He knew that she meant him to face her and turned to do so. She said:
“You must only be taken in profile—
Otto knew that he must speak now. He said carefully:
“There seems one way sure only.” He paused, but she merely nodded, and after a moment he went on. He was meeting her eyes now but he could read nothing in them. He said:
“With my face, on the right side, injured—” he was fumbling a little with his words—“with a bruising . . .”
She said: “Exactly,” and nothing more.
“It is simple,” he said—and turned from the desk and took two paces to the centre of the small room and stood looking about him with quick, darting glances. He was very straight—and he could feel eyes upon his back.
He chose the sharp, unrounded corner of the wall which jutted out to make a little alcove around the centre of the three inner doors. He crossed to it with quick, light steps and stood for a moment measuring his distance and then, bent nearly double, lunged at it with his head in a quick, viciously stabbing movement like the striking of a snake.
There was a bright flash of flame inside his skull, and a hollow sound in his ears and a stab of pain across his forehead, in the centre of his right eyebrow, which managed to be simultaneously vivid and numbing. He staggered. His mind rocked, but he knew everything that he was doing—even that he had lunged harder than was necessary.
With immense effort he stood upright. The floor rocked under his feet but he held himself steady with an iron will: he would not, he swore it behind jaw-muscles clenched into jutting wads of steel, so much as sway. He would turn in a moment and go back to the desk on unwavering feet.