“We’ll get him someday,” her mother said. “After all, it’s a setback for him. He must have realized you saw through him.”
“Naturally. On our way back he could hardly bring himself to look at me.”
“We’ll get him,” her mother repeated, nodding her head. “The next time you mustn’t let him recover his self-possession. I know what he’s like now. He’s the sort of man you have to harry. He’ll always get away with it if you give him time to think.”
21
Arvers was waiting for Gleicher, who had arrived at the villa at dusk and was to come over and join him after dinner. He tried to shake off the image of Bergen in the wood and the bitter taste left by the memory of his failure. He succeeded by concentrating on the reception he was preparing for the traitor and by repeating under his breath the orders he was going to give him. In the gloomy atmosphere in which he was struggling, Gleicher’s visits came like rays of sunshine.
The German knocked gently on the door at the appointed hour and appeared in the guise in which Arvers knew him, interweaving into his bourgeois manner a variety of facial contortions designed to express servility, greed, and fear. Arvers did not even invite him to sit down. With his hands in his pockets and a forbidding expression on his face that, to his intense delight, forced his victim to bow his head, he harshly listed his complaints. Claire was on the other side of the room, separated from them by a half-open movable partition. He spoke fairly loudly so that she should not miss a single word of his tirade.
“I may as well tell you, my good man, that I’m far from satisfied with your work. The last batch of information I bought from you was utterly worthless. I thought so at the time, and my service has since confirmed it. At the rate I pay you, I think I can expect something better than that sort of trash.”
He shifted his position slightly to see what Claire was doing. She was busy writing and looked as though she had not heard a word. He was vexed by this but derived some consolation from the manifest discomfiture of Gleicher, who was timidly mumbling some lame excuse. Arvers interrupted with a withering gesture to show he had not yet finished with him.
“I’d like to point out that up to now I’ve been scrupulously fair in my dealings with you. If you can’t be a little more conscientious yourself. I’ll have to make other arrangements.”
He felt intoxicated by the sound of his own words. Claire stopped writing and made an abrupt gesture, which his pride interpreted as a sign of approval, whereas in fact it expressed only the girl’s annoyance at his attitude. He went on, striving to create an effect by way of contrast, switching straight to a mysterious, almost sinister tone.
“Not to mention, of course, the extremely serious steps that I shan’t hesitate to take in order to ensure your discretion.”
This was the way to handle a traitor! The fellow was entirely at his mercy. He had seen through him completely. He was not only corrupt but also contemptible—the very thought of him made Arvers feel sick. To realize what sort of man he was, you only had to look at him now—cringing instead of standing up to him. Arvers interrupted him again in a furious tone:
“That’ll be all for the moment. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now then, what have you brought me today?”
The German opened his brief case and handed him some papers that Arvers began studying, shrugging his shoulders from time to time. Gleicher watched him closely and seemed lost in thought. His reflections must have been sufficiently absorbing to make him gradually abandon his servile manner. In the end he decided to speak, in a voice still deferential but at the same time filled with a subtle, almost imperceptible undertone that would have escaped anyone but Arvers, who was acutely sensitive to these fine distinctions.
“Herr Arvers,” Gleicher was saying, “I owe you an apology. I’m ashamed of myself, positively ashamed. You’re absolutely right: that last lot of information wasn’t worthy of you.”
Arvers’ peculiar sense was immediately alerted. He detected a note of irony in this suspicious display of humility. It was so unexpected that he felt a dull shock and shivered as though it were a portent of danger. Since his return to France, any surprise he suffered was invariably accompanied by a vague foreboding. He glanced automatically in Claire's direction, anxious to
see whether she, too, had been struck by these unusual inflections; but she had resumed her work and appeared not to have noticed.
“You’re absolutely right, Herr Arvers, that last lot of information wasn't worthy of you, and I’m afraid this batch isn’t particularly important, either. Believe me, it’s not my fault; after all, I had a great deal of difficulty getting it. But I’m anxious to give value for the money I earn and I’d like to prove this to you. Do you realize, Herr Arvers, that even before you voiced your complaints—which are justified, absolutely justified—my conscience was pricking me? Honestly, I’ve felt deep remorse at having failed to deliver the goods these last few weeks.
“I’ve done my utmost to redeem myself, and I think I've succeeded. Yes, at last I’m in a position to let you have a document of exceptional value, a document worthy of you, Herr Arver —and also of myself, for I, too, have my pride.’’
He began to reveal his heavy guns. This moment was his reward for a long period of mortification, during which he had been forced to play a loathsome role.
“And where’s this marvelous document of yours?’’ Arvers asked, making an effort to recover his air of authority. “All I see here is the usual drivel.’’
“I didn’t bring it with me. It belongs to a friend of mine who would probably let me
have it; but he is fully aware of its value. He’s asking an extremely steep price, Herr Arvers.’’
“How can I tell if it’s really worth anything or not?’’
Gleicher lowered his voice so as not to be overheard and whispered in a mysterious manner:
“You can listen to it this evening, Herr Arvers. It’s in my villa.”
“Listen to it?”
“Yes. It isn’t a piece of paper, it’s a tape recording.”
Arvers gave a start. At the sound of the words “tape recording,” which suggested no specific danger, the feeling of apprehension caused by his visitor's behavior intensified. He had the uneasy suspicion that this new material furnished an alarming explanation of the apparent insignificance of some incident—one he had forgotten long before, because of its unimportance, and that he could not yet call to mind exactly. Perhaps the truth was already beginning to emerge in his subconscious by the usual tortuous paths—paths more akin to premonition than to rational knowledge.
“A tape recording," he echoed, also lowering his voice so that Claire could not hear.