The Infiltrators by Donald Hamilton

Author:Donald Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

15

After the door had closed, Waldemar Baron stood staring at it for a little while; then he seemed to come awake abruptly. He asked me what I wanted to drink, and told Maxon to fix his own, he knew the way. Actually, it was a little too early for the first drink of the day as far as I was concerned, but it was no time to be arguing about booze. After putting a glass into my hand, Baron moved to the chair in which Madeleine had been sitting, swung it around one-handed, and sat down facing me. He gave me a faint, cynical smile.

“I suppose you’re waiting for me to tell you, sadly, what a poor unbalanced woman she’s become, Mr. Helm, making such wild and unfounded accusations against someone who’s never had anything but her good at heart.”

I said, “I don’t know about her accusations or your heart, sir, but Mrs. Ellershaw has just spent several weeks at a facility of ours going through a rigorous course of physical rehabilitation, preceded by a psychological testing program designed to find out if she was likely to break down under the pressure. I can assure you there’s nothing whatever wrong with the lady’s mental or emotional balance; in fact she passed all tests, and the course, with flying colors.”

“I see.” He studied me for a moment longer, and rose again, and went to the desk to pick up the telephone. “Did you check Mr. Helm’s credentials, Cassandra? I see… Yes, thank you, my dear, that’s very good thank you.” He put the phone down and returned to his chair and studied me for a moment. “The Chief of Police, Mr. Cordoba, says that you seem to be quite legitimate, although there’s some mystery about what function your agency actually performs.”

I said, “We sometimes wonder ourselves, sir.”

He said, “It’s been a long time. I will retire soon. Perhaps I’ve been looking for someone to take my confession before I do—”

Walter Maxon said sharply, “Waldemar!”

Baron looked at him for a moment, and shook his head regretfully. “I appreciate your faith, Walter, but Madeleine is perfectly right. I deserve every ugly word she threw at me.”

Maxon started to speak again, and stopped. We sat in silence for a little. Everybody started when the telephone rang. Baron made a little gesture, and Maxon rose and picked it up, and listened.

“No,” he said. “No, he’s in conference and can’t be disturbed. Later.”

Baron waited for him to return to his chair, and spoke quietly: “Let us consider, first, what I did not do. I’m afraid Madeleine gives me credit for greater wickedness and ingenuity than I’m capable of. I certainly did not set out deliberately to shatter her self-confidence or destroy her self-esteem. There was, of course, no deliberate program of working her to exhaustion so she’d be more vulnerable; and it was simply unfortunate that the only one of us available the night she needed legal help was rather inexperienced. I don’t know what horrors she was subjected to on her way to Fort Ames, but I assure you I had nothing to do with them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.