The Venetian Affair Read Online Free PDF

her.”
    “It wouldn’t matter if I did. And,” Fenner added pointedly, “it is eight years since she was my wife.” He moved toward the elevators. “I may go bankrupt, but I’ll do it in comfort,” he said as he looked around him. Soft rugs underfoot, soft air, soft voices. Deceptive. “Everyone looks so damned important. Are they?”
    Ballard wasn’t to be sidetracked. “You know, I’ve often wondered why Sandra left America. I know it’s none of my business, but—”
    “That’s right,” Fenner said with a quiet smile. “It was no one’s business. What about that coffee? And I need a shower and a shave.” But both elevator doors were now closed.
    “Look”—Ballard was glancing at his watch—“do you mind if I take a rain check? I’ve just met a man who has some good contacts with the Quai d’Orsay. He’s waiting for me.” He nodded toward a room near the entrance. “You know how it is, Bill.”
    “That’s all right. Thanks for delivering me intact.”
    “Use the office whenever you need it. I’ll be back on Monday. And the Embassy is across the street”—the old smile was back again—“just in case you need to take refuge.”
    “From a bomb, or Sandra?”
    Ballard looked at him. “You don’t have to worry about Sandra. She has no hard feelings about you.”
    Wasn’t that generous of her? “That’s kind of her.”
    “No, believe me. I was at a party last night at her place—she has a big apartment out on the Avenue d’Iéna, been living there for the last three years—”
    “That’s nice.” Glutinous word, “nice”, applicable all the way from rice pudding to sun tans.
    “She entertains a lot, you know. Not theatre stuff—she’s given up the stage—only politicians, diplomats, a few journalists, that kind of thing—”
    “Policy-making level,” Fenner suggested. That sounded like Sandra, all right. Poor Ballard, didn’t he know what he was getting into?
    “Not quite,” Ballard said modestly. “But an interesting bunch.” He dropped his voice. “She’s the very good friend of Fernand Lenoir.”
    “Is she?” And who was Monsieur Lenoir, who rated a dropped voice? Fenner looked at the returning elevator. “I’d better take this one,” he said. “We can’t keep the Quai d’Orsay waiting, can we?”
    Ballard held his arm, his voice hurrying. “Sandra and I had a little talk last night. She had some pretty nice things to say about you. In fact, she—“
    “Now,” Fenner remarked and freed his arm, “that really is worrying news.” Sandra at her sweetest was Sandra at her most dangerous. “I’ll call you,” he told Ballard as he stepped into the car. From the background, one of the assistant room clerks, with Fenner’s room key in his hand, moved forward to join him.
    “Any time,” Ballard said, “any time at all, Bill.” He looked disappointed, as if he still had one more question to ask. Or perhaps he was disappointed in Fenner, the man who had never appreciated such a sweet and generous woman as Sandra Fane. The name, Fenner reflected as he came out of the elevator and followed his guide through half a mile of carpeted corridors, had been as bogus as her life, and as carefully planned. He wondered how long Sandra had stayed in Czechoslovakia? All of the five years between her quiet exit from America and her descent on Paris? Perhaps she had changed. People did. But Sandra?
    The clerk hurried ahead of him with the key held ready, an elderly maid with folded towels over her arm moved out of a pantry to appraise the new arrival discreetly, a door opened and a waiter pushed a breakfast cart into the corridor. A young woman followed it, calling back to someone in the room, “All right, I’ll have the sketches ready for you by noon.”
    “No later, honey,” a querulous female voice reminded her.
    “No later,” the girl said calmly. “Thanks for the breakfast.” She closed the door, shaking her pretty blonde head, almost blocked Fenner’s