The Venetian Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

path as she adjusted a large black portfolioto fit more comfortably under her arm, said “Excuse me” in her charming voice, glanced at him with large grey eyes, and walked quickly away toward the elevators. It seemed unfair, Fenner thought, that anyone as young and decorative as that should have to be so crisp and business-like at half-past nine in the morning. A waste of natural resources.
    His room was comfortable and handsome. There was not much view—a side street, with some small cafés and shops topped by two or three stories of nineteenth-century façade now converted from private homes into offices and dressmaking work-rooms—but there was a shower, in a bathroom as large as his bedroom in New York. His suitcase and week-end bag were placed on luggage racks; his raincoat was already in one of the huge wardrobes. He tipped the elderly porter, thanked the room clerk, locked the door, and began throwing off his clothes. He ordered breakfast to be sent up in half an hour, and felt pleasantly efficient. The shaving lights were excellent. The shower worked. He even burst into a brief aria from Tosca.
    He breakfasted in the bathrobe the hotel had so obligingly provided, the warm air floating in from open French windows along with the grind and shriek of buses and cars. If it hadn’t been for them, he might have fallen into a pleasant sleep: the beds were as soft as everything else in this hotel. He opened his suitcase and began dressing. Fresh clothes made a new man. He even decided he would call Professor Vaugiroud and arrange an appointment for—well, not for this morning; that was being too damned efficient. This afternoon would give him time to collect Vaugiroud’s remarks, simplify them into basic points, and cable them to Walt Penneyman. It was only the beginning of the day in New York right now. He had at leasttwelve hours before he needed to call Penneyman and tell him the information was on its way.
    He lit a cigarette (the last one in this pack, he noted with a touch of annoyance), found the telephone number that Penneyman had given him, and got through to Vaugiroud with only reasonable delay. Professor Vaugiroud spoke good English, if a little impatiently. “Yes, yes,” he said as soon as Fenner had identified himself. “I had a cable last night to tell me to expect you. Is Mr. Penneyman ill?”
    “No. He just could not get away himself.”
    “I am sorry,” Vaugiroud said with marked disappointment.
    “He was, too. Could I see you this afternoon?”
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere you like. And whenever it suits you.”
    Vaugiroud thawed a little. “Come to my apartment at four o’clock. You have my address.”
    “Yes.”
    “At four, then.”
    So that was that. Fenner looked thoughtfully at some of the other addresses in his note-book: most of them he would have to see toward the middle of September, when they were back at work in Paris. There were only three—one a director, another a playwright, one an assistant to the Minister of Cultural Affairs—whom he knew well enough to be able to visit even while they were on vacation. He had their invitations in that folder in his suitcase. He could reach them easily by telephone. No, he decided, today I relax and walk around Paris. I’ve got to find another hotel anyway, or else I’ll have to cut my vacation to a week. For like most Americans abroad, well-dressed, educated, seemingly carefree millionaires from the land of give-away,Fenner had to keep an eye on his traveller’s checks.
    He got out a map of Paris and tracked down Vaugiroud’s address. It was across the Seine, not far from the Sorbonne, where Vaugiroud had once taught Philosophy. It would make a long, but pleasant, walk among some of his favourite streets. He might even revisit the bullet hole, unless they had plastered it over, although he had still seen it—and the other bullet holes from a Nazi sniper—on his last visit here, in ’58. It wasn’t every tourist who could look at a