The Intercom Conspiracy by Eric Ambler Read Free Book Online Page B

long. They will soon realise that he knows nothing, that he is an innocent.’
    Jost looked at the grey face and decided to say no more. In any case there was no time left; the steamer was edging in towards the pier. He stood up.
    ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘all my congratulations on your work for us. I hope that my own part will be as effective.’
    ‘Of course it will. You will send me a progress report?’
    ‘In the usual way. Take care of yourself. I hope your family are all well.’
    ‘Yes, yes, all well.’
    They touched hands briefly, surreptitiously, and then Jost walked aft, down to the gangway where he would disembark.
    * An aeronym for Coordination of Security Measures in International Command.

Chapter 3
FROM THEODORE CARTER
    transcribed dictation tape
    I think I’ll call you Mr L. L for Latimer, Lewison, lubricious and
louche
.
    Well, Mr L, you’d better watch yourself; your sheep’s clothing is slipping. When I agreed to cooperate with you I had to listen to a lot of sanctimonious jazz about probity, good faith and strict adherence to proven fact. I thought at the time that it smelt a bit of overcompensation, but I didn’t think the gilt would wear off the gingerbread quite so soon. I gave it a month. But no: two weeks.
    Mr L, I don’t very much mind your appropriating a privately dictated tape from my former secretary, Nicole Deladoey, and transcribing it without my permission; after all, you’re paying the cow’s wages now, and so presumably have purchased her loyalty along with her services.
That was a bitchy trick, Nicole
. I don’t even mind your wide-eyed and patently dishonest contention that, in reproducing that tape unedited, you were merely honouring retroactively a term of our agreement that
I
had insisted upon; that’s the kind of probity and good faith we men of the world can all understand. What I do object to, and object strongly, is your slipping in flagrant distortions of fact.
    We’d better get this straight. I don’t know what half-baked sources you’ve been tapping for this gossip and hearsay. You can’t tell me that you got it all out of ‘Colonel Jost’, though I suppose that some of it
must
be hard or not even
you
would dare.
    By the way, I will admit that the scene where those two old buzzards are mumbling over the evening paper and thinking about play material and pension plans still reads as if it could have happened
. Schadenfreude
is the word you wanted for their
kind of bloodymindedness, but maybe it eluded you. Cut down on the adjectives and adverbs, Mr L; purple is out this season
.
    Where was I?
    Oh yes. Facts. Now look. As I say, I don’t know anything about these sources of yours or how much you’ve paid them, but if that little character-assassination vignette of me which you’ve now added is a fair sample of what you’ve been getting, I’ll tell you something. You’re stuck with a bag of lemons. I was taught always to check and double-check information received before starting to think of it as fact. I think you should have checked with me first, Mr L. Maybe I don’t know everything about myself, but I do know a few things. Or was it too tasty as it was to risk spoiling with a dash of truth?
    Cooperation is a two-way street, Mr L. I do not like that reference to my drinking. It is not only untrue but damaging to my reputation. I want it deleted from the text. Get it right, Mr L, get it right. I do not drink heavily. I drink what I
need
to drink. The need
varies
from time to time. It’s that simple.
    The night the General turned in his chips is a case in point. As what happened that night had a distinct effect on the attitudes of the police and security people towards me later, you’d better know about it.
    The General got into Geneva at about five-thirty that afternoon on a delayed Swissair flight from New York. As usual, I met him at the airport and drove him to his hotel.
    I always got on well with the General. You say, or make one of those old