The Sun Chemist by Lionel Davidson Read Free Book Online

Verochka’s old housekeeper, Batya, still part of the establishment.
    It was served to the archival staff, Julian magisterially at the head of the table. He sat with so grave a mien I’d half expected him, when I’d first eaten here, to break into grace. He didn’t quite do that. He robustly dealt with what was before him.
    ‘It is nice,’ he said judicially.
    ‘It’s delicious,’ Dan said. ‘Well, you live in style here. Very high off the hog, if the allusion gives no offense to the lady in the kosher kitchen.’
    His name was Dan Navon, and he’d published a best-selling book about Israel the year before. We’d overlapped for a few weeks on the American newspaper lists. He was now doing some work on the connections between Herzl – Weizmann – Ben-Gurion, counterpart of the Abraham – Moses – Joshua triumvirate of earlier history, and he was doing it in Connie’s room, which was why I was in Chaimchik’s.
    ‘Mashed potato is the stuff,’ he said decisively. ‘That’s right, Igor?’
    ‘Quite right,’ I said absently.
    ‘You will give us salvation through mashed potato.’
    ‘Will I?’
    ‘So Vava will.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Mashed potato. His stuff. He made the petrol from it.’
    ‘What’s the joke?’ Julian said.
    ‘Not mine. Michael Sassoon’s. I had dinner with him yesterday ,’ Dan said. ‘He’d got it from Bergmann. The Vava papers revolve around mashed potato.’
    He had a long bony face and an engaging smile; also, behind his glasses, a very intelligent pair of eyes that missed little. His corn-crake voice quite often came out with peculiar deadpan jokes, though.
    ‘They do, eh? Well for your information, old friend,’ Julian said, ‘there aren’t any Vava papers. There’s just a single letter mentioning Vava, in 1933.’
    ‘From the single letter mentioning Vava in 1933, Professor Bergmann has made a deduction. He is an investigator with the brain of one of the great detectives. From this one mention it was at once obvious to him that Vava had made a super petrol with an octane number of 150, and he made it from mashed potato.’
    ‘Why mashed?’ Julian said humorously.
    ‘Vava mashed it. I don’t know why,’ Dan said simply. ‘ Perhaps you have to.’
    The conversation moved on from mashed potato, but not very far, and when the meal was over and Dan announced he wouldn’t be coming back in the afternoon, I followed Connie ruminatively up to her room.
    ‘Was that serious about mashed potato?’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know what’s serious today, Connie,’ I said, and had a look at my watch. Two o’clock. Twelve in England. Worth a try. I picked up the phone and in about half a minute Caroline said breathlessly, ‘Hello.’
    I suddenly understood how Connie had felt the other day. ‘Hello, Caroline.’
    ‘ Igor? ’
    ‘Yes, darling. Have you been ringing Olga?’
    ‘I gave her a buzz earlier. There was no answer. I came back to start again. What’s up?’
    ‘Well, when you get her,’ I said, ‘tell her to leave the letters there.’
    ‘You don’t want them copied?’
    ‘I don’t want her to do anything with them. She can leave them, for the time being.’
    ‘I see. I think,’ she said. ‘Igor, is everything all right?’
    ‘Well, it isn’t bad, really. It’s quite nice,’ I said.
    There was a slightly breathy pause. ‘I just got in,’ she said. ‘I could hear the damned thing. What are you talking about – you don’t want the letters copied and you don’t want them sent?’
    ‘That’s right. How’s everything there?’
    ‘Well, how do you expect it is? It’s pissing. How’s orange-blossom land?’
    ‘It’s turned a bit gray and chilly now,’ I said, staring out at the marvelous day. ‘Well, then.’
    ‘Just a minute, for heaven’s sake. You do realize, don’t you, that she might easily have popped down this morning?’
    ‘I did realize that.’
    ‘Or that if she’s there this very minute she might not answer the