A Noble Profession

"Not for a second. I've known that all along, but I felt it was better for you to find it out for yourself.”

"She has only one idea, sir, one ambition—to prove her brother’s innocence. But in that case, if he really was innocent, if he wasn’t the one who talked . . .”

He stopped short. After a short pause Dr. Fog put his thought into words.

"Someone talked, Austin. If it wasn’t Morvan . . .”

"It’s impossible, sir. Why should Cousin have been so anxious to go back? He was sitting pretty over here and could have ended the war at his desk.”

The doctor nodded pensively but did not reply to this question.

"Well, anyway,” he said, “you mustn’t be surprised if she seizes every opportunity to test his courage and plumb

its depths.”

"She doesn’t merely seize opportunities, she goes out of her way to create them. That’s exactly what’s worrying me. She doesn’t give a damn for the war or for the enemy.”

"Neither does he, perhaps,” said Dr. Fog, "and that’s where we come in. It's up to us to channel these passions in such a manner as to serve the interests of the country. And with that end in view, I think it’s essential he should feel he is being watched."

“Watched, sir! What you mean is spied on, tracked down, hunted! First of all by me—he must have guessed what I was up to over there. If you could only have seen what he was like, knowing he was being observed at every instant, hesitating to make the most common- place gesture for fear of its being interpreted as a sign of weakness, forcing himself to divest his conduct of anything that could give the slightest suggestion of fear. Can you imagine anything more ghastly, sir, than having to assume the reactions of a hero every moment of the day?"

“That's what we need in this service, Austin," Dr. Fog replied quietly. “Men who behave as though they were heroes, whatever the circumstances.”

“There they are, living together, and he has to treat her the whole time like a wife he adores. . . . And that's not his only worry.”

“Of course not. There are also the agent’s natural enemies—the Gestapo and the Abwehr. But he volunteered for the job."

“I wasn’t thinking of them—what I mean is, her mother. She knows all about it."

“I'm sure she does. What is she like?”

“She doesn't have much to say, but I’d swear she’s even worse than her daughter, sir. She’d do her damnedest to vindicate her son. A forceful personality, what’s more. I have a feeling that Claire’s a mere child compared to her mother."

“You were quite right to accept her services."

“Perhaps. But I wouldn't be in Arvers’ shoes for anything in the world.”

“Nor would I,” Dr. Fog agreed. “But then . .

He assumed a strange tone of voice and looked directly at Austin as he added:

“But then, I shouldn’t have liked to be in Morvan’s, either.”

PART THREE

15

Arvers opened his eyes with a start as he heard the shutters bang in the adjoining room. Even before recovering consciousness, he felt the painful spasm in all his organs, and the discomfort of his body aggravated that of his uneasy mind. It was the sort of horrible awakening he experienced every morning: for several minutes at this time of day the physical and the

mental would react on each other with the pitiless regularity of a machine.

A faint light filtered into the room. Among the objects just beginning to come into focus, the heating stove directly opposite his bed appeared to him once again as an evil phantom placed there by the hand of a demon to remind him of some distant hell. He would gladly have got rid of the wretched contraption, he would at least have moved it to some other position so as not to have it before his eyes on waking up, but he did not dare: Claire would have been sure to notice. Her twisted, hostile imagination would have seized on this simple gesture and read some sinister meaning into it. He was fully aware of the malevolence of her constant spying.

He listened to her footsteps in the adjoining room and trembled as they approached the connecting door. It was the sound of her shutters being flung open that had waked him. She made no attempt to open them quietly—rather the opposite, in fact. She knew he never managed to get to sleep until it was almost dawn, and did her utmost to allow him no rest. When the sound of her footsteps ceased, he imagined her standing motionless and intent, her eyes fixed on his room, listening to the sound of his breathing.

He got out of bed cautiously, taking care not to make the springs creak, and tiptoed over to the hiding place where he kept a bottle of cheap Calvados. He took several minutes to turn the key in the drawer, casting anxious glances in the direction of the door. He silently took a couple of mouthfuls, careful not to let the liquid gurgle in the bottle. If she had suspected he regularly took a nip of alcohol first thing in the morning, she would have been certain to infer that he was lacking in innate courage.

After finishing his drink, he stood motionless for a moment, waiting for the comforting fumes to rise to his head. Then he put the bottle back with the same care, but with a steadier hand, and went back to bed again. The alcohol was not sufficient in itself to dispel the unbearable sensation that her distrust caused him, but it acted as a catalyst on his mind—that mind which alone had the power to concoct the antidotes against the