Read Passenger to Frankfurt for Free Online

it? What with the Chinese and the Russkies and the rather queer crowd that's behind all the student troubles and the New Mafia and the rather odd lot in South America. And the nice little nest of financiers who seem to have got something funny up their sleeves. Yes, it's not easy to say.'
    'Mary Ann,' said Sir Stafford Nye thoughtfully. 'It seems a curious name to have for her if her real one is Daphne Theodofanous.'
    'Well, her mother's Greek, her father was an Englishman, and her grandfather was an Austrian subject.'
    'What would have happened if I hadn't made her the loan of a certain garment?'
    'She might have been killed.'
    'Come, come. Not really?'
    'We're worried about the airport at Heathrow. This might have happened there lately, things that need a bit of explaining. If the plane had gone via Geneva as planned, it would have been all right. She'd have had full protection all arranged. But this other way - there wouldn't have been time to arrange anything and you don't know who's who always, nowadays. Everyone's playing a double game or a treble or a quadruple one.'
    'You alarm me,' said Sir Stafford Nye. 'But she's all right, is she? Is that what you're telling me?'
    'I hope she's all right. We haven't heard anything to the contrary.'
    'If it's any help to you,' said Sir Stafford Nye, 'somebody called here this morning while I was out talking to my little pals in Whitehall. He represented that I telephoned a firm of cleaners and he removed the suit that I wore yesterday, and also another suit. Of course it may have been merely that he took a fancy to the other suit, or he may have made a practice of collecting various gentlemen's suitings who have recently returned from abroad. Or - well, perhaps you've got an “or” to add?'
    'He might have been looking for something.'
    'Yes, I think he was. Somebody's been looking for something. All very nice and tidily arranged again. Not the way I left it. All right, he was looking for something. What was he looking for?'
    'I'm not sure myself,' said Horsham, slowly. 'I wish I was. There's something going on - somewhere. There are bits of it sticking out, you know, like a badly done up parcel. You get a peep here and a peep there. One moment you think it's going on at the Bayreuth Festival and the next minute you think it's tucking out of a South American estancia and then you get a bit of a lead in the USA. There's a lot of nasty business going on in different places, working up to something. Maybe politics, maybe something quite different from politics. It's probably money.' He added: 'You know Mr Robinson, don't you? Or rather Mr Robinson knows you, I think he said.'
    'Robinson?' Sir Stafford Nye considered. 'Robinson, an English name.' He looked across to Horsham. 'Large, yellow face?' he said. 'Fat? Finger in financial pies generally?'
    He asked: 'Is he, too, on the side of the angels - is that what you're telling me?'
    'I don't know about angels,' said Henry Horsham. 'He's pulled us out of a hole in this country more than once. People like Mr Chetwynd don't go for him much. Think he's too expensive, I suppose. Inclined to be a mean man, Mr Chetwynd. A great one for making enemies in the wrong place.'
    'One used to say “Poor but honest”,' said Sir Stafford Nye thoughtfully. 'I take it that you would put it differently. You would describe our Mr Robinson as expensive but honest. Or shall we put it, honest but expensive.' He sighed.
    'I wish you could tell me what all this is about,' he said plaintively. 'Here I seem to be mixed up in something and no idea what it is.' He looked at Henry Horsham hopefully, but Horsham shook his head.
    'None of us knows. Not exactly,' he said.
    'What am I supposed to have got hidden here that someone comes fiddling and looking for?'
    'Frankly, I haven't the least idea, Sir Stafford.'
    'Well, that's a pity because I haven't either.'
    'As far as you know you haven't got anything. Nobody gave you anything to keep, to take anywhere, to look