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Naturally, since he had never been exposed here - the victorious Allies couldn’t be bothered with the non-German small fry and the Belgian Resistance never had free access to the files - he had come to believe that the past, or that little bit of his particular past, was buried for ever. Did you know about it?’
    He was still trying to sell me the proposition that, no matter what game we ended up playing, he would hold a winning hand.
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’
    ‘So it was unnecessary to use threats. All I had to do was speak to him using his old German code-name.’
    ‘I see. And you didn’t consider that a threat?’
    He swallowed most of his drink - talking had made him thirsty - and savoured it with a genteel little smack of the lips before he answered.
    ‘No,’ he said finally, ‘I didn’t consider it a threat. Nor, by the same token, would I consider that the conflicting interests which will be the basis of our collaboration need be thought of as threats by either of us. We are both sensible men, are we not?’
    ‘I am beginning to have doubts, Professor. That is the third time you have spoken of our collaborating. Collaborating in what, for heaven’s sake?’
    This time he showed me all his teeth and a stretch of molar bridgework as well.
    ‘I intend,’ he said, ‘to make a complete, full-scale case study of both you and your remarkable career, Mr Firman. For that, I shall require your close collaboration. Total anonymity will, of course, be guaranteed so that nothing need be left unsaid. You will be the great Mr X.’ He gave a little snicker. ‘In other words, I intend to make your craft and its associated skills as well understood by, and as recognizable in, the law-enforcement agencies of the world as common-or-garden burglary is now. Yes, Mr Firman, I intend to make you famous!’
    Mat was in London, negotiating, on behalf of Chief Tebuke and the native population of Placid Island, the final settlement of their claim against the Anglo-Anzac Phosphate Company; or rather he was going through the motions of negotiating on their behalf. Everyone who counted knew that he was in fact negotiating more for his own ultimate benefit than anyone else’s. They also thought that they knew what he wanted for himself out of the settlement. His connection with, then amounting to control of, the Symposia Group was at that time a very well-kept secret.
    We maintained a fully-staffed office in Brussels. With its help, I was able to reach him by telephone soon after seven.
    The emergency routine in use at the time involved sending a preliminary alert through a London cut-out via telex. That brought him to a safe phone to receive the call. Inevitably, though, there was some delay. I filled it by re-examining the file on Krom.
    It had been his Berne lecture that had brought him to my attention, and it was to the lecture that I now returned.
    One of the things that had struck me about it at the time had been his casual use of the word ‘criminal’. In my opinion and, I think, in that of most modern lexicographers, a criminal is one who commits a serious act generally considered injurious to the public welfare and usually punishable by law. Krom seemed to believe that anyone possessing the imagination and business planning skills needed to evolve a new way of investing time and money in order to make a profit, was automatically a criminal. The wretch need not have committed any illegal act to earn him the distinction. If he had been original and his originality had succeeded, that was enough. For Krom he stood condemned.
    This is Krom on my old friend Carlo Lech’s last fling: ‘The classic coup by Able Criminals - we do not know exactly how many were involved, but it is believed that there were four partners in the venture - is, of course, the famous butter affair. For the benefit of those delegates here whose governments have seen fit to abstain from or avoid, membership of the EEC, I should explain