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opposite him.
    â€œI was beginning to get worried about you, Dick,” he said without glancing up from his newspaper. “Are you being watched?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” I answered.
    â€œGood. Will they let you take the plane to-morrow?”
    â€œI think so. They don’t seem to have anything against me except the fact that I saw Jan Tu č ek on Wednesday. How did you know I’d been arrested?”
    â€œI was at the airport.”
    â€œWere you catching that plane?”
    â€œNo. I was waiting to see you.” I saw the whites of his eyes in the shadow of his face as he glanced quickly round the room. Then he smoothed his paper out flat on the table and leaned slightly forward. “You probably know by now why the S.N.B. police picked you up for questioning.” I shook my head and he said, “We got Tu č ek out of the country last night. That’s why I couldn’t meet you as arranged. There was a lot to do.”
    â€œYou got him out of the country!” I stared at him. “But—he was in protective custody. How—”
    â€œA little diversion. The house next door caught fire. But don’t worry about the details. We had an old Anson waiting at Bory airfield. There were two of them—Tu č ek and a senior Czech air force officer, generál letectva Lemlin. They should have been in Milan early this morning.” He was talking very fast, his lips hardly moving. “Reece wouldn’t be expecting them till Sunday morning, but they knew where to contact him, and I should have had confirmation of their arrival by wire this morning.” He paused and then said, “I’m very worried, Dick. I’ve heard nothing. When you get to Milan to-morrow, I want you to go straight to the Albergo Excelsior, opposite the Stazione Centrale. Tell Reece to wire me immediately. Will you do that?”
    â€œThe Excelsior! Is Reece staying there?” I asked him.
    He nodded and I cursed the luck that had booked me at the same hotel. I didn’t want to see Reece. I think Maxwell knew that, for he added, “It’s very urgent, Dick. They may have crashed.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “I’ll see Reece.”
    â€œGood man. Just one other thing. A message from Tu č ek. He told me to tell you that he wished to see you as soon as you arrived in Milan. He was very insistent.”
    â€œAll right,” I said.
    A waiter appeared and collected our glasses. Maxwell folded his newspaper. “Would
pana
care to have a look at the paper?” he said in Czech. I thanked him and took the paper. He collected his brief case and got to his feet. “Goodbye, Dick,” he whispered. “See you again sometime.” And he strolled down the length of the bar and out by the street door.
    I had another drink and then went in to lunch. Time passed very slowly during the rest of that day. I drank it away watching the hands of the clock over the bar move steadily through afternoon into evening. The airport hadmade no difficulty about transferring my booking to the following day. The only question was, would the police let me go? Everything seemed to hinge on whether the night porter kept his mouth shut about Tu č ek’s extraordinary visit to my room. The more I thought about that, the more odd it seemed. If he had come to see me, then why hadn’t he wakened me? Perhaps I’d been so drunk he couldn’t wake me? But then why did he want to see me as soon as I reached Milan?
    These speculations became more and more confused in my mind as I drank the evening out. And they became confused with my promise to see Reece. I didn’t want to see Reece. Alive or dead, I didn’t want to see him. He’d been so bitter. He’d turned his sister against me, smashed my life. Shirer I didn’t mind so much. Shirer had been older. He knew what I’d been through. But Reece was young. He didn’t