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the table.
    ‘Nuisance value,’ he said.
    ‘Precisely.’
    They said no more until they were back in their hotel; but both had been thinking and they spent the rest of that evening talking of ways in which the lesson of the Mexican forger might be applied by those having their own particular skills and resources. They agreed in the end that there was only one way that could be considered relatively safe. Before they went up to their rooms thatnight they amused themselves by mapping out a plan of campaign.
    Colonel Jost says that he has no idea when the decision to put the plan into action was made.
    This was not, I think, an evasion on his part, an attempt to shift the ultimate responsibility onto Brand. In a collusive relationship such as theirs, commitments and decisions are often made obliquely, without discussion, and without anything having been said directly. It is possible, too, that no
formal
decision was ever taken. Theirs was a long-term plan and, in its initial stages certainly, neither of them was called upon to do anything obviously illegal or suspect. A tacit understanding could have carried them to a point of no return, or at any rate to a point at which return would have seemed to them anticlimactic and ridiculous.
    So, the moment when the private joke turned into a conspiracy passed unnoticed by those who conspired. They were not given to self-examination. All they knew, or cared, was that in Rome that year they had found a new game to play and that it would be more stimulating, perhaps more profitable, than the old.
    As the steamer left the quay at Vevey, Brand came out of the saloon and went to the upper deck.
    Jost was sitting near the rail. After a moment or two Brand strolled over and sat down beside him.
    For a full minute they stared out at the lake in silence. A casual observer would have put them down as respectable business or professional men in their late fifties; a perceptive one might have guessed from their clothes that they were foreign to Switzerland, but not from the same country; nobody would have thought it odd that they should start talking to each other rather than look at the scenery. On that cold, windy day the beauties of Lac Léman were not much in evidence.
    ‘What is your cover in Evian?’ It was Jost who spoke first.
    ‘The best.’ Brand stared out at the slate-grey lake. ‘There is a doctor in Evian who specialises in diseases of the kidneys. I had reason to consult him.’
    ‘My friend, I’m sorry. I hope he has given you good news.’
    ‘Not good. Not quite as bad as I had expected, but not good. I am afraid that our business has now become a matter of urgency.’
    Jost turned to look at him.
    ‘In three months I must retire,’ Brand said.
    ‘For reasons of health?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘This is a sad blow.’ Jost drew his coat collar closer around his neck. ‘Personally, I detest sympathy. I would think that it is the same with you.’
    ‘Yes. I did not propose this meeting merely to talk of trouble. I have more interesting news. Fortune appears at last to be smiling on us.’
    ‘Fortune?’
    Brand slid a hand into his overcoat breast pocket. ‘I think we can now take the steps necessary to activate our joint investment.’
    His hand reappeared with a slip of paper. He passed it to Jost.
    Jost saw that it was an obituary clipped from the European edition of an American news magazine. It read:
    DIED . Brigadier-General Luther B. Novak, 62, U.S. Army (Ret.), lecturer, publisher of the international weekly newsletter
Intercom
and patron saint of the far-out, millionaire-backed Interform Foundation; of a heart attack; in Geneva. His premature retirement from the Army in 1955 followed GI complaints to Congressmen of his attempts to indoctrinate U.S. troops in Germany with his own political views, the extremity of which, according to one witness at the inquiry, ‘made the John Birch Society look like parlor pinks’. His subsequent career as publisher, polemicist and