‘Well—’ I hesitated. ‘I didn’t think I should leave without saying good-bye to Mr. Tucek. You see, he and I were together—’
‘Quite, quite.’ Marie nodded and sat down at his desk. He took off his glasses and wiped them. Then, when he’d clipped them on to his nose again, he looked across at me.
‘But I do not think you can see him.’ His fingers had closed on a sheet of paper and he slowly crumpled it into a ball.
‘Is he in conference?’ I asked. ‘If so I will wait.’
He seemed about to say something. Then his small blue eyes retreated behind his glasses. ‘I do not think it will be any good waiting. But perhaps if you care to see his secretary—’ His voice sounded vague and uncertain.
is ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see his secretary.’
He nodded and rang for his assistant. The sudden decisiveness of his movements suggested a sense of relief. His assistant came in and he instructed him to take me to Tucek’s personal secretary. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Farrell.’ He dropped the crumpled ball of paper into his waste-paper basket and shook my hand. His fingers were soft and damp in my grip.
His assistant took me down two flights of concrete stairs and along a passage that was full of the noise of typewriters. Then we passed through swing doors marked Sprava zavodu and we were in the administrative block where the sound of our footsteps was lost in the deep pile of a carpeted corridor. It was the same corridor I’d walked down the previous day. We stopped at the door marked Ludvik Novak, tajemnik reditelstvi. My guide knocked and I was shown into the office of Tucek’s personal secretary. ‘Come in, Mr. Farrell.’ He was the dapper little man with the uneasy smile I’d seen the day before. There was no warmth in his greeting. ‘You are back again very soon. Was your meeting with pan Marie not satisfactory?’
‘Perfectly,’ I said.
‘Then what can I do for you?’