Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler Page A

dropped this time.
    “Hungarian.”
    “Oh, I see. Treaty of Trianon?”
    “Yes.”
    His next shot knocked the pin over. He sighed.
    “I was afraid that would happen. Total score—zero. Your shot. Tell me about Yugoslavia.”
    I bent over the table. Two could play at this game.
    “I haven’t been near it for over ten years. You’re German, aren’t you?”
    I managed to hole the red in a low number.
    “Good shot! You’re improving.” But he didn’t answer my question. I tried again.
    “It’s unusual to meet Germans holiday-making abroad these days.”
    I potted the red again.
    “Splendid! You’re doing very well. What were you saying?”
    “I said it was unusual to meet Germans on holiday abroad these days.”
    “Yes? But that doesn’t worry me. I am from Basel.”
    This was a direct lie. In my excitement I holed my own ball without cannoning off another.
    “Bad luck! Where’s the chalk?”
    I passed it to him in silence. He chalked his cue carefully and started to play again. His score mounted rapidly.
    “What’s that now?” he murmured at last. “Sixty-four, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    He bent over the table once more.
    “Do you know Germany well, Herr Vadassy?”
    “I’ve never been there.”
    “You should go. The people are so nice.” The red ball hovered on the brink of a high number. “Ah, not quite enough energy behind that one. Sixty-four.” He straightened his back. “Your German is very good, Herr Vadassy. You might have lived there many years.”
    “At the University of Budapest we spoke mostly German. Besides, I teach languages.”
    “So? It is your shot.”
    I played, but I played badly, for I could not keep my thoughts on the game. Three times I knocked the pin over. Once I missed the ball completely. Questions were twisting and turning in my mind. What was this man trying to get out of me? Those questions of his had not been idle. What was the point of them? Did he suspect me of taking the photographs intentionally? And mingled with those unanswerable questions was the thought that this man could not be a spy. There was something about him that made the idea seem absurd. A certain dignity. Besides, did spies quote Hegel? Did they read Nietzsche? Well, his own answer would do there: “Why shouldn’t they?” What did it matter, anyway? Onemight just as well ask: “Do spies make good husbands?” Why shouldn’t they? Why not, indeed?
    “Your shot, my friend.”
    “I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.”
    “Oh!” He smiled slightly. “This can’t be very entertaining for you. Shall we stop?”
    “No, no. I had just thought of something I had forgotten to do.”
    “Nothing important, I hope.”
    “No, nothing important.”
    But it was important. I would telephone Beghin, throw myself on his mercy, explain the loss of the camera, ask for Schimler’s room to be searched as mine had been. There was the excuse of the false name. But if only I could get one concrete piece of evidence against him, something that would establish his connection with the camera, something that would satisfy me that I was not making a stupid mistake. Supposing I were to take a risk! Supposing I were to ask point-blank if he had a camera? After all, it could do no harm now. The person who had slammed the writing-room door and taken the second camera would have no doubts about my connection with the business.
    I holed two balls simultaneously.
    “I did not,” I said, “expect that.”
    “No, I thought not.”
    “I am,” I went on, as I moved round for the next shot, “a man of one hobby.”
    I failed to score and he took his place at the table.
    “Indeed?”
    “Yes. It is photography.”
    He squinted along his cue.
    “How nice.”
    I watched him narrowly as I asked the fatal question.
    “Have you a camera?”
    He stood up slowly and looked at me.
    “Herr Vadassy, do you mind not talking while I make this shot? It is difficult. You see, I am going to hit the cushion there,