The Deadly Affair Page #3

I think we ought to give the facts

to the police.

And have a murder case plastered

across every front page in two hemispheres

before it turns out we misled the police?

Before the department makes a fool of itself,

let us at least try

to separate fact from hypothesis.

- By all means!

- Fact:

Fennan came home last night at 7:00

and told his wife

he was upset by your interview.

Fact:
He took a sedative

and sent his wife off to the theatre alone.

Hypothesis, my hypothesis:

He thought the sedative

might make him oversleep,

so he asked the exchange

to give him an alarm call at 8:30

on the following morning.

And then committed suicide!

It all hangs together nicely, doesn't it?

I will also hazard the hypothesis

that the sedative depressed him

rather than soothed him,

and that he accordingly shot himself

between 10:
30 and his wife's return

from the theatre at 10:45.

The 8:
30 alarm call is neither here nor there.

Then why did she have to lie about it?

Why did she say it was for her

and not for him?

Because she thought,

as she might be pardoned for thinking,

that you would use the alarm call

as a means of evading

your own responsibility for his suicide.

And she meant to have

the satisfaction of denying you that evasion.

She's a bereaved woman, Dobbs,

she needs to be placated.

Like the Foreign Office and the police,

with whom our relations are "uneasy."

- Have you anything further to say?

- Yes!

- Please say it.

- By all means.

Fact:
You are known to the Foreign Office

and the police as Marlene Dietrich.

Hypothesis, my hypothesis:

They may very well be right.

Hello, darling.

Back so soon?

How was it?

Well, it was all right, pretty hectic.

I'm sorry I forgot to phone.

- Morning, Mrs Bird!

- Morning, Mr Dobbs.

- Guess who's blown into London.

- I haven't the faintest idea.

- Guess. Please.

- I cannot guess!

Dieter Frey!

Servus, Charles.

Oh, Dieter!

Dieter!

Oh, welcome back!

It must be two years.

Yes. We went to that first night,

do you remember?

Oh, that awful old actor

playing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

at the Lyric Hammersmith!

What did The Times say?

Oh, yes, he said,

"Mr Aubrey Hunter's Dr Jekyll

"was infinitely more terrifying

than his Mr Hyde."

Why did we ever go?

Well, we went because this illiterate

Austrian had never read the book.

What? That from a man

who's only read 12 lines of Goethe!

Have you, Charles? I never knew.

Yes, Faust.

I could still quote them.

I'm not going to, though.

We used them as the key

to Dieter's radio code,

when I was operating him in Austria

from Zurich in 1943.

Dieter was only 18 then,

but he appeared

to know the entire works of Goethe by heart!

Well, not to mention

the entire Nazi battle order in the Tyrol.

If it's war memories, I'll do the laundry list.

I'll give you five minutes.

They were very good days, Charles.

I hate to say it about a war,

but I enjoyed them, too.

The issue seemed clearer,

so did my conscience.

- I had a brilliant agent in play.

- Thank you.

And I was happy about what I was doing.

What are you doing now?

I'm resigning from the Home Office.

Why?

Civil servant was found shot.

This one?

For reasons which I don't approve,

my boss, my former boss,

wants me to report it as suicide.

- And you couldn't.

- No.

Can you find another job?

Well, I suppose so.

But I'm so angry that I've a good mind

to press on with this one.

Unofficially, of course.

You mean follow it up alone?

Yes. Unless you'd care to join me,

like the old days.

And be fired by my boss?

I'll bump off your boss

if you bump off mine.

All right. Which department?

We cope mostly with aliens.

- Like me?

- No.

What we call undesirable aliens

who've outstayed their welcome.

Am I outstaying mine?

Ann!

Would you call Dieter

desirable or undesirable?

Desirable.

Two years ago he was something in zinc.

Now he's something in chocolate.

- Amreins from Zurich.

- He brought me a sample.

- How long you staying?

- A few days.

Business lunches, business dinners,

I even have a business breakfast.

Who knows,

I may actually do some business, too.

- Oh, tycoon?

- I have hopes.

Veering to the right, at last!

As the money comes in,

a little further to the right

than when you first knew me.

I'm a socialist capitalist.

Auf Wiedersehen, Charles.

- Give me a call if you can spare the time.

- I promise.

Thank you again for the chocolates.

Bye, Mr Dobbs. See you again tomorrow.

Bye, Mrs Bird.

I must follow her!

Yes, follow her

from the opposite side of the street.

Using shop windows as reflectors

and good cover for stopping suddenly

- if the suspect stops, too.

- Right.

Your pupil still remembers the handbook.

See you again, Dieter. When?

- I'll send you one of our postcards.

- Postcards.

Postcards?

Dieter invented a special way

for us to arrange emergency meetings

during the war.

- Did it work?

- Infallibly.

He never makes mistakes, does he?

I think he made one just now.

He kissed your hand.

You offered him your cheek.

And for the first time in...

What is it, seven years?

He didn't kiss you on the cheek,

he kissed your hand

as if he had something to hide.

Does it have to be Dieter of all people?

Yes.

- And in this house?

- You never phoned!

Can I only invite people

you have cleared for security,

or do I have to check them

against a card index?

It's my house as much as yours!

It's not my house! It's not your house!

It's our house!

It doesn't have to be used for...

We only used it for meeting!

We were going to...

I don't want to hear what you were

going to do or where or when!

I wouldn't mind so much if it was

one of your six-foot, randy musclemen

without a thought in his thick skull except...

It's the...

It's the nice ones that I'm terrified of.

The ones that could give you love.

Oh, Ann.

Why does it have to be Dieter suddenly?

Like this, after all these years?

He never wanted me before.

And he does now?

Yes, Charles.

When did he tell you?

How did you happen to meet?

He phoned yesterday morning, about noon,

to ask you and me to lunch.

I said you were out on a job,

so he asked just me...

Doesn't his friendship...

Do you love him?

It's very easy to love Dieter.

Well, we both of us know that.

If I could love one man,

it would be you, Charles.

But you can't, can you?

Are you asking me to try?

No, not again, I...

It's not much fun being with you,

watching you trying.

But I've never held your appetites

against you.

The un-addicted shouldn't blame

the addicted.

I'm just relieved

that it's less lethal than drink or drugs.

I wish it were curable.

- Short of locking you up.

- You could lock me out.

I'm going to lock myself out for a bit

until we see...

- Darling...

- No, look, I'm not being saintly.

I'm just being practical.

- I resigned from the department.

- What?

And until I clear this thing up

or get myself another job,

I'll just be hanging around here,

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