LITMIR.BIZ

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not?’

      ‘Why not indeed! My motives in what I imagine some of our compatriots would call muck-raking, are aesthetic and I think I may say philosophical, but with that I must not trouble you. It will do well enough if I tell you that at the same time as I recognized you I also recognized a despicable person known to the Roman riff-raff as—I translate—“Feather-fingers”. He was stationed at a short distance from you and behind your back. His eyes were fastened upon your attaché case.’

      ‘God!’

      ‘Indeed, yes. Now, you will recollect that the incipient thunderstorm broke abruptly and that with the downpour and subsequent confusion a fracas arose between some of the occupants of tables adjacent to your own.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And that you received a violent blow in the back that knocked you across your table.’

      ‘So it did,’ Barnaby agreed.

      ‘Of course you thought that you had been struck by one of the contestants but this was not so. The character I have brought to your notice took advantage of the mêlée, darted forward, delivered the blow with his shoulder, snatched up your case and bolted. It was an admirably timed manoeuvre and executed with the greatest speed and precision. The contestants continued to shout at each other and I, my dear Mr Grant, gave chase.’

      He sipped his coffee, made a small inclination, an acknowledgement perhaps of Barnaby’s passionate attention.

      ‘It was a long pursuit,’ Mailer continued. ‘But I clung to his trail and—is the phrase “ran him to earth”? It is. Thank you. I ran him to earth, then, in what purveyors of sensational fiction would describe as “a certain caffè in such-and-such a little street not a thousand miles from—“ etc., etc.—perhaps my phraseology is somewhat dated. In plain terms I caught up with him at his habitual haunt, and by means with which I shall not trouble you, recovered your attaché case.’

      ‘On the same day,’ Barnaby couldn’t help asking, ‘that I lost it?’

      ‘Ah! As the cornered victim of an interrogation always says: I am glad you asked that question. Mr Grant, with any less distinguished person I would have come armed with a plausible prevarication. With you, I cannot adopt this measure. I did not return your case before because—’

      He paused, smiling very slightly, and without removing his gaze from Barnaby’s face, pushed up the shirt-sleeve of his left arm which was white-skinned and hairless. He rested it palm upwards on the table and slid it towards Barnaby.

      ‘You can see for yourself,’ he said. ‘They look rather like mosquito bites, do they not. But I’m sure you will recognize them for what they are. Do you?’

      ‘I—I think I do.’

      ‘Quite. I have acquired an addiction for cocaine. Rather “square” of me, isn’t it? I really must change, one of these days, to something groovier. You see I am conversant with the jargon. But I digress. I am ashamed to say that after my encounter with “Feather-fingers”, I found myself greatly shaken. No doubt my constitution has been somewhat undermined by my unfortunate proclivity. I am not a robust man. I called upon my—the accepted term is, I believe, fix—and, in short, I rather exceeded my usual allowance and have been out of circulation until this morning. I cannot, of course, hope that you will forgive me.’

      Barnaby gave himself a breathing space and then—he was a generous man—said: ‘I’m so bloody thankful to have it back I feel nothing but gratitude, I promise you. After all, the case was locked and you were not to know—’

      ‘Oh but I was! I guessed. When I came to myself I guessed. The weight, for one thing. And the way it shifted, you know, inside. And then, of course, I saw your advertisement: “containing manuscript of value only to owner”. So I cannot lay that flattering unction to my soul, Mr Grant.’

      He produced a dubious handkerchief and wiped his neck and face with it. The little caffè was on the shady side of the street but Mr Mailer sweated excessively.

      ‘Will you have some more coffee?’

      ‘Thank you. You are very kind. Most kind.’

      The coffee seemed to revive him. He held the cup in his two plump, soiled hands and looked at Barnaby over the top.

      ‘I feel so deeply in your debt,’ Barnaby said. ‘Is there nothing I can do—?’

      ‘You will think me unbearably fulsome—I have, I believe, become rather Latinized in my style, but I assure you the mere fact of meeting you and in some small manner—

      This conversation, Barnaby thought, is going round in circles. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you must dine with me. Let’s make a time, shall we?’

      But Mr Mailer, now squeezing his palms together, was evidently on the edge of speech and presently achieved it. After a multitude of deprecating parentheses he at last confessed that he himself had written a book.

      He had been at it for three years: the present version was his fourth. Through bitter experience, Barnaby knew what was coming and knew, also, that he must accept his fate. The all-too-familiar phrases were being delivered ‘…value, enormously, your opinion…’ ‘…glance through it’ ‘…advice from such an authority…’ ‘…interest a publisher…’

      ‘I’ll read it, of course,’ Barnaby said. ‘Have you brought it with you?’

      Mr Mailer, it emerged, was sitting on it. By some adroit and nimble sleight-of-hand, he had passed it under his rump while Barnaby was intent upon his recovered property. He now drew it out, wrapped in a dampish Roman news-sheet and, with trembling fingers, uncovered it. A manuscript, closely written in an Italianate script, but not, Barnaby rejoiced to see, bulky. Perhaps forty thousand words, perhaps, with any luck, less.

      ‘Neither a novel nor a novella in length, I’m afraid,’ said its author, ‘but so it has befallen and as such I abide by it.’

      Barnaby looked up quickly. Mr Mailer’s mouth had compressed and lifted at the corners. Not so difficult, after all, Barnaby thought.

      ‘I hope,’ said Mr Mailer, ‘my handwriting does not present undue difficulties. I cannot afford a typist.’

      ‘It seems very clear.’

      ‘If so, it will not take more than a few hours of your time. Perhaps in two days or so I may—? But I mustn’t be clamorous.’

      Barnaby thought: And I must do this handsomely. He said: ‘Look, I’ve a suggestion. Dine with me the day after tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I think.’

      ‘How kind you are! I am overwhelmed. But, please, you must allow me—if you don’t object to—well to somewhere—quite modest—like this, for example. There is a little trattoria, as you see. Their fettuccini—really very good and their wine quite respectable. The manager is a friend of mine and will take care of us.’

      ‘It sounds admirable and by all means let us come here but it shall be my party, Mr Mailer, if you please. You shall order our dinner. I am in your hands.’

      ‘Indeed? Really? Then I must speak with him beforehand.’

      On this understanding they parted.

      At the Pensione Gallico Barnaby told everybody he encountered: the manageress, the two waiters, even the chambermaid who had little or no English, of the recovery of his manuscript. Some of them understood him and some did not. All rejoiced. He rang up the Consulate which was loud in felicitations. He paid for his advertisements.

      When all this had been accomplished he re-read such bits of his book as he had felt needed to be re-written, skipping from one part to another.

      It crossed his mind that his dominant reaction to the events of the past three days was now one of anticlimax: All that agony and—back to normal, he thought and turned a

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