“And you accepted?”
“In a strange way it offered me some sort of escape. Later, in Paris, I was approached by O.A.S. agents. As an ex-paratroop officer and supporter of the original coup which had placed de Gaulle in power, I must have seemed an obvious choice.”
“And you informed Legrande?”
“As soon as I could get in touch with him. That was the funny thing. I didn’t even have to make a choice. It was almost as if it had been made for me. He told me to accept the offer. From his point of view an agent with contacts in that direction would obviously be valuable.”
“And yet we were informed that theDeuxieme had no real suspicions about de Beaumont. Surely you must have had some sort of lead on him through your Paris connections with the other side?”
“Not really. I was only on the edge of their organisation. De Beaumont’s name was mentioned as one sympathetic to their aims. On the other hand, his political opinions are well known in France. There was certainly never any hint that he might be an active worker.”
“And all this time you were completely accepted ?”
“Icertainlythoughtso.As a new recruit to theDeuxieme, it was obvious that my sources would be limited, but I passed on selected information of Legrande’s orders. I certainly never managed to get close to any of the really big men, but I was working towards it. On two occasions he even allowed me to warn some of the lesser fry when their arrest was imminent.”
“What aboutL’Alouette?”
“That was the thing which puzzled us from the beginning. The complete absence of information as to her whereabouts, even in O.A.S. circles. Because of that Legrande told me to inform my Paris contacts that I had been assigned to the Channel Islands merely to run a routine check on de Be-aumont, just to make sure that he was behaving himself. Legrande felt that at least it would prove once and for all whether a definite link existed.”
“Something he didn’t see fit to inform us at our end.”
“I’m sorry about that, but Legrande never lives in the pre-sent – only the future. He envisaged a possible situation in which my other activities could prove useful. Under the cir-cumstances it seemed wiser to present myself merely as Raoul Guyon, an accredited agent of theBureau and nothing more.”
“I see the old fox is still a believer in playing his cards as they fall,” Mallory said. “It shows in his poker game.”
“A remark strangely similar to one he made about you just before I left.”
Mallory grinned. “One thing at least has come out of all this. De Beaumont definitely does have a link with the O.A.S. in Paris because he was warned that you were coming. The one thing I don’t understand is why he didn’t think it strange that you hadn’t told them aboutL’Alouette affair.”
“The first thing he asked me coming across on the boat. A difficult question to answer.”
“And how did you?”
“Told him theBureau believed the whole business to be the work of an independent group. That this was confirmed for me personally by the obvious ignorance of the affair in O.A.S. circles. That as an ex-paratroop officer who had taken part in the coup of June “58, only to be betrayed by de Gaulle, I would much prefer to work with him.”
“And he accepted that?”
“He seemed to at the time.”
“It all sounds pretty shaky to me.”
“It obviously did to de Beaumont.” Guyon grinned wryly. “On the other hand, I didn’t have time to think up anything better and I did make my own move against you just before they did, remember?”
“That was quick thinking.”
The young Frenchman shrugged. “When I saw what they had done to the radio telephone it seemed logical to assume they were still on board, that we were under observation. It seemed wise to establish my credentials while I still could and I remembered seeing you put the transmitter in the table drawer earlier in the afternoon.”
“And you’d never met him previously?”
Guyon shook his head. “As I told you before, only as one of a crowd. Naturally, I knew a great deal about him. He was one of the really great paratroop officers, you know.”