20 - The Corfu Affair Read Online Free Page A

left. This had to lead him close to the Argyr, by his calculations. Five minutes of following it got him within sight of the sea. He halted between high rocky banks and considered his position, then he tackled the rugged wall on his right, scrambling and struggling his way up through the clutching thorns of wild roses, moving through bright splashes of color from wild anemone. Twenty perspiring minutes later he had his reward. He saw the Palace, recognizing it at once from the picture he had seen at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.
    It lay back and away to his right, huddling against the mountain, framed in a fold of rock and backed with the dark green of olive groves. Seen this close it was more Disney-like than ever. The white stone was bright enough to have been freshly laundered and the woodwork of window-frames and shutters was the unlikely pink of candy floss. A powder puff palace for a cosmetic surgeon. Resting here on the rock spur he could see something else, too. The main road went by up there. The little side road he had just quitted went straight on down to the sea, to a derelict landing stage. And this rock spur went straight on down, too, right into the water. So how the devil did you get into the palace grounds?
    He clambered higher and over the spur until he could see down the far side, and the riddle was solved. The palace had an extensive forecourt, with an ornamental garden and a drive that led down to a small plage, a place of tiles and seats and a limpid pool. But the private road led on, swung to the left and seemed to plunge headlong into the rock wall. So there had to be a gate, a way through and out into the road. That much was obvious, and he would have come to the gate had he gone on about ten minutes longer down the road. The implications were disturbing. This place was a fort! Only one way in, if you discounted the sea. And that meant there was also only one way out. A good agent, no matter how valiant, likes to know the way out if he has to run.
    Solo looked again at the palace, and sighed. Hitching round his "camera" he rested it on a rock and ran out the telescopic lens. If this was Thrush it looked less like it than any place he had ever seen. It was like the concretization of somebody's fairy tale whim. Still, it had to be studied and he proceeded to do that. His acquaintance with architectural styles was meager but he knew enough to guess that this edifice was not of any particular style or period but the work of many hands and various whims. Getting a pinpoint focus he began raking the front, floor by floor. Spires, battlements, and then balconies—and not a sign of life anywhere. The light was against him, so that he couldn't have seen into any of the rooms had he wanted to. But all at once he caught a brief flash of movement and trained his lens back to one of the upper balconies.
    There! Something moved, sharpened under his gentle fingers into a slim arm, a hand that moved and clutched something white and fluttering. A sheet, or a towel. In the next moment someone stood up and stretched in a luxurious yawn. He fingered the zoom wheel and the picture ballooned rapidly. A woman, turning now to look down and kick something away clear. She turned again and set her hands on the balcony edge.
    Solo held his breath. He was no voyeur by choice, but this was a picture to be filed in memory for the sake of it. This was Countess Louise herself as few men could have seen her. Off-guard, unaware of observation and totally unclad, she was like some ancient Greek goddess come alive. Midnight-blue hair caught the sun and shone in a halo round her face. The same sun caressed the magnificent swells and curves of her shape, a shape that any model would have traded her soul to own.
    A cynical voice at the back of Solo's mind told him that this woman was a cosmetic surgeon, that the curves were probably artifice, but the part of him that looked through his eyes denied it. This was artless perfection, and innocence.