1. A Visit From An Old Acquaintance

"Keep the change!" Roger Thornhill stuffed some bills into the taxi driver's hand. The driver, a balding and heavy-set fellow, quickly determined that the bills given to him more than covered the fare, and included a rather generous tip. The driver turned to thank his passenger, but Roger was already gone, darting up the walkway toward the front door of his house.

"Eve!" Roger called, upon entering the front door.

Eve Thornhill appeared at once from the living room. "Roger, your secretary called, and said you'd be home early. But I didn't expect you this soon."

"I didn't want to wait for the 2:17 train," Roger hastily explained. "So I grabbed a cab. Now, get packed, we're leaving!"

"What? Why?"

"Pack at least a week's worth of things."

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know. Connecticut, Vermont, maybe."

"Roger, what's the matter?" Eve pressed. "Why are we going? What about your work? The Forester account?"

"The Forester account is almost done; Redfield can take care of any remaining details. I told everyone I was going on vacation, and that heaven knows I've earned it. So let's get packing!"

Eve placed a hand gently on Roger's chest. "Roger, what's wrong?!"

Roger took two deep breaths. "I saw your old boss today."

"My old boss?"

"The Professor. He came up to me right on Fifth Avenue, walked up to me bold as brass, just after I finished my lunch, and said 'We have to talk.'"

"So, did you talk to him?"

Roger looked at Eve with incredulity. "Of course not! I walked away! I'm not interested in any nutty scheme he wants to run past me! I'm done with that now! And so are you!"

Eve pressed her hand against Roger's chest, harder this time. "You should have at least listened to him."

Roger ignored her remark. "Get packed. We're leaving."

"So we're going into hiding?"

"Yes. Either we're in a heap of trouble, or he wants me or you or both of us to risk our necks all over again for some reason. Either way, we have to get out of here. We're going someplace where he can't find us."

"That would be a wasted effort, Mr. Thornhill," drawled the Professor, stepping out from the living room into the hall so Roger could see him. "We could find you wherever you decided to go. And so could others."

"You!" Roger was seething.

Eve stepped gingerly in front of Roger, placing herself between her husband and the Professor. "The Professor arrived here about ten minutes before you did," Eve said calmly, putting her hand on Roger's arm. "He needs to talk to you."

"I need to talk to you both," the Professor gently corrected.

Roger looked past his wife, and locked his eyes on those of the mild-mannered old man standing in the hall. "Get out." Roger spoke calmly, but the threatening tone in his voice was unmistakable.

"If you want me to leave, Mr. Thornhill, I will. But only if you listen to what I have to say."

"The answer is no. Get out."

"Well, I want to hear what the Professor has to say," Eve implored, "even if you don't."

Roger looked at Eve, then at the Professor, then back at Eve. Roger had been with Eve long enough to understand the meaning of her icy, determined stare. He sighed. "All right. But the answer will still be no."

"If that is your decision, Mr. Thornhill, I will abide by it, you have my word. Perhaps, rather than discussing things in this hallway, we might sit and be comfortable?" The Professor gestured toward the living room.

After a few moments, Roger's demeanor softened a bit, and he echoed the Professor's gesture. The Professor shuffled into the living room and made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair. Eve sat on the couch facing the Professor, and Roger sat uneasily beside her. Eve held Roger's arm while Roger scowled.

"First of all, I must apologize," the Professor began. "I realize that I promised you that we would never meet again; but if you will recall, I said that we would not meet again unless it were something very important."

"Something just occurred to me," Roger responded icily. "I thought that you might contact me when Vandamm comes up for trial on charges of espionage or treason. Is that what this is about? You want us to be witnesses at his trial?"

Eve shook her head subtly, but it was the Professor who answered. "Oh, no, Mr. Thornhill. Vandamm is never going to be put on trial."

This made no sense to Roger. "So, you're just going to keep him locked up in prison, without a trial? I didn't know that was legal."

The Professor shook his head. "It isn't that simple."

Roger turned to Eve, and noticed that she did not seem at all surprised by what the Professor had said. Roger then glared at the Professor. "Where is Vandamm now?"

"At his home, near Rapid City, South Dakota," the Professor answered matter-of-factly.

"He's free?!"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that. We keep very close tabs on him. You see, Vandamm is much too valuable to us to be locked up in a prison. He's more valuable to us when he's selling our nation's secrets to our enemies."

"What?!"

"Of course, these days he only sells the secrets that we want him to sell," the Professor explained with a subtle grin.

Roger looked at Eve, who still seemed totally unsurprised at anything the Professor had said. "All this cloak-and-dagger stuff!" Roger huffed.

"Yes, it does get complicated at times," the Professor sympathized.

"So, you're not here because Vandamm is going on trial. Then, why are you here? We're in trouble, aren't we?"

"Please try not to get upset at what I'm about to tell you, Mr. Thornhill, but yes. Your lives, yours and Eve's, are in danger."

Roger tried to stand, but Eve's grasp on his arm made that impossible. "Roger, I expect that what the Professor means to say is that our lives are in danger, but that they are not in immediate danger. Isn't that right, Professor?"

"Quite right. We are perfectly safe here, at the moment. Although you cannot see them, there are several armed men watching this house, guarding it as we speak."

Roger stopped trying to stand, and sat back on the couch, though he was hardly comfortable. "I thought this was all over. I thought you'd fix it so that I could get my life back."

"We did fix it, didn't we?" the Professor mused. "We got you cleared of all charges. Your employer was more than understanding when we explained how you were mistaken for a fellow named Kaplan, and that most of the questionable things you were said to have done were actually committed by this complete stranger, Kaplan, and not by you. We arranged for you to give a brief interview to Look Magazine, in which you discussed your ordeal, being kidnapped and framed for murder and all that."

"An interview I never actually gave," Roger mumbled.

"True, but it had to be convincing; and we couldn't risk having you let slip some the details of our operation or that George Kaplan was actually imaginary. Furthermore, that published interview had the desired effect, didn't it? For one thing, it convinced your mother, and she told any reporters who asked that you couldn't possibly have done all the things that Kaplan did. Her assessment of your abilities was quite persuasive, you know," the Professor chuckled. "With her motherly attitude, she was much more convincing than you could have been on your own. And this cover story allowed you, if you were ever questioned by reporters, to deny knowledge about almost everything, and express your bitterness that you had been mistaken for this fellow, Kaplan. And as you know, it didn't take very long for the reporters to realize that you had nothing interesting to say, and they left you alone."

"You even killed George Kaplan," Eve chimed in.

The Professor nodded. "We not only killed him, we did so in front of reliable witnesses. We also buried him. I don't know whether you knew about that."

"You buried a man who never existed?" Roger scoffed.

"Yes, we did," the Professor replied matter-of-factly. "We held an actual funeral with a genuine casket and several live mourners, complete with moving eulogies."

"With you and your associates being the mourners and eulogizers, no doubt," Roger continued with derision. "After all, you were the only ones who 'knew' Kaplan intimately."

"No, Mr. Thornhill. We used actors, mostly. We told them they were rehearsing for a theatrical project. The pastor was a genuine pastor, though. Kaplan's funeral was quite an expensive affair, but we had to go through with the act, just in case anyone was watching."

"More cloak-and-dagger stuff," Roger muttered. "I do remember that you published an obituary for George Kaplan. I saw it in the Post. You used a photograph of me, and in true cloak-and-dagger style, you retouched it so that looked not like me but like someone similar to me."

"We had to make it appear that the mistake in identities was plausible. Besides, there never were any actual pictures of Kaplan, as you know."

"That mustache you put on Kaplan's photograph was a nice touch, by the way," Roger remarked drolly. "It made me look like Clark Gable."

"Sometimes it's the small details that make the fakery believable," the Professor chuckled.

Roger was not amused. "But the fakery didn't work, did it? Someone didn't believe it, did they? All of this effort to show that I was innocent: this charade of Kaplan getting killed in front of witnesses; the deception of the false funeral; the made-up interview; the phony obituary. It was elaborate, but it didn't work. There's someone out there who still thinks George Kaplan is actually alive, and that I am actually George Kaplan, isn't there?"

The Professor pouted. "Yes."

"They think I'm a government agent, a spy."

"Yes."

"And they want to kill me."

"Yes. And your wife."

"Who is it? Who's after us?"

"We don't know."

Roger wanted to ask how it was possible for the Professor not to know such a thing, but he sensed such a question would be a waste of time. Instead, he asked, "But we're safe here, in this house?"

"For the time being, yes, we may be at ease. We cannot keep up this level of security indefinitely, however. Things might not only get dangerous for you, but for your neighbors as well."

Roger turned to Eve, then again to the Professor. "Then, pardon me for saying so, but it seems to me that my original plan was a good one! We ought to get out of here, go someplace that is safe."

"Like Connecticut? Or Vermont?" The Professor shook his head. "That would be a mistake. The two of you could be run off the road and have it made to look like an accident. You might be slain in a picnic area and have it made to look like a wild animal attack. Or you might simply be shot by persons unknown in the course of an apparent robbery."

Roger felt his emotional pressure building, and he realized he might soon lose his temper. Forcing himself to be calm, he summarized the situation: "So you're saying that if we stay here, we're not safe; and if we try to hide, we're not safe! I humbly beg your pardon, but I see little there to make me feel at ease!"

Eve remained calm. "Roger, I don't think that the Professor would be here unless there were another alternative."

Roger glared at the Professor. "You do have another alternative, do you?"

"We do."

"And I'll wager it involves more of the old cloak-and-dagger, am I right?"

The Professor sighed. "Yes, Mr. Thornhill; you are certainly right about that."