236
PARTISAN REVIEW
understand why you should
ask
me what Miss Caruso does and
where she now is or how long she has lived in this house, when you
either know these things already or have better ways than I have
of finding them out."
The man did not seem to be at all disturbed by my declaration,
at least not in any way I could discern.
As
he sat opposite me, looking
stolid and, at the same time, relaxed, he appeared to be completely
impenetrable.
"These are routine questions," he said casually.
"You mean you want to see whether what I tell you about Miss
Caruso tallies with what you already know?"
He looked amused.
I took a long pull on my cigarette, and, in the most sophisticated
tone I could adopt, I continued: "I suppose that is the way Intelli–
gence operates. It is not a one-man affair-a clever sleuth following
all the clues and finally unmasking the guilty person, in the manner
of the detective thrillers. Intelligence is a vast institution, with thou–
sands of agents, spreading its net in all directions, carefully piling up
evidence bit by bit, until the entire life of the criminal
has
become
the property of Intelligence. At
this
point, and not a moment before,
Intelligence closes in on the suspect, or rather the guilty one, for
the procedure of Intelligence is really a scientific way of transforming
a suspected person into a guilty one."
I was quite pleased with my grasp of the situation. Having ac–
counted for his odd behavior, in a really fundamental way, I was
ready to go on with the case.
The man looked at me quizzically. But I could not tell whether
he was impressed or suspicious of my determination to get right
to
the heart of the matter.
As
befits Intelligence, he remained inscru–
table. He must have thought, however, that he had sufficiently in–
dulged my speculative talents, since he began to fire questions at me.
"Did Miss Caruso have many visitors?"
"No, not especially. In fact, I would say so far as I noticed she
had very few people coming to see her. She occasionally made some
remark about an editor coming to see her. But I assumed she was
simply boasting."
"Did any person or people come to see her regularly?"
"Not that I noticed. The more I
think
of it, I can hardly recall
