Stefan smiled. Along with all the other attributes of the actor, he had a charm that he could switch off and on at will. He looked at Dicky and gave him both barrels. Bringing his hand from his pocket he opened his fist and dropped a wristwatch and a man's gold signet ring on to the table with a calculated clatter. 'Look at them,' he said. I didn't need to look at them. I could see from where I was standing that they were George's.

I killed him,' Stefan said, gesturing with his long ivory cigarette holder. He let this alarming statement linger to extract from it the fullest dramatic effect. 'Poor George. I killed him when I let him go out in the forest on his own. He was depressed about the death of his wife. I thought perhaps some time to think the situation through would do him good.'

The door opened and Karol poked his head round it and raised his eyebrows. He seemed startled to see me and Dicky there, but he recovered immediately. Stefan said, 'Yes, you can come in here now, but I can see no sign of anything.'

The three men came into the room dragging the two boxes with them. The priest's helper was carrying a detector. It was a heavy black plastic machine resembling a transistor radio. There were red and green indicator lights on it, a volume control and a small meter. He directed the antenna up and down the wall, systematically covering every inch of it.

Stefan watched them and absentmindedly picked up George's shoe; the one I had put on a side table. To Dicky he said, 'And my brother knew that you two were chasing him. It didn't help.'

Tadeusz, the man with the detector, ran its antenna around the window frame, always a favorite place for concealed microphones.

Dicky said, 'You are talking in riddles.'

Stefan looked at him and said, 'The police are interrogating the killers. Two Russian army deserters. Middle-aged praporshchiks — warrant officers — not tough conscript kids. They picked them up last night. They were trying to sell poor George's gold Rolex watch in a bar.'

'How did it happen?' said Dicky.

'The Nazis built fortified bunkers through these woods in the summer of 1944. They held up the Russian army for weeks and weeks. The line runs for eighty miles and right through the forest: tunnels and ventilation shafts, trenches and tank traps. When the timber supports rotted, the tunnels collapsed, but the deep bunkers were made with concrete and steel. They'll last forever and now gangs of deserters use them. There are not enough policemen to clear them out of there.'

Suddenly the detector's hum changed to a shriek. 'There's one here,' said the priest.

'I knew there was. I knew it,' said Karol.

'Is it active?' said Stefan.

Karol said, 'It's active.'

'Is this your doing?' Stefan asked Dicky, while the priest climbed up on a chair to look more closely at the hidden microphone that was concealed in the curtain rail over the window.

'No,' said Dicky.

'You haven't got some British comrade out there in the forest with headphones clamped round his skull?'

'Listening to your foolishness?' said Dicky. 'The answer is no.'

The priest ripped the microphone down and there was a tearing sound and a little puff of white dust as a long wire emerged from the paint under which it had been hidden. He pulled the battery from the transmitter and put it in his pocket.

'They arrested the killers?' asked Dicky. 'Do you want to talk with the bastards? I can perhaps arrange it.'

'Will the authorities issue a death certificate?' said Dicky.

'It will take a few days. Getting official paperwork takes a long time here in Poland. But yes, the police are satisfied that it is murder. Now they have two men they'll find their hideout and round up the rest of that gang. They'll beat a confession out of one of them. They live by robbing the farms. Local people will be pleased to hear there are a few less of those bandits.'

'Can you get me a certified copy of the certificate?' Dicky asked. 'I'll need it for my records.'

'Of course,' said Stefan with studied politeness. 'You'll need it for your records.'

Without knocking at the door, Uncle Nico came into the room. He seemed not to notice the tension and bad feeling. He looked first at Dicky and then at me. 'I've made tea,' he announced. 'Real English tea with boiling water the way I used to drink it in England. It's all made. I took it to your room. Come downstairs and have some. It will spoil if it's left too long.' Glad of a chance to escape, we followed the old man to where he'd set out the tea things on a tray on a low table in my bedroom. He'd set cups for three tea drinkers and he sat down with us.

'Just, like being in England,' said Dicky.

'Well, it's not like Poland, if that's what you mean,' said the old man sarcastically. 'This house is a museum . . .' He restated this. 'Or a theater. And we're all playing roles devised by Stefan.'

Dicky had been eyeing the teapot anxiously — he hated strongly brewed tea — and now he leaned forward and poured some for us. The old man seemed not to notice. But he went to the door, looked down the corridor to be sure no one was listening, and then closed the door.

'How can you understand all this?' asked the old man, taking from Dicky the offered cup of tea and sipping some. 'Stefan has us all in his power. He likes to play with us. He knows we can't fight back.'

'Why are you in his power?' Dicky asked him.

'He's rich and famous.'

'I've never heard of him,' persisted Dicky.

'No,' the old man agreed. 'Stefan is not famous outside Poland — he is not translated. But his plays are sometimes performed by Poles living abroad, and they help to form the opinions of those exiles. His plays are sometimes made into Polish films which, in video form, are distributed to Poles living abroad.'

'Is he a communist? Is he a supporter of the generals?' said Dicky.

'Tolerant. Stefan's tolerant views of the communist and military rulers are valuable to them. So is the way he equates "evil Russia" with "evil U.S.A." Many people in his unsophisticated audiences are happy to accept this simplistic view of world politics. Many American liberals will tell you that Reagan's America and its CIA is no better than Stalin and his KGB. But if you live here you know that racist policemen in Alabama and the U2 spy planes are not to be compared to extermination camps, or to our secret police with thousands of informers and the regular use of torture.'

'He wrote one called Let's Murder Stalin, ' said Dicky.

'Oh yes, Stefan's plays are outspoken in a superficial kind of way, but Stefan is a clever man. He knows that it is better to appear to be a protester. But always his plots and their conclusions do the work that the government here needs done.'

'And yet his study is bugged?'

'The microphone? Ha, ha. Did you see the look on the face of Father Ratajczyk?'

'No,' admitted Dicky.

The old man smiled and drank some tea. 'No matter who comes to sweep the house, they always find a bug. Stefan plants them himself. Always it is placed somewhere that suggests that Stefan is the man they are after.'

'Plants them himself? Are you serious?' said Dicky.

'You may as well ask Stefan if he is serious, for by now everyone in the house knows his tricks.'

'But why?'

'It's all part of his role: this character he plays of a martyr and patriot, ever fighting against the regime. He will go to his authors' club and protest loudly about being persecuted and harassed by the secret police.'

'And will he be believed?'

'Yes. Yes. Yes. Writers are by their very nature paranoid. Every now and again they a put their signatures under letters published in the newspaper. Stefan adds his signature willingly.'