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'Well, then may I be the first to congratulate you, Your Excellency,' said Sir Bernard. 'I wish you every happiness in your new appointment.'

Abel flushed to hear aloud the appellation he had whispered so often to his shaving mirror during the past few months. 'You'll have to get used to being called Your Excellency, you know,' continued the British ambassador, 'and a whole lot of worse things than that, particularly all these damned functions you'll be made to attend one after another. If you have a weight problem now, it will be nothing compared to the one you'll have when you finish your term of office. You may yet live to be grateful for the Cold War. It's the one thing that might keep your social life within bounds.'

The American ambassador smiled. 'Well done, Abel, and may I add my best wishes for your continued success. When were you last in Poland?'he enquired.

'I've only been back home once for a short visit a few years ago,' said Abel. 'I've wanted to return ever since!

'Well, you will be returning in triumph,' said Fletcher Warren. 'Are you familiar with our embassy in Warsaw?'

'No, I'm not,'admitted Abel.

'Not a bad building,' said Sir Bernard. 'Remembering you colonials couldn't get a foothold in Europe until after the Second World War. But the food is appalling, I shall expect you to do something about that, Mr. Rosnovski. I'm afraid the only thing for it is that you'll have to build a Baron Hotel in Warsaw. As ambassador, that's the least they'll expect from an old Pole!

Abel sat in a state of euphoria, laughing and enjoying Sir Bernard's feeble jokes. He found he was drinking a little more port than usual and felt at ease with himself and the world. He couldn't wait to return to America and tell Florentyna his news, now that the appointment seemed to be official. She would be so proud of him. He decided then and there that the moment he arrived back in New York he would go straight to San Francisco and make everything up with her. It was what he had wanted to do all along and now he had an excuse. Somehow he'd force himself to like the Kane boy. He must stop referring to him as the Kane boy. What was his name - Richard? Yes, Richard. Abel felt a sudden rush of relief at having made the decision.

After the three men had returned to the main reception room and the ladies, Abel reached up and touched the British ambassador on the shoulder. 'I should be getting back, Your Excellency!

'Back to the Baron,' said Sir Bernard. 'Allow me to accompany you to your car, my dear fellow.'

The ambassador's wife bade him goodnight at the door.

'Goodnight, Lady Burrows, and thank you for a memorable evening.'

She smiled. 'I know I'm not meant to know, Mr. Rosnovski, but many congratulations on your appointment. You must be so proud to be returning to the land of your birth as your country's senior representative.'

'I am,' replied Abel simply.

Sir Bernard accompanied him down the marble steps of the British embassy to the waiting car. The chauffeur opened the door.

'Goodnight, Rosnovski,' said Sir Bernard, 'and good luck in Warsaw. By the way, I hope you enjoyed your first meal in the British embassy.'

'My second actually, Sir Bernard.'

'You've been before, old boy? When we checked through the guest book we couldn't find your name!

'No,' said Abel. 'Last time I had dinner in the British embassy, I ate in the kitchen. I don't think they keep a guest book down there, but the meal was the best I'd had in years!

Abel smiled as he climbed into the back of the car. He could see that Sir Bernard wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. As Abel was driven back to the Baron, his fingers tapped on the side windows, and he hummed to himself. He would have liked to have returned to America the next morning, but he couldn't cancel the invitation to dine with Fletcher Warren at the American embassy the following evening. Hardly the sort of thing a future ambassador does, old fellow, he could hear Sir Bernard saying.

Dinner with the American ambassador turned out to be another pleasant occasion. Abel was made to explain to the assembled guests how he had come to eat in the kitchens of the British embassy. When he told them the truth, they looked on in surprised admiration. He wasn't sure if many of them believed the story of how he nearly lost his hand, but they all admired the silver band, and that night, everyone called him Your Excellency.

The next day, Abel was up early, ready for his flight to America. The D.C.8 flew into Belgrade, where he was grounded for sixteen hours, waiting for the plane to be serviced. Something wrong with the landing gear, they told him.

He sat in the airport lounge, sipping undrinkable Yugoslavian coffee. The contrast between the British embassy and the snack bar in a communist-controlled country was not entirely lost on Abel. At last the plane took off, only to be delayed again in Amsterdam. This time they made him change planes.

When he finally arrived at Idlewild, Abel had been travelling for nearly thirty-six hours. He was so tired he could hardly walk. As he left the customs area, he suddenly found himself surrounded by newsmen, and the cameras started flashing and clicking. Immediately he smiled. The announcement must have been made, he thought. Now it's official. He stood as straight as he could and walked slowly and with dignity, disguising his limp. There was no sign of George, as the cameramen jostled each other unceremoniously to be sure of a picture.

Then he saw George standing at the edge of the crowd, looking like death. Abel's heart lurched as he passed the barrier and a ' journalist, far from asking him what it felt like to be the first Polish-American to be appointed ambassador to Warsaw, shouted : 'Do you have any answers to the charges?'

The cameras went on flashing and so did the questions.

'Are the accusations true, Mr. Rosnovski?'

'How much did you actually pay Congressman Osborne?'

'Do you deny the charges?'

'Have you returned to America to face trial?'

They wrote down Abel's replies although he never spoke. 'Get me out of here,' shouted Abel above the crowd.

George squeezed forward and managed to reach Abel and then pushed his way back through the crowd and bundled him into the waiting Cadillac. Abel bent down and Md his head in his hands, as the cameras' flashbulbs kept popping, and George shouted at the chauffeur to get moving.

'To the Baron, sir?' he asked.

'No, to Miss Rosnovski's flat on Fifty-seventh Street?

'Why?' said Abel.

'Because the press is crawling all over the Baron!

'I don't understand,' said Abel. 'In Istanbul they treat me as if I was the ambassador's elect, and I return home to find I'm a criminal. What the hell is going on, George?'

'Do you want to hear it all from me, or wait until you've seen your lawyer?' asked George.

'Who have you got to represent me?' asked Abel.

'H. Trafford Jilks, the best defence attorney in America!'

'And the most expensive.'

'I didn't think you would be worrying about money at a time like this, Abel.'

'You're right, George. I'm sorry. Where is he now?'

'I left him at the courthouse, but he said he'd come to the flat as soon as he was through.'

'I can't wait that long, George. For God's sake put me in the picture. Tell me the worst.'

George drew a deep breath. 'There's a warrant out for your arrest,' he said.

'What the hell's the charge?'

'Bribery of government officials.'

'I've never been directly involved with a government official in my whole life,'protested Abel.

'I know, but it turns out that Henry Osborne has been all along, and everything he did seems to have been in your name or on your behalf.'

'Oh my God,' said Abel. 'I should never have employed the man. I, let the fact that we both hated Kane cloud my judgment. But I still find it hard to believe Henry has given anyone the dirt, because he would only end up implicating himself.'

'But Henry has disappeared,' said George, 'and suddenly, mysteriously, all his debts have been cleared up.'

'William Kane,' said Abel, hissing the words out.

'We've found nothing that points in that direction,' said George.

'There's no proof he's involved in this at all.'

'Who needs proof? You tell me how the authorities got hold of all the details.'

'We do know that much,' said George. 'It seems an anonymous package containing a file was sent direct to the justice Department in Washington.'

'Postmarked New York, no doubt,' said Abel.

'No. Chicago!

Abel was silent for a few moments. 'It couldn't have been Henry who sent the evidence to them,' he said finally. 'That doesn't make any sense.'

'How can you be so sure?' asked George.

'Because you said all his debts have been cleared up, and the justice Department wouldn't pay out that sort of money unless they thought they were going to catch Al Capone. Henry must have sold his file to someone else. But who? The one thing we can be certain of is that he would never have released any information directly to Kane.'

'Directly?' said George.

'Directly,' repeated Abel. 'Perhaps he didn't sell it directly. Kane could have arranged for an intermediary to deal with the whole thing if he already knew that Henry was heavily in debt, and the bookmakers were threatening him.'

'That might be right, Abel, and it certainly wouldn't have taken an ace detective to discover the extent of Henry's financial problems. They were common knowledge to anyone sitting on a bar stool in Chicago, but don't jump to hasty conclusions just yet. Let's find out what your lawyer has to say-'

The Cadillac came to a halt outside Florentyna's former home, which Abel had retained and kept spotless in the hope that his daughter would one day return. George opened the door, and they walked through to join H. Trafford Jilks. Once they had settled down, George poured Abel a large whisky. He drank the malt in one gulp, and gave the empty glass back to George who re-filled it.

'Tell me the worst, Mr. Jilks. Let's get it over with.'

'I am sorry, Mr. Rosnovski,' he began. 'Mr. Novak told me about Warsaw!

'That's all over now, so we may as well forget "Your Excellency". You can be sure if Vincent Hogan were asked, he wouldn't even remember my name. Come on, Mr. Jilks, what am I facing?'

'You've been indicted on seventeen charges of bribery and corruption of officials in fourteen different states. I've made provisional arrangements with the Justice Department for you to be arrested here at the flat tomorrow morning, and they will make no objection to bail being granted!

'Very cosy,' said Abel, 'but what if they can prove the charges?'

'Oh, they should be able to prove some of the charges,' said H. Trafford Jilks matter of factly, 'but as long as Henry Osborne stays tucked away, they're going to find it very difficult to nail you on most of them. But you're going to have to live with the fact, Mr. Rosnovski, that most of the real damage has already been done whether you're convicted or not.'

'I can see that only too well,' said Abel, glancing across at a picture of himself on the front page of the Daily News, 'So you find out, Mr. Jilks, who the hell bought that file from Henry Osborne. Put as many people to work on the case as you need. I don't care about the cost. But you find out and find out quickly, because if it turns out to be William Kane, I'm going to finish that man off once and for all.'

'Don't get yourself into any more trouble than you are already,' said H. Trafford Jilks. 'You're knee deep in as it is.'

'Don't worry,' said Abel. 'When I finish Kane, it'll be legal and way above board!

'Now listen carefully, Mr. Rosnovski. You forget about William Kane for the time being and start worrying about your impending trial, because it will be the most important event ever to take place in your life unless you don't mind spending the next ten years in jail. Now there's not much more we can do tonight, so go to bed and catch some sleep. In the meantime, I'll issue a short press statement denying the charges and saying that we have a full explanation which will exonerate you completely!

'Do we?' asked George hopefully.

'No,' said Jilki, 'but it will give me some much needed time to think.

When Mr. Rosnovski has had a chance to check through that file of names, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that be's never had direct contact with any of them. It's possible that Henry Osborne always acted as an intermediary without ever putting Mr. Rosnovski fully in the picture.

Then my job will be to prove that Osborne exceeded his authority as a director of the group. Mind you, Mr. Rosnovski, if you did meet any of the people mentioned in that file, for God's sake let me know, because you can be sure the justice Department will put them on the stand as witnesses to testify against us. But we'll start worrying about that tomorrow. You go to bed and get some sleep. You must be exhausted af ter your trip. I will see you first thing in the morning.'

Abel was arrested quietly in his daughter's apartment at eight thirty a.m. and driven away by a U.S. marshal to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. The brightly coloured St. Valentine's Day decorations in store windows heightened Abel's sense of loneliness. Jilks had hoped that his arrangements had been so discreet that the press would not have picked them up, but when Abel reached the courthouse, he was once again surrounded by photographers and reporters. He ran the gauntlet into the courtroom with George in front of him and Mr. Jilks behind. They sat silently in an anteroom waiting for their case to be called.

When they were called, the indictment hearing lasted only a few minutes and was a strange anti-climax. The clerk read the charges, H. Trafford Jilks answered 'Not Guilty' to each one on behalf of his client and requested bail. The government, as agreed, made no objection. Jilks asked judge Prescott for at least three months to prepare his defence. The judge set a trial date of 17 May and, seemingly uninterested, moved on to the next case.