stoned breakwater of the harbor , he thought about the Noelle he had known , lived with and loved , and he came to a conclusion : Noelle was perfectly capable of murder .
As Philippe Sorel ’ s yacht was approaching the coast of Greece , the Special Assistant to the President of the United States was in a Pan American Clipper , one hundred air miles northwest of the Hellenikon Airport . William Fraser was in his fifties , a handsome grayhaired man with a craggy face and an authoritative manner . He was staring at a brief in his hand , but he had not turned a page or stirred for more than an hour . Fraser had taken a leave of absence to make this journey , even though it had come at a most inconvenient time , in the midst of a congressional crisis . He knew how painful the next few weeks were going to be for him , and yet he felt that he had no choice . This was a journey of vengeance , and the thought filled Fraser with a cold satisfaction . Deliberately Fraser forced his thoughts away from the trial that would begin tomorrow and looked out the window of the plane . Far below he could see an excursion boat bobbing its way toward Greece , its coast looming in the distance .
Auguste Lanchon had been seasick and terrified for three days . He was seasick because the excursion boat which he had boarded in Marseille had been caught in the tail end of a mistral , and he was terrified because he was afraid that his wife would find out what he was doing . Auguste Lanchon was in his sixties , a fat , bald-headed man with small stumpy legs and a pockmarked face with porcine eyes and thin lips that constantly had a cheap cigar clamped between them . Lanchon owned a dress shop in Marseille and he could not afford — or at least that is what he constantly told his wife — to take a vacation like rich people . Of course , he reminded himself , this was not truly a vacation . He had to see his darling Noelle once again . In the years since she had left him , Lanchon had followed her career avidly in the gossip columns , in newspapers and magazines . When she had starred in her first play , he had taken the train all the way to Paris to see her , but Noelle ’ s stupid secretary had kept them apart . Later he had watched Noelle ’ s movies , seeing them again and again and remembering how she had once made love to him . Yes , this trip would be expensive , but Auguste Lanchon knew that it would be worth every sou of it His precious Noelle would remember the good times they used to have together , and she would turn to him for protection . He would bribe a judge or some other official — if it did not cost too much — and Noelle would be freed , and he would set her up in a little apartment in Marseille where she would always be available to him when he wanted her .
If only his wife did not find out what he was doing .
In the city of Athens Frederick Stavros was working in his tiny law office on the second floor of an old rundown building in the poor Monastiraki section of the city . Stavros was an intense young man , eager and ambitious , struggling to make a living from his chosen profession . Because he could not afford an assistant , he was forced to do all the tedious background legal research himself . Ordinarily he hated this part of his work , but this time he did not mind because he knew that if he won this case his services would be in