Background to Danger (21 page)

In the tiny square a ramshackle bus was standing outside the post office with lights on and engine running. Inside sat a peasant woman with a crate of live chickens. On the step, clasping a huge composition suitcase, was a grinning and bashful young labourer bidding good-bye to a hilarious group in the roadway.

Kenton glanced at the destination board. The bus was bound, via Hohenfurth, Silberberg and Kaplitz, for Budweis.

At a quarter to twelve that night the train from Budweis steamed slowly into Prague.

In his empty compartment, Kenton stood up, put his left hand into his pocket so that the sleeve of his overcoat was hidden and went into the corridor.

The train clanked to a standstill. He got down, walked along the platform, gave his ticket up at the barrier, and crossed to the nearest exit.

The station was crowded, and he did not notice the two men until they were level with him. Suddenly his arms were linked forcibly with those on either side of him and he felt the hard ring of a gun barrel pressed under his rib-case. His heart sank.

“Herr Kenton?”

He hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. They had got him. How, he couldn’t think; but since they had got him, it was not much use trying to brazen things out. Might as well bow to the inevitable. He nodded.

“Ja.”

“Gut.”

They led him through the exit and down the steps to a large closed Mercedes with a uniformed chauffeur.

One of the men got in the back. His companion prodded Kenton after him.

“Einsteigen!”

Kenton got in, followed by the man with the revolver and sat in the middle. The blinds were pulled down and the car started. For the first time the journalist began to wonder if he ought not to have asked the men for their warrants. They looked like police, but there was an unusual informality about their behaviour.

He turned suddenly to the man on his left.

“Where are you taking me?” he said in German.

“Stillschweigen!”

The revolver was rammed into his side to enforce the instruction.

Kenton relapsed into his seat thinking furiously. If they were not the police then who on earth were they and where were they taking him?

His destination was not, it seemed, in Prague itself. The car was travelling fast and, after ten minutes, twisting and turning and hooting, settled down to a straight run on a road which, from the smoothness of the surface and the banking on the bends, he judged to be a main road out of the city.

He glanced at his captors. Nondescript, clean-shaven men with black mackintoshes and dark grey felt hats, they looked, he excused himself, typical Continental plain-clothes policemen. By way of starting a conversation, he asked if he might smoke. The man with the revolver, who appeared to be in command, grunted permission, but shook his head when offered a cigarette. The other man did not answer at all. Kenton gave it up.

A few minutes later, the car swung to the left and dropped downhill; then it bore to the right again, slowed down and stopped.

For a moment or two no one made any movement to get
out. Then the door of the car was opened from outside.

“Heraussteigen!”

Kenton climbed out and, flanked by his escort, mounted a broad flight of steps leading to an imposing pair of doors. He had no time to do more than catch a glimpse of the façade of a large, expensive-looking house when the doors were opened by the chauffeur, and he was ushered into a long, narrow and brilliantly lighted hall.

A door at the far end opened, and a man came out and hurried forward beaming. For a moment, Kenton was too surprised to speak. Then he nodded slowly.

“I might have known it,” he said grimly.

“You might indeed,” chuckled Zaleshoff. “But I expected you by an earlier train. You must be tired. Come on in and have a drink. Tamara’s looking forward to seeing you again,” he added, and on his lips was the confidential smile of a match-making dowager.

Kenton walked down the hall in a daze. He was beginning to wonder whether it might not be he who was mad.

K
ENTON
glanced round the room into which he had been led and nodded appreciatively.

“Nice place you have here.”

Zaleshoff looked up from the tray of drinks.

“The man who owns it is a secret admirer of the late lamented Empress Eugenie. That explains the decorations. Frankly, they make me a little uneasy.” He handed Kenton a whisky and soda.

The journalist took it and held it up to the light.

“No knock-out drops, no little-known vegetable poisons, no dopes?” he asked tentatively.

Zaleshoff frowned.

“I’ve had occasion to notice in you before, Kenton, an
irritating habit of facetiousness. If you don’t want the drink, say so before I pour out another for myself.”

Kenton put the glass down and sighed.

“Sorry, Andreas, but you really can’t blame me. You push off and leave me holding a nasty little baby in the shape of a murder charge; I ask your henchman, Rashenko, for a little help in getting away, and he gives me an overcoat stained with blood, which, I can’t help feeling, once belonged to a gentleman named Borovansky—the blood I mean; then you send along a couple of thugs disguised as detectives, to kidnap me. Now you offer me a drink. Why, in Heaven’s name,
shouldn’t
it be doped?”

The door of the room opened and Tamara came in. Her face lighted up when she saw Kenton. He nodded distantly. She smiled.

“I’m glad you got here safely.”

“Mr. Kenton was just explaining,” put in her brother, “that he suspects me of poisoning his whisky and soda.”

“What nonsense!”

“For goodness’ sake,” exploded Kenton angrily, “let’s get down to business and leave this cross-talk until later. Why the devil have you brought me here? Don’t bother to embroider it. It’s just the plain facts I want, that’s all. I’m feeling tired.”

“Now, now,” said Zaleshoff soothingly, “let’s sit down and talk things over. Take your coat off.”

“I’m not stopping.”

“As you please. At any rate, do sit down.”

“You known darn’ well it’s not as I please. I’m not such a numbskull as to think you brought me here for a drink and a chat.”

“Well then, why keep your coat on?”

Kenton glared at the Russian for a moment. Then he mastered his rising temper. He must, he told himself, keep cool. He took off the overcoat. Zaleshoff took it from him
and held out the left sleeve for the girl’s inspection.

“You see,” he said, “it doesn’t show unless you’re behind a man wearing it. Rashenko can hardly be blamed. He could not have seen it.”

“Of course,” put in Kenton sarcastically, “I’m only the mug who’s been wearing the coat. I can hardly expect you to give me any sort of explanation.”

Zaleshoff patted him on the arm.

“Now listen, Mr. Kenton. When I left Linz this morning I wrote you a note asking you to wait at Rashenko’s room until I could fix things for you? Why didn’t you?”

“Because I don’t trust you. Why should I? Why should you bother about me? You have your job to do. It’s probably very convenient for you to have me accused of murder instead of that nasty-looking employee of yours on the train.”

“Employee? Train?”

“Certainly. Men’s hats acquire a personality of their own when they’ve been worn a bit. You’ve probably noticed it. My hats always look as if I’ve picked them out of the garbage bin after I’ve had them a week. It’s the way I pull them on. Your hats, I should say, always look as though you sat on them hard every morning. You probably grip the crown too hard as you put them on.”

“Very interesting, but …”

“When Rashenko gave me this hat it seemed vaguely familiar. On the train to-night I did a bit of thinking. Then I remembered where I’d seen it. It was on the head of the man Sachs told me was a Nazi spy. I didn’t remember the coat well enough to identify that as well; but putting two and two together it seemed that the owner of the hat was probably the owner of the coat too, and a friend of yours. The coat had a bloodstain on the sleeve, Sachs had been scared out of his wits by the man wearing it, I had found Sachs stabbed. Well, how would that have looked to you?”

Zaleshoff pursed his lips.

“You said, ‘putting two and two together,’ Mr. Kenton. What did you mean by that?”

“Rashenko got that hat and coat from somewhere in his house. He didn’t go out because he was in a dressing-gown.”

“And so you decided to come to Prague?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get here? Did you show your passport?”

“I’m not a fool all the time. I sneaked across the frontier at Manfurth.”

Zaleshoff whistled.

“Manfurth! Whatever made you choose that spot? It’s much easier farther south.”

“I couldn’t see another road on the map. Besides, the woods gave me plenty of cover.”

“I should say you needed it. Did you say you came
across
the frontier? Do you mean you climbed over it?”

“To be precise, I crawled underneath it.” He explained what he had done.

“There, Tamara!” said Zaleshoff delightedly, “there’s resource for you! Only do remember another time, my dear fellow, that the stretches of frontier that look easiest on the map are always the best guarded.”

“I’m hoping I shan’t have to make a practice of it.”

Zaleshoff laughed uproariously.

“You know, Tamara, I like this guy Kenton. He amuses me.”

“Not nearly as much as you amuse me, Andreas,” said Kenton grimly. “You’ve a really charming way of edging the conversation away from an awkward subject. Let’s get back to the point.”

Zaleshoff sighed.

“Very well.”

“Good. Now, I came to Prague with an object in view. That object was to steal those photographs back from
Saridza and do a deal with you. My price for the photographs was going to be your friend with the nasty face, in a parcel, complete with evidence ready for the police.”

“And, always assuming that you could get the photographs—a fatuous assumption—how, pray, were you proposing to get into touch with me?”

“Through the Soviet Embassy.”

There was a pause. It was the girl who broke the silence.

“A little optimistic, weren’t you, Mr. Kenton?”

“Not so optimistic as you might imagine. This morning, I remembered one little piece of information that I’d forgotten to give Andreas here. It was something Saridza said to Mailler. It seemed unimportant at the time. Now, I think, it has become vital.”

“What is it?” snapped Zaleshoff.

Kenton shook his head.

“Nothing doing, Andreas,” he said. “Being wanted for murder you didn’t commit has a curious effect. You become strangely secretive.”

Again there was a pause.

“You realise, Mr. Kenton,” said Zaleshoff at last, “that I could, if I wished,
make
you talk?”

“Now you’re being really silly.”

“Not at all. Supposing, only supposing, mind you, that I were able to tell you that I knew who murdered Borovansky. Supposing I told you that I had intended from the start to use that knowledge to free you from suspicion. Supposing I told you that, in view of your pig-headedness, I had decided to hand you over to the police forthwith. What would you say?”

“I’d still say you were silly.”

“Would you? I don’t think you realise just how good the police case against you is.”

“I realise it only too well. I say you’re being silly because I know that it’s far more important to you that you should
have a line on Saridza than that you should shield the real murderer or score off me.”

The girl laughed.

“Very good, Mr. Kenton! Very good indeed! Now do drink your whisky and soda. It really is quite harmless.”

“And for pity’s sake sit down,” added Zaleshoff irritably. “It’s quite impossible to think with you standing about.”

Kenton sat down beside the girl and sipped at his drink cautiously.

“You really have very little to think about, Andreas,” he said. “Are you going to talk business with me or aren’t you? It’s very simple.”

Zaleshoff looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.

“You know, Kenton,” he said at last, “the trouble with you is that you were born a member of one of the ruling races. Your sense of danger is deficient, your conceit is monumental. Or is it, I wonder, that you lack imagination?”

“You mean that I’m in no position to dictate terms?”

“Exactly. Those men who brought you here are both good shots with revolvers. And, what is more, they have no inhibitions to spoil their aim when the target is alive. You could not leave this house without my express permission.”

“I can’t think why you got me here.”

“Probably not. Would you be very surprised if I told you that it was largely for your own good?”

“Very surprised; and, if you will forgive my saying so, rather sceptical.”

“Naturally.”

The Russian rose and walked the length of the room and back. He stopped in front of the journalist’s chair and looked down at him aggressively.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t believe you’ve got anything at all on Saridza that you haven’t told me. I think you’re bluffing; but I can’t call your bluff. Frankly, I want those
photographs badly. If I don’t get them—well, there’ll be trouble and it won’t be only in Rumania. If you’ve got a speck of information that I haven’t got, then I can’t risk ignoring it.
Have
you got any information?”

“Yes.”

“I hope so. In any case I’m going to give you what you want. I’m going to tell you who murdered Borovansky and how you’re going to get out of the spot you’re in. But I tell you this. You’re not going to do anything about it until I say so. You’re here now and here you’ll stay until I’m ready. You’ll see why. Then you can tell me what you know—if anything.”

“I know something all right.”

“I doubt it.”

Zaleshoff poured himself out another drink, swallowed it at a gulp and sat down in an armchair.

“When Borovansky left Berlin a friend of mine there put a man named Ramon Ortega, a Spaniard to follow him and recover the photographs in Austria.”