“Is the great man busy?”
“I do not think so. Perhaps I will go in and ask.”
“If you ask him, of course he’ll say he’s busy. Just announce Philip. Say that he has come from England with a message for him.”
“Hey—” I said.
“That is all right. You want to talk to him, I suppose. ‘
“I suppose so,” I said, weakly. Gheorge disappeared. There was a murmur of voices behind the partition. He reappeared and beckoned. Lisa gave my arm another little squeeze. I recognised it. It was just the sort of squeeze my mother used to give me before I walked into the dentist’s surgery.
The inner room was small, but well proportioned. A drawing-room in the scheme of things, I guessed; but the original furniture and carpets had been turned out and replaced by a desk, a conference table, and a number of chairs. On the walls, where the pictures and tapestries had once hung, were maps – huge maps, in thick relief and in bold colour; the sort of maps which my mind associated with a military headquarters.
Ferenc Lady had got up from behind the desk as I came in. My first reaction was plain surprise; my next, something akin to dismay. It was the build-up that was to blame. I had been expecting a pocket Mussolini. What I saw was a small, petulant looking gentleman wearing one of the most terrible drape jackets I have ever seen off the West End stage. His small featured, sallow face would have been good- looking if he had not been so obviously irritated. I judged him to be as young or younger than me.
“Do I know you?”
He was, as I discovered afterwards, trilingual. On this occasion he spoke in his native Hungarian. I answered him in the same tongue.
“I am afraid you do not. But the score is level, because until five minutes ago I had no idea you existed, either.”
His teeth flashed in a smile of pure ill-humour.
“Perhaps you would like to sit down and tell me about yourself?”
As he jerked his head, a little waft of something-or-other-of violets reached me. I felt sure I was going to love him.
“When did you learn to speak Hungarian?”
“During the War. I spent a year in Hungary.”
“A spy?”
“Certainly not. An escaping prisoner of war.”
“You are not very fluent. Your vocal sounds are too thick and you use the English word order. A Hungarian would say, ‘A year in Hungary I spent. ‘”
“Would you prefer to talk in English?”
“As you like.”
He switched smoothly into English. There was a touch of Belsize Park about it, but he was perfectly fluent and even colloquial.
“What brings you here?”
I told him about Colin Studd-Thompson and the advertisement. It didn’t sound terribly convincing, but I’ve often found that’s the way with the truth. It never sounds quite as reasonable as a good, logical, well-constructed lie.
Lady listened in silence. The only animation he showed was when I told him about my contact in Cologne getting picked up by the police. He made me describe the man again; then the details of his arrest.
“How did you know they were police?”
“All police look alike,” I said. “It’s a sort of beefy, stolid, holier-than-thou look. Once seen never forgotten.”
“I think perhaps you jump to conclusions,” he said. “Tell me again about Studd-Thompson. A childhood friendship, you say?”
“That’s right. We used to cry each other to sleep, every night at school.”
“Really,” he said. “That sounds improbable.”
I saw then, that it was no use trying to pull his leg. His skin was about two inches thick and satire-proof.
“And apart from this fortuitous friendship, you have no connection with our enterprise here?”
“I’m afraid I don’t even know what your enterprise is,” I confessed.
This confession seemed to cheer him up no end. He got up and walked round the room. The idea seemed to be that I should walk behind him, so I obliged.
“We are engaged,” he said, “in ethnographical research. Speaking ethnographically, we stand here at the centre point of Europe. You follow the colour scheme.” He pointed to the nearest map. “Dark blue is for the Germanic races. Light blue the Austro-Germans. Then we have the Magyars, the Slovaks and the Croats – each with its own subsidiary and mixed racial derivatives.”
“I see,” I said, untruthfully.
“You have made a study of these matters?”
“I know as much about ethnography as I know about making rice pudding.”
“Ah. Then you’ll excuse me asking this, I know. Why did Studd-Thompson want you to join us?”
“That,” I said wearily, “is surely something that we can ask him, when he comes back from wherever he has gone.”
Lady’s lips moved gently. I could see he was repeating my last few words.
“When he comes back from wherever he has gone.”
Then he said: “So you have no idea why he wanted you out here?”
“None at all.”
“But you are old friends?”
“Our friendship started a long time ago.”
“And he had never mentioned what he was doing here?”
“Possibly he realised that I was not interested in ethnography.”
Lady allowed himself something which, in a less tightly composed man, might have passed for a smile. A lifting of the upper lip.
“That would be it, I expect,” he said. “Now, what are you going to do?”
“Wait for Colin.”
“Here?”
I controlled myself.
“If you can’t put me up,” I said, “I have no doubt that I can find a room in one of the many hotels in Steinbruck. It looked a nice, cheerful, gossipy sort of place.”
“No,” he said. “I am afraid I couldn’t allow you to stay in Steinbruck.”
“How far away would you like me to go?”
“I think I should like you to go back to England.”
“Well, think again.”
The trouble was, I realised, that I was losing my temper, whilst he was not. The disadvantages of such a situation are obvious. I made the necessary effort.
“Let’s be rational,” I said. “I don’t know what the set-up is here, but you can’t turn me out of Steinbruck. I have a perfect right to be here. If I start asking questions round Steinbruck—”
The alarm was carefully concealed, but it was there. I had found a tender spot.
“On second thoughts,” said Lady. “I think you had better stay here.”
“I think that’s one of the most gracious invitations I have ever received,” I said. “I really can’t refuse.”
“Gheorge will allot you a room.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got a friend in the management.”
Lady looked up sharply.
“Who?”
“A lady I had the good fortune to meet during the War.”
“Lisa? Yes? Where?”
“As I told you. I was a prisoner of war. I escaped from Germany into Poland. Then from Poland across Czechoslovakia into Hungary. I was a year in Hungary – some of it in prison. Then I got out, and was helped into Yugoslavia. Lisa was one of the people who helped me.”
“Interesting,” said Lady. “She would have been at a romantic stage, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
“You were friendly?”
“Oh, very friendly.”
He just looked at me. It didn’t matter to him. He wouldn’t have minded if I’d murdered her old mother. It would have been a Factor; something to be discounted, or overcome, or perhaps just ignored.
“Then she will be a companion for you,” he said, “until Studd-Thompson returns. You had better ask her to fix you up.” As I turned to go he added: “There is one other thing. Here we are all of us guests. Our host is Baron Milo. We are free to do as we wish for the whole of the day, but he so far preserves the conventions of hospitality that he likes us to dine together at night. We meet at nine o’clock.”
“I haven’t got a dinner jacket.”
“Gheorge is your size. He will lend you one.”
“All right,” I said, and made my escape.
Lisa was waiting for me.
“I have put your rucksack in your room,” she said. “I will show you where it is. Is that all the clothes you have?”
“Every stitch,” I said. “But I can soon buy some more.”
“Have you got some money?”
“Lots of money.”
“Good. There is a little man in Steinbruck will make you some clothes. It will take about two days.”
“I wish I could introduce him to my tailor,” I said. “He has never made me the simplest garment in less than two months. What about lunch?”
“We had better have that in the town. No one here eats much until the evening. Lady has some sandwiches sometimes when he is working very hard.”
“You ought to have warned me.”
“Of what?”
“He’s a poisonous little man.”
Lisa looked at me, cold astonishment in her eyes.
“But he is not poisonous,” she said. “He is a great man.”
“He couldn’t be greater than he thinks he is.”
“Philip, don’t be so—” she cast round her diligently for the most wounding word in her vocabulary “—so insular. Just because he does not behave in a hearty manner and slap you on the shoulder and say, “Old boy, old boy.”
“If he had I should have assumed he was a confidence trickster.”
“What’s wrong with him then?”
“Nothing really,” I said. “He dresses like a shopwalker and uses scent and has got an ego the size of a balloon – apart from that he’s all right.”
For a moment Lisa looked as if she was going to be angry. Then she laughed.
“Poor Phee-leep,” she said. “You have always to be indignant about somebody. Yes? I remember. That is because you are a Martian.”
“You still go in for that fiddle-faddle?”
“Because you do not understand it is no need to mock it.”
My room was a nice one. I unpacked my rucksack, washed my face and put on my other collar. Whilst I was in the middle of these simple preparations there came a knock at the door and the gnome-like servitor came in. Thinking he had come to turn down the bed or something, I stood politely aside. But no. He had something to get off his chest. Having wound himself up, he pressed the button, and something came out which sounded like “affamissage”.
“In case it’s any help,” I said, “I do speak Hungarian.”
A broad smile split his oaken face.
“That is well,” he said, with evident relief. “I have a message for you from your compatriot.”
“From—?”
“From the Herr Studd-Thompson, yes. It is a message in writing.”
“He left a letter?”
“Not for you, by name. He said to me, if I should go away, perhaps they will send someone in my stead. If it should be a little man, with brown skin and very light blue eyes and brown hair turning grey, then you will give him this letter.”
I walked over to the glass. “Looks like me,” I said.
The gnome grinned, and handed me an envelope. It had nothing written on it. I tore it open. Inside were two sheets of paper covered with Colin’s neat, affected writing.
“I gather you got my first message, or you would hardly be reading this. I’m afraid I’ve been rather naughty, but you must put down some of it to boredom, and the rest to two interviews with that blazing ass Forestier. What I told him was that
if
anything should happen to prevent my playing my part in this business, then you were the best possible person to take my place. That’s all. What he said to me was – (a) they couldn’t possibly agree to my telling anyone anything about it (in the circumstances I can understand that), (b) that if someone else had to be roped in, it would be one of their own department, not you, and (c) if I made any attempt to communicate with you in any way, I should be for it, and
you
would be prevented from leaving England. That sounded to me like a threat. To which, assisted by my connections on
The Times,
by Henry (splendid woman) and by Herr Godinger of Cologne (provided he is still out of prison) I have devised, I venture to say, a fairly simple answer. Whether they will succeed in keeping you in England is a matter of opinion. My guess is no. Well, Philip, God bless you. I can’t give you a more intelligent brief since I’ve no idea what I shall be doing, or what will be happening when this reaches you. Except that I shall be temporarily out of commission. Herewith I pass the torch to you.”
I read it through twice. Then I became aware that the gnome was still with me.
“It is good news. Yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “More or less.”
“Not bad news?”
I gathered that he had become fond of Colin.
“Not bad,” I said. “Certainly not bad.”
Downstairs I found Lisa waiting for me impatiently.
We walked into Steinbruck together. Lisa, like a lot of upper class Hungarians, is a profound believer in Astrology. She herself favoured the “onamantic” method, which was tied up with numerology and seemed to me to be even more haphazard than the “scientific” method.
“I suppose you’ve worked out Lady’s horoscope.”
“But of course. He is a Jupiter. Loyalty, sincerity and inherent greatness.”
“That seems to me sufficient proof that your system wants overhauling. What was I?”
“I told you. You are a Martian. Combative and quarrelsome. Also you are under the influence of Fish.”
Before I could think of a suitable reply we were entering the town. Viewed as we came down into it from above, it looked larger than I had thought at first. A sprawling hotch-potch of architecture. Streets of new buildings sprung up, like a fresh undergrowth, under the white towers and gables of the older Austrian buildings. It had all the charm of a town built on a slope between a mountain and a river. Some of the streets were mere flights of cobbled steps. Its air of settled but agreeable melancholy was even more remarkable at close quarters.
“They live in dreams,” agreed Lisa. “Like Brighton.”
We had our lunch in a restaurant overlooking the river. After two of my attempts to talk about Colin had been deftly turned aside I gave it up.
When we had finished our meal Lisa said: “I suppose now you will call on your representative.”
“What representative?”
“Of your Government. I can show you his office. You will wish to report yourself?”
“Why should I report to anyone?” I said. “I’m not in the Army. I’m in Steinbruck as a tourist.”