by Antal Szerb
This time, as I entered, the room seemed particularly bleak. This might have been due to the still-made bed in which I had not slept, or to the fact that I was half-asleep and feeling cold. But the room seemed to be positively creaking with hostility. I was filled with an deeply unpleasant feeling.
And then, like a flash of lightning, I knew what it was, and rushed to the wardrobe. The lock had been forced open. I counted the Persian codices. They were all there. But the manuscript, the memoirs of Lenglet du Fresnoy for which the Earl had sent me to London, had gone. Someone had stolen it.
My first impulse was to jump out of the window. Then, at my wits’ end, I raced down to the ground floor to the manager’s office.
I explained what had happened and showed him the lock. He was distraught, but had nothing to add. So many people had come and gone. In particular, the previous night a horde of Scotsmen had pitched up, travelling half-price to the England-Scotland rugby match; in fact the whole town was swarming with bare-kneed Scots in their Tam o’ Shanters. But in any case the police should be informed.
“Yes, I’ll nip round to Scotland Yard,” I replied. With soaring hope, my petty bourgeois soul took refuge under the motherly wing of the Metropolitan Police. But then my innate pessimism took hold of me again. The manuscript was almost certainly no longer in the hotel, and it seemed most unlikely that such a thing might be found in a London of eight million people in an area the size of an entire county back home. Possibly it was no longer even in London. It could just as easily be on its way to the Southern Seas, via the mail plane to India.
But I’d go to the police station anyway. I went back up to my room, had a bath, shaved and put on my daytime clothes. I had a sudden sense of wellbeing: the fresh clothes, the sudden strangeness of everything, my various loves … perhaps the evil spell of the theft would be broken by a clean, soft collar? Perhaps everything would return to rational order again.
Down in the foyer there was a message for me. According to the porter, a boy had brought it fifteen minutes earlier. In typed lettering I read as follows:
Don’t do anything rash. If you want it back, be at the Café Royal at nine this evening. If you inform the police before then, you will never see it again.
The writer was probably correct in suggesting the police would never be able to trace the manuscript. And it would certainly not be the Earl’s way to have them called in. For a start, it would be in the papers the very next morning, which he would have hated above everything else. After much thought I asked the young bellboy to send him the following telegram:
MANUSCRIPT STOLEN BUT AM ON TRACK AND HOPEFUL LETTER FOLLOWS
Then I set everything down in a letter and despatched it by express delivery.
After that, I had lunch, took a sleeping pill and lay down to sleep. The world might be falling apart but I wasn’t going to give up my afternoon nap.
The Café Royal is effectively London’s only real café. It aims at Frenchness in every detail. As if the place had been built by Napoleon himself, the grand entrance, the doorman’s cap, and even the cups and spoons are adorned with a capital N crowned with laurel. Coffee is served in glasses; the air is so foul and the chairs so very uncomfortable it’s as if you really were in Paris. It was once the meeting place of the British intelligentsia, and the clientele has remained interesting to this day, consisting mainly of aspiring actresses and clever foreigners.
I sat beside the wall and waited, nervously. At nine fifteen a stranger approached me.
“Doctor Bátky?”
“Yes.”
He took a seat. I recognised him immediately. It isn’t every day that you see such an unpleasant, grey-green, corpse-like, degenerate face, with such deep rings around the eyes. It was the man I had seen with Eileen St Claire at Fontainebleau. The man who was said to be her doctor, who had caused Cristofoli such heartache.
“So, can we talk here undisturbed?” he asked, glancing around.
There was a vacant table next to us, but as he spoke a bearded Indian wearing a turban and his unusually tall lady companion seated themselves at it.
“If you’ve no objection, we’ll talk in German,” he muttered, in a thick English accent. “I don’t think our neighbours will make too much of that.”
“As you wish,” I replied.
“Intelligent people don’t need to say very much anyway,” he added.
I have to concede that his face, for all its repulsiveness, did look decidedly intelligent.
“The manuscript you came to London for is in my possession. We have precise information about everything. We knew even before you got here that you were coming for a document of particular interest to the Earl.”
“My congratulations,” I said. “But there is something I would like to mention, for the sake of brevity. Your next sentence will be: ‘Dr Bátky, you are a famous physician.’ Allow me to verify, by means of my passport, that I am not a medical doctor.”
“I am aware of that. We’ve got past that stage. But let’s take things in their turn. There’s no reason not to tell you candidly that the manuscript was a disappointment. I notice that it contains some references to the family, and to some of the bees in his Lordship’s bonnet, but nothing of interest to us.”
“And who are ‘us’?”
“I’ll come to that in a moment. What I came to say is that I don’t really need it at all. I would be happy to return it, on certain conditions.”
“So, you wish to blackmail me. I am not a rich man, sir, and none of this is my business anyway. I suggest you apply to the Earl of Gwynedd himself.”
“What an idea! Compared with us, the Earl is a penniless wretch. We don’t need his money. This is about you.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I’m asking you for the same thing as Eileen St Claire. Give us, in writing, what you recall of Maloney’s death, with particular regard to the person standing on the balcony when Maloney fell.”
“I have already said, sir, that I cannot do that. Especially as I did not see anyone on the balcony.”
“But I know, for absolute certain, that you did.”
“How could you know that?”
“Read this.”
“I had a clear view of Maloney as he stepped from his room in the castle on to the balcony just outside it and climbed up to the balcony immediately above. An extremely tall man dressed in a black costume came out and seized him. They struggled for a short while, then Maloney plunged from the balcony. He was dead before anyone got to him. No one mentioned the fact that his neck had been wrung. Only one person apart from myself saw the man on the balcony, the Hungarian doctor. He came out on to his own balcony just as Maloney uttered his death cry … ”
So, I hadn’t been the only one to see that terrifying apparition. I could no longer assume it was an hallucination caused by my jangled nerves. Someone did push Maloney over the side, or at the very least wrestled with him before he fell. That was what saved the Earl’s life, at the cost of Maloney’s. And now his enemies intended to use the fact against the Earl.
The conclusion was also unavoidable that there was indeed an informer in the house, someone who knew everything down to the finest detail. But who could it be?
“I see from the letter that someone else witnessed Maloney’s accident. In fact they seem to have seen rather more than I did. Why don’t you use their evidence?”
“You’re too nosy. I’m the only one here in a position to ask questions. But to the business in hand. If I get the witness statement from you, then you get the manuscript from me.”
“Excellent. But would you explain what this manuscript is to me, János Bátky? It’s not my fault that it was stolen. If I don’t get it back, I’ll return to Llanvygan tomorrow and leave the rest to the police. After this little interview I can at least give them a detailed description of you.”
“Fine. But don’t you think their first action might be to arrest you?”
“Me? Whatever for? The Earl kno
ws me, and knows how innocent I am.”
“Are you so sure?” the loathsome stranger asked. And he laughed quietly to himself, very unpleasantly.
“I’m absolutely sure,” I replied heatedly. “The Earl told me so himself. Otherwise he would never have sent me for the manuscript.”
“That was the day before yesterday. Since then, things have changed. You might well be innocent, but appearances are now against you.”
“How?”
“Thanks to your wonderful naivety. I find it delightful that there are still such innocent souls in the world. Look, before you’d even arrived in London the Earl wrote to his solicitor, Alexander Seton, to inform him of your business. I’ve had dealings with Seton. He’s the most canny Scot who ever left the Highlands. You can be quite sure he’s had you tailed ever since you arrived. His man is probably here in the room as we speak. You began your series of blunders by not calling on him. But actually, you did well not to. If you’d gone in a taxi, the taxi would have had a very nasty accident … But you didn’t call on him. Instead you did everything you could to bring suspicion on yourself.”
“For example?”
“The moment you got hold of the manuscript, the first thing you did was to contact Mrs Roscoe. Moreover, you were her guest for the night.”
“Mrs Roscoe? … But I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the lady.”
“Of course, you could claim that you didn’t know Eileen St Claire was Roscoe’s widow. But who would believe you, when every shoeblack in Mayfair knows it?”
I grabbed at the table, and succeeded in tipping my coffee cup over. Luckily it was empty.
My friend with the green face ordered two brandies from a passing waiter. I certainly needed a lift after this thunderbolt. So Eileen St Claire was the mysterious Roscoe heiress on whose person all these threads converged. And I … well, well, well …
“Better now?” he asked. “Anyway, if for nothing else than Mrs Roscoe’s … er … hospitality, the noble lord will hate you for the rest of his life. For sentimental reasons. I don’t know whether he is still in love with his former fiancée, but in any case this is his Achilles’ heel. He’s destroyed the career of a great many men who got too friendly with her. My own among them.”
Lines of unexpected bitterness appeared on his coldly evil face. This must have been his Achilles’ heel too …
“But it occurs to me that I’ve forgotten to introduce myself. James Morvin, physician, family doctor to the Roscoes. The same Morvin the Earl believes killed William Roscoe with an artificially induced tropical disease. You see the connection.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I felt sick. How had I come to the point where a murderer bought me brandies? Anyway, I ordered another two, if only to get on level terms.
“Now,” he continued. “If Seton is having you watched, he’ll supply evidence that you spent this evening in my company. I reckon it would take divine forbearance not to find that suspicious. Since you arrived in town, the only people you’ve spoken to are the Earl’s enemies.”
“The truth has triumphed over worse appearances,” I proclaimed grandly, without conviction.
“But it’s not all over yet. The manuscript has of course disappeared, and you can give no explanation where it might be. However, one fine day, the Earl will get it back, together with a nice friendly letter from me. In the letter I shall specify the sum for which you sold it to me.”
“I don’t think he’d believe you.”
“Sir, even the most palpably false libel will leave a stain on a person’s character. But that’s not all. Prior to that, the Earl will learn, from someone in whom he has total confidence, that you put it about the length and breadth of London that Maloney was murdered.”
I had a sudden idea.
“Don’t forget that I’ve written proof in my hands. The letter I got this morning. In that letter you clearly state that the manuscript is in your possession.”
For some minutes he was unable to speak for laughing.
“What could you prove with that? With an anonymous letter, typewritten and produced on your own Royal portable. People will say you wrote it yourself.”
By now I was so distressed I could hardly stay in my seat.
“Sir, if you propose a campaign of lies and slanders against me, you could say even more fantastic things about me. That, for example, at the age of three I impaled my grandmother. Or that I’ve sworn to cut off the King’s beard. But tell me, for God’s sake, what good it will do you to start persecuting me? What have I, János Bátky of Budapest, got to do with this? I think I’ll leave the country tomorrow.”
“Relax. Pull yourself together. It’s all very simple. All I wanted was to show you that your standing with the Earl has been destroyed, once and for all. There’ll be no red carpet rolled out for you at Llanvygan. I really don’t know what you were after. Did you expect the Earl to pay money for your services?—though I’m aware you don’t specially need it. Did you plan to run off with the little blue-stocking Cynthia, or do you fancy young Osborne … ? But it’s all one. Whatever your plan was, you must say goodbye to it. On the other hand, things could open up very nicely for you, if you’re clever, and listen to what I have to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know whether you’ve any idea of Mrs Roscoe’s wealth and influence. The mind of gentleman scholars such as yourself isn’t usually capable of imagining it. I don’t want to list the companies, the mines, the real estate … but, to give you a rough idea, her wealth accumulates at the rate of fifty pounds a minute, even when she’s sleeping.”
“That’s obscene!”
“Now it depends entirely on you whether you connect yourself with this vast fortune, in whatever way you prefer. If you were of an active, outgoing nature, you might become the managing director of a major company … ”
“I’d rather not.”
“No, I didn’t think that would fit in with your inclinations. But give it some thought, and tell me what you’d like. If you have academic ambitions, let me know at which British university you’d like to be a reader. If it’s literature you fancy, we can create a journal from which you can demolish every other literary periodical in the country. Or, you might like to become a great landowner in Hungary, on the Great Plain. If you like travelling, you could have a yacht and all expenses paid for a year … two years … three? Well?”
“ … ”
“But if you’re a total book maniac, I’ll get you appointed chief librarian in Mrs Roscoe’s castle at Rainbow Head. This library doesn’t exist at the moment, but you could buy whatever you wanted.
“And on top of all this,” he added with a leer, “you can be sure of Eileen St Claire’s friendship for life, if you put any value on that.”
“And what must I do in return?”
“Nothing wicked, nothing inhuman, nothing to upset your delicate sensibilities. You would only have to testify that Maloney was murdered. In short, you would have to do nothing but tell the truth.”
I felt as if an ocean-going yacht had smashed into my head. How simple and plausible was the disguise in which evil presented itself. It was quite true: Maloney had been deliberately killed. Perhaps the Roscoe heirs were right? But the temptation quickly passed.
“I don’t know what you’re after,” I said, “but it’s quite clear you want to harm the Earl. But this won’t get you anywhere. If Maloney was killed, it was done in self-defence. You know the facts. He intended to force his way into the Earl’s suite of rooms … not, I think, to bid him a tearful farewell. If it so happened that someone tried to stop him breaking in, and Maloney had an accident, no one’s to blame for that.”
“Put like that, no one is. But it all depends on you—on what you say, and how you phrase it. Can’t you see? Who knows about these accusations against Maloney, and about his departure? You, the Earl, the two younger Pendragons, perhaps a servant or two. You are the chief witness, because of what you saw. If you chose, it could b
e established that the gigantic figure was none other than the Earl in disguise. You could swear under oath, in all good faith, that you had seen him in that disguise more than once before.”
I clutched my brows. Myself as chief prosecution witness. No occupation could be more hateful. I’d rather lead a revolution in South America. It was a nightmare.
“And I’ll tell you something else, to ease your loyal and kindly conscience. It’s actually my strongest argument. The only way for you to save the Earl’s life is to consent to do this.”
“Don’t try to be funny.”
“Oh, but it really is. If you do as I ask, what will happen next? We have the proof in our hands that the Earl murdered Maloney. The Earl has proof that we got rid of William Roscoe. You say Maloney was killed in self-defence … it’s all one. The Earl will sacrifice anything to avoid having to appear in court or in public, and have his name in the papers.”
“So?”
“An honest barter will follow. We shall exchange proofs, and after that neither will be in a position to harm the other. A blessed peace. However if none of this happens, then no one can vouch for the Earl’s safety. Naturally that’s nothing to do with me, or with Eileen St Claire. But sadly, as time goes on, desperadoes like Maloney get themselves involved. People who will stop at nothing to prevent the Earl putting his evidence to good use.
“I must also warn you, most emphatically,” he continued, “that after what has happened your own life isn’t particularly safe. You’ve become too significant a person. You can’t just go on reading quietly in the British Museum. One of the greatest fortunes in Britain is at stake. You’ll be watched night and day. From now on, the danger that hangs over the Earl, and Osborne Pendragon as his heir, will be lying in wait for you too. I’m just giving you a friendly warning.”