by Eric Ambler
‘All right, I’m listening.’
‘My brother has been in hiding here since before Papa was arrested. My brother, Herr Foster, had five friends. Their names were Pazar, Eftib, Vlahov, Pechanatz, and Radiuje.’
I dropped the towel. ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’
‘Perfectly. That is what I came to tell you. This evidence that they have brought against my father is quite true. Only it is not he who is guilty. It is my brother, Philip.’
I sat back and stared at her. She was telling the truth. A lot of things were suddenly and appallingly clear.
‘When did your mother find out?’
‘She did not tell me.’
‘Does your father know?’
‘He must have known from the beginning of the trial, or guessed. But what can he do? He cannot accuse his own son, and Brankovitch would certainly not let Philip give evidence.’
‘Nobody would believe it anyway. They’d laugh. Dutiful son takes blame for father’s crimes. I’d laugh myself.’ I thought about it for a moment. It explained quite a lot of things, but not everything by any means. I looked up at her again. ‘What’s the idea of telling this to me, Fraulein?’
‘I want you to publish my brother’s evidence.’
‘Does he want to give it?’
She set her lips firmly. ‘He must.’
‘Does your mother know of this idea?’
‘I would not tell her. She would say that it would not help Papa, only condemn Philip.’
‘She’d be right.’
‘But abroad they must know the truth.’
‘Would your mother agree with that?’
‘I do not know. She is too clever to be simple. She would discuss the idea and think of possibilities nobody else had dreamed of. Then she would say she was tired. You would not know her real thoughts.’
‘What was your brother up to? Is he crazy?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘When Papa betrayed the party,’ she said, ‘he and Philip quarrelled. They were always in conflict, but this time my mother could do nothing.’ Tears came to her eyes. ‘We were all against him, even I was; and when the People’s Party came to power, Philip joined a student political club that had for secretary this man Pazar. Pazar always needed money, but the students liked him. He talked very amusingly and they used to pay him for coaching. When they formed a club they would sometimes make him secretary and give him a commission on the subscriptions. Philip soon felt that the club was not serious, but he became very friendly with Pazar. Then, one day, Pazar told him that he was a member of the Brotherhood.’
‘There must have been pleasure in telling that to the son of the man who had done so much to destroy it,’ I remarked. It was all too easy to catch the flavour of those dangerous exchanges of confidences between the middle-aged drug addict and the fanatical youth.
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I know that when Philip joined the Brotherhood it was only to revenge himself on Papa. He did not mean then to do more than join.’
‘But once he had joined, he found that they expected more than a gesture. Was that it?’
She nodded. ‘There were six of them elected, and Philip was named the leader. Their task was to kill Vukashin at the Anniversary-Celebration parade. But-’
‘Just a moment. Who was the man who gave them the job?’
‘It was not one man, but a group of men. They called themselves the Survivors.’
‘When did Philip tell you all this?’
‘Before he went to Switzerland. Mamma had become worried about him. He looked so ill and tired. She persuaded Papa to send him there to study. Naturally, he refused to go at first, but after a day or two he said no more. That was at Christmas. He had arranged to return in secret when Pazar sent for him.’ She paused before she added, ‘I knew then that he was not the real leader, but had been given the role of leader because of his name.’
‘Did you say that to him?’
‘He already knew it, I think. But if I had said it he would have made some other foolishness to prove to me that I was wrong. Besides, I thought that in Geneva he might change his mind and forget about it.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘No. We had arranged a code for our letters, and when the attempt on Papa was made, I heard from him that he was returning. I only saw him once. We met secretly at a place near the station.’
‘Patriarch Dimo 9?’
‘No, another. But he gave me two addresses which I might send letters to. Valmo, Patriarch Dimo 9, was one of them. The other he told me I must use only in case of an extreme emergency if I had to find him.’
‘What was in the letter you gave me?’
‘I begged him to escape to Greece and publish the truth about the conspiracy against Vukashin from there.’
‘What made you decide to come to me?’
She frowned impatiently. ‘Today’s evidence, Herr Foster. Surely you see. The police know everything. Philip and Pazar are the only two left. They must be in hiding somewhere, helpless. Philip can do nothing now even if he wished. It must be done for him.’
I thought hard for a moment or two, then I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that it’s as simple as you believe, Fraulein.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, to begin with, Valmo was the name Pazar was hiding under. When I tried to deliver your letter, I found him dead. He’d been shot through the back of the head and had been there some days.’
‘What happened to my letter?’
‘That was burnt by a man named Aleko who said that he was of the secret police and that his name was Valmo. He also said that your letter was addressed to him and was something to do with the attempt on your father.’ I described Aleko. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’ I added.
She looked utterly bewildered. ‘No, Herr Foster.’
‘What does your brother look like?’
She gave me a description.
I nodded. ‘A young man who looks like that came into Aleko’s apartment while I was there. I only saw him for a moment. Aleko called him Jika.’
She stood up quickly. ‘That is Philip. He likes his friends to call him that. Herr Foster, where is this place?’
‘I don’t know for certain, but I should think that it may be the other address your brother gave you. Have you got it?’
‘Philip made me remember it. He said it was too dangerous to write down.’
‘What is it?’
‘Pashik, Pan-Eurasian Press Service, Serdika Prospek 15,’ she said.
I went to the wardrobe, got out the bottle of plum brandy, and poured myself a big drink.
‘Do you like this stuff?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
‘All right, Fraulein. You’d better go back now. I think I know how to reach your brother.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pashik lived in a modern apartment house near his office. He had pointed out the place to me on the day I had arrived. I thought now that I could find it without much difficulty. There were no taxis. I walked.
The way there lay through the business quarter, and by that time the streets were mostly empty and still. Earlier that day they had been decorated in preparation for the anniversary parade, and the bright moonlight striking obliquely through the flags overhead cast a multiplicity of shadows that stirred and twisted in the warm breeze. It was like walking through the dark forest of a dream. But I had gone some distance before I became frightened.
It was a very unpleasant sensation. The brandy-engendered resolution with which I had set out seemed to drain suddenly away. I began to shiver uncontrollably and an icy, numbing kind of logic invaded the small corner of my conscious mind now whimpering with the effort required to keep on walking. What I was doing was incredibly foolish. Not three hours ago two men had tried to kill me in the street. I had been very lucky to escape. Now here I was in the streets again, giving them another chance. For obviously they must be waiting for me. Ruthless determination of the kind they possessed
would be intensified by failure. They would not fail a second time.
Soon every shadow had become a man with a gun, every doorway the place of an ambush. I kept on simply because I was afraid to go back. I walked now simply because I was afraid to break into a run that might precipitate action. My legs ached with the strain. My shirt clung to my back. I had so completely lost my head that I went on fifty yards past my destination without seeing it. There was a frantic ten seconds on the corner of the Boulevard Sokolovsky while I got my bearings. Then I saw the apartment house from a familiar angle. I ran the fifty yards back.
It was a tall, narrow building with massive ferroconcrete balconies, from the sides of which rusty weather stains drooled down the walls. In the daylight these stains gave the place a tired, unhappy air — you wanted someone to wipe its face for it — but in the moonlight, they were hard shadows that made the balconies seem to project like freakish upper lips. The main entrance doors, ornate affairs of wrought iron and rolled glass, were still open, and the lobby beyond was dimly illuminated by a light from the concierge’s room.
As I stood for a moment or two recovering my breath, I looked back along the street. There were two or three empty cars parked in it, but they had been there already. Nobody had followed me. I went in and pressed the concierge’s bell. Nothing happened. After a minute or so, I went over to the lift. Beside it was a list of the tenants. Pashik was on the fourth floor. The lift did not work, of course. I found the stairs and walked up.
At the moment of deciding to see Pashik that night I had had a clear image of the sort of interview it would be. I had seen him already in bed and asleep when I arrived. In response to my insistent ringing he had at last appeared, a bleary, nightshirted figure (I had been sure he wore nightshirts), fetid and protesting. I had cut through his protests decisively. I had given him no time to build up his defences. I had pelted him with the facts I had discovered and watched his features grow pinched as he realized how much I knew. Then, at last, wearily he had shrugged. ‘Very well. Since you already know so much, Mr Foster, you had better hear the rest.’ And I had sat down to listen.
The reality was somewhat different.
The door to his apartment was at the end of a short passage near the main staircase landing. As I turned into the passage, I saw that the door was ajar and that there were lights in the apartment. I went along the passage and up to the door. Then, with my hand on the bell, I paused. Inside, someone was speaking on the telephone. Or listening rather; there was a series of grunts, then two or three words I did not understand. The voice, however, was not Pashik’s. I hesitated, then rang the bell.
The voice ceased abruptly. There was a movement from within. Then silence. Suddenly the door swung open and clattered gently against a picture on the wall behind it. For a moment the small lobby beyond looked empty. Then I saw. Between the doors of the two rooms facing me was a narrow strip of wall. On the wall was a mirror, and, reflected in it, the face of the man who had pushed the door open with his foot. It was Sibley.
He moved slowly out from the wall just inside the entrance and looked at me. There was a heavy bottle-glass ashtray in his hand. He put it down on the hall table and grinned.
‘Well, Foster dear,’ he said archly. ‘This is a nice surprise! A small world, I always say. Do you always say that? Of course you don’t! Come to see our smelly friend?’
‘Naturally. What are you doing here?’
He looked at me oddly. ‘I’ve come to see him too, and also naturally. Doesn’t seem to be about, though, does he? I’ve looked high and low.’
‘Who were you expecting to have to beat over the head with that ashtray?’
‘Somebody else who shouldn’t be here. Like me. You’re quite a logical visitor, of course. Been here before, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘No.’
He grinned again. ‘I thought not. Come on in and make yourself at home. I was telephoning.’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘Don’t speak the language though, do you?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. This way.’
He went through the left-hand door. I hesitated and then followed.
It was a sitting room that had obviously been furnished by the owners of the building. There were built-in cupboards and bookcases and a built-in sofa. There were cube-like easy chairs, glass-topped circular tables, and an oatmeal-coloured rug. You could have seen the same sort of things in any other furnished apartment building in any other European city. The extraordinary thing about this room was the decoration of the walls.
They were covered, every square foot of them, with pages cut from American magazines and stuck on with Scotch tape. There were pictures of filmstars (all women), there were near-nude ‘studies’ of women who were not filmstars and there were artlessly erotic colour drawings of reclining seductresses in lace step-ins. All would have looked quite at home in the room of an adolescent youth. Yet that was the comprehensible part of the display; it was not remarkable that Pashik should have the emotional development of a sixteen-year-old boy. The startling thing was that for every Ann Sheridan, for every sandal-tying beach beauty, for every long-legged houri, there was a precisely arranged frame of advertisement pages. The nearest Betty Grable was surrounded by Buick, Frigidaire, Lux, and American Airlines, all in colour. A sun-tanned blonde glistening with sea water had Coca-Cola, US Steel, Dictaphone, and Lord Calvert whisky. A gauze-veiled brunette with a man’s bedroom slipper in her hand and a speculative eye was framed by Bell Telephones, Metropolitan Life Insurance, General Electric, and Jello. The baffling thing was that the selection and grouping of advertisements seemed quite unrelated to the pictures. There was no wit, no hint of social criticism, in the arrangements. Many of the advertisements were not particularly distinguished as such. It was fantastic.
Sibley had gone back to the telephone. He had said something into it, listened again, and then, with a last word, hung up. He flicked his fingers at the wall as if he were launching a paper pellet.
‘Lots of fun, isn’t it?’
‘Lots. How did you get in?’
‘The concierge has a pass key and is corrupt. Would you like a drink? There must be some about.’ He opened one of the cupboards and peered inside.
‘Do you know Pashik well?’ I said.
‘Would you believe me if I said yes?’
‘No.’
‘Then let’s say that I think I know a bit more about him than you do. Cigars but no drinks,’ he added, producing a box. ‘Cigar?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘No, it’s a drink you need. You’re not looking your usual cheerful self, Foster dear. A bit pinched round the gills and upset. Let’s try this one.’ He went to another cupboard.
‘I take it you’re not afraid of Pashik’s suddenly turning up and finding you here searching his room. That wouldn’t embarrass you?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Was that why you came? Because you knew he wouldn’t be here?’
He looked up from the cupboard he was searching and shook his head. ‘No, Foster mio,’ he said softly, ‘that wasn’t why. I just wanted a little chat with him. When there was no answer, I had another thought and fetched the concierge. Silly of me, wasn’t it? — but I actually thought our Georghi might be dead.’
‘Why should you think that?’
‘It was just a thought I had.’ He straightened up suddenly with a bottle in his hand. ‘There now! Our old friend plum brandy!’ And then he looked directly at me. ‘You know about Pazar, of course?’
‘What about him?’
‘Tonight’s police statement that they’ve found him shot in a derelict house.’
‘Oh yes, that.’ I tried to make it casual.
He reached down and brought out two glasses. ‘A house in some street with a funny name,’ he said slowly. ‘What was it?’
‘Patriarch Dimo.’ My voice sounded unnatural to me.
‘That’s it. Who told you? Georghi?’
He brought the bottle and glasses over and put them on the table. ‘When did you see him?’
‘Oh, earlier on.’
He shook his head. ‘It won’t do, Foster dear,’ he said. ‘No, don’t get cross. I set a little trap and you fell into it, that’s all. That statement was only issued half an hour ago. I was on the phone to the office when you came in. That’s how I know.’ He thrust his head forward. ‘How did you know?’
I was feeling sick again. I sat down.
‘ Did Georghi tell you?’
I shook my head. ‘I found him by accident.’
He whistled softly. ‘My, my! You do get around! What sort of an accident was it that took you to. Patriarch Dimo? The same sort that got you into the Deltchev house?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Doing a little private investigating perhaps?’
‘That’s the idea.’
He shook his head regretfully. ‘Someone must be very cross with you.’
Another wave of sickness came. I drew a deep breath. ‘Then that’s probably why someone’s just tried to kill me,’ I said.
He stared at me expressionlessly for a moment. ‘A joke, Foster dear?’ he said gently. ‘A joke in bad taste?’
‘No joke.’
‘Where was it?’
‘In that road that runs round the Park.’
‘When?’
‘An hour or two ago.’
‘One man or two?’
‘Two.’
‘One of them couldn’t have been Georghi by any chance?’
‘No.’
He seemed to relax again. ‘Well, well! Poor Foster! No wonder you look peaky. And here I am chattering away instead of pouring the much-needed drink. There.’
I swallowed the drink and sat back for a moment with my eyes closed. I hoped he would believe that I was feeling faint. I had to think and it was difficult. Sibley was Brankovitch’s paid man and already I had given myself away appallingly. Pashik was involved with Aleko and Philip Deltchev in a Brotherhood plot to assassinate Vukashin. The wreckage of that plot was being used to convict the elder Deltchev. Now the dead Pazar, probably murdered by Aleko, had been officially discovered on the eve of the anniversary parade at which Vukashin was to have been assassinated. There was a contrived, bad-third-act feeling about the whole thing; as if…