“You’re very sure of that,” I said.
He glared. “Of course! You were quite right and I admit it now. Was he not friendly with the Security Policeman?”
“Haven’t you been sometimes — or appeared to be?”
“This was quite different — there was obviously genuine friendliness, comradeliness, and the whole circumstance was of treachery!”
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t disagree — I never did believe Vorsak was on your side, myself. What now, General?”
“There is much to do, very much to do.” Heilersetz had a strong note in his voice now, the man of action responding to the call. His hand made a slapping motion against his side, as though he was flicking his thigh with a once-familiar riding-switch. “My man’s gone, I see — not Frumm — the driver of the snow-plough. He won’t be far away. I’ll send Frumm for him, and the girl. Then we’ll make a start. The vehicles must be moved and the police one destroyed. The bodies must be stripped and then hidden. I shall have the uniforms burned.”
“There won’t be time for all that, General —”
“Time?” He bristled; he even tweaked up the ends of his moustache as he stared at me. “Time, Commander? Let me assure you, we have plenty of time! My castle is very remote, and there was the sound-muffling effect of the snow. Nothing will have been heard anywhere.”
“That may be so,” I started, “but —”
“I shall give the orders, Commander —”
“Look,” I said. I almost shouted it. “Don’t be more of a blind fool than you have to be, General Heilersetz! Your man Frumm got all those men, true enough. A clean sweep, and no witnesses alive except us and Krajcin. But even if nothing has been heard locally, no gunfire, you surely don’t imagine this bunch came all the way out here with Vorsak without leaving word at HQ — do you, General?” He let out a long breath, and shook his head, suffering from a mixture of annoyance and frustration. “You mean more men will come?”
“Well, of course they will!” I said snappishly. The old man’s mental processes must be slowing up with age, not to say grinding to a halt. “It’s no good thinking in terms of fortresses, General. Your castle isn’t the sort that’ll withstand a siege, you know!”
“So?”
I said, “So I suggest we get out ourselves and leave all this lot right where it is. It’d take far too long to destroy all that evidence,” I added, waving a hand around the slaughter area. “I don’t know any more than you how long we’ve got, but it could never be long enough. Let’s say we have a couple of hours. I doubt if the authorities will get suspicious in under that time. When they do, we need to be far, far away.” The snow was coming down faster now and was even settling on the bodies, which I would have thought would still have been too warm. It was like a picture of the trenches in Flanders, December 1916. I went to Vorsak’s car and switched off the headlights, then came back. “Come inside, General. The first thing we have to do is to question Krajcin and find out just what did happen.”
I turned away and he followed me like a lamb. The militarism had subsided and I think age had caught up — age, and anxiety; a sudden sober awareness that a whole lot of things had crashed around him, and not just a submachine-gun. This could be the end of the road for him, and would certainly be the end of the line as regards any anti-Drakotny plans he might have had. He was a marked man now and at last he had taken that fact in; I could see it in his face and in the slump of his shoulders as we came into the lighted porch.
Frumm had got Krajcin in the hall, where the Professor of Moral Philosophy had collapsed on an oak chest beneath a cavalry guidon hanging from a lance. I shushed at Heilersetz, whose manner I knew would only bring on a fresh attack of weeping; Heilersetz went through to his study and I went myself to question Krajcin. I talked to him quietly for a few minutes, very conscious now of time running out, and then he told me that Vorsak had come for him in his room at the university and threatened him with a gun and made him go to the waiting car. Vorsak’s thug had been in the car and Vorsak had driven to police headquarters, where he had gone inside leaving Krajcin with the thug.
“And then?”
Krajcin said, “He came out after fifteen minutes, with a policeman in plain clothes. This policeman got in the car with us and we started off again. Within ten minutes another car, one full of police, had come up behind us and remained with us all the way.”
“Did you hear anything on the way, Professor?” I asked.
“Little enough. Only that the man Vorsak intended bringing us all into the net together — me, you, General Heilersetz. I tried to tell them that I had nothing to do with this, but no-one would listen to me.”
“That you had nothing to do with what?”
“Why, the assassination of Drakotny — the threat of this.”
“This was specifically mentioned?”
He nodded. “Yes. By Vorsak.”
“Then at least Drakotny will be positively told now that his life’s in danger. That’s something.” It was really quite a relief. I couldn’t have been sure, until now, that even Vorsak would have passed this information through; he had been a totally unknown quantity, but now, at last, his loyalties appeared to be established. It looked very much as though my job really would pass into other hands this time and I would need to concentrate only on getting myself clear and away from the schloss and from Czechoslovakia. Likewise, Nada Strecka seemed to have been undercut. Unless she still believed her Drakotny would listen to no-one but herself, she had become superfluous. So that was that, I thought, and all the rest was in the hands of God.
Or was it?
As a matter of fact, a moment’s further thought told me it wasn’t. There was still General Rudolf Heilersetz, who hadn’t yet agreed to leave the castle. He had been a pretty bloodthirsty officer in his day and he had a very big bee buzzing in his bonnet right now. It would be dangerous, from many points of view, to leave Heilersetz behind. I had to sort that one out, fast and personally. There was another angle too, an important one. I asked, “Have you a relative in the medical profession, Krajcin?”
His face whitened; he was obviously rocked. “You know?” he asked.
“Yes, we know. Heilersetz knows. A Dr Krajcin is one of Drakotny’s doctors, appointed to fill the vacancy left by Dr Palovitch. Well?”
Krajcin said in a low voice, “My brother, Jan. My young brother.” Then he added, “Did the man Vorsak … did he know this too?”
“Yes,” I said, “he knew it too, by the time he went for you. I dare say he’ll have had something to say to the Security Police in Prague about it.” He sure would, the way it had come out at lunch; it was I myself who had surrounded Dr Krajcin with suspicion, partly just by having Vorsak sent in to bring this other Krajcin out. “Anyway, to me, it begins to look fairly clear now. There was a medical plot, wasn’t there, a plot to knock off Drakotny by giving him some fatal illness, and you knew that, didn’t you, because even though you weren’t an active member of Heilersetz’s group, you were a sympathizer. Right, Krajcin?” When he didn’t answer, but just sat there shaking, I went on, “Now, I’m certain Heilersetz knew nothing of this plot and still knows nothing of it. He’s just heard in a general way, like Miss Strecka you remember, that there is something in the air. That means his group isn’t concerned, not of itself. I dare say they’d be happy enough with the results, so long as they don’t happen too fast. But you do know about it. Don’t you think you’d better tell me just what is going on, Krajcin?”
I waited; it was far from warm in that hall, but I watched the sweat start out on Krajcin’s forehead and run down his face. I watched him squirm as Heilersetz came back and walked up to us. Heilersetz wouldn’t be Krajcin’s cup of tea at all. The General halted close by and said sneeringly, “So the Professor from Prague has stopped crying. What is going on, please?”
“I’m asking him some questions. Important ones.”
“He is answering?” Heilersetz gave me a searching look.
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“Not all of them.”
“I see. Commander, you must hurry. I have realized that you are right — we must leave the castle, much as it grieves me to do so. We should be as far away as possible before men come from Prague.” I was relieved and grateful that the man had recovered his common sense and solved one of my problems thereby, and relieved too that he was a soldier once again, a soldier who saw virtue in accepting retreat when it was an obvious necessity. Now, he looked very much the Commanding General again. “But this man. You say his answers are important.” I saw the General’s eye rove his high walls scanning swords and lances and battleaxes and instruments of medieval torture — hand-crushers and ankle-crushers, fingernail extractors, naggers’ helmets that once used to be clamped over talkative women’s heads, with a razor-shape protrusion in the mouth, so that each movement of the tongue brought laceration. In point of fact poor Krajcin’s answers were not, or most probably were not, so vital that they need delay our departure — this I considered of over-riding importance just then. I didn’t really want to see him spitted like a pig in any case — Max mightn’t like that when I got back, if I got back. So I said, “Not to worry for now, General. He can talk on the move. What’s your plan?”
“Strategic withdrawal,” he said. “To put this in other words, we shall get lost for a while.”
“With all this snow lying? Not a hope!” I went to the door and looked out. The snow had stopped and the sky had cleared nicely “We have to move out, all right, but I wouldn’t bank on getting lost. The tracks’ll stand out for miles, and the police could easily get here before there’s another fall —”
“No matter. There will be no tracks, at least, not in the close vicinity.” Heilersetz smiled. “The castle is not old, but was built precisely to the plan of an old and genuine German schloss. There is an underground passage, Commander, a tunnel that emerges a considerable distance away, and we —”
“Hold on,” I said. “Look, General. The castle’s been in Communist occupation — you said so yourself. There won’t be any secrets left now!”
“You are quite wrong, Commander. Even the Security Police never found the passage or its entry. I alone know where it is, and before me my father, dead these many years. I know this, because before it was seized from my family my father placed many traps. On my return to ownership, I found not one of these traps sprung, and no evidences that anyone had been down, no disturbance of years and years of thick dust and cobwebs.”
I shrugged. “Okay. I only hope you’re right, that’s all, General!” I wasn’t too happy; for one thing, I’d had it in mind that we might make a motorized escape, which would have been faster and a damn sight warmer and drier, though of course there were dangers in it. I said, “Ready when you are, General. Who’ll be coming with us?”
“All my household. My sergeant — Frumm — his son, who was driving the snow-plough, his daughter-in-law, and his grand-daughter Katenie, whom you have met.”
“Quite a family business,” I remarked, “but isn’t it rather a lot for a clandestine dash into the night?”
He looked at me coldly. “They are very faithful servants, whom I would never desert. In any case, before now I have withdrawn a whole brigade clandestinely, as you call it!”
“Sorry I spoke,” I said. Personally, I thought there was a difference; brigades were better armed and better armoured. But I did take the point about the faithful servants, of course. I rather liked that insistence, really. In fact it was somewhere at the back of my mind that I ought to be thinking that way about Nada Strecka; not that she would appreciate it, but I did think she should have some cover. If the Security Police should still fail to bowl out the bomb boys or, as I was more and more convinced by now, the medical murderers, then her number was up. The authorities knew where she was and the moment Drakotny died she would drop right down the scale to what in fact she was: an agent who had gone West, literally, drugs and hippies and all. They would damn well crucify her.
And I didn’t like it.
Heilersetz went off again then, to complete his withdrawal plans, saying he would be mustering everyone in the hall in ten minutes. With Nada Strecka in mind, I turned my attention back to Krajcin. There was something he might be able to tell me and suddenly I wanted it right away. I asked him if he had had any further contact with Miss Strecka.
“With Miss Strecka? No, no,” he answered. I felt he was telling the truth, I don’t know why, unless it was just because a contact between them would in fact have been unlikely; though I’d had it in mind that Nada could have found out the names of Drakotny’s doctors, and if she’d heard about the new appointment she would certainly have wanted to find out more about brother Pavol Krajcin, especially after we had discussed the possibilities of some medical interference. But she had seemed to me perfectly genuine and sincere, back in the old woman Frossen’s house in Prague, when she had talked of Dr Palovitch. I was sure she hadn’t known he was dead.
“You have heard nothing of her?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Krajcin’s head was in his hands now; he was preoccupied with himself. He wasn’t interested in Nada, she didn’t mean a thing to him one way or the other. If he’d been lying, I’d have seen it. So I didn’t press. I left him to try to get a grip on himself and I walked up and down the great hall, waiting for General Heilersetz and praying the Security Police wouldn’t make it before we got away. I still felt confident of that two hours or so, but there was always the chance that the shooting might have been heard after all and the police alerted sooner. But all was still well by the time Heilersetz came back into the hall, dressed in a heavy anorak with a hood, the strings of which were hauled tight beneath his chin so that his face appeared, comically, as a round, pink moon slashed by the neat moustache atop a long length of blue canvas. He had a gunbelt strapped to his waist, with a heavy revolver in the holster, and he carried a sporting rifle as well. His legs were nicely hidden in thigh-high leather boots with big flaps at the tops and all in all he had the look of a man about to go out and shoot wild duck. Only this time we looked very much like being the wild duck ourselves, very much on the receiving end of any lead that was going to be chucked around. With Heilersetz came Sergeant Frumm, wearing a peaked cap of unknown origin, a duffel coat of dirt-grey, and rubber wellingtons. He too was armed with a revolver and a sporting gun and carried bandoliers of ammunition slung around his chest like a Mexican bandit. Behind Frumm came his family: his son, the snow-plough driver, attired like his father except that he wore a balaclava instead of a peaked cap and was carrying the sub-machine-gun; Frumm junior’s wife, a tired-looking peasant with hopeless black eyes and a subservient manner — and old Frumm’s grand-daughter, the able-bodied milkmaid who had waited at table. I guessed she led a lonely life, manwise, and was missing out on something, for she kept giving me lingering looks, and dimpling. Katenie … it was a nice name, too. Her looks were only too obvious, but times were a shade too dangerous for love on the march, and I felt that in any case such digressions would lead General Heilersetz to court-martial me and drum me out of the Frummline.
Heilersetz said, “We are ready — all ready, Commander, to move out.”
I nodded. “Right. We’re with you.” I pulled Krajcin to his feet and steadied him with my arm. I led him across towards the others. I saw then that the two women of the party had the commissariat with them; each carried a green canvas kitbag stuffed with food — ready-cooked cold sausages, tins of milk, bottles of wine, biscuits, bread and cheese. It looked sustaining and well chosen, but it had to feed quite a number and wouldn’t last all that long. I asked, “Where are you heading for, General, after the tunnel?”
I had assumed he must have a plan; Generals usually did. But I was startled to learn that he had not. He said with a touch of stiffness, “We must improvise once we leave the tunnel.”
“Haven’t you friends who would help?”
“Friends?” He laughed sadly. “Who knows, my dear Commander, who one ca
n trust once things go wrong? I would take neither the risk to myself nor the risk of embarrassing those who call themselves my friends!” I think he was still upset about Vorsak, though he would hardly have called him a friend in that sense.
“But isn’t there somewhere to aim for, somewhere we —”
“There is the frontier,” he interrupted. “The East German frontier is close and I know where I can cross with a good hope of success. It is not like the next frontier, you see, the one between the two Germanies! That might be the way.”
“I don’t see the point,” I said.
He shrugged. “In East Germany we would be one stage removed, would we not?”
“Yes — for what that’s worth.” I frowned. “Look, General — it’s not for me to say, I know, it’s your castle, but if you’ll forgive the suggestion, why don’t we simply remain in the secret passage till the pressure comes off? You said it was absolutely secure and unfindable, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and so it is. But we cannot stay there indefinitely. You may be sure of one thing, Commander: when they know what has happened, the authorities will leave a garrison behind, and take over the castle once again. There will be no return here.”
I nodded, passing a hand across my forehead. “Sorry,” I said. “I expect you’re right, at that, General.” It seemed to be my turn now for a touch of not being really with it. Then, suddenly, I realized that both Heilersetz and I had, unaccountably, missed out on one thing that was perfectly obvious: those bodies, lying out there in the snow of the track. We had a secret passage, so why not use it? There was nothing we could do about the vehicles, but at least the dead were portable and the total absence of personnel, dead or alive, when the relief force trooped in, would help to confuse the issue …
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