Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  “But I don’t understand,” protested Mrs. Pollifax. “What on earth happened?”

  The young Frenchman turned to her and in precise English and a soft voice explained. “First they questioned us at Customs–”

  “Who did?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, wondering if they shared Nevena’s knowledge of uniforms.

  He shrugged. “The uniforms were different. We do not know since we don’t speak their language. Nikki was upset–”

  “In what language was he upset?” asked Mrs. Pollifax quickly.

  Again he shrugged. “Who knows? He is–Yugoslavian, isn’t he?” he asked the others. “In any case he was very angry–in what language I don’t know,” he added with a soft smile for Mrs. Pollifax, “and they took him away, into another room. A few minutes later he came and said okay, it was a small misunderstanding.”

  She nodded; that sounded familiar.

  “Then we decided to be stoppers–”

  “That’s what they call hitchhikers here,” put in the girl.

  “Except no one picked us up so we kept walking, stopping only once–”

  “To take a picture–”

  “Phil took it,” added the girl. “But of nothing but flowers.”

  “And then they drove up, two new men in a car, no uniforms, and said Phil would have to be questioned. They said this to us in French. And they just–took him away.”

  “But that’s incredible,” cried Mrs. Pollifax. “Does the Embassy know?”

  “We went there at once. It was a big shock to them. This morning they say he has been charged with espionage, and the Embassy suggests we leave this country at once,” he said in a melancholy voice. “Because we were with him.”

  “Which we will do,” added the French boy, “on the six o’clock plane out of Sofia this afternoon.”

  Debby said suddenly, “I think it’s terrible just going off and leaving Phil. It could have been any of us, and he’s here all alone–”

  “You heard Nikki. He’s going to stay a few days and keep doing everything possible.”

  “Nikki’s not leaving with you?” asked Mrs. Pollifax sharply.

  She thought Debby looked at her appraisingly. “No,” the girl said quietly. “How do you happen to know who Nikki is?”

  “Philip complained about him.”

  “Yes,” said Debby, looking abstracted.

  The French boy had glanced at his watch. “We must go,” he said. “We must be certain we catch that plane It’s nearly three o’clock now and we want to stop again at the Embassy for news.” He looked politely at Mrs. Pollifax. “You have been kind to ask.”

  “But I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “For all of you, but especially for Philip. You’re quite sure you’ll be allowed to leave safely?”

  “Reasonably sure, madam,” said the French boy. “We have the assurances of your Embassy.”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I’m glad.”

  Debby said politely, “We hope your stay is a pleasanter one than ours. You’re at the Hotel Pliska?”

  Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. “The Rila.”

  Debby nodded. “Good-bye. You’ve been nice to ask.”

  One by one they shook hands with her, and Mrs. Pollifax watched them move across the terrace trailing their packs behind them. She thought about Philip Trenda, remembering his thick black hair, the level blue eyes, his dysentery and his indecision over staying or going, and she felt very alarmed for him. A Bulgarian prison was hardly a fitting experience for such a young person. He probably didn’t even know that his Embassy was trying to reach him. He would be feeling very alone, very frail, and of course almost no Bulgarians spoke English, which would make it all the more frustrating.

  But espionage! Despite the warmth of the sun across her shoulders, Mrs. Pollifax shivered. There but for the grace of God, she reminded herself, and at that moment she glanced up and met the eyes of the little gray man in the gray suit. He looked hastily away, but his interest was no longer coincidence. He’s following me, she thought. The bright terrace seemed dimmer and the breeze cold.

  After a trip down and back on Mount Vitosha’s cable car–it would have been exhilirating if she had not just learned of Philip’s arrest–Mrs. Pollifax drove her rented car slowly back through the environs of Sofia and to her hotel. It was four o’clock when she picked up her key at the desk. She ascended in the elevator carrying half a dozen picture postcards to write, and was just settling down to them at the desk when she heard a light knocking at her door.

  Tsanko at last! thought Mrs. Pollifax with relief, and hurried across the room to fling open the door.

  A teary-eyed Debby stood in the hall.

  “But—oh dear!” faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

  The girl said defiantly, “I want to talk to you. I have to talk to you.”

  “But your plane–good heavens! Aren’t you missing your plane?”

  “I’m not taking the plane.”

  A chambermaid down the hall was watching them. Mrs. Pollifax said, “Come inside.”

  “They can arrest me if they want. I’m not leaving,” stormed Debby as she followed Mrs. Pollifax into the room. “Not until Phil’s free. I know Nikki said we all must get out quickly, but I can’t. Phil’s my friend, he’s the nicest boy I ever met.”

  “But this isn’t America, you know,” Mrs. Pollifax said, closing the door and then locking it. “It may take weeks to free your young man.” She looked at Debby, who had thrown herself into the chair by the window, and after one glance at the girl’s clenched jaw she added quietly, “There isn’t anything you can do, you know.”

  “I can be suspicious,” she said indignantly. “I tried to talk to the others, Andre especially, but they told me I was imagining things. They didn’t want to listen.”

  Mrs. Pollifax said with interest, “Imagining what things?”

  “You’ll say the same thing,” the girl cried accusingly. “You will, I know you will. But I won’t get on the plane–I won’t.”

  “Then why did you come here?” asked Mrs. Pollifax. “I remember how very casually you asked at what hotel I was staying. You knew even then that you were going to stay behind in Sofia and come here to see me. Why?”

  “Because all of a sudden–for no reason at all–you said, ‘Nikki isn’t leaving with you?’ And you looked surprised. And that’s it, you see–Nikki.”

  Mrs. Pollifax abruptly sat down on the edge of the bed. “Nikki.… Go on.”

  Leaning forward, the girl said earnestly, “It’s Nikki who insisted we come to Bulgaria. Nobody–but nobody–had the slightest intention of coming here, or even wanted to. ‘Let’s go to Bulgaria’ he said day after day, like brain-washing, and it was Nikki who got the visas for us, he handled everything. Phil didn’t want to come. He said Bulgaria was the last place he wanted to go. He had every intention of not coming–”

  “Yes, I know. Why did he let you all persuade him?”

  Debby looked helplessly at Mrs. Pollifax. “It’s crazy, I know it is, but I think Phil was drugged.”

  Mrs. Pollifax started. “Drugged!”

  She nodded. “Yes. From all that Phil said, he planned to see the rest of us off on the plane and either wait for us in Belgrade or go back to Dubrovnik. I mean, he really wasn’t going to go to Bulgaria.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a startled voice, remembering.

  “Nikki gave him a pill at breakfast that day–he said it was a dysentery pill. All I know is that Phil did get on that plane and he slept. He slept so hard that nobody could rouse him, nobody could talk to him and when we got to Sofia the stewardess had to help us wake him. And then …”

  “Yes?”

  Debby scowled. “That’s only part of it. When we got to Customs, Nikki acted so strangely. It happened because he couldn’t find something, some paper or other–it must have been paper because he kept turning his wallet inside out, and what will fit in a wallet except paper? The Customs man got very uptight about it all and he called some other man
in uniform, who took us out of line, and he took Nikki away to question him. The other kids were afraid for Nikki, except …”

  “Yes?”

  She shook her head. “I got a different feeling. There was something wrong about it all. I don’t know how to explain it except I’ve noticed in the communist countries how quiet people get when they meet a uniform. They’re afraid of drawing attention to themselves, you know? It’s spooky. But Nikki acted so–so arrogant. As if the Customs man was a peasant. Nikki wasn’t afraid, he was furious.”

  Mrs. Pollifax was silent; it was not until Debby spoke again that she realized how far her thoughts had gone.

  “Well?” asked Debby angrily. “You’re going to tell me I’m crazy now, aren’t you?”

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at her and smiled. “Foolhardy, perhaps. Reckless to stay, yes. Crazy, no. You think Philip was persuaded into Bulgaria for just this purpose? To be arrested?”

  Debby looked startled. “Is that what I think? I hadn’t followed it that far. I just don’t think Nikki is what he appears to be.”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded absently. She was thinking that this was clearly her moment of truth and that she had a decision to make. The sensible thing, of course, was to place Debby in a taxi and send her off at once, alone, to the American Embassy. There she would be listened to by a minor clerk, told that she had a lively imagination and shipped out of Sofia with dispatch.

  That was the sensible course. Debby would be upset, but she would survive; Mrs. Pollifax would remain at leisure to carry out her courier assignment with no complications; Philip Trenda would eventually be released because surely American citizens couldn’t be imprisoned forever on trumped-up charges? But the drawback to taking the sensible course, reflected Mrs. Pollifax, was that it so frequently diminished the people involved. Debby would survive but certainly not without suffering a deep loss of faith. She herself would remain at leisure, but at the cost of a lively quarrel with her conscience, and there was no one to guarantee Philip Trenda’s freedom, or even his future. Not yet.

  Mrs. Pollifax made the only decision that was possible for her. “If we hurry I think we can get to the Embassy before it closes,” she said, and stood up. “I’ll go with you. I think your doubts about Nikki are quite sound, for reasons which I’ll explain when we get there.”

  “You mean you’re listening?” gasped the girl.

  “I’m listening,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “You’ve already missed your plane. Have you any money? Have you a room for tonight?”

  “Money, yes,” said Debby. “No room, because we bunked in a place Nikki found for us and I didn’t want him to know I was staying behind.”

  “Very shrewd of you,” said Mrs. Pollifax, placing her hat squarely on her head. “If Rila has no space for you, you can share this room, but you really must promise to leave Sofia in the morning,” she told her sharply. “You simply can’t go around expressing yourself in a country like this without getting into a great deal of trouble.”

  “I’m already in trouble,” Debby said forlornly.

  “Then promise, and let’s go.”

  9

  It was almost six o’clock before they were ushered into the office of a Mr. Benjamin Eastlake at the Embassy. “I want you to listen to this young friend of Philip Trenda’s,” Mrs. Pollifax said, adding tartly, “if only because we’ve had to talk to so many people before reaching you. I shouldn’t care to try finding you again.”

  “My apologies,” Eastlake said. “I’ve been running late all day and now I’m overdue at a tiresome cocktail party. I’m well protected by secretaries,” he added wryly. “A most serious business, this, the Bulgarians arresting an American and charging him with espionage. I’ve been in touch with Washington all day and I can tell you that a formal complaint has already been lodged with the Bulgarian government.”

  “Will that help?” asked Debby eagerly.

  Eastlake shrugged. “It depends entirely on why the Bulgarians arrested him. Or why they think they arrested him.”

  “Perhaps what Debby would like to tell you may add a piece to the puzzle,” suggested Mrs. Pollifax.

  Eastlake smiled at Debby. “You look familiar. You were here yesterday?”

  Debby smiled back shyly. “Yes, except I didn’t say anything. Nikki did all the talking.”

  He nodded. “Very well. Talk.”

  Debby explained her suspicions to Mr. Eastlake, beginning with Belgrade and ending with her visit to Mrs. Pollifax at the Hotel Rila.

  “Who quite wisely felt I should hear this,” he said judiciously. “But you know it’s very difficult to believe this young Nikki can be quite as sinister as you paint him. He was properly outraged about the whole situation, and extremely concerned.”

  Mrs. Pollifax said quietly, “I wonder if you know what passport he travels under?”

  “Passport? You mean his nationality?” Eastlake rang a buzzer. “Bogen, could you get me that list of young people traveling with Trenda?” It was given him and as he glanced down the sheet he frowned. “Odd.”

  “What is?”

  “He had a German passport. He didn’t have a German accent.”

  “He told us he was Yugoslavian,” Debby said indignantly.

  Eastlake’s scowl lightened. “Then he’s probably a transplanted Yugoslavian. Yugoslavs are allowed to leave their country, you know. Theirs is the only communist government that allows immigration, free access and egress, et cetera.” He smiled. “Very possible, you know, for him to be both German and Yugoslavian.”

  Mrs. Pollifax was not to be diverted. She said firmly, “Last night I went to the apartment of a gentleman I’d been told might become my guide around Sofia. Do you know a Mr. Carleton Bemish?”

  Eastlake winced. “I’ve met him. I shouldn’t care to know him.”

  “Mr. Bemish appeared to have met with a windfall,” she continued quietly. “Champagne on the table. Boxes of new clothes on his couch. He wasn’t at all interested in becoming my guide. He was far more interested in the guest he was expecting.”

  Eastlake looked bored but polite.

  “As I was about to leave,” she went on crisply, “his guest arrived at the door and they greeted one another effusively, like very old friends. His guest,” she added, “was Nikki.”

  “Nikki!” echoed Eastlake.

  “Nikki?” said Debby in a startled voice and turned to stare at Mrs. Pollifax in astonishment. “But Nikki’s never been to Bulgaria before. He said so.”

  “Can you be certain it was Nikki?” asked Eastlake with a frown.

  “I was so certain that I reminded him I’d seen him in the Belgrade air terminal, and had traveled on the same plane. He made no attempt to deny it. In fact we spoke of …” She stopped in mid-sentence.

  “What?” asked Debby, leaning forward.

  Mrs. Pollifax frowned. “I’d quite forgotten. I told him I’d seen you all being questioned at Customs, and I told Nikki I hoped there had been no trouble.”

  “Yes?” said Eastlake, no longer looking bored.

  “Nikki said it had been nothing, only a small misunderstanding, but he didn’t mention that Philip had been arrested.”

  “This was last night?”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

  “But that was hours after Phil had been arrested,” gasped Debby. “What time?”

  “About seven.”

  “Only an hour after Nikki was here in this office wanting to know what was being done to release Phil,” said Eastlake. “You think Nikki could be Bulgarian?”

  “It’s an interesting possibility, don’t you think?” suggested Mrs. Pollifax.

  Eastlake whistled. “It would certainly put a different light on the subject.”

  Debby was looking excited. “Oh, I’m so glad we came!”

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at her. “But none of this begins to free Philip, you know. It may only make it … more difficult.”

  “But why?”

  It was Eastlake who replied. “She means
that there may be some purpose behind Phil’s arrest that we don’t know and can’t guess.” He regarded Debby thoughtfully.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, watching him. “What will you do?”

  He lifted both hands helplessly. “Report this at once to Washington, of course.”

  “But why Phil?” asked Debby.

  “Exactly. Why not you, or that young Andre? Why anybody at all?” asked Eastlake. “Above all, why a young American student? If they’re trying to provoke an incident …” His lips tightened. “Now that you’ve reported this, Debby, I want your promise to be on the morning plane out of Sofia.”

  Debby sighed. “I already promised Mrs. Pollifax.”

  “Then if you’ll wait in the corridor I’d like to speak to Mrs. Pollifax alone.”

  When she had gone Eastlake shook his head and stood up. He walked to the window, stared out and then turned. “A damnable situation,” he growled. “That girl absolutely must be gotten out of Bulgaria tomorrow.”

  “You think she’s in danger?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Danger? Not very likely. Why should she be?”

  “I thought–”

  “It has other ramifications,” he said curtly. “I wish like hell this girl had left with the others. The Bulgarians are very strait-laced about their young people. I’ve been trying all day–before I heard these new details–to find out who on earth allowed these kids into this country.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

  “They’re virtually hippies,” he said bluntly. “Oh, nice enough kids, of course, but not representative of our best American youth. The propaganda value of their appearance alone is enough to turn my hair white. I understand they were seen walking barefooted in Sofia–and not a one of the young men has had a haircut in months.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “I suppose it’s your job to consider things like this, but I would have thought you might be more concerned about–”

  “Naturally I’m concerned,” he snapped. “But I happen to officially represent the United States here and this means thinking in terms of image.” He leaned forward. “I’m talking about publicity, Mrs. Pollifax, Photographs. Make sure that girl leaves tomorrow, and wearing shoes and a clean dress.”