"I only wish I'd let the Gestapo keep him that day in Cologne. Now there's no telling where he is."
"Oh, yes, there is."
"What do you mean?"
"He's in jail."
"But
"I'll explain the whole thing to you. He won't be there forever. I've bribed one of the staff to let me know immediately he comes out." Lovejoy threw up his hands despairingly. "But then what's going to happen? Then the rivalry between ourselves, you and me, will start all over again, with yachts and submarines, chloroform and revolvers! My dear Major, I'll be quite honest with you. I simply can't stand any more of that sort of thing."
"Nor is it particularly good for my liver, I might tell you."
"That's why I propose that we should collaborate. When he comes out, something's going to hit him. I've a man on the spot, as you can guess, to do the dirty work. Then I can report to my chief that you Germans have bumped him off. And you can tell your admiral that it was we, the British. You won't have to go to the front and I won't have to go to Coastal Patrol. Don't you think that's a good scheme?"
"Sounds too good to be true. . . ." The major uttered an abysmally deep sigh. Suddenly he ejaculated in an almost inaudible tone: "Sharks."
"No!"
"Just ahead there." Loos was numb with fright. Through the blue water two stiffly erect tail-fins were darting toward them. Then there were three. Then five.
"Now we're done for," said Lovejoy.
"Keep cool. Pretend to be dead," commanded the major. The first creature had reached them. It glided under the two water-bicycles and tossed them playfully in the air. The gaivo-las somersaulted, splashed down into the sea and rocked wildly. Then another creature darted up and flung them up again.
The major went spinning into the water. He went under, came up again and immediately lay stock-still on his back. A gigantic beast slid past him, but apparently without seeing him, its jaws wide open. The major, who was versed in zoology, made a soothing discovery.
Then he heard a frightful scream and saw his British colleague whirl through the air and come down beside him.
"Lovejoy, listen to me. Those aren't sharks. They're dolphins."
"Yes, we've fallen in with a herd of them. But dolphins don't attack human beings. They only play with them."
Play they did. They repeatedly circled around and around
the two gentlemen and sometimes jumped right over them, sending up columns of spray.
The mutually hostile agents clung side by side to one of the runners of Lovejoy's capsized gaivola. They tried to push it toward the shore. Lovejoy gasped: "I'm out of breath . . . what was it... you were saying just now . .. Iibos?"
At that moment an enormous dolphin rose high into the air behind the major, executed a graceful leap over his head and drenched him with a minor deluge. The major spat out quite a lot of sea water and then yelled into Lovejoy's ear: "I was saying that I only wish I could shoot that rascal down with my own hand when he comes out of jail!"
[8]
In Portugal people don't eat many potatoes. All the same Francesco, the prison cook, came up with a dozen particularly fine ones when the well-to-do prisoners Leblanc -and Alcoba ordered baked potatoes in their jackets for lunch on November 15.
As he had been directed, Francesco cooked the potatoes lightly in their skins and took them up, still quite hot, to the fifth floor, where he served them to Leblanc and Alcoba with Portuguese sardines in vinegar and oil. At the request of the well-to-do prisoners Juliao, the warder, cut the potatoes—they were not quite soft—into halves with a sharp knife.
When the gentlemen were left alone they made no attempt to partake of the meal. Thomas had something to do. On a small table under the window he laid out, side by side, the order of release which Lazarus had filled in on the typewriter and the letter in which the public prosecutor had refused to grant the application for release of the prisoner Maravilha. The letter bore the stamp of the public prosecutor's office.
With the valuable instructions in mind which the painter and passport forger, Reynaldo Pereira, had given him, Thomas set to work. Lazarus the hunchback was an interested spectator.
Thomas took the still hot half of a potato and pressed the cut surface on the mark of the public prosecutor's stamp for fifteen minutes. Then he lifted the halved potato. The cut surface showed, in reverse, the impress of the stamp.
"Now comes the big moment," said Thomas. Force of habit made him grunt the phrase. The corners of his mouth also twitched a little. For the last two days he hadn't always been
able to stop it when he wanted to. One can't twitch and grunt from morning till night for a whole week without paying the penalty. "Let's have the candle, Lazarus."
The hunchback took a candle and some matches from under his mattress. He had stolen these articles from the chief warder's office. He also intended to use them later on for the removal of Thomas Lieven's hair.
Lazarus lit the candle. Thomas carefully bit a piece off the underside of the halved potato. Then he held the bitten end over the flame of the candle in order to warm it up again.
"The experts call this making a bell," Thomas explained to the awed Lazarus. "The potato is now warming up. See the impress getting damp again? Coming to life, they call it. Just a few seconds more and . .." With an elegant gesture Thomas clapped the "bell" with its damp, hot impress of the stamp, onto the order of release at the exact spot where it had to be. He kept the potato there, under gentle pressure, for a quarter of an hour, while it cooled. Then he lifted it. A perfect counterfeit of the original stamp appeared on the order of release.
"Fantastic!" cried Lazarus.
"And now we'd better have a quick meal," said Thomas. "The rest we can do later."
The rest of the procedure was as follows. That morning, in the chief warder's office, Lazarus had opened quite a number of letters which had just arrived from the public prosecutor. He opened envelopes every day from that source. But on this particular morning he had t^ken the trouble to open one badly stuck-down envelope with special care. He succeeded in his object. He took the envelope away with him, together with a tube of adhesive.
After lunch Thomas carefully folded the now completed order of release for Lazarus Alcoba, placed it in the green envelope, which bore the postmark of the previous day, and gummed it carefully down again. That afternoon Lazarus laid the envelope on the chief warder's desk among others that had come with the afternoon delivery.
"Now it's do or die," said the hunchback to Thomas Lieven that evening. "The chief warder has already sent my order of release from the administration across to the discharge section. Early tomorrow morning they'll duly issue a discharge certificate and then they'll send for me here, so far as my past experience goes, about eleven o'clock. That means that your hair must come off tonight."
The singeing process lasted exactly half an hour—just
about the worst half-hour in Thomas Lieven's life. He sat with his head down in front of Lazarus, who singed it as one would a plucked fowl. He held the candle in his right hand. The flame burned off Thomas Lieven's strands of hair quite near the roots. In his left hand Lazarus held a damp cloth, which he used to dab the cranium as fast as he could in order not to damage the skin. But now and again he wasn't quite quick enough.
Thomas bellowed with pain. "Look out, you idiot, damn you!"
Lazarus retorted by quoting an old Portuguese proverb. "Who freedom craves must feel her thorn. It can't be helped, it must be borne."
At last the torture came to an end.
"What do I look like?" Thomas asked in an exhausted tone.
"If you stuff your cheeks with bread and do the twitching properly, you'll be the living image of me," replied Lazarus proudly.
They both slept exceptionally badly that night.
Next morning an unknown warder brought their breakfast. For the sixteenth was a Saturday and on Saturdays, as already mentioned, their friend Juliao always had the day off. Lazarus had of course bo
rne this fact in mind when he dated the order of release on the sixteenth.
The hunchback took the breakfast tray from the unknown warder at the door. Thomas Lieven was still snoring on his cot with the blanket drawn over his head.
After breakfast Lazarus swallowed three white pills and lay down on Thomas Lieven's cot. Thomas put on the hunchback's short overcoat and once more practiced a general rehearsal of his part, not open to the public, between eight and ten o'clock. It was only then that he stuffed his cheeks full of bread pellets and pushed his thick pillow down his back, under the shirt, where he tied it tight to keep it in place. Meanwhile he twitched away industriously ...
About eleven the unknown warder returned. Lazarus was asleep, with the blanket drawn over his head. The unknown warder was holding a discharge certificate in his hand. "Lazarus Alcoba!" he bawled.
Thomas rose. With bent knees and twitching lips he blinked at the warder. "Here, sir," he grunted.
The warder took a good look at him. Thomas broke into a sweat.
"You are Lazarus Alcoba?"
"I am."
"What's up with your pal there, then? Isn't he going to get up?"
"Had a bad night," Thomas mumbled indistinctly. "What you want me for, Mr. Warder?"
"You're discharged."
Thomas clapped his hand to his chest, groaned and dropped onto his cot, pretending to be quite overcome. "I always knew that justice would prevail," he grunted.
"Cut the cackle and come along with me. Look sharp now!" The warder pulled him to his feet—almost too high. Thomas was careful to subside again. "My God, that hurt! Still, it doesn't last long." He followed the unknown warder along a number of wide corridors to the administrative section of the prison. Heavy iron gates were opened to let him pass and closed behind him. The twitching's not so difficult now, he thought, it's practically automatic. But the knee-bend-ing's a nuisance ... if only I don't get cramp and come a cropper...
Up stairs, down stairs—I'll never stick it out, never!
More corridors. The unknown warder gave him a searching glance. "Are you feeling hot, Alcoba? You seem to be sweating a lot. Take that overcoat off."
"No. No, thank you. It's—er—only the excitement ... Quite the contrary—I—I'm freezing ..."
They reached the discharge section. Here the room was divided in half by a counter behind which three officials were at work. In front of the counter two other prisoners due for discharge were standing. Two circumstances immediately struck Thomas. In the first place the officials were lazy devils and secondly there were no chairs in front of the counter. That may be a good sign, he thought weakly. A clock on the wall showed the time to be ten minutes past eleven.
By five minutes to twelve the officials had not yet finished with the other two prisoners. Fiery circles were already revolving before Thomas Lieven's eyes. He felt ready to faint at any moment. The frightful pain in his knees had spread to his calves, thighs, ankles and hips. He surreptitiously supported his weight on the counter, first with one elbow, then with two. Heavens, what relief, what sweet rapture!
"Hey, you there!" barked the smallest of the officials. "Take your arms off the counter, will you? Can't you even stand up decently for these few minutes? Lazy guttersnipe!"
Thomas twitched his lips submissively. "Pardon me, gentle-
men." He took one arm off the counter and instantly collapsed. He just couldn't stand the cramped posture any longer. He thought desperately, Don't faint. For God's sake don't faint or they'll take the overcoat off and find out about my legs—and the hump .. .
He didn't faint. And as it seemed clear that the poor prisoner had been overcome by weakness as a result of sheer excitement he was even given a chair. He had hardly sat down when he thought, Well, I might have done that sooner! What a fool I am!
Two of the officials went off to lunch at half-past twelve. The third at last came to attend to Thomas. Inserting a form into a typewriter he murmured benevolently: "This is only a formality. I shall have to take down your personal description again in order to ensure that there are no discrepancies."
Yes, you'd better "be damned careful about that, Thomas thought. Now that he had been allowed to sit down he was feeling quite cheerful again. He rattled off his friend's particulars, which he knew by heart, in a hoarse drawl. "Alcoba, Lazarus, single, Roman Catholic, born in Lisbon on April 12, 1905 ..."
"Last residence?"
"RuaPampulha51."
The official checked his data with those of a second form and typed on. "Gray hair, sparse—soon lost it, didn't you?"
"Such was my sad fate."
"H'm. Eyes black. Height? Stand up!"
Thomas stood up, bending his knees. The official looked him up and down.
"Special peculiarities?"
"Hump and also facial..."
"Yes, yes, I've got that. H'm. You can sit down again."
The official typed and scribbled. Then he took Thomas into an adjoining room and handed him over to the official in charge of prisoners' property. Thomas had been allowed to keep, since he was only in remand custody, his own suit, underclothing and beloved gold repeater. He now received his friend Lazarus's passport, private papers, money, pocket knife and laundry bag.
"Acknowledge receipt," said the official. Thomas signed clumsily: "Alcoba, Lazarus."
So the last of my cash and my nice bogus French secret service pass in the name of Jean Leblanc have gone to the
devil, he thought gloomily. My friend the painter will have to make me a new one in quick time.
If Thomas had hoped, by about a quarter past two, to have at last come to the end of the fearful strain he was under, he was wrong. A warder led him through many more long passages to the chaplain's office. That officer, an elderly gentleman, spoke very earnestly to Thomas and was deeply touched when the discharged prisoner, in obvious distress, begged permission to kneel during his reverence's admonitions.
Tottering and staggering rather than walking Thomas at last, ten minutes before three o'clock on November 16, 1940, crossed the prison yard, which still reeked with the odors of the adjacent tannery, to the main gate. There, for the last time, he had to show his order of release. His lips were twitching in a most frightening manner and his hump stood out crookedly under the short, threadbare overcoat.
"Best o' luck, dad," said the man who opened the heavy iron gate. Thomas Lieven reeled through it into a more than uncertain, if free, future. He managed to keep on his legs as far as the nearest street corner, where he again collapsed. He crawled on all fours into a doorway, sat down on a staircase and began to weep with rage and exhaustion. His passport, money and property were all gone, like the steamer on which he had booked a passage.
[9]
The escape of the prisoner Jean Leblanc was discovered the same day. In his cell only the prisoner Lazarus Alcoba could be found, fast asleep as though drugged.
A doctor was immediately summoned and confirmed that Alcoba was not shamming, but had taken a heavy dose of soporifics. The diagnosis was correct, though Lazarus himself had administered the dose, with three pills which he had abstracted from the prison doctor's surgery while on a visit there.
Injections and black coffee enabled the prisoner to regain his senses sufficiently to be examined. It was soon proved that he was Alcoba and not somebody else. When the little man was undressed his hump was found to be real enough.
His evidence was as follows: 'That damned Leblanc must have put something in my breakfast coffee, which tasted very bitter. My head ached and I felt giddy. Then I passed out. I had told him that I was to be released today. I had found that
out from the chief warder, in whose office I have been working."
The warder on duty at the cell that day, on being confronted with Alcoba, exclaimed: "But I spoke to you this very morning when I brought in your breakfast! And later on I came and took you out of the cell!"
To which Alcoba replied, with a logic which even the examining officials found irrefut
able: "If you had taken me out of the cell this morning I wouldn't be sitting here now."
The investigators gradually realized that Jean Leblanc had escaped disguised as Lazarus Alcoba. The latter, as logically as ever, declared through a series of yawns and still only semiconscious: "As the order of release, however, concerns myself alone, you are bound, in any case, to discharge me forthwith."
"Well, yes, of course . . . but all the same, pending inquiries ..."
"Now listen to me. Either I am discharged early tomorrow morning or else I inform the public prosecutor of the marvelous efficiency with which you run this prison!"
"Pereira! Hey, Pereira!" Thomas Lieven was calling at that very moment. He banged on the door of the apartment of his friend the forger. But no answer came.
Either he's drunk again or else he's not at home, thought Thomas, who had recovered to some extent from his fit of weakness. Then he remembered that the depraved painter never locked his rooms. Thomas turned the handle of the door. It opened. He walked through the dark lobby into the big studio. Through its enormous window the last light of the day fell on the same hideous pictures still standing or lying about the place, which looked as neglected as ever. Loaded ash trays, tubes of paint, brushes, pens and palettes bewildered the eye with a multiplicity of colors.
Thomas looked into the kitchen. His bearded friend was not there either. So he wasn't at home. Probably he was getting drunk elsewhere.
That was a nuisance, of course. How long did Pereira's binges last? One night? Two days? Three? Thomas's experiences with the man made him fear the worst. A really good soak needs time.
I shall have to wait for him, Thomas reflected. My escape may have already been discovered and I can't show myself in
190
the street. He laid his hand on his stomach. Yes, he was hungry. The moment of his deepest depression seemed to be over. He laughed a little at himself. As he did so he noticed that he was still twitching his lips. His knees, too, were still hurting. Forget it, he told himself. Don't think about it.
Let's first just see what Pereira's got in the kitchen. There were loaves of white bread, tomatoes, cheese, eggs, bacon and tongue, pistachio nuts, capers, paprika, pepper and anchovies.
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 20