Flora Mackintosh and The Hungarian Affair

by Anna Reader

  The baker’s wife looked to be a touch put out by the way in which this beautiful young stranger had so quickly captured her husband’s heart, and she peered at Flora through narrowed eyes. “Now don’t you forget to remind your uncle that he owes us money,” she said rather tartly. “We’re running a business here, not a charity.”

  “I shall be sure to pass that on,” Flora said, taking Bertie by the arm and guiding him away from the pair. “Thank you so much for the bread, you’re a darling.” This parting comment was directed at a positively glowing Victor who gazed back at her in adoration, much to the irritation of his wife.

  “I say, what was all that about?” Bertie asked as they followed the road away from the square and towards the far end of town. “That woman looked as though she’d swallowed a lemon.”

  “It would appear that my uncle has run up something of a debt,” she explained, tucking the bread in her satchel and glancing up at Bertie with mischief in her eyes. “And I was also flirting quite shamelessly with her husband.”

  Bertie threw his head back in laughter. “I thought as much – he seemed a shade flustered.” After giving himself a moment to enjoy his mirth, Bertie looked down at Flora, a curious expression in his blue eyes. “I can’t speak Hungarian, so forgive me if I have got completely the wrong end of the stick here – but did you tell the baker and his wife that your name is Anastasia?”

  Flora pulled a pair of cigarettes from her bag, and returned his look with her steady gaze. “Anasztázia,” she said. “I was christened Anasztázia Flora Medveczky. My mother switched my names after my father died – I think she thought it would be easier for me at school if I didn’t sound like the child of someone who’d fought on the wrong side during the war.”

  “It’s a beautiful name,” Bertie said as he lit their cigarettes and handed one to Flora. “It suits you.”

  Flora smiled. “Thank you – I’m certainly very fond of it, although I rarely use it these days.”

  They drew some very interested glances as they walked through the river-side town; Bertie because he looked so decidedly English, and Flora because with her wide-hemmed trousers, scarlet lips and cashmere scarf she oozed the kind of urbane sophistication many of the young women of Szentendre longed to achieve. The river slipped in and out of view as they walked up the gentle hillside, and Flora looked for it eagerly whenever they approached another clearing. After ten minutes or so, Bertie took Flora’s arm as though in affectionate familiarity, and drew her slightly closer to him.

  “Don’t turn around,” he said quietly into her ear, “but we’ve been tailed since leaving the bakery.”

  “Really?” Flora asked calmly. “By whom?”

  “Two men in long black overcoats,” Bertie replied. “One of them is rather short and appears to be wearing sunglasses - an odd choice for a November dusk, I must say – and the other is about six foot and has a long duelling scar on each cheek. Sound familiar?”

  “The second sounds rather like one of the new joiners in upper fourth,” she replied in her deadpan way, although her interest was piqued. “Perhaps they’re just enjoying an evening stroll?”

  “It’s entirely possible,” Bertie conceded, “although I think that I shall keep an eye on them.”

  They carried on walking away from town and turned up the small track, as instructed by the baker and his wife. Flora stole a glance over her shoulder as they rounded the corner, and saw that the two men were swiftly closing the gap between them. “They certainly appear to be headed in the same direction as us,” Flora observed, trying to make out how far they were from the castle in the fading light. Bertie looked unusually stern, and his grip on her arm was tightening.

  “Follow me,” he said quietly, edging off the path and towards a small clump of trees not ten yards away. He fell to his haunches and pulled Flora down next to him. “Let’s watch them for a moment,” he whispered, his shadowy face only inches from Flora’s.

  Flora slowed her breathing and stared out into the rapidly fading light, her eyes straining to make out the shape of the two figures as they moved inexorably towards them; the Scylla and Charybdis of Szentendre, she thought to herself, rather pleased that she was still able to recall her Homer in such strange circumstances. The sound of hushed voices reached her before her eyes had a chance to adjust, and she felt Bertie’s body stiffen as he listened on.

  “They’re German?” Flora asked, looking up at Bertie.

  He nodded curtly. “German, and up to no good.”

  “Can you understand them?” Flora whispered, leaning even closer to Bertie to ensure that her voice didn’t carry.

  He nodded again, holding a finger to his lips as he tried to make out what they were saying. His mouth thinned, and the normally smiling eyes looked grim as the voices grew louder.

  “The one with the scars is asking the shorter man whether they should kill the girl, or bring her in for questioning.” He paused again as the foreign voices drifted through the still evening air. “And the shorter man is saying that it depends entirely on whether she decides to cooperate.”

  “Is he now,” Flora said, an edge of steel in her hushed voice. “I presume they’re talking about me.”

  Bertie’s face retained its hard expression. “Wait here,” he said suddenly, standing up and moving silently towards the road and the two Germans.

  She looked on in astonishment, before drawing the pistol out of her bag and stalking noiselessly after him.

  The two Germans continued up the path, assuming, no doubt, that Flora and Bertie were still making their way towards the castle. Their quiet chattering continued, and Flora wished that her German was as fluent as her Hungarian. As it was she could make out the odd word, but as they were mostly prepositions she hadn’t the foggiest idea what any of it meant.

  Without warning Bertie suddenly burst out of the bushes, seizing the shorter man and pinning his arms to his torso.

  “Don’t move,” he growled in German to his captive’s scarred companion, as the man made to draw something from the depths of his vast coat. “If you do, I’ll kill your friend here.” Up close the duelling scars were extremely disconcerting, giving the man’s already razor-sharp cheekbones a welted prominence. The German’s ice-blue eyes stared at Bertie with fierce intensity; unlike his diminutive friend he was built along extremely impressive lines. None of this seemed to disconcert Bertie, though, who was displaying remarkable sangfroid, it seemed to Flora.

  The pinioned man turned purple with frustration and began shouting maniacally to his companion, his sunglasses now askew on the bridge of his nose. Flora’s German may have been rudimentary, but even from her spot in the undergrowth she could hazard a guess that he was telling his friend to shoot Bertie, and therefore raised her own pistol in readiness. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she felt entirely relaxed. If anything, she was simply rather irritated that they were being harangued after such a long journey, when all she wanted was a gin and tonic and a long soak.

  “Now then,” Bertie said, rather loudly for Flora’s benefit, “I assume that you speak English?”

  The captured man continued to wriggle and shout, but it was clear from Flora’s hidden vantage point that Bertie was holding him in a vice-like grip. She hadn’t expected it of her new friend, but at that moment he really did look reassuringly dangerous.

  The taller man with the scars narrowed his eyes, and nodded curtly at Bertie.

  “Good,” Bertie said, coldly. “Now would you mind telling me why you are following us? And why you have been discussing the possibility of killing my friend?”

  The would-be murderer sneered. “Your friend?” he asked in a clipped German accent, raising his thin eyebrows for dramatic effect. “I think you are in arrears, sir. We were deciding whether or not we should have pork for supper, not whether or not to kill a woman. Schweine, fraulein – I can depreciate how the confusion can have arisen if German is not your native tongue.” Flora snorted at the German’s extraordinary
mangling of the English language, and wished for a moment that Alice could be there to enjoy it with her.

  “My good man,” Bertie replied in flawless German and with a wolfish grin, “I spent much of 1930 studying Nietzsche in Munich. Let me, then, assure you on two counts. First, my German is excellent. Secondly, I - unlike you it seems - have never confused a young lady with a farmyard animal. If you make a habit of that, sir, no wonder you are sporting such livid scars.”

  The German snarled, withdrew something from the depths of his jacket at lightning speed, and lunged at Bertie. A silver blade flashed in the moonlight; a deafening report cracked through the silent evening; and the German crumpled to the ground. Both Bertie and the smaller man (still locked in Bertie’s arms) looked up in amazement as Flora emerged out of the undergrowth, pistol in hand. The alleged pig-fancier ground his teeth in pain as blood seeped through the fingers clasped tightly over his right shoulder.

  “Flora?” Bertie said, rather taken aback.

  “You should get him to a doctor,” Flora commented, ignoring Bertie’s surprised stare and looking to the wounded man’s small companion. “I’m perfectly happy to shoot anybody about to lunge at a chum with a knife, but I’d rather not have your friend’s death on my hands. The paperwork would doubtless be extremely tedious.”

  The smaller man adjusted his sun-glasses and wriggled free of Bertie’s slackened hold. “Do as she says,” Bertie said. “And tell your superiors what happens to scoundrels who skulk about in the shadows threatening schoolgirls.”

  “Former schoolgirls,” Flora interjected. “As soon as I’ve taken my Cambridge entrance exam next month, I shall be a free agent.”

  “My apologies, Flora,” Bertie said, his lips twitching as he offered her a small bow of apology. “Soon-to-be-ex-schoolgirls,” he amended.

  The two Germans listened to this exchange in bewilderment, and began to suspect that the English couple were not of entirely sound mind. “Lunatics,” the short one muttered, before scraping his comrade off the path and doing his best to prop him up. Bertie stepped forwards, apparently struggling with the idea of letting the pair return to town when they had so obviously intended to cause Flora harm. Given that the only alternative seemed to be murdering them both in cold blood, however, he thought the better of escalating his intervention and restrained his baser instincts.

  They made an odd pair as they shuffled down the road in the lengthening shadows, the taller man wincing with every step and the shorter staggering under the weight of his wounded friend - together forming a kind of two-headed, hunch-backed monster. Flora looked on dispassionately, gun at the ready in case one of the Germans should suddenly turn on them, and she and Bertie waited until they had disappeared from view entirely before returning to their hiding place to retrieve their hamper, and bags.

  “You were rather handy back there,” Flora observed, taking a well-earned swig from her hip-flask and offering it to Bertie. “Let me guess – you were a prize-fighter in a previous life.”

  Bertie grinned down at her, savouring the heat of the Oban whisky. “Basic military training,” he replied vaguely. “I told you I’d been in the Navy.”

  “Hmmmm. I always thought sailors were more au fait with knots than wrestling,” Flora mused, her face the picture of innocence. “However no doubt you would need to be fairly robust to manage the oars.”

  Bertie chuckled; he knew full well what Flora’s father had done for a living, and was quite sure that she was being facetious.

  “I must say, you weren’t exactly slow off the mark yourself,” he retorted. “Where did you learn to handle a gun?”

  “Endless Glorious Twelfths trudging through muddy fields,” she replied, swinging her bag over her shoulder and making her way back to the path. “And Alice has a water pistol.”

  “Well, I’m jolly glad you’ve had all that practice on the grouse,” Bertie said ruefully, following her through the bushes. “I’m sure I’d look like a pin-cushion by now if it wasn’t for your quick reactions.”

  “The knife!” Flora cried, looking about where her victim had fallen, “I saw him drop it, Bertie. I suppose we oughtn’t to leave it lying about.”

  Bertie pulled a small torch from the hamper and cast its rays slowly across the dirt track. An owl hooted in a nearby tree, and Flora drew Pongo’s scarf a little closer around her shoulders. Brave she may be, but even Flora wasn’t entirely immune to the combination of shock and cold. “Oho, here it is,” he said after a quick search, sinking to his haunches to retrieve it.

  “What’s that?” Flora asked, pointing with the hip-flask to a symbol embossed on the leather handle of the cruelly-serrated blade.

  “That, Flora, is a swastika,” he replied grimly, wrapping the knife in his handkerchief and placing it carefully in the hamper. “It’s the insignia of a political party in Germany called the National Socialists. Adolf Hitler’s mob.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of them,” Flora said gravely. “What in heaven’s name could a pair of Nazis want with me?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Bertie replied, a frown wrinkling his smooth forehead. “But it may be that this castle of yours holds a clue.” Whatever Flora may have thought of this development, she kept her own counsel and sipped her whisky in silence.

  The duo carried on up the path guided by the light of Bertie’s torch, like Dante and Virgil cautiously treading the road into the underworld (if Dante had been smoking a cigarette, and Virgil singing show-tunes in a surprisingly vibrant baritone). Barely five minutes had passed when a vast, gothic structure loomed out of the darkness before them, replete with turrets and, if Flora’s eyes did not deceive her, a moat. Swirls of moonlit cloud curled around the castle’s shadowy peaks, a cold fog rose from the grass, and the sounds of nocturnal hunters rustled in the undergrowth.

  “Cosy,” Bertie said cheerfully, not to be deterred by this Polidorian apparition.

  “I’m sure it looks quite lovely in the sun,” Flora retorted with only the slightest hint of hesitation.

  As they made their way closer the building began to look decidedly less austere, much to their shared relief. The castle was hewn from a warm grey stone which glowed amber in the moonlight, and possessed two conical towers between which sat numerous peaked roofs of differing heights; a host of leaded windows betraying no sign of life; and what appeared to be an ornamental garden surrounding the moat. Eventually the dirt-track merged into a gravelled drive-way and they found themselves edging towards the end of their journey.

  “Good lord, is that a Buick?” Bertie exclaimed, directing Flora’s attention to a very smart burgundy car perched on the other side of the moat.

  “I suppose it could be,” Flora replied noncommittally, smoothing her hair and making sure that her gun was properly tucked away. Cars had never really been her line – she could never understand the male fascination with engines and horsepower.

  “What an absolute beauty,” Bertie said

  They crossed the drawbridge (across what was, in fact, a very modest moat), their footsteps crackling across the gravel, and approached the vast, dark wooden door. Flora glanced up at Bertie, exhaled quickly and pulled on the thick coil of rope hanging in front of her. The sound of a distant bell echoed faintly in the belly of the castle, and the pair waited expectantly. The seconds passed, the ringing faded into silence, and nothing happened. Flora rubbed her hands briskly against the arms of her jacket, and shivered slightly as the cold night drew in around them.

  “We need to get you inside,” Bertie said, looking down and noticing that Flora was beginning to shiver. “There must be somebody there.” Striding forwards with great determination, Bertie gave the rope three firm tugs. “I used to be a bell-ringer for my village church,” he added. “If that doesn’t rouse them, then nothing will.”

  Again they waited, and nobody stirred. “Well, I vote we head back to town,” Bertie said. “There’s no point in freezing to death out here. I think I spotted a promising looking little inn
in the market square.”

  Flora looked distinctly unimpressed with his capitulation; after his display with the Germans, she would have expected rather more spirit. “I suppose that would be the sensible thing to do,” she conceded. “However, there must be an open window here somewhere. The baker’s wife definitely said something about a housekeeper, so the place can’t have been totally abandoned. Particularly if there’s a car parked outside. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if we let ourselves in...I am family, after all.”

  “Well….alright,” Bertie said, after a moment. “We’ll try the break-in. If there isn’t an obvious way in, though, I say we go in search of hot food and beer.”

  “Agreed,” said Flora.

  The pair began to circle the castle, looking for any door or window which had been left ajar. Even with Bertie’s torch it was difficult to make anything out in the darkness, and they were on the cusp of abandoning hope when Flora let out a small cry of triumph.

  “I knew there’d be a way in,” she declared, pointing to a first floor window above them and turning a beaming smile on Bertie.

  “It’s higher than it looks, Flor,” Bertie warned, rubbing his chin in thought.

  “Nonsense,” Flora replied scornfully. “My upper fourth dorm room was higher than that, and Alice and I climbed in and out of that often enough.”

  “Well,” Bertie conceded, “you might just reach it, if I pop you up on my shoulders.”

  “Fine,” Flora said without hesitation, dropping her bag and limbering up. “Let’s give it a go.”

  Bertie put his hands against the stone wall, and fell down to his haunches. “Stand on my shoulders,” he said, “and I’ll stand up very slowly.”

  Flora removed her shoes, and hopped across the cold earth in her stockinged feet. “Ready?” she asked, placing her right foot gingerly on Bertie’s broad shoulder.

  “Up you go,” he replied cheerily, holding on to her ankle and waiting for her to put her second foot in position. Slowly and with great care, he raised himself to his full height with Flora balanced above him, her hands resting against the wall for balance. “That’s as far as I can go,” he said at last, pleasingly without the least hint of strain in his voice. “Can you reach?”