Be Shot For Six Pence Read online

  Blessing once more my rubber-soled shoes, I withdrew carefully, the way I had come. I was almost back at the terrace when a complication presented itself. The door clicked open, and the Baronin appeared.

  She was moving slowly, but with the steady inevitability of a snail in a salad border; and I didn’t really see how the Baron was going to get out of this one. He might of course, follow the example of the Duke of Marlborough and jump for it. But not only was he rather older than Churchill; he had about ten times as far to fall.

  I backed nervously ahead of the Baronin. “A lovely collection you have here,” I said.

  “August keeps it quite ten degrees too hot,” she said. I gathered after a moment’s thought, that August was the head gardener, not the month.

  “It is excellent for palms and ferns.” She prodded a dark green Cycas with her ivory headed, rubber tipped, stick. “But the seedlings grow too fast. Then, when they are potted out, they die.”

  I backed a bit further and resisted the impulse to look over my shoulder.

  “Do you grow orchids,” I said, loudly.

  “My husband is very fond of them,” agreed the Baronin. “He has a weakness for tropical flowers.”

  There was an element of Aldwych farce about the situation; but I found little inclination to laugh. The Baronin might be deafish but she was not blind nor, I felt certain, complaisant.

  “You get a lovely view from here,” I said, desperately.

  This held her for a moment.

  “On a clear day,” she said, “you can see the tip of the Radkersberg.”

  “Would that be north or south of the pass?”

  I indicated the white road which snaked up through the vineyards and disappeared round a shoulder of the mountain. (I assumed that the frontier post was on the other side. I could see no sign of it.) Like most women she had little idea of topography. By the time we had fixed the relative positions of the pass and the Radkersberg I had got my second wind.

  “Surely,” I said, pointing over her shoulders the way we had come, “that is a flammarium orchid. I had no idea they could be grown in Europe—”

  Once she had started in the other direction it wasn’t so bad. It took ten minutes, and three more leading questions, to get her out on to the terrace, and after that, feeling that I couldn’t very well drop her, I went with her to examine her collection of Japanese potpourri bowls.

  That afternoon I went for a proper walk. I felt the need of it. Some people walk to keep fit, or to pass the time, or to work up an appetite. It doesn’t take me that way. I walk for the sake of walking. After half an hour, at a stiff pace, some centrifugal armature flies back, some valve opens almost with an audible click and I find myself in concert and ticking over again. It is immaterial to me where I go. On this occasion I made my way down to Steinbruck, skirted the town to the left, went fast along the good road to Graz for about eight kilometres, then took the first track to the left. There was no chance of losing my way. The mountain crests to the south were ruled, in one dark, hard line, across the whole of my horizon. I was out for walking, not climbing, so I stopped when the track ran out of the forest on to the outcrop and swung east skirting the edge of the trees. The tops above me looked stiff, but nowhere unclimbable.

  I kept up a fair pace, in and out of the gullies, and was back above Obersteinbruck by four o’clock. When the gnome answered the bell he told me the Baron wanted me. I asked if it was urgent. The gnome thought not. I had a bath, changed, and made my way to the Baron’s study.

  When I came in he got up, moved across and shook me by the hand. Nothing more was said, then or at any other time, about the incidents of the morning; but I reckoned I had received the accolade.

  The Baron said, “By the way, I have news for you.”

  “News?”

  “Of a friend of yours.”

  “Colin?”

  “I would say also, a friend of mine. A most estimable young man. His knowledge of the intricacies of Hapsburg genealogy – quite remarkable.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “It is, I fear, only at second-hand. But it may offer you a lead. I have, you know, friends in the—” the Baron paused for an instant—”the transport business.”

  “The General told me that you had interests in some of the neighbouring countries.”

  “That is so. Interests in neighbouring countries. There is a man in Steinbruck who does much work for me. Herr Schneidermeister—”

  “I know him,” I said. “A wine merchant, and shaped like a tub.”

  “So. He is a largely built man. But his sons are young and active. They travel the countryside. They have not, perhaps, an undue respect for the artificial demarcations of frontiers—”

  At any other time I should have enjoyed the courteous circumlocutions in which the Baron wrapped up the fact that he was hand in glove with a gang of smugglers. At the moment, however, I was too anxious to play.

  “Tell me, please, Herr Baron,” I said. “Who has seen Colin and where?”

  “It was young Franz Schneidermeister. He was talking to a man called Thugutt, a Yugoslav of German origin, quite an ethnological curiosity himself—”

  The Baron must have seen my face, because he hurried on. “He is a forester. A very useful man, who lives with his family on the Yugoslav side of the Austrian frontier line, in the mountains, overlooking Hungary.”

  I could well imagine that a man so placed would be useful to the Baron.

  “And he had seen Colin?”

  “I understand so. Either seen him or spoken to someone who has seen him. It was not easy to discover which, because on this occasion Thugutt appeared unanxious to talk. In fact, he would say very little. It seemed to Franz, however, that he might have talked, perhaps, if face to face with a personal friend of Studd-Thompson.”

  “Would he talk to me?”

  “That was in my mind.”

  “When do I start?”

  The Baron said, “On that we must consult Herr Lady.”

  “What’s it got to do with him?”

  “You must realise that we must not do anything to upset his plans.”

  “I could judge better of that if I had the least idea what his plans are.”

  “He has not told you, then?”

  “I’ve been given a lot of cock and bull about ethnography which I not only didn’t believe but I don’t even think I was expected to believe.”

  “He will tell you in due course, I am sure.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t wait,” I said. “If you won’t help me, I shall have to see Schneidermeister and do what I can on my own.”

  The Baron looked distressed. “I beg you,” he said, “to wait for Herr Lady.”

  “Until he has finished buying his hand-sewn shirts or getting his hair cut in Bond Street, or whatever he has waltzed off to London for?”

  An unaffected laugh brought my head round. Lady was inside the door.

  “In fact,” he said. “I did have time for a haircut at Mr. Truefitt’s establishment, but, as you see, I have not allowed it to delay my return.”

  I said, truculently, “I don’t know how long you’ve been eavesdropping, but if you heard what I told the Baron, you know what I want—”

  “I expect it is the same as we all want. Would you be good enough to come with me?”

  I followed him into the Operations Room. Lisa and Trüe were there, doing something to the maps. He waggled his little finger at them and they disappeared.

  Then he looked up at me, and said: “You were the chief reason for my visit to London.”

  “Oh,” I said, rather blankly. It was obvious enough, but it had not occurred to me. “What did they tell you?”

  “Very little, except that you really were what you said. An old friend of Colin Studd-Thompson.”

  “Why should I have lied about it?”

  “No reason why. No reason why not.” He moulded the tip of a fresh cigarette between his thin brown fingers and added: “Also
that, judging from your movements at the end of last week, you were a man of some resource. And that, so far as they knew anything at all about you, of integrity.”

  “That only means,” I said, “that they don’t keep my papers in a buff file with a red label in the top left-hand corner.”

  “Quite so. As I said, they know nothing against you, and very little about you. In the circumstances—” having got the cigarette to his liking he squeezed it into his long amber holder—”they have left the matter to my discretion. And I have come to the conclusion that you should stay here, and help us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you,” said Lady, with a broad smile, that might have meant anything. “And trust you, of course,” he added.

  “In other words, I’m here, and it might cause more trouble if you tried to sling me out, than if you let me stay. And anyway, whilst I’m here, you can keep an eye on me.”

  “My dear fellow,” said Lady. “You insist on imputing the worst of motives to everyone. It is a defect in your character. If I am to be candid with you, you must be candid with me.”

  He sounded exactly like my housemaster.

  “All right,” I said. “Then you can be candid first. What’s it all about and you can leave out the ethnography.”

  Lady said: “Very well. You shall know.”

  And he told me. I won’t try to reproduce it word for word as he said it, because he took some time telling the story, and I can’t remember all of his background stuff. But what it amounted to was this. The Western powers – America and England specifically – had established a series of teams to deal with the problems of each of the satellites. The “Equipe Lady” were the top Hungarian specialists. It was quite a large affair, with an office in The Hague and branches in London and New York. Analysing the press reports and monitoring the wireless were its bread-and-butter activities. But there were more specialised branches. One of these was concerned with screening all refugees from Hungary; screening them and, in very exceptional circumstances, sending them back again.

  “We are not a military organisation,” said Lady – and looking him over, from his openwork shoes, via his shot-silk shirt to his amber cigarette holder, I was forced to agree that he did not fit into my picture of any military headquarters. “Our role is to accumulate information. The larger part of it we get by sitting still and keeping our ears to the ground. Very occasionally, when there is an unexplained corner to be filled in, or some little job to be done, a man goes over the mountains.”

  “But here at Schloss Obersteinbruck,” I said, “you are far from your comfortable offices in The Hague. In fact, you are at action stations. Why? Is a man being sent over the mountains?”

  Lady looked at me. “I can perceive,” he said, “why you were unpopular with your own Intelligence.”

  “But I want to know.”

  “Yes, a man went over the mountains.”

  “Colin?”

  Lady’s laugh sounded spontaneous. “Of course not,” he said. “Why should we send an Englishman, who would be known every time he opened his mouth when we have a dozen home-grown Hungarians with families and back grounds.”

  “All right,” I said. “Then what was Colin doing here?”

  “He was our liaison.”

  “With whom?”

  “With our sponsors, of course. With England, and, through England with America.”

  That seemed possible enough.

  I said, “I am sorry to ask so many questions. I know enough about Intelligence to realise that it is exceedingly bad form. The preferred attitude is one of studied indifference. But whilst you’re in the mood there is one more thing I must know. What has happened to Colin?”

  “He disappeared,” said Lady, “three weeks ago. He walked down to Steinbruck one evening, and did not return.”

  “Who saw him last, and where?”

  “He was at Pleasure Island, with Trüe—Miss Kethely.”

  “Yes, I know her.”

  “According to her, he made an excuse to leave her, pushed off into the crowd, and did not come back.”

  “No one else saw him?”

  “No doubt other people saw him. But no one has come forward to say so—yet.”

  “And you have done nothing about it?”

  “We have done what we could. One of our best local men was put on to the job.”

  “Yes,” I said, bitterly. “And in a few months’ time he will report in triplicate to the effect that he has left no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored.”

  “He will not report to anyone,” said Lady. “He was picked out of the river three days ago, a mile below the town. It is not clear whether he died by drowning or not. The top of his head was missing.”

  I cannot remember what else was said. Lady did not appear at dinner, which was a silent meal, and after it I went up early to my room. I undressed, turned the light out and sat for a long time in a chair in front of the window. I may even have dozed, for I have no idea what time it was when I opened my eyes and saw Trüe.

  There was a clear, silver moon, quite full and undimmed by the faintest mist. Trüe had come out of the shrubbery at the foot of the long lawn. She looked like Titania in a belted raincoat. She walked slowly across the grass and I saw that there was no spring in her step. She had come either far or fast. I knew that she must be making for the little side door under the balcony; and that from there three flights of the back stairs would bring her out, into the passage, a few paces from my bedroom.

  On an impulse I got to my feet, opened my own door, and stepped out into the carpeted passage.

  It was only a minute before I heard her coming. If it had been longer my internal monitor would have told me I was behaving like a fool, and would have sent me back to bed. Dragging feet scuffled the stair carpet. As she came past I put a hand out and touched her am. She came round like a steel spring. Her hand went down, and up again, and a thin point, blue in the moonlight, touched my pyjama jacket.

  If you should be so unwise as to touch a sleeping scorpion, just so, on the touch, without the least intermission of time between sleeping and waking, the armoured tail swings round and is fastened to your finger.

  Trüe dropped her hand and said, rather breathlessly. “Philip. That was a silly thing to do.” Then she was gone.

  I stood, watching her, a tiny cold feeling still tingling on my skin like a drop of iced water. Up the passage a door opened. There was a whisper of voices. A door shut.

  Christ’s sake, the place was like a rabbit warren.

  Chapter VII

  A JOURNEY IN THE PAST

  I woke up thinking about Trüe. That was a warning, if I needed one.

  I didn’t see her until the afternoon, and by the time she came down I saw that twelve hours sleep had performed its customary service. Her eyes were clear and the spring was back in her step.

  “Come out into the garden,” she said, “and I will apologise.”

  “For what?”

  “For last night. If I had not been frightened and tired I would not have done it.”

  “I’d like to see you perform when you’re fresh,” I said. “My navel is still tingling.”

  “I am adept with a knife,” admitted Trüe. She spoke it in just the casual, self-deprecating way that an English girl might say, “I’m not bad at tennis, really.”

  “Let us sit in this summer-house,” I said. “It is designed for confidences. You tell me the story of your life and I’ll tell you mine. And stop Tutti from breathing in my face.”

  “Is he not a monster?” She said something in colloquial Hungarian to the mastiff, who removed himself from my chest, grumbled unhappily, and laid himself down across the opening of the summer-house like a sunken tree across a dam.

  “I was born,” she said, “in Gyor.”

  “Of poor but honest parents.”

  “Not at all. They were very rich. We had a summer-house on Lake Balaton, and a town house in the Margit Korut in Buda.”<
br />
  “Next to the prison.”

  “Opposite. Why?”

  “It’s not my turn yet. Go on. What was your father?”

  “He had estates.”

  “But what did he do?”

  “Why should he do anything? He had the estates, you see. His people worked. He spent the money. He had a big collection of gramophone records. He said there was a man in America who had more than him, but I could not believe it. He had two whole rooms, quite full.”

  “And he spent his working life playing them.”

  “Now you are making fun of us. Of course he did other things. In the season we went to the opera almost every night. And in summer we lived at Badacsony on the lake, bathing and boating and—oh, having fun.”

  “It sounds lovely. Why did you stop?”

  “First the Germans came. That was in 1944 – just before Holy Week. They were very correct, but we did not like to stay in Buda. Besides, there might have been rationing.”

  “That, of course, would have been unspeakable. What did you do?”

  “We went back to Badacsony. For that summer and autumn it was all right. Except the refugees, at the end, who came and ate up our food when there was not enough for us.”

  “And then?”

  “Then the Russians came.”

  “They were not correct?”

  Trüe looked at me to see whether I was joking. Then she laughed herself. But all in all it was not a convincing performance.

  “Did your family escape?”

  “No. They stayed too long.”

  “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “Of course I know, they are dead.”

  (What a silly question! When the sea comes up either you get away or you are drowned.)

  “I had been sent to Sopron with Anna, one of our old servants. She came from Austria, and her plan was to get back there. That was why we chose Sopron. It was close to the frontier. I cannot remember a great deal about that.

  It was just before Christmas and we went in a train and it was very, very crowded, and very, very cold. We were in the carriage and we kept warm somehow because we were so many, but people who could not get in, stood on the footboards outside and some of them dropped off. In the end we came to Graz, where Anna lived, and we stayed there.”