Background to Danger (11 page)

Mailler’s fist with the truncheon in it dashed into his face. He reeled backwards, caught his foot in the chair and went down. For a moment he lay still; then he crawled slowly to his feet.

Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth. His face was deadly white, but he was smiling slightly.

“You, too, Captain,” he said.

Mailler knocked him down again and this time Kenton had to haul himself up by the chair. Mailler went to the door and called two men in. Next, he went over to Kenton, pulled the chair from under his hand and gave him a shove that sent the journalist sprawling. Then he gave the two men a sharp order in bad German and Kenton was dragged to his feet and taken out. At the foot of the stairs he fell down again and was carried to a room at the top of the house, where he was dumped on the floor. The shutters were pulled to and fastened with a padlock and chain. Then the door slammed and a key was turned in the lock.

For a time Kenton remained where he had been dropped. At last he raised his head painfully and looked round.

The sun was sending long, slanting bars of light through the shutters. By its reflection, Kenton could see that there was no furniture in the room. For a moment he contemplated
the pattern of sunlight on the floor thoughtfully. Then, resting his head in the crook of his arm, he lay back and closed his eyes.

A minute or two later he was asleep and on his lips was the slight, contented smile of the man who remembers work well done.

W
HEN
Kenton awoke the sun had gone.

The room was in almost complete darkness and for some seconds he did not realise where he was. Then he remembered and got stiffly to his feet. His face felt badly bruised, and when he put his hand to his mouth he found that his lower lip was swollen. His head, however, though extremely sensitive to the touch, was no longer aching. He struck a match and went to the window. By crouching down he could see a black sky through the slats. He had taken off his watch in the Hotel Werner, but it was evidently quite late. Colonel Robinson’s ultimatum must expire very soon.

Sleep is not always an unmixed blessing. It brings relief
to the nerves and strength to the body; but it also brings cold sanity to shatter the flimsy emotional structures of the night before. Kenton’s reactions to the methods employed by Colonel Robinson and his
aide
to secure the Sachs photographs had been emotional. Now, nearly twelve hours of sleep had left him wondering why on earth he had made such a lot of fuss. If they wanted the wretched photographs, let them have them. All that absurd fit of heroics had produced was a swollen lip and a bruised face. A nice mess he had landed himself in! The best thing he could do was to hand over the photographs as soon as possible and get back to Berlin.

He sat on the floor with his back to the wall below the shutters and considered his plight.

First and foremost, he badly needed a drink; water for preference, but anything else would do. He did not feel very hungry; but that was probably because he was so thirsty. His last meal had been off Sachs’ garlic sausage in the train. That seemed a long time ago. Sachs was now lying dead in the Hotel Josef. No, the police would have taken him away by now. He found it a little difficult to get the events of the past twenty-four hours into perspective. What curious business had he become involved in? Who had Sachs, or, rather Borovansky, been? The fact that his other name was Russian fitted in with his odd accent. It would appear, too, that he was working against the Russian Government; that was always assuming that the “Colonel” had been speaking the truth—a questionable assumption. Then there was that question of the Colonel’s “principals in London.” Who were they, and what “business” was the man transacting for them? Kenton felt that if he knew the answer to the first part of that question, the second part would be answered automatically. Principals in London who were in a position to influence newspaper proprietors sounded suspiciously like Big Business.

It was difficult, Kenton had found, to spend any length of time in the arena of foreign politics without perceiving that political ideologies had very little to do with the ebb and flow of international relations. It was the power of Business, not the deliberations of statesmen, that shaped the destinies of nations. The Foreign Ministers of the great powers might make the actual declarations of their Governments’ policies; but it was the Big Business men, the bankers and their dependents, the arms manufacturers, the oil companies, the big industrialists, who determined what those policies should be. Big Business asked the questions that it wanted to ask when and how it suited it. Big Business also provided the answers. Rome might declare herself sympathetic to a Hapsburg restoration; France might oppose it. A few months later the situation might be completely reversed. For those few members of the public who had long memories and were not sick to death of the whole incomprehensible farce there would always be many ingenious explanations of the
volte face
—many explanations, but not the correct one. For that one might have to inquire into banking transactions in London, Paris and New York with the eye of a chartered accountant, the brain of an economist, the tongue of a prosecuting attorney and the patience of Job. One would have, perhaps, to note an increase in the Hungarian bank rate, an “ear-marking” of gold in Amsterdam, and a restriction of credit facilities in the Middle-West of America. One would have to grope through the fog of technical mumbo-jumbo with which international business surrounds its operations and examine them in all their essential and ghastly simplicity. Then one would perhaps die of old age. The Big Business man was only one player in the game of international politics, but he was the player who made all the rules.

Kenton found a cigarette in his pocket and lit up. It looked as if Big Business was, in this case, interested in
either Bessarabia or Rumania. He drew at his cigarette and the end glowed in the darkness. He watched it thoughtfully. Somewhere and recently, he had heard something about Rumania that had interested him. Ah yes! It had been that business about Concession Reform. A newspaper that had printed an article against it had been beaten up. Well, there didn’t seem to be much to be got out of that; though, of course, you never could tell. That was the trouble. One end of the game was played in the rarefied atmosphere of board-rooms and week-end shooting parties; the other was played, with persons like Sachs as counters, in trains, in cheap hotels, in suburbs of big cities, in murky places away from the bright highways dedicated to the rosy-cheeked goddess of
tourisme
. Someone spoke in an office in Birmingham or Pittsburgh, or maybe on board a yacht off Cannes, and a few weeks later a Mills bomb burst in a printing works in Bucharest. Between those two events, unknown both to the man who had spoken and to the man who had pulled the pin from the bomb, was a misty hinterland in which the “Colonel Robinsons” of the earth moved silently about their business. Yes, he would certainly give up the photographs. His rôle had always before been that of spectator; let it remain so.

He crushed his cigarette out on the floor and rose to his feet. As he did so, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, a pause, then the rattle of a key in the lock.

His heart beating a little faster, he stood by the window and waited. The door opened, the beam of a torch cut across the room, swung round and shone straight into his eyes.

“Well, old man,” said the voice of Captain Mailler, “are you going to be sensible or do I have to knock hell out of you first?”

For about five seconds Kenton did not speak. In those five seconds all his resolutions, all his sane reflections on the
desirability of giving in gracefully and keeping out of trouble, were swept away by just two things—Captain Mailler’s voice and Captain Mailler’s words. In those five seconds the entire structure of resentment, anger, obstinacy and defiance that reason had so completely demolished was re-erected. And this time it was supported by a body no longer tired, a brain no longer distracted by the after-effects of concussion.

“You can do exactly what you like,” he said at last; “but if you think you can bully me into doing anything, you’ve made a mistake.”

“Don’t be silly, old man,” said the Captain evenly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. A nigger out in the States once felt that way about things, and those fellows are really hard eggs. But by the time I’d finished with the beggar he would have jumped over the moon or razored his own father and mother if I’d told him to.”

“I’m an orphan.”

The Captain clucked reprovingly.

“Shouldn’t get cheeky if I were you, old man. Doesn’t pay. The chief didn’t care for you much and he’s given me a free hand. To tell you the truth, old man, I don’t much care for you, either. As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t be so sorry if you did try to keep your mouth shut for a bit. I could do with a bit of fun.”

Kenton did not answer.

The torch wavered slightly.

“Vorwärts!”
said the Captain.

Two men appeared from the blackness of the passage outside and seized Kenton’s arms. He shook them off, received a kick on the ankle, the pain of which took his breath away, and was hauled out of the room and downstairs to the hall.

Mailler vanished into the Colonel’s room. A minute later he reappeared and signalled to the men holding Kenton.

“The chief wants to see you, old man,” he said. “If I were you I’d watch my step. He’s not feeling very pleased with you.”

“I’m not feeling very pleased with him,” retorted Kenton.

For a second he thought the Captain was going to strike him. Then Mailler grinned unpleasantly.

“You and me’ll be having a little chat soon, old man,” he said.

He nodded to Kenton’s escort and they went in.

The Colonel was standing in front of the fire; and in a suit of tweeds and by the subdued amber light of the desk lamp he looked a picture of landed respectability. He stared at Kenton for a minute or two in silence. Then:

“Are you ready to be sensible yet?” he asked coldly.

“If by that,” replied Kenton promptly, “you mean am I prepared to hand over to you what is obviously somebody else’s property, the answer is no.”

The Colonel’s arm shot out; he caught hold of Kenton’s jacket and jerked him forward.

“Listen, my friend,” he said quietly, “I am in no mood to indulge in drawing-room pleasantries. I need those photographs and I am not going to be stopped by any blockhead of a reporter from getting what I want. When you left the Hotel Josef you went to the Café Schwan. You had the photographs then. When you arrived at the Hotel Werner you had not got them. My men report that you went to nowhere else but the Café Schwan. What did you do with the photographs?” He struck the journalist across the face with the back of his hand. “What did you do with them?” he repeated savagely.

Kenton’s hand went to his face. Then he looked at his fingers. The Colonel wore a ring and it had opened up his cheek. He decided on revenge.

“I—I don’t remember,” he stammered weakly.

The Colonel shook him violently and struck him again.

“Perhaps that’ll help you.”

Kenton cringed.

“Yes, yes,” he babbled, “I will tell you.”

He saw the Colonel glance triumphantly at Mailler.

“Come on then.”

“I put them in an envelope and gave it to the
patron
of the café to be called for.”

The Colonel drew a deep breath and turned to Mailler.

“Quickly now. Take the car and one man with you and get to the Café Schwan immediately.”

He turned to Kenton’s escort.

“Take him away and lock him up.”

“But you promised to release me if I told,” Kenton burst out angrily.

The Colonel smiled.

“I’m afraid we shall have to change our plans, Mr. Kenton. Perhaps in a week or two we might go into the matter again. Now, Mailler.”

The Captain started for the door.

“Just a minute,” said Kenton loudly.

Mailler stopped.

“I am sorry,” went on Kenton smoothly, “to dash your hopes so soon, but in the excitement, in my terror of the Colonel, I quite forgot to add one little piece of information to my statement.” He grinned at the Colonel.

“Well, let’s have it,” snapped Mailler.

“It’s such a trifling thing,” said Kenton deprecatingly.

He saw the Colonel’s lips tighten.

“Come on,” shouted Mailler.

“Well,” he said slowly, “it’s just when I gave the photographs to the
patron
of the Café Schwan for safe keeping, I said that on no account was he to give the envelope up to anyone but me in person, and you know what a reputation for discretion these café proprietors have. I hinted that it was an affair of the heart. The
patron
would, I am afraid,
regard Captain Mailler as the villain of the piece, the wicked fairy, if he tried to get that envelope.” He smiled reproachfully at Mailler.

For fully a minute there was not a sound in the room except the ticking of a clock. At last, the Colonel cleared his throat.

“It seems, Mr. Kenton, that we shall have to insist upon your co-operation.”

“You won’t get it.”

“I think so.”

“My God, yes,” said the Captain; “you leave the little swine to me.”

The Colonel caressed his lower lip.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I shall leave him to you. Only don’t take too long about it, Mailler. Bastaki is expecting me in Prague to-morrow. And don’t forget that this man’s face must not be damaged and that he must be able to walk.” He turned to Kenton. “In view of your claim, Mr. Kenton, that your possession of the photographs is purely accidental, I find your attitude completely incomprehensible.”

“You would,” retorted Kenton rudely. “But for your enlightenment I may as well explain again that your treatment of me leaves me no alternative. Anything I can do to cause you and your charming principals inconvenience and discomfort gives me the liveliest satisfaction.”

Colonel Robinson warmed his hands at the fire, smiled slightly and shook his head sorrowfully.