Background to Danger (18 page)

The map revealed two possible alternatives. Either he could go to the railway terminus at Aigen and try to reach Schwarzbach across the frontier, or there was the route via Garsbach and Summerau on the Austrian side to Budweis and Prague direct. The latter route looked far from promising. For one thing, there was no frontier town marked on the map, which might mean that passports were examined at any point on the journey and that he would have no chance to get off the train. Apart from that, it was a main route out of Austria and the police would probably be scrutinizing all travellers very carefully. The other plan looked better until close inspection showed a number of small black triangles marked on the frontier north of Aigen. That meant that there were high altitudes at that point. It occurred to him that the very fact of the railway’s stopping some miles short of the frontier suggested that the country ahead was impracticable for transport.

He was beginning to think that he would have to take a longer route east, when he noticed that due west of Freistadt a single thin line was shown crossing the frontier into Czechoslovakia.
It was a road. He looked again and saw that across the empty area surrounding it was the word—
Böhmerwald
.

For a moment he continued to stare at the map.
Böhmerwald
—the Bohemian Forests! And just behind him, sitting waiting, was a party going that way by motor-coach. He glanced at the clock. It was twenty to twelve. He returned to the map. His road went through a place called Neukirchen. He went up to the counter and a man hurried forward.

“I have a few hours only to spare in Linz. Is there perhaps a drive, a tour that one could make?” he asked.

Certainly, there were many. There were the afternoon drives to the Hallstätter excavations, the Bauernberg and Freinberg heights. Or, if
mein Herr
wished, there were trips to the Pöstlingberg and Steyr with many places of educational and artistic interest. There was much baroque.

Kenton nodded carelessly in the direction of the motor-coach party.

“This excursion here, it is good?”

Yes, yes; a drive of never-to-be-forgotten beauty; through Neukirchen up into the woodlands to the highest point, one thousand metres, from which one could see into the heart of old Bohemia. Unfortunately, if
mein Herr
had only a little time it was not possible. The return was not until the evening.

Kenton explained hurriedly that he did not leave until late that evening, bought a ticket, sat down as quickly and as unobtrusively as he could with the rest of the party, and broke out into a nervous sweat. “Highest point one thousand metres,” “see into the heart of old Bohemia”—the two phrases were ringing in his head. He forced himself to breathe easily and regularly, and took stock of his travelling companions.

He counted nineteen and, as far as he could see, they were mostly Austrians. In front of him, however, was a rather severe-looking young Frenchman talking in a passionate undertone to a woman next to him. The journalist caught the
words
“ta famille,” “ce vieux salop,”
and
“vicieuse.”
Next to them was a man immersed in a newspaper. His back was to Kenton but the journalist saw, with a pang of fear, that he was reading about the Hotel Josef murder. Kenton stared at the floor and wished he had thought to buy a book or a newspaper behind which to hide his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the man beside him was looking at him expectantly and would at any moment start a conversation. Telling himself that he must at all costs act normally and that to appear reticent or unsociable would attract attention to himself, he turned with the remark that it was a fine day for the drive. His neighbour, however, was now deep in conversation with a stout Austrian woman in front of him and did not hear. Feeling rather foolish, Kenton resumed his study of the floor. After a few moments his eyes wandered furtively towards a small table about six feet away from him. On it were arranged eight neat piles of travel booklets. He gazed at them longingly. With one of those to look at he would not look so conspicuous. To get one, however, he would have to stand up, cross six feet of floor, return and sit down again. It needed courage; but at last he stood up and walked to the table. In his overwrought imagination everyone in the room promptly stopped what he or she was doing and stared at him. Unnerved, he grabbed a booklet from the nearest pile and turned quickly to get back to his seat. The metal buckle on the belt of his overcoat hanging loose at his side promptly swung round and hit the table with a loud report.

Crimson in the face Kenton blundered back to his seat and buried his face in the booklet. It proved to be a list of December sailings from Genoa. Two minutes later, to his profound relief, a man with a long gold-braided coat and a peaked cap came in and announced that the motor coach had arrived and that those with tickets for the tour might now take their places.

Half the seats in the coach were already filled by a party
collected from a big hotel and Kenton, who had manœuvred himself to the tail of the procession, found when he climbed inside that there was only one seat left. He found himself wedged between a rather gawky middle-aged Austrian woman and the newspaper reader, a thin-faced little man with rimless spectacles and a pair of very sharp blue eyes. He settled himself in his seat and looked out of the nearside window. The next instant his heart nearly stopped beating for he was staring straight into the eyes of a policeman standing on the pavement.

For a moment he lost his head. His first impulse was to scramble out through the offside door and run. Then he saw that, owing to the reflection on the window-glass, the policeman could not see him. He relaxed, wiped his forehead furtively with the back of his hand, and prayed silently that the driver would stop talking to the conductor and get a move on.

“Funny outfits, aren’t they?”

Kenton started violently. It was the thin-faced little man beside him and he was talking English with the unmistakable accent of the inner London suburbs.

Forcing himself to keep calm, Kenton turned to the speaker.

“Bitte?”

The sharp blue eyes gleamed with amusement through the spectacles.

“Go on! You’re not going to tell me you’re not a Britisher?”

Kenton laughed feebly.

“I’m sorry. One gets so used to speaking German.” He felt himself blushing. “Yes, they do look a little odd,” he added hastily.

“Efficient lot, though, the Austrian police,” pursued the other. “I’ve been in and out of the country for years now and I reckon they’re one of the smartest lots in Europe. Not
like the Germans, all red tape and la-di-da. Get their man every time, they tell me. They’re all trained in Vienna.”

Desperately Kenton changed the subject.

“How did you know I was English?”

The other winked heavily.

“Spotted you as soon as you walked into the place.” He jerked a thumb at the travel agency. “You’d never guess how.”

“The clothes?” said Kenton cunningly.

“Yes and no.” He fingered Kenton’s overcoat contemptuously. “That’s Continental stuff and Continental cutting. The hat’s German. No, it was your jacket lapel, the bit showing under your overcoat collar.”

“My jacket?”

“Yes, it’s English.”

Kenton remembered that he had bought the suit in London.

“I don’t see how you can tell. I might have got it in Paris or Berlin anywhere.”

The little man shook his head triumphantly.

“No, you couldn’t of, friend; and I’ll tell you for why. The only stitch of that worsted on the Continent is in my bag of samples at my hotel. I’m the Continental rep. for the firm that makes it—Stockfield, Hatley and Sons of Bradford. It’s my day off to-day. Mr. Hodgkin’s the name.”

“You’re very observant,” said Kenton, who was beginning to feel slightly hysterical.

“Get used to looking at stuffs if you’re in the trade,” said Mr. Hodgkin. He leaned forward in his seat and raised his voice:
“Sie da! Sollen wir den ganzen Tag hier sitzen bleiben, oder wann geht’s los?”

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the coach, and the conductor glared across the heads seeking the author of this call for action.

“Hanging about like a couple of old women!” grumbled Mr. Hodgkin, “and then look narky when you tell them so.
That’s the worst of the Austrians. Nice chaps when you know them, but gossip! my goodness, they’d make a mothers’ meeting sound like a party of deaf mutes. Always talking!—politics mostly. I’ve been in and out of the country for fifteen years now—my ground covers everything west of the Carpathians and we don’t do much beyond there; my brother does London and the Home Counties—and believe me, I’ve never heard such talkers. I was speaking to a chap in Vienna the other day—Keller. He runs a lot of men’s shops. Know him?”

“I can’t say I do.”

“He’s a big buyer. Everybody knows Keller. Still, he was gassing his head off about Hitler and the
Anschlüss
. ‘The situation in Germany is serious but not hopeless,’ he says; ‘the situation in Austria is hopeless but not serious.’ Have you ever heard such a lot of crack-brained tripe? That’s just like them—gas, gas, gas instead of getting down to business.”

To the journalist’s relief the coach started and for a few minutes Mr. Hodgkin stared out of the window. Kenton made up his mind to change his seat at the first stop they made. If he were to carry out his intention of slipping away from the party near the frontier it was essential, even if it meant being rude, to disembarrass himself of Mr. Hodgkin. The man was obviously the sort who would cling like a leech given the slightest encouragement.

“The Czechs now,” resumed Mr. Hodgkin suddenly, “are different. When I say Czechs, of course, I don’t mean Slovenes. A Slovene is no more a Czech than my Aunt Muriel. They know what they’re doing, the Czechs. Businesslike. No nonsense. Faith, hope and thirty-three and a third on the gross—that’s their motto. The Czech police are pretty hot too,” he added inconsequently.

Kenton began to find these references to police efficiency a little disquieting.

“Business good?” he said.

Mr. Hodgkin laughed shortly.

“Am I the Queen of Sheba?” he demanded bitterly. “I tell you, friend, with labour the price it is in Czecho and Hungary it’s a marvel we ever see as much as the smell of an oil rag. I’m selling on quality and that’s something these Continental chaps don’t understand. The old buyers know me and take my stuff because they like the feel of it. But they won’t sell it, and they know it. Too pricey. A pal of mine used to travel for a Northampton shoe firm before the war. Bata came along after the war and killed his trade here stone dead. It’s the same all round. The only thing you could sell here nowadays is a nice new line in machine-guns, and the Continental boys have got that business pretty well wrapped up too. In one of my reports home I said I reckoned we ought to start making military uniforms to brisk up business. Of course, I was only having them on. A joke like, see? What do you think they wrote back?”

“What?”

“They said they’d started a new factory doing nothing else; but as they were working night and day on Government contracts, they couldn’t take any more orders. That makes you laugh, doesn’t it? Still,” said Mr. Hodgkin thoughtfully, “I expect you’ve got troubles enough of your own without mine. May I ask what your line is?”

“Oh, I’m more or less holiday-making.”

“You don’t say!” Mr. Hodgkin produced a huge meerschaum with a woman’s head carved on the bowl and started to fill it from an oilskin pouch. He kept his eyes fixed on his task as he went on. “You know, until I saw that jacket of yours, I should have put you down as a German. You spoke German as good as a native when you were talking over the counter. That coat, too—”

Kenton’s heart missed a beat.

“I’ve been in a sanatorium in Bavaria for some time,” he said, wildly. “Chest trouble,” he added.

“Too bad,” said Mr. Hodgkin sympathetically. “Hope everything’s O.K. now. I knew a chap—” He broke off suddenly and pointed with his pipe stem out of the window. “See that? That means snow to-night.”

Kenton followed the other’s gaze. The coach was running smoothly down a long tree-lined slope. The sun was shining; but far away to the northeast there was a curious leaden look about the sky.

“I shan’t mind bed to-night,” said Mr. Hodgkin cheerfully. “Where are you stopping at Linz?”

Kenton remembered just in time that the representative of Stockfield, Hatley and Sons might have overheard his conversation with the agency clerk.

“I’m leaving for Vienna to-night.”

“Ten o’clock train?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the best.”

Mr. Hodgkin lit his pipe. There was a volley of excited protest from the woman on Kenton’s right. Mr. Hodgkin glanced at the woman, drew twice at the meerschaum, inhaled, blew the smoke down his nose and tapped the tobacco out carefully on the floor.

“That’s the Continent all over,” he said calmly; “smoke a cigar like a bit of greasy rope and nobody minds. Put on an honest pipe and what do you get?”

Kenton acknowledged the anomaly and there was silence for a time.

Mr. Hodgkin, the journalist decided, was typical of that strange species of Englishman—the export travellers. You came across them in the most unexpected places; in remote Far Eastern towns, on local Continental trains, in the smaller hotels in cities all over Europe. They spoke foreign languages fluently, grammatically, but with appalling accents, and were on excellent terms with all the various nationals with whom they came in contact. They drank foreign
drinks, ate foreign foods, listened to foreign points of view and remained completely incurious and indomitably English. For them, the journey from Paris to Istanbul was different only from the journey from London to Manchester in that it was longer and punctuated at irregular intervals by baggage examinations. The cities of the earth were so many railway stations, distinguishable only by the language displayed on the advertisements and the kind of coinage expected by the porters. They were mostly bachelors and spent their summer holidays alone at Bognor or Clacton-on-Sea, drinking tea or sitting near the ban. It needed no stretch of imagination to picture Mr. Hodgkin in those circumstances. There was, perhaps, a married sister living in Clapham or Hendon who wrote to him once a month. Perhaps …