Читать книгу Now or Never - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 5

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The Muserkeller was not a large place: one long room with chairs arranged round small tables and a bar down one side with beer-barrels behind it. The bar-tender, the kellner, was a short man with the traditional blue apron tied round an enormous paunch. Hambledon looked at him and remembered him vaguely from the days of the First World War. The kellner had been a slim young man then. If that was what beer did to you ...

Hambledon and Spelmann sat down at a table near the door and the fat man came at once with a glass of beer in each hand, not waiting for an order, and set them on the table. The door of the Dom Hotel was within view, which was the main reason why Tommy had suggested this place. There was still no sign of two familiar figures; one short and stout, the other lean and tall, with flaming red hair. Nor of two other men whom Hambledon had never seen, but who had been described to him in some detail—dark sallow men, typically Spanish. He decided that as soon as he could get rid of Spelmann he would ring up the Dom Hotel again.

They emptied their glasses, since the day was hot and Cologne is a dusty place in these days; immediately the fat kellner waddled forward with two fresh glasses to replace the first. He would keep this up, Hambledon remembered, until one offered to pay. There were several other men at the other tables; it was not a place to which women went.

Presently another man strolled in who was, it appeared, a friend of Spelmann’s. They greeted each other, the man was introduced as Herr Sahl and sat down at their table. He took a packet of Gold Dollar cigarettes from his pocket and opened the top; Hambledon idly watched to see him tear the packet down and scrabble to get out a cigarette, as one usually does with a paper packet. Not at all. Sahl held the packet loosely in one hand and flicked the bottom sharply with one finger-nail, whereupon a cigarette obligingly jumped out at the top. Very neat. Hambledon noticed later that Cologne people usually dealt in this way with paper cigarette packets, though whether it was an exclusively local custom he never discovered. He adopted it himself and it always worked.

“Sad about young Torgius,” said Sahl.

Spelmann agreed. “I hear he was in here yesterday.”

“That’s true. I was here at the time. He was—you know—a bit lit. But quite happy. Rather overflowing, in fact. Talking nineteen to the dozen.”

Hambledon sat back in his chair and sipped his beer. He felt he had had nearly enough of young Torgius for one morning and he was not really interested.

“Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose,” said Spelmann. “He was rather given that way, God rest his soul.”

“Talking about high hopes for a new Germany. Something was going to be done before it was too late; then everybody would see that Germany wasn’t finished. He was very pleased about it.”

“After which, he goes off and hangs himself,” said Spelmann.

“He did have one morbid moment,” said Sahl. “You know how they swing from one extreme to the other——”

“Excuse me,” said Spelmann, “but would you mind not using the word ‘swing’ this morning? I’ve just seen him. What did he say?”

“Something rather odd, considering all things. He turned quiet all of a sudden, just sat and stared like an owl. Somebody asked him if anything was the matter and he said—listen to this—he said: ‘I’ve seen a hanging. I saw a man hanged. Never want to see that again, never.’ Then he had another drink and cheered up again.”

“Nobody asked him about it, I suppose?”

“Of course not. Nobody wanted to hear about it, anyway. Well, I suppose he got more morbid as the evening went on, and eventually the force of example was too much for him.”

“Poor boy,” said Spelmann. “Poor silly, unbalanced boy.”

Hambledon looked again at the Dom Hotel and saw two men come out of the doorway. One wore a wide black hat and a cloak; the clothes of the other, if less exotic, were of unmistakably foreign cut, and yet there was something very familiar about their appearance. They stopped outside the door and looked about them.

Hambledon looked at his watch, uttered an exclamation and said he would have to go. He paid the rotund kellner, hoped he would meet Spelmann again very soon, and walked off after the men from the Dom Hotel. They went across to an open-air café in the Square and sat down at a table. When Hambledon came up to them they rose to their feet and bowed ceremoniously.

“We saw you sitting in that pub,” said Forgan.

“We thought you would probably track us down,” said Campbell.

“I am very glad indeed to see you,” said Hambledon. “Have the Spaniards also arrived?”

“We are the Spaniards,” they said with simple dignity.

.....

In the Clerkenwell Road, London, there is a small shop of which the frontage consists only of one window with a door beside it. The window is full of models of all kinds—ships of many types and dates, from the big racing Bermuda-rigged cutter to tiny waterline models of warships. There are miniature railway engines of many types and various methods of propulsion, rolling-stock, permanent-way fittings, spare parts in great variety and construction sets in cardboard boxes with optimistic pictures on the lids. Over and above all there is a large wooden model of a barque, fully rigged, but without sails and obviously antique. This serves much the same purpose as the great coloured jars in the windows of old-fashioned chemists; it decorates the premises and announces the nature of the business. Neither of the partners would sell it for any money.

The partners were William Forgan, a short, stout man with dark, wiry hair going thin on the top, and his friend Alexander Campbell, a tall, red-haired man as lean and stringy as his partner was stout. They had spent many years together as engineers on a ranch in the Argentine. They started this shop when they came home, and it had so prospered that now they employed an elderly assistant of terrifying respectability and an imp of a boy called Jim. The model-makers were old friends of Hambledon’s and had even worked with him upon occasion.

One evening about three weeks before Karl Torgius died in Cologne, Campbell returned just before closing time from an afternoon spent overhauling an electric railway which was a millionaire shopowner’s pride and joy. He found his partner, Forgan, trying to count up the contents of the till and making rather a mess of it because his mind was not upon what he was doing.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine ... How did you get on, Campbell?”

“The set wanted re-wiring all through. I did it. That’s all.”

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen ten-bobs is seven pound ten.”

“Six pound ten,” corrected Campbell. “Anything happened?”

“Pity you were out. I’ve had a visitor.”

“Really. Who?”

“Hambledon.”

“Oh, indeed. Good. What had he to say for himself?”

Forgan looked up at the clock and called to his assistants, who were behind a partition which ran across the back of the shop to screen off work benches and some small machines.

“Mitchell. Jim. You can pack up now. It’s close on six.”

The boy Jim put his tools away, the respectable Mr. Mitchell put on his bowler hat and picked up his umbrella; they said good-night to the partners and walked out together. Forgan locked the shop door while Campbell pulled down the blind over the window.

“Well?” said Campbell.

“Hambledon’s going to Germany—to Cologne, to be exact. Apparently the Germans have started a new secret society and he is going out to vet it.”

“Must be something if they’re sending out Hambledon.”

“He didn’t say much about it except that people who try to find out anything are liable to be bumped off. That’s why they think it must be important. The trouble is that practically nothing is known about it, who belongs to it or where they meet, except a strong suspicion that the centre’s in Cologne.”

“Well?” said Campbell again.

“The only thing which is definitely known is that two Spaniards are going from Madrid to meet the organizers in Cologne. Hambledon said that if somebody hung on behind the Spaniards without being unduly noticed, some lead to their German play-fellows might be discovered.”

“And at that point he thought of us.”

“Exactly. All expenses paid and every facility afforded.”

“What did you say?”

“That I’d consult you, naturally.”

Campbell grinned. “Who are these Spaniards?”

“Alfonso d’Almeida and Miguel Piccione, both of Madrid. They are men in their early forties and members of the Falangista. They are disguised as fruit-importers selling oranges to the vitamin-starved countries of Europe.”

“And when are they due in Cologne?”

“On Sunday, June 11th—three weeks next Sunday. They are going via Paris, where they will spend five days staying at the Ambassador. They get to Paris on June 6th. In Cologne they will be staying at the Dom Hotel, so Hambledon will be staying at the Hotel Gurzenich for greater freedom of action.”

Campbell took a turn up and down the darkened shop, lit only by the daylight filtering through the blinds. Forgan leaned on the counter and watched him.

“Do this society—whatever its name is ... ?”

“The Silver Ghosts,” said Forgan.

“Sounds like lepers. Do they and the Spaniards know each other personally?”

Forgan laughed aloud. “Believe it or not, I asked him that. No, they don’t. The previous go-between died.”

“Then how do they recognize each other?”

“D’Almeida and Piccione are to go to the Dom and just wait there until somebody comes to see them.”

“I see. To Be Left Until Called For. Can these Spaniards speak German?”

“Not very well, Hambledon says. They can get along in it.”

“Finally—for the moment—why are they going?”

“Apparently it’s a Nazi revival. Some of the extreme Fascists in Spain are financing them, or contributing, anyway. D’Almeida and Piccione will be kindly welcomed, don’t you think?”

Campbell grinned again. “We didn’t have a holiday last year, did we, Forgan?”

“No; we didn’t. Mitchell was new then and we felt we couldn’t leave him. On the principle that a change of work is a rest, we redecorated the bathroom and kitchen. We came to the conclusion that the saying I quoted is a fallacy. Why?”

“It’s a long time since we saw Paris,” said Campbell.

“Too long. I had already come to that conclusion myself. If the British Government is going to pay for our stay in Germany, there’s nothing to stop us from going to Paris on our holiday allowance first.”

“Fifty pounds each. We shouldn’t last long at the Ambassador on that.”

“Then we must either stay somewhere else or not go across too soon,” said Forgan. “I wonder whether Messrs. D’Almeida and Piccione play poker.”

“We might teach them,” said Campbell, passing through the shop to lock the back door. “It is a simple game, and soon learned even by persons of the most moderate intelligence. All ready? Let’s go upstairs.”

“But we must remember that if we want these Spaniards to cling round our necks in Cologne we mustn’t skin them in Paris.”

“Well, we needn’t overdo it,” said Campbell.

“Did you gather any idea of how long Hambledon will want us to stay in Germany?”

“Not a hint. I don’t suppose he knew himself. Are you thinking about this business?”

“Well, it’s our bread and butter,” said Forgan apologetically. “Although, I suppose, if we’re out there some time there’ll be nothing to stop us from running back here occasionally to see how things are going on. The Government won’t want us to beggar ourselves for them. They might have to compensate us.”

“Don’t be so mercenary. Will you make the tea or shall I?”

.....

M. Albert Baptiste was a prosperous-looking little gentleman in very good clothes with an expensive watch-chain across his semilunar front. He had charming and friendly manners, trustful brown eyes and an air of unworldly inexperience. He was a confidence trickster by profession; on a previous visit to Paris Campbell and Forgan had met him in a café, where he had practised his art upon them. They had cheerfully allowed themselves to be led along to the point where the climax was imminent and then engaged in an animated discussion with each other, Baptiste being present, about the various ways in which he could arrange the finish. Baptiste listened at first with horror, then with admiration, and finally with gales of laughter which set the tears running down his cheeks.

“Messieurs,” he gasped, “have pity. It is quite evident that I, a poor minnow, have challenged a pair of tritons. May I have the honour of knowing where you gentlemen normally operate? Because I will not go there. I cannot compete.”

Forgan and Campbell united to assure him that they did not follow his profession, attractive and lucrative as it undoubtedly was. He took a great deal of convincing; as a matter of fact, he was never quite convinced. Politeness alone prompted him to drop the argument, saying only that it was a great pity that such singular natural gifts should be wasted. Apart from his profession, he was shrewd, witty and kindly; whenever the model-makers went to Paris they made a point of seeing him and hearing his stories of the Parisian underworld and the very odd things which foreign visitors do when they are looking for amusement.

The two Englishmen reached Paris in the evening of June 6th and went at once to the Ambassador Hotel to claim their rooms. The evening was warm and sunny; Paris, recovering from the war, was enchanting. They took a quick glance round the dignified lounge of the Ambassador and a short drink at the bar. There was no one within sight who seriously resembled two Spaniards on a secret mission. They had five days to play with and the night was hardly begun. They went out, through the magic doors which open when they see you coming, into the Boulevard Haussmann, and strolled along the dusty pavements in the violet evening light, listening delightedly to scraps of passing conversations above the incessant roar of the traffic—every motorist in Paris drives on his horn—staring into shop-windows and engaging in complicated arithmetic to find out the prices of the goods. Lights appeared in windows, in the streets and on the top of the Eiffel Tower; very slowly the night closed in. Forgan and Campbell, pleasantly exhilarated more with Paris than with wine, were sitting in a café halfway up the hill to the Saint Sepulcre listening to Albert Baptiste.

“And after all that trouble,” said Baptiste, finishing a story, “the man picked up the umbrella, bowed to each of the ladies separately, and went back to his hotel. I saw it, I myself.”

“Well, he said he was only looking for his umbrella, didn’t he?” said Forgan.

“Certainly he did, but the unbelievable thing is that it was true!”

A man and a woman passed their table on the way to the door. She smiled and nodded at Baptiste, who sprang to his feet, bowed from the waist and said: “Bue’ noche, senora.”

“Are there many Spaniards in Paris?” asked Campbell idly.

“Not many, I think; they have not the money. That lady is a resident. She works at the Galeries Lafayette; they have assistants who between them can speak many languages—even Arabic, it is said. No, there are not many Spanish visitors, but that reminds me: there are a couple of Argentines, two men, whom I met the other night. There were four of them who came over, but they were in a little trouble and the police picked up two of them. I understand there was a little robbery in Buenos Aires and one of the victims was so annoying as to die; the rest are only in hospital. So the story goes; the Argentines did not confide in me personally. It appears that the police, when they arrested the other two, also seized upon most of the diamonds, so that my two poor acquaintances are hard pushed for money. I was asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy two honest valid Argentine passports. I did not, at the moment, but there is usually a market for these things. The Argentines will never want them again, they hope; they will sell their nice new luggage too if they can in order to buy themselves complete outfits unmistakably French. So much less conspicuous—and you will understand that my poor acquaintances do not wish to be conspicuous. It is natural under the circumstances. You gentlemen have no interest in two valid Argentine passports and four suitcases made in Buenos Aires, complete as packed even to the toothbrushes?”

“So far as I can see at the moment,” said Forgan, “Argentine passports have no place upon our menu. Thank you very much for the courtesy which prompted the offer. Campbell and I spent over twenty years of our lives in the Argentine; we do not wish to be greedy. Let others occupy our space.”

“I think you would only occupy two very small spaces if you went back to Buenos Aires on those passports,” said Baptiste.

“In jail, you mean?” said Campbell. “I’m sure you’re right. Besides, although we pride ourselves on being good mixers, Argentine society has had some rather queer additions since the war, hasn’t it? Suppose we dropped into a bar for a refresher and came face to face with Hitler?”

“Unless it was a milk-bar, you wouldn’t,” said Baptiste. “Are there milk-bars in Buenos Aires?”

“We never saw one,” said Forgan.

“But I cannot remember looking for one,” said Campbell. “What do they do in milk-bars?”

“I have no personal experience,” said Baptiste, “but it is rumoured that they drink milk.”

“Incredible,” said Campbell, but Forgan said that he knew a man once who did that, and Baptiste asked what had happened to him.

“Horns sprouted upon his forehead and his wife left him,” said Forgan gravely.