Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘I’ve found out something. In fact, I knew it before. Those Socialist strikers told me, but I’ve only just put two and two together. When Lomax left the Edison that night, he didn’t leave by the ordinary way. There’s another door.’

‘Another door?’

‘Yes, Machnich uses it when he doesn’t want to run into people who might be waiting outside. I think Lomax used it that night.’

‘Where is this door?’

‘It opens into the Piazza delli Cappucine. Could you get your men to check if anyone saw him come out? And if anyone was seen waiting for him.’

‘I’ll have them on to that,’ said Kornbluth, ‘right away.’

Seymour hesitated.

‘There’s one other thing. It’s just possible that the men you might be looking for are two Herzegovinians.’

‘Herzegovinians?’

‘Yes. Posing as students. And staying, I think, in a student hostel.’

‘I’ll get someone to go round them.’

‘You don’t need to. I’ve got somebody already doing that.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes, that girl who was with the artists. Maddalena, her name is.’

‘That troublemaker? But — ’

‘I think you might find her,’ said Seymour, ‘in the public library.’

‘The library!’ said Kornbluth incredulously.

‘Signor Machnich to see you,’ said Augstein.

‘Ah!’ Seymour rose from the desk. ‘Signor Machnich! It is good of you to come.’

Machnich glanced round the room, took in the pictures on the walls and winced, then sat down.

‘Signor Machnich, I have a confession to make. I am not a King’s Messenger but an English police officer. I am here to investigate Signor Lomax’s death. Now, I know you were a friend of Signor Lomax. I have found out some things that interest me, and I wonder if I could run through them with you?’

‘Certainly,’ said Machnich. ‘We were people of a kind. Close together. Like that!’ He put his two fingers together.

‘Quite so. And that is why you, of all people in Trieste, can help me. Can we go back to the beginning? You got to know each other when he was advising you over that cinema business, and you got on surprisingly well. Not only that, you were a prominent Serb locally, so it was, perhaps, natural that he should talk to you when he found out something about the Serbs — that they were running an escape route through his Consulate.’

‘Well, now — ’

Seymour held up his hand soothingly.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Do not worry. We are talking about Lomax, yes? Only about him. He was not, I think, too disturbed. Indeed, he had some sympathy for the students. He may even have been prepared to let it continue, although I think he probably suggested to you that you should think about bringing it to an end. Anyway, he talked about it with you. Why not? You were people of a kind, you understood each other. And you were friends.

‘And then, suddenly, you were not friends. Why was that, I wonder?’

He waited.

Machnich merely shook his head.

‘Shall I tell you what I think? I think it was because you, or Rakic, misread the friendship. You thought it went further than it did. You put something to Lomax and he didn’t like it. Not one little bit!

‘But, again, you, or Rakic, misread the situation. You thought you could persuade him. You kept sending him to Lomax, or, perhaps, he insisted on going — he was that kind of man. But still Lomax wouldn’t agree. And in the end Rakic realized that he would have to do what he wanted to do another way.

‘The trouble was, he had a deadline. What he wanted to do could be done only on a particular occasion. He needed access to the reception at the Casa Revoltella.

‘Well, Rakic being Rakic, he thought he could bluster his way in. Lomax, however, was there. He may even have been waiting for him, guessing that he might try to get in. Anyway, he intercepted him. There was a fracas at the entrance and Rakic was prevented from going in and delivering his package — which, incidentally, he claimed was for you. I don’t think you would have been very happy to take possession of it. That was, perhaps, why you weren’t there. And if that was so, then it means that you knew about it, didn’t you, and what Rakic was intending?’

‘I know nothing about that,’ said Machnich, ‘or any of it.’

‘Don’t worry. We’re only talking about Lomax. For the moment. And Lomax, you see, had suddenly become important. For it wasn’t just that he had stopped Rakic from doing what it was that he had in mind to do, it was that he knew about it. He knew about it and could tell someone about it. Schneider, for example.

‘Now why he didn’t tell Schneider about it straightaway, I don’t know. Perhaps he was so shocked by it, perhaps he didn’t quite believe that it could happen, until he saw Rakic there. And then perhaps when he did, he still couldn’t quite believe it. Or maybe that a man he looked upon as his friend could lend himself to such a thing. So he waited and thought about it. Perhaps, in the end, he was too much of a diplomat: too cautious, reluctant to move until he could be quite sure, could quite convince himself. That was his mistake.

‘For Rakic, too, was thinking about it. He knew he had to act, and act quickly. Luckily, the two men he had wanted had now arrived and they were just the men for something like this.

‘So he got you to ask Lomax to come and see you. In your room at the Edison. I don’t know what the pretext was. Perhaps it was precisely this. To talk about what had happened and what he was going to do. He might even have told you that he was going to see Schneider and you might even have tried to persuade him not to.

‘Anyway, afterwards he left. By your private, secret door. Was that your suggestion? I think it must have been. If so, it was hardly an act of friendship. Because outside the door Rakic’s two men were waiting.’

‘This is mere supposition,’ said Machnich. ‘I spit on it.’

‘Is it? Is it supposition that Rakic tried to get into the reception at the Casa Revoltella? Is it supposition that he wanted to leave a package? That Lomax stopped him?

‘That you invited Lomax to the Edison the night that he died? That he left not in the ordinary way but by a door which only you — or so you thought — knew about? And that he was killed after leaving that door?’

‘It is mere supposition,’ said Machnich. ‘You cannot prove any of it.’

‘I am not so sure. You see, Mr Kornbluth has learned about the secret door. And he has been checking with people who were in the Piazza delli Cappucine at the time that Lomax would have come out of the secret door. And he has found someone who saw him come out. This person is prepared to say that he saw Lomax leave with two men. He is even able to identify the men. They are the two Herzegovinians whom you brought to Trieste and who were so close to Rakic that the strikers thought they were his bodyguards. The two men whom Rakic tried to get Koskash to make out papers for so that they could leave quickly and secretly. After they had done what they had been brought to Trieste for. He refused, and I hope that will be remembered in his favour.’

‘Whatever your person in the Piazza delli Cappucine saw,’ said Machnich, ‘he did not see me. There is nothing to link me with any of this.’

‘We shall see what the Herzegovinians say. Because, you see, we shall now have an opportunity of questioning them. Since Mr Kornbluth was able to find out where they were hiding and has arrested them,’

Machnich let out a long breath.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ he said.

‘Because I hoped that you would save us a lot of time by telling me that you recognized it to be true.’