Eric Ambler - Judgment on Deltchev

If I had had any advantage it was suddenly quite gone. ‘Have you ever heard the name of Pazar before?’

‘It is a Turkish name. I know no one who has it.’

‘Or Eftib?’

‘No. Nor any of the other persons mentioned today.’

‘Aleko?’

‘Was that name mentioned?’

‘No. Do you know it?’

‘It is a short name for Alexander. That is all I know.’

‘Valmo?’

‘It is a fairly common surname, but it means nothing in particular to me. Should it do so?’

‘I don’t know.’ I stood up. ‘Thank you for receiving me, madame.’

‘It is nothing.’ She stood up too and switched on a reading-lamp.

‘Before I go, I should like, if I may, to speak to your daughter,’ I said.

She stiffened. ‘Why?’

‘I should like to ask her some questions.’

‘Perhaps I can answer them for you.’

‘Perhaps.’ I hesitated. ‘When I left here two nights ago, madame, your daughter asked me to take out a letter for her and deliver it to a man named Valmo.’ I paused.

She tried unsuccessfully to smile. ‘My daughter is an attractive young woman. She has her affairs of the heart.’

‘Yes, that was the impression of the letter she succeeded in giving to me. I agreed to take it.’

‘That was chivalrous of you.’

‘The address on the letter was Patriarch Dimo, nine. I found the place. It is a disused house in a slum.’

‘And did you find the young man?’

I shook my head. She relaxed perceptibly.

‘If you will give me the letter, Herr Foster, I will see that it is returned to my daughter. It was good of you to take so much trouble.’ She held out her hand.

I said, ‘I did not find a young man, madame. I found a dead one. He had been shot.’

Very slowly she sat down. ‘Had he shot himself?’ she asked softly.

‘No. The wound was in the back of the head.’

She did not move. ‘A young man?’

‘No. Grey-haired, about fifty I should think. Why do you ask?’

She straightened up a little. ‘I thought perhaps some poor young student-’ She broke off and drew a deep breath. ‘There are so many tragedies. You must have gone to the wrong house, Herr Foster.’

‘No. It was the right house. But if the dead man was the person who had called himself Valmo, then your daughter knew Pazar. For that was the dead man’s real name.’

There was a silence. She did not look at me.

‘Did the police tell you that?’ she said at last.

‘I did not go to the police. It would have been difficult to explain how I came to be visiting the Brotherhood assassin they are supposed to be searching for. Difficult and embarrassing for us all.’

‘We are in your debt, Herr Foster.’

‘Perhaps you would prefer your daughter to explain,’ I said.

She looked at her handkerchief. ‘My daughter is not here.’

I was silent.

She looked at me. ‘I am speaking the truth, Herr Foster.’

‘I understood that everyone here was under house arrest.’

‘My daughter is not here. She has gone.’

‘Do you mean that the police took her away?’

‘No. She escaped.’

‘How? What about the guards?’

‘Katerina has lived in this house all her life, Herr Foster. There are other ways of leaving it than by the gates.’

I hesitated. ‘A few minutes ago, madame, I asked you if you had heard of Pazar before. You said that you had not. Do you still say that?’

‘Yes. It is the truth.’

‘But others in this house do know him?’

‘I do not.’

‘Do you know where your daughter has gone?’

‘No.’

‘When did she go?’

‘This evening.’

‘Can you think of any reason why she should go?’

‘Herr Foster, I am very tired.’

I waited a moment or two, but she did not look up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I think I might have been of help to you.’

‘I have told you all I can.’

‘You have told me all you think it advisable for me to know, madame.’

‘Good night, Herr Foster.’ She pressed the bell-push.

I said good night and picked up my hat, but as I got to the door she spoke again.

‘Herr Foster.’

I stopped.

‘My daughter’s letter. Will you give it to me, please?’

‘It is burned.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

She hesitated. ‘Forgive me, but do you know what was in it?’

‘I did not open it. In any case I cannot read your language.’

She came a little way across the room toward me. ‘Herr Foster,’ she said, ‘I have not been helpful to you, but I would not like you to think that I am ungrateful for your kindness and patience. I do most sincerely thank you.’

I bowed. I could not think of anything coherent to say which would not have deepened my embarrassment. The sound of Rana’s sandals flapping along the passage outside came like the answer to a prayer.

‘Good night, madame,’ I said, and got out of the room as quickly as I could. It did not occur to me until I was walking down the stairs that my twinges of guilt were unnecessary. Beside the monumental evasions to which I had been listening for the past half-hour my own reticences were trivial.

It was very dark outside the house. The old woman had no lamp to guide us and I blundered rather than walked after her across the courtyard. The fact contributed somehow to the feelings of inadequacy, futility, and blank exasperation which were beginning to grow in me.

I stubbed my foot against the edge of a flagstone and said, ‘Damn!’ violently. The old woman opened the door in the wall and the flashlight from outside shone in my face. I scowled at it and hauled out my wallet as the door closed behind me. The light left my face and I saw the Corporal.

‘ Passieren, vorwärts! ’ he snapped, and waved me on peremptorily.

‘Don’t you want to see my permit, you fool?’ I enquired in English.

‘ Passieren, passieren! ’ he repeated, and waved me on again.

‘Grinning lout,’ I said with a smile to the Private.

He nodded, grinning, and saluted.

I walked away. The Corporal was not troubling to examine my permit any more. The Corporal had decided that I was harmless. The Corporal was absolutely right. Tomorrow, I decided, I would send a cable to the man who was paying me, tell him that he was wasting his money and my time, then take the first plane I could get out of the place. It was high time I stopped this foolishness and got back to work again. Not, I thought savagely, that the trip had been a complete loss. I had increased my knowledge of Napoleon the Third. I had also had two interesting experiences: that of finding a dead body in a strange house, and that of being locked in a room in another strange house. In the unlikely event of my ever wanting to write the kind of play in which incidents like that occurred, the knowledge would be useful. Meanwhile, to hell with it!

I turned into the Boulevard Dragutin.

It ran in a gentle curve round the high boundary wall of the Presidential Park. It was a wide road, lined with big plane trees and cobbled. Most of the buildings in it were apartment houses; there were no shops or cafés. The lights were on tall standards set among the trees on the building side of the road. I walked on the other side. Beneath the dense foliage of the trees it was very dark.

I walked slowly. The air was pleasant and after a while something happened to make me forget my immediate troubles. Before I had left London I had been trying to write the third act of a new play and had got into difficulties with it. Indeed, I had practically made up my mind to scrap the whole thing. The commission to report the Deltchev trial had come at an opportune moment; it had given me a reason for suspending work on the play that left the real reasons for doing so in abeyance. But now, quite suddenly, I found myself thinking about the play again and seeing quite clearly the point of the problem that I had missed before. The shape of a third act began to emerge. Of course! The wife’s lover wasn’t her own choice, but her husband’s, and it was her realization of this fact that made it possible for her to leave him. Of course! It was the key to her whole attitude toward her lover. He was not her choice. Of course! How curious it was I had practically sign-posted the thing all the way through without realizing the fact. Why? My mind nosed round the discovery suspiciously like a terrier at a strange lamp-post. There must be a mistake. But no, it was all right. I had been too close to it before and too anxious. Now all was well. I drew a deep breath. Forgotten were the Deltchevs and the enigma they represented. I had just finished a play. I felt light-hearted and alive. I quickened my pace.