Eric Ambler - Cause for Alarm

By the time I arrived at the hotel, I was, I am afraid, feeling quite jaunty about the whole affair. I was cultivating a slight man-of-the-world attitude. It was, all things considered, just as well that I did not realise just what sort of an idiot I was being and just how sinister and melodramatic reality was very soon going to prove. If I had realised those things, I should not have slept nearly as soundly as I did sleep.

It was not until I had undressed for bed and was hanging my clothes in the wardrobe that I remembered Madame Vagas’ piece of paper. I retrieved it from my waistcoat pocket and unfolded it.

Scrawled across it were six words:

“ Ha fatto morire il signor Ferning.”

I sat down on the bed and stared at it blankly. “He killed Mr. Ferning.” Who did? Presumably Vagas. Vagas killed Ferning. But that was absurd. Ferning had been run over. This was obviously a piece of spiteful nonsense. You did not have to be particularly observant to notice that there was no love lost between Vagas and his wife. And you could scarcely wonder at it. Not by any stretch of the imagination could you describe either as particularly lovable. But this! The woman was clearly unbalanced.

I got into bed. Claire, I reflected, would have been amusing on the subject of Ricciardo.

On the Thursday morning, I telephoned down to Zaleshoff.

A woman’s voice answered me in Italian.

“ Pronto.”

“ Il signor Zaleshoff? ”

“ Uno momento.”

A second or two later Zaleshoff came on the line.

“ Qui Vittorio Saponi.”

“Is it, indeed! This is Marlow.”

There was a yelp of delight.

“Hal-lo, Mr. Marlow! How are you keeping?”

“All right, thanks.”

“Did you have a good time last night?”

“Quite. And you?”

“Fine. I hope you didn’t mind my high-hatting you like that.”

“Not a bit. I was wondering whether you were too busy to have dinner with me this evening.”

“Delighted. But look. Why not come along to our apartment and have dinner there? That dame I was with last night’s my sister. She’s crazy to meet you.” There were sounds of altercation in the background. “Just a minute.” He clapped his hand over the transmitter. There was silence for a moment. Then: “Sorry about that. We’re having a show of maidenly reticence this end. Can you make it to-night?”

“Thanks, I’d like to.”

“What time can you get away?”

“Not before half-past six.”

“Call in for me on your way down and we’ll go along together. Okay?”

“I’ll be there.”

At half-past six I descended to the third floor. Zaleshoff was alone in his office, hammering furiously at a portable typewriter. He waved a hand in greeting.

“Come on in and sit down, Mr. Marlow. If you don’t mind, I’ll just finish this before we go.”

I sat down. A minute or two later he whipped the paper out of the machine, addressed an envelope, stuffed the paper inside it and sealed the flap. I watched him in silence. He had on a pair of reading spectacles. They made him look younger. The idea that he might be a Soviet agent seemed suddenly preposterous. Soviet agents were sinister figures with beards. They spoke broken English and wore large black hats. This man Zaleshoff… He looked up and his bright eyes met mine.

“The day’s outgoing post?” I inquired facetiously.

“No. We posted that one this morning.”

“I see.” An idea struck me. “Do you ever look at the flaps of the letters you receive?”

He grinned. “To see if they’ve been steamed open? Is that what you mean, Mr. Marlow?”

“As a matter of fact, that’s just what I did mean.”

“Have they been steaming yours open, Mr. Marlow?”

“Yes.”

“What made you notice it?”

I told him about Claire’s letter.

“And now it doesn’t happen any more?”

“I haven’t noticed it since that letter.”

He chuckled. “That must have made them mad.”

“Who’s ‘them’?”

He was struggling into his overcoat. “The birds that do the steaming,” he replied evasively. “Shall we go?”

“All right.” But at the door I paused. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Zaleshoff?”

“Eh?”

“There was something mentioned about a card from that card index file of yours. Reference number, V. 18, I believe. Do you remember?”

He patted his breast pocket. “It’s here, Mr. Marlow, next to my heart.”

The Zaleshoffs’ apartment was situated over a shop in a street near the Piazza San Stefano. It consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The two rooms were large, and one of them was evidently used both for sleeping and for living. They had the appearance of having been furnished in a great hurry. The living-room in particular presented a very curious appearance, the furniture consisting of a deal table, a pair of packing cases thinly disguised with blue calico as occasional tables, a luxurious divan with a label still attached to one foot of it and a colossal, and obviously valuable, marqueterie bureau-cum-bookcase. The walls were distempered, rather carelessly, in white.

“It’s a wonder,” explained Zaleshoff, “that it doesn’t look a damn sight worse. We tore the shopping list in half and went out to get the whole outfit in a couple of hours. A guy with a hare-lip sold me that bureau. It’s a nice piece, but Tamara seems to think it was a waste of money. She fixed the packing cases. I sat on one yesterday and tore my pants. You’d better try the divan. I bought that, too.” He raised his voice. “Tamara!” He turned to me again. “Take your things off, Mr. Marlow, and have a cigarette. You’ll find some in the bookcase. Excuse me, will you, I’d better superintend the cooking.”

“You’re too late,” said a voice.

Feeling slightly bewildered by all this, I turned round. The girl was standing in the doorway removing an apron.

“And,” she added, “it’s quite all right to sit on the packing cases now. I took the nails out myself.”

“Oh, there you are,” said Zaleshoff. “This, Mr. Marlow, is my sister, Tamara.”

She smiled. I found myself smiling back at her.

“I’m glad you could come, Mr. Marlow,” she said; “I was afraid that you would be annoyed with us for not speaking to you last night. Andreas has probably explained why we didn’t.”

“Actually,” I replied, “he hasn’t explained. But I’m quite sure that it was necessary.”

“Andreas, you said…”

He flourished an arm dramatically. “Silence! We will discuss these matters after we have eaten. To your kitchen, Tamara!”

At the door she paused. “It is simply, Mr. Marlow,” she explained gently, “that he was badly brought up. You must try to make allowances for these gaucheries.” She shook her head compassionately and disappeared into the kitchen.

Zaleshoff chuckled. “Have a drink, Mr. Marlow?”

“Thanks.”

“Whisky? I got a bottle in specially.”

“That’s very good of you.”

He took some glasses out of the bookcase. “Nothing’s too good for a man who can put up with Vagas for an evening.”

“Oh, so you do know him!”

He wagged an admonitory finger. “I know of him. Say ‘when.’ ”

“When!”

“I bet he warned you against me, didn’t he?”

“In a sort of way.”

“Ah! well, here’s looking at you.”

“Cheerio.”

The girl entered carrying a tray with a big copper saucepan in the middle of it. “Can you eat a real paprika goulash, Mr. Marlow?”

“With enthusiasm.”

“That’s fine, because that’s what this is.”

“I should like to know,” grunted Zaleshoff, “what you’d have done if he’d said it made him sick. Opened the other can, I suppose.”