Eric Ambler - Cause for Alarm

The meal proceeded amidst a running fire of amiable bickering. It was obvious that it was all a performance put on for my benefit; but it was amusing enough and I began to enjoy myself. The goulash was delicious. There was, too, something pleasantly stimulating in the company of Zaleshoff and his sister. For the first time since I had left England, I began to feel friendly towards my surroundings. At last, warmed by a stomach-full of goulash, I began a racy account of my evening with General and Madame Vagas. I made no mention, however, of the General’s proposition, and Zaleshoff did not refer to our previous conversation on the subject. We might have been three very ordinary acquaintances discussing a fourth. Then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. And it was a change for the worse.

I had been rambling on happily on the subject of Ricciardo and his incense. They were laughing. Then, quite casually, I went on to mention the note that Madame Vagas had pressed into my hand and my diagnosis of the lady’s mental condition.

The effect of my statement was sensational. There was a sudden silence in the room. It was as though someone had switched off a very noisy radio.

“What did you say was in that note, Mr. Marlow?” Zaleshoff’s voice was preternaturally calm. The girl’s eyes were fixed on her plate.

“I’ve got it in my pocket if you want to see it. But why? What’s the matter? You surely don’t take it seriously?”

He glanced at the note in silence, then gave it back to me with a shrug.

“No, I don’t take it seriously. It’s the work of a spiteful woman. I wouldn’t have remarked on it at all, except for one thing.”

“Well?”

“That sentence happens to be very nearly true.”

I goggled at him. “But Ferning was run over.”

“Ferning,” said Zaleshoff firmly, “was murdered.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Ferning.”

I got up from the table. “Now look here, Zaleshoff. You’ve given me a good dinner, and so far I’ve enjoyed myself. But I tell you frankly…”

But he did not allow me to get any further.

“Sit down, Mr. Marlow. The time has come for you and me to have a little heart to heart talk.”

“I don’t…”

“Sit down!” He raised his voice.

“Yes, Mr. Marlow,” said the girl; “do sit down. You’ll get indigestion. Have some more whisky.”

“I don’t want any whisky, thank you, and I won’t sit down.” I was trembling with annoyance.

“Very well, then,” snarled Zaleshoff, “stand up. But listen to me for a moment.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Then get this. I don’t know whether you walk about in blinkers or whether you’re just plain stupid. But if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s time the Italian representative of the Spartacus Machine Tool Company of Wolverhampton began to ask himself a few questions.”

“Such as?”

“Dammit, man!” he exploded; “you’ve been here ten days. You’ve had your passport taken away from you and been ordered to report to the police every week like a paroled convict. Doesn’t that seem a bit funny to you? You’ve had your mail tampered with, and you’ve had your assistant, Bellinetti, trailing you ever since you arrived. I know, because I’ve watched him. Doesn’t that say anything to you? And what’s more, you’ve had a proposition that stinks to high Heaven put to you by a bird who says he’s a Yugo-Slav General. You’ve had all that, and now you’re going to walk out on me.” His jaw shot out like a battering-ram. “Me! the only guy who can tell you what it’s all about.”

We glared at one another for a moment.

“Well,” I demanded, “what is it all about?”

He smacked his hands together. “Ah, that’s better! Now, for goodness’ sake have another drink.”

“Very well.”

“And don’t say it,” he added irritably, “as if I were offering you a tot of prussic acid.”

“Sorry. Only,” I added, “you can scarcely expect me to treat this talk of murder as if it were sewing-bee gossip.”

“You mustn’t take any notice of him,” chimed in the girl; “he thinks that tact is something you use to nail down linoleum.”

“Quiet!” roared Zaleshoff. He turned to me. “Now, Mr. Marlow,” he went on in tones of sickening affability, “do you feel equal to the strain of hearing a few facts?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then here’s fact number one. Last night this guy Vagas put a proposition to you. It went something like this. He said that he was acting on behalf of the Yugo-Slav Government and that his people were prepared to pay you to supply them with details of the Spartacus shell-production machines as you supply them to the subsidised factories. Is that right?”

“More or less.”

“He probably didn’t put it as simply as that. He probably talked a lot about it being simply a matter of routine intelligence and that there wasn’t the slightest risk involved. All you had to do was to let him have the dope and take your rake-off. Right?”

“Right.”

“Good. That, Mr. Marlow, is exactly what he told Ferning nine months ago. Ferning…”

“Just a minute! Did Ferning tell you this?”

He shook his head impatiently. “I never even spoke to Ferning.”

“But you said…”

“… that I knew him. I did. The same as I know the President of the United States.”

“Then how do you know what Vagas said?”

“It doesn’t matter how I know,” he retorted pugnaciously. “I just do know. Listen.”

“All right.”

“Vagas put the same proposition to Ferning as he put to you. It was all wrapped up in sugar in just the same way. Now, I don’t know what you said to Vagas. We’ll come to that later. But Ferning, the poor sucker, jumped at it. There are some guys who can never seem to learn that a something-for-nothing proposition always has a string to it somewhere. Ferning was one of them; and, unluckily for him, the string in this case happened to be more like a steel hawser. The point was that Vagas wanted a good deal more for his two thousand a month than a precis of the Spartacus correspondence files. Mind you, the story about Spartacus activities in Italy being of military interest to a foreign power was true enough as far as it went; that sort of information has to be collected somehow. But with Vagas it was only a sprat to catch a whale.” He paused. “Do you realise, Mr. Marlow, just how valuable a man in your position could be to a man like Vagas?”

“I don’t know what sort of man that is.”

“Ho hum! I’m coming to that. What I mean is this. You spend half your time here snooping round the big Italian armament factories and you have a legitimate reason for doing so. To a foreign agent you would be a gold mine.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”

“Not a bit. Look at it this way. Imagine a bunch of poker players sitting round a table. You are wandering about the room smoking and wondering, let’s say, what you’re going to have for dinner. You’ve no interest in poker and still less in the players. Right. Now supposing one of the players puts a proposition to you. Supposing he says: ‘Look here, Mr. Marlow, while you’re just wandering about the room, supposing you take an occasional peek at these other guys’ hands, tell me what you see and let me make it worth your while? It’s quite easy. I’ll tell you what I want to know. You just give me the dope.’ You get the idea? Vagas is that player.”

“Yes, but he hasn’t asked me to do that.”

“Wait a minute. Let’s go back to the poker players. Supposing you’re already taking graft from one of these birds. One day this man will say, ‘Now look here, Marlow, if you don’t tell me what those other boys have got in their hands I’ll tell your boss that you’re on my pay-roll.’ What then? What are you going to do?”