Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

‘So ever since that day Mr Simo always makes a sort of detour so that no one can guess where he’s going, yes?’ said young Kula.

‘And ever since that day he also carries a revolver!’ said Krisan, and they all laughed in quiet mockery.

‘Hasn’t he made any official enquiry then?’ asked Honey.

Todor Paven, the tall man from the Humpleu, replied, ‘Heavens no! Even he knows such things can never be cleared up properly. People say he’s never even mentioned it.’

‘Wouldn’t have been no loss!’ muttered young Kula.

Then Honey, whose part in the conversation had until now been merely to ask questions while quietly sucking on his pipe, spoke up harshly. ‘No more of that in front of me, my lad! Time we moved on. Get up, all of you!’ and himself rose to his feet and started to walk away.

Meekly the other men gathered their things together, brought up the horses, and moved off in the wake of their leader.

Balint stayed where he was for quite some time as he would not have liked any of them to know that he had been listening to them. Only when they were already some distance away did he too start to follow. As it happened this precaution was quite unnecessary for his path turned sharply up the mountain-side and rejoined the other only at the ridge just before they all arrived back at the camp.

When Balint had finished his supper he called Andras Zutor into his tent, told him that by chance he had overheard the conversation in the meadow and asked him what it was all about and what had happened to lead up to such a situation. Zutor now knew his master better than he had two years before at the time the money-lender Rusz Pantyilimon had been murdered one dark snowbound night and when red-hot pincers would not have drawn any answers from him. Now he answered quite freely. It seemed that the extortionate money-lending had not been stopped by Rusz’s death. Now there was not one but two such loan-sharks operating in the mountain villages, one at Meregyo and another at Rogosel. Both worked in the same way as had Rusz. The Romanian popa Timbus, the priest from Gyurkuca, was still the local representative of the Union Bank, and it was still he who arranged the loans for those in need. The notary Simo continued to prepare the contracts and the written contracts continued to contain clauses which had not been explained to the borrowers, most of whom could neither read nor write. Everything Simo did was for the benefit only of the lenders.

Abady then interrupted, ‘Surely that’s impossible to prove. No one will bear witness against the village priest, we saw that two years ago. Has Simo himself done anything illegal, anything we can prove?’

‘Plenty! There’s not a contract written he doesn’t benefit from. That’s why he never asked for an enquiry into the shooting. He’d have had to tell the county sheriff, who’s a good friend of his, and he couldn’t do that and be sure the enquiry didn’t find out something of what was going on.’

Balint thought deeply, the instinct to help others, which was so strongly embedded in him, was aroused once again. He must do something to get that thieving notary off the people’s backs. However he realized that he would now have to work out some approach more shrewdly and subtly than he had at the time of the outcry against Rusz Pantyilimon and the popa Timbus when the men of Pejkoja had come to him for help but turned to secret violence when the priest had threatened them.

‘Listen, friend Zutor,’ said Balint quietly. ‘Could you find me some documents on these transactions, very discreetly, of course, so that no one notices?’

‘I could try, my Lord,’ said Zutor, somewhat on his dignity.

‘But don’t tell my manager Winckler, or anyone else!’

Zutor’s eyes sparkled, ‘You can be sure of that, my Lord. No one but your Lordship!’

‘Make some notes for me, and when I next come up we’ll go through them together and see what we can use.’

‘It shall be done, my Lord!’ said Zutor quietly.

Balint got up and the forester clicked his heels as if about to take his leave. Abady, however, gestured to him to stay for a moment. ‘One other thing! This afternoon Mr Simo suggested that when we decided to have another drive against the cattle he should provide some gendarmes who would go on ahead and confiscate the horns which warned the cattle. It seems a good idea and so I may tell Mr Winckler to co-operate with him. This does not affect what I’ve just asked you to do.’

‘I understand, my Lord!’

Zutor saluted his master and left the tent. Balint watched as his powerful stocky figure stumped off in the moonlight. Honey was barrel-chested and he walked proudly on his short legs, marching away as befitted a former non-commissioned officer who had reached the rank of Master-at-Arms during his service with the Hussars.

Two weeks later Winckler’s report reached Abady at Denestornya:

Mr Notary Simo, as agreed by your Lordship, sent up a detachment of gendarmes on Thursday. Two went through the Ponor to the south ridge and two to the north from Vale Boului. I myself left Beles after dark and by Friday morning the foot of the Intreapa was closed by our party of sixteengornyiks and gendarmes. When the fog lifted I searched the valley with my binoculars and to my great surprise there wasn’t a head of cattle to be seen. Nevertheless we beat the whole valley hoping that there might be some stray beasts still hidden in those parcels of undergrowth not yet cleared. Our search was vain;there was nothing at all to be found on your Lordship’s land, even though everywhere we saw fresh tracks and droppingsso that anyone could tell the whole herd had been there and beendrivenaway only late the previous evening.

The damage was appalling: seventy-eight per cent of the young trees have been destroyed. Though the law says that the estate must replant immediately I cannot advise this until the culprits have been seized and punished and until we can be sure it won’t happen again. The enormous expense would otherwise be wasted. It seems that the gendarmes returned there on Saturday but once again they found nothing there.

It is clear that the villagers were warned, again at the last minute, but I have no idea who could have betrayed our intentions. Surely not one of our own men? Anyhow even they did not know our plans until the last minute, and then I took them immediately up into the forests so that not one of them had a chance to speak to anyone else. I do not suspect the gendarmes who are known to be reliable.

By the same post came a letter from Honey Andras Zutor. He wrote without punctuation, but his meaning was utterly clear. He told the same story, but with certain additions:

I don’t think it right or normal if it please your Lordship the notary had two gendarmes with him when he went up the river and on the way went into popa Timbus’s house afterwards coming out and following the gendarmeson horseback until they arrived at the foot of the Ponor where he dismissed them and came back towards Toserat but not the way he come the popa senthis servant for NyikVasilika who is richand lives someway off and he too went somewhere but I don’t know where but it must have been some way as Grunspan the innkeeper at Gyurkuca told me he must have gone a long way as it was already eleven when he returned and went in for a slug of brandy and his boots were covered in mud though it didn’t rain anywhere there except in the mountains and on the Boului we had no rain at all and not in the village either, that the notary visited the popa and the rest was told by one of the gendarmes quite by chance when I asked him why the notary needed an escort and he said it wasn’t an escort because he only left them at their posts and when he went in to see the popa which seems true because I too saw from the Humpleu on the other side of the river that NyikVasilika went with the servant to Timbus because I came that way from Skrind hoping to see something as your Lordship told me to keep my eyes open but it was too late to see the notary visit the priest but I saw what I said and it was then seven o’clock and getting dark and as Forest Manager Winckler waited for me at Beles when it got darker I wouldn’t see anymore …