Kingdom of Shadows

“Sorry,” he said. Graciously.

The inspector read further. Whatever was in there, it was substantial. “And Dr. Otto Adler? Is that name known to you?”

Able this time to tell the truth, Morath was relieved. “Once again,” he said, “someone I don’t know.”

The inspector noted his response. “Dr. Otto Adler was the editor of a political journal-a socialist journal. An emigre from Germany, he came to France in the spring of 1938 and set up an editorial office in his home, in Saint Germain-en-Laye. Then, in June, he was murdered. Shot to death in the Jardin du Luxembourg. A political assassination, no doubt, and these are always difficult to solve, but we pride ourselves on keeping at it. Murder is murder, Monsieur Morath, even in times of-political turmoil.”

The inspector saw it hit home-Morath thought he did. “Once again,” Morath said, regret in his voice, “I don’t believe I can help you.”

The inspector seemed to accept what he’d said. He closed the dossier. “Perhaps you’ll try to remember, monsieur. At your leisure. Something may come back to you.”

Something had.

“If that should be the case,” the inspector went on, “you can always get in touch with me here.”

He called Polanyi. He called Polanyi from the cafe just across the Seine-the first public telephone you came to when you left the prefecture. They made a living from their neighbor, Morath thought, pushing a jeton into the slot. The refugees were easy to spot-a couple celebrating with wine they couldn’t afford, a bearded man with his head in his hands.

“The count Polanyi is not available this afternoon,” said a voice at the legation. Morath hung up the phone, a woman was waiting to use it. Polanyi would never decline to talk to him, would he?

He went to the Agence Courtmain, but he couldn’t stay there. Saw Mary Day, for a moment. “Everything all right?” she said. He went to the WC and looked in the mirror-what had she seen? He was perhaps a little pale, nothing more. But the difference between Cara at twenty-six and Mary Day at forty, he thought, was that Mary Day understood what the world did to people. Sensed, apparently, that it had done something to Morath.

She didn’t mention it, that evening, but she was immensely good to him. He couldn’t say exactly how. Touched him more than usual, maybe that was it. He was sick at heart, she knew it, but didn’t ask him why. They went to bed, he fell asleep, eventually, woke long before dawn, slid out of bed as quietly as he could and stood at the window, watching the night go by. Nothing you can do, now.

He didn’t get to his apartment until noon of the following day, and the letter was waiting for him there. Hand-delivered, there was no stamp.

A clipping, from the 9 March edition of the newspaper that served the German community in Sofia. He supposed it was in the Bulgarian papers as well, some version of it, but the anonymous sender knew he could read German.

A certain Stefan Gujac, the story went, a Croat, had apparently hanged himself in his cell in a Sofia jail. This Gujac, using the false passport of a deceased Roumanian named Andreas Panea, was suspected by the security agencies of several Balkan countries of having taken part in more than a dozen political assassinations. Born in Zagreb, Gujac had joined the Fascist Ustachi organization and had been arrested several times in Croatia-for agitation and assault-and had served time in jail, three months, for robbing a bank in Trieste.

At the time of his arrest in Sofia, he had been sought for questioning by authorities in Salonika after a cafe bombing that killed seven people, including E. X. Patridas, an official in the interior ministry, and injured twenty others. In addition, police in Paris had wanted to question Gujac with regard to the killing of a German emigre, editor of a political journal.

Gujac’s arrest in Sofia resulted from the attempted murder, thwarted by an alert police sergeant, of a Turkish diplomat in residence at the Grand Hotel Bulgarie. He had been questioned by Bulgarian police, who suspected the plot against the diplomat had been organized by Zveno, the terrorist gang based in Macedonia.

Gujac, twenty-eight years old, had hanged himself by fashioning a noose from his underwear. Sofia authorities said the suicide remained under investigation.

Polanyi agreed to see him later that afternoon, in the cafe near the Hungarian legation. Polanyi read his face when he walked in and said, “Nicholas?” Morath wasted no time. Recounted his interrogation at the prefecture, then slid the newspaper clipping across the table.

“I didn’t know,” Polanyi said.

From Morath, a bitter smile.

“At the time it happened, I didn’t know. Whatever you want to believe, that’s the truth. I found out later, but by then the thing was done, and there was no point in telling you. Why? What good would it have done?”

“Not your fault, is that it?”

“Yes. That’s it. This was Von Schleben’s business. You don’t understand what goes on in Germany now-the way power works. They trade, Nicholas, trade in lives and money and favors. The honorable men are gone. Retired mostly, if not murdered or chased out of the country. Von Schleben abides, that’s his nature. He abides, and I deal with him. I must deal with somebody, so I deal with him. Then it’s my turn to trade.”

“A reciprocal arrangement.” Morath’s voice was cold.

“Yes. I assume an obligation, then I pay it off. I’m a banker, Nicholas, and if, at times, a sorrowful banker, so what?”

“So, reluctantly, but owing favors, you organized this killing.”

“No. Von Schleben did that. Maybe it was a favor, a debt he had to pay, I don’t know. Perhaps all he agreed to do was bring this, this thing, to Paris. I can’t say who gave him his instructions once he got here, I don’t know who paid him. Someone in the SS, start there, you’ll find the culprit. Though I suspect you know that long before you find him he’ll find you.”

Polanyi paused a moment, then said, “You see, some days Von Schleben is a king, some days a pawn. Like me, Nicholas. Like you.”

“And what I did in Czechoslovakia? Whose idea was that?”

“Again Von Schleben. On the other side, this time.”

A waiter brought them coffee, the two cups sat untouched. “I’m sorry, Nicholas, and more concerned with this prefecture business than who did what to who last year, but what’s done is done.”

“Done for the last time.”

“Then farewell and Godspeed. I would wish it for myself, Nicholas, but I can’t resign from my country, and that’s what this is all about. We can’t pick up the nation and paste it on Norway. We are where we are, and everything follows from that.”

“Who set the prefecture on me?”

“The same person who sent the clipping. Sombor, both times.”

“You know?”

“You never know. You assume.”

“To gain what?”

“You. And to damage me, who he sees as a rival. That’s true-he’s in the hands of the Arrow Cross, I most decidedly am not. What’s at play here is Hungarian politics.”

“Why send the clipping?”

“It’s not too late, he means. So far, the prefecture knows only this much. Do you want me to tell them the rest? That’s what he’s asking you.”

“I have to do something,” Morath said. “Go away, perhaps.”

“It may come to that. For the moment, you will leave it to me.”

“Why?”

“I owe you at least that much.”

“Why not have Von Schleben deal with it?”

“I could. But are you prepared to do what he asks in return?”

“You know he would?”

“Absolutely. After all, you are already in debt to him.”

“I am? How?”

“Lest you forget, when the Siguranza had you in Roumania, he saved your life.” Polanyi reached across the