not interested in any proposition that is not aimed at promoting the interests of my company. Is that absolutely clear? Because if it isn’t clear, I must thank you for a very pleasant dinner and go.”
Zaleshoff was sitting with a face like a thundercloud. As I finished, he drew a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak. But his sister forestalled him.
“Just a minute, Andreas.” She turned to me. “Mr. Marlow,” she said coolly, “someone once said that the English were the best hated race on the world’s surface. I am beginning to understand what was meant by that. Of all the stupid, smug, short-sighted, complacent, obstinate, asinine…”
“Tamara!”
She flushed. “Be quiet, Andreas. I haven’t finished. You, Mr. Marlow, come here knowing nothing about anything except, presumably, your business as an engineer. That I can understand. But that you should refuse even to listen to what someone has to tell you about the world outside your own tiny mind, I cannot understand. Haven’t you a spark of vulgar curiosity in you?”
I got to my feet. “I think I had better go.”
She went and stood with her back to the door. “Oh, no you don’t, you’re going to listen to my brother.”
“Let him go, Tamara,” Zaleshoff said quietly. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll do without him.”
For a moment I stood there irresolute. I was feeling embarrassed, foolish and very slightly ashamed. After all, I had refused to listen. Besides, Zaleshoff’s last sentence had touched me on the raw. “We’ll do without him.” It was the sort of thing you said to children to shame them into doing what they did not want to do. Unaccountably, it was having that effect on me. I have since wondered whether that had perhaps been Zaleshoff’s precise intention. His was a curious, deceptive mind. He had a way of exploiting the standard emotional counters that was highly disconcerting. You could never be quite sure whether his acting was studied or not and, if it was, whether for emphasis or concealment. Now, however, I told myself that I was indeed being childish, that the best thing I could do would be to carry out my declared intention and go. But I still stood there.
The girl moved away from the door. “Well, Mr. Marlow,” she said challengingly.
I sat down again with a sigh and a shrug. “I don’t know what this is all about,” I said shortly, “but I’ll have that other drink if it’s going.”
Zaleshoff nodded. “Sure.” Without another word, without even a hint of surprise, he got up and poured out two drinks. The girl came over to me.
“I’m very sorry,” she said humbly; “that was rude of me. You must think we’re very curious hosts.”
I did think so, but I grinned. “That’s all right. I’m afraid I’ve got rather a bad temper.”
Zaleshoff handed me my glass. “It’s a wonder that some good man hasn’t shot her before this.”
“Probably,” she retorted calmly, “because most good men don’t carry guns.” She examined me curiously. “Why didn’t you throw something at me just now, Mr. Marlow?”
“Because,” said her brother sharply, “there wasn’t anything handy. Now, for goodness’ sake, Tamara, get on with your sewing. Are you married, Marlow?”
“No. Engaged. She’s a doctor in England.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t want to appear inquisitive, but is there any particular reason why you should have taken this job here?”
“Yes. I got caught in what is politely called a trade recession. I couldn’t get a job worth having in England. My savings were nearly all gone. I was feeling desperate one day, and I accepted an offer from Spartacus.”
“I see. Then I suppose you wouldn’t object to Vagas’ two thousand lire a month if I could give you a good enough reason for taking it?”
I hesitated. “Frankly, Zaleshoff, I don’t think there’s a good enough reason in existence. At this very moment I’m telling myself that I’m a damn fool to sit here listening to you when I might be catching up on some of the sleep I missed last night. But I’m curious. I can’t believe that you’re such a half-wit as to spend an hour putting me off Vagas’ offer so thoroughly if you really wanted me to accept it.”
“I wasn’t putting you off. I was giving you the facts.”
“The distinction is too much for me. I’m not quite crazy, you know. Do you suppose I want to share that poor devil Ferning’s fate?”
“I do not suppose anything of the sort. But there’s no reason why you should share his fate.”
“That’s precisely what I’ m thinking. You, I gather, have something up your sleeve.”
“No. I just want to put a situation to you.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you ever read newspapers?”
“As little as possible, these days. Why?”
“Have you ever heard of a little thing called the Rome-Berlin axis?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Have you ever looked at what it means on a map?”
“I can’t say I’ve bothered to.”
“You should. It’s interesting. A solid, strategic unit from the Frisian Islands in the North to the toe of Italy in the South. The toe is waiting to kick Great Britain in the pants. The head is there to gobble up what’s left. The Rome-Berlin axis is one of the most effective principles of European power-politics that has ever been stated. It gave Italy and Germany a free hand in Spain. It changed Austria from an independent state to a memory. It made England launch the most gigantic peace-time armament-making drive the world has ever seen. It cocked the biggest snook yet at the League of Nations idea. It deprived France of her little Entente allies. It’s frightened the rest of Europe so badly that it lives now in a permanent state of jitters. Even the United States have become uneasy. The world is slowly beginning to turn on the Rome-Berlin axis and already the strain is telling. Something’s got to snap, something’s going to snap; and if it’s not the Rome-Berlin axis, it’s going to be you and me. The statesmen of the so-called democracies, France and England, are busting themselves in their efforts to make it the axis that goes first. And they look like failing. Things are moving too quickly for them. They try to buy off Italy and fail. They try again. They can’t hit out for fear of hurting themselves. They’re out of their depths and they know it. They’re as mixed as my metaphors. They’re confused and confounded. And meanwhile we drift nearer and nearer to war. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are getting ready to go; and, Marlow, if those boys ride out again across Europe, you can say good-bye to all your dreams. It’ll be a war that’ll make the world safe for everything except mankind. A government will be formed with King Typhus at the head of a parliament of corpse-fed rats.”
He paused for a moment. “I dare say you’re wondering where all this is leading. I’ll tell you. It’s leading to a question-this question. If someone told you that by taking a certain course you could make a very, very small, but very, very positive, contribution towards putting a kink in that axis we’ve been talking about, what would you say?”
“I’d say that he had a bee in his bonnet.”
He grinned. “H’m, yes. You probably would say that. But supposing that he hadn’t got a bee in his bonnet, supposing he was talking good hard sense, and supposing he could prove it. What would you do then?”
I fidgeted. “I’m not very fond of these beautifully simple parables, Zaleshoff. Vagas has a weakness for them, too. Let’s get down to cases.”
“Just what I was going to do.” He put his hand in his pocket. “You wanted the dope; here’s the first bit. It’s the card from that file in my office, card number V. 18. Take a look at it.”
His hand came out with the card folded in two.
The picture of Vagas was obviously a photostat of a photograph taken some years before. There was more hair on top of the head and the sides were cropped. The skin of the face was tighter. He wore a high tubular stiff collar with a broad, flat tie. Below the photostat was pasted a square of typewritten paper.
Johann Luitpold Vagas (I read) born Dresden 1889. Heidelberg. Army 1909. 6th Bavarian Cavalry. Berlin 1913. War Ministry. 1917 Iron Cross and Star of Leopold. 1918 refugee to Belgrade. Yugo-Slav citizenship 1922. 1924 Yugo-Slav agent for Cator amp; Bliss Ltd. of London. Returned Germany 1933. Returned Belgrade 1934. Rome 1936. Milan 1937. See S. 22, J. 15, P. 207, C. 64, F. 326.
I looked up. “Well, what’s it all about?”
Zaleshoff frowned. “Does nothing there strike you?”
I read the card again. “Well, he appears to have been agent for a British steel firm.”
“Yes, he sold guns to the Yugo-Slav government; but that’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
