you for the job or did you graduate from the flogging cells?” He gave me a violent push that sent me staggering back to the wall.
His fist was clenched and he was coming towards me again when there was a knock at the door.
For a moment we stared at each other in silence; then he straightened his back, walked to the door and opened it. It was one of the waiters.
“You rang, Monsieur?” I heard him say.
Schimler seemed to hesitate. Then:
“I am sorry,” he said; “I did not mean to ring. You can go.”
He shut the door and, leaning against it, looked at me. “That was a fortunate interruption for you, my friend. It is many years since I lost my temper so completely. I was going to kill you.”
I strove to keep the tremor out of my voice. “And now that you have regained your temper, perhaps we can talk sense. A little while ago you remarked that the best defense is attack. I am afraid that your calling me a spy is a somewhat naive way of putting that notion into practice. Don’t you agree?”
He was silent. I began to regain my self-possession. This was going to be easier than I had thought. The main thing now was to find out what he had done with the camera. Then I would get the waiter back to telephone Beghin.
“If,” I went on, “you knew the trouble you had caused me you would be far more sympathetic. I can still feel that crack on the head you gave me last night. And if you haven’t already spoiled those two rolls of film I should like them back before the police come. You know, they talked of not letting me go back to Paris until the matter was cleared up. However, now that it is cleared up, I hope you are going to be sensible. By the way, what did you do with the camera?”
He was frowning at me uncertainly. “If this is some sort of trap…” he began, and paused. “I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about,” he concluded.
I shrugged. “You’re being very foolish. Have you ever heard of a man named Beghin?”
He shook his head.
“I am afraid you soon will. He is a member of the Surete Generale attached to the Naval Intelligence Department at Toulon. Does that suggest nothing to you?”
He came slowly to the center of the room. I prepared to defend myself. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the bell-push. A couple of strides and I should be able to reach it. The next time he moved I would make a dash. But he stood still.
“I have a suspicion, Vadassy, that we are talking at cross purposes.”
I smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Then I am afraid I do not understand you.”
I sighed impatiently. “Is it really worth denying? Be sensible, please. What have you done with the camera?”
“Is this some very clumsy joke?”
“It is not, as you will soon find out.” Feeling that I was not handling the situation particularly well, I began to get annoyed. “I propose to call the police. Have you any objections?”
“To the police? None at all. Call them by all means.”
He might be bluffing, but I felt a little uneasy. Without the evidence of the camera I was helpless. I decided to change my tactics. For a second or two I stared hard at him, then I broke into a crestfallen grin. “Do you know,” I said sheepishly, “I have an unhappy suspicion that I have made a mistake.”
His eyes searched mine warily. “I feel quite sure that is the case.”
I sighed. “Well, I am very sorry to have caused you all this inconvenience. I feel extremely foolish. Monsieur Duclos will be most amused.”
“Who?” The question was like a pistol shot.
“Monsieur Duclos. He is a pleasant old man, a little talkative, it is true, but sympathetic.”
I saw him control himself with an effort. He came nearer to me. His voice was dangerously calm. “Who are you and what do you want? Are you from the police?”
“I am connected with the police.” This, I thought, was rather neat. “You know my name. All I want is a piece of information. What have you done with that camera?”
“And if I still tell you that I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“I shall hand you over for interrogation. What is more”-I watched him narrowly-“I shall make known what you seem so anxious to keep quiet-the fact that your name is not Heinberger.”
“The police already know it.”
“I know that. I regret to say that I have no confidence whatever in the intelligence of the local police. Now do you know what I am talking about?”
“No.”
I smiled and went to pass him to go to the door. He gripped my arm and swung me round.
“Listen, you fool,” he said savagely, “I don’t know what’s the matter with you, but you seem to have got some idea into your head about me. Whatever it is, you seem to regard the fact that I am anxious to conceal my identity as some sort of proof that your idea is correct. Is that right?”
“Approximately.”
“Very well, then. My reasons for using the name Heinberger have nothing whatever to do with you. Koche is aware of them. The police have my correct name. You, who have no idea what those reasons are, propose to be wilfully indiscreet unless I give you some information which I do not possess. Is that correct, too?”
“More or less. Assuming, of course, that you haven’t got the information.”
He ignored this last remark and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know how you found out. The police here told you, I suppose, and those passports in the wardrobe. In any case, I’ve got to stop the news getting any further. I am being perfectly frank with you, you see! I must stop you. The only way I can hope to do that is to give you my reasons. There is nothing very strange about them. My case is by no means unique.”
He paused to relight his pipe. His eyes met mine across the bowl. The ironic expression had returned to them. “You look, Vadassy, as though you weren’t going to believe a word of anything.”
“I don’t know that I am.”
He blew the match out. “Well, we’ll see. But you must remember one thing; I am trusting you. I have, of course, no alternative but to do so. I cannot persuade you to trust me.”
There was a hint of a question in the pause that followed the remark. For one fleeting instant I weakened; but only for an instant.
“I am trusting nobody.”
He sighed. “Very well. But it is a long story. It begins in 1933. I was editor of a social-democrat newspaper in Berlin, the Telegrafblatt.” He shrugged. “It is no longer in existence. It was not a bad paper. I had some clever journalists working for me. It was the property of a sawmill owner in East Prussia. He was a good man, a reformer, with a profound admiration for the nineteenth-century English liberals, Godwin and John Stuart Mill, people like that. He went into mourning when Stresemann died. He used sometimes to send me down leading articles about the brotherhood of man and the necessity of replacing the struggle between capital and labor with co-operation based on Christ’s teaching. I must say he was on the best of terms with his own employees; but I have an idea that his mills were losing money. Then came 1933.
“The trouble with postwar German social-democracy was that it supported with one hand what it was trying to fight with the other. It believed in the freedom of the individual capitalist to exploit the worker and the freedom of the worker to organize his trade union and fight the capitalist. Its great illusion was its belief in the limitless possibilities of compromise. It thought that it could build Utopia within the Constitution of Weimar, that the only sublime political conception was reform, that the rotten economic structure of the world could be shored up at the bottom with material from the top. Worst of all, it thought that you could meet force with good will, that the way to deal with a mad dog was to stroke it. In 1933 German social-democracy was bitten and died in agony.
“The Telegrafblatt was one of the first papers to be closed down. Twice we were raided. The second time the machine-room was wrecked with hand grenades. Even that we survived. We were lucky enough to find a printer who could and would print a newspaper of sorts for us. But three weeks later he refused to print any more papers for us. He had been visited by the police. The same day we had a telegram from the owner saying that owing to losses in his business he had been compelled to sell the paper. The purchaser was a Nazi official, and I happen to
