subversive activities of the Brotherhood than half-hearted collaboration with the German Army? Not with the sharp and sceptical Gestapo, mark you, but with the army. It would be interesting to know about the men who had made the Brotherhood’s policy. Perhaps the trial would reveal them.
But meanwhile Deltchev’s daughter had sent a letter to a cheap lodging where there was a murdered man. I thought about that. Who was Valmo? Katerina’s middle-aged lover? I doubted it. This rather too knowing young woman had offered me a drink because she had thought that the engaging way with an irritable reporter; she had said that the letter was to ‘a young man’ because she had thought, perhaps less incorrectly, that that was the engaging way with a reluctant letter-smuggler. If I had had the presence of mind to do so, I might have looked more closely at the room for signs of a relationship with Katerina; her photograph perhaps, or a letter in her handwriting. A letter. And that brought me back to Pashik.
I had made a mistake about Pashik. I had thought of him as one of those hapless, over-anxious persons who cannot help entangling themselves in systems of small, unnecessary lies. It had not occurred to me that he might have anything of more than private importance to conceal. Now I had to reckon with the news that not only could he be concerned quite calmly with the body of a murdered man but also that his tiresome preoccupation with ‘discretion’ had its origins in something very unlike the old-maidish timidity to which I had attributed it.
At that moment, with a jolt, I came out of the haze of cowlike rumination in which I had been lost and began to think clearly. If Pashik had known that the body was there before he came to the house, why was it necessary to consult his ‘friend in the special police’ so urgently? Answer: because I had been there, because I had seen the body, because I had seen Pashik, because I had drawn certain conclusions, because I might be indiscreet.
I had been pacing up and down the room. I stopped, then went to the door. From another part of the apartment there came very faintly a murmur of voices. I glanced at my watch. Pashik had been gone five minutes. I was suddenly convinced that it would be wise to leave without waiting to be introduced to Pashik’s friend — to leave now, quietly. I hesitated momentarily, then I made up my mind. I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it gently. Then I began to pull. But the door did not move. I had been locked in.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For a moment or two I stood there looking stupidly at the door as if I expected it to open itself. To find oneself locked in a room and know that the locking cannot be accidental or a practical joke is an extraordinary sensation. My feelings were confused and are not easily described; I was angry and frightened and depressed all at once. Then I broke out into a sweat. I tried the door again, then turned away from it. The room suddenly looked different, very large and empty, and I could see every detail in it. There was something familiar and yet not quite right about it.
When I had been walking about I had noticed an inch or two of string looped round one corner of the carpet. Now I saw it again; I was standing on the hardwood surround just by it. At that moment I was wondering if I should hammer on the door and demand to be let out, or sit there quietly and pretend not to have noticed that I had been locked in. Absently I reached down to pick up the string. I wanted something to fidget with. I got the string, but the corner of the carpet came up with it. The string was threaded through the edge of the carpet and tied to a label. The label had some figures written on it and a printed name, obviously that of the dealer who had sold it. It was an expensive carpet, a Sparta, yet the owner had not troubled to remove the price tag. It had simply been tucked away out of sight. I was puzzled. I let the carpet fall back into place and walked round the room again. At one end by the windows there was a buhl cabinet. I opened one of the drawers. There was a small brass screw in it and some dust. I tried the other drawers. All were empty except one, which contained a price tag from the same dealer who had supplied the carpet. I went round quickly looking at the wood of the chairs. They had been used a lot and yet there was a certain un used look about them. And then I knew what was familiar about the room: it was like a stage set when all the furniture has just been brought in and placed in position.
At that moment I heard voices and footsteps in the passage outside. I sat down. They came to the door and there was a slight pause. I knew why. The person who was about to open the door was preparing to turn the knob and the key simultaneously so that the sound of the latch would conceal that of the unlocking. If I did not know that I had been locked in, they did not want to tell me of the fact. My heart beat faster.
The door opened and after a momentary pause Pashik came in. He was followed slowly by a small man in a loose tussore-silk suit and a black tie. I stood up.
Pashik put his hand on my shoulder and enveloped me in a broad smile. ‘Herr Foster,’ he said in German, ‘let me introduce you to Herr Valmo.’
I had no time to digest this surprise. The other man came forward with a polite smile and held his hand out tentatively.
‘So pleased, Herr Foster,’ he said.
He was about fifty, short and very slight, with wispy and receding grey hair brushed back from a sunburnt forehead. It was a thin, pointed face with large, pale blue eyes and an expression that might have been cruel or amused or both. He looked like a retired ballet dancer who has taken successfully to management. In his hand was Katerina Deltchev’s letter. It had been opened.
‘Herr Valmo?’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I am afraid a little explanation is due to you, mein Herr.’ He had a quiet, monotonous voice.
‘It was not possible for me to explain, Herr Foster,’ said Pashik. ‘I could not break a confidence.’
‘Please sit down, Herr Foster, and you, my dear Pashik. A cigarette? Ah, you are already smoking. As our friend Pashik explained to you, I am, you might say, some sort of a policeman, a very’ — he made a belittling gesture with his hand — ‘a very confidential sort of policeman.’ The woman appeared at the door with a tray and he glanced round. ‘Yes, come in, Mentcha. Put it down.’ He turned again, pulled round a chair, and sat facing me. ‘Coffee and a little brandy, Herr Foster. You have had a very upsetting experience, our friend tells me. Thank you, Mentcha. Shut the door. And now,’ he went on as she went out, ‘we must set your mind at rest. In the coffee, the brandy?’
‘Thank you.’
Pashik was sitting deferentially by as if at a conference between his superiors. The hand holding his cigarette was trembling slightly.
Valmo handed me a cup and went on talking as he filled the other two. ‘There is one thing,’ he said, ‘that I must ask of you, Herr Foster. That is that you respect the confidence of what I am about to tell you.’ He held a cup out to Pashik but he looked at me. ‘Pashik tells me that you are not friendly to the regime here. I understand. But I am not a politician. I am a civil servant. Our country is a centre for many conspiracies against the law and it is my task to destroy them. Can I be certain that you will respect my confidence, Herr Foster?’
‘Yes.’ I tasted the coffee.
‘Very well.’ He put his cup behind him on the table and then leaned forward toward me with his elbows on his knees and his hands together. ‘In my role of policeman, Herr Foster, it was my duty to seek out the perpetrators of the bomb outrage against Herr Deltchev which took place shortly before his arrest. I made certain secret enquiries and investigations. It was believed that the criminals had had the Deltchev family under surveillance, and members of the family co-operated with me in identifying them. I have said that my function is not political. Herr Deltchev’s trial does not relieve me of the responsibility of tracing these criminals. You understand?’
I nodded.
‘For reasons with which I will not trouble you,’ he continued, ‘it became necessary for me to install an agent in the Patriarch Dimo. For convenience and identification, the agent employed my name. Very well. Three days ago my agent reported to me that he had news of the men we were after. That night he was killed.’ He paused impressively.
‘Who found him dead?’ I asked.
He stared at me for a moment. Then he turned round and picked up his coffee cup again. ‘I did, Herr Foster,’ he said blandly. ‘However, let me continue. The agent had collected certain documentary evidence against the conspirators, which he kept hidden in the room. I discovered that this had not been stolen. Therefore, I argued, they did not know of its existence. Therefore, if they were made aware of its existence they would return for it. Therefore I replaced the true documents with some false ones that I prepared and sat down to wait for
