seven.’
‘I have it here.’
‘Read it please.’
‘It reads: V. in difficulty. Advise D. urgent.’
‘Is that written or typewritten?’
‘Typewritten.’
‘Is there anything else on the paper?’
‘Yes, sir, some pencil writing.’
‘Read it please.’
‘It reads: Strumitza, twelve.’
The courtroom stirred.
‘Is that an address?’
‘Yes, sir. It is the prisoner’s address.’
‘What explanation have you for its being there?’
‘It is in Pazar’s handwriting. I suggest that as the message was urgent he did not deliver it to the usual accommodation address for the prisoner, but took it direct to his home. The pencil note was a memorandum of an address which Pazar would not normally use.’
I looked at Deltchev. His eyes were closed again. He had not moved. It was impossible to believe. And yet…
Stanoiev did not cross-examine. Kroum left the witness box reluctantly, like an ageing prima donna on a farewell tour, and one of his colleagues took his place. The questioning was resumed. What Kroum had said was now elaborately confirmed. I no longer paid much attention. I was trying to digest what I had already heard.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was true; of that I had little doubt. Prochaska had an air of confidence that was not of the kind he could assume. Perhaps clever cross-examination could have made much of Kroum’s evidence look weak; Deltchev was not an uncommon name, and when you pointed out that the prisoner’s identification with the D. of the messages rested solely on a pencilled note of an address alleged to be in the handwriting of a man who could not be produced, you might have shaken a jury’s belief in the whole story. But here there was no jury to be shaken and, after the massive certainties of Vukashin and the rest, the very flimsiness of the thing gave it probability. Someone named Deltchev who lived in Deltchev’s house had been in close touch with persons desperate enough, as Eftib and Vlahov had been, to shoot when confronted by the police or to commit suicide when arrested. Madame Deltchev? Absurd. Katerina Deltchev? By the time the luncheon break came, I thought I was ready for Pashik.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘what do you think?’
‘It is very interesting.’
‘Yes. Where do you think Pazar is now?’
He shrugged elaborately. ‘It is a mystery.’
‘So they say. When do you think they’ll find that man in Patriarch Dimo?’
The brown eyes looked at me steadily. He did not reply.
I stared back at him. ‘I would guess that it’s Pazar’s body in that room, wouldn’t you?’ I said.
‘What makes you think that, Mr Foster?’
‘Just an association of ideas. Someone in Deltchev’s house sent messages to a man named Pazar. That man is now missing. Someone in Deltchev’s house sends a message by me to a man who lived in Patriarch Dimo. That man is now dead.’
‘That is bad logic, Mr Foster.’
‘It might be good guessing. Do you believe that Deltchev was in a conspiracy to assassinate Vukashin?’
‘It could be so.’
‘Yes, it could be, but do you think yourself that it was so?’
‘Who else could there be, Mr Foster?’
‘Katerina Deltchev could be the D. of those messages.’
He showed his brown teeth in a smile. ‘A nice young lady of twenty in a Brotherhood conspiracy? That is a very funny idea, but it is no more than funny. The Officer Corps Sisterhood! Ah, please, Mr Foster!’
‘Yes, it’s silly. I’m trying to find a reasonable explanation, that’s all.’
‘The reasonable explanation is the one already given. Mr Foster, we are newspapermen, not attorneys for the defence. We need only observe and report. We are lucky.’
He had a bland, non-committal look on his face. At breakfast I had not mentioned the events of the night before. In the morning light they had assumed the proportions of a bad dream, and until I could talk to Petlarov I was content to leave them so. Besides, I was tired of Pashik’s denials and warnings and had made up my mind to discover something about the case of ‘K. Fischer, Vienna ’46’ before I tackled him again. It looked now as if he thought I had taken his advice. I put aside a temptation to correct the impression.
‘What was the Brotherhood plan they’re being so secretive about?’ I asked.
‘I know no more than you, Mr Foster.’
‘Doesn’t Valmo know? Surely a man in his position would know such things?’
‘I am not in his confidence to that extent.’
‘Did you know Pazar or Eftib?’
To my surprise, he nodded. ‘Eftib I knew. He was a young man with a great dislike of dogs. A dog he found tied up one day he beat to death with a piece of chain. The other students disliked and feared him. He was not sane, I think.’
‘How did you know him?’
‘The dog he killed belonged to one of the Professors at the University. There was a scandal. I reported it for a newspaper, but his family paid to avoid the publicity. By now,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘they may wish he had been safely put in prison.’
The waiter came up with our food. This particular section of the restaurant was reserved for the pressmen attending the trial and across the room I could see Sibley talking earnestly and confidentially to one of the Americans. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Pashik looking at me. He looked away almost as I saw him, but not quite fast enough. He had to cover up.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Mr Sibley is busy still. He may succeed with someone who has no reason to suspect him. It is very strange.’
I smiled. ‘There’s something I find even stranger, Pashik.’
‘Yes, Mr Foster?’ He was on his guard again.
‘I find it strange that although you are quite ready to serve someone you say is of the Government secret police, you put obstacles in the way of Sibley, who is trying to serve the Propaganda Ministry.’
He stared at me for a moment and I thought he was about to reply. Then he changed his mind, cleared his throat, and picked up his knife and fork. ‘Mr Foster,’ he said heavily, ‘I think we should get on with our eating.’
I could get nothing more out of him. After the luncheon break the conspiracy evidence was resumed. Now that he had something like real evidence to deal with, Prochaska spread himself. Every detail of Kroum’s evidence was sworn to by three or four different persons, every document certified and proved. Had you not heard the earlier days of the trial, you might from Prochaska’s attitude have supposed the judges to be pettifogging martinets hostile to his case. When you remembered the rubbish that had already been admitted as evidence by that pathetic trio, the present solemnity was funny. But not for long. Presently it became boring. Only one thing kept me there: the possibility of Deltchev’s speaking in his own defence. But he seemed as bored as I was. As witness after witness was brought in to swear to the authenticity of the message with his address on it, I expected a protest from him. It would have been easy enough.
‘These conscientious policemen swear to the presence of my address on this piece of paper. Nobody disputes that it is there. Why waste the time they might be devoting to more useful duties? Produce a really serious witness: the man who wrote it or who saw it written or, even better, the man who can tell us why and in what
