The Sergeant thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. It is a good question, Corporal. I see his reason. Mr. Carey, I am known by another name to the police.”
“Very well, then. I’m not interested in helping the Greek police. I’m concerned with the disposal of a big estate. Supposing that alias of yours could be kept out of the proceedings altogether-and I don’t see why it shouldn’t-would that make your decision easier?”
The Sergeant’s shrewd eyes watched him steadily. “Would there be no photographs in the newspapers of such a lucky man, Mr. Carey?”
“Sure, there’d be pictures all over the front pages. Oh, I see. You mean that, names or no names, the fact that you’d been in Greece would be bound to attract attention here and the pictures would identify you anyway.”
“So many persons know my face,” said the Sergeant apologetically. “So you see, I must think.”
“Yes, I see that,” said George. He knew now that the Sergeant understood the position as clearly as he did. If the robbery or robberies in which he had been concerned were extraditable offences, then any kind of publicity would be fatal to him. Among those who would know his face, for instance, would be the clerks in the Salonika branch of the Eurasian Credit Bank. The only thing the Sergeant did not understand was that George was aware of the true position. No doubt a day would come when it would be safe to enlighten him; in Mr. Sistrom’s office perhaps. For the present, discretion was advisable.
“How long do you want to think, Sergeant?” he said.
“Until tomorrow. If you will tomorrow night come back we will speak again.”
“O.K.”
“And you will bring also my family papers?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Then auf Wiedersehen.”
“Auf Wiedersehen.”
“You will not forget the papers?”
“No, I won’t forget, Sergeant.”
Arthur took them back to the truck. He was silent on the way. It was evident that he, too, had plenty to think about. But when they were in the truck again and he was about to do up the canvas, he paused, and leaned on the tailboard.
“Do you like the Sarge?” he said.
“He’s quite a guy, you must be very fond of him.”
“Best pal in the world,” said Arthur curtly. “I was just asking. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to him, if you take my meaning.”
George chuckled. “How would you like to be the most unpopular man in Philadelphia, Arthur?”
“Eh?”
“That’s what I shall be if anything happens to Franz Schirmer.”
“Oh-la-la! Sorry I spoke.”
“Forget it. Say, what about taking it easy this time on some of those bends going down?”
“O.K., pal. You’re the doctor. Easy it is.”
The opening between the driver’s seat and the rear of the truck had a flap over it, and during the drive down to the culvert George struck a match so that Miss Kolin could examine the false number-plates again. She looked at them carefully and nodded. George extinguished the match impatiently. Any real hopes he might have had that the Sergeant would, after all, turn out to be only another simple-minded zealot of the Phengaros type had long since been abandoned. It was absurd to go on clutching at straws.
Promising to meet them again the following night at the same place, Arthur left them at the culvert. They stumbled back to the car, roused the old man from his sleep, and set out on the road back to Florina.
Although it was the first opportunity they had had of talking privately since they had met the Sergeant, neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then it was Miss Kolin who at last broke the silence.
“What do you intend to do?” she asked.
“Cable the office for instructions.”
“You will not inform the police?”
“Not unless the office tells me to. In any case, I’m by no means certain that we have anything more than vague suspicions to tell them.”
“Is that your honest opinion?”
“Miss Kolin, I wasn’t sent to Europe to act as a Greek police informer. I was sent to find the rightful claimant to the Schneider Johnson estate and produce him in Philadelphia. Well, that’s what I’m doing. It’s no concern of mine what he is here. He can be a brigand, a bandit, an outlaw, a travelling salesman, or the Metropolitan Archbishop of Salonika, for all I care. In Philadelphia, he’s the rightful claimant to the Schneider Johnson estate, and what he is here doesn’t affect his claim in the least.”
“I should think it would considerably affect his value in court.”
“That’ll be his attorney’s headache, not mine, and he can deal with it how he pleases. Anyway, why should you worry?”
“I thought that you believed in justice.”
“I do. That’s why Franz Schirmer is going to Philadelphia if I can get him there.”
“Justice!” She laughed unpleasantly.
George was already tired; now he began to get annoyed.
“Look, Miss Kolin. You are engaged as an interpreter, not as a legal adviser or my professional conscience. Let’s both stick to our jobs. At the moment, the only thing that matters is that, incredible as it may seem, this man is Franz Schirmer.”
“He is also a German of the worst type,” she said sullenly.
“I’m not interested in what type he is. All I’m concerned with is the fact that he exists.”
There was silence for a moment and he thought that the argument was ended. Then she began to laugh again.
“Quite a guy, the Sarge!” she said derisively.
“Now look, Miss Kolin,” he began, “I’ve been very…”
But she was not listening any more. “The swine!” she exclaimed bitterly. “The filthy swine!”
George stared at her. She began pounding her knees with her fists and repeating the word “filthy.”
“Miss Kolin. Don’t you think…”
She rounded on him. “That girl in Salonika! You heard what he did?”
“I also heard what she did.”
“Only for revenge after he had seduced her. And how many more has he treated that way?”
“Aren’t you being a bit silly?”
She did not hear him. “How many more victims?” Her voice rose. “They are always the same, these beasts- killing, and torturing, and raping wherever they go. What do the Americans and British know of them? Your armies do not fight in your own lands. Ask the French about the Germans in their streets and in their houses. Ask the Poles and Russians, the Czechs, the Yugoslavs. These men are filthy slime on the land that suffers them. Filth! Beating and torturing, beating and torturing, bearing down with their strength, until they-until they-”
She broke off, staring blankly ahead as if she had forgotten what she had been going to say. Then, suddenly, she crumpled into a passionate storm of weeping.
George sat there as stolidly as his embarrassment and the lurching of the car would allow, trying to remember how many drinks he had seen her have since they had left Florina. It seemed to him that her glass had never once been empty while they had been at the Sergeant’s headquarters, but he could not quite remember. Probably she had kept refilling it. If that were so, she must have had the best part of a bottle of plum brandy, as well as her after-dinner cognacs. He had been too preoccupied to pay much attention to her.
She was sobbing quietly now. The old man driving had merely glanced round once and then taken no further interest. Presumably he was accustomed to distracted women. George was not. He was feeling sorry for her; but he was also remembering her pleasure in the anecdotes of Colonel Chrysantos, the man who knew “how to deal with Germans.”
After a while, she went to sleep, her head cushioned in her arms against the back of the seat. The sky was
