Sergius gave him a look more commonly associated with a starving crocodile which has just sported lunch.
7
The circus left for Crau on the Wednesday night. Before its departure Bruno had gone to Dr Harper’s rail compartment. For a man with so much on his mind, facing up to what was unquestionably the crucial moment of his professional career, Harper was remarkably calm and relaxed. It was more than could be said of Wrinfield, who sat there with a drink in his hand and a most dispirited expression on his face. Wrinfield had screwed his courage to the sticking point but now that the moment was at hand he had about him the air of a man who suspects that something is about to become unstuck. Crau was a huge black cloud on his horizon.
“Evening, Bruno. A seat. What will you drink?” “Thank you. Nothing. I’ve only one a week and I’m reserving that for later.”
“With the fair Miss Hopkins, one would suppose?”
“One would suppose correctly.”
“Why don’t you marry the girl?” Wrinfield said sourly. “She’s getting so she’s almost useless to me now, either moping or dreaming the whole day long.”
“I’m going to. Maybe she’s worried and nervous. Like yourself, Mr Wrinfield.”
“Going to what?” Harper said.
“Marry her.”
“Good God!”
Bruno took no offence. “Marriage is a common enough institution.”
Wrinfield said suspiciously: “Does she know about this?” Wrinfield had become genuinely fond of her and had come to treat her as the daughter he’d never had, more especially since Henry’s death.
“Yes.” Bruno smiled. “So would you, if you kept your eyes open, sir. She sat next to you at table tonight.” Wrinfield clapped his palm against his forehead. “She was wearing a ring tonight. She’s never worn a ring before. Fourth finger, left hand.” He paused and came up with a triumphant solution. “An engagement ring.”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind, sir. Like Maria. I bought it this afternoon.”
“Well, congratulations. When we move off, we must come and toast the happy couple.” Bruno winced but said nothing. “Eh, Dr Harper?”
“Indeed. I couldn’t be more pleased.”
“Thank you. I didn’t come to talk about the ring, though, just the company I had when I bought it. I’m afraid someone is on to me. A couple of nights ago I went with Maria to a cafe. It so happened Roebuck came along very soon after. He said he’d been intrigued by the behaviour of a character who emerged from the shadows of an alley near the circus when we’d passed by. Apparently he followed us all the way to the cafe, stopped when we stopped then took up a position across the road where he could watch us. It could have been coincidence or Roe-buck’s lively imagination. Last night I was pretty certain that Maria and I were being followed again but I wasn’t sure. Today I was because it was in daylight. Not one shadow but two, taking the job in turns, one with artificially waved blond hair, the other completely bald. We wandered aimlessly, like a couple of tourists, wherever the fancy took us: they followed everywhere.”
“I don’t like this,” Harper said.
“Thank you for not questioning my word. I don’t much like it either. And I don’t understand it. I’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing to attract any attention to myself. Maybe it’s just because my name is Wildermann and Crau’s my home town. It’s anybody’s guess. Maybe a dozen other circus people are under surveillance, too. Who’s to say?”
“Most disturbing,” Wrinfield said. “Most disturbing. What are you going to do, Bruno?”
“What can I do? Just keep going, that’s all. Play it as it comes. One thing’s for sure, they won’t be shadowing me on the night.”
“The night?”
“Hasn’t Dr Harper told you?”
“Ah. Tuesday. I wonder where we’ll all be then.” With much clanking and shuddering the train began slowly to get under way.
“I know where I’ll be. See you shortly.” Bruno turned to go, then stopped short at the sight of the miniature transceiver on Harper’s desk. “Tell me. I’ve often wondered. How is it that the customs in various countries remove just about the fillings from our teeth while you manage to sail through with that transceiver?”
“Transceiver? What transceiver?” Harper clamped the earphones to his head, touched the microphone to Bruno’s chest, switched on the power and pulled the transmit switch backwards instead of forwards. The machine hummed and a narrow strip of paper emerged from an all but invisible slit at the side. After about ten seconds Harper switched off, tore the protruding few inches of paper away and showed it to Bruno. It had a long wavy line along the middle. “A cardiograph machine, my dear Bruno. Every travelling doctor needs one. You can’t imagine the fun I’ve had taking the cardiographs of customs official after customs official.”
“Whatever will they think of next.” Bruno left, walked along the corridors of the now-swaying train, picked up Maria from her compartment, took her along to his own, unlocked the handleless door and ushered her inside.
Bruno said: “Shall we have some music? Romantic, to fit the occasion? Then one of my incomparable dry martinis to celebrate — if that is the word — my descent into human bondage. And — it is just a thought — a few sweet nothings in your ear.”
She smiled. “That all sounds very pleasant. Especially the sweet nothings.”
He turned on the record player, keeping the volume low, mixed the martinis, set them on the table, sat on the settee beside her and pressed his face against the dark hair in the approximate area of where her ear could be presumed to be. From the expressions on Maria’s face, first of startlement then of sheer incredulity, it was clear that Bruno had a line in sweet nothings that she had not previously encountered. Crau lay just under two hundred miles distant, so that even for a necessarily slow freight train it was no more than a brief overnight haul there, with two intermediate stops. They left in darkness, they arrived in darkness, and it was still dark when they disembarked. It was also extremely cold. The first overwhelming impression of Crau was one of bleak inhospitability, but then railway sidings, especially in cold and darkness, are not the most welcoming of places anywhere. The siding in which they had just drawn up was an inconvenient three quarters of a mile from the circus auditorium, but the organizational genius of Wrinfield and his executive staff had been functioning with its usual smooth efficiency and a fleet of trucks, buses and private cars was already waiting alongside. Bruno walked beside the track towards a group of circus performers and hands who stood huddled under the harsh glare of an overhead arc-lamp. After exchanging the routine good mornings he looked around for his two brothers, but failed to see them. He spoke to the man nearest him, Malthius, the tiger trainer.
“Seen my wandering brothers around? They’re a very hungry couple who never fail to join me for breakfast but I haven’t had the pleasure this morning.”
“No.” Malthius called out: “Anyone seen Vladimir and Yoffe this morning?” When it soon became apparent that no one had, Malthius turned to one of his assistant trainers. “Go and give them a shake, will you?”
The man left. Dr Harper and Wrinfield, both with fur hats and collars upturned against the gently falling snow, came up and said their good mornings. Wrinfield said to Bruno: “Like to come with me and see what kind of exhibition hall they have for us here? For some odd reason it’s called the Winter Palace, although I can’t see it having any possible resemblance to that place in Leningrad.” He shivered violently. “Even more important, however, is the fact that I am told that the central heating is superb.”
“I’d like to. If you could just wait a moment. Two-thirds of the Blind Eagles seem to have slept in this morning. Ah! Here’s Johann.”
Urgency in his voice, Malthius’s assistant said: “I think you’d better come, Bruno. Quickly!” Bruno said nothing, just jumped quickly aboard the train. Dr Harper and Wrinfield, after an uncomprehending glance at each other, followed closely behind him.
Vladimir and Yoffe had shared a double-bedded compartment, nothing like the princely quarters of their elder brother but comfortable enough for all that. They had become renowned and teased at for their almost compulsive
