lights of the Danube Corso and the long beams of the Russian antiaircraft searchlights in the Varosliget, the city park a few blocks away.
There was a broken-down armoire, covered with dust, against the wall, on the side of the building away from the alley. The door, its glass front shattered, hung drunkenly from one rusted hinge. When the old woman had recovered her breath from the climb, she kicked the door open and stuck her head inside. When she stepped back, we could see that the back panel of the armoire had slid aside; there was an entrance to the warehouse next door.
Schmidt elbowed the old woman aside and squeezed his squat body through the armoire. A few moments later the narrow opening was flooded with light, then Schmidt reappeared.
“Hermann.”
“Ja wohl, Excellenz.” The pants presser clicked his heels.
“I shall need Otto here with me to help entertain our friends. But I want that car moved from here immediately. It is much too dangerous. You will drive it to Felix in Matyasfold, Verstehen Sie?”
“Ja wohl, Excellenz.”
“You will give your uniform to Felix. He will return your civilian clothes and the necessary documents. He will also give you clothes and documents for Otto. You will return here promptly in one hour. If you are stopped by police, you will tell them you are Frau Hoffmeyer’s nephew.”
“God forbid,” said the old woman.
“Shut up,” said Schmidt. “You will say you are to visit Frau Hoffmeyer. Your papers will bear you out. Do you understand, Hermann?”
“Ja wohl, Excellenz.”
“As soon as we are inside, you will help Frau Hoffmeyer replace the dust on this armoire and you will pile some junk in front of the door. Verstehen Sie, Hermann?”
“Ja wohl, Excellenz.”
“Gut,” said Schmidt. “Gehen Sie schnell.” He raised his hand with the palm outstretched. “Heil Hitler.” Hermann clicked his heels for the tenth time. “Heil Hitler.”
The old woman cackled. “In my day we said, ‘Hoch der Kaiser.’ ”
“Shut up, old fool,” Schmidt said. “Who cares about your day? Your day is gone forever.”
Otto herded Maria and me into the warehouse room, and the armoire panel closed behind us.
The room into which we moved I took to be the repair shop for the warehouse. There were wooden benches against the three outer walls of yellow brick and without windows. The benches were cluttered with tools of every description from screwdrivers to power lathes. The fourth wall, opposite the entrance, was of rough, unpainted wood and also windowless. At one time there must have been a stairway from the floor of the warehouse, some forty feet below, but there existed no sign of it. The only ventilation came from a big skylight under which was stretched a blackout curtain on wires. The room was lighted by electricity, and in one corner there was a tank with water taps.
There was a desk against the wooden wall, opposite the entrance, and half a dozen chairs in front of it, but the main exhibit was a life-size oil painting on the wall behind the desk. The picture was lighted the way people light pictures of their more prosperous ancestors. The subject was Adolf Hitler.
“Sit down, please,” Dr. Schmidt said. He placed his hat and coat and cane on the workbench, then seated himself at the desk. He might have been preparing to instruct a class in manual training except for the revolver he placed within reach. Otto stood behind Maria and me.
The doctor cleared his throat.
“I am quite sure there is no need for me to introduce myself.” His tiny pig eyes gleamed behind the gold- rimmed spectacles. “Fraulein Torres I have had the pleasure of meeting in Geneva. You, mein Herr, I do not know —yet. But I shall know you very well. Is it not so, Otto?”
“Ja wohl, Excellenz.”
I found myself saying to Maria, “I thought you told me you didn’t understand German?”
“I don’t,” Maria said. Her composure made my own nerves twice as jumpy.
“I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle,” Schmidt said. “I had forgotten. We shall speak French. Or rather, should I say, I shall speak French.” He had the habit of cocking his head and pulling on his ear as if to emphasize his point. “I promise you shall have your chance to talk later.”
Otto giggled.
Schmidt picked up the revolver and sighted it over our heads at an imaginary target. He put down the revolver, removed his spectacles, and wiped them with a handkerchief.
“First of all, you will please put Monsieur Blaye’s Manila envelope on the desk.”
When neither Maria nor I moved, the doctor said, “Come, come,” and pulled at his ear. When nothing happened then, he said, “I’m afraid I shall have to ask Otto to find which of you is carrying it.”
With Schmidt pointing the gun at me, I had to let Otto search me. I didn’t like his running his hands over Maria and I must have shown it in my face because the doctor said, “Please remain calm, Monsieur.”
Otto put Blaye’s passport and the traveler’s checks and Maria’s passport on the desk. He stepped back, and we sat down.
“You examined the suitcases they took off the train, Otto?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“And what did you find?”
“A toothbrush, three odd stockings, a suit of lady’s underwear, one shoe—”
“That will do, Otto. You did not find a large Manila envelope, the one you took from Mademoiselle Torres in the snow last night, the one you gave Strakhov like the fool you are?”
“There was no envelope at all, Excellency.”
Schmidt picked up the revolver and ran his hand along the barrel. Through the skylight came the sound of a locomotive whistling for the grade crossing in front of the warehouse.
By this time my nerves were ragged. The whole performance had turned into a never-ending nightmare. I had come to Hungary on what I thought was a forged passport, on a personal mission, an attempt to trace my brother. I had good reason to fear the Russians and the Hungarians, the masters in this country. There was no reason whatever to get mixed up with Herr Doktor Wolfgang Schmidt, a German who sat under a portrait of Adolf Hitler in a Budapest warehouse. Whatever his racket, he was just as much afoul of the authorities as I was. A good deal more, because he’d murdered a Russian officer. The killer could only have been Schmidt looking for that damned envelope.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what this is all about and I’m not interested. If you’re worried about that list of watchmakers, I hid it on the train.”
Schmidt leaned across the desk. The ugly dueling scar stood out on his cheek.
“So.” He picked up the revolver by the barrel and smashed the butt on the desk. “You take me for a fool. You want me to believe you left that envelope on the train? Ah, no, Monsieur, you will have to tell a better story than that.”
“It’s true,” I said.
Schmidt said, “You will find we have ways of getting the facts.”
Otto giggled.
“All in due time, Otto, all in due time,” the doctor said.
He stared at me a minute or so. “I must confess, Monsieur, that up to now I had a certain admiration for you. I put you down as a clever man. Frankly, I did not suspect your existence until I saw you with Mademoiselle Torres on the Orient Express.”
“There wasn’t any reason for you to know about me,” I said. “I’d never heard of you, either.”
Dr. Schmidt laughed. “I suggest you dispense with the comedy.”
I told you my nerves were ragged. I blurted out the story of my brother, the story I’d told Maria the night before in the snow, out under the stars. I told why the Russians refused me a Hungarian visa for my American passport and how I’d purchased what I thought was a forgery from Herr Figl in Vienna.
“How amusing,” Schmidt said. “You do have a talent for storytelling. But you cannot suppose I am fool enough to believe such a fabrication.”
He removed his glasses once more and wiped them.
