The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

The worst of it was that, deep down within himself, he knew that he had not been guided by any kind of impulse at all. It was just his policeman's soul—or whatever it might be called—that had started to function. It was the same instinct that made Kollberg sacrifice his time off—a kind of occupational disease that forced him to take on all assignments and do his best to solve them.

When he got back to the hotel it was a quarter past four and the dining room was closed. He had missed lunch. He went up to his room, showered and put on his dressing gown. Taking a pull of whisky from the bottle he had bought on the plane, he found the taste raw and unpleasant and went out to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Then he leaned out the window, his elbows resting on the wide window sill, and watched the boats. Not even that managed to amuse him very much. Directly below him, at one of the outdoor tables, sat one of the passengers on the boat: the man in the blue suit. He had a glass of beer on the table and was still whittling at his stick.

Martin Beck frowned and lay down on the creaking bed. Again he thought the situation over. Sooner or later he would be forced to contact the police. It was a doubtful measure and no one would like it—at this stage not even he himself.

He whiled away the tune remaining before dinner by sitting idling in an armchair in the lobby. On the other side of the room a gray-haired man wearing a signet ring was reading a Hungarian newspaper. It was the same man who had stared at him at breakfast. Martin Beck looked at him for a long time, but the man tranquilly went on drinking his coffee and seemed quite unconscious of his surroundings.

Martin Beck dined on mushroom soup and a perch-like fish from Lake Balaton, washed down felicitously with white wine. The little orchestra played Liszt and Strauss and other composers of that elevated school. It was a superb dinner, but it did not gladden him, and the waiters swarmed around their lugubrious guest like medical experts around a dictator's sickbed.

He had his coffee and brandy in the lobby. The man with the signet ring was still reading his newspaper on the other side of the room. Once again a glass of coffee was standing in front of him. After a few minutes, the man looked at his watch, glanced across at Martin Beck, folded up his paper and walked across the room.

Martin Beck was to be spared the problem of contacting the police. The police had taken that initiative. Twenty-three years' experience had taught him to recognize a policeman from his walk.

12

The man in the gray suit took a calling card out of his top pocket and placed it on the edge of the table. Martin Beck glanced down at it as he rose to his feet. Only a name. Vilmos Szluka.

'May I sit down?'

The man spoke English. Martin Beck nodded.

'I'm from the police.'

'So am I,' said Martin Beck.

'I realized that. Coffee?'

Martin Beck nodded. The man from the police held up two fingers and almost immediately a waiter hurried forward with two glasses. This was clearly a coffee-drinking nation.

'I also realize that you are here to make certain investigations.'

Martin Beck did not reply immediately. He rubbed his nose and thought. Obviously this was the right moment to say, 'Not at all—I'm here as a tourist, but I'm trying to get hold of a friend I'd like to see.' That was presumably what was expected of him.

Szluka did not seem to be in any special hurry. With obvious pleasure he sipped at his double espresso, however many that made now. Martin Beck had seen him drink at least three earlier in the day. The man was behaving politely but formally. His eyes were friendly, but very professional.

Martin Beck went on pondering. This man was indeed a policeman, but so far as he knew there was no law in the whole world that said that individual citizens should tell the police the truth. Unfortunately.

'Yes,' said Martin Beck. 'That's correct.'

'Then wouldn't the most logical thing to do have been to turn to us first?'

Martin Beck preferred not to reply to that one. After a pause of a few seconds, the other man developed the train of thought himself.

'In the event something that demands an investigation really should have happened,' he said.

'I have no official assignment.'

'And we have not been notified of any charge. Only an inquiry in very vague terms. In other words, it appears that nothing has happened.'

Martin Beck gulped down his coffee, which was extremely strong. The conversation was growing more unpleasant than he had expected. But under any circumstances, there was no reason for him to allow himself to be lectured to in a hotel foyer by a policeman who did not even take the trouble to identify himself.

'Nonetheless, the police here have considered that they had cause to go through Alf Matsson's belongings,' he said.

It was a random comment but it struck home.

'I don't know anything about that,' said Szluka stiffly. 'Can you identify yourself, by the way?'

'Can you?'

He caught a swift change in those brown eyes. The man was by no means harmless.

Szluka put his hand into his inside pocket, withdrew his wallet and opened it, swiftly and casually. Martin Beck did not bother to look, but showed his service badge clipped to his key ring.

'That's not valid identification,' said Szluka. 'In our country you can buy emblems of different kinds in the toyshops.'

This point of view was not entirely without justification and Martin Beck did not consider the matter worth further argument. He took out his identification card.

'My passport is at the reception desk.'

The other man studied the card thoroughly and at length. As he returned it, he said, 'How long are you planning to stay?'

'My visa is good until the end of the month.'

Szluka smiled for the first time during their conversation. The smile hardly came from the heart and it was not difficult to figure out what it meant. The Hungarian sipped up the last drop of coffee, buttoned up his jacket and said:

'I do not wish to stop you although, naturally, I could do it. As far as I can see, your activities are more or less of a private nature. I assume that they will remain so and that they will not harm the interests of the general public or any individual citizen.'

'You can always go on tailing me, of course.'

Szluka did not reply. His eyes were cold and hostile.

'What do you really think you're doing?' he said.

'What do you think?'

'I don't know. Nothing has happened.'

'Only that a person has disappeared.'

'Who says so?'

'I do.'

'In that case you should go to the authorities and demand that the case be investigated in the ordinary way,' said Szluka stiffly.

Martin Beck drummed on the table with his fingers.

'The man is missing—there's no doubt about it.'

The other man was evidently just about to leave. He was sitting absolutely upright in the easychair, with his right hand on the arm.

'By that statement you actually mean—as far as I can make out—that the person in question has not been seen here at this hotel during the last two weeks. He has a valid residence permit and can travel freely within the country's borders. At present there are a couple hundred thousand tourists here, many of them spending their nights in tents or sleeping in their cars. This man might be in Szeged or Debrecen. He might have gone to Lake Balaton to spend his holiday bathing.'

'Alf Matsson did not come here to swim.'

'Is that so? In any case, he has a tourist visa. Why should he disappear, as you call it? Had he, for instance,