The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

diagonally and followed two gentlemen carrying briefcases down underground.

He descended into the smallest subway he had ever seen. On the platform was a little glassed-in wooden kiosk painted green and white, and the low roof was held up by decorative cast-iron pillars. The train, which was already standing there, looked more like a dwarf-sized train at an amusement park than an efficient means of transportation. He remembered that this subway was the oldest in Europe.

He paid the fare, and got a ticket at the kiosk and stepped into the little varnished wooden car—it could well have been the same one Emperor Frans Joseph had traveled in when he had opened the line some time at the end of the previous century. There was a pause before the doors closed, and the car was full as the train started.

On the small platform in the middle of the car stood three men and a woman. They were deaf-mutes and were carrying on a lively conversation in sign language. When the train stopped for the third time, they got off, still eagerly gesticulating. Before the platform filled up again, Martin Beck had time to notice a man sitting at the other end of the car, half-turned away from him.

The man was dark and sunburned and Martin Beck recognized him at once. Instead of the gray jacket he was now wearing a green shirt, open at the neck. There was probably nothing left of the stick he had been whittling on all the previous day.

Suddenly the train plunged out of the tunnel and slowed down. It rode on into a green park with a big pool, shimmering in the sunlight. Then it stopped and the car emptied. This was evidently the end of the line.

The last to step out of the car, Martin Beck looked around for the dark man. He was nowhere to be seen.

A wide road led into the park, which looked cool and inviting, but Martin Beck decided against any further expeditions. He read the timetable on the platform and saw that the stretch between this park and the square where he had got on was the only line and that the train would be returning in a quarter of an hour.

It was half past eleven when he went into Malev's office. The five girls behind the counter were busy with customers, so Martin Beck sat down by the street window to wait.

He had not succeeded in spotting the man with the dark wavy hair on his return from the park, but he presumed that he was still somewhere in the vicinity. He wondered whether he would be tailing him during his meeting with Szluka too.

One of the chairs by the counter became free and Martin Beck went up to H and sat down. The girl behind the counter had her dark hair done in an elaborate set of curls on her forehead. She looked efficient and was smoking a cigarette with a scarlet filter tip.

Martin Beck carried out his errand. Had a Swedish jour nalist by the name of Alf Matsson booked a flight to Stockholm or anywhere else after the twenty-third of July?

The girl offered him a cigarette and began leafing through her papers. After a while she picked up the telephone and spoke to someone, shook her head and went over to speak to one of her colleagues.

After all five of them had leafed through their lists, it was past twelve o'clock and the girl with the curls informed him that no Alf Matsson had booked a flight on any plane leaving Budapest.

Martin Beck decided to skip lunch and went up to his room. He opened the window and looked down onto the lunch guests below. No tall man in a green shirt was visible.

At one of the tables sat six men in their thirties drinking beer. A thought struck him, and he went over to the telephone and set up a call to Stockholm. Then he lay down on the bed and waited.

A quarter of an hour later the phone rang and he heard Kollberg's voice.

'Hi! How's things?'

'Bad.'

'Have you found that chick? Bokk?'

'Yes, but it was nothing. She didn't even know who he was. A musclebound blond boy was standing there feeling her up.'

'So it was just a lot of big talk then. He was pretty much of a big mouth, according to his so-called buddies here.'

'Have you got a lot to do?'

'Nothing at all. I can go on digging around if you like.'

'You can do one thing for me. Find out the names of those guys at the Tankard and what sort of people they are, will you?'

'O.K. Anything else?'

'Be careful. Remember that they probably are journalists, all of them. So long. I'm going swimming now with somebody named Szluka.'

'That's a hell of a name for a chick. Martin, listen, have you checked to see if he booked a return flight?'

'Bye,' said Martin Beck, and put down the receiver.

He hunted up his bathing trunks from his bag, rolled them up in one of the hotel towels and went down to the boat station.

The boat was called Obuda and one of the unpleasant roofed types. But he was late and it had the advantage of being faster than the coal-fired boats. 60

He stepped ashore below a large hotel on Margaret Island. Then he followed the road toward the interior of the island, walked swiftly beneath the shady trees along a lush green lawn, past a tennis court, and then he was there.

Szluka was standing waiting outside the entrance, his briefcase in hand. He was dressed as on the previous day.

'I'm sorry to have kept you waiting,' said Martin Beck.

'I've just come,' said Szluka.

They paid and went into the dressing room. A bald old man in a white undershirt greeted Szluka and unlocked two lockers. Szluka took a pair of black bathing trunks out of his briefcase, swiftly undressed and meticulously hung his clothes on a hanger. They pulled on their bathing trunks simultaneously, although Martin Beck had had considerably fewer garments to remove.

Szluka took his briefcase and went ahead out of the dressing room. Martin Beck followed behind with his towel rolled up in his hand.

The place was full of suntanned people. Immediately in front of the dressing room was a round pool with fountains spouting up tall streams of water. Shrieking children were running in and out under the waterfalls. On one side of the fountain pool was a smaller pool with steps sloping down into the water from one end. On the other was a large pool full of clear green water which darkened toward the middle. This pool was full of swimming and splashing people of all ages. The area between the pools and the lawns was covered with stone slabs.

Martin Beck followed Szluka along the edge of the large pool. In front of them and farther on they could see a semi-circular arcade, for which Szluka was evidently heading.

A voice on the loudspeaker called out some information and a mob of people began to run toward the pool with the steps leading down into it. Martin Beck was almost knocked over and followed Szluka's example, stepping to one side until the rush was over. He looked inquiringly at Szluka, who said:

'Wave bathing.'

Martin Beck watched the small pool swiftly filling with people, who finally stood packed like sardines. A pair of huge pumps began to swish water toward the high edges of the pool and the human shoal rocked on the high waves, amid cries of delight.

'Perhaps you'd like to go and ride the waves,' said Szluka. Martin Beck looked at him. He was quite serious. 'No, thank you,'' said Martin Beck.

'Personally, I usually bathe in the sulfur spring,' said Szluka. 'It is very relaxing.'

The spring ran from a stone cairn in the middle of an oval pool—the water was knee-deep there and its far end was shaded by the arcade. The pool was built tike a labyrinth, with walls that rose about ten inches above ground level. The walls formed back supports for molded armchairs in which one sat with the water up to one's chin.

Szluka stepped down into the pool and began to wade between the rows of seated people. He was still holding his briefcase in his hand. Martin Beck wondered if he was so used to carrying it that he had forgotten to put it down, but he said nothing and stepped down into the pool and began to wade along at Szluka's heels.

The water was quite warm and the steam smelled of sulfur. Szluka waded into the colonnade, put down his