Crestfallen, Prokop wandered into a coffeehouse. “Krakatit” hit him in the eyes from the back of a paper. “Will Eng. P. give his address? Carson, Poste Restante.” Well, this Carson will certainly know about Thomas … there must be some connection between them. All right then. … “Carson, Poste Restante. Be at such and such coffeehouse tomorrow at midday.—Eng. Prokop.” Directly he had written this a new idea came into his head … the debts. He rushed off to the courts, the Inquiry Department. Yes, they knew Mr. Thomas’s address very well … a whole pile of undelivered circulars, official reminders, etc.; but it appeared that this Thomas, George, had disappeared without leaving a trace, and, especially, had furnished no one with his new address. All the same Prokop dashed off to the new address. The caretaker’s wife, encouraged by an adequate tip, at once recognized Prokop, who on one occasion had spent the night there. She informed him quite voluntarily that Mr. Engineer Thomas was a crook and a good-for-nothing. Further, that on that occasion he had gone off in the night and left him, the gentleman, in her care; that she had come upstairs three times to ask whether he needed anything, but that he, the gentleman, remained asleep and kept on talking to himself, and finally disappeared. And where on earth was Mr. Thomas? That night he had gone off and left everything lying about and had still not returned. All he had done was to send her some money from somewhere abroad, but he was still in debt for the new quarter. She had heard that they were going to sell his effects in the State Lottery if he didn’t report by the end of the month. He was nearly a quarter of a million in debt, so they said, and had made off. Prokop subjected the worthy woman to a cross-examination … did she know anything about a certain young lady who was supposed to have relations with Mr. Thomas, who came to his rooms and so on? The caretaker’s wife could not tell him anything; as far as women went, as many as twenty came to the place, some with veils over their faces and others “made up,” and all sorts. It was a scandal for the whole street. Prokop paid for the new quarter himself and in return obtained the key of the flat.
Inside there was the musty smell of rooms which have long been unoccupied and from which almost all life has departed. Only now did Prokop realize that he had wrestled with his fever amidst the most extraordinary luxury. Everywhere Bokhara or Persian carpets, on the walls tapestries and nude studies, a divan, armchairs, the dressing-table of a soubrette, the bathroom of a high-class prostitute, a mixture of luxury and vulgarity, lewdness and dissoluteness. And here, in the middle of all these abominations, she had stood pressing the package to her bosom, her clear, woeful eyes cast on the ground. And now, my God! she raised them in brave devotion. … What on earth could she have thought of him when she found him in this den? He must find her at least … at least to return her her money; even if it was for nothing else, for nothing more important … it was absolutely necessary to find her!
That is easy enough to say, but how? Prokop bit his lips in obstinate reflection. If he only knew where to look for George, he said to himself; finally he came upon a pile of correspondence which was waiting there for Thomas. Most of it consisted, naturally, of commercial letters, obviously chiefly bills. Then a few private letters which he turned over and sniffed with some hesitation. Perhaps in one of them there was a clue to his whereabouts, an address or something of the sort, which would enable him to find him … or to find her! He heroically repressed the inclination to open at least one letter; but he was alone there behind dirty windows, and everything seemed to exhale an atmosphere of base and secret corruption. And then, quickly overcoming all his scruples, he began to tear open the envelopes and read one letter after the other. A bill for Persian carpets, for flowers, for three typewriters; urgent reminders regarding goods given on commission; some mysterious transaction relating to a horse, foreign currency and twenty wagons of wood somewhere near Kremnice. Prokop could not believe his eyes; according to these documents Thomas was either a smuggler on a large scale, or an agent dealing in Persian carpets, or a speculator on the Exchange, very probably all three. In addition he did business in motorcars, export certificates, office furniture and, obviously, all sorts of things. In one letter there was something about two million crowns, while in another, soiled and written in pencil, there was a threat of a complaint regarding some antique or other which he had wheedled from somebody. Everything together pointed to a long succession of deceptions, embezzlements, falsifications of export documents, as far as Prokop was able to understand; it was simply amazing that it had not all come out. One solicitor intimated briefly that such and such a firm had brought an action against Mr. Thomas for embezzling forty thousand crowns; it was in Mr. Thomas’s own interest to appear at his office, etc. Prokop was horrified; if it were all once found out what would not be the ramifications of this unutterable turpitude? He thought of the quiet house in Tynice and of the girl who had stood in the very room, desperately determined to protect that third person. He took up all Thomas’s commercial correspondence and ran to burn it in the stove, which he found full of charred papers. It was evident that Thomas himself had simplified conditions in this way before he left.
Good; that dealt with the commercial papers; there remained a few
