Robbie was still pondering this when two of his companions suddenly looked towards the street entrance. Three men were standing there. Barak, Stoll and a third man—the man who had been at the wheel of the big six-seater that afternoon. With a horrid, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Robbie recognized him. It was Cepicka.
All three men were staring at him. Cepicka said something in a low voice to Barak. The tall, lean Czech drew a finger along one side of his black, toothbrush moustache. Then, followed by the others, he suddenly strode towards the table.
Robbie's companions had fallen silent. With a sense of rising panic, he half came to his feet. By then, Barak was within three feet of him. The barman, the Greek sailors and the girls had also fallen silent. The movement and voices of the crowd out on the water-front came only as a murmur. In the cafe one could have heard the plop of a lump of sugar dropped into a glass of ouzo.
When Barak spoke, it was neither in Czech nor Greek, but in English. His black eyes boring down into Robbie's, he said:
'Englishman, we know why you are here. You are a spy. You haf before poke your nose in our business. You poke your nose again, ha! If there is next time I gif you no warning.' He swept a hand round to include the ten Czechs now grouped round Robbie. 'These men obey me, no question asked. They beat you so you spend three months in hospital, perhaps more. You get out now. Yes, you also get out of Patras tomorrow first thing. Or I order beating for you that leave no bone unbroken in your body.'
14
Of Hades and a Double Bed
Robbie took a pace back. Coming to his full height he gave a swift glance round. The eyes of every one of the eighteen people in the narrow caf£ were fixed on him. As Barak had spoken in English, it seemed unlikely that any of them, with the possible exception of Stoll and Cepicka, had understood what he had said. Even if they had, there was no reason to suppose, should a fight develop, that the Greek sailors or the barman would come to the assistance of a man who had just been denounced as a spy.
To deny Barak's accusation would have been futile, because Cepicka must obviously have told him about the theft of the briefcase in Athens ten days before. As Cepicka stood there, with his little pig-eyes, pink cheeks and thick lips screwed up into a leer, he looked more than ever like an ex-Gestapo man.
The enormously broad-shouldered, barrel-chested Stoll was also grinning at Robbie's evident discomfiture. In addition to these two hefty thugs, Barak had only to say a word in Czech to the eight men from the Bratislava and, Robbie had no doubt at all, he would be playing the part of a ball in a football scrum. It was a terribly disappointing end to a situation that had seemed full of promise, but it had to be accepted.
With a shrug, he muttered: 'I don't know what you're talking about,' and moved towards the door.
'Hi!' called out one of the Czechs he had been treating. 'What about paying for the wine?' *
'So he was standing you drinks, eh?' said Cepicka. 'In that case, as we know him to be an English capitalist-imperialist he may as well provide you with enough wine to last you the evening.'
The barman came over. He had already sized up the situation, and demanded double the proper price for another half-dozen bottles of retsina. As the only alternative to trouble, Robbie had to pay up and, when he walked out, the mocking laughter of the Czechs followed him on to the waterfront.
The humiliation he felt at having had to submit to this blackmail, on top of having been found out, was so great that he could think of nothing else while making his way back to the Cecil. He even forgot about the clothes he was wearing; so, instead of slipping into the side entrance of the hotel, he strode into the front hail.
To one side of it, the wide glass doors of the lounge stood open. Just inside them, Stephanie was sitting at a low table, reading his manuscript. Catching sight of him as he walked towards the lift, she called his name.
Startled, he shuffled to a halt, then turned and reluctantly went in to her. He was still holding his cheap, floppy cap with the shiny peak. Her glance fell on it, then ran disapprovingly over his worn tweed jacket and grey sweater.
'Where have you been?' she demanded. 'And why are you wearing those awful old clothes?'
Their relationship had already reached a point at which he could not possibly have brought himself to reply: 'I do not have to account to my secretary for my actions', or 'what I have been up to is no business of yours'. He went red in the face and, after a moment, blurted out: 'As a matter of fact, I've been down at the docks, er . . . slumming.'
^Wherever you've been, you look as if you need a drink.'
'Good idea,' he agreed, sinking into a chair beside her. Then, beckoning the lounge waiter who was standing just outside in the hall, he ordered himself a double Metexas and ginger ale.
Stephanie gave him time to recover from his evident embarrassment at having been caught unawares, then she asked: 'Does 'showing the flag", as you put it, for this oil company you
represent entail "slumming", or was this a private venture?'
By then he had decided that, unless he was to be constantly straining his imagination for plausible lies with which to fob her off, he must disclose at least the fact that some of his activities were likely to be unorthodox; so he replied:
This was business, but not quite the ordinary kind. There is a new foreign company that is trying to muscle in on my company's territory. Exactly what their plans are we don't yet know, but I've been given the job of finding out as much as I can.'
Stephanie's blue eyes widened. 'Does that mean you are really a sort of secret agent?'
'No! Oh no!' He took a quick drink of the brandy and ginger ale that the waiter had just brought him. 'This is commercial rivalry, that's all.'
'Yet you have to dress up for it, and go snooping down at the docks.'
'I had to find out about a ship that arrived here today, and I thought I'd be more likely to get the wharf hands talking if I went down in these old things than in a smart suit.'
'And did you get the information you were after?'
'Well, yes.' He paused for a moment. Then, realizing that he had yet to break it to her that they would be leaving first thing in the morning, he decided to go on. 'But afterwards I had rather a nasty break.
'I thought you looked rather queer when you came in. What happened?'
'I was standing drinks in a cafe to a group of Czechs who had landed off the ship, when their boss came in. With him there was a thug that they employ-'
'A thug?'
'Yes; they aren't a very nice lot. I'd had some trouble with this chap in Athens. He recognized me, of course, and denounced me to them as a snooper from U.K.P. There were nearly a dozen of them there altogether, and the long and short of it was that they threatened to beat me up unless I left Patras tomorrow morning.'
'Do you mean to go or stay?' Stephanie enquired bluntly.
'Well.' Robbie gave an uncomfortable wriggle. 'There are a lot of them, and only one of me. I'll be safe enough as long as I stick around the hotel, no doubt, and in the centre of the city; but I wouldn't care to risk going into the dock area again, so there's not much point in my staying here any longer.'
'I see. Does that mean you won't be doing any more of this snooping business?'
'I don't quite know,' Robbie replied non-committally. 'Perhaps I will later.'
'If you do, and you'd like to tell me about it, I might be able to help you.'