Amid the dark forest that fiddle to hear.
I recalled how my heart beat faster when I went back to the coffeehouse with Hiram and Teensy, how happy I’d been when we found Schmidt’s car was still in front. For five minutes, until the Carrs came out, that had meant reunion with Maria.
Teensy had broken the news. She’d said, “I’m afraid there’s a hitch. Your girl isn’t there. The proprietor said she and Schmidt left an hour ago.”
How had the German doctor forced Maria to leave the coffeehouse? She’d told me, “Hurry back, I’ll be waiting.” I would never believe she went of her own free will. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have risked threatening her with a gun in that crowded place.
And why had he abandoned his car? Not to mislead us. He hadn’t known I was coming back. Just the opposite. He was sure Otto and Hermann would follow his instructions to kill me in the Keleti yards after I found the envelope.
The doctor might have left his car if he’d held up the coffeehouse, if he’d forced the proprietor and the patrons to stand by while he took Maria away at gun point. He wouldn’t have trusted the car to start immediately with a crowd pursuing him. It would be easier to shake them off by heading into the storm.
But if that had been the case, Schmidt wouldn’t have come back for the car. The proprietor would have called the police, who would have taken it. Yet Schmidt or one of his men had returned for it, or at least I assumed that was the car whose tires Hiram had slashed when they rescued me from Orlovska’s.
The proprietor had told Teensy and Hiram that the German and Maria departed shortly after I had gone to the yards, nearly an hour before my return. He hadn’t said anything about Schmidt using force. And that would have been a major event in the life of a coffeehouse keeper.
None of these hypotheses made sense. There had to be another answer.
I’d told Teensy when she broke the news, “You didn’t look far enough. The proprietor’s a liar.”
The next thing I realized, I was going down the stairs two steps at a time. I nearly broke down the door into Hiram’s study.
“The proprietor was a liar,” I shouted at the startled Hiram. “That’s the answer. Can’t you see?”
The intelligence agent looked at me as if he thought I’d lost my mind. He scrambled to his feet. Teensy came running from the other room.
“Take it easy, take it easy,” Teensy said.
“Easy nothing,” I said. “That’s the answer. Schmidt never took Maria out of the coffeehouse. His car was still there because he was still there. Don’t you see it?”
Hiram fixed me a Scotch and soda.
“We’ve been so busy we haven’t had time to think,” I said. I took half the drink at one gulp. I told Hiram and Teensy what had been running through my mind before I leaped from the bed like a jack-in-the-box.
“Schmidt wouldn’t have waited in just any coffeehouse,” I said. “He’s in just as much trouble with the authorities as we are. He has to be even more careful because he hasn’t diplomatic plates on his car. He wouldn’t have picked the coffeehouse he did unless he had good reason. Ordinarily, he would have been afraid of being recognized by the train crews who go there. They would certainly have remembered a beauty like Maria.
“The doctor went there for only one reason. Because the proprietor was a member of the gang. Because he could be trusted to lie to anyone asking questions.
“Maria is still there. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“You’re going to,” Hiram said. He took off his pincenez and rubbed his nose. “What was it Schmidt said on the telephone at Borodin’s?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” I said.
“A lot. What did he say?”
“Well, he said Borodin was late and I said yes. He asked if Borodin was taking the next train and I said yes again. Then he said he’d see him at the usual place in thirty minutes.”
Hiram took a copy of the Hungarian railway guide from the bookshelf.
“The train that Borodin would have caught gets to Keleti in twenty-two minutes. It’s about five minutes from his house to the station. That means that the ‘usual place’ Schmidt mentioned is three minutes from Keleti.”
“That would fit our coffeehouse,” I said. “It’s worth trying. Will you try it?”
“I’ve got business with Herr Doktor Schmidt,” Hiram said. “We’ve got to try the railway car at Jozsefvaros tonight.” He rubbed his chin. “It would help if we could eliminate any possible competition from Schmidt before we start.”
Chapter Nineteen
THE BODY IN THE CELLAR
The two men were still across the street when Hiram, Teensy, Walter, and I drove off. They made no move to follow.
“They won’t arrest me yet,” Hiram said. “They’d rather wait to catch me red-handed. Then they’ll stage the biggest trial you ever saw.” He spoke without emotion, as if he were discussing a bridge tournament or a birthday party. He had no nerves.
I felt an urge to keep the conversation going.
“Why do you suppose Borodin, a major in the Russian Army, got mixed up with Schmidt?”
“Why do any of them sell out?” Hiram said. “Usually it’s money or women or both. Sometimes it’s ambition, sometimes wounded vanity.
“Marcel Blaye fell for Orlovska. He wanted to go back to Germany, and the Russians promised him a high post in their East German government.
“Look at Orlovska. She wants money and luxury. She’ll sell out to anybody to get an easy life. But in this racket, the Blayes, the Orlovskas, and the Borodins don’t last too long. Traitors and double-dealers usually hang themselves. Men like Schmidt are the tough ones. They’re dedicated fanatics, men with one idea that dominates their lives. You can’t buy them or convert them or curb them. In a normal world, Blaye, Orlovska, and Borodin would probably be in jail but Schmidt would be confined to an insane asylum.”
We drove past the coffeehouse. There were two stories above the café. The roof was flat. There was an alley on one side, separating the coffeehouse from the shop of a stonecutter whose sign announced he made tombstones for the Kerepesitemetö, the huge municipal cemetery across the street. There was a four-story tenement against the other wall of the coffeehouse.
We swung round the block, and the illuminated clock in the Keleti station tower said the time was ten thirty-five. It was more than an hour since we’d dropped Major Felix Borodin. Considering the time required to shake Hiram’s operative, Borodin had met Schmidt in the coffeehouse a good half hour earlier.
We couldn’t see the rear of the coffeehouse because of the surrounding buildings. Hiram said it was probable there was an open space behind, to which the alley led.
When we had made almost a full circle, Walter and I dropped off. We would go inside the café. Teensy and Hiram would be outside, to cover our exit in case of trouble. The proprietor had never seen either Walter or me but he would remember the Carrs as having inquired about Maria and Schmidt. The car would be parked on the far side of the cemetery, an area of warehouses deserted at night.
Teensy had changed the bandages on my hands for skimpier dressings, and I was sure I could handle a gun, although with a good deal of pain. At any rate, I carried the Luger in the shoulder holster.
We stood just inside the door for a moment. I took a quick look but I saw neither Schmidt nor Borodin. There weren’t more than twenty-five or thirty patrons, seated at small tables. The headwaiter beckoned to us to take a table near the gypsy band which was on a platform, but I shook my head, and we sat near the door. As soon as we had ordered, I took a couple of newspapers from the rack so that we could hide our faces if we had to. We drank our coffee and pretended to read. It didn’t help any that I’d picked papers in Turkish and Greek, of which neither Walter nor I understood a word.