The note, written on heavily scented pink paper, only added to my confusion.
Darling: You have acted very foolishly. A kiss and the back of her hand at the same time. You gave me your solemn word you would faithfully carry out our bargain. Was the Countess Orlovska included in this strange watch-and-clock deal? With Dr. Schmidt the homicidal competitor?
“What are you laughing at?” Maria said.
“It must be love,” the major said. “A charming lady, the countess.”
I read the rest. You cannot, must not have any regrets at this late date. You are gaining a very powerful friend, one on whom you may always count. Suppose some of your so-called friends do object? You know you will get nowhere on your own. I anxiously await your arrival in Budapest, my love.
It was written in German and signed Anna.
When Strakhov remembered he had not telegraphed the time of our arrival to Budapest and went off to the stationmaster’s office, I handed the note to Maria.
She said, “I’m sorry but I don’t know German. You’ll have to tell me what it says.” I translated it into French, but she said it didn’t mean anything to her.
“Did Blaye speak German?” I asked.
“Yes,” Maria said, “especially with the countess.” She added, “He also spoke German with Doctor Schmidt.”
“Was the countess supposed to be in on this big deal? Did Blaye ever mention her or Doctor Schmidt in that connection?”
Maria shook her head. “I don’t know. I told you I knew so very little about Monsieur Blaye’s business.”
“Was there any connection between the countess and Doctor Schmidt? Did you ever see them together?”
“No,” Maria said. “It was just the opposite. Monsieur told me that I was to keep them apart. He said that if either arrived while the other was there I was to say he was out. He was very definite about it.” She linked her arm through mine. “What do we do now?”
“Go on to Budapest,” I said. “There’s nothing else we can do. At least there’s still no alarm out for me. I expected to find half the MVD waiting. I don’t get it.”
The platform was lined with Hungarian gendarmes, their spiked silver-and-black helmets glistening in the sun. The only exit from the station grounds was guarded by Russian soldiers. I had thought wildly of boarding the train and leaving through the side away from the platform, trusting to find some escape through the yards, but there was a freight on the next track, apparently shunted there to discourage passengers with such ideas.
The schedule, posted in the station, told me the local took more than five hours to reach Budapest, with twenty or more stops at village stations. Maybe something would turn up in that time. I told Maria the story of Grigori, the Sultan, and the Sultan’s favorite monkey. Grigori had been condemned to life imprisonment but won a year’s stay by assuring the Sultan he could teach the monkey to talk. If he succeeded, he’d go free. If he failed, he’d die by slow torture. “But you know you can’t teach that monkey to talk,” said his wife. “I know, I know,” was Grigori’s smiling answer, “but something’s sure to turn up in the year. Either the Sultan will die or the monkey will die or—”
“Or you will die,” said a voice behind us. Maria grabbed my arm. It was Major Strakhov. How long had he been listening? “Amusing story isn’t it, Monsieur Blaye? I didn’t realize it was known in Switzerland. It’s a favorite of prisoners in our Soviet jails. I like to think it shows the fatalism of our race.”
There was a first-class compartment for us, a sticker in Hungarian and Russian on the door: Reserved for the Embassy of the USSR. As soon as we had racked our baggage, Strakhov handed me Marcel Blaye’s passport and the traveler’s checks which Otto had lifted the night before. He returned to Maria her Swiss passport and the Manila envelope she had so carefully carried from the Orient. The red wax seals were intact. The major had no reason to withhold our papers, now that he was sure we couldn’t escape the rendezvous in Budapest.
From then on it was a cat and mouse game between Strakhov and me. I had to examine the contents of the envelope; Maria had passed it to me. I had to know something, anything, about Marcel Blaye’s game if we were to have a chance with Countess Orlovska and the Russians in Budapest. But I couldn’t rip open the envelope, supposed to belong to me as Marcel Blaye, certainly not in front of Strakhov. He might wonder at Blaye’s consuming curiosity regarding his own property. And the major had made it very plain by his actions that he intended to keep me in his sight, that he was with me solely for the purpose of seeing me to Budapest.
Maria and I, with the major close by, were standing in the corridor when the station bell rang for the train to start. That was the moment for Maria to spot Dr. Schmidt on the platform.
“I beg your pardon?” said Strakhov to Maria. “What did you say?”
“She was just commenting on the beauty of those farm women,” I said. “The ones down there with the geese.”
“Not bad,” said the major, “but you should see our Russian peasants.”
The doctor couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away. I caught the glint of sun on gold-rimmed spectacles, a gray Homburg on the bullet head, an almost ankle-length overcoat, yellow gloves, and a cane. I took Maria’s arm but there was no sign in her face of the fear she had shown the night before.
Strakhov saw Schmidt, too, but he gave his attention to the man with whom Schmidt was conversing, a tough-looking character with a great black mustache and a patch over one eye.
The major let down the window, popped his head out, and shouted in German, “Otto, I told you to get back to the lodge. Get a move on, you loafer.” He turned to me. “Didn’t I say those swine are just like children? Talk to strangers, anything to get out of work.”
Otto acted as if he’d been caught in the jam pot. He clicked his heels, saluted in Strakhov’s direction, and disappeared on the double into the station. Dr. Schmidt boarded the train just as it started to move.
What could I have done about Schmidt? I was sure he’d been discussing Maria and me with Otto but what could I have said to Strakhov? I couldn’t say, “There’s the man who murdered Marcel Blaye,” because I was Blaye as far as the major knew or cared. I couldn’t say, “Arrest that man. He’s following Mademoiselle Torres to rob her or kill her,” because such a statement was equally impossible of explanation. There was another side to the situation, too. As long as Strakhov was with us, we were reasonably safe from Dr. Schmidt. The little man on the platform had seemed about half my size, but I was sure he had a gun. I reproached myself for not having bought a revolver in Vienna but I had worried about being searched at the frontier and, anyway, Otto would have lifted it the night before. Strakhov had returned the passports, the traveler’s checks, and the Manila envelope but he wouldn’t have given me back a gun.
As soon as the train was rolling, the major settled himself in a corner, lit an evil-smelling black cigar, and poked his nose into a copy of Pravda. I picked up the Manila envelope, excused myself, and started out the door, but Strakhov dropped his paper and came with me. For the next two hours I tried every excuse to shake him. When I went for a drink of water he tagged along. When I expressed a desire to stand in the corridor to watch the dreary countryside, he stood beside me. When I followed the bearded conductor to ask how late we were running, Strakhov came along. I couldn’t even get away from him in the men’s room.
Maria had tried to pry the major loose, but he wouldn’t follow her when she left the compartment. He must have read Pravda word for word at least half a dozen times when he wasn’t following me up and down the corridor. Maria produced knitting from somewhere. I sat and stared out the window and grew more and more fidgety at the thought of meeting the Countess Orlovska at the station in Budapest.