Cause for Alarm

8

You’d better have another drink,” he added.

And then I began to laugh. They both surveyed me in sheepish silence.

“My dear good Zaleshoff,” I spluttered at last, “you really mustn’t play these lunatic jokes.”

My intention had been to annoy him and I succeeded. He reddened. “It’s not a joke, Marlow.”

“Isn’t it?” Then my own temper got the better of me. I stopped laughing. “If it isn’t a joke, what the devil is it?”

He made a very obvious effort to keep calm. “If you will allow me to explain…”

“Explain! explain!” My voice rose. “You’ve done nothing else but explain. Now you let me do a little explaining. I’m an engineer and I’m in Milan for a specific purpose. I have a job to do and I propose to do it. I am not interested in any proposition that is not aimed at promoting the interests of my company. Is that absolutely clear? Because if it isn’t clear, I must thank you for a very pleasant dinner and go.”

Zaleshoff was sitting with a face like a thundercloud. As I finished, he drew a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak. But his sister forestalled him.

“Just a minute, Andreas.” She turned to me. “Mr. Marlow,” she said coolly, “someone once said that the English were the best hated race on the world’s surface. I am beginning to understand what was meant by that. Of all the stupid, smug, short-sighted, complacent, obstinate, asinine…”

“Tamara!”

She flushed. “Be quiet, Andreas. I haven’t finished. You, Mr. Marlow, come here knowing nothing about anything except, presumably, your business as an engineer. That I can understand. But that you should refuse even to listen to what someone has to tell you about the world outside your own tiny mind, I cannot understand. Haven’t you a spark of vulgar curiosity in you?”

I got to my feet. “I think I had better go.”

She went and stood with her back to the door. “Oh, no you don’t, you’re going to listen to my brother.”

“Let him go, Tamara,” Zaleshoff said quietly. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll do without him.”

For a moment I stood there irresolute. I was feeling embarrassed, foolish and very slightly ashamed. After all, I had refused to listen. Besides, Zaleshoff’s last sentence had touched me on the raw. “We’ll do without him.” It was the sort of thing you said to children to shame them into doing what they did not want to do. Unaccountably, it was having that effect on me. I have since wondered whether that had perhaps been Zaleshoff’s precise intention. His was a curious, deceptive mind. He had a way of exploiting the standard emotional counters that was highly disconcerting. You could never be quite sure whether his acting was studied or not and, if it was, whether for emphasis or concealment. Now, however, I told myself that I was indeed being childish, that the best thing I could do would be to carry out my declared intention and go. But I still stood there.

The girl moved away from the door. “Well, Mr. Marlow,” she said challengingly.

I sat down again with a sigh and a shrug. “I don’t know what this is all about,” I said shortly, “but I’ll have that other drink if it’s going.”

Zaleshoff nodded. “Sure.” Without another word, without even a hint of surprise, he got up and poured out two drinks. The girl came over to me.

“I’m very sorry,” she said humbly; “that was rude of me. You must think we’re very curious hosts.”

I did think so, but I grinned. “That’s all right. I’m afraid I’ve got rather a bad temper.”

Zaleshoff handed me my glass. “It’s a wonder that some good man hasn’t shot her before this.”

“Probably,” she retorted calmly, “because most good men don’t carry guns.” She examined me curiously. “Why didn’t you throw something at me just now, Mr. Marlow?”

“Because,” said her brother sharply, “there wasn’t anything handy. Now, for goodness’ sake, Tamara, get on with your sewing. Are you married, Marlow?”

“No. Engaged. She’s a doctor in England.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t want to appear inquisitive, but is there any particular reason why you should have taken this job here?”

“Yes. I got caught in what is politely called a trade recession. I couldn’t get a job worth having in England. My savings were nearly all gone. I was feeling desperate one day, and I accepted an offer from Spartacus.”

“I see. Then I suppose you wouldn’t object to Vagas’ two thousand lire a month if I could give you a good enough reason for taking it?”

I hesitated. “Frankly, Zaleshoff, I don’t think there’s a good enough reason in existence. At this very moment I’m telling myself that I’m a damn fool to sit here listening to you when I might be catching up on some of the sleep I missed last night. But I’m curious. I can’t believe that you’re such a half-wit as to spend an hour putting me off Vagas’ offer so thoroughly if you really wanted me to accept it.”

“I wasn’t putting you off. I was giving you the facts.”

“The distinction is too much for me. I’m not quite crazy, you know. Do you suppose I want to share that poor devil Ferning’s fate?”

“I do not suppose anything of the sort. But there’s no reason why you should share his fate.”

“That’s precisely what I’ m thinking. You, I gather, have something up your sleeve.”

“No. I just want to put a situation to you.”

“Fire away.”

“Do you ever read newspapers?”

“As little as possible, these days. Why?”

“Have you ever heard of a little thing called the Rome-Berlin axis?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Have you ever looked at what it means on a map?”

“I can’t say I’ve bothered to.”

“You should. It’s interesting. A solid, strategic unit from the Frisian Islands in the North to the toe of Italy in the South. The toe is waiting to kick Great Britain in the pants. The head is there to gobble up what’s left. The Rome-Berlin axis is one of the most effective principles of European power-politics that has ever been stated. It gave Italy and Germany a free hand in Spain. It changed Austria from an independent state to a memory. It made England launch the most gigantic peace-time armament-making drive the world has ever seen. It cocked the biggest snook yet at the League of Nations idea. It deprived France of her little Entente allies. It’s frightened the rest of Europe so badly that it lives now in a permanent state of jitters. Even the United States have become uneasy. The world is slowly beginning to turn on the Rome-Berlin axis and already the strain is telling. Something’s got to snap, something’s going to snap; and if it’s not the Rome-Berlin axis, it’s going to be you and me. The statesmen of the so-called democracies, France and England, are busting themselves in their efforts to make it the axis that goes first. And they look like failing. Things are moving too quickly for them. They try to buy off Italy and fail. They try again. They can’t hit out for fear of hurting themselves. They’re out of their depths and they know it. They’re as mixed as my metaphors. They’re confused and confounded. And meanwhile we drift nearer and nearer to war. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are getting ready to go; and, Marlow, if those boys ride out again across Europe, you can say good-bye to all your dreams. It’ll be a war that’ll make the world safe for everything except mankind. A government will be formed with King Typhus at the head of a parliament of corpse-fed rats.”

He paused for a moment. “I dare say you’re wondering where all this is leading. I’ll tell you. It’s leading to a question-this question. If someone told you that by taking a certain course you could make a very, very small, but very, very positive, contribution towards putting a kink in that axis we’ve been talking about, what would you say?”

“I’d say that he had a bee in his bonnet.”

He grinned. “H’m, yes. You probably would say that. But supposing that he hadn’t got a bee in his bonnet, supposing he was talking good hard sense, and supposing he could prove it. What would you do then?”

I fidgeted. “I’m not very fond of these beautifully simple parables, Zaleshoff. Vagas has a weakness for them, too. Let’s get down to cases.”

“Just what I was going to do.” He put his hand in his pocket. “You wanted the dope; here’s the first bit. It’s the card from that file in my office, card number V. 18. Take a look at it.”

His hand came out with the card folded in two.

The picture of Vagas was obviously a photostat of a photograph taken some years before. There was more hair on top of the head and the sides were cropped. The skin of the face was tighter. He wore a high tubular stiff collar with a broad, flat tie. Below the photostat was pasted a square of typewritten paper.

Johann Luitpold Vagas (I read) born Dresden 1889. Heidelberg. Army 1909. 6th Bavarian Cavalry. Berlin 1913. War Ministry. 1917 Iron Cross and Star of Leopold. 1918 refugee to Belgrade. Yugo-Slav citizenship 1922. 1924 Yugo-Slav agent for Cator amp; Bliss Ltd. of London. Returned Germany 1933. Returned Belgrade 1934. Rome 1936. Milan 1937. See S. 22, J. 15, P. 207, C. 64, F. 326.

I looked up. “Well, what’s it all about?”

Zaleshoff frowned. “Does nothing there strike you?”

I read the card again. “Well, he appears to have been agent for a British steel firm.”

“Yes, he sold guns to the Yugo-Slav government; but that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“He was a German officer. In nineteen-eighteen when the revolution broke out he skipped to Belgrade and later took up Yugo-Slav citizenship. But ”-he stabbed the air with his forefinger-“in nineteen-thirty-three he returned to Germany. Note the date-nineteen-thirty-three. What happened in nineteen-thirty-three in Germany?”

“Hitler came into power.”

“Precisely. Germany went Nazi, so he returned.”

“And left again the next year. What about it?”

“Just this. Vagas went to Germany a Yugo-Slav. He returned a German. From nineteen-thirty-four to nineteen-thirty-six Vagas was the principal German secret agent in Belgrade. It was a cinch for them. Here was a patriotic but expatriated German officer with a Yugo-Slav passport and well in with the Belgrade War Ministry by virtue of his position as an armament salesman. What more could you want? The German Secret Service have always been tightwads, and I dare say the fact that he was drawing a fat commission from Cator amp; Bliss and didn’t want anything except the honour of serving his country was an additional attraction. Besides, an unpaid agent is always a sounder bet than a guy who may pass on unreliable information to justify his wages.”

“Yes, I see. But if he was so keen on the honour of serving the Nazis, what’s he doing here now working for the Yugo-Slav Government?”

Zaleshoff lounged back luxuriously on the divan. “There now, that’s fine!” He smiled seraphically. “We’re getting right to the heart of the matter. What, indeed?” He leaned forward. “I’ll tell you. The answer is-’nothing.’ He’s not working for the Yugo-Slav Government. He’s working for the Nazis.”

“He told me…”

“There’s a good old-fashioned word for what he told you-‘boloney.’ Listen. On October the nineteenth, nineteen-thirty-six, the Italian Foreign Minister, Ciano, met the German Foreign Minister, von Neurath, in Munich. At that meeting the Rome-Berlin axis was forged. A fortnight later Mussolini hailed the Rome-Berlin axis publicly in a speech in the Piazza del Duomo just round the corner. The crowd sang ‘Deutschland uber alles’ and the Horst Wessel song at the top of their voices. The blackshirts and brownshirts whooped it up together. Italy and Germany swore eternal friendship.” He paused impressively. “A fortnight later Vagas packed his suitcases and moved into Italy.”

He sipped at his whisky. “Have you ever watched a cat and a dog lie down on the same floor, Marlow? Maybe they’ve been brought up together, maybe they’re used to one another, maybe they’ve got the same interest in a common owner. But they’re never entirely at their ease. The cat is always watchful, the dog self-conscious. They can never quite forget that there is such a thing as a cat-and-dog fight. There’s an undercurrent of mutual suspicion between them that they can never quite forget. So it was with the Nazis and the Fascisti. They’d come to an agreement over Austria. They’d agreed on parallel action in Spain. They’d agreed to boycott Geneva. They’d agreed to present a united front to the Western powers. But Johann Luitpold Vagas was sent into Italy. The dog was keeping one eye open, just in case.”

“Don’t the Italians know he’s really a German agent?”

“They certainly do not. How should they know? He wouldn’t be the first German officer to take service with another country. I only found out by accident. After all, the guy has got a Yugo-Slav passport, and that beautiful fiction about his being a Yugo-Slav agent has been handled very cleverly. No, if they ever arrest Vagas, it’ll be for espionage on behalf of Yugo-Slavia. And that suits the German Foreign Ministry. It would be embarrassing for all concerned if an important German spy were to be caught on Italian soil.”

“But what does Vagas do?”

Zaleshoff emitted an exasperated sigh. “What does he do? Listen, Marlow, if an Englishman came to you to-morrow and swore black and blue that Spartacus were going bankrupt next month, what would you do? You might believe or disbelieve him, but you’d write to a friend in England and ask him to check up on the situation for you. That’s Vagas’ job-checking up. If the Italians tell their Nazi boy friends that they’re building two hundred and fifty new-type bombing planes this year, Uncle Vagas gets busy and checks up to make sure that it isn’t five hundred and fifty. Dictators who can’t even trust their own subordinates out of their sight aren’t likely to trust each other very far. And, the way things are going at the moment, that mutual distrust is deepening. It’s the one weak spot in the Rome-Berlin axis, and it’s because of that weak spot that I’m sitting here talking to you.”

“I was wondering why it was,” I murmured.

“Then now you know.” He projected his jaw at me aggressively. “The point is that things are not what they were between Italy and Germany. Austria is gone. The Reichswehr is on the Brenner Pass. Mussolini is scared of that fact, and because he’s scared he’s dangerous-to Germany. The Nazis are on their guard. Vagas is working overtime.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”

The girl looked up from her sewing. “My brother’s very fond of the sound of his own voice.”

“So fond,” snarled Zaleshoff, “that I’m going to tell him a little story.” He turned to me again. “When I was at school in Chicago, Marlow, there were two big boys named Joe and Ted who used to bully us little kids. It went on for months. We got pretty sick of it. We tried ambushing them and they beat up a whole lot of us. Then one day we had an idea. There was one kid who used to follow Joe about like a shadow. His name was Augustus, if you can imagine that. We used to call him ‘Augie.’ He was a snivelling little rat, this Augie. He’d been bullied by Joe, and to protect himself he’d taken to cleaning Joe’s boots and running errands for him. Joe let him. Then Augie took to working off his private hates by getting Joe to beat up the other kids for him. Joe was only too ready to oblige. Augie became a kind of protege of Joe’s. Wherever Joe and Ted went he used to tag along behind. It used to make us mad until we got our idea. One day two of us waited for Augie near the city dump at the end of the street. We said we’d got something funny to tell him. We said that we heard Ted say that Joe was nothing but a yellow rat who wouldn’t dare to let out a squeak if he, Ted, challenged him. Then we beat up Augie a little and waited for results. We didn’t have to wait long. Augie ran straightaway to spill the beans to Joe. After school that day Joe and Ted got together. Naturally, Ted denied that he’d said anything about Joe. Joe said that Ted must be too yellow to repeat it to his face. Then they began. Joe finished up in hospital with three stitches in his scalp where Ted had hit him with a brick. Ted had a beating from Joe’s father. What do you think of that?” he concluded triumphantly, and stared hard at me.

I was wilfully dense. “Very nice. But what’s the moral?”

He looked slightly crestfallen. “Don’t you see?” He drew a deep breath. “I’ll put it plainer. Supposing Vagas obtained information concerning Italy’s activities that surprised him very much, information that she wouldn’t like the Nazis to have. Vagas would tell the Nazis and then, you see…”

“Yes, I see. It would put that kink that you were talking about in the Rome-Berlin axis. But there’s just one thing you seem to forget. The Nazis are not as simple as Joe. They’d find out in five minutes that it was just ballyhoo.”

He tapped my knee triumphantly. “But, my good friend, if it wasn’t just ballyhoo, if it were true…”

“True!”

He grinned. “The cat and the dog!”

“Well, what is this precious information?” I did not really believe that he had any.

“Do you remember that, some time ago, Mussolini made one of his blood-and-thunder speeches on the subject of Italian defence. I know he’s always making them about something, but this one was a little more specific than usual. It was a speech aimed at making you British shiver in your shoes. He referred in particular to the power of the Italian air force, and made a special point of six secret Italian aerodromes that had been built for war use. Naturally, the German General Staff was interested. Shortly afterwards, the German and the Italian Staffs had conversations and drew up fresh plans for common action in the event of French support for Czechoslovakia. Those secret aerodromes were mentioned. The Italian General Staff was obliging. It gave the Germans full particulars. The aerodromes were near the French and Swiss frontiers. The Germans went away satisfied. But ”-he wagged his finger slowly-“the fact of the matter is that at least three of those secret aerodromes are in the Trentino near what used to be the Austrian frontier, and the Germans don’t know it!”

“Very interesting.”

“Now,” he went on persuasively, “the question is how to get that information to Vagas in such a way as to leave no doubt about its being accepted as true. That’s where…”

“I know,” I interjected; “that’s where I come in.”

“Exactly and…”

“There’s nothing doing, Zaleshoff.”

“But just…”

“Absolutely nothing doing,” I repeated firmly. “I’m…”

“Yes, yes,” he put in testily; “you’re an engineer and you’re here on business, and you’re not going to get yourself into the sort of spot Ferning got into. I know. But wait a minute.” He became eager. “There’s no question of you’re getting into a spot. The only thing is to avoid any actual meeting with Vagas. As long as the Ovra don’t see that you’re in touch with him you’re all right. You can telephone him and arrange to communicate through the poste restante with assumed names. He won’t mind that. It’ll please him. If he thinks you’re scared but dead set on the money, he’ll also think that you’ll be easier to deal with when it comes to putting the screw on. As for Spartacus, you needn’t give Vagas the real dope, you can cook up anything. He won’t bother to check it. Then if he should turn nasty over anything and write to Pelcher, you’ll be quite O.K. All you have to do is to send Vagas three letters. The first’ll be a cooked Spartacus report on the past month’s activities. He’ll want that. When he’s got it he’ll increase his demands. Right. Your next report in a month’s time will contain some additional dope, among it an item about the delivery of three special hydraulic lifts for aircraft. The third report will give news of consignments of ammunition bound for the same places. Just enough for him to be able to piece the story together for himself. For doing just that, Marlow, you get six thousand lire from Vagas and ”-he looked me in the eyes-“another six thousand from me.”

I looked from one to the other. The girl, her head bent over the hem of the blouse she was making, was apparently unaware that we were there; but I saw that the needle had stopped moving and that her fingers were poised delicately like those of a woman in a Dutch painting. Zaleshoff had suddenly busied himself with the lighting of a cigarette.

I cleared my throat loudly. “I think, Zaleshoff,” I said evenly, “that the time has come for you to explain just what personal interest you have in this business. Where do you come in? In other words, what’s your game?”

He looked with well-simulated surprise. “My game? I have no game.” An expression of disarming sincerity, of rugged candour, appeared suddenly on his face. “Put me down, Marlow, as a simple American with a little more money than I need”-he repeated this-“more money than I need. That’s the plain truth of it, I guess. I’m a simple American who hates war. But I want to do something more than hate.” His voice vibrated with evangelical feeling. “I want to help make the peace we all want in a more practical way than just by talking. The world is in a bad way, Marlow. What it needs is good management. I’m a business man, Marlow, a pretty successful one, though I say it myself. This little old world wants running on business lines. I’m a doer, Marlow, not a thinker. Thinking’s not going to get us any place. We need the co-operation of practical men. That’s why I’m appealing to you, Marlow. You’re a practical man. We men of goodwill have just got to get together, roll up our sleeves and get something done, eh?” He beamed at me, a benevolent Babbitt with a parcel of real-estate to unload.

It was nauseating, it was grotesque. I stared at him, speechless. At last I got to my feet.

“Well, well. I’m afraid it’s rather late. I shall have to be going.” I went across the room and picked up my overcoat. They watched me in silence. Zaleshoff’s beam had eased into a scowl. I put my overcoat on and went towards the door. “Thanks again,” I said, “for a very good dinner.”

“Just a minute.” It was Zaleshoff, a very hard-voiced Zaleshoff.

“What is it?”

“I’m waiting for an answer from you.”

I turned round. “Yes, of course. I was forgetting.” I put my hand into my overcoat pocket and drew out a small parcel that was in it. I had purchased this parcel that afternoon. Now I planked it down on the table.

“What’s that?” demanded Zaleshoff suspiciously.

I opened the door.

“It’s the cake of soap I owe you,” I said carefully. “Luckily, I was able to get one in the shape of a lemon.” I nodded genially. “Good night to you both.”

Not a muscle of Zaleshoff’s face moved. He just stood there looking at me, a curious expression in his eyes. The girl shrugged and returned to her sewing. I went.

The entrance to Zaleshoff’s place was in a short alleyway at the side of the shop. It was very dark in the alleyway. The man standing on the far side of the street did not see me immediately; but as I stepped into the light I saw him turn away quickly and stare into a shop window.

I turned in the direction of the Parigi. A little way down I stopped and lighted a cigarette. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was following me. It was not, however, Bellinetti. This man was taller. I did not look back again but walked straight on to the hotel. If what Zaleshoff had said were true, the best possible thing I could do was to behave as naturally as possible. I had nothing to hide and did not intend to have anything to hide. If the secret police wished to waste their time following me, that was their lookout.

All the same, it was an uncomfortable feeling. I felt myself walking a little stiffly and self-consciously. I began to think of the story Zaleshoff had told me about Ferning’s death. In my mind’s eye I saw him walking along a street as I was now walking. He must have heard the car coming before it hit him: and in that final second those anxious eyes, that flat, plump jowl must have been distorted with terror. I thought of his bald head. It must have bobbed absurdly as he went down. But it was all, I told myself, a product of Zaleshoff’s imagination. Such things didn’t happen. Then a stray car swinging out of a side street in front of me made me jump badly. I felt myself break out into a sweat. It was all I could do to prevent myself from running. I was heartily thankful when I reached the hotel.

The clerk beckoned to me from his desk.

“There is a letter for you, Signore. And a gentleman is waiting to see you. He was told that you might be late, but he wished to wait. He was shown into the writing-room where it is warm.”

I took the letter. “Who is it?”

“I was not on duty when he arrived, Signore. He left no name.”

“All right, thanks.”

I went into the writing-room.

Sitting comfortably near a radiator and reading a paper was Vagas.