The Hochmann Miniatures

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “Isn’t it marked on the outside?” Kek seemed a bit puzzled. “I thought it was.” He smiled in friendly fashion, willing to let bygones be bygones. “But it really isn’t necessary to open it, Inspector. It’s a wall-calendar. Obviously.”

  “Oh?” The night chief bared his teeth in a grimace intended as a sardonic smile; his poorly fitting dentures made it look more like a rictus.

  “Yes,” Kek repeated. “A calendar. You know, with dates. The kind you hang on a wall.” He leaned over and then pointed. “You see? It does say so. I thought it did.”

  “Isn’t it most interesting that you should be carrying a calendar,” said the inspector, tapping the tube against his free hand, “and that you should have arrived at Barajas in a private plane from Brussels; and isn’t it even more interesting that we have been so recently requested by the Belgian Sûreté to be on the watch for a certain object stolen from Brussels which they suggest might well fit into a package almost exactly of the size and shape of your—your, ah, calendar?” His tiny eyes showed his extreme delight with the entire situation. For this, he didn’t even mind having been awakened. “It that not a coincidence?”

  “A most remarkable one,” Kek was forced to agree.

  The night chief held the tube tenderly in his hand, savoring the moment. How fortunate that he had been on duty instead of another, who might have told the regular inspector to let him sleep, and have allowed Huuygens to walk out!

  “Tell me, señor,” he asked, “do you always travel with calendars?”

  “Only if they have pictures of pretty girls. If you examine this one—”

  “You wish to joke, señor. I shall examine it. Don’t worry.”

  Kek’s smile vanished. “I beg your pardon, Inspector. There really is no reason for you to examine it. I apologize for my previous levity. The truth is I carry a calendar because my watch is not always accurate.”

  “You now wish to try my patience,” the night chief said, and the cold smile on his face forgave the other’s poor efforts, promising who would have the last laugh. “For what end I cannot imagine …”

  He finished with his cat-and-mouse game and twisted the end-cap of the tube free. He placed several bony fingers inside the tube and carefully twisted the contents, pulling gently, until one corner emerged. A frown began to appear on his face as he continued the task, drawing the roll loose, placing it on the table, unrolling it. There was a moment’s shocked silence as he stared bewildered, and then his black eyes came up, blazing with fury.

  “This is not—!”

  He bit the balance of the words back instantly. His instructions on secrecy concerning the theft had been most explicit. And his superior was even tougher than he was.

  “Not what?” Kek asked innocently. He leaned over to see what had so violently disturbed his good friend, the night chief, and finally understood. “You mean, it’s not this year’s calendar? It’s next year’s. I realize that, Inspector, but I like to look ahead. And the girls are lovely, you must admit.”

  There was a moment’s silence. It hung in the small room like a heavy pall; then the night chief of section sighed. It was a long, deep sigh, drawn out for the time necessary to bring himself under control. His black eyes came up, all emotion withdrawn from them.

  “You arrived here by private plane, I understand, señor.”

  “That’s right. By air-taxi,” Kek said, pleased to cooperate.

  “Your plane will be impounded—”

  “It really isn’t my plane,” Kek explained. “You see, I merely hired it. It really belongs to a couple of young men who were fliers in the late war. Heroes you might say. They—” He stopped, embarrassed. “Oh. You were on the other side, weren’t you?”

  The night chief’s eyes were chips of ice lost in the glacial whiteness of his pallid face. He said nothing. For several moments he clenched and unclenched his fists, and then, once aware of the nervous action, ceased it immediately. He stared at the empty suitcase as if considering removing the lining, and then shook his head at himself. The case had no lining. He picked up the calendar and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time; then he carefully rolled it up, tapped it on the table to straighten the edges, and eased it back into the tube. The end-cap was slipped in place with equal care. His movements were those of an automaton. He studied the neat pile of clothing placed to one side on the table and then gestured toward it.

  “You may take your things and go.”

  His voice held no expression, and his eyes were blank, but there was something in the military figure that swore on everything he held holy that Señor Kek Huuygens would be better than well advised never to come in contact with him officially in the future.

  It was a reaction that Kek Huuygens was quite familiar with, and one which had not affected him in the least in the past, nor did he expect it to affect him greatly in the future. It was not that he was so foolish as to not know fear; it was that he was wise enough to properly evaluate it and the source from which it came. He nodded his thanks politely but perfunctorily, repacked his clothing with less than his usual care, and walked from the room with his topcoat over his arm. Now that he had passed through the custom gates, he hoped the pilot of his private plane had not wasted time drinking coffee, but had gotten his clearance, gassed up, and taken off for the north. Behind him, in the room from which he had just departed, he heard the sound of something being kicked, and a moment later a fist slamming helplessly down on a table.

  The lobby of the terminal was nearly deserted; a few porters slept on benches and the lights of a coffee stand reflected themselves from stained marble. An attendant dozed with his head against a plastic dome protecting stale doughnuts. The news kiosk was shuttered. Kek walked across the empty room, his footsteps echoing, and pushed through the swinging doors leading to the airport plaza.

  Outside, a thin icy mist hovered before the towering street lamps that fronted the curved driveway. Somehow one expected snow in that chill, but there was only the miasmic dampness shot through with cold. Kek slipped into his coat, bringing the collar up protectively, setting his bag to one side to allow himself to dig his hands fiercely into his pockets. There was a sudden sharp beep of a horn from the nearly deserted parking lot across the asphalted roadway, and he walked over, confident, bending down to verify the occupant. Satisfied, but not surprised, he opened the door, deposited his suitcase in the rear seat, and climbed in beside the driver.

  “Chico. How are you?”

  “Chilled to the bone. A mass of ice.” The querulous voice registered a proper and reasonable objection. “Hijo de madre! Even when you come alone in a private plane, it takes you over an hour to clear the customs!”

  It was a long sentence for Chico, and Huuygens appreciated it.

  “Yes,” he said simply, because there really was no other answer, and studied his companion. “Do you have the gun?”

  “In the glove compartment. I don’t like guns.”

  “Nor do I. Probably less than you; I’ve had to use them.” Kek opened the glove compartment, took out the gun and checked it thoroughly, slipping it into his coat pocket.

  Chico twisted the ignition key; the engine sprang to life.

  “Where do we go?”

  “We don’t. We wait here.” His large hand went out to prevent Chico from turning the ignition key, clamping over it. “Let the engine run and keep the car warm.”

  Chico’s first reaction was to explain the status of gasoline rationing in the Madrid area at the time, but then he thought better of it. To begin with, Chico’s business was, in the main, getting around rationing regulations of any type, and Kek knew it. And besides, the heat felt good, and Chico wondered why he had frozen in the parking lot for over an hour.

  “All right,” he said, and relinquished his grip on the ignition key. “How long do we wait?”

  “Until the regular flight from Brussels.”

  He leaned over, glancing at his watch in the light from one of the street lamps
. Chico had been correct; he had spent better than an hour in the office of the night chief of the customs section. How time flies when one is enjoying himself! he thought with a smile, and then wiped the grin away. He was very far from being out of the woods.

  “It should be here in about forty-five minutes, assuming it’s on time.” He glanced at Chico. “How would you like some coffee? They have a coffee stand inside. Go ahead; there’s plenty of time.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Chico said, and climbed out.

  Time passed. Kek’s eyes closed, hypnotized by the even droning of the smoothly running engine and the welcome warmth of the heater. A sudden hand on his shoulder and he came awake, striking out, fighting a recurring dream, shaking off the picture of the Stukas diving down on him over Kielce. He yawned deeply, recognizing his surroundings, putting away forcibly the memory of Warsaw burning that still lingered on the edge of his consciousness.

  “Hey!” Chico said.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Chico said, and climbed in, closing the door behind him. “You were slumped all over my side of the car. I touched you and you jumped a mile. And nearly clipped me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kek said, and smiled a bit sheepishly, rubbing his face to help awaken himself.

  “De nada.” Chico gallantly waved away the apology, and then remembered something else. “Oh, yes,” he added, “and your plane from Brussels just landed.”

  It must have been the sound of the plane that brought on the dream, Kek thought. Whenever I get overtired … “Thanks for remembering to tell me,” Kek said dryly. “How long ago is ‘just’?”

  “Just now; just as I came up to the car.”

  “I’d better wake up, then.”

  He climbed from the car and paced rapidly up and down the deserted asphalt parking lot, swinging his arms vigorously, breathing deeply. The icy air stung, but it revitalized him. When he returned to the car he felt much better. He tossed his suitcase from the rear seat into the front beside Chico and climbed into the rear, quickly closing the door behind him. He leaned forward.

  “The passengers will be coming out soon. Pull the car around to the front of the terminal—ahead a bit, between the main entrance and the parking space for the limousine to the city. And keep your motor running. Look like you’re waiting to pick up one of the passengers.”

  “Which I am, no?”

  “Which you are, yes.”

  Chico nodded but said nothing more. When there was nothing to say, there was no purpose in saying it. He shifted gears, switched on his parking lights in case a policeman happened to be about—not that the lights helped, or that there was much chance a policeman would stand around in that cold or at that hour—and edged forward. He followed the curved driveway to the point Huuygens had indicated and brought the car to a halt beside the curb. The two men waited patiently; Chico because he was on a job, and Huuygens because he had long since trained himself to patience when the stakes were large. Still, he felt his heart beating a bit more rapidly than usual. If he had made a mistake, it was a major one.

  Passengers were beginning to finally emerge from the sprawling terminal, some moving purposely in the direction of the parking lot with its two or three darkened cars, some more vaguely toward the limousine service to the city, or to the two lone cabs braving the cold of the night at the cab rank beyond. Behind them, porters trudged stolidly, carrying luggage. The shadows of the shivering people leaped playfully about as they passed between the light-poles, scattering down the road, swinging flatly on the asphalt in sharp, happy arcs, gleefully elongating and shortening. The shadows didn’t seem to mind the cold at all.

  Kek began to frown as more and more of the passengers emerged. The Dakota only held a complement of twenty-three plus crew, and well over half of them had already left the building, including the flight personnel. Then, with an audible sigh of relief, he nodded. A bareheaded, stocky man in a heavy trench coat shoved through the glass door. He sported a wild moustache and carried one of the small blue bags of the type given freely by airlines in that far-distant day. He paused a moment as if to get his bearings, and then trotted down the few steps leading to the roadway. He had a rolled umbrella hung carelessly over one arm and a small black cigar between his lips. He stopped again at the curb, puffing furiously on the cigar for a moment, and then flipped it away, starting to move quickly in the direction of the cab rank.

  Kek grinned in pleased satisfaction, relieved that his extraordinary gamble had paid off. He slipped from the car, his back to the approaching man, and then turned at the last minute, coming face to face with the other. To any onlooker—although other than Chico there were none paying the slightest attention—it had to appear that the two had bumped into each other by unfortunate accident.

  “I beg your pardon,” the stocky man said, not even looking, and moved to pass the other.

  “Hello, Alex,” Huuygens said quietly. “Perhaps I can offer transportation?”

  The gun was held easily in his topcoat pocket, but its rigid muzzle pressed quite convincingly against the other’s hard stomach. Alex DuPaul’s green eyes widened in sudden shocked recognition, and then hardened as full realization of his position struck him. For several seconds the tableau of the two facing each other held; then the tall, moustached man shrugged. It was a shrug almost of indifference.

  “I assume you have a purpose in all this,” he said quietly.

  “I do indeed.” Kek tipped his head ever so slightly toward the car. “Your overnight bag in the front seat, and you in the back. With me, if you don’t mind the company,” he added, and smiled politely. “Please? After you? This is no weather to stand around discussing protocol …”

  DuPaul clenched his jaw and climbed in. He tossed his bag into the front seat, placed his umbrella at his side, and leaned back. The door slammed; the car instantly began to move. Chico brought the lights to full bright and half-turned his head, speaking from the side of his mouth, still managing to keep both eyes on the road. In Spain, particularly, this is always advisable. Even at six in the morning on a deserted highway reckless drivers seem to come out of the ground. Chico had no idea of what Huuygens was up to, but he really didn’t care. He knew he would be well paid, and besides, the affair was beginning to gather his interest. He cleared his throat.

  “Where to?”

  Kek thought a moment, the revolver held unwaveringly inside his pocket against DuPaul’s rigid side.

  “Is there anywhere within a reasonable drive from here where we might drop our friend after I finish talking with him?” His words suddenly came back to him and he recognized their potential meaning, mainly from the sharp intake of breath on Chico’s part. He hastened to correct the false impression.

  “For heaven’s sake, no!” he said. “I mean, some place that would give him—say—an hour or two of brisk walking to reach civilization in the form of a telephone where he could call a taxi, or a highway where he might manage a ride, or anything like that?” He added, by way of necessary qualification, “A place we can reach by car ourselves, that is.”

  “Many,” Chico said, relieved, but also slightly insulted. He seemed to feel that Spain had somehow been degraded by the suggestion that it lacked isolated spots suitable for malfeasance. He swung from the airport road into a paved two-lane highway leading away from the city, driving in the direction of the jagged mountains looming faintly in the growing dawn against the cold horizon. Patches of ground fog momentarily drifted across the road and then cleared away, leaving the white concrete straight and deserted before them. The powerful car swallowed the undulating pavement, spewing it relentlessly out behind. Chico tramped on the gas, his hands firm on the wheel.

  “Actually,” he remarked over his shoulder, “this place I’m thinking of shouldn’t even be called a road. There are some ski resorts up this way that won’t open for another month, and they furnish a way to get in, but only by sleigh. They’re really little more than ruts. They don’t eve
n service farms.”

  It was an extremely long discourse for Chico, but his country’s honor had been at stake. He glanced back again. “How about a spot like that?”

  “Lovely,” Huuygens said, pleased, and turned back to Alex DuPaul, who sat rigidly erect, staring out of the car window into the growing dawn with no expression on his face at all. The pistol never left his side. “I’m happy to see you got my message.”

  Chico negotiated a curve expertly in the growing light.

  “Your message?” he asked, mystified.

  “I was speaking to my friend here,” Huuygens explained in a congenial tone. “Back in Brussels I arranged a message for him, explaining that a certain object of great value—which he thought was safely in his possession—was, instead, hidden in my room at the Colonies Hotel in a cardboard calendar tube. The man giving the message intended to way-lay me on the fast train to Paris, since he knew I was planning on taking it into Spain for some Englishman. Our friend here immediately suspected, quite correctly, that his trusted partner had already taken off for Madrid, and all he could do—and quickly—was to check the Colonies Hotel. I’m quite sure he realized the possibility of the whole thing being a trap, but he could scarcely fail to check, could he?”

  “Scarcely,” Chico said in complete agreement.

  “I really didn’t think the rusty window lock would stop him,” Huuygens went on, and then turned to his companion in the rear seat. “Or did you come in through the front door of the room? The Colonies Hotel is a bit careless in their hardware, if you ask me.”

  DuPaul continued to stare straight ahead, his jaw hard.

  Huuygens returned to his conversation with Chico. “And what do you think he found when he checked my room at the Colonies Hotel?”

  “That you were not telling the truth,” Chico assayed.

  “I’m ashamed of you,” Kek said sternly.

  “Then he found you were telling the truth.”

  “That’s better,” Huuygens said, mollified. “And naturally, finding me so upright, honorable, and trustworthy in the matter of having the painting, he assumed I would be equally upright, honorable, and trustworthy in the matter of taking the fast train to Paris.”