Circus

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘I’ll go with you tomorrow. I swear it.’ There was a note of hysteria in her voice. ‘That plane, Bruno, that plane. Don’t you know you’ll never leave this country alive?’

  ‘I have things to do. And kindly modulate your voice. There’s a character with horrible marcelled blond hair close behind.’

  ‘I’m scared. I’m scared.’

  ‘It’s catching. Come along and I’ll give you some real coffee.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In this accommodation of mine you envy so much.’

  They walked some way in silence then she said: ‘Have you thought that if they’re on to you they may have bugged your place?’

  ‘Who says we’ve got to discuss affairs of state?’

  Sergius was deeply engaged in discussing affairs of state. He said to Alex: ‘That’s all that happened? Bruno and the girl went into this café, he spoke briefly to the two men already seated, took the girl to a separate table and ordered a meal. Then a third man appeared, joined the other two men, went to Bruno’s table, borrowed some money from him and returned to his seat.’ Alex nodded. ‘And you said you didn’t know the names of any of those men, had never seen them before, but that one of them was a giant, as big as Angelo here?’

  Alex looked at Angelo. ‘Bigger,’ he said with some satisfaction. Angelo was sadly lacking in Kan Dahn’s genial good nature and did not make the most lovable of characters.

  Angelo scowled blackly but no one paid him any attention, possibly because it was difficult to differentiate between his black scowl and his normal expression.

  Sergius said: ‘Well, we know who that is. Would you recognize the three men from their photographs?’

  ‘Of course.’ Alex looked hurt.

  ‘Angelo. Go tell Nicolas to bring whatever prints he has ready.’

  Angelo returned with Nicolas and about twenty prints. Silently, Sergius handed them to Alex, who leafed rapidly through them. He put one on the table. ‘That’s the girl,’ he announced.

  Sergius said with restraint, ‘We know that’s the girl.’

  ‘Your pardon, Colonel.’ Alex selected three more. ‘Those.’

  Sergius took them and handed them to Kodes, who glanced at them briefly and said: ‘Kan Dahn, Manuelo the knife-thrower and Roebuck, the expert with the cowboy rope.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Sergius smiled his mordant smile. ‘Have them shadowed at all times.’

  Kodes showed his surprise. ‘The presence of those three men could have been just coincidence. After all, they are among the outstanding artistes in the circus and it is natural that they should be friends. Besides, the Black Swan is, after all, the nearest café to the circus.’

  Sergius sighed. ‘Alas, it was ever thus. I am left to fight on virtually alone. All the decisions have to be made, all the thinking has to be done by a senior officer, which is no doubt why I am a senior officer.’ A false modesty was not one of Sergius’s besetting sins. ‘Our Bruno Wildermann is clever, he may also be dangerous. He suspected, only he knows how, that he was under surveillance and put his suspicions to the test. He had this man Roebuck standing by to follow whoever might follow him. This would make Roebuck – and, by implication, the other two – something just a little bit more than friends. Roebuck followed Alex. He didn’t go to borrow money, he went to inform Bruno that he, Bruno, had been followed by a man with a black coat, black moustache, very stupid.’ He bestowed a pitying glance on the crestfallen shadower. ‘I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you, Alex, to look over your shoulder? Just once?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Colonel.’

  Sergius gave him a look more commonly associated with a starving crocodile which has just spotted lunch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The circus left for Crau on the Wednesday night. Before its departure Bruno had gone to Dr Harper’s rail compartment. For a man with so much on his mind, facing up to what was unquestionably the crucial moment of his professional career, Harper was remarkably calm and relaxed. It was more than could be said of Wrinfield, who sat there with a drink in his hand and a most dispirited expression on his face. Wrinfield had screwed his courage to the sticking point but now that the moment was at hand he had about him the air of a man who suspects that something is about to become unstuck. Crau was a huge black cloud on his horizon.

  ‘Evening, Bruno. A seat. What will you drink?’

  ‘Thank you. Nothing. I’ve only one a week and I’m reserving that for later.’

  ‘With the fair Miss Hopkins, one would suppose?’

  ‘One would suppose correctly.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry the girl?’ Wrinfield said sourly. ‘She’s getting so she’s almost useless to me now, either moping or dreaming the whole day long.’

  ‘I’m going to. Maybe she’s worried and nervous. Like yourself, Mr Wrinfield.’

  ‘Going to what?’ Harper said.

  ‘Marry her.’

  ‘Good God!’

  Bruno took no offence. ‘Marriage is a common enough institution.’

  Wrinfield said suspiciously: ‘Does she know about this?’ Wrinfield had become genuinely fond of her and had come to treat her as the daughter he’d never had, more especially since Henry’s death.

  ‘Yes.’ Bruno smiled. ‘So would you, if you kept your eyes open, sir. She sat next to you at table tonight.’

  Wrinfield clapped his palm against his forehead. ‘She was wearing a ring tonight. She’s never worn a ring before. Fourth finger, left hand.’ He paused and came up with a triumphant solution. ‘An engagement ring.’

  ‘You’ve had a lot on your mind, sir. Like Maria. I bought it this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, congratulations. When we move off, we must come and toast the happy couple.’ Bruno winced but said nothing. ‘Eh, Dr Harper?’

  ‘Indeed. I couldn’t be more pleased.’

  ‘Thank you. I didn’t come to talk about the ring, though, just the company I had when I bought it. I’m afraid someone is on to me. A couple of nights ago I went with Maria to a café. It so happened Roebuck came along very soon after. He said he’d been intrigued by the behaviour of a character who emerged from the shadows of an alley near the circus when we’d passed by. Apparently he followed us all the way to the café, stopped when we stopped then took up a position across the road where he could watch us. It could have been coincidence or Roebuck’s lively imagination. Last night I was pretty certain that Maria and I were being followed again but I wasn’t sure. Today I was because it was in daylight. Not one shadow but two, taking the job in turns, one with artificially waved blond hair, the other completely bald. We wandered aimlessly, like a couple of tourists, wherever the fancy took us: they followed everywhere.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Harper said.

  ‘Thank you for not questioning my word. I don’t much like it either. And I don’t understand it. I’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing to attract any attention to myself. Maybe it’s just because my name is Wildermann and Crau’s my home town. It’s anybody’s guess. Maybe a dozen other circus people are under surveillance, too. Who’s to say?’

  ‘Most disturbing,’ Wrinfield said. ‘Most disturbing. What are you going to do, Bruno?’

  ‘What can I do? Just keep going, that’s all. Play it as it comes. One thing’s for sure, they won’t be shadowing me on the night.’

  ‘The night?’

  ‘Hasn’t Dr Harper told you?’

  ‘Ah. Tuesday. I wonder where we’ll all be then.’ With much clanking and shuddering the train began slowly to get under way.

  ‘I know where I’ll be. See you shortly.’ Bruno turned to go, then stopped short at the sight of the miniature transceiver on Harper’s desk. ‘Tell me. I’ve often wondered. How is it that the customs in various countries remove just about the fillings from our teeth while you manage to sail through with that transceiver?’

  ‘Transceiver? What transceiver?’ Harper clamped the earphones to his head, touched the mi
crophone to Bruno’s chest, switched on the power and pulled the transmit switch backwards instead of forwards. The machine hummed and a narrow strip of paper emerged from an all but invisible slit at the side. After about ten seconds Harper switched off, tore the protruding few inches of paper away and showed it to Bruno. It had a long wavy line along the middle. ‘A cardiograph machine, my dear Bruno. Every travelling doctor needs one. You can’t imagine the fun I’ve had taking the cardiographs of customs official after customs official.’

  ‘Whatever will they think of next.’ Bruno left, walked along the corridors of the now-swaying train, picked up Maria from her compartment, took her along to his own, unlocked the handleless door and ushered her inside.

  Bruno said: ‘Shall we have some music? Romantic, to fit the occasion? Then one of my incomparable dry martinis to celebrate – if that is the word – my descent into human bondage. And – it is just a thought – a few sweet nothings in your ear.’

  She smiled. ‘That all sounds very pleasant. Especially the sweet nothings.’

  He turned on the record player, keeping the volume low, mixed the Martinis, set them on the table, sat on the settee beside her and pressed his face against the dark hair in the approximate area of where her ear could be presumed to be. From the expressions on Maria’s face, first of startlement then of sheer incredulity, it was clear that Bruno had a line in sweet nothings that she had not previously encountered.

  Crau lay just under two hundred miles distant, so that even for a necessarily slow freight train it was no more than a brief overnight haul there, with two intermediate stops. They left in darkness, they arrived in darkness, and it was still dark when they disembarked. It was also extremely cold. The first overwhelming impression of Crau was one of bleak inhospitability, but then railway sidings, especially in cold and darkness, are not the most welcoming of places anywhere. The siding in which they had just drawn up was an inconvenient three-quarters of a mile from the circus auditorium, but the organizational genius of Wrinfield and his executive staff had been functioning with its usual smooth efficiency and a fleet of trucks, buses and private cars was already waiting alongside.

  Bruno walked beside the track towards a group of circus performers and hands who stood huddled under the harsh glare of an overhead arc-lamp. After exchanging the routine good mornings he looked around for his two brothers, but failed to see them. He spoke to the man nearest him, Malthius, the tiger trainer.

  ‘Seen my wandering brothers around? They’re a very hungry couple who never fail to join me for breakfast but I haven’t had the pleasure this morning.’

  ‘No.’ Malthius called out: ‘Anyone seen Vladimir and Yoffe this morning?’ When it soon became apparent that no one had, Malthius turned to one of his assistant trainers. ‘Go and give them a shake, will you?’

  The man left. Dr Harper and Wrinfield, both with fur hats and collars upturned against the gently falling snow, came up and said their good mornings. Wrinfield said to Bruno: ‘Like to come with me and see what kind of exhibition hall they have for us here? For some odd reason it’s called the Winter Palace, although I can’t see it having any possible resemblance to that palace in Leningrad.’ He shivered violently. ‘Even more important, however, is the fact that I’m told that the central heating is superb.’

  ‘I’d like to. If you could just wait a moment. Two thirds of The Blind Eagles seem to have slept in this morning. Ah! Here’s Johann.’

  Urgency in his voice, Malthius’s assistant said: ‘I think you’d better come, Bruno. Quickly!’ Bruno said nothing, just jumped quickly aboard the train. Dr Harper and Wrinfield, after an uncomprehending glance at each other, followed closely behind him.

  Vladimir and Yoffe had shared a double-bedded compartment, nothing like the princely quarters of their elder brother but comfortable enough for all that. They had become renowned and teased for their almost compulsive tidiness: unquestionably, they would have been distressed to see its present state.

  It was a shambles and looked as if a small but determined tornado had recently passed through it. Bedding lay scattered over the floor, two chairs were broken, glasses were smashed, a small hand-basin had been splintered and even a window – of heavy plate – had been cracked and starred without however, shattering. Most ominously of all, there were bloodstains on the torn sheets and on the cream-panelled walls.

  Bruno went to move inside but Harper put a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t. The police wouldn’t like it.’

  The police, when they arrived, didn’t like it at all. They were shocked that such a monstrous thing, the kidnapping of two famous American artistes – if they knew that Vladimir and Yoffe had been born less than half a mile from where they stood they were keeping the information to themselves – should happen upon their soil. The most immediate, the most rigorously thorough investigation would be held immediately. To begin with, said the inspector who had arrived to take charge, the area had to be completely cleared and cordoned off by his men, which was a lot less impressive than it sounded, for the cordoning off consisted merely of stationing two of them in the corridor. The occupants of the coach in which the brothers had slept were to remain available for questioning. Wrinfield suggested the dining-room – the temperature outside was below freezing point – and the inspector agreed. As they moved off, plain-clothes detectives and fingerprint experts arrived at the scene. Wrinfield elected to join them in the dining-car, after directing his immediate deputies to proceed with the unloading of the train and the setting up of the circus and the cages in the arena immediately outside.

  The air in the dining-wagon was almost unbearably warm – the giant locomotive was still hooked up and would remain so throughout the day to provide the necessary heat for the animals, who would remain there until they were moved up to the circus in the evening.

  Bruno stood apart with Wrinfield and Harper. Briefly, they discussed what could possibly have happened to the brothers and why; but as there was clearly no answer to either question they soon fell silent and remained that way until no less a person than Colonel Sergius himself made his entrance. His face was set in hard, bitter lines and he gave the impression that his anger was barely under control.

  ‘Dastardly!’ he said. ‘Unbelievable! Humiliating! That this should happen to guests in my country. I promise you, you shall have the full criminal investigating weight of our country behind this. What a welcome and what a black day for Crau!’

  Harper said mildly: ‘This can hardly be laid at the door of any citizen of Crau. They were missing when we arrived here. We had two intermediate stops on the way up. It must have happened at one of those.’

  ‘True, true, Crau is exonerated. Does that make it any easier for us to bear, do you think? What hurts our country hurts us all.’ He paused and then his voice took on a deeper timbre. ‘It needn’t have happened at either of those two stops.’ He looked at Bruno. ‘I’m sorry to have to suggest this but they might have been thrown off the train while in motion.’

  Bruno didn’t stare at him, his feelings and emotions were always too tightly under control for that, but he came close to it. ‘Why should anyone do that? Why should anyone even lay hands on them? I know my brothers better than anyone in the world – they never did anyone any harm.’

  Sergius looked at him pityingly. ‘Don’t you know that it is always the innocent who suffer? If you want to commit a burglary you don’t go to the home of a notorious gangster to do it.’ He turned to an aide. ‘Get the radio telephone in here and get the Minister of Transport on the line for me. No, do it yourself. If he complains about still being in bed tell him I’ll come and talk to him personally. Tell him I want every inch of track between the capital and here searched for two missing people. Tell him it’s urgent. Tell him they may be badly hurt and that the temperature is below freezing. Tell him I want a report within two hours. Then call the Air Force. Tell them the same thing but only to use helicopters. I want their report within the hour.’ The aide left.
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  Wrinfield said: ‘You think there’s a serious possibility – ’

  ‘I think nothing. A policeman’s job is to overlook nothing. We’ll know inside the hour. I have no faith in that old fuddy-duddy transport minister, but the Air Force is a different matter altogether. Pilots flying at ten metres, a trained observer for either side.’ He looked at Bruno with what he probably intended to be a sympathetic expression. ‘I commiserate with you, Mr Wildermann. I also commiserate with you, Mr Wrinfield.’

  Wrinfield said: ‘With me? Admittedly, two of my very best artistes are gone. True, I held them in the highest regard. But so did a score of others. So, for that matter, did everyone else in the circus.’

  ‘The others won’t have to pay the ransom. I merely advance a possibility. If such a possibility existed you would pay a great deal of money to get them back, would you not?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Alas, even in our glorious country, we have our villains. We even have kidnappers – and their favourite method of seizing a victim is from a train. And they are very desperate men – kidnapping is a capital offence in our country. This is but supposition, but a fairly strong one.’ He looked again at Bruno and the gash that substituted for his mouth parted fractionally. Sergius was smiling. ‘And we commiserate with ourselves. It looks as if we shall not be seeing The Blind Eagles in Crau.’

  ‘You’ll be seeing one of them.’

  Sergius looked at him. A score of people looked at him. Maria slowly passed a tongue across her lips. Sergius said: ‘Am I to understand – ’

  ‘I used to be a solo act before my brothers were old enough to join me. A few hours’ practice and I can do it again.’

  Sergius looked at him for a considering moment. ‘We all know you are a man totally without nerves. Are you also a man totally without feelings?’