by Eric Ambler
“It’s a wonder,” explained Zaleshoff, “that it doesn’t look a damn sight worse. We tore the shopping list in half and went out to get the whole outfit in a couple of hours. A guy with a hare-lip sold me that bureau. It’s a nice piece, but Tamara seems to think it was a waste of money. She fixed the packing cases. I sat on one yesterday and tore my pants. You’d better try the divan. I bought that, too.” He raised his voice. “Tamara!” He turned to me again. “Take your things off, Mr. Marlow, and have a cigarette. You’ll find some in the bookcase. Excuse me, will you, I’d better superintend the cooking.”
“You’re too late,” said a voice.
Feeling slightly bewildered by all this, I turned round. The girl was standing in the doorway removing an apron.
“And,” she added, “it’s quite all right to sit on the packing cases now. I took the nails out myself.”
“Oh, there you are,” said Zaleshoff. “This, Mr. Marlow, is my sister, Tamara.”
She smiled. I found myself smiling back at her.
“I’m glad you could come, Mr. Marlow,” she said; “I was afraid that you would be annoyed with us for not speaking to you last night. Andreas has probably explained why we didn’t.”
“Actually,” I replied, “he hasn’t explained. But I’m quite sure that it was necessary.”
“Andreas, you said…”
He flourished an arm dramatically. “Silence! We will discuss these matters after we have eaten. To your kitchen, Tamara!”
At the door she paused. “It is simply, Mr. Marlow,” she explained gently, “that he was badly brought up. You must try to make allowances for these gaucheries.” She shook her head compassionately and disappeared into the kitchen.
Zaleshoff chuckled. “Have a drink, Mr. Marlow?”
“Thanks.”
“Whisky? I got a bottle in specially.”
“That’s very good of you.”
He took some glasses out of the bookcase. “Nothing’s too good for a man who can put up with Vagas for an evening.”
“Oh, so you do know him!”
He wagged an admonitory finger. “I know of him. Say ‘when.’ ”
“When!”
“I bet he warned you against me, didn’t he?”
“In a sort of way.”
“Ah! well, here’s looking at you.”
“Cheerio.”
The girl entered carrying a tray with a big copper saucepan in the middle of it. “Can you eat a real paprika goulash, Mr. Marlow?”
“With enthusiasm.”
“That’s fine, because that’s what this is.”
“I should like to know,” grunted Zaleshoff, “what you’d have done if he’d said it made him sick. Opened the other can, I suppose.”
The meal proceeded amidst a running fire of amiable bickering. It was obvious that it was all a performance put on for my benefit; but it was amusing enough and I began to enjoy myself. The goulash was delicious. There was, too, something pleasantly stimulating in the company of Zaleshoff and his sister. For the first time since I had left England, I began to feel friendly towards my surroundings. At last, warmed by a stomach-full of goulash, I began a racy account of my evening with General and Madame Vagas. I made no mention, however, of the General’s proposition, and Zaleshoff did not refer to our previous conversation on the subject. We might have been three very ordinary acquaintances discussing a fourth. Then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. And it was a change for the worse.
I had been rambling on happily on the subject of Ricciardo and his incense. They were laughing. Then, quite casually, I went on to mention the note that Madame Vagas had pressed into my hand and my diagnosis of the lady’s mental condition.
The effect of my statement was sensational. There was a sudden silence in the room. It was as though someone had switched off a very noisy radio.
“What did you say was in that note, Mr. Marlow?” Zaleshoff’s voice was preternaturally calm. The girl’s eyes were fixed on her plate.
“I’ve got it in my pocket if you want to see it. But why? What’s the matter? You surely don’t take it seriously?”
He glanced at the note in silence, then gave it back to me with a shrug.
“No, I don’t take it seriously. It’s the work of a spiteful woman. I wouldn’t have remarked on it at all, except for one thing.”
“Well?”
“That sentence happens to be very nearly true.”
I goggled at him. “But Ferning was run over.”
“Ferning,” said Zaleshoff firmly, “was murdered.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Ferning.”
I got up from the table. “Now look here, Zaleshoff. You’ve given me a good dinner, and so far I’ve enjoyed myself. But I tell you frankly…”
But he did not allow me to get any further.
“Sit down, Mr. Marlow. The time has come for you and me to have a little heart to heart talk.”
“I don’t…”
“Sit down!” He raised his voice.
“Yes, Mr. Marlow,” said the girl; “do sit down. You’ll get indigestion. Have some more whisky.”
“I don’t want any whisky, thank you, and I won’t sit down.” I was trembling with annoyance.
“Very well, then,” snarled Zaleshoff, “stand up. But listen to me for a moment.”
“I’m listening.”
“Good. Then get this. I don’t know whether you walk about in blinkers or whether you’re just plain stupid. But if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s time the Italian representative of the Spartacus Machine Tool Company of Wolverhampton began to ask himself a few questions.”
“Such as?”
“Dammit, man!” he exploded; “you’ve been here ten days. You’ve had your passport taken away from you and been ordered to report to the police every week like a paroled convict. Doesn’t that seem a bit funny to you? You’ve had your mail tampered with, and you’ve had your assistant, Bellinetti, trailing you ever since you arrived. I know, because I’ve watched him. Doesn’t that say anything to you? And what’s more, you’ve had a proposition that stinks to high Heaven put to you by a bird who says he’s a Yugo-Slav General. You’ve had all that, and now you’re going to walk out on me.” His jaw shot out like a battering-ram. “Me! the only guy who can tell you what it’s all about.”
We glared at one another for a moment.
“Well,” I demanded, “what is it all about?”
He smacked his hands together. “Ah, that’s better! Now, for goodness’ sake have another drink.”
“Very well.”
“And don’t say it,” he added irritably, “as if I were offering you a tot of prussic acid.”
“Sorry. Only,” I added, “you can scarcely expect me to treat this talk of murder as if it were sewing-bee gossip.”
“You mustn’t take any notice of him,” chimed in the girl; “he thinks that tact is something you use to nail down linoleum.”
“Quiet!” roared Zaleshoff. He turned to me. “Now, Mr. Marlow,” he went on in tones of sickening affability, “do you feel equal to the strain of hearing a few facts?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then here’s fact number one. Last night this guy Vagas put a proposition to you. It went something like this. He said that he was acting on behalf of the Yugo-Slav Government and that his people were prepared to pay you to supply them with details of the Spartacus shell-production machines as you supply them to the subsidised factories. Is that right?”
“More or less.”
“He probably didn’t put it as simply as that. He probably talked a lot about it being simply a matter of routine intelligence and that there wasn’t the slightest risk involved. All you had to do was to let him have the dope and take your rake-off. Right?”
“Right.”
“Good. That, Mr. Marlow, is exactly what he told Ferning nine months ago. Ferning…”
“Just a minute! Did Ferning tell you this?”
He shook his head impatiently. “I never even spoke to Ferning.”
“But you said…”
“… that I knew him. I did. The same as I know the President of the United States.”
“Then how do you know what Vagas said?”
“It doesn’t matter how I know,” he retorted pugnaciously. “I just do know. Listen.”
“All right.”
“Vagas put the same proposition to Ferning as he put to you. It was all wrapped up in sugar in just the same way. Now, I don’t know what you said to Vagas. We’ll come to that later. But Ferning, the poor sucker, jumped at it. There are some guys who can never seem to learn that a something-for-nothing proposition always has a string to it somewhere. Ferning was one of them; and, unluckily for him, the string in this case happened to be more like a steel hawser. The point was that Vagas wanted a good deal more for his two thousand a month than a precis of the Spartacus correspondence files. Mind you, the story about Spartacus activities in Italy being of military interest to a foreign power was true enough as far as it went; that sort of information has to be collected somehow. But with Vagas it was only a sprat to catch a whale.” He paused. “Do you realise, Mr. Marlow, just how valuable a man in your position could be to a man like Vagas?”
“I don’t know what sort of man that is.”
“Ho hum! I’m coming to that. What I mean is this. You spend half your time here snooping round the big Italian armament factories and you have a legitimate reason for doing so. To a foreign agent you would be a gold mine.”
“Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
“Not a bit. Look at it this way. Imagine a bunch of poker players sitting round a table. You are wandering about the room smoking and wondering, let’s say, what you’re going to have for dinner. You’ve no interest in poker and still less in the players. Right. Now supposing one of the players puts a proposition to you. Supposing he says: ‘Look here, Mr. Marlow, while you’re just wandering about the room, supposing you take an occasional peek at these other guys’ hands, tell me what you see and let me make it worth your while? It’s quite easy. I’ll tell you what I want to know. You just give me the dope.’ You get the idea? Vagas is that player.”
“Yes, but he hasn’t asked me to do that.”
“Wait a minute. Let’s go back to the poker players. Supposing you’re already taking graft from one of these birds. One day this man will say, ‘Now look here, Marlow, if you don’t tell me what those other boys have got in their hands I’ll tell your boss that you’re on my pay-roll.’ What then? What are you going to do?”
“But he can’t say that.”
“Can’t he? That’s what he said to Ferning. A month or six weeks after Ferning started taking money from Vagas, Vagas got tough. They had a showdown. Mr. Ferning had got to make use of his entree into the factories to supply Vagas with the vital information that he, Vagas, needed. If Mr. Ferning didn’t toe the line, then General Vagas would spill the beans to Mr. Pelcher in Wolverhampton. The net result was that Ferning gave in. He still drew his two thousand a month, but he had to do a darn sight more for it.”
“You mean he let himself be blackmailed? I should have called Vagas’ bluff. After all, it would only have been his word against Ferning’s. Pelcher’s no fool.”
“No, but then neither is Vagas. It wasn’t just his word against Ferning’s. Vagas had proof. If Pelcher hadn’t believed him, all Vagas had to do was to send him the results of Ferning’s first month’s work. Pelcher would only have to compare Vagas’ version of Spartacus dealings for the month with his own records to see that Vagas had the goods. Get me?”
“Ye-es. I see that. But what’s this got to do with what you said about Ferning’s being murdered?”
“Ah!” He wagged a finger at me. “That comes next. Have another whisky first?”
“Thanks. I think I need it.”
“Vichy or water?” said the girl.
“Vichy, please.”
We drank solemnly. Zaleshoff put his glass down with a bang.
“Have you ever heard of the Ovra, Mr. Marlow?”
“No. What is it-a vegetable?”
“The question, Mr. Marlow, was rhetorical,” put in Tamara. “You needn’t do anything more than shake your head. He knows perfectly well that you don’t know what the Ovra is. He only puts it that way to be impressive.”
Zaleshoff pounded the table with his first. “Silence, Tamara!” He thrust his head suddenly under my nose. “You see those grey hairs, Mr. Marlow? They are the work of the loving sister you see here.”
I couldn’t see a sign of a grey hair, but I let the fact pass. “We’d got as far as the Ovra,” I reminded him.
“Ah, yes!” He glared at us both and drank a little more from his glass. Then he went on.
“The word ‘Ovra,’ Mr. Marlow, is formed by the initial letters of four Italian words- Organizzazione Vigilanza Repressione Anti-fascismo, vigilant organisation for the repression of anti-fascism. In other words, Mr. Marlow, secret police; the Italian counterpart of the Nazi Gestapo. Its members are as nice a bunch of boys as you could wish to meet. You’ve heard of the Mafia, the Sicilian secret terrorist society? Well, those birds were the inventors of protection racketeering. Anyone who didn’t or couldn’t pay was beaten up or shot. In the province of Palermo alone they bumped off nearly two thousand in one year. Chicago was a kiddies’ play-pen compared with it. But in nineteen-twenty-three, the Fascisti had an idea. They smashed the Mafia. It took them some time, but they did it. It was, they claimed, one of the blessings of Fascismo. But, like some other Fascist blessings, it was mixed. Some of the Mafia hoodlums emigrated to the United States and took their trade with them, which was very nice for the Italians but not so good for the American public. The big majority of the boys, however, were recruited by the Ovra, drafted to different parts of the country, so that they couldn’t get organised again, and set to work on behalf of the Government. That wasn’t so good for the Italian public. The Ovra’s first big job was to liquidate the opposition-the Liberals and the Socialists. That was in nineteen-twenty-four. They did a swell job. The murder of the opposition leader, Matteotti, a few hours before he was due to produce documentary evidence in support of a speech indicting the Fascist Government, was an early success. But it was only a beginning. These were the holy fathers of American gangsterism and they knew their stuff. The ordinary Italian is a nice guy. He’s a bit inclined to dramatise himself and his country, but he’s a nice guy: he’s fond of his wife and kids, he’s a darned hard worker and he’s as independent as they come. But you can’t fight terrorism with indignation. Terrorism always wins. The Government knew that. They consolidated their position by creating the Ovra. Its liquidation of the opposition was as bloody a page of history as you’ll find. Beatings, clubbings, killings-it’s all in the day’s work to the Ovra. The Mafiosi tradition has survived. The Ovra is all-powerful. It has become a regularly constituted secret police force. The Italian Government have even admitted its existence.”
He glanced at me doubtfully. “You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with Ferning, eh? Well, it has a lot to do with him for the simple reason that one of the departments the Ovra took under its wing was the department of counter-espionage. They’ve got a thing they call the Foreign Department which deals with nothing else. And it’s efficient, darned efficient. It didn’t take them long to get wise to friend Ferning.”
“How did they do it?”
“Bellinetti’s the answer to that one.”
“Bellinetti?”
“Sure. He’s an Ovra agent. Someone once estimated that at least one man in every ten in the big Italian cities works directly or indirectly for the Ovra. They conscript their agents and keep them under a sort of interlocking system. Agent A watches Agent B who watches Agent C, and so on. The man next door to you may be an Ovra agent. He thinks that you may be. What’s the result? When you get together over the fence to have a chat about politics, both of you n
early bust yourselves trying to show how hard you’re rooting for the Government. ‘Mussolini is always right’-that’s item eight in the Fascist Decalogue. You’ve got to have a pretty good system working to get folks to swallow that whole and keep it swallowed.”
“But what about Ferning?”
“Ferning, as I’ve said, was marked down for action. The question was-what sort of action? Now this is only my guess, but I reckon it went something like this. Ferning was a danger. He had to be stopped. But he was also a British subject and an employee of a firm that the Government was anxious to keep on good terms with. They needed those S2 machines-as many of them as they could get. To arrest Ferning would have been too noisy. There was only one thing to do-liquidate him. They called in the murder squad.”
“Do you mean to say that he was deliberately run over?”
“I do. They’ve done it that way before. Twice in Naples and once in Cremona. The man at Cremona had been a trade-union official once and he wouldn’t lie down. He was popular with the workers, so they had to make it accidental. It works beautifully. A man’s run over. Too bad! but it’s happening every day. So what?”
He sat back on the divan and finished his drink. I thought for a moment, then extracted Ferning’s page of notes from my wallet.
“I found this in Ferning’s desk. The first two lines refer to Spartacus transactions with the Braganzetta works at Turin. I deciphered that much. Can you tell me what the rest means?”
He took the page and frowned at it for a moment. Then his face cleared.
“Yes. I can tell you what it means. As you say, the first two lines refer to three special S2 machines for anti-aircraft shell production and a standard machine for the Braganzetta works. What comes after…”
“Here, wait a minute!” I put in suspiciously. “ I didn’t say anything about special S2 machines. How did you know?”
He looked blandly surprised. “It’s obvious. You’ve only got to look at these notes to see it.”
I thought both his manner and his explanation singularly unconvincing, but I said nothing. He went on:
