by Eric Ambler
“Well, it makes it all the easier for us. You’re clear now as to what you’ve got to do?”
“Perfectly.”
We had reached the end of the street. The Via Margherita, which was part of the return route of the procession, was lined with Blackshirts in preparation for the crowds that would presently begin to stream away from the Piazza. Already, the edges of the pavements were lined with people, mostly women and children, prepared to sacrifice the sight of the ceremony in the square to secure the best possible view of the returning procession.
Zaleshoff made as if to turn in the direction of the Via Alessandro Manzoni, away from the square. I stopped and indicated the waiting people. For a moment or two we put up a show of arguing, then Zaleshoff glanced at his watch, shook hands with me and walked away towards the Scala. I appeared to hesitate, then make up my mind. There was a space on the kerb behind a Blackshirt. I took up my position there and settled down to wait. Out of the corner of my eye I was able to see that the plain-clothes men had established themselves against a newspaper kiosk some yards away. So far, things were going according to plan. The impression we had created was perfectly natural. Zaleshoff obviously had an appointment to keep. I was intent on seeing the procession again. The detectives, I was glad to see, were looking abjectly bored.
The Piazza Duomo was not more than a hundred yards from where I stood. Fifty yards away a cordon of police with fur-edged, three-cornered hats and swords had been drawn across the entrance. Beyond them was the crowd that would presently be split into two parts, one of which would be forced along the pavement behind me. From the square came the sound of sentences being bellowed from loudspeakers, sentences punctuated with cheering, cheering that, from where I stood, was like the harsh roar of the sea receding over shingle.
The Balilla and the Avanguardisti of to-day will be the natural heirs of Fascismo. Cheers. Italy deserves to be the biggest and strongest nation in the world. Louder cheers. Italy will become the biggest and strongest nation in the world-Il Duce has willed it. A roar. Youthful conscripts of the Fascist revolution receive the rifle as the youth of ancient Rome received the toga of virility-it is one of the most beautiful celebrations of the party and most significant-war is, for a true son of Fascismo, the consummation of his love for his country. Was it my fancy or was the applause that greeted this a shade less vociferous? Youth be strong!
The loudspeakers bellowed on. At last it was over. The massed bands struck up the Giovinezza. The huge crowd sang it.
Youth, youth, thou lovely thing,
Time of springtime’s blossoming,
Fascismo bears the promise
Of Liberty to the People.
The cordon of police was beginning to push forward into the crowd to clear the road for the procession. It was nearly time! I looked across the road. According to plan, Tamara should have been in her place by now. It was possible that she had been hemmed in by the crowd somewhere. I was beginning to get anxious when I saw her.
The crowd on the opposite pavement had already begun to thicken. Tamara was jammed between a large fat man clutching a very small flag and a middle-aged woman in mourning. I saw that she had seen me, for she was very carefully looking in the direction of the square. My heart beating a little more quickly than usual, I waited.
The police had succeeded in splitting the crowd and I could now see into the square to where the leading band was getting into position for the march to the station. I looked over my shoulder. The crowd behind me was now ten deep. My two shadowers were well hemmed in against the kiosk. One of them cast a casual glance in my direction. I managed to avoid his eye just in time and turned my attention to the militiaman behind whom I was standing. As far as I could make out, he was about twenty-one years of age, but I could not see enough of his face to enable me to form any opinion as to his kindness of heart. I would have to chance that.
Eventually the band struck up and began to move forward slowly. Now was the time. I began to rehearse feverishly the one simple sentence I had to say. The crowd began to cheer. The first detachment of Avanguardisti wheeled out and formed up behind the band. The drum-major threw out his chest, his legs stiffened into the Roman goose-step, he tossed his baton into the air, caught it neatly and twirled it. The band stepped out.
They were now not more than fifty yards away. Thirty yards. I waited frantically for Tamara’s signal. But it did not come. Then I remembered my part and began to wave excitedly to her. Twenty-five yards. The applause of the crowd was swelling up, sweeping along the street like a tide over sand-flats. I was nearly sick with apprehension. Another second and it would be too late; Zaleshoff’s fine plan would have failed. He would have to think of something else. The noise of the band and the cheering became deafening. Then I saw her waving to me. It was the signal.
I started forward into the roadway and gripped the militiaman’s arm. He was getting ready to come to attention and half-turned in an effort to shake me off. I hung on.
“My wife, Signore!” I shouted in his ear. “We were separated in the crowd and she is opposite-can I get across?”
As I said it, I released his arm and started forward. I heard him shout something after me but what it was I do not know. On top of his anxiety to come to attention at the right moment, my question had disconcerted him enough to prevent his making an effort to stop me. Now it was too late. I was half-way across the road.
It could not have taken me more than eight seconds or so to cross. It seemed like eight minutes. I felt, and probably was for that short space of time, the most conspicuous object in Milan.
In the middle I stumbled and for one ghastly instant I saw the procession advancing head-on towards me. Then the faces and the fluttering flags on the opposite kerb came nearer and I saw Tamara again flapping her handkerchief at me. The militiaman in front of her frowned at me, but he was now standing stiffly at attention and made no movement. The fat man waved his flag in my face. The woman in mourning mouthed angrily at me but the noise drowned what she said. Then the girl caught my arm and started to draw me after her through the crowd. The fat man, divining that the movement would give him more room, made way. A moment or two later we were behind the crowd. I drew a deep breath.
“Phew! Thank Heavens that’s over!”
She was choking with laughter.
“What is it?” I demanded irritably.
“Their faces! You didn’t see their faces!”
“Whose faces?”
“Your two shadowers. They tried to push through the crowd after you. The crowd thought they were trying to get to the front to see the procession better and got mad. Someone knocked one of their hats off. It was lovely.”
“I thought you were never going to signal.”
“I know you did. But I had to leave it to the last moment.” She indicated a side turning. “We go down here.”
Two streets away, in the Via Oriani, we came upon a large Fiat limousine standing with its engine running. Inside it was Zaleshoff. As we came up, he got out.
“All right?” he asked the girl.
“All right. Couldn’t be better. They won’t be able to get this side for another three-quarters of an hour at least.”
“Good.” He nodded to me. “Nice work. Hop in.”
I got in the back and he followed me. The girl got into the driving-seat.
Reaction had set in. For some reason I had begun to shake from head to foot.
Zaleshoff offered me a cigarette. I took it.
“Well,” I said acidly, “what do we do from now until half-past ten to-night? Hide?”
He lit his own cigarette and stretched himself luxuriously on the cushions. “Now,” he said comfortably, “we’re going to enjoy ourselves. Step on it, Tamara.”
We drove out along the autostrada to Como, went for a trip on a lake steamer and had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake. I enjoyed myself enormously. The sun had only just gone down by the time we had finished our dinner and for a time we sat out on the terrace drinking
our coffee and smoking.
The stars were almost dazzlingly bright. At one end of the terrace there was a clump of cypresses looking like thick black fingers against the blue-black sky. There was a smell of pine resin in the air. I had forgotten about my companions and was thinking of Claire, wishing that she had been there, when Zaleshoff spoke.
“What are you going to do when you get back to England?”
I came out of my trance and looked towards him. I could see his shadow and that of the girl and two cigarette tips glowing.
“How did you know I was going back to England?”
I sensed rather than saw his shrug. “I guessed from your manner. There’s been an atmosphere of suspended animation about it.” He paused. “This business has kind of taken the heart out of the Spartacus job, hasn’t it?”
“This business and other things.” I felt suddenly that I wanted to talk to someone about it; but all I did was to ask a question. “Do you know a man named Commendatore Bernabo?”
“The guy you bribed to get that machinery order?”
I jumped. That was something about which I had not gone into details with Zaleshoff.
“Yes, that’s the man. But I didn’t tell you that either.”
“These things get around. Bribery’s an old Italian custom.”
“There are a lot of old Italian customs I don’t like.”
He chuckled. “For a business man, you’re a bit fussy, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a business man. I’m an engineer.”
“Ah yes. I was forgetting. My apologies.”
“Besides, I still have a bruise or two on my body.” I hesitated. “I suppose I shall have to get another job.”
“Making shells instead of selling the machinery for making them?”
“There are other things for an engineer to make.”
“Sure!” He paused again. “I thought you told me that you only took the job because you couldn’t get anything better.”
“I read in a trade paper yesterday that there’s a shortage of skilled engineers at the moment.”
I heard him blow smoke out of his mouth. “Yes, I read that article too.”
“ You read it?”
“I read a lot of things. That article was, if I remember, based on the statement made by the managing director of an armament firm, wasn’t it?”
To my annoyance, I felt myself blushing. I was glad that it was dark.
“What of it?” I said indifferently. “Someone’s got to do the job.”
He laughed, but without good humour. “The stock reply according to the gospel of King Profit. Industry has no other end or purpose than the satisfaction of the business man engaged in it. Demand is sacred. It may be a demand for high explosives to slaughter civilians with or one for chemical fertilisers, it may be for shells or it may be for saucepans, it may be for jute machinery for an Indian sweat-shop or it may be for prams, it’s all one. There’s no difference. Your business man has no other responsibility but to make profits for himself and his shareholders.”
“All that’s nothing to do with me.”
“Of course it isn’t,” he rejoined sarcastically, “you’re only the guy that makes it possible. But you also may be the guy that gets squashed to a paste when those shells and high explosives start going off-you and your wife and kids.”
“I haven’t got a wife and kids,” I said sullenly.
“So what?”
“Damn it, Zaleshoff, I’ve got to eat. If there’s a shortage of skilled engineers and I’m a skilled engineer, what do you expect me to do? Get up on a soap box?”
“In a year’s time, my dear Marlow, the same trade paper will be telling you that there are too many skilled engineers. Too many or too few-too much or too little-empty stomachs or overfed ones-the old, old story. When are you English going to do something about it?”
“Are you speaking as an American or a Russian?”
“What difference does it make? Isn’t it common-sense to replace an old, bad system with a better one?”
“You mean Socialism?”
I must have said it derisively for he laughed and did not answer.
“The moon’s rising,” said Tamara suddenly. I looked. A curved sliver of yellow light was visible above the trees.
“Picture postcard,” commented Zaleshoff; “but good picture postcard.” He got up. “It’s time we went.”
We paid the bill and in silence began to walk back to where we had left the Fiat. The way lay down a lighted road. We were about half-way down it when, without thinking, I looked over my shoulder.
“No,” murmured Zaleshoff, “they’re not there. We left them behind in Milan.”
“I wasn’t…” I began. Then I stopped. He was right. I had got used to the idea of being followed. Things, I reflected bitterly, had come to a pretty pass. I had a sudden nostalgia for home, for London. I would go home next week, get away out of this miserable atmosphere of double-dealing, of intrigue, of violence. It would be fine to see Claire. The night I got back we would go to the Chinese place to eat. You didn’t get a moon or stars like this in London, but there you weren’t followed by Italian detectives in Homburg hats. The Boy Scouts didn’t march as well as the Balilla, but there were no loudspeakers to bawl stuff at them about the beauties of war.
And then, for no particular reason, I found myself thinking of something Hallett had once said. It had been after lunch and we had been looking at some newspaper photographs of a Nazi mass demonstration. I had made some comment about the efficiency of German propaganda methods. He had laughed. “It’s efficient because it’s got to be. The British governing class never has that particular worry. In England, people read their newspapers and kid themselves.” But then, as I was always reminding myself when I thought of things Hallett had said, the man was a Socialist. And Zaleshoff I believed to be a Communist, a Bolshevik agent. It was time that I pulled myself together and behaved like a reasonable being. It was sheer lunacy to go through with this plan of Zaleshoff’s.
I had had one very forcible warning. Next time I should no doubt be dealt with in the same way as Ferning had been dealt with. I made up my mind.
“By the way,” I said, as I got into the car, “I’ve decided to call this business off this evening.” As I said it I felt ashamed. But there was, I told myself, no other way.
Zaleshoff had been about to follow me into the car. He stopped. The girl turned her head and giggled.
“A bad joke, Mr. Marlow; but then I always said the English sense of humour was distinctly…”
“Just a minute, Tamara.” Zaleshoff’s voice was quiet enough, but the words were like drips of ice-cold water. “You are joking, aren’t you, Marlow?”
“No.” It was all I could manage.
“A bad joke, indeed!” he said slowly. He got in the car and sat down heavily beside me. “May one inquire the reason for this sudden decision?”
I found my tongue. “Put yourself in my position, Zaleshoff. I’ve got everything to lose by doing this and nothing to gain. I…”
“Just a minute, Marlow. Listen to me. I give you my solemn word that in doing this you are not only helping your own country considerably but also millions of other Europeans. The other day you asked me what the devil this had to do with me. That I cannot explain to you for reasons that you, I fancy, may have a shrewd notion about. You must take my word for it that I am on the side of the angels. And by angels I don’t mean British and French statesmen and bankers and industrialists. I mean the people of those countries and of my own, the people who can resist the forces that have beaten the people of Italy and Germany to their knees. That’s all.”
I hesitated. I hesitated miserably. At last: “It’s no use, Zaleshoff,” I muttered, “it just isn’t worth my while to do it.”
“It isn’t worth your while?” he echoed. Then he laughed. “I thought you said you weren’t a big business man, Mister Marlow!”
Towards eleven o’clock I drove slowly along the autos
trada away from Milan. I had left Zaleshoff and the girl at a caffe a mile back; but Zaleshoff’s final instructions were still churning round inside my head. “Fight him tooth and nail. Be as angry as you like. But for goodness’ sake don’t forget to give in.”
The April sky was now clouded over. It was warm enough inside the car, but I found myself shivering a little. I found that my foot kept easing gradually off the accelerator. Then I saw ahead two red lights close together.
Although I had been expecting to see them, they made me start. I slowed down and switched on the headlights. It was a large car, well into the side under some bushes overhanging the road from the embankment above. I switched off the headlights, drew up a few yards behind it and waited. Then I saw General Vagas get out and walk back towards me.
12
BLACKMAIL
The manner of the General’s greeting was that of a man ruefully amused at the antics of a rather troublesome child.
“Good evening, Mr. Marlow.”
“Good evening, General. You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, I did. But this”-he waved his hand expressively at our surroundings and broke off-“I hope your taste for the melodramatic is satisfied?”
“I do not like melodrama any more than you do, General,” I retorted. “I was anxious only to be discreet.”
In the reflected light from the lamp on the instrument board I saw his thick lips twist humorously.
“A very desirable anxiety, Mr. Marlow. You must forgive me if I find the result a trifle exaggerated.”
“You wanted to see me?” I repeated.
“Yes.” But he was evidently determined to take his time. “I understand that you secured the Commendatore’s contract.”
“I did. I trust that you were satisfied with my efforts to return the compliment?”
“Quite.” He hesitated. “But it was on that subject that I wanted to speak to you.”
“Yes?”
He peered inside the car.
“Ah, leather seats! I think that my car is a little more comfortable than yours. Supposing we go and sit in it.”
