And I also declare, as no doubt his honor will be interested to hear, the reason why I am now leaving you for ever. It is because I have discovered that you are a German, a German secret agent, a mean, conscienceless, unscrupulous, money-grubbing, cynical German scoundrel. Oh, how I hate you, you beast!
E.
[5]
"Oh, how much I still love you, you beast!" groaned the passionate, statuesque Estrella Rodrigues.
While Thomas Lieven, in his cell in the Aljube, Lisbon, an icy chill at the pit of his stomach, was reading her farewell letter, the black-haired Consul of the provocative figure was sitting on the other side of the globe, in the drawing room of the most expensive suite in the most expensive hotel in San Jose, the capital of the Republic of Costa Rica.
Estrella's eyes were red. She was trying to keep cool by fanning herself. Her heart was beating fast. Her breath came fast.
Jean, Jean, she thought, I can't stop thinking about you, you vile beast called Thomas Lieven, you contemptible liar, you who have betrayed me ... My God, and I love you so ...
The Consul, confronted with this tragic state of affairs, boldly risked her life by pouring a double Costa Rican brandy down her beautiful throat. Then she closed her eyes with a
shudder and remembered, with a shudder, her latest experiences.
Once more she saw the British agent telling her the truth, the truth about Thomas Lieven. Then she saw herself after the Englishman had left her. A crushed, shattered, broken woman . . .
It was in a state of collapse that in the evening of September 9, 1940, she had crept to the big safe in her bedroom. With tears in her eyes she had spun the combination and, trembling in every limb, opened the heavy door. That scoundrel's fortune in cash lay before her. Marks, escudos, dollars. Almost blinded by her tears, betrayed, deeply unhappy, she had counted the money.
That evening the visitors to the Estoril casino had experienced a real thrill.
Estrella Rodrigues, more beautiful than ever, paler than ever and wearing a gown cut lower than ever, arrived with a capital of some twenty thousand dollars. The employees and croupiers knew her as a persistent loser. They all, by this time, felt so sorry for her. But this evening she won and won and won.
She gambled with Thomas Lieven's money as if in a trance. She staked only the maximum, each time. When she staked on No. 11 it came up three times running. She staked on 29 en plein (to win 35 times the stake) and a cheval (on the separating line, to win 17 times the stake if either number comes up) and won both times. She staked on the middle dozen, red, impair (odd numbers), passe (Nos. 19 to 36) and No. 23 en plein and a cheval, putting on the maximum in each case. No. 23 came up!
Whenever she played she won, whatever she staked.
Tears came into her beautiful eyes. Gentlemen in dinner jackets and ladies in the most costly mink furs watched this strange gambler with curiosity. For she sobbed as fast as she won.
Players rose from their seats at other tables in the hall, with its sparkling candelabra, enormous mirrors framed in white and gold and splendid paintings. They came from every direction to stand in serried ranks staring at the beautiful woman in the red evening gown winning incessantly and growing, apparently, more and more desperate all the time.
"You are too beautiful. You have too much luck in love. It would be unfair if you also had luck at play." These words, which Thomas Lieven had uttered on the evening they met,
burned like fire in her memory. Too much luck in love! That was why she had always lost. And now—now . . .
"Vingi-sept, rouge, impair et passe!* 1
A cry of astonishment rose from the crowd.
Estrella sobbed aloud. For she had won again, the maximum allowed at the Estoril casino with that stake.
"I—can't—go—on," moaned the fair winner. Two attendants in pumps were needed to escort her to the bar. Two other attendants with wooden boxes were needed to take the counters she had staked to the cashier to be changed. The conversion produced a sum of $82,734.26. It would hardly be appropriate, just then, to say that ill-gotten gain never thrives.
Estrella took a check for the amount. In her gold-embroidered evening bag she found a stray counter worth ten thousand escudos. From the bar, she threw it over the heads of the players onto the green cloth of an adjacent table. The counter fell on red. Estrella called out, sobbing: "For betrayed loves!"
Red came up.
Yes, red came up, Estrella Rodrigues remembered, with tear-filled eyes, on November 5, 1940, in the drawing room of the most expensive suite in the most expensive hotel of San Jose. In San Jose it was half-past nine in the morning by Costa Rican time. In Lisbon it was half-past twelve in the afternoon by Portuguese time. In Lisbon Thomas Lieven was just swallowing a first double brandy in the attempt to forget the awful dismay he felt. In San Jose the fair Consul was already drinking her second double of the day. She had imbibed the first directly after breakfast.
During the last few days she had been imbibing oftener and oftener, earlier and earlier in the day and with more and more relish. She suffered from such awful palpitations that she simply had to drink.
For if she didn't she really couldn't bear the memory of Jean, the sweet, unique, wonderful Jean—oh, the beast, the brute—any longer. Brandy, for the time being, helped her to some extent.
She was rich now and had nothing more to worry about She would never see her beloved one again. The humiliation of having yielded to him in the past had ceased to afflict her.
With trembling fingers Estrella drew from her crocodile-leather handbag a golden flask, and unscrewed it. With trembling fingers she refilled her glass. And as her tears began to
flow afresh she cried aloud, alone in the splendid room: "Never, never shall I forget that man!"
[6]
"Never," said Thomas Lieven, "never shall I forget that woman!"
Twilight was falling, in shades of mother-of-pearl, over Lisbon. Thomas Lieven paced his cell like an irritated tiger.
He had told Lazarus the whole truth. Lazarus knew now what Thomas's real name was, what tricks he had been playing and what fate awaited him if the German, British or French secret service could lay hands on him.
The hunchback, as he smoked a cigarette, was watching his friend attentively. "That sort of hysteria in women," he said, "disgusts me. And what's more, you never know what people like that are going to do next."
Thomas paused briefly in his restless pacing. "Yes, that's just the trouble. Tomorrow she'll be quite capable of writing to the prefect of police and accusing me of some murder that's never been cleared up."
"Or several murders."
"What?"
"I said, or several undetected murders."
"Yes, I daresay. But there's no way out. My position's quite hopeless. Naturally she's taken that damned bracelet with her and it'll never be found. So I can just sit here until I rot."
"That's right," said Lazarus. "And for that reason you'll have to get out in double-quick time."
"Out of here?"
"Before she can do you any more harm."
"Lazarus, this is a prison."
"So what?"
"What about the bars and walls and thick iron doors? What about the magistrates, the warders and the bloodhounds?"
"Just so. It won't be quite so easy for you to get out as it was for you to get in."
Thomas sat down on the edge of his cot. "But is it even possible?"
"Of course. We'll just have to exert ourselves a bit, that's all. Didn't you tell me you've learned something about forgery?"
"Yes, and a good lot too!"
"M'm. Well, there's a printing press in the cellar here. It's
used for all the forms required in court. We'll get hold of the right rubber stamp somehow. You yourself are going to be the chief problem, my friend."
"I? How do you mean?"
"You'll have to change your style."
"In what way?"
Lazarus smiled grimly. "In my way. You'
ll have to grow smaller. You'll have to limp. You'll have to sport a hump. And hamster's cheeks. And twitching lips. And of course your noddle will have to be quite bald. Shocked you now, haven't I?"
"N—not at all," Thomas Lieven lied gallantly. "F—freedom's w—worth every effort, isn't it?"
"It's the best thing life has to offer," Lazarus declared. "Now listen very carefully to what I'm going to tell you."
He spoke at some length.
And Thomas Lieven listened very carefully.
"Of course it's always easier to get into jail than out," said the hunchback Lazarus Alcoba. "And yet it's not so terribly difficult to get out again."
"Well, that's good news, at any rate!"
"It's lucky we're in Portugal and not in your part of the world. In Germany the trick wouldn't work. Everything's too well organized there."
"Yes, so I've heard. German prisons are the best in the world, eh?"
"I've been in the Moabit jug twice myself," said Lazarus, striking himself on the knee. "And I can tell you the Portuguese simply-can't compete with the sej-up there. They're much too good-natured. They lack the Prussian sense of duty, the German love of discipline."
"You're right there."
The hunchback banged on the door of the cell. The friendly warder Juliao, so lavishly tipped by Thomas, who treated him as if he were the floor waiter in a good hotel, appeared at once.
"Ask the cook to step up here a minute, will you, pal?" said Lazarus to the warder. Juliao, with a bow, disappeared. Lazarus turned to Thomas. "Your escape's going to start in the kitchen, see?"
A little later the hunchback was saying to Francesco, the fat cook: "Look here, you know we have a printing press in the cellar, don't you?"
"Sure. For printing all the forms required in court."
"Including the public prosecutor's orders of release, eh?"
"Certainly."
"D'you know any of the lags working down there?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"We want one of those orders of release."
"Well, I'll keep my ears open," said the cook.
"Yes, do that, will you?" Thomas Lieven broke in. "I can guarantee anyone who does us that little favor a week's good feeding."
Two days later the cook reported. "I've found a bloke who's willing. But he wants a whole month's good chow for the job."
"Impossible," said Lazarus coolly. "Two weeks' and no more."
"I'll see what he says," replied the cook.
When he had left the cell Thomas said to the hunchback: "You needn't have been so stingy. After all, it's my money that'll pay for it."
"Matter of principle," retorted the hunchback. "You mustn't let 'em stick it on. But apart from that, I hope you were telling the truth when you said you could forge a rubber stamp?"
"I can forge any rubber stamp you like. I've studied under the best forger in the country," Thomas retorted. He was thinking, It's perfectly awful how low you can get. I'm still actually proud of it!
Next day the cook reported that the printer had agreed to the terms offered.
'Where's the form?"
"The printer says he wants the fortnight's good grub first."
"Trust for trust," growled Lazarus. "He can either send up the form straight away or he can forget the whole thing."
An hour later the form was delivered.
Lazarus had been reporting daily, ever since his arrival, to the chief warder, for work on the prison books and business correspondence. He typed dozens of letters every day. The chief warder read his newspaper and left the hunchback to his own devices.
Lazarus was accordingly able, without interruption, to fill in an order for his own release. He typed his name, his personal description and the number of his file. He dated the order for November 15, 1940, though that day was only the eighth. Lazarus and Thomas needed a good week for what they had in mind. A day would also be required to pass the form through
the official channels in the prison. Thus if all went well Thomas could be -released on November 16. That would be a Saturday and the friendly warder Juliao always had that day off, so . . . But we must not anticipate!
Lazarus finally completed his order of release with the signature of the public prosecutor, which he could easily copy from a letter filed in the chief warder's office.
On returning to the cell he asked Thomas: "I hope you've also been busy?"
"I've been practicing all the afternoon."
It had been arranged that Thomas would report instead of Lazarus as soon as the forged order of release reached the prison chancellery and Alcoba's name was called. For this purpose Thomas would be obliged to disguise himself as the hunchback so far as possible. It would be difficult, considering that Lazarus Alcoba had a hump and practically no hair on his head, that his cheeks were like a hamster's, that he was smaller than Thomas and suffered from a nervous twitching of the lips. The hunchback therefore insisted upon Thomas practicing the disguise every day.
Thomas now crammed the space between cheeks and gums with pellets of bread, thus actually giving his cheeks the look of a hamster's. Then he began to twitch his lips nervously. He tried, though the bread was a hindrance, to imitate the hunchback's voice.
"Don't grunt like that, lad! And what sort of a twitch is that? You're twitching far too much up!" Lazarus seized his own lip. "Look, I twitch down, not up! Lower, man, lower!"
"Won't go any lower." Thomas mumbled, twitching for all he was worth. "Those blasted bread crumbs are in the way!"
"No bread, no hamster cheeks. Just keep on trying and it'll go lower!"
Thomas wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, I must say that mug of yours is a menace."
"We can't all be as handsome as you are. And don't forget we've only just started. Wait till I've singed all your hair off."
"Singed . . ."
"Of course. D'you think they'd allow us razors and scissors here?"
"I'll never be able to stand that," Thomas groaned.
"Cut the cackle and get on with your practicing. Shrink! Put on my overcoat, so that you can see how much to bend your knees. Take that pillow and make a decent hump for
yourself. And don't bother me now, I've got to make a few enquiries around here."
"What about?"
"I want to find someone who has a letter from the public prosecutor. With a stamp over it. So that you can counterfeit it."
Thomas Lieven put on the hunchback's old overcoat and went limping about the cell with bent knees. Meanwhile Lazarus began knocking on one of the walls with a shoe. He used the simplest of all the alphabets invented for that form of communication. Three knocks for 0, two for b, and one for c. Then six for d, five for e and four for /. Then nine for g, eight for h and seven for i and so on.
After knocking for all the letters in his question he waited for an answer, turning to watch Thomas as the latter twitched, grunted and practiced walking with bent knees.
An hour passed. Then the prisoner in the next cell began to knock. Lazarus listened, nodding.
Finally he said: "There's a prisoner named Maravilha on the third floor. He's kept, as a sort of souvenir, the public prosecutor's notification of refusal of his application for release. There's a stamp on the thing."
"Fine," grunted Thomas, twitching his lips hard. "Offer him a week's decent grub for it."
m
November 1940 was very warm. It was still possible to swim in the Atlantic or lie in the sun on the beach at Estoril, although dress, by Portuguese law, had to be extraordinarily chaste. Police regulations required males to wear one-piece costumes and the authorities were even stricter with the ladies.
On November 9, towards midday, a sour-looking, bowleg-ged gentleman hired a so called gaivola on the beach. This contraption was an old-fashioned water-bicycle, consisting of two wooden runners, a sort of deck chair with pedals slung between them and a paddle wheel. The gentleman proceeded to pedal out to sea, somewhat laboriously, in his gaivola.
He was
about fifty years of age and wore a brown swimming suit and a straw hat. After about fifteen minutes he sighted a second gaivola far out to sea, rocking gently, all by itself, on the slight Atlantic swell. He steered toward this second machine. After another quarter of an hour he had come near enough to it to recognize the gentleman reclining in it,
who looked like a close relative of his own, equally embittered and overworked of aspect.
The second gentleman, who wore a black swimming suit, called out to him: "Thank God, I was beginning to wonder whether you would come."
The gentleman in the brown swimming suit drew alongside the other. "Well, as you telephoned to say that my life was at stake, of course I came."
He of the black costume replied: "Don't worry, Major Loos. Out here no one can hear us. No mikes here. Quite a brilliant idea of mine, eh?"
He of the brown costume treated the other to a hostile stare. "Oh, very brilliant. What did you want to see me about, Mr. Lovejoy?"
The British secret service agent sighed. "I wanted to make a proposal for the benefit of us both, Major. On the subject of that fellow Thomas Lieven."
"I thought that might be it!" The German Intelligence officer nodded grimly.
Lovejoy said in a morose tone: "You people are after him. He's played you up. He's played me up, too. You and I may be enemies, admitted. We're obliged to hate each other. All the same, Major, I should like your permission for us to work together in this case."
"Work together?"
"Major, we belong to the same profession. I appeal to you as a colleague. Don't you think that things have gone far enough when a lousy civilian suddenly pokes his nose into our affairs, a bloody outsider who cheapens the market, makes us look like fools and goes on as if we were born idiots!"
The major from Cologne muttered gloomily: "I'm likely to get the sack on account of that fellow."
"And what about me?" growled Lovejoy. "Either I bring him to London or they shove me into Coastal Patrol! Do you know what that means? I've a wife and two children, Major. I expect you have too."
"My wife has obtained a divorce."
"Well, we don't earn much in our job. But I don't see why we should have our whole lives ruined by a fellow like that."
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 19
