Dine and Die on the Danube Express

by Peter King

  Tabor decided on Palacsintas with chocolate and walnuts. I had them with apricots. Retes are strudels and come filled with a variety of fruit. Dr. Stolz chose them filled with szilvas—plums. Zilinsky, ever adventurous, selected tender fried Camembert cheese covered with blueberry jam. Lydecker chose Dobostorta that he said he had eaten previously in Hungary. It was a layered cake with a crispy caramelized top. Renata ordered a thinner cake with chestnut cream.

  The violinists played on, unobtrusive and melodious. We all ordered coffee, three asking for the Cafe Diablo after the waiter had described it—served flaming from a liberal amount of Grand Marnier.

  Conversations were occupying the others at the table when Zilinsky leaned toward me. “I think you know more than you are telling us,” she murmured.

  “More?” I said. “You mean about the murders?”

  Her eyes widened. “Ah, so you agree there were two?”

  “There certainly appeared to be one when the Budapest Times reported it.”

  “Yes.” Zilinsky’s tone was musing. She was an attractive girl, though her polished veneer suggested a lot of living. “So what else do you know?”

  “I am sure it will all become clear in a day or two,” I told her.

  “I’d like to know now,” she said softly, leaning closer. “We must talk about it when we get back to the train tonight.”

  I barely had time to nod an agreement, for a few of the guests were moving to other tables to talk to friends and acquaintances. Franz Reingold came over to ours.

  “Wasn’t that a wonderful meal?” he asked, eyes shining.

  There was universal agreement. “Still,” Reingold went on, “I’ll be glad to get back to the Donau Schnellzug. I just love trains!”

  “I thought you liked the toy trains,” said Lydecker.

  “I do, but I love the big ones, too. Have all my life. When I was a boy, my greatest thrill was to ride on a train.”

  “You have many of them in Switzerland,” remarked Renata. Perhaps she had done her homework on the passengers, or perhaps she picked up on his accent.

  “Yes, we do,” said Reingold. “When I grew up into a teenager, I rode them all over the country. My friend Albert and I knew every station in the country. I could tell you many stories about what we learned. One thing, was how two can travel for the price of one.”

  Lydecker voiced the thought of others of us at the table, though he did so more harshly. “I thought you came from a rich family. You didn’t need to do that.”

  Reingold giggled. At times, the boy that was still in him emerged. “Of course we didn’t, but we liked to—just for the fun of it.”

  “So tell us, Franz,” said Dr. Stolz, who had evidently come to know him a little better than the rest of us, “how did the two of you travel for the price of one?”

  “When the conductor came through the train collecting tickets,” Reingold said, still giggling, “Albert and I would go into the toilet. “Naturally, conductors knew the trick of hiding in the toilet if you didn’t have a ticket. But, you see, I had a ticket—and when the conductor came and rapped on the door, I would open it a little and hand out my ticket. He never suspected there were two of us!”

  Chuckling at his own cleverness, Reingold moved on to another table. Lydecker watched him. “Tell me, Doctor—you seem to know him—is he as uncomplicated as he sounds?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Stolz, “I believe he is.”

  Renata got up to go and talk to a colleague at another table. Elisha Tabor saw someone she knew, waved, and the two met mid-table. Professor Sundvall walked over, and we had a review of the meal, comparing dishes. “Wasn’t that goose liver pâté superb?” he asked, and we all agreed.

  Conversations started, finished as people moved around. The violinists gave up trying to compete or maybe they were dry and had sought temporary respite at a bar.

  It was close to midnight as we returned to the limousines at the door. The huge building was almost empty. The jewel case containing the crown was brilliantly lit in the darkened room, and the guards were still on duty everywhere and looking just as alert.

  The city was still bright and busy as the luxurious limousines swept through the streets. We passed a few sights that we had not seen before, and Renata dutifully described them to us. We passed the Medieval Synagogue, the Matthias Church, with its strangely lopsided front caused by its having one tall and one low spire, and the Holy Trinity Square, surrounding the Baroque column erected in 1712 as gesture of thanksgiving by the population for being spared the plague. “This is a favorite place for large numbers of Budapest citizens to gather,” Renata told us, “in order to watch the wedding spectacles that take place every weekend in spring and summer.”

  The Liberation Memorial was easy to spot. The 140-foot tower is visible from many parts of the city, and it honors the siege of Budapest by the Russians in 1945 and the Russian soldiers who died to liberate the city. On top is a young girl holding an olive branch high, her robe and hair flying in the wind.

  “The memorial was embellished by statues of Red Army infantrymen, peasants rejoicing at their new freedom, and giants slaying dragons—symbolic of Communism’s defeat of Nazism,” said Renata. “In recent years, the city government has worked towards a lighter approach, and most of the older statues have now disappeared.”

  We passed numerous museums—Budapest seemed to have an awful lot of them—then Renata announced proudly that we were entering People’s Republic Road. “It is considered by most to be the most elegant and attractive thoroughfare in Budapest,” she said. “It was modeled after the Champs Élysées in Paris and has had numerous names.”

  The buildings were a bizarre blend of a dozen different styles, and Renata pointed out Number 60 in particular. It did not look unusual, and we waited for her to tell us about it. “It was Gestapo headquarters when the Germans were here, and then the headquarters of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police,” she said. Several buildings had mosaics on the outside; courtyards were visible inside iron gates, and some of them had fountains.

  At the end of People’s Republic Road, Renata told us we were crossing Heroes’ Square. It was built to celebrate Hungary’s millennium in 1896. A semicircular colonnade is divided by an immensely tall column on the top of which is a winged figure rising in the center. Statues of Magyar chieftains on horseback surround the column.

  We rolled on through the old city of Pest, where most of the city’s sights are located, and finally slowed to a stop in front of the station.

  The orange globes cast an unhealthy tinge on our complexions, I noticed, as we walked the short distance from the limousines. I saw Karl Kramer standing on the cavernous platform, looking down toward the far end. I detached myself from our group and went to join him. He greeted me with a nod.

  “Your meal was good, I hope?”

  “Very good indeed,” I told him. “You are waiting to see us all put to bed?”

  “No,” he said seriously “We have a shipment arriving that we must take on to Bucharest. It is late.”

  At a nearby platform, a train shrieked a whistle, then began to pull slowly out of the station, coaches half-filled with passengers. We watched it leave, and after the few waving good-bye to the train had left, the ensuing silence was almost palpable. Most platforms were bare, and on one, a cart loaded with mail sacks was being pulled along, one wheel squeaking harshly.

  An evening breeze surged in, and newspapers blew and floated like lazy birds. The train that had just left sounded a double-note whistle as it picked up speed for its run out of the city.

  The other passengers had all boarded by then. Kramer and I stood alone on the dimly lit platform. He looked at his watch even though there was a large clock high above the platform.

  “Still, they are late,” he complained.

  “What is the shipment?” I asked.

  “It is going to Bucharest National Museum, some ancient artifacts. We only just heard about it, and we warned that we must leave on
time, but they assured us it would be here.” He looked at his watch again. “We had a telephone message that it was delayed, but it should be here by—”

  He broke off as a man in overalls appeared with a crate on a small, powered wagon with a snarling engine.

  “Finally, it is here,” Kramer said with relief.

  “Ancient artifacts,” I said. “Not another cargo of interest to villains, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Kramer said. “I must see the manifest.” He started forward, and I followed.

  “Is it valuable, do you know?”

  “It may be,” he said grimly.

  A gray-haired man in uniform and a peaked cap who was evidently the stationmaster had emerged and was talking to the man with the wagon. They were producing papers, and there was conversation. One of the train stewards was unlocking the door of the freight coach.

  We stopped a few paces away. Kramer was nervously scanning the platform we were on and also the adjoining ones. “This is a vulnerable time,” he said to me. “I don’t like to see the coach opened.”

  I could understand his concern. The stationmaster and the steward were nodding agreement. The door of the coach slid open, and the man with the wagon and the steward lifted the crate and carried it inside.

  A voice on another platform called plaintively. It sounded like a name and echoed from the enormous vaulted roof. Kramer was looking to see where the voice came from when there was a cry, a different voice. It was difficult to determine its origin, but it must have come from another platform.

  Kramer moved closer to the freight coach. The steward was nodding and speaking to the other man, who climbed back onto his wagon and drove away. Kramer watched wagon and driver closely until they were out of sight, then he went to the steward and was asking him questions. Kramer returned to me.

  “All is well,” he said.

  “You were worried,” I commented.

  “I like to consider all possibilities,” he replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘THE DANUBE BEND’ IS a unique blend of geography and history and one of the most historic places in Central Europe. It is flecked with medieval villages and thousand-year-old castles. Hungary’s turbulent past is inextricably mixed with it.

  As the great river winds its way out of Budapest eastward, it then turns south. That section of it, more than any other perhaps, has been a major transportation artery, starting in prehistoric times. Caesar’s armies built one of their most powerful fortresses there as a defense against the barbarian hordes. Traders have used the same route for countless centuries, and the roads visible on both banks of the river have served in both peace and war.

  Professor Sundvall was explaining all of this to us the next morning. It was a packed house—or at least, a packed coach. Everyone on the train seemed to be aware of the extraordinary significance of the region and was eager to learn about it.

  “We are still in the Alfold, the great Hungarian plain, the largest plain in Europe,” the professor was saying, “and we are crossing the Tisza, its largest river.” Gasps were audible as the passengers looked down into a chasm that seemed a mile deep. It wasn’t, but its steep, rocky banks made it look that way. The bridge curved, too, so that we could see the graceful but spindly arches supporting it.

  “The south bank—that is, to the right, is of greater interest. You will see three large towns—Szentendre, Visegard, and Ezstergom. On the left bank, the only town of any size is Vac.”

  Within minutes, Szentendre came into sight. “A Roman fortress was here, too,” said the professor, “and it was a Hungarian settlement in the tenth century. It was totally destroyed three times but always rebuilt.”

  It was a colorful town, with medieval shops and houses painted in greens, yellows, and pinks. Small gables, towers, and spires protruded here and there. The professor pointed out Castle Hill, rising above the town and glinting in the morning sun.

  The previous evening, Kramer and I had inspected the freight coach and found everything in order. It was the first time I had been inside it. The coffin-shaped container that held the vines, the large crate holding the Mozart manuscript, and the cargo for the Bucharest National Museum were there. There were also a number of mail and small freight items, most of them on shelves, the larger ones on the floor. The coach was about three-quarters full. Kramer prowled through it like a tiger, but finally professed himself satisfied.

  When he had personally locked the coach, he tried to find out who had called out on the platform just as the wagon appeared and where the second cry came from, but none the few people on the station admitted to it. We agreed that it could have been a means of diverting our attention, had an attempt at theft followed.

  So the Donau Schnellzug left Budapest on time. Kramer looked vastly relieved and told me that we should talk the next morning. I had not seen him and presumed that he was still cleaning up details from the previous night, so I felt free to listen to the professor’s fascinating talk on the Danube Bend.

  The train purred along in its usual imperturbable manner. A flight of wild ducks soared past us and settled in the willows by the Danube’s edge. Birch trees grew in abundance, and we saw groves of yellow melons and blue cornflowers. An occasional church spire stood tall and slender, and the professor told us that we might see the cornfields that cover much of the area.

  “Another ruined castle,” commented some jaded passenger. It stood on a promontory by the edge of the river and looked to have been built of several cubes of stone. A couple of fishing boats drifted lazily, satisfied to go with the leisurely movement of the Danube. The fishermen gave us a disdainful look, probably convinced that we were disturbing the fish.

  Irena Koslova was one of the professor’s attentive audience, and when he took a break she saw me and waved. I went to join her. She looked eye-catching in an azure blue light sweater and white pants. “Enjoy the meal last night?” she asked.

  “Mine was very good. And you?”

  “Loved it.”

  “The goose liver pâté was exceptional, I thought, and so was the duck.”

  “They were.”

  “I was trying to spot you, but you must have been at one of the tables on the opposite side of the room.”

  “I was with Herr Vollmer, Monsieur Larouge, Paolo Conti, an interesting Spanish lady, and a lawyer from Berlin,” she said.

  “Did you have a chance to do some more detecting work on Signor Conti?” I asked.

  “As much as I could.” She gave me an arch look. “I haven’t forgotten that I’m an assistant to Scotland Yard now.”

  “We had, er, better keep that between ourselves,” I told her hastily.

  “Of course,” she said blithely. “I can keep a secret.”

  “Besides,” I added, “I wouldn’t want to put you in any danger.” I didn’t want to frighten her, but I didn’t want the “Scotland Yard” connection given too much publicity.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. Anyway,” she went on, “I can’t believe I’m in any danger from Paolo Conti. He seems nice enough although he is paying a lot of attention to Elisha Tabor.”

  “Did he tell you that someone poisoned him?”

  Her eyes widened. “No!”

  “Yes.”

  She reflected for a moment. “He said he had to choose what he was going to eat very carefully at the banquet, but I thought maybe he had a stomach upset or something.”

  I gave her a sketchy account of the incident. “So who do you think poisoned him?” she immediately wanted to know.

  “It’s hard to say at the moment.”

  “You think it was the same person as the one who poisoned Talia Svarovina and Magda Malescu?”

  “I would leave out Magda Malescu,” I said. “She’s very much alive—you must know that, she was giving a bravura performance last night.”

  “I saw her,” Irena said. “She’s always onstage, isn’t she? So what about Svarovina?”

  “She was pois
oned,” I conceded. “Maybe it was the same person.”

  “If it was the same poison both times, then they must have been given by the same poisoner.”

  “Very perceptive,” I told her.

  She looked scornful. “You mean it’s logical, and you don’t think women can be logical.”

  She was being perceptive again. It was true, I had been thinking that logic is not the female character’s outstanding trait—but I wasn’t going to admit it.

  “When something seems obvious, a detective needs to reexamine it,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s reexamine—you say that Conti may have been given the same poison as Svarovina.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But not the same poison as Malescu,” she persisted.

  “Probably not. That’s why I said we should leave out Malescu.”

  She pouted. “That’s because you like her.”

  “She’s a wonderful actress and—”

  “Ha!” There was a world of contempt there.

  “Well, okay,” I conceded. “She is good-looking, I admit.”

  “You should have stomach-pumped her,” Irena said callously.

  I ignored that and continued. “The strange thing is that there was a strong smell of bitter almonds in her compartment.”

  “So?”

  “It is usually associated with cyanide—the deadliest of all poisons.”

  “If it’s that deadly, why didn’t she die?”

  “You’re being logical again,” I told her. “But you’re right. That’s the puzzle.”

  “How does she explain it?”

  “She doesn’t.”

  Irena looked thoughtfully out of the window. “There’s a Bulgarian herb called Sayiya Vanesta. Do you know it?”

  “No,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

  “It could be translated as ‘Acid Essence of Almonds.’ It’s cake flavoring. Bulgarians love cakes—they make them with all kinds of nuts. Almonds are one of the most popular, and they use Sayiya Vanesta to increase the almond flavor. There’s so much sugar in the cake that you need the acid to balance it.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.