Dine and Die on the Danube Express

by Peter King

  “But you cannot produce any of them,” Kramer said.

  “I destroy them. They are contemptible.”

  “Then there’s the so-called cyanide,” I added. “You could not have had plans for putting on this show for Czerny before the journey because you didn’t know he—or she—was going to be on the train. You went to the kitchen storage and saw the Acid Essence of Almonds and returned, sending Svarovina to steal a jar of it.”

  She nodded haughtily.

  “No doubt you could not resist the drama of a strong aroma of bitter almonds—normally considered a deadly poison,” I said.

  “I was in a play. It was good, it lasted almost six months. It was about a man trying to poison his wife. For extra effect, the director had the idea of releasing an aroma of Acid Essence of Almonds into the theatre. The audiences loved it.”

  “What do you suppose are the circumstances surrounding the death of Fraulein Svarovina?” Kramer demanded.

  Malescu’s demeanor changed. I was sure she wasn’t acting this time, I felt there was genuine sorrow for her understudy.

  “We had agreed to change places after I had allowed Tabor to ‘find’ my murdered body.” She permitted herself a faint smile. “Talia enjoyed the few occasions when she played me, and she also admired this compartment—it is much larger and more luxurious than hers. I can only guess that she used the opportunity to entertain a man—and he killed her.”

  Kramer leaned forward. “Who was the man?”

  “I don’t know.” Her reply was unequivocal.

  “I ask you to guess,” Kramer said forcefully.

  “I cannot guess. I don’t know.”

  “You are sure it was a man?” Kramer went on.

  “Oh, yes, quite sure. I knew Talia too well.”

  “Poison is more often a woman’s weapon than a man’s.”

  Malescu made no reply.

  “I have another question,” I said. “Did Talia Svarovina know that Elisha Tabor was Czerny?”

  “I have told you how close we were, Talia and I,” said Malescu. “Over the years, personal details came out—it was inevitable.”

  “Including your earlier acquaintance with Elisha Tabor?”

  “That, too, of course.”

  “And your knowledge that she had become the renowned journalist, Mikhel Czerny.”

  “Yes.”

  “We will talk with you further, Fraulein,” Kramer said in his most officious voice.

  We left and walked to his office. “You did well to extract those admissions from her,” he said, when we were seated.

  “They clear up the early mystery of the dramatic headline and the disappearance, but I’m not sure how they help us learn who killed Svarovina and Tabor—or why.”

  “If Svarovina had an assignation with a man after Malescu’s faked ‘murder’ act, she presumably had had earlier contact with him,” Kramer said.

  “Agreed.”

  “Did she appear particularly friendly with any man?”

  “I haven’t come across any evidence of one—” I hesitated. Kramer looked at me keenly. “Go on.”

  “It may be that Tabor was having an affair with a man. I don’t know who, and I’m not certain of it anyway …”

  “Both women were murdered by the same poison combination, so we may conclude that the same man was responsible for both,” Kramer said.

  Could I get any more out of Irena Koslova than I already had? Did she know any more? Even subconsciously? Kramer was waiting for me to continue and tell him more about Tabor’s lover, I could see. I had to let him wait in vain—I didn’t think I could sell him on Irena’s intuition. He tapped on his desk reflectively.

  “Little did Czerny know that her own murder would be the next sensational story in the paper,” he said grimly. “In the meantime, many guests will now be in the lounge coach or the restaurant coach. If you join them, you may learn something. I have the impression that even a tiny clue might complete the puzzle.”

  “I think so, too.”

  I talked with Friedlander, the Australians, Professor Sundvall, and the Walburgs. In each case, it was only an exchange of greetings and some small talk, but it was evident that none of them had heard of this latest death.

  Lydecker came into the lounge, and we had a brief conversation. “We’ll be in Bucharest tomorrow,” I said. “You’ll be anxious to get your act ready.”

  “I’m always ready,” he said.

  “Going to make a woman disappear?” I asked.

  He gave me the briefest of glances before he said, “I’m introducing a new variation on that act.”

  I waited for some elucidation, but he wasn’t forthcoming, and I knew it would be a waste of time to press him for his stage secrets. It was difficult to suppress the urge to tell him that his onetime assistant, Elisha Tabor, had reappeared as the dreaded columnist of the Budapest Times, but I managed it.

  “I believe I’ll have an early lunch today,” he told me, and headed in the direction of the restaurant coach.

  Eva Zilinsky was sitting, drinking a cup of black coffee and reading a Viennese newspaper. She looked up at my approach, smiled, and went on reading. I wished her a good morning, and she acknowledged with another smile. I decided she wasn’t seeking company and moved on.

  When Irena Koslova entered, I approached her quickly.

  “Let’s go in to lunch.”

  “It’s early, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I want to talk to you, and it will be quieter in the restaurant coach.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Is it about our—er, business?”

  “Yes, and it’s important.”

  She agreed at once, and we took a table well away from the few diners there already.

  “What have you heard?” she wanted to know.

  “Elisha Tabor was Mikhel Czerny.”

  Her mouth opened in astonishment. She became aware of it and promptly closed it. “That’s impossible! No, wait a minute…no, it isn’t. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? She was just the type, and it’s quite common for prominent journalists to use another name.”

  I explained briefly how Malescu had put on her act in order to humiliate Czerny and, when I came to the part about Tabor and Malescu having been assistants in Lydecker’s magic act, she started to open her mouth again but this time controlled it.

  The waiter arrived at the table, and as Irena saw him approach, she whispered, “We’d better order, or people will get suspicious.”

  “I think you’re just hungry,” I told her.

  “Exciting news always makes me hungry.”

  “Maybe some wine will help,” I said to Irena. To the waiter, I said “Can you recommend a white wine, Romanian, of course, now that we’re about to enter that country? Dry, assertive, a wine with a mind of its own?”

  “Romania has a fine Pinot Gris,” he told us, “and a Chardonnay that is said to be very close to white Burgundy.”

  “Let’s have the Chardonnay,” I decided. To Irena, I explained, “We get very little Romanian wine in England even though Romania is one of the top ten wine-producing countries in the world and number five in Europe. Their problem is that the government has not yet given serious backing to a wine export program.”

  She nodded impatiently, clearly anxious to get on with detection. When the waiter had left, I said to her, “You realize that this makes your information about Tabor having an affair with a man on the train more significant.”

  “I can see that. Do you have any idea who he is?”

  “No. I was hoping that you might.”

  “I’ve tried, really, I have but I can’t get any picture of him.”

  “Is that how it usually works?”

  “That’s one of the ways.”

  “Have you talked with Gerhardt Vollmer recently?”

  “Just for a few minutes yesterday.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “He was more interested in learning my address and phone number.”
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br />   I avoided the obvious question concerning her response, and instead asked, “You didn’t learn anything new from him?”

  “No. I led the conversation to Malescu, but he didn’t pick up on it.

  “Have you talked to Conti?”

  “A little. He has fully recovered now, he says. I asked him who had poisoned him—”

  I laughed involuntarily.

  Irena tossed her head. “Well, it’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I agreed, “and sometimes the direct approach works.”

  “I don’t know if it worked or not. He said he didn’t know.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  The waiter arrived with the wine and two glasses. He poured, and I tasted. It did indeed taste like a French white Burgundy, and I complimented him on his recommendation. We both drank, and Irena said, “No, I didn’t believe him. He may not have been lying exactly—he may have had just a suspicion but perhaps not enough, you know what I mean?”

  “You think he may be trying to figure it out, and he may come up with a decision?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Out of the window, I could see that we were heading for another high suspension bridge. The train was turning sharply to enter the straight run at the bridge.

  “This is the biggest bridge we’ve seen so far,” Irena said in an awed voice. “It’s enormous.”

  “We’re not in Romania yet, are we?” I asked.

  “No, but we’re very close. The borders are not as clearly demarcated as they used to be.” She leaned closer to the window. “Aren’t we going awfully slow?”

  The waiter came with a basket of rolls. Tiny wisps of steam arose from them, along with the delicious fresh-baked aroma. He put the basket on the table and peered outside, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Something wrong?” I asked him.

  “We’re going very slow,” he muttered. We all looked out at the bridge as we moved toward it. The train slowed more and more.

  “This is very strange,” the waiter said. “We cannot be stopping here surely …”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE DANUBE EXPRESS MOVED more and more slowly, as if it was running out of steam. All three of us stared out of the window, and anxious voices farther down the restaurant coach indicated that others were concerned, too.

  It was not a view for the fainthearted—the bridge was so high that the river below looked almost miniscule. It was all like a model train set. The bridge was enormously long, too—it crossed the Danube at a diagonal so that it stretched into the distance where the far bank of the river seemed miles away.

  We moved still slower, and the view of the land on either side of the train began to fall away. Another waiter came over and spoke to ours in a low voice. I could catch only brief snatches of the conversation, but they were agreeing that this was an unusual occurrence.

  I heard someone approaching from behind, and Kramer came hurrying to my table. “We have an emergency,” he said in a low voice. “You had better come with me.” He ignored Irena, which emphasized the urgency of the occasion.

  I followed him past the other tables, where the occupants shot us anxious looks, and on into the next car. As we passed through the other cars, we were asked what was happening, and Kramer gave them a standard, “Nothing to worry about.”

  We hurried through the lounge coach, then through the kitchen and the storage coaches. We stopped at the locked door leading into the next coach—the freight coach. Kramer reached for his key wallet.

  “I had an urgent message from one of the stewards,” he said, “just before the train began to slow. He reported voices coming from this coach.” He punched keys on the pad in the wallet, activating the master key.

  “Voices!” I said. “How can anyone be in there?”

  “I don’t know but—”

  We were aware of someone behind us, and we both turned. Paolo Conti was there, and he had an automatic pistol in his hand.

  I should have expected this,” Conti said in a bleak voice. “I had a message this morning telling me that one of our agents had stumbled across an informer who warned of an attempt to rob this coach.”

  Kramer was looking dubiously at the automatic. Conti smiled and lowered the weapon. “Sorry, I guess I reacted a little fast—”

  Kramer had still not inserted his key in the lock. “One of your agents?” he asked brusquely.

  Conti grimaced. “I should have told you before. I am with Amici della Uva—you have probably heard of—”

  “Yes, we’ve heard of you,” snapped Kramer. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Before Conti could answer, into the seconds of silence, came voices from inside the coach. We all stared at one another. It sounded like three voices, probably two men and one woman. They might have been arguing; their voices were strained and tense. The words were right on the threshold of understanding, some were in German, some in English, but the heavy door distorted them, preventing us from hearing clearly what was being said.

  “What else did this informer tell you?” asked Kramer.

  “Unfortunately, no details, just that a robbery attempt would be made before the train reached Bucharest.”

  “I wonder …” said Kramer. “I wonder what it is they want—the vines or the Mozart manuscript.”

  “My job,” said Conti, brandishing the automatic, “is to protect the vines. I’m not concerned with sheets of music.”

  “I presume that it was to prevent you from doing your job that the poisoning effort was made?” said Kramer.

  Conti nodded. The voices sounded fractionally louder, and all three of us tried to hear what was being said. Finally, Kramer shook his head. “We have to go in …” He inserted the key in the lock.

  Kramer pushed the door gently. As it opened, the voices became louder, though still unclear. It was more definite now that there were three of them, and they seemed to be bickering over what should be done. Kramer reached inside his jacket and took out a short-barreled pistol.

  He kicked the door wide open, holding the pistol in both hands, and went into the coach. Conti and I followed.

  No one was in the coach.

  We stared at the crate containing the Mozart manuscript, the coffin-shaped chamber that held the vines, and at the shelves stacked with parcels and packages. A number of larger boxes and parcels stood on the floor and in front of them, the crate of artifacts that had been loaded in Budapest. The voices were coming from it. Obviously a tape recorder was concealed inside.

  Kramer took a step closer, disbelief showing on his face. From behind us, Conti’s voice came, louder than the voices from the crate and sharper—as there was menace in it.

  “Place that gun on the floor, Herr Kramer, and do it very, very slowly.”

  Kramer froze, the gun held firm in his outstretched hand.

  “On the floor!” said Conti in an icy tone, and Kramer obeyed.

  “Now step over the gun and kick it back here.”

  Again, Kramer did as he was told. Conti was behind Kramer but within my line of sight. I watched Conti pick up the weapon and drop it into his pocket.

  “Now,” Conti said, “take that key wallet out of your pocket and do the same with it. Do it slowly.”

  Again, Kramer obeyed.

  I watched Conti examine the wallet. It was evidently still programmed for the door through which we had entered. He used it to lock the door, then turned his attention to the sliding door on the side of the coach and punched numbers. He appeared dissatisfied with the result and did it again. He took two long steps and pressed the muzzle of his gun against my temple.

  “Turn this way, Herr Kramer,” he instructed. “Stop!” he ordered when Kramer had turned enough to be able to see both Conti and me.

  “The code for the key to the side door of this coach is evidently different from the door through which we just entered,” Conti said.

  Kramer said nothing.

  “You confirm that is s
o? No matter. I know that it is. Now, you will tell me the code for the side door, or I will pull this trigger.”

  The voices on the recorder were continuing but, with the cold muzzle of the automatic burning the skin on my forehead, they sounded to me like the chatter of goblins, murderous, insane goblins.

  Kramer spat out some numbers, his blond hair seeming even blonder and his glare at Conti even more baleful. The gun at my temple did not waver as Conti, one-handed, tapped on the keys. The side door began to slide open steadily.

  “I was supposed to have an assistant to do this,” said Conti, his mood and tone lighter now. “It’s a little more difficult this way but, don’t worry, it will still get done.”

  He took the gun away from my head and stepped away from me, keeping Kramer and me covered as he moved to the open door.

  “Fraulein Svarovina must not have liked the idea of being your assistant,” said Kramer grittily. “Did she object, and you had to kill her?”

  “I had known her sometime ago. When this job came up, I learned that Malescu would be on the train, and I knew that Talia would be with her. I offered her the chance to make enough money that she could give up the menial job of being Malescu’s lackey—she was getting tired of being in the shadow of the great star anyway.”

  He glanced out of the open door. What was he looking for? I wondered. He did not relax his focus on us, however, and he went on. “Stupid girl! She was already blabbing Malescu’s intimate details to Czerny—then she wanted a bigger share, otherwise she threatened to spill the story of this job so Czerny could have an even bigger story.”

  “So, in your guise as an agent for Amici della Uva, you developed a friendship with Miss Tabor, to find out if Talia had fed her any titbits on the theft of the vines?” I said. “One of my informers saw you with her a few times.”

  He nodded, but the gun didn’t waver. “Right—and Talia had given her some hints about a robbery. Elisha couldn’t wait to get more of the story, greedy bitch. So I had to get rid of her, too—I wasn’t sure just how much she knew.”

  The voices ceased. The tape was probably repetitive and would start up again.

  Conti stood by the open door and looked down. From what I could see, all that lay out there was a dizzying drop down a cliffside. At the foot of the cliff would be the Danube, though I couldn’t see it. The train was stationary, perched on the end of the high bridge.