Background to Danger (15 page)

He flung out an appealing arm. He was glowing with sincerity. The girl stared at her note-book.

Kenton surveyed them both for a moment, then leaned back and put his hands in his pockets.

“You wish me to understand,” he said slowly, “that the photographs are forgeries, that Borovansky was a Russian patriot, and that Colonel Robinson and Captain Mailler are in the employ of the Trotskyites?”

Zaleshoff nodded.

“Those are the facts.”

Kenton stood up.

“Well,” he said bitterly, “I’ve known myself behave like a fool. I have even been told I was a fool. But I never before realised that I must look the biggest nit-wit in Europe.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I have never before heard so much unmitigated nonsense from the mouth of one man in the space of five minutes. I congratulate you. It was a magnificent achievement. But it is late and I am tired. I feel sure you will excuse me if I return to my hotel and get some sleep.”

He started towards the door.

“Just a minute, Mr. Kenton.”

He turned. Zaleshoff was standing behind the table. In his hand was the blue revolver.

The journalist shrugged.

“I am getting a little bored with all this melodrama,” he said acidly. “What is it?”

“The photographs, Mr. Kenton.”

“I have already made you an offer.”

Zaleshoff’s jaw shot forward angrily.

“What you ask is absurd. You are interfering in a matter that does not in the least concern you. Be sensible, Mr. Kenton.”

“Colonel Robinson was anxious, too, that I should be sensible.”

“I am not interested in Colonel Robinson’s anxieties.”

“Nor I in yours. I am going to be sensible from my own point of view. I am interesting myself professionally in this affair.”

For a moment the two men glared at each other in angry silence.

“I think,” said Tamara, “that it would be better and more comfortable if we all sat down again.”

“You keep out of this.”

The girl flushed slightly.

“I will not keep out of it, Andreas. You have bungled this affair badly and you know it. If you would not persist in treating this man as if he were a cretin like Ortega and—”

“Be silent,” roared her brother.

“Very well, Andreas. I will be silent. But I say first that you had better talk things over again before you go too far.”

“Don’t be silly, Tamara. What is the use of further talk?”

“It depends what sort of talk it is. I think, Andreas, that you will have to accept Mr. Kenton’s terms.”

For a moment Kenton expected an outburst of rage from the Russian; but it did not come. Suddenly, he dropped the revolver into his pocket, sat down and began pouring himself out some fresh tea. Kenton glanced at the girl uncertainly. She motioned him back to the sofa. Zaleshoff looked up from his tea with a sneer.

“So,” he said sardonically, “you are feeling sure of yourself, eh? Andreas Prokovitch is forced to give way to the demands of the gutter Press.”

“A question of
quid pro quo
, surely?”

“Quid pro quo!”
repeated Zaleshoff with deep contempt. “There is a great deal too much
quid
and not enough
quo
about this business.”

“He will stop talking nonsense in a minute,” said the girl calmly.

“Quiet!” snarled her brother. “This interfering busybody of a reporter pays you a stupid compliment and you lose your senses completely.” He turned to Kenton suddenly. “Why, my interfering friend, do you suppose I wish you to give me those photographs?”

“Because the original documents are not forgeries,” said Kenton promptly.

“Very clever of you. The photographs were taken illegally by a man in a Government department in Moscow.”

“Borovansky?”

“Yes. The man who told you his name was Sachs.”

“And where does Colonel Robinson come in?”

“Saridza was the man who bribed Borovansky to take the photographs.”

“Then he was speaking the truth when he said that Sachs was on his way to deliver them?”

“Yes.”

“Who was the man in the train of whom Sachs was afraid?”

“I know of no man in the train,” said Zaleshoff shortly. “It was probably Borovansky’s guilty imagination.”

Kenton decided to shelve the point for the moment.

“Who is Saridza?”

Zaleshoff’s face darkened.

“I think that on the whole you would do well to forget that name,” he said slowly. “So far as I know, only one
newspaper in Europe ever printed it. Saridza was calling himself something else at the time; but the newspaper, in probing some sort of financial scandal that he was connected with, used the real name. I don’t know how it had become known. The newspaper may have had Saridza’s dossier on their files. Anyway, the day after the article appeared, the man who wrote it was shot dead with his wife on the steps of their home.” He looked thoughtfully at the glass in his hand and it seemed to Kenton that the Russian was talking to himself. “They say that persons like Al Capone and John Dillinger are products of America’s corrupt administration and clumsy law-making. Saridza and his kind must be the products of the world business system. The principal difference between Al Capone and Stefan Saridza is that while Capone worked for himself, Saridza works for other people. When Capone ordered his hoodlums to machine-gun a couple of men on the side-walk from an armour-plated coupé, it was to maintain or increase his own income. When Saridza ordered that Captain to beat you with a
totschläger
until you gave him some photographs, it was to increase the income of what he called his principals in London—gentlemen who would, in all probability, hesitate before they swatted a fly. You see, your business man desires the end, but dislikes the means. He is a kindhearted man. He likes an easy conscience. He likes to think that the people he exploits are pleased and happy to be exploited. He likes to sit in his office and deal honestly with other business men. That is why Saridza is necessary. For at some point or other in the amazingly complicated business structure of the world, there is always dirty work to be done. It may be simple bribery, it may be the manipulation of public opinion by means of incidents, rumours or scandals, it may even be an affair of assassination—but whatever it is, Saridza and his kind are there to do it, with large fees in their pockets and the most evasive instructions imaginable.…

“Saridza started his career in Bulgaria in the early nineteen hundreds. His business then was intimidating shopkeepers—the ‘protection racket,’ as it is called now in America. But he has progressed. To-day, his specialty is moulding public opinion, and he is a person of curious importance. He has been decorated by most European Governments. Those same Governments also have his dossier on their files of dangerous foreign agents. He calls himself a propagandist. A better description would be ‘political saboteur.’ ”

Kenton fidgeted.

“But what would he want with those photographs?”

Zaleshoff wagged an expressive finger.

“Ah! There you have it. What indeed? As soon as I had positively identified Saridza with this affair, we set ourselves to examine the problem.”

“We?”

“Tamara and me,” said Zaleshoff blandly.

Kenton shrugged. “All right.”

“We concluded,” Zaleshoff went on, “that the key to the situation was in Rumania.”

“That wasn’t difficult.”

“No. But that simple fact alone did not get us any place. We had to look farther.”

“Just you and your sister still?”

“Certainly. We had one clue only. It was that Saridza had some years previously been in touch with the Pan-Eurasian Petroleum Company and that he had also been employed apart from that by the present chairman of the Pan-Eurasian Company, Mr. Balterghen.”

“Balterghen? He’s a big man in the City of London, isn’t he?”

“Very big. More important, it is his company that has been behind the agitation for oil-concession reform in Rumania.”

“Wait a minute. There was some business about a newspaper being beaten up for printing an article about that, wasn’t there?”

“There was. We have learned this morning that the orders to wreck the newspaper offices originated with the agent of the Pan-Eurasian Company in Bucharest. The idea was, apparently, to kill the issue in which the article appeared, but the paper was already distributed before the thing happened. It wasn’t a very good article, but it upset the Concession Reform proposals and resulted in an official inquiry. That was over three months ago.”

“You mean that Saridza’s principals in London are the Pan-Eurasian Petroleum Company?”

“It seems likely.”

“Hm! It seems rather circumstantial to me. Still, even if it’s true, I still don’t see where Sachs and his bundle of photographs come in.”

“Neither did we. But a little investigation gave us a further hint.” Zaleshoff lit a cigarette and gazed raptly at the ceiling. “Have you studied Rumanian politics recently, Mr. Kenton?”

“Consistently.”

But the question had evidently been rhetorical for Zaleshoff removed his eyes from the ceiling and went on as if the journalist had not spoken.

“Until nineteen-thirty-six,” he said, “Rumania could be summed up politically in one word—Titulescu. Titulescu’s foreign policy was based on friendship with Soviet Russia. The Little Entente was the first link in the chain round Germany. The last link was the Franco-Soviet pact. But there is reaction in the air of Rumania as there is in every other European country. With Fascism in Italy, National-Socialism in Germany, the Croix de Feu in France, Rexism in Belgium, and Nationalism in Spain, it was hardly likely that
Rumania would escape the contagion. Even in England the symptoms are apparent in the rising power of bureaucracy. Rumania’s little Hitler is Cornelius Codreanu, and he has a Goering in the person of General Zizi Cantacuzino. Codreanu was a lawyer until he formed a party called the League of the Archangel Michael. The name was afterwards changed to the Iron Guard. Later on he called it the All-for-the-Fatherland League. The name, however, is unimportant. The party’s policy is a familiar one—anti-Semitism, a corporate state, an alliance with Germany, and the ‘saving of Rumania from the Jewish and Communist menace.’ The party wears green shirts and occupies its time almost exclusively with the collection of funds and political assassination and terrorism. When Tatarescu forced Titulescu’s resignation and Titulescu fled from Rumania, a contingent of Codreanu’s men followed him. Titulescu’s attack of poisoning in St. Moritz was believed by many to have been their work. It is not unlikely. The point was that in place of Titulescu, Antonescu became foreign minister, and Rumania and Poland formed an alliance aiming at strict neutrality towards
both
Germany and Russia. In one way it was a good move. It killed any German idea of an attack on Russia by way of the Ukraine. But, unless something serious happens, personal power and the German alliance are as far away from Codreanu as ever. Now do you see where Saridza stands, Mr. Kenton?”

“You mean that Saridza has been employed to provide that ‘something serious’?”

“Exactly. You are familiar with the old Bessarabian quarrel between Russia and Rumania. The Iron Guard is out to drive Rumania into the bosom of Germany, by inflaming public opinion against Russia. The Soviets, they will declare, are planning to attack and seize Bessarabia. They will create a scare; then, suddenly, dramatically, they will produce the
evidence—those photographs—as proof of Russia’s intentions. It is merely a question of skilful timing. Mass hysteria will do the rest.”

“Would it? I wonder.”

Zaleshoff snorted irritably.

“My dear Mr. Kenton, if you were to search long enough in the British War Office, you would probably find a complete plan of attack by England against France. It is part of the business of war offices to evolve such things. Nobody in England dreams of attacking France. The two countries are allies. But supposing you published that plan of attack in France, and swore that England was greedy for French Morocco—what sort of effect do you suppose it would have on public opinion there? A disposition to distrust England’s motives in the future would be the least of the damage done. Yet England and France are as friendly now as two nations can be in this world. Imagine, then, the damage to the relations between two countries in the position of Russia and Rumania. Wars have been fought over less.”

“I see your point. But where does Pan-Eurasian Petroleum come in?”

“On the ground floor. The price of Saridza’s assistance in gaining power is the immediate use of that power to revise the oil concessions in Pan-Eurasian’s favour. It’s an old game. The big oil interests played it in Mexico for years. That’s why there used to be so many revolutions.”

Kenton was thoughtful for a moment.

“What makes you so sure,” he said at last, “that what you have told me will not prevent me from giving up the photographs? For all you know, I might be a die-hard Tory with a nice holding of Pan-Eurasian shares.”

Zaleshoff smiled grimly.

“Please give me credit for a little sense. If you had held any shares of any value at all, you would not have needed money in Nuremberg so badly as you told me. You might
have lied, but I should have detected that. In any case, your dossier credits you with a sort of modest radicalism, very common among English journalists.”

Kenton yawned.

“Well, you needn’t worry. I’ll let you have the photographs. You were right, of course, about there being nothing in it from my point of view. Something that nearly happened isn’t news. You’ve given me an idea, though. I might go to Bucharest and do some stuff on Codreanu. By the way, for my own satisfaction, you might just tell me if it
was
you who killed Sachs.”

Again he noticed that curious exchange of glances.

“No, Mr. Kenton, it wasn’t.”

The journalist shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s that then. You won’t mind, will you, if I draw my own conclusions?”

“Not at all.”

“Right. Well, I’ll be getting back to my hotel.” He stood up.

“You’re not forgetting the photographs, Mr. Kenton?” It was the girl who spoke.