Codeword Golden Fleece (56 page)

Stepping back into the shadows, Rex waited for his intended victim to pass the barrier, then followed him outside.

The Major hailed a taxi and, shouting ‘Polish Legation’ at the man, entered it. Rex, hard on his heels, pulled the door open again and jumped in.

The driver looked a little surprised, and Serzeski exclaimed in German: ‘Here, this taxi is taken!’

‘That’s all right,’ said Rex in the same language. ‘I’m going the same way as you,’ and turning to the driver he added, ‘Take us to the Polish Legation, please.’

On hearing the interloper give the same address as had his first passenger, the driver slid in his clutch, and the taxi started off. Serzeski’s reaction was that the big man must be somebody that he knew, so he made no further immediate protest as Rex plumped down in the seat beside him.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ boomed Rex cheerfully.

Serzeski sat forward with a start. ‘You are—my God, yes! You’re the German spy we caught at Grodek.’

Rex placed one leg-of-mutton hand flat on the Major’s chest and pushed him back into his corner, as he said:

‘It’s a lucky break for you that I’m not a German spy or this would be about the last ride you’d be taking. Even as it is I’ve a pretty good reason to tear you up in little pieces and throw the bits out of the window. And, if I weren’t mighty sorry for all you Poles, that’s just what I’d be doing. Now listen, honey! I’m a perfectly good American citizen. Get that into your stupid head and like it. The Rumanians have gone into my ancestry and examined my birthmarks with microscopes, and you’ve been proved one hundred per cent a goofy, scaremongering old woman. But that’s all over now. What have you done with your car?’

‘My car!’ repeated the Major in a scared voice.

‘Yes, sweetie-pie. The Ford V8.’ Rex took his arm in an iron grip and shook him.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘That’s no business of yours. And you’d better tell me the truth. I’ll be checking up later; and if I find you’ve lied to me, next time we meet you’ll be wishing that you’d fallen into the hands of Himmler.’

‘I’ve sold it,’ muttered Serzeski.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘We Poles are in misfortune. Now that our country is overrun, there may not be funds even to keep the Legation open for much longer. I received a good offer for the Ford, and I thought the money would make a nice little reserve for me, so I took it.’

That’s fair enough,’ Rex agreed. ‘To whom did you sell it?’

‘I sold it in Ploesti five days ago to a man named Vimeru.’

The name rang a bell in Rex’s mind—it was surely one of those mentioned in Simon’s letter when he had written of the luncheon party given at Ploesti by Serzeski—so it looked as if the Major were telling the truth.

‘What’s his address?’ Rex went on.

‘I don’t know. He was in Ploesti on business at the same time as myself. Some mutual friends introduced him to me in the hotel one day, and I asked him to join us for lunch. Afterwards he saw my car and made an offer for it. I got him to increase his offer slightly, and he gave me his cheque. But why do you wish to know all this?’

Rex ignored the question and put another himself. ‘Did you have the car overhauled at all between the time we last met and when you sold it to this fellow Vimeru?’

‘No. It was in constant use. I have been very busy in connection with the evacuation of the Polish Forces.’

‘Did you have it cleaned up before you handed it over?’

‘No. The crankshaft of Vimeru’s own car had broken that morning. He wanted another for immediate use. He spent a quarter of an hour looking at the engine, then we drove out to the house of one of our friends in it. He expressed himself as satisfied, and on our return to Ploesti that evening he took it over. But what concern is all this of yours?’

The Major’s insistent demand to be told why he was being questioned about his car seemed a fairly certain indication that he had not come across the packet that Rex had pushed under
its seat nearly three weeks ago; otherwise, he would have guessed before this the reason for Rex’s interest.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Rex, feeling that he must test the matter further. ‘I told you the truth that night, when I said I was working for the Allies. I had some papers on me that were pretty important, and I didn’t want them to fall into the hands of the Rumanians, so on the way to their camp I stuffed them under the back seat of your car. Now, for Mike’s sake, let me have the truth. Did you come across them?’

‘No. They must still be there, unless Vimeru has found them during the past five days.’

‘Well, we’ll hope to God he hasn’t. You can drop me here if you like; and next time you arrest anybody you’ll serve your country better if you’re not quite so self-opinionated and a little less impetuous.’

‘You must admit the circumstances were suspicious,’ growled Serzeski.

‘Maybe. But I asked you to take me to your own Commandant and you wouldn’t. All you could think of was pacifying the Rumanians. That landed me in prison for over a fortnight, and heaven alone knows what damage may have resulted to the Allied cause.’

Rex leaned forward and rapped on the front window of the taxi. It pulled up, and he got out, slamming the door behind him, and cutting short the excuses for his own conduct that the fat Major was still muttering to himself.

Securing another taxi, Rex drove back to the Ritz and told Richard the result of his meeting. The courier had been hard at it all day but had still not succeeded in obtaining any news of the Ford V8. On looking at Simon’s letter they saw that Vimeru was the tanker man who lived in Constanta, on the Black Sea; it therefore now seemed probable that he had driven straight through Bucharest on his way home to his home-town.

‘We’d better get down to Constanta just as soon as we can make it,’ said Rex.

‘But we haven’t got Vimeru’s address,’ objected Richard, ‘and it might take us the deuce of a time to trace him if we go there without it.’

It further emerged from Simon’s letter that the man who had given him Vimeru’s name was not named himself, and had been the guest of Serzeski who lived outside Ploesti.

They telephoned Serzeski, hoping to get the man’s name from
him, but he had gone out for the evening and it was not known when he would be back. They then got through to the Boyar Hotel, thinking that the head waiter would be able to help them, but he had gone off duty.

‘We could go to Ploesti tonight,’ Richard suggested, ‘secure Vimeru’s address first thing in the morning, then catch a train for Constanta.’

‘We’d lose time having to come back through Bucharest.’

‘No,’ Richard argued. ‘Going through Bucharest may be the quickest way by road, but you don’t have to come through the capital by rail. There’s a direct line to carry the oil down from Ploesti to the port.’

‘We’ve only six days now, and every hour counts,’ Rex demurred. ‘Still, I guess you’re right; by going to Ploesti first we’ll make better time in the long run. I’ll go down and settle the bill.’

They left on the midnight train for the north and soon after one o’clock were back again at the Boyar Hotel in the smelly oil capital.

At breakfast Rex refreshed the head waiter’s memory with a generous tip. They learned that the name of the man they wanted was Ramuez; he was a big executive in the Astro-Romano Oil Company and ran one of their largest refineries at a place called Tirsova. Having hired a car, they set out to see him immediately they had finished their meal.

Tirsova proved to be a grim little township, the whole life and purpose of which revolved round the great refinery. They drove straight up to a fine modern block that housed the main offices, only to find, to their tense consternation, that it was closed.

Owing to the irregular hours they had kept by reason of their journeys during the past few days, they had entirely forgotten that it was Sunday.

After some trouble Rex managed to find a gatekeeper who could speak a little French, and the man directed them to Ramuez’s private house. It was a large ostentatious villa set in a garden that had obviously cost a lot of money to lay out, but in which the trees and plants were dwarfed and wilting from the petroleum that saturated the fumy atmosphere.

A further blow awaited them at the house. As it was a Sunday Ramuez had gone off in his car up into the clean air of the mountains to get some fishing. His wife had gone with him, and none of the servants had ever heard of Vimeru.

In a mood of acute depression Richard and Rex debated if they
should return to Ploesti and go on to Constanta by train that afternoon without Vimeru’s address, or if they should wait until Ramuez got back. The question was decided for them by Ramuez’s manservant producing a time-table. Apart from the morning train, which it was already too late for them to catch, there was no other Sunday train to Constanta until eleven o’clock that night.

As there was nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do in Tirsova, Ramuez’s servant took pity on them and said he felt sure it would be his master’s wish that they should make themselves comfortable in the house. In consequence, their day was made slightly less miserable than it would otherwise have been, and they were given an excellent lunch; but they could not throw off the terrible anxiety they now felt at the manner in which time was slipping away.

Ramuez and his wife arrived home soon after six. He told them at once that Vimeru’s address was 36 Calea Logothete, Constanta, then insisted that they should stay to dinner, since they would have ample time afterwards to return to Ploesti and catch their train.

When they pulled up at the ‘Boyar’ later that evening, to pay their bill and collect their bags, Richard suddenly said:

‘Look. We must send poor old Simon a telegram, to let him know what’s been happening. We ought to have done so last night really, but I forgot about it owing to our coming on here.’

‘Sure!’ Rex agreed. ‘Let’s get something out.’

The wire they sent ran as follow:

‘HAVE SEEN SERZESKI WHO IS BACK IN BUCHAREST STOP HE SOLD CAR WITHOUT OVERHAUL BEFORE LEAVING PLOESTI TO VIMERU OF 36 CALEA LOGOTHETE CONSTANTA STOP REASON TO SUPPOSE CAR THERE SO PROCEEDING CONSTANTA TONIGHT WILL LEAVE MESSAGE BEST HOTEL.’

‘Simon will get that first thing in the morning,’ remarked Rex. ‘But the express doesn’t leave Cernauti till four o’clock in the afternoon, so I doubt if he’ll make Constanta much before midday the day after tomorrow. With any luck we’ll have that god-darned option and be on the way to Turkey by that time.’

‘Not if we have the sort of luck we’ve had today,’ said Richard glumly.

‘Yes, I’m feeling that way, too. A whole day wasted, and we’ve only got five more to go.’

They saw nothing of the Dobruja, with its flat, rich farmlands, seemingly endless marshes and sluggish rivers fringed by enormous willow trees, for they made the whole of their hundred-and-seventy-mile journey in darkness, arriving at Constanta at a hideous hour in the early morning. The hotel to which a night-hawk taxi took them was the Sultan Ahmed, a reminder of the days when this Black Sea city was the capital of a Turkish Province.

At such an hour nothing could be done, so they went to bed until eight o’clock; but they hurried over breakfast and were on the doorstep of Vimeru’s office in the Calea Logothete when a head clerk arrived to open it at nine.

Their depression of the night before was behind them. They felt confident that they were now in the city to which the Ford V8 had been taken and about to see its owner. From what Serzeski had said it seemed reasonably certain that up to a week ago the packet had remained undisturbed where Rex had hidden it. There was a very good chance that Vimeru had still not discovered it and, if they could only get it back, from Constanta they could yet reach Istanbul in two days.

The head clerk spoke French and received them pleasantly. He said that Monsieur Vimeru lived a little way outside the town and he did not usually get to his office until from ten to half past; but they were most welcome to wait for him, and in the meantime they would, of course, have coffee.

Custom dies hard, and the offering of coffee to all visitors was another survival which continued to give this old city an oriental atmosphere. The brew was very black, sweet and aromatic, and it was served by an old Turk in a tarboosh and baggy trousers, whose sole employment it was to make coffee all day for the frequenters of the establishment.

This pleasant ritual whiled away three-quarters of an hour, and the head clerk furnished them with some illustrated papers to look at; but by half past ten Vimeru had not yet put in an appearance and they were beginning to get distinctly restless. Then at twenty-five to eleven the head clerk bowed himself in to say that he had just received a message to the effect that Monsieur Vimeru would not, after all, be coming to his office that day.

‘Why not?’ cried Rex angrily, entirely forgetting himself and shouting at the quite harmless little man.

‘Madame Vimeru has telephoned to say that her husband
has had to go down to Mangalia on urgent family business.’

‘Where’s that?’ Richard asked quickly.

‘About twenty-five miles down the coast, Monsieur.’

‘Then there’s a chance that he’ll be back tonight. I suppose Madame Vimeru didn’t say?’

‘No, Monsieur, she said only that this morning he had received a letter from his brother on a matter that required immediate attention.’

‘Could you telephone for us and ask when he is expected back?’

‘Certainly, Monsieur. Please to be seated again. I will send Mamoud to you with more coffee.’

They accepted Mamoud’s further ministrations until the head clerk returned to say that Madame Vimeru expected her husband back to dinner, about nine o’clock. Having obtained Vimeru’s address and directions how to get there, they thanked him and left the office.

‘This lets us in for another day kicking our heels doing nothing,’ groaned Rex, as soon as they were outside.

‘We’ve got to arrange about our journey. A coaster would be much quicker than rail if there’s one sailing tomorrow. We’ll need exit permits too, and, as you’ve lost your passport, that will mean a visit to the United States Consulate.’ Richard was every bit as furious as Rex at this new delay, but he was some-what better at thinking up ways to take their minds off the terrible baffled urgency they were both feeling.