“The Bible. Only these aren’t princes, they’re politicians.”
“It is the same.” A faraway look had come into the Sergeant’s eyes. “I think, Corporal, that in future we must trust only ourselves,” he had said.
11
It was just after dawn and the mountains above Florina were outlined against a pink glow in the sky when the old Renault deposited George and Miss Kolin outside the cinema where it had picked them up ten hours earlier. On George’s instructions, Miss Kolin paid the driver and arranged with him to pick them up again that evening to make the same journey. They went to their hotel in silence.
When he got to his room, George destroyed the precautionary letter he had left there for the manager and sat down to draft a cable to Mr. Sistrom.
“CLAIMANT LOCATED IN STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES,” he wrote, “IDENTITY BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT STOP COMPLEX SITUATION PREVENTS STRAIGHTFORWARD ACTION TO DELIVER HIM YOUR OFFICE STOP MAILING FULL EXPLANATORY REPORT TODAY STOP MEANWHILE CABLE IMMEDIATELY TERMS OF EXTRADITION TREATY IF ANY BETWEEN U.S. AND GREECE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE ARMED BANK ROBBERY. CAREY.”
That, he thought grimly, should give Mr. Sistrom something to gnaw on. He read it through again, striking out the unnecessary prepositions and conjunctions, and then translated it into the code they had agreed on for highly confidential messages. When he had finished he looked at the time. The post office would not be open for another hour. He would write to Mr. Sistrom and mail the letter at the same time as he sent the cable. He sighed. It had been an exhausting night-exhausting in some unexpected ways. When the coffee and buttered rolls he had ordered from the restaurant arrived, he sat down to compose his report.
“In my last report,” he began, “I told you of the evidence I had been given my Madame Vassiotis and of my consequent decision to return home as soon as possible. Since then, as you will have gathered from my cable, the picture has completely changed. I knew, of course, that the inquiries instituted by Madame Vassiotis would reach the ears of all sorts of persons who, for one reason or another, were regarded as criminals by the authorities. I scarcely expected them to come to the attention of the man we have been looking for. Nevertheless, that is what happened. Twenty-four hours ago I was approached by a man who stated that he had friends who had information to give about Schirmer. Subsequently Miss Kolin and I took a very uncomfortable trip to a secret destination somewhere up in the mountains near the Yugoslav frontier. At the end of the journey we were taken to a house and confronted by a man who said he was Franz Schirmer. When I had explained the purpose of our visit, I asked him various pertinent questions, all of which he answered correctly. I asked him then about the ambush at Vodena and his subsequent movements. He told a fantastic story.”
George hesitated; then he erased the word “fantastic”-Mr. Sistrom would not like that sort of adjective-and typed the word “curious” in its place.
And yet it had been fantastic, to sit there in the light of the oil lamp listening to the great-great-grandson of the hero of Preussisch-Eylau telling, in his broken English, the story of his adventures in Greece. He had spoken slowly, sometimes with a faint smile at the corners of his mouth, always with his watchful grey eyes on his visitors, reading and assessing them. The Dragoon of Ansbach, George thought, must have been very much the same kind of man. Where other men would succumb to physical disaster, men like these two Schirmers would always endure and survive. One had been wounded, had put his trust in God, had deserted, and lived to become a prosperous tradesman. The other had been left for dead, had put his trust in himself, had kept his wits about him, and lived to fight another day.