The Mask of Dimitrios

The situation in which a person, imagining fondly that he is in charge of his own destiny, is, in fact, the sport of circumstances beyond his control, is always fascinating. It is the essential element in most good theatre from the Oedipus of Sophocles to East Lynne. When, however, that person is oneself and one is examining the situation in retrospect, the fascination becomes a trifle morbid. Thus, when Latimer used afterwards to look back upon those two days in Smyrna, it was not so much his ignorance of the part he was playing, but the bliss which accompanied the ignorance that so appalled him. He had gone into the business believing his eyes to be wide open, whereas, actually, they had been tightly shut. That, no doubt, could not have been helped. The galling part was that he had failed for so long to perceive the fact. Of course, he did himself less than justice, but his self-esteem had been punctured; he had been transferred without his knowledge from the role of sophisticated, impersonal weigher of facts to that of active participator in a melodrama.

Of the imminence of that humiliation, however, he had no inkling when, on the morning after his dinner with Muishkin, he sat down with a pencil and a notebook to arrange the material for his experiment in detection.

Some time early in October 1922, Dimitrios had left Smyrna. He had had money and had probably purchased a passage on a Greek steamer. The next time Colonel Haki had heard of him he had been in Adrianople two years later. In that interim, however, the Bulgarian police had had trouble with him in Sofia in connection with the attempted assassination of Stambulisky. Latimer was a little hazy as to the precise date of that attempt, but he began to jot down a rough chronological table.

The immediate problem, then, was quite clear-cut. In the six months following the murder of Sholem, Dimitrios had escaped from Smyrna, made his way to Sofia and become involved in a plot to assassinate the Bulgarian Prime Minister. Latimer found it a trifle difficult to form any estimate of the time required to become involved in a plot to kill a Prime Minister; but it was fairly certain that Dimitrios must have arrived in Sofia soon after his departure from Smyrna. If he had indeed escaped by Greek steamer he must have gone first to the Piraeus and Athens. From Athens he could have reached Sofia overland, via Salonika, or by sea, via the Dardanelles and the Golden Horn to Bourgaz or Varna, Bulgaria’s Black Sea port. Istanbul at that time was in Allied hands. He would have had nothing to fear from the Allies. The question was: what had induced him to go to Sofia?

However, the logical course now was to go to Athens and tackle the job of picking up the trail there. It would not be easy. Even if attempts had been made to record the presence of every refugee among the tens of thousands who had arrived, it was more than probable that what records still existed, if any, were incomplete. There was no point, however, in anticipating failure. He had several valuable friends in Athens and if there was a record in existence it was fairly certain that he would be able to get access to it. He shut up his notebook.

When the weekly boat to the Piraeus left Smyrna the following day, Latimer was among the passengers.

During the months following the Turkish occupation of Smyrna, more than eight hundred thousand Greeks returned to their country. They came, boatload after boatload of them, packed on the decks and in the holds. Many of them were naked and starving. Some still carried in their arms the dead children they had had no time to bury. With them came the germs of typhus and smallpox.

War-weary and ruined, gripped by a food shortage and starved of medical supplies, their motherland received them. In the hastily improvized refugee camps they died like flies. Outside Athens, on the Piraeus, in Salonika, masses of humanity lay rotting in the cold of a Greek winter. Then, the Fourth Assembly of the League of Nations, in session in Geneva, voted one hundred thousand gold francs to the Nansen relief organization for immediate use in Greece. The work of salvage began. Huge refugee settlements were organized. Food was brought and clothing and medical supplies. The epidemics were stopped. The survivors began to sort themselves into new communities. For the first time in history, large scale disaster had been halted by goodwill and reason. It seemed as if the human animal were at last discovering a conscience, as if it were at last becoming aware of its humanity.

All this and more, Latimer heard from a friend, one Siantos, in Athens. When, however, he came to the point of his enquiries, Siantos pursed his lips.

‘A complete register of those who arrived from Smyrna? That is a tall order. If you had seen them come… So many and in such a state…’ And then followed the inevitable question: ‘Why are you interested?’

It had occurred to Latimer that this question was going to crop up again and again. He had accordingly prepared his explanation. To have told the truth, to have explained that he was trying, for purely academic reasons, to trace the history of a dead criminal named Dimitrios would have been a long and uneasy business. He was, in any case, not anxious to have a second opinion on his prospects of success. His own was depressing enough. What had seemed a fascinating idea in a Turkish mortuary might well, in the bright, warm light of a Greek autumn, appear merely absurd. Much simpler to avoid the issue altogether.

He answered: ‘It is in connection with a new book I am writing. A matter of detail that must be checked. I want to see if it is possible to trace an individual refugee after so long.’

Siantos said that he understood and Latimer grinned ashamedly to himself. The fact that one was a writer could be relied upon to explain away the most curious extravagances.

TIME	PLACE	REMARKS	SOURCE OF INFORMATION
1922 (October)	Smyrna	Sholem	Police Archives
1923 (early part)	Sofia	Stambulisky	Colonel Haki
1924	Adrianople	Kemal attempt	Colonel Haki
1926	Belgrade	Espionage for France	Colonel Haki
1926	Switzerland	Talat passport	Colonel Haki
1929–31 (?)	Paris	Drugs	Colonel Haki
1932	Zagreb	Croat assassin	Colonel Haki
1937	Lyons	Carte d’identité	Colonel Haki
1938	Istanbul	Murdered	Colonel Haki

He had gone to Siantos because he knew that the man had a Government post of some importance in Athens, but now his first disappointment was in store for him. A week went by and, at the end of it, Siantos was able to tell him only that a register was in existence, that it was in the custody of the municipal authorities and that it was not open to inspection by unauthorized persons. Permission would have to be obtained. It took another week, a week of waiting, of sitting in kafenios, of being introduced to thirsty gentlemen with connections in the municipal offices. At last, however, the permission was forthcoming and the following day Latimer presented himself at the bureau in which the records were housed.

The inquiry office was a bare tiled room with a counter at one end. Behind the counter sat the official in charge. He shrugged over the information Latimer had to give him. A fig-packer named Dimitrios? October 1922? It was impossible. The register had been compiled alphabetically by surname.

Latimer’s heart sank. All his trouble, then, was to go for nothing. He had thanked the man and was turning away when he had an idea. There was just a remote chance…

He turned back to the official. ‘The surname,’ he said, ‘may have been Makropoulos.’

He was dimly aware, as he said it, that behind him a man had entered the inquiry office through the door leading to the street. The sun was streaming obliquely into the room and for an instant a long, distorted shadow twisted across the tiles as the newcomer passed the window.

‘Dimitrios Makropoulos?’ repeated the official. ‘That is better. If there was a person of that name on the register we will find him. It is a question of patience and organization. Please come this way.’

He raised the flap of the counter for Latimer to go through. As he did so he glanced over Latimer’s shoulder.

‘Gone!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have no assistance in my work of organization here. The whole burden falls upon my shoulders. Yet people have no patience. I am engaged for a moment. They cannot wait.’ He shrugged. ‘That is their affair. I do my duty. If you will follow me, please.’

Latimer followed him down a flight of stone stairs into an extensive basement occupied by row upon row of steel cabinets.

‘Organization,’ commented the official. ‘That is the secret of modern statecraft. Organization will make a greater Greece. A new empire. But patience is necessary.’ He led the way to a series of small cabinets in one corner of the basement, pulled open one of the drawers and began with his fingernail to flick over a series of cards. At last he stopped at a card and examined it carefully before closing the drawer. ‘Makropoulos. If there is a record of this man we shall find it in drawer number sixteen. That is organization.’

In drawer number sixteen, however, they drew blank. The official threw up his hands in despair and searched again without success. Then inspiration came to Latimer.

The official shrugged. There was another reference to the main index. ‘Drawer twenty-seven,’ announced the official a little impatiently. ‘Are you sure that this man came to Athens? Many went to Salonika. Why not this fig-packer?’

This was precisely the question that Latimer had been asking himself. He said nothing and watched the official’s fingernail flicking over another series of cards. Suddenly it stopped.

The official pulled out a card. ‘Here is one,’ he said. ‘The man was a fig-packer, but the name is Dimitrios Taladis.’

‘Let me see.’ Latimer took the card. Dimitrios Taladis! There it was in black and white. He had found out something that Colonel Haki did not know. Dimitrios had used the name Talat before 1926. There could be no doubt that it was Dimitrios. He had merely tacked a Greek suffix on to the name. He stared at the card. And there were here some other things that Colonel Haki did not know.

‘Of course. Patience and organization, you see. My organization is for use. But I must not let the record out of my sight. That is the regulation.’

Under the now somewhat mystified eyes of the apostle of organization and patience Latimer began to copy the wording on the card into his notebook, translating it as he did so into English. He wrote:

NUMBER T.53462

NATIONAL RELIEF ORGANIZATION

Refugee Section: ATHINAI

Sex: Male Name: Dimitrios Taladis. Born: Salonika, 1889. Occupation: Fig-packer. Parents: believed dead. Identity Papers or Passport: Identity card lost. Said to have been issued at Smyrna. Nationality: Greek. Arrived: 1 October 1922. Coming from: Smyrna. On examination: Able-bodied. No disease. Without money. Assigned to camp at Tabouria. Temporary identity paper issued. Note: Left Tabouria on own initiative, 29th November, 1922. Warrant for arrest on charge of robbery and attempted murder, issued in Athinai, 30th November, 1922. Believed to have escaped by sea.

Yes, that was Dimitrios all right. The date of his birth agreed with that supplied by the Greek police (and based on information gained prior to 1922) to Colonel Haki. The place of birth, however, was different. According to the Turkish dossier it had been Larissa. Why had Dimitrios bothered to change it? If he were giving a false name, he must have seen that the chances of its falsity being discovered by reference to the registration records were as great for Salonika as for Larissa.

Salonika 1889! Why Salonika? Then Latimer remembered. Of course! It was quite simple. In 1889 Salonika had been in Turkish territory, a part of the Ottoman Empire. The registration records of that period would, in all probability, not be available to the Greek authorities. Dimitrios had certainly been no fool. But why had he picked the name Taladis? Why had he not chosen a typical Greek name? The Turkish ‘Talat’ must have had some special association for him. As for his identity card issued in Smyrna, that would naturally be ‘lost’ since, presumably, it had been issued to him in the name of Makropoulos by which he was already known to the Greek police.

The date of his arrival fitted in with the vague allusions to time made in the court martial. Unlike the majority of his fellow refugees, he had been able-bodied and free from disease when he had arrived. Naturally. Thanks to Sholem’s Greek money, he had been able to buy a passage to the Piraeus and travel in comparative comfort instead of being loaded on to a refugee ship with thousands of others. Dimitrios had known how to look after himself. The fig-packer had packed enough figs. Dimitrios the man had been emerging from his chrysalis. No doubt he had had a substantial amount of Sholem’s money left when he had arrived. Yet to the relief authorities he had been ‘without money’. That had been sensible of him. He might otherwise have been forced to buy food and clothing for stupid fools who had failed to provide, as he had provided, for the future. His expenses had been heavy enough as it was; so heavy that another Sholem had been needed. No doubt he had regretted Dhris Mohammed’s half share.

‘Believed to have escaped by sea.’ With the proceeds of the second robbery added to the balance from the first, he had no doubt been able to pay for his passage to Bourgaz. It would obviously have been too risky for him to have gone overland. He had only temporary identity papers and might have been stopped at the frontier, whereas in Bourgaz, the same papers issued by an international relief commission with considerable prestige would have enabled him to get through.

The official’s much-advertised patience was showing signs of wearing thin. Latimer handed over the card, expressed his thanks in a suitable manner and returned thoughtfully to his hotel.

He was feeling pleased with himself. He had discovered some new information about Dimitrios and he had discovered it through his own efforts. It had been, it was true, an obvious piece of routine inquiry; but, in the best Scotland Yard tradition, it had called for patience and persistence. Besides, if he had not thought of trying the Talat name… He wished that he could have sent a report of his investigations to Colonel Haki, but that was out of the question. The Colonel would probably fail to understand the spirit in which the experiment in detection was being made. In any case, Dimitrios himself would by this time be mouldering below ground, his dossier sealed and forgotten in the archives of the Turkish secret police. The main thing was now to tackle the Sofia affair.

He tried to remember what he knew about postwar Bulgarian politics and speedily came to the conclusion that it was very little. In 1923 Stambulisky had, he knew, been head of a government of liberal tendencies, but of just how liberal those tendencies had been he had no idea. There had been an attempted assassination and later a military coup d’état carried out at the instigation, if not under the leadership of the IMRO; the International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Stambulisky had fled from Sofia, tried to organize a counter-revolution and been killed. That was the gist of the affair, he thought. But of the rights and wrongs of it (if any such distinction were possible), of the nature of the political forces involved, he was quite ignorant. That state of affairs would have to be remedied, and the place in which to remedy it would be Sofia.

That evening he asked Siantos to dinner. Latimer knew him for a vain, generous soul who liked discussing his friends’ problems and was flattered when, by making judicious use of his official position, he could help them. After giving thanks for the assistance in the matter of the municipal register, Latimer broached the subject of Sofia.

‘Do you know anyone in Sofia? I want a letter of introduction to an intelligent newspaper man there who could give me some inside information about Bulgarian politics in 1923.’

Siantos smoothed his gleaming white hair and grinned admiringly. ‘You writers have bizarre tastes. Something might be done. Do you want a Greek or a Bulgar?’

Siantos was thoughtful for a moment. ‘There is a man in Sofia named Marukakis,’ he said at last. ‘He is the Sofia correspondent of a French news agency. I do not know him myself, but I might be able to get a letter to him from a friend of mine.’ They were sitting in a restaurant, and now Siantos glanced round furtively and lowered his voice. ‘There is only one trouble about him from your point of view. I happen to know that he has…’ The voice sunk still lower in tone. Latimer was prepared for nothing less horrible than leprosy. ‘… Communist tendencies,’ concluded Siantos in a whisper.

Latimer raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t regard that as a drawback. All the Communists I have ever met have been highly intelligent.’

Siantos looked shocked. ‘How can that be? It is dangerous to say such things, my friend. Marxist thought is forbidden in Greece.’

Siantos sighed. ‘Bizarre!’ he remarked. ‘I will get it for you tomorrow. You writers… !’

Within a week the letter of introduction had been obtained, and Latimer, having secured Greek exit and Bulgarian ingress visas, boarded a night train for Sofia.

The train was not crowded and he had hoped to have a sleeping car compartment to himself, but five minutes before the train was due to start, luggage was carried in and deposited above the empty berth. The owner of the luggage followed very soon after it.

‘I must apologize for intruding on your privacy,’ he said to Latimer in English.

He was a fat, unhealthy-looking man of about fifty-five. He had turned to tip the porter before he spoke, and the first thing about him that impressed Latimer was that the seat of his trousers sagged absurdly, making his walk reminiscent of that of the hind legs of an elephant. Then Latimer saw his face and forgot about the trousers. There was the sort of sallow shapelessness about it that derives from simultaneous over-eating and under-sleeping. From above two heavy satchels of flesh peered a pair of pale blue, bloodshot eyes that seemed to be permanently weeping. The nose was rubbery and indeterminate. It was the mouth that gave the face expression. The lips were pallid and undefined, seeming thicker than they really were. Pressed together over unnaturally white and regular false teeth, they were set permanently in a saccharine smile. In conjunction with the weeping eyes above it, it created an impression of sweet patience in adversity, quite startling in its intensity. Here, it said, was a man who had suffered, who had been buffeted by fiendishly vindictive Fates as no other man had been buffeted, yet who had retained his humble faith in the essential goodness of man; here, it said, was a martyr who smiled through the flames – smiled yet who could not but weep for the misery of others as he did so. He reminded Latimer of a high church priest he had known in England who had been unfrocked for embezzling the altar fund.

‘The berth was unoccupied,’ Latimer pointed out; ‘there is no question of your intruding.’ He noted with an inward sigh that the man breathed very heavily and noisily through congested nostrils. He would probably snore.

The newcomer sat down on his berth and shook his head slowly. ‘How good of you to put it that way! How little kindliness there is in the world these days! How little thought for others!’ The bloodshot eyes met Latimer’s. ‘May I ask how far you are going?’

‘Sofia. So? A beautiful city, beautiful. I am continuing to Bucaresti. I do hope that we shall have a pleasant journey together.’

Latimer said that he hoped so too. The fat man’s English was very accurate, but he spoke it with an atrocious accent which Latimer could not place. It was thick and slightly guttural, as though he were speaking with his mouth full of cake. Occasionally, too, the accurate English would give out in the middle of a difficult sentence, which would be completed in very fluent French or German. Latimer gained the impression that the man had learned his English from books.

The fat man turned and began to unpack a small attaché case containing a pair of woollen pyjamas, some bed socks and a dog-eared paperback book. Latimer managed to see the title of the book. It was called Pearls of Everyday Wisdom and was in French. The fat man arranged these things carefully on the shelf and then produced a packet of thin Greek cheroots.

The train had begun to gather speed and the attendant came in to make up their beds. When he had gone, Latimer partially undressed and laid down on his bed.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘the moment the attendant told me that there was an Englishman on the train, I knew that I should have a pleasant journey.’ The smile came into play, sweet and compassionate, a spiritual pat on the head.

‘Oh, no, that is how I feel.’ His eyes bleared as smoke irritated them. He dabbed at them with one of the bedsocks. ‘It is so silly of me to smoke,’ he went on ruefully. ‘My eyes are a little weak. The Great One in His wisdom has seen fit to give me weak eyes. No doubt He had a purpose. Perhaps it was that I might more keenly appreciate the beauties of His work – Mother Nature in all her exquisite raiment, the trees, the flowers, the clouds, the sky, the snowcapped hills, the wonderful views, the sunset in all its golden magnificence.’

The fat man shook his head. ‘If I needed glasses,’ he said solemnly, ‘the Great One would guide me to seek them.’ He leaned forward earnestly. ‘Do you not feel, my friend, that somewhere, above us, about us, within us, there is a power, a destiny, that directs us to do the things we do?’

‘But only because we are not simple enough, not humble enough, to understand. A man does not need a great education to be a philosopher. Let him only be simple and humble.’ He looked at Latimer simply and humbly. ‘Live and let live – that is the secret of happiness. Leave the Great One to answer the questions beyond our poor understanding. One cannot fight against one’s Destiny. If the Great One wills that we shall do unpleasant things, depend upon it that He has a purpose even though that purpose is not always clear to us. If it is the Great One’s will that some should become rich while others should remain poor, then we must accept His will.’ He belched slightly and glanced up at the suitcases above Latimer’s head. The smile became tenderly whimsical. ‘I often think,’ he said, ‘that there is much food for thought in a train. Don’t you? A piece of luggage, for instance. How like a human being! On its journey through life it will collect many brightly coloured labels. But the labels are only the outward appearances, the face that it puts upon the world. It is what is inside that is important. And so often –’ he shook his head despondently – ‘so very often, the suitcase is empty of the Beautiful Things. Don’t you agree with me?’

This was nauseating. Latimer emitted a non-committal grunt. ‘You speak very good English,’ he added.

‘English is the most beautiful language, I think. Shakespeare, H. G. Wells – you have some great English writers. But I cannot yet express all my ideas in English. I am, as you will have noticed, more at ease with French.’

The fat man spread out large, soft hands on one of which twinkled a rather grubby diamond ring. ‘I am a citizen of the world,’ he said. ‘To me, all countries, all languages are beautiful. If only men could live as brothers, without hatred, seeing only the beautiful things. But no! There are always Communists, etcetera. It is, no doubt, the Great One’s will.’

‘Sleep!’ apostrophized his companion raptly. ‘The great mercy vouchsafed to us poor humans. My name,’ he added inconsequentially, ‘is Mr Peters.’

‘It has been very pleasant to have met you, Mr Peters,’ returned Latimer firmly. ‘We get into Sofia so early that I shan’t trouble to undress.’

He switched off the main light in the compartment leaving only the dark blue emergency light glowing and the small reading lights over the berths. Then he stripped a blanket off his bed and wrapped it round him.

Mr Peters had watched these preparations in wistful silence. Now, he began to undress, balancing himself dexterously against the lurching of the train as he put on his pyjamas. At last he clambered into his bed and lay still for a moment, the breath whistling through his nostrils. Then he turned over on his side, groped for his book and began to read. Latimer switched off his own reading lamp. A few moments later he was asleep.

The train reached the frontier in the early hours of the morning and he was awakened by the attendant for his papers. Mr Peters was still reading. His papers had already been examined by the Greek and Bulgarian officials in the corridor outside and Latimer did not have an opportunity of ascertaining the nationality of the citizen of the world. A Bulgarian customs official put his head in the compartment, frowned at their suitcases and then withdrew. Soon the train moved on over the frontier. Dozing fitfully, Latimer saw the thin strip of sky between the blinds turn blue-black and then grey. The train was due in Sofia at seven. When, at last, he rose to dress and collect his belongings, he saw that Mr Peters had switched off his reading lamp and had his eyes closed. As the train began to rattle over the network of points outside Sofia, he gently slid the compartment door open.

In the semi-darkness of the compartment, the fat man’s smile looked like a clown’s grimace. ‘Please don’t trouble yourself about me,’ he said. ‘I was not asleep. I meant to tell you that the best hotel for you to stay at would be the Slavianska Besseda.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but I wired a reservation from Athens to the Grand Palace. It was recommended to me. Do you know it?’

‘Yes. I think it is quite good.’ The train began to slow down. ‘Goodbye, Mr Latimer.’

In his eagerness to get to a bath and some breakfast it did not occur to Latimer to wonder how Mr Peters had discovered his name.