Men have learned to distrust their imaginations. It is, therefore, strange to them when they chance to discover that a world conceived in the imagination, outside experience, does in fact exist. The afternoon which Latimer spent at the Villa Acacias, listening to Wladyslaw Grodek, he recalls as, in that sense, one of the strangest of his life. In a letter (written in French) to the Greek, Marukakis, which he began that evening, while the whole thing was still fresh in his mind, and finished on the following day, the Sunday, he placed it on record.
Geneva.
Saturday.
My dear Marukakis,
I remember that I promised to write to you to let you know if I discovered anything more about Dimitrios. I wonder if you will be as surprised as I am that I have actually done so. Discovered something, I mean; for I intended to write to you in any case to thank you again for the help you gave me in Sofia.
When I left you there, I was bound, you may remember, for Belgrade. Why, then, am I writing from Geneva?
I was afraid that you would ask that question.
My dear fellow, I wish that I knew the answer. I know part of it. The man, the professional spy, who employed Dimitrios in Belgrade in 1926, lives just outside Geneva. I saw him today and talked with him about Dimitrios. I can even explain how I got in touch with him. I was introduced. But just why I was introduced and just what the man who introduced us hopes to get out of it I cannot imagine. I shall, I hope, discover those things eventually. Meanwhile, let me say that if you find this mystery irritating, I find it no less so. Let me tell you about Dimitrios.
Did you ever believe in the existence of the ‘master’ spy? Until today I most certainly did not. Now I do. The reason for this is that I have spent the greater part of today talking to one. I cannot tell you his name, so I shall call him, in the best spy-story tradition, ‘G’.
G. was a ‘master’ spy (he has retired now) in the same sense that the printer my publisher uses is a ‘master’ printer. He was an employer of spy labour. His work was mainly (though not entirely) administrative in character.
Now I know that a lot of nonsense is talked and written about spies and espionage, but let me try to put the question to you as G. put it to me.
He began by quoting Napoleon as saying that in war the basic element of all successful strategy was surprise.
G. is, I should say, a confirmed Napoleon-quoter. No doubt Napoleon did say that, or something like it. I am quite sure he wasn’t the first military leader to do so. Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan and Frederick of Prussia all had the same idea. In 1918 Foch thought of it, too. But to return to G.
G. says that ‘the experiences of the 1914–18 conflict’ showed that in a future war (that sounds so beautifully distant, doesn’t it?) the mobility and striking power of modern armies and navies and the existence of air forces would render the element of surprise more important than ever; so important, in fact, that it was possible that the people who got in with a surprise attack first might win the war. It was more than ever necessary to guard against surprise, to guard against it, moreover, before the war had started.
Now, there are roughly twenty-seven independent states in Europe. Each has an army and an air force and most have some sort of navy as well. For its own security, each of those armies, air forces and navies must know what each corresponding force in each of the other twenty-six countries is doing – what its strength is, what its efficiency is, what secret preparation it is making. That means spies – armies of them.
In 1926 G. was employed by Italy, and in the spring of that year he set up house in Belgrade.
Relations between Yugoslavia and Italy were strained at the time. The Italian seizure of Fiume was still as fresh in Yugoslav minds as the bombardment of Corfu; there were rumours, too (not unfounded as it was learned later in the year) that Mussolini contemplated occupying Albania.
Italy, on her side, was suspicious of Yugoslavia. Fiume was held under Yugoslav guns. A Yugoslav Albania alongside the Straits of Otranto was an unthinkable proposition. An independent Albania was tolerable only as long as it was under a predominantly Italian influence. It might be desirable to make certain of things. But the Yugoslavs might put up a fight. Reports from Italian agents in Belgrade indicated that in the event of war Yugoslavia intended to protect her seaboard by bottling herself up in the Adriatic with minefields laid just north of the Straits of Otranto.
I don’t know much about these things, but apparently one does not have to lay a couple of hundred miles worth of mines to make a two-hundred-miles wide corridor of sea impassable. One just lays one or two small fields without letting one’s enemy know just where. It is necessary, then, for them to find out the positions of those minefields.
That, then, was G.’s job in Belgrade. Italian agents found out about the minefields. G., the expert spy, was commissioned to do the real work of discovering where they were to be laid, without – a most important point this – without letting the Yugoslavs find out that he had done so. If they did find out, of course, they would promptly change the positions.
In that last part of his task G. failed. The reason for his failure was Dimitrios.
It has always seemed to me that a spy’s job must be an extraordinarily difficult one. What I mean is this: if I were sent to Belgrade by the British Government with orders to get hold of the details of a secret mine-laying project for the Straits of Otranto, I should not even know where to start. Supposing I knew, as G. knew, that the details were recorded by means of markings on a navigational chart of the Straits. Very well. How many copies of the chart are kept? I would not know. Where are they kept? I would not know. I might reasonably suppose that at least one copy would be kept somewhere in the Ministry of Marine, but the Ministry of Marine is a large place. Moreover, the chart will almost certainly be under lock and key. And even if, as seems unlikely, I were able to find in which room it is kept and how to get to it, how should I set about obtaining a copy of it without letting the Yugoslavs know that I had done so?
When I tell you that within a month of his arrival in Belgrade, G. had not only found out where a copy of the chart was kept, but had also made up his mind how he was going to copy that copy without the Yugoslavs knowing, you will see that he is entitled to describe himself as competent.
How did he do it? What ingenious manoeuvre, what subtle trick made it possible? I shall try to break the news gently.
Posing as a German, the representative of an optical instrument-maker in Dresden, he struck up an acquaintance with a clerk in the Submarine Defence Department (which dealt with submarine nets, booms, mine-laying and mine-sweeping) of the Ministry of Marine!
Pitiful, wasn’t it! The amazing thing is that he himself regards it as a very astute move. His sense of humour is quite paralysed. When I asked him if he ever read spy stories, he said that he did not, as they always seemed to him very naïve. But there is worse to come.
He struck up this acquaintance by going to the Ministry and asking the doorkeeper to direct him to the Department of Supply, a perfectly normal request for an outsider to make. Having got past the doorkeeper, he stopped someone in a corridor, said that he had been directed to the Submarine Defence Department and had got lost and asked to be redirected. Having got to the S.D. Department, he marched in and asked if it was the Department of Supply. They said that it was not, and out he went. He was in there not more than a minute, but in that time he had cast a quick eye over the personnel of the department, or, at all events, those of them he could see. He marked down three. That evening he waited outside the Ministry until the first of them came out. This man he followed home. Having found out his name and as much as he could about him, he repeated the process on succeeding evenings with the other two. Then he made his choice. It fell on a man named Bulić.
Now, G.’s actual methods may have lacked subtlety, but there was considerable subtlety in the way he employed them. He himself is quite oblivious of any distinction here. He is not the first successful man to misunderstand the reasons for his own success.
G.’s first piece of subtlety lay in his choice of Bulić as a tool.
Bulić was a disagreeable, conceited man of between forty and fifty, older than most of his fellow clerks and disliked by them. His wife was ten years younger than he, dissatisfied and pretty. He suffered from catarrh. He was in the habit of going to a café for a drink when he left the Ministry for the day, and it was in this café that G. made his acquaintance by the simple process of asking him for a match, offering him a cigar and, finally, buying him a drink.
You may imagine that a clerk in a government department dealing with highly confidential matters would naturally tend to be suspicious of café acquaintances who tried to pump him about his work. G. was ready to deal with those suspicions long before they entered Bulić’s head.
The acquaintance ripened. G. would be in the café every evening when Bulić entered. They would carry on a desultory conversation. G., as a stranger to Belgrade, would ask Bulić’s advice about this and that. He would pay for Bulić’s drinks. He let Bulić condescend to him. Sometimes they would play a game of chess. Bulić would win. At other times they would play four-pack bezique with other frequenters of the café. Then, one evening, G. told Bulić a story.
He had been told by a mutual acquaintance, he said, that he, Bulić, held an important post in the Ministry of Marine.
For Bulić the ‘mutual acquaintance’ could have been one of several men with whom they played cards and exchanged opinions and who were vaguely aware that he worked in the Ministry. He frowned and opened his mouth. He was probably about to enter a mock-modest qualification of the adjective ‘important’, but G. swept on. As chief salesman for a highly respectable firm of optical instrument makers, he was deputed to obtain an order due to be placed by the Ministry of Marine for binoculars. He had submitted his quotation and had hopes of securing the order but, as Bulić would know, there was nothing like a friend at court in these affairs. If, therefore, the good and influential Bulić would bring pressure to bear to see that the Dresden company secured the order, Bulić would be in pocket to the tune of twenty thousand dinar.
Consider that proposition from Bulić’s point of view. Here was he, an insignificant clerk, being flattered by the representative of a great German company and promised twenty thousand dinar, as much as he ordinarily earned in six months, for doing precisely nothing. If the quotation were already submitted, there was nothing to be done there. It would stand its chance with the other quotations. If the Dresden company secured the order he would be twenty thousand dinar in pocket without having compromised himself in any way. If they lost it he would lose nothing except the respect of this stupid and misinformed German.
G. admits that Bulić did make a half-hearted effort to be honest. He mumbled something about his not being sure that his influence could help. This, G. chose to treat as an attempt to increase the bribe. Bulić protested that no such thought had been in his mind. He was lost. Within five minutes he had agreed.
In the days that followed, Bulić and G. became close friends. G. ran no risk. Bulić could not know that no quotation had been submitted by the Dresden company as all quotations received by the Department of Supply were confidential until the order was placed. If he were inquisitive enough to make inquiries, he would find, as G. had found by previous reference to the Official Gazette, that quotations for binoculars had actually been asked for by the Department of Supply.
G. now got to work.
Bulić, remember, had to play the part assigned to him by G., the part of influential official. G., furthermore, began to make himself very amiable by entertaining Bulić and the pretty but stupid Madame Bulić at expensive restaurants and nightclubs. The pair responded like thirsty plants to rain. Could Bulić be cautious when, having had the best part of a bottle of sweet champagne, he found himself involved in an argument about Italy’s overwhelming naval strength and her threat to Yugoslavia’s seaboard? It was unlikely. He was a little drunk. His wife was present. For the first time in his dreary life, his judgement was being treated with the deference due to it. Besides, he had his part to play. It would not do to seem to be ignorant of what was going on behind the scenes. He began to brag. He himself had seen the very plans that in operation would immobilize Italy’s fleet in the Adriatic. Naturally, he had to be discreet, but…
By the end of that evening G. knew that Bulić had access to a copy of the chart. He had also made up his mind that Bulić was going to get that copy for him.
He made his plans carefully. Then he looked round for a suitable man to carry them out. He needed a go-between. He found Dimitrios.
Just how G. came to hear of Dimitrios is not clear. I fancy that he was anxious not to compromise any of his old associates. One can conceive that his reticence might be understandable. Anyway, Dimitrios was recommended to him. I asked in what business the recommender was engaged. I hoped, I admit, to be able to find some link with the Eurasian Credit Trust episode. But G. became vague. It was so very long ago. But he remembered the verbal testimonial which accompanied the recommendation.
Dimitrios Talat was a Greek-speaking Turk with an ‘effective’ passport and a reputation for being ‘useful’ and at the same time discreet. He was also said to have had experience in ‘financial work of a confidential nature’.
If one did not happen to know just what he was useful for and the nature of the financial work he had done, one might have supposed that the man under discussion was some sort of accountant. But there is, it seems, a jargon in these affairs. G. understood it and decided that Dimitrios was the man for the job in hand. He wrote to Dimitrios – he gave me the address as though it were a sort of American Express poste restante – care of the Eurasian Credit Trust in Bucharest!
Dimitrios arrived in Belgrade five days later and presented himself at G.’s house just off the Knez Miletina.
G. remembers the occasion very well. Dimitrios, he says, was a man of medium height who might have been almost any age between thirty-five and fifty – he was actually thirty-seven. He was smartly dressed and… But I had better quote G.’s own words:
‘He was chic in an expensive way, and his hair was becoming grey at the sides of his head. He had a sleek, satisfied, confident air and something about the eyes that I recognized immediately. The man was a pimp. I can always recognize it. Do not ask me how. I have a woman’s instinct for these things.’
So there you have it. Dimitrios had prospered. Had there been any more Madame Prevezas? We shall never know. At all events, G. detected the pimp in Dimitrios and was not displeased. A pimp, he reasoned, could be relied upon not to fool about with women to the detriment of the business in hand. Also Dimitrios was of pleasing address. I think that I had better quote G. again:
‘He could wear his clothes gracefully. Also he looked intelligent. I was pleased by this because I did not care to employ riff-raff from the gutters. Sometimes it was necessary but I never liked it. They did not always understand my curious temperament.’
G., you see, was fussy.
Dimitrios had not wasted his time. He could now speak both German and French with reasonable accuracy. He said:
‘I came as soon as I received your letter. I was busy in Bucharest, but I was glad to get your letter as I had heard of you.’
G. explained carefully and with circumspection (it did not do to give too much away to a prospective employee) what he wanted done. Dimitrios listened unemotionally. When G. had finished, he asked how much he was to be paid.
‘Thirty thousand dinar,’ said G.
‘Fifty thousand,’ said Dimitrios, ‘and I would prefer to have it in Swiss francs.’
They compromised on forty thousand to be paid in Swiss francs. Dimitrios smiled and shrugged his agreement.
It was the man’s eyes when he smiled, says G., that first made him distrust his new employee.
I found that odd. Could it be that there was honour among scoundrels, that G., being the man he was and knowing (up to a point) the sort of man Dimitrios was, would yet need a smile to awaken distrust? Incredible. But there was no doubt that he remembered those eyes very vividly. Preveza remembered them, too, didn’t she? ‘Brown, anxious eyes that made you think of a doctor’s eyes when he is doing something to you that hurts.’ That was it, wasn’t it? My theory is that it was not until Dimitrios smiled that G. realized the quality of the man whose services he had bought. ‘He had the appearance of being tame, but when you looked into his brown eyes you saw that he had none of the feelings that make ordinary men soft, that he was always dangerous.’ Preveza again. Did G. sense the same thing? He may not have explained it to himself in that way – he is not the sort of man to set much store by feelings – but I think he may have wondered if he had made a mistake in employing Dimitrios. Their two minds were not so very dissimilar and that sort of wolf prefers to hunt alone. At all events, G. decided to keep a wary eye on Dimitrios.
Meanwhile, Bulić was finding life more pleasant than it had ever been before. He was being entertained at rich places. His wife, warmed by unfamiliar luxury, no longer looked at him with contempt and distaste in her eyes. With the money they saved on the meals provided by the stupid German she could drink her favourite cognac, and when she drank she became friendly and agreeable. In a week’s time, moreover, he might become the possessor of twenty thousand dinar. There was a chance. He felt very well, he said one night, and added that cheap food was bad for his catarrh. That was the nearest he came to forgetting to play his part.
The order for the binoculars was given to a Czech firm. The Official Gazette, in which the fact was announced, was published at noon. At one minute past noon, G. had a copy and was on his way to an engraver on whose bench lay a half-finished copper die. By six o’clock he was waiting opposite the entrance to the Ministry. Soon after six, Bulić appeared. He had seen the Official Gazette. A copy was under his arm. His dejection was visible from where G. stood. G. began to follow him.
Ordinarily, Bulić would have crossed the road before many minutes had passed, to get to his café. Tonight he hesitated and then walked straight on. He was not anxious to meet the man from Dresden.
G. turned down a side street and hailed a taxi. Within two minutes his taxi had made a detour and was approaching Bulić. Suddenly, he signalled to the driver to stop, bounded out on to the pavement and embraced Bulić delightedly. Before the bewildered clerk could protest, he was bundled into the taxi and G. was pouring congratulations and thanks into his ear and pressing a cheque for twenty thousand dinar into his hand.
‘But I thought you’d lost the order,’ mumbles Bulić at last.
G. laughs as if at a huge joke. ‘Lost it!’ And then he ‘understands’. ‘Of course! I forgot to tell you. The quotation was submitted through a Czech subsidiary of ours. Look, does this explain it?’ He thrusts one of the newly-printed cards into Bulić’s hand. ‘I don’t use this card often. Most people know that these Czechs are owned by our company in Dresden.’ He brushes the matter aside. ‘But we must have a drink immediately. Driver!’
That night they celebrated. His first bewilderment over, Bulić took full advantage of the situation. He became drunk. He began to brag of the potency of his influence in the Ministry until even G., who had every reason for satisfaction, was hard put to it to remain civil.
But towards the end of the evening, he drew Bulić aside. Estimates, he said, had been invited for range-finders. Could he, Bulić, assist? Of course he could. And now Bulić became cunning. Now that the value of his co-operation had been established, he had a right to expect something on account.
G. had not anticipated this, but, secretly amused, he agreed at once. Bulić received another cheque; this time it was for ten thousand dinar. The understanding was that he should be paid a further ten thousand when the order was placed with G.’s ‘employers’.
Bulić was now wealthier than ever before. He had thirty thousand dinar. Two evenings later, in the supper room of a fashionable hotel, G. introduced him to a Freiherr von Kiessling. The Freiherr von Kiessling’s other name was, needless to say, Dimitrios.
‘You would have thought,’ says G., ‘that he had been living in such places all his life. For all I know, he may have been doing so. His manner was perfect. When I introduced Bulić as an important official in the Ministry of Marine, he condescended magnificently. With Madame Bulić he was superb. He might have been greeting a princess. But I saw the way his fingers moved across the palm of her hand as he bent to kiss the back of it.’
Dimitrios had displayed himself in the supper room before G. had affected to claim acquaintance with him in order to give G. time to prepare the ground. The ‘Freiherr’, G. told the Bulićs after he had drawn their attention to Dimitrios, was a very important man. Something of a mystery, perhaps, but a very important factor in international big business. He was enormously rich and was believed to control as many as twenty-seven companies. He might be a useful man to know.
The Bulićs were enchanted to be presented to him. When the ‘Freiherr’ agreed to drink a glass of champagne at their table, they felt themselves honoured indeed. In their halting German they strove to make themselves agreeable. This, Bulić must have felt, was what he had been waiting for all his life: at last he was in touch with the people who counted, the real people, the people who made men and broke them, the people who might make him. Perhaps he saw himself a director of one of the ‘Freiherr’s’ companies, with a fine house and others dependent on him, loyal servants who would respect him as a man as well as a master. When, the next morning, he went to his stool in the Ministry, there must have been joy in his heart, joy made all the sweeter by the faint misgivings, the slight prickings of conscience which could so easily be stilled. After all, G. had received his money’s worth. He, Bulić, had nothing to lose. Besides, you never knew what might come of it all. Men had taken stranger paths to fortune.
The ‘Freiherr’ had been good enough to say that he would have supper with Herr G. and his two charming friends two evenings later.
I questioned G. about this. Would it not have been better to have struck while the iron was hot. Two days gave the Bulićs time to think. ‘Precisely,’ was G.’s reply; ‘time to think of the good things to come, to prepare themselves for the feast, to dream.’ He became preternaturally solemn at the thought and then, grinning, suddenly quoted Goethe at me. ‘Ach! warum, ihr Götter, ist unendlich, alles, alles, endlich unser Glück nur?’ G., you see, lays claim to a sense of humour.
That supper was the critical moment for him. Dimitrios got to work on Madame. It was such a pleasure to meet such pleasant people as Madame – and of course, her husband. She – and her husband, naturally – must certainly come and stay with him in Bavaria next month. He preferred it to his Paris house and Cannes was sometimes chilly in the spring. Madame would enjoy Bavaria, and so, no doubt, would her husband. That was, if he could tear himself away from the Ministry.
Crude, simple stuff, no doubt, but the Bulićs were crude, simple people. Madame lapped it up with her sweet champagne while Bulić became sulky. Then the great moment arrived.
The flower girl stopped by the table with her tray of orchids. Dimitrios turned round and, selecting the largest and most expensive bloom, handed it with a little flourish to Madame Bulić with a request that she accept it as a token of his esteem. Madame would accept it. Dimitrios drew out his wallet to pay. The next moment a thick wad of thousand dinar notes fell from his breast pocket on to the table.
With a word of apology Dimitrios put the money back in his pocket. G., taking his cue, remarked that it was rather a lot of money to carry in one’s pocket and asked if the ‘Freiherr’ always carried as much. No, he did not. He had won the money at Alessandro’s earlier in the evening and had forgotten to leave it upstairs in his room. Did Madame know Alessandro’s? She did not. Both the Bulićs were silent as the ‘Freiherr’ talked on: they had never seen so much money before. In the ‘Freiherr’s’ opinion Alessandro’s was the most reliable gambling place in Belgrade. It was your own luck not the croupier’s skill that mattered at Alessandro’s. Personally he was having a run of luck that evening – this with velvety eyes on Madame – and had won a little more than usual. He hesitated at that point. And then: ‘As you have never been in the place, I should be delighted if you would accompany me as my guests later.’
Of course, they went, and, of course, they were expected and preparations had been made. Dimitrios had arranged everything. No roulette – it is difficult to cheat a man at roulette – but there was trente et quarante. The minimum stake was two hundred and fifty dinar.
They had drinks and watched the play for a time. Then G. decided that he would play a little. They watched him win twice. Then the ‘Freiherr’ asked madame if she would like to play. She looked at her husband. He said, apologetically, that he had very little money with him. But Dimitrios was ready for that. No trouble at all, Herr Bulić! He personally was well known to Alessandro. Any friend of his could be accommodated. If he should happen to lose a few dinar, Alessandro would take a cheque or a note.
The farce went on. Alessandro was summoned and introduced. The situation was explained to him. He raised protesting hands. Any friend of the ‘Freiherr’ need not even ask such a thing. Besides, he had not yet played. Time to talk of such things if he had a little bad luck.
G. thinks that if Dimitrios had allowed the two to talk to one another for even a moment, they would not have played. Two hundred and fifty dinar was the minimum stake, and not even the possession of thirty thousand could overcome their consciousness of the value, in terms of food and rent, of two hundred and fifty. But Dimitrios did not give them a chance to exchange misgivings. Instead, as they were waiting at the table behind G’s chair, he murmured to Bulić that if he, Bulić, had time, he, the ‘Freiherr’, would like to talk business with him over luncheon one day that week.
It was beautifully timed. It could, I feel, have meant only one thing to Bulić: ‘My dear Bulić, there really is no need for you to concern yourself over a paltry few hundred dinar. I am interested in you, and that means that your fortune is made. Please do not disappoint me by showing yourself less important than you seem now.’
Madame Bulić began to play.
Her first two hundred and fifty she lost on couleur. The second won on inverse. Then, Dimitrios, advising greater caution, suggested that she play à cheval. There was a refait and then a second refait. Ultimately she lost again.
At the end of an hour the five thousand dinar’s worth of chips she had been given had gone. Dimitrios, sympathizing with her for her ‘bad luck’, pushed across some five hundred dinar chips from a pile in front of him and begged that she would play with them ‘for luck’.
The tortured Bulić may have had the idea that these were a gift, for he made only the faintest sound of protest. That they had not been a gift he was presently to discover. Madame Bulić, thoroughly miserable now and becoming a little untidy, played on. She won a little; she lost more. At half-past two Bulić signed a promissory note to Alessandro for twelve thousand dinar. G. bought them a drink.
It is easy to picture the scene between the Bulićs when at last they were alone – the recriminations, the tears, the interminable arguments – only too easy. Yet, bad as things were, the gloom was not unrelieved; for Bulić was to lunch the following day with the ‘Freiherr’. And they were to talk business.
They did talk business. Dimitrios had been told to be encouraging. No doubt he was. Hints of big deals afoot, of opportunities for making fabulous sums for those who were in the know, talk of castles in Bavaria – it would all be there. Bulić had only to listen and let his heart beat faster. What did twelve thousand dinar matter? You had to think in millions.
All the same, it was Dimitrios who raised the subject of his guest’s debt to Alessandro. He supposed that Bulić would be going along that very night to settle it. He personally would be playing again. One could not, after all, win so much without giving Alessandro a chance to lose some more. Supposing that they went along together – just the two of them. Women were bad gamblers.
When they met that night Bulić had nearly thirty-five thousand dinar in his pocket. He must have added his savings to G.’s thirty thousand. When Dimitrios reported to G. – in the early hours of the following morning – he said that Bulić had, in spite of Alessandro’s protests, insisted on redeeming his promissory note before he started to play. ‘I pay my debts,’ he told Dimitrios proudly. The balance of the money he spent, with a flourish, on five hundred dinar chips. Tonight he was going to make a killing. He refused a drink. He meant to keep a cool head.
G. grinned at this and perhaps he was wise to do so. Pity is sometimes too uncomfortable; and I do find Bulić pitiable. You may say that he was a weak fool. So he was. But providence is never quite as calculating as were G. and Dimitrios. It may bludgeon away at a man, but it never feels between his ribs with a knife. Bulić had no chance. They understood him and used their understanding with skill. With the cards as neatly stacked against me as they were against him, I should perhaps be no less weak, no less foolish. It is a comfort to believe that the occasion is unlikely to arise.
Inevitably he lost. He began to play with just over forty chips. It took him two hours of winning and losing to get rid of them. Then, quite calmly, he took another twenty on credit. He said that his luck must change. The poor wretch did not even suspect that he might be being cheated. Why should he suspect? The ‘Freiherr’ was losing even more than he was. He doubled his stakes and survived for forty minutes. He borrowed again and lost again. He had lost thirty-eight thousand dinar more than he had in the world when, white and sweating, he decided to stop.
After that it was plain sailing for Dimitrios. The following night Bulić returned. They let him win thirty thousand back. The third night he lost another fourteen thousand. On the fourth night, when he was about twenty-five thousand in debt, Alessandro asked for his money. Bulić promised to redeem his notes within a week. The first person to whom he went for help was G.
G. was sympathetic. Twenty-five thousand was a lot of money, wasn’t it? Of course, any money he used in connection with orders received was his employers’, and he was not empowered to do what he liked with it. But he himself could spare two hundred and fifty for a few days if it were any help. He would have liked to do more, but… Bulić took the two hundred and fifty.
With it G. gave him a word of advice. The ‘Freiherr’ was the man to get him out of his difficulty. He never lent money – with him it was a question of principle, he believed – but he had a reputation for helping his friends by putting them in the way of earning quite substantial sums. Why not have a talk with him?
The ‘talk’ between Bulić and Dimitrios took place after a dinner for which Bulić paid and in the ‘Freiherr’s’ hotel sitting-room. G. was out of sight in the adjoining bedroom.
When Bulić at last got to the point, he asked about Alessandro. Would he insist on his money? What would happen if he were not paid?
Dimitrios affected surprise. There was no question, he hoped, of Alessandro’s not being paid. After all, it was on his personal recommendation that Alessandro had given credit in the first place. He would not like there to be any unpleasantness. What sort of unpleasantness? Well, Alessandro held the promissory notes and could take the matter to the police. He hoped sincerely that that would not happen.
Bulić was hoping so, too. Now, he had everything to lose, including his post at the Ministry. It might even come out that he had taken money from G. That might even mean prison. Would they believe that he had done nothing in return for those thirty thousand dinar? It was madness to expect them to do so. His only chance was to get the money from the ‘Freiherr’ – somehow.
To his pleas for a loan Dimitrios shook his head. No. That would simply make matters worse, for then he would owe the money to a friend instead of to an enemy; besides, it was a matter of principle with him. At the same time, he wanted to help. There was just one way, but would Herr Bulić feel disposed to take it? That was the question. He scarcely liked to mention the matter, but, since Herr Bulić pressed him, he knew of certain persons who were interested in obtaining some information from the Ministry of Marine that could not be obtained through the usual channels. They could probably be persuaded to pay as much as fifty thousand dinar for this information if they could rely upon its being accurate.
G. said that he attributed quite a lot of the success of his plan (he deems it successful in the same way that a surgeon deems an operation successful when the patient leaves the operating theatre alive) to his careful use of figures. Every sum from the original twenty thousand dinar to the amounts of the successive debts to Alessandro (who was an Italian agent) and the final amount offered by Dimitrios was carefully calculated with an eye to its psychological value. That final fifty thousand, for example. Its appeal to Bulić was two-fold. It would pay off his debt and still leave him with nearly as much as he had had before he met the ‘Freiherr’. To the incentive of fear they added that of greed.
But Bulić did not give in immediately. When he heard exactly what the information was, he became frightened and angry. The anger was dealt with very efficiently by Dimitrios. If Bulić had begun to entertain doubts about the bona fides of the ‘Freiherr’ those doubts were now made certainties; for when he shouted ‘dirty spy’, the ‘Freiherr’s’ easy charm deserted him. Bulić was kicked in the abdomen and then, as he bent forward retching, in the face. Gasping for breath and with pain and bleeding from the mouth, he was flung into a chair while Dimitrios explained coldly that the only risk he ran was in not doing as he was told.
His instructions were simple. Bulić was to get a copy of the chart and bring it to the hotel when he left the Ministry the following evening. An hour later the chart would be returned to him to replace in the morning. That was all. He would be paid when he brought the chart. He was warned of the consequences to himself if he should decide to go to the authorities with his story, reminded of the fifty thousand that awaited him and dismissed.
He duly returned the following night with the chart folded in four under his coat. Dimitrios took the chart into G. and returned to keep watch on Bulić while it was photographed and the negative developed. Apparently Bulić had nothing to say. When G. had finished he took the money and the chart from Dimitrios and went without a word.
G. says that in the bedroom at that moment, when he heard the door close behind Bulić and as he held the negative up to the light, he was feeling very pleased with himself. Expenses had been low; there had been no wasted effort; there had been no tiresome delays; everybody, even Bulić, had done well out of the business. It only remained to hope that Bulić would restore the chart safely. There was really no reason why he should not do so. A very satisfactory affair from every point of view.
And then Dimitrios came into the room.
It was at that moment that G. realized that he had made one mistake.
‘My wages,’ said Dimitrios, and held out his hand.
G. met his employee’s eyes and nodded. He needed a gun and he had not got one. ‘We’ll go to my house now,’ he said and started towards the door.
Dimitrios shook his head deliberately. ‘My wages are in your pocket.’
‘Not your wages. Only mine.’
Dimitrios produced a revolver. A smile played about his lips. ‘What I want is in your pocket, mein Herr. Put your hands behind your head.’
G. obeyed. Dimitrios walked towards him. G., looking steadily into those brown anxious eyes, saw that he was in danger. Two feet in front of him Dimitrios stopped. ‘Please be careful, mein Herr .’
The smile disappeared. Dimitrios stepped forward suddenly and, jamming his revolver into G.’s stomach, snatched the negative from G.’s pocket with his free hand. Then, as suddenly, he stood back. ‘You may go,’ he said.
G. went. Dimitrios, in turn, had made his mistake.
All that night men, hastily recruited from the criminal cafés, scoured Belgrade for Dimitrios. But Dimitrios had disappeared. G. never saw him again.
What happened to the negative? Let me give you G.’s own words:
‘When the morning came and my men had failed to find him, I knew what I must do. I felt very bitter. After all my careful work it was most disappointing. But there was nothing else for it. I had known for a week that Dimitrios had got in touch with a French agent. The negative would be in that agent’s hands by now. I really had no choice. A friend of mine in the German Embassy was able to oblige me. The Germans were anxious to please Belgrade at the time. What could be more natural than that they should pass on an item of information interesting to the Yugoslav government?’
‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that you deliberately arranged for the Yugoslav authorities to be informed of the removal of the chart and of the fact that it had been photographed?’
‘Unfortunately, it was the only thing I could do. You see, I had to render the chart worthless. It was really very foolish of Dimitrios to let me go, but he was inexperienced. He probably thought that I should blackmail Bulić into bringing the chart out again. But I realized that I should not be paid much for bringing in information already in the possession of the French. Besides, my reputation would have suffered. I was very bitter about the whole affair. The only amusing aspect of it was that the French had paid over to Dimitrios half the agreed price for the chart before they discovered that the information on it had been rendered obsolete by my little démarche .’
‘What about Bulić?’
G. pulled a face. ‘Yes, I was sorry about that. I always have felt a certain responsibility towards those who work for me. He was arrested almost at once. There was no doubt as to which of the Ministry copies had been used. They were kept rolled in metal cylinders. Bulić had folded this one to bring it out of the Ministry. It was the only one with creases in it. His fingerprints did the rest. Very wisely he told the authorities all he knew about Dimitrios. As a result they sent him to prison for life instead of shooting him. I quite expected him to implicate me, but he did not. I was a little surprised. After all it was I who introduced him to Dimitrios. I wondered at the time whether it was because he was unwilling to face an additional charge of accepting bribes or because he felt grateful to me for lending him that two hundred and fifty dinar. Probably he did not connect me with the business of the chart at all. In any case, I was pleased. I still had work to do in Belgrade, and being wanted by the police, even under another name, might have complicated my life. I have never been able to bring myself to wear disguises.’
I asked him one more question. Here is his answer:
‘Oh, yes, I obtained the new charts as soon as they had been made. In quite a different way, of course. With so much of my money invested in the enterprise I could not return empty-handed. It is always the same: for one reason or another there are always these delays, these wastages of effort and money. You may say that I was careless in my handling of Dimitrios. That would be unjust. It was a small error of judgement on my part, that is all. I counted on his being like all the other fools in the world, on his being too greedy; I thought he would wait until he had from me the forty thousand dinar due to him before he tried to take the photograph as well. He took me by surprise. That error of judgement cost me a lot of money.’
‘It cost Bulić his liberty.’ I am afraid I said it a trifle grimly, for he frowned.
‘My dear Monsieur Latimer,’ he retorted stiffly, ‘Bulić was a traitor and he was rewarded according to his desserts. One cannot sentimentalize over him. In war there are always casualties. Bulić was very lucky. I should certainly have used him again, and he might ultimately have been shot. As it was, he went to prison. For all I know he is still in prison. I do not wish to seem callous, but I must say that he is better off there. His liberty? Rubbish! He had none to lose. As for his wife, I have no doubt that she has done better for herself. She always gave me the impression of wanting to do so. I do not blame her. He was an objectionable man. I seem to remember that he tended to dribble as he ate. What is more, he was a nuisance. You would have thought, would you not, that on leaving Dimitrios that evening he would have gone there and then to Alessandro to pay his debt? He did not do so. When he was arrested late the following day he still had the fifty thousand dinar in his pocket. More waste. It is at times like those, my friend, that one needs one’s sense of humour.’
Well, my dear Marukakis, that is all. It is, I think, more than enough. For me, wandering among the ghosts of old lies, there is comfort in the thought that you might write to me and tell me that all this was worth finding out. You might. For myself, I begin to wonder. It is such a poor story, isn’t it? There is no hero, no heroine; there are only knaves and fools. Or do I mean only fools?
But it really is too early in the afternoon to pose such questions. Besides, I have packing to do. In a few days I shall send you a postcard with my name and new address on it in the hope that you will have time to write. In any case, we shall, I hope, meet again very soon. Croyez en mes meilleurs souvenirs.
Charles Latimer.