Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (2 page)

Bishop grinned. “Oh, we keep in touch, sir. She sent a fruit cake at Christmas–it made several members of the staff quite tipsy. There was a card at Easter, and she sent a knitted muffler in May. My birthday, you know.”

“Good lord,” said Carstairs, shaken. “Well, get a car and a driver for us and let’s go.… Night-blooming cereus!” he repeated, and shook his head.

The car was equipped with telephones, and before they had even crossed the New Jersey marshes Carstairs was issuing orders and setting queries in motion. For a few minutes Bishop listened and watched, still fascinated after years of working with the man. He knew that by dawn they would be back in Washington–Carstairs was ordering a helicopter now to meet them at the New Brunswick airport–and the whole operation would be neatly under way and stored between file covers. And in Washington, thought Bishop, there would probably be a new crisis waiting–he closed his eyes and slept.

“Blast,” he heard Carstairs say, and unwillingly Bishop opened his eyes.

“These damn budget cuts, this fiendish economy drive,”
sputtered Carstairs. “I’ve cleared this with Upstairs, but damned if they don’t announce that if I’m sending a courier into Bulgaria with nothing but passports then my courier can jolly well smuggle in a few other items.”

“Like what?” asked Bishop drowsily.

“Who knows? Something for that remaining agent we’ve got in Sofia, whatsisname, chap with the geese–”

“Radev,” murmured Bishop. “Assen Radev.”

“I’ll fight it. I’ll blast them. I refuse to share my couriers.”

“Mmm,” mumbled Bishop sympathetically.

“If you’re going to sleep, Bishop,” Carstairs told him coldly, “then for heaven’s sake sleep and get it done with. I’ll give you ten minutes and then let’s buckle down to some
real
work.”

Like a drowning man–how did Carstairs manage it, he wondered–Bishop clutched his proffered ten minutes and slept.

At two o’clock in the morning they were seated in Mrs. Pollifax’s living room in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and she was looking at them as if they had just presented her with the Holy Grail.

“But I’d be delighted–absolutely delighted–to go to Bulgaria,” she said, beaming at them, her face radiant.

Her appearance had immediately revived Bishop. She was wearing a voluminous robe of black and white stripes. It looked like a tent; it had probably once
been
a tent because there was a definitely rakish Arab look about it.

“But what an extraordinary story your Mrs. Shipkov told!” She hesitated and looked at Carstairs reprovingly. “Should you have mentioned his name to me?”

Bishop grinned across the coffee table at his superior. “Yes, should you have?”

“It is not,” said Carstairs pointedly, “his real name.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I’m relieved. And will I travel under an assumed name, too?”

Carstairs shook his head. “No point in being unnecessarily devious. We’d like you to be a straightforward American tourist as usual. In fact this time you can make a public announcement to your friends and children that you’ll be off to the Dalmatian coast, with a few days in Sofia. You’ll have plenty of time to get ready because I’m scheduling you to leave in about ten days.”

“Oh, how nice,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a pleased voice. “You can’t believe how frustrating it’s been, nobody knowing where I go. Miss Hartshorne travels religiously on tours, and this year she’s urging me to visit Turkey–”

Carstairs broke into a laugh. “Turkey!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding. “How can I possibly tell her I’ve seen more of it than she has! There’s Albania, too. I am probably the only person in New Brunswick to have visited Albania–even if I
was
in shackles,” she admitted, “but my lips are sealed.” Abruptly she asked, “But why ten days? Why not sooner?”

“Arrangements,” said Carstairs. “They’ll have to go by the conventional route. A visa. Letters to Balkantourist outlining what you’d like to see during your five or six days in Sofia.”

“Balkantourist?”

“Yes, it’s the only travel agency in Bulgaria, and it’s run by the government. It
is
the government. They’ll arrange your itinerary, they’ll arrange everything, as well as watch over you with vast benevolence.”

“That’s clever.”

“Yes, and you must never forget that it’s the government watching over you. In fact Balkantourist is going to be your biggest problem, and we’ll have to think of something to deflect their interest. Happily, this is their peak tourist season. They’ve not many English-speaking guides as yet so we’ll hope and pray they won’t be able to assign you a full-time guide. We’ll see what we can come up with. You’ll find the people themselves extremely
friendly–the country’s no larger than Kansas–and warm and nonpolitical, too. But not the government, Mrs. Pollifax.
Not
the government.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said, nodding.

“Now about the passports–”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, leaning forward eagerly.

“I’ve always had the impression that you wear hats everywhere except to bed—an illusion I prefer to cherish,” he said with a glance at her uncovered head. “I think we’ll put them in your hat.”

“How inventive!” she said warmly.

“A special hat,” he went on. “Custom-made, with a false crown. Two crowns, actually. I’ve already set this in motion. A chap named Osmonde will call on you to consult about the design. Will Thursday morning at ten be convenient?”

“Perfect,” she said.

“Good.… Bishop, have we covered the main points?”

Bishop glanced down at the memo beside his coffee cup. “Everything but the most important. The tailor shop.”

Carstairs nodded and brought out the piece of paper Shipkov had given him. “Here it is–the original. I suggest you make a copy now.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at the wrinkled piece of paper that had been given to Shipkov on the streets of Sofia. She read:

At the very bottom of the sheet, almost indecipherable, she read the words,
We beg help
. It was strangely poignant, this message scrawled in pencil on the soiled scrap of paper, and something of its urgency reached her as
she sat in her comfortable living room thousands of miles away.

“How many passports can you send them?”

“We’re going to manage eight if we can. That will take time, too, since they can’t all be American. They’ll probably have to be forged. Exquisitely, of course,” he added with a smile.

She nodded. “Is the name Tsanko a first or a last name in Bulgaria?”

“First, I think, isn’t it, Bishop?”

Bishop nodded.

“There is also …” Carstairs hesitated. “There is
always
the possibility that the message isn’t authentic, Mrs. Pollifax. I want you to remember that. If you meet with unforeseen circumstances, you’re to make a fast exit. Very fast.”

“All right.” She was copying the message on paper, and without glancing up she said, “I go to this shop and order a vest and then wait to be contacted. When I’ve given this man Tsanko the passports do I ask for anything from him?”

Carstairs frowned. “There’s no bargain involved here, and he’d have every right to be affronted if we insist on anything in return. But if the occasion arises–I leave this entirely up to you–we certainly wouldn’t mind learning more about a man named General Ignatov. What’s his complete name, Bishop?”

“General Dimiter Kosta Ignatov,” said Bishop promptly.

“You understand this Tsanko will probably know nothing. The press is state-controlled over there and the people aren’t informed about much of anything,” Carstairs explained. “But we’d appreciate your asking.”

“I’ll be glad to.” Mrs. Pollifax completed her notes and handed Shipkov’s message back to Carstairs, who stood up. “But you’re leaving without finishing your coffee!” she told him.

“We have to. There’ll be a helicopter waiting for us
at your airport in”–he glanced at his watch–“ten minutes. But I must admit it’s been a real experience meeting you in your natural habitat,” he said with a grin. “As well as seeing your night-blooming cereus.”

“Both the night-blooming cereus and I seem to bloom once a year,” she said, smiling and rising, too. “Mr. Carstairs, I shall do my very best in Bulgaria, I really will. You can count on me.”

Bishop saw Carstairs open his mouth to speak, wince and close it with a snap. “Yes,” he said, and then, “We’ll be in touch.”

“What were you about to say?” asked Bishop curiously as they descended in the elevator to the street.

Carstairs said testily, “It wasn’t anything I was going to say, damn it. I just experienced the most incredibly clear memory–it came over me in waves–of how I worry about that woman when she’s away.”

Bishop nodded. “Yes, I believe I pointed that out to you only a few–”

“If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s an ‘I told you so’ attitude,” snapped Carstairs.

“Yes, sir,” Bishop said, grinning.

Mrs. Pollifax’s preparations moved along smoothly. The next day she announced to friends and family that she would be flying to Europe soon for a visit to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Her daughter in Arizona was appalled. “Mother! Your first trip abroad and you’re not going to visit Paris or London? You
must
visit Paris and London!” Jane tended to be somewhat managing, and Mrs. Pollifax braced herself for a long conversation.

Before telephoning her son, Roger, in Chicago, Mrs. Pollifax also braced herself, but for a different reason: Roger was a very intuitive young man.

“Bulgaria,” he said now with interest. “You pick the most surprising places, Mother. Not Switzerland, France, Scotland or Belgium?”

“Bulgaria,” she said firmly.

“We had the most interesting note from your neighbor Miss Hartshorne at Christmastime,” he told her. “She seemed to think that you’d been here with us for a week last summer, and that Martha had been quite ill.”

It was not the
non sequitur
that it sounded; Mrs. Pollifax
understood him at once. “How very odd of her to think that,” she said weakly.

“Wasn’t it?” He chuckled. “Whatever you’re up to, Mother, I hope it’s fun.” And with that he blithely hung up.

The gentleman named Osmonde arrived on Thursday at ten o’clock, and was thoroughly enjoyable. Mrs. Pollifax fed him tea and macaroons and was struck by his conscientiousness: he insisted first upon seeing, measuring and photographing the coat she would wear with the hat. “For the blending, the amalgamation,” he said vaguely, and she obediently buttoned herself into the quilted brown travel coat that she intended to wear on the trip.

About the hat she was as doubtful as he. Every design that he sketched looked top-heavy and he agreed this would be a problem. “You’ll be carrying almost fifteen ounces in the hat,” he pointed out. “Distributed, of course. Pillbox? Derby?” He sighed. “It offends the aesthetics.”

“What will you do?”

“The hat itself must be very light in weight, yet look heavy enough–complicated enough–to explain its odd bulk. Perhaps a wire structure with two-inch roses covering it?”

Mrs. Pollifax winced.

“A polyethylene motor helmet?” he suggested, pencil flying, and then after a glance at Mrs. Pollifax–her cheerful round face, bright eyes and unsubdued fly-away white hair–he sighed and discreetly put that idea aside. “Will you trust me?”

“I don’t want to,” Mrs. Pollifax told him frankly, “but I’m due at the Art Association lunch in half an hour. I shall have to trust you.”

He left with relief, carrying measurements and notes.

On the following day there were fresh instructions from Carstairs–really Mrs. Pollifax had not felt so popular
since she’d won a first prize for her geraniums.

“We’ve come up with something to help blunt Balkantourist’s interest in you,” he said. “At least we think it may if you can wangle it. There’s a chap in Sofia you might try to hire as private guide on your arrival.”

Mrs. Pollifax frowned. “I don’t understand. Won’t Balkantourist object to my doing this?”

Carstairs’ voice was dry. “They’ll probably find it amusing. This man has worked for them on a number of occasions, but he drinks too much to be reliable. Our newsmen often use him when they pass through Sofia. His name is Carleton Bemish.”

“Bemish,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, writing it down.

“He’s an Englishman–an expatriate–who’s lived in Sofia for years and speaks the language fluently. He’s even married to a Bulgarian. Technically he’s a free-lance correspondent–does pieces for the London papers when there’s a Balkan crisis–but actually he’s one of those alcoholic hangers-on who can never go home again because of some tawdry scandal or another.”

“He doesn’t sound very appetizing,” commented Mrs. Pollifax.

“Of course not. From what I’m told he’d sell his own mother, but he’ll be a helluva lot easier to lose than Balkantourist when the time comes for you to make contact. By the way, we’ve decided you should rent a car for your stay in Sofia. That might entice Bemish, too–he doesn’t have one. Is your license up to date?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Try to get Bemish,” he said, and rang off.

Mrs. Pollifax added his name to her list and continued her research on Bulgaria, impressed and surprised to learn that it had been free of Turkey’s oppressive rule for only some eighty years. It was the Russians who had helped liberate Bulgaria from Turkey, and it was the Russians who had liberated them later from the Nazis. It suggested a much more congenial relationship than
she’d expected, and a difference from other satellite countries that intrigued her.

There was one visitor to Mrs. Pollifax’s apartment, however, that she had not expected. She came home one afternoon to find her door ajar and the lock so jammed that she could not turn the key in it. Yet so far as Mrs. Pollifax could discover nothing at all had been taken. “But just see the lock,” she told the policeman when he arrived.