Stamboul Train (13 page)

He closed his bag and jumped a little at a strange sound outside like the twanging of a bow. ‘What's that?'

Anna whispered through the door, ‘The lift. Someone has rung it down.' He picked up a volume of
Railway Management,
but the safe glowed red with heat and he put it back on the desk. From below came the clang of a gate closing, the high hum of the lift. Josef stepped towards the curtains and drew the string on which the revolver dangled a couple of inches higher. He wondered whether it would be possible to escape through the window, but he remembered that there was a straight drop of thirty feet to the awning of the café. Then the gates opened and closed. Anna whispered through the key-hole: ‘The floor below.'

That's all right then, Josef thought, I can take my time. Back into Anna's bedroom and then over the roof. I shall have to wait twenty minutes for the Passau train. The chair under the handle was tightly wedged. He had to put down his bag and use both hands. The chair slid along the hardwood floor and crashed over. At the same moment the light went on.

‘Stay where you are,' said Herr Kolber, ‘and put your hands up.'

Josef Grünlich obeyed at once. He turned round very slowly, and during those seconds formed his plan. ‘I'm not armed,' he said gently, scanning Herr Kolber with mild reproachful eyes. Herr Kolber wore the blue uniform and the round peaked cap of an assistant station-master; he was small and thin with a brown crinkled face, and the hand holding the revolver shook a little with excitement and age and fury. For a moment Josef's mild eyes were narrowed and focused on the revolver, calculating the angle at which it would be fired, wondering whether the bullet would go astray. No, he thought, he will aim at my legs and hit my stomach. Herr Kolber had his back to the safe and could not yet have seen the disarranged books. ‘You don't understand,' Josef said.

‘What are you doing at that door?'

Josef's face was still red from the glow of the flame. ‘Me and Anna,' he said.

Herr Kolber shouted at him, ‘Speak up, you scoundrel.'

‘Me and Anna are friends. I'm very sorry, Herr Superintendent, to be found like this. Anna invited me in.'

‘Anna?' Herr Kolber said incredulously. ‘Why?'

Josef's hips wriggled with embarrassment. ‘Well, Herr Kolber, you see how it is. Me and Anna are friends.'

‘Anna, come here.' The door opened slowly, and Anna came out. She had put on her skirt and tidied her hair. ‘It's true, Herr Kolber.' She gazed with horror past him at the exposed safe. ‘What's the matter with you? What are you staring at now? This is a fine kettle of fish. A woman of your age.'

‘Yes, Herr Kolber, but—' She hesitated and Josef interrupted her before she could defend herself, or accuse him. ‘I'm very fond of Anna.' She accepted his words with a pitiable gratitude. ‘Yes, he told me that.'

Herr Kolber stamped his foot. ‘You were a fool, Anna. Turn out his pockets. He's probably stolen your money.' It still did not occur to him to examine his safe, and Josef played up to the part assigned to him of an inferior thief. He knew the type to the last bluster and the last whine. He had worked with them, employed them, and seen them depart to gaol without regret. Pickpennies, he called them, and he meant by the term that they were men without ambition or resource. ‘I haven't stolen her money,' he whined. ‘I wouldn't do such a thing. I'm fond of Anna.'

‘Turn out his pockets.' Anna obeyed, but her hands moved in his clothes like a caress. ‘Now his hip pocket.'

‘I don't carry a gun,' Josef said.

‘His hip pocket,' Herr Kolber repeated, and Anna turned out the lining. When he saw that that pocket too was empty, Herr Kolber lowered his revolver, but he still quivered with elderly rage. ‘Making my flat a brothel,' he said. ‘What have you got to say for yourself, Anna? This is a fine kettle of fish.'

Anna, with her eyes on the floor, twisted her thin hands. ‘I don't know what came over me, Herr Kolber,' but even as she spoke she seemed to learn. She looked up and Josef Grünlich saw in her eyes affection turn to distaste and distaste to anger. ‘He tempted me,' she said slowly. All the while Josef was conscious of his black bag on the desk behind Herr Kolber's back, of the pile of books and the exposed safe, but uneasiness did not hamper thought. Sooner or later Herr Kolber would discover what had brought him to the flat, and already he had noticed close to the station-master's hand a bell which probably rang in the porter's flat.

‘Can I put my hands down, Herr Superintendent?'

‘Yes, but don't move an inch.' Herr Kolber stamped his foot. ‘I'm going to have the truth of this if I keep you here all night. I won't have men coming here seducing my maid.' The word ‘men' took Josef for a second off his guard; the idea of the middle-aged Anna as an object of pursuit amused him, and he smiled. Anna saw the smile and guessed the reason. She said to Herr Kolber, ‘Be careful. He didn't want me. He—' but Josef Grünlich took the accusation out of her mouth. ‘I'll confess. It was not Anna I came for. Look, Herr Kolber,' and he waved his left hand towards the safe. Herr Kolber turned with his revolver pointing to the floor, and Josef shot him twice in the small of the back.

Anna put her hand to her throat and began to scream, looking away from the body. Herr Kolber had fallen on his knees with his forehead touching the floor: he wriggled once between the shots, and then the whole body would have fallen sideways if it had not been propped in its position by the wall. ‘Shut your mouth,' said Josef, and when the woman continued to scream, he took her by the throat and shook her. ‘If you don't keep quiet for ten minutes, I'll put you underground too—see?' He saw that she had fainted and threw her into a chair; then he shut and locked the window and the bedroom door, for he was afraid that if she returned to the bedroom, her screams might be heard by the policeman when his beat took him to the goods-yard. The key he pushed down the lavatory pan with the handle of a scrubbing-brush. He made a last survey of the study; but he had already decided to leave the black bag on the desk; he always wore gloves, and the bag would bear only Anna's finger-prints. It was a pity to lose such a fine set of tools, but he was prepared to sacrifice anything which might endanger him, even he thought, looking at his watch, the ticket to Passau. The train would not leave for another quarter of an hour, and he could not linger in Vienna so long. He remembered the express he had seen from the roof, the express to Istanbul, and wondered: Can I make it without buying a ticket? He was unwilling to leave the trail of his features behind him, and it even crossed his mind to blind Anna with one of the chisels so that she might not be able to identify him. It was a passing thought; unnecessary violence was abhorrent to him, not because he disliked violence, but because he liked to be precise in his methods, omitting nothing which was necessary and adding nothing which was superfluous. Now with great care to avoid the blood he searched Herr Kolber's pockets for the study key, and when he had found it, he paused for a moment before a mirror to tidy his hair and brush his hat. Then he left the room, locking the door behind him and dropping the key into an umbrella-stand in the hall: he intended to do no more roof-climbing that night.

His only hesitation was when he saw the lift waiting with open door, but he decided almost at once to use the staircase, for the noise of the lift would blaze his trail past other flats. All the way down the stairs he listened for Anna's screams, but only silence followed him. The snow was still falling outside, quietening the wheels of cars, the tread of feet; but the silence up the stairs seemed to fall faster and more thickly and to disguise the signs he had left behind, the pile of books, the black bag, the scorched safe. He had never killed a man, but as long as silence lasted, he could forget that he had taken the final step which raised him to the dangerous peak of his profession.

A door on the first floor was open, and as he passed he heard a petulant woman's voice, ‘Such drawers, I tell you. Well, I'm not the President's daughter, and I said to her, give me something respectable. Thin! You've never seen—'

Josef Grünlich twisted his thick grey moustache and stepped boldly out into the street, glancing this way, glancing that, as if he were expecting a friend. There was no policeman in sight, and as the pavements had been swept clear of snow, he left no prints. He turned smartly to the left towards the station, his ears pricked for the sound of screams, but he heard nothing but the hoot of taxi-cabs and the rustle of the snow. At the end of the street the great arch of the station enticed him like the lit façade of a variety theatre.

But it would be dangerous, he thought, to hang about the entrance like a seller of lottery tickets, and suddenly with the sense of dropping all the tenement's height, floor by floor, from Herr Kolber's flat, with the sense renewed of his own resource, the hand pointing to the safe, the quick pull on the string, and the revolver levelled and fired in one moment, pride filled him. I have killed a man. He let his overcoat flap open to the night breeze; he smoothed his waistcoat, fingered his silver chain; to an imaginary female friend he raised his soft grey hat, made by the best maker in Vienna, but a little too small for him, because it had been lifted from a lavatory peg. I, Josef Grünlich, have killed a man. I am clever, he thought, I'll be too much for them. Why should I hurry like a sneak thief to the station, slip inconspicuously through doorways, hide in the shadow of sheds? There's time for a cup of coffee, and he chose a table on the pavement, at the edge of the awning, which he had seen rise towards him when he slipped on the roof. He glanced upwards through the failing snow, one floor, two floors, three floors, and there was the lighted window of Herr Kolber's study; four floors, and the shadow of the building vanished in the grey loaded sky. It would have been an ugly fall.

‘
Der Kaffe mit Milch,
' he said. He stirred the coffee thoughtfully, Josef Grünlich, the man of destiny. There was nothing else to be done, he didn't hesitate. A shadow of discontent passed across his features when he thought: But I can tell no one of this. It would be too dangerous. Even his best friend, Anton, whose Christian name he had used, must remain in ignorance, for there might be a reward offered for information. Nevertheless, sooner or later, he assured himself, they would guess, and they will point me out: ‘There's Josef. He killed Kolber at Vienna, but they never caught him. He's never been caught.'

He put down his glass and listened. Had it been a taxi or a noise from the station or a woman's scream? He looked round the tables; no one had heard anything odd, they were talking, drinking, laughing, and one man was spitting. But Josef Grünlich's thirst was a little dulled while he sat and listened. A policeman came down the street; he had probably been relieved from traffic duty and was on his way home, but Josef, lifting his glass, shielded his face and watched him covertly over the brim. Then quite certainly he heard a scream. The policeman stopped, and Josef, glancing anxiously round for the waiter, rose and laid some coins upon the table; the revolver between his legs had rubbed a small sore.

‘
Guten Abend.
' The policeman bought an evening paper and went down the street. Josef put his gloved fingers to his forehead and brought them down damp with sweat. This won't do, he thought, I mustn't get nervous; I must have imagined that scream, and he was about to sit down and finish his coffee when he heard it again. It was extraordinary that it should have passed unnoticed in the café. How long, he wondered, before she unlocks the window? Then they'll hear her. He left his table and out in the street heard the screams more clearly, but the taxis went hooting by, a few hotel porters staggered down the slippery pavement carrying bags; no one stopped, no one heard.

Something struck the pavement with the clink of metal, and Josef looked down. It was a copper coin. That's curious, he thought, a lucky omen, but stooping to pick it up, he saw at intervals, all the way from the café, copper and silver coins lying in the centre of the pavement. He felt in his trouser pocket and found nothing but a hole. My goodness, he thought, have I been dropping them ever since I left the flat? And he saw himself standing at the end of a clear trail that led, paving stone by paving stone, and then stair by stair, to the door of Herr Kolber's study. He began to walk rapidly back along the pavement, picking up the coins and cramming them into his overcoat pocket, but he had not reached the café when the glass of a window broke high up above his head and a woman's voice screamed over and over again: ‘
Zu Hülfe! Zu Hülfe!
' A waiter ran out of the café and stared upwards; a taxi-driver put on his brakes and ground his machine to a halt by the kerb; two men who had been playing chess left their pieces and ran into the road. Josef Grünlich had thought it very quiet under the falling snow, but only now was he confronted by real silence, as the taxi stopped and everyone in the café ceased speaking, and the woman continued to scream: ‘
Zu Hülfe! Zu Hülife!
' Somebody said ‘
Die Polizei.
' and two policemen came running down the street with clinking holsters. Then everything became again as usual, except that a small knot of idle people gathered at the entrance to the flats. The two chess players went back to their game; the taxi-driver pressed his self-starter, and then because the cold had already touched his engine, climbed out to wind the handle. Josef Grünlich walked, not too rapidly, towards the station, and a newspaper seller began to pick up the coins he had left on the pavement. Certainly, Josef thought, I cannot wait for the Passau train. But neither, he began to think, could he risk arrest for travelling without a ticket. But I haven't the money to get another; even my small change has gone. Josef, Josef, he abjured himself, don't make difficulties. You must get more. You are not going to give in now: Josef Grünlich, five years and never jugged. You've killed a man; surely for once you, the head of your profession, can do something which any pickpenny finds easy, steal a woman's handbag.