The Schirmer Inheritance

She did not hear him. “How many more victims?” Her voice rose. “They are always the same, these beasts-killing, and torturing, and raping wherever they go. What do the Americans and British know of them? Your armies do not fight in your own lands. Ask the French about the Germans in their streets and in their houses. Ask the Poles and Russians, the Czechs, the Yugoslavs. These men are filthy slime on the land that suffers them. Filth! Beating and torturing, beating and torturing, bearing down with their strength, until they-until they-”

She broke off, staring blankly ahead as if she had forgotten what she had been going to say. Then, suddenly, she crumpled into a passionate storm of weeping.

George sat there as stolidly as his embarrassment and the lurching of the car would allow, trying to remember how many drinks he had seen her have since they had left Florina. It seemed to him that her glass had never once been empty while they had been at the Sergeant’s headquarters, but he could not quite remember. Probably she had kept refilling it. If that were so, she must have had the best part of a bottle of plum brandy, as well as her after-dinner cognacs. He had been too preoccupied to pay much attention to her.

She was sobbing quietly now. The old man driving had merely glanced round once and then taken no further interest. Presumably he was accustomed to distracted women. George was not. He was feeling sorry for her; but he was also remembering her pleasure in the anecdotes of Colonel Chrysantos, the man who knew “how to deal with Germans.”

After a while, she went to sleep, her head cushioned in her arms against the back of the seat. The sky was beginning to lighten when she awoke. For a time she stared at the road, taking no notice of the wind blowing her hair about; then she took out a cigarette and tried to work her lighter. The breeze in the car was too strong for it and George, who was already smoking, passed his cigarette to her to light hers from. She thanked him quite normally. She made no reference to her outburst. No doubt she had forgotten about it. With Miss Kolin, he had decided now, anything was possible.

He finished his report to Mr. Sistrom and sealed it in an envelope. The post office might be open now he thought. He took the report and the cable and went downstairs.

He had left Miss Kolin over an hour before, when she had gone to her room. To his surprise, he saw her sitting in the cafe with the remains of a breakfast on the table in front of her. She had changed her clothes and was looking as if she had had a good night’s sleep.

“I thought you were going to bed,” he said.

“You said you were going to send a cable to your office. I was waiting to take it to the post office. They make so much chi-chi about cables there. They have so few. I did not think you would like to deal with them yourself.”

“That’s very good of you, Miss Kolin. Here it is. I’ve done my report, too. Air-mail that, will you?”

“Of course.”

She left some money on the table for the breakfast and was going through the lobby to the street when the desk clerk came after her and said something in French. George caught the word “telephone.”

She nodded to the clerk and glanced at George-in an almost embarrassed way, he thought.

“My call to Paris,” she said. “I had cabled my friends that I was on my way home. I wished to tell them that I would be delayed. How long do you think we will be?”

“Two or three days, I’d say.” He turned to go. “Pretty good work that, to get through to Paris from here in an hour,” he added.

“Yes.”

He saw her enter the telephone booth and begin speaking as he went upstairs, back to his room to sleep.

At eight o’clock that evening they met the old man with the Renault again, and began their second journey to the Sergeant’s headquarters.

George had slept fitfully for most of the day and felt a great deal wearier for having done so. In the faint hope that there might be a reply cable in from Mr. Sistrom, he had risen in the late afternoon and gone down to check. There had been nothing in. He had been disappointed but not surprised. Mr. Sistrom would have some thinking to do and some inquiries to make before he could send a useful reply. Miss Kolin had been out and, sitting beside her in the car, he noted that the leather satchel which she carried slung by a strap from her shoulder looked bulkier than usual. He decided that she had bought a bottle of brandy with which to fortify herself on the journey. He hoped, uneasily, that she would not hit it too hard.

Arthur was waiting for them at the same place and took the same precautions about shutting them in the back of the truck. The night was even warmer than the previous one and George protested.

“Is all that still necessary?”

“Sorry, chum. Got to be done.”

“It is a wise precaution,” said Miss Kolin unexpectedly.

“Yes, that’s right, miss.” Arthur sounded as surprised as George felt. “Did you bring the Sarge’s papers, Mr. Carey?”

“I did.”