Hard Case Crime: Passport To Peril Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, waving his hand in the direction in which Otto and his men had disappeared, “but it’s lucky they found you. I’m afraid they were trying to jack deer with a lantern when you ran into them. They’re just like children.” It was the speech a German officer would have made about the Russians, a few years and one lost war earlier.
    “I’m sorry to say, Monsieur Blaye, that your failure to arrive at Hegyshalom proved a great disappointment to Countess Orlovska,” the major continued. “She came with me from Budapest to meet you but she has returned to the capital in the Orient. She requested me to tell you that she looks forward eagerly to seeing you as soon as you arrive.” He added in an offhand manner, “I must say I thought her somewhat upset when she heard you had brought your pretty secretary.”
    I was so tired and confused that I didn’t catch on. I thought the major possessed an exceedingly macabre sense of humor. Maria had said that Blaye “seemed to be very much in love with a Polish girl, a Countess Orlovska, who used to come to the office.” And what did Strakhov mean “as soon as you arrive”?
    “Excuse me, Major,” I said, “but what are you planning to do with us?”
    “Monsieur Blaye,” he said, “I am a soldier and I obey orders. My instructions are to accompany you and your secretary to Budapest as soon as possible, to see you safely to the Russian embassy. Judging by what Otto tells me of your condition, I do not think you will find it burdensome to travel tomorrow morning. We will catch the morning train.”
    “What’s this all about?” I said. “And why do you continue to call me Monsieur Blaye?”
    Major Strakhov smiled. “I don’t think there’s any doubt of your identity. First of all, Monsieur Blaye, there is your passport. Then there are the labels in your clothing and the signature on your traveler’s checks.” In my desire to do a thorough job I’d even signed the checks with that name. “And there is the baggage which you and Mademoiselle Torres left aboard the train.”
    He crossed the room to fill my empty glass.
    “Monsieur Blaye, as I’ve already explained, I only know my orders. I was sent to Hegyshalom to meet you and to escort you to Budapest. When the sergeant of the train guard radioed ahead that you had vanished, I naturally called Budapest for instructions. I was commanded to find you and to bring you to that city. That is all I know, please.”
    I told the major I would very much like to get to bed. He called Otto and Hermann to carry me, but I found I could walk with Otto’s arm supporting me. The major led the way to a bedroom, wished me a pleasant good night, and bowed himself out the door.
    Well, I’d started out to play the role of Marcel Blaye when I thought the name was a passport forger’s dream. Now that I knew that the passport was real I was stuck with the part. At least, I was stuck with it until I had to face the Countess Orlovska or someone else in Budapest who’d known the genuine Marcel Blaye.
    I had been so sure that Marcel Blaye was dead. Now there was nothing certain. Had the man Maria called Dr. Schmidt murdered him in, Vienna? It could be that his body hadn’t yet been found or that an alarm had not reached the Hungarian frontier station. Or maybe he was still alive, waiting for a new passport in Vienna before proceeding to Budapest?
    Who was Marcel Blaye, anyway? The passport said he was a thirty-five-year-old Swiss from Geneva, a man whose description almost exactly matched mine. Maria Torres, his secretary, said he called himself a watch and clock exporter but otherwise she didn’t know much about him. He was supposed to have been on his way to Budapest to close a big deal with the Hungarian government, but who ever heard of a government so hard up for watches and clocks that it sent Russian majors in full uniform to meet salesmen at frontiers? And to track them down when they jumped off trains?
    I got out of bed and