Hard Case Crime: Passport To Peril Read Online Free PDF

pulled aside the curtains. Even if I’d had my clothes and my strength, even if I’d been willing to leave Maria, there wasn’t the slightest chance of escape. The windows were solidly barred. Otto and his friends weren’t asleep. The major had said his orders were to find us and take us to Budapest. He looked like just the man to do it.
    Of course. That was it. They thought that Blaye had decided to back out, to welsh on the deal at the last minute. They would reason that was why he’d left the train. It sounded less and less like watches and clocks. And they—whoever they were—weren’t having any backing out from Monsieur Blaye.
    As long as I was going to have to play the part a little longer, there was nothing to do but to tell Maria. No matter what she’d think, I’d have to give her the whole story about the passport. She was in just as much trouble as I. She had a right to know what was going on, if only for her own safety. Otherwise, I couldn’t risk what she might say or do when she heard Major Strakhov address me as Monsieur Blaye in the morning.
    I didn’t dare turn on the light. I tiptoed to the door, expecting to find it locked from the outside, but it opened.
    The corridor was dark, but there was light showing under the door of the room next to mine. I raised my hand to knock and stopped in mid-air. I had no way of knowing whether Maria or Major Strakhov was in that room. I decided to knock anyway. If the major answered, I’d ask for an aspirin.
    I knocked and there was no answer. I knocked again and nothing happened. I knocked a third time and then I heard Maria’s voice say, “Who is it? What do you want?” so I opened the door, walked in, and shut it and said, “It’s me, John Stodder. I’ve got to talk to you.”
    I could see I’d wakened her from a sound sleep. When she’d rubbed her eyes and propped herself up in bed on one elbow, she took a look at me and started to laugh.
    “What’s so funny?” I said. “Let me in on it. I need a laugh at this point.”
    “Nothing,” she said, “except you’re the first man I ever met who came calling in a blanket.” I hadn’t realized I was still wearing the blanket that Otto had wrapped around me when he’d removed my clothes. My bare legs and feet were showing, I needed a shave, and my hair was matted like a hermit’s.
    I didn’t know how to begin so I told her about Major Strakhov and how he had taken me for Marcel Blaye.
    “You do look a lot like Monsieur Blaye,” Maria said. “I told you so when I first saw you in the compartment. You fooled me when your back was turned. But I don’t understand why Major Strakhov should think you’re Monsieur Blaye. I can’t imagine that he’d know anything about Monsieur.”
    “Look,” I said. “It’s much simpler than that.” It wasn’t easy to say. I must have fumbled for words. “You see, I’m traveling on Marcel Blaye’s passport.”
    I expected her to scream or faint or point her finger at me and call me a murderer. She didn’t do any of those things. She just looked at me with those big black eyes and said, “You’d better tell me the whole story.”
    “Well,” I blurted out, “I told you my reasons for wanting to come to Hungary. I tried to get a visa on my American passport more than two years ago, but it never came through. I finally discovered that the Russians didn’t like what I’d written about them in a book. It was one of those correspondent books about my experiences in Budapest when the war began in Europe. But I’d made up my mind to get to Hungary, visa or no visa. So when I reached Vienna, one of my friends who’s still in Intelligence put me in touch with Herr Figl. He’s supposed to be the smartest document forger in Europe. I paid Figl five hundred dollars, and he handed me Blaye’s passport. I thought the name Marcel Blaye came out of Figl’s imagination.”
    Maria didn’t say a word. She just kept looking at me. I knew then how important it was