The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
well. Cigar? No?”
“He’s explained nothing, except that I’m the object of a damned conspiracy! God, why do you do this to me? Is it that damned bitch Lola? Is this how she takes her revenge on me?”
“Tut-tut,” says Rudi. “Be calm.” He seated himself on the edge of Karjuss’s desk, swung his legs a moment, and looked at me thoughtfully. Then he gave a slow chuckle.
“It’s too bad, really. I don’t blame you for being annoyed. The truth is, we haven’t been quite honest with you. You’re sure you won’t have a cigar? Oh, well, here’s how it is.”
He lit himself another weed, and held forth.
“I think Karjuss has convinced you that you’re in a most devilish mess. If we choose, we can shut you up for ever, and your own ambassador, and your government, would be the first to say ‘Amen’. Considering the charges, I mean.”
“Trumped-up lies!” I shouted. “False blasted witnesses!”
“But of course. As you yourself said, a dastardly plot. But the point is—you’re caught in it, with no choice but to do as you’re told. If you refuse—the charges are brought, you’re convicted, and good-night.”
And the insolent young hound grinned pleasantly at me and blew a smoke-ring.
“You devil!” cries I. “You—you dirty German dog!”
“Austrian, actually. Anyway, you appreciate your position?”
Oh, I appreciated it, no question of that. I didn’t understand how, or why, they had done this to me, but I was in no doubt of what the consequences would be if I didn’t play their infernal game for them—whatever it was. Blustering hadn’t helped me, and a look at Rudi’s mocking face told me that whining wouldn’t either. Robbed of the two cards which I normally play in a crisis, I was momentarily lost.
“Will you tell me why you’ve done this—why to me? What can you want of me, in heaven’s name?”
“There is a service—a very important service—which only you can perform,” says he. “More than that I can’t say, at the moment. But that is why you were brought to Munich—oh, it was all most carefully planned. Lola’s letter—dictated by me, incidentally—was not altogether inaccurate. ‘Most delicate’ really sums it up.”
“But what service could there possibly be that only I—”
“You’ll have to wait and see, and for heaven’s sake stop expostulating like the victim in a melodrama. Take my word for it, we didn’t go to so much trouble for nothing. Now, you’re a sensible man, I’m sure. Will you bow to the inevitable, like a good chap?”
“That bitch Lola!” I growled. “She’s up to the neck in this—this villainy, I suppose.”
“Up to a point, not up to the neck. She was the means of getting you to Germany, but it wasn’t her idea. We employed her assistance—”
“‘We’? Who the devil’s ‘we’?”
“My friends and I. But you shouldn’t be too hard on her, you know. I doubt if she bears you any ill-will—in fact, I think she’s rather sorry for you—but she knows which side her bread is buttered. And powerful as she is, there are those in Germany whom even she finds it wise to oblige. Now, no more silly questions: are you going to be a good boy or aren’t you?”
“It seems I’ve no choice.”
“Excellent. Now, we’ll have that crack in your head seen to, get you a bath and some clean linen, and then—”
“What then?”
“You and I will make a little journey, my dear Flashman. Or, may I call you Harry? You must address me as Rudi, you know; ‘dirty dog’ and ‘devil’ and ‘swine’ and so on are all very well between comparative strangers, but I feel that you and I may be on the brink of a really fruitful and profitable friendship. You don’t agree? Well, I’m sorry, but we’ll see. Now, if you’ll come along, I have a closed carriage waiting which will take us to a little place of mine where we’ll have you repaired and made all klim-bim, as the Prussians say. Devilish places, these jails, aren’t they; no proper facilities for a gentleman at all …”
Well, what could I do, but trot along at his heels with a mouthful of apprehension? Whatever “they” were up to, I was in for it, and in the meantime there was nothing to do but go with the tide. With my sure instinct, I knew that the “service” I was being blackmailed into was sure to be unpleasant, and quite likely damned dangerous, but my queasy guts didn’t interfere with my logical process. I’m a realist, and it was already in my mind that in whatever lay ahead—a journey, initially, according to Rudi—some opportunity of escape must surely present itself. Unless you are actually locked up, escapes are not as difficult as many folk think; you simply bolt, seize the first available horse, and go like hell for safety—in this case probably the Austrian frontier. Or would Switzerland be better? It was farther, but Rudi and his sinister friends probably had influence in Austria. And they would not reckon on me trying a forced ride to the Swiss border …
“Oh, by the way,” says Rudi, as we left the police office and he handed me into a carriage, “to a man of action like yourself it may seem that an opportunity will arise of giving me the slip. Don’t try it. I would kill you before you’d gone five yards.” And he smiled genially as he settled himself opposite me.
“You’re mighty sure of yourself,” growls I.
“With cause,” says he. “Look here.” He gave his right arm a shake, and there was a pocket pistol in his right hand. “I’m a dead shot, too.”
“Naturally,” says I, but I decided it was probably true. Anyone who keeps a pistol in his sleeve can usually use it.
“And, in all modesty, I’m probably your master with the sabre as well—or with a knife,” says Master Rudi, putting his pistol away. “So you see, it wouldn’t pay you to run for it.”
I said nothing, but my spirits sank a few notches lower. He was going to be an efficient watch-dog, rot him, the more so since he believed me to be “a man of action”. He knew enough of my reputation, no doubt, to put me down as a desperate, dangerous fellow who didn’t give a damn for risks. If he’d known me for the poltroon I was he might have been less alert.
So in the meantime, I was at the mercy of Freiherr Rudolf von Starnberg, and if I’d known him then as I knew him later I’d have been even more nervous than I was. For this gay, devil-may-care youngster, with his curly head and winning smile, was one of the hardest cases I’ve ever encountered—a thoroughly bad, unscrupulous and fatally dangerous ruffian—and, as you can imagine, I have known a few. Not many of them, scoundrels that they were, delighted in wickedness for its own sake, but Rudi did. He enjoyed killing, for example, and would kill laughing; he was without shame where women were concerned, and without pity, too. I dare say there may have been crimes he didn’t commit, but it can only have been for want of opportunity. He was an evil, vicious, cruel rascal.
We got on very well, really, I suppose, all things considered. This was not just because I shared most of his vices, but because he believed erroneously that I shared his only virtue, which was courage. He was too young to know what fear was, and he imagined that I was as big a daredevil as he was himself—my Afghan reputation was pretty glorious, after all. But in addition I must admit that he could be a good companion when he chose—he had a great fund of amiable conversation and a filthy mind, and loved the good things of life—so it was not difficult to get along with him.
He was all consideration that first day. At the house he took me to there was a most competent French valet who dressed and bathed my head, provided me with a bath and a suit of my own clothes—for they had brought my baggage from my hotel—and later cooked us both a most splendid omelette before we set off for the station. Rudi was in haste to catch the train: we were bound for Berlin, he told me, but beyond that I could get nothing out of him.