Background to Danger Read Free Page A

up to help him. Sometimes it had been a good news story, sometimes an unexpected cheque from his New York agent for second rights on a long-forgotten article. Once he had been at the Sofia railway station when the King of the Bulgars had left for a destination unknown. The chance remark of a ticket inspector to a German commercial traveller had sent him scurrying to the telephone with the first news of a projected meeting between Boris and Carol. Perhaps Hitler would be on the Linz train on his way to meet the leader of the AustrianSocial Democrats. The idea entertained him and he amused himself by sketching in the events that might render that fantastic encounter feasible. By the time the Linz train arrived he was feeling almost cheerful.
    It was practically empty and he had a compartment to himself. The seats were hard, but not so hard as Nuremberg platform. He slung his suitcase on to the rack, wedged himself into a corner and went to sleep.
    The cold woke him as the train was pulling out of Ratisbon. Another passenger had entered the compartment and opened the window an inch. The stream of icy air mixed with smoke from the engine completed what lack of food and the hardness of the seat had started. Suddenly, he was wide awake, cold, stiff, hungry and wretched. All the artificial optimism he had so painstakingly acquired had gone. For the first time he was conscious of the true seriousness of his position.
    If Rosen wasn’t in Vienna, what exactly was his next move? He could, of course, wire home to a paper for money; but they would probably refuse him. His contributions were of necessity spasmodic, and if he preferred running round as a free-lance abroad to a nice steady job doing police-court news in London, that was his own affair. Gloomily, he searched his mind for information on the subject of the Consular Service. What were the qualifications for becoming a “Distressed British Citizen”? An English sailor he had once met had spoken contemptuously of a “cargo of D.B.C.s” loaded at Cape Town. He saw himself consigned, with a label round his neck, carriage paid from Vienna to London. Looking round for something else to think about, he glanced at his fellow passenger.
    Kenton had travelled on Continental trains long enough to regard anyone who wanted a window open, even the merest fraction, with some suspicion. The author of this window-opening outrage was small and very dark. Hisface was narrow and he had the kind of jowl that should be shaved twice a day, but isn’t. He wore a dirty starched collar with a huge grey-flowered tie and a crumpled dark-striped suit. On his knees rested a limp American cloth attaché-case from which he was extracting paper bags containing sausage and bread. A bottle of Vichy water stood propped against the back of the seat beside him.
    His eyes, dark brown and lustrous, met Kenton’s. He waved a piece of sausage at the open window.
    “Please?”
    Kenton nodded. The other filled his mouth with sausage.
    “Good. I prefer to travel
à l’anglaise.”
    He munched. A thought seemed to strike him. He indicated the attaché-case.
    “Please, you will accept some sausage?”
    The automatic refusal that rose to Kenton’s lips died there. He was hungry.
    “It’s very good of you. Thank you.”
    He was passed a piece of sausage and a hunk of bread. The sausage was impregnated with garlic and he enjoyed it. His companion plied him with more. Kenton accepted it gratefully. The brown-eyed man crammed some bread into his mouth, saturated it with a draught of Vichy, and began to talk about his stomach.
    “Doctors are fools. You would not think to look at me, to see me eating with you now, that two years ago the doctors told me that I must have an operation for ulcers of the duodenum. It is true. I have a stomach of iron”—he thumped it to prove the point and gurgitated violently—“but it is thanks to no doctors. I tell you they are fools. They wish only to put you to the knife, to cut