The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax Page 4

  The young man turned and looked at her. "I beg your pardon?"

  "You're Nikki," she said in surprise. "You were in Philip's group. What was his name, Philip Trenda?"

  Carleton Bemish's mouth dropped open. He turned to look incredulously at Nikki.

  "Oh?" said Nikki, heavy brows lifting. "You were there, perhaps?" he added smoothly.

  "Yes indeed," she told him warmly. "And later I saw your group led away from the Customs line by the police, and I wanted to come over and . . ." She stopped. The atmosphere almost crackled with shocks. Carleton Bemish's eyes were growing larger and rounder while Nikki's eyes were growing narrower. She added limply, "But you're-all right? They didn't bother you?"

  Nikki bowed stiffly. "A small misunderstanding, no more." He looked at her curiously. "You say that you knew Philip?"

  "I didn't say so," she pointed out. "We had a brief but very interesting chat in the air terminal, that's all. Now I really must leave," she said. "Please remember me to Philip when you see him," she told Nikki, and over her shoulder to them both, "Good night."

  Neither man responded. She had the feeling that she left them dazed, but she couldn't honestly attribute it to the force of her personality. She wondered what she'd said that so took them by surprise.

  The smell of cabbage was stronger in the hall, reminding Mrs. Pollifax of her own hunger and of the increasing lateness of the hour. She hurried back to her hotel.

  Mrs. Pollifax dined alone with a small sense of letdown that aborted her appetite. First of all the food in the hotel restaurant was imitation American, the peas straight from a can, and yet-perversely-no one, not even the headwaiter, knew the English language; a contact with Tsanko appeared impossible for another twelve or fifteen hours, and Carleton Bemish was not available at all. She told herself that she was experiencing the effects of her first hours in a strange country far from home, although this was of small consolation to her frame of mind, which was gloomy.

  It was not until she was in the middle of dessert that it suddenly struck her how very odd it was that Bemish's guest had turned out to be Nikki. How did it happen that a hitchhiking Yugoslavian student was on such friendly terms with a man who lived in Sofia?

  I know many, many important people, Bemish had said defiantly.

  The thought so startled her that she looked up in astonishment to meet the eye of a small gray-haired man in a gray suit who was watching her closely from a table near the entrance. He glanced away so swiftly that she gave him a second look, at once curious and alerted. He was short and stolid, his suit badly cut and his whole appearance so remarkably anonymous that she would never have noticed him except for his stare. She had the impression that he had only recently arrived, and this was confirmed by a glance at his table, still empty of food.

  Perhaps it was Tsanko, she thought hopefully, and perhaps contact would be made soon, after all.

  She paid her bill and went upstairs, but no one knocked on her door and no messages were slipped under the rug. Rather sadly, she retired at half-past ten.

  7

  Sometime during the night Mrs. Pollifax experienced a nightmare in which she was lying helplessly in bed at home and being observed by a burglar who had entered her room. She was not accustomed to nightmares and as she fought her way back to consciousness she discovered that she was indeed in bed, it was night and a man was standing at the foot of the bed looking down at her. He was clearly silhouetted against the window.

  Mrs. Pollifax waited, breath suspended, for the man to identify himself as Tsanko. He did not. He moved stealthily away from the foot of the bed and went toward the closet, where he turned on a small flashlight. He leaned over the lock, his back to her.

  If he wasn't Tsanko, she thought indignantly, then he must be a plain, old-fashioned burglar, and without stopping to consider the risks Mrs. Pollifax slid out of her bed and stood up. Carefully tiptoeing along the wall she came up behind the man, flattened her right hand and delivered a medium karate chop to the side of his neck-at least she hoped it was only a medium blow-and watched him sink to the floor.

  Switching on the lights she saw there was no doubt at all that the man was a thief because he held her brown quilted coat in his arms. He lay on his side, half of the coat trapped under him, a relatively young man wearing a black suit and black tie. Stepping over him she went to the telephone and picked up the receiver. "I have a burglar in my room," she told the desk clerk coldly.

  The reply was depressing and sounded like, "Murde-koochinko lesso razenum."

  "Burglar. Thief!" she said. "Does anyone speak English?"

  "Anglkhanin? Ameryerikanski?"

  Mrs. Pollifax grimly put down the phone, stepped again over the man and opened the door. She peered outside; the halls were deserted. Leaving her door open she walked down to the elevator, but there was no one there either. With a sigh she stepped into it and descended to the lobby.

  There were two men at the desk, and it was a full two minutes before they were able to control their surprise at seeing Mrs. Pollifax emerge from the elevator in flowered pajamas. It was at least another several minutes before they understood that she wanted them to return to her room with her, and this appeared to induce in them an even deeper state of shock. Neither of them spoke English and it was necessary for them to identify her by their desk records. When this had been done they telephoned Balkantourist.

  A peevish Nevena was reached at last. "It is 3 A.M.," she announced furiously.

  "I have a burglar lying on the floor of my hotel room," Mrs. Pollifax told her.

  This was translated by Nevena to the room clerk, who stared at Mrs. Pollifax incredulously.

  The phone was handed back to Mrs. Pollifax. "We do not have thieves in Bulgaria," Nevena said coldly, and then with outrageous illogic, "You should not encourage such matters by not locking your closet and your door."

  "I locked both the doors to the closet and the door to my room," said Mrs. Pollifax crisply. "I placed the key to the closet under my pillow and slept on it. But the man had already broken into the closet because he had my brown quilted coat in his arms. I saw it."

  Orders were given to the hotel clerks, one of whom gestured Mrs. Pollifax to the elevator and returned with her to the sixth floor. He accompanied her to her room, where the door remained open. He first looked inside, cautiously.

  Mrs. Pollifax followed him in. The room was empty.

  "He's gone," she said indignantly. "He's gotten away."

  The desk clerk pointed to the door of the closet and looked at her questioningly. For a moment Mrs. Pollifax didn't understand, and then she saw that the door was locked. She went to her pillow. The key had not been touched, and removing it she returned to the closet. With the desk clerk watching she unlocked and opened the door.

  Her coat was hanging in the closet, as well as her clothes. The hat was on the shelf. Nothing had been touched.

  In open-mouthed astonishment-for she had just seen her coat out of the closet-she turned to the desk clerk. It needed only one glance to understand what he thought. "Amerikanski," he muttered indignantly, and left.

  What Nevena's reaction would be to the locked closet taxed Mrs. Pollifax's imagination. This time before retiring, however, she placed two chairs in front of her door and hid the key to the closet under the mattress.

  On first encounter Nevena gave no indication of her anger during the night. She was delighted to find Mrs. Pollifax waiting. "You still wish to advance by yourself, on the wheels?"

  "Yes indeed, and I've decided to drive to the TV tower on Mount Vitosha. It'll be easiest to find because I can see it ahead of me while I drive."

  "Good! You may also wish to try the cable car-it goes down, then up-splendid views! For lunch the Kopitoto is good, very good. Here is the driver." She waved to him vigorously and ushered Mrs. Pollifax outside to the door of a trim little green Volkswagen. "You are certain?" she demanded.

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at the car and felt a wave of doubt. Then, "I'm
certain," she said and climbed in, turned the key in the ignition and heard the purring of the engine.

  But Nevena insisted upon having the last word. She leaned over the window, her eyes suddenly brimming with glee. "Be certain nobody steals the pretty brown coat again, eh, Mrs. Pollifax?" she shouted into her ear.

  8

  An hour later Mrs. Pollifax was seated triumphantly on the terrace of the Kopitoto restaurant, a mountain breeze ruffling the bird on her hat and Sofia lying at her feet. Marvelous, she thought, gazing around her appreciatively, and as her glance roamed the terrace with its bright little tables she saw that either Sofia was a very small town indeed, or she was beginning to know a surprising number of people. She saw first of all the small gray man from the hotel dining room the evening before. He was just seating himself, and she thought his arrival four minutes after her own was an interesting development. It was of course a very scenic place in which to lunch; it was also possible that he was a fellow tourist, perhaps visiting Sofia from another Balkan country, but she was not inclined to think so: he looked so particularly joyless.

  The second person she recognized on the terrace was the American girl Debby, from the group at the Belgrade air terminal. Although Philip was missing, it was otherwise the same group of young people. One of them arose -it was Nikki, still talking aggressively, with gestures. He was abruptly cut off from view by the arrival of her waiter.

  Mrs. Pollifax ordered and ate her lunch. Finished, she gathered up coat and purse and looked across the terrace. Phil had still not rejoined the group and Nikki was just leaving, smiling and formally shaking hands with each member of the party. Mrs. Pollifax watched him go and then crossed the terrace.

  "Good afternoon," she said cheerfully. "We traveled together here on the same plane from Belgrade. Are you enjoying Sofia?"

  Five faces turned blankly to her.

  "It was Phil I spoke with," she explained, dropping into the chair Nikki had vacated. "Is he with you today?"

  The American girl promptly burst into tears.

  "Mon cheri," said the pale young man softly, grasping her wrist.

  "Is she ill?" asked Mrs. Pollifax anxiously.

  "It's Phil," explained the other girl. "You mentioned Phil."

  "Yes, I was concerned about his dysentery. How is he? Or rather, where is he?"

  "In prison-here in Sofia," blurted out Debby with a sob. "They've arrested him."

  "Arrested him!" cried Mrs. Pollifax.

  The ginger-haired British boy nodded. "The idiots seem to think he's some kind of spy."

  "Phil a spy," Debby repeated angrily. She drew a sodden handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. "I remember you," she said abruptly. "You did talk to Phil and now he's-and in Bulgaria of all places!" She burst into tears again.

  "But I don't understand," protested Mrs. Pollifax. "What on earth happened?"

  The young Frenchman turned to her and in precise English and a soft voice explained. "First they questioned us at Customs-"

  "Who did?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, wondering if they shared Nevena's knowledge of uniforms.

  He shrugged. "The uniforms were different. We do not know since we don't speak their language. Nikki was upset—"

  "In what language was he upset?" asked Mrs. Pollifax quickly.

  Again he shrugged. "Who knows? He is-Yugoslavian, isn't he?" he asked the others. "In any case he was very angry-in what language I don't know," he added with a soft smile for Mrs. Pollifax, "and they took him away, into another room. A few minutes later he came and said okay, it was a small misunderstanding."

  She nodded; that sounded familiar.

  "Then we decided to be stoppers-"

  "That's what they call hitchhikers here," put in the girl.

  "Except no one picked us up so we kept walking, stopping only once-"

  "To take a picture-"

  "Phil took it," added the girl. "But of nothing but flowers."

  "And then they drove up, two new men in a car, no uniforms, and said Phil would have to be questioned. They said this to us in French. And they just-took him away."

  "But that's incredible," cried Mrs. Pollifax. "Does the Embassy know?"

  "We went there at once. It was a big shock to them. This morning they say he has been charged with espionage, and the Embassy suggests we leave this country at once," he said in a melancholy voice. "Because we were with him."

  "Which we will do," added the French boy, "on the six o'clock plane out of Sofia this afternoon."

  Debby said suddenly, "I think it's terrible just going off and leaving Phil. It could have been any of us, and he's here all alone-"

  "You heard Nikki. He's going to stay a few days and keep doing everything possible."

  "Nikki's not leaving with you?" asked Mrs. Pollifax sharply.

  She thought Debby looked at her appraisingly. "No," the girl said quietly. "How do you happen to know who Nikki is?"

  "Philip complained about him."

  "Yes," said Debby, looking abstracted.

  The French boy had glanced at his watch. "We must go," he said. "We must be certain we catch that plane. It's nearly three o'clock now and we want to stop again at the Embassy for news." He looked politely at Mrs. Pollifax. "You have been kind to ask."

  "But I'm terribly sorry," she said. "For all of you, but especially for Philip. You're quite sure you'll be allowed to leave safely?"

  "Reasonably sure, madam," said the French boy. "We have the assurances of your Embassy."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "I'm glad."

  Debby said politely, "We hope your stay is a pleasanter one than ours. You're at the Hotel Pliska?"

  Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. "The Rila."

  Debby nodded. "Good-bye. You've been nice to ask."

  One by one they shook hands with her, and Mrs. Pollifax watched them move across the terrace trailing their packs behind them. She thought about Philip Trenda, remembering his thick black hair, the level blue eyes, his dysentery and his indecision over staying or going, and she felt very alarmed for him. A Bulgarian prison was hardly a fitting experience for such a young person. He probably didn't even know that his Embassy was trying to reach him. He would be feeling very alone, very frail, and of course almost no Bulgarians spoke English, which would make it all the more frustrating.

  But espionage! Despite the warmth of the sun across her shoulders, Mrs. Pollifax shivered. There but for the grace of God, she reminded herself, and at that moment she glanced up and met the eyes of the little gray man in the gray suit. He looked hastily away, but his interest was no longer coincidence. He's following me, she thought. The bright terrace seemed dimmer and the breeze cold.

  After a trip down and back on Mount Vitosha's cable car-it would have been exhilarating if she had not just learned of Philip's arrest. Mrs. Pollifax drove her rented car slowly back through the environs of Sofia and to her hotel. It was four o'clock when she picked up her key at the desk. She ascended in the elevator carrying half a dozen picture postcards to write, and was just settling down to them at the desk when she heard a light knocking at her door.

  Tsanko at last! thought Mrs. Pollifax with relief, and hurried across the room to fling open the door.

  A teary-eyed Debby stood in the hall.

  "But—oh dear!" faltered Mrs. Pollifax.

  The girl said defiantly, "I want to talk to you. I have to talk to you."

  "But your plane-good heavens! Aren't you missing your plane?"

  "I'm not taking the plane."

  A chambermaid down the hall was watching them. Mrs. Pollifax said, "Come inside."

  "They can arrest me if they want. I'm not leaving," stormed Debby as she followed Mrs. Pollifax into the room. "Not until Phil's free. I know Nikki said we all must get out quickly, but I can't Phil's my friend, he's the nicest boy I ever met."

  "But this isn't America, you know," Mrs. Pollifax said, closing the door and then locking it. "It may take weeks to free your young man." She looked at Debby, who had thrown h
erself into the chair by the window, and after one glance at the girl's clenched jaw she added quietly, "There isn't anything you can do, you know."

  "I can be suspicious," she said indignantly. "I tried to talk to the others, Andre especially, but they told me I was imagining things. They didn't want to listen."

  Mrs. Pollifax said with interest, "Imagining what things?"

  "You'll say the same thing," the girl cried accusingly. "You will, I know you will. But I won't get on the plane— I won't."

  "Then why did you come here?" asked Mrs. Pollifax. "I remember how very casually you asked at what hotel I was staying. You knew even then that you were going to stay behind in Sofia and come here to see me. Why?"

  "Because all of a sudden-for no reason at all-you said, 'Nikki isn't leaving with you?' And you looked surprised. And that's it, you see—Nikki."

  Mrs. Pollifax abruptly sat down on the edge of the

  bed. "Nikki Go on."

  Leaning forward, the girl said earnestly, "It's Nikki who insisted we come to Bulgaria. Nobody-but nobody-had the slightest intention of coming here, or even wanted to. 'Let's go to Bulgaria' he said day after day, like brainwashing, and it was Nikki who got the visas for us, he handled everything. Phil didn't want to come. He said Bulgaria was the last place he wanted to go. He had every intention of not coming-"

  "Yes, I know. Why did he let you all persuade him?"

  Debby looked helplessly at Mrs. Pollifax. "It's crazy, I know it is, but I think Phil was drugged."

  Mrs. Pollifax started. "Drugged!"

  She nodded. "Yes. From all that Phil said, he planned to see the rest of us off on the plane and either wait for us in Belgrade or go back to Dubrovnik. I mean, he really wasn't going to go to Bulgaria."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Pollifax in a startled voice, remembering.

  "Nikki gave him a pill at breakfast that day-he said it was a dysentery pill. All I know is that Phil did get on that plane and he slept. He slept so hard that nobody could rouse him, nobody could talk to him and when we got to Sofia the stewardess had to help us wake him. And then . . ."

  "Yes?"

  Debby scowled. "That's only part of it. When we got to Customs, Nikki acted so strangely. It happened because he couldn't find something, some paper or other-it must have been paper because he kept turning his wallet inside out, and what will fit in a wallet except paper? The Customs man got very uptight about it all and he called some other man in uniform, who took us out of line, and he took Nikki away to question him. The other kids were afraid for Nikki, except. . ."