The Unfair Fare Affair - Leslie Peter (читать онлайн полную книгу txt) 📗

"I guess they were expecting somebody from the island, somebody they didn't know too well by sight, and you turned up around the right time. I imagine you inadvertently gave the right password or innocently supplied the correct answer to a coded question. Something like that."

"That's exactly what I thought," Waverly agreed. "I said, in German, 'Good day. I seem to have missed my way. Could you take me across.'"

"Ah. That was probably the opening gambit."

"I think it must have been. For he showed no surprise at all. Nor did he answer the question. He simply asked me where I was from, and when I replied absently—I was thinking of something else, you know—that I was from Section One, he got straight up and pulled in the boat."

"That's it! That's it! The approach in German—and then, by an extraordinary coincidence, the right code word when you say Section One!"

"I expect you're right. Because, come to think of it, I spoke in German; yet he replied in Dutch. And that's the way it went on—German from my side, Dutch from his. I can understand Dutch, you see, but I don't actually speak it. One surmises that this was another part of the arrangement, the twin language thing."

Waverly paused, sucked noisily on the empty meerschaum, and reached into his pocket for a tobacco pouch. "Well, that's all right, as far as it goes," he continued, "but how do you see the thing in its broader aspects?"

"As a continuing organization, I think," Solo said after he had considered for a moment. "Rather than as a one-shot job, I mean."

"Why do you say that?"

"Several reasons. The boatman said he expected you wanted to be off as quickly as possible and added, 'Your lot always do.' Secondly, nobody knew the taxi, although it was easily identifiable. If it had been a one-shot job, they could have used a local car and bluffed it out—but a mystery auto spells organization to me! Third, all that insistence on 'it's best not to talk.' A hastily improvised organization would risk nothing by talk; but one that had subsequent tasks of the same nature to carry out… well, obviously the less known—and said—the better!"

Waverly nodded. "Yes, that's all good reasoning," he said.

"As to what such an organization is... well, my guess would be that it exists to smuggle undesirables—or contraband goods, even—into Holland. Judging from what you said, the mysterious Willem lands the clients on the north coast of the island, and they then walk across and meet your boatman on the south. And he in turn hands them on to the taxi and the men in the truck."

"Going where?" Waverly asked softly. "If they're already in, why would they need to be squired further?"

"Squired further…? Oh—I see what you mean." Solo was silent for a moment, and then he said slowly, "Long, green leather coats, did you say? Of a particular dark bottle green?"

Waverly nodded, stuffing tobacco into the vast bowl of the pipe.

"Then that suggests northern Germany, Westphalia, to me. There is a certain type of German, especially among the older ones, who automatically wears a coat like that in winter. Particularly in places like Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg, and so on."

"Precisely."

"In which case, it argues that Holland was only an interim stage on the route. That also fits in, of course, with the fact that the 'client' was to be issued with a fake passport after he had entered the country. If the three men were Germans, the passport would be required for crossing the German border."

Waverly tamped the tobacco down with his thumb and put the meerschaum back between his teeth. "That's the way I see it," he affirmed.

"This also takes care of the taxi. Suppose it is in fact a German vehicle which only appears in Holland when there is a job on, when they fit it out with false Dutch plates. Well, there's no wonder the locals haven't seen it! And then, when the passenger has been duly equipped with spurious German documents, they merely change back to the genuine plates and drive across the border!"

"Exactly. There are two dozen small frontier posts between Emmen and Enschede, any one of which they could have been heading for when they realized I was the wrong man. They could use a different one every time, to minimize the risk of someone noticing something."

It was Solo's turn to nod. "Yes, it all figures," he said. "Even the client's name—Fleischmann, did you say it was?—is German. I'd guess it's a big-time outfit too; your boat man said something to the effect that the fare was paid, didn't he? That implies large-scale operations to me—you pay the fare before you start, and everything's taken care of, just like on a travel-agency tour! No doubt that was why your ferryman turned on the screws and asked for the extra: Willem's man was for some reason late and, being a fugitive as it were, could scarcely refuse the demand!"

"Where do you think Willem's man came from?" Waverly asked.

"Looking at the map, I imagine the boys bring illegal immigrants from America—or anywhere overseas, for that matter—into the Federal German Republic. Probably the clients are stowed away or in some other manner smuggled aboard boats docking at Amsterdam. And then, when they get there, instead of walking down the gangway, they drop over the blind side, as it were, make for the other bank of the Noordzeekanaal, cross the neck of land dividing the canal from the Ijsselmeer, and pick up Willem there."

"But why should they bother to cross an inland sea, traverse an island, and come back to the mainland again when they could just as well have gone around the edge of the sea in the first place?"

"Simply because of the relative danger, I guess. A man without papers, a man on the run, is a natural target in a seaport, on the streets of a capital city, on the main roads—most of which are patrolled by police. But if you take him to a desolate stretch of country that's underpopulated and put him in touch with the people who can give him papers there, well, you're halving the chances of detection right away, aren't you?"

"I thought strangers were supposed to stand out even more in country areas," Waverly objected.

"If they're going to stay, to live there, sure. But not passing through. With a bit of luck, nobody'll see them at all."

"You may be right." Waverly went back to his desk and skimped into his chair. He tossed the unlit pipe onto a pile of folders. "In any case, we shall soon know. Are you done with that Hawaiian forgery thing yet?"

"Not quite. We have to make a digest of the depositions and—"

"Hand it over to Rodrigues," Waverly interrupted.

"To Rodrigues? I'm afraid I don't quite—" Solo began.

"He's capable of handling it, isn't he?" the head of Section One demanded irritably. "All the stuff's in, isn't it?"

"Well, yes. Slade and Miss Dancer have to file a report from Manila, but otherwise everything's there. The report'll be in tonight in any case."

"Excellent. Hand it over, then."

"Very well, Mr. Waverly. Did... did you have some thing else, something urgent, for me?" Solo inquired, his dark brows raised in puzzlement.

"Yes, I did," his chief said crisply. "I want you to fly to Amsterdam tonight and find out all about Willem…"

Chapter 3

A Question of Etiquette!

NAPOLEON SOLO was incredulous. "You can't be serious!" he said in dismay. "You don't mean... officially? Not as an assignment... for the Command?"