The Night of Wenceslas

The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson Read Free Book Online

Book: The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson Read Free Book Online
Authors: Lionel Davidson
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General
pleasantly, ‘Ask Mr Pavelka to step in, please. And Miss Vogler – you might bring in the receipts relating to Mr Whistler.’
    I was still gaping at him. ‘What the hell … You are a solicitor?’
    He inclined his head. ‘Once, alas. I am now a humble moneylender.’
    ‘But you know damned well I didn’t borrow money… What exactly is this…’
    Cunliffe got up, smiling, with his hand outstretched. An enormous gorilla of a man with the ugliest face I had ever seen had entered the room.
    ‘This is Mr Pavelka,’ Cunliffe said. ‘He will explain why we want you to go to Prague.’

Chapter 3
1
    P AVELKA , whose face, on closer inspection, was like a St Bernard’s rather than a gorilla’s, shambled forward and extended his hand.
    ‘ Dobry den ,’ he said.
    ‘ Dobry den ’ I was still so shaken that I was unaware for the moment of the lapse into Czech.
    Pavelka folded my hand in his massive paw and slowly shook it, gazing earnestly at me like some champion of his breed trying to catch the judge’s eye.
    ‘I am very glad to make your acquaintance,’ he said in Czech.

    ‘This is a wonderful task you have undertaken. I only hope you prove worthy of it.’
    ‘Task?’ I said in Czech through dry lips – it was uncanny how natural the Czech tongue sounded; even Maminka had not spoken it to me for years – ‘Task?’ I looked helplessly from one to the other of them, and for an instant my sole thought was escape; perhaps to throw Cunliffe at Pavelka and, clutching Bunface as a shield, bound down the stairs four at a time and rush screaming into the street.
    Cunliffe smiled dryly. ‘Mr Pavelka is going a little too fast. Please sit down both of you. Ah, thank you, Miss Vogler,’ he said as Bunface bobbed in with the papers.
    He waited until she had gone before continuing. ‘Very briefly, Mr Whistler, we have been looking for some time for a young gentleman like yourself to go on a small mission for us. It is completely without danger but so unusual that we realized some inducement would be necessary. In your case we thought – I thought, as a matter of fact – that it might be best to place you in our debt in some way and then offer you the opportunity of cancelling the debt and, at the same time, earning yourself a handsome fee. I took the precaution of securing your signature to this standard loan certificate. Perhaps Mr Pavelka will hold one side of it while you read it.’
    He handed the paper over the desk and Pavelka, with a murmured ‘ Prosim to me, took it, inclining towards me like a slightly animated Tower of Pisa.
    It was a printed document. My eye went dizzily over the close columns of pursuant to the Acts and hereinafters . It was folded horizontally. Below the fold was Cunliffe’s two hundred pounds and below that my own jerky signature.
    ‘You will see,’ Cunliffe said, at the same moment that I saw the paragraph, ‘that your motor car is down as part security. At a rather low figure, I am afraid.’
    I think it was the sight of the car quoted at fifty pounds that, more than anything else in the last stupefying five minutes, maddened me into sudden action. With a wordless snarl, I tore the paper from Pavelka’s grip, and at once found myself on thefloor with my head nearly knocked off. Without moving an inch he had caught me a paralysing clout on the ear.
    ‘No, please!’ he said in English, looking down at me with embarrassed alarm. ‘Why do you do this?’
    I looked up at him, horribly shocked. It was the first time anybody had ever hit me. His head, the entire room, was expanding and contracting with an agonizing boiler-house roar.
    ‘It is perfectly all right, Mr Pavelka,’ I heard Cunliffe’s voice grating. ‘I have another copy of the document, also signed. Ah, just a little torn is it? Two are better than one. I hope you are not hurt, Mr Whistler?’
    Pavelka, after handing the form back, was helping me to my feet like a troubled elderly uncle. My ear felt as if it had

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