The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson Read Free Book Online Page A

been hit with a hammer.
    ‘I’m sorry I forgot to mention about Mr Pavelka,’ Cunliffe said. ‘He used to be quite a well-known amateur wrestler. Wrestling champion of Bohemia – I think I am right, Mr Pavelka?’
    ‘Western Bohemia,’ Pavelka said.
    I sat down and gazed at him through a mist of pain as he slowly took his seat. The shocked, aggrieved expression was still on his face.
    ‘Mr Pavelka is startled by your behaviour,’ Cunliffe said, with an I-thought-it-would-be-so shake of his head. ‘The young man has been greatly upset by money troubles,’ he said in Czech to Pavelka. ‘He is not yet aware of our offer.’
    ‘And I’m not bloody well going to be,’ I said. ‘You let me out of here and I’m going straight to the police.’
    It was not the most inviting of offers, but I heard my voice with amazement, astonished at my own courage. Cunliffe diplomatically produced his cigarette case and passed it round.
    ‘You are at perfect liberty to go whenever you like,’ he said mildly. ‘I don’t know what exactly it is you want to tell the police. I don’t think you have any letters from me?’ (This had occurred to me as he was speaking; I had brought back the only letter he had sent me.) ‘You will find that I am a fairly well-known money-lender. To any sensible person it would be obvious that, having accepted a loan, you have rashly squanderedit and are now displaying reluctance to meet your obligations. Moreover, you would force me to take the motor car from you right away, as I am fully entitled to do’
    I inhaled an enormous lungful of smoke, and it seemed to ease my ear a little. The room had ceased its painful contractions. The situation was no less mad. I leaned forward, groping for some strand of understanding.
    ‘If all this about Bela is just – just invention, how did you get to hear about him in the first place?’
    Cunliffe’s eyelids drooped wryly. ‘You have not exactly made a secret of your expectations.’
    I gazed at him, appalled. Someone had been watching me, taking careful note of the absurd little jokes. …
    ‘But why me? You don’t know me,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m not cut out for this sort of thing.’
    ‘You are exactly cut out for it. As I say we have been looking for someone with just your qualifications.’
    I haven’t any qualifications, Mr Cunliffe, ‘I told him slowly and desperately.’ Before you go any further, you’ve got to understand that. I am not qualified to do anything. I am also a coward. I don’t know what it is you want me to do, and I don’t want to know. I’d be less than useless to you.’
    As I spoke I was frightening myself and the words came in a gabble at the end. I didn’t seem to be frightening Cunliffe who was holding Pavelka with his eye as though to ensure that he heard every word. He gave a little nod and Pavelka, who seemed to have reassured himself about me, at once sat forward and grasped my knee.
    ‘I like you,’ he said simply. ‘You look like your father. You have no recollection, I suppose, of Pavelka ware?’
    ‘I know nothing at all about Czechoslovakia –’
    ‘Nobody has today,’ he said bitterly. ‘It was excellent glass. I had the finest factory in Bohemia. Since 1934 I employed a research staff of twenty-seven – yoh , twenty-seven!’ he repeated, wrongly interpreting as astonishment the look of despair I threw at Cunliffe. ‘Twenty-seven men uneconomically employed who did nothing but experiment to try and produce unbreakableglass. Not oven-proof glass, not plastic. Beautiful table glass, as delicate as the finest in my complete range. Since 1934! Now they have found it, and you are going to Prague to bring it to me.’
    His inhumanly large hand was gripping my knee tightly, his great creased dog’s face not a foot away.
    ‘Mr Pavelka!’ I cried. ‘This is incredible! The very idea –’
    ‘ Yoh , incredible! But it is so. Since 1934 twenty-seven men working at nothing else, and now they have