Books › Blue Book v059 n06 [1934-10], 1934 › scan 23
Scan 23
Blue Book v059 n06 [1934-10], 1934
38 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Manolescu took a bold step. He told himself that he had to fight the fear of Slavnos. Fight it with nonchalance. He must show the fellow that he was not afraid.
3Manolescu's tongue tricked him. When his ears registered his remark he was startled. Had he really put such queries? He must have. This is what he had said: "How did you come to meet your wife? She is not of your village. I know Jaczkovezdo very well."
5Slavnos grinned. Manolescu didn't like the grin. To him there was a devilish humor about it. It said: "You wish to talk about Kolya? Very well, I will oblige you. Later I will bash your brains out with this handcuff and toss you off the raft."
7But Slavnos answered the question. Slowly. "She is not of Jaczkovezdo. She is from the Bakony Forest."
9Slavnos wished to speak about Kolya. When he spoke of her he saw her more plainly. When he said "Bakony Forest" she rose on a wave some twenty feet from the raft and smiled at him. She had told him many stories of the great green stretches running up from Lake Balaton.
11And this hound Manolescu wished to hear about her? Well, he would hear everything. Everything. Later Slavnos would think out a plan. He wondered why the authorities had picked a rat like Manolescu to bring a supposed murderer back from foreign parts. A small, mean rat who made secret visits to the wife of his prisoner.
13Slowly, hesitantly, he commenced to speak. "She came to our village on a morning, in spring," he said. "She followed a man who was playing a violin. Followed at his heels like a slave. She was a slave."
15He paused, his head thrust forward. There she was on the water, close to the raft! Just as he had seen her on that wonderful morning in May. Her strange flexible body that he always said he "could fold up like a ribbon of steel and put in his pocket." Quite plain she was. Her long graceful legs, so different to the legs of the women of the village. So very different. Her pointed face. "Fox-face" he called her playfully. Her long brown fingers that were so very much alive.
17"What is it?" asked Manolescu. "What do you see?"
19"I thought," said Slavnos, and his voice was lowered as if he thought sound might dissipate the apparition. "I thought I saw Kolya as she was that morning. Walking behind that—that dog who owned her. No, she wasn't walking! She was—she was swimming! Swimming through the hot air of the valley!"
21Manolescu gurgled. Swimming was the word. That was how she moved in the little apartment on Chartres Street. Swimming!
23Momentarily off guard, the detective touched his chin where the red scratch had been. The eyes of Slavnos fell upon the point of contact. Those fine fingers of Kolya! Their beautiful pointed nails. Again the iron gauntlet seemed to twist his intestines.
25Manolescu was startled by the light in the blue eyes. This fellow was a murderer. He must watch himself. With simulated calm he prompted: "Yes, yes. She came into the village with a fellow who played a violin."
27Slavnos, still staring at the water, continued. It was strange, this appearance of Kolya on the waters. He wondered if the sun had affected his brain. The sun and the absence of food and drink. "They stayed in the village," he said. "I thought it was—I thought it was because I prayed that they would stay. Prayed all that May night after I had seen her." Again there flashed the vision of her. That confession of how he prayed pleased her. She was smiling at him.
29"I was nineteen," he murmured. "She—she was the same age. The man with the violin was fifty. More, perhaps."
31The Law, punctilious, offered a correction. "Only forty-nine when he was—when he died," said Manolescu.
33Slavnos started, glared at the detective for a full minute, then continued. "He beat her!" he cried. "Beat her every day! Beat her cruelly!" He struck the zinc cylinder with the loose handcuff. The muscles bulged as if they heard a cry for help.
35Manolescu crouched as the prisoner swung upon him. "He was small like you!" cried Slavnos. "A rat! His head came up to my shoulder! I—I stood beside him on the day that he came to the village so that I could measure his strength."
37The detective tried to muzzle the fear that was upon him. Slavnos was going to confess everything! He was going to
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