Background to Danger by Eric Ambler

Author:Eric Ambler [Ambler, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780307949936
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1937-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

12

MR. HODGKIN

TAKING a route described by Rashenko, Kenton made for the centre of the town.

Carefully suppressing the temptations to turn up his coat collar to conceal his face and to dive down every side-street he passed, he walked quickly past the Parkbad and the Hotel Weinzinger. In the Brücknerplatz he found what he wanted—a travel agency. He went inside.

To his relief, the place was far from empty. At the long counter which ran across one corner of the room, a Swiss couple were asking about the trains to Basle. Next to them a tired-looking Englishwoman was asserting in a loud and penetrating voice that the hotels were better in Cairo. On the left-hand side of the room, sitting in chairs ranged behind a large notice which announced in German, French and English that at twelve o’clock exactly a conducted party would leave by luxury motor-coach for a tour of the Bohemian Forest country, sat a chattering group laden with cameras and binoculars.

He looked round for a map of Austria and found that there was one on the wall behind his head. He concentrated on the area north-east of Linz.

He had decided that his best plan would be to go by train to some point near the Czech frontier, wait for nightfall and, leaving the road, strike off across country, trusting to luck and the darkness to get him past any frontier guards who might be patrolling the unfrequented stretches. He could then rejoin the road on the Czech side, walk to a town, and board a train for Prague.

The map revealed two possible alternatives. Either he could go to the railway terminus at Aigen and try to reach Schwarzbach across the frontier, or there was the route via Garsbach and Summerau on the Austrian side to Budweis and Prague direct. The latter route looked far from promising. For one thing, there was no frontier town marked on the map, which might mean that passports were examined at any point on the journey and that he would have no chance to get off the train. Apart from that, it was a main route out of Austria and the police would probably be scrutinizing all travellers very carefully. The other plan looked better until close inspection showed a number of small black triangles marked on the frontier north of Aigen. That meant that there were high altitudes at that point. It occurred to him that the very fact of the railway’s stopping some miles short of the frontier suggested that the country ahead was impracticable for transport.

He was beginning to think that he would have to take a longer route east, when he noticed that due west of Freistadt a single thin line was shown crossing the frontier into Czechoslovakia. It was a road. He looked again and saw that across the empty area surrounding it was the word—Böhmerwald.

For a moment he continued to stare at the map. Böhmerwald—the Bohemian Forests! And just behind him, sitting waiting, was a party going that way by motor-coach.

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