Last Day of October

0:00 The President's Wife Will Not Sit

0:04 Narrator: Prague, the first Saturday of November. My bookshop in Malá Strana had shut for the evening when the President's wife walked through it to the back office, where Antonín Zima sat correcting my accounts. Paní Bartošová. Take the good chair, please. Only one leg is bad.

0:23 Bartošová: I shall not stay long enough to owe you a chair. Zima: No car stopped in the lane, and you're short of breath. You came down the Castle steps alone.

0:32 Bartošová: Everyone who drives me reports to someone. You are Zima. Read that.

0:39 Zima: Hruška has the better voice. Narrator: "Stollenau, Lower Austria, first of November, nineteen ninety-six. Daniel Bartoš, found drunk on the station steps. Held on a German warrant for fraud." Two lines and a rubber stamp.

0:55 Bartošová: Two lines, and every paper in Prague is full of them. A drunk and a swindler from the President's own house. My husband reads them at breakfast and says nothing.

1:06 Zima: The law has your stepson, paní Bartošová. That's a lawyer's work. Bartošová: A lawyer tells me how long. Every Sunday Daniel telephones, did you know that? Not his father. Me. And tomorrow I shall sit beside that telephone, and it will —

1:23 Narrator: Please. Sit. Bartošová: No.

1:27 Zima: You have a whole police force at your orders. Bartošová: I trust no Prague policeman. Bring him home.

1:34 At the Villa Gate in Bubeneč

1:38 Narrator: The villa stood in Bubeneč, and at its gate next morning a young police captain waited for us with his arms full of papers. Jelínek: Zima? Kapitán Jelínek. I have no orders to show you anything, so I am not showing you anything.

1:54 Zima: Then don't show me these railings. Bent inward at shoulder height, no paint on them. No van did that. A man was thrown.

2:03 Jelínek: There's hair on the third one. How did— wait, the housekeeper's statement, it was on top. Here. The last day of October, supper on the table at eight. At a quarter past eight he walks down to the gate. A shout, the railings ringing, a van door. She reaches the window and the van is gone.

2:21 Narrator: And the supper? Jelínek: Still laid. She won't clear it...

2:26 Narrator: I've bought up enough dead men's houses. A housekeeper who won't clear a table thinks he's coming back. Zima: The warrant, Kapitán.

2:35 Jelínek: German. Fraud. Two years old. Here it's worthless, Prague doesn't hand over its own. One step on Austrian soil and it's good as gold.

2:43 Narrator: Then he knew to keep his feet on this side. He wouldn't cross to Vienna for a coffee. Zima: So he did not stroll over the frontier for a drink. Someone knew exactly where that paper wakes up, and drove him to it. He was carried.

2:59 Jelínek: My file says drunk abroad. Upstairs would like it shut. Zima: Who has been asking... to see it?

3:07 Jelínek: Reporters. The Ministry. About the man himself? Nobody. No friend, no— no colleague. In all Prague, only his stepmother has asked after him.

3:18 Narrator: Poor devil.

3:21 Tea Going Cold in Her Rooms at the Castle

3:25 Narrator: That afternoon she received us in her private rooms at the Castle, under her own state portrait, with the tea going cold between us. Zima: Your stepson was carried to Austria, paní Bartošová. Who gains?

3:39 Bartošová: Anyone who hates my husband. It's a long queue. Zima: Are you... in it?

3:46 Bartošová: Near the front. My husband has given this place five years and it is eating him. I want him out of the Castle, and I say so at his own table.

3:57 Zima: You say it with the door open. So it's no secret, and you've stopped caring who— Bartošová: Who carries it? It was never a secret. The ambassadors' wives have it by heart.

4:07 Zima: The last day of October. Where were you? Bartošová: Here. I was— here. I never left the Castle, not for an hour. I'll swear to it before whomever you like.

4:19 Narrator: That's a fine portrait. I clear a good many houses, and I look at stones. Sapphires at the throat, an old setting. You aren't wearing them.

4:30 Bartošová: They're being cleaned. Narrator: By whom? There are only two men in Prague who —

4:34 Bartošová: Being cleaned, pan Hruška. You came for Daniel, not for my throat. Narrator: Who suspects the woman who hires the detective?

4:45 Zima: You do, apparently, and you have known her one day. Narrator: She wants her husband gone. She— a scandal would give her exactly that.

4:55 The Interior Minister's Office on Letná

4:59 Narrator: Monday found us on Letná, in the Interior Minister's office, with the coffee already poured and his section chief standing at the window. Zima: Three cups poured and still hot. You knew we were coming before we did, Minister Šebesta.

5:15 Šebesta: Every cab in Prague tells me something. Sit. You want the man who gains by this. Here he is. I want President Bartoš gone, and I say so in parliament.

5:25 Zima: Very frank. It's no alibi. Šebesta: It's arithmetic. You all come to my door first, so only a fool would do it from my door. Ask at the Castle who's tired of the Castle.

5:37 Narrator: In my shop, Minister, the man who tells you where to look is usually selling. Šebesta: Then meet my other salesman. Tesař, my section chief. Eight months he has run counterintelligence with no title. The director's chair stands empty, and it's his the day I choose.

5:55 Tesař: And the Minister enjoys not choosing. You'll be going to Stollenau, Zima, since that's where the man is. Zima: I'd... thought of it.

6:04 Tesař: Austrian sergeants don't open drawers for booksellers. Let me write you a letter. Hour of arrest, number of the warrant. They answer what they're asked.

6:14 Narrator: Charming. Zima: A letter from Letná gets me through the door. It also tells Letná when I reached it.

6:22 Tesař: Naturally. I'd think less of you if you hadn't noticed. Anything else this office can do, you telephone me.

6:29 Šebesta: Mondays the frontier summaries cross my desk with the rest of the paper. After Stollenau, ask young Jelínek for the border log.

6:38 Floor Polish at the Police Station in Stollenau

6:37 Zima: Oh?

6:42 Narrator: On the Danube, a long drive south, the police station at Stollenau smelled of floor polish, and Sergeant Pichler kept its front desk with a steel pen. Zima: Sergeant Pichler. A letter for you, from the Interior Ministry in Prague.

6:58 Pichler: So. He asks the hour and the warrant, I write the hour and the warrant. "Found on the steps, ten to five in the morning, first November. Reeking of spirits. German warrant, fraud." Finished.

7:14 Narrator: Your finger skipped a line in that book, Sergeant. I buy dead clerks' ledgers for a living. They skip what they don't mean to read.

7:22 Pichler: It's the line he did not ask about. Zima: I am asking. For the woman who walked down to me alone, because nobody else in Prague will.

7:33 Pichler: His mother? Zima: As near as he has. Pichler: "Inside coat pocket, one bottle, whisky, emptied. Gilt label, number forty-one, written by hand."

7:45 Narrator: Well, well. Zima: Forty-one of what? A man who numbers his whisky keeps a list. And a drunk drops his empty. That one was put there, to dress him for your steps.

7:57 Narrator: Who poured it, Sergeant? He must know that much. Pichler: I asked him three times, Herr Zima. A sack on his head from the gate onward. A hand on his jaw, whisky forced down. Then an electric shock, and he remembers nothing more. And until then nobody spoke. Not one word, all that road.

8:18 Zima: Silent men. They were afraid he'd know a voice. Let me ask him myself.

8:24 Pichler: A prisoner on a foreign warrant sees the doctor and his lawyer. Nobody else, until the German escort signs for him on Friday. Zima: Pity.

8:34 Narrator: Does he know about the bottle? Pichler: I emptied that coat myself, alone, while he snored. He doesn't know he carried it, and his lawyer hasn't asked.

8:44 Zima: And your report, the one that reached Prague? Pichler: You have read it. Drunk on the steps, and a warrant. Two lines. This reply to your Ministry says no more.

8:56 Pichler: No wire, no newspaper, no person until you. That bottle never left my station book. Zima: Nor my mouth, Sergeant.

9:07 Road Dust at the Criminal Police

9:11 Narrator: We climbed next to the Criminal Police on Bartolomějská, still in our road dust, and found Jelínek at his desk hunting through his own papers. Jelínek: Anything at Stollenau? Zima: A sergeant with neat handwriting. The Minister says you have a border log.

9:28 Jelínek: The Minister says. All right. It was under — no, here. Summary sheet, frontier post at Hrabín. Plate and date, that's all a summary gives.

9:37 Zima: Read the plate, Kapitán. Jelínek: This plate— that's a Castle plate. The President's wife. The day Daniel was taken, her car entered Austria.

9:48 Narrator: At what hour? Jelínek: No hours. The clerks fill the hourly sheets as the cars pass, then they're sealed at the post. Only a prosecutor's order from Brno opens them. I've sent for it. Days.

10:00 Narrator: We drove through Hrabín this morning. Straight past that cupboard... Jelínek: You could have... waved at it.

10:07 Zima: A plate's a car, that's all. She swore she never left the Castle. Then who was in her car?

10:15 Summoned Back Within the Hour

10:19 Narrator: Within the hour we were summoned back to Letná, to a narrow office two floors below the Minister, where Tesař sat beside a turning tape machine. Zima: That spool is a third gone, and you have dictated nothing. It was running before we knocked.

10:36 Tesař: Naturally. My typist works from it. Wherever I sit, every word goes on a reel. Mine, yours, the woman with the mop.

10:45 Narrator: You file the cleaner's opinions? Tesař: People forget what they've said, pan Hruška. I like to check. Now, the Minister sends you a present. I'm only the postman.

10:56 Zima: Unwrap it. Tesař: He has a friend in the Castle garage. A mechanic, cleaning paní Bartošová's car, found an Aldenhof docket under the seat. Sapphires. Vienna.

11:07 Narrator: Being cleaned, she told me. Zima: A docket, from a mechanic, to a Minister who wants her husband gone. I know what that weighs, and I—

11:17 Tesař: Then read their register, and weigh that instead. They won't open it for booksellers. To the Director, Aldenhof, Vienna. The bearer acts with this Ministry's knowledge. Kindly show him your register for October.

11:31 Tesař: One thing more, in the Minister's words, and you may have them free. A Castle car clears the frontier, and whatever follows it.

11:41 The Express to Vienna

11:39 Zima: Is that so.

11:45 Narrator: The express took us to Vienna by the Rainau line, nowhere near Hrabín, and a letter from Letná laid the Aldenhof's register open before me. The only church I attend. "Last day of October. Sapphire collar, old Bohemian setting." That collar's in her portrait, I'd bet the shop.

12:07 Zima: Brought by whom? Narrator: "Consigned in person." Her passport, her own signature. She didn't even send a maid.

12:16 Zima: And paid? Narrator: Cash across the counter, a third under the estimate. No waiting for a sale. I've seen widows do that...

12:25 Zima: A woman who takes a third less wants the money today. She had a date to meet. Narrator: Men with a van want paying, in banknotes. The day she swore she never left, and there it stands in ink: her jewels sold in Vienna.

12:43 After Dark Among the Unsold Books

12:47 Narrator: Back among my unsold books, after dark, I opened the journal and sat over a clean page while Zima looked at nothing. So. One oath, and two things standing on it. A Castle plate at Hrabín. A Castle collar on a Vienna counter. Same day.

13:10 Zima: Yes. Narrator: Those hourly sheets? Zima: Still sealed. Jelínek telephoned. Brno hasn't signed.

13:17 Narrator: And on Friday— on Friday the Germans sign for Daniel, and then who asks how he got there? Zima: Nobody. Narrator: She walked down those steps to you. What do I write?

13:31 Zima: Write that I took my hat.

13:34 All of Them in One Room by Eleven

13:38 Narrator: Zima asked for them all in one room, and by eleven next morning had it: the Minister at his desk, Tesař at the glass, Jelínek gripping his file. Zima: The German escort signs tomorrow. The hourly sheets, Kapitán?

13:54 Jelínek: Still sealed. Brno swears today. You can't do this on a summary, there isn't one hour on —

13:59 Zima: Tomorrow nobody will ask who carried him. The day Daniel was taken, her car entered Austria. A Castle plate goes through Hrabín unsearched. That car led the van.

14:10 Šebesta: A car isn't a wife. Zima: She swore to me she stayed inside the Castle walls. That same day her sapphires crossed an Aldenhof counter for cash. Money for silent men, and a scandal that gives her what she asks for at table.

14:25 Jelínek: She hired you! She walked to your door herself, why would — Narrator: I said it on her own stairs, Kapitán. Who looks at the woman who hires the detective?

14:34 Zima: And a client hears every step first. Jelínek: And the Minister? He says in parliament he wants the President gone, he—

14:41 Zima: Yes, best motive in Prague, and useless. A scandal traced to Letná finishes him. And he read that plate on Monday with the rest of his post. Guilty men don't send me to logs.

14:54 Šebesta: Ha. Tesař: It has her touch, you know. Drunk on the steps, an empty whisky bottle tucked in his inside pocket, the stage dressed for breakfast. She's laid enough state tables.

15:06 Šebesta: Thank you, Zima. That'll do very well.

15:18 Zima: Minister, I said that in this room, to — Šebesta: News desk. Šebesta. The President's wife, by name, evening edition. Your source is Zima, the detective she hired herself. Tell the others.

15:32 Zima: You've spent my name, Minister. Šebesta: Kapitán. The Castle. Sit with her until the evening paper does.

15:40 Jelínek: I... yes.

15:44 The Evening Paper Beat Us Up the Hill

15:47 Narrator: The evening paper beat us up the hill, and under the portrait she stood with it open, waiting for us to come all the way in. Bartošová: Your name beside mine, pan Zima, on the front page. I walked down to you because I trusted no policeman. I should have added detectives.

16:06 Zima: You swore you stayed inside the Castle, and you— Bartošová: And you've found yourself a better customer. You're dismissed. Send your account to Letná.

16:16 Jelínek: Wait — paní Bartošová, forgive me — Brno signed, the sheets came as I left. Hourly, the clerk's own hand, it's — where — Narrator: Breathe, Kapitán. Then read.

16:27 Jelínek: The last of October. It has her car out at dawn, ten to six. One woman, driving. Back through by three.

16:35 Zima: Driving. Everyone who drives you reports to someone, so you took the wheel. That's who was in her car. Now Vienna.

16:43 Bartošová: "Her jewels sold in Vienna." Your paper gives it capitals. Very well. The casino at Baden. Five hundred thousand schillings at cards, due at the month's end, and my husband— my husband knows nothing.

17:00 Narrator: So that's what a third under the estimate buys... Bartošová: Paid by noon, and home again. I laughed on the road, I — I sat down to supper that night a free woman. I ate, pan Zima. I ate, and all that time Daniel was — Daniel...

17:21 Zima: A quarter past eight, he walked to his gate. Her car had been back over the frontier five hours. Daniel was taken at supper. Her car never led the van. Cleared.

17:34 Near Midnight, One Lamp Still Burning

17:38 Narrator: Near midnight one lamp still burned on Jelínek's floor, and the Hrabín sheets lay spread beneath it. Jelínek: There's your van. Same night, twenty to twelve. Service van, Interior Ministry plate, not opened. "By the commander's order."

17:55 Narrator: And he lets that stand in writing? Jelínek: The clerk writes it as it passes, for his own skin. Sealed by morning. A commander can wave a van through. He can't open that cupboard without Brno, same as me.

18:08 Zima: And we read her car out at dawn and never turned the page. What does a frontier commander cost? Narrator: Nothing you'd find in a bank. In my trade, it's a ham at Christmas.

18:21 Jelínek: You joke. I went for the— when I saw that plate I went straight for the Ministry gift book. It lives with the cashier, not the section. His clerk is my cousin, and it goes back by seven.

18:31 Narrator: Well, well. Zima: Forty-one of what, I asked at Stollenau. Hruška reads dead clerks. Find me a forty-one.

18:40 Jelínek: What happened at Stollenau? Narrator: "Frontier commander, Hrabín, one Prague ham," Tesař's signature. "Castle garage, one wristwatch," the same hand. And here, among the presentation bottles: whisky forty-one, signed by Tesař.

19:00 Jelínek: So? He— look, he signs every gift his section gives. That's a clerk's signature.

19:06 Zima: A watch in the Castle garage, and a mechanic finds a docket under a seat. Jelínek: Oh. Oh, but then...

19:14 Zima: A ham buys a frontier, Kapitán. Say nothing of forty-one.

19:20 Before Light, in the Fog Below Letná

19:24 Narrator: Before light Zima parked his old Škoda below Letná, in fog that had swallowed the Ministry, and I sat beside him burying a theory. I wrote her down in ink, you know. Banknotes for men with a van. I was pleased with that.

19:41 Zima: A handsome theory. It lacked only the hours. Narrator: She paid a casino, and I had her hiring thugs. I'll miss it.

19:52 Zima: Then look at what's left. Two voices it never touched. Narrator: Whose?

19:57 Zima: A sergeant, shutting her ledger. Not a wire, not a paper, not a soul before me. And a man at a window, yesterday at eleven, helping me. The stage dressed for breakfast, an empty whisky bottle on the inside of the coat.

20:12 Narrator: And you add nothing? Zima: Not a word. You heard them both. What did you hear?

20:19 A Stranger on the Minister's Carpet

20:23 Narrator: The Minister's carpet took a stranger that Friday morning: Sergeant Pichler, a night on the road from Stollenau, a ledger under her arm, something wrapped in a towel. Šebesta: I expected Zima with an apology, Kapitán. I get an Austrian sergeant, on the morning the Germans take her prisoner. Explain.

20:44 Jelínek: Formal request, Minister. Brno's prosecutor to her district command, stamped at — it's here somewhere — stamped last night. Pichler: My lieutenant minds the cells, Herr Minister. The escort was due at eight. They sign in this book, and this book is here, so they drink our coffee.

21:02 Šebesta: Do they. Zima: So Friday waits on her ledger. Read them the line your finger skipped, Sergeant.

21:09 Pichler: "Inside coat pocket. One bottle, whisky, emptied. Gilt label, forty-one, by hand." I took it out myself, alone, while he snored.

21:21 Zima: And who has read that line? Pichler: Today the book travels. Until I set it on this desk, that line never left my station book.

21:31 Tesař: Sergeants write, Zima. A report came to Prague. You carried my own letter to her.

21:38 Pichler: To Prague, two lines: drunk, and a warrant. To your letter, Herr Tesař, the hour and the warrant. You asked no more.

21:47 Jelínek: The prisoner, then. He could have told his — Zima: He never knew he carried it, Kapitán, and his lawyer never asked. You heard it from me at midnight, nobody sooner. Yesterday at eleven I gave this room a plate and a collar. Not one word of bottles.

22:03 Narrator: I have that morning in my journal, Tesař. Yours was the best line in it. Zima: A whisky bottle, you said, tucked in his inside pocket, and not a drop left in it. Who told you?

22:17 Šebesta: Well, Tesař? Who told you? Tesař: A drunk, whisky, a coat. Where else does a man— well, where else does he keep it? I guessed.

22:28 Zima: Whisky, empty, and the pocket. Three hits on a bottle nobody in Prague had heard of, and you— Tesař: All right, so I guess well, or I have a friend in Stollenau. A bottle is a bottle, Zima. Prove whose.

22:42 Down the Stairs Two at a Time

22:46 Narrator: Jelínek took the stairs two at a time, the bottle under his coat, and we followed him down to the slip of a room where the spools never stopped. Jelínek: The presentation case, Minister, behind the glass. Gilt labels, written by hand. Forty, then — forty-two.

23:03 Narrator: Bare velvet between them. Velvet keeps a shadow, I've cleared enough cabinets. A bottle stood there for years.

23:12 Tesař: I give bottles away, pan Hruška. That's what they're— that's what they're for. Forty-one went to somebody.

23:20 Zima: You sign every gift this section gives, so somebody is written down. The Kapitán has the book. Tesař: Has he.

23:28 Jelínek: It went back by seven. At nine I signed it out again, on Brno's paper. Narrator: The ham goes to a commander, the watch to a garage. Now whisky forty-one, signed by Tesař, and the line reads: for his own office.

23:45 Zima: A gift to nobody. It left that velvet in his own hand, rode a van through a frontier he'd paid for, and reached a coat at Stollenau. Šebesta: I know nothing of hams. You acted alone, Tesař, and I shall say so in parliament. I shall—

24:00 Tesař: So the Minister chooses at last. Šebesta: Out, all of you. He gives me his keys, then you may have him.

24:07 Jelínek: Minister, those reels are evidence, I can't leave him with — Šebesta: On this floor you can. Out!

24:13 Zima: Come, Kapitán. There's only the one stair. Jelínek: You've left him with his reels. He could burn every —

24:19 Zima: He has one customer left, and one thing to sell. Listen.

24:25 A Yard from a Thin Door

24:29 Narrator: Three of us stood against the corridor wall, a yard from that thin door, and I set down what came through it exactly. Šebesta: Once I hold the Castle, pardon and chair. You have my word.

24:42 Šebesta: Where did you — give me that. Give me that reel! Tesař: Your own voice, Minister, in that same chair. I tell everyone who sits here: every word goes on a reel. Did you think you were the exception?

24:56 Jelínek: That's ears, only ears. A court won't — Zima: His typist's machine was turning when we left. This is going down too.

25:03 Šebesta: You were mine. I bought you, the pardon, the chair, I — Tesař: You thought so. Who carried you that German warrant, Minister? Who rode beside the President's son in the back of that van, his head in a sack, and never spoke a word the whole road?

25:19 Tesař: I poured that whisky. Then I bought you. Šebesta: You...

25:25 Narrator: He's humming. Do you hear that? Zima: Hush.

25:28 Šebesta: I'll say— I'll say you acted alone. I'll have your driver in front of a— Tesař: You'll say what this reel tells you. You'll send young Jelínek home, and you'll sign my chair by Monday. And who's to contradict you? My driver never left his wheel.

25:43 Jelínek: Every reel in the room, Minister. No, stay sitting.

25:47 Fog Over Prague, Back Through the Shop

25:51 Narrator: In Prague the fog had still not lifted on the Saturday evening, when paní Bartošová came back through my shop and looked, at last, at the chair. Only one leg is bad, paní Bartošová. Bartošová: Then I owe you for three. A wire from Stollenau. You have the better voice.

26:11 Narrator: "Prisoner carried here by force. Abduction voids the hold. German escort sent home unsigned. Daniel Bartoš released." Signed, Pichler. Four lines, this time, and the stamp.

26:25 Bartošová: He's home tonight. And tomorrow is Sunday, and I shall sit beside that telephone, and it will — it'll ring, it — Daniel... forgive me.

26:36 Narrator: Nobody here keeps the time, paní Bartošová. Least of all my accounts. Bartošová: And Letná?

26:44 Zima: Tesař is charged with the abduction, the Minister on his own reel. Jelínek read out both and lost his place only twice. Narrator: A man who trusts nothing but reels. Why say that pocket aloud in a full room?

26:59 Zima: Because on Thursday I recited his own work to him with her name on it. He couldn't resist straightening the stage. Narrator: And the sapphires? Who sent us to Vienna?

27:10 Zima: His watch in the garage at the Castle found the docket. His letter opened the register. I built my accusation out of Tesař's parts, and—

27:18 Bartošová: And had your name printed beside mine. Zima: Yours cost more. I spent it on a sheet with no hours, and the Kapitán told me so.

27:28 Bartošová: Send your account to Letná. Zima: There's nobody left at Letná to pay it. Bartošová: No, I suppose not. My husband will stay now, the papers say, stronger than ever, and it'll eat the rest of him. I still want him out of the Castle. Before it...

27:48 Zima: What do you write? Narrator: Tesař charged, his own machine the witness, and the director's chair still empty. Fog over Prague, and the Castle bells ring regardless.