Bela Kiss | Page 3

for a long motor drive. On their way back to Budapest, they had stopped at his country house and there had some refreshment. Afterwards they returned to the city, when he invited her to his flat somewhere near the Margaret Bridge. They had dinner at a restaurant, when he told her that if she cared to go back to his flat he would tell her fortune. Like most girls she was eager to know her future, therefore she consented and went.
On arrival he offered her some pale yellow liqueur which seemed very strong, and then setting her at a table he told her to gaze intently into a small crystal globe. In fun he promised that she would see her future husband.
She did as he instructed, and had been gazing intently for some time when she began to experience a strange dizziness, probably due to the liqueur. Suddenly, on looking up from the crystal she saw in a mirror at her side the man standing behind her with a piece of green silk cord in his hand. It had a noose and a slip-knot, and he was about to place it over her head!
Sight of the changed face of her friend -- a pale, evil countenance, with glaring dark eyes which had in them the spirit of murder -- held her breathless. She fainted, and knew no more until she found herself lying beneath the trees in the Erszebet Park at dawn with all her jewellery and money gone.
She described to the police, as well as she could, the man with his house in the country and his flat in the town, but, though some inquiries were made, neither flat nor house could be identified, and they apparently dismissed the story as the imaginings of a romantic girl.
Curiously enough, however, about three weeks later a very similar story was told by a young married woman of good family, and whose husband was a wealthy merchant, to the police of the Belvaros quarter of Budapest. The lady, who lived on the handsome Franz Josef's Quai, facing the Danube, had met a smartly dressed man one Sunday morning as she came out alone after service in the Terezvaros Church, which was highly fashionable during the Budapest season. She was nearly run down by a passing taxi when he had grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Thus they became acquainted. They walked together for some distance, when he told her that his name was Franz Hofmann, a jeweller's traveller, and that he was greatly interested in spiritualism. She happened to be also interested in spiritualism, hence a friendship was formed. Her husband was away in Paris, therefore she invited him to dine at her house a few days later, and at the dinner she appeared wearing some valuable jewellery, while he, as a jeweller, admired it greatly.
Later that evening Hofmann invited her to go to one of the most select night caf?s for which Budapest is famous, and she accepted. Afterwards, at two o'clock in the morning, he persuaded her to accompany him to his flat, where he would tell her fortune by the crystal. She went, and almost the same thing happened. She drank the liqueur, and he tried to strangle her. She fought with him, was overpowered, and when she came to her senses found herself in the hands of the police devoid of her jewellery. She had been found lying in a doorway unconscious. This second story aroused the interest of the Budapest police, and inquiries were made, but neither woman could say where the flat in question was situated. They had been taken there, they said, by a roundabout route. The taxi had been dismissed at what seemed to be a cul-de-sac, and they had walked the remainder of the distance. They both described the interior in identical terms and their description of the man left no doubt at it was the same individual in each case.
Then, when a third girl told a similar story a fortnight later, and when a dealer in second-hand jewellery had shown the police a ring the description of which had been circulated, a real hue and cry was raised. But just at that moment war broke out and the country was thrown into disorder. The police system quickly broke down, and every available man as called up to fight against the Allies on the side of the Germans.
Bela Kiss was among those called up. He had been living a quiet, lonely, uneventful life, and as soon as the call to arms came he ordered from a blacksmith a number of iron bars, which he fixed inside the windows of his house to keep out thieves during his absence. Then, a week later, he left Czinkota and joined the colours.
V
Eighteen months passed. He