High Treason and Low Comedy. Robert T. O’Keeffe
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wouldn’t have had that lucky break.
STREBINGER: Naturally, you have all kinds of excuses for your foolishness.
STEIDL: And you, you’re always in a rush. You wanted to call the police chief right then and there in the post office and tell him the spy got away from us. Then both of us would have been fired.
STREBINGER: How was I to know that we were going to run into the same taxi? And I’m the one who yelled out at it to stop, even though it was empty.
STEIDL: Oh yeah, sure.
STREBINGER: I did yell out, I’m the one who yelled.
STEIDL: Big deal.
STREBINGER: Why didn’t you yell anything?
STEIDL: Because you were yelling! What do you think it looks like when two people are standing together on the Ringstrasse* and they’re both yelling at a taxi-driver?
STREBINGER: And just who asked the driver where he went with the man from the post office? And just who said that we should trail him to the Kaiserhof Café?
* The showpiece boulevard surrounding Vienna’s Old City. It was built atop the polygonal lines of the city’s fortified wall demolished during the early years of Franz Joseph’s reign.
———and find a penknife sheath in it
STEIDL: Well, what do you think, that I would have gone to the Prater?* And the penknife sheath? I’m the one who found it in the car!
* A strip of wooded parkland located along the Danube. It had inns, housed seasonal fairs, and was one of Vienna’s most popular areas for strolling, carriage-driving, and recreation.
STREBINGER: That’s no great work of art, when I’m the one who yelled at the cab and ordered the driver to take us to the Kaiserhof Café.
STEIDL: Well, he wasn’t at the Café.
STREBINGER: But I’m the one who found out at the next taxi stand that he’d moved on to somewhere else.
STEIDL: Yeah, but not where he went! I’m the one the guy talked to, the guy who waters the horses, the guy who washes the carriages, the guy who juggles the jobs for the cabbies; he heard what the man said, “Take me to the Hotel Klomser.”
STREBINGER: Oh yeah, sure, so we both get the same amount of credit for finding out who the man is?
STEIDL: Yep, neither one of us knows who he is.
PORTER (passing by): What’s going on with the bill for numbers fifteen and sixteen?
STREBINGER: Excuse me, Herr Porter, who’s recently arrived by car?
PORTER: Hey, listen up here, do you think that I’ve got the time to talk with people about whether a guest came in by car or trotted in by foot?
The recent guests
STREBINGER: We’re detectives, operating under the authority of the police.
PORTER: Ah, that’s altogether different.
FRANZ (loaded down with bags): Baggage from room 64.
PORTER: I don’t have time for that now. (Franz exits). So, you want to know who recently came in by car?
STREBINGER: Yes, during the last half-hour.
PORTER: All right, first there was Miss Schönemann from Berlin, she’s got room number eighteen, with a bath. Then around six o’clock ...
FRANZ: The bill for rooms fifteen and sixteen!
PORTER: Don’t bother me with that now, you stupid little scamp! So then, after that Mr. Nicolic came in, he’s from Sarajevo.
STREBINGER: Oh yes, he’s our man ...
PORTER: How’s that? He was taken up to his room in a wheelchair, the poor guy is missing his legs ... and he’s your criminal, who’d ever believe that?
STREBINGER: No legs? Then he couldn’t have jumped into a car.
STEIDL: Who else came in?
The spy has a room next to Colonel Redl!
PORTER: Then another one came in, he’s in room number 25, he’s a Russian ...
STREBINGER: Aha ...
PORTER: Oh, what’s his name? (he looks it up): Nijinsky, he’s a member of the Petersburg Imperial Court Opera-Ballet company...
STREBINGER (to Steidl): “Operaball 13”, get it?
PORTER: Yeah, he just arrived, directly from the West Side railway station, he had fifteen trunks full of costumes, the real thing, and there were three cars full of ...
STEIDL: Nobody else, then?
PORTER. Yes, just before that Colonel Redl came in.
STEIDL and STREBINGER: Who? Colonel Redl? Our Colonel Redl?
PORTER: The one from the General Staff.
STREBINGER (to Steidl): Well now, that’s downright precious! Now the spy is staying under the same roof as our Colonel Redl. (he laughs): Maybe even in the room next to him, wall to wall. What would a writer call it in a spy novel? “Traipsing into the trap” or maybe “Into the lion’s den”? No, not even a fanciful writer would come up with this one, nobody would ever believe him. That a spy would actually take lodgings in a place where the great spy-catcher lives! Hahaha! Colonel Redl’s eyes will pop wide open when I report this to him—I’m going to notify him right now.
Telephone conversation with the police chief
STEIDL: There’s no need to rush into this. First you ought to call the police chief, we’ve got to tell Privy Councilor Geyer that the trapped man is here in the Hotel Klomser.
STREBINGER: You’re right, the rest can wait. (he goes to the phone booth)
STEIDL (to the Porter): Did Colonel Redl also come in by car?
STREBINGER (speaking into the phone): Please Miss, give me number 12–3–48 ...
PORTER: I can’t tell you that, I wasn’t looking out the door at the time.
STREBINGER (on the phone): Herr Privy Councilor, your humble servant here, Sergeant Strebinger from the surveillance detail at the main post office.
PORTER: He came back about twenty minutes ago, he’s in room number one.
STREBINGER: Yes, right, I identified the taxi, and Steidl and I took it directly back to the Kaiserhof Café.
PORTER: He always wants a room that overlooks the courtyard.
STREBINGER: The porter at the taxi-stand told us that our man was driven to the Hotel Klomser.
PORTER: The Colonel got here earlier this afternoon, he came in from Prague.
Redl gives himself away
STREBINGER: We found a sheath for a pen-knife in the taxi. The man probably mislaid it when he opened the letters.
STEIDL: Herr Porter, when the guests who came in this afternoon come by, ask each one of them if he mislaid his penknife sheath.
STREBINGER: Yes, certainly, Privy Councilor, Sir, we’ll run a police operation, a raid, check every last penknife to see if it fits into the sheath. Yes, of course, you’re right, Herr Councilor, that’s not real proof that the sheath belongs to the man.
(Colonel Redl appears on the stairway, pulling on his gloves. He’s wearing a military overcoat, sword, and gray General Staff cap.)
STREBINGER: And I and have to respectfully report one more very interesting thing to you, Herr Councillor. By coincidence Colonel Redl is also staying at the Hotel.
REDL (to the Porter): Has Lieutenant Hromadka asked after me?
PORTER: