Photographs
CONRAD: Herr Colonel, how do you come by the photographs?
UMANITZKY: The photographs you’re looking at are of people who’ve been detained by the police, or even jailed, they’re sent to us by various police agencies. There are some photos that we get from confidential sources who work for us, informants. And we take photographs of everyone who shows up here without them being aware of it ...
CONRAD: Without them being aware of it?
SALVATOR: Without them being aware of it? Now that’s something really big, useful I mean. You ... well, you can certainly take nude photos, can’t you? Of course, you must take nude photos. Umanitzky, come on, I beg you, please show me some photos of naked women, please, do me that favor ...
CONRAD: How do you actually photograph people without them being aware of it?
UMANITZKY: Anyone who sits in this chair, either to offer his services in our espionage work or to bring us some information, is photographed, both in full-face and profile. These two paintings on the walls have cut-outs with close-up lenses in them (he rotates the paintings out from the wall), and behind them is the photographic equipment.
CONRAD: Outstanding!
SALVATOR: Excellent! (he sits down in a club-chair). You really must take my picture now. Six photos, desk-top size, if you please. You know, a few days ago I was at Ronacher’s,* and I arranged to meet the six Picadilly Girls in a private room – you know, they’re from the English dance company, and each one of them asked for a photo of me.
* A Viennese musical theater.
The fingerprint trap
CONRAD (addressing Umanitzky): Please continue, Herr Colonel.
UMANITZKY: Moreover, each person has an impression of his fingerprints taken, though he has no idea that it’s being done. The impressions are then printed out for entry into our fingerprint registry.
CONRAD: How do you get their fingerprints without them knowing it?
UMANITZKY: I arrange to have myself called, and when the phone rings and while I’m talking, I push over the cigarette case or ask my guest to take something from a box of chocolates. Or I offer my guest a cigarette, and then he pulls over the lighter and the ashtray. All the boxes and the lighter are coated with invisible red lead powder.
CONRAD: What happens when they take a cigarette or a chocolate?
UMANITZKY: Then I have myself called out of the room for a minute. If the person is some kind of agent, then he immediately reaches for the folder on my desk that’s labeled “Top Secret”. And the folder is also coated with a silky powder.
CONRAD: Extremely useful, that!
SALVATOR: It’s not useful at all. When I think about it, you know, with me groping things all over the place with my fingertips—well, anybody can go around all over the place, find my fingerprints and reveal my incognito. For example, four days ago, just an example, I was with Madame Rosa in a private room ...
CONRAD: We’re on duty here, Imperial Highness.
The cabinet that’s not a cabinet
SALVATOR: Naturally, on duty. Let me ask you something, Colonel, related to duty of course, can you lift fingerprints from a woman’s body?
UMANITZKY: Certainly, Imperial Highness.
SALVATOR: Well that’s a filthy business, disgusting! Won’t a man be able to enjoy himself anywhere in the world?
CONRAD: Please continue, Herr Colonel.
UMANITZKY: Here, for instance, this cabinet ...
CONRAD: This medicine cabinet?
UMANITZKY: ... is no medicine cabinet, Excellency, for inside it there is ...
SALVATOR: ... inside there’s champagne. How about that, did I guess it right, Umanitzky? I’m pretty sly, huh? Ever since I was a kid I’ve been a clever one. We used to have a lady’s maid, and she would always say that I was so clever they could use me to catch mice. I don’t know how it’s come about, but I can’t catch mice any more. Just this afternoon, going home from the tavern, I saw so many white mice ...
CONRAD: So, what’s in there, in the medicine cabinet?
SALVATOR: Champagne is what’s in there, like I just said. I’ve already seen it for myself.
The technical preservation of conversations
UMANITZKY (as he opens the cabinet): Inside there’s a gramophone’s recording device, it’s activated before any important conversation takes place. Here, look, you can see the speaker-horn.
SALVATOR (disappointed): I don’t give a damn about that.
UMANITZKY: Everything that’s said is inscribed by a needle onto a gramophone record, and then it’s stored away and filed by protocol.
SALVATOR: That’s splendid, magnificent! You, Umanitzky, you’ve got to play back everything I’ve just said here, right now. That will be fabulous!
UMANITZKY: I regret to say, Imperial Highness, that the device was not turned on.
SALVATOR: That’s the usual nonsense from you scamps! Naturally — that’s the way it goes, my best speeches and expressions are lost forever. What a pity, that every word a man says is lost. But I’m going to have one of these things made for me at home, then every evening I’ll send off everything I’ve said that day to the Academy of Science, they can play it for their philosophy classes. You do know that I have the title of Protector of the Academy of Science, don’t you, Conrad?
CONRAD: Certainly, your Imperial Highness. Just as your father before you was the Protector of the Academy of Science.
SALVATOR: Aha, I know what you mean to say — you think that I inherited the position, that everything’s due to inheritance, the old protection racket. No, my dear man, it’s not that simple. That having been born an Archduke has offered me some slight advantages, well, I’ll grant you that, but a man must accomplish
All of our arrangements are due to Redl!
something else in this world before he becomes a Protector of the Academy of Sciences!
CONRAD: Certainly, your Imperial Highness! (addressing Umanitzky next): Your arrangements here are cunning, most interesting. Was all this put together according to your instructions?
UMANITZKY: No, your Excellency, the truth of the matter is that all of these arrangements come from Colonel Redl’s work. As the leader of our counterintelligence program Redl organized everything, the criteria for recruiting agents, he wrote the book on methods of surveillance, he established the techniques for exposing foreign spies, all of it.
CONRAD: An ingenious fellow, that Redl. Someday he’s going to be my successor.
SALVATOR: There’s something disgusting about the man, I’ve never seen him with a woman.
UMANITZKY:
