The clerk behind the reception desk in the highly polished lobby, stirring into life even at this early hour, was polite and discreet. Certainly, a room for Mr. William Denning. With bath. And a view of the fountain?
Denning nodded and went on filling up the necessary forms. For a moment he wondered if the clerk had expected his arrival; then he decided that the hushed voice was only the man’s well-practised manner. He signed his name and glanced round the lobby. Beside him there was the hotel porter’s desk with a busy clerk handing out mail and information, keys and theatre tickets. The voices, some speaking French and Italian as well as German, reminded him that Bern was the capital where Parliament met and the three languages were all equally used. And over there stood four American soldiers, on furlough, studying a map. Near them was an English business-man who had brought along his wife—probably smuggling her out with the help of his expense account, and now wondering why he hadn’t had the good sense to leave her at home. Beside the dining-room stood another group of foreigners, three pink-cheeked round-faced clergymen in tweed jackets and dog collars. And that French couple were on their honeymoon. And the cluster of bored schoolgirls were pretending they didn’t belong to the severely tailored, slightly flustered teacher who was trying to organise an excursion. Yes, this was an ideally normal hotel. Respectable, to the point of being soporific.
“Of course,” said the reception clerk, noticing Denning’s brief inspection, “the season has not quite begun as yet.” He was a young man, with intense eyes and an expression of automatic attentiveness.
Denning said, with a smile, “Tell me, where does Bern grow all its geraniums?” He looked at a mass of flowers on the central table of the lobby, as he took a step away from the desk.
“Ah,” said the clerk, and relaxed. Mr. Denning had only been admiring the decorations. He plunged into a detailed explanation about the geraniums, and Mr. Denning was most gratifyingly surprised, perhaps a little overwhelmed, for he halted, and stood quite silent, and didn’t ask any more questions, not even after the final details were given. Then another new guest arrived, and Mr. Denning moved away very quickly.
With a feeling of delightful well-being, the clerk turned to deal with the latest customer—a middle-aged gentleman, small, plump, dressed in very smart new clothes. Almost too new, the clerk thought, but definitely expensive: where could he find a suiting like that, at a reasonable price, of course?
“Certainly,” he said, giving his full attention now to the sprawling signature, quickly scribbled. Certainly. A room for Mr. Charles A. Maartens. With bath. And a view of the fountain?
One thing I’ve learned, Denning decided as he followed the installation clerk along the corridor to his room, one thing: next time I make a small joke, I’ll avoid putting it in the form of a question. And another thing to remember is that the clerk has quick eyes. Perhaps I was too obvious; or was I? Any stranger looks round a hotel lobby to see what kind of place he has chosen.
And yet, even as he reassured himself, he was left with a small doubt. Now you are being over-anxious, he told himself, just as your pride was too quick down there in the lobby. You were too eager to see how Max Meyer imagined you: this was the kind of hotel where you’d merge into the general background. Do you? Sweet, suffering—and then he began to smile at himself, and his quick irritation with Max was over. What we think we are, how our friends see us—that contrast was always a slight shock. Like suddenly catching a glimpse of yourself in an unexpected mirror in a frank light.
He stared at himself in the looking-glass over the white covered dressing-table. He needed a shave, a shower, some rest to chase away the grime and discomfort of an overnight train journey. He needed a lot more than that, he thought grimly, to look like a human being again. Then he noticed the clerk had gone and the green-aproned boy who had brought his luggage was waiting politely.
“Ever look in a mirror and think what an ugly—” Denning began, and then choked his question abruptly off. No more jokes in the form of questions.
The boy, dark-haired, with a long thin face and anxious eyes, said, “Please?”
“Can I have some rolls and coffee?”
“Here, sir?”
No, in the elevator. “Yes, here, if it can be managed,” Denning said with considerable restraint. He reached into his pocket and counted out a tip, nervous a little with the unaccustomed money. He added an extra ten per cent to take care of the probable increase in the cost of living since his last visit. Damn the man who had invented tips. Or was it damn the first employer who had skimped on wages? “Is this all right?” he asked frankly.
“Sure,” said the boy in impeccable American, breaking away from the German they had both been using.
“You have a lot of Americans staying here?”
“Plenty.”
“So it sounds. Well, I’ll be taking a shower, so just leave the coffee—” Then Denning’s eyes counted the pieces of luggage: a suitcase, golf clubs. “Where’s my small bag?” He gestured with his hands to show the size of his grip.
The boy looked startled then crestfallen. “It must have been left downstairs, sir,” he said in German. “I’ll get it immediately.”
“You’d better,” Denning told him, with a grin. “It holds my razor and my clean shirts.”
“I’ll get it,” said the boy reassuringly. “Don’t worry, sir.”
“And hurry up that coffee will you?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, smiling too, breaking into English again. He paused at the door to say, “My name is Gustav. I’m in charge of this floor. Anything you need—”
“—I’ll call on you.” Denning began sliding out the knot of his tie. “Meanwhile, coffee, coffee, for the love of Allah.”
Gustav gave a startled look at Denning, and then closed the door. Or rather, both doors. For there were two, as in most Swiss hotels: one shutting in the room, one shutting out the corridor, with a brief threshold between them. I’ll have some privacy here, thought Denning with considerable satisfaction.
Denning had his shirt off, when a quiet knock sounded on his room door. That’s Gustav with my bag, he thought, and called, “Come in, come in.” But a round-faced woman, crisply dressed in blue, with towels over her arm, entered.
“Excuse me, sir.” She didn’t retreat, but left the doors tactfully open as she hurried over to the bathroom. “Would you like me to run your bath?”
“Don’t bother,” Denning said. “I think I’ve still got strength enough left for that.”
“Please?”
But just then, he heard an angry voice outside his room. A small procession passed along the corridor. First, a dapper little figure in a silver-grey suit, who was talking peremptorily over his shoulder to two boys laden with luggage, followed by a polite, persevering, but breathless Gustav. “It’s all mine, I tell you, such stupidity, it’s all mine,” the man’s precise voice was saying with increasing annoyance as he hurried his short steps.
Denning moved swiftly into the corridor. “Just a minute,” he told one of the green-aproned boys, “I think you’ve got my bag mixed up with that stuff.”
The procession halted.
Gustav, red-faced and still breathing heavily from all the running he had done, said, “The hall porter told me it must be—”
But the little man broke in with, “What’s this? What’s this?” He gave Denning’s naked chest a withering glance.
“I think,” said Denning, his face expressionless, “I think this is my bag.” He pointed to one of the smaller grips.
“Are you sure?” The man had realised Denning was right, but he wouldn’t admit his mistake too quickly. He looked at the label on Denning’s bag. “Let me see…”
“Yes, let us see,” Denning said shortly and flipped over a label on one of the other small bags. Charles A. Maartens, he read. The man looked at him angrily.
Denning could only hope that neither surprise nor confusion had shown on his face. He glanced along the corridor where
two stray schoolgirls had halted, wide-eyed, surprised into a giggling match. He stepped quickly back into the shelter of his room. From there, he heard Mr. Charles A. Maartens’ high-pitched voice say, “Idiot! Take this bag away. Why don’t you pay attention?”
Gustav, his face red once more—but this time not from running—brought the offending bag into Denning’s room.
“That’s fine,” Denning said, “and don’t worry, Gustav. It wasn’t your mistake.”
The boy wasn’t much comforted. “He doesn’t know German very well.” Gustav was trying to excuse his hotel’s new guest. “That’s why the gentleman did not understand me at first.”
“I’ve run the bath, sir,” the chamber-maid said with conscious virtue, coming out of the bathroom. “If there’s anything you need—” She frowned at Gustav and fluttered her hand, which had been pointing to the bell, angrily towards the corridor. They both left, and the woman—now speaking in a quick rush of Bernese German—was asking Gustav if he didn’t know everyone was arriving today, everyone, and there was so much to do, if he had time to waste then he’d better help her count pillowcases and hand-towels.
Denning looked at his bag. That possessive little character in the pearl-grey suit had almost set him doubting. But it was his bag, all right. It wasn’t locked, though. He searched quickly through it. The contents were all in order. Seemingly. Except that Peggy’s photograph had shifted, and now lay under, instead of over, his handkerchiefs. Someone had been checking on him. A friend?
He looked round the room, thinking of Meyer again. It was an efficient, comfortable, and antiseptic box. Quiet, restrained to the point of anonymity. That polished brass bed with its white starched cover had welcomed more schoolteachers, business-men, curious tourists, nervous honeymooners, than jewel thieves and crooks. This hotel was hardly promising territory for Maartens. Or perhaps that was what he wanted at the moment—an unobtrusive place to hang his pearl-grey suit until this evening. But why—if it was complete anonymity he wanted—why use his name so openly? That of course, could be part of his present stage setting: the innocent visitor with a few days to spend in Bern. Denning, too, was concealing nothing about himself, beyond the fact that Max Meyer had enlisted his sympathies and brought him into the game. And yet—and yet—Denning wasn’t in this game, the way Charlie-for-Short was involved. Charlie-for-Short… Not a particularly happy nickname. Charles-the-Bold would have been better. Perhaps, he thought as he half-opened the long narrow windows and looked down into the street over two green window-boxes with red geraniums, perhaps Max is slipping a little. Once, when Max labelled anyone, the name stuck just because its aptness had a glue that didn’t flake off.
There was a good deal of bustle, now, down in the street. Low gears, sudden brakings of cars; footsteps echoing because of the arcades; a trolley with its high-powered purr; a mixture of creaks and screeches and voices and hard heels mingled together and rose to his window in an ebb and flow as constant as the rhythm of a restless sea. Remember that image, he told himself, and perhaps you’ll get some sleep tonight. Then he shivered. Chilly out there, even if it was the end of May. He shut the windows, ending the cold draught, and brought some peace back into the room.
He picked up his shaving kit from his bag and went into the bathroom. The outsize bath on its elaborate dais was nicely full of water turned cold. He cursed all over-helpful women, and let the bath run out. Majestically slow, he noted. He’d have plenty of time to shave. But then he heard his bedroom door being opened, and Gustav’s voice was saying, “Breakfast, Herr Denning.” So it would be a choice of either hot bath or hot coffee. He took the bath cold, shallow, and quick. This is one hell of a way to begin a vacation, he thought savagely. And when there was a knock at his door, he wasn’t surprised to see it open before he even could swallow a mouthful of roll and clear his throat to yell, “Stay out!”
The man who entered probably wouldn’t have stayed out in any case. He went straight to the window, carrying two pots of geraniums and a gardening trowel, and wearing an air of dedication.
“Look here,” said Denning, “whatever you are about to do, don’t! Just leave me in peace with my second cup of coffee. What’s the idea anyway?” He drew the bath towel closely around him as the man opened the windows wide. I like fresh air, Denning thought, but this isn’t air, it’s a howling tornado.
“The geraniums,” the man said, a solid-looking type who would make sure of enjoying his own breakfast.
“What about them?”
The man examined the window-boxes with an expert eye. He shook his head sadly and muttered to himself in disapproval.
“Couldn’t you do them later in the day?” Then Denning looked at the bed where he had thought he might catch up on some sleep. Later in the day might not be such a good idea, after all.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the man, paying no attention to him as he neatly trowelled the offending plants out of the box and replaced them with the geraniums he had brought. He was a good workman, Denning had to admit, neat and quick; but he had a tuneless way of quietly whistling between his teeth. Denning, drinking his coffee with more determination now than enjoyment, wondered what the man was whistling—just the same eight bars or so, over and over and over again. His musical range was limited. The whistling stopped suddenly, so suddenly that Denning found himself mentally completing the last bars. “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, that was all it had been. Another sample of insidious American imperialism like the boy Gustav’s “Sure” and “Plenty.” Denning almost smiled.
The man closed the windows, and passed near the table to reach the door. He held out the two discarded plants for inspection, as if to justify himself.
To Denning, they looked as fresh as the geraniums which had been carried in. “Yes,” he said gravely, “they certainly would have ruined the hotel.”
The man nodded, and continued quietly on his way. He opened the door with surprising swiftness. The second door lay wide open, and the maid who liked to run baths ahead of time was just outside. The bedroom door closed firmly.
Denning stared at it, frowning. There had been nothing wrong with the geraniums. He was suddenly sure of that. Warned, he looked down at the table where the man had halted. A neatly folded note lay beside his pack of cigarettes. He laid his hand over them both as the door opened once again.
“Didn’t you learn to knock before entering?” he asked the maid sharply. “What is it now?”
“I did knock, sir,” the maid said most politely. “I was just checking up. Michel makes such a mess.” She bustled to the window.
“Then clear it up later,” Denning said. He jammed the small note inside the half-empty pack of cigarettes.
“Yes, sir.” But she had checked on the window-boxes and the signs of planting. She glanced at the table as she turned back to face the room. Denning was lighting a cigarette. He didn’t look at her. He said angrily, “Shut that door. And keep it shut. Both doors. Can you remember that?”
“Yes, sir.” She was nervous now, and impressed: he was not only angry, but honestly indignant. “Shall I remove the table now, sir, so that Gustav won’t bother you with that?”
Denning nodded and rose, throwing one edge of the bath towel carelessly over his shoulder. “What did the Romans use for pockets?” he wondered aloud.
“Please?” But she had noted his hands were as empty as the slipping folds of his towel. He lifted cigarettes and lighter as she wheeled the table away, and tossed them carelessly on top of the dressing-table. He was opening his suitcase, shaking out a tweed jacket and flannels with one hand, holding the towel in place with the other, as the door closed. There was no key in the lock, he noticed. He went on unpacking, letting the towel have its own way now, and there was a good deal of opening of drawers, of moving around, of snatches of whistling. Dressed at last, he found the missing key lying inconspicuously beside the lamp on the bed table. It turned in the lock with a most reassuring click.
At least, now, he had some peace.
And he could open the windows without inviting pleurisy.
He picked up the half-empty pack of cigarettes, and extracted the small note from its emergency hiding place. For a moment all this excessive caution embarrassed him. And yet, whoever had sent the note hadn’t shown marked trust in either mail clerk or chamber-maid.
He smoothed out the many folds of the thin sheet of paper. The handwriting was excited, but the invitation was clear, and the signature, Elizabeth, was ended with rather a schoolgirl flourish. Johann Keppler had enjoyed his invention.
Bill dearest,
I can hardly wait to see you again. As soon as possible. Tonight? I’ve found a new room—you’ll like it much better than the one we had last time. It’s on the little Henziplatz, quiet, very romantic. No. 10, one flight up. I’ve got to have dinner with the family this evening (groan!) but I can slip away about ten-thirty. Darling, darling. Isn’t it lovely that spring is here?
Ever, Elizabeth
First, Denning thought, Keppler isn’t wasting much time in getting us together. Are we to assemble there—Keppler, Le Brun, and myself—right on the Henziplatz, while Max is meeting Charlie-for-Short over at the Café Henzi itself?
Next, Denning thought, Max makes a few detours and then doubles back to join us once the café meeting is over. Audacious but unexpected. I’d vote Keppler as the man most likely to succeed, this or any year.
And then, as he struck his lighter and watched the orange flame curl over the note towards his thumb and forefinger, Denning thought, too bad that the note isn’t real. It must be kind of nice to get a hurried letter like that. In the spring. He dropped the burned note into the ash tray.