“And none of our doing.” Newhart was now indignant as well as angry about that. “Anyway, you clear it up. Get this business finished so I can start thinking about publishing once more. I have enough problems of my own.”
“I’ll handle this one. As quickly as possible.”
“Do what you see fit. And good luck, Bill.”
Mathison booked his overnight flight back to Zürich. He ought to be there, even allowing for fog and drizzle, by early morning. Their time. Back to that again, he told himself, as he started repacking his bag.
In the kitchen, the house telephone sounded a raucous warning. Two repairmen about the aerial, the porter announced from the basement. They came up by the service elevator, both in grey work trousers, checked flannel shirts that had been through a hard day’s crumpling, short zippered jackets soiled and sloppy. “This Mathison?” one of them asked, broad shoulders atilt with the large heavy box he carried in one hand.
You ought to know, thought Mathison, as he nodded to John Lamberti. “In there,” he said equally brusquely, pointing across the small hall. He looked at the other man, who had coiled yards of lead-in line over his arm. He was about Mathison’s own height which meant, on good mornings after a deep sleep, five-foot-eleven. He was fair-haired; wore it long, shaggy at the neck, wild over the ears and forehead as if he had just come out of a wind tunnel. He was possibly near Mathison’s age, too. Certainly no more than thirty-five. Features were even, a kind of handsome nothing face that made little impression, perhaps because it was kept so empty of expression. But once inside the living room, the blank look was wiped off, and the light-blue eyes were coolly appraising. Mathison appraised right back.
Lamberti dumped his heavy load on the rug and said, “Well, now that you’ve met each other, let’s get to work. His name is Chuck, by the way.”
“Charles Nield,” the other said. He had a pleasant voice. He took out a cigarette and wandered over to look more closely at a Callot etching on the wall. He has a quick eye, thought Mathison; that is the only original I own, all four square inches of it. “Go ahead, Jack, I’ll wait my turn,” Nield called over his shoulder.
“We won’t take long,” Lamberti assured Mathison. “We know you are flying out this evening.”
“Not the same firm?” Mathison was watching Nield with some speculation. “I thought you might be the Lamberti Bros.”
Nield laughed. “Perhaps we ought to merge. We made quite a good double turn coming up in that elevator, I thought.”
Lamberti glanced at his watch and concentrated on an answer for Mathison. “Today’s pretty exceptional. We thought we’d save time and a lot of security headaches if Nield came along with me. I can vouch for him. Sometimes it may be hard to believe, but he really is on our side.”
Nield had wandered to the other end of the room, where he was selecting a record. It was the Rossini Sonatas for Strings. He turned it low. “D’you mind? After all, we are supposed to be testing the machine, aren’t we?” Then he sat down in the most comfortable chair and studied the scrap of New York skyline that could still be glimpsed through the windows between the new high-rising apartments to the south.
“I didn’t know you co-operated,” Mathison told Lamberti and turned away from watching Nield. Cool, thought Mathison, very cool.
“In this case, we had to. Just as we’ve had to co-operate with the Swiss, and Nield’s people are now talking with the British. It’s an involved problem.”
“Like Yates himself.”
Lamberti nodded and plunged into business. “There are two things that Frank O’Donnell wanted me to tell you. Don’t use that telephone number—the one that Mrs. Anna Bryant gave you.”
“Yates’s number? The one her husband was to call the minute he got back to Salzburg?”
“Right. The Zürich police have traced it. They want to keep the wire clear for any of Yates’s friends to use. No good making the Swiss think you might be one of them; that just adds to their work, and they’ve got plenty.”
“What did they find at that address? Any confirmation that Yates is Burch?”
“They found that, all right. So far, they haven’t discovered exactly who are his bosses. That’s what they are working on now.” Lamberti studied the rug. “That’s about all I can say on that score. But O’Donnell may see you in Zürich. He is there for a quick conference with Gustav Keller, his opposite number in Swiss Security. The second thing I have to tell you, actually, is Keller’s description. This is to help you recognise him easily if he does get in touch with you. Keller is O’Donnell’s height, but heavier in build. Grey hair, cut short. Dark moustache. Round face, high colour, grey eyes. Small neat feet. Got the picture?”
Mathison nodded.
“So that’s that. Two things: avoid using the telephone number—forget it altogether, in fact; and remember Gustav Keller.”
Mathison nodded again.
“And here are the copies you wanted of your photographs.” Lamberti drew out a Manila envelope from an oversize pocket inside his jacket. “With our thanks.”
Mathison opened it eagerly, looked at the prints with interest. “I didn’t know they could be blown up to this size. Not so clearly, at least. You did a good job.” He riffled through them. Yes, as promised, there were two sets: one for himself, one for Anna Bryant’s pilfered files.
“They’ve been useful,” Lamberti conceded. He glanced at his watch again. “How long do you need, Chuck?” he called to the other end of the room.
“Ten minutes possibly.” Nield was on his feet.
“We’ll make it fifteen to allow you time for a few bright remarks. I’ll check the house aerial on the roof.” Lamberti turned to Mathison. “You have one up there?”
“There are television aerials—”
“Good. I’ll see where I can attach something to help out your radio reception.” He left, picking up the large coil of lead-in transmission line in professional style.
Charles Nield shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised if he is a fully paid-up member in some television or radio repairmen’s union, and you’ll find yourself with a perfectly legal aerial.” He chose another comfortable chair. “Shall we sit down?” He nodded in the direction of the phonograph. “We’ll let that play. Background sound is a comfort. Inspires talk.” He smiled and for that moment the quiet impassive face warmed into life. Then he glanced at his watch, casually, yet his eyes promised he could be just as businesslike as Lamberti. “As John said, today is rather exceptional. This is the only way I could meet you without losing any time. That’s the real purpose of this visit: identification for future use, if necessary.”
“You’re vouched for,” Mathison said with a grin. “If I meet you in Switzerland, do I know you?”
“I think not—at present. But these things change so quickly. If we have to meet, let me handle it. And it may not be in Switzerland. Austria is what interests us.”
“Finstersee?”
Nield shot a quick look at him, then nodded briefly. “I’ve read your report, of course. What do you really know about that little lake?”
“Just what I wrote.”
“That’s all? Nothing to add?” Nield hid his disappointment well.
“Only a question of my own. What’s so important near Finstersee that would make Yates risk his main operation by starting something on the side?”
“Main operation?” Nield’s eyebrows raised slightly.
And now we are getting away from the subject of Finstersee, thought Mathison with amusement. I’ll have to earn any direct answers, obviously. “Well,” he said, branching off obligingly, “for the last thirty-six hours I’ve been trying to find a shape to the whole problem around Yates. There just isn’t any—if you treat it as one problem. Cut it into two, and you begin to find some sense.”
Nield nodded, lit a cigarette.
“You know all this. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Even so, I’d like to hear you out.” The voice was friend
ly, encouraging.
“Let’s put it this way. One of Yates’s arms stretched towards the United States. In that operation—his main one; it’s been going on for two years, hasn’t it?—he used the cover of Emil Burch and his business in manuscripts and old maps. But his other arm was free to pick up anything interesting, anything he thought extremely useful. Somehow, through Richard Bryant, he had a chance to make a grab at Finstersee. And he did. So, we’ve discovered two operations, quite separate in scope and purpose. Yates was their starting point. That’s their one link.” He watched Nield carefully, but there was only the same non-committal nod. “And that brings me back to my original question: what’s so important near Finstersee that Yates would risk so much?”
“Risk?” Nield asked with interest, avoiding the real question. “Yes, it does seem that way at first. It was the Burch cheque to Bryant that betrayed him. Yet, how else was he to pay Bryant the customary advance on a contract?”
Cash would be too unusual, Mathison thought quickly, and so would any personal cheque signed by Yates. Bryant would certainly have asked questions. And no one would ever have seen that cheque if Bryant had not photographed it for his files. No one would even have known about the contract if Bryant hadn’t written Newhart. “We owe a lot to Bryant, don’t we? Who was he working for—the British? Then they must know about Finstersee.”
“No more than we do. There are always periodic rumours, rather self-effacing ones with very little substance attached, about all that Styrian lake district in the Salzkammergut region. I suppose it’s because the Nazi Foreign Office took over Salzburg; Ribbentrop established himself there very comfortably towards the end of the war. So did some Intelligence units of their SS.”
“You think they may have left some records behind them?”
“It’s one of the guessing games we all play,” Nield said with a disarming shrug of the shoulders. “But we don’t have to guess any longer about Bryant and for whom he was working. We heard from London this morning. Neither he nor Yates was working for them. They don’t believe Bryant was working for anyone. He has been out of Intelligence completely, as far as they know, since he resigned in 1946. That resignation was very quickly accepted, by the way.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing serious. A matter of personal opinions. He had a good war record, but in Vienna he didn’t measure up. The British made a cryptic comment about that: ‘He was the type who liked to choose his wars.’ He couldn’t believe that a former ally was no longer friendly. The Cold War was beginning to raise its ugly head, and he wouldn’t recognise it. Blamed his own side when things turned nasty, and in Vienna they were properly nasty. Anyway, he quit British Intelligence in ’46 with some harsh things said all around. Their last report on him, made in 1956, said he had seemingly ‘mellowed over the years’ and was now less apt to blame the West. At least, he hadn’t drifted into the Russian camp, and that was all that worried the British.”
“So he has been out of touch with them?”
“Completely.”
“And Yates?”
“He bowed out from British Intelligence in 1947. He had been given nothing important to do for almost a year, which means that the British couldn’t have been too sure about him. It was all done very quietly, of course.”
“Too quietly, it seems now.”
Nield looked as if he agreed with that, but resisted any comments and went on with his facts. “He went back to teaching science in school. Then he left for a job in Tokyo, as science editor of an English-language magazine, and branched into running a scientific digest quarterly that was published in Geneva. He came to visit America just over six years ago, in time to impress your Mr. Newhart, who was looking for an international-minded representative in Zürich. His qualifications seemed good, I admit. But as far as being an agent for the British—well, their answer to that question was ‘Not on your life!’ Which,” added Nield with a shake of his head, “is a piece of advice that poor Bryant should have heard.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the heavy smoked-glass ashtray that lay on the coffee table. He seemed to be studying its shape. He spun it around slowly. “You will see Mrs. Bryant, won’t you?”
“Possibly.”
“She might have the answers to a lot of questions.”
“She might. But I don’t intend to ask them.”
“Why?”
“Do you want her killed, too?”
“She may be killed if she doesn’t get proper protection. Her husband needn’t have died, you know. Not if he had been in touch with us or the British. You just don’t go out alone to find—” Nield cut off abruptly. “Not nowadays,” he went on. “You need people with you, and behind you; you need a lot of help when you are up against a well-organised machine. The Nazis may be scattered and they may be few—at present, anyway. But one thing they have always been, and that’s organised.”
“So you believe the Nazis killed Bryant?”
“It’s likely.” Nield gave the ashtray one last gentle spin. He looked up at Mathison. “You had better know one certainty before you visit Bryant’s house again. It will be watched. And anyone who seems to be closely connected with Mrs. Bryant is going to be watched.”
“I’ve already been watched,” Mathison reminded him curtly.
“Possibly the Austrians were checking on you. That’s understandable in the circumstances. They are neutrals, you know. But what you could face now is not just surveillance by a neutral country protecting its interests. It could very well be Nazis, and that is another matter entirely. If they’ve been guarding certain lakes in Austria and Czechoslovakia for more than twenty years, they aren’t going to let their secrets be discovered now—at least, not without exacting their own price. It may be no more than five years before they judge the time to be ripe for them to come out into the open. And when that happens, they don’t intend to come ill-prepared. What they have saved from the past, they’ll keep. If they can.”
“Bluntly, you’re saying that if the Nazis did kill Bryant, because he was edging too close to one of their secrets, then they’ll eliminate anyone else who might just share his knowledge.”
“Exactly. I hope for Mrs. Bryant’s sake—if she does know anything—that she’s playing absolutely dumb.”
Mathison said with a touch of sarcasm, “Until, of course, you can start protecting her.” And what guarantee could there be, anyway?... Dear Mrs. Bryant, we assure you that you’ll be safe for a month. Or would you prefer six months? There is nothing to fear, believe us... “And how the hell do you manage that?” he asked angrily. Damned if I go near Salzburg, he thought. I’ll write her a business letter, enclose the photographed documents for her files. Period. I’m not going to push her into further danger.
“First, we have to learn whatever she knows. Then we can work out a plan to find whatever Bryant was searching for. We’ll take the action. And she’ll be protected, because we won’t let her seem to be connected with us in any way. Don’t worry about that.”
“What if she doesn’t want to tell you anything?”
“Then we’ll have to act on our own. And so will three or four other interested countries. It could be a nasty mess. The Nazis might be the only winners.” Nield reflected for a long moment. “My own fear is that Anna Bryant or her brother—Johann Kronsteiner—will try to go it alone, and they’ll fail. Just as Bryant failed. That would be the real disaster for her.”
“Go it alone?”
“Sell to the highest bidder,” Nield said shortly.
“She didn’t strike me as that kind of—”
“What about her brother? He could persuade her. She sounds the dependent type—the type of woman who leans on someone else. With Bryant gone, who is she going to lean on?”
“She may have more strength than you think,” Mathison said. He was remembering her flight from the Dietrichs’ house, her insistence on staying in her own home.
“Let’s hope the Nazis don’t hear you say that,” Nield said grimly. “He
r best chance at present is to look completely helpless. And totally ignorant.”
Mathison rose, paced the narrow length of his living room for a couple of turns. His anger was cooling and, with it, his resolve to change his plans, not go anywhere near Salzburg, not ask Anna Bryant any questions. He would have to go. He had no intention of probing into her private business, but someone had to warn her to keep quiet. Someone had to tell her she shouldn’t trust people as quickly as she had trusted him. “I’ll try to see her and persuade her to play innocent. That won’t be difficult for her. She is an innocent.” He turned back to face Nield. “You may not like it, but I’m going to advise her to forget all about anything her husband told her—for her own safety.”
“That’s a start at least,” Nield said amicably. The important thing was to reach Anna Bryant. She would decide for herself. He rose, looking pointedly at his watch. “Don’t tell me our aerial artist is going to be late.” But Lamberti was already ringing the door bell. Mathison broke off staring at Nield, went to answer it. Either Nield is a good loser, he was thinking, or I’ve just agreed to what he wanted done in the first place.
Lamberti was regretful. “The super followed me up on to the roof, wanted to see what I was about. He says he won’t have any more yards of spaghetti dangling down the side of his building. So no aerial. Too bad.” He picked up his box of tools and handed the looped length of line to Nield. “Ready? I bet you can’t wait to get out of that fancy dress.” To Mathison, he said with a wide grin, “Chuck is really the diplomat type. You may find it difficult to recognise him next time you meet. Well, good luck with your journey. You won’t forget what I told you?”
“Phone number, no. Keller, yes.”
“That’s it. Good-bye.”
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Nield said.
Mathison turned off his record player, closed the windows, and then stood looking out into the street for a few minutes. Put together the various small pieces of information that Nield had discreetly dropped here and there, and the total result was an indirect answer to Mathison’s first question about Finstersee and its importance. All in all, it had been a fair briefing, Mathison reflected. Incomplete, of course; it had to be. But sufficient to keep him from obvious blunders or way-out guesses that would add to the possible dangers. Danger... Was there really as much at stake as Nield thought?