“Nasty types. The one who pointed his automatic at my spine had been following me around this morning.”
“Here? In Zürich?”
“Yates lived in Zürich, remember? But let’s leave all that until later and not spoil our appetites.”
“I have a thousand questions,” she warned him, and glanced at the package in his hand. Cough medicine? She shook her head trying not to laugh.
“After lunch,” he insisted, and had his way.
13
Sedate suits, immaculate Chesterfields, grey Homburgs, thin attaché cases grouped in small clusters near the doorway of Bill Mathison’s hotel. The bankers were waiting for the cars to take them to luncheon or a conference, perhaps both. The junior men crossed the sidewalk, while the older ones stayed inside the shelter of the lobby, hats in their hands, their heads, with their closely brushed hair, an array of shining grey helmets.
“It will soon be over,” the porter told Mathison as he collected his key at the desk. “They start leaving tonight.”
“Think of the fun I’ve missed by not being here this week.”
“Please?”
“A very impressive sight.”
“Indeed, yes. A very great honour.”
“Any messages?” A rhetorical question, as much a matter of habit as of hope. My friends in Zürich, thought Mathison, are not the type to leave messages at a hotel desk. Possibly, too, their business with me is over. Gustav Keller’s nimble disengagement this morning is a fairly good indication of that. I’m the fellow who may ask too many questions. Where is quiet Frank O’Donnell, for instance? Any chance of meeting him here, or is he already on his way back to New York to pick up the threads of his investigation of the Burch angle of Yates’s peculiar life? And Charles Nield—is he already in Salzburg, concentrating on Bryant and Finstersee? Plagued by his own questions, which kept bobbing up no matter how he tried to push them firmly to the back of his mind, Mathison could imagine the barrage he would have to face over a lunch table today. Lynn Conway was too intelligent not to be curious, and if she was responsible for the Zürich office for the next few weeks, she certainly had to know some basic answers. Just what can I tell her? he wondered.
“No messages,” the porter said. He had searched thoroughly through pigeonholes and undercounter shelves.
“Thank you.” Mathison turned to face the lobby, straightened his tie, hoped the popped button didn’t show, and made his way around tall green plants in huge majolica pots to the quiet corridor where the elevators were hidden.
“Bill!” It was a woman’s voice. “Bill, how wonderful!”
Elissa? Good God, he thought, and I didn’t telephone her; I forgot all about it. He turned slowly. And it was Elissa Lang, dark hair loose to her shoulders, grey eyes teasing. She was dressed in the same smart fuzzy tweed coat, the same flat-heeled buckled shoes.
“You never telephoned,” she said laughingly as they shook hands.
“I just got back to Zürich this morning.”
“Where on earth have you been?”
“New York.”
“How cryptic!”
“Oh, I had to go there for some consultation.”
“Was the contract so involved as that?”
She has a good memory, he thought. Now what did I tell her about Bryant’s contract? Nothing very much, surely. Just an offhand mention when she asked about my business in Salzburg. “No. It was a matter of letting the publisher know the details so he could make up his mind what to do. And how are you?”
“Let’s talk about us over a drink in the bar.”
“Sorry, Elissa. I have a lunch date for one-fifteen. And after that I have to be at the office. But what about a drink this evening? Or lunch tomorrow.” He frowned. “No, tomorrow may be filled with business, too.” Or that trip back to Salzburg, he thought. “Let me phone you this evening: I’ll be more definite then.”
“Come and have a drink now,” she pleaded. “Just half an hour. I’m leaving Zürich.”
“So soon?”
“I’ll tell you all about it in the bar.” She turned and led. He could do nothing but follow, glancing worriedly at his watch. Half an hour would bring them to one-fifteen. He would have to keep this chat to twenty minutes. It was always the way, he thought wryly: last week in Zürich, he hadn’t talked with one pretty girl: today he had two beauties on his hands. He did remember to pull off his coat, hand it with a tip to an aged retainer in the lobby with instructions to have it sponged and pressed and in Room 307 within half an hour. His jacket had been protected by his coat and looked all right. He adjusted his tie again, and concealed the gape of his shirt at its neck. One of his shoes had been badly scuffed, right over the toe. His favourite shoes, too, dammit. They’ll never be the same, he thought with annoyance as he chose a table near the door.
“Nothing intimate?” Elissa asked with that enchanting smile, which she was turning on today in full force. She glanced at one cosy corner where the subdued light scarcely carried, but sat down without any further comment and let him help her with her coat.
“Too many bankers around.” There were a few, here, who seemed to be cutting classes. Or perhaps they had business of their own to attend to. The huddled heads looked serious. “Now what’s this about leaving Zürich?” he asked, determined to keep the conversation on Elissa. That was the surest way of avoiding his own complicated affairs. “The Martinis are good, by the way. Will you risk one?” He ordered two with neither olive nor pearl onion.
“Purist,” she told him. “Remember that funny little café near the foot of the castle hill?”
“Yes. Too much vermouth, you warned me.”
“You do remember,” she said delightedly. “That was a perfect evening, wasn’t it?” She was studying the other tables quietly. The room was fairly spacious—it had probably been a small reception hall before bars had become a necessity—with softly shaded wall lights set into its dark wooded panels, and there was no feeling of crowding. Everyone sat at white-clothed tables, small islands unto themselves; there was no bar to stand at, no open array of bottles in front of mirrors, no high stools, not even a visible barman.
“Slightly on the short side,” he replied. “How was Schloss Fuschl?”
“Too sentimental for words,” she said, “but I suppose that’s the right tone for farewell parties.”
He said nothing at all. He wished he had never asked. Then he could have enjoyed an excellent Martini without wondering why she had lied to him in Salzburg. But he deserved this feeling of awkwardness that had unexpectedly attacked him; after all, he had set that little trap, and that annoyed him too. Except he had to know. Her answer had been important to him. He had got it, and it wasn’t the answer he had wanted. He looked at her face and thought sadly, you are much too beautiful to tell lies. And why such an unnecessary one?
“You are depressed,” she said.
“I was just thinking we seem fated to have an interrupted drink together.” If the waiter didn’t arrive soon, he wouldn’t have time to do anything but gulp it down.
“Couldn’t you phone and tell your friends that you’ll be a little late for luncheon?”
“No.”
“Then it’s another woman,” she said, laughing. “Why don’t you postpone her until tomorrow? And your business appointment, too? Then we could have the rest of the day to ourselves. I’ll be leaving soon, and then you’ll have all the free time in the world.”
“You’re always leaving, aren’t you?” The drinks had come, and he welcomed the interruption; he didn’t need to think what he would say next as he signed his name and room number on the cheque.
“My grandmother’s ill. She has two nurses, and the house is like a morgue. Oh, she’ll live to ninety. It’s just a matter of—well, senility. She’s slipping away gradually as far as memory goes. She doesn’t even recognise me. Sad, isn’t it? She was such an energetic kind of old lady.”
“That’s grim.” But was it the truth? The trouble
with one silly lie was that it kept casting its shadow around. Then he chided himself once more; he was becoming too damned suspicious. Why should Elissa lie about her grandmother? “So you are staying with your friend?”
Elissa shook her head. She said dejectedly, “No, all my plans collapsed around me. My friend gave up her apartment last week and moved to Geneva.” Her mood changed to one of amusement. “It would have been pretty useless if you had called that number I gave you. You didn’t, did you?”
“I only arrived this morning,” he reminded her.
“Oh, yes... Have you still got it?”
“Right here.” He fished out his address book and found the page.
“Let me see,” she said lightly, her arm extended over the table, her hand open. “You know, I’ve had the most awful feeling that I didn’t remember that number correctly when I first gave it to you.”
It was the only entry on the page. This was the first time he had actually looked at it since he had written it down in Salzburg. Then, it had only been a string of five figures, quickly scribbled. Now, they seemed familiar. I’ve seen that number somewhere else, he thought. He took out his pencil and scored it through. “Where are you staying?” he asked, ready to write her new number.
“Here.”
“At this hotel?”
“They managed to find a room for me. I’m sure it is one the bankers rejected. It’s a dull little place with no view at all.” Her arm had remained lying across the table. Unexpectedly, she picked the little book out of his hand and looked at the opened page. “I knew it,” she said in dismay. “Oh, Bill, I’m so sorry. You could have called this number until doomsday and never found me. It was just a matter of the last two numerals; they should have been fifty-three, not thirty-five.” She gave him back the address book, opened at the page. “There isn’t much use in keeping that. Is there?” She shook her head over her idiotic mistake. Her dark-brown hair swung softly, fell over her brow. She brushed it back carelessly. She seemed completely at ease, and yet Mathison had a strange feeling that she was waiting.
He didn’t take the subtle cue; he made not one move to tear the page out of the book and hand it to her with an appropriate joke. Instead, he laughed the whole incident off while he looked hard at a number that had become definitely interesting. “No use at all,” he agreed. “Unless I frame it as a memento of our first meeting.”
“And always keep remembering me as that nitwit Elissa? Really, Bill, you are a cruel and horrible man.”
“That’s me,” he said cheerfully, and slipped the address book into his pocket. He glanced at his watch, frowned.
“You have to leave,” she said slowly. “But must you?”
“I’ll have to telephone right now that I’ll be fifteen minutes late. I’m sorry, Elissa.” He reached for her coat, pulled it around her shoulders.
She didn’t move. She looked at him, her dark-grey eyes wide, softly appealing. “Telephone and say you can’t come. Please, Bill... Let’s have this afternoon together.” She reached across the table, touched his hand with hers. Her fingers caressed his gently.
He drew a quick breath. He raised her hand to his lips, then laid it beside her glass. “I’ve got to go,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed the invitation.
“Then go!” she told him angrily. She looked away, took out a cigarette and lit it before he could reach for his matches.
“I’ll call you later,” he said awkwardly, and rose.
She ignored him completely. So he left.
But as he again waited for an elevator to make its slow return to the ground floor, she came running into the corridor. “Oh, Bill,” she said, and threw her arms around him. “Please forgive me. That was no way to end a drink together. It’s just that I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” She reached up and kissed him. “This is how to say good-bye.”
“You make it sound much too final.” His voice was coldly polite.
“I’m leaving tonight.”
Behind them, the elevator opened its door automatically. He glanced at it, easing himself out of her embrace.
“I’ve just had—” she began, and then took his hand and stepped with him into the elevator. “I promise I won’t keep you late,” she assured him. “Any later than I have,” she amended, and laughed.
“What floor?” He was waiting to press the right button.
“Three.”
That was his floor, too. So he pressed and they were on their way.
“I’ve just had the offer of a job,” she said. “It’s in Salzburg.”
That surprised him. “I thought you were on your way home. Father’s orders.”
“Oh, I phoned him last night and I think I persuaded him to see things my way. After all, a job is a job; it is not just wasting time trying to learn how to paint. That was what really worried him. He thought I was drifting. But with a steady job, I could earn enough to finish my art classes too.”
“That depends on the job, doesn’t it?”
“It’s interesting, but I’ll have free time. You see, there’s a man in Salzburg who has quite a big interest in skiing—he deals in sports equipment and arranges competitions and all that kind of thing. He needs someone who can ski, talk several languages, and be a sort of counsellor and friend to groups of foreigners who will be coming to the mountains around Salzburg this winter.”
“Are you sure you’ll have any free time?” he asked, his sense of humour returning. They had reached the third floor. They began walking along the corridor.
“What I wanted to ask you,” she was saying as they reached his door, “was this: suppose you were one of my friends in Salzburg and had given me farewell parties and all that, what would you think if I were to return within a week?”
He looked in amazement at the pretty upturned face. It was completely serious. Women will always astonish me, he thought: who else would worry about something that mattered so little? He opened his door. “It would give me a chance for another farewell party,” he said lightly.
“Now, Bill—” she remonstrated, and stepped into his room even as he turned to say good-bye.
“I have to telephone.” He wasted no time either, but walked straight over to the table beside his bed and picked up the receiver. “Please get me the Eden au Lac Hotel’s number,” he said crisply. “Call me back when you reach Mrs. Lynn Conway there. No, I don’t know her room number.” He replaced the receiver, noted that his coat had been returned warm from pressing, and took off his jacket. He hung it over the back of a chair.
Elissa had closed the door behind her and stood with her shoulder against it. “What would you think, Bill?” she insisted, “Would I look ridiculous?”
“Crazy, perhaps; but not ridiculous.”
“Then that’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I don’t mind being thought crazy.”
“Done your way, it has a definite charm.” He was keeping his voice brisk and businesslike. So were his movements. He took off his tie, found a new shirt. “I’m going to change,” he said, heading for the bathroom.
“Will you be going to Salzburg?”
“Possibly. There’s a day’s business to clear up.”
“Will you be staying—”
The telephone rang. He picked the receiver up and turned his back on Elissa. “Lynn? I’m sorry. I’m five minutes late as it is, and I’ll need another ten. I got all jammed up at this end.”
“Don’t worry,” Lynn said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “I haven’t even unpacked. I’ve had a visitor. Miss Freytag. She came to welcome me and see if I was comfortable and brought me flowers. Wasn’t that a nice thought? And we’ve been having such an interesting talk.”
He dropped his voice. “Is Freytag with you now?”
“Yes.”
“And I told her to take the day off.” My God, he thought, surely we aren’t going to have her hanging around for lunch. Or are we?
“Well, in a sense it is,” Lynn said cryptically, taking care not to hu
rt Miss Freytag’s feelings. “By the way, we had a phone call from your more-or-less policeman. He seemed much less annoyed than he was in the hall.”
“Oh?” He heard a sound of movement near the door and turned his head. Elissa was about to leave. She blew a kiss as she held up one glove.
Lynn was saying, “I’ll brief you about it when we meet.”
“Ten minutes from now? I won’t keep you waiting this time.”
“That would be fine. I’ll be down in the lobby.”
“Tell Miss Freytag that her plan worked beautifully. It was much better than mine would have been.”
“I’ll give her your thanks. Bye now.”
He replaced the receiver and turned around. The room was empty. He hadn’t even heard the soft closing of the door. But no harsh feelings, he thought with relief, remembering Elissa’s gestured kiss. It was odd though that she had the unexpected good sense to slip away, particularly when she had been left dangling in the middle of a question. But, he supposed, if she wanted to see him again, she’d soon discover where he was staying in Salzburg. She had found out this hotel by remembering his remark about a bankers’ conference, hadn’t she?
He changed in four minutes, including a fresh tie and shoes and suit. As he quickly emptied the pockets of his jacket on the back of the chair, he found his address book was missing. It should have been in the side pocket where he had slipped it when he was in the bar. Had he dropped it there? He would take a hundred-dollar bet that he hadn’t. It had been in his pocket. He was sure of that. Tight-lipped, angry, he locked his door and didn’t even wait for the elevator but ran down the three flights of stairs.
At the bar’s entrance, he hesitated. He might as well check. The place was almost empty now, and his table was unoccupied. That was good luck, at least; much less embarrassing than scrabbling around strangers’ ankles. His luck held. Under the edge of the tablecloth, almost by the leg of his chair, he found the small address book where his foot had kicked it. But how the hell he could have been so bloody careless as to drop it instead of putting it into his pocket—that made him even more annoyed with himself. Well, he had lost a hundred-dollar bet. And, he thought, as he pocketed the book safely but quickly and made for the exit, he owed Elissa a very big apology. Damn it all, that girl unsettled him. She was crazy, certainly, in the way he liked craziness; but there was something else that disturbed him, a sort of elusiveness, a kind of question mark that kept raising its unpleasant eyebrow. Perhaps if he hadn’t been caught up in all the troubles that stemmed from Eric Yates, he might not be so ready with his suspicions. Too ready. They were becoming a habit, and not one that he wanted.