Across the room, Lynn watched him with more than surprise now. What on earth did I start? she wondered in dismay. He had written down something, was looking at it with a deepening frown, his mind far, far away from this room. She welcomed the knock on the door that brought the coffee tray. She poured quickly, keeping her silence. (He took two lumps of sugar, no cream, she recalled.) Quietly, she placed the cup within his reach. He nodded his thanks. He was taking out his wallet, searching in its small stamp pocket. She fought down her curiosity and went back to the coffee tray for her own cup.
“This may be it,” he said, almost to himself. He was unfolding a scrap of paper that had been hidden between the stamps. On it was the telephone number that Anna Bryant had given him: Yates’s very private number which Bryant had been supposed to call early last Monday morning. He compared it with Elissa’s number that he had jotted down from memory. They were identical. “They match!” he exclaimed, “by God, they match!” and looked up to find Lynn staring at him. He began to smile, and then to laugh.
She found she was smiling, too, although heaven only knew what there was to be amused about. “So we won?” she tried tactfully.
“I wouldn’t say that. But we did retrieve something from the disaster.” He had spoken lightly, still feeling his success. And then he thought of what might have been, and he sobered up. He looked at her for a long moment. “I think the explanations begin here and now.” He rose, stood hesitating. There must be no mention of Yates and his Burch apparatus in America, not one word about the FBI and their problem with highly enriched uranium. No mention either of Charles Nield’s interest in Finstersee: in fact, no actual naming of the dark lake. He’d stick to Bryant and his contract, Yates and his confidence tricks, and try to keep everything circulating around Salzburg. That would be enough to shock her anyway.
“Are they so difficult?” she asked sympathetically. She sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her cigarettes and an ashtray.
“I’m just getting them arranged in sequence,” he said, playing for time. No lies. That was the one good rule. “Okay. Here they are. You know why I went to Salzburg originally?” He lit her cigarette and one for himself.
She nodded.
“Well, this is what happened...” He began pacing back and forth in the small space of unoccupied carpet, and then—as his story really began to flow—he dropped into an armchair. Half an hour later, he had ended.
She was shocked, all right. “So Yates was really the head of a spy ring? And Elissa Eva Langenheim Lang was possibly more than his mistress? Who were they working for? The Russians?”
“I asked about that, but didn’t get any definite answers. Professionals are always so damn cagey when they are dealing with amateurs. My own guess is that they were working for Peking.”
“Are you serious? I mean, Peking is having so many troubles of its own. Have the Chinese any time left to bother with Europe?”
“They won’t give up any foothold they have. And they’ve got strong ones, not only in Europe, but in America, too. Have you ever known a Communist who doesn’t plan for ten years ahead?”
“Or who doesn’t keep trying?” She shook her head sadly. “Like the Nazis,” she added. “You really think the Nazis may have killed Bryant? Because he had some piece of information about them that they wanted to keep secret?”
“That is what his wife thinks.”
“And you believe her.”
“She was right to fear Yates, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. But you can be right about one thing and wrong about others. Is she really to be trusted?”
“You’d have to meet her to know that. You’d have no doubts then.” He looked at her frankly, his dark eyes holding a glint of humour. “And if you are wondering now whether I once had any doubts about Elissa, the answer is slightly yes and mostly no. I can be fooled by a woman, I admit it. But Anna Bryant isn’t like any woman I’ve known.”
“I’d like to meet her.” The remark had been involuntary. She looked at him quickly, startled by the idea that had just entered her mind. “When are you going to Salzburg?”
“Well, since the office is closed for a long week-end, I might take the chance to visit Salzburg tomorrow. The sooner the better.”
“Need any help?” After all, she thought, I am in the firm of Newhart and Morris; I’m its meanwhile-representative in Europe, aren’t I? If I were a man, I’d just say I was going. But as a woman, I can’t even seem to be pushing. Won’t it dawn on him that I should be there? It concerns the Zürich office, doesn’t it? But it hadn’t dawned.
He was saying, “No! You keep out of this, my girl.” He relaxed a little. “At any other time, yes. But now—no, no, you stay in Zürich.”
“And spend my week-end dodging Miss Freytag?” She laughed to conceal her disappointment. “I just thought I might be useful. When you talk with Mrs. Bryant, that is. It is bound to be difficult. She must be in some kind of delayed shock. They seem to have been a really happy couple.”
“They were.” He looked over at the telephone. “What’s holding back New York?”
“If they had been unhappy, I suppose it would have been a kind of release, a bad way out but yet a solution...”
He glanced at her curiously. What kind of married life had she had? She hadn’t even mentioned her husband once, all through their conversation at lunch. And that, he reflected, was odd. Women who had been happily married kept dropping their husbands’ names; that was one of the little crosses the next husband had to bear. Yet, there had been no touch of bitterness, either, when the conversation had touched on men. “You know,” he began, but the telephone rang and cut his compliment short.
“New York,” said Lynn, and reached for the receiver. “You’d better break the news about Yates.”
“You can handle it,” he assured her. “I’ll wait until he gets around to Salzburg.” And once that’s all settled, he thought, I’d better call Keller and get rid of my latest piece of news. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling to realise that he might be the only person in Zürich who knew Elissa Lang’s double identity. Not the only person, he thought with a stab of worry as he looked over at Lynn. She was talking intently, her face grave, keeping to the simple facts. Discreet, Jimmy Newhart had called her. Yes, she would be discreet about the information he had given her. But was discretion enough of a safeguard against someone like Elissa Lang? A cold cloud of worry descended on him.
“Your turn, Bill,” Lynn called to him, “Jimmy wants to speak to his legal adviser.” She covered the mouth of the receiver. “He is terribly depressed. He thinks we are going to be caught up in a whopping scandal. Cheer him up a bit.”
And who’s going to cheer me up? wondered Mathison as his worry increased. I told her too much, dumb blundering ox. He mustered a reassuring grin for her puzzled eyes, took the receiver, and adopted his very best bedside manner. “Hello, Jimmy! Now you can relax. It’s all out of our hands, isn’t it?”
Across the room, Lynn gave him her warmest smile, and even with Newhart’s strong voice blasting his eardrum, he felt his heart melt.
14
Mathison returned to his hotel, picked up his room key at the desk. He was in a gloomy mood. His attempt to reach Keller by phone had been useless.
“A message for you!” the porter called after him. It had been quickly written by the telephone operator and read: Miss Freytag would like to see you tonight at seven. Bergstrasse, 19. Most important.
“Where is Bergstrasse?” he asked the porter.
“You go up Rämistrasse and then—”
“It’s near the University then?” That was the district where Greta Freytag lived, he remembered.
“Not far. You turn to your right before—”
“I’ll let the taxi driver get me there.” Mathison went on his way to his room. He would have to call Lynn and ask her to postpone dinner until eight, even eight-thirty. Either that or call Freytag and tell her he couldn’t make the appointment
. Yet he hesitated to turn her down. Most important, for one thing. For another, her feelings bruised easily. She must be thinking that he had been laughing at her all the time she was talking to him about Eva Langenheim. Besides, he owed Miss Freytag considerable thanks. Even a three minutes’ delay in the arrival of Inspector Keller and his men would have had unpleasant results for William Mathison this morning.
His call to Lynn pulled her breathless to the phone. He could hear a heavy gush of water in the background, so she was probably running her bath before she took that sleep she had promised herself. “How’s the unpacking?” he asked.
“Practically finished.”
“I’ve just had a message from Miss Freytag. She wants to see me at seven.”
“Oh... Then we’d better postpone dinner. Bill, why don’t we cancel it altogether?”
“Cancel it? You have to eat, don’t you?”
“I’ve been thinking of a tray in my room, and then some more sleep. That’s how I feel. Honestly. It wasn’t just the flight here. So much has been happening, so many things to think about, that I am almost numb with exhaustion. I wouldn’t be very good company tonight.”
And was she also thinking about Newhart’s call from New York? Jimmy had come up with one of his own bright suggestions the minute he had heard the office would be closed until Tuesday: why not go to Salzburg, both of them? Lynn would be a restraining influence on Bill, funny joke ha ha; keep him from overgenerous impulses on the settlement he’d draw up with Mrs. Bryant. (Yes, Jimmy, you get funnier by the minute. One more crack like that and I’ll start calling you Scrooge and we’ll both wish we had never opened our big mouths.) He didn’t argue now. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said quietly, “before I leave for Salzburg. And Lynn, I wish I could take you with me on the trip, but I don’t think it would—”
“Be wise,” she cut in. “I know. I understand. I really do.” Her polite voice told him she didn’t understand one bit.
“I’ll explain later,” he tried.
“See you when you get back,” she said. Her voice rose in alarm. “I must dash—the water—” The receiver banged down.
Damn Freytag, damn everything, he thought as he jerked his tie loose, pulled off his jacket, and settled down with his homework on the Nazis that he had begun on the plane. He was almost through his rereading of The Last Battle searching for the sections that dealt with the breakdown of the Nazi machine, with the last scrabble for safety and self-preservation by its top organisers. Some were dead, some had been tried, some vanished. Names and places, that was what he wanted to know. Who had been stationed in Salzburg, worked near there?...
The telephone rang. Keller, at last, Mathison thought and plunged for the receiver. But it was Charles Nield’s voice, abrupt and cool in spite of the easy phrases. “What about having supper with Maria and me and the kids?”
“I have an appointment at seven. Otherwise, I’d be delighted.”
“Then I’ll pick you up earlier and we can eat at six.”
“That’s right; mustn’t keep the kids up too late.”
“We’ll save time if you start walking towards the Limmat. I’m just leaving the office.” And that was all.
Mathison closed his book, switched off the reading lamp. It was now almost half-past five. Start walking towards the Limmat... He had better stick to the sidewalk that edged the street and not cross over to the darker promenade. He dressed quickly, and hoped he was getting the message correctly. Nield had sounded in no mood for mistakes.
He picked up the note from Miss Freytag with her address on it, locked his door, and set out for his walk along Uto Quai.
It was a cool, crisp evening, and dark. Lights from the hotels and large houses that overlooked Uto Quai were sparkling brightly, and across the lake’s black waters the low hills were roped with a glitter of shining beads. There were other people walking, mostly away from town, with coats buttoned up and briefcases bulging. Traffic was fairly heavy on the street, a swift moving stream of taxis and small cars. Mathison kept to the outer edge of the sidewalk, resisting the temptation to look around or seem anything other than a man stepping smartly into town. Nield, he reflected, would have his work cut out for him.
He had barely covered the distance of about two hundred yards when a small dark car, almost like one of the less expensive taxis, pulled up just ahead of him. The front door was open by the time he reached it. Nield’s voice said, “Hop in!” He obeyed, and the car was moving forward even as he pulled the door shut.
“Pretty smooth,” Mathison said.
Nield said nothing. He was watching his rear-view mirror as much as the traffic ahead of him. He had got rid of his banker’s suit; he wore a heavy tweed jacket and flannels and a turtle-neck sweater, and might have been an instructor at the University or one of those self-prolonged students at the C. G. Jung Institute. As he manoeuvred the car through the mixture of gardens and trolley-car rails that nested at the head of the lake, he relaxed. “If we were spotted,” he said, “they didn’t have much time to do anything about it. Thought we would do some sight-seeing while we have a little talk.” He swung the wheel to his right and started climbing the busy street that circled around the University’s hill. He turned left before they were half-way up Ramistrasse, and now they were driving slowly through the district of narrow little streets with close-packed squares, that stretched thickly from the University’s heights right down to the old guildhalls on the River Limmat. The spread of the modern city, with its bright lights and feeling of space, had given way to the tight dark clutch of the Middle Ages.
“I’d say this was sinister except that it’s in Zürich,” Mathison tried. The silence in the car bothered him. Nield was not one to lack conversational gambits.
“It’s safe enough, even without Keller’s men keeping an eye on this street.”
Mathison looked quickly out the window. The street was so narrow that even the lights from the few small shops and the three stories of flats above them seemed dimmed. The car was travelling leisurely. He noticed one shop was an antiquary’s, another was for second-hand books, and farther on there was another bookshop.
“Thought you’d be interested in this one,” Nield said. The sign over its door read EMIL BURCH—DEALER IN FINE BOOKS, MAPS, MANUSCRIPTS. “Too bad we can’t risk browsing around inside. It’s a cosy set-up.” He slowed the car still more, bringing it to a smooth stop before the narrow street turned into a small cobbled square.
“Can we risk browsing out here?” Mathison asked sharply. “Keller’s men have probably got their eye on us right now.”
Nield lit a cigarette. “The ground floor was legitimate business, if you can call any cover that. Above was storage, again perfectly legitimate. The two top floors were Burch’s supposed living quarters—when Yates got around to visiting there. A good place to talk with various people who came into the shop as possible customers and then walked quietly upstairs for a meeting, or instructions, or delivery of information. Keller’s men have already intercepted two of them.”
“And aren’t the Nazis keeping an eye on the place?”
“Strangely enough, they never did learn about Emil Burch. They were watching another of Yates’s hide-outs, which a Soviet agent was kind enough to point out to them several weeks ago. So Keller learned today from one of the men he arrested—the one who tailed you, as I heard it.”
“That other hide-out is the one with the telephone number I was to forget completely?” Mathison was on edge. Nield’s quiet watchfulness was disconcerting. “Lucky I didn’t.” He could be cryptic, too.
“Why?”
“It matched.”
“What?” Nield was irritated.
“Elissa Lang’s number. She’s the girl who was having a drink with me today.”
“Elissa Lang... Didn’t I see that name in your Salzburg report?”
“As an added note in Frank O’Donnell’s handwriting, no doubt. I really was damned stupid about all that.” If he had just st
opped mumbling to himself about invasion of privacy, he might have speeded up this whole investigation by a couple of days. But the truth was he had not believed that either Elissa or her phone number in Zürich was of any importance to anyone except himself. Mathison ended his unpleasant stocktaking as he became aware that Nield was now watching him intensely. “I was just examining my damaged ego,” he said with an attempt at lightness. The atmosphere in the car was oppressive; the first thunderbolt should strike any minute. What the hell’s wrong, he wondered, apart from my own blunder?
“So your Elissa Lang uses Yates’s telephone number?”
“Yes, and we’d better get that word to Keller right away. The trouble with you fellows is that you don’t tell people where you can be reached in an emergency. I tried one call from an outside pay telephone, this afternoon, to police headquarters. Keller couldn’t be found. All I could do was leave my name and hope he’d figure out my address when he got around to calling me back. Of course, by this time he must have seen Miss Freytag and studied her photographs of Langenheim and Yates. And he must also have heard from Freytag that Eva Langenheim is back in Zürich. But what he doesn’t know is that Elissa Eva Langenheim Lang is returning to Salzburg tonight—if she’s telling the truth for once.”
Suddenly the mounting tension in the car ended. “How long have you known that Lang and Langenheim are the same girl?” Nield asked slowly.
“Since around half-past two this afternoon.”
“Oh, well,” said Nield, and laughed with relief. He started the engine, and the car moved gently away from the narrow street where Keller’s men were within call. “You’ve answered the question that has been worrying me for the last five hours.”
“And what was that?”
“What was Eva Langenheim to you?”
Mathison thought back to the scene in the bar. “That must have puzzled you.”
“It scared me stiff. I kept wondering if I had made the biggest blooper of my career when I told you too much in your apartment. Much too much, if you were Langenheim’s friend.”