“No, he wasn’t. He was a writer,” replied Macdonald. “Now there’s one last question I’d like you to answer, Mr. Webster. When you spoke to me at Schwechat you mentioned the old opera singer, Hedwig Waldtraut Körner, and you said there was a story which brought her into the news. What is the story?”
“That? Oh, that’s neither here nor there, sir, not so far as all this is concerned. It’s just one of those silly stories which get into the gossip columns. I brought the cutting for Auntie to see—in World Pictures it was. ‘The Hapsburg Jewels’ was the heading. It said the old emperor—Franz Josef—took a fancy to Waldtraut Körner in the long ago and gave her a famous necklace or tiara or what have you, and some chap raked the story up and said the old lady was going to wear the sparklers when she’s present at the reopening of the Opera House here. You ask any newspaperman in Vienna—they’ve all got one version or another of the same story, or so Auntie tells me. Romance stuff, I call it—just what some of the picture papers like, a bit of old-fashioned scandal and some outsize diamonds: that’s a recipe which always goes down when there’s no straight news.” Webster stared at Macdonald for a moment and then chuckled. “Look here, sir, if I gave you a wrong impression, I’m sorry. The trouble with me is I talk first and think afterwards. I mentioned the Waldtraut Körner dame to you on the spur of the moment—famous diamonds plus C.I.D.—the sort of thing which comes into my head when I’m looking for a caption for a picture. Silly, I know—but I dare say I am silly. There’s just the one thing I’m good at and that’s remembering faces. I’ve made my living out of that and I’m proud of it.”
“You’ve a right to be,” rejoined Macdonald. “Well, thank you very much for answering all my questions, Mr. Webster. How long will you be staying in Vienna?”
“Perhaps it’s not for me to say, sir,” rejoined Webster, and for once there was irony in his hearty voice. “I’d like to stay till this story gets sorted out. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll do it: and maybe you’ll let me in on the picture angle if there’s anything doing in that line.”
After Mr. Webster had gone, Macdonald called in his young interpreter—the English-speaking Austrian policeman who was detailed to assist the C.I.D. man, who had been in a position to hear Mr. Webster’s conversation.
“You heard the story Mr. Webster told about Waldtraut Körner’s Hapsburg diamonds, Schmidt. Had you heard of it before?”
“Yes, sir. As the gentleman said, it was a bit of gossip—scandal you call it?—which got into some of the papers when Waldtraut Körner came back to Vienna. Nobody believes it—no sensible person.” The young man paused a moment and then added, “If she had any ‘Hapsburg diamonds’ she would have sold them long ago. Life was hard for her after the war.”
“That seems common sense to me,” agreed Macdonald.
“This Mr. Webster, he likes romances,” said Schmidt. “Romance pays better than common sense in the picture papers.”
“Quite true—but he gets some of his facts right,” said Macdonald, “and it’s true he remembers faces. He remembered mine—and told me so when he needn’t have.”
CHAPTER XII
IT WAS THAT admirable witness Hans Flüchs who had testified that Neville Walsingham had visited the Grünekeller the previous evening, and the Hietzing police had obtained a list of other persons present at the inn as far as could be ascertained. Glancing through the list (without much hope of enlightenment), Macdonald spotted the name of Herr Friedrich Vogel of 159 Neueweltgasse and the C.I.D. man’s exclamation of “‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Alice,” completely foxed his Austrian interpreter, who had never heard of Alice.
“Never mind,” said Macdonald. “Can you tell me anything about Herr Vogel? Has he ever attracted the attention of the police?”
Vogel, it appeared, had never been charged with any offence against the law, but he was. considered a slippery customer and was known to have been pro-Hitler when it was profitable to be so.
“It’s odd,” said Macdonald. “Mr. Webster, a passenger on the Viscount, waited on the pavement, out of sheer goodness of heart, and saved me having to hunt for him. Herr Vogel, acting as host to Mr. Stratton (another passenger on the Viscount), is almost equally accommodating, having attached himself to last night’s party, and his residence is conveniently situated in Hietzing. I think we will visit Herr Vogel and his guest next.”
As he was driven to Vogel’s apartment, Macdonald remembered passing Vogel’s Volkswagen, with young Stratton aboard, when he left Schwechat airport. “Vogel was pointed out to me,” he pondered. “Was I also pointed out to him?”
Herr Vogel was at home. He lived in a small flat on the first floor of a rather depressed-looking house and he opened the door himself and gazed at his two visitors with evident curiosity but without surprise. The subsequent interview was conducted through the medium of the police interpreter, since Herr Vogel regretted that his knowledge of English was but rudimentary. In one way, Macdonald found the method satisfactory: his own German was beginning to come back to him, in the way a long unused language can revive when heard again, and he found he could follow most of Vogel’s answers and had additional time to assess them while they were repeated in English. The interview started by an inquiry for Mr. Charles Stratton. Vogel regretted that Herr Stratton was out at the moment, but was expected to return for Mittagessen. Was there anything he (Vogel) could do to be of assistance? Macdonald then gave his own name and status, and they were invited into Herr Vogel’s extremely tidy (and very stuffy) office.
“You will doubtless have heard of the accident to Mr. Walsingham on the Wattmanngasse?” asked Macdonald (who spoke throughout via his interpreter). Vogel had indeed heard of it—a tragic and deplorable happening.
“Then you know that two accidents occurred within a few hours of each other,” went on Macdonald. “Both to English nationals who left London on the same aircraft last Monday. You will understand, therefore, that an inquiry is being made regarding other passengers who travelled on the same aircraft, so far as their whereabouts are known.”
Vogel bowed. “That,” he observed dryly, “was a natural precaution on the part of the police.”
Macdonald then asked for the circumstances whereby Mr. Charles Stratton came to stay with Herr Vogel.
“Mr. Stratton, I take it, is a friend of yours?”
The answer was a long one, but Vogel expressed himself clearly and straightforwardly. “I was in London last year on business,” he said. “I was making inquiries for a client concerning the death of my client’s brother, the latter having gone to London as a refugee during the war. It was a matter of testamentary dispositions, deceased having been named as co-executor with my client. It was necessary to get documentary proof of death. During my stay in London, I made contact with a German-speaking lawyer to whom I applied for professional help—a Mr. Bowley of Chancery Lane. It was through Mr. Bowley I made contact with Mr. Stratton, professionally I might say. Mr. Stratton had relatives in Germany and he had lost sight of them during the war. He had reason to believe that one of these relatives had gone to Vienna, and Mr. Bowley suggested that I might assist in tracing this person. I have not succeeded in doing so, but I suggested to Mr. Stratton that he might care to come to Vienna to look into certain aspects of my inquiries.” Here Herr Vogel paused: he had been talking slowly, in order to allow the interpreter time to translate each phrase into English. Finally he said, “I think I have said as much as I should, having regard to the confidence which exists between principal and client. If you wish for further information in this matter, you can ask Mr. Stratton himself.”
“Certainly,” agreed Macdonald. “I take it that you are a lawyer, Herr Vogel?”
“I am a qualified lawyer. Owing to my health I no longer practise, but I undertake certain commissions or inquiries for which my legal training qualifies me.”
“Do you mean that you are a private detective?”
“Certainly not,” replied Vogel. “The inqu
iries I undertake have no bearing on crime.” A bell jangled as he finished speaking and he added, “Excuse me. I will go to the door: my housekeeper is deaf.”
He got up with more alacrity than might have been expected from one of his build and lethargic appearance and returned in a moment or so. “Mr. Stratton has come in, Herr Superintendent. You would doubtless prefer to talk to him alone.”
2
Macdonald had no difficulty in recognising the young man he had studied at Schwechat airport and whom he had glanced at cursorily in the Viscount. Charles Stratton was a tall long-limbed fellow with a well-shaped dark head: his hair was thick and straight and somewhat unruly, a lock tending to flop forward over his eyes. He was pale-complexioned and he wore noticeably big horn-rim spectacles: Macdonald guessed that he was shortsighted and noted again the supercilious expression which detracted from the pleasantness of a face which was good-looking enough to attract attention. Stratton gave him a steady stare.
“Good morning. Superintendent Macdonald? My name is Charles Stratton. I remember seeing you at Schwechat. So that garrulous little cameraman was right in his identification.”
“I take it. you mean Mr. Webster,” rejoined Macdonald. “He spotted me all right. He seems to make a habit of spotting people.”
“He may be good at remembering faces, but I think he talks a lot of hot air,” rejoined Stratton. “Well, Superintendent, what brings you here?”
“I am on duty, acting on instructions from the Commissioner’s Office in London to co-operate with the Vienna police,” rejoined Macdonald. “As you probably know, there have been two accidents to English nationals in this district, both persons concerned having travelled on the same aircraft as ourselves. I am trying to locate other passengers on the same plane.”
“I read about the girl’s accident in this morning’s paper,” said Stratton, “and I heard about Walsingham’s death a few minutes ago, in the bar of the Neuebaukeller. Was Walsingham a writer—J. B. S. Neville?”
“He was. Did you know him?”
“No. I never met him, but I’ve heard him talked about,” said Stratton. “I write a bit myself and so get to hear some of the chirp and chat that goes round among the publishers and agents. What is it you really want to know, Superintendent?”
“First, to identify travellers in the Viscount: next, to ascertain their reasons for being in Vienna.”
“I see. The assumption being that one of us indulged in assault and battery,” replied Stratton. “It’s not for me to argue the soundness of your reasoning. As to myself, my name you know. My address in London is 20x Trinity Court, Gray’s Inn Road. Occupation, tutor in modem languages at the Bloomsbury Coaching Association, also part-time novelist. Reason for being in Vienna, holiday plus research into family ramifications. Vogel probably told you that bit.”
“He told me that he had been making inquiries on your behalf.”
“Perfectly true. Do you want chapter and verse?”
“I should be interested to learn a little more. You speak excellent German, Mr. Stratton.”
“I was born in Germany, though I was registered as a British subject. My father was in a shipping company and he went to Hamburg when trade was picking up in 1925 and I was born a year later. As a kid I lived in Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Barcelona—hence the modern languages. As for the family research—if you want to know it and much good may it do you—here it is. My mother left my father in 1938 and went back to Germany to five with her half-brother—Wilhelm, or Bill as we called him. He is a German. I heard from my mother just before war broke out in 1939. Then nothing until 1946, when I had a card sent through the Red Cross to my grandparents in London. It was posted in the Russian sector of Berlin. Ever since then I’ve been trying to trace my mother and Bill. I’ve got on their tracks once or twice and I think they’re alive—but I’m not even certain of that. I got a report from a chap in a D.P. camp that Bill had got a job in Austria and my mother was in Vienna. So when I happened across Vogel I asked him to make inquiries this end. Eventually he asked me to come over here because he thought he’d spotted them. He hadn’t, of course. It was all quite futile—but I’m glad to have seen Vienna.”
Stratton broke off, and Macdonald sensed a different person behind the supercilious mask: a being at once more sensitive and more troubled.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever had to apply your detective technique to the problem of ‘Displaced Persons,’ ” said Stratton. “Some still rot in camps: some keep moving and survive somehow, often on faked or stolen papers: some develop a cover story which really does cover their origins. I know enough about it to be careful of making straightforward inquiries: the subjects of the inquiries might not thank you.” Again he broke off, his deep voice uncertain, and then he added, “Well, you asked me. There it is: one of a million similar stories. Displaced Persons are still a blight right across Europe. And if you can connect up all that with a motive to bat the Vanbrughs’ guests over the head, well, tell me the answer.”
“What I am really trying to do, in the first stage of the inquiry, is to get information about the passengers on the aircraft,” said Macdonald. “It may seem a futile proceeding to you. A lot of detection proves to be futile—like your inquiries about your mother and brother: but sometimes facts do emerge which give us a pointer. I hope they will do so in your own inquiry, and I should like to thank you for telling me the facts as you did.”
A smile twisted Stratton’s mobile lips. “I’ve got a modicum of horse sense,” he retorted. “If a chap like you starts a police investigation in a place like Vienna, there’s obviously something serious behind it. If I’d told you to go to hell, or the equivalent, you’d have got busy on me at the London end, and you’d soon have found out that I’d been chasing lost relations in Eastern Europe. I think it was more sensible to tell you myself.”
“Much more sensible,” agreed Macdonald, and Stratton went on:
“Then I’m staying with Vogel. I don’t want to crab him, he’s been very decent to me, and I think he’s the right sort of bird for the job I want him to do. But for all I know, Vogel’s stock isn’t too high in his native city: and on the whole it may be better for you to know just why I’m his guest. Mutual convenience rather than mutual esteem. Now what about the Viscount? I hope you don’t expect me to be full of information, like Webster. I never notice people I’m travelling with. I generally hate the lot of them.”
“When did you first notice Mr. Webster?”
“At London Air Terminal. He tried to get chatty while we were getting on the bus. I hate chatty people when I’m travelling, so I took evasive action. Once on the plane I had my head in a book all the way to Zurich. I thought that girl next to me was going to be one of the talkative variety: anyway, she fussed. So I changed seats at Zurich and struck it lucky—I got a place to myself. Then Webster had another go at me during the wait at Zurich, but I didn’t answer him.”
“Are you always allergic to people while you’re travelling?” asked Macdonald.
“I never talk to people in trains and planes if I can help it. Once they start talking to you they never leave off. Women are worse than men, generally speaking, but a man of Webster’s type is the worst of all. He’s pachydermatous, no snub penetrates his hide.”
“You sound rather embittered,” said Macdonald. “Now getting back to Zurich: did you notice any of the B.E.A. passengers during the wait there?”
Stratton groaned. “Lord, oh lord. That’s the sort of question I loathe answering. I don’t notice people: for one thing I’m hopelessly short-sighted, and for another I’m not interested in humanity in bulk. Who did I see at Zurich? I saw you, for one, and the girl all the fuss is about: you and she had coffee sitting near the windows I saw the tall white-haired bloke—a V.I.P. of some kind, judging from the way he was met on the tarmac. I saw Webster, because he came and spoke to me. That’s about all. You see, I didn’t join in the general milling about; I had a drink and then stayed put. I bought
a couple of newspapers and glanced through them—and that’s about all.”
“Can you remember where Webster was when you first noticed him at Zurich?”
“Just behind you, near the window. I noticed him because he’s such a preposterous-looking object. I think he was standing beside another bloke who was in the same group as ourselves when we were shepherded into the main hall—a greyish nondescript-looking bloke. I remember seeing him as we first got in the plane, but I can’t describe him. Sorry, but that’s the best I can do.” He paused and stared at Macdonald with the intent gaze of the short-sighted. “Webster picked on me again this morning,” he went on, “up by the Gloriette. He plumped himself down beside me and fairly started in babbling like a ten-year-old. I think he fancies himself as a detective.”
“He’s got certain qualities which fit him for the role,” said Macdonald.
“A memory for faces—which I haven’t,” said Stratton. “But all this hot air about Rimmel’s brother—I just don’t believe any of it. He makes things up—at least, that’s my opinion. Webster’s a laughing stock to look at, but he’s a romantic at heart. I believe he kidded himself I was a notability of sorts: anyway, he’s been more or less chasing me round Vienna, and finished up by taking a photograph of me up at the Gloriette. ‘Student of history in the shadow of the Hapsburg’s Folly’—that’s typical Webster. Caption-minded.”
“What do you mean exactly by his chasing you round Vienna?
“Oh, that’s an exaggeration, but he just pops up where I happen to be. I was at Schönbrunn on Wednesday—so was he. I went to the Streicher film last night: so did he. I went to the Liesingerkeller after the film, so did he—and told me so this morning, cool as brass. Said he was feeling lonely and would have liked to talk to a fellow-countryman. Then this morning he pops up again. I’m tired of him.”
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