Standing among the old wooden buildings in the steady, cold, Norwegian rain, I studied the lighted windows for a moment. I was feeling a bit shy after my evening dip in the harbor. I saw that there was an outside staircase leading directly to the upstairs dining room, bypassing the snack bar below. I took that, and looked through the glass of the door. They were still where I'd left them over an hour ago: Hank Priest and his rather colorless young lady-friend.
There are two kinds of operations. There's the precision-mission in which Agent A stays at point B for C number of minutes after which he proceeds at D miles per hour to point E. This hardly ever works as planned. Somewhere along the line somebody slips by thirty seconds and the whole schedule goes to hell. Opposed to this is the seat-of-the-pants operation where you're told to hang around a likely area as long as you feel you may be needed there, and then go to some other spot of your choice, where your talents may come in handy, as fast as your instinct tells you. With luck, and the right people, this sometimes clicks. Apparently, I had some right people on my side tonight. At least, something had kept them dawdling over their coffee so I could find them when I needed them.
I opened the door and, overcoming my shyness, marched right over to the table hoping that, in this dismal weather, my coat and hat would do a reasonable job of covering the fact that underneath I was actually wetter than any normal rain would account for.
"Excuse me," I said when the two of them looked up at me. "Excuse me, I was here before, sitting right over there, remember? You were kind enough to help me with the menu."
"Yes?" It was the girl who spoke.
"I seem to have misplaced a book," I said carefully. "I was wondering if I'd left it here."
"A book? What kind of a book?"
"A guidebook," I said. "A rather special guidebook. I'll be lost without it."
"Oh. Well, I'm afraid it's not here, at least I didn't see. ... Why don't you ask the waitress. Hank?"
"Of course." Priest called the woman over and spoke to her in Norwegian. He turned back to me, shaking his head. "No, she says you left nothing behind, old chap."
"Oh, hell," I said. "Well, thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you."
"No bother at all."
I walked out. At the bottom of the stairs I retrieved a bundle I'd tucked out of sight; then I stepped around the comer of the building to wait, shivering uncontrollably from time to time, but the cold was irrelevant. We dedicated professionals, sustained by our fierce sense of duty, protected by our rigorous training and conditioning, are immune to hardship, or supposed to be.
The relevant fact was that it was conveniently dark back here in the Hansa boys' historic old compound—I hadn't come' across any references to Hansa girls in my hurried research; maybe they'd all stayed home in Germany where it was warm. Anyway, it was dark and it was raining harder than ever. Both facts were in our favor if our retired naval hero—the Skipper, for God's sake!—would just get his damned seagoing butt off the bench and out here before I froze to death.
Then they were coming down the stairs. Priest was helping the girl with her coat, gray like her sweater and slacks, one of the long, tailored, cover-up jobs reaching almost to the ankles. The two of them stopped at the foot of the wooden stairs, looking around.
"Over here," I said.
Priest was struggling into a shapeless, colorless, British-type raincoat. He had on a tweed cap that matched his suit. He must have had lots of fun getting the props together for his I-say-old-chap act but, I reminded myself, the guy had stuck around where I could find him. After all, he wasn't a total greenhorn. He'd been through some wars. He might not be much of an undercover operative, but apparently he did have a useful feel for a combat situation, if you want to call it that.
. He had something else. just before stepping off the bottom of the stairs, he made a small signal with his left hand. The man at the comer of the building nodded, and strolled across the little courtyard, and signaled to the man up the alley, who joined him. Both headed towards the street, and vanished. I wondered briefly how our tame nautical expert had managed to recruit local help—at least they had that look—but after all, he did seem to speak the language; and an ex-Norwegian named Priest wasn't any more unlikely than an ex-Swede named Helm. Maybe he had family in these parts. I watched him approach with the girl.
It was hardly a time for social amenities, with a crisis on our hands and the rain pouring down. Still, aside from our brief encounter earlier in the evening, we hadn't seen each other for a couple of years, and some kind of relationship had to be established, or reestablished.
"A long way from Florida, Captain," I said. "I was very sorry to hear about Mrs. Priest, sir."
I mean, the dead girl might have got by with calling him Skipper, and I'd known him well enough once to call him Hank for a week or two, but you've got to be careful with these gold-braid guys, particularly the retired ones. Some of them can't seem to forget the rank they once held and it breaks out on them like a rash any time they find themselves with a little authority. I was going to have to work with the man. I didn't want to antagonize him right at the start. I didn't want to make the same mistake twice in the same night. After all, if I'd taken the trouble to show the proper gentlemanly deference to the girl called Madeleine, maybe she wouldn't have felt it necessary to go off and powder her nose and get herself killed.
"Never mind the condolences," Priest said curtly and for a moment I was glad that I'd stirred him properly. Then he grinned, displaying the little squinty, seadog wrinkles around his eyes. ''And never mind buttering up the old retread with all that phony respect, son. I know what you think of amateurs in a situation like this—just about what I used to think of landlubbers on shipboard." He held out his hand and I shook it. "As we say in the Navy, it's good to have you on board, Mr. Helm."
"Maybe," I said. "And maybe it's not as good as somebody hoped it would be. As they say in NASA: 'Houston, we have a problem.' A serious problem."
There was a little silence. I was aware of the girl turning her coat collar high against the rain, but she said nothing.
"Evelyn?" Priest asked at last.
"Evelyn?" I said, frowning.
"Evelyn Benson, alias Mrs. Madeleine Barth. Has something happened to her?"
I said deliberately, "Earth. Well, it's about time somebody told me my lady-love's last name—my late lady-love's last name."
Priest drew a long breath. "She's dead? Who—"
"Does it matter right now?" I asked. "I know the guy, and I'll deal with him if it becomes necessary, but first we'd better decide on some kind of alternate plan, if possible."
The pale girl stirred beside Hank Priest. "You're supposed to be a tough, experienced, competent agent, Mr. Helm. That's why you were picked to help us. You were supposed to keep Evelyn safe—"
Priest said, "Never mind, Diana.''
-But—"
"I said, never mind!" Captain Priest hadn't spent all those years in command for nothing. His voice had a nice military snap to it. He went on: "As Matt has already hinted, very delicately, the briefing was inadequate. We were so afraid of betraying her to the others that we apparently didn't give sufficient information to the man who was supposed to protect her. My fault. I didn't expect. . . . I assumed his mere presence would be enough to discourage any attempts. ." He stopped, and glanced my way. "Where is she?"
"Among the rocks at the end of Festnungskaien with a nasty, fatal dent in her cranium."
He winced, but didn't protest the graphic description. The girl, however, seemed about to resent it vigorously; but he cut her off before she could speak.
"You have more experience with this sort of thing. Matt," he said. "What can we do now?"
"About her?" I said. "I'll give you a number. Call it, and she'll be taken care of discreetly, saving the Bergen police a lot of trouble. Such accidents happen in this business; and we keep people around who know how to deal with them, even in this cold corner of the world."
M
ac had indicated that there were things, like how much expert help was being provided me, that I didn't need to tell a lot of people about, presumably not even Hank Priest. Let the old salt think that it was all just routine and that we normally kept burial details standing by to gather up the stiffs as they fell, all around the world from the frozen north to the frozen south.
He didn't seem particularly interested, however. He was more concerned with the dead girl.
"Tell us what happened.''
"I went to my cabin," I said. "She came, kissed me dutifully and we went through the long-time-no-see routine. There was a sailor-type waiting in the hall with her bags. I'd seen him before, lounging by the gangplank when I came aboard. He hadn't offered to carry anything for me, but what the hell, she was prettier than I was, it figured okay. But obviously the guy had been hanging around waiting for her."
"You mean, you think he knew her by sight?" Priest frowned. "I really thought our security was better than that"
I shook my head. "If they'd known her by sight, they wouldn't have cut it so close. I mean, why wait and risk taking her out from under the nose of a trained bodyguard, if I may flatter myself a bit, if they could have hit her anywhere? I think they knew the ship and the cabin but not the girl — not until she showed her ticket to the purser and he told her where to find her stateroom. That gave them the identification they'd been waiting for, and they moved in, or he did. The ship's people knew he was a passenger, but if he wanted to help a good-looking girl with her luggage, it was nothing to them. She, on the other hand, thought he was just one of the crew doing his job. As did I, more or less. When she wait to her cabin to tidy up a bit, he went with her, of course, with the bags?!
"You should have stayed close to her!" the girl in gray said quickly.
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "I should have stayed close to her; and I surly do thank you for pointing it out. When I decided she'd been gone long enough, and went looking, she wasn't there. Her purse was open on the bed. I figure she'd been fumbling for something to tip him with when he put a gun in her back and marched her up to the deserted deck above, on the side away from the dock. He clubbed her over the head and dumped her over the rail. Then he joined a friend who'd probably been acting as a lookout; and the two of them went back to watching the passing show. Well, I managed to second-guess him well enough to make the intercept and fish her out, but she died on me. Scratch one Barth."
The girl said sharply, "Evelyn was a rather nice person, Mr. Helm! You might at least show a little—"
"Cut it out," I said. "We haven't got time for showing remorse for our errors, or respect for our dead, sweetheart. The ship sails in twenty minutes. Somebody up the coast is expecting—"
"Well, they're just going to be disappointed, aren't they?" the pale girl said. I remembered that Priest had called her Diana. She didn't look much like a Diana to me. She went on sharply: "I mean—since we're being so brutal —if Evelyn's dead, she's dead. There's nothing we can do about it now, and standing here in the rain isn't going to help—"
"That's where you're wrong," I said. "Standing in the rain may help a lot. It will help even more if you go over and stick your head under that leaky rainspout."
Her eyes widened. "Why in the world should I—"
"Because your hair's too light, Diana X, or whatever your name is. Getting it good and wet will darken it just enough, I figure, until we can get the right chemicals to do the job. Anyway, your hairdo's different, pulled back schoolteacherishly like that, but if you loosen it up and let it kind of wash down your face, maybe nobody'll notice, particularly if you're wearing my coat over your head like a tent to keep the rain off, the way girls do, hopefully, even after they've got themselves thoroughly soaked in a storm. The only catch is, we've got to get going before it. double-crosses us and stops raining hard enough to make your act look plausible."
The girl was staring at me, aghast. "You're mad!" she breathed, and turned to Priest, and said, more uncertainly: "He's crazy. Isn't he. Skipper?"
I said, also speaking to Priest: "Evelyn Benson told me several things before she died, among them the fact that the people with whom she expected to make contact up north knew that a woman was being sent— but they didn't know what woman. They didn't know Madeleine Barth.
That means, since they seem to be kind of shy folks who'll panic if the signals are switched on them, that I can't make the deal with them, whatever it is. But Miss X, here, can."
The girl spoke in a soft, preoccupied way. "My name is Lawrence, Mr. Helm. Diana Lawrence."
"Hi, Diana Lawrence," I said. "Well, what about it?"
The funny thing was that, now that the initial shock of my suggestion had worn off, she was interested. She was giving it serious consideration; and it wasn't merely a question of her duty, or of her loyalty to, or love for, the older man beside her, who was responsible for this project, now threatened. I remembered the dying girl referring to her scornfully as his pale, doting shadow.
But it wasn't dutiful compulsion I saw in her eyes. What I saw was a kind of fascination; a low-down, reckless, to-hell-with-it-let's-flip-it look. Apparently this pale kid in gray had always, shy and withdrawn, dreamed secret dreams of suddenly becoming a sexy, fearless, wicked Mata Hari. Her hands went up and started withdrawing the pins from her sedate, now rather damp, hairdo. . . .
"No, Diana." That was Priest. "It's too risky. You've had no training, no preparation. ..."
"You warned me there'd be risks when you offered me the job," the girl said. "Robbie ran risks. Evelyn ran risks. Why shouldn't I run risks, Skipper? What's so special about me?"
I asked, "Who's Robbie? I've got names coming at me faster than I can field them tonight."
"Robbie's dead," said Diana Lawrence. "Never mind about Robbie, Mr. Helm. You said we were in a hurry. Well, hurry up and talk him into it."
I shrugged, and turned to Priest. "Give it some thought," I said. "At the moment, we're short one Barth, female. Either we put a substitute into play or we concede the game." I shoved the soggy bundle I was holding into his hand. "There you are. That's what Mrs. Madeleine Barth was wearing when she went over the ship's side. That's what she'll be expected to come aboard in, if she comes back aboard. I don't suppose they'll be much fun to put on, but it wasn't much fun getting them off her, either. I'd hate to think I'd done it for nothing, but it won't kill me. just say the word, Captain Priest, either way, so we'll all know where we stand, sir."
Sometimes even the best of them have to be reminded who's supposed to be running the show; particularly when it's a kind of show they're not really used to running. Priest glanced down at the rolled-up garments he was holding, sodden with rain and harbor water. He looked at me, frowning a little.
"It's an ingenious idea, son," he said. "But why go to all that trouble? If we do decide to put her aboard, why can't she just go aboard as Diana Lawrence?"
I said, "Aside from the fact that I don't particularly want to arouse curiosity and suspicion by trying to explain to the ship's company why I've traded one girlfriend for another, I'd rather not hand the opposition any victories I don't have to, Skipper. If they're allowed to think murdering young ladies under my nose is easy, they'll be right back on the job tomorrow, plugging for victim number two. However, if I can shake them up a bit, with an apparent failure, and a few other shocks I have in mind, depending on how it develops, Miss Lawrence's future becomes considerably brighter." I glanced at the girl. "Are any of the people with whom we'll be dealing likely to recognize you?"
"Probably not," she said. "The contacts up north certainly won't. As for the gang that's trying to muscle in, if that's the right underworld phrase, it depends on how thoroughly they've checked us all out. My feeling is that I'm . . . well, too unimportant and inconspicuous for them to have noticed me particularly."
I studied her a little more closely. Any girl who'll admit that she's unimportant and inconspicuous has got to have something going for her, if only honesty. I turned to Hank Prie
st.
"My point is, if we're going to use her, we might as well use her as Madeleine Barth, if she's willing to tackle the impersonation, and she seems to be. The big decision is whether to use her or not. If not, have you got an alternative, sir? Besides getting a bottle and getting drunk, I mean; and even that isn't really practical, considering the crazy liquor laws they have around here."
Except for a slight frown, he ignored my frivolity. He said, "You seem to forget that at least one man saw Evelyn board the ship as Madeleine Barth: the man who murdered her. According to you, he had an accomplice who may also have got a good look at her. Even if you manage to get Diana aboard undetected, her impersonation isn't going to fool them for very long."
I said, "Captain Priest, sir, may I remind you of your own words? This is the sort of thing I have experience with, remember? I wouldn't be asking Miss Lawrence to climb into a dead girl's clothes if I didn't think she could get away with it. Leave Ivory and his cohorts to me."
"What do you know about Ivory?" Priest asked quickly.
"Just what a dying girl told me," I said. "She indicated he was probably responsible for the attack on her; an interloper trying to horn in on our game, I gathered. She also said we'd be dealing with a mystery man whose name she couldn't recall—the crack on the head had made her memory a bit spotty—but whoever he was, he had in his employ a guy named Denison. What do we know about a Denison, Skipper?"
"Nobody knows much about Denison. He's just a kind of bodyguard and dirty-works man for Kotko. You may have heard of him,'' Priest grimaced. "I don't like having to cooperate with a robber-baron type like that; but he does have the know-how we need for this job, so we've come to an agreement with him. The details don't really concern you."
Nothing is harder on the digestion of a man in my line of work than details that don't concern him. "Kotko," I said grimly. "That would be Lincoln Alexander Kotko, the notorious invisible millionaire who shaves his head in imitation of a Prussian Junker or a couple of Hollywood actors; the guy who owns all the oil wells Faisal can't be bothered with."
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