An unpleasant afternoon.
Waiting. Waiting while the sunshine slipped across the room, and then abandoned it to grey shadow.
Six o’clock at last. Better start choosing a restaurant, some place with its quota of early tourists, some place with leisurely service and good food and decent wine, some place within casual walking distance of Henziplatz, No. 10.
Or was six too early? Perhaps. But this room was getting on his nerves. He picked up the guide-book he had bought that morning and turned to its index of restaurants.
“Looks very much like a shower of rain, sir,” the desk clerk told him cheerfully.
Denning glanced at the downpour on the pavement, and then at the heavy grey clouds overhead. How long would the desk clerk’s shower last? Can’t risk it, he thought: this is a walking kind of night. He went back to his room.
The inner door was closed, but unlocked. The chamber-maid looked round in surprise. Then she smiled. “Towels,” she said, pointing to the bathroom.
“Towels, to be sure.”
“I’ll turn down your bed, sir.” She moved away from his suitcase. Or perhaps she had just been standing there, admiring the pretty rain.
“Don’t you ever stop working?” he asked, and reached into the wardrobe for his raincoat.
“Please?” She was as plump as a pincushion, except for her thin muscular legs. Her hair was dully fair, straight, heavily braided over her ears. Her round face and slightly protuberant eyes were disarming. At this moment she even looked most comfortingly stupid, her pale lips parted, her thin eyebrows raised.
“Rain,” he said, and held up his coat for her to see. No white rabbits, no mirrors, positively no deception.
She nodded sympathetically, and watched him find his hat.
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
“Eva,” she answered, startled.
With a smile, he said, “Good night, Eva.” He closed the doors firmly. “And it’s all yours,” he added softly.
Then, as he walked towards the gilded cage of an elevator, he decided that he was imagining either too much or not enough. That was the trouble with the amateur in this kind of work: the hard-shell professional like Max Meyer would already have summed up the situation and would now be taking appropriate action. It had been a long time since Denning had parachuted into occupied France. Nine years ago was a long time. Then, he had been one of the hunted. And now—after some years in Germany of being the hunter—he was beginning to feel he was one of the hunted again. It was a difficult mental switch to make, but it might have to be made all the same. Might have to be made. Why did he feel that? Why, as he had faced that woman and asked her name, why could he only think that this had happened long ago? He had even been able to guess the startled look he would see in the protruding eyes, before she reacted to his sudden question. He had known that look—not one of innocence surprised, or stupidity suddenly challenged— that look of control, abruptly jolted by a moment’s alarm into fear and suspicion, then just as rapidly recaptured.
The elevator was long in coming, slow in rising. Impatiently, he started towards the carpeted staircase which circled round the elevator shaft. Half-way down, he stopped. That was it, that was it, he’d got it—the woman who had stood in a Norman kitchen and watched him as he had been watched only five minutes ago. The woman whose husband was a prisoner of war in Germany, the woman who was trusted because she was pitied, the woman who was the Gestapo informer. Marthe Boisseau, he’d even got her name now.
He drew a deep breath. That had been quite an effort. Then he realised he had company.
Round the curve of the staircase had come a plodding figure dressed in navy blue, with long black stockings and flat-heeled shoes. A white Panama hat was swinging from one hand, while the other counted the railings with a trailing forefinger. The girl, fourteen perhaps, was standing there watching him.
“Oh!” she said, as if she had only just arrived and must register surprise. Impatiently she pushed a short pigtail of straight red hair back from her shoulder. “Have you lost something?” she asked with excessive politeness, and gave Denning a dazzling smile somewhat dimmed by silver bands over her teeth. “Oh,” she said again, as if she remembered them, and she stopped smiling.
“No, I haven’t lost anything,” Denning said. He stood aside to let her pass, although there was more than enough room.
“I thought I might help you find it,” she said. She didn’t move. Her high flute-like voice had become more grown-up, emphasising its Englishness.
“I’ve found what I wanted,” he assured her. “Thank you.”
She looked at the toe of her shoe, and then off into the middle distance. “You’re an American,” she told him.
“How could you guess?” He had to smile at her serious face, searching so earnestly for the right thing to say.
“I know them extremely well. My sister married an American. He was a general.”
“That’s above my level, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” she said comfortingly, using that long-drawn-out narrow vowel again, “but I don’t think he was a particularly good general.” She gave him a quick side glance to see if she had been tactful enough. Then she looked at the narrow elastic which formed the chin strap to her hat. She twisted it nervously, but her voice still held valiantly to her upper level of conversation. “Frightful weather, isn’t it?”
He nodded. He took a step downward. Yet it was impossible, he found, to slip past those young anxious-to-be-old eyes— deep dark eyes which made the plain little face, with its snub nose and freckles, its pale lips and light eyebrows, somehow pathetic. Whom was she imitating—the sister who had married a general, or her mother, or some character from a nineteenth-century novel?
“I’m English, you know,” she told him gravely.
“No!” he said. “I thought you were French.”
“Really?” She tasted that idea twice. She smiled with delight, forgetting about the hideous bands on her teeth, a wide innocent smile as beautiful as it was ugly. “Of course,” she said, giving him the tilted profile again, “of course I have lived in the south of France. For the Easter holidays, at least. Mother has a friend who has a house there.” And then suddenly she turned sparkling eyes on him. “We saw you today. You were really smashing with the monster.”
He hadn’t kept up with her. He tried not to look puzzled.
“Marie and I,” she said, “we saw you. This morning. Was he trying to steal your bag? He is an absolute horror, isn’t he?”
He remembered the two startled schoolgirls that morning who had watched his encounter with Charles-Auguste Maartens. “Not my brew of beer,” he agreed.
She giggled, then. “We always call him the monster. He’s so hairy when he goes bathing.”
“The King Kong type,” Denning suggested, but he still stared at her in bewilderment. It was all so clear to her.
She sighed. “Well, I suppose I must really go. My friends will all be wondering—” She looked delighted at that idea. “They’re so lazy. They won’t walk upstairs. But I hate lifts, don’t you?”
He admitted he often was lazy, too.
“But climbing stairs is so good for your ankles,” she told him.
“I’ll remember that.”
“All the girls are foreigners, of course, except for me.”
“Hey, there—this is Switzerland,” he reminded her.
“But I know that.” She moved one foot at last on to the next step. Politely, she arched the invisible eyebrows. “I don’t think I quite caught your name?”
“Bill. I agree—it’s a very difficult name.”
“Bill.” She considered that and found it wanting. “Doesn’t anyone ever call you William?”
“Not since I left school.”
“How very odd. It’s all so upside-down, isn’t it?”
“Completely.”
“I’m called Emily,” she said, thrusting her hand out in good tennis-playing style, and then remem
bering to let it go limp. “Hideous, isn’t it? But it’s Mother’s name. I suppose Daddy hoped I was going to be like her.” She sighed wearily.
“And aren’t you?” he asked, letting her helpless hand drop free.
“Oh, no!” She relaxed for a moment and giggled. “I’m Mother’s despair.”
“What about your sister who married an American?”
She looked down at him, now three steps below her. “Is that a joke?” she asked gravely.
“Good for you,” he said encouragingly. He gave a wave of his hand and started downstairs. Then he halted. “About the monster—do you know him?”
She froze with disdain. “Certainly not. I shouldn’t dream of speaking to him. Mother says he’s totally impossible.”
“Your mother knows—I mean, your mother has seen the monster?”
“Only in the distance. But that’s quite enough, isn’t it?”
“Quite,” Denning said thoughtfully. He added, “Perhaps some time before you leave here, you’ll do me the honour of having an ice-cream soda with me?”
She beamed with delight. “If I can get permiss—I mean, if I can arrange it.”
“Tell your teacher I need some lessons in English, will you?”
“I don’t think Mademoiselle Dupre would listen to that—” She looked at him quickly. “I wish you’d smile when you make a joke,” she said sharply. Then she relented. “And I think your voice is really very nice, considering.” She gave him an encouraging nod and began walking upstairs sedately, but once she was hidden from sight she started to run, two steps at one stride, judging by the series of spaced-out thuds.
Emily… Emily and her mother and the totally impossible monster who was so hairy when he went bathing. I guess I do need some lessons in English, Denning thought as he went on downstairs. Translate “bathing” into “swimming”. Then you’d have a beach. Or, as Mother’s Despair would say, the seaside. And “the south of France” could be translated to mean “the Riviera”. And the Riviera had a seaside, where one could go bathing during the Easter holidays.
You’re catching on, Denning told himself half-humorously. Then his amusement ended abruptly. His steps halted, too. The monster… He had been handed Charles-Auguste Maartens on a conversational platter, and he had only picked at the dish. Now, he had two more questions to ask. Could Emily answer them? He half-turned, ready to run back upstairs. But there was only silence overhead. Emily was already with her friends, relating her adventures, or trying to convince the unfortunate Mademoiselle Dupre that the more slowly one walked upstairs the better it was for one’s ankles. She was probably Mademoiselle’s despair, too.
Or perhaps, he thought as he at last reached the lobby, I’m too much on edge. I’m adding up everything, chamber-maids and monsters, into a fantastic kind of sum. Better calm down and leave all this to Max Meyer or Johann Keppler. They could evaluate it. Evaluate? Emily wouldn’t care much for that word, he guessed.
He handed in his key at the porter’s desk. The reception clerk, with the intense eyes and horticultural knowledge, noticed his hat and raincoat, and called over, “I think you are wise, Mr. Denning. It seems to be a prolonged shower. Most unseasonable weather.”
“It always is. But it’s good for the crops.”
“Please?”
“Good for the geraniums.”
“On the contrary, I’m afraid.” The clerk shook his head sadly. “Precipitation such as this—”
Fortunately, there was an interruption.
“Mr. Denning?” asked the clerk on duty at the porter’s desk, leafing through a pile of letters. “I believe there’s a message here for you, sir. Yes, a telephone call. It came this afternoon when you were out.” The man picked up a slip of paper.
The reception clerk, who knew all about geraniums and rain, looked annoyed. He moved along his counter to the adjoining desk. “I’m sorry for the delay, sir,” he told Denning, and then turned on the other clerk. “Mr. Denning ought to have had that message at once,” he said, trying to conceal his irritation from the guest. But the man with the slip of paper—he was a small thin man, dark-haired, weak-chinned—ignored that except to say, “Sorry, Mr. Denning.” And instead of handing over the piece of paper, he chose to read it aloud. “It was a Mr. Meyer who called.”
Denning looked as blank-faced as possible. Careful, he told himself, careful now… “Meyer?” he repeated questioningly. “Meyer…” He held out his hand for the note.
“There’s no message, sir,” said the clerk. “Just the name, and the fact that he called. Mr. Max Meyer.”
Denning had to make a quick decision. He hoped it was the correct one. “Colonel Meyer, you mean,” he said, suddenly recognising his name. “Then that must have been a long-distance call from Frankfurt. And you didn’t let me know about it until now?”
The geranium expert was completely horrified. He looked as angrily as Denning at the sorting clerk, who handed over the slip of paper without another word.
Denning frowned. “If he took the trouble to call me from Frankfurt, surely there must be some message about calling him back?”
“There was no message,” the little dark-haired man said. His eyes were nervous. “I think it was a local call, sir.”
“We can verify that,” said the reception clerk crisply. “Find out from the operator. At once!”
“It couldn’t have been a local call,” Denning said.
“It was, sir, I verified that at the time.” The nervous eyes flickered over Denning’s amazed face.
“I give up,” Denning said in exasperation, as if the whole matter was quite beyond his powers of guessing, and turned away from the desk.
The reception clerk said quickly in his polite, discreet voice, “I assure you this is most unusual.” But the look he threw at the other clerk was enough to shrivel the man’s flesh from his bones.
Indeed it was unusual, much too unusual. Denning pulled on his raincoat, jammed his hat into better shape, and stood at the doorway for a moment looking through the arch of the arcade at the pouring rain. There was one thing of which he could be certain: Max Meyer had not left his name at any hotel desk.
He searched his pockets for his cigarettes.
The doorman said, “Taxi, sir?”
“If you can find one.” He lit a cigarette carefully and waited patiently, a man who had no appointment to keep, whose time was his own, whose evening had to be enjoyed in spite of weather, a simple, harmless visitor whose business was pleasure.
And, waiting, he became convinced of one more thing. They weren’t sure about him. The note had been a test, that was all. They had found some connection between Meyer and himself, but they weren’t sure why he was in Bern. The note had been a test, but he was taking it as a warning. Go carefully, he told himself, go carefully. They may not be sure, but they’re interested. They… Who were they, anyway?”
“Heavy traffic, tonight,” the doorman said, as a free cab drew up at last. “Everyone wants a taxi.”
Three women came out of the hotel, waved to the cab, cried,
“There’s one!” with remarkable powers of observation, and then wheeled in a tight phalanx towards its opened door.
“I beg your pardon,” Denning said overpolitely. “You know what?” he asked the open-mouthed doorman, as the women shut the cab door behind them, “I believe they thought I was trying to steal their taxi.” He slipped a coin into the man’s empty hand, won a sympathetic if startled look, and began walking.
5
THE CAFÉ HENZI
That evening, Paula Waysmith said, “Look here, Francesca, you can’t possibly go back to Falken tonight.”
“Why not? It isn’t so far—it’s less than an hour away by motor coach.”
“By bus, darling. Just simple everyday bus. Your pupils will find American travel peculiar if you teach them things like motor coach and tramcar.”
“Bus,” Francesca agreed. The afternoon had been exhausting: Paula, trying to make up Andy’s m
ind by remote thought-control, hadn’t found an apartment or a house. At five o’clock she had said, “My decider is all worn out. Let’s get back to the hotel and rest, and finish all the rest of our news.” So here they were, back in the Waysmiths’ room at the Victoria, an elegant room of cream and gold, warmly comforting. Francesca was stretched out on one of the beds, Paula lay on the other. They each had a cigarette, their shoes off, a cocktail which Paula had ordered (Americans were even business-like in arranging their comforts, Francesca decided), and the wonderful feeling of having earned it. “Bliss!” Francesca said, straightening her spine and stretching her feet. “The life of the Duchess of Parma.”
“I suppose it isn’t so far,” said Paula, thinking of Falken, a small village with pretty little houses scattered over green slopes. It was definitely pure country, not a touch of suburb: just unpaved roads leading from a wandering street, an inn for skiers in winter and walkers in summer, two shops, historical assets (a seventeenth-century church and an eighteenth-century bridge over the Falkenbach which chattered through the village), cowbells, cockcrows, the smell of hay and farm mud and sawed wood and barns, the smell of the hilly meadows which stretched out between the houses, the smell of the woods circling around. “Strange how quickly the country begins outside of a Swiss city,” she said. She was perpetually surprised by the shortness of distances in Switzerland.
She frowned, thinking up another reason to keep Francesca in Bern. “Still, I wish you’d call up your aunt and tell her there’s a spare bed here for you tonight. Listen to that rain!”
“I’m a country girl nowadays,” Francesca reminded her. “What’s rain?”
“You’ll come down with another attack of grippe. Besides, if you go back to Falken, I’ll have to spend a wet Thursday night all by myself in Bern.”
Francesca smiled. “Yes, Thursday makes a wet night particularly bad.”
“Then you’ll stay?” Paula asked quickly, pressing her advantage. “Wonderful. Where shall we eat?”
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