Pray for a Brave Heart (17 page)

“That’s all right, that’s all right,” Keppler said reassuringly, patting the silent dog. But Denning felt the words were meant for him too. The dog, a massive German shepherd, gave a panting smile and lay down again on the landing. “He has a habit of barking at every visitor when he is kept in the garden,” Keppler explained. “At night, it is less disturbing for the neighbours to have him here.” So much that Keppler said seemed so simple, on the surface.

“I’m out of training,” Denning said, as he looked back down the staircase and saw, now, an innocent house. Keppler caught his true meaning.

“You can relax here,” he said. “I always do. This sort of place is my safeguard. For in my kind of work, the greatest danger is to become abnormal.” He shook his head. He looked at this moment like a grocer who had worked late making out his monthly bills, or a schoolteacher who had spent the evening grading exam papers.

They entered a most private apartment, small but simply arranged for work, eating, and sleeping. Plainly furnished, but comfortable. Quiet, too; secure. The strong door had an elaborate lock. And on one side wall there was another heavy door, barred. (“That leads to an outside stairway down that side of the house,” Keppler explained and smiled as he added, “with four steps which creak abominably.”) The windows were narrow and short. (“And no balcony,” Keppler said, his eyes following Denning’s glance. “Ever since an unfortunate experience in Geneva five years ago, I don’t like a balcony outside my windows.”)

Denning looked round the room again, and then chose a chair. Yes, this room was so normal in spite of its quiet precautions, that tensions were loosened, nerve ends stopped vibrating, and the mind slipped from worry into calm. Near his chair was a gramophone, a pile of records, a stack of foreign magazines. Wooden shelves fixed against the wall held some dictionaries, books on psychology, on wood carving, on folklore, a mixed stretch of poetry—Browning, Heine, Pushkin, Rilke, Spitteler— and a large box of cigars. This was Keppler’s own particular corner, but Denning was too exhausted to move. He watched Keppler,
busy with a small electric cooker which stood conveniently, if inelegantly, near his desk and typewriter. “It’s quiet here,” Denning said. Quiet and secure. He began to relax.

Keppler brought over two cups of hot chocolate. “The gourmet would lift his eyebrows,” he said, “but the sad truth is that neither good food nor excellent wine ever solved any real problems, only pleasant speculations. And tonight our problems are very real, our speculations far from pleasant.”

The hot chocolate was too sweet for Denning’s taste, but the extra lump of sugar was probably part of Keppler’s cure, too. He drank it, anyway, and in spite of his doubt he felt better. More confident, for one thing. And his brain was beginning to function properly again: it had stopped jumping from Eva to Charlie-for-Short, from the bogus Maartens to the missing Taylor, from why and what to how and when, so that nothing had been clear except an oppression of worry and urgency.

“Now,” Keppler said, laying aside his own emptied cup and leaning back in the chair opposite, “how do you feel?” His voice, like his actions; was leisurely. Don’t worry, don’t rush, he seemed to be saying.

“Better.” Denning almost smiled. “Thanks,” he added. “I’ve a lot to tell you, but it’s hard to know where to begin.”

“At the very beginning. When you arrived in Bern. Tell me about everyone you met, everything you saw and heard, suspicious and unsuspicious. Even the smallest thing can be of the greatest importance. And don’t forget Emily.”

Denning’s smile was natural, at last. He began his account of what he had seen, what he had noticed, what had puzzled him, ever since he had met the man who called himself Charles-Auguste Maartens in a corridor of the Aarhof.

There was no interruption from Keppler, except an occasional sound like “Uh-huh!” or “Mm-mm” as he registered either interest or foreboding. But, almost at three o’clock, as Denning was reaching the last phase of his story, the telephone bell rang. Keppler said, “Hold it! Don’t forget a thing!” and he hurried over to his desk.

He listened to the call with obvious excitement. “Good, good,” he said briefly. “You know the arrangements.” He put his finger on the telephone cradle, to end that conversation, but he didn’t leave the desk. He began making a call of his own. As he waited for the connection, he grinned widely at Denning. “Meyer’s message is all there, clear as a dry Sunday. Another hour or so, and we’ll have it.”

Then he began speaking into the telephone again, now using one of the numerous dialects you could find in Switzerland. To Denning’s ears it sounded like one of the impossible Romansch group; there wasn’t a word that he could begin to understand— if you were Swiss, he thought, small wonder that you weren’t afraid of languages—but he did notice that Keppler was giving instructions for the first half-minute, then he was listening for the next four minutes, and whatever he heard was, first of all, good, and then bad.

He came away, fuming. Something troubled him. But he said nothing, sat down opposite Denning again, and cut a cigar with great attention.

“Yes?” he said at last to Denning, after he had lit his cigar. “And so the woman Eva came into the Café Henzi. She didn’t know Meyer at first—you’re sure?”

“She learned his identity only by recognising the pattern formed by the cigarettes and matches. That drew her
attention, I noticed.”

“And how did she know that? Who told her?”

“It could have been Charlie-for-Short—they could have questioned him before they killed him.”

“They…” Keppler said. “Well, it won’t be long before we see their faces clearly. They’ve hidden themselves well, but not everything went right for them tonight. They may be forced to act too quickly, to reveal themselves… Sorry. Go on.”

Denning went on with his story. Keppler remained silent. Even after the story was ended, he remained silent. He studied the ash forming on his cigar. He seemed completely relaxed, almost too casual, sitting there with his head resting easily against the back of his chair. Then his blue eyes, blank of expression, turned toward Denning. “And what are your plans, now?”

“Plans?”

“You aren’t here under any military orders?”

“No.”

“Then you are free to go on with your holiday in Switzerland?”

Denning looked at him in amazement. “Just what do you take me for?” he asked.

Keppler ignored that. He continued, evenly, “Meyer’s death will be investigated, of course. Other Americans will come to Bern. They may not care to have—well—” Keppler hesitated in sudden embarrassment. Or was this his way of being tactful?

“An amateur complicating their investigations?” Denning suggested. “They needn’t worry. Nor need you. I’ll keep as far away from them as you will keep from me.”

“But what do you intend to do? That’s the question.”

Indeed it was. “I—I don’t know.” Wasn’t Keppler going to suggest something?

“That is what worries me. I can understand why you want to stay here. But I—” Keppler shrugged his shoulders.

“But you don’t approve of it?” What was this anyway, Denning wondered angrily—a cool dismissal?

“As a human being, yes. As a security officer, no. That’s being frank.”

“You sound like Le Brun.”

Keppler shrugged his shoulders.

“Where is he, anyway? Still talking about a hoax?” Denning asked, his bitterness no longer disguised.

“Meyer’s death ended all arguments about that,” Keppler said quietly.

“That’s just fine,” Denning said savagely. “A man has to die in order to be heard.”

“I, too, didn’t altogether believe Meyer’s story,” Keppler said. “Not at first, not until it was too late. In that sense, I—” He paused, his voice sharpened. “I didn’t do enough to protect him.” Denning thought, and if I hadn’t been a friend of Max Meyer, would I have trusted his story completely? Would I have gone over to the Café Henzi, or waited in the Square, or noticed that pack of cigarettes? “I suppose Le Brun was only acting according to his book of rules,” he conceded at last.

“We all have our rules,” Keppler said. “And in addition, Le Brun suffers from an acute case of a nagging superior officer. Results, results! That explains much. Including the fact that Le Brun has left for Genoa.”

“Genoa?”

“His theory is that this outburst of violence is only to distract our attention from the diamonds. He believes they must already be out of Switzerland. He may be right.”

Denning rose. He looked at Keppler. Then he turned away. “How far is it to my hotel on foot?” he asked. “Twenty minutes?”

“So you’ve stopped trusting me.” Keppler shook his head sadly.

Denning said, “I trust, when I am trusted. No more, no less.”

“You think I don’t trust you? Because I won’t tell you the latest reports I got over that telephone?”

“Why don’t you?”

Keppler said, “And if you were I, how would you act?”

“Warily, I suppose. I can see your point of view too, you know.”

“Can you?”

“I was only Max Meyer’s friend. Isn’t that your problem?”

“Now, come,” said Keppler with some annoyance. “I’m not quite so—so haphazard as all that. I did learn what I could about you before I even would write a note signed Elizabeth.” He thought of the report from Meyer, and of the files he had studied. “I know a little,” he said slowly. “September, 1941, you were a student at Princeton, specialising in French and German. By February, 1942, you were in the army. Then North Africa—as an interpreter. Then London, in OSS, under Max Meyer’s command. April, 1944, you parachuted, into northern France. In 1945, you were in Germany, transferring along with Meyer to the section that was searching for missing property. In 1946, you left the army, went back to Princeton, and studied for a Fine Arts degree. In January, 1949, you were married. June, 1949, you graduated. August, 1949, you were interviewed for a job in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. You got it,” Keppler paused. Then he said, “But you refused it, and returned to further service in Germany. Now, that service is over. You
are going back to New York again. Am I right?”

There was a silence. Yes, Denning was thinking, August, 1949… The night I came back from New York with the job I had wanted—the night Peggy was coming to meet me at Princeton station, and never came. The car smashed up on the Trenton highway, and Peggy dead. And the empty little apartment with the celebration dinner all prepared: the candles on the table, waiting to be lit…

“Yes,” Denning said at last. The life and hard times of Bill Denning, he thought. He looked at Keppler. “Little enough, I grant you. I get your point of view, all right.” He moved towards the door.

“But you don’t!” Keppler said angrily. “Do you think I want to add you to my conscience? It’s bad enough to worry over Meyer, over Taylor…”

Denning halted. He looked round at Keppler.

“Yes, Taylor,” Keppler said. He threw his cigar down into the ash tray, and tightened his lips. “If I thought you’d go back to the Aarhof, pack your bag, and clear out of Bern, I’d let you walk right out of that door. But you won’t. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll break one of my rules.” He pointed to a chair. “Sit down!” he said angrily, but his anger wasn’t against himself or Denning: it was against the men who had killed Taylor.

“What happened to Taylor?”

“He was found in the Aare tonight, just below the Nydeck Bridge.”

“Accident by drowning?” Denning’s voice was sarcastic.

“A very wilful accident,” Keppler said bitterly. “Did you know Taylor?”

Denning shook his head.

“You never met him? Then that’s lucky—for you.”

“What other news?”

“I’ve given you the worst. The rest is mostly disappointments. Eva has vanished. And so has the man who pretended he was Maartens. Just before midnight, he interrupted his mild gambling at the Kursaal for a walk on the terrace. He strolled down to a private car which must have been waiting for him. When last seen, the car had taken the road to Thun and was travelling fast, too fast for my men to keep up with. The car never reached Thun. It must have branched off on one of the many side roads. In the darkness, that is easy.”

“His luggage at the Aarhof?”

“Picked up by arrangement earlier this evening. His bill was paid then, too.”

“While he was out at the Kursaal?”

Keppler nodded. “Expertly planned. But not well foreseen. He didn’t expect any murder to happen. Or why leave the place where he had been establishing an alibi so carefully, just in time to have his movements become unknown about midnight? That is when he needed his cloak of innocence most of all.”

“Then you don’t think this gang of jewel thieves were responsible for Meyer’s death?”

“An interesting footnote,” Keppler said, “is the fact that Nikolaides and his syndicate always stopped short of murder. They believe that expert thieving and killing don’t mix.”

“Well, they’re mixed up in murder this time,” Denning said, with grim satisfaction. “Let them get what they’ve earned.” Then he thought for a moment or two. “I’m sorry for the real Charles Maartens, though. He was only the errand boy. Why did he have to be killed?”

“You’ve already suggested the reason for that,” Keppler said quietly. “If some men forced information about Meyer out of Maartens, then Maartens—if he stayed alive—could name the murderers of Meyer.”

“How carefully they are covering themselves,” Denning said slowly. He frowned.

“Tantalising,” Keppler agreed. “We have, perhaps, as much evidence as we can ever gather. All the pieces of information are probably now in our hands. Yet to scramble them around until they fit into a recognisable pattern—that’s what’s so tantalising… For the last hour I have only been able to think how stupid I must be.”

“I haven’t got all the pieces of information,” Denning reminded him. “Or do you think you’ve told me enough?”

Keppler smiled. “The rest of the news is good. We have captured the man Rauch—the clerk who gave you the false message at the Aarhof. He was arrested early this morning at the Hotel Victoria for unlawful entry, carrying weapons, and resisting arrest. It was your friend, Mrs. Waysmith, who caught him. I didn’t get all the details, but Inspector Bohren took charge and now two of my own men are interrogating Herr Rauch.” Keppler nodded with considerable satisfaction.