Pray for a Brave Heart (3 page)

“I must say you’re a fair example of the simple-minded American. Nikolaides
will
be disappointed with you.”

Meyer grinned cheerfully. “To hell with men like Nikolaides. He uses me, so all right, I’ll use him.”

“I can imagine the feelings of the French if you had hidden this news from them,” Denning said dryly. “Or of the Swiss, who must be pretty tired of having their peaceful country used by other people for their secret skirmishes.”

Meyer nodded, and rose. He smoothed down his trousers, pulled at his coat. “Too damned tight,” he observed critically.

“Très chic, très snob, presque cad,”
Denning consoled him. “But I still feel the overcoat is a mistake.”

Meyer said, “Black and shapeless as the shadows. It has its merits. I take if off before I enter a cellar café. In the streets—I prefer to be undistinguished. Sometimes not even a friend of Charlie’s.” He moved over to pick up his criticised coat. “I hope I look just one of the little men—sporadically affluent. Now, if I were mixing with the upper echelons, such as Boss Nikolaides, I’d have monograms and caviare all over my shirt front.”

“Real
black
caviare, daddy? The kind whose dye doesn’t come off?”

“One more crack out of you, son, and I’ll promote you to carrying my gold toothpick.”

Denning said, in a thick accent, “Enoff of thiss foolish laugh-making. Where do I stay in Bern, blast you?”

“Try the Aarhof. Reasonable. Respectable. Not too far from the station.”

“That may be useful, for a quick exit.”

“I hope you won’t need that kind of usefulness,” Meyer said, his voice now completely serious. “Take it easy, won’t you, Bill? just travel as you planned, and enjoy yourself. Have fun.”

“Sure. Almost,” Denning reminded him.

“Golf clubs, camera, and all. Don’t pretend anything. You still know me, in case anyone should inquire. But you just haven’t seen me for a couple of years.”

“You’re desk-bound in Frankfurt,” Denning agreed; “and how shall I get in touch with you?”

“I’ll let Keppler, the Swiss Security man, arrange that. He knows Bern’s possibilities. Once I’ve met Charlie at the Café Henzi, we’d all better get together—you and Le Brun and Keppler and I. And then, you can deliver my report, word for word, in case I have to go jet-propelled off to Genoa.”

“I hope you aren’t relying on me alone—” Denning began quickly.

“Oh, I’ll have other reinforcements,” Meyer said quickly. “I hope,” he added. Then he smiled grimly. “Perhaps I’ll be busted right down to a lieutenant without either hyphen or colonel, next time we meet.” He studied the floor at his feet for a long moment. “I’m too vague for you, Bill?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t suppose it’s wise to be more specific.”

“Actually,” Meyer struggled into his coat, “I’ve told you more than I’ve told any one man. I’ve turned in a full report, of course, so that I’ll get some backing and proper action. But a report is a report.” He faced Denning suddenly. “Remember my regrettably emotional outburst earlier this evening? For the buying of men’s minds, I think I said. How would that look in a report? Yet I meant it. I know I’m right. But how would it look?”

“Regrettably emotional.”

“You can imagine some poor guy, just below the policy-making level, scratching it out and substituting ‘presumably for propaganda purposes’. Then the next man to read it murmurs, ‘Oh, not those dreary peace-front meetings; not those mimeographed appeals, all over again.’”

Denning’s face showed the shadow of embarrassment. He had translated Meyer’s phrase about buying men’s minds on that same pedestrian level.

But if Meyer noticed he had scored sharply, he didn’t say. He went on, quietly, “By the time the report reached the policy makers, it would be as weak as China tea, watered down until a three-day-old baby could drink it.”

Denning dusted off Meyer’s hat and held it out. “I’ll be your report. And I don’t water down easily.”

“That’s what I want, Bill.” Meyer smiled suddenly. “When we meet in Bern, I’ll be able to fill in a lot of gaps for you.” He frowned at the floor again.

“Forgotten something?” Denning asked. He knew Meyer’s difficulty: to tell enough, without telling too much. Only the completely necessary facts had been given, and now Max was reviewing them, worried in case he had left out something small but vital.

“Recently, in my own job,” Meyer said slowly, “I’ve—” Then he stopped short. What he had discovered during the last three weeks wasn’t proved yet. Perhaps there was no connection after all with the money which the diamonds would bring. He looked at Denning. “Never mind about that—it’s just something I’m going to work on, once I finish this business with Charlie. It may all connect.” He gripped Denning’s arm
and moved to the door. “One thing I did forget,” he said lightly. “About Keppler. Don’t be alarmed if he sends you messages signed Elizabeth. He’s definitely well-adjusted.”

And with that, he was at the door, pausing, listening, and then opening it. Just as quickly, as silently, it closed behind him.

For a long moment, Denning stood quite motionless. He could hear nothing at all. He resisted a foolish impulse to switch off the lights and go over to the window. In the quiet street below, two cars passed.

Then he moved slowly over to the bureau. He straightened Peggy’s photograph. He stayed there with it, his hand on the leather frame, his eyes thoughtful. There was something more to all this than Max had been able to tell him. He remembered the grim look on Meyer’s face—
just something I’m going to work on, once I finish this business with Charlie. It may all connect.
And he remembered, too, that Max Meyer’s instinct for connecting odd facts had never yet failed him. He wished, suddenly, that Meyer’s instinct for self-preservation was as keenly developed. His eyes looked at Peggy for a moment. He thought, what have I to lose now, anyway?

The clock said it was almost midnight. Briskly, he turned to face the room, saw confusion worse than he had imagined, cursed crisply, and began jamming his gear into his trunk. The time for decisions was over.

There had been an early shower of rain, just enough to add a polish to the clean streets, but now the sky was blue with white friendly clouds chasing each other high above the pointed roofs and sharp steeples of Bern.

The Aarhof on the Spitalgasse was a medium-sized hotel, efficient and comfortable even from the outside. Like the other buildings in the street, with which it formed a continuous row, its first floor consisted of arches (the Aarhof had five) leading from the kerb into the arcade that covered the whole stretch of sidewalk. Above the arches were four floors of ten tall windows, slightly shortening as they reached the broad overhang from the red-tiled roof. And every window, like all the other windows in this street, like most windows in all the streets, had its green box of bright-red geraniums.

Eminently respectable, Bill Denning decided as he stepped out of the Aarhof’s small bus which had brought him in
solitary magnificence from the station. and he recalled, with some nostalgia, the little hotel in the Lower Town where he had once spent a couple of nights. Switzerland was one of the few countries where you could have a cheap room under the eaves, over-looking a seventeenth-century courtyard, without forcing yourself to ignore a delicate smell of sewage or a welcoming bedbug between the sheets. But it seemed ungrateful in a way to regret his promotion to a five-arch hotel. It could have been much more painful: he could have drawn one of those three-hundred-bed affairs where the feeling of afternoon tea under the potted palms still hung over the lobby at breakfast time, and it would only take a mild swaying of the floor to make you think you were trapped in the lounge of an Atlantic liner. And he took some comfort, before he stepped into the cool shadow of the arcade, that in the middle of the street behind him there stood, on top of a geranium-ringed fountain, a figure out of Breughel, a red-smocked bagpiper with cheeks puffed out and a goose for his audience.

The clerk behind the reception desk in the highly polished lobby, stirring into life even at this early hour, was polite and discreet. Certainly, a room for Mr. William Denning. With bath. And a view of the fountain?

Denning nodded and went on filling up the necessary forms. For a moment he wondered if the clerk had expected his arrival; then he decided that the hushed voice was only the man’s well-practised manner. He signed his name and glanced round the lobby. Beside him there was the hotel porter’s desk with a busy clerk handing out mail and information, keys and theatre tickets. The voices, some speaking French and Italian as well as German, reminded him that Bern was the capital where Parliament met and the three languages were all equally used. And over there stood four American soldiers, on furlough, studying a map. Near them was an English business-man who had brought along his wife—probably smuggling her out with the help of his expense account, and now wondering why he hadn’t had the good sense to leave her at home. Beside the dining-room stood another group of foreigners, three pink-cheeked round-faced clergymen in tweed jackets and dog collars. And that French couple were on their honeymoon. And the cluster of bored schoolgirls were pretending they didn’t belong to the severely tailored, slightly flustered teacher who was trying to organise an excursion. Yes, this was an ideally normal hotel. Respectable, to the point of being soporific.

“Of course,” said the reception clerk, noticing Denning’s brief inspection, “the season has not quite begun as yet.” He was a young man, with intense eyes and an expression of automatic attentiveness.

Denning said, with a smile, “Tell me, where does Bern grow all its geraniums?” He looked at a mass of flowers on the central table of the lobby, as he took a step away from the desk.

“Ah,” said the clerk, and relaxed. Mr. Denning had only been admiring the decorations. He plunged into a detailed explanation about the geraniums, and Mr. Denning was most gratifyingly surprised, perhaps a little overwhelmed, for he halted, and stood quite silent, and didn’t ask any more questions, not even after the final details were given. Then another new guest arrived, and Mr. Denning moved away very quickly.

With a feeling of delightful well-being, the clerk turned to deal with the latest customer—a middle-aged gentleman, small, plump, dressed in very smart new clothes. Almost too new, the
clerk thought, but definitely expensive: where could he find a suiting like that, at a reasonable price, of course?

“Certainly,” he said, giving his full attention now to the sprawling signature, quickly scribbled. Certainly. A room for Mr. Charles A. Maartens. With bath. And a view of the fountain?

One thing I’ve learned, Denning decided as he followed the installation clerk along the corridor to his room, one thing: next time I make a small joke, I’ll avoid putting it in the form of a question. And another thing to remember is that the clerk has quick eyes. Perhaps I was too obvious; or was I? Any stranger looks round a hotel lobby to see what kind of place he has chosen.

And yet, even as he reassured himself, he was left with a small doubt. Now you are being over-anxious, he told himself, just as your pride was too quick down there in the lobby. You were too eager to see how Max Meyer imagined you: this was the kind of hotel where you’d merge into the general background. Do you? Sweet, suffering—and then he began to smile at himself, and his quick irritation with Max was over. What we think we are, how our friends see us—that contrast was always a slight shock. Like suddenly catching a glimpse of yourself in an unexpected mirror in a frank light.

He stared at himself in the looking-glass over the white covered dressing-table. He needed a shave, a shower, some rest to chase away the grime and discomfort of an overnight train journey. He needed a lot more than that, he thought grimly, to look like a human being again. Then he noticed the clerk had gone and the green-aproned boy who had brought his luggage was waiting politely.

“Ever look in a mirror and think what an ugly—” Denning began, and then choked his question abruptly off. No more jokes in the form of questions.

The boy, dark-haired, with a long thin face and anxious eyes, said, “Please?”

“Can I have some rolls and coffee?”

“Here, sir?”

No, in the elevator. “Yes, here, if it can be managed,” Denning said with considerable restraint. He reached into his pocket and counted out a tip, nervous a little with the unaccustomed money. He added an extra ten per cent to take care of the probable increase in the cost of living since his last visit. Damn the man who had invented tips. Or was it damn the first employer who had skimped on wages? “Is this all right?” he asked frankly.

“Sure,” said the boy in impeccable American, breaking away from the German they had both been using.

“You have a lot of Americans staying here?”

“Plenty.”

“So it sounds. Well, I’ll be taking a shower, so just leave the coffee—” Then Denning’s eyes counted the pieces of luggage: a suitcase, golf clubs. “Where’s my small bag?” He gestured with his hands to show the size of his grip.

The boy looked startled then crestfallen. “It must have been left downstairs, sir,” he said in German. “I’ll get it immediately.”

“You’d better,” Denning told him, with a grin. “It holds my razor and my clean shirts.”

“I’ll get it,” said the boy reassuringly. “Don’t worry, sir.”

“And hurry up that coffee will you?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, smiling too, breaking into English again. He paused at the door to say, “My name is Gustav. I’m
in charge of this floor. Anything you need—”

“—I’ll call on you.” Denning began sliding out the knot of his tie. “Meanwhile, coffee, coffee, for the love of Allah.”

Gustav gave a startled look at Denning, and then closed the door. Or rather, both doors. For there were two, as in most Swiss hotels: one shutting in the room, one shutting out the corridor, with a brief threshold between them. I’ll have some privacy here, thought Denning with considerable satisfaction.

Denning had his shirt off, when a quiet knock sounded on his room door. That’s Gustav with my bag, he thought, and called, “Come in, come in.” But a round-faced woman, crisply dressed in blue, with towels over her arm, entered.