And on other days she’d had Max. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, there was something I felt I had to know. Ilse Hellweg and Max, in those days before he’d met me, had they ever . . . ?
It was crazy. She was Leopold’s wife. And yet I knew how little that might mean to some of these people.
Max and Ilse. Why was this hateful suspicion eating into my mind? It wasn’t just the way she looked in a swimsuit, but the way she’d laughed when speaking of him coming here often. It was almost as if she wanted me to know, as if she were deliberately telling me.
Had she loved Max too, like Mitzi Flamm? Had she been jealous when he’d got married to me? But looking up at Ilse as she clambered laughing from the pool to stand poised on the edge before she dived again, seeing her long slender body with the golden tan, her perfect teeth, and jet black hair gleaming wetly, I found it impossible to imagine her ever feeling jealous on account of another woman.
It wasn’t until lunchtime that we got down to serious conversation. The meal was served by a stout white-jacketed manservant who moved around unobtrusively. That was the way of this house. There were other servants, several of them, but they seemed to keep discreetly out of sight.
The three of us were sitting companionably at one end of the long table in the ornate dining room. We had finished a delicious thick vegetable soup, and were now served with pork cutlets and noodles and a crisp green salad. Ilse started talking without any preamble, just as if it were a continuing theme.
“Max was a clever man, Jessica.”
I was wondering what to answer to that, when Leopold gave a soft chuckle. “This wife of his will prove to be clever also, I think.”
Was this the green light they were giving me?
I said warily, “If I can complete what Max had started, then I shall feel he didn’t lose his life for nothing.”
“You must not expect too much.” Leopold’s voice was a little on the sharp side. There was a reprimand in it.
“I don’t.” Steadily I met the eyes of each of them in turn, trying to convey that they could trust me as they had trusted Max. “I feel, though, that if I can only pick up some of Max’s threads, I’ll be moving in the right direction.”
“Have you considered,” asked Leopold with a serious face, “that to follow your husband’s footsteps too closely could lead you into great danger?”
“Naturally, I’m aware of the danger. That’s why I’m taking refuge in your home, surely?”
There was a silence, and we all pretended to be eating our lunch. I made some comment about the excellence of the food, but neither Ilse nor her husband seemed to hear me.
Eventually Leopold said, “For the time being I think it will be safer for you to remain within the house and immediate garden. There is nothing, I take it, that requires your presence in Vienna?”
I had already phoned Klara Hutyens to say that I was staying with friends in the country and would have to beg off her dinner party that evening. Klara assured me that it mattered not in the least, though I sensed that she was a little bit put out.
“Apart from the Hutyens,” I told Leopold, “I hadn’t fixed any other dates. I’ll be very pleased to stay around. I’m sure you have everything here I could possibly want.”
Surprisingly, this answer didn’t seem to please the Hellwegs altogether, but they made no comment. The rest of lunch passed off smoothly enough, though I was aware of us all three feeling our way carefully. After coffee we split up, and I thought it would be nice to lounge on the terrace with a book. Unluckily, though, my ability to read wasn’t up to my spoken German. I selected a novel from the library which looked fairly light, and settled down to wrestle with it—for the good of my soul.
In fact, it quickly sent me off into a doze. I came to with a start, conscious of a shadow falling across my face. It was Leopold.
“I am so sorry to awaken you,” he said, “but you have a visitor.”
That brought me to life as effectively as a sharp slap.
“A visitor . . . ?”
Leopold’s dark eyes were watchful. “Perhaps you would like me to send him away. I could easily inform him that you are indisposed, or ...”
I interrupted. “Who is it?”
There was distaste in every line of his face. “It is this man who used to be your husband’s assistant. This Steve Elliott.”
“Steve!”
Just the mention of his name was enough to send me rocketing sky-high. But for all my delight I felt helplessly angry. His coming here like this could only ruin everything. It could scare off the Hellwegs just when we seemed to be getting close to an understanding.
“I’m terribly sorry, Herr Hellweg,” I said quickly. “Steve had no right to come here like this. I’ll go and send him away at once.”
“There is no need, I can give him your message.”
Angry though I might be, I wasn’t going to have Steve packed off like that. I stood up. “No, I’ll tell him myself, if you don’t mind.”
Leopold didn’t move, and short of pushing him out of the way, I couldn’t get past. He obviously wanted to say something more, but seemed to be hesitant about it. In the end he asked thoughtfully, “Where exactly does Herr Elliott fit into the picture?”
“He doesn’t fit in anywhere. I got to know him as Max’s assistant at British Electronics, that’s all. And when I was in the hospital he was extremely good to me.”
Still Leopold stayed put. His voice was slightly edgy. “He was with you last night at the Kolbingers’. And now he has driven out here to see you.”
I saw that Leopold would refuse to believe me, however much I denied that Steve had any significance in my life. It seemed best to be quite straightforward. The truth couldn’t do any harm.
“I ... I think he’s become rather fond of me,” I said. “He saw a good deal of me when I was ill—almost every day. . . .”
“You mean he is in love with you?”
“No, that’s putting it much too strongly. Maybe Steve imagines he could be one day, if I encouraged him.”
“And do you encourage him, Frau Varley?”
I was able to meet Leopold’s frowning gaze steadily. “No, I don’t. Quite the reverse, in fact.”
Leopold continued looking at me for a few dragging seconds, then with a brisk nod he turned and led the way into the house. As I followed him, I began to wonder if what I had just said was actually the truth.
Steve was waiting in the hall. Jakob, the manservant, was there too, standing guard, but he vanished the moment his master came back.
“Jessica!”
The way Steve said it, he sounded greatly relieved to see me—as if he’d half-expected to find I’d been spirited away.
I forced my face into hard and unwelcoming lines. “Why have you come here?”
Steve didn’t answer. He was scowling, and after a moment Leopold Hellweg took the hint.
“Perhaps, Frau Varley, you would care to take Herr Elliott out onto the terrace.”
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be left alone with Steve, or whether it would be easier to have Leopold present while I got rid of him. But the decision was taken out of my hands. Giving a single cold nod, Leopold went striding into the library and shut the door after him with a very definite click.
Steve muttered quickly: “What in the hell’s going on, Jessica?”
I controlled myself, not knowing who might be able to overhear. “You’d better come outside, like Herr Hellweg said.”
When we reached the terrace, I swung around on Steve fiercely. “I explained in my note that I’d be getting in touch with you. Why did you have to follow me out here? It’s most embarrassing.”
He frowned, the furrows cutting deep. “Embarrassing? Just because a friend drops in to see you? It’s not as if I expect to be invited to stay.”
“You weren’t invited to come at all. I’ve told you before, Steve, I wish you wouldn’t keep trying to interfere.”
I watched him flush, but he managed to stay at a low temperature. “I’m not the only one who’s worried about you. Klara Hutyens is, too.”
“Klara? I didn’t realize you knew her.”
I guess my tone must have implied that he had no business knowing Klara Hutyens. Steve reacted by shedding just one thin layer of self-control.
“I happen to be quite friendly with Bruno and Klara these days. Is that a crime, too?”
I dodged answering the sarcasm. “But what did Klara - say to you? Just because I canceled a dinner invitation doesn’t mean that...” I stopped.
“Doesn’t mean what?”
I floundered. “Naturally, I’m sorry if my behavior struck her as rude.”
“It’s nothing to do with rudeness, Jessica. Klara’s worried about whether you’re okay.”
“Well, then, she needn’t be. I’m perfectly all right.”
Steve used the technique of hitting swiftly and suddenly from a different direction. “You didn’t know these Hellweg people at all before last night, did you?”
“They were friends of Max’s,” I countered.
“You didn’t know them yourself, though. I’ll take a bet on that.”
“Well, no, I’d never actually met Leopold and Ilse before, but . . .”
“And yet, after meeting them casually at a party last night, you come belting out to their country home as a house guest. It would be interesting to know why.”
This was crazy. I’d intended a quick no-nonsense brush off, and here I was on the defensive again. I was finding it so hard to fight Steve. Gathering the shreds of my anger together, I made a final effort.
“What I choose to do is none of your business, Steve.”
“I think it is.” He was really annoyed with me now.
“And I say it isn’t.”
We stood there glaring at each other, continuing the battle in a furious silence. The strain was almost beyond bearing, when Steve suddenly gave in.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry…”
He had said that to me before, more than once.
“You can’t put everything right just by saying you’re sorry. Will you please go away and not come back. And I don’t want you phoning me or writing, either.”
“When do I see you again, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you will get in touch with me, won’t you?”
“Yes—when I get back to Vienna.”
“And when will that be?”
“I haven’t decided.”
He hesitated, then said quietly, “Jessica, I want you to do something for me. It’s not much to ask---something you can do quite easily.”
“What is it?” I said suspiciously.
“Give me a ring at the office tomorrow.” Seeing the instant objection in my face, he added hastily, “Just to say hello and that you’re okay. Nothing more.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
“Can’t?”
He was ready to seize on every single word I said. “It would be silly,” I amended. “There’s no point.”
“It will take only a minute.”
“No, Steve.”
“I’d have thought it wouldn’t hurt you to do that small thing for me.”
I had to get rid of him, and quickly. The longer we talked out here, the more suspicious Leopold would become. I didn’t want to spoil things just as it seemed we were on the point of a breakthrough.
I sighed. “Oh, all right, then, if it’s that important to you. And now, good-bye, Steve.”
He didn’t budge. “That is a promise, Jessica?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You really mean it?”
I flared up again because I was so impatient for him to get going. “Do you want me to swear an oath or something? I’ve said I will, and that ought to be good enough for you,”
“Thanks.” He relaxed a little. “I’ll be in the office all day tomorrow, so you can make it anytime before five-thirty.”
I began to lead the way back into the house and was relieved that Steve followed me without any further argument. He remarked conversationally: “Quite a place your friends have.”
“Yes,” I said shortly.
At the front door he paused, looking at me very straight. “I’ll say good-bye, then, Jessica. See you soon—I hope.”
I shut the door at once, before he’d even reached his car, but I waited there in the hall until I heard him drive off. And, when all sound of the Mercedes had died away in the distance, it was still some time before I went back to my chair on the terrace.
A young maid, buxom and solidly built, brought me some tea—typical Austrian stuff, every bit as bad in its way as most English coffee. She informed me that dinner at the Villa Imwald was always served at eight o’clock.
I saw nothing more of my hosts till then, so I had plenty of time to think about Steve’s visit. He had been really anxious about me, guessing in the face of my denials that I was in some sort of trouble. And I’d repaid his concern by packing him off as if I couldn’t stand the sight of him.
One day, one day very soon, I promised myself, I’d give Steve a full explanation. I owed him that. And there was another thing I longed for—to alter his opinion about Max. It had hurt me bitterly to realize that there was something like contempt in Steve’s memory of my husband.
Changing for dinner, I saw myself telling Steve all about Max’s undercover work, but the scene was only hazy in my mind, because I didn’t know it all yet—not the details. Lately my mental image of Max himself had become cloudy, and that was too cruel. For reassurance I glanced across to his picture on the table by the bed. Max wasn’t a man who liked being photographed, and this was the only one I had of him except for our wedding pictures. Tall and marvelously built, laughing into the sun, he was leaning against an elaborate stone balustrade. Somehow it seemed familiar. The area was paved, with flowers in marble urns.
I recognized it now. Max had been standing on the terrace here at the Villa Imwald. And who had held the camera? Leopold—or Ilse?
Miserably I went to hide the photograph away at the bottom of a suitcase. Then I paused. The maid— or even Ilse herself—might notice it was missing and make some comment. Slowly I replaced the picture on the bedside table, but turned it at an angle so that I wouldn’t be able to see it from the bed.
At dinner the Hellwegs were both untalkative, and I had a feeling that they weren’t very pleased with me. We went into the drawing room for coffee, and as soon as Jakob had gone they became businesslike. I found their attitude very puzzling and ambiguous.