“Darling, you can carry things too far! Where would you propose sending that—the Kremlin?”
I sighed. “What will happen to Richard Wilson now?”
“Well, in the first place, he and his pal Voltek will be facing a double-murder charge. I imagine there’s a lot else stacked up against them.”
We were traveling fast now on the autobahn. I began to unwind and feel calmer. I lost count of time, drifting between sleeping and waking. Steve took over the driving for a while after we had stopped for a cup of hot milky coffee at a roadside cafe. It was some time in the early hours when at last we ran down the ramp into the car park of the Hutyens’ apartment house.
I was soon to discover why Steve and Bruno had been anxious to rush me back to Vienna. From the safety of the Hutyens’ home I could be protected from the wily attacks of reporters who clamored for a human-interest story to add to the bare bones of the official releases.
Steve came around to spend each evening with me. Over Klara’s lavish dinners we would all discuss the latest developments. I learned that a number of Leopold’s confederates, including the two men who had asked questions about us at the
Gasthaus,
had been rounded up. But Ilse Hellweg had mysteriously disappeared, leaving the Villa Imwald without warning and vanishing into thin air. I didn’t doubt, considering her calculating mind, that she had foreseen some such emergency and cushioned herself for the future.
And there was Gretl Kolbinger. As I’d guessed, she was broken up by the news of Otto’s death. But it was unlikely, Steve said, that any charges would be brought, since her personal involvement had been slight.
After staying indoors for a full week, I was getting restless. The newspapers seemed to have lost interest in the case of the Kutani Scrolls, and when Steve came that evening, I asked him to take me out.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Where would you like to go?”
I had already decided. “The Weisser Stier, please.”
“I’d have thought that would be the very last place!”
“Don’t you see, darling, I want us to start all over again.”
This time I would happily wallow in the charming atmosphere of Old Vienna, thoroughly enjoying the romantic waltz-time mood of Strauss and Lehar. I wanted us to have a carefree evening out, as hadn’t been possible that other time. Nothing, I determined, was going to spoil it.
And nothing did. Not even when the unlikely happened and Mitzi Flamm turned up, with a new man on her tow rope. Catching sight of us, she came plunging across the room.
“I’ll get rid of her,” said Steve quickly.
“No, don’t bother.” She had no power to hurt me now. Nothing and nobody could dent the armor of my newfound happiness. On a quick laugh I added, “Even the Mitzis of this world have their place.”
Steve grinned, those wide-set gray eyes of his meeting mine across the table. How was it possible for any man to say so very much, just with a single glance?
Copyright © 1971 by Nancy Buckingham
Originally published by Ace Paperbacks
Electronically published in 2015 by Belgrave House
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.