“And always keep remembering me as that nitwit Elissa? Really, Bill, you are a cruel and horrible man.”
“That’s me,” he said cheerfully, and slipped the address book into his pocket. He glanced at his watch, frowned.
“You have to leave,” she said slowly. “But must you?”
“I’ll have to telephone right now that I’ll be fifteen minutes late. I’m sorry, Elissa.” He reached for her coat, pulled it around her shoulders.
She didn’t move. She looked at him, her dark-grey eyes wide, softly appealing. “Telephone and say you can’t come. Please, Bill... Let’s have this afternoon together.” She reached across the table, touched his hand with hers. Her fingers caressed his gently.
He drew a quick breath. He raised her hand to his lips, then laid it beside her glass. “I’ve got to go,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed the invitation.
“Then go!” she told him angrily. She looked away, took out a cigarette and lit it before he could reach for his matches.
“I’ll call you later,” he said awkwardly, and rose.
She ignored him completely. So he left.
But as he again waited for an elevator to make its slow return to the ground floor, she came running into the corridor. “Oh, Bill,” she said, and threw her arms around him. “Please forgive me. That was no way to end a drink together. It’s just that I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” She reached up and kissed him. “This is how to say good-bye.”
“You make it sound much too final.” His voice was coldly polite.
“I’m leaving tonight.”
Behind them, the elevator opened its door automatically. He glanced at it, easing himself out of her embrace.
“I’ve just had—” she began, and then took his hand and stepped with him into the elevator. “I promise I won’t keep you late,” she assured him. “Any later than I have,” she amended, and laughed.
“What floor?” He was waiting to press the right button.
“Three.”
That was his floor, too. So he pressed and they were on their way.
“I’ve just had the offer of a job,” she said. “It’s in Salzburg.”
That surprised him. “I thought you were on your way home. Father’s orders.”
“Oh, I phoned him last night and I think I persuaded him to
see things my way. After all, a job is a job; it is not just wasting time trying to learn how to paint. That was what really worried him. He thought I was drifting. But with a steady job, I could earn enough to finish my art classes too.”
“That depends on the job, doesn’t it?”
“It’s interesting, but I’ll have free time. You see, there’s a man in Salzburg who has quite a big interest in skiing—he deals in sports equipment and arranges competitions and all that kind of thing. He needs someone who can ski, talk several languages, and be a sort of counsellor and friend to groups of foreigners who will be coming to the mountains around Salzburg this winter.”
“Are you sure you’ll have any free time?” he asked, his sense of humour returning. They had reached the third floor. They began walking along the corridor.
“What I wanted to ask you,” she was saying as they reached his door, “was this: suppose you were one of my friends in Salzburg and had given me farewell parties and all that, what would you think if I were to return within a week?”
He looked in amazement at the pretty upturned face. It was completely serious. Women will always astonish me, he thought: who else would worry about something that mattered so little? He opened his door. “It would give me a chance for another farewell party,” he said lightly.
“Now, Bill—” she remonstrated, and stepped into his room even as he turned to say good-bye.
“I have to telephone.” He wasted no time either, but walked straight over to the table beside his bed and picked up the receiver. “Please get me the Eden au Lac Hotel’s number,” he said crisply. “Call me back when you reach Mrs. Lynn Conway there. No, I
don’t know her room number.” He replaced the receiver, noted that his coat had been returned warm from pressing, and took off his jacket. He hung it over the back of a chair.
Elissa had closed the door behind her and stood with her shoulder against it. “What would you think, Bill?” she insisted, “Would I look ridiculous?”
“Crazy, perhaps; but not ridiculous.”
“Then that’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I don’t mind being thought crazy.”
“Done your way, it has a definite charm.” He was keeping his voice brisk and businesslike. So were his movements. He took off his tie, found a new shirt. “I’m going to change,” he said, heading for the bathroom.
“Will you be going to Salzburg?”
“Possibly. There’s a day’s business to clear up.”
“Will you be staying—”
The telephone rang. He picked the receiver up and turned his back on Elissa. “Lynn? I’m sorry. I’m five minutes late as it is, and I’ll need another ten. I got all jammed up at this end.”
“Don’t worry,” Lynn said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “I haven’t even unpacked. I’ve had a visitor. Miss Freytag. She came to welcome me and see if I was comfortable and brought me flowers. Wasn’t that a nice thought? And we’ve been having such an interesting talk.”
He dropped his voice. “Is Freytag with you now?”
“Yes.”
“And I told her to take the day off.” My God, he thought, surely we aren’t going to have her hanging around for lunch. Or are we?
“Well, in a sense it is,” Lynn said cryptically, taking care not
to hurt Miss Freytag’s feelings. “By the way, we had a phone call from your more-or-less policeman. He seemed much less annoyed than he was in the hall.”
“Oh?” He heard a sound of movement near the door and turned his head. Elissa was about to leave. She blew a kiss as she held up one glove.
Lynn was saying, “I’ll brief you about it when we meet.”
“Ten minutes from now? I won’t keep you waiting this time.”
“That would be fine. I’ll be down in the lobby.”
“Tell Miss Freytag that her plan worked beautifully. It was much better than mine would have been.”
“I’ll give her your thanks. Bye now.”
He replaced the receiver and turned around. The room was empty. He hadn’t even heard the soft closing of the door. But no harsh feelings, he thought with relief, remembering Elissa’s gestured kiss. It was odd though that she had the unexpected good sense to slip away, particularly when she had been left dangling in the middle of a question. But, he supposed, if she wanted to see him again, she’d soon discover where he was staying in Salzburg. She had found out this hotel by remembering his remark about a bankers’ conference, hadn’t she?
He changed in four minutes, including a fresh tie and shoes and suit. As he quickly emptied the pockets of his jacket on the back of the chair, he found his address book was missing. It should have been in the side pocket where he had slipped it when he was in the bar. Had he dropped it there? He would take a hundred-dollar bet that he hadn’t. It had been in his pocket. He was sure of that. Tight-lipped, angry, he locked his door and didn’t even wait for the elevator but ran down the three flights of stairs.
At the bar’s entrance, he hesitated. He might as well check. The place was almost empty now, and his table was unoccupied. That was good luck, at least; much less embarrassing than scrabbling around strangers’ ankles. His luck held. Under the edge of the tablecloth, almost by the leg of his chair, he found the small address book where his foot had kicked it. But how the hell he could have been so bloody careless as to drop it instead of putting it into his pocket—that made him even more annoyed with himself. Well, he had lost a hundred-dollar bet. And, he thought, as he pocketed the book safely but quickly and made for the exit, he owed Elissa a very big apology. Damn it all, that girl unsettled him. She was crazy, certainly, in the way he liked craziness; but there was something else that disturbed him, a sort of elusiveness, a kind of question mark that kept raising its unpleasant eyebrow. Perhaps if he hadn’t been caught up in all the troubles that stemmed from Eric Yates, he might not be so ready with his suspicions. Too ready. They were becoming a habit, and not one that he wanted.
Just ahead of him, about to leave the bar where they had been having a leisurely drink, were two immaculately dressed men. Bankers obviously, from smooth hair to dark suits, striped ties, highly polished black shoes. English variety, perhaps. They were collecting their bowlers and navy-blue Chesterfields from a wooden rack near the door. One of them, pulling on his yellow gloves, stepped back as Mathison passed him at high speed, almost blocking his path. “Sorry.” That was all he said, scarcely glancing over his shoulder. Mathison stared briefly and with a “That’s all right” went on his way. Charles Nield. Charles Nield unmistakably, and a far change from the zippered jacket and flannel shirt of Acme Radio’s repair service.
So I know he is in Zürich, at least, thought Mathison as he came out on the broad flight of steps that would take him down to the sidewalk. But how long was he in the bar? Sitting there all the time I was with Elissa?
And there she was too, across the street, waiting on the broad esplanade. She had pretended to be watching the lunch-time sailors who were once more snatching an hour at the boat anchorage, but she must have been keeping at least one of her beautiful dark-grey eyes on the hotel’s entrance, for she waved at just the right moment to catch his attention. She came running towards him, disregarding the light traffic, not even noticing the discreetly interested looks from the men she passed. He went to meet her. Elissa was the kind of girl you couldn’t ignore; and besides, he was telling himself, you owe her an apology even if it will have to be unspoken. What would she say if she thought he had blamed her for his own carelessness? “Hello again. I thought you’d be half-way to Salzburg by this time.”
“I was waiting for you,” she said with disarming frankness. “I wanted to tell you why I had run off so quickly. I discovered I had lost one of my gloves. They were new, too.” She held out her hands to display the taupe suede gloves that matched her handbag. “I found it, looking so lonely and forlorn in the corridor downstairs just outside the elevator.”
“And I almost lost my address book.” In spite of himself, he was watching her carefully. “It was lying under the table where we were sitting.”
“I guess we were both a little upset, there. If we meet in Salzburg, perhaps we can begin all over again, forget today, pretend it never existed.”
“
If
we meet? We are bound to meet.”
“I may be out of town when you arrive. Travelling to the villages will be the first part of my job—just to get to know the local conditions before the snow comes and brings the skiers. When do you expect to be there?”
“Quite soon, I hope. But that depends—”
“On what?”
“The office here. It’s passing through a crisis. The man who was in charge of it—well, he has been killed.”
“Killed?” Her eyes widened; her lips parted in astonishment.
“Yes. His body is at the mortuary right now. That’s how I spent most of this morning. I went with his secretary to identify him—nasty business.”
“How was he killed?”
“In a boating accident.”
She said nothing. She looked out at the lake with its scattering of sails. “It looks safe enough, doesn’t it?” she asked at last. Then as her eyes came back to him, they saw something behind him, farther along the sidewalk. For a moment, they hardened. She said, “But I’m keeping you late again. Good-bye, Bill.” She reached up, kissed him full on the lips. With a last gentle touch on his arm, she turned and ran up the steps into the hotel.
That was a quick retreat, he thought with some relief. And Nield and his banking buddy had seen it, too, even if they were engrossed in saying good-bye on the top step. Mathison turned and started walking towards the Eden au Lac. Lynn Conway and Miss Freytag were standing together on the sidewalk, both looking in his direction. They must have had a front-view of Elissa’s farewell, he thought as he glanced at his watch. He was several minutes late, after all. And what’s more, he was thinking now, we’ll be three for lunch; I know it, I know it,
that’s my kind of luck today. But he was wrong about that. Miss Freytag was shaking hands with Lynn, ignoring him completely. Before he reached polite hailing distance, she had left for the nearest corner.
“I really am sorry,” he told Lynn Conway. If there was anything he hated it was to keep putting himself in a position where he had to apologise. He was usually punctual—and with women that meant being a few minutes early—but today seemed to be one of complete disintegration. What was this calm and cool Mrs. Conway going to think of him? And it was important somehow that she didn’t think of him as a philandering dawdler who hadn’t enough politeness to keep an eye on his watch. “Everything got very complicated,” he admitted lamely. “I haven’t even telephoned for a taxi to get us into town. I thought of lunch at the Veltiner Keller.” And hang the expense. This would be one way of giving that anaemic word “sorry” some real vitality.
“I’d love that another time. But now, wouldn’t it be easier to eat right here? There’s a pleasant dining-room, and the food is good. So Miss Freytag tells me.”
“If that’s all right with you.” It certainly was the simplest solution. The fact that you had always to phone for a cab was a slight tax on patience, although that kind of arrangement did hold down traffic on the streets. “I thought we were going to have Miss Freytag right on top of us for the next couple of hours.”
“To tell you the truth, I had a feeling that was going to happen, too. We were waiting in the lobby, and she started talking about the dining-room. Somehow I could just see the three of us drifting in there. So I decided I wanted to look at the lake.”
“She certainly took the hint.” He was remembering Miss Freytag’s straight back and high head, not even glancing around to give him a friendly wave as she turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
“It was really so odd,” Lynn said reflectively. They had climbed the hotel steps and were now in a small almost private lobby. They could have drinks, he noted, in one of a series of pleasant sitting rooms.
“Here?” he asked, looking at the nearest room. “Or are we so late that we’d better have drinks at the table?” Again he felt that unpleasant feeling of inadequacy; his fault entirely that there wasn’t enough time for the usual ritual.