“Well, it’s nice to have such a pleasant-looking watchdog.”
“He is hardly that.” More like a cat on the prowl, thought Mathison, as they reached the shop.
CLOSED
the card on the door’s glass panel read. “That’s all right,” he assured Lynn. “Mrs. Bryant is just keeping the customers out. We’ll try the kitchen door. This way.” They walked on to the hallway’s entrance.
It was shadowed, even in daylight, but it seemed smaller now. The garbage cans stood in a black corner, the flight of stairs seemed to twist up into darkness. Lynn’s head tilted back, her eyes following the carved design that climbed one pillar, built into a wall, to flower against the vaulted ceiling. Beside it, open electric wiring snaked its way up to a one-bulb lamp. A study in contrasts, she thought: medieval imagination and contemporary determination. “No answer?” she called over to Bill, who had knocked on a door at the foot of the staircase for the third time.
“Perhaps she is upstairs in her apartment,” he said, and started to climb. He tried not to sound alarmed. “Coming?”
“Yes. It’s lonely down here for a stranger. I suppose if you lived in this kind of house, you’d never think anything of it.” She pulled her coat more closely around her. “You were right, about this,” she admitted as she noticed his glance at her gesture. He wasn’t in a talkative mood though, and so she fell silent, too. The steps were steep and worn, and brought
them to a dark landing. The first door was that of the Bryant apartment. From somewhere upstairs came the sound of a piano, a succession of difficult arpeggios, far off, muted, but comforting. So was the voice of a child from the floor above. But in answer to Bill Mathison’s knock came nothing at all. He tried again. And again.
“Well—” he began, and then stopped. Someone was entering the hall by a back entrance that seemed to lie right underneath their feet. Mathison’s hand went out and grasped Lynn’s arm, drawing her more closely to him. They stood in silence. The door below the flight of stairs scraped shut; light footsteps came into the hall, walked unerringly. Mathison relaxed as quickly as he had gone on guard. “Hello, there!” he called down to the woman who was unlocking the kitchen door. He let go of Lynn’s waist, took her hand, led her downstairs. “Hope we didn’t startle you,” he said to Anna Bryant. “This is Mrs. Conway—from New York and Zürich.”
If anyone was startled, it was Lynn Conway. Even now, she could feel the tight grip of Bill’s arm, ready to draw her farther upstairs. What on earth had he been expecting? “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” she said warmly as she shook hands with Anna Bryant. “I think Bill was worried in case you had forgotten our appointment.”
“I am late and I am sorry,” Anna Bryant said, “but I had to be with the Dietrich children this morning. Frieda is at the hospital, you see. You remember her, don’t you?” she asked as she shook hands with Mathison.
Frieda? Vaguely he remembered the friendly bouncing blonde who had taken charge of Anna last Monday night. “Hope she isn’t seriously ill,” he said politely. He walked around the
staircase to have a look at the unsuspected door. “Where does this lead?”
“It’s a short cut,” she called after him. “And it isn’t Frieda, but her husband who is in hospital. He’s—oh well.” She opened the kitchen door. “Do come in,” she told Lynn. “And I really am sorry I worried you. But there is no need. I worry enough for everyone.” She tried to laugh. “Mr. Mathison!” she called again.
“What
is
back there? I’m curious, too,” Lynn admitted, hesitating, then running to join Bill. “Why, it’s a courtyard! These can’t be Roman pillars, can they?” She stared at the strange mixture of architecture in this miniature cloister: classical, medieval, baroque—with a touch of contemporary life as well, for in the small open space, beside the covered disused well, were neatly stacked packing cases forming a cubist design, two bicycles, a baby carriage. From a window above came the clearer notes of the piano now attempting some appropriate Mozart. The children’s voices were breaking into laughter. Bill had walked around the short colonnade to reach the other side of the courtyard and was looking through an opened door into a dark closed way. There were two other doors on the courtyard, but they were shut, and he could be intruding. So he returned. Lynn was tactfully studying the windows overlooking the well. “I’d guess seventeenth century, but whoever put this place together just grabbed what was handy and used it. I suppose it seemed senseless to carve out new pillars when there were some solid ancient ones lying around.”
“Too many doors for my taste,” Mathison said, and he wasn’t thinking of the architecture either. “Where the hell do they all lead?” he asked irritably. He asked that question
again, expurgated, as he brought Lynn into the kitchen. He is concealing a load of worry, she realised. But what was there to worry about here?
“Oh, one takes you through the Mozartplatz. The others go through courtyards and other buildings to the Residenzplatz and the Altmarkt. They are quite simple to use, really, once you know them.” She looked at the American girl who was standing uncertainly beside Mathison. Why is she here? Anna wondered. She is pretty, of course, and charming; and she must have some intelligence if she is representing the publisher—but is she? “Please take off your coat. Do sit down.” Anna began stoking the ceramic stove. Perhaps, she was thinking, I’ve learned to distrust too much in this last week. Perhaps last night and my quarrel with Johann and the shock he gave me will never let me trust anyone fully again. Johann... He would have liked this girl. She was even prettier than Elisabetha Lang; her clothes were the same smart style, her manner just as ingratiating.
“Let me help,” Lynn said.
“No, thank you. I can manage.”
Well, that’s that, thought Lynn Conway, and tried not to look too curious as she glanced around the strange mixture of living room and kitchen. Anna Bryant was not at all what she had expected. Nor was this welcome. Does she resent me? Lynn wondered. But why? She walked over to one wall, where a panel of mounted photographs caught her eye. “It’s beautiful country. Is this near Salzburg?” She pointed to a vista of meadows and trees falling towards a green valley with mountains stretching behind them all.
“That’s the view from my brother’s house. It’s at Bad Aussee.”
“Oh?”
Anna closed the door of the stove with a sharp clang. “Johann is a ski teacher and mountain guide,” she said stiltedly. “That’s his profession.”
“And is this Johann?” Lynn was looking at the picture of a skier, caught in motion as he came soaring over a ridge of blue-shadowed snow, bluer sky above, sharp peaks in the high background, a spray of sparkling snow rising behind him.
“Yes.”
“Very handsome.”
“So women think.”
Lynn couldn’t hide her surprise as she looked sharply at Anna Bryant. “An excellent photograph. Motion like that is always difficult to catch.”
“My husband was an excellent photographer.”
“So Bill tells me. It really was too bad that so many of his newest photographs were stolen. Of course, we couldn’t have publ—” She stopped short. “Perhaps you’d better read this letter Bill has brought with him, first.” She glanced over at Bill, who was taking the two large envelopes from his briefcase. Now it’s your turn, she told him silently. I did my best, but it wasn’t much good at all.
This is going to be more difficult than I imagined, Mathison was thinking. What has happened to Anna? She was going through the motions of politeness, but her natural warmth had gone; she seemed cold and restrained, almost bitter as she had talked about Johann. There was a hint of nervousness, too. Nervousness or concern? He remembered the angry interruptions in his telephone call with Anna. “Is Johann in Salzburg now?”
“No. He left for Bad Aussee last night. For Unterwald, actually.” She watched the American girl, but the name seemed to mean nothing to her. “That is near Finstersee,” she said carefully.
“Oh?” Lynn Conway was puzzled but polite. “This is my first visit to Austria, Mrs. Bryant, but I hope I’ll see something of your mountains and lakes before I go back to Zürich. Bill has promised to rent a car and take me around. Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll drive you to Bad Aussee and you can see your brother?” She has been spending too much time indoors, thought Lynn as she looked at the white strained face that stared at her so strangely.
“My brother is too busy,” Anna said curtly. “He will be most of the time in Unterwald. That’s where the Seidl girl lives—the one he is going to marry. They got engaged last Monday.”
“Monday?” Mathison asked, not concealing his surprise. But I met him here on Monday. And then later that night he was in Unterwald, certainly, but I thought he was there to find out why and how his brother-in-law had been killed. Johann chose strange timing to get himself engaged.
“So much happened that night,” Anna said briefly. She looked around the kitchen, thinking now of the Lang girl, who had come here in the darkness to steal. One of Johann’s girls. Twice she had been here with him, so filled with interest and questions and seemingly so harmless. Dick had thought her charming, charming and pretty. Johann had been proud of her. And I—I showed her around, showed her where I worked.
“Do you remember our talk then?” Mathison asked, trying to ease his way towards presenting the letter. “I did find out something about Eric Yates. You’ll find most of it here.” He held out the letter.
She took it from him silently, but before she started reading it she glanced down at the table where he had spilled out the contents of the other envelope. Quickly, she spread out the photographs Mathison had made of her husband’s file on Yates. “You really did keep your promise,” she said slowly, softly. So Johann was wrong about that, too. Why trust a stranger, he had said, what does Mathison owe you? But I did trust a stranger, and I was right. And here is the stranger, not probing like my friends—like Felix Zauner, and Werner Dietrich, and all those others who kept coming to see me this week, always bringing the talk around to Finstersee, never telling me why they were interested in it or who had sent them to question me. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. You’ll never know how grateful I am.”
“I don’t pretend to be much of a photographer, but I’m glad these prints came out clearly,” Mathison said awkwardly. Her thanks seemed excessive for such a small gesture. “Particularly that one.” He pointed to the photograph of the Burch cheque. “It’s the one that really interested Washington and got them answering some of my questions about Yates.”
“You found out about him?” she asked quickly.
“Some people in Washington were able to find out.”
“And what was that?”
“He wasn’t working for British Intelligence.”
She stared at him. “He tricked my husband?”
All the way, thought Mathison. “Why don’t you read the letter, first of all?” It explained more easily than he could tell her face to face. “I typed it,” he added frankly, “but James Newhart backs up all I said.”
“And that’s my signature,” Lynn told her, “but he will back
that up too. We can call him in New York if you like.” What’s making her so difficult? Lynn wondered as she rose and came forward to the table. Poor old Bill, all that work put into the letter and she isn’t even giving it her full attention. She had only murmured “Your Mr. Newhart is very kind” as she read about his offer, and almost dropped the letter right there on the table. “Read on to the end,” Lynn insisted. Five drafts and a wasted lunchtime, she thought angrily. “If you want to know all about
your
Mr. Yates, you’d better finish it.”
Anna read on, and then looked up unbelievingly. “There never would have been a book? Newhart and Morris don’t publish—” Her voice trailed off. “Did he want the Finstersee box as much as all that?”
Mathison took a deep breath, glanced quickly at Lynn, wondered how to get her out of the room. Or it might be easier to stop Anna, get her to postpone talking. “Is the letter clear? If you have any reservations about it, just tell me.”
“Deceit,” she said bitterly. “Deceit right from the beginning. He robbed Dick of everything. But the only thing he did not get was the box itself.”
“Lynn, would you leave?” But that was as far as Mathison got. Anna Bryant began to laugh, a strange pathetic kind of laugh that twisted into a sob. Lynn moved quickly to put an arm around her shoulder, take the letter gently out of her hand, help her into a chair. The attack of hysteria never developed, unless the flow of words that rushed from Anna’s pale lips was a strange substitution. They stopped Mathison short in his search for brandy, words that poured out about Finstersee and the box which Dick had found and hidden before the Nazis killed him, no one knew of it, it would have stayed where Dick
had hidden it if Johann hadn’t searched and guessed and taken it, and Johann had put it in a safer place, he said, safe from the Nazis, safe from everyone, and only Johann knew where it was now, he wouldn’t tell her, he wouldn’t tell her... The rush of words ended in tears.
“Do you understand what she is saying?” Lynn asked, looking nervously at Bill.
Everything had gone wrong, he was thinking, everything; and for no purpose except that Lynn has heard enough to put her into the circle of danger that’s now drawn around all of us. “Why didn’t you leave?” he said angrily. “I told you to leave.”
“And I will,” she said, equally angry. “But first I’ll get Mrs. Bryant up to bed and fix something for her to eat. She probably hasn’t had a decent meal in days. Or slept either.”
Anna Bryant was paying no attention at all to their argument. She had recovered her composure with a pathetic determination to keep calm, stay lucid. She kept looking at Bill Mathison. She put out a hand and caught his. “Will you help me?”
He nodded.
“Will you tell your friends in Washington about Finstersee?”
“They know.” He glanced at Lynn once more.
“All right,” Lynn said, “I can take a hint eventually.” She was trying to smile, but there was definite hurt in her eyes. What am I anyway, she thought as she walked towards a door into a long narrow hall, a decorative smoke screen? He’ll have some explaining to do before I take one more step with him through Salzburg. If she hadn’t left her coat in the kitchen, she would have kept on walking right through the shop and out of the front door.