Prelude to Terror (12 page)

“State Department,” William corrected her, enjoying the reflected importance of that visit.

She stared at him. Why all the secrecy? Basset could have told her. She forced a smile. “Well, just remind him he has an appointment at the Mellon. Ten o’clock.”

“That’s been cancelled,” William said, and took the service elevator. Miss Beautiful doesn’t know everything, he thought with a grin as he adjusted his chauffeur’s cap. Nor did he, for that matter, but that never troubled him.

Lois Westerbrook walked slowly back to her suite. It’s nothing, she was thinking, nothing at all. But State Department? At last, in her search for an explanation, she found one possibility that satisfied her. Could Basset be thinking of an ambassadorship? Was he seeing his friends in the State Department to drop them a hint of his next interest? Last night he had got nowhere. But this morning? Trust Basset to keep charging on. He had never accepted a reverse. For him, defeat was an impossible word.

Reassured, she went into her sitting-room and telephoned Trans World Airlines. As for her hotel in Vienna—the city was crowded with tourists, but she’d try pulling some weight with the Sacher. That was where Basset always stayed. Big name, big deal: Allied Electronics had everyone tugging a forelock and saying “
Servus
!” Gene was there, too: his room would be waiting for his return from Graz. How convenient, she thought, her cool and beautiful face coming to life as she laughed at the prospect of at least one night together: no one will have the smallest suspicion except the maids, and we’ll tip them well. Besides, all Vienna loves a lover.

Her laughter died away. She was divided between the desire to meet Gene again and an instinctive fear. The truth was, she didn’t really want to be seen around Vienna. Not at this time. But orders were orders. She began packing. She must be ready to pick up and leave, once her chores were completed, first with an architect whose idea for a room for masterpieces was to clutter the sight-lines with dividers, and then with that glorified electrician who called himself a consultant. She’d have to draw some loose cash at the bank too: fortunately she always kept two thousand dollars in travellers’ cheques available for any emergency. And her regular passport, of course: no need for a fake identity on this brief trip.

How easy it had all been: Basset making not one objection, too concerned with his own plans to make any comment about hers. She had expected some questions, a complaint perhaps, even a blank refusal. Now, for the next hour, she had only to deal with Miss McCullough, who liked to call herself assistant secretary to Victor Basset, and not (as she was hired to be) secretary to his assistant. She would tell McCullough how to cope, spell out everything, make sure no mistake would be made. The girl, a moon-faced calf, was competent enough—and eager. A little too eager? The responsibilities of the next few days might boost her dreams of promotion. When I get back, Lois Westerbrook thought. I’ll keep an eye on McCullough. Good secretaries come and go. If necessary, McCullough will be one of those who came and went.

Small problems, however. In Vienna, they might be larger. Gene would never have telephoned her unless he feared some crisis. Where had he called from? Certainly not from the Sacher. And it wasn’t from a public ’phone, not to reach across the Atlantic. From some safe address, recommended by Jack. Jack... The one-name man. Or could it be Jacques? (Sometimes Gene softened the first consonant as if it were French.) It didn’t matter: Jack or Jacques was a background figure, extremely useful, but distant. He never intruded. Not until today, she suddenly thought.

Frowning, she locked the suitcase, and checked her carryall for cosmetics and jewellery. Colin Grant—could he really be such a problem? She still doubted that. He’d keep his word, turn up at the auction, and bid to win. He’d never take money and then renege. Not his type. In any case, as Gene had said, she could handle Colin Grant.

She was smiling again as she picked up her book of Basset’s engagements and conferences and luncheons and dinners, and telephoned for her secretary.

On Thursday morning, the first surprise of the day came with an early call from Zürich.

Grant had awakened before six, completely rested, thoroughly and annoyingly alert. Breakfast wasn’t served until seven thirty. Well, so what? As he showered and shaved, he would begin sorting out his thoughts, his brain cleared by his long deep sleep; last night, they had been a jumbled mess by the time he had finished dinner and slumped into bed. He was still baffled—the man who had stepped into the middle of a conspiracy that had begun three years ago and was now flourishing under deep cover. A conspiracy, too, that intended to continue its past successes: they were much too profitable. Therefore, he deduced, it had been, was, and would be ruthless in eliminating any threat. Me, for instance? he wondered. He tried to laugh that off, but hunger had set a sharp edge to his question.

He was dressed and more than ready for breakfast when it was wheeled in, punctual to the minute. And then, just as he had poured out that wonderful first cup of coffee, the ’phone rang. Replacing the metal cover over the bacon and eggs, he swore under his breath and took his coffee with him to the telephone at his bedside. “Yes?” he demanded.

“You sound angry. Did I wake you?”

It was Lois Westerbrook, her voice clear and decided, unmistakable. “No.” But you damn well are cooling a good breakfast. He drank some coffee. At least he had that.

“I’m in transit,” she told him. “I’ll arrive at the same time you did yesterday.”

So she was in the Zürich airport, bound for Vienna. “I thought you were staying at home.”

“I have something to tell you—impossible to discuss it by cable or telephone. What about seeing me this evening?”

“Why not lunch?”

“I need some sleep—didn’t get any on the plane.”

“Where shall we meet? At the Franziskaner?” That should be elegant and expensive enough for the Duchess of Westerbrook.

“No, not there. Some place nearer. Let’s say the Hofburgkeller on Augustinerstrasse. You know it?”

He was astounded. “Hardly your style, is it?” It was a large and rambling place with several rooms, part restaurant, part wine-cellar, part beer-hall; crowded with students, artists, visitors to the Hofburg museums, people from the Spanish Riding School, and ordinary show-me-the-local-colour tourists. “It will be packed full,” he warned her. “Noisy.”

“That’s why I chose it,” she said with a laugh. “I know a quiet spot, and we’ll go early. We’d better meet at five thirty, just inside the main entrance so you won’t have to search for me. As soon as I see you, I’ll lead off.”

And I’ll follow, he thought. Like some faithful old hound-dog. He drank more coffee.

“Have to go,” she said in sudden haste.

“Run out of coins?”

She laughed. “I’m in a small shop—planked down ten dollars to cover all costs. Try that, some time. Meet me at five thirty.” The call was over.

The toast slices, stacked in a silver rack, were cold; the bacon and eggs eatable, but scarcely enjoyable. As consolations, the orange-juice was set in ice, and the Thermos coffee-pot had kept its heat.

He finished breakfast, lit a cigarette, glanced through the Viennese newspaper, which the hotel provided with its compliments, and kept brooding over Lois Westerbrook. “That’s why I chose it,” she had said. Anonymity in crowds? And her “quiet spot” could mean a corner for two instead of the long tables where a dozen strangers were packed together. Of course, the Hofburgkeller’s situation might have been her main reason for choosing it: some place within easy walking distance of her hotel. She could slip out, slip back, without being noticed. Taxis and doormen drew attention to departures and arrivals. What hotel?—The Sacher was his first choice: only choice, in fact. She liked her comforts; and its easy access to Augustinerstrasse fitted in with her refusal of the Franziskaner. “Some place nearer.”

As for the Hofburgkeller, he himself had no objections: he liked local colour and the mix of people; and the beer was good. But Lois Westerbrook? incredible. (Like ten dollars planked down in some boutique, to make sure of a quick call to Vienna.) Don’t forget it ensured privacy too, he reminded himself. Of one thing he was certain. She wouldn’t turn up at the Hofburgkeller in the elegant costume she had worn for the Schofeld appearance. Quite a girl was Westerbrook... What was so urgent that had brought her flying across the Atlantic?

Again the telephone rang, interrupting his guessing-game. “Yes?” he asked patiently.

“Herr Grant? Here is Mayerling—at the Mahlerstrasse Bookstore.” The man was speaking English with an Austrian accent.

Identification was easy, however: Renwick. He had lingered over Mayerling with just enough emphasis to remind Grant of a rain-swept road and a disabled Fiat. “Ah yes. Herr Mayerling.”

“Yesterday you have inquired about the book on Scottish portraits.”

Another small emphasis, this time on Scottish. Schotten, in German. Schotten Allee, and the Two Crowns Hotel? Grant asked, “Have you found it?”

“Yes. It is in good condition. But old. Would that suit?”

“Possibly.”

“Then we expect you to make a call here. Examine it for yourself. Fortunate that we are near your hotel, so we do not disturb your plans for this morning.”

“One moment—let me find my engagement book.” Quickly, Grant reached his jacket in the wardrobe and extracted a small map of the city from a pocket. Mahlerstrasse—somewhere near the Majestic. Yes, there it was, just off Kärntnerstrasse, a couple of blocks away. “I could drop in, as you suggest.” This morning, he had been told.

“I have the book put aside for you in my office. It awaits your pleasure.”

“Thank you.”

“At your service, Herr Grant.”

Grant replaced the receiver, smiling over Renwick’s imitation of Viennese politeness. A bit of a joker, he thought as he knotted his tie and pulled on his jacket. Perhaps a sense of humour was needed for Renwick’s kind of work—kept him in balance, eased the tensions, put dangers into proper proportion; helpful, too, when dealing with amateurs like Grant, who felt they were being edged into deepening waters where the currents were uncertain, strong, and dangerous.

* * *

Mahlerstrasse was reached quite easily, after a ten-minute stop at the big bookstore on Kärntnerstrasse, where Grant searched for a guide to the city and bought one small enough to slip into his pocket. He might even find it useful, with its information on bus and trolley-car routes and its thorough index of street names and locations. Having established credentials as a bookshop browser for anyone who might be interested in his movements, he strolled up Kärntnerstrasse and took the first street to his right. And there it was, a window filled with non-fiction books of every kind, both new and secondhand: art, essays and poetry, history, biography, architecture, cookery and flower-arranging, landscape gardening. Quite a feast, and some of it digestible. Here one really could spend a wet afternoon very pleasantly. Over the doorway and window stretched the word, in faded Gothic script,
Buchhandlung
. No proprietor’s name, only the word
Bookdealing
—if you translated literally.
Bookstore
to us less pedantic Americans, thought Grant as he stepped over the threshold into a room that was smothered in hardcovers and paperbacks.

They surrounded him, mounting the walls in narrow tiers until they brushed the high ceiling: they covered the tables that formed the cross-aisles in mounds and pyramids. The place was no larger than half a tennis court; its light was dim, blocked—like the view from the street—by the display of titles in the window. The smell was a mixture of dust, crumbling leather, and cigar-smoke, with a surprise touch of pine-needles from a well-polished little desk cowering in a corner beside the entrance.

There were two customers, each in his own aisle and engrossed in the volume he was reading even if he was ruining his eyesight; one clerk, precarious on a ladder, searching for a book on a top shelf; a man in a sedate dark suit who was now moving towards the back of the room. No one else. No Avril. No Renwick.

Grant followed the dark suit. The man was perhaps the owner, certainly a senior clerk, with impressive white hair and a scholarly stoop. “I wonder if I could look at that book on Scottish portrait painters?” Grant asked, as the man turned to peer at him over heavy reading-glasses.

The man pushed his glasses up over his brow, studied Grant intently.

“I was inquiring about it yesterday. I believe you found a second-hand copy.” God, I’ve come to the wrong bookstore. Grant thought: how do I get out of this?

The man looked around the room—the customers were hidden among the books, the clerk was still searching—and inclined his head towards a narrow door in the rear wall. “You can consult it there. More comfortable.” He wandered away, glasses once more in place as he picked out a heavy volume from the nearest shelf.

Quickly Grant opened the door, quietly closed it, and found himself in a passageway leading to a back entrance. Midway along this narrow hall was another door. It was open, inviting him to enter. Inside, no one. Only more books, a strong smell of cigars, and two desks, one covered with papers and ledgers, the other quite bare except for a telephone standing mid-centre, all by its lonely self. It was then he really understood Renwick’s quaint phrasing—not just Austrian grappling with English, but a suggestion:
we expect you to make a call here
.

He bolted the door before he moved over to the telephone, dialled Renwick’s number and extension.

Renwick answered at once. “Hi there,” he replied to Grant’s greeting. “Sorry about all this, but hotel operators have long ears. Anyway, this is easier than having you find a public ’phone and standing for ten minutes of talk. Now let me run it through; after that, you can make your objections. Okay? All right, here goes. Memorise. Don’t take notes.

“First, the Klar Auction Rooms. They’re in the old quarter of the Inner City—near St Stephen’s Cathedral. On Schulerstrasse, 15A. The auction is definitely tomorrow at eleven o’clock. You’ll have a chance to preview the pictures and objets d’art that are being offered for sale. They’ll be on display in the exhibition room just beyond a cloakroom at the main entrance, where you leave umbrellas and coats and briefcases—compulsory. One interesting point. We managed to get an advance listing of the items being auctioned, and the Ruysdael is not mentioned. They are keeping it as a last-minute offering—but they’ll have to show it in the viewing room. So you’ll get a chance to examine it.