The Salzburg Connection (42 page)

Anna was too intent on her own thoughts even to notice
that Lynn had left. “Did they send you here?” she was asking quickly, sharply, and she looked almost bitterly over at the documents on the table.

Mathison said carefully, “I came to bring you those papers. And a friend in Washington—
your
friend, too, Anna—asked me to warn you.”

“About what?”

“About talking as freely as you have been doing. He feels you are in considerable danger. And if you want his help, he is willing to give it.”

“One man?”

“There are also others.”

“And in return I was to tell you where the Finstersee box could be found?”

“No. You could have told him directly. He’s here in Salzburg. If you had wanted to tell him, that is.” Keep that point clear, Mathison thought; that’s the one reason that let you agree to being Nield’s little errand boy in the first place. “There’s nothing you can tell him now about the Finstersee box,” he added, “but you may yet be in danger, and I think you should see this man. He will think of some plan to get you out of Salzburg until it’s safe for you to return.”

She looked at him. The bitterness left her face. Her voice softened. “It is Johann you must see. At once. Tell Johann he must do nothing about the box until he can meet your friend.” She thought over that, made a decision. “I’ll go with you to Bad Aussee. This time, I’ll win the argument. Last night we had such a quarrel, and after he left I kept trying to piece everything together, to guess where he had hidden it. Not in his own house. That’s definite. It was hidden sometime last Monday night—
that’s the only chance he had. Somewhere between the meadow on Finstersee and Trudi’s house.”

“Trudi?”

“Trudi Seidl. The girl he is marrying. I thought of going to see her, only—” she shook her head slowly—“Johann wouldn’t tell her about Finstersee, or the box, or August Grell. Too dangerous for Trudi. That is how Johann would see it.”

You’ve lost me, Mathison thought, but he wouldn’t risk interrupting.”

“Johann really believes he is doing this to protect me,” Anna went on. “He’s that kind of man. He thinks women shouldn’t know anything that’s dangerous. But then Dick was like that, too.” She broke off to glance in the direction of the shop. “And so are you. Oh, really, you are all so foolish! You only add to any danger, don’t you see? How can we recognise it when we have to face it? That is double danger, Bill. And it’s terrifying—the feeling of not being able to judge the truth is terrifying. This week, my friends became strangers.” She looked at him, added, “And it seems as if strangers have become friends. Can I trust this man you know—this man from Washington?”

“Yes.” And I thought the way we met, with the FBI vouching for Nield, was something slightly esoteric, a comedy touch like the Acme Quick Service brothers. Instead, it had let him face Anna Bryant with a direct answer and no private hesitations. “Let me send him here. You can tell him what you told me—and anything else you remember.”

“There is a lot to remember,” she said slowly. “A lot to tell.”

I bet there is, he thought. “You just put all the responsibility on to his shoulders. He can take it.”

Her confidence grew. “An hour ago, everything seemed
hopeless. I didn’t get much sleep last night, of course. I was trying to puzzle out where Johann could have hidden the box, but all I could do was guess. And feel more bitter, more helpless.”

“You’ll have help now.” He picked up Lynn’s coat along with his briefcase. “I’ll get my friend around here at once. Say half an hour?”

“That will give me time to get my thoughts straight, tell him everything as quickly as possible. What is his name?”

“Cliff.”

“What does he look like? I have to be sure.”

“I’ll come back here just long enough to introduce him. Then I’ll leave you two alone. Okay?”

“But aren’t you going to see Johann along with me?”

The telephone rang.

“Cliff will do that. Better than I can.” He hesitated, made a guess about Johann. “Money may be involved now,” he added tactfully. “I couldn’t handle that at all, frankly.”

“It wasn’t money Dick wanted.” She was moving toward the shop where the telephone had given its second ring.

“Lynn will answer it. She speaks excellent German. That’s why Newhart sent her to take charge in Zürich until he finds a replacement for Yates.”

The phone stopped ringing. “She puzzles me,” Anna said, speaking low, as if Lynn were within earshot. “Doesn’t her husband object to her travelling abroad like this?” She had tried to make her voice light, keep any censure out of it. I’ll never understand American women, she was thinking. Will my daughter be as casual as Mrs. Conway?

“Her husband was killed about six years ago—in an accident.”

“Oh,” Anna said slowly. She turned away, entered the corridor that led into the shop. She paused again, faced him. “Did I tell you about Werner Dietrich?”

“He’s in hospital,” Mathison said patiently. God, he thought, how long will it take me to reach Charles Nield?

“He is dying. No hope. He had an accident early this morning. Such a stupid, silly accident. His back was broken; concussion, too. Everyone thinks he really did slip and fall on the stairs outside his office. But he was the only person who could identify Elisabetha Lang.”

“Lang? Elissa Lang?”

“Elisabetha. Last Monday night he saw her running away from this house. He was at the corner—”

“I remember him. He recognised the girl, all right. What does she look like?”

“Mrs. Bryant!” Lynn was calling.

“Coming!” he called back. “What does she look like?” he insisted.

“About Mrs. Conway’s height. The same kind of figure, the same kind of clothes. Dark hair, dark-grey eyes. She is very attractive.”

“Didn’t Dietrich report he had seen her?”

“Yes, but the police have done nothing.”

Then it wasn’t the police to whom he sent his report, thought Mathison.

“Felix Zauner said nothing much could be done because she is now out of the country. She is in Zürich. She went to meet Yates and give him the photographs, that’s obvious.”

He didn’t even try to disillusion her that the photographs had ever reached Yates. He had a new problem. “So you discussed
Lang with Dietrich, and with Zauner? Who else knows?”

“Only you.”

“Not Johann?”

“How could I tell him? He brought her here in the first place.” She began hurrying towards the shop. “Elisabetha Lang was one of his girls,” she added over her shoulder.

Lynn was saying into the receiver, “Now that’s all right, Trudi. Here is Mrs. Bryant to speak with you. She will tell you I’m a friend... No, no, I understand. Please don’t get upset about that.” She handed, the receiver to Anna Bryant, covering its mouthpiece as she told her quickly, “Trudi Seidl. She thought I was you, and tried to pour out her troubles. Now she is in a fluster about me and what I’ll think.” She retreated to Bill Mathison.

“Troubles?” he asked.

“Johann didn’t go to see her last night. And he isn’t at his place. She’s phoning from there.”

“Stood her up, did he?”

“Perhaps.”

He looked at her sharply, but she was watching Anna Bryant, who was telling Trudi that Mrs. Conway was indeed a friend. Then Anna fell abruptly silent as she listened to a torrent of words made unintelligible by tears that could be heard across the narrow shop.

“I was afraid of that,” Lynn said. “I did try to quiet her down.”

Anna Bryant looked over at them. “Please go. Get your friend here at once.” Her voice was calm, but her face was white and tense.

“Come on,” he told Lynn, and held out her coat for her. We have an errand to do.”

“You go. I’ll wait here,” Lynn said, watching Anna Bryant.

“Lynn, I need you.” He pulled her around to face him. “Come with me. Please.” He dropped the coat around her shoulders, hurried her over to the front door, unbolted it. He had wanted to try one of the short cuts, but unless Anna could have given him directions, it might have ended being the long way around to Tomaselli’s. “Please,” he said again, as Lynn hesitated at the door. To Anna, he said, “Cliff will be here within half an hour. Lock the doors, will you?”

Anna nodded. She was saying into the receiver, “Not over the telephone, Trudi! I’ll come up and see you. Tonight if possible. If not, tomorrow. I promise. Mr. Mathison and Mrs. Conway will drive me up to Unterwald.” Her eyes, troubled and pleading, looked at Bill Mathison.

“Of course we will,” Lynn said, and almost ran down the steps into the street with the force of Mathison’s tug on her wrist as he closed the door.

“Bill!” She wasn’t amused.

“Just come with me. I’ll explain.”

“I bet.”

“I’ll explain. Everything. It’s time you knew.”

“Now there I agree.” She looked at his worried face. Her voice softened. “Please help me on with my coat.” She noted that they scarcely stopped walking while he did that. She noted, too, the briefcase under his arm. “I thought that was empty.”

“There’s a newspaper inside.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a cup of coffee at Tomaselli’s.”

“For a cup of—Oh, really, Bill!”

“And by the time we have drunk it, help will be on its way to Anna Bryant.”

“This Cliff person?”

“This Cliff person.”

“But why do I have to go along? I should have stayed with Mrs. Bryant. That phone call bothers me the more I think of it.”

“Because,” he answered frankly, “your auburn hair and your blue coat and my jacket and this briefcase—” he opened it as he spoke—“and this folded newspaper now under my arm will get the message across to Cliff, and no doubts about it either.”

She stopped in amazement.

“Come on,” he said firmly, catching a sure grip on her arm, “and tell me what bothers you about Trudi’s phone call.”

They had left the Neugasse and passed through another twist of narrow street. Now they were entering the Altmarkt, a small wide square, empty and placid, edged with handsome low buildings, pleasant shops, and well-dressed window-gazers who walked slowly through a quiet Saturday afternoon. He led her obliquely across the smooth pavement of the square toward a café, restrained and handsome, that stood at one upper corner. Lynn said, “I thought at first that Trudi’s pride had been hurt. Johann drove past her house last night, didn’t stop. He didn’t appear this morning either. So she went down to his house. And she found it in a complete mess. She has been waiting and tidying it up all afternoon.”

“A party? Johann’s quite a lad. Trudi wasn’t his only girl.”

“I supposed that, too. Only she added a strange remark. She had been chasing on a hundred words to the minute, no pause, no stop, not even listening to me saying ‘Please, would you wait
a moment? Let me fetch Mrs. Bryant.’ Perhaps my German isn’t so good, not for the Unterwald region anyway.”

“What strange remark?” he asked quietly. They were now in the centre of the Altmarkt. He measured the remaining distance to Tomaselli’s with a careful eye, and eased their pace.

“She said, ‘Such a mess everywhere, such a terrible mess, but they did not find anything.’ And she broke into tears which took a full minute to control. Then I managed to get through to her that I was
not
Mrs. Bryant, and that threw her into a panic.”

They didn’t find anything... Mathison halted, looked down at Lynn. “These were her exact words?”

“Yes. I didn’t pay too much attention at the time—not until Mrs. Bryant started listening to Trudi. Did you see her hands as she gripped the receiver? The knuckles were ridged white. She must have understood at once.” And it wasn’t good news, whatever it was, thought Lynn unhappily.

“She’d get the meaning.” They started walking again, but slowly, while Mathison’s thoughts raced on. Johann had disappeared and his place had been searched. Everything had gone wrong. In spite of Nield’s briefing, planning, arranging, everything was flying wild, and what signal could Mathison send? Anna Bryant was willing to help, wanted to help; Anna Bryant once knew where the box was, but no longer; Anna Bryant could convince her brother to co-operate, and would; Anna Bryant’s brother was missing. I’ll throw the book at Nield, Mathison thought in desperation, I’ll give such a flurry of signals that his agent will report everything has gone haywire. And that’s just about as accurate an alert as Nield could get. That should start him heading for the Neugasse.

Or what if Nield’s agent didn’t get the message? What if he thought Mathison had gone haywire himself?

“Come on, Bright Eyes. Drop the anxiety. That’s an order.” He managed a confident grin. “But it’s going to be a very quick cup of coffee.”

She stopped frowning at the street that ran along the top of the Altmarkt and led to other squares, grander, larger, with domes and cupolas to match. A heavenly place, she was thinking, if only... She suppressed a sigh. “Even the clouds are baroque,” she said as they reached the café’s sidewalk, which was covered by a pleasant upstairs terrace. “A pity it isn’t warm enough to sit outside. I must come here some summer and watch the dirndls stroll by.” She glanced around at some passing capes, and almost frowned again. “There’s a man who seems to be walking after us, keeping our exact pace. I saw him as we left the Neugasse. He’s dressed in heavy tweeds—”

“Grey hair, beak nose, dark moustache?” Mathison’s voice sounded amused. I saw that bastard, he thought worriedly. “A little too old for you, isn’t he?”

“I may be suffering from a father fixation.”

“Don’t look at him,” he warned her.

“I wasn’t,” she said indignantly. “I was just wondering where oh where is friend Andrew?” This time, she could even produce a small smile.

“That’s better,” he told her as they entered the café. He took a split second to look back at the square. The beak-nosed man had turned away. No more interest, seemingly. “You’re right about friend Andrew. He has deserted us.” Mathison tucked the folded newspaper firmly under his arm and steered her to the nearest vacant table.

Friend Andrew had watched the two Americans leave for Tomaselli’s, standing discreetly to the side of a dentist’s waiting-room window, which lay on the first floor above a shop directly opposite the Bryants’ building.