Her companion certainly wasn’t. His manner was easy, as if being picked up on a lonely country road were a daily occurrence. “My name is Renwick, Robert Renwick. This is Miss Avril Hoffman, at your right elbow. Sorry to put you to this trouble. We’re grateful for it. We were due at the office ten minutes ago.”
I see, thought Grant in a flight of romantic guessing: business associates (boss and secretary?) returning from a night in the country. Travelling light, too; but Miss Hoffman’s outsize shoulder-bag could hold two toothbrushes quite easily. “Glad to help out. The name is Grant, by the way, Colin Grant.”
Renwick stared at him. “Colin Grant?” He was incredulous. “Well, well, well...”
The next thing he’ll tell me, Grant was thinking, is that he has read my book—one of the two thousand and sixty-three people who have actually bought it. Or perhaps he borrowed it from a library: that was usually the case. In spite of the lack of royalties, it was soothing to an author’s ego even if it didn’t help his bank account.
But Renwick said, “We have a friend in common.”
“Oh?”
“Dwight O’Malley.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. “O’Malley?” was all he could say. “Yes. Old Dwight. He was supposed to be here this week-end. He called me last night from Geneva—has to postpone his visit for a few weeks. Mentioned that he’d just had a note from you, and was sorry he’d miss you. Told me to try and track you down at your hotel and hoist one for him.”
Geneva was correct: so was Grant’s scrawled note to O’Malley before leaving New York. Grant’s attack of disbelief ended. The amusing side of life was its pleasant surprises. Coincidences did happen. “How long have you known him?”
“Off and on since college. He went into the army along with me. You did your service with him in Germany, didn’t you?”
“We trained together, but in Germany I stayed with the poor bloody infantry. O’Malley went into—” Grant stopped short. O’Malley had disappeared into some hush-hush outfit: codes, it was thought. Intelligence? Was he still following along with that? Grant looked with a fresh eye on Robert Renwick. “Were you posted to Germany too?”
Renwick nodded. “Up among the potato fields. Never will forget the smell of dung that the farmers scattered around. When I asked a Fräulein what was the awful stench, she giggled and said “Landluft! Country air, we call it.” Never could eat a potato since then.”
“Are you still in the army?” Grant asked bluntly.
“No. I’m at present attached—temporarily—to our Embassy here.”
“So you’re just visiting Vienna?”
“For a couple of months.”
“Where’s your home ground? Washington?”
“Actually, it has been Brussels for the last few years.” NATO? Grant wondered. Tactfully, he said, “I used to live in Washington. Thought we might have more friends in common.” He looked at the silent girl, who was still fascinated by the torrent of rain sweeping over the car’s windows.
Renwick noticed his speculation. “Avril’s a pure Londoner, even if she spent the first three years of her life in New York. I’m helping her lose her accent.”
“Neat duty you’ve drawn in Vienna,” Grant said with a grin, and refrained from asking more questions. He had reached the end of the allowed quota, he decided. Renwick’s frankness—if he were connected with some form of Intelligence—had better not be tested much more. Then Grant asked himself three questions: why so much frankness? A method of winning trust? Or just natural friendliness? Renwick would be a gregarious type, as much outgoing and forthright as the girl was introspective and silent. “Avril is a charming name,” he told her profile. “Were you born in April? Then you should like rain-showers.”
She turned her dark eyes on him. They were her best feature, he thought—large and soft and luminous, reminding him of a Byzantine portrait. She smiled. “Only if it’s warm rain.”
Renwick cut in with, “What about you? Staying long in Vienna, city of my dreams?”
“Two weeks, I hope.” Perhaps less, damn it.
“Business or pleasure?”
“A little of each. Museums and Weinstüberl.”
“Of course, you’re the expert on art.”
“Hardly.”
“Don’t know much about painting,” Renwick confessed. “I belong to the I-know-what-I-like school. What’s your favourite field? Impressionism, Abstract, Contemporary Realism, or just good old-fashioned Dutch and Flemish?”
Grant’s spine stiffened. The girl might have sensed it. “Isn’t this rain appalling?” she asked softly.
“In Brussels, of course,” Renwick went on, very casual, very conversational, “they still worship the seventeenth-century masters. You see nothing but reproductions of them all around the place.”
“It was a pretty good century for painting,” Grant said evenly.
“Still is, for those who are now investing in it. Ironic, isn’t it? The artists got enough to keep them alive, and—”
“Oh, Sir Peter Paul Rubens didn’t do too badly.” Let’s get off this subject, Grant warned himself, and tried a small diversion. “He didn’t only paint bouncing beauties and collect a fortune: he also was a diplomat, travelled widely, and turned secret agent when necessary. Interesting life, wouldn’t you say?”
Renwick wasn’t diverted. He went on, “Today the prices have gone sky-high. In Brussels, even the enthusiasts for—”
He leaned across Grant to ask the girl, “What was the name of that painter who was bought for two hundred thousand dollars a few months ago?”
“Ruysdael,” she said. “Salomon van Ruysdael.”
“Good old Sal. Two hundred big ones. Enough to have him leaping out of his grave. Even the Bruxellois thought it ridiculous.”
“It’s a bit high,” Grant agreed. He was worried. Not only by the mention of Ruysdael, but by the price. God, he thought, do I find myself carrying back to New York a picture that’s into six figures?
“What would you pay for a Ruysdael?” Renwick asked, all innocence.
“If I had the cash?” Grant mustered a broad smile. “Well, I don’t know. Between fifty and seventy thousand, I suppose—depending on its state, of course.”
“I hear they’ve been getting a hundred and fifty thousand, recently. But this two hundred thousand sale—” Renwick shook his head. “I’m in the wrong racket. I’d better take up painting.” There was a brief laugh all around, and then silence. Renwick reached into his pocket for a small note-book and pencil. He wrote: Boltzmanngasse 16, tel. 34-66-11. “That’s our Embassy,” he said. “Ask for extension 123 and get through to me direct. Okay?” He tore off the page, handed it to Grant. “Get in touch if you need any help.”
“Help?”
“Some emergency—you never can tell.”
“I’m here to enjoy myself,” Grant told him. “And I do know Vienna. I’ll find my way around.”
“I’m sure you will,” Renwick said soothingly. He leant forward and tapped Frank’s shoulder. He spoke in German again. “That garage looks a likely place. Let us out over there.” He held out his hand to Grant. His grasp was firm. “We’ll meet again, I hope. Many thanks. Come on, Avril—let’s get that new battery and find us a taxi.”
“You’re going all the way back?” Grant asked.
“May have to—if there’s no tow-truck around.”
Avril said, “At least it has stopped raining.”
Grant watched them go. She isn’t as simple as all that, he was thinking. There had been a sudden smile repressed, a moment’s laughter in her eyes, when he talked about Reubens.
* * *
Avril Hoffman and Bob Renwick had only to wait five minutes at the gas station. “There he is,” Renwick said as their grey Fiat with Prescott Taylor at the wheel made a careful turn to reach the garage. “Right on the button,” he added, glancing at his watch. “Hi, Prescott! Did you get your feet wet?”
“Only slightly damp.” The trees at the s
ide of the road, where the Fiat was left abandoned, had been thick enough to shelter Taylor from most of the rain and Grant’s quick eyes. “Did it go well?”
“Hope so.” Renwick helped Avril into the front seat, climbed in after her. “This will warm you,” he told her, crushing her between him and Taylor. “Didn’t even bring a cardigan, you idiot. What do you think Austria is? The Caribbean?” Then, serious, he turned to Taylor. “At least we started him thinking. My God—the questions he asked: you’d have thought I was the one being quizzed. He’s no slouch. I’ll say that for him.”
“Frank—how did he do?”
“He makes a pretty good chauffeur: said nothing, listened to everything.”
“That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?”
“That was the deal. Without his information, we’d be fighting this thing blind.”
Avril said, “He frightens me.”
“Frank? He’s on our side, honey. For the time being.” Frank Krimmer had been more co-operative than the usual Israeli agent. Those Mossad guys were tough... “He’s friendly. Even if our interests don’t always coincide, he’s—well—” Renwick searched for the right word, but everything he thought of was too soft in feeling. Frank could be as rigid as a block of granite. “Well,” Renwick ended lamely, “he’s helping us as much as we help him.”
Avril said, “He never really jokes—only on the surface, but not deep down.”
“He may not have much to joke about,” Renwick said grimly, and Prescott Taylor nodded his agreement.
“But,” she insisted, “you joke all the time, both of you.”
“Which means we are two gentle lambs,” Renwick told Taylor.
Avril said stiffly, “That’s carrying it too far. I was only saying—”
“I know, my pet.” Renwick squeezed her shoulder. “Where’s your own sense of humour? Caught a chill on that damned road?”
“I never did see Mayerling,” she said.
“We passed it—one small store waiting in the rain for the tourists.”
“There’s the hunting lodge too, where the Archduke and his Vetsera—”
“All for love. Touching. You know, I never thought much of that double-suicide story. What about two murders, made to look like a death-pact? Could have been political. Archduke Rudolf was not behaving like an Emperor’s proper son and heir.”
“I still want to see the hunting lodge.”
“You can’t. No one is allowed to enter its gates, unless she’s a Carmelite nun. And then she stays for good.”
Taylor said, with a touch of impatience, one hand smoothing his thin fair hair back over an incipient bald spot, “Before we scatter, what’s our next move?”
“With Grant? We wait.”
“Not too long,” said Taylor worriedly.
“Not too long.” Renwick turned to Avril. “Cheer up, old girl. The nuns say a prayer every day for the soul of the Archduke Rudolf. Doesn’t that make you feel good all over?”
“What about La Vetsera?” Avril demanded.
“The Archduchess and I never mention that name.”
“Oh, Bob! Really—” But she was laughing.
“We drop you here, Prescott,” said Renwick, “and you can taxi in style to the Embassy. You don’t want to be seen arriving in a rented car with a low-grade attaché.”
“Certainly not. Especially when he’s a newcomer, of very temporary status, who can’t be taken seriously.” Taylor was giving his proper-Bostonian imitation. “Just one of those nuisances that get foisted on us—”
“Like me?” Avril asked. Her dual citizenship had raised an eyebrow for the first week or two. After that, acceptance—especially when her work was only part-time, helping out with a shortage in translators.
“But such a charming nuisance,” said Taylor, “proficient in six foreign languages.” He drew up the Fiat at the kerb, disentangled his long legs, saying, “Why the hell don’t you get a car with room?” as he closed the door behind him.
“Now,” said Renwick as he took the wheel, “here’s what I think we should do in the next few days.” He began detailing the problem, words, explicit, sentences concise. The quizzical tone of voice had vanished. Avril listened intently, her face as grave as his.
6
Just who were these people? Grant kept coming back to that question. Speculations had been pouring through his head as he showered and had a closer shave than he had managed on the plane, and then—in the terry robe that the Majestic provided for its guests along with heated bathroom floors—a second, if belated, breakfast of croissants and coffee. Now, still wearing the comfortable robe, he flopped down on the bed (one of two in this giant room, full-size each of them) and might have fallen asleep except that his mind wouldn’t let him.
He tried a soothing explanation. Coincidences did happen. This guy Renwick knew Dwight O’Malley, and it was quite natural for O’Malley to drop Grant’s name in the middle of a telephone call between the two. Okay, perfectly acceptable: small world, and that kind of thing. But the steering of the conversation on to Ruysdael? The mention of inflated prices—as if Renwick guessed or had a vague suspicion that I was about to acquire a Ruysdael—might have been made with a purpose: to jolt the truth out of me that I was suffering from momentary shock because of this unexpected rise in value. Why? he would have asked: are you a prospective buyer? Right there he’d have known—not guessed but known that I was covering for someone. Most definitely. I don’t have enough cash to buy a Ruysdael at even a few thousand dollars; or pay for a hundred-dollars-per-day room in a luxury hotel, Dwight O’Malley knows that damned well.
But O’Malley hadn’t known (and therefore Renwick hadn’t known either) where I was going to stay. All I mentioned in my note to O’Malley was the fact that I was leaving New York on the twenty-sixth for Vienna. That was vague enough. Or was it? Renwick had only to check the passenger list of the overnight flight to Vienna—and he’d have my arrival to the minute. Whereupon I was met by a nice quiet type like Frank, who seemed to be authentic: he knew whom to meet and where to take him. Damn it all, did he know about the Majestic—or did he learn that from the label on my suitcase?
Which brings me to Herr Frank himself. He sat there, able to hear everything we said, all along that Mayerling road. Renwick wasn’t whispering: his voice had been normal. What’s more, Renwick wouldn’t have been so forthcoming about himself, about Brussels and NATO (only a fool would have missed drawing that inference), if there were some unknown chauffeur picking up every word he uttered. Renwick knew Frank: they were in this together.
“Hell and damnation,” he said aloud, his muscles tightening. He sprang up from the bed, stood for a moment, rigid with anger. They were pushing him around like a bloody pawn. We’ll see about that, but first things first.
He began unpacking his case. His two suits had travelled well, but they looked somewhat lonely in the vast wardrobe. It reminded him to search for the notice, which hotels were obliged to post, giving the cost of the room. He found it discreetly displayed behind the bedroom door that led to his small private hall. One thousand seven hundred schillings a day, not including breakfast. That brought the total over the hundred-dollar mark. Lois Westerbrook, or Gene Marck, had slipped up there. Badly. That was the trouble with these guys who worked for the super-rich, lived with them, became accustomed to wealth: they forgot how other people lived. First-class accommodations Lois had promised him. Sure, he had travelled like that often enough, but this went far beyond first class. This was unadulterated luxury. Have a good cover story ready for your friends, Marck had warned him and even suggested a couple of articles on the Brueghels in the State Museum. Blast his eyes, did he think you could write two short articles on seventeen intricate masterpieces? One thing he had done: he had made up Grant’s mind not to go near the Brueghels, not this trip. Damn me, Grant thought, if I’ll take any hand-me-down idea from a man who estimates art in terms of money: this painting is depreciating in dollar value, so sell; this one is r
ising, so buy. You’ll double your investment in three years: a greater future than pork bellies on any commodity market.
He cooled down while he finished unpacking the overnight bag. Jennifer’s photograph, now covered for safe travel by transparent plastic instead of glass, went on the dressing-table. He could see her dancing around this room, thin negligee flowing loose, her laughter rising as she dropped on the chaise-longue in a Récamier pose. Jennifer... And there was a flash of memory, to the man who called himself Frank, talking pleasantly of skiing and mountain-climbing. In the winter, Jennifer and he had gone skiing; in the summer, they had climbed mountains. Did Frank know as much as all that about him? A carefully dropped allusion to make Frank quickly acceptable? Just one of us, good old Frank.
All right, Grant decided, his lips tight, I’ll check up on Frank. He finished dressing, then searched in the telephone book for the Danube Travel Service, half expecting no entry to be found. But it was there. He rehearsed a few sentences in German and made the call.
After the eighth ring, a woman answered. She sounded efficient, even if dilatory. Yes, this was Danube Travel, could we be of assistance, sir?
“Is Frank there?”
“Which Frank?”
“The one who met me at the airport this morning.”
“We met several people. On which flight were you?”
“Arriving from New York at nine forty-five.”
“Oh yes. Just a moment.” After some brief consultation, she said, “I am sorry, but Frank is not here at the moment. Is there a complaint?”
Prelude to Terror Page 6
