Stranger in the Dark

by Nielsen, Helen

  “Oh, yes, I found him,” Larry said quickly, “at his hotel just as you suggested. Silly of me to get so upset. The whole thing was just a misunderstanding.”

  He didn’t want to overdo the explanation. Sorensen was already nodding over his cigar, and there was no reason to think he’d fathomed the lie. No reason at all except for the sudden chill in the air when he spoke again.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Herre Willis,” he said. “I’ve been somewhat worried about your friend. Shortly after you left my office a wrecked automobile was found on Highway One a few kilometers this side of Roskilde. It had run off the road and smashed into a stone wall. By a strange coincidence, this vehicle is registered to an American who has the same name as your friend—McDonald. Ira McDonald.”

  6.

  LARRY HOPED HIS GASP WASN’T AUDIBLE. HE WANTED TO ASK the obvious question, but his tongue had turned to cotton. Sorensen answered it without prompting.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t know whether or not anyone was injured in the accident,” he added. “The automobile had been abandoned, and the janitor at Ira McDonald’s address reports that he’s out of the city.” The big man sighed and flicked a long ash from his cigar. “But here I am troubling you with police matters, Herre Willis, and you doubtless have big plans for the evening. I’m sorry you can’t stay for the ballet. Some other time, perhaps?”

  It was a good exit line and Larry didn’t let it go to waste. “Some other time,” he muttered, and did a very fast job of merging with the carefree crowd that strolled along the lighted path. One stricken face wouldn’t be noticed there. One puzzled man who had a lot of things to think about before he kept a ten o’clock date with a girl who wasn’t going to like what he had to report. McDonald’s car wrecked! Add this bit to the trophies in his coat pocket and the fate of Maren Lund’s boy friend didn’t look bright. One man was already dead of automotive trouble. Had the man in the black sedan tried for two?

  SORRY OUR MAN GOOFED. DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN?

  The wording of the crumpled wire began to take on an ominous tone. Translate it anyway he pleased, it still came out bad news. Because Martinus Sorensen wasn’t the kind of company he cared to keep while a dead man’s bank roll nestled against his ribs, Larry found another restaurant on the far side of the park and tried to digest this latest development along with some hardly tasted dinner. The more he thought about it, the more he knew this was no kind of news to take back to Maren Lund. Not yet, anyway. Not until the police had more information.

  He would tell her about the prowler and pretend that the rest of the story wasn’t important enough to repeat….

  “I don’t understand,” she insisted. “A prowler in Mac’s kitchen? What was he looking for?”

  They were almost to Maren’s apartment before Larry finished relating his experiences. Seeing a lady home was an old Moline custom, and walking, apparently, was an old Copenhagen custom. A taxi, she’d insisted, was an unnecessary expense.

  Larry answered her questions with a heavy sigh. “I was hoping you could tell me that,” he said.

  “But how could I? A prowler! How did he look? What was he like?”

  Describing the man was like describing his own long shadow that bent before them on the brick-faced buildings along the narrow street. A shadow had no identity. Any tall, hatless man in Copenhagen could have been the prowler. The important thing was the message on that wire, and the name Brad.

  “But I don’t know anyone named Brad!” Maren said. “I’m not familiar with Mac’s business associates.”

  “Are you familiar with his business?” Larry asked.

  They had stopped before one of the brick buildings that had an iron-grill railing leading up a set of cement steps to a shadowed door. For a moment Maren’s face was hidden as she fingered through her purse for a key, and when it came up again, little frown lines were creasing her forehead.

  “He does things for tourists,” she said vaguely.

  “What sort of things?” Larry persisted.

  “Just things. Accommodations, entertainments—”

  “Fishing trips?”

  The frown lines were getting deeper. They were annoyance lines now.

  “It’s possible,” she said. “What are you insinuating, Mr. Willis? Do you still think Mac had anything to do with that poor fisherman?”

  “Don’t you?” Larry asked.

  “Of course not! Why do you think such a thing?”

  “The gray envelope in my pocket,” Larry said. “You recognized it back at the bar, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me it came from McDonald’s desk?”

  “It’s common stationery. It’s sold in many shops.”

  “And only to men named McDonald, I suppose! Look here, Miss Lund, if you have any idea of what this business is all about I think I’m entitled to an explanation. I didn’t ask to get involved in anybody’s death. I’m just an innocent bystander.”

  “So you say!”

  The words were like a slap across the mouth. The last thing in the world Larry wanted was to have this girl glaring at him as if he’d just sprouted a pair of horns, but there was nothing like sudden anger to flush out the truth … unless it was sudden fear.

  “How do I know what you really are?” she cried. “I find you drinking at a bar where I always met Mac. You look like him, dress like him, and you tell me this ridiculous story about a sailor giving you an envelope full of money just before he was run down and killed by a sinister-looking man in a black sedan! You try to talk me into going with you to look for Mac at his apartment, and when that fails you frighten me with a silly old fat man so I’ll give you Mac’s key—”

  “I didn’t even know that you had his key,” Larry protested, but he was talking to himself.

  “—and now you come back with this story about a prowler in his kitchen and try to insinuate that he’s involved in some fantastic crime! Really, Mr. Willis, you must think I’m a fool!”

  A fool, perhaps, but a frightened fool. A beautiful, frightened fool who didn’t seem to know that fighting so hard only made the fear more obvious. She started to turn away, but now Larry had to know why she was so suspicious even if it meant chasing her up the cement steps and forcing his way into her apartment. He would have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for the sudden movement in the shadowed doorway. One of the shadows pulled loose from the others and unfolded upward until it stood about six feet tall.

  “Must you stand there arguing like fishwives all night?” the shadow scolded in a deep but impatient voice. “These steps aren’t upholstered, you know.”

  … A tall man shadow. For a moment Larry saw nothing else. Then the man moved forward a step, and the light from the nearby street lamp gave him a face. It was rather a handsome face, not young and not old. The nose was straight, the cheekbones high, and the eyes deep-set and commanding. A lock of hair that needed trimming swept down across his high forehead, hair that had been dark before the white came in random streaks, and the mouth was twisted in a half-smile.

  Now that the shadow had a face, Maren’s brief tension disappeared. “Oh, Valdemar, it’s only you,” she said.

  The half-smile lingered a moment longer. “Such a warm greeting for an old friend,” the man chided. “You are in a bad temper, aren’t you?”

  “I didn’t mean—” Maren began.

  “To be rude? No, I’m sure you didn’t, little Maren, but then I’ve been waiting here on your doorstep for what seems to be hours, and my lean and aching bones aren’t as young as they once were.”

  The man’s face turned toward Larry, and his smile disappeared, probably because of the way Larry was gaping like a fool.

  “Herre Willis, I believe,” he said. “That is the name I heard Maren use, is it not? Since my young friend is so lacking in manners tonight, I must introduce myself. My name is Valdemar Brix.”

  Larry had the distinct impression that there should have been a fanfare before the name and applause right after, but he didn’t car
ry a trumpet, and his hands were in his pocket. A tall shadow. The thought wouldn’t get out of his mind.

  “Haven’t we met before?” he asked.

  “You are a patron of the theater, Herre Willis?”

  “Mr. Willis is an American,” Maren said crossly. “He arrived in Copenhagen only yesterday.”

  Valdemar Brix looked disappointed. “Oh, that is too bad!” he said. “In that case you have never had the pleasure of my company or my talent, Herre Willis. But are we to stand here on the doorstep all night, little Maren? That key in your hand must be for some purpose.”

  The key was for the door, and the scowl on Maren’s face was for nocturnal visitors she didn’t want; but Valdemar was impervious to scowls, and Larry was going anywhere that Valdemar went. A narrow hall led them to a small apartment. The furnishings weren’t modern, the lamp shades weren’t spun glass, and the furniture wasn’t of bleached woods; but one object was familiar. On the round table in the center of the room was a framed photograph of a girl and a man with his arm about her waist. Larry stared at the photograph while Valdemar helped himself to a pear from the fruit bowl on the table.

  “I’m famished,” he announced in a loud voice. “I’ve been waiting an eternity out in the cold.”

  “It isn’t cold,” Maren objected.

  “When one is alone and starving, it is always cold. Isn’t that so, Herre Willis?”

  McDonald wasn’t going to take his arm away from Maren’s waist no matter how long Larry stared at the picture. He turned away and took a good look at Valdemar Brix, who had now taken the one large armchair in the room and was frowning at the pear in his hands. They were unusual hands. Long and narrow, but badly misshapen as if all of the fingers had been broken and badly set. Now that there was light enough to notice such things, Larry could see he was a shabby sort of fellow. His dark and threadbare suit obviously hadn’t felt a presser’s iron for some time, his collar was frayed at the neckband, and the knotted scrap of silk that dangled down his shirt front wasn’t the latest thing in men’s fancy neckwear. And yet, oddly enough, he sat there in the armchair looking like royalty on a tour of the middle classes.

  Larry couldn’t think of an adequate answer to his question, but Valdemar didn’t seem to expect one.

  “Why were you waiting?” Maren asked.

  “Why, for you, my dear. Why else? Of course, I was a bit surprised at your change of escort.” Valdemar paused and fixed his faintly smiling eyes on Larry’s face. “It’s too much to hope, I suppose, that you’ve broken off with McDonald.”

  There seemed to be an automatic defense mechanism that went to work inside Maren Lund at the mention of McDonald’s name.

  “He’s out of the city,” she snapped.

  “Yes, I know,” Valdemar murmured.

  “You know?” Larry echoed. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

  A moment of silence. A moment of studying the pear again, and then Valdemar looked up with that wry smile back on his face.

  “I assure you that Ira McDonald doesn’t inform me of his unpredictable actions,” he said.

  “Then how do you know he’s out of the city?”

  “By the same means as yourself, Herre Willis. I went to his apartment…. Do you have a knife, Maren, or must I eat this fruit unpared like some barbarian?”

  The fact that he’d just made a disclosure of some importance didn’t seem to bother Valdemar. He started to rise from the chair, but Larry couldn’t have him roaming around the apartment at a time like this.

  “Here, use mine,” he said, digging down for the penknife in his trouser pocket. “When was it that you went to McDonald’s apartment?”

  He had to wait for an answer. It was just standard advertising on the knife tossed so unceremoniously into Valdemar’s lap, but he seemed fascinated by the inscription on the handle. “Prairie State Farm Tool and Equipment Company,” he read aloud. “How ingenious! You Americans always find some way of carrying your business about with you.”

  “When?” Larry repeated.

  “Oh, hours ago. Sometime this afternoon.”

  “Not tonight?”

  “Not tonight. And I was not the prowler Maren was shouting about in the street, Herre Willis. That’s what you had in mind, of course.”

  Of course. Larry didn’t have a word of denial. He looked to Maren for some sign of disbelief, but there was none. Worry, annoyance, puzzlement, any one of these things might describe the expression on her grave face, but not fear or suspicion. Valdemar was no stranger with a wild story.

  “Quite an interesting conversation,” Valdemar added, appropriating an ash tray for the parings of his now denuded pear. “Something about a sailor, an envelope full of money, and a sinister-looking man in a black sedan, if I recall correctly.”

  “You didn’t miss much,” Larry muttered.

  “Of course not, I was intrigued! But eavesdropping is such a frustrating occupation when people leave everything unfinished and unexplained.”

  Valdemar Brix began to eat the pear very carefully, knifing it out wedge by wedge. He didn’t speak, but his eyes were expectant and Maren’s attitude seemed to indicate that he was going to hear Larry’s adventures eventually anyway. Larry preferred to do the telling himself. He went over the story again, and this time Maren seemed to listen even more intently than she had back at that cocktail bar. Maybe she was trying to catch him in some deviation, or maybe she was just beginning to understand the gravity of the problem. He left nothing out, all the way from a corner on the Radhuspladsen to an apartment a few blocks from Tivoli. The envelopes in the desk, the telegram, the prowler in the kitchen—all was told when Larry stopped talking.

  He waited for a reaction, but Valdemar continued to devour the pear until nothing was left but the core.

  “Well, what do you make of it?” Maren asked.

  Valdemar wiped his fingers on a handkerchief whipped out of his breast pocket. “No sane man would believe a word of a story like that,” he answered.

  “Now just a minute—” Larry began, but Valdemar held up a silencing hand.

  “However,” he added, “sanity can be so boring. May I see the telegram, Herre Willis?”

  Larry dug the crumpled bit of paper out of his coat pocket and placed it in Valdemar’s outstretched hand. The wording was strictly Americana, that much was obvious.

  “Brad—” Maren reflected. “I can’t think of a soul with that name and I know most of Mac’s friends.”

  “But not all, my dear,” Valdemar murmured, his eyes still on the wire. “Fortunately, not all. But this message isn’t from anyone you could possibly know. It’s from Berlin…. I suppose McDonald would have needed a contact in some such place just to make the scheme look good.”

  The trouble with this affair was that when anyone tried to explain anything it just became all the more confusing. Larry had been much too busy back in that apartment to even think of checking the place of origin on the wire, and now that he knew, he wasn’t happy. Crossing borders gave the puzzle an international aspect. He was a plow and cultivator man, not cloak and dagger.

  But Valdemar’s afterthought, voiced in the hollow echo of a man talking to himself, put an end to conjecture. A man talking to himself shouldn’t have an audience.

  “What scheme?” Larry and Maren demanded in unison.

  The man in the chair let the telegram drop to the floor. For just a moment his manner changed, and he looked haggard and a little sad. “You won’t believe me if I tell you,” he said, looking up at Maren’s troubled face. “You think this McDonald is some kind of gay knight in shining armor. Our little Maren is partial to Americans, Herre Willis. She hasn’t really come home at all.”

  Larry didn’t know what the man was talking about, and he wasn’t going to find out now. Valdemar sprang to his feet and strode across the room like a caged lion. “All right, I’ll tell you anyway,” he said, facing them again. “You asked me, Maren, why I waited on your doorstep. I came because I’m lookin
g for McDonald, and I thought you might know where he’s gone. I must find him because he owes me a sum of money.”

  “He owes you?” Maren asked.

  Her intonation left nothing to the imagination. Valdemar winced but stood his ground.

  “Yes,” he said, “he owes me. And why, you wonder? Because of this scheme. Oh, I can see through it all now! The fisherman’s boat, the telegram, the sudden disappearance— No, don’t scowl at me, little Maren. You asked a question, and now you must listen to the answer. About two weeks ago, you see, your dear friend McDonald came to me with a proposition. I was to do an impersonation for him so he could play a little joke, as he put it, on one of his clients.”

  Valdemar paused. He seemed suddenly to remember Larry and a small matter of identification.

  “It is true that Ira McDonald ‘does things for tourists’ as I heard Maren tell you in the street,” he explained, “but only special things for special tourists. Tourists with a great deal of money.”

  “You make it sound as if he picks their pockets,” Maren protested.

  Valdemar’s smile returned, wry and knowing. “Let’s just say that he makes a substantial commission,” he said. “The point is, Herre Willis, that Ira McDonald will supply anything a client desires, no matter how bizarre that desire may be. That’s why he came to me. I am an actor. I have other talents, naturally. I write, I paint, I’ve even tried my hand at sculpture—but where, in all Denmark, can one find space for another statue? No, it is as an actor that I am best known, and it was as an actor that McDonald engaged my services. A very wealthy client, he explained, was bored with castles and cathedrals. He craved excitement.”

  The rest of the speech was for Maren. Valdemar gave her his full attention once more.

  “Did you know that your friend is an undercover agent who rescues poor refugees from behind the iron curtain?” he asked.

  Cloak and dagger! Larry did the shuddering. Maren asked the question. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.