Return to Vienna

by Nancy Buckingham

  Remembering Mitzi, I felt my first real stab of doubt about why Max had married me at all. She’d taken great delight in telling me how astonished everyone had been. I could recall her exact words, “No offense, darling, but he didn’t really seem the type to marry—especially not a mere teen-ager.” It tied in with Ilse’s horrible explanation only too well. A whirlwind romance, I’d blissfully imagined. Had Max just been hustling to achieve married status, as ordered?

  The thrill of my rescue wore off as these bitter thoughts dug into my mind. I felt chilled, even in the enclosed and heated car.

  Steve said gently, “Come on, Jessica—out with it.”

  So I told him. That the Hellwegs were resurgent Nazis, and that Max had been in their pay, helping them to smuggle out looted treasures which had been hidden during wartime in countries now controlled by the Communists.

  But still clutching at hope, I added quickly, “Max wasn’t doing it for the money. He ... he had other reasons.”

  “What other reasons?” Steve’s voice shouted his disbelief.

  I sidestepped a reply. “You don’t seem surprised by what I’ve just told you.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Do you mean you knew all along?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. It had to add up to something of the kind. Those trips of Max’s into Hungary—they weren’t all justified business-wise. And the money he splashed around—and that eight hundred quid I found hidden in the desk! Don’t forget, Jessica, I knew precisely what salary he collected from the firm.”

  “Oh!”

  Steve was very gentle again, but insistent. “You said Max had other reasons?”

  I knew I’d never be able to fool him, and what did it matter now if I let out about Richard Wilson?

  I said slowly, “Max was only pretending to work for the Hellwegs. He was actually a British secret agent....”

  “Max was what?” It was as if the car itself bucked with astonishment. Steve braked hard and pulled in to the side. We bumped to a stop on the verge.

  Saying it a second time was difficult. The very shape of the words seemed faintly ludicrous. “A British secret agent! He was working all along for British intelligence.”

  Steve expressed his disbelief again, shortly and forcibly.

  “He was,” I said, fighting back at my own stomach-gripping doubt. “I know he was.”

  “What makes you so sure? Because Max told you?”

  “No, he never said a word. I only found out the other day from someone who worked with him.”

  I gave Steve the whole story. About Richard Wilson coming to me with the horrifying news that Max’s death had not been an accident; about the letter he’d given me from Max himself; about the plan for me to return to Vienna and mix with people we’d known before.

  “I hated lying to you, Steve, and holding you off like that. But I had to, don’t you see? Otherwise people might have thought I was just here to be with you. The whole idea was to create the impression that I wanted to be contacted so I could carry on where Max left off. It sounds crazy, but see the way it worked. The Hellwegs got in touch with me almost at once—at the Kolbingers’ party.”

  “I remember,” he said grimly. “But the setup wasn’t quite what you’d been led to expect, was it?”

  I turned away from him and stared into the dark woods alongside us. “I don’t suppose Max liked the Hellwegs, either. He just had a job to do.”

  “By God! You’re such a bloody loyal kid, Jessica.”

  Why wouldn’t Steve see? I flung at him desperately, “What about Richard Wilson, then? How do you account for him?”

  “There’s one thing I’d bet my last dollar on—this character Wilson is no British agent. He’s a crook.”

  I got furious. Steve was being so willfully blind. “But I just told you—I had a letter from Max admitting that he was an agent. He’d left it with Richard to give me just in case ... in case he got killed.”

  There was a long dragging silence from Steve. Cars went zipping past us monotonously on the autobahn, and I began to think he wasn’t going to make any comeback. Then, quite suddenly, he jumped on me. “That letter could have been a fake.”

  “Oh, Steve,” I said reproachfully. “Don’t you ever give up? It was in Max’s own handwriting! It was even on office stationery!”

  “Listen! There’s obviously a heck of a lot of money involved in whatever’s going on—well worth the trouble of working out a nice line in forgery. Where is this letter? Have you got it in your handbag?”

  “No, I haven’t. Richard advised me not to bring it to Vienna, in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

  “How convenient. So we can’t have a closer look at the handwriting. And as for the firm’s letterhead— we’re not a top-security organization. It would be easy for anyone to pinch what they needed.”

  I felt drained out. Through these days of pain and doubting I’d clung to one mind-saving belief. I’d never dreamed that the letter from Max might not be genuine. But Steve seemed so sure it couldn’t be —only a clever, calculated fake.

  And if he was right, what did it all mean? Why was I here in Vienna? What was I being used for?

  A sudden memory gave me back a glimmer of hope. “Richard Wilson said that in an emergency I could reach him at the British embassy. What about that?”

  Steve was surprised, and thoughtful. “Did you ever try it?”

  “Well, not actually, because the Hellwegs’ phone was dead last night. But Richard said if I left a message for the assistant commercial counselor that Miss Brown would like to hear from him, then he’d be in touch as soon as he could.”

  Steve sighed in exasperation. “That doesn’t mean a thing. It was just a neat way for Wilson to build up your confidence, without any risk to him. Supposing you did phone the embassy and leave a message. . . . the chap who took the call wouldn’t be able to make any sense of it, but so what? He’s not going to tear Vienna apart trying to trace an unknown Miss Brown. And as for what you’d think—Wilson was obviously intending to keep in pretty close touch, so the next time he showed up, you would assume he’d come in answer to your S.O.S.”

  “Oh! I never thought of that.”

  Steve gave a sudden sharp exclamation. “Jessica, how was this Wilson chap supposed to know where to find you?”

  “He’s got someone watching me all the time. A man in a Volkswagen.” Then it hit me, too. “You mean ... ?”

  “Could well be. Come on, we’ll give him a run for his money.”

  Steve flicked the ignition switch, pushed the starter button. We were off in a wild burst of power, tires screaming for a grip. “It’ll be some Volkswagen that holds this,” he said as the needle surged upward.

  I kept watch out of the rear window, on the lookout for following headlights. We sped past several cars, leaving them standing, but nothing seemed to be trying to keep up with us.

  In only minutes we reached Vienna’s outskirts and slipped into the city through Hietzing and past the Schonbrunn Palace. At Karlsplatz, Steve swung off to the right.

  “I’m hungry,” he said. “You can scrounge up a bit of supper when we get home.”

  “Home?”

  “My flat.”

  But we weren’t to reach it. Taking another right turn somewhere behind the Karlskirche, we entered a quiet road of apartment buildings. Steve slowed, then smoothly picked up speed again.

  “Get your head down,” he barked, giving me a hard shove. I didn’t argue, he meant business.

  I felt the car taking another corner, then another. Steve’s hand stayed on my back, keeping me pushed down out of sight. After a few moments he said, “Okay, you can sit up now.”

  I gathered myself and my wits together. “What was all that about?”

  Steve shot a glance in the driving mirror. “Lucky I spotted that car in time. Right there, smack outside my place.”

  I went cold. “What car, Steve?”

  “A Maserati, love. Bright r
ed and gorgeous! There aren’t many of those jobs around—not in their price bracket!”

  Chapter 16

  Within seconds we were safely lost in the stream of evening traffic on the Ringstrasse.

  Superficially everything was so normal. If this had been a night three months ago I’d have probably been doing something very like this with Max. Here was the part of Vienna I knew so well, the fashionable center. Even the car could have been the same—a smooth, comfortable Mercedes.

  Steve said: “Those Hellwegs didn’t lose any time putting two and two together. They must’ve phoned through to the villa the minute they found their flat hadn’t been burgled.”

  “But how could they possibly have known it was you that rescued me?”

  “I daresay Fatty recognized me before he hit the water. Anyway, it wasn’t a difficult guess, the way I’ve been chasing after you.”

  I said nothing.

  “We must get off the streets while we have a think,” Steve said after a moment. “Vienna’s a big place, but not so big they wouldn’t stand a fair chance of finding us if they got some help on the job.”

  “But, Steve, surely they wouldn’t dare try anything now? We could go to the police,”

  He laughed grimly. “They’re not amateurs, love! They’ll have got their tracks well covered. You’d never be able to prove a thing.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “The Hutyens,” he said with a sudden snap of decision. “I’m going to take you to their place. We can trust Klara and Bruno, and I know they’ll be glad to help.”

  We were driving alongside the Danube canal on Franz-Josefs-Kai, and at once Steve swung around, heading toward the Hutyens’ apartment close by St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

  Going to such kind friends was a tempting solution to the immediate problem, but I felt doubtful about foisting myself on people who were in no way involved.

  “What do we tell them, Steve?”

  “I don’t think they’ll be all that surprised about the Hellwegs. And as for Max . . .” His hand came off the wheel for a moment and touched mine lightly. “Remember, they knew him pretty well—as I did.”

  “I thought I did, too,” I said bitterly.

  Steve’s voice was very gentle. “That was different. You were in love with him.”

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh.

  Steve rounded a corner too sharply, so that I was swung outward and flung against the door. Then we were running down a long ramp to the underground car park of the building where the Hutyens lived.

  A lift took us directly to the sixth floor, to a quiet corridor with discreet lighting and dove-gray carpeting. I remembered it so well.

  Klara answered the door herself. Plump and comfortable Klara Hutyens, one of the most kindhearted women I’d ever met in my life. Her greeting was instant, instinctive. She reached out her arms and gathered me into a vast hug.

  “Jessica, liebling! Wilkommen! Wilkommen!” She broke into English. “How happy I am to be seeing you. And Steve also! Come inside.”

  It was good to go in and hear the front door shut behind us. Standing in the square entrance hall, I heard voices coming from an adjoining room.

  “We have guests. Bruno has been making music for some friends.” She looked at us shrewdly, taking in the grimy and jagged state of my blue slacks and cream sweater. Steve’s suit was a bit the worse for wear, too, from our escape down the drainpipe and through the prickly bushes. Klara nodded her graying head, and I knew she was considering our feelings, not her own, when she added, “I am believing perhaps you would wish not to be meeting our friends with such an appearance.”

  “Klara,” said Steve thankfully, “you are believing dead right! What we badly need is a hiding place—and a bite to eat.”

  “A hiding place?” She looked blank for a second. “Ach, so! I understand. Come first to my kitchen.”

  She led us to a door at the end of a short passage, and clicking on lights, ushered us inside. “Take whatever you wish, my dear ones—there is much food in the ice chamber, and wine too. I must go now to our guests, but soon I will be returning.”

  “Thanks a lot, Klara.”

  “Not to thank me. It is a pleasure.”

  Alone together, we stood for a moment looking around the bright, gay-painted kitchen, not speaking. I felt a bit dazed. Steve put his hand lightly on my shoulder, and immediately I spun around, clinging to him desperately. It was sheer relief, I suppose.

  “Oh, Steve.”

  He held me very gently. “Take it easy, love. You’ve been marvelous so far.” He smiled down at me, and I basked in the lovely warm feeling of safety, of being cherished. It was an effort to tear myself away from him.

  “I guess a drink would do us both good,” I said shakily. Steve fetched two glasses and a bottle of wine. He poured.

  “Here you are.”

  The ice-cold wine did me a lot of good. I pulled myself together and started gathering ingredients for a meal—eggs and salami to make an omelet; bread rolls and cheese; some apfelstrudel. Steve gave himself the job of setting the small table, which was tucked neatly into an alcove beneath a large picture window. As he laid the knives and forks, he paused and stood staring out over the lights of the city.

  “Bet they’re still hanging around outside my place. They must be mad as hell!” Then, leaning over the table, he drew across the ocher-striped curtains, shutting out the night. Shutting out the Hellwegs. Shutting out everything.

  For the moment it was just Steve and I.

  * * * *

  It amazed me how few questions the Hutyens asked when they joined us a half-hour later. Bruno, a born Viennese like Klara, was a professor of physics at the university. He had contacted Max to ask for the firm’s assistance in some research project he was mounting, and despite the fact that they were such different types, a friendship had continued. Bruno was a gentle and soft-voiced man. He would never, I thought ruefully, understand the vicious world of the Hellwegs, yet without hesitation he was prepared to help us.

  “Everyone has gone,” he said reassuringly as he shook hands. “A little sooner, perhaps, than they had planned to leave.” He glanced at his wife, sharing the quiet joke.

  Klara made a pot of coffee, and we all sat companionably around the little table. Klara had a gift for making her guests feel at home, and she must have sensed that we’d be happier staying right there in the kitchen.

  She said, very directly, “Now, then, my dears, what is it you are wanting us to do for you?”

  “It’s Jessica,” said Steve. “She decided that she wasn’t too keen on staying with the Hellwegs after all, but they were against her leaving. I thought it best to fetch her.”

  “Ach, so!” Bruno’s expression was serious. “They are not good people, I think—not good at all.”

  “And you wish that they should not find her again, yes?” asked Klara.

  “That’s it—until we can work something out. Can she stay here for the time being, please?”

  Klara stretched her plump hand across the table and patted mine. “You are welcome, liebling, of course you are welcome.” But her good-natured face had a troubled look, and though she continued speaking to me, her eyes were turned toward Steve. “Would it not be more better for you, more safer for you, to return to London?”

  Steve shook his head. “I doubt if that would be any good, Klara. I suspect they’ve got long arms.”

  “Jawohl!” said Bruno emphatically. “It is a pity you returned to Vienna, Jessica, and got mixed up with such people, nicht?”

  “I wish I never had.”

  He gave me a warm smile. “But now you are here, and we must take good care of you. That will be a pleasure, eh, Klara?”

  As if the thought had just struck him, Steve cut in suddenly, “Have you ever heard of a man called Richard Wilson?”

  The Hutyens glanced at one another; then Bruno shook his head. “I think not. Describe him, if you please.”

  Steve turned to me,
and I began hesitatingly, “He’s fairly tall, with dark hair brushed back from his forehead. And he’s got a long thin face, and it always looks pale. Somehow I never really liked him, though it’s difficult to say why.” I tried to think of something more definite, and added lamely, “Each time I’ve seen him he was wearing a belted trench coat….”

  They waited; then, realizing I had finished, Bruno said slowly, “That description could fit a thousand men in Vienna. Can you tell us nothing else?”

  Steve put in quickly, “He claims to be in the British intelligence service.”

  “The way you say that, my friend, I think you do not believe it.”

  “And do you, Bruno?”

  In answer he spread his hands on the table and shrugged.

  Klara pressed more coffee on us, but I refused— I’d had two cups already. Steve shook his head too, saying that he’d better be going. Suddenly I was terribly afraid for him.

  “Steve! Is it really safe for you to go home?”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. When they see me turn up solo, they’ll reckon they must have made a mistake.” He stood up to go. “I’ll call in the morning and arrange to come by sometime. Okay, Klara?”

  “You shall have access to Jessica day or night whenever you wish, Steve. A free house, this is!” She smiled at him, proud of her English, blithely unaware of the double-entendre.

  At the thought of Steve going, I felt a lump in my throat. What could I say to him before an interested audience of two? I muttered inadequately, “Good night, Steve,” conscious that just across the little table Klara was smiling archly, her head on one side.

  “Sleep tight, love,” he said, and dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head. It was done deliberately, I thought, for Klara and Bruno’s benefit, to please their romantic hearts. But it warmed me more than the cups of coffee had done, more than the wine.

  Bruno went to see Steve out. As the door closed on them, Klara said softly, “He is a good man, that Steve.”

  “I know he is!”

  She became suddenly businesslike. “Well, now, you have no night clothes, nothing to wear?”