“Swiss Security has been busy.”
“I’m glad to hear someone has. What about our quiet friend himself?”
“He has just left on a long trip. Sent you his best. By the way, about that trouble you’ve been having with your stereo, the two men I recommended will be over to fix it this afternoon. Sorry I took so long to get hold of them, but they’re quick. They won’t delay you.”
“I hope they know their business,” Mathison said, recovering from his surprise. “I have a couple of imperative questions.”
“They’re fully qualified. Don’t worry about that. Now two more things: I’m sending Mrs. Conway to Zürich—she’s head of our translation department and a bit of a linguist. She lost her husband some years ago, by the way. She’s a capable girl. She can manage the office there until I find a replacement for
Yates. That’s going to take some doing, I tell you.”
Better luck next time, thought Mathison, and again restrained himself.
Newhart went on, “She knows something about the situation. I told her about that funny business with Bryant’s contract. If you have to expand on that, you’ll find you can trust her. She’s extremely discreet.”
That, thought Mathison gloomily, means she is past her first youth and has given up hope. “It might be simpler if you would send a man.”
“Arnold is in Houston, Bernstein’s wife is in the hospital, Johnstone is seeing an author through labour pains—complete revision of galley proofs or we’ll have a turkey on our hands—and Paradine is on jury duty. Besides, none of them knows both French and German. Like to be a publisher?”
“Hardly worth the wall-to-wall carpeting. Hey—I nearly forgot. Did you get the prints of the photographs I took?”
“You’ll have them this afternoon. I think—perhaps—you might even deliver them personally in Salzburg.”
“Isn’t that stretching the expense account?” Mathison asked with some amusement.
“Yes, but it may be cheaper in the long run. At least, that’s what I am beginning to think. What’s your opinion?”
“Yates was in your employ and empowered to act for you. You’ve always stood by any commitments he made. The fact that you never imagined he would make this kind of commitment is not much of a defence in a law court.”
“Then it is possibly wise that you see Mrs. Bryant, explain personally.”
“I think that’s the least we could do. She is as much an
injured party as you are. If she were less honest, you could have some kind of lawsuit faked up against you.”
“Better get some signed clearance from Mrs. Bryant, don’t you think?”
“That’s necessary. And I’d suggest a token payment on that kind of quitclaim. What about the equivalent of the original advance—three hundred dollars?”
“So you think a copy of the contract might turn up?”
“Always possible. Pity it’s such a small amount.” She would need every penny she could get, Mathison thought.
“You advise giving her more?” Newhart asked worriedly.
“No. That would look as if we were cajoling her into signing. Which we are not. By the way, if you had been publishing a book such as Bryant’s, what kind of advance would you have expected to pay?”
“Well, for a first book by an unknown author—five hundred would be considered generous. Some publishers would pay no more than four hundred, actually. Why do you ask?”
“Just curiosity, I guess.” Yates really was cheap, Mathison thought. Even a couple of hundred dollars more would have meant a good deal to the Bryants. “It’s really a hell of a thing,” he said irritably.
“And none of our doing.” Newhart was now indignant as well as angry about that. “Anyway, you clear it up. Get this business finished so I can start thinking about publishing once more. I have enough problems of my own.”
“I’ll handle this one. As quickly as possible.”
“Do what you see fit. And good luck, Bill.”
Mathison booked his overnight flight back to Zürich. He ought to be there, even allowing for fog and drizzle, by early morning. Their time. Back to that again, he told himself, as he started repacking his bag.
In the kitchen, the house telephone sounded a raucous warning. Two repairmen about the aerial, the porter announced from the basement. They came up by the service elevator, both in grey work trousers, checked flannel shirts that had been through a hard day’s crumpling, short zippered jackets soiled and sloppy. “This Mathison?” one of them asked, broad shoulders atilt with the large heavy box he carried in one hand.
You ought to know, thought Mathison, as he nodded to John Lamberti. “In there,” he said equally brusquely, pointing across the small hall. He looked at the other man, who had coiled yards of lead-in line over his arm. He was about Mathison’s own height which meant, on good mornings after a deep sleep, five-foot-eleven. He was fair-haired; wore it long, shaggy at the neck, wild over the ears and forehead as if he had just come out of a wind tunnel. He was possibly near Mathison’s age, too. Certainly no more than thirty-five. Features were even, a kind of handsome nothing face that made little impression, perhaps because it was kept so empty of expression. But once inside the living room, the blank look was wiped off, and the light-blue eyes were coolly appraising. Mathison appraised right back.
Lamberti dumped his heavy load on the rug and said, “Well, now that you’ve met each other, let’s get to work. His name is Chuck, by the way.”
“Charles Nield,” the other said. He had a pleasant voice. He took out a cigarette and wandered over to look more closely at a Callot etching on the wall. He has a quick eye, thought Mathison;
that is the only original I own, all four square inches of it. “Go ahead, Jack, I’ll wait my turn,” Nield called over his shoulder.
“We won’t take long,” Lamberti assured Mathison. “We know you are flying out this evening.”
“Not the same firm?” Mathison was watching Nield with some speculation. “I thought you might be the Lamberti Bros.”
Nield laughed. “Perhaps we ought to merge. We made quite a good double turn coming up in that elevator, I thought.”
Lamberti glanced at his watch and concentrated on an answer for Mathison. “Today’s pretty exceptional. We thought we’d save time and a lot of security headaches if Nield came along with me. I can vouch for him. Sometimes it may be hard to believe, but he really is on our side.”
Nield had wandered to the other end of the room, where he was selecting a record. It was the Rossini Sonatas for Strings. He turned it low. “D’you mind? After all, we are supposed to be testing the machine, aren’t we?” Then he sat down in the most comfortable chair and studied the scrap of New York skyline that could still be glimpsed through the windows between the new high-rising apartments to the south.
“I didn’t know you co-operated,” Mathison told Lamberti and turned away from watching Nield. Cool, thought Mathison, very cool.
“In this case, we had to. Just as we’ve had to co-operate with the Swiss, and Nield’s people are now talking with the British. It’s an involved problem.”
“Like Yates himself.”
Lamberti nodded and plunged into business. “There are two things that Frank O’Donnell wanted me to tell you. Don’t use that telephone number—the one that Mrs. Anna Bryant gave you.”
“Yates’s number? The one her husband was to call the minute he got back to Salzburg?”
“Right. The Zürich police have traced it. They want to keep the wire clear for any of Yates’s friends to use. No good making the Swiss think you might be one of them; that just adds to their work, and they’ve got plenty.”
“What did they find at that address? Any confirmation that Yates is Burch?”
“They found that, all right. So far, they haven’t discovered exactly who are his bosses. That’s what they are working on now.” Lamberti studied the rug. “That’s about all I can say on that score. But O’Donnell may see you in Zürich. He is there for a quick conference with Gustav Keller, his opposite number in Swiss Security. The second thing I have to tell you, actually, is Keller’s description. This is to help you recognise him easily if he does get in touch with you. Keller is O’Donnell’s height, but heavier in build. Grey hair, cut short. Dark moustache. Round face, high colour, grey eyes. Small neat feet. Got the picture?”
Mathison nodded.
“So that’s that. Two things: avoid using the telephone number—forget it altogether, in fact; and remember Gustav Keller.”
Mathison nodded again.
“And here are the copies you wanted of your photographs.” Lamberti drew out a Manila envelope from an oversize pocket inside his jacket. “With our thanks.”
Mathison opened it eagerly, looked at the prints with interest. “I didn’t know they could be blown up to this size. Not so clearly, at least. You did a good job.” He riffled through them. Yes, as promised, there were two sets: one for himself, one for Anna Bryant’s pilfered files.
“They’ve been useful,” Lamberti conceded. He glanced at his watch again. “How long do you need, Chuck?” he called to the other end of the room.
“Ten minutes possibly.” Nield was on his feet.
“We’ll make it fifteen to allow you time for a few bright remarks. I’ll check the house aerial on the roof.” Lamberti turned to Mathison. “You have one up there?”
“There are television aerials—”
“Good. I’ll see where I can attach something to help out your radio reception.” He left, picking up the large coil of lead-in transmission line in professional style.
Charles Nield shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised if he is a fully paid-up member in some television or radio repairmen’s union, and you’ll find yourself with a perfectly legal aerial.” He chose another comfortable chair. “Shall we sit down?” He nodded in the direction of the phonograph. “We’ll let that play. Background sound is a comfort. Inspires talk.” He smiled and for that moment the quiet impassive face warmed into life. Then he glanced at his watch, casually, yet his eyes promised he could be just as businesslike as Lamberti. “As John said, today is rather exceptional. This is the only way I could meet you without losing any time. That’s the real purpose of this visit: identification for future use, if necessary.”
“You’re vouched for,” Mathison said with a grin. “If I meet you in Switzerland, do I know you?”
“I think not—at present. But these things change so quickly. If we have to meet, let me handle it. And it may not be in Switzerland. Austria is what interests us.”
“Finstersee?”
Nield shot a quick look at him, then nodded briefly. “I’ve
read your report, of course. What do you really know about that little lake?”
“Just what I wrote.”
“That’s all? Nothing to add?” Nield hid his disappointment well.
“Only a question of my own. What’s so important near Finstersee that would make Yates risk his main operation by starting something on the side?”
“Main operation?” Nield’s eyebrows raised slightly.
And now we are getting away from the subject of Finstersee, thought Mathison with amusement. I’ll have to earn any direct answers, obviously. “Well,” he said, branching off obligingly, “for the last thirty-six hours I’ve been trying to find a shape to the whole problem around Yates. There just isn’t any—if you treat it as one problem. Cut it into two, and you begin to find some sense.”
Nield nodded, lit a cigarette.
“You know all this. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Even so, I’d like to hear you out.” The voice was friendly, encouraging.
“Let’s put it this way. One of Yates’s arms stretched towards the United States. In that operation—his main one; it’s been going on for two years, hasn’t it?—he used the cover of Emil Burch and his business in manuscripts and old maps. But his other arm was free to pick up anything interesting, anything he thought extremely useful. Somehow, through Richard Bryant, he had a chance to make a grab at Finstersee. And he did. So, we’ve discovered two operations, quite separate in scope and purpose. Yates was their starting point. That’s their one link.” He watched Nield carefully, but there was only the same
non-committal nod. “And that brings me back to my original question: what’s so important near Finstersee that Yates would risk so much?”
“Risk?” Nield asked with interest, avoiding the real question. “Yes, it does seem that way at first. It was the Burch cheque to Bryant that betrayed him. Yet, how else was he to pay Bryant the customary advance on a contract?”
Cash would be too unusual, Mathison thought quickly, and so would any personal cheque signed by Yates. Bryant would certainly have asked questions. And no one would ever have seen that cheque if Bryant had not photographed it for his files. No one would even have known about the contract if Bryant hadn’t written Newhart. “We owe a lot to Bryant, don’t we? Who was he working for—the British? Then they must know about Finstersee.”
“No more than we do. There are always periodic rumours, rather self-effacing ones with very little substance attached, about all that Styrian lake district in the Salzkammergut region. I suppose it’s because the Nazi Foreign Office took over Salzburg; Ribbentrop established himself there very comfortably towards the end of the war. So did some Intelligence units of their SS.”
“You think they may have left some records behind them?”
“It’s one of the guessing games we all play,” Nield said with a disarming shrug of the shoulders. “But we don’t have to guess any longer about Bryant and for whom he was working. We heard from London this morning. Neither he nor Yates was working for them. They don’t believe Bryant was working for anyone. He has been out of Intelligence completely, as far as they know, since he resigned in 1946. That resignation was very quickly accepted, by the way.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing serious. A matter of personal opinions. He had a good war record, but in Vienna he didn’t measure up. The British made a cryptic comment about that: ‘He was the type who liked to choose his wars.’ He couldn’t believe that a former ally was no longer friendly. The Cold War was beginning to raise its ugly head, and he wouldn’t recognise it. Blamed his own side when things turned nasty, and in Vienna they were properly nasty. Anyway, he quit British Intelligence in ’46 with some harsh things said all around. Their last report on him, made in 1956, said he had seemingly ‘mellowed over the years’ and was now less apt to blame the West. At least, he hadn’t drifted into the Russian camp, and that was all that worried the British.”