Return to Vienna (13 page)

Leopold opened fire. “Are we to take it that you wish to discuss terms?”

“That’s hardly for me to say....” I stammered, and wondered how to go on.

Both Leopold and Ilse were nodding their heads as if they understood me very well. “You realize that we have to be sure, first,” he said. “Quite, quite sure.”

“Of course. I don’t expect you to take me just at face value.”

I suppose it was a curious thing to say, because that was exactly how I did expect them to take me. As Max’s wife, carrying on his work. But the Hellwegs seemed to find nothing odd about my remark. They were both leaning forward expectantly in their chairs.

At length Ilse murmured in that richly husky voice of hers, “How is it that you propose to convince us, my dear Jessica?”

“Surely ...” I took a slow glance at each of them in turn. “Isn’t it enough that I am Max’s wife?”

They seemed amused. Grimly amused. Leopold shook his head with great emphasis. “Are you expecting that for this reason we should trust you?”

I sipped my coffee to give me time to think this over. “Why not? You trusted Max....”

“And look where it has got us.”

I protested hotly. “It wasn’t Max’s fault that he was killed. Everything would have been going smoothly now if he had lived.”

For some reason that shook them. Leopold ex-claimed incredulously, “Are you saying that if he had lived, Max would have made this same approach as you are making now?”

“That was the whole idea.”

They looked across at one another, quite lost. Their eyes turned on me, hovered, then slid back to seek explanation from each other again.

Leopold spoke at last. “We thought your husband had bigger ideas. If only he had told us what he had in mind, so much trouble would have been avoided. We have never been averse to a little hard bargaining.”

I was every bit as lost as they had been a moment ago. Trying to keep things moving, I said doubtfully, “Please understand that I am not here to bargain with you.”

Leopold leaned back in his chair and laughed. At first his wife glared at me angrily, but then she joined in the laughter.

“We shall need evidence of your ability to deliver,” said Leopold. “What do you suggest?”

Everything was rushing forward at such a pace. I needed some further instructions from Richard to cope with this curious development, and I wondered dismally how on earth I could reach him.

I took the only course I could think of. I parried by playing for time. “I’ll need to consider that. It’s difficult.”

Leopold seemed to reckon this was fair enough. “We’ll talk again in the morning,” he said, “when you have had a chance to sleep on it.”

I knew from his tone and Ilse’s resentful glance that in the morning I’d have to come up with something that made sense. The trouble was, knowing so little about the whole affair, I hadn’t a clue what to say to them. Somehow or other I’d got to get hold of Richard. And at once, this very night.

He had told me that in an emergency—a serious emergency—I could phone the British embassy and leave a message. This was a serious emergency, if ever there was one. Could I use the phone in the library without being detected, I wondered. And even if I could, how was Richard going to get in touch without the Hellwegs’ knowledge?

But that last problem, I decided, was up to him to solve. It was as much as I could do at the moment to think about my own part.

As early as I decently could I said good night and retreated to my bedroom with the book I’d chosen earlier. But I was unable to read a line, so I just sat in the armchair, still fully dressed, and waited for time to pass.

Mercifully, I dozed off in the chair. When I woke, with my neck stiff and one arm numb, the house was quiet. So utterly silent, in fact, that night sounds from the woods, coming through the open windows, seemed loud and very near. I saw from my wrist-watch that it was twenty minutes to two. A good time, surely, if any time was good!

I had planned to creep downstairs to the library and make a stealthy phone call. But now that I came to do it, I realized there were a lot of stumbling blocks I’d not thought of before. First, I had no light. No flashlight, no matches. I dared not put on any lights to guide me down, even if I could find the switches in the dark.

I clipped off my reading lamp to let my eyes grow used to the darkness. Even after waiting a few moments, I could still see nothing, until I recalled that the bedroom curtains were made of heavy damask, and lined. When I groped across to the door and turned the handle, I was able to see well enough to make my way easily along the corridor.

At the head of the stairs I discovered why. There was a moon. Just a thin crescent, like last night, when Steve and I had looked down upon Vienna from the wooded heights of Cobenzl. The pale moonglow coming in through a tall leaded window was giving me all the light I needed.

Noiselessly, I slipped down the solid, uncreaking staircase to the hall below. As I reached the great heating stove in the corner, a restless tapping noise had me backing into the shadows. If I were caught here, what excuse did I make? Richard had warned me against giving the smallest hint that I wasn’t to be trusted—it might easily scare off these important contacts for good. I wished I’d had the foresight to put on my robe over my clothes. At least that would have looked less suspicious.

I waited breathlessly, listening to the hammering of my heart. Then, just as I felt reassured enough to move on, the tapping came again, and I froze. But a moment later I had guessed that it was only breeze-tossed leaves against a windowpane.

The library was on my right, on the farther side of the hall. I could see the way clearly; nothing in my path. In seconds I was inside and closing the door. It was black as a tomb, no hint of moonlight seeping around the drawn curtains. That meant, therefore, that they would be an effective blackout. I decided to risk the light.

Still just inside the door, I groped against the wall and found the switch. I flicked it on, and a massive chandelier sprang to life, too frighteningly bright. I streaked over to the writing table where the telephone stood and switched on a shaded desk lamp, then hurried back to the door and put off the central lights.

I paused and listened. There were lonely hoots from a preying owl, and faint rustling noises. But inside the house the night silence breathed steadily on.

And then came the second problem. I cursed my stupidity for not having armed myself in advance with the British-embassy number. Was there a directory here?

Luck was still with me. I found the directory in a small drawer, and in thirty seconds I had the number.

Only as I eased the receiver gently off the hook did it occur to me to wonder if I’d get an answer at such an hour. Was the embassy staffed throughout the night? And even if so, could they possibly pass on a message to Richard in time to be of any good? And there was still the question of how he was to get in touch with me, even if he did receive my message.

I gave up thinking and started dialing. Holding the receiver to my ear, I waited. Nothing was happening.

I was about to start dialing all over again when I realized that the phone was dead. I joggled impatiently, but it stayed quite dead.

It still took some seconds for it to penetrate that the telephone was of no use to me. Broken down, cut off deliberately, or perhaps switched through to a bedroom extension for the night. Whatever the cause, my luck had failed at last. There was nothing to do now but retreat to my room and keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Feeling wretchedly cast down I switched off the desk lamp and glided silently to the door, opening it a slit. All quiet still. I waited again for my eyes, to adjust, and then carefully made my way upstairs.

Inside my bedroom, I closed the door behind me thankfully. My hand reached up for the light switch, then halted there, petrified. No longer was the room in total darkness as I had left it. A shaft of cold moonlight struck diagonally across the carpet.

Before, the curtains had been tightly closed, but now at one window they gaped apart.

There was no sound in the room, but I knew that I wasn’t alone. Terrified, I stood there with my back to the door and stared around, picking out the furniture piece by piece in the faint glimmer from the moon. An oval table with chrysanthemums in a big vase. Farther along, an armchair, and then a tallboy against the wall. On the nearer side was the dressing table and built in closets.

But near the dressing table there was something else, a patch of black shadow.

Had Leopold Hellweg found me out? But surely he wouldn’t be standing here in the dark, and anyway, why should he have disturbed the curtains? It must be an intruder.

Should I yell for help?

With a conscious effort I opened my mouth, ready —and the light caught me, a brilliant, dazzling beam that shot across the room. My cry died to a tiny whimper.

“Jessica. Don’t scream.”

I knew the voice, and in my relief cried out too loud. Dangerously loud. “Richard!”

“For God’s sake, keep quiet, or someone will hear.”

I sighed on a long breath. “You did give me a scare.”

“Sorry.”

He came softly across the carpet, flicking off his flashlight when he was only halfway. He felt for me, fingers brushing against my breast before he found my arm.

“We must make sure we haven’t disturbed them,” he whispered. “Listen.”

We waited there just inside the door, utterly still, until Richard was satisfied. Then he took my hand and began leading me across the room. We sat down side by side on the edge of the bed, and I was reminded of the time we’d sat like this once before, ages ago, it seemed, in London.

My voice a husky murmur, I said, “How did you know I wanted you to come? It’s such a relief to see you. I felt desperate when I couldn’t get through.”

“Get through . . . ?”

“I’ve just been trying to phone a message to you at the embassy.”

“What happened?” he asked quickly.

“The phone seemed to be dead. I couldn’t even get the dial tone.”

“I see. I was coming anyway, Jessica. I had an idea you might be needing me,”

“I do, oh how I do! So much has happened here, Richard.”

“Then you’d better tell me all about it. And keep calm.”

I tried to be coherent, to start right at the beginning and progress fact by fact. But I got a bit confused, and Richard said patiently, “I know a lot of this already, of course. I’m more interested in what was said, rather than what you did.”

“It all seems so odd—they talk as if it’s
they
who expect to get something from me, as if we are bargaining about the amount I’m to be paid for it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, Leopold said something about discussing terms, and went on about wanting evidence of my ability to deliver. I just couldn’t make it out. And another thing, he seemed to be saying that they regretted ever having trusted Max.”

Richard made no comment. I wished I could see his face, because in the darkness I felt lost, unable to gauge what he was thinking.

He was silent for so long that I felt I couldn’t bear it, and burst out, “What does it all mean? I wish I could understand!”

Richard said slowly, uncertainly, “So do I.”

All the spirit dropped out of me. For hours now my thoughts had been turned forward to the moment when I could talk things over with Richard. My plan to contact him had failed, and that had seemed the last straw. Then, miraculously, as if he was in some mysterious way answering my cry for help, Richard had appeared from out of the night.

And now, here he was saying that he couldn’t understand the situation any more than I did.

I was trembling, and my voice shook. “You’ve just got to tell me
something,
Richard. What am I to say in the morning when the Hellwegs ask me for this evidence—whatever it is they mean by that?”

Silence. If I had not heard his breathing, I’d have wondered if he was still there. Suddenly I had a desperate need for light—I felt I couldn’t get to grips with Richard in the dark.

Reaching for the bedside lamp, my outstretched hand knocked against the shade, and for a second I thought the whole thing, heavy cut-glass base and all, was going to topple to the floor. But luckily it rocked back into place.

“What the devil are you doing?” asked Richard.

My fingers, careful now, had found the switch. With a pleated silk shade, the light was soft and subtle, but after the darkness  it  seemed blindingly harsh.

“Put that out,” he said swiftly, and leaned across to do it himself.

“No.”

He glanced at me, surprised, and I added, “Nobody will see. And anyway, if they did, they’d only think I couldn’t sleep or something.”

“I suppose so.” But Richard got up and went over to the window, carefully closing the gap between the curtains. As he came back across the room, I was able to see his face. Pale as always, he looked anxious and uncertain. He sat down again, on the end of the bed this time, with his back half-turned. A hand went up, and finger and thumb rubbed at his eyebrows in the typical way when he was thoughtful.

In a low voice I asked, “What are we going to do now?”

He looked at me over his shoulder. “You must just carry on and see what develops.”

“But how can I?”

“You’ll have to play it by ear, that’s all. Appear to be going along with them, and report everything you hear back to me. I’ll keep in touch.”

“But . . . but they want answers to questions I don’t even begin to understand. How do I play it by ear unless I have some idea what it’s all about?”

The faintest glimmer of a smile hovered around his lips. “You’ll have to improvise a bit. Make it look as if you understand them, even though you don’t. It’s not so difficult when you get into the way of it.”

“That’s all very well! But if the Hellwegs were friends of Max’s, why do they talk about not trusting him? You’d almost think they were on the other side.”

Richard said, slowly and soberly, “You trust nobody at all in this game, Jessica. The Hellwegs didn’t entirely trust Max. We don’t entirely trust the Hellwegs. Keep that firmly in your mind, or you’re likely to come unglued.”