Return to Vienna (16 page)

“Yes, I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully. “But how did you guess that I was being held there by the Hellwegs?”

“You’d promised for sure to ring me at the office today, so when you didn’t, I got really worried.”

And I’d been thinking he would write me off as unreliable.

“I tried phoning to see what was wrong,” Steve went on, “and they hemmed and hawed and finally announced that you weren’t available. That got me properly scared. I came tearing out as fast as I could and demanded to see you. The chap who answered the door—would he have been the fat one I dumped in the swimming pool?—said that you’d gone away. I knew damn well he was lying, but I couldn’t get him to change his story.”

“The Hellwegs were out this evening, so they must have left instructions about what to say to any callers.”

“They were at home, but keeping out of sight when I first called,” said Steve. “I decided it would be best to get rid of them before I came galloping up on my white charger.”

“You got them out of the house? But how?”

There was a grin in his voice. “I gave them a ring from a callbox down in the village. Said I was
die Polizei
and that their flat in Vienna had been burgled. It worked better than I dared hope. In five minutes flat that dolly of a Maserati went belting through the village!”

I had to let that sink in for a minute. “But, Steve, how did you even know they’d got a flat in Vienna?” .

“Klara happened to mention it when I was talking to her on the phone about you. She and Bruno know those Hellwegs, apparently, and they aren’t impressed one little bit.”

“I see. And the blackout—however did you manage to fix that?”

“I’m in the electrics game, love! A poor thing if I didn’t know how to short a circuit.” Steve stormed past a couple of slower-moving cars, adding, “Pity about the neighbors’ houses, but it was in a good cause. I daresay the current will be on again soon.”

“You even seemed to know which room I was in. How come?”

“Oh, some dead clever stuff there. Before I cut the power, I had a look-see around the house and saw a lighted attic window. It was too early for anyone’s bedtime, so I reckoned it was a fair bet that you’d been bundled up there. I fixed the position of the room in my mind, and when I found that particular door locked, with the key on the outside, I knew I’d guessed right.”

I was beginning to realize that Steve was a man of action. Yet, thinking back, I recalled that in a quietly unobtrusive way he had always been able to get things done. It was a thing one tended to take for granted with him.

He insisted that he’d talked quite enough about organizing my rescue. “Now, come on, Jessica, tell me what in hell it’s all about. I think I’ve earned the right to know, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. . . .”

It was obvious that I couldn’t stall him off any longer. I had to explain something. But what? How much? He would have to know about Max’s connection with the Hellwegs, and he’d have to know what it was the Hellwegs were up to. But there were some things about Max I couldn’t tell Steve.

Ilse’s lover—right up to the end!

But he knew about Mitzi Flamm! In spite of Richard Wilson’s positive assurance, I didn’t doubt now that it was true about Max and Mitzi.

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 red and gorgeous! There aren’t many of those jobs around—not in their price bracket!”

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.