The Salzburg Connection (36 page)

“That’s terrifying—enough to silence me for the whole trip. When are you planning to leave?”

“I’ll pick you up at six o’clock at your hotel.”

“In the morning? Now,
you’re
joking!”

“It’s the best connection,” he said vaguely. “We have to see Anna Bryant in the early afternoon. I’ve just been talking with her on the phone. I think she has some new troubles. She’s
selling everything, planning to move away. Pretty miserable, all around.”

“Do you really want me to go with you?”

“I’d like you to go,” he said, sticking to the exact truth.

“All right,” she said, turning businesslike. “If I can be of help, I’ll be delighted. I’ll see you at six. Oh, Bill, what’s the temperature in Salzburg?”

“Cool and crisp. Why?”

“Clothes.”

He had to laugh. The switch from executive to feminine was beguiling. And reassuring, too. “It’s fleece-coat weather. Take the blue one you had on today, and that dress you wore at lunchtime.”

“But I have something else—”

“Never change a winning game. With that blue coat, your eyes can’t lose. Oh, and Lynn—I’ll cable Jimmy about all this. You get on with your repacking.”

“For four days?” she asked, now serious, no doubt thinking of Inspector Keller.

“Why not? We can hire a car and do some exploring once we get the contract properly settled. We might even drive all the way back to Zürich.”

“I’d love that. Good night, Bill.” She rang off.

He replaced the receiver slowly, still hearing the happy excitement in her voice. What have I done? he wondered. But it was too late for after-thoughts. He would just have to believe that Nield and Keller were right; if these two hardnosed professionals couldn’t give correct advice, who could? They had come to the same decision independently. That was at least in its favour.

He finished his packing, called the desk to make reservations for the first part of the journey, checked on the connection at Innsbruck, ordered a car for ten minutes to six, sent a night cable to New York, and buried his worries about Lynn Conway in those of Salzburg. Something had gone wrong there, something to upset Anna Bryant. A family matter? A quarrel between Anna and her brother? None of my business, he told himself as he climbed into bed and stretched his spine. But the sooner he was in Salzburg the better.

“Stop that!” Anna had said angrily, and pulled the receiver away from Johann’s reaching hand. She ended the call from Mathison with a quick sentence of thanks before her brother tried another grab.

He was just as angry as she was. He caught her by the shoulders. “I wanted to speak to him. Why didn’t you—”

“What would you have said? That you had something you wanted to sell to the highest bidder?”

“You’re damned right. But I wouldn’t have been as stupid as to blurt that out over a telephone.”

“No?”

“No! I was only going to ask him if he wanted to look at some of our mountains. I’d guide him around for a couple of days. Why not? The weather is good and clear now. He used to climb.”

“He isn’t an agent. I told you that.”

“He’s coming back to see you, isn’t he? That’s proof of something.”

“It’s proof that Newhart and Morris are honest, that’s all. He is coming to clear up the mess about the contract.”

“Oh.” But Johann didn’t quite believe that was all. “Look, Anna, I can’t be here tomorrow. When you see him—”

She wrenched herself free and marched, head high, back through the narrow hall towards the kitchen.

His first impulse was to leave, continue his interrupted journey to Unterwald. He hadn’t seen Trudi since Monday night, or rather Tuesday dawn, which was almost the same thing. The funeral, Anna’s plans and business arrangements had used up these last four days. And all that time he had his own problems. He could trust Trudi—the Finstersee box was as safe in her room as any place—but he couldn’t stop worrying. Today he had telephoned, left a message to tell her he was coming. He had to get back to Unterwald, no matter how late his arrival.

Yet he couldn’t leave Anna close to tears, he couldn’t leave her unpersuaded and thinking bitter thoughts about him. And there were a few points to clear up. So he followed her. Slowly. He ought to have told Anna about the Finstersee chest before this, but it hadn’t been easy to find the right moment; perhaps there was never any right moment for his kind of news. He had even postponed telling her, this evening, until he was just about to leave for Unterwald. They had been quarrelling ever since. The phone call from Zürich had interrupted the savage argument, and at first he had been thankful for it, but now it seemed to have made matters only worse. I’ve got to make Anna see it my way, he decided, and quickened his steps.

She was sitting in the big armchair near the tiled stove. She had fought back her rage of tears, but her lips were set and her hands were tightly folded. A stranger would have said she made a very pretty picture with her head resting against the high back of the chair; sad but appealing. Johann paused, feeling a sense of guilt. He looked at the delicate face so deceptively fragile, at the tragic blue eyes that seemed helpless, at the soft blonde hair that fell in childlike wisps over her ears and brow. “A gentle creature,” Felix Zauner had called her fondly. By heaven, thought Johann, he ought to have heard her just half an hour ago.

He went over to her, dropped on one knee beside her chair, took her hand in his. “Anna,” he said gently, “we’ve never quarrelled before. Let’s not go on with this one. I haven’t been deceiving you. Would I have told you I found the box under the three boulders if I were trying to deceive you?”

“But why won’t you tell me where you have put it?”

“For safety. Your safety. The box’s safety. And mine, too. I had to move it; don’t you see that?”

“It was well hidden.”

“Yes. As long as Dick was alive and no one was suspicious of his visit to Finstersee, the box was well hidden. But as soon as things have quieted down around Unterwald, as soon as the men from the Gendarmerie have stopped measuring skid marks and asking questions of the villagers and gone back to Bad Aussee, the Nazis are bound to go up to the lake and check that ledge. Then they’ll find the box is gone, and they’ll search every foot of the woods and that meadow. Because Dick had nothing incriminating in his car, and so he must have hidden it... They would have found it.”

“Perhaps not.”

“They would have found it. They have only to calculate the area he covered before they met him that morning. It’s just a matter of deduction. These men are trained for it, Anna. I did what was best, for all of us.”

She lowered her eyes. So, she thought, Johann would not have hidden the box in the woods or the meadow near the lake. Where could he have taken it last Monday night?

“You see, Anna?” he asked hopefully.

She nodded. “Except,” she said slowly, “except that I must know where the box is hidden now. Dick would want me to know.”

“Why?” He rose abruptly to his feet, dropping her hands. His voice sharpened. “Don’t you trust me to deal with it correctly?”

“Dick would want me to have some control,” she said determinedly. “And I don’t trust your judgment, Johann—not in this. No, please don’t start shouting again. Please, Johann, let’s not quarrel any more.”

“Who’s shouting?” he demanded, forcing his voice back to normal. He began to pace around the kitchen, trying to cage his emotions as much as his body in this cramped space. He thrust a dining chair out of his way, shoving it back against the table, where it should have been in any case. “What’s so wrong about selling that box? Sure, you’ve told me Dick didn’t find it for money. But Dick is dead. You are alone. You need money. And I need you to have it. How can I marry Trudi and support you as well?”

“I’ll find a job.” She tried hard not to start thinking of
that
problem.

He shook his head. “Not enough to pay all your expenses. You’d have to double up with us in my house at Bad Aussee.” He might as well be brutally frank; it was the only way to make Anna realise the harsh facts of life. “Trudi may have her own ideas on that.”

“So have I. I won’t live with you and Trudi. I’ll visit you now and again, that’s all.” She paused. “I’m coming this week-end.”

She’s so transparent, he thought, and had to smile. She was going to search his house, was she? He turned to face her, his grin widening. “Anna, Anna... You’re wasting your time. You’ll find nothing more in my place than a slashed rucksack.”

“Dick’s rucksack?” She was horrified. “You left it lying around?”

“No, no. It’s mixed up with a pile of old climbing equipment.”

“Oh, Johann—”

“Stop fretting,” he said gently. “It’s safe enough.” He sat down at the table, found a cigarette and lit it. “What else could I do? I hadn’t time to destroy it last Tuesday morning. I was in and out of my house like a hunted fox. I had to get back to Salzburg to be with you. I’ll get rid of it soon, take it up a mountain, drop it into a crevasse. Nothing to it.” Anna was silent. Encouraged, Johann added, “Just leave everything to me. Trust me, Anna.”

She closed her eyes. So the Finstersee chest was not at Johann’s house. And it wasn’t hidden anywhere near the lake. Where had he taken it? She sighed, partly because she was tired with the vehemence of the emotions that had spilled around her tonight, partly because she couldn’t find an answer to that question. She was near the truth, perhaps so close to it that she could almost put a finger on it, and yet she couldn’t see it. Her mind, as Johann
would say, wasn’t trained for such things. But his mind wasn’t trained for such deductions either; that was why he had given something away even as he had spoken to her, and she hadn’t the brains to see it clearly. As Dick would have.

“You might have trusted me a bit more tonight when Mathison called you. It’s just possible—”

“No,” she said sharply, guessing what was coming. “You’ll only endanger him too.” Did Johann not know what danger really meant? He could climb jagged peaks, descend rock faces, edge his way up chimneys and along razorbacks; did he think everything was as easy to master?

“I still think he is an agent.”

“He is coming here with papers to be explained before I sign them, and one of the New York publishers is coming with him too—a woman. It’s all simple business.”

“Oh.” Johann was deflated. His guess about Mathison had been wrong then. “So the publishers are sending a woman along? I suppose they thought she could drive a hard bargain.”

“What bargain? They don’t owe us anything.”

“There are some people who could make a load of trouble for them. And they know it. Smart lawyer, Mathison.”

“Johann!”

“Except when he goes boating,” Johann said with a wide grin. “He took a dunking in that Zürich lake, did he?”

“You’ve guessed wrong again,” she said angrily. “That was Eric Yates who had the accident. And he’s dead.”

“Yates has been killed?”

She nodded. And now, she thought, I’ve no way of communicating with the British. The only hope left—and a faint one—was Bill Mathison’s friend, the one he had spoken
about, the one who might have contacts in Washington. She almost relented and told Johann about that, but first he must tell her where he had hidden the box. “Where did you hide it, Johann?” she asked very quietly.

“Now how did we arrive back there?” he asked, and rose. “I’d better leave. Trudi will begin to worry.”

“It will be midnight before you reach Unterwald.”

“That’s no problem,” he told her lightly.

She stared at him. “Then I think it
is
time you married the girl.”

“Come on, I’ll get you upstairs and see you safely locked in. The way your friend Mathison did last Monday.” He was over at the peg on the door, unhooking his loden cape.

“You don’t need to have guilt about not being here then,” she said in annoyance.

“I was fairly busy that night,” he reminded her.

Yes, she thought, finding that box, hiding it so cunningly, spending what was left of the night with Trudi. “Where
did
you hide it?”

“That’s not the question.”

“Then what is?” she asked sharply.

“The question is—what is in that box? If you know, you’d better tell me.”

“But why—” she began and floundered, suddenly on the defensive.

“Just so that we don’t sell it for too little.”

“I’m not selling!”

“That’s right, you’ll give it away.”

“Only to the right people.”

“Right, wrong... Anna, who can know what people are right, what people are wrong?”

“Dick said that if the box fell into the wrong hands, it could mean disaster.”

“For whom?”

“For the world that is free—and that means us, too, Johann!”

“That was only a matter of Dick’s opinion.”

“Is it only a matter of opinion that the Nazis were wrong—”

“No. They won’t get the box. So you can stop worrying about that. But apart from them, it’s a free market. I’ve no set opinions, like Dick.”

“Johann,” she said wearily, “there
is
a right way and there
is
a wrong way in which the contents of that box could be used.”

“Is it as important as that?” he asked quietly. “We’ve really got hold of something, haven’t we?” And then, just as Anna was looking at him with new hope, he added, “But who is to judge how anything will be used?”

“If you couldn’t judge the strength of a rope or the hold of a piton, where would you be? At the bottom of the Dachstein Glacier.”

He opened his mouth to reply, and burst out laughing instead.

She rose, opened the stove to see if its low fire would last gently through the night, began picking up her purse and a book to take upstairs.

“I’m glad you cook better than you argue,” he told her.

She said nothing.

“When do I expect you at Bad Aussee? Day after tomorrow? If I’m not around, you’ll find Franz working in the shop. And if he isn’t there, you’ll find the key to the house on the window ledge to the side of the door.”

She didn’t answer.

“Anna—I’ve never known you to sulk. Don’t start—”

“And I’ve never known you to behave like this either.” She didn’t look at him, but moved towards the door, then paused as a knock sounded. Instinctively, she turned to Johann. He was frowning as he glanced at his watch, puzzled and annoyed. He swore under his breath. The knock sounded again. “Who is it?” she called.