Legacy of a Spy (13 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think that the Baron’s party tonight is a coincidence?”

“I don’t know what to think.” Ilse appeared to look thoughtful. “I have only known the Baron since I am here.”

“What about this thin Englishman, Hormsby?” Slater asked. “Had you known him before?”

“No.”

“What do you think of Wyman?”

“Herr Wyman is a very handsome young man,” said Ilse. Slater felt himself becoming angry. “But,” she continued, “
he
is a weakling.”

“He’s an excellent skier,” Slater said, torturing
himself
.

“Not any better than you, Bill Slater.” Ilse’s reply was very quick. “He cares more about showing off than he does about his neck.”

“He wanted you to admire him,” said Slater, wondering why he couldn’t get off the subject of Wyman.

“I don’t admire him, Liebchen.” Ilse looked at Slater with such gentleness in her eyes that he nearly went over to her and took her in his arms.

“Why did the Baron invite you to his party?”

“Because I am an attractive woman,” Ilse’s reply was matter-of-fact.

“You are a beautiful woman, Ilse—whatever else you may be.” Slater had not meant to say that. It just slipped out.

“Oh, Liebling!”
Ilse started to get up again.

“Sit down!” Slater shouted, and Ilse sat very still. “If you are what you say you are, Ilse, you must realize that you are in danger.”

“Not until I have established myself with the Colonel,” she said. “There is just the possibility that my predecessor did not give the Communists the identification procedure.”

“You called me Carmichael a few minutes ago. Why?”

“Your height can change,” she said, “the color of your hair—even your voice, but not your eyes or hands.” Ilse smiled and then looked at him, her face suddenly quite serious. “Don’t you know, William: Slater, that you cannot fool a woman in love?”

Slater poured himself another drink.

“Help yourself, if you’d care for another,” he said. His voice was gruff.

He seated himself in the chair again and watched her as she moved across the room. She was in her ski clothes, and her motions were as smooth as a cat’s.

She made herself a drink, her back toward him, and then turned and raised her glass.

“Prosit,” she said and drank. “I don’t think anyone else realizes your dual identity,” said Ilse. “I thought at first that Wyman was the American agent. It was not until I realized your double identity that I was convinced you were the one.”

“What made you think there should be an American agent?” asked Slater.

“My superiors told me your government had sent someone down here.”

“Tell me, Ilse, if you meet this colonel, what then?”

“This,” said Ilse thoughtfully, “is a problem.” She turned to Slater and smiled. “I had thought you might help me with that.”

“I see.”

Slater turned his mind inward and tried to think. Ilse had still not told him anything that the Communists might not want him to know. That the Ehrenbachhöhe Hotel was the meeting place might or might not be true, but the possibility would be enough to guarantee his presence there, and that was probably what they wanted. On the other hand, the party might be an excuse to get everyone under suspicion under one roof, where the Baron or someone else could take care of them. Slater knew the questions to ask Ilse which might establish her identity, but he was strangely reluctant to do so.

“Ilse?”

“Yes.” She was back on the bed.

“What is the identification procedure?” Slater hung on her answer.

“My orders are not to reveal it,” she said quietly. “I can’t,” her face was suddenly contorted, “not even to you!”

“Why not?”
Slater knew why. It was because she was his enemy.

“Because they might capture you and torture you for it, Liebchen! It is safer that only one of us knows!”

“What about the picture?”

“I haven’t got it with me,” she said. “I would show it to you tonight, but I think it might be dangerous to take it with me.”

“I see.”

“No,” she cried. “You don’t see! You are so full of
suspicion,
you can no longer see anything!” Ilse stood up. “You can’t even see love when it looks at you.”

She moved across the room and stood in front of Slater’s chair. “You are so full of fears, and you are so tense inside, you are going to blow up in a million pieces.” Ilse’s eyes filled with tears. “It isn’t wrong to kiss a woman, even if you think she is your enemy. You want too much from life, William Slater.”

She started for the door and unlocked it. “I can’t love a bunch of stretched wires, a tortured creature
who
is no longer human and is even afraid of a woman’s kiss.
Good-by Herr Slater!”

Ilse slammed the door behind her.

SLATER POURED himself half a water glass of whisky and drank it down. He stared at the closed door for a moment and shook his head. He did not have much time to discover the things he had to know before that party tonight. It was one party he could not afford to miss.

Slater picked up the house phone and called the dining room.

“Is Rüdi on duty now?”

“No, sir,” said a voice that Slater had never heard. “Rüdi does not come on duty until four o’clock today.”

“Do you know where I can reach him?”

“Just one moment please, sir.”

Slater waited patiently until he heard the receiver being picked up again.

“He lives on the Hornweg, number twenty-five.” The voice gave Slater Rüdi’s phone number in addition, and the conversation was at an end.

Slater left his room, went downstairs and out into the snow. He turned left on the Bichlstrasse and left again down some stone steps and into the first of the back streets of the village. The snow was still coming down thickly from a motionless gray sky. He stopped for a minute and stood at the corner of a narrow street and listened. There was no traffic of any kind, and the absolute quiet was unnerving. The snowflakes gathered on his bare head and coated his eyebrows. He tried to peer through the snowflakes and penetrate the wall of gloom around him, but he could not see more than a radius of twenty feet. It was not, he admitted, that he had heard anything suspicious, but he had the uneasy feeling someone was watching him. If Kitzbühel was, as he suspected, the pay center for Communist agents, eliminating all possible pursuers would be like trying to dig a hole in the ocean.

Slater started walking through the snow again, a little faster this time. He rounded a corner and stopped suddenly, his back against the wall of a house. He waited and held his breath, but no one appeared around the corner. Ilse was right. He was a bunch of stretched wires. Hollingsworth had noticed it, Slater knew, but how much of this sort of thing could a man take—even a man without fear? He resumed his walking, turned into the Hornweg and followed it, until he came to number 25. The tracks going up to the front door were partially filled in. There was only one set of footprints, and they definitely were going into the house and not away from it. Slater stepped into the prints. His were slightly larger. He was wearing his ski boots, and there was no way of knowing what the person who had made the tracks had worn. He knocked on the door and waited.

The door was opened by a short stout Hausfrau with grayish hair. She looked surprised.

“Ja?
What do you want?” she said.

“Is Herr Rüdi Petsch at home, please?” Slater smiled. “I would like to talk with him.”

The woman hesitated a moment. “I will see if my husband is awake yet. He works late, you know,” she added. “Wait here.”

She closed the door and left Slater standing in the snow. It was several minutes before the door opened again and Rüdi stood on the threshold. He was only half dressed. His night shirt was bulging over his pants. He no longer looked like the immaculate headwaiter whose body strained against every button, but he was still dough-faced and shapeless.

“I,” he hesitated, “I don’t believe we have met, Herr—?”

“No,” said Slater still speaking German, his tone peremptory and very businesslike, “but my name is not important. I must have a word with you—inside.”

Slater entered the house without waiting for an invitation. Rüdi stepped aside to let Slater in and then just stood there and looked at him.

“Close the door, please,” said Slater.

Rüdi did as he was told.

“Herr Krüpl has disappeared.” Slater began watching Rüdi closely.

“Herr Krüpl? Who is Herr Krüpl?” Rüdi seemed honestly puzzled.

“That’s right, of course,” said Slater heartily. “You didn’t know Herr Krüpl. You were recruited by Herr—, I mean, by someone else.”

“Who is Herr Krüpl, and why should I care if he has disappeared?” Rüdi looked annoyed.

“Herr Krüpl is the man who pays you, of course,” said Slater patiently, as if Rüdi was being very slow to understand. “I have been ordered to take his place. There are people to be contacted, and I don’t know who they are, because, unfortunately, Herr Krüpl disappeared without telling us your method of contact.”

“I knew it!” said Rüdi. “It was that man Herr Carmichael!”

“Who?”
Slater appeared excited. “If you know something which might help to explain Krüpl’s sudden disappearance, please tell me at once.”

“This man, Carmichael, he is a guest at the hotel,” Rüdi explained. “He tried to make contact with me at the bar instead of the dining room.”

“Why did you pay any attention to him?”

“Because he said the right things and explained that he didn’t want Herr Wyman, with whom he had been dining, to know he was one of us. I don’t believe Wyman is considered altogether trustworthy. Anyway,” Rüdi added, “you know how carefully we are separated from each other. This was the first time in two years I had two men on the same day.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Slater. “Didn’t you communicate your suspicions to Krüpl?”

“Yes, naturally.
I put a question mark on the menu after the information.” Rüdi was indignant.

“Well?” said Slater.

“Yes. Well, Krüpl must have tried to investigate Herr Carmichael and gotten in trouble.”

“What room does Carmichael have?”

“Room twenty-three, but he checked out Sunday,” said Rüdi, “Anton told me.”

“I see.” said Slater. “That is not good.”

“The menus were an excellent idea, Rüdi,” said Slater. “Was it yours?”

“
Mine,
and the man who hired me.” Rüdi stopped talking and, suddenly, looked with suspicion at Slater. “Why didn’t you know about the menus?”

“I told you,” said Slater patiently. “Krüpl has disappeared, and your recruiter is not even in Europe at the moment. Your work is essential, Rüdi. It is important that you continue. Now, explain what you do with the menus. I think I know already.”

“It’s really very simple,” Rüdi began. “After the contact has established
himself
at the evening meal, and he has signed his name and room number on the check, I take this information and transfer it to the next day’s menu.”

“
Which,” broke in Slater, “you then post outside to the left of the entrance to the hotel.
”

“Exactly, sir.”

It was clever all right. Anybody and everybody could be passing the hotel after dinner. It wouldn’t attract attention for someone to stop and have a look at the menu.

“I assume,” said Slater, “that the individual’s name is not important.”

“No, only his room number, and the place he is staying.” Then Rüdi added, by way of explanation, “One cannot always get a room at the Winterhof.”

“No,” said Slater. “The Winterhof is a very popular hotel.”

He wanted to smile, but he didn’t think Rüdi would appreciate it.

“How do you indicate,” Slater asked, “which hotel the individual is using?”

“It can only be one of three,” he said. “If it’s the Winterhof, I make no mark. If it’s the Grieswirt or the Alpenblick, I place a very small A or G at the bottom right-hand corner. For the room number I place a period directly above the digits.”

“Do you do this in sequence?” asked Slater.

“Pardon?”
Rüdi looked confused.

“If the room number,” said Slater, “is twenty-nine, for example, do you dot the first figure two you find on the price list for that day, and then dot the first figure nine after that?”

“Exactly,” said Rüdi.

“From now on,” said Slater, “I want you to do just the opposite. Dot the first nine first, and then the first two after that.”

Slater had to explain in some detail, and, finally, ended up telling Rüdi to reverse any room number he received and enter the result the same as he had done before. Thus, twenty-three would become thirty-two, etc.

Slater mopped his brow. This Rüdi, he thought, was certainly not the smartest man in Kitzbühel.

“Do you know,” Slater asked, “what happens after that?”

“No, sir!” said Rüdi proudly. “I’m not supposed to know, and I don’t.”

“You were quite free with Wyman’s name just now.” Slater looked at Rüdi coldly for a moment.

“I am very sorry, sir, but he has been here two times in the last three weeks. I was told not to put down his room number. Anyway, he is the first man who has contacted me twice, so, naturally, I remembered his name. I have forgotten all the others, believe me, sir!”

“How much are you paid, Rüdi?”

“Twelve hundred schillings a month, sir—on the first day of the month.”

Less than fifty American dollars a month, thought Slater. He was always shocked at how little it cost to buy an agent in Europe. Was this fat little man a Communist, or was he simply shortsighted like so many of their other employees? After all, fifty dollars a month, tax free in Austria, plus his hotel salary and tips would constitute a pretty good haul. Rüdi undoubtedly considered himself a wealthy man—and shrewd, very shrewd.

“Do you always discuss your suspicions and assignments with Anton?”