Pray for a Brave Heart (32 page)

“We can find out.” But Waysmith didn’t take any step towards the placid house. He stood by the car, searched for a cigarette, and looked at Falken down in the valley. “Or shall we just go back?”

“Lost interest in the interview?”

“Lost my enthusiasm when I failed the first time.” Or perhaps, Waysmith thought moodily, I lost it when I heard that Broach might not be what he seems: how badly would this report hurt Francesca? It was about time that girl found some real happiness in life.

Denning said, “Don’t let a woman discourage you.”

Waysmith lit his cigarette. “Francesca?” he asked, as if he hadn’t been thinking about her. “I must say she picked a fine time to be sorry for people. Hasn’t she enough to worry about?”

“That may be the trouble. Too much pressure, too much strain.”

“Perhaps she’s become a professional champion of the underdog.”

“If this is being an underdog,” Denning looked at the house and its quiet display of wealth, “then I’ll join the ranks any day. Come on, Andy. Let’s get this over with.” He took a step towards the balcony and waited.

“Of course, she could be flattered. Who is there to pay attention to her around Falken? He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. You didn’t see—”

“I can imagine,” Denning said dryly. “She’s easy to look at.”

“How deep, do you think, is she in—”

“Once it was families, Capulets and Montagues, who kept people apart. Now it’s politics. Romantic enough for you? For God’s sake, Andy, if you don’t stop brooding, we’ll never get this job done.”

Waysmith ground out the half-smoked cigarette under his heel. “Nice sunset,” he said, turning away from the view of Falken with its background of mountains. He wished it was as easy to turn away from his worries about Francesca.

The door on the balcony opened.

Is this Broach? Denning wondered. He saw a dark-haired man, fairly tall, thin, with a pale set face, a rigid jaw that could mean nervousness. Then the man spoke, and his voice was recognisably American. “Hallo,” he was saying, in surprise, perhaps even with relief. “I heard a car stop and wondered—” He looked down at the rifle in his hands. “Just cleaning one of my guns,” he reassured them.

“Thought you had joined the reservists,” Waysmith said, climbing the steps. “This is Bill Denning, by the way. Another newspaperman. May we come in?”

“Why?”

“I thought you might like to discuss that interview.”

“I have no interest in any interview, frankly.”

“What about an article, then? Giving your point of view?”

“Am I so important?” Broach smiled then.

Denning said quietly, “You became important yesterday.”

Broach looked at him quickly.

Denning sat down on the top step. “This will do,” he said to Waysmith. “We can talk here. Suits me.”

“Not a bad place for an exchange of ideas,” Waysmith agreed. “Nice sunsets you keep around here, Broach.”

But Broach was looking towards that part of the driveway which circled into the woods. “It’s all right!” he called out. “It’s all right. Go back!” And the man who held the dog on its leash turned and went back.

There must be a house in the woods, Denning thought, a house or a shack, a cabin, something.

Then Broach looked towards the empty road that led from Falken to the house. “Come in,” he said suddenly. He held open the door. “Come in.”

“It’s all right out here,” Denning assured him. He liked this fresh air. He could almost forget the smell of Brie cheese and Nikolaides’s hair pomade in
Waldesruhe’s
airless room. He had become allergic, perhaps, to closed spaces in strange houses whose owners just happened to be cleaning rifles.

“Come in!”

Waysmith grinned and said, “Sure. Can’t stay long, though. We’ve a party tonight. You’re coming, aren’t you?” He followed Broach. Denning followed him. Waysmith’s grin widened as he saw that Denning still carried the stick with him. But Broach didn’t even seem to notice. Was he worried about something? The word “yesterday”, for example?

The house was the opposite of
Waldesruhe.
And the large airy room into which Broach led them held only the scent of roses from the smoke crystal bowl on the walnut coffee table. “My secretary’s work,” Broach said with his quick, sad smile,
pointing to the flowers. “Have a comfortable seat,” and he gestured to the low couch of silver-grey tweed. He laid down the rifle on a table of Carrara marble near his own high-backed armchair of dark-red velvet. “We’ve had prowlers around here,” he said as he went towards a portable bar with its crystal decanters and silver ice bowl. “What will you have?”

“Nothing, thanks,” Denning said. Waysmith merely shook his head. “Strange…” Denning glanced around the room. Silk tweed curtains, rich carpeting, no books worth mentioning, no pictures, an oversized radio, filed magazines, a gramophone and a few records.

“What is strange?”

“This room. It’s the kind of place Nikolaides would like.” Silver and silk, softness to sit and walk on.

But the name of Nikolaides had no effect at all. “Do I know him?” Broach poured himself a drink.

“Perhaps not. This is his room, though.”

“I don’t care about rooms, frankly.”

“Is this Mr. Walters’s work, too?” Waysmith asked, looking around with interest.

“Yes. His taste is excellent, as you see.” Broach came back to his armchair. “Well?”

Waysmith said, “Would you write an article for
Policy
—a testament of faith, as it were?”

“I like that idea. But”—Broach looked a little embarrassed— “I don’t really know whether I’ll write it or not.”

“Will you think over it, seriously? Tell me your answer tonight.”

“Tonight, I’m afraid, I can’t be at the inn. I had promised the staff that they could go over to Interlaken for a dance there. And Walters has to meet his cousin in Bern and help her through the customs and give her supper and that sort of thing. I’ve sent him down to the inn with my apologies to Miss Vivenzio. In fact, I’m expecting a ’phone call from her at any minute.”

“When can you give me your answer?”

“By Monday?”

“I may not be in Falken then. Look, here’s my office in Bern.” Waysmith scribbled its address and telephone number on a page from his small note-book. “Leave word there.”

“Such efficiency,” Broach said, and smiled. Then he looked at Denning. “What newspaper do you represent?”

“I work for a news-gathering syndicate.”

“And your syndicate thinks I’m important? Since yesterday?”

Waysmith thought, so that’s the word that fetched him. That’s the reason we’re sitting inside this room, even if he can’t make up his mind about an article for
Policy
until secretary Walters gives him some more advice. Waysmith settled back in the couch. Denning could take over from there.

“Since yesterday,” Denning repeated.

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve had two pieces of information. I’m here to verify them.”

“Why?”

“They’re unpleasant.”

“The newspapers have always been unpleasant about me,” Broach said, with a laugh. “I gave up worrying about their wild exaggerations, long ago.”

“The facts we have are sober enough.”

“Such as?”

“First, the Herz diamonds.”

Broach sat very still. “What about them?”

“They are the property of the French Government. They have been missing for—”

“That’s the first lie,” Broach said angrily. “They were Nazi property, now belonging to the government which—” He stopped short. “What happens to Goering’s jewels is nothing to weep over.”

“They were owned by Joseph Herz,” Denning said patiently, “who died, along with his family, in a Nazi gas chamber. He left his collection to the French Government. They have been smuggled illegally into Switzerland by the Communists.”

“Always the Communists,” said Broach angrily, “that’s right, blame everything on them. It’s a fashion I—”

“Not everything. But certainly this: three million dollars have been paid by some rich dupe towards a hidden fund.”

“A dupe?” Broach had caught control of himself. He even laughed. “Of course, that’s what you would think.”

“He’s a dupe because he’s paid out money for diamonds that he can never own. Or what else would you call him? An accessory to a crime?”

There was a long silence. “And what has this got to do with me?” Broach asked.

“Would you pay three million dollars for diamonds?”

“For honest diamonds? Certainly. If I felt like it.”

“For the Herz diamonds?”

“Why argue about this? Your facts are all wrong. And I’m not interested in hypothetical questions.”

“You’ve never heard of the Herz collection?”

“I know nothing about any stolen property. I never have. I never will.” He rose. “Clear out, both of you.”

“Certainly,” Denning said and got to his feet along with Waysmith. Andy’s face was a study in worry and horror, both directed against his crazy friend: to come here and insult a man like that—you might as well throw a pot of scalding water over him.

But Broach suddenly sat down again. “You said you had a second piece of information. Two laughs are better than one, I’m told.”

My God, thought Waysmith, he’s going to make sure of thumping damages in the biggest slander suit in history, and I’ll have to be a witness. He started for the door, and waited there. But Denning didn’t follow him. He didn’t sit down either. He walked over to the small pile of records.

“You like music?”

“Isn’t that evident?”

“I see you have one of my favourite composers here.”

“Do we have something in common, then?” Broach asked, with mock seriousness.

“You must have met him last year when you attended the Cultural Congress in Prague. Andrássy was especially produced, wasn’t he, to conduct one of his own compositions?”

“I have met him,” Broach said carefully, ignoring the Cultural Congress. “And extremely disappointing he was to meet.”

“Was he still disappointing to meet in Falken?”

Broach hesitated. “In Falken?” His voice was stilted.

“Yes. He is in the same situation as you are.”

“As I am?”

“He decided he wanted to live abroad.”

“Now,” Broach said with amusement, “surely you aren’t comparing me with Andrássy?”

“Not man for man.” Denning almost smiled. “He’s only one of the great musicians. But your situations are similar— according to Francesca. She believes that each individual should be free to choose where he wants to live. Do you agree with that?”

Broach said, “Andrássy may have been a good composer. At one time. But he has become a traitor. Our circumstances are completely different.”

“They certainly are. You are free to talk like this. And he has been abducted. Possibly tortured. Doesn’t that turn your stomach, even a few degrees?”

“If I let myself believe all the fantastic stories spread around—”

“All right, all right,” Denning said curtly. What was the score, anyway? The diamonds: Broach hadn’t known the full story on them; there he could be graded as an ignorant dupe, who hadn’t bothered to check on the facts. Andrássy: Broach had known about him, and twisted the record to justify his actions; there he was more than a dupe; there, he could be graded as willing to tolerate evil, willing even to take a small part in it. Compared to Broach, Nikolaides was a petty offender: theft of property was nothing at all, compared to the theft of a man’s life.

Still watching Broach, Denning took a step away from him.

The gesture was not missed. Broach said, his voice rising, “You really believe all these lies that the capitalist press invents? You believe them? An intelligent man like you—how can you believe them?”The telephone bell rang.

“Ask Francesca,” said Denning. “Ask her if these facts are lies. Why don’t you answer her call?”

Waysmith took a deep breath. First, the pot of scalding
water; now, the bucket of ice: shock treatment, if ever he had seen it. He went instinctively towards the telephone. Broach hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps he scarcely heard the steadily ringing bell. Waysmith said, “I can’t bear to leave a telephone unanswered,” and he picked up the receiver. Denning turned his back on Broach, and looked out of the window.

Waysmith answered in surprise. “Speaking,” he said. Then, sharply, he called, “Bill!” And Denning, glancing quickly round, saw Waysmith’s hand now raised warningly for silence as he listened intently.

The sound of a car’s engine, making a last burst of speed up the hill towards the house, broke into the stillness of the room. Broach came to life. A look of surprise, of sudden worry, of consternation appeared on his face. He looked at his watch.

Is the car unexpected, or too early? Denning wondered. He glanced back at the driveway. But it wasn’t a car that had appeared, and swerved across the grass to avoid Waysmith’s Citroën at the door. It was a small brewery truck, running lightly now down the curve of driveway to enter the woods.

Broach said, “Get out of here! Both of you.” He advanced on Waysmith. “Give me that call. It’s mine.”

“Just a moment,” Waysmith told the man at the other end of the telephone. He held on to the receiver with both hands, as he faced Broach. “They’ve got Francesca,” he said. “She went to telephone you in Frau Welti’s office. And that’s where they snatched her. Got away through the back door. One policeman with his skull smashed—his helper was out, delivering a false message. Who sent that false message to the inn? You—you?” He raised the telephone as if he’d strike Broach with it.

Broach yelled back, “You’re wrong, you’re wrong. This has
nothing to do with Francesca. Nothing!”

Denning shoved him aside as he reached Waysmith. He took the telephone. Keppler’s voice was saying angrily, “Where’s Denning? Where’s—”

“Here,” said Denning quickly. “For what it’s worth, there was a Bern brewery truck at the inn’s back door. Grey in colour, small. It has just arrived here. Seems to be delivering beer right into the woods, north-west of the house. And you’ll find a hut there. Certainly there is a man and a dog, besides the two men on the truck.”

Broach made a lunge towards Denning, but Waysmith caught hold of him.