CHAPTER THREE

‘I tried to telephone your office, my dear, but you hadn’t come back from lunch. So I thought I’d just pop round.’

Paula had opened the flat door and found her stepfather standing there. He looked embarrassed, and then cheerful. He had a permanent air of bonhomie which Paula found extremely depressing. ‘What a nice surprise, Gerald. Come in and have a drink.’ He had sat in the little drawing room, made the same soothing remarks about the decorations as he had done on his last visit, and fidgeted until she could have screamed at him to get to the point and stop going round in circles of small talk. When it came out, it was unusually simple, as if the effort to approach her with tact had exhausted him.

‘I had to come and see you, Paula. Your mother’s very worried.’

‘Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. What about?’ She knew before he said it. She knew exactly what was worrying her mother and why the Brigadier had left his comfortable nest in Essex and made the trip to London.

‘She’s not been sleeping,’ he explained. ‘I made her go to the doctor yesterday. You told her something that upset her. Something to do with your father.’

‘That’s right, I did. I said a friend of his had asked to see me. She didn’t want me to; we had a row about it last weekend. I know she told you about it, Gerald. She’s never kept anything secret from you. And you want to know what I did, isn’t that it?’

‘Yes, put like that, I suppose it is.’ The false cheerfulness had been sloughed off; he looked a worried old man, deep creases between his brows, a resentful expression on his face. ‘What did you do, Paula? Did you take your mother’s advice? Or did you see this man?’

‘I saw him,’ Paula said. ‘Last Monday, in my office. We talked about my father and he told me quite a lot about him.’

‘Oh, Christ.’ The Brigadier put his head in his hands. ‘Why couldn’t you have left it alone? If you knew what an agony your mother’s gone through …’

‘I don’t know anything about my mother,’ she said coldly. ‘She’s never confided in me. She’s never talked to me or told me anything. She’s kept me at a distance all my life. And why do you say Christ like that? Why shouldn’t I hear about my father!’

His face had reddened; he straightened up in his chair and glared at her.

‘Because of what it means to her! She deserves to be left in peace now. Don’t you realise how old she is?’

‘What’s that got to do with it? It’s not as if she loved my father! She’s never cared for anyone but you. Don’t tell me she can’t stand the painful memories – it’s over twenty-five years ago. I’m sorry, Gerald, but I have a right to know about the other side of my family.’

‘Even at her expense?’

‘But why should it be at her expense?’ Paula demanded. ‘What is there to hide?’ He didn’t answer. He heaved himself out of the chair and faced her.

‘Paula, if I asked you to drop this and not ask questions, would you do it?’

‘No, Gerald, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. Give me a reason, one reason why and I might listen. But I’m not making an arbitrary promise to anyone.’

‘I can’t understand you,’ the Brigadier said. ‘We did our best for you. Your mother …’

‘I don’t want to talk about Mother,’ Paula said. ‘You did your best for me, Gerald, and I appreciate it. I wasn’t your child. You haven’t had a visitor by any chance?’

‘What do you mean, what kind of visitor?’

‘A private detective. If you and Mother don’t like the past being dug up then I’m afraid you’re not going to like this. There’s been a report that my father was seen in Paris. He may be alive after all.’ To her surprise there was no reaction of astonishment or alarm. He looked at her and nodded.

‘We saw it,’ he said. ‘But thank God it wasn’t true.’

‘My God!’ Paula said. ‘It didn’t occur to either of you to mention this to me? It was only my father who might have come back, that’s all! I can excuse you, Gerald, but I’ll never forgive her. How could she have hidden it from me? How could she have been so cruel!’

‘How much did this man Black tell you about him?’ It was an unexpected question.

‘He said he was a wonderful person, that he loved me very much. Oh,’ she said bitterly, ‘I know what the trouble is – I’ve always known. Father was a Nazi general, he fought for Hitler, and you and she don’t want it mentioned. You’re smug and English and it wouldn’t look good at the Women’s Institute if it got round she was the widow of one of those Nazi beasts we heard so much about. I’ve been stuffed full of atrocities and concentration camps! I knew what a Bloody Hun was before I was old enough to realise I was one myself – Mother’s a coward, she doesn’t want to own up to her country or to me! That’s why she’s never liked me; I tied her to Father and to Germany. Without me she could have been just Mrs. bloody Gerald Ridgeway.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Her stepfather had drawn himself up; she had never seen him look so angry. ‘And don’t you dare speak about your mother like that! I hope you’ll never have to know what she went through, but you’re too stupid and prejudiced against her to appreciate it if you did. I’m going home now.

‘Any detective who comes near my house will be told to clear off pretty quickly. If he’s chasing that story about your father being seen in Paris, he’s wasting his time. He’s dead, Paula, and all I can tell you is to be thankful for it!’

He walked out of the room and she heard her front door bang. She sat down and lit a cigarette. It was the first quarrel she had ever had with her stepfather. He wasn’t a cruel man, or remotely unfair, but he was incapable of seeing her point of view, of appreciating anything but the feelings of his wife. Paula had said the unspoken grievances of years. She had brought the sense of shame endured through her adolescence into the open. She had grown up to realise that she was a member of a race whose crimes against humanity were an outrage to civilised societies everywhere. The marauding hordes of twelfth-century Mongolia were likened to her people. Genocide. Ten million Jews. Two million gypsies. Men and women and children being mowed down in France, Italy, Poland, the Low Countries. Horror piled upon horror. Names associated with unspeakable infamy. Dachau. Belsen. Buchenwald. Her name had been changed to Ridgeway when she was a child. So nobody would know what she was, a German and the child of a German general.

The only person who could have assuaged that awful loneliness and calmed the sense of guilt was her mother. And she had brought down a curtain of silence that nothing Paula did had been able to tear open. She went and poured herself a drink, which was unusual. She was naturally abstemious and she never drank alone. She brushed her hair and powdered her face; it was pale and her eyes looked tired. All her life she had been looking at that face reflected in mirrors without being able to identify it to herself. James had accused her of being a stranger; he was probably right. She had never come out of the inner shell into the cold winds of the world. It must have made her uncomfortable to live with. For the first time she understood why he had been unfaithful. Her best friend was a warm, affectionate woman, not particularly pretty but with an attractive laugh. James had liked her, and the inevitable happened. She didn’t know about the younger girl and she didn’t care. She brushed her hair again, and thought suddenly that she had forgiven James. She was quite calm about it; she poured another drink and went to the telephone to ring and tell him so, when the front door bell rang. Paula looked at her watch. It was nine o’clock. She had forgotten about dinner; she had forgotten about everything in her immersion in the past. When she opened the door she found Fisher outside.

‘It’s not Thursday,’ she said. ‘You’re two days early.’

‘Let me come in,’ he said. ‘I came right round when I saw the papers.’

‘What papers?’ She walked after him down the hall; her own newspaper was still in the downstairs lobby. She had forgotten to collect it.

In the sitting room Fisher waited; she came towards him. ‘It’s Black,’ he said. ‘So I came round.’

The newspaper was in his hand. She took it from him. The black headline faded out of focus. There was a photograph of a face she knew, a face with high cheekbones and eyes fixed in a narrow stare. Then the heading came at her again. Murdered man identified as War Criminal.

Fisher let her read, watching her face. He had been shaken himself when he opened the paper in a pub outside Shepherd Market. It was an old haunt and he was meeting a friend from his journalist days. He left the pub without leaving a message. It wasn’t just the picture and the discovery that Albrecht Schwarz had been found murdered. It was the story printed underneath.

Paula suddenly began to read aloud.

‘Albrecht Schwarz, alias Black, alias Winter, resident in Switzerland with a Swiss passport for the past fifteen years, was one of the small band of notorious war criminals wanted for multiple murder in the Ukraine and for his part in the infamous massacre of the population of the Polish village of Darienne during the German withdrawal in 1944.’ She lowered the paper and looked at Fisher. She seemed dazed. ‘Come and sit down and I’ll get you a drink,’ Fisher said. She didn’t move. She was reading the paper again, her lips moving. He found the whisky and poured a stiff measure. The soda syphon hissed; it was empty. It occurred to Fisher that empty syphons and a lack of things like tonic water or matches were hallmarks of women who lived alone. Fisher swore and decided she might as well have the drink straight. He gave her the glass and made her sit beside him.

‘You look upset,’ he said suddenly. ‘This has been quite a shock to you.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Paula said. ‘He was sitting in my office – a funny little old man, with white hair. I thought he was crazy! Mr. Fisher, I don’t understand what’s happening. I’ve just had my stepfather up here shouting at me because I’d seen Black, telling me I was hurting my mother and hadn’t any right to go digging up the past – why haven’t I? If my father is alive, why can’t I find him?’

‘Hadn’t you better ask yourself why he hasn’t come forward?’ Fisher said gently. ‘Why did he have to send Black, – why’s he been lying low for all these years?’

Paula put down the glass. ‘What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me he’s done something criminal?’

‘I don’t know,’ Fisher said. ‘Interpol have a record of him, as they did everybody on the top Nazi level. Your father wasn’t in the Wehrmacht. He was a general in the S.S.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Paula asked.

‘Because my job was to get information out of you,’ Fisher said. ‘And anyway you seemed so keen on the idea of him I didn’t want to point it out. Look, I’ve got an idea. Have you eaten dinner yet?’

‘No.’ Paula shook her head. ‘And after this I’m not hungry.’

‘You never are,’ Fisher remarked. ‘The time I took you out to lunch you left everything on the plate. I’m going to take you out tonight, Mrs. Stanley, and if you don’t want to eat you don’t have to. And you don’t have to talk about any of this either. This is going to be strictly pleasure and not business. Go and get a coat and put some powder on your nose.’

‘I don’t want to go anywhere,’ Paula said. ‘If you want a drink I can give it to you here.’

‘I can’t do without soda,’ Fisher insisted. ‘And you’re fresh out of it. Go and get that coat. Hurry up.’

He lit a cigarette while he waited for her. She looked shaken and he was quite certain that if he took her at her word, she would sit in the flat and cry after he had left. He felt like an evening out; he had nothing to celebrate; rather, the murder of Schwarz was a first-class check to his investigations. So he might as well celebrate that. But what he really wanted was to get Paula Stanley out of the flat. When she came back into the room he got up. ‘You look terrific,’ he said. ‘And that’s how you’re going to feel in a little while from now. I know just the place for both of us tonight. Come on.’

They drove into the centre of London, down past the Houses of Parliament, where a light burned in the clock tower of Big Ben to show that the House was sitting, on down Whitehall and round Trafalgar Square, where Nelson surveyed the city from his column and the pigeons roosted peacefully on the official buildings in spite of all efforts to dislodge them. The fountains shot water jets into the air, and the tourists wandered round the basins, clustered on the steps, enjoying the warmth of the evening. Up Piccadilly, past the Circus with its neon lights and sad little groups of addicts already assembling in a queue at the all-night chemist for their supplies.

They swung into Berkeley Square.

‘Where are we going?’ Paula asked.

‘Annabels,’ Fisher answered. ‘Soft lights, very loud music, and plenty to look at.’ He gave the car key to the doorman. ‘Put it somewhere for me, will you.’

The doorman saluted and smiled. Fisher had a very big expense account on his company. Apart from his share in the profits. He could afford the best night club in London. Paula had never been there. Better-class night clubs were not James’ idea of fun, and professionally she didn’t move in that kind of circle.

The men who took her out were the type who chose discreet, folksy little places where the food was good. They went into the bar, which was exactly like the study in a rich man’s country house. The walls were covered with sporting cartoons, prints, and valuable pictures. There was an open fire with an old-fashioned wire guard in front of it; leather sofas, a specially woven tartan carpet. A few yards beyond, the restaurant was a dark cavern filled with music. It was still early for the club, and there were very few people there.

Fisher didn’t take her to the bar; it was too public. People sat there in order to be seen. They went straight to a table.

He ordered champagne for them both. He reached over and held her hand. It was cold.

‘I can’t go on calling you Mrs. Stanley,’ he said. ‘It seems indecent in a place like this. My name is Eric.’

‘Call me Paula.’ She looked down at her hand in his. He had strong hands with thick powerful wrists, where dark hairs grew. His hand was warm and it gripped.

‘Why did you bring me here?’

‘To take you out of yourself. Drink up. Don’t you like champagne?’

‘Yes. Why are you doing all this for me? Why should you bother?’

‘You’ve got a thing about this, haven’t you?’ Fisher said. He was leaning close to her; he could smell her scent and her hand was warmer.

‘Why shouldn’t someone care about you? You must have had a lot of men.’

‘One husband,’ she said. ‘Who left me for another woman. Two other women to be honest. He said I wasn’t much good at it.’

‘Good at what? Sex? Or being married. They’re not the same thing, I understand.’

‘Good at either,’ Paula answered. She drank some of the champagne. ‘I was too reserved. Too wrapped up in myself I thought he was hell too, so I suppose it was equal. And you’re wrong about the men. The only ones who ever fell for me were thoroughly off beat.’

‘I’ve never liked conventional women,’ Fisher said. ‘Maybe that’s why I’ve never married. Apart from leading a slightly disorganised life.’

‘Why did you choose it? Nobody ever meets a private detective.’

‘Now, now,’ Fisher said. ‘We’re not all sleazy little men in macs, poking into hotel bedrooms. We have a very big agency. We deal with all sorts of problems.’

Like missing Nazi treasure. Odd items like a Benvenuto Cellini masterpiece worth millions. Things like that. He looked down at her and smiled.

‘You’re feeling better, aren’t you? Not quite so shaken.’

‘Not quite.’ He felt the hand inside his give a slight pressure. It roused a pang of excitement in him.

‘Tell me some more about yourself. You’re a bachelor and a detective. Were you in the police?’

‘I was a journalist,’ he said, ‘for about five years. It was great fun, lots of travel, quite a bit of excitement. Then I met this chap called Dunston, he was in Interpol. We worked on a gold smuggling racket together in West Berlin, and we liked each other very much. He’s not like me, much more of a solid type. Wife and three children. I didn’t see him for quite a time, then one day he looked me up. He’d left Interpol and started his own investigating service. He asked me to join him. So I did and here I am. More champagne?’

‘I couldn’t,’ she protested.

‘Oh yes you could. It won’t hurt you. Anything more you want to know about me?’

‘I can’t think of anything. Except what you won’t tell me. Why you’re looking for my father and who’s employing you.’

‘I tell you what,’ Fisher said cheerfully. ‘You tell me why Schwarz really came to see you and I’ll answer your questions. Now I am going to take you for a dance. We came here to forget about all that.’

She got up. ‘I can’t forget it, Eric. I can’t think of anything else.’

‘You are going to forget about it. Just for tonight. Tomorrow I shall bully the hell out of you to get the answers, but not tonight. This is a nice slow tune. Come on.’

Paula didn’t dance with him, she clung; his arm supported her, his body warmed hers as he pressed her against him. The dance floor was small and it was full of people twined around each other. Some of the couples jigged and gesticulated; the discotheque switched from the slow beat to a fast rhythm, playing at earsplitting pitch.

Fisher ignored the tempo and went on holding her against him. She didn’t move or respond to his pressure; his intention had been to cushion her against the shock and he had succeeded. Too bloody well, he thought, and permitted a laugh at his own expense. She was extraordinarily attractive; he had known many women who could claim to be more beautiful or more obviously sexy, but Paula Stanley was having a profound effect upon him. The fact that she was completely unaware of it, and was doing nothing to contribute to it, made Fisher even more disturbed. She rested her head on his shoulder and danced with her eyes closed.

Fisher made an effort. ‘Back to the table,’ he said. ‘I’m thirsty.’ The club was now uncomfortably full; beautiful women in expensive evening dresses, smart young girls in velvet dungarees and pure silk shirts, escorts of all ages came drifting through to dance. Fisher settled behind his table and took hold of Paula’s hand.

‘You are feeling better, aren’t you?’

‘Better or high, I’m not sure which,’ she said. ‘Did I thank you for doing this for me?’

‘You did,’ Fisher said. ‘This is about the fourth time. And I’m not going to repeat it again, but it’s a pleasure. Drink up.’

‘If I do,’ she said, ‘I’ll go to sleep.’

‘That won’t matter,’ Fisher said. ‘You’ll feel pretty nasty in the morning, but the worst will be over by then. One more dance to keep your eyes open, and then I’ll take you home.’

As soon as he met her, Fisher had decided that she had the most unusual eyes he had ever seen.

The colour was indescribable; it was the vulnerable expression in them which was worrying him. She looked as if she were easy to hurt. Fisher wasn’t used to this after a life spent in the company of assorted female toughs, good for a screw, a booze-up and a laugh. Paula Stanley was not his type at all.

He spent another fifteen minutes holding her tight on the dance floor wishing he could go to bed with her, and then he drove her home.

Outside her flat he stopped, leaned across and opened the car door.

‘I’m not being a gentleman and seeing you in,’ he said, ‘because I’m a bit high myself, and I can’t promise to behave unless you get out pretty quickly.’

Paula turned to him.

‘If you want to come up with me, you can. I don’t mind.’

‘Thanks.’ Fisher bowed his head. ‘Thanks very much. But I don’t go for the lamb to the slaughter routine. You’re not fit for anything but a good night’s sleep. Ask me up another time and you’ll be surprised what happens!’

‘You can phone me tomorrow,’ Paula said. She slid out of the car and stood on the pavement. In spite of what he had said, Fisher got out with her.

‘Have you got your keys?’

‘Yes. I shan’t go into the office. And I’ll answer whatever you like if you call me tomorrow. I owe you that for what you’ve done tonight. Goodnight, Eric. And thanks again.’

He watched her go through the front door; he waited in the car until he saw the light in her window go on.

She had asked him up and he had refused. He couldn’t believe it. He had spent the evening wanting her so much it hurt, and then behaved like a gentleman. Something very suspect, he decided, very odd indeed, was happening to him in his old age.

Margaret Von Hessel was alone with her younger son. They were drinking coffee in the enormous conservatory that ran down the south side of the house. Every variety of hothouse plant was growing round them; the Princess could remember exactly the same atmosphere in her grandmother’s day. Humid closeness, and the pervading tropical scents. She sat in a tall wicker chair, and her son Philip arranged the cushions behind her. She looked up at him and patted his hand. He reminded her so much of her side of the family. Whereas her son Heinrich was a pure Von Hessel of the Würtzen branch. Weak, degenerate, a drunkard; useless to God or man.

Women and gambling had been the old Prince’s occupations; his great empire ran itself, wealth bred wealth without his making any effort, and he had married more. Margaret was his second cousin. She had not loved the Prince; love was not part of the settlement.

But fidelity in public, above all, the maintenance of the family’s image, were duties which the young Princess fulfilled from the start of her marriage. She had been a handsome girl, tall and well developed in the style which her generation admired. She was a most envied young woman in her own circle.

The Prince was young and his appearance was distinguished; if he showed little humour or animation this was not regarded as a cause for criticism. Pride and their past sat like a mantle on the shoulders of the Von Hessel family.

His wife was treated with the awe accorded minor royalty, her jewels, clothes and cars, her villa in France where Royalty frequently stayed, the Grimm’s fairy tale schloss on top of a mountain, the Berlin town house, shooting lodges, and art treasures which would have graced any museum in the world – all these things were part of Margaret Von Hessel’s daily life. Living with a man who contracted a venereal disease within a year of their wedding, who spent every night gambling with his friends or dining with one of his many mistresses, was the hidden part of her existence.

She had borne the humiliation, the disgust he inspired in her, and the loneliness of her youth with silent fortitude. She was a Von Hessel, and eight hundred years of tradition helped sustain her. She occupied herself with charities, with taking a personal interest in the running of her houses, and with compiling a detailed inventory of the treasures in the family’s possession. And that was when her passion for the Poellenberg Salt developed. They spent part of every year at the Schloss Würtzen, a medieval castle built by an ancestor in the thirteenth century and extensively modernised by her husband’s grandfather. The Salt was displayed in the main dining hall. It was not protected; it stood on the enormous oak table exactly as it had done for hundreds of years, shining with ineffable beauty in the lofty hall, its magnificent jewels like beacons when the lights were lit. Margaret could look at it for hours, absorbed in the poetic lines of its figures, touching the tremulous golden leaves of the central tree with a finger to make the branches move. There was a ruby as big as a large pebble; she loved to stare into its heart, where a tiny reflection of her own face was discernible. It was said to have belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The faces of the nymphs fascinated her equally; there was a sly sensuality in the golden eyes and round the curving lips, more subtle than the sexual leering of the muscular male figures. It seemed impossible, but every female face was different. The master had painted portraits in metal, each a likeness to a real woman. Margaret loved the Salt; her feeling towards it was so personal that she resented anybody even touching it. It was as if the whole unbelievable creation had been made for her alone, for another bride to look at and fondle, after Eleanor de Medici who had been dead for five hundred years. Her husband found this obsession with an inanimate object quite abnormal, and he said as much. The exquisite beauty of form, the harmony in the jewels which prevented so much opulence from ever being vulgar, none of this appealed to him. He preferred flesh and blood women to the cold nakedness of golden nymphs. But if it amused his wife to gloat, then he had no objection. He objected very seldom to anything she did. She had borne him one son, and he forgot her existence thereafter. She could spend what she wished, travel where she chose, surround herself with her own friends and amusements, while he enjoyed life in his own way. He took no interest in his son either; that was the mother’s province.

And as the boy grew up Margaret detected the same traits in him as in his father. He was stupid; even as a baby he lacked initiative, content to sit and play with his fists, sucking and chewing until his nurse put him into gloves. His eyes had the Von Hessel glaze of indifference to life. He made little progress at lessons. His tutors said frankly he was bored. At school he showed an aptitude for sport, and being who he was, his academic failings were overlooked. He was a failure whose family name protected him, and nothing his mother could say or do could light any gleam of ambition or enthusiasm in him. The more she criticised the less he reacted. He was found dead drunk in his room at the age of fourteen. He was a member of the Hitler Youth, which his father had insisted he become with the idea that the discipline would do him good. Margaret had objected bitterly but there was nothing she could do. Her husband had to be obeyed. He talked of discipline, when what he meant was politics. They were immensely powerful and rich, but even so they didn’t dare to flout the growing power of the dictator who controlled the country. Friendship with the Nazi hierarchy wasn’t required of people like them; but it was unwise to deviate in public. So Heinrich was enrolled in the Hitler Jugend and dressed up in the uniform. After a year he was privately expelled for being drunk. He was sent to a clinic in Austria under another name, surrounded by servants and a bodyguard to keep away the curious. He came back apparently cured but within six months the bouts began again. He smashed the furniture in his room, and there was a short spell in a nursing-home before another cure was tried, this time in Switzerland. It was the beginning of a pattern which was repeated over the next ten years. He grew up with his public Von Hessel image; a typical German aristocrat, heir to an immense empire of armaments, steel, coal, and allied industries, one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. Heinrich showed no interest in women. He had a permanent, passionate love affair with alcohol, and his world was bounded by the possibility and availability of drink. There was no contact between him and his father, who quite calmly declared him useless and gave no more thought to him. His only concern was to prevent the secret being known, to protect the family name. All the influence which his incredible wealth could exert was employed to keep Heinrich’s misdemeanours out of the newspapers. There was gossip among their friends. His frequent absences caused a rumour that he was subject to mental breakdown. He was said to be a homosexual, because there were no women in his life. When war broke out he was eighteen. The Prince made him a director of the armament factory in the Ruhr, and he was exempted from military service. It was the only time in their long married life that Margaret had felt sorry for her husband. They spent the evening together, which was a rare occurrence, and he said quite simply that it was the most miserable day of his life.

‘My son isn’t even fit to serve his Fatherland. He has to hide while his friends go out to fight. And he’s the last of us. Our family dies out with a drunken degenerate who can’t be trusted not to disgrace himself. Which is my fault, not yours. We must have more children.’

His wife had suspected his sterility, when he ceased to cohabit with her. His syphilis was cured but its after-effects were permanent. There had been nothing she could say, yet he seemed to expect an answer. The silence had grown between them. Finally it was the Prince who broke it. ‘If you found a lover, I should not object, provided he was of our blood. I thought I should tell you this. Now I’m going to bed.’

And two years later, in 1942, her son Philip, the child of her one love affair, was born. She had met his father during a visit to Berlin. He was a Luftwaffe pilot, seven years younger than herself, a gay and charming young man, the son of her own second cousin. They shared the same Von Hessel blood, the same traditions. Together they would keep the line unsullied.

She had known he would be killed; there was a sense of impermanence about him which broke her heart. The child she carried was born after his death in action over the English Channel. It was baptised in the chapel at Schloss Würtzen in the font where ten generations of the family had been christened.

Philip Friedrich Augustus Franz, Prince Von Hessel, the bastard son of a dead man. The Princess stood in the chapel and accepted the congratulations of their friends. Her husband stood beside her. Nothing was ever said, it was never acknowledged that Philip was not his child. But he was content; the family had a second heir, the name would continue in spite of Heinrich. And by the same unspoken attitude he let his wife understand that there must be no more lovers.

‘Philip,’ Margaret said, ‘I know I’m right. What that Englishman said on the telephone convinces me that we are getting near.’

‘Did you know there was a daughter?’ Philip asked.

‘Yes,’ his mother said. ‘There was one child, I had forgotten what the sex was. It was clever of Fisher to make contact with her so quickly. He says he’s sure she knows something but that unless he reveals our interest in the case she won’t tell him what it is. I gave my permission, because we have to know what Schwarz came to tell her.’

‘Mother,’ Philip said, ‘Mother, is there any use trying to persuade you to call a halt, even now? You know how I feel about it; you know what Heinrich feels.’

‘Heinrich has no right to feel anything,’ she said angrily. ‘If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have lost the Salt.’

‘One man is dead,’ her son said slowly. ‘Beaten to death, after all these years. Who killed him? Is there any connection between his death and that report about Bronsart being seen in Paris – Mother, I think we’re opening up something that should never be disturbed at all! Supposing that he is alive; now that we know Schwarz escaped and stayed in hiding all those years, it’s possible that Bronsart did the same. And if he’s coming into the open, he’s certain to be caught. If he comes to trial the whole story could come out! Please, Mother darling.’ He reached out and held her hand. There was a deep love and sympathy between them. ‘Please stop while there’s still time. Forget the Salt. Other people lost great treasures; what does it matter now, besides the other risk!’

‘It matters to me.’ The proud eyes blazed in memory. ‘It matters to me that one of the most beautiful objects in the world was taken from us by a ruthless parvenu, seized and hidden so that he could creep out one day and claim it. No, Philip, I’m going to get it back! If he lives, he’ll lead us to it. And it’s coming back to the place where it belongs. It’s ours, my son. One day it will be yours; you know that. You know that you’ll own everything, be responsible for all our interests. The Poellenberg Salt belongs to you.’

‘And Heinrich?’ her son asked quietly. ‘You talk as if he didn’t exist. I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘You have a kind heart,’ she said. ‘You find something to pity about him. I find nothing. There is no excuse for what he became. He’s a degenerate; he has no will, no feelings, no interest in anything but lying in a coma of drink. He’s my son, but the day he dies, I shall not shed a tear. Also he hates you, Philip. You know he does.’

‘That’s because you’ve always loved me,’ he said. ‘And you’ve shown it. I don’t blame him.’

‘He’ll die,’ the Princess said. ‘His liver is rotted, his health is getting worse. One day he just won’t recover. The doctors have made this clear to me for some time. And when that comes, you will be the head of the family, and I can retire and become an old woman, doing gros point in my armchair.’ She squeezed his hand and smiled. The memory of his father was very clear. Whenever Philip laughed it was as if the man she loved had come back from the grave. It would all be his. Millions, power, prestige, a great future in a Germany already counting high in the councils of the world which it had almost conquered. And the Salt belonged to him.

‘If Bronsart lives,’ she said suddenly, ‘we will have our treasure back. If he died in the retreat, then it is lost to us. So it rests with Fate, my son. Fate will decided what happens next.’

‘It wasn’t Fate that killed Schwarz,’ her son said.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It could have been a thief that he disturbed, the papers said so. It could have been a quarrel. Or it could have been the General, come back to close his mouth. That, my darling, is what I think, and what I believe Fisher thinks also. Now we have to wait to see what comes from the daughter. Just imagine being the child of such a man! Come, it’s time we went inside. I have to telephone Brükner about the extension to the Verbegan plant.’

‘I have the most terrible hangover,’ Paula said into the telephone. ‘Otherwise I’m all right. How about you?’

Fisher sounded cheerful. ‘I’m fine. You said you weren’t working today. How about lunch?’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’ Paula spoke with her eyes closed. Her head was pounding. ‘I have some things to do and I’ve got to get some letters written and sent off. I could have dinner this evening, or better still, come here and I’ll cook something. We’ve got to talk.’

‘You haven’t changed your mind about that, then,’ Fisher said. ‘I’m glad. We need each other in this. Anyway, at the moment I need you, and I can give you the information you wanted. Shall I come at about eight?’

‘Make it seven-thirty. I’ll get my own back on you and give you a drink.’ She sounded as if she were smiling. He was sorry she refused an earlier meeting. He was anxious to get on and get the information; he had spoken to the Princess at eight o’clock that morning and extracted permission to reveal her identity and the purpose of his enquiry. He was impatient to get on with his investigation, to start on a serious hunt for Bronsart, but no action was possible without exhausting Paula as a source. Another reason, which in the morning light he wasn’t so eager to recognise, was a desire to see her again.

Her father was a Nazi general, a member of the infamous murder squads which had spread Hitler’s terror throughout Europe. No wonder the mother had played it down. Fisher could see her point. But it had been a cruel and selfish attitude to take in regard to her daughter. Some hint should have been given, some warning that her father was not the hero figure that the girl had obviously tried to create out of nothing. Besides, the mother had been married to him. She knew what he was and what he was doing. The wives of all the top men were singing the same song after the war. We didn’t know; we weren’t told, our place was in the home. Fisher called that excuse a lot of balls. Their estates were staffed by foreign slave labour, their homes were filled with other people’s treasures, the furs and jewels that arrived back from France and the Low Countries were the property of captured Jews who’d tried to buy their lives. Fisher had no sympathy for Mrs. Ridgeway. She had baled out after the war, with a well-heeled Englishman as a protector. If he felt sorry for anyone it was Paula, who had been left as an appendage all her life.

He felt a vindictive impulse to go down to Essex that day and stir the pair of them up. Why should the girl be the only one to answer questions …?

‘I’m going down to pay your mother a visit,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you about it tonight.’

‘She must have seen about Black in the papers,’ Paula said. ‘I expect she’s terrified she’ll be connected.’

‘Why the hell should she be?’ He said it irritably. ‘She’s Mrs. Ridgeway, that is all anyone knows about her. She can go on hiding. Black’s murder was on TV last night, on the news. So she can’t frig about pretending she doesn’t know anything to me.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Paula said. ‘You don’t know my mother. She never even telephoned me.’

‘To hell,’ he said. ‘What do you care? I phoned you, didn’t I? Don’t be greedy, wanting all the attention. You go and take something for that hangover and I’ll be with you at seven-thirty. And don’t work too hard today.’

‘I won’t,’ Paula promised. ‘I feel so awful I can’t. I haven’t thanked you for last night. It was very kind of you.’

‘We’ll do it again,’ he said. ‘I liked it too.’

She put down the telephone and got out of bed. Her headache was a dull pain that throbbed; aspirins would stop it. She made tea and took two tablets.

The night before seemed distant and unreal. She couldn’t believe that she had invited him up. She must have been drunk. She had never asked a man up to her flat after two meetings in her life. Since parting from her husband she had not spent a night with any one, or thought of doing so.

But this rather ugly man had woken something in her. In spite of the feeling of malaise it was still there. It was like having something to hold on to when one was swimming in a limitless sea. There was a man and contact had been made between them. Only a transitory contact, a brief meeting, but for the moment it was enough. She went into the sitting room; the paper with Black’s photograph was lying on the floor. She picked it up and read the inside story. Her father was an S.S. general. She had never been able to picture him in detail; she had no photograph, no memento to prove that he had ever existed But out of her imagination she had fashioned an image; it was a soldier, it wore the German general’s uniform she had once found in a reference book of uniforms she had consulted as a girl, it had her bright blue eyes, because her mother had once remarked on them to Gerald Ridgeway, and Paula had been listening. ‘Of course she has his eyes. That makes her look like him.’ And Paula had examined herself in the glass afterwards and tried to visualise him. The image was a shadow, but she borrowed for it, from books and things she heard over the years. The German army weren’t responsible for the atrocities. They were gentlemen. The best fighting soldiers in the world. The old officer caste hated the Nazis. Her father had been a man like those men, who were spoken of with respect by their enemies. She could be proud of him. Even though her mother was so patently ashamed.

She bathed and dressed; she felt numbed. One part of her had spoken to Fisher with every appearance of normality; she had smiled and made a joke, responded to his cheerfulness; even looked forward to seeing him that night.

But apart from this there was a cold, suspended personality, almost a second entity, watching the other going through the motions as if it were a stranger. And now, with the paper in her hand, the two sides fused, and she thought with surprise that she was no longer Paula Ridgeway but Paula Bronsart.

She had an identity at last. Not the competent divorcee with a career of her own and an independent life, with a mother and stepfather safely in the background, but a German living in an alien country. The shadow had a substance; there was the smell of fire and death, the echo of a brazen trumpet in a vast arena where the people gathered to pay homage. Reality had come with knowledge. And now she had to live with it and with herself. She went to the outer hall, her bag and gloves in her hand and paused before the mirror on the wall. She looked like him. There was no likeness to her aristocratic mother, whose background really was the conservative old German army. She was Paul Bronsart’s daughter; whatever he had been, she was part of it. A phrase returned to her. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. He had taken her photograph in his hands and shown it to Black, to others. He had established a bond between himself and the child who had never known him and it had stretched from the past, holding her to his memory. Whatever he had done and whatever he was as a human being, nothing could separate them. He had put something away for her, planning for long after his death. If he were dead, and not in hiding somewhere. He had hidden one of the greatest art treasures in the world so that she might have the evidence of his love. But she didn’t want the Poellenberg Salt. Paula opened the front door and stepped out. She didn’t want his treasure. If it were within human possibility, regardless of the past, she knew that all she wanted was to find him.

Paula’s mother was crying. She sat on the chintz sofa in the pleasant sitting room, with her husband’s arms around her, weeping. ‘Don’t, darling.’ He kept repeating it. ‘Don’t upset yourself! After what I said to him he won’t come back!’

It had been an ugly interview. Fisher’s attitude was aggressive from the start. He hadn’t made an appointment, he had just called, finding the Brigadier out and his wife in the garden. There was nothing Mrs. Ridgeway could do but ask him inside, and there the ruthless cross-examination had begun. She wasn’t as tough a proposition as Fisher had imagined. But then, he reminded himself, she wasn’t dealing with her own daughter. He had thrown the paper with Black’s photograph in front of her and asked her to identify him.

She had been shocked and pale, but she kept her head. She had tried to lie, but at the first denial Fisher sprang. ‘In March 1938 you married Colonel Paul Heinrich Bronsart of the S.S. at the town hall in Potsdam, the wedding reception was at your father’s home, Shrievenburg, you had four hundred guests and you spent your honeymoon in Denmark. Shall I go on, or would you be kind enough to answer my questions now?’ She had given in then. Nothing about her reminded him of Paula and he was relieved. The photograph was Albrecht Schwarz, and he had served as A.D.C. to her husband.

‘You knew he was coming to see your daughter, didn’t you?’

‘I would prefer not to say any more till my husband gets back.’

‘You knew an ex-Nazi war criminal was on the loose and prowling round your daughter and you never said a word about it? You never even warned her – didn’t you think it might be dangerous?’

‘I begged her not to see him.’ She had spoken with sudden passion and Fisher knew there wouldn’t be any more stalling till the Brigadier’s return.

‘She refused to listen to either of us. She’s extremely obstinate; there was nothing I could do to stop her!’

‘Except tell her the truth.’ Fisher sneered. ‘Instead of leaving her to find it out for herself. I was with her yesterday when she read that paper, Mrs. Ridgeway. I saw her face. It ought to haunt you.’

She had tried to turn him out, threatening to ring the police. Fisher invited her to do so; he also reminded her that they might like to ask a few questions when they knew of Black’s connection with her family.

‘What I really came for,’ Fisher said, ‘was to get two answers to two simple questions. Give me those, Mrs. Ridge-way, and I won’t bother you. First, did your husband ever discuss escaping if Germany lost the war?’

She had looked at him with bitterness, almost with contempt.

‘If you had ever known my husband you wouldn’t ask that,’ she said. ‘No one would have dared to mention the word defeat. Or escape. Also we detested each other; he wouldn’t have discussed anything with me.’

‘Okay.’ Fisher lit a cigarette. ‘So you got the official notification of his death. You never doubted it?’

‘Never. And I don’t now.’

‘What did he do with the Poellenberg Salt?’

She turned to him, astonishment distorting her face.

‘He had it, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘It vanished. I don’t know where he put it; I wouldn’t have asked.’

‘And you would swear to that, Mrs. Ridgeway?’

There was a movement behind Fisher.

‘Swear to what? What the hell’s going on?’ It was the Brigadier. The exchange between them was short; there was no doubt in Fisher’s mind that the old man would bring the police to the house and have him ejected. He had no legal right to force himself upon them or to demand any answers and he had bluffed the woman. He didn’t try to bluff her husband. Ridgeway was blazing with anger; as if to make it worse his wife suddenly dissolved into tears and Fisher thought he was going to lose his head and throw a punch at him. ‘Get out of here, you bloody snooper – you try and come here again and bother my wife and I’ll take a horse-whip to you!’ Fisher had left; his last sight was of the man cradling the woman in his arms. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her; Fisher filed that observation away. Paula hadn’t exaggerated when she said they were devoted to each other. It must have been pretty solitary living alongside them. When he arrived at Paula’s flat that evening he brought a bottle of Riesling. He thought she looked rather pale; her hair was brushed back and the blue eyes were very vivid in the artificial lights. ‘Hello,’ Fisher said. He had an odd feeling when she smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late. The traffic up was terrible.’

‘You’re not late,’ Paula said. ‘Come in.’ He gave her the wine.

‘Something pretty good from your country,’ he said gently. She looked at him.

‘Good things have come out of it, haven’t they?’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been trying to think of as many of them as I can today. Beethoven, Mozart, Rhine wines, Goethe, Mann – I couldn’t think of any scientist except Von Braun. Come and sit down, Eric. I’ll get you a drink.’

‘Whisky, please,’ he said. He watched her walking to the drinks laid out on a side table. She moved without any trace of self-consciousness, no hip swinging to call attention to a very good figure. And from the front she looked like a woman instead of a flat-chested boy. Fisher approved of that too. He brought his mind back to his business.

‘I went down to Essex,’ he said. He gave her a cigarette; she sat beside him on the sofa. ‘I got nothing but an identification of Black as Schwarz. And one important admission, but I’ll come to that in a minute.’

‘How was my mother?’ The voice was cold. ‘She’s still never contacted me. Oddly enough I’m not even hurt any more.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Fisher said. ‘She was extremely upset. Cried her eyes out, as the saying goes.’

‘I can’t imagine her crying,’ Paula said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Go on.’

‘Your stepfather came bounding in looking like a furious St. Bernard, threatening to call the police and give me a good horse-whipping! It must have had its funny side, but I felt he meant every word. I left them in each other’s arms. Incidentally, she said one thing. She said she and your real father hated the sight of each other.’

‘I see. That may account for the way she’s avoided me,’ Paula said. ‘It must be a nuisance being saddled with a child by someone you hated. I always suspected it. What was the other thing she told you?’

‘In a minute,’ Fisher said. ‘I promised to tell you who my employer is, didn’t I? I got the permission this morning, before I phoned you. It’s the Princess Von Hessel. You know who I mean – the armament family.’

‘I know the name,’ Paula said. ‘How very extraordinary this is. And they want you to find my father?’

‘That’s the idea. You see he took something from them during the war and they want it back.’ He had put personal considerations aside; he was a professional and he was watching her. She faced him without guile.

‘I know what it is,’ she said. ‘That was why Black came to see me. He told me about it and I didn’t believe him. I thought he was crazy. It’s the Poellenberg Salt, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Fisher said. ‘Yes, it is. And your father did have it. Your mother said so. Paula, what did Black tell you? This could solve the whole thing!’

She extended her hand, turning the cigarette between her fingers. ‘He said my father had hidden it. He said he had hidden it to give to me.’ She raised her eyes to Fisher. ‘I suppose that makes a difference.’

He kept his surprise under control. ‘It could do, only you don’t have any legal right to it,’ he said. ‘It was stolen.’

‘Black said it was a gift. He emphasised that. He said he had promised my father to find me and give me the clue to where it was.’

‘Are you going to tell me that clue?’

‘I don’t want the Salt,’ she said. ‘I looked it up – it’s belonged to that family for hundreds of years. I’d like to give it back to them. But it’s only a clue. Black said my father didn’t trust him with the whole secret. He was certain that my father was alive. The message he gave me doesn’t make any sense at all.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Fisher said. ‘What was it?’

‘Paris, 25th June, 1944. Tante Ambrosine and her nephew Jacquot. That was all. It sounds gibberish to me.’

‘Your father was no fool,’ Fisher said grimly. ‘He knew what he was doing. That message must make sense. Paris, 25th June, 1944. Tante Ambrosine and her nephew Jacquot. I’ll just have to find out what it means.’

‘We’ll both have to find out,’ Paula said quietly. ‘By the way, what would happen if my father were found alive now?’

‘He’d be extradited to West Germany and put on trial. He was a big man in the Nazi party. They’d find something to charge him with.’

‘But if you find the Poellenberg Salt, that will be enough for you, won’t it? You won’t have to look for him?’

‘No,’ Fisher said, ‘I won’t. My clients want the Salt, that’s all.’

‘They can have it,’ Paula said. ‘And that’s a promise. Because I believe Black; I believe my father owned it legally and it’s mine. But I’ll give it back on one condition.’

‘That I lay off looking for your father?’

‘No. That you help me to find him, if he’s still alive.’

Fisher hesitated. ‘You really mean this? You know what you’re doing?’

‘Not really,’ Paula said. ‘I’m still confused. I’m still looking for something and I haven’t found it.’

‘Does it have to be a father?’ Fisher asked her.

‘I don’t know that either. He must be an old man now; I’ve been thinking about it all day, thinking of what he was and what kind of man he must have been. An S.S. general. I’ve grown up with the idea of the bogey men in the black uniforms. But I want to find him. I want to see him for myself. That’s as far as I can go at the moment. I’ve helped you and I trust you to help me. It’s not your job to expose him but it’s mine to help him if he’s still alive. I want to search with you, Eric. And even if the Salt is legally mine I’ll hand it back. Is that a bargain?’

‘All right.’

She turned and held her hand out to him. He thought she was crazy and he wanted to say so. He also wanted to kiss her, which was nothing to do with Nazi generals or hidden masterpieces. He had expected almost any development but this one. He had undertaken to find the Poellenberg Salt and she wanted to find the General. So for good or evil they were in it together. He took her hand and shook it. He went on holding it for a few moments until she drew it away.

‘All right,’ he said again. ‘It’s a bargain. Next stop is Paris.’

‘Well,’ Dunston said, ‘so you’re off to Paris. Lucky you.’

‘I’ll be busy,’ Fisher said. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve still got the music hall Englishman’s idea of Paris, all tits and Folies Bergère! I’ve got a lousy assignment and you’re welcome to take it over any time you like!’

‘No thanks,’ Dunston laughed. They were sitting in a public house down the street from their office; Fisher had ordered beer and Dunston had a double whisky on the counter in front of him. In Fisher’s opinion he drank too much. He was a tall, thickset man, with bushy black hair and eyebrows, a genial ugliness redeemed by splendid white teeth. He laughed very easily, showing them off. He had a pretty little wife and three children; he was a lot cleverer than his cheery personality indicated. On his own admission, he was no gentleman, and he professed a passion for making money. ‘No trips to Europe for me at the moment,’ he said. ‘I’m up to my balls in work right here. How do you think it’s going?’

‘Don’t know,’ Fisher said. ‘My guess is the General is alive and hiding out. Everything points to it. My second guess is that when he does show up, if he does, he’ll make for his daughter. From what I’ve heard, he was crazy about her as a kid. And he’s apparently made contact now through Schwarz. So he’s still interested in her. And he wants her to find this Salt. From the point of view of our clients, that does worry me. From what Schwarz said to her, she seems to think she’s got a legal claim to it. So there could be quite a fight over the bloody thing. Of course she’s saying now she’ll give it back to them.’

‘That’s all very well till she sees it,’ Dunston said. ‘I’ve heard those generous gestures taken back before. You’ve told Princess Von Hessel about this?’

‘I sent her a long report. Personally, I think Mrs. Stanley might keep her word. She’s a funny sort of girl, not the usual grabber at all.’

‘Oh?’ Dunston’s bushy eyebrows lifted and the spectacular teeth appeared. ‘First time I’ve heard you giving a bird a good character reference. Taking her to Paris with you, aren’t you? I suppose that’ll go down on the expense account …’

‘I’m not taking her, she’s coming.’ Fisher answered rather sharper than he intended. Dunston’s grin irritated him.

‘Have fun.’

‘Get stuffed. Have another whisky?’

‘So long as you’re paying. When do you leave for Gay Paree?’

‘Tomorrow morning. We’re staying at the Odile; that shouldn’t break the expense account. I’ll be in touch with you to let you know how things are going. I wish I knew what the hell it means. Tante Ambrosine and her nephew Jacquot.’

‘Try the telephone directory,’ Dunston suggested. ‘It could be a restaurant. Suppose some poor bloody foreigner was told to find the Great American Disaster, what do you think he’d make of that? Tante Ambrosine and her nephew – could be anything. You’ve checked round about?’

‘I got straight through to Joe Daly at Reuters in Paris,’ Fisher said. ‘It meant nothing to him either. It’s got nothing to do with any contemporary pop Paris “scene” or he’d have known it. Anyway, we’ll see what happens when we get there. My first move will be to check on whoever thought they saw Bronsart.’

‘I’m off to Manchester this afternoon.’ Dunston stretched a little. He was very powerfully built.

‘No wonder you’re so narky about Paris.’ Now it was Fisher’s turn to laugh. ‘You won’t get into much mischief there.’

‘No, but I might make some money for us. Nice little five hundred guinea fee for a background check. Rich daddy with silly bitch daughter who wants to marry the little pouf who does her hair. If I can get some real dirt on him for Daddy to show darling daughter, I might even get a bonus. I’m off now. Good luck with Aunty Ambrosine.’

‘Thanks.’ Fisher nodded to him. At the door Dunston turned and waved again. They got on very well together; as men they were completely different in type; they proceeded in different ways on investigation. Fisher used intuition and took risks, Dunston was methodical, unswerving and possessed a remarkable instinct for anything crooked. Their friendship was not deep but they spent odd evenings together and never seriously disagreed. Fisher enjoyed his company. He could be extremely vulgar and very funny. He paid the bill and left to go back to his office. Outside Dunston hailed a taxi. Inside he leaned back and lit a menthol cigarette. His choice of the brand was an idiosyncrasy which Fisher sometimes used against him. He couldn’t give up smoking but he had a morbid horror of lung cancer. Fisher was going off to Paris with Mrs. Stanley. Well, well, Dunston said to himself. He’d picked himself up a piece of crumpet on the way; trust him. He never passed up a chance to get a slice. Fisher didn’t think much of women; Dunston knew that. He always chose the same type. They were all loose and hard, and good looking. There had never been a snowball’s chance in hell of Fisher falling for any of them. If he bothered with a woman it was to lay her and for nothing else. He was curious about this Mrs. Stanley. She was divorced from Jimmy Stanley, and everyone who read the newspapers knew what a high-powered little playboy he was; always firing on all six cylinders. So she was probably the same type as Fisher’s usual, but a better-class edition. And she claimed a legal title to the Poellenberg Salt. Dunston had looked it up, and the photograph of it had been enough. People murdered for a thing like that. She wouldn’t give it back. If it was hers, by any unsuspected twist, she’d hang on and fight for it till the blood ran. And that was probably why he was going, not to Manchester, as he had told Fisher, but to Germany, at the urgent and secret request of the Princess Von Hessel.

‘Get in, Mr. Dunston. We are going for a drive.’

The rear door was held open for him by the chauffeur; he had a glimpse of a woman sitting in the seat, her face pale and grim. He got in and sat beside her.

‘I am Princess Von Hessel,’ she said. She spoke in German to the chauffeur, and then pressed a knob on the arm of the seat. The glass partition slid up and closed them off from the front of the car.

‘It’s very kind of you to meet me,’ Dunston said. He wasn’t quite sure how to address her. The size of the car, the uniformed chauffeur and the patrician arrogance of the woman beside him had shaken his self-confidence. He wouldn’t have been ill at ease if he were dealing with the newly rich. But a face like Princess Von Hessel’s was the result of centuries of aristocratic breeding and power.

‘I didn’t come to meet you,’ she said. ‘I came to have our interview. That’s why we are going for a drive. You know my original letter was addressed to you?’

‘Fisher showed it to me,’ Dunston said. ‘I was in Portugal, on holiday. I followed your instructions. I didn’t tell him I was coming over here. I presume that you’re not satisfied with him, is that it?’

‘He was not the man I wanted,’ she said. ‘But since I’ve got him, he can continue his enquiries. He’s made a lot of progress in a very short time.’

‘Then may I ask,’ Dunston said, ‘why you sent for me?’

The Princess glanced at him; there was something in the eyes which made him wary; he had a faultless instinct for the unexpected, and he knew, by blind intuition, that the interview was not going to be what it seemed.

‘You spent quite a time in Germany five years ago, didn’t you, Mr. Dunston? When you were with Interpol.’

‘Yes. I know the country very well.’

‘And your last assignment was breaking up a gold smuggling ring, I believe?’

Now Dunston’s skin was crawling. ‘That’s right. You’ve made quite an investigation of the investigators.’

‘Naturally. I always prefer to know what I am dealing with. And what I discovered convinced me that you were just the man I needed. It was unfortunate that Mr. Fisher came instead of you. It appears he is of honest character.’ She turned towards him and smiled; it was an expression of amused contempt. ‘You have gone red, Mr. Dunston. Please don’t be insulted. Taking offence is a luxury which I don’t believe you can afford.’

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ Dunston began angrily. ‘But if you’re suggesting, Princess Von Hessel, that there’s anything wrong …’

‘How much money did you take from the smuggling ring to slow up that investigation?’

The question caught him in mid speech. He stopped and floundered. She went on, still smiling and implacable. ‘You left Interpol under a suspicion of accepting a bribe. Nothing could be proved against you, but you had no future after that episode. The sum mentioned was a miserable ten thousand pounds. Perhaps not so miserable to you in those days, but surely a contemptible amount by present standards. I wouldn’t insult you by offering anything so paltry.’

Dunston took out a packet of cigarettes. He was sweating.

‘Put those away, please. I object to smoking; it’s a disgusting habit!’

For a moment Dunston hesitated. His composure had been shattered by her direct attack. He felt naked, sitting in the car with the old woman staring him out, the intangible force of her authority browbeating his will. Slowly he closed the packet and put it back in his pocket. ‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve got some proposition for me. It must be pretty shady or you wouldn’t have brought up that old rumour. And it was just a rumour. There wasn’t any truth in it; but the damage was done. I cut my losses and left.’

‘Mr. Dunston,’ the Princess said, ‘if you convince me of your moral probity I won’t be able to put any proposition to you. Luckily, I know that you began your detective business with a sum of capital which wasn’t there before. So I am sure you took the bribe and that you are a man who has a price. Shall I go on, or are you going to persist in this little fiction about yourself?’

‘There’s never any harm,’ he said, ‘in listening.’

‘Good. You know the facts about our loss of the Poellenberg Salt; you know as much as Fisher knows, is that correct?’

‘He keeps me briefed,’ Dunston answered. ‘You want it back and you believe that General Bronsart is alive and can lead you to it.’

‘Exactly. I am determined to recover it.’ For a moment she glanced out of the window, frowning. ‘Determined. Nothing will stop me. But there are complications. Mr. Fisher is not aware of them.’

‘Too honest?’ Dunston asked her. He was recovering himself now.

‘Much too honest. My younger son tried to persuade him to go behind my back and drop the case and he refused.’

‘Why should your son do that? Doesn’t he want the Salt back?’

‘He’s not prepared to take the risk,’ she said. ‘I am. I am prepared to risk anything and to do anything. That’s why I’ve sent for you.’

‘What are the complications?’

‘The General has a legal right to it,’ she said quietly. ‘It was moral theft but he took it legally. For reasons which don’t concern you, we can never have a public fight about its ownership.’

‘He’s not in a position to fight,’ Dunston said. ‘He’s a wanted criminal. He can never come into the open.’

‘No.’ Princess Von Hessel turned right round and faced him. ‘No, but his daughter can. I wanted somebody to find the General and the Salt, and then remove him.’

‘I see,’ Dunston said; he nodded slowly at her. ‘I’m getting it now. But you hadn’t reckoned on the daughter.’

‘Exactly.’

‘When you say “remove”,’ Dunston sounded casual, ‘what do you mean by that?’

‘Just what you think I mean,’ she said coldly. ‘Dispose of; kill, if you prefer plain language. I want the General dead, unable to talk or make trouble if by any chance he is arrested.’

‘And the daughter? She could claim the Salt and get away with it. That’s the real trouble, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Once she came into it everything changed. Mr. Dunston, I will pay two hundred and fifty thousand pounds into a numbered bank account in Switzerland. Fifty thousand on account, as a retainer, and the rest later. But I want the Poellenberg Salt and I don’t want anyone alive to claim it.’

‘Christ,’ Dunston said softly. He pursed up his lips and whistled, but no sound came. ‘You’re asking for a murder. You’re asking me to kill that girl.’

‘I’m asking you to kill them both,’ she said. ‘And I’m paying you a quarter of a million pounds. Think of the money, Mr. Dunston. Think how rich you’ll be. You don’t have to give your answer now. Just think about it.’

‘You’re taking a hell of a risk, trusting me with this. What’s to stop me going to the police and telling them the whole story?’

‘Nothing but your common sense,’ she retorted. ‘Nobody would believe you; you have no witnesses, no proof. On the other hand you have the chance to be a very rich man. I believe you’ll make the right choice.’

‘I believe I might,’ Dunston said. ‘But only if you double it. And that’s my answer. Half a million, and I’ll take care of them both. You’ll have the Salt and there won’t be any Mrs. Stanley round to make counter claim.’

‘If I agree to double the money, you’ll do it?’

‘We can shake hands on it now,’ Dunston said.

‘Very well. Half a million.’

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Just what did the General have on you to make you give it to him?’

Again her slow, contemptuous smile appeared.

‘If you knew that, Mr. Dunston, your life wouldn’t be any safer than Mrs. Stanley’s is at the moment. Now we will take you back to the airport.’