A Girl in the inquiry office told Piper that Mr. Haupmann had gone out. “… He left about five minutes ago.”
“Do you know how long he’ll be?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think he’ll be back to-night. We’re closing soon.”
“It’s only twenty past five and he’s usually here until six,” Piper said. “I’d be grateful if you’d have a word with his secretary.”
She looked down at her table stacked with envelopes for sealing. Then she shrugged and picked up the phone.
“… Yes, I know. But there’s a gentleman who specially wants to see him … yes … yes … that’s what I said to him … O.K.”
With a glance at the clock, she told Piper, “No, sir, it’ll be no use you waiting. He said he wouldn’t be back… so you’ll have to make it to-morrow morning. …”
He had a feeling of disquiet that grew stronger all the time as he drove to his office. Quinn was waiting for him—a very subdued Quinn who kept him silent company while he walked up and down and watched the clock.
At five past six he phoned the house in Adelaide Gardens. As he listened to the number ringing out he asked himself why he half-expected there would be no reply.
When he heard somebody answer he was almost surprised. He asked, “May I speak to Mr. Haupmann, please?”
The man called Antonio said, “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Haupmann hasn’t returned home yet. Would you care to phone again after half past six? That’s his usual time.”
Piper said, “In case he’s delayed it might be better if you asked him to ring me. My name’s Piper. Mr. Haupmann knows my number. Say I’m very anxious to speak to him.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see he gets your message as soon as he comes in.”
It took the minute hand of the desk clock a long time to travel from five past to half past six. The next few minutes passed even more slowly.
At twenty-five to seven, Quinn said irritably, “I’ll lay you odds Antonio’s forgotten to tell him. We might sit here all night.”
“If you’re in a hurry you needn’t wait,” Piper said. “Pop in to-morrow morning and I’ll let you know what’s happened.”
Quinn took another cigarette, looked at it sourly, and put it back in the box. He said, “I’m in no hurry except to hear what friend Haupmann’s got to say. It’s the look on your face that’s giving me the willies. You’ve been fidgeting for the past half-hour. What’re you worrying about?”
“Nothing that I can put into words. I just don’t like the idea of Haupmann leaving his office not long after you spoke to him.”
“Maybe he had a business appointment … who knows?”
“Did he sound as if he was in the mood to talk business?”
Quinn pulled down the corners of his mouth and moved restlessly. He said, “No. The more I think about him the more I wish I hadn’t pulled that stunt.”
“You wouldn’t listen to me. You had to have your own way.”
“I thought it would achieve the effect we wanted.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to have been just too effective.”
“Fritz Haupmann isn’t the type of man to do anything silly,” Quinn said. “Judging by the story his wife told me he’s a fighter. He won’t give in easily.”
“Which of us are you trying to convince? A man needs more than courage to go on fighting an enemy he can’t see.”
“O.K. Maybe I was wrong. How long do you propose to wait?”
Piper said, “We’ll give him another ten minutes.”
At a quarter to seven he phoned again. This time it was a woman who answered.
She said, “No, my husband isn’t home yet … I’m expecting him any minute. Who’s that speaking, please?”
Piper gave her his name and impressed on her that the matter was urgent. “… I’d like to come and see your husband, Mrs. Haupmann, as soon as he’s had dinner, so will you please ask him to ring me the moment he gets in?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Piper. I’ll tell him myself. He shouldn’t be very long now. …”
Seven o’clock came … seven-fifteen. … Down below in the street there was only a trickle of traffic. Frost had begun to whiten the pavements. Between the chimneys of the building opposite, a few stars glinted coldly.
At seven-twenty, Quinn said, “He left his office over two hours ago and it should’ve taken him roughly half an hour to get home. Even assuming that he made a call on the way, he should’ve got to Acton long before now … don’t you think?”
Piper said, “I’ve no idea what to think. Possibly he’s been in touch with his wife by this time to say he’s been delayed. If I don’t hear from him by half past I’ll try again.”
“And if she’s still had no word?”
“Then we’ll have a meal somewhere and you can come home with me and wait until it’s time to phone again … unless you’ve got something better to do this evening?”
Quinn said, “Don’t be a comic. …”
Piper spoke to Mrs. Haupmann again at half past seven. She said, “When the phone bell rang I thought it was my husband to say he’d been detained.” Her voice sounded very much on edge.
“He isn’t usually as late as this, is he?”
“No. He’s nearly always home by six-thirty. I don’t understand what can have happened. Have you spoken to him to-day, Mr. Piper?”
The recollection of what Quinn had said to Fritz Haupmann soured Piper’s mind. He felt cheap when he had to say, “No. I called at the factory about twenty past five in the hope of seeing him but he’d already left.”
“Had he?” Concern put a quiver in her voice. “That’s most peculiar. I can’t think where he could’ve gone. If he had to meet someone on business he’d have phoned to say I shouldn’t expect him at his usual time. I hope nothing’s wrong. …”
Piper said, “If there was, you’d have heard by now. They say bad news travels fast.”
“It’s very worrying, all the same.”
“Of course. But don’t worry too much. When he does get in, Mrs. Haupmann, he needn’t bother to call this number. I’ll ring him later in the evening.”
He was about to hang up, when she said, “Hold the line a moment. I think I hear his car. …”
Piper waited, his eyes on Quinn’s saturnine face. He knew what Quinn was thinking: they were his own thoughts.
Wherever Fritz Haupmann had been since he left his office he must have gone there because of what Quinn had said to him. Perhaps the trick had defeated its own object … although that seemed hardly possible.
Quinn whispered, “I wonder what he’ll tell the ball-and-chain? Expect he’s been making up some kind of excuse on his way from——”
The phone said, “No, it was the people next door. I can’t imagine where my husband can have got to.” Behind her concern lay a fear that Piper felt was scarcely justified yet.
He said, “There’s generally a very simple explanation for this kind of thing. Don’t start upsetting yourself before you’ve any real cause. I’ll ring later, Mrs. Haup-mann … probably in an hour’s time.”
Neither he nor Quinn was particularly hungry. They had a snack at a place in the Strand and then they walked up to the Unicorn. When they got there it was not far off eight-thirty.
Over a glass of beer, Quinn asked, “What’re you going to do if Fritzie isn’t home yet?”
Piper said, “What can I do? He’ll go home when it suits him or——”
“—or not at all,” Quinn said.
“From the way you talk, anyone would think you’d started this business.”
“And, of course, that’s silly. All I’ve done is finish it. I’ll lay you any odds you like that Haupmann’s done a bunk.”
“Because of what you said to him on the phone?”
“Sure. We can only guess what he’s been through up to now, but the little piece I recited must’ve been the last ounce that tipped the scale. I’d say he got going while the going was good.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. He’s not the man to desert his family. You heard him yourself.”
“This wouldn’t be desertion. While he sticks around, his family are in constant danger. He must’ve decided there was only one thing to do and that was to get out in a hurry.”
“He hasn’t any guarantee that his wife and daughter will come to no harm even if he leaves home.”
“As I see it he’s got no guarantee either way … but he can be sure that they’ll suffer if he tries to go on living his normal life. And in the end the people who are after his scalp will get him.”
Piper said, “I keep asking myself what sort of people they can be. He must’ve done something terrible to make them go to such lengths.”
Quinn swallowed a mouthful of beer, scrutinised the amount left in his glass, and then tried to attract the barmaid’s attention. He asked Piper, “Fancy the same again … or a drop of short? No? … Then you can buy me another bitter. Now, where were we?”
“I was talking about the motive behind this persecution of Fritz Haupmann.”
“Ah, yes. Well, if you want my opinion, I think it goes back a long way and a long time. He must’ve blotted his copy-book back home in Austria … and after all these years it’s caught up with him. As a guess, probably some wartime jiggery-pokery.”
“Since he can’t even tell his wife what he did, that narrows it down to one or two possibilities,” Piper said.
Quinn made some comment that was lost in a burst of laughter from the group behind where they were standing. Then he was jostled by a bearded man squeezing his way in to the bar.
There were mutual apologies … Quinn made room for him … Piper ordered another glass of bitter.
When it arrived, Quinn said, “Cheers. … Before I got an elbow in my back I was saying that a lot of monkeybusiness took place during Hitler’s war … and it looks as if someone’s got a long memory.”
Piper said, “I can’t see any former Nazis carrying on a vendetta.”
“Might not be former Nazis. Might be”—Quinn leaned forward and lowered his voice—“that friend Haupmann forgot which side he was on … eh?”
“We’ve no evidence to support that, but it’s an interesting conjecture, all the same.”
“Conjecture, maybe, but it’ll have to do until something better comes along. I’ve had it in mind ever since I interviewed his charming wife this morning. Remember she told me that Fritz wasn’t keen on going back to Gastein when the war ended?”
“Yes, I’ve thought about that, too. But it might not have much significance. A lot of people emigrated from Germany and Austria about that time.”
“Not Fritz Haupmann’s kind of people. The freedom fighters in an occupied country—and that’s more or less what Austria was—didn’t emigrate just when they’d got rid of Fascism. Fritz wouldn’t have left his home town with practically nothing in his pocket unless he had some very compelling reason.”
“You may be right,” Piper said. “Those I’ve met have been Jewish immigrants who had no confidence in their future prospects. They’d seen it happen once——”
“—and they weren’t prepared to gamble their lives that it wouldn’t happen again. You and I can understand that. But it doesn’t apply to Fritz Haupmann: he isn’t a Jew. He didn’t have to start a new life—unless he was scared of going back to the old one. Judging by recent events, he had good reason to be scared.”
Piper said, “There’s a lot in what you say. The way he spoke to you on the phone this afternoon tends to confirm your theory. If nothing else it’s a good line of questioning. We’ll see what his reactions are when I talk to him.”
“If you talk to him. I’m still backing my hunch that he’s now over the hills and far away.”
“We’ll see. … I told Mrs. Haupmann I’d ring her in an hour and it’s nearly twenty to nine. Where’s the phone in this place?”
“Just inside the entrance. Through the revolving door as if you were going out and then turn left.”
Quinn’s familiar, sardonic look changed. He said, “I can save you the price of the call. Fritz won’t return home now … not after the scare I threw into him. And it’s a helluva night for a man to have nowhere to go.”
It was not Mrs. Haupmann who answered the telephone. Gizelle said, “Mother told me you phoned two or three times earlier this evening. What is it you want?”
Piper said, “I think that’s something I should discuss with Mr. Haupmann personally.”
“You mean you want to tell him what happened to his car last night. If I’d known you would break confidence——”
“There was nothing confidential about it but, as it happens, that isn’t why I’d like to speak to him.”
“Then why do you? What have you found out since I was at your office this afternoon that’s so very urgent?”
“I believe I know what your father’s afraid of and I may be able to help him.”
“Supposing he doesn’t want your help?” It was just a question. Her tone gave him no cause to be offended.
“Then I’m relying on you to persuade him,” Piper said. “But first of all put him on the phone. When I’ve talked to him myself it might not be necessary——”
“You can’t talk to him,” Gizelle said. “He hasn’t come home yet.”
The door of the lounge bar opened and let out a babble of noise. Two men pushed through the revolving door and passed the alcove where Piper was standing.
As they went out, one of them grumbled, “Can’t ever remember it being so bloody cold. I thought we’d got over the worst of it at Christmas. …”
Piper’s breath had condensed on the mirror above the coin-box and he could see only a blurred outline of his face—an unfamiliar face that seemed to be mocking him. The stone floor struck cold through his shoes and chilled his feet and his legs and the pit of his stomach.
Quinn was right. “… He hasn’t come home yet.” There had been no other course open to Fritz Haupmann.
Unless he gave up home, family and business he would sacrifice his wife and daughter. He had to go away and lose his identity. Only when he ceased to exist, when his family were no longer hostages. …
Piper asked, “Have you been in touch with any of the places he might’ve visited on his way home?”
The phone remained silent. He had to repeat the question before Gizelle said, “Yes, all of them … every one that we could think of. I’ve been trying to remember somebody we might’ve missed. When the phone rang just now. …” Her voice tailed off.
Piper said, “In ordinary circumstances it would be far too early to start getting alarmed but, knowing what we do——”
“You think something’s happened to him, don’t you?”
“No, all I think is that he’s gone away of his own accord so as to protect you and your mother. And that poses a problem you’ll have to face very soon.”
“If you don’t hear from your father in the next few hours you must get in touch with the police. I know how you feel about that but it’ll have to be done … in spite of the fact that I’m convinced he doesn’t want to be traced.”
In a miserable voice, Gizelle said, “Mother’s already told me she won’t wait any later than ten o’clock.”
“And it’s a quarter to nine now.”
“I can’t stop her calling the police even if I want to. She’s a bundle of nerves. …”
“Before she does anything you’ll have to explain to her.”
“What explanation is there? I don’t know a single reason for any of the things that have happened. I’ve only been guessing. If you’ve found out something——”
“It’s all guesswork with me, too,” Piper said. “But I’ll tell you what it adds up to. I think your father made bitter enemies in Austria during the war and he came to England to get away from them. Since then they’ve never stopped searching … and some months ago they found him.”
After another silence, Gizelle asked hesitantly, “What kind of—enemies?”
“I’ve no means of knowing. It wouldn’t help if I were to make a guess. He knows who they are and why they hate him so much.”
With no life in her voice, she said, “There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned. Obviously my father’s in no position to fight these people out in the open … because he’s afraid we’ll learn how all this trouble began. If he were innocent he’d have asked the police for protection, wouldn’t he?”
Piper said, “That’s how it looks … but appearances are often deceptive. Without knowing all the facts I’m in no position to judge the man.”
Gizelle said huskily, “You’re leaning over backwards to be nice. I’m sorry I was rude to you this afternoon.” Something in her voice stirred the old forbidden longing within him.
He said, “You weren’t rude at all.”
“Well, I wanted to be … although I knew all the time I ought to trust you.”
“Do you trust me now?”
“Yes—I think so.”
“Thinking isn’t good enough. You’d better be sure.”
“All right, I am sure. What difference does it make?”
“Just this: unless you do trust me and believe that my only interest is to protect you and your mother, you might not follow my advice.”
“Even if I don’t follow it”—there was a warmth in her tone that reminded Piper of the day they had first met—“I’m still prepared to listen. What is your advice?”
“When you’ve told your mother the little you know, don’t waste any more time. Get in touch with the police without delay … even if she’s tempted to keep the affair secret to save your father from being involved in a scandal. You must impress on her that her safety and yours depends on the whole thing becoming public.”
“You really believe these people would harm us because of what my father did to them—or they think he did?”
“Yes. And he believes it, too. I’m convinced that’s why he’s gone away.”
“If you’re right”—she seemed to be forcing the words out—“he won’t ever come back … is that what you’re saying?”
“You should know by to-morrow morning. If you hear from him meanwhile ring me at my flat. I’ll give you the number. No matter what time it is, phone me without fail. Will you do that?”
Gizelle said, “All right. … Now I must go and tell Mother. I wish I knew what to say.”