Stranger in the Dark Read online

  The girl smiled. Larry couldn’t be sure if she meant the smile or was just trying to convince herself that nothing was wrong. She took a pencil from her handbag and scribbled an address on the back of the envelope.

  “Why don’t we make this call together?” he suggested hopefully. “Your friend may be back by this time.”

  “Sorry,” she said, “but I can’t. I’m due to go on soon.”

  “On?”

  “In the dining room. We have a little entertainment during the dinner hours, and I sing—quite badly, I’m afraid, but the food is good so nobody notices…. There you are, Mr. Willis, and I wish you luck. It isn’t far to the apartment. You can walk it from here. But then, you Americans never walk, do you?”

  Her smile came more easily, and Larry, now that he finally had what he’d been searching for all day, was reluctant to leave. At least it was nice to know where he could find this girl again, because there were things he wanted to discuss with her that had nothing to do with Holger Hansen and his troubles.

  “And what name do I ask for?” he inquired.

  “Name?” she echoed.

  “When I come back to let you know how everything turned out.”

  “Oh,” she said, “Maren. Maren Lund. But you needn’t bother, Mr. Willis.”

  It was no bother at all … Maren Lund. Even the name sounded nice, and among the many details Larry had noticed about this girl was the one concerning the absence of any adornment on a certain finger of her left hand. Whatever she was to McDonald, she wasn’t that.

  He was still staring at her as he came slowly to his feet. Then he looked up and sat right down again. Sitting at a booth just beyond Maren Lund’s crazy blue hat was the hungriest man in Copenhagen—a fat man with a bald head and staring eyes who was having another go at the beer and the akvavit and the little sardines in a can.

  5.

  “WHAT IS IT, MR. WILLIS? WHAT’S WRONG?”

  Larry knew he must have paled. He looked at Maren Lund, and her eyes were puzzled. She had to have an explanation, of course, and so he told her about the fat man in the dining room last night. That inconsequential fat man who had just been the product of Larry’s exhausted nerves. She turned around and stared at him, but at the moment he was entranced by the piano, which had started up again.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Why should he have followed you here?”

  “I don’t know,” Larry said, “but I imagine this envelope in my pocket has something to do with it.”

  “But, surely, just three hundred dollars—”

  “Men have been killed for less,” Larry broke in, “and it may be a lot more. It may be some kind of evidence…. Is there another way out of here?”

  “There’s a rear door, but it’s only for employees.”

  “Good. You’re an employee, and I’m with you. Let’s go.”

  The fat man was still listening to the music, a sleepy smile on his contented face and a sardine sandwich in his hand, when they departed. This time Larry didn’t bother to say good-by. He followed the blue hat across the floor and through a doorway that led into a narrow corridor filled with tantalizing aromas and the distant clatter of cutlery, and on the way Maren Lund did some heavy thinking.

  “Are you sure it was the same fat man?” she persisted. “Perhaps you were mistaken.”

  “About a character like that? I could even see the gold caps gleaming when he bit into his sandwich!”

  “Then what does it all mean? If you had dinner before going for your walk, as you told me, the fat man must have been watching you before Hansen put that envelope inside your street map.”

  Problems. All day long nothing but problems, and not half enough answers to go around. The girl was right, but Larry didn’t know what it all meant any more than she did. The only answer was that back door and a prayer that nobody was watching him now. But the fat man, whatever his intentions, did make one important contribution to the evening. Maren Lund had now grown very grave, and at the doorway she hesitated a moment.

  “Wait, Mr. Willis,” she said, fumbling at her handbag, “take this key. It’s for Mac’s apartment. If he doesn’t answer the buzzer, or anything, you might want to go inside and just look around to make sure he’s not … he’s not sick. I know I’m being foolish, but now you’ve got me worried.”

  Just a key, and yet it was much more. In a city of over a million people one copper-haired girl with wide gray eyes didn’t think Larry Willis was just another crazy American, and for Larry that one was a majority.

  “And do come back afterward,” she added. “I’m all through at ten.”

  “It’s a date,” Larry said, pocketing the key. Then he slipped off into the dusk, thinking what a shame it would be if anything happened to spoil this girl’s date two nights in succession.

  The address Maren had written on the gray envelope took Larry to a tall brick apartment building that could have been either newer or older than it looked from the outside. By this time it was beginning to get dark, a soft summer darkness with the sky like deep amethyst above the high-peaked roofs, and the street lamps making pale yellow circles on the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street to make sure no one was watching and then ascended the cement steps. The double doors sighed open into a wide entrance hall, the automatic elevator hummed its way up three floors, and then Larry stepped out into a narrow hall lined with numbered doors. At the far end of the hall, next to a potted plant, he found a door with “Ira McDonald” inscribed on the name plate. Even with the key in his pocket, it was only polite to knock. After he’d knocked the second time, the potted plant started to talk to him.

  “Herre McDonald is not at home. Herre McDonald has gone away on business.”

  Talking plants contributed nothing to the recovery of Larry’s equilibrium. He spun about, almost knocking over the little gray-haired man who was leaning on the handle of a carpet sweeper. The gray-haired man righted himself and smiled wistfully.

  “Herre McDonald has gone out of the city in his auto,” he added. “He was not sure when he would return.”

  English must have been difficult for the old man. He seemed to have memorized the words so that they came out in a toneless rote.

  “Thanks,” Larry muttered. “Thanks a lot.”

  He waited for the old fellow to get on with his housework so he could start using that key; but all he got was another vacant smile. As long as he seemed inclined to stay, Larry decided to try for a little more information.

  “When did he leave?” he asked.

  Now the smile faded into a concentrated frown. At first Larry thought the old man hadn’t understood the question, but apparently he was just groping for an answer in English. “Onsdag,” he said at last. “Yah, yah, Onsdag.”

  Onsdag? Without the pocket dictionary, the old man’s reply didn’t mean a thing.

  “Was he here last night?” Larry asked again, and it was like pressing a button that set the record playing again.

  “Herre McDonald is not at home. He has gone away on business. Herre McDonald—”

  “Yah, yah,” Larry broke in. “I know. Herre McDonald went out of the city in his auto. I heard you the first time.”

  Maybe if he gave the old man a krone he would go away. Larry reached into his pocket, but now that the American understood the message there was no reason for the old man to remain. He smiled broadly and went back to jockeying that carpet sweeper down the hall. When he was out of sight, Larry unlocked McDonald’s door and stepped inside.

  There was something uncomfortable about entering a stranger’s apartment uninvited. For a moment Larry expected alarms to ring, dogs to bark, and at least one heavy hand to clamp on his shoulder. When nothing of the sort transpired, he screwed up enough courage to switch on the lights. Now he could see there had been no reason to hesitate. The drapes were drawn, heavy inner-lined drapes that probably dated back to the blackout era, and he was grateful for that much. It was a front apartment, and the last thing
he wanted was to have that wide window shining like a beacon in the unhappy event that McDonald should make a sudden return.

  Reassured, he began to look about the apartment. He was in a studio living room, rather small but attractive. The furnishings were ultramodern, low-slung chairs, bleached woods, and squatty little lamps with spun-glass shades. McDonald obviously appreciated comfort. Larry didn’t know what all this stuff would come to in kroner, but in dollars it would be pretty steep for a country boy. Across the room was a wide-topped desk that now drew his attention like a magnet. McDonald couldn’t have done much work on it because most of the top area was given over to framed photographs. Maren, of course. Maren alone and Maren accompanied by a tall young man with sandy hair. Larry studied the picture. The arms about the waist, the silly smiles, it didn’t leave much to the imagination. He looked down at the key in his hand and wondered why it bothered him. She was just another girl, Ira McDonald’s girl; but at least now he knew what her boy friend looked like. It wasn’t so much. Not nearly enough for that girl in the crazy blue hat.

  But there were other photographs on the desk. Women, mostly, in various types of costumes: Shakespearean, ballet, music-hall regalia. Most of them were autographed with the usual drivel, and it began to look as if Ira McDonald was either an autograph hound or had a lot of friends in the theatrical profession. Then, because Larry didn’t know what to do next, he reached down and pulled open the top drawer of the desk. That’s when he began to understand what had so fascinated Maren about the gray envelope. McDonald’s desk was full of gray envelopes just like it.

  Larry began to get excited. So he was right; McDonald was involved in that three hundred dollars. Did that mean that he had rented Hansen’s boat, or was some other transaction indicated? A man could rent a lot of boat for that kind of money in anybody’s waters; but then, for all Larry knew, Hansen might have owned a lot of boat. It was something he’d have to check on. But the drawer was still open, and Larry’s hands weren’t in his pocket….

  … Nothing. He tried the other drawers in a helpless kind of desperation. Rifling a man’s desk was not only unethical; it seemed rather pointless as long as he had no idea what he was looking for … nothing. On the floor next to the desk stood a wastepaper basket that yielded one newspaper and a few wadded discards. The first piece of paper he smoothed out looked as if McDonald had been brushing up on his arithmetic. It was a sheet from the scratch pad on the desk with a couple of columns of figures scrawled in an offhand manner:

  300—H 10000

  100—V 1000

  100—A 9000

  500—B

  1000

  Making no sense of it, Larry stuffed the paper into his pocket. The next piece was more interesting.

  It was a telegram. Two brief sentences, equally bewildering, but rather interesting under the circumstances:

  SORRY OUR MAN GOOFED. DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN? BRAD

  Try what again? For a moment Larry forgot the fact that he had entered a stranger’s apartment and was doing a very uncharacteristic job of snooping. The question made a nice addition to all those other questions he’d been collecting lately. And who was Brad? Maybe Maren Lund would have the answer to that. She seemed to know McDonald well enough to share his friends.

  The wire followed the bit of arithmetic into his coat pocket, and Larry turned his attention to the newspaper. It looked familiar. The front page was the same front page he’d seen in that newspaper-office window last night. The one with the photo of the moon-faced military man. He looked for the date line and found a word that now took on meaning: Onsdag. Onsdag must be Wednesday, and Wednesday was yesterday. The business that had taken McDonald out of the city was apparently of recent origin, because he’d obviously been in Copenhagen when this newspaper came out. But was it a morning or an afternoon paper? Here was another answer for Maren to supply, and by this time Larry was running out of pocket space.

  The search continued. Cabinets, closets, bookshelves—nothing. No sign of violence. Nothing out of place beyond the normal disarray of a bachelor apartment. A tankful of tropical fish eyed him suspiciously, and Larry moved out of range. They were much too reminiscent of that mysterious fat man. He moved across the room to a narrow hall that connected with the other rooms. At the far end of the hall was an open door leading into darkness, but directly opposite the living room was a door that wasn’t open. The bedroom, most likely, and Larry was prepared to make a thorough search now that he’d gone this far. His hand was reaching for the doorknob when the back door slammed.

  A pistol shot would have been quieter. Larry fell back against the wall and waited. There should be footsteps now. There should be an irate McDonald marching out of the darkness beyond that far door to demand an explanation for this violation of his privacy, but from that darkness came nothing but silence. Just the slamming of a door and then silence. Suddenly Larry understood. A door couldn’t slam by itself. If no one had come in, someone must have gone out! He rushed forward. Dim window light gave the room beyond the hall the vague outlines of a kitchen, but he had no time to stop and admire the décor. The back door was unlocked, and when he wrenched it open, he could hear the sound of running footsteps on the stairs.

  Larry grasped only one thing in the fraction of time that it took to send him racing after those footsteps—whoever had just slammed out of Ira McDonald’s kitchen had no more business there than himself. Why he was there—and the heavy footsteps were certainly those of a man—was a matter of enough importance to outlaw caution. It was three flights down with the footsteps always one flight ahead. Three flights, the rear yard, and then a narrow gangway that made a black tunnel to the street. At the end of the tunnel was a street lamp, and for just an instant the fugitive poised, undecided, like a marionette dangling from a string. A man. A tall, hatless man. He was no more than a shadow against the light, and then he was gone.

  But playing tag on cobblestone streets was a noisy business, and Larry wasn’t far behind. Now and then he glimpsed the fleeing shadow, but what he couldn’t see he could hear. When the man turned the corner, Larry was only a few blocks behind. When he darted across a wide thoroughfare, it was only the traffic that separated them. A narrow trolley rattled past, stealing a few precious seconds, but not before he saw the tall man dart toward the entrance of what seemed to be some kind of amusement park. The trolley passed, and Larry followed, only to be stopped by a turnstile and a ticket window. Sixty ore. He tossed out a krone and didn’t wait for the change because there was no time to spare; but once beyond the turnstile he had all the time in the world.

  It was a park, but not an ordinary park. It was more like a fairground, or a music festival, or formal gardens with a merry-go-round and a shooting gallery on the side. It was a happy Eden landscaped with colored lights, but it was no place to find a man who didn’t want to be found. He might be anywhere. He might be standing by a bandstand, or sitting at one of the little outdoor restaurants, or strolling casually with the crowd wearing a smile on the face Larry hadn’t seen. The prowler in McDonald’s kitchen had known what he was doing when he came through that turnstile. There was nothing like a crowd to help a man lose his identity.

  But what did it all mean? Larry stumbled forward like a man walking in a dream. It was clear enough that someone had preceded him to McDonald’s apartment and then been frightened off when he ventured beyond the living room, but was that because someone else was interested in finding McDonald, or had Larry Willis been mistaken once more for a man who wouldn’t have approved of an uninvited guest coming in the back way? It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Maybe his imagination was working overtime, but it suddenly occurred to Larry that he’d rather resemble almost anyone in Copenhagen than Ira McDonald. He had a wild desire to hang a placard on his back: I’m Larry Willis. I don’t know a thing! Or else hole up in that folksy hotel until men stopped running through the streets of Copenhagen and people learned to call him by his own name.

  Somebody must have been
reading his mind.

  “Good evening, Herre Willis,” spoke a voice from the darkness. “You have found your way to Tivoli, I see.”

  Martinus Sorensen sat at one of the pathside tables having an after-dinner coffee and brandy. There was just enough light for Larry to recognize the familiar smile, the gray suit, and the fat cigar. Sorensen was now wearing a hat with a rolled brim, but everything else was the same … Tivoli. So that’s what this was! It had taken a long time to complete Viggo’s prescribed excursion, and now it wasn’t a pleasure trip at all. Martinus Sorensen saw that at once.

  “You appear short of breath, Herre Willis,” he said. “Won’t you join me for a brandy?”

  Larry tried not to look quite so much like a man with a pocketful of dynamite.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, “but I have an appointment.”

  Sorensen sighed and flicked the ashes from his cigar. “Always in a hurry, you Americans,” he said. “I admire your energy, but you must not forget to see the sights of our city while you are here. Tonight, for example, there’s an excellent ballet being performed right here in the gardens.” He removed a large silver watch from his vest pocket and consulted the dial. “In a very short time, as a matter of fact. I would be delighted to have you join me.”

  Ballet! Larry wanted to laugh. Here he was, caught in the middle of a two-way chase that left him wondering whether he was the hunter or the hunted, and this stout pillar of law and order could offer nothing but an invitation to the dance! As for the sights of Copenhagen, he’d seen quite a few already.

  “Some other time,” he said, edging back toward the path. “Just now I have to meet a friend.”

  “You have found him, then?”

  “Found him?”

  The question didn’t make sense until Larry remembered what he’d told Martinus Sorensen at their morning interview. McDonald, he’d actually mentioned that name!