Stranger in the Dark Page 6

  “My role,” Valdemar said. “I was hired to attend a private party McDonald arranged for this particular client and to impersonate an important scientist he had recently spirited from under the very noses of the secret police. Just a harmless joke, he insisted, to give the visitor a thrill. He was lying, of course, I can see that now; but I was intrigued by the possibilities of the part—not to mention the five hundred kroner he promised in payment. I was magnificent, of course. I spared my fascinated host no detail of my cruel imprisonment, the tortures of mind and body, the broken fingers—”

  Valdemar extended his crooked hands as he spoke, and there was something terrible about his smile. Maren was very pale now. She tried to look away, but Valdemar Brix wasn’t one to lose an audience.

  “Magnificent!” he repeated. “As I left the party, McDonald handed me a gray envelope such as the one Herre Willis has just described, but when I reached my rooms and looked inside it contained only fifty kroner. I was furious, of course. I called McDonald the next day, and he assured me there was nothing to worry about, that he was temporarily short of cash but would complete payment very shortly. ‘You were a great success,’ he said. ‘Forget the five hundred kroner; I’ll pay you one hundred American dollars in a few days.’ A few days!” Valdemar glared at the discarded telegram on the floor. “I’ll be lucky if I ever see the money now!” he concluded.

  The silence of Valdemar Brix could be as eloquent as his speech. While he portrayed a man plunged in dark despair, Larry tried to assimilate what he’d just heard. Somewhere in his mind the shutter clicked on the camera of memory. He saw a scrap of paper with numbers on it, a scrap so incomprehensible he’d forgotten to mention it in his own story. But the memory was interrupted by Maren’s feeble protest. She was a girl who didn’t give up without a struggle.

  “You haven’t explained anything,” she said stubbornly. “What has all this to do with that telegram?”

  Valdemar rolled his eyes ceilingward and sighed. “I knew it!” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t understand! Can’t you see what McDonald was planning? Where do you think the money he expected was coming from? The delivery of an important political prisoner is an expensive undertaking. If McDonald faked one refugee, would he hesitate to fake another? For a substantial sum, of course.”

  “Ten thousand!” Larry exclaimed.

  He felt rather conspicuous when both Valdemar and Maren stared at him. It was the arithmetic on that scrap of paper. The columns of figures were beginning to make sense at last.

  “At least ten thousand,” Valdemar agreed. “Oh, it’s all clear to me now! The entire conversation that night evolved around a high-ranking officer who’s fallen from grace and presumably awaits execution. A general, I think. Yes, General Yukov. I never read newspapers—terrible things!—but I’m sure that was the name. Imagine what a general would be worth on the fake refugee market!”

  When Valdemar Brix fell silent, it had to be for a good reason, and the reason was the expression on Larry’s face and the peculiar choking sound in his throat as he clawed at his coat pocket. Three items he’d pocketed in McDonald’s apartment, a telegram, a scrap of arithmetic, and a newspaper. Now the third item was in his hands and all spread out so Valdemar and Maren could see what the choking was about—General Yukov. In any language the name was the same, and Maren, with her voice like a lifeless echo, could translate the rest of the caption under a front-page photo of a moon-faced man in a high-collared uniform.

  General Yukov’s face was on the front page for an important reason. General Yukov had escaped!

  7.

  “INCREDIBLE!” VALDEMAR GASPED. “IT CAN’T BE! MCDONALD doesn’t have the nerve!”

  Someone had to break the awful silence that followed Maren’s reading, even if it was to voice a minority opinion. Three people in that cozy little living room were adding up the evidence and arriving at the same startling conclusion: a sailor who was known to rent out his boat, an envelope containing what might have been a reasonable fee for a hazardous journey, and now a photograph on a front page that had hit the newsstands the same night Hansen hit the pavement….

  “What else could it be?” Maren asked, speaking for the three of them. “Mac must have hired Hansen’s boat for the escape. Now Hansen’s dead and Mac’s …”

  Her voice trailed off into a silence that needed no translation. Larry couldn’t have her looking that way even if it was all over another man.

  “—is hiding out somewhere,” he said quickly. “That would explain why Hansen was so excited when he thought he saw McDonald on the street last night. He was trying to warn him.”

  “Of what?” Valdemar asked.

  “Of what he was afraid of himself, the man in the black sedan. A Communist agent, obviously.”

  “Obviously!” Valdemar rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in graphic disgust. “What are you, Herre Willis, a member of one of your investigating committees? We aren’t even certain that McDonald had anything to do with this escape, and you already have our hero hiding out from the enemy! This is just a coincidence.”

  “Valdemar!”

  Valdemar winced at the scorn in Maren’s voice. “Well, then, perhaps it isn’t,” he admitted, grudgingly. “Perhaps there was no escape at all. Stories like this get into the papers all the time. McDonald could have arranged it himself just to make his scheme look good.”

  It was easy to see that Valdemar Brix was a man who died hard; but it was impossible to talk down the obvious. When a hoax was uncovered, the victim called a cop. He didn’t retaliate by adding an innocent sailor to the traffic casualty list and smashing the automobile of the instigator. Larry didn’t mention that latter item because Maren was scared enough already. He was getting scared himself—retroactively. All day he’d been searching for a man with a V.I.P. refugee on his hands. Such company could be dangerous!

  And now everything that had happened took on an ominous meaning: the prowler in the apartment, the newspaper, the telegram…. What did that telegram say, in effect, but that something had gone wrong with some plan? A mistake, a leak, a loose tongue? Surely such a warning was enough to make a man clear out fast without even saying good-by to his girl. No, Valdemar’s pique would have to stand in the corner by itself, because now Larry could even find a way to fit into the picture that last piece of wastebasket evidence.

  He pulled the sheet of scratch paper from his pocket and acquired an audience again. 300—H. What could it mean but the three hundred dollars for the rental of Hansen’s boat? 100—V.

  “Valdemar’s one hundred dollars,” Larry explained. “That much checks out. Then there’s an item listed as one hundred—A. I guess we’ll have to skip that one for the time being unless anybody has any ideas.”

  “One hundred dollars for advertising,” Valdemar muttered, but he was talking to himself now. Maren continued the reading over Larry’s shoulder.

  “Five hundred—B…. B for Brad, of course! You’re right, it does make sense. And Valdemar was right about one thing. Mac would have needed a man near the point of delivery to work an escape like this, and if he went after the general in a fishing boat, it couldn’t have been far.”

  “The Russian zone of the German coast isn’t far,” Larry said. Nobody argued the point.

  Valdemar had fallen strangely silent. All that dramatic attempt to discredit Ira McDonald had boomeranged into a gilt and glory treatment, and Valdemar was sulking like a disappointed child. Larry didn’t know what he had against Maren’s missing boy friend, but he could guess. He’d known the girl only a few minutes before he began to resent McDonald himself. But Valdemar was the only one who could carry the story any further, because he was the only member of this nocturnal convention who’d been present at the party where McDonald must have sold his plan.

  But Valdemar, when Larry pressed for details, was vague and sullen. “I never remember names,” he muttered, dropping back in the armchair again. “The general, yes. He has an unusual name. But the others—”
Valdemar shrugged and ran a handful of crooked fingers through his hair. “They bored me,” he said, “particularly the host. Such men have no names; only dollar signs on their money clips.”

  “Then he was an American?” Larry asked.

  “Naturally! … No, come to think of it, I did hear him speak Danish to one of the waiters. Not to me, of course, because I was Polish that night, but I distinctly recall that he did speak a little Danish. Jutland Danish.”

  “Jutland!” Maren cried.

  The name meant less than nothing to Larry, but it seemed to mean something very special to the girl. “The Fourth of July at Aalborg!” she exclaimed. “You see, Larry, every year there’s a big home-coming celebration at Aalborg, a city in Jutland. It’s when Americans who were born in Denmark return to the old country and celebrate your Independence Day at Rebild Park. They always stay on, of course, to renew old acquaintances and visit old haunts. Mac’s always busy this time of year.”

  “Yes,” Valdemar murmured. “Some of them are quite wealthy.”

  Maren ignored Valdemar. The important thing, the thing she had recalled in such an eager voice that even the formality of Larry’s surname was forgotten, was that McDonald had mentioned he had an important client among this year’s crop of homecomers. He’d even made a trip to Aalborg a couple of weeks ago to confer with him.

  “That’s how I happened to have the key to his apartment,” she explained. “He was gone several days and asked me to drop by and feed the fish. They’re quite expensive, you know.”

  Tropical fish! It was crazy how those two words seemed so much more important than anything else she’d said. Larry looked at Maren and started telling himself fairy tales. She didn’t have to explain about the key—could it have been for his benefit? But she didn’t seem to attach any significance to her words. She was already frowning over some other thought.

  “Well,” Valdemar prodded, “did he tell you the man’s name?”

  “His name?”

  Whatever Maren was frowning about seemed to have washed her remarks from her mind. Then the frown faded swiftly.

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I’m sure he didn’t. I’d remember if he had.”

  “Then we’re exactly where we started from—you don’t know and I don’t remember. What shall we do now, Herre Willis, take the whole matter before the police and have them tell us what good citizens we are—quite mad, of course, but good—or have you decided to sally forth and slay the dragon on your own?”

  In time, Valdemar could become a problem; but for the moment the answer to his question was problem enough. Larry had to think it over. The police were already looking for Ira McDonald because of his wrecked automobile; there was no reason to think they would find him any sooner because a couple of people had connected his disappearance with a front-page story. Besides, Larry reflected, it would be a shame to tear Martinus Sorensen away from his ballet.

  But he couldn’t use that argument in front of Maren.

  “If McDonald wanted the police called in,” he said, “he could have picked up his phone and called them himself instead of leaving town in such a hurry. It looks to me as if secrecy is the top consideration in an affair such as this. We don’t want to do anything to jeopardize his safety.”

  “Are you sure it is McDonald’s safety you are so concerned about?” Valdemar inquired archly.

  Larry reddened. “Not entirely,” he said. “I’m concerned about the safety of all of us, and for a lot of other people we don’t even know. It must have taken quite a crew to pull off an escape like this. How long do you think they could operate if the police barged in and got the lot of them in the headlines?”

  It was such a good argument that Larry almost convinced himself that this desire to avoid police participation had nothing to do with his own position. But if not the police, what?

  “What about the other guests at that party?” he asked Valdemar. “Do you remember any of them?”

  Valdemar sighed. “Every face, every figure, and at least one of the figures was quite good, but no names. No names at all. It was a very dull party.”

  “And you didn’t recognize anyone?”

  “No one but McDonald. What does it matter anyway? Do you think your mysterious ugly man in the black sedan was there? He wasn’t, I’m sure. He sounds far too sinister for even a very dull party.”

  That wasn’t what Larry had been thinking at all, but there was no use trying to explain what he didn’t understand himself. He shoved his hands deep into the now empty pockets of his coat and walked across the room to the windows. Below him was the street, narrow, shadowed, and deserted. No, not quite deserted. Was that a fat man lurking beneath the street lamp? He watched, his heart beating a fast tattoo against his ribs and his mind getting crouched for another fright. Then the figure moved on—a woman on the matronly side with a small poodle on a leash. Larry felt a little foolish. Fear could make monsters of midgets.

  But somewhere in this sleeping city was a person who should have been feared and wasn’t. That was what made those nameless faces at the party so important. If McDonald had used Valdemar’s impersonation to arouse interest in an expensive undertaking, might not that interest have become contagious? A party was no place to keep a secret, and somewhere along the line there had been a leak … somewhere a traitor.

  He swung about and stared hard at Valdemar. Valdemar Brix, a tall, thin man who had gone looking for McDonald. He had only his word for the time of the visit, and only Maren’s attitude of acceptance to vouch for his character. A strange man, Valdemar Brix, and yet it was his story that had brought the missing general into the picture. Unless there was some motive so ulterior Larry couldn’t dig that deep, this would be the last thing the betrayer would do. He turned toward Maren. All right, face it. He was a stranger a long way from home, and she was a pretty girl who spoke—as Viggo would say—American. In a situation like this a man like Larry Willis could be a pushover for any pretty girl, especially with Cathy haunting his mind. Maren hadn’t been at the party, but she was McDonald’s girl, and she might know more than she pretended to know…. But Maren had given him the key to McDonald’s apartment, and because of that he had found a few pieces of the puzzle. Suspecting Maren Lund of any dark plot was ridiculous! But someone had to be the informer who had set the man in the black sedan on Hansen’s trail…. Someone had to be unfaithful….

  And then, by the scenic route, Larry arrived at what should have been the obvious answer.

  “The widow!” he cried.

  Valdemar, who had taken advantage of the temporary silence to start napping in the chair, opened one eye. Maren looked startled.

  “Hansen’s widow!” Larry explained. “Don’t you see, she was with the man who ran down her husband when she came to police headquarters this morning. They must be working together. I’ll bet he’s no more Hansen’s cousin than I am!”

  Because neither Maren nor Valdemar seemed to be telepathic, Larry had to explain what he was talking about. They listened. Maren frowned and Valdemar grew pensive, but they listened. And yet, even with one enthusiastic concurrence and no audible objection to his conclusion, Larry was still at a dead end street. He’d left Sorensen’s office much too suddenly to acquire any small detail such as the dead man’s home address.

  “But they must have a record at the police yard,” Maren said.

  Larry hesitated. “I hate going back. They’re sure to be suspicious if I do.”

  “Then I’ll go.”

  “No! You keep out of this!”

  The roar of protest was from Valdemar. He sprang to his feet and for just an instant all that disdainful indifference on his face was washed away by something that might have been anger but could have been fear. Then the old Valdemar returned—the exaggerated stance, the crooked smile, the half-closed eyes.

  “I insist on prior rights,” he said. “Tomorrow morning the late Holger Hansen will acquire another inquisitive cousin. After obtaining his address, I’ll t
elephone you, Herre Willis, and we can call on the widow together. After all, I do have a hundred-dollar interest in this affair. Not that I’m destitute, understand, but my landlady, poor soul, seems to be. Agreed?”

  It was the best offer Larry had received all day. “Agreed,” he said. “Tomorrow morning.”

  8.

  IT WAS MORNING. THE GILDED GIRL ATOP THE HUGE THERMOMETER on the Rich Building came out with her umbrella, but Larry left his trench coat in the closet. From here on, any resemblance to Ira McDonald was going to be strictly coincidental. It was almost ten before Valdemar phoned. His message was brief—an address, a promise, and no good-by. Larry grabbed a taxi in front of the hotel and had about ten minutes to think about the proper way to approach Hansen’s widow. Nosing in on a family fight was touchy business. People liked to keep their murders to themselves.

  But it was no apartment house to which the taxi sped him this time. It was an intersection at the water front, gray and chilly under a sky just beginning to struggle free from the morning overcast. There were many harbors at Copenhagen—harbors for ocean-going liners, freighters, yachts. This one seemed to be the nesting place for whatever was left over. Larry paid the driver and walked across the street toward the long line of small craft nodding at their moorings with their narrow masts like splinters in the sky. True to his promise, Valdemar was waiting—hatless and with his hands plunged deep in his trouser pockets.

  “Godmorgen,” he called. “Ready to start the dragon hunt?”

  Larry was too concerned with the business at hand to be annoyed by anything so slight as Valdemar’s dubious humor. He scowled at the harbor and shivered without his coat. “I thought you said that you’d meet me in front of Hansen’s home,” he muttered.

  “And so I have,” Valdemar answered.

  “Do you mean he lived on one of these boats?”

  “Exactly. In fact, the one we’re facing at this moment. Personally, I prefer a lodging that doesn’t roll unless I’ve had too much cognac, but each to his own. Shall we board her now?”