A Shroud for Jesso

Chapter Eleven

Renette von Lohe looked as if she belonged in the place. There were no jewelry counters, just low little tables and wide chairs. The walls were of black glass and the ceiling was held up by bronze columns. The table in front of her was almost bare; just two bracelets lay there.

“Madame has hardly a choice,” said Mr. Totanus of Totanus, Dorn, and Son. “Beauty is its own absolute, madame, and if I may be permitted-“

Renette looked up and shook her head. She smiled as a hostess would smile, with very well-mannered kindness, but Mr. Totanus stopped as if he had been slapped. Renette von Lohe, who was also beautiful in the eyes of old Mr. Totanus, gave the impression that only she might decide what was absolute.

“They sparkle too much,” she said.

Her voice sounded warm, except for the way she ended a sentence. She ended it as if that were the absolute end. That can be a shock to anyone, be it Totanus trying to sell a ten-thousand-mark bracelet or someone who has long given up trying to sell anything.

“You know, Mr. Totanus,” and Renette crossed her legs so that even old Mr. Totanus began to feel excited, “I think I like something warmer. Not diamonds. I like smoke opal.”

The firm had smoke opal. The reason it had smoke opal was that during the war the volume of diamond trading had gone down to near zero and the firm had handled a number of lesser stones, even the semiprecious. But Mr. Totanus didn’t know just where the opals were.

“Madame,” he began, but then Renette put her small feet together and got ready to leave.

“I won’t have to look at them,” she said, “because I know you will pick the most beautiful ones for me. And set them square, as you did in this bracelet. Make the same kind of bracelet.” After dangling the one she meant over one finger, she dropped it back on the velvet pad so that old Mr. Totanus quivered.

Renette smiled and stood up. She did it all in one movement, then stood to pat herself into straight lines while old Mr. Totanus looked away and fussed with the mistreated bracelet. He had started to quiver again.

“Will you send it to me?” she asked, but-it was hardly a question.

Totanus rose, doing it awkwardly, because Renette hadn’t bothered to step back. This was a rotten day. Smoke opals. She could afford both of those bracelets on the table, but she wanted smoke opals.

“Shall I bill the Baron?” said Totanus when he followed Renette to the door.

“No,” she said. “Send the bill to my brother.”

Renette got into the Daimler and told the chauffeur to drive her home. She sat back in the cushions and thought what a beautiful bracelet it was going to be. Perhaps she should have let Helmut pay for it. But that was ridiculous. Then Helmut would have to go to her brother and he would pay anyway. Besides, Johannes never argued about her bills; he only argued with Helmut.

The car circled a square with a cafe on the island in the middle. Renette could see the string orchestra behind the potted trees. A cherry Torte or perhaps some mocha ice would be a wonderful thing now. There was a large clock at one end of the traffic island and it said twelve noon. Johannes must be back. She bit her lip, decided against the cafe. If Johannes was home, she did not want him to wait. No, that’s not the way it was. If Johannes was home, waiting, she would be afraid of offending him.

Now the square was gone. Renette looked into her purse for a cigarette but didn’t find one. She tapped on the glass behind the chauffeur and when he looked she made a sign as if she were smoking. The chauffeur opened the glass, gave her his pack, closed the partition again.

Renette smoked. He has a nice neck, she thought, a nice strong neck coming out of the stiff uniform collar. With a strong neck like that, and the way he sat at the wheel, it was strange how such a man can act like a-She couldn’t think of the word. Act scared, she decided. Or fluttery. It made her think of her husband, which made her laugh.

The car pulled up under the porte-cochere of the villa and Renette hoped that her brother would not be there.

She couldn’t tell by the way Hofer opened the door, but by the time she had asked him Kator came across the hall.

“Where have you been?” he said.

He wouldn’t care where she had been, but she saw he was in a foul mood.

“Are you all right?” he said, and this time she was surprised. It hadn’t been casual and yet it didn’t sound sharp.

“Thank you, Johannes, I’m fine. And how are you?”

He wasn’t listening. He led her into the library, took her gloves, and put them on a small table.

“Sit down, my dear.” He followed her to a couch. They sat, looked at each other, and then Kator smiled.

“In a way, it was good that you weren’t here,” he said. “However, it might have been just the opposite.”

“I haven’t understood a single word you’ve said so far.”

“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat, changed his tone. “Renette, you are naturally free to come and go as you please. However, you must leave word where you are. In your absence a situation developed that might have been dangerous. A business associate of mine, a highly unpredictable-“

Renette interrupted. “But in the meantime you’ve caught him, haven’t you, Johannes?”

Kator got up and stood by the fireplace. The way she took it for granted, the way she never questioned, but always admired him-it wasn’t too easy to take now.

He looked down at his shoes.

“Actually, Renette, it was the other way around,” and when his head came up he was smiling.

Renette smiled back, because that smile was only for her. And the confession. Only her brother could say this and not lose face.

“And so,” he went on, “nothing is solved.”

Renette turned to the table next to the couch and took a cigarette from a small box. She let Kator light it for her, inhaled deeply, blew out smoke with a long sound. Then she leaned back and looked at her brother.

“Are you worried?”

“No. Not for the moment.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure, Renette. He’s in this house.”

“Here? Since when?”

“Sometime this morning.”

“I remember now. The beggar. He looked like a beggar.” Kator laughed, but when he sat down next to his sister she saw he was cold again, as he was most of the time. “The way you saw him, Renette, in America they would call him a bum. But in America they would also call him an operator. It means he will use anything in his favor. He has no scruples when it comes to getting what he wants or keeping what he has.” Kator paused. “He has something I want.”

“And why are you telling me, Johannes?”

“For a number of reasons, my dear. To warn you, and perhaps to prepare you.”

“For what, Johannes?”

He got up, turned back to her. “I need your help.”

When she looked back at him, she had the same look as her brother had. But she didn’t talk.

“It may involve your comfort as well as mine,” he said. “Or would you prefer that glorified farm, back to the empty room with a view of weeds through the window?”

“Don’t be dramatic, Johannes.”

“Are you forgetting that your status depends on mine?”

“You mean being the wife of a baron?”

“I don’t notice that his presence is any hardship.”

“Just awkward,” she said. “Just one of those ridiculous situations.”

“I don’t notice-” he began again, but she didn’t let him finish.

“What makes you think your beggar is going to give you whatever you want because I go to bed with him?”

“I’m not interested in your methods, Renette.”

“Of course not,” she said. Of course not. Only results. Then she had to smile. She wasn’t much different from him. When he had sent for her, kept her with him and given her the things her family had long been without, she hadn’t cared what the cost of the luxury was. And she hadn’t cared when Kator found it expedient that she should marry the Baron von Lohe; and she hadn’t cared that she and the Baron were just a showpiece together. There were other men. One would have done, she knew, but she hadn’t found him. So there would be others.

“His name is Jesso,” Kator said. “Jack Jesso.” Then he explained what made Jesso important, that Renette had to get it out of him, whether Jesso was bluffing or whether he really knew what Snell had known.

“When do you want me to start?”

“Tonight.”

“Shall I tell Helmut?”

“Suit yourself,” Kator said, and left the room.