Silhouette in Scarlet

Chapter Two

IT HAD STOPPED raining by the time the taxi reached the city, but I couldn’t enjoy the scenery; I was too busy watching for pursuers. There didn’t seem to be any, but it was impossible to be sure; every other car on the road was a cream-coloured Saab. The sun made a tentative watery appearance and I decided I was being paranoid. If John had been under surveillance, my uninhibited whoop of greeting must have convinced a watcher that I was unwitting – or vastly unqualified for the role of coconspirator.

The Grand Hotel is on the waterfront, near where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic. The weathered green copper of the roof supported half a dozen flagpoles, from which the yellow and blue of the Swedish flag rippled in the breeze. Crimson shades marked the front windows and made a thick red line above the cafe and restaurant on the ground floor. Lined up at the quay in front of the hotel were some of the low white tourist steamers that ply the inland waterways. Even on a dull day the colours were stunning – clean, vivid colours, red and white and green and blue.

The lobby was filled with a truly international crowd: Japanese businessmen and German tourists, American students and Saudis in flowing robes. It wasn’t until after I had been escorted to my room and the bellboy had left that my spirits received a slight check. He had arranged my suitcases in a neat alignment on the luggage rack. Prominently displayed were the labels, inscribed in my sprawling hand: ‘Dr Victoria Bliss, Grand Hotel, Stockholm.’

The cases had been in plain view the whole time I waited in the currency-exchange line, including a good five minutes after I had raucously identified myself as a friend of John Smythe. It had been a waste of time watching for pursuing cars. If anybody wanted me, he knew where to find me.

I don’t believe in sitting around hotel rooms when I’m on holiday, but I got out of that one faster than I usually do.

I walked out of the hotel into the glorious sunshine I had yearned for. Gulls soared and swooped, crying hoarsely. A brisk sea breeze ruffled my hair. Waves slapped against the quay. There were boats all over the place – chugging busily along the water, docking, departing, bobbing at anchor. I felt like a kid with a fistful of money staring in the window of a toy store; the whole luscious city was spread out before me, parks and museums and shops and streets and canals.

The tourist water buses looked like fun, but I was tired of sitting. Across the inlet the dignified eighteenth-century facade of the royal palace filled one corner of the little island called Gamla Stan, the Old Town, or the City Between the Bridges – everything in Sweden seems to have several different names.

In the bulging shoulder pack I use in lieu of a purse I had a brochure on Gamla Stan that I had picked up at a travel agency in Munich. Six centuries of history, beginning with the thirteenth; cobbled streets and narrow alleys, medieval doors and baroque portals . . . I had visited a number of quaint old towns. Southern Germany has lots, complete with medieval ramparts and timbered houses. However, one can never get too much of a good thing. Also, the brochure had contained quite a few advertisements. The famous shop for Swedish shirts; Scandinavian knitwear; crystal from Swedish glassworks; old prints, books, maps; leather, silver, pewter, handwoven rugs, hand-embroidered blouses . . . I might claim that it was my antiquarian interests that led me to the twisty alleys of Gamla Stan, but if I claimed that I would be lying.

Like similar sections in other cities – Getreidegasse in Salzburg, Georgetown in Washington, D.C., the Via Sistina in Rome – Gamla Stan has become chic and fashionable and very expensive. Many of the shops occupied the ground floors of old buildings. The sculptured stone portals and intricate iron grillwork formed surprisingly pleasant settings for displays of modern Swedish crafts. Pedestrian traffic was slow. People stopped to read guidebooks or stare in shop windows or gathered at corners where itinerant performers played and sang.

I don’t know how long I wandered in purposeless content before I gradually realized I wasn’t relaxed any longer. Instead of admiring red wooden horses and knit ski caps, I was scanning the crowd, looking for a familiar profile. Instead of enjoying the diversified types strolling with me, I was beginning to feel surrounded and hemmed in. My back tingled with the uneasy sensation of being watched by unfriendly eyes.

It was with an absurd sense of escape that I emerged from the crowded streets into Stortorget, the Great Square of Old Town. I’d seen so many pictures of it, on postcards and travel folders, that it was like an old familiar habitat. Earnest tourists were aiming cameras at number 20, the tall red brick house with its exuberant wedding-cake gable, which is the most popular subject for photographers; it would reappear on screens in a thousand darkened living rooms later that summer while guests tried to muffle their yawns and the host’s voice intoned, ‘Now this one is someplace in Stockholm – or was it Oslo?’

The square was filled with people, but it didn’t give me the sense of claustrophobia the streets did. Rows of green slatted benches were flanked by great tubs of red geraniums, and the sun slanting down between the tall houses made the flowers glisten as if freshly painted. I decided my neurotic fancies were due in part to hunger, so I bought some jammy pastries from a shop and sat down on one of the benches where I could see the baroque tower of the Cathedral beyond the Borsen and the slit-like street beside it. When I had finished the pastries I licked strawberry jam off my fingers and continued to sit, staring dreamily at the green-patined curves of the cupola.

I guess my feet did stick out, but he could have avoided them. I didn’t see him; I felt an agonizing pain in my left instep and heard a crunch and a thud and a curse as a large object fell flat on the bricks at my feet.

I let out a howl and bent to clutch my foot. He let out a howl and stayed where he was, face down on the ground. He looked just as big prone as he had upright – a fallen Colossus, a toppled Titan.

If the same thing had happened in Denmark, we would have been swarmed over by helpful natives. Swedes don’t interfere unless arterial blood is jetting. There were a few murmurs of inquiry and one man took a tentative step towards the recumbent body, but retreated as soon as it heaved itself to hands and knees.

When he turned his head our eyes were on the same level. His weren’t blue, as a Viking’s ought to be; they were an odd shade of brown, like coffee caramels. Between the bushy brows, the bushier moustache, and the thick hair that had fallen over his forehead, I could see very little of his face. What I could see was bright red, and his eyes glittered like bronze spearpoints.

‘Clumsy, careless – ’ he began. Then his eyebrows rose and disappeared under his hair. ‘You were at the airport!’

It sounded like an accusation. I half expected him to demand indignantly, ‘Are you following me?’

‘Yes, I was at the airport. So what? I think my foot is broken. Why the hell didn’t you look where you were going?’

Still on hands and knees, he gave his head a toss that flung the blond berserker locks away from his eyes. Caesar had a trick like that when he was trying to be cute. I laughed. The Viking staggered to his feet, swayed, swore, and clutched his knee. The woman sitting next to me on the bench picked up her parcels and beat a hasty retreat. It may have been tactful consideration for a wounded fellow creature, but I think she was afraid he was about to fall on her.

He took the vacated seat. We sat in stiff silence for a few seconds while he rubbed his knee and I nursed my foot.

Finally he muttered, ‘Sorry.’ His voice was rather light for such a big man, once he had conquered the anger that had deepened it to a growl.

‘You should be.’

‘Let me see.’

I caught the edge of the bench as he took my foot onto his lap; but he did it skilfully, without upsetting my balance. A woman of my size does not have small feet. His huge brown fingers reduced my size ten to something as dainty-looking as that of a Chinese maiden.

He returned the foot to me. ‘There will be a bruise, I am afraid. Perhaps you had better visit a doctor.’

‘No, it’s all right. How about your knee?’

Unconcernedly he rolled up his pants leg. His calf was as big around as the thigh of a normal man, thick with muscle and covered with fine hairs that glowed in the sunlight like the golden nimbus that surrounds the bodies of saints and divine heroes. I was so fascinated by this fabulous anatomical specimen that I didn’t get a good look at the wounded knee. I caught only a glimpse of reddened skin before he pushed the fabric down.

‘It is not so bad.’

‘I am glad,’ I said slowly, ‘that you did not tear your trousers.’

‘I too am glad. They were very expensive.’

They didn’t look expensive. However, that is a relative term, and I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to pursue the subject. As I started to rise, he put this hand on my arm.

‘You will allow me to buy you – ’ he said.

‘I don’t really think – ’

‘A schnapps. Or something else, if you prefer.’

‘I don’t really – ’

‘You must allow me.’

‘Must’ was the word. It wasn’t an invitation; it was an order, and the weight of the hand on my arm reinforced it.

All at once I was overcome by the most abject feeling of panic. I am – as I have mentioned a time or two – unusually tall. I am also built like my Scandinavian ancestors – big-boned, well-muscled. Wrestling matches with my brothers had toughened me at an early age, and I’d kept in reasonably good physical condition with exercise and diet. Now for the first time in my life I understood how my normal-sized sisters feel when a man grabs them. Small, weak, vulnerable.

My eyes moved from the hand that dwarfed my not inconsiderably muscled arm, up along a couple of yards of coat sleeve, to his face. It was an almost perfect rectangle; the angles of jawbone and cheek were so square that the lower part of his face formed a straight line. His lips were full and healthily pink, bracketed by the luxuriant growth of hair on his lip. His nose rose out of the brush like a sandstone promontory; his eyes, wide-set and slightly protruding, met mine with unblinking sobriety. Every feature was larger than life-sized, but they harmonized perfectly. He was, to summarize, a handsome man with a gorgeous body, the kind of man who could turn a vacation into a memory of the sort little old ladies simper over when they sit rocking on the front porch of the nursing home.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

I could have eluded him if I had wanted to. He didn’t take my arm or hold my hand. At times, when the crowds thickened, we had to walk singlefile through the narrow streets. He preceded me, explaining solemnly, ‘I go first because I know the way. You will excuse the rudeness.’

The stiff formality of his manner made me smile, and I dismissed that brief moment of panic. I just wasn’t accustomed to feeling fragile and feminine, that was my trouble.

It was something of a coincidence that we should run into one another twice in the space of a few hours. However, Stortorget and the Old Town are tops on the lists of most tourists. Even if he had followed me, even if the accident had been premeditated – well, I have my share of vanity. I could think of reasons why a man might force an acquaintance with me, reasons that had nothing to do with John Smythe. When Leif Eriksson bowed me into the doorway of a restaurant that had once been a wealthy merchant’s house, I stepped right in.

I had schnapps. I had been meaning to try it anyway.

The alcohol loosened him up a little. He even ventured to ask a personal question.

‘Are you, by chance, American?’

I nodded. ‘And you,’ I said, with equal gravity, ‘are, by chance, Swedish?’

‘Why do you think so?’

‘Because only a Swede would hedge about a simple question like that.’

He laughed. It wasn’t one of your hearty Norse guffaws, but a prolonged chuckle, as rich and mellow as his speaking voice was light. The moustache added a fascinating dimension to his smile. The ends actually appeared to curl up parallel to his lips. His teeth were big and white, just the dentures to rip into a haunch of raw meat.

‘You are unkind to us,’ he protested. ‘Why do you have a prejudice against this country?’

‘I’m not – I mean, I don’t. I’m half Swedish myself. The other half is a mixture – Norwegian, Swiss-German, American Indian, you name it. Like all Americans, I’m a mongrel, and proud of it.’

He frowned a little, as if puzzled. Abandoning the problem with a shrug, he announced, ‘My name is Leif Andersen. And yours?’

I hadn’t quite decided whether to give him an alias. The abruptness of the question, and the surprise at hearing a name so close to the one I had imagined for him, took me off my guard.

‘Vicky Bliss,’ I said, mumbling. We shook hands over the schnapps glasses. I felt my bones crunch.

He ordered another round, and asked me what I was doing in Stockholm. I said I was on holiday. I asked him what he was doing in Stockholm. He said he was on holiday. I have had livelier discussions with retired schoolteachers. Unperturbed, I sipped my schnapps and bided my time. Swedish men once had a reputation for reticence and reserve. Presumably customs had changed since the sexual revolution, although most of the enthusiastic comments I had heard about modern mores concerned Swedish women and were, I might add, based more on wishful thinking than on actual experience. It was all irrelevant. If Leif wanted to move in on me with the ponderous deliberation of a brontosaurus plodding toward its mate, I could wait. So long as he moved in. He was the tallest man I had ever met.

Then he said, ‘You are here alone?’

A slimy little tendril of caution poked out from under the erotic fantasies that had buried my suspicions. He didn’t look like a Swedish Jack the Ripper – but then, who does? And he had been at the airport . . . I lowered my lashes bashfully and remained silent.

‘I ask,’ he explained, ‘because when I saw you at the airport you were greeting a friend.’

‘He’s no friend of mine.’ I spoke without hesitation, as I would have denied being intimately acquainted with Hitler. ‘I thought I recognized someone I knew slightly . . . once . . . a long time ago.’

Leif leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. I caught one of the schnapps glasses as it slid towards the edge.

‘I think I can trust you,’ he muttered.

Oh, damn, damn, damn, I thought. Here we go.

The waiter trotted up just then to ask if we wanted anything else. Leif ordered another schnapps. I ordered coffee. I had the feeling I had better keep my wits about me, and I was grateful for the delay, as the waiter hovered, nudging Leif’s elbows off the table and lighting the candle enclosed in a stubby ruby glass holder. It wasn’t dark outside yet, and wouldn’t be for hours, but evidently evening had officially begun. The cafe was getting lively. In the background a small combo broke out in a disco beat.

As soon as the waiter had left, Leif leaned at me again. Little red flames reflected by his pupils shone diabolically.

Before he could speak, we were interrupted a second time. A man sidled up to us, cleared his throat deprecatingly, and in a soft, barely audible voice made a suggestion. It wasn’t a vulgar suggestion, though his manner would have suited a drug peddler or seller of dirty postcards. What he actually said was, ‘May I make a silhouette of the lady?’

The light was so dim I couldn’t make out his features clearly. The most noticeable thing about him was his hair, which was thick and coarse and lifeless, the same dull grey shade as his shabby pullover. Tinted glasses shielded his eyes. Crimson light glinting off the thick lenses gave him the look of a buggy-eyed monster from Arcturus or Aldebaran.

Taking my surprised silence for consent, he pulled out a chair and sat down. From his briefcase he removed a handful of papers and fanned them out on the table.

I know a little bit about a lot of things, most of them utterly useless. I hadn’t learned about silhouette cutting from any of my courses, though it can be considered one of the minor arts; I had read about it in an antiques magazine on my last visit home. My mother is a fanatic collector of junk, known in the trade as ‘collectables.’ Silhouettes are among the few things she doesn’t collect, possibly because good examples have become very expensive, such as the portrait of Ben Franklin, cut by Major André, or George Washington, by his stepdaughter Nellie Custis. The art had flourished during the nineteenth century, before photography provided a cheap, convenient method of portraiture. I had not realized anyone still practised it, and I was impressed by the examples the little grey man spread out. The outlined profiles, black on stark white mounts, captured an astonishing degree of individuality.

‘For so beautiful a lady I make a special price,’ the artist murmured. ‘Twenty kronor – if she will permit me to keep a copy for myself.’

Leif shifted position and made grumbling noises. I disregarded them. I wasn’t especially anxious to hear what he had to say, and besides, my curiosity was aroused.

‘It’s a deal,’ I told the artist.

His tools were the simplest imaginable – a pair of sharp scissors and a sheet of black paper. I gave him a profile, and watched out of the corner of my eye. After one long, measuring survey, he began to cut, the paper turning smoothly in his hands as he clipped, without a pause or a second look at me. It was an astonishing performance, a demonstration of the art in its most difficult and refined form of free-hand cutting. Less-skilled cutters worked from a shadow outline or a mechanically produced tracing of the profile. The little grey man was the latest, perhaps the last, practitioner of a unique and dying art form.

After an interval of less than three minutes he gave a grunt of satisfaction, laid the black outline against a piece of thick white cardboard, and held it up.

It was me – I mean, I. I hadn’t realized my chin was quite so prominent, but it was unquestionably my chin. He had even managed to suggest the slightly dishevelled state of my hair and the presence of the scarf that held it back from my face.

Twenty kronor was dirt cheap for a display like that, but I couldn’t resist showing off. ‘Edouart only charged a shilling,’ I said with a smile.

The artist had leaned down to open his briefcase. He came up so fast he almost cracked his head on the table.

‘You know Edouart?’

‘The greatest freehand cutter of all time, right?’

‘Yes, yes, he was the master.’ His face came alive. The tight, precisely chiselled lips parted eagerly. ‘I have studied his methods – his manner of holding the scissors, for example. It is necessary to work quickly, very quickly, to capture – ’

Leif cleared his throat. ‘Have you finished?’ The man’s face lost its animation. ‘Yes, of course. I beg pardon . . .’ Hastily dabbing mucilage on the back of the silhouette, he fixed it to the cardboard and gave it to me.

‘You cut two at the same time,’ I said, as he repeated the process with the second portrait.

‘By folding the paper one obtains greater stability.’ He would have said more, but another cough from Leif stopped him. Eyes downcast, he began putting his materials away. I groped for my purse, which was on the floor by my chair. My fumbling seemed to annoy Leif; he reached in his wallet and counted out twenty SEK. His manner was that of a surly patron tipping a servant. I found it thoroughly offensive, and as the little man rose, I said warmly, ‘Thank you. It is a wonderful work of art and I’ll always treasure it. Will you do me the favour of signing it?’

Leif – unforgivably – laughed. The cutter’s face turned a dull red. The signature he produced was an unintelligible scrawl. I thanked him again, profusely. As he walked away, the waiter came with our drinks.

‘Has this man annoyed you?’ he asked.

‘Quite the contrary.’ I showed him my portrait, and he grinned.

‘It is clever. I have not seen such work except in a museum.’

‘Then the artist is not an employee of the cafe?’ I asked.

‘No, no. We allow such people if they do not bother our customers. Most often they are singers or tellers of fortunes. This is original, at least . . . Do you wish to dine here? We have an excellent smorgasbord.’

‘Fine,’ I said. It was a nice little cafe, very atmospheric, with dark beams and rough stone walls, and I figured I might as well get dinner out of Leif. If he intended to spend the evening pumping me about Sir John Bloody Smythe, the least he could do was pay for my time.

I studied my menu with intense interest, but Leif would not be put off any longer.

‘This is not the place for a private conversation,’ he grumbled.

‘I don’t go to isolated places with strange men,’ I said.

Instead of objecting, he nodded approvingly. ‘Very wise. What I would expect of a lady of your reputation.’

‘What do you know about my reputation?’ I demanded.

‘All those who work in my field are acquainted with Dr Victoria Bliss. You are employed by the National Museum of Munich, and you are an authority on medieval art.’

‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Do you by any chance know Inspector Feder, of the Munich police? Short, paunchy man with a bald head?’ Leif grinned, baring all his rapacious teeth, and conjuring up a pair of elongated but attractive dimples. ‘Feder is tall, not short; lean, not paunchy. But he is, I confess, losing his hair.’ This accurate description did not cheer me as it should have. I sighed. ‘What are you, Leif – Interpol, or the Swedish equivalent of the FBI?’

‘It is what you would call the Special Branch of Art and Antiquities. You are familiar with our work?’

‘I know that many countries have such special departments. The number of crimes involving art objects has necessitated a corps of men with specialized training. But I wasn’t aware that Sweden had suffered to that extent. Besides,’ I added heatedly, ‘I’m an art historian, not a private eye. And I’m supposed to be on vacation.’

‘Dr Bliss. Will you swear to me that you are not presently involved with Al Monkshood?’

‘Who?’

‘The man you greeted at the terminal.’

‘You heard me call him John – John Smythe. Maybe,’ I said hopefully, ‘we aren’t talking about the same person.’

‘He has as many aliases as hairs on his head,’ Leif said, grinding his big white teeth. ‘Smythe is one of them. Yes, we are talking about the same person. Do you expect me to believe that it was by coincidence that you hailed the best art thief in Europe?’

‘He isn’t all that good,’ I mused. ‘Al Monkshood . . . What won’t he think of next? Look here, Leif, let’s order dinner and get the waiter out of our hair; then I’ll tell you what I know. It isn’t much.’

I am not uninterested in food. A woman of my size needs her nourishment. But I can’t remember what we ordered or how it tasted. If I could have gotten my hands on John Smythe, AKA Al Monkshood, I would have squeezed his neck till his face turned puce.

We sat in silence until the waiter had brought our dinner. The silhouette cutter was still circulating, head bent over his work, he was reproducing the far from symmetrical features of a chubby Italian paterfamilias several tables away.

Our own table wasn’t very big. By the time the waiter finished fussing over the arrangement of the dishes, Leif was simmering with frustration. He kept dropping things – napkins, forks, menus – and diving under the table to retrieve them. His face was flushed with exertion by the time the waiter had finished.

‘Well, then, speak,’ he demanded.

‘Okay, okay. I met Sir John Smythe, as he called himself, in Rome several years ago. I know the title is a fake, and I presume the name is, too, though he told me John was his real first name. He was mixed up in a scheme to copy famous antique jewels and steal the originals. But,’ I said, ‘if you’re familiar with his career, you probably know the details.’

‘Natürlich,’ Leif said impatiently.

‘Then you know the scam didn’t succeed – thanks in large part to me.’ Leif gave me a raised eyebrow, but modesty is not a virtue I cultivate. I went on, ‘Smythe and I were allies at one point because certain developments threatened him as well as me. I can assure you, I have no fond memories of the man and no reason to seek him out. I’d just as soon cohabit with a rattlesnake.’

I applied myself to my meal whatever it was. ‘That is all?’ Leif demanded.

‘That is all.’ It was all he was going to get. What I had told him was public knowledge – at least it was information available to any police officer. My private dealings with John were none of Leif’s business.

‘Why did you choose Sweden for your holiday?’ he asked.

‘Why not? It’s the land of my ancestors.’

‘You have kin here?’

‘Probably . . . Leif, I’ve tried to be cooperative, but I am terribly, terribly sick of Smythe-Monkshood and everything to do with him. There is nothing else I can tell you that could be of use to you.’

That wasn’t strictly true, but there were several good reasons for neglecting to mention John’s cryptic message about Wayland Smith which was beginning to look more and more like a legitimate clue instead of a cute come-on meant to lure me into a bargain-package rendezvous with John B. Smythe. It was one hell of a vague clue, though. ‘Wayland’s work’ could refer to any one of a hundred objects in a dozen different museums. If John really was planning to steal a historic treasure, and if Leif really was on his trail, Leif presumably knew more about the plot than I did. Besides, that damned message made me sound like a collaborator. I wouldn’t have blamed Leif for interpreting it that way. I couldn’t figure it out myself. Why the devil would John warn me of his illegal intentions? He knew I’d do everything possible to thwart him if I took the warning seriously . . . I hadn’t taken it seriously, though. The message had been perfectly framed – vague enough to preclude action on my part, intriguing enough to whet my curiosity. It had done the job. Here I was, right where John wanted me. I wished to God I knew why he wanted me here.

While I pursued this depressing train of thought, Leif watched me intently. After a while he said, ‘I believe you.’

‘Thanks a heap. I’d like some dessert, please.’

‘Certainly.’ He waved at the waiter and watched benevolently as I consumed something consisting primarily of whipped cream and custard. ‘I like to see a woman who enjoys her food,’ he announced.

I glanced at him, licking custard off my upper lip, but he wasn’t being funny. ‘You are right,’ he went on. ‘I should not spoil your vacation. I apologize. Let me make amends. I will show you some of the night life of Stockholm.’

Things were looking up. I smiled at him. ‘I’d like that.’

There was one minor contretemps, when I hauled my purse out from under the table and checked, as I always do, to make sure the contents were intact. I can never get the darned thing closed – I carry too many things in it – so I was not surprised to find that several items were missing. ‘My passport,’ I exclaimed.

Leif eyed the bulging, obscene object critically. ‘You should keep it always in your hands.’

‘It’s too big.’ I peered under the table, then shied back as I found myself nose to nose with Leif. His eyeballs gleamed like boiled eggs in the gloom. They looked absolutely disgusting.

‘As I thought,’ he said, fumbling around the floor. ‘Passport, lipstick, comb . . . What in God’s name is this?’

I couldn’t tell. It was too dark under the table. We both came up into the light and Leif handed me my belongings, including the object that had prompted his horrified inquiry. I didn’t blame him; it must have felt like something long-dead and rotten. I am particularly addicted to a variety of pastry made by a certain bakery in Munich. It’s like a jelly doughnut, but squashier. I had forgotten it was in there.

‘Sorry,’ I said, retrieving the collection and putting it in my bag. Leif started to lick his fingers, then thought better of it and wiped them on his napkin. ‘Is everything there?’ he asked, with the doggedly patient look men get when they deal with women’s purses.

‘I think so. No, wait – my notebook.’

We crawled around under the table for a while without success. The waiter watched our activities with poorly concealed alarm; when I explained, he joined the search. Finally he said breathlessly, ‘Perhaps it has been kicked away, under another table. If you would like me to look . . .’

‘There was nothing important in it,’ I said. ‘If it turns up, hang on to it. I’ll look in next time I’m in the neighbourhood.’

‘Are you sure you don’t wish to continue searching?’ Leif asked, as we started for the door.

I reassured him. The notebook was new; it contained nothing except a few addresses and miscellaneous notes.

The evening turned out to be a success after all. First we went to a jazz pub – ‘with jazz,’ as the advertisement carefully specified. Then we went on to a nightclub and danced. Leif was a marvellous dancer. For so large a man his movements were extraordinarily economical and controlled. After-wards we took a walk along the waterfront The white boats lifted at anchor and the long lights shimmered across the water. We held hands as we walked, and we didn’t talk much. When we finally turned back towards the hotel I had almost forgotten J. Smythe; if I thought of him at all, it was to thank him for inadvertently making it possible for me to meet Leif.

Though the hour was well after midnight, the ground floor windows of the restaurant and bar were brightly lit, and people streamed in and out of the main doors. Leif escorted me to the desk and waited till I asked for my key. When the clerk handed it over, he also gave me a small sheaf of messages.

‘There were several calls, Dr Bliss. If it is urgent, our switchboard will be open.’

Leif had stood to one side like a little gent, pretending not to listen when I mentioned my room number. Curiosity got the better of him when he saw the messages.

‘I hope nothing is wrong,’ he said.

I held the papers up so he could read them. ‘They’re all from Schmidt. Head of the National Museum, as you surely must know.’

‘Vicky, you do not need to convince me – ’

‘Just thought I’d mention it.’

‘He seems to want you very badly.’

‘I know what he wants. It’s not important. Well . . .’

I stuffed the notes in my purse and turned from the desk. Leif bowed stiffly. ‘Good night, Vicky. Sleep well.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good night. And thanks.’

‘May I telephone you tomorrow?’

‘Yes, you may.’

He bowed again, turned on his heel, and strode away, moving with military precision.

Feigning personal interest is one way of keeping tabs on a suspect. I preferred to believe he wasn’t feigning. He was a gorgeous sight as he made his lordly way through the lesser mortals in the lobby; his flaxen hair clung to his head and covered the nape of his neck like a gilt helmet.

The pleasures of the past few hours had not let me forget certain other matters. I went into my room with all the panache of the Cowardly Lion, an inch at a time, and I didn’t relax until after I had searched every corner. No one was there. As far as I could tell, no one had been there.

Four of Schmidt’s messages were labelled ‘Urgent.’ Before I called him, I had a nice leisurely bath and made myself a cup of coffee with my handy plug-in electric pot. Schmidt is something of a night owl, and besides, I didn’t particularly care whether I woke him up. He had his nerve, harassing me when I hadn’t even been gone a day.

Naturally I called collect. He wanted to talk; he could pay. He accepted the call without so much as a gulp, and it was then that I began to think I had been mistaken about his reason for calling.

He didn’t even say hello. ‘What are you up to now?’ he shrieked. ‘What is it you think you are doing? A little holiday, you say. The land of your ancestors, you say. You betray me, you lie to me – your friend, your benefactor, your – ’

‘Wait a minute! I didn’t lie to you, Schmidt. Would I do a thing like that?’

‘Yes.’ He stopped to catch his breath. When he resumed he had evidently decided to try subtler tactics. His voice wheedled. ‘Is it a case like the Riemenschneider, my dear Vicky? Another prize for our museum?’

He was referring to an art object by a medieval German sculptor, which I had located after it had been lost for four hundred years. I had met Schmidt during that bizarre business, and though I would be the first to admit that I had a certain amount of assistance in my quest (none from Schmidt; he was a first-class nuisance from beginning to end), my success had given him an exaggerated idea of my abilities.

‘No.’ I made the negative as convincing as I could. Once Schmidt got a notion in his big round bald head, nothing less than a blunt instrument could get it out. I didn’t want him rushing off to Sweden to join in the fun. Where the museum was concerned, he was almost as crooked as John. The two of them together . . . Well, the very idea made cold sweat pop out on my brow.

‘I resent your attitude,’ I went on. ‘You have no right to make accusations.’

Usually Schmidt crumples up when he is attacked. Not this time. ‘You tell me it is nothing that today I should hear from three persons calling themselves cousins and wishing urgently to find you? Never in all these years has one cousin called. Now it is three in a single day.’

‘I have about two hundred cousins,’ I said, after a moment’s thought ‘We’re a prolific family.’

‘Three? In one day?’

‘Did they leave their names?’

‘Oh, certainly. One was Cousin Bob.’

I have a Cousin Bob. Last I heard he was living in Chicago with his fourth wife and holding down three jobs in order to keep up with his child-support payments. As I said, we are a prolific family. It was barely conceivable that Bob might be in Europe, but it was damned unlikely.

‘That’s one,’ I said encouragingly.

‘Number two was Cousin George.’ Schmidt’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

I really do have a lot of cousins. I could not recall one named George.

‘That’s two. Didn’t anyone give a last name?’

‘Number three did so.’ Schmidt sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘He was different from the others, Vicky. He was the first to telephone, and when he said he was the Swedish cousin whom you planned to visit, I thought only that you had missed one another.’

A hideous qualm passed through me, surpassing in hideousness all the minor qualms I had felt in the course of the day. I croaked, ‘I hope to God you didn’t tell him where I was staying.’

‘You take me for an old fool? I told him I could not do that, and he was most gracious. Indeed, he was kind enough to approve. He was glad, he said, that you had so careful and sensible a friend.’

‘Thanks, Papa Schmidt,’ I said sincerely.

‘Bah,’ said Schmidt. ‘He was an old papa too, Vicky. At least his voice sounded like that of an elderly man, and he gave to me not only his name and address but references from everyone except God.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t hear me? His name is Gustaf Jonsson.’ He spelled it. ‘Was not Johnsson your mother’s name?’

‘My father’s mother. How did you know that? You’ve been snooping in my files again, Schmidt.’

‘Mr Gustaf Jonsson told me,’ Schmidt said stiffly.

I apologized. Schmidt does snoop, sometimes looking for rough drafts of Rosanna’s future adventures (little does he know I make them up as I go along), and sometimes out of general inquisitiveness. I don’t mind. It keeps him happy.

‘Hmph,’ said Schmidt, when I had abased myself sufficiently. ‘Have you a pencil? I give you the address and telephone of Mr Jonsson. He asks that you call him.’

I reached for my purse and then remembered my notebook was no longer in it. I wrote the information on the back of one of the messages.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘I hope you have cause to thank me,’ Schmidt said ominously. ‘Vicky, I am not happy about this.’

I wasn’t happy about it either. However, I tried to sound more puzzled than alarmed as I questioned Schmidt about my callers. He couldn’t tell me much more. ‘Bob’ and ‘George’ both had ordinary voices, without any accent Schmidt could distinguish. Neither had pressed him for further information after learning that I was out of the country and was not expected back for several weeks. By contrast Mr Jonsson had been absolutely loquacious. He really had given Schmidt references – two banks and a former minister of state.

‘Well, it’s all very mysterious,’ I said. ‘I appreciate everything you did, Schmidt – and everything you didn’t do. I’ll be in touch.’

I didn’t expect to get rid of him that easily, and I didn’t. Admonitions, warnings, and suggestions gushed out of him. Finally I hung up.

I got up off the bed where I had been reclining and went to the window. My room was in the front of the hotel, overlooking the quay. I suspected I owed that choice location to Schmidt’s influence.

Directly opposite, the ‘City Between the Bridges’ filled its island from shore to shore, its close-packed structures rising in successive tiers. It looked like a single giant building, a citadel or castle, with a thousand lighted windows, and the dark water, streaked with splinters of reflected light, might have been a protective moat.

It was so beautiful I forgot my troubles for a minute and just enjoyed the view. Then I turned my attention to more practical matters, noting with approval that my room was on the fourth (European) floor, and that the nearest balcony was a considerable distance away, below and to the right. The street and the quay in front of the hotel were bright as daylight. Nobody could get at me by way of the window unless he was a human fly. Which John might well be, but being also a cautious man, he would hardly risk crawling up the front of a fully lighted building in plain view of a hundred people.

John was the first person I thought of when Schmidt started listing unknown ‘cousins.’ On second thought, however, I doubted that he had been one of them. He wouldn’t call himself Bob or George; he’d have given some crazy name like Agrivaine. Also, there was no reason for him to check up on my whereabouts. He knew where I was. He had seen me. No doubt he had also seen the label on my suitcase; he had eyes like a vulture’s.

Leif might have been one of the ‘cousins,’ checking to make sure that the woman he had seen at the airport carrying Dr Victoria Bliss’s bags was the real Victoria Bliss and not a ringer. But that didn’t make sense either. If he was a policeman, he could inquire through official channels without inventing unimaginative names. If he was a policeman . . .

I would have liked to believe that Bob and George were John and Leif. The alternative, that several parties unknown and probably inimical were on my trail, was distinctly unpleasant. Most peculiar of all was Cousin Gustaf. Should I get in touch with him? First I thought I would. Then I thought I had better leave well enough alone. Then I decided I would go to bed and let my subconscious wrestle with the dilemma. I have a great deal of faith in my subconscious. Sometimes it’s the only part of my brain that works.