Quint said, “Frankly, some of the rebuttal at the party also interested me. The fellow named Bart Digby who pointed out the difficulties in ever uniting the world’s more than one hundred sovereign governments. Take my own country, the United States. Our earliest tradition was to remain aloof from foreign affairs. More recently, of course, modern developments have forced our government into world leadership of the West.” He twisted his mouth wryly. “What we like to call the free-world, although it includes everything from the absolute monarchy of Saudi-Arabia, to a half dozen South American military dictatorships.” He shrugged in deprecation. “But the point is, trying to unite the United States with—well, eventually Russia, would be a hard nut to crack. Offhand, I can’t think of a single Senator or Congressman who would vote for such a merger, no matter what the terms.”
But Ferencsik was shaking a finger at him negatively and already in some heat. “Your background in the history of your own country is faulty, sir. It was Benjamin Franklin, in the early days of the founding of your republic, who stated that one day he hoped to see every nation of the world represented with a star in the flag of the United States. It was his desire to work into the Constitution a method whereby all nations were free to admission.”
That was new to Quint, but it was the sort of thing that Old Ben would have advocated, he had to admit.
Ferencsik went on. “And I quite agree that today few Americans would vote to join a world state, and the same applies to most nations. However, this is a thing that shall come about only when and if the development of affairs
Quint didn’t want to antagonize the man, at least not at this stage of the game, so he pulled in his horns somewhat. He said, turning on the charm gently, knowing better than to arouse the suspicions of the other by being too agreeable, “You were discussing with the Russian, Nuriyev, the need of developing a leader to point out the way, a super-man who…”
But at the mention of the former Soviet hachetman, Professor Ferencsik had made a grimace of distaste. Quint broke off his sentence in the middle and took advantage of the opening. He said, “I noticed the other night that you seemed to take particular exception to his opinions.”
The Hungarian flicked a hand in quick disgust. “A butcher. I have met him before. At the war’s end, I worked for a time with Russian scientists. We were attempting to rescue from the debacle some of the work of German researchers and, for that matter, some of the better German scientists themselves.”
Quint nodded, trying to look perceptive. “I understand the Americans, of course, did the same thing, in the areas we captured. In view of your own interests in surgery, you must have been particularly anxious to find if Doktor Stahlecker was still alive.”
Nicolas Ferencsik began to say, “Yes. One of the reasons…” But then he stopped. His eyes pierced the expression of the American columnist, finding that below the surface which had been meant to be hidden. He came to his feet.
His voice was cold. “I’m afraid, Mr. Jones, that my time is limited.”
Quint stood too. He made a gamble, knowing he was doing this wrong even as he spoke. “You don’t deny, do you Professor, that you have come to Madrid in an attempt to find the Nazi refugee, Doktor Stahlecker?”
The other was coming to a quick boil, but he snapped, “You are, so I understand, a friend of my host and hostess. I can hardly order you from the house. But I can request that you save me your presence, sir.”
Quint flushed, but made one last attempt. “There are some deaths involved in this, Professor, and some mystery that you might help clear up. For instance, does this mean anything to you? It was a note left near Ronald Brett-Home’s body. It read:
The other hadn’t even heard him. Nicolas Ferencsik had spun on his heel and entered his bedroom, closing the door behind him.
At least he hadn’t slammed it.
Quint let himself out of the sitting room of the suite, and looked up Marty Dempsey, who was sitting in a sun chair on the terrace and looking vaguely out over the rooftops of Madrid. She was seldom quite completely alive this time of day.
Quint looked at his wristwatch, through force of habit. It was slightly past twelve. “I’ll take that drink now,” he said. I’ve just had brought home to me a defect or so in my character.”
“There’s the makin’s, dahling,” Marty waved in the general direction of a pushcart bar, on the top of which were several bottles, several glasses and a vacuum bottle of ice cubes. “You didn’t talk very long with Uncle Nick.”
“Uncle Nick threw me out,” Quint said sourly. He poured some bourbon into the bottom of a glass and added an ice cube. There was gingerale and soda available, but one of the few opportunities Quint had these days to drink American whiskey was at the Dempseys, and he considered it a treat to be taken straight. In actuality, he could have afforded it himself, easily enough, but he rebelled against the price in Spain.
Ferd came wandering out, evidently to replenish his glass. He was a square-set man going to pot. In his youth, when he had played college football, he must have been a beautiful specimen. Now he seldom played with anything but bottles and fast cars. The combination had turned out so incompatible that his series of accidents had recently terminated in the revoking of his license by the Spanish authorities.
He said, “Hello, hello, hi, Quint. Come to see the Professor eh? Hey, Marty, where’s Uncle Nick?”
“I’ve already seen him,” Quint said. He found a chair and took down half the bourbon. It burned pleasantly. He remembered unhappily that he was lousing up his formula of two hot meals on the stomach after a drinking binge, before you started again.
Marty was looking at Quint. “What do you mean he threw you out, Quint dahling? He seemed perfectly happy about talking to you.”
Quint shrugged. “I suppose he was right. I got in to see him under false pretenses. Told him I was interested in his World Government ideas, where actually I wanted to get a line on what it was that Ronald Brett-Home had set up for your party.”
Ferd, who had just finished making himself a stiff one at the little bar, turned and grumbled, “Let’s don’t get into that, damn it. There’s been cops all over the place. Asking lousy questions, bothering the maids. Everything. You’d think the guy was killed here.”
Marty said, “I’ll never forgive Ronald for causing us so much trouble. Oh, yes, I know, dahling, speak only well of the dead. But really, he and his Gestapo friend might have picked some
“Who?” Quint snapped.
Marty blinked at him. “What did I say?”
“You said something about Ronald and his Gestapo friend.
She giggled. “Oh, dear, I’d forgotten all about that.” She put a finger to her mouth, as though in thought. “I didn’t listen very well when Ronald was telling us how it was that the party would be a great success, very controversial, if we’d have Uncle Nick as guest of honor and spread the word it was open house. He said he had cooked something with a friend of his, a former Gestapo man.” She looked at Quint archly. “Didn’t I tell you it was all cloak and dagger and all that.”
Ferd had dropped heavily into one of the deck chairs. “Stroehlein, or something, his name was. Some squarehead name.”
Quint’s eyes went from Ferd to Marty. “Over the phone you said you’d never heard of Albrecht Stroehlein.”
“Oh, did I, dahling? Well, I suppose I’d forgotten his name. I can’t remember foreign names. Why don’t they all have simple names like Smith and Dempsey and Jones? Do be a dahling and fill my glass. Scotch, with just a teeny weeny soda.”
Quint got up and got her drink, his mind racing. So the weepy eyed ex-Nazi, Stroehlein, had been in on Brett-Home’s scheme. That would suggest that Stroehlein was working for West Germany, rather than East— always assuming that he was working at his old game of espionage-counter-espionage at all.
He pulled himself to a halt suddenly. The hell with it. A few minutes ago he’d decided the whole thing was out of his realm. It wasn’t his business. Let Bart Digby handle it on the international politics level, or Mike Woolman on the news level, but let Quentin Jones leave it lay.
He gave Marty her new drink and said, “I think I’ll get on home and see if I can knock out a column.”
“See you later, dahling,” Marty told him vaguely. Her mind, such as it was, already off on some other
