frozen.
`Interesting,' he commented.
`What is?' Beck asked sharply.
`Look for yourself. This is the one place where there are no buttresses to break his fall. He'd still have been seriously injuredbut he might just have survived. He went over at the very place where it was certain he'd be killed…'
He looked round the great Plattform which was divided up into four large grassy beds. Stark, closely trimmed trees reared up in the night which was now lit by the moon. Behind them the huge menacing spire of the Munster stabbed at the sky. Newman thrust his hands into his pockets and began walking towards the exit he knew led into the Munsterplatz. Beck followed without comment.
Emerging from the gateway, Newman stood for a moment, staring round the cobbled square and across at the Munstergasse. The arcade on the far side was a deserted tunnel of light and shadow. He walked diagonally across the square and inside the arcade. He continued walking until he reached the Finstergasschen, the narrow alley leading towards the Marktgasse, one of the main streets of Berne. He checked his watch. Five minutes. That was the time it had taken for him to walk from the place where Nagy had died to the Finstergasschen.
The patrol car Beck had sent on ahead was parked by the kerb. Newman climbed into the rear seat without a word as Beck settled himself beside him He gave the driver a brief instruction.
`Not the front entrance. We'll take the long way round to my office.'
`Why?' asked Newman when the policeman had closed the partition dividing them from the driver.
`Because the front entrance may well be watched. I rushed you into the car on the way out but I don't want anyone to see you come back – even in those togs…'
Togs. Newman smiled to himself. During his stint in London Beck had picked up a number of English colloquialisms. He left the talking to Beck who continued immediately.
`Do you know that pathetic crumpled wreck back there?'
`Julius Nagy,' Newman replied promptly. 'The Tyrolean hat. He was wearing it when he followed me about in Geneva..
He had to admit that much. He had no doubt Beck had contacted Chief Inspector Tripet of the Sfirete in Geneva. Beck turned to face the Englishman.
`But how did you identify him in Geneva?'
`Because when I was last here I used him. He deserved a better death than that. He was born to a poor family, he hadn't enough brains to get far, but he was persistent and he earned his living supplying people like me with information. He had underworld contacts.'
`Here in Berne, you mean?'
`Yes. That was why I was surprised he had moved his sphere of operations to Geneva…'
`That was me,' Beck replied. 'I had him thrown out of the Berne canton as a public nuisance, an undesirable. I too felt sorry for him. Why did he risk coming back is what I would like to know…'
Again Newman refused to be drawn into conversation. They were approaching the building close to the base of the Marzilibahn when Beck made the remark, still watching Newman.
`I am probably one of the very few people in Switzerland who knows that what you have just seen is the second murder in the past few weeks.'
`Who else knows?'
`The murderers…'
The atmosphere changed the moment they entered Beck's office from the hostility which had lingered in the air during Newman's earlier visit. A small, wiry woman whose age Newman guessed as fifty-five, a spinster from her lack of rings, followed them inside with a tray. A percolator of coffee, two Meissen cups and saucers, two balloon-shaped glasses and a bottle of Remy Martin.
`This is Gisela, my assistant,' Beck introduced. 'Also she is my closest confidante. In my absence you can pass any message to her safe in the knowledge it will reach my ears only.'
`You're looking after us well,' Newman said in German and shook hands as soon as she had placed the tray on the desk.
`It is my pleasure, Mr Newman. I will be in my office if you need me,' she told Beck.
`She works all hours,' Beck commented as he poured the coffee. 'Black, if I recall? And it is a swine of a night – on more accounts than one. So, we will treat ourselves to some cognac. I welcome you to Berne and drink your health, my friend. You must excuse my earlier reception.'
`Which was about what?'
`That bloody anonymous phone call to Pauli reporting you were seen in the vicinity. Someone wants you off the streets. We have procedures – and my immediate purpose was to close off the cantonal police. I can now tell Pauli I cross-examined you and am fully satisfied you had nothing to do with the death of our late lamented Julius Nagy. He minutes the file – sends it over to me and I lock it away for good.'
He wheeled his swivel chair round the desk to sit alongside Newman. They drank coffee and sipped their cognac in silence until Beck started talking, the words pouring out in a Niagara.
`Bob, in the last twelve hours there have been no less than five incidents all of which worry me greatly. They form no clear pattern but I am convinced all these incidents are linked. First, a mortar was stolen from the military base at Lerchenfeld near Thun-Sud. The second mortar stolen within a month…'
`Did they take any ammo. – any bombs?'
`No, which in itself is peculiar. Just the weapon. The second incident also concerns the theft of a weapon. You know that all Swiss have to serve military service up to the age of forty-five, that each man keeps at his home an Army rifle and twenty-four rounds of ammunition. A house was broken into while the owner was at work and his wife was out shopping. A rifle – plus the twenty-four rounds- has disappeared. Also the sniper-scope. He was a marksman…'
`Which area? Or can I guess?'
`Thun-Sud. Late this afternoon the third incident occurred on a motorway. The driver of a snowplough was viciously attacked and his machine later found on the motorway. You want to guess the area?'
`Somewhere near Thun?'
`Precisely. Always Thun! The fourth incident you know about. The murder of Julius Nagy…'
`And Number Five?'
Tee Foley, alleged ex-CIA man, has disappeared today from the hotel we traced him to. The Savoy in the Neuengasse. Bob, this American is one of the most dangerous men in the west. I rang a friend in Washington – woke him up, but he's done the same to me. I wanted to know whether Foley really has left the CIA and he said he had. I'm still not totally convinced. If the job was big enough Foley could get cover right to the top. He's a member – a senior partner – in the Continental International Detective Agency in New York, so I'm told…'
`For argument's sake,' Newman suggested, 'let's suppose for a moment that is true. What then?'
`It does nothing to ease my anxiety. Foley is a skilled and highly-trained killer. That poses two questions. Who has the money to pay a man like that?'
`The Americans…'
`Or the Swiss,' Beck said quietly.
`What are you hinting at?'
Beck glanced at Newman and said nothing. He took out of his jacket pocket a short pipe with a thick stem and a large bowl. Newman recognized the pipe and watched as the police chief extracted tobacco from a packet labelled Amphora. He began packing tobacco into the bowl.
`Still wedded to the same old pipe,' Newman remarked.
`You are very observant, my friend. It's made by Cogolet, a firm near St Tropez. And the tobacco is the same – red Amphora. The second question Foley's presence poses is Who is the target? Identify his paymaster and that may point to who he has come to kill…'
`You're convinced that is why he is really here?'
`It is his trade,' Beck observed. 'Why have you come to Berne?'
So typical of Beck. To throw the loaded question just when you least expected it. He had his pipe alight and sat puffing at it while he watched Newman with a quizzical expression. The Englishman, who knew Beck well, realized the Swiss was in a mood he had never seen him display before. A state of fearful indecision.