Hiram’s feet just touched the rug when he sat on the edge of the leather armchair. The cigar was almost as big as the smoker.
“One of our men from Vienna was on the Orient Express. He was following Doctor Schmidt just as Schmidt was trailing Mademoiselle Torres. Unfortunately, our man was not sufficiently imaginative to foresee that you would leave the train. In the first place, he did not know of Blaye’s passport. All he knew was that you had purchased the space which Blaye’s death had made vacant. Unlike Doctor Schmidt, he proceeded to Budapest and wired Vienna in code from the legation. That’s why Teensy and I took this morning’s train.”
“How do you know I’m not mixed up with the Russians?”
Hiram blew an enormous smoke ring. “In that case, you wouldn’t have found it necessary to leave either the Orient or today’s train.”
Teensy said, “We thought at first you might be French or British, until I met you in the yards.”
“I’m eternally grateful for that,” I said. “I thought I was finished. Both of those goons were ready to shoot me.”
Hiram smiled. “My wife is a quick thinker when she has to be.”
Teensy stuck out her tongue at him.
“But usually we find our team works better when I do the planning and Teensy does the legwork. I think I should be a ridiculous object in a rough-and-tumble shooting match. On the other hand, Teensy is quite capable of taking good care of herself.”
“Look,” I said. “What is this all about, anyway? Maria told me Blaye was a watch and clock exporter. She told me about his office in Geneva and how he said he was coming to Budapest for a big deal with the Hungarian government. What the hell goes on?”
“It’s a long story,” Hiram said, “but I’ll tell you what I know about it since we’re in the same boat.”
“What do you mean, the same boat?” I said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and I’ve told you everything I can. I want to get Maria out of Schmidt’s hands and send her back to Geneva. Then I’m going to look for my brother. That’s the only reason I came to Budapest.”
Hiram shook his head. “I told you we weren’t running a rescue business for free and I meant it. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to see this thing through with us.”
“And supposing I refuse?”
“You won’t,” Hiram said. There was a hard quality to his voice I hadn’t heard before. “You’re an American and you’ll stick with us. But, even if you hadn’t made such a decision on your own, I think we’ve ways to influence you. We could turn you over to the Russians or Doctor Schmidt. Or we could send you to Vienna to be executed by a firing squad for the murder of Blaye.
“You see, Mr. Stodder, you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in a very serious business. This is a matter of life and death for nations as well as individuals. You’ve taken a hand in a game that could influence the issue of war or peace in Europe and the world.”
At that moment, Hiram’s pronouncement didn’t impress me in the slightest.
“But that doesn’t help me find Maria,” I said. “I’m not going to leave her in Schmidt’s hands, no matter what your problem is.”
Hiram was very patient. “Nobody said you had to. I told you I want to talk to her and I’ve got some questions for Schmidt, too. You’d better make up your mind right now that there’s nothing you can do to rescue Mademoiselle Torres without our help. All I’m asking is that you realize finding her is also part of my problem.”
“What’s this problem?” I asked. “What’s this threat to the peace of Europe and the world? And what do you mean by ‘peace’ anyway? Who said there was any peace in the world? I’m one of the thirteen million Americans who fought for peace. I haven’t seen anything that looks like peace.”
“All right, then,” Hiram said. “There isn’t any peace. But there still isn’t a shooting war. At least,
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”
Hiram asked Teensy to fill our glasses.
“The whole thing goes back to the Fall of 1944,” Hiram said. “At least, this phase of it does. In one way or another it’s been going on for a century.”
I suppose I was fed up because I had to sit there and listen to Carr talk in what I considered silly generalities instead of going to Mexikoi ut to get Maria.
“Please skip the preliminaries,” I said. Both Hiram and Teensy looked at me. “I’m sorry. I guess my nerves aren’t what they ought to be.”
“I don’t blame you,” Hiram said. “I’ll try to be as brief as possible.
“Let’s start in 1944, in the fall. By October it was evident to everyone, except probably Adolf Hitler, that Nazi Germany was finished, that it was impossible to continue resistance against Britain and the United States in the west and Russia in the east.
“A little over a month later, French troops would be fighting the Germans in the streets of Strasbourg for possession of the city itself. But already the Nazis knew what it meant to have the blitzkrieg, their own invention, turned against them. The Allies were fighting on the sacred soil of the Reich itself, something Hitler had boasted could never happen. The Siegfried Line had been cracked in the west, and in the east the Russians were attacking Hungary, the last ally left to Germany in Europe.
“On the tenth of October, 1944, there was a meeting at the Rotes Haus, the famous old hotel in Strasbourg which was still in German hands. That meeting was attended by the nine leaders of the nine basic industries of Germany.
“We had a man working at the Rotes Haus as a relief waiter. He’d been in Strasbourg before the war and had been parachuted back. He managed to send us a good many details by radio before the Nazis caught him. As a waiter, he served the nine Germans and learned a good deal of what was going on.”
“Who were they?” I said.
“The names aren’t of any interest now,” Hiram said, “even if I could remember them. They were, of course, outwardly Nazi like everybody else of importance under Hitler. But they were really the representatives of the Junkers and the Ruhr industrialists, the men who, generation after generation, are behind the governments of Germany, whether those governments are headed by Hitlers or Kaiser Wilhelms or Konrad Adenauers. You follow me?”
“Yes,” I said. “They’re the men who look upon 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 as just a couple of battles in a long war. I remember talking with a German diplomat who thought that way, even in the summer of 1939.”
Hiram and Teensy waited for me to continue. I guess Hiram figured I’d be easier to handle if I became enthusiastic.
“It was right here in Budapest,” I said. “It was the German minister. He was a member of the Prussian aristocracy who had served in the German diplomatic service for twenty years before Hitler took over. He told everybody he abhorred the Nazi regime but he served it faithfully.”
“What were you doing here, Mr. Stodder?” Teensy asked.
“I was a newspaper correspondent,” I said. “The Hungarian press chief invited me and two Hungarian editors to dine with the minister. I didn’t like the Nazis, but my business was to get news and I went.
“Anyway, it was the evening that Berlin and Moscow announced the famous ten-year treaty between Germany and Russia. I asked the German minister what he thought would follow. He said he thought war was inevitable. Then I asked him what he thought would be the outcome of such a war. He said he felt Germany would lose.”
“He must have been drinking,” Hiram said. “Most of them weren’t that frank.”
“Oh, he’d been drinking, but the payoff was his next statement. He said that he thought Germany would lose
