'Holiday Inn,' Beaurain told the driver. It was easier than explaining how to get to Dr. Goldschmidt's address in a nearby side street. 'This is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe,' Beaurain remarked as the cab moved off. 'There's an area with canals and ancient bridges with willows dripping branches in the water. It is just the sort of place I'd hide up in if I were running some shady outfit.'
'You noticed that girl who got out of this cab at the station?' Louise asked in a low voice.
'Vaguely. Quite a looker.' Beaurain lit a cigarette.
'She was staring at you as though you scared her stiff. Have you ever seen her before?'
'Never in my life. Ah, here we are. I'm looking forward to seeing my old friend.'
The Holiday Inn was on the corner of an ancient square the T'Zand. Down the side street where Dr. Goldschmidt lived were old houses, steep-roofed and white. The atmosphere was so peaceful Louise felt ridiculous carrying a pistol.
'Here we are.'
Beaurain stopped outside one of the houses which carried an engraved plate on the wall by the door. Avocat. Lawyer. No name. He pressed the bell and glanced down the street. Forty yards away a Volkswagen was parked. A man sat behind the wheel. Impossible to see his face at that distance. The door opened on a chain.
'Your card, please.'
'Here, Henri. It is Jules.'
'Cautious, isn' t he?' Louise whispered.
A slim-fingered hand took the card, the chain was removed and they stepped into a hallway. The door closed and Dr. Goldschmidt regarded them both, a tall, stooped man with a silver mane of hair and a hawk-like nose. He wore a business suit which could only have been cut in Savile Row and peered at them through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
He said mildly: 'You are both carrying guns. Correct, Miss Hamilton? No, don't look at Jules for your cue. Am I right?'
'Yes-but how…?'
'Because he's a good bluffer,' Beaurain put in. 'When we entered the doorway we passed through a metal detector set into the door-frame and the bulb down here in the wall lights up faintly when metal is detected on a visitor. The bluff is he had no way of knowing the metal was a gun so he challenged you with an accusation which threw you off balance. He used to be one of Belgium's most e minent lawyers before he took up… the collection of rare coins.'
'Any more of my secrets you wish to reveal?' Goldschmidt asked with mock waspishness.
'Not at the moment but please don't play games with my best girl.'
'Mamsele, a thousand apologies. And such a beautiful assistant.'
He ushered them through a doorway into a small but comfortably furnished room overlooking the street. The walls were lined with bookcases, a blue deep-pile carpet covered the floor. Goldschmidt pulled forward a leather armchair for Louise and fussed about her courteously. She looked straight at his penetrating grey eyes and decided she must establish herself or be dismissed as second-rate.
'You are afraid someone is coming to kill you, Dr. Goldschmidt?'
'All the time in my b usiness.' He turned to Beaurain who was staring through the window at the parked Volkswagen. 'You said on the phone I could speak to Miss Hamilton as though I were talking to you.'
'That's true.' Beaurain sat down in a second armchair and Goldschmidt took a high-backed chair behind a large antique desk which meant he was looking down at them. He used the technique of intimidation with so many people he even continued it with his friends.
'First things first,' said Beaurain in a business-like manner, and took out a long, fat envelope containing 20,000 in Deutschmarks of high-denomination notes. He dropped it on the desk. 'My contribution towards your favourite charity.'
Goldschmidt picked up the envelope, locked it in a desk drawer without opening it and inclined his head. 'Thank you. How can I help you?'
'I want to know who is running the Syndicate, some idea of the size of its operations, and where its headquarters are.'
Terror.' Goldschmidt plunged straight into his subject. Terror is the weapon this Syndicate is using on a scale never before seen in Europe — or in the States, not that Washington will admit its existence. I have never in all my experience,' he continued, 'known such a situation.' He stared hard at Beaurain. 'The Syndicate controls men and women at the summit of power in this country. If you become its target you cannot save yourself.'
'I've never heard you talk like this before,' Beaurain said grimly. 'How have they managed this in such a short time?' He was thinking of the fear on the face of the Baron de Graer.
'They vary their method to suit the victim. Sometimes money is employed very large sums, some of which originate in the United States. In other cases they employ terroristic blackmail. You remember the killing of the Baron de Graer's wife and daughter during the so-called kidnap attempt at the Chateau Wardin?'
' So-called? '
'Yes. It was planned from the outset that the wife and daughter would be killed. You look very grim, Jules.'
'I happen to know the Baron de Graer. Also I was in charge of the anti-terrorist squad at the time.
Brussels stopped me using my normal method of going in with heavy fire-power. Brussels insisted on negotiations.' There was an undertone of bitterness in the Belgian's voice.
'It would have been too late anyway, Jules, had you done so,' Goldschmidt said gently.
'What the hell does that mean?'
'De Graer's wife and daughter were brutally murdered as soon as the kidnap took place. The rest was window-dressing.'
' Window-dressing? ' There was an ominous note in Beaurain's quiet voice.
'I only learned several months later.' Their host turned in his chair to look out of the open windows. 'The killings at the Chateau Wardin were a demonstration of the Syndicate's power. A number of prominent citizens up to Cabinet level were phoned and told what was going to happen, that the same thing could happen to their own loved ones if they refused to co-operate. You see, the conspiracy started early.' He turned and looked at Beaurain's frozen expression. 'As I said, it is the uninhibited use of terror, intimidation and bribery. I suspect that soon whole countries will be practically run by this evil organisation. You are powerless to do anything about it, Jules. Or are you? By the way, I wondered whether your visit was to ask me about Telescope?'
'What do you know about it?' Beaurain asked.
'Very little. It is organised like the wartime escape routes for Allied fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border.'
'And its leadership?'
Goldschmidt did not reply at once. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and studied Beaurain as he polished them with a blue silk handkerchief. He glanced at Louise whose expression was deliberately blank; she hoped not too blank. He replaced his glasses.
'I know nothing of its leadership,'
'Getting back to the Syndicate…'
'It is controlled by three rarely-seen men. One of them is a dealer in rare books who, when he comes to Bruges, has a house in the Hoogste van Brugge only five minutes' walk from where we are now. I find that a trifle insulting. Let me show you on the street map.'
Beaurain and Louise studied the map briefly. The address was, as Goldschmidt had said, surprisingly close. 'These three men have names?' Beaurain asked.
'The one in Bruges is a Dr. Otto Berlin.' Goldschmidt extracted a card from a drawer and wrote on it. 'The second is a Dr. Benny Horn, a Dane who operates a rare bookshop in the Nyhavn waterfront area in Copenhagen.'
'I know the area,' Louise said.
'Good, good. Do not go there alone, my dear, I beg of you. The third is a Swede, a Dr. Theodor Norling, and he too is in the rare book trade. He has an address in Gamla Stan, the Old City district of Stockholm. You know that, I believe, Jules?'
'Yes.' Beaurain took the card and glanced at the address. 'I don't follow why they are all in the rare book
