Cade sat in a lounge chair in a corner, away from the fire, his eyes closed. He wanted a drink, but he fought off the urge. He had gradually become intrigued by Braddock’s assignment, and he knew if he started drinking, he wouldn’t get pictures. He now wanted to prove to himself that he was still capable of getting pictures.
The door pushed open and Baumann with Ben Sherman on his heels, came in. They joined Cade and sat down.
Cade opened his eyes and stared at Sherman.
“Where did you spring from?”
“Don’t talk about it,” Sherman said with an exaggerated shudder. “I nearly killed myself trying to follow that bitch from Paris. I’m still in a state of shock.”
“I’ve heard all that,” Baumann said impatiently. “You knew what you were in for. Give it a rest.” He leaned forward and tapped Cade on his knee. “I have been asking around. Anita has gone to ground in the Château owned by General Fritz van Ludwig. Remember him? He surrendered his army to the Russians in 1943 at Stalingrad. He has been living in retirement in this Château for the past twenty years. What do you make of that?”
Cade shrugged.
“Nothing... what do you?”
Sherman said, “I remember him. When the Russians made him a prisoner, he broadcast anti-Hitler propaganda from Moscow. Anita is Russian by birth, isn’t she?”
“That’s right,” Baumann said. “The idea was she came to Switzerland to meet a lover, not an eighty-year-old German General.”
“That should disappoint Braddock, shouldn’t it?” Cade said.
The two men looked at him.
“This intrigues me,” Baumann said. “You and I are going to take a look at that Château tonight.”
“Is that such a hot idea?” Sherman asked. “You’ll leave footprints all over the place. Do you want to alert Anita we are on to her?”
“It won’t matter if it goes on snowing this hard,” Baumann pointed out. “Any prints we make will be covered by the morning. Look, Ben, suppose you go and relieve Grau? He’s been out there for the past two hours.”
“Why should I care?” Sherman said. He got up and went over to the fire, holding out his hands to the comforting warmth.
“Get going!” Baumann snapped. “He’ll relieve you at midnight.”
“How nice,” Sherman said, but he left the lounge.
Baumann lit a cigarette.
“S.B. has a fantastic instinct for news. This could turn out to be a lot more interesting than a love affair. An aged German General with Russian sympathies and one of our top movie stars. Could be quite a story. You and I are going to get it, Cade.” As Cade said nothing, Baumann stood up. “Let’s eat. We have a cold night ahead of us.”
After dinner, the two men went to their rooms. Baumann had booked three bedrooms all leading into one another with a sitting-room at the far end. He had ski clothes for Cade and both men changed. Then equipped with ski-ing boots and gloves, they left by the service door of the hotel and drove down to where Sherman, cold and miserable, was sitting in his Simca.
There was now a high wind and the snow made visibility difficult. It was also freezing.
“We’ll take a look around,” Baumann said as Sherman lowered his car window.
“Rather you than me,” Sherman said sourly. “God! It’s cold!”
Cade and Baumann reached the high wrought iron gates after a few minutes of difficult walking. They paused outside the gates. Beyond them, they could make out the dim outlines of a small lodge. A light showed in one of the lower windows.
“We don’t go in that way,” Baumann said. “Come on... follow me.”
He continued on down the road by the high flint and concrete wall of the estate. After walking some thirty metres, he stopped.
“We’ll go over the wall.”
He stepped down into the ditch, the snow covering his boots, and set his back against the wall.
“Come on. I’ll give you a lift up.”
Cade put his foot in Baumann’s clasped hands and Baumann heaved him up. Cade’s fingers reached the top of the wall, got a grip and he swung his leg over. He sat astride the wall and looked down at Baumann.
Baumann tried to reach Cade’s outstretched hand, but he was too short and he cursed.
“Okay. I’ll wait here. You take a look. Be careful. See if you can get a look at the Château.”
“How do you expect me to get back over the wall on my own?” Cade asked mildly. He was careful not to let Baumann see how intrigued he was and how he welcomed this adventure.
“I’ll get a rope. Ben has one in his car. I should have thought of that. You wait here. I won’t be long,” and Baumann vanished into the darkness.
Snow pelted down on Cade as he crouched on the wall. He decided not to wait for Baumann. He scraped a high pile of snow off the wall where he was sitting, marking his place of entry, then he swung his leg over and dropped down into the deep snow. Although the snow broke his fall, the drop came as a jar. His feet stinging, his legs a little shaky he set off through the trees, moving cautiously and silently.
He had no idea how long he walked. It was some time. The wind howled around him and the snow turned him into a white, ghost-like figure. Finally, he was free of the trees, and he came upon a large flat snow-covered surface which he guessed would be the lawn, surrounding the Château.
It was then that he saw the house: a big, rambling building with turrets: a typical Swiss Château, three storeys high with narrow windows, some of which were showing lights.
A feeling of danger made him pause. He drew back and stood by a snow-covered fir tree and looked towards the Château. He stood motionless, watching, unaware of the coating of snow that built over him. Slowly, his eyes became accustomed to the dark, and he was thankful he had made no attempt to cross the coverless space ahead of him. He saw a movement near the Château, and peering into the driving snow, he saw a figure of a man walking with bent head around the outside. Then he saw other figures standing against the walls, sentinels, spaced widely apart, facing him and sinister enough to make him step further back into the shelter of the forest.
He remained watching for some twenty minutes until the cold began to creep up his legs and chill his body. Then, satisfied he had seen enough, he headed back to the wall.
He had difficulty in finding the mark he had left on top of the wall. In a few more minutes, the snow would have obliterated his landfall.
He called softly, “Baumann?”
“Right here,” Baumann replied from the other side and a rope snaked over the wall, the end dropping at Cade’s feet.
It took him several minutes to haul himself up and he was so out of condition, he had to rest on top while his breath rasped at the back of his throat and his heart slammed against his ribs. Finally, in control of himself, he dropped down beside Baumann.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Baumann said angrily. “I told you to wait.”
“So you did,” Cade said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They walked in silence to the Jaguar, then shaking off the snow that covered their clothes, they got into the welcome warmth of the car.
“What’s cooking?” Baumann asked as he began to drive back to the hotel.
“Something,” Cade returned. “We’ll talk about it when we get back to our room.”
A few minutes later, Baumann pulled up outside the hotel and the two men entered the warm, brightly lit lobby. The manager of the hotel, Willi Tanz, a pudgy, smiling Swiss and a good friend of Baumann’s came from behind the reception desk.
“Horst you haven’t completed the usual police cards for your friend and Mr. Sherman. Would you do that for me?”
“Sorry, I forgot,” Baumann said. “Give them to me. I’ll take them up with me.”