After a quick glance at the door and windows I stepped over the old man’s body and riffled through the envelopes. The one I sought was where it should have been — under the H’s. I pulled it out and gazed at it thoughtfully.
Question: Was this really the package I’d come for or had the old man talked before he died, leaving me to find only a red herring left by his killer?
Answer: there was no way I could tell. I would just have to proceed on the assumption the package was the right one.
I tossed the envelope in my attaché case, closed the case, and was just snapping the metal catches when the tinkling bell over the door brought my head around in what I knew could only be interpreted as a guilty start.
A small, slightly dowdy woman was standing in the doorway and staring at me with wide timorous eyes. She looked half ready to turn and run screaming from the shop. And that was the last thing I wanted to happen.
I cleared my throat. “Bitte?” I said. Please — the standard greeting of a German shopkeeper to a customer. Five years of practise had smoothed most of the rough edges off my German accent, so I might just get away with it — provided she wasn’t the old man’s wife or daughter. Or an agent. Or someone who wanted a long technical discussion on cameras and photography.
“Isn’t Herr Gregorius here?” the woman said. The question was a cross between an accusation and a bleat.
I fought the impulse to look down at the body. “No,” I said. “He had to go out. Perhaps I can help you though.”
“Perhaps,” she said. Her voice was still tentative, uncertain, but the suspicion had gone from it. “Herr Gregorius thought my pictures might be ready today.”
“Pictures?” I said blankly. I followed her gaze to the cardboard box of envelopes and caught on. “Ah, yes,” I said. “What is the name, please?”
“Kallmann.”
I riffled through the envelopes swiftly, then shook my head. “Sorry. Perhaps tomorrow.”
The woman smiled sadly, like someone used to being disappointed, and left without another word. I gave her three minutes to get clear before beating it out of there myself.
Point One in favor of my having the right package: I was followed when I left the shop — and not by Dietrich. This one was a tall man in a gray suit. I let him tail me for several blocks, then shook him by the simple expedient of hopping on a street car just as the car began to pick up speed. Thirty feet behind me, the man in the gray suit didn’t have a chance of catching up and didn’t even try.
I had been shaking tails with such ease these last few days that it never occurred to me that this time it had been too easy.
I checked in at the airline ticket counter a half hour before flight time. They like you to be there even earlier for international flights. But for reasons of my own I didn’t want to be loitering around the airport for any appreciable length of time. And if the customs people had to rush me through — well, that wouldn’t displease me either. As it turned out, though, I had plenty of time.
The clerk behind the counter stamped my ticket and slipped it into an airline envelope. He glanced casually at my attaché case. “Just the one bag?”
I nodded. “I’ll carry it on,” I said.
“Very well,” the clerk said and handed back my ticket, “There will be a slight delay in boarding,” he went on. “Time and gate will be announced later.” He moved away before I had a chance to ask the reason.
“A slight mechanical difficulty,” a voice to my left said pleasantly. I turned toward it. A tall heavy-set man with a cherubic face under a Prussian haircut was smiling at me. His cheekbones were so high that his eyes seemed almost Oriental. He looked to be about 50, but could have been younger or older.
He went on, “The radio was damaged and needs to be replaced, I understand. Of course, the airline cannot tell you that. Any hint that their machines are less than perfect might worry you. So they act mysterious and leave you prey to all sorts of imagined fears.” He drew himself erect, inclined his head smartly forward, and said formally, “Otto Heinsdorf at your service.” He smiled again. “Forgive me for speaking so abruptly, but I noticed your concerned look.”
I muttered something that was meant to pass as thanks.
“Ah,” Heinsdorf said, “an American. It must be pleasant to be returning to your own country.” He moved close to me. “Perhaps,” he continued, “you will let me buy you a coffee and talk about America and your happy return there?”
I tried to step back; the German habit of speaking into your face from inches away is one I’ve never got used to. “Thank you,” I said, “but I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” Heinsdorf said admonishingly, “I think so. I think so very much. If, that is, you hope to see your homeland again.” He smiled and gestured with his hand for me to precede him to the coffee shop.
I did.
Heinsdorf sat happily at the small table, holding the silvered coffee pot in one hand and a cream pitcher in the other, and poured simultaneous streams of coffee and cream into his cup. “Tell me, my American friend,” he said, “do you know what it is that you’re carrying?”
“What I’m carrying?” I said in my best bewildered-tourist voice.
Heinsdorf smiled patiently. “Denials,” he said, “are for amateurs. But—” he sighed — “if you insist.” His voice became brisk again. “We know the old man at the camera shop had it. You were seen to visit his shop. And when you left you made no attempt to recontact your superior. Therefore, you found what you were looking for. Secondly, you made no effort to pass it on to anyone else. Therefore, you still have it.”
“Therefore,” I said, “you want it.”
Heinsdorf’s smile broadened. “Let us say that my employers do. But that doesn’t answer my first question: do you know what the package is?”
When I said nothing, he went on blandly, “Ah, as I suspected, you don’t. Well, put delicately, what you have is a list of unreliable people in positions which — shall we say — require a great deal of reliability. Such a list would be valuable to the intelligence service of any country. And quite frankly, my friend, there are enough people interested in taking it away from you to insure that you’ll never reach your destination with it. If you think you’ll be safe once you get on the plane, think again. It would be simple enough to skyjack it to Cuba.”
“Very interesting,” I said drily. “But why tell me all this? Why not just let me find out about it when I got off at Havana airport?”
Heinsdorf shook his he a d vigorously. “You misunderstand me. I didn’t say that I had arranged to have your plane sky-jacked. No, my employers would regard a landing in Cuba as much of a tragedy as you would.”
“Just who are your ‘employers’?”
Heinsdorf shrugged. “Why don’t we just say that they are the people who are prepared to pay you ten thousand dollars for the package.”
Point Two in favor of my having the right package: Nobody would offer that kind of money for the wrong envelope.
Heinsdorf resumed: “If you’re concerned about what your employers would think, they need never know. All you would have to do is report that you found nothing at the camera shop. And who is there to contradict you? Certainly not the old man. He was very dead when I left him.”
“You killed him?” I asked, almost casually.
Heinsdorf spread his hands in a classic gesture of helplessness. “What was I to do?” he said. “He was a witness.” He saw my face and added quickly, “But surely he meant nothing to you?”
“No,” I said, “I’d never met him. I was just thinking that I’d be a witness too.”