He ran out of the phone booth and down the street to his car. He started the engine, unsure for a moment where he was or where he was going. The d’Accord. Hôtel d’Accord! It was on the rue des Granges, near the Puits-Saint-Pierre; a street lined with enormous old houses—mansions. The d’Accord was the largest. On the hill… what hill? He had no idea how to get there!
He sped down to the corner; the traffic was stopped. He yelled through his window at a startled woman driving the car next to his.
«Please! The rue des Granges—which way?»
The woman refused to acknowledge his shouts; she pulled her eyes away and looked straight ahead.
«Please, someone’s been hurt! I think hurt badly. Please, lady! I can’t speak French very well. Or German, or … please!»
The woman turned back to him, studying him for a moment. Then she leaned over and rolled down the window.
«Rue des Granges?»
«Yes, please!»
She gave him rapid instructions. Five streets down, turn right toward the bottom of the hill, then left…
The traffic started up. Perspiring, Noel tried to memorize every word, every number, every turn. He shouted his thanks and pressed the accelerator.
He would never know how he found the old street, but it was suddenly there. He drove up the steep incline toward the top and saw the flat gold lettering: HÔTEL D’ACCORD.
His hands shaking, he parked the car and got out. He had to lock it; twice he tried to insert the key but could not hold his hand steady enough. So he held his breath and pressed his fingers against the metal until they stopped trembling. He had to control himself now; he had to think. Above all, he had to be careful. He had seen the enemy before, and he had fought that enemy. He could do so again.
He looked up at the d’Accord’s ornate entrance. Beyond the glass doors, he could see the doorman talking with someone in the lobby. He could not go through that entrance and into that lobby; if the enemy had trapped Willie Ellis, that enemy was waiting for him.
There was a narrow alley that sloped downward at the side of the building. On the stone wall was a sign: LIVRAISONS.
Somewhere in that alley was a delivery entrance. He pulled the collar of his raincoat up around his neck and walked across the pavement, putting his hands in his pockets, feeling the steel of the revolver in his right, the perforated cylinder of the silencer in his left. He thought briefly of the giver, of Helden. Where was she? What had happened?
Nothing is as it was for you…
Nothing at all.
He reached the door as a tradesman in a white smock coat was leaving. He held up his hand and smiled at the man.
«Excuse me. Do you speak English?»
«But of course, monsieur. This is Geneva.»
It was a harmless joke—that’s all—but the foolish American with the broad smile would pay fifty francs for the cheap coat, twice its value new. The exchange was made swiftly; this was Geneva. Holcroft removed his raincoat and folded it over his left arm. He put on the smock and went inside.
Willie had reserved a suite on the third floor; its entrance was the last door in the corridor toward the street. Noel walked through a dark hallway that led to a darker staircase. At the landing, there was a cart against the wall, three small, unopened cases of hotel soap beneath one that was half empty. He removed the top carton, picked up the remaining three, and proceeded up the marble steps, hoping he looked even vaguely like someone who might belong there.
«Jacques? C’est vous?»
The caller spoke from below, his voice pleasant.
Holcroft turned and shrugged.
«Pardon. Je croyais que c’était Jacques qui travaille chez la fleuriste.»
«Non,» said Noel quickly, continuing up the stairs.
He reached the third floor, put the cartons of soap on the staircase, and removed the smock. He put on his raincoat, felt the revolver, and opened the door slowly; there was no one in the corridor.
He walked to the last door on the right, listening for sounds; there were none. He remembered listening at another door in another hallway light-years away from this ivoried, ornamental corridor in which he now stood. In a place called Montereau… There had been gunfire then. And death.
Oh, God, had anything happened to Willie? Willie, who had not refused him, who had been a friend when others could not be found. Holcroft took out the gun and reached for the knob. He stepped back as far as he could.
In one motion he twisted the knob and threw his full weight against the door, his shoulder a battering ram. The door sprang open unimpeded, crashing into the wall behind it; it had not been locked.
Noel crouched, the weapon leveled in front of him. There was no one in the room, but a window was open, the cold winter air billowing the curtains. He walked to it bewildered; why would a window be open in this weather?
Then he saw them: circles of blood on the sill. Someone had bled profusely. Outside the window was a fire escape. He could see streaks of red on the steps. Whoever had run down them had been severely wounded.
Willie?
«Willie? Willie, are you here?»
Silence.
Holcroft ran into the bedroom.
No one.
«Willie?»
He was about to turn around when he saw strange markings on the paneling of a closed door. The paneling was profuse with gold fluting and ornate fleurs-de-lis, pink and white and light blue. But what he saw was not part of the rococo design.
They were blurred handprints outlined in blood.
He raced to the door, kicking it in with such force that the paneling cracked and splintered.
What he saw was the horror of a lifetime. Arched over the rim of the empty bathtub was the mutilated body of Willie Ellis, soaked in blood. There were huge punctures in his chest and stomach, intestines protruding over his red-drenched shirt, his throat slashed so deeply that his head was barely attached to his neck, his eyes wide open, glaring upward in agony.
Noel collapsed, trying to swallow the air that would not fill his lungs.
And then he saw the word, scrawled in blood on the tiles above the mutilated corpse.
NACHRICHTENDIENST
38
Helden found the path three kilometers beyond the fork in the road leading out of Près-du-Lac. She had borrowed a flashlight from the concierge, and now she had angled the beam of light in front of her as she began to trek through the woods to Werner Gerhardt’s house.
It was not so much a house, thought Helden as she reached the strange-looking structure, as a miniature stone fortress. It was very small—smaller than Herr Oberst’s cottage—but from where she stood the walls appeared to be extremely thick. The beam of the flashlight caught bulging rocks that had been cemented together along the two sides she could see; and the roof, too, was heavy. The few windows were high off the ground and narrow. She had never seen a house like it before. It seemed to belong in a children’s fairy tale, subject to magic incantations.
It answered a question provoked by the concierge’s remarks when she had returned from the village square several hours ago.
«Did you find Mad Gerhardt? They say he was once a great diplomat before the marbles rattled in his head. It’s rumored old friends still care for him, although none come to see him anymore. They cared once, though. They built him a strong cottage on the lake. No Christmas wind will ever knock it down.»
No wind, no storm, no winter snows, could have any effect on this house. Someone had cared deeply.
She heard the sound of a door opening. It startled Helden, because there was no door at the side or rear walls. Then the beam of light caught the short figure of Werner Gerhardt; he stood on the edge of the lakeside porch and raised his hand.