«What was that?»
«My mother was terribly attractive…»
«So are her daughters,» interrupted Noel.
«I imagine we are,» said Helden matter-of-factly. «It’s never concerned me. I haven’t had to use it—whatever attractiveness I may have. But my mother did.»
«In Rio?»
«Yes. She was kept by several men… We were kept, actually. There were two or three divorces, but she wouldn’t marry the husbands involved. She broke up marriages, extracting money and business interests as she did. When she died, we were quite well off. The German community considered her a pariah. And, by extension, her children.»
«She sounds fascinating,» said Holcroft, smiling. «How did she die?»
«She was killed. Shot through the head while she was driving one night.»
The smile faded abruptly. Images returned: a deserted lookout high above the city of Rio; the sounds of gunfire and the explosions of cement; the shattering of glass… Glass. A car window blown out with the spit of silenced gunshot; a heavy black pistol leveled at his head…
Then the words came back to him, spoken in the booth of a cocktail lounge. Words Holcroft had believed were ridiculous, the products of unreasonable fear.
The Cararras, brother and sister. The sister, dearest friend and fiancée of Johann von Tiebolt.
He and my sister were to be married. The Germans would not permit it.
Who could stop them?
Any number of men. With a bullet in the back of Johann’s head.
The Cararras. Dear friends and supplicants for the ostracized Von Tiebolts. It suddenly struck Noel that if Helden knew how the Cararras had helped him, she might be more cooperative. The Cararras had risked their lives to send him to the Von Tiebolts. She would have to respond to that confidence with her own.
«I think I should tell you,» he said. «In Rio it was the Cararras who contacted me. They told me where to start looking for you. They were the ones who told me your new name was Tennyson.»
«Who?»
«Your friends, the Cararras. Your brother’s fiancée.»
«The Cararras? In Rio de Janeiro?»
«Yes.»
«I’ve never heard of them. I don’t know any Cararras.»
16
The tactic blew up in his face with the impact of a backfired rifle. Suddenly Helden was wary of him, apprehensive of saying anything further about her family.
Who were the Cararras?
Why had they told him things that were not true?
Who sent them to him? Her brother had no fiancée, nor any best friend whom she could recall.
He did not claim to understand; he could only speculate as truthfully as possible. No one else had come forward. For reasons known only to them, the Cararras had created a relationship that did not exist; still, it made no sense to call them enemies of the Von Tiebolts. They had reached him for the purpose of helping the two sisters and the brother who had been driven from Brazil. There were those in Rio—a powerful man named Graff, for one—who would pay a great deal of money to locate the Von Tiebolts. The Cararras, who had much to gain and very little to lose, had not told him.
«They wanted to help,» Noel said. «They weren’t lying about that. They said you’d been persecuted; they did want to help you.»
«It’s possible,» said Helden. «Rio is filled with people who are still fighting the war, still hunting for those they call traitors. One is never sure who is a friend and who is an enemy. Not among the Germans.»
«Did you know Maurice Graff?»
«I knew who he was, of course. Everyone did. I never met him.»
«I did,» Noel said. «He called the Von Tiebolts traitors.»
«I’m sure he did. We were pariahs, but not in the nationalistic sense.»
«What sense, then?»
The girl looked away again, lifting the brandy glass to her ups. «Other things.»
«Your mother?»
«Yes,» replied Helden. «It was my mother. I told you, the German community despised her.»
Again Holcroft had the feeling she was telling him only part of the truth. He would not pursue it now. If he gained her confidence, she would tell him later. She had to tell him; whatever it was might have an affect on Geneva. Everything affected Geneva now.
«You said your mother broke up marriages,» he said. «Your sister used almost the same words about herself. She said she was shunned by the officers and their wives in Portsmouth.»
«If you’re looking for a pattern, I won’t try to dissuade you. My sister is quite a bit older than I. She was closer to my mother, watched her progress, saw the advantages that came mother’s way. It wasn’t as if she was oblivious of such things. She knew the horror of Berlin after the war. At the age of thirteen she slept with soldiers for food. American soldiers, Mr. Holcroft.»
It was all he had to know about Gretchen Beaumont. The picture was complete. A whore, for whatever reasons, at fourteen. A whore—for whatever other reasons—at forty-five-plus. The bank’s directors in Geneva would rule her out on grounds of instability and incompetence.
But Noel knew there were stronger grounds. The man Gretchen Beaumont said she loathed, but lived with. A man with odd, heavy eyebrows who had followed him to Brazil.
«What about her husband?»
«I barely know him.»
She looked away again at the fire. She was frightened; she was hiding something. Her words were too studiedly nonchalant. Whatever it was she would not talk about had something to do with Beaumont. There was no point in evading the subject any longer. Truth between them had to be a two-way matter; the sooner she learned that, the better for both of them.
«Do you know anything about him? Where he came from? What he does in the navy?»
«No, nothing. He’s a commander on a ship; that’s all I know.»
«I think he’s more than that, and I think you know it. Please don’t lie to me.»
At first, her eyes flashed with anger; then, just as rapidly, the anger subsided. «That’s a strange thing to say. Why would I lie to you?»
«I wish I knew. You say you barely know him, but you seem scared to death. Please.»
«What are you driving at?»
«If you know something, tell me. If you’ve heard about the document in Geneva, tell me what you’ve heard.»
«I know nothing. I’ve heard nothing.»
«I saw Beaumont two weeks ago on a plane to Rio. The same plane I took from New York. He was following me.»
He could see fear in Helden’s eyes. «I think you’re wrong,» she said.
«I’m not. I saw his photograph in your sister’s house. His house. It was the same man. I stole that photograph and it was stolen from me. After someone beat the hell out of me for it.»
«Good lord… You were beaten for his photograph?»
«Nothing else was missing. Not my wallet or my money or my watch. Just his picture. There was writing on the back of it.»
«What did it say?»
«I don’t know. It was in German, and I can’t read German.»
«Can you remember any of the words?»
«One, I think. The last word. T-O-D. Tod.»
«‘Ohne dich sterbe ich.’ Could that be it?»
«I don’t know. What does it mean?»
«‘Without you I die.’ It’s the sort of thing my sister would think of. I told you, she’s melodramatic.» She was lying again; he knew it!
«An endearment?»
«Yes.»
«That’s what the British said, and I didn’t believe them either. Beaumont was on that plane. That picture was taken from me because there was some kind of message on it. For Christ’s sake, what’s going on?»