«I don’t know!»
«But you know something.» Noel tried to control himself. Their voices were low, almost whispers, but their argument carried over to the other diners. Holcroft reached across the table and covered her hand. «I’m asking you again. You know something. Tell me.»
He could feel a slight tremble in her hand. «What I know is so confusing it would be meaningless. It’s more what I sense than what I know, really.» She took her hand from his. «A number of years ago Anthony Beaumont was a naval attaché in Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t know him well, but I remember him coming to the house quite often. He was married at the time, but interested in my sister—a diversion, I suppose you might call it. My mother encouraged it. He was a high-ranking naval officer; favors could be had. But my sister argued violently with my mother. She despised Beaumont and would have nothing to do with him. Yet only a few years later we moved to England and she married him. I’ve never understood.»
Noel leaned forward, relieved. «It may not be as difficult to understand as you think. She told me she married him for the security he could give her.»
«And you believed her?»
«Her behavior would seem to confirm what she said.»
«Then I can’t believe you met my sister.»
«She was your sister. You look alike: both beautiful.»
«It’s my turn to ask you a question. Given that beauty, do you really think she would settle for a naval officer’s salary and the restricted life of a naval officer’s wife? I can’t. I never have.»
«What do you think, then?»
«I think she was forced to marry Anthony Beaumont.»
Noel leaned back in the chair. If she was right, the connection was in Rio de Janeiro. With her mother, perhaps. With her mother’s murder.
«How could Beaumont force her to marry him? And why?»
«I’ve asked myself both questions a hundred times. I don’t know.»
«Have you asked her?»
«She refuses to talk to me.»
«What happened to your mother in Rio?»
«I told you: She manipulated men for money. The Germans despised her, called her immoral. Looking back, it’s hard to refute.»
«Was that why she was shot?»
«I guess so. No one really knows; the killer was never found.»
«But it could be the answer to the first question, couldn’t it? Isn’t it possible that Beaumont knew something about your mother that was so damaging he could blackmail your sister?»
Helden turned her palms up in front of her. «What could possibly be so damaging? Accepting everything that was said about my mother as being true, why would it have any effect on Gretchen?»
«That would depend on what it was.»
«There’s nothing conceivable. She’s in England now. She’s her own person, thousands of miles away. Why should she be concerned?»
«I have no idea.» Then Noel remembered. «You used the words ‘children of hell.’ Damned for what you were, and damned for what you weren’t. Couldn’t that apply to your sister as well?»
«Beaumont isn’t interested in such things. It’s an entirely different matter.»
«Is it? You don’t know that. It’s your opinion he forced her to marry him. If it isn’t something like that, what is it?»
Helden looked away, deep in thought now, not in a lie. «Something much more recent.»
«The document in Geneva?» he asked. Manfredi’s warning repeated in his ears, the specter of Wolfsschanze in his mind.
«How did Gretchen react when you told her about Geneva?» asked Helden.
«As if it didn’t matter.»
«Well?…»
«It could have been a diversion. She was too casual—just as you were too casual when I mentioned Beaumont a few minutes ago. She could have expected it and steeled herself.»
«You’re guessing.»
It was the moment, thought Noel. It would be in her eyes—the rest of the truth she would not talk about. Did it come down to Johann von Tiebolt?
«Not really guessing. Your sister said that her brother told her a man would ‘come one day and talk of a strange arrangement.’ Those were her words.»
Whatever he was looking for—a flicker of recognition, a blink of fear—it was not there. There was something, but nothing he could relate to. She looked at him as if she herself were trying to understand. Yet there was a fundamental innocence in her look, and that was what he could not understand.
«‘A man would come one day.’ It doesn’t make sense,» she said.
«Tell me about your brother.»
She did not answer for several moments. Instead, her eyes strayed to the red tablecloth; her lips parted in astonishment. Then, as if she were coming out of a trance, she said, «Johann? What’s there to say?»
«Your sister told me he got the three of you out of Brazil. Was it difficult?»
«There were problems. We had no passports, and there were men who tried to stop us from obtaining them.»
«You were immigrants. At least, your mother, brother, and sister were. They had to have papers.»
«Whatever papers there were in those days were burned as soon as they served their purpose.»
«Who wanted to stop you from leaving Brazil?»
«Men who wanted to bring Johann to trial.»
«For what?»
«After mother was killed, Johann took over her business interests. She never allowed him to do much when she was alive. Many people thought he was ruthless, even dishonest. He was accused of misrepresenting profits, withholding taxes. I don’t think any of it was true; he was simply faster and brighter than anyone else.»
«I see,» said Noel, recalling MI-Five’s evaluation—«overachiever.» «How did he avoid the courts and get you out?»
«Money. And all-night meetings in strange places with men he never identified. He came home one morning and told Gretchen and me to pack just enough things for a short overnight trip. We drove to the airport and were flown in a small plane to Recife, where a man met us. We were given passports; the name on them was Tennyson. The next thing Gretchen and I knew we were on a plane for London.»
Holcroft watched her closely. There was no hint of a lie. «To start a new life under the name of Tennyson,» he said.
«Yes. Completely new. We’d left everything behind us.» She smiled. «I sometimes think with very little time to spare.»
«He’s quite a man. Why haven’t you stayed in touch? You obviously don’t hate him.»
Helden frowned, as if she were unsure of her own answer. «Hate him? No. I resent him, perhaps, but I don’t hate him. Like most brilliant men, he thinks he should take charge of everything. He wanted to run my life, and I couldn’t accept that.»
«Why is he a newspaperman? From all I’ve learned about him, he could probably own one.»
«He probably will one day, if that’s what he wants. Knowing Johann, I suspect it’s because he thought that writing for a well-known newspaper would give him a certain prominence. Especially in the political field, where he’s very good. He was right.»
«Was he?»
«Certainly. In a matter of two or three years, he was considered one of the finest correspondents in Europe.»
Now, thought Noel. MI Five meant nothing to him; Geneva was everything. He leaned forward.
«He’s considered something else, too… I said in the Montmartre that I would tell you—and only you—why the British questioned me. It’s your brother. They think I’m trying to reach him for reasons that have nothing to do with Geneva.»
«What reasons?»
Holcroft kept her eyes engaged. «Have you ever heard of a man they call the Tinamou?»