I hate people who go over my head, Freiherr Reiss said to himself. It makes me too damn uncomfortable. It makes me so nervous that I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I can’t do my job. So I owe it to Germany to correct this problem. I’d be a lot more comfortable at night and in the daytime, too, for that matter, if this low-class Bavarian thug were back home writing up reports in some obscure Gau police station.
The trouble is, there’s not the time. While I’m trying to decide how to—
The phone rang.
This time Kreuz vom Meere reached out to take it and Consul Reiss did not bar the way. “Hello,” Kreuz vom Meere said into the receiver. A moment of silence as he listened.
Already? Reiss thought.
But the SD chief was holding out the phone. “For you.”
Secretly relaxing with relief, Reiss took the phone.
“It’s some schoolteacher,” Kreuz vom Meere said. “Wants to know if you can give them scenic posters of Austria for their class.”
Toward eleven o’clock in the morning, Robert Childan shut up his store and set off, on foot, for Mr. Paul Kasoura’s business office.
Fortunately, Paul was not busy. He greeted Childan politely and offered him tea.
“I will not bother you long,” Childan said after they had both begun sipping. Paul’s office, although small, was modern and simply furnished. On the wall one single superb print: Mokkei’s Tiger, a late-thirteenth-century masterpiece.
“I’m always happy to see you, Robert,” Paul said, in a tone that held—Childan thought—perhaps a trace of aloofness.
Or perhaps it was his imagination. Childan glanced cautiously over his teacup. The man certainly looked friendly. And yet—Childan sensed a change.
“Your wife,” Childan said, “was disappointed by my crude gift. I possibly insulted. However, with something new and untried, as I explained to you when I grafted it to you, no proper or final evaluation can be made—at least not by someone in the purely business end. Certainly, you and Betty are in a better position to judge than I.”
Paul said, “She was not disappointed, Robert. I did not give the piece of jewelry to her.” Reaching into his desk, he brought out the small white box. “It has not left this office.”
He knows, Childan thought. Smart man. Never even told her. So that’s that. Now, Childan realized; let’s hope he’s not going to rave at me. Some kind of accusation about my trying to seduce his wife.
He could ruin me, Childan said to himself. Carefully he continued sipping his tea, his face impassive.
“Oh?” he said mildly. “Interesting.”
Paul opened the box, brought out the pin and began inspecting it. He held it to the light, turned it over and around.
“I took the liberty of showing this to a number of business acquaintances,” Paul said, “individuals who share my taste for American historic objects or for artifacts of general artistic, esthetic merit.” He eyed Robert Childan. “None of course had ever seen such as this before. As you explained, no such contemporary work hithertofore has been known. I think, too, you informed that you are sole representative.”
“Yes, that is so,” Childan said.
“You wish to hear their reaction?”
Childan bowed.
“These persons,” Paul said, “laughed.”
Childan was silent.
“Yet I, too, laughed behind my hand, invisible to you,” Paul said, “the other day when you appeared and showed me this thing. Naturally to protect your sangfroid, I concealed that amusement; as you no doubt recall, I remained more or less noncommittal in my apparent reaction.”
Childan nodded.
Studying the pin, Paul went on. “One can easily understand this reaction. Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form.”