Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

Frances. She turned to Richard. “You win. I thought I could manage historical objectivity. After all, I was brought up on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs… But where’s the way out?”
    The American smiled. “It’s past the tower dungeons. You can’t escape them.”
    Frances looked at him. “You are in league with my husband. Our name is Myles, by the way. Would you come and have something to drink? I’m parched.”
    The American gravely acknowledged that he was parched too, and he knew of a good beer place just down the hill. They left the Five-cornered Tower, to the amazement of the man on duty at the exit door, who pointed out to them that they had only seen half of the display. Outside, it was pleasant to feel the warm sunshine, and see the green trees and ordinary people looking neither efficient nor thorough. And then a detachment of troopers marched past them; actually they were only a group of men going to some meeting, but they had chosen to march in military formation. Their faces were expressionless under their uniform caps. Frances felt her depression return. Men who marched like that, who dressed like that, whose faces held the blankness of concentration and dedication, were a menace, a menace all the more desperate because of the hidden threat.
    “You are looking very solemn,” said the American.
    “I was thinking of icebergs. You know, one-tenth above to impress you, and the rest beneath to terrify you.”
    “If you know the peculiarity of icebergs,” said the American, with a quick glance at Frances. “There are still plenty of people who think there’s very little of them under the water. But why did you come to Germany this year? I haven’t met any English here so far. At first I thought you might be here to worship at the shrine, but you seem to have the wrong reactions for that.”
    Richard answered that. “Oh, the usual inquisitiveness. Wewanted to see for ourselves. We haven’t been in Germany proper since the new era got well under way. We thought this might be our last chance.”
    They had reached the Rathaus-Keller, and the American hadn’t any opportunity for further questions until they were settled at a table, and beer was ordered for the men—Frances insisted on tea. She noted that her order gave the American some delight, although he really was very polite about trying to hide his amusement. I suppose I ought to play true to form, she thought, to keep up the national character. She had begun well with the big-footed note when she had trampled on him yesterday, and tea in the afternoon was another authentic touch; tonight, she really ought to ask him to dine with them, and wear a dinner dress. Only Richard and she never travelled with dinner clothes; it would be such a pity to disappoint him. However, the American seemed less amused and more convinced when two hot cups of tea had produced more visible coolness than his two steins of beer. Frances caught his eye.
    “There’s method in our madness,” she suggested, and noticed he looked a little disturbed, as if he had been found impolite. It was difficult talking to someone who didn’t know you, especially when you both had a common language and thought that that made everything easy. There was always the chance that your words would be taken to mean too little, or too much. That was what made all the English-speaking peoples so damned touchy with each other. Someone who spoke a foreign language had more allowances made for him.
    “By the way, we don’t know your name, yet,” Frances said. “We can’t go on just calling you ‘the American’.” The man smiled. Thank goodness, thought Frances, he’s given up theidea that I was trying to reprimand him. He was searching in his pocket-book for a card.
    “This makes it easier,” he said. He was, they read, Henry M. van Cortlandt from High Tor, New York. He told them he was a newspaperman, originally working in New York City, but now on an assignment in Europe looking for