The Salzburg Connection by Helen MacInnes Page B

retreated. “You’ll have to persuade her,” he told Johann almost angrily as he opened the back door. “Do a better job with that than you did with breaking the news of Dick’s accident.”
    “I didn’t even have to break the news—she seemed to know the minute she saw me.” But the door had closed before the sentence ended.
    “Accident,” Anna repeated. She shook her head slowly.
    “We don’t know yet—not until we get up to Unterwald. I’ll find the truth for you, Anna. I promise that.”
    “And promise me—” She bit her lip, tried to remember what he had to promise. At last she said, “Those things I told you this morning—Johann, you must tell no one about them. No one.”
    He came over to her, pulled her chair around gently so thathe could look closely into her eyes. “Why not, Anna?”
    “Dick said no one. I promised him for both of us.”
    There was no choice. “I give you my word. I won’t fail you.” He kissed her cheek. “But why did he want no one to—”
    “For safety,” she said quickly. For the safety of a box of papers. She began to weep as her hands went up to cover her face.
    For her safety, thought Johann. Yes, Dick had been right. Anyone who knew as much as Anna could be in serious danger if the word got around. He could take care of himself; but Anna? “I’m going to call Frieda Dietrich. She and her husband will look after you until I get back here. You’ll go with them?” He didn’t wait for her answer, but hurried away from her tears towards the telephone.

6
    With some calculation of time zones and advice from the hotel porter on placing transatlantic calls, Mathison reached James Newhart by half-past ten in the morning, New York time. Or rather, he was stopped by the usual defence perimeter of cool-voiced secretary. “Now, Linda,” he told her, “don’t give me that sales-conference routine. Nothing really starts until eleven o’clock at those Monday meetings, and this call is costing him schillings by the second. I’m in Salzburg.” That sent her off at a run, and Mathison had barely time to arrange an armchair and disentangle the long extension cord of the telephone, so that he could sit in front of a picture window with a real view, before Newhart’s voice boomed in his ear.
    “Easy with that baritone, Jimmy.”
    “It’s those damned bulldozers outside.” Newhart dropped his voice to normal. “Can you still hear me?”
    “Loud and clear.”
    “Why Salzburg?”
    “I drew too many blanks in Zürich.”
    “I called Yates to expect you. Wasn’t he co-operative?”
    “He was just dashing off to Germany. You may get two new authors.”
    Newhart’s voice lost its edge. “What about his files? Or his secretary?”
    “Nothing and nothing. So I decided to try this end of the puzzle. I think it’s solved, more or less, but it isn’t pleasant. The Bryants seem to have been thoroughly taken.”
    “ What? ”
    “I’ll write out a full report for you, and I’ll add some things I wouldn’t want to discuss over the telephone, but here’s the gist now. Bryant has kept a small file of his dealings with Yates. He also has a photograph of the cheque he received, through Yates, supposedly from Newhart and Morris. Three hundred dollars’ advance, drawn from—”
    “Advance for what?” Newhart broke in.
    “A book of photographs of Austrian lakes—”
    “Bill, you’re kidding!”
    “I wish I were. They are very good photographs, too, so good they are really worth publishing. That’s the sad thing about it all.”
    “Bryant has three hundred dollars of our money.” Then a new worry came into Newhart’s voice. “What kind of contract did he have?”
    “His copy hasn’t been returned to him yet. And I don’t know whose three hundred dollars he has. The cheque was supposed to come from you, but it was signed by Emil Burch. The bank was First Maritime of New York. Forty-third Street branch.”
    There was a long pause, complete silence. Then