“Do you know when we arrive at Venice?” the British woman asked Ursula.
Ursula had been trying to get a better look at the man with the newspaper. She turned to the English lady now. “I expect around six or after.”
“Oh, that isn’t bad. We’ll all have to get something to eat there, of course, since there’s no dining car.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Ursula said. I saw her face change, as if she had remembered something, and then she looked quickly back toward the man with the radio.
“I think it’s terribly uncivilized not to send a dining car with us all the way,” the British woman was saying.
Ursula was now staring at the man’s left hand. I looked, too, and saw what she was looking at. The knuckle on the third finger of the hand that held the newspaper was large and gnarled. We exchanged glances. That knuckle was an identifying feature of Hans Richter.
Ursula could not get a good look at his face, so I decided to help her. I waited until the man turned a page and then spoke to him.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said.
The man dropped the newspaper to look at me. “Yes?” His accent was similar to Ursula’s. He was about my height, and he had a military bearing. His muscular, intelligent face seemed younger, at first glance, than his years.
“I see you have a London paper,” I said. “Are there any football scores in it?”
His gaze had drifted from me to Ursula and now came back to me again. He folded the paper and handed it across to me. “I’m sure there are. Here, I have just finished.”
I avoided looking at his left hand. “Thanks,” I said, taking the paper. I saw no scar on his neck.
He was looking at Ursula again. “It’s all right.” He picked up his radio and rose. “Now, if you will excuse me.”
He turned and left the compartment, heading toward the sleeping cars. I turned to Ursula, “Well?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
The woman across the aisle stopped her knitting and listened to our conversation with open interest.
“There aren’t many hands like that,” I said.
“No,” Ursula admitted. “Not many.”
I stood. “I’ll be back shortly.”
I moved quickly down the corridor of the day coach in the direction that the man had gone. I caught up with him as he entered Voiture 5, the car where the Topcon woman stayed. I stood at the end of the car as he moved on. Then I ducked around the corner of the corridor. In a moment I heard a door close. He had gone into Compartment 6.
While I was standing there, I made a decision. My next move against Topcon would be less subtle. I would have to go to Eva Schmidt and ask her where the stolen device was hidden. Now was as good a time as any. I knocked on the door of Compartment 4, but there was no answer. I tried again, but all was quiet inside. I would have to try later.
When I returned to Ursula, the woman was still with her, discussing the merits of rail travel over the airlines. Ursula looked relieved to see me. “Let’s take a walk,” I said. “It’s pleasant out on the platforms.”
“Don’t forget to get something to eat at Venice,” the woman said.
“We won’t,” I told her.
When we got into the corridor, I said, “Come on, let’s go to my compartment.”
She gave me a look. “All right.”
When we got to my compartment, which was three down from Ursula’s in the same car, I removed my jacket for comfort, and Ursula stared at the big Luger in its holster. Then she shrugged her thoughts away.
She sat warily on the edge of my bunk-bed while I broke out the bourbon and poured us each a drink. She took hers with a small smile. “Before you get me too drunk, tell me — did you locate the man with the radio?”
“He’s in the next sleeper,” I said. “Compartment 6. Do you think you’ve found the Butcher?”
“I saw no scar,” she said.
“No. But his build is right, and his age.”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” she said slowly. “I have the feeling that the man is Richter, but I do not want to arrest the wrong person.”
“Then you have only one alternative,” I said. “You’re going to have to try to find something in his personal effects that will make your identification more positive.”
“Yes, you are right,” she agreed. “I must try to get into his compartment.”
I sighed. “Look, I’m an expert at this kind of thing. Let me search his compartment.”
“You wouldn’t know what to look for, Nick.”
I thought a moment. “All right, we’ll go together.”
She smiled. “That’s better. You can’t have all the excitement.”
I took a drink of the bourbon. “We can’t go now,” I said to her, moving my arm around her waist. “Richter, or whoever he is, just returned to the compartment. He’ll be there for a while. We’ll have to wait him out.”
The blue eyes glanced at me, and she took a gulp of the bourbon. I took the cup from her hand and put it aside. I sat on the bunk’s edge and pulled her to me. Then I planted a long kiss on her lips, and she responded. I kissed her neck under the blonde hair, and there was a little gasp from her throat. “Relax,” I said.
By the time the next kiss was over, she had made up her mind to let me have her. I pulled her to her feet, and we began undressing without saying a word. Soon we were on the bunk, our bodies straining together. Lovely small sounds came from her throat. Her flesh was hot to my touch.
I slid my hands over her breasts. Ursula’s eyes were closed. I saw her white teeth flash. She moaned and hooked her right arm around my neck. I felt her tremble and heard her gasp and then she fell back, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
The train wheels clacked away underneath us, and the car moved gently. It was a splendid moment, and neither of us was eager to break into it with words.
Finally, Ursula reached up and touched my cheek. “That was wonderful, Nick.”
I smiled back at her. “It beats knitting in a day coach.”
When we had dressed, I pulled the shade open on the window. We were getting into the marshy country near Venice.
“Now, about that compartment we were going to search...” said Ursula.
“Let me check on your man and see if he is still there.”
I eased into the corridor and moved along it to the compartment occupied by the man with the radio.
He opened the door just as I reached it and for a moment we gazed directly into each other’s eyes. I kept walking and went past him to the end of the car. Then I turned and pretended to take a casual glance back. The man was still in the doorway and he was watching me.
Our eyes met again. His gaze was hard, challenging. Then he stepped back into the compartment and slammed the door.
The search I had suggested to Ursula was ruled out for the moment. Moreover, the man appeared suspicious of me. If he happened to be Hans Richter, that suspicion was understandable. To elude capture as long as Richter had, a man would have to be super-cautious, constantly watchful, distrustful of everyone. He probably slept with a gun near his hand.
Of course he was Richter, I thought. Ursula had to make absolutely sure because that was her job. She would need proof of his true identity in order to arrest him. But for all practical purposes, I was assuming that he was the Butcher of Belgrade. That malformed knuckle and the man’s wary behavior had convinced me.
As I stood there at the end of the car, Eva Schmidt appeared, reminding me that I had a job of my own to do and that she appeared to be the key to it.
The woman brushed past me and I caught the scent of her perfume, which was very feminine. I looked at her legs as she moved on down the corridor. Not bad, I thought.