Dimpel lifted a bottle of brandy from the low table in front of the sofa, showing Christopher the label with an inquiring lift of his eyebrows. Christopher nodded, and Dimpel poured cognac into a large balloon glass. He sat down, pushing himself back into the deep chair by digging his heel into the cushion. His bright eyes followed Christopher’s gaze as he noticed the Dürer engravings on the wall, the porcelain collection on the chimneypiece. There were no clocks in the living room.
“So,” Dimpel said. “How is Major Johnson these days?”
“Very well. He sends you his best wishes.”
Dimpel nodded. “I’m sorry to have sent you away. I’d begun something. It was necessary to finish.”
He had stopped speaking in Swiss dialect, and his German was filled with the mushy diphthongs of Bavaria. Dimpel made no sign that he was less than six feet tall, and Christopher very quickly stopped noticing his size.
He asked to use the toilet, and Dimpel showed him down a long hall, switching on the light for him. The walls of the corridor were crowded with framed photographs of unclothed blond girls, all wearing white knee socks: the pictures were expertly lighted and posed. Because there were so many photographs, the effect was chaste, an arabesque of white skin against whiter cloth, spun hair and closed eyes.
Dimpel slid out of his chair and stood up when Christopher returned. He refilled the brandy glasses and, taking his own in both small hands, thrust his nose into the fumes.
“Are you quite happy with the watch business?” Christopher asked.
Dimpel put his head to one side. “Yes, it’s been a good business. It was an established shop-the old man who owned it had no children, so it went on the market without difficulty. I carry all the good Swiss marks-Omega, Piccard, Rolex, and so on. Also a good line of clocks. I’ve always liked timepieces. What are you wearing?”
Christopher pulled back his left sleeve. “A Rolex.”
“You’re wise to have steel instead of gold-the gold is a waste of money. Your watch will never wear out, but if you should happen to lose it, come and see me. I can save you quite a few francs.”
“Thank you.”
Dimpel waved a hand; the favor was not worth mentioning.
Christopher put down his glass and Dimpel sat straighter in his chair and composed his face, aware that the small talk was over.
“I wonder if you’d consider a proposal,” Christopher said.
“I will consider anything.”
“This is a matter of some urgency. I’m familiar with your work in Berlin.”
“I haven’t done that sort of work for a very long time.”
“I realize that. Have you lost interest in it altogether?”
“It was more interesting than selling watches, I’ll say that. I still climb a little in the summer. Last year I did the Matter-horn-from the Italian side.” Dimpel thumped his chest with a forefinger. “Fifty years old.”
“I compliment you.”
Dimpel decided to stop speaking. He watched Christopher alertly, a look of broad amusement on his face. He flicked his brandy glass with a fingernail and listened to it ring.
“I have a simple job,” Christopher said. “I thought you might undertake it.”
Dimpel pursed his lips, sipped his cognac, made the glass ring again. “What made you think that?” he asked.
“Johnson’s description of the way you worked in Berlin. He thinks you were a genius at what you did.”
“What I did was certainly good for Major Johnson. I was much younger in Berlin. Besides, that sort of thing seems stupid once you’ve stopped doing it. Men like yourself, who go on with it all their lives, find that hard to understand.”
“I’ll describe the job,” Christopher said. “It involves entering a room through a fireplace, opening a file with a simple tumbler lock, photographing documents.”
“What building?”
“A bank in Zurich.”
Dimpel burst into laughter. He had a deep voice. “A bank? In Switzerland?” he cried. “It would be safer to commit sodomy at high noon in the middle of the Bahnhofstrasse.”
“It’s a test of skill,” Christopher said. “However, it can be done, and done cleanly. The security is nothing compared to the headquarters of the GRU in Berlin. Nor are the possible consequences.”
“This is not Berlin in 1946.”
“No. But, with respect, Herr Dimpel, this operation is incomparably more important than anything you did in Berlin.”
Dimpel agitated his cognac glass and again inhaled its fragrance. He seemed deep in thought; then the smile of a man who remembers a pleasure parted his thin lips.
“Let me hear a little more,” he said.
Christopher sketched the roof of Dolder und Co. and the adjoining buildings, showing the distances involved. From memory, he reproduced Klimenko’s drawing of the interior of the bank director’s office.
Dimpel, taking a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses from his handkerchief pocket, examined the sketches. “What is the access to the roof?” he asked.
Christopher tapped the sketch. “I have a room on the highest floor of this hotel. There’s access to the roof by the fire stairs. One crosses the adjoining roof without difficulty. The roof of the bank will give trouble.”
“Yes. It’s a drop of seven meters from the roof next door, then a climb of what-five meters? On what sort of surface?”
“Copper sheathing.”
“Slippery stuff, and it’s snowing. Then a vertical climb of four meters to the top of the chimney.” Dimpel lifted his cognac and poured the entire contents of the glass into his mouth. “Very challenging,” he said.
“I know nothing about the alarm system, nothing about the internal security,” Christopher said. “This is a high-risk operation, Herr Dimpel. There may be a night watchman. If there is, he cannot be harmed.”
Dimpel folded his spectacles and tapped his front teeth with them. “There is no watchman at Dolder und Co., and certainly no alarms in the chimneys. They’re an old-fashioned firm, and the Swiss have faith in locks. It’s in their national character.”
“Entry has to be made tonight,” Christopher said. “The time element is very strict.”
Dimpel’s clocks struck the half hour, and he gave Christopher a tight-lipped smile full of sly pleasure.
“Why should I do this?” he asked. “Can you explain that to me?”
“I can’t think of a single reason, and if I could I wouldn’t disclose it to you. There’s nothing I can give you, in a material way, that you need. I will say that you’re the only man in the world who can do it.”
“You’re quite right-I have no material needs. Johnson put me beyond the reach of your organization, you know, when he set me up in the watch business. I thought that rather a joke on you people. The British would never have done that, or the Russians.”
“Would you have preferred working for them?”
“An agent always works for himself. It’s a mental disease, that work. Quite incurable.”
The sing-song tone of German sarcasm had crept into Dimpel’s voice, and Christopher thought he had failed. Dimpel went to the window and stood on tiptoe to look out. He carried himself erect and all his movements were stylized; he planted his feet firmly on the Chinese carpet, drank from his glass with soldierly precision. Christopher remembered Trevor Hitchcock’s description of Dimpeclass="underline" the midget did have the manners of a field marshal. He clasped his hands behind his back and turned to face Christopher.
“The snow is coming down harder,” he said. “Another difficulty.”
“Yes, you’d leave tracks on the roof.”
“Who would see them? I was thinking of the danger of a fall.”
“Then perhaps we’d better talk no more about it,” Christopher said. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, and the cognac.”