The Copenhagen Connection Part 3

"I may be able to use your services, then. No doubt you brought references. If you will leave them, and your address-"

"No, Mrs. Rosenberg. I do not believe we can be of, service to one another."

The door closed behind him.

"Well!" Christian exclaimed. "What a peculiar thing, Margaret, are you up to another of your tricks? Do you* know that fellow?"

"I never saw him before," Margaret said. "I can't imagine what you are talking about, Christian."

Elizabeth shared Christian's confusion, if not his suspicions. It had been a most peculiar interview. She had the feeling that a number of silent exchanges had taken place under the surface.

The door opened and Marie peered in. "He has gone," she reported.

"Fine, fine," Margaret said heartily. "Marie, you haven't met my new secretary, Elizabeth Jones. Marie is Roger's wife, Elizabeth. I'm sure you two are going to be the best of friends. Why don't we all have a little nightcap together? A nice gla.s.s of beer, perhaps."

Elizabeth's dreams should have been exuberant and fanciful. When she finally got into bed, her head was buzzing with beer, fatigue, and excitement, and her brain was filled with dramatic images-Queen Margaret sweeping superbly down the great hall, draped in cloth of gold; Mr. Schmidt, baring vulpine teeth like a mature Dracula; Moorish palaces, medieval buildings, Hans Christian Andersen in the person of Danny Kaye. Instead she dropped into sleep as into a deep well and did not stir, or dream, until a rude hand on her shoulder shook her awake.

She opened bleary eyes to see Christian's face only inches from hers. It wore a look of such malignant fury that she tried to slide down under the covers.

"She's gone!" he shouted. "Disappeared! Get up and help me look. Where the h.e.l.l has she gone?"

SHE WAS indubitably gone. Her bed had not been slept in-or, if it had, Margaret had taken the time to remake it with painstaking artistry. Still groggy, but propelled by Christian's anxiety, Elizabeth made a quick search of the immaculate room. Since she had helped Margaret unpack the day before, she was able to report that certain items of clothing were no longer in the armoire, and that one of the small suitcases was missing. This discovery negated the suggestion she had first made-that Margaret had risen early and gone out for a walk.

Christian paced the room, cursing. The curses were not abstract; most of them were directed at his mother. Elizabeth protested.

"Mr. Rosenberg, why don't you sit down and calm yourself. There must be a simple explanation for her absence. You're so busy swearing you aren't thinking."

To her surprise Christian accepted the reproof meekly. "You're right," he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. "I must remain calm. She does this to me all the time. She does it on purpose!"

His voice had risen again. Elizabeth decided drastic measures were in order. "Sit down!" she shouted.

Christian's eyes opened wide. "All right," he said. He sat down.

His flaxen hair stood up in agitated tufts. He was wearing a robe of singularly violent red-and-green plaid that clashed horribly with his fair skin and blue eyes. Elizabeth found the hideous garment rather touching. Perhaps he had inherited a weakness for garish clothing from his mother, but had succeeded in suppressing it when in the public eye. As she stared at him he flushed faintly and tried to smooth down his agitated hair.

"Sorry. Lost my temper. Must get organized. Er- would you care to get dressed?"

Elizabeth dropped her chin onto her chest and contemplated herself. He had not given her a chance to put on a robe. Her nightgown was nylon-easy to rinse out, quick to dry, and semitransparent. It was a pretty nightgown, pale jade-green trimmed with lacy ruffles; and the curves under the nightgown weren't bad either, in her opinion. But if it bothered Christian . . .

"All right," she said. "I'll get dressed if you will do something about breakfast. I need coffee. My head feels funny."

"Drugged."

"What?" Elizabeth's jaw dropped. Christian nodded impatiently.

"She put something in our beer. Must have. Normally I'm a light sleeper. I'd have heard her blundering around, banging into furniture and dropping things and letting the door slam. She's the clumsiest woman alive."

Elizabeth staggered back to her room. Her head was spinning twice as fast as it had before Christian made his insane accusation-an insane accusation that made a certain amount of sense. She had never been drugged before, so she had no basis for comparison; but her abnormally deep sleep and her present disoriented condition supported Christian's theory.

When she returned to the sitting room, refreshed by cold water and neatly dressed in slacks and shirt, breakfast had been delivered and Christian was pouring coffee. He had also found time to dress.

The coffee cleared the remaining wisps of fog from her brain. Whatever the substance Margaret had slipped into her beer-if any-it had left no unpleasant aftereffects. She was able to contemplate scrambled eggs and sausages, cold cuts and cheese and rye bread, with appreciation.

Christian waited until she had poured a second cup of coffee before resuming the discussion. He looked younger and less forbidding in a pale-blue sweater and open-necked shirt, but his hair was once again immaculate and his expression typically grim.

"She walked right out the front door," he said. "Gave Marie a cheery good morning, and climbed into a taxi."

"I don't suppose Marie overheard her instructions to the driver."

"No. Margaret speaks fluent Danish; she doesn't need an interpreter."

"I still can't see what you are worrying about. She's gone off shopping, or visiting, and will probably be back for lunch." Christian continued to glower, so she added heatedly, "For G.o.d's sake, she's a grown woman. She doesn't have to ask your permission to go somewhere."

Christian sneered. "Women have the most comfortable knack of ignoring facts," he said. "Such as the drug in our beer-"

"You aren't sure of that."

"The missing clothes and suitcase-"

"A small canvas carryall and a couple of pairs of jeans! Women often carry a change of clothing."

"Oh, bull." Christian shook his fist under her nose. "Go on rationalizing till you turn blue. The most ominous fact of all is Margaret herself. You don't know her. She's up to something, I tell you. I suspected it from the first, that's why I insisted on coming on this trip. She didn't want me. She tried to talk me out of it. But I saw through her schemes. I've learned to know when she is lying to me. It's a sixth sense, developed from years of horrible experiences."

"You're paranoid," Elizabeth said rudely.

"You don't know her! Her crazier exploits have never hit the headlines. I could tell you things. ... At first I thought you were in this with her. But she wouldn't have slipped you a Mickey if you were a co-conspirator." He brooded for a moment and then added grudgingly, "Besides, I don't think she would mutilate her own secretary just to make an opening for you. That must have been a genuine accident. Unless . . ."

Their eyes met and, as if by mental telepathy, his new suspicion forced a break in Elizabeth's rea.s.suring web of rationalizations.

"It was something of a coincidence, wasn't it," she said slowly. "If I hadn't happened to be on the plane . . ."

"Margaret would have needed a secretary. Mr. Schmidt?"

"He could have been telling the truth. Margaret has a lot of fans."

"Did he look like a student to you-or a historian?"

"He looked like a werewolf."

"And the way he acted-all those enigmatic remarks.

.. . d.a.m.n, I should have caught it at the time." Christian got to his feet.

"Where are you going?"

"To find that taxi."

"I'm coming too."

The quest, which in an American city might have proved long and tedious, turned out to be ridiculously simple. Marie had telephoned for a cab, and the company had a record of the call. The only stumbling block was Christian's inept.i.tude with the language, which Elizabeth persisted in thinking of as his native tongue. She listened critically as he attempted to interrogate the driver in stumbling Danish. Finally he got the point across. The driver agreed to take them to the place where he had taken the lady. They piled into the cab.

"You don't speak the language very well," Elizabeth remarked.

"I don't have occasion to use it."

"Your native language-"

"My native language is English. I'm an American citizen."

"You needn't sound so aggressive."

"I am not aggressive. I have nothing against Denmark or the Danish language. Nor do I have any sentimental attachment to them."

"You should be proud of your heritage. This beautiful, picturesque city-"

"The picturesque does not attract me. I prefer Manhattan."

"Dirty, ugly, crime-ridden-"

"Modern, up-to-date, looking to the future instead of clinging to the past."

Elizabeth abandoned the argument. The man had no more romance in his soul than a codfish.

The cab came to a halt in front of an imposing building formed of the soft pinky-rose bricks that give Copenhagen so much of its charm.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Christian said, staring out the window. "It's a museum. I think I remember this place. Carlsberg something."

"Ja,ja. " The driver nodded enthusiastically. "Glyptothek Ny Carlsberg-museum, very good, very interesting. Ten kroner, please."

Christian obliged. "It is one of Margaret's favorite museums," he said. "Maybe she did decide to go sightseeing . . . d.a.m.n her."

"I know about this place," Elizabeth said, as they mounted the stairs. "Post-impressionist painting and cla.s.sical antiquities. Which does Margaret prefer?"

"The antiquities, I would guess. Though, with Margaret, you never know."

Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan; stately statues and fluted columns; the exhibits were interesting enough, if one were interested, to entertain a visitor for hours. However, a rapid tour of the halls showed no sign of Margaret. Returning to the central court, a charming arrangement of palms and other exotic plants surrounding a tinkling fountain, Christian dropped onto a marble bench and surpa.s.sed his earlier attempts at profanity.

"She's come and gone. But why the devil would she come here in the first place?"

Elizabeth was beginning to share his exasperation. "I can't imagine. Does she know the director, by any chance?"

"Probably. She knows everybody. Ministers of state, b.u.ms, concert violinists, pickpockets. . . . Let's ask the guards if they remember seeing her."

One of the guards knew enough English to nod at Christian's description. The lady in the black dress, the lady with the large nose and many teeth, had indeed entered the museum. No, she had not asked for the director. She had not spoken at all, she had only displayed the teeth. She had not gone out. At any rate, he had not seen her go.

"Let's have another look around," Elizabeth suggested. "Maybe we missed her. She could have gone to the lady's room-"

"Oh, G.o.d," Christian shouted. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l! I should have thought of it. Get in there, Elizabeth. Don't bother looking for Margaret. Look for her clothes."

They weren't hard to find. Neatly rolled and pushed into the metal bin devoted to used paper towels was a black suit, a black-and-white scarf, and a pair of black pumps.

A second interrogation of the guards produced shrugs and indignation. How could they be expected to remember a small plump woman wearing blue jeans? The museum was popular with students, and nine tenths of the students, male and female, Danish and foreign, chubby and slim, wore blue jeans. To distinguish one from the countless others was impossible.

Elizabeth led a frenzied Christian from the museum. "Where to now?" she asked.

"Back to the hotel. Maybe she's turned up."

She had not turned up. However, she had telephoned.

"There, you see," Elizabeth said. "I told you you were making a fuss about nothing."

Christian ignored her. "What was the message?" he demanded of Marie, who was on duty at the desk.

She smiled. "You are to take Miss Jones sightseeing."

"Great," Elizabeth said. The whirlwind tour of the museum had whetted her appet.i.te. That was what she had come for, after all-sightseeing. "I want to see the Little Mermaid," she added.

Christian continued to behave as if she did not exist. "What was the message?" he repeated.

"Ho, ho," said Marie. She winked at Elizabeth. "These young men, they are all the same; they think Mama or Papa is not sensible. Always they wish to supervise. For the middle-aged as for the young, independence is necessary, is it not?"

"Absolutely," Elizabeth said.

"But you wish to hear the message?" She smiled at Christian, who nodded speechlessly. In a leisurely fashion Marie searched through a pile of slips on the desk. "Here it is. 'Unavoidably detained. Take Elizabeth sightseeing.' As I told you."

"That was all?" Christian demanded.

"What more should there be?"

Christian refused to see the Little Mermaid. He had a number of rude things to say about the Little Mermaid. He used words like "sentimental," "tasteless," and "touristy." He didn't even want to leave the hotel to eat lunch, but after she had watched him pace the length of the sitting room a hundred and ten times, Elizabeth insisted they go out. She knew that if she saw him walk the same strip of carpet one more time she would hit him with something.

In the lobby she paused for a moment to make sure her guidebook was in her purse. Perhaps food would soften his mood, and she could persuade him to follow Margaret's suggestion. At the moment the mood was far from promising. Christian didn't even wait for her, but stormed out of the hotel so furiously that he almost ran into a beggar who had taken up a position outside the hotel. The unfortunate man jumped back just in time, clapping one hand to his face as if to hold in place the dark gla.s.ses that explained his disability. Elizabeth stopped and added a handful of coins to the pitiful collection in his cap. She had to run to catch up with Christian.

As they walked toward the city center, increasing pedestrian traffic forced him to slow his pace. Elizabeth was enjoying the walk. The weather was beautifully sunny and cool, and there were sights aplenty to see-handsome old houses, pretty gardens, an ancient church or two. Eventually they turned into a broad street closed to vehicular traffic and filled from side to side with pedestrians. Elizabeth tugged at Christian's sleeve.

"Stroget?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Is this Stroget? The pedestrians-only shopping street? I read about it in my guidebook."

"The street sign said 'Ostergade.' "

"It isn't named Stroget; people call it that. Don't you know anything about Copenhagen?"