"You seem to be addicted to the most deplorable forms of fiction," Christian said critically. "Where do you dredge up those dreadful cliches?"
However, he was prompt to abandon the quiet side streets for the brightly lit exuberance of Stroget. This thoroughfare, which was admittedly the most direct route to Radhuspladsen and the entrance to Tivoli, was as crowded as it had been earlier, though most of the shops were closed. This time Elizabeth was not distracted by the window displays-Royal Copenhagen porcelain, modern gla.s.s, beautiful arrangements of Danish wood and textile design. The brown bag Christian carried was a grim reminder of their mission.
Tivoli cast its famous spell. Walking through the laughter and the light-hearted music, in the glow of a thousand artificial stars, Elizabeth found it hard to believe in danger or kidnappers. The smell of food, wafting from one restaurant after another, reminded her she had not eaten for . . . Good heavens, had it only been five hours? Well, but anxiety is very tiring, she told herself. Frequent replenishment of the vital forces is not only permissible but essential.
Christian strode past one restaurant after another. Elizabeth knew where he was going. She did not protest, though she was sure that a preliminary reconnaissance would satisfy nothing more than idle curiosity.
The carousel circled in a gleaming wonderment of light and color, wrapped in lilting music. They found the benches mentioned in the note without difficulty. There were three of them, facing away from the carousel.
"The place is absolutely teeming with people," Elizabeth said uneasily. "We can"t just leave the suitcase and walk away, someone may steal it. Or are Danes more honest than other nationalities?"
"There are hundreds of other nationalities here," was Christian"s reply. "But there won"t be so many of them at eleven forty-five. The gardens close at midnight."
So the chosen spot made reasonably good sense after all, Elizabeth realized. Most of the children, who were the best customers of the carousel, would be home in bed by the time specified, and if the gardens closed at midnight, some visitors would have begun drifting toward the entrance.
"I suppose you intend to lurk in the shadows and see who collects the suitcase," she said.
"The notion had pa.s.sed through my mind."
"It won"t work."
"What do you mean, it won"t work? Why won"t it?"
"If this isn"t a joke-if some demented character really does yearn to possess those dreadful bathrobes-he"ll expect you to watch for him. He"ll create a distraction to prevent you from seeing him."
"Like how?"
"Like hitting you over the head-or worse-before he goes anywhere near the suitcase." Suddenly Elizabeth was furious. She clenched her fists. "What do you think you"re doing? What"s come over you? This isn"t your style. You"re a stockbroker, not a private eye."
"Now, Beth-"
"Don"t call me that!"
"Betsy? Liz?"
"My name is Elizabeth. I hate nicknames. Shall I call you Chris?"
"You can if you like."
Instead of turning away her wrath, the soft answer made her even angrier. She shook his arm. "I know what you"re thinking. You can just stop thinking it."
"How do you know what-"
"You"re planning to get rid of me." She continued to tug at his sleeve, like a small angry dog. "You"re going to stuff me full of food, and shove me into a taxi, and tell me to go to the hotel. I won"t go. You can"t make me."
"I could," Christian said softly. "There are ways."
They glowered at one another for a few moments.
Then, spontaneously and simultaneously, they both began to laugh.
"Shades of Philip Marlowe and James Bond," Elizabeth gasped. "What kind of deplorable fiction have you been reading, Mr. Rosenberg?"
Christian shook his head. "I can"t believe what I just said. It must be Margaret"s influence. Craftily, insidiously, her nuttiness eventually poisons everyone who a.s.sociates with her. Let"s get something to eat and discuss the situation in a calm, rational manner."
They found a table in an open-air pavilion, so they could watch the pa.s.sersby. Not, as Christian admitted, that they would know a villain if they saw one; the only suspects they had actually set eyes on were the enigmatic Mr. Schmidt and the extremely unmemorable little man with the trunk. But, as Christian pointed out, you never knew.
"We are in a singularly vulnerable position," he said. "They know us but we don"t know them. We"re understaffed, that"s one of our problems."
"Maybe we should have gone to the police."
"They told us not to."
"And how do you suppose they knew we had been at police headquarters this afternoon?"
Christian stabbed a fork into his fish with such vehemence that flakes flew all over the table. "Obviously they"ve been following us. Someone is probably watching us right now."
The idea struck both of them at the same moment. With a precision suggestive of long rehearsals, they dived under the table, hitting their heads painfully together.
"Ow," Elizabeth gasped, clutching her brow.
"It"s still there," Christian croaked, clutching his.
"But that would be clever of them-telling us to put the suitcase on the bench at a particular hour, and then s.n.a.t.c.hing it when we weren"t expecting trouble."
"Apparently they aren"t that clever."
"This isn"t over yet. I think," Elizabeth said nervously, "that I would like another gla.s.s of beer."
"You"ve already had three."
"Who"s counting?"
"I am. If you don"t stay sober I will stuff you into a taxi. You"ll be too drunk to resist."
They did have another gla.s.s of beer-Christian absentmindedly ordered one for himself, and actually drank it-and then coffee, and then more beer, in order to have an excuse to stay where they were until the witching hour arrived. Christian was sitting on the suitcase. It was a very uncomfortable cushion, and his sudden spurt in height had astonished the waiter; but there was no denying that a thief would have a hard time abstracting it from that position without attracting attention. Among the strolling crowds theft would be much easier.
Elizabeth"s watch was behaving strangely. Sometimes the hands scarcely seemed to move; then they would leap forward, a quarter of an hour at a time. As eleven o"clock neared and then pa.s.sed, her internal mechanisms also started to function erratically, speeding up her heartbeat and her breathing, causing her to perspire one moment and shiver the next. On the whole, it was a relief when her watch finally read eleven thirty.
"Shall we?" she asked.
Christian had been concentrating on his own watch. "Let"s," he said.
The next ten minutes were the worst of all. Christian clutched the suitcase with both arms. Elizabeth trotted close beside him. Both rolled their eyes wildly from side to side. They reached the carousel without incident and stopped at a discreet distance from the designated bench.
"Somebody"s there," Christian exclaimed.
"Who? Where?" His broad shoulders and extended elbows obscured Elizabeth"s view. She craned to look.
The huddled form might have been male or female. A bulky coat obscured its shape, and its face was hidden by a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over its brow. Then the person sat up, and she saw an elderly gentleman, eyes slitted with sleepiness, mouth concealed by an enormous white mustache.
"He looks innocent enough," she muttered.
"That is an incredibly naive remark, even for you. There is, as you yourself pointed out, the risk of theft. They could eliminate that risk if they had a man on the spot, waiting for delivery."
"As conspicuously as that? We"d recognize him if we saw him again."
"Would we? That"s a fake mustache if ever I saw one."
Elizabeth pivoted slowly till they stood back to back. "I don"t see any suspicious characters."
"Keep looking." He let out a yelp and jumped aside as a heavily bearded youth in dungarees and a T-shirt inscribed with an obscene suggestion reeled toward him.
The youth looked at him in surprise, remarked, "Hey, man, stay cool," and staggered past.
"Sorry," Christian said, wiping his brow.
"I"m nervous too. For G.o.d"s sake, put the d.a.m.ned suitcase on the bench. It must be eleven forty-five."
"Five more minutes. Keep looking, will you?"
"I"m looking, I"m looking."
The carousel started on another of its purposeless circuits. The gleaming snow-white horses swung into motion; the gray elephant, trunk lifted, seemed to shift its heavy feet. As she watched, Elizabeth was overcome, suddenly and without warning, by a shocking suffusion of frustrated anger.
There was an old saying-something along the lines of "G.o.d always answers prayers-but not the way you expect." Or maybe it went, "If G.o.d does answer your prayer you"ll probably wish He hadn"t." She had prayed and her prayer had been answered; and G.o.d must be a comedian, just as she had sometimes suspected He was, for her entree into Margaret Rosenberg"s charmed circle had brought her nothing but grief. If she had arrived as a simple tourist, unaccompanied and uncommitted, by this time she would have found a friend-a cheerful, witty Danish student or teacher-or businessman or ditch digger-anybody, as long as he wasn"t a pompous sn.o.b with a crazy mother. He would take her to see the Little Mermaid and the Changing of the Guard at the royal palace, and he would ride on the merry-go-round with her, side by side on paired white horses, holding her hand and laughing.
She was ashamed of her anger, failing to recognize it for what it was-a not unusual accompaniment to tension and worry-but it continued to bubble and seethe as her wistful eyes followed the circling animals and her foot unconsciously beat time to the music. There were adults on the carousel now-a young couple in jeans and matching shirts, shrieking with laughter; a group of girls whose long fair hair lifted in rhythm to the movement of their mounts; a bedizened hussy whose legs were too chubby to be displayed in black net stockings, her skirt slit clear up to ...
She sat sidesaddle on the giraffe, her feet dangling. Her shoes had six-inch heels, and they were completely coated with rhinestones, heels and all. An enormous black silk shawl, fringed and sequined, enveloped her torso, and dark gla.s.ses covered most of her face, from her platinum hair to her bright-red cheeks. Carried away by the rapture of the ride, she had allowed her mouth to open in a blissful grin. The teeth were unmistakable, and nothing less than a thick piece of blanket could have hidden the nose.
Elizabeth, mute with disbelief, jabbed Christian hard in the ribs. He jumped a good three inches and let out a high-pitched shriek, but-let it be said to his credit- he did not relax his grip on the suitcase. Before he could express the emotion that crimsoned his face, Elizabeth jabbed him again. "Look, look-it"s her!"
She was to blush over this grammatical slip later, but at the time grammar was the least of her worries. In tones of mounting hysteria she repeated, "It"s her, it"s Margaret-there, you dolt-on the carousel."
Christian was slow to respond. By the time he focused his eyes the giraffe was pa.s.sing out of sight.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Where?"
"On the giraffe. Wait for it."
The next circuit found them ready and watching. At the sight of the incredible little figure Christian made the sort of sound produced by people who have been punched hard in the stomach. Margaret had seen them. Her mouth was open and her lips moved, in slow, exaggerated shapings. The giraffe moved serenely past.
"Bathrobe," Elizabeth exclaimed. "Didn"t she say bathrobe?"
Christian bounded forward, then back. For a brief period he vibrated from one foot to the other, like a poorly managed puppet. "Bathrobe," he babbled. "Is that what ... I don"t know. I can"t decide. . . . Get her off there. The suitcase . . ."
"She wants us to deliver the suitcase." Elizabeth hazarded a guess. "Quick, put it on the bench. Then we"ll grab her."
The giraffe reappeared. Margaret had lost interest in them. Hand shading her eyes-Cortez (in drag) surveying the Pacific from a peak in Darien-she appeared to be searching for something.
With a. convulsive movement Christian tossed the suitcase in the general direction of the bench. By a miracle it landed in the right place. The bench was now unoccupied. The mustachioed gentleman had left.
The giraffe came around again. Margaret was still peering intently at the crowd.
Christian shuddered. "Did you say something about a distraction?" he asked feebly.
He didn"t know the half of it. He had barely finished speaking when the genuine distraction began-an explosion of crackling sound and a burst of rainbow stars streaming down from the aery vault of heaven. The famed fireworks of Tivoli were right on schedule.
It was too much for Elizabeth. The suitcase, the carousel, Margaret, the old gentleman with the mustache, the fireworks. . . . She fought an urgent desire to sit down on the ground and relegate all of the above, except the fireworks, to the nethermost pits.
Margaret came around again. Extreme agitation distorted her face. She pointed at something. The bench?
Christian ran toward the carousel. Elizabeth stayed where she was. She had never been so confused.
Obviously Margaret had not been kidnapped at all. There she was, circling slowly on a giraffe. The threat was false, the danger nonexistent. That was a relief, and very pleasant to know, but it did not alter the fact that some person or persons unknown had played a nasty trick on Christian. For all its elements of insane fantasy, the ransom note had sounded serious. It might be a good idea to find out who wanted Margaret"s bathrobe.
Elizabeth decided she could safely leave the repossession of Margaret to her son. He wasn"t going to reach her for a while, though. The carousel continued to whirl, bleating out its cheery tune, and the attendant seemed to be holding his own in his struggle to prevent Christian from mounting it. Elizabeth turned her attention to the suitcase.
At least she tried to. The fireworks were not merely a distraction; they overwhelmed every sense. Showers of golden light, bursts of shining crimson and emerald stars, silver fountains leaping into the blue-velvet darkness. ... In one glare of light Elizabeth saw the man with the mustache. With a number of other spectators he was watching the fireworks, his head tilted back, his mouth agape. He was just as innocent and harmless as she had supposed. The suitcase lay where Christian had tossed it. No one was paying the slightest attention to it.
She risked a quick glance over her shoulder and was glad to see that Christian had given up his attempt to force his way onto the carousel. He stood with his back to her, his head moving to follow his mother"s circling form.
As the giraffe pa.s.sed again, Margaret raised her arm and hurled a missile that struck her son full in the face. He staggered. The carousel started to slow down. Out of nowhere a form appeared, bearing down on Christian with the slow deliberation of a trotting buffalo. It was the form of a very large man wearing a knitted cap. For a moment Christian"s form was blotted out; then the very large man proceeded on his inexorable path, leaving Christian sitting on the gra.s.s. The carousel ground to a stop. A final climactic explosion of colored stars rained down from the heavens.
Elizabeth turned. The suitcase was gone.
In a leisurely fashion she strolled toward her fallen a.s.sociate. She noted, in pa.s.sing, that the giraffe"s saddle was empty.
Christian"s face was covered with streams of gory liquid.
"An apple?" Elizabeth inquired.
"Plum," Christian said thickly.
"We may as well go home."
"Why not?" Christian allowed her to a.s.sist him to rise. "You see what I mean?" he asked.
Elizabeth nodded. She saw what he meant.
THE CAROUSEL spun faster and faster. White horses, golden giraffes, gray elephants blended into a blur of color. One by one the animals detached and flew off into s.p.a.ce, carrying their riders with them: Margaret, dressed like Groucho Marx, with a painted black mustache; Chief Grundtvig, in a Santa Claus suit, beaming and waving; Christian, wearing top hat and tails, rigid, scowling.
Elizabeth awoke with a start and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. She relaxed with a sigh of relief. Six thirty. She had not overslept.