The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

that Monday morning when Achim had recounted the stories of his youth over the Mirabelle brandy. A simpleton with no grasp of the world about him despite his gruelling experience at the hands of Breitner. And the threat of worse if he were to be seen here now with Mademoiselle Roche.

“And the only reason he seemed to have for brutalising me was to warn me against having anything to do with you,” said Frank, as he brought his confession to an end.

As he added this rider to his story, he watched her expression for some tell-tale sign of her involvement. Some handpost to an explanation for the whole episode. But she simply raised her beautiful dark eyes from the empty coffee cup in front of her and smiled from a distance in a way that was guaranteed to lend enchantment, but defied any attempt to read its message.

“I was told the same story,” she said. “Breitner warned me to stay away from you too. He said you were dangerous.” Her smile took on an incongruous warmth as she spoke these words. And the sad sparkle returned to her eyes. “Are you dangerous?” she asked.

He threw the question back at her: “Do you think I am?”

“The way you behave, I think you must be.” She saw that her reply had taken him slightly by surprise, and she paused briefly to enjoy the moment. “Why invite me to lunch today if contact with me is such a risky game as you would have me believe?”

“Why accept the invitation if I’m such a danger as Breitner would have you believe?” he countered. “But the question that interests me more is why I was warned off you in the first place. What’s your business with Breitner? What’s his hold on you?”

“You should be more careful in your choice of words,” she said, and he saw the sparkle momentarily vanish from her eyes. “Especially in matters you don’t understand. Ill-chosen words have a way of putting things in a false perspective.”

“That’s really unfair.” He felt foolishly stung by this rebuke. “I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes trying to explain every detail of my situation to you. And I get nothing in return, except a reproach that I don’t understand. But how can I, if you tell me nothing?”

“I’m sorry.”

She said no more than this. But, as with every other aspect of her, that single word of apology completely disabled him. She could have left him there, powerless as a fledgling pushed out of its nest before its time, and he would not have complained. But instead she followed up her apology with a remark that both intrigued him and gave him a vague hope that perhaps she was beginning to trust him – just as he was feeling compelled to trust her.

“One thing you can be sure of is that Breitner knows very well you are not Silverstone.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. But she brushed off his question.

“I’m afraid I have to be going. I’m already late.” And she got up to leave, threatening to desert him with an abruptness that nearly threw him into a panic. He rose to his feet and, as she stood by the table preparing to make her exit, took her hand in his. It seemed so soft and slight, so fragile.

“I almost forgot,” he said. “I thought you might like this.”

Frank reached down to the bag that was leaning against the table leg and placed it on the table. She looked at it with a puzzled smile.

“What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

The sweet smile of appreciation in her eyes when she took the record out of the bag was the perfect balm for every one of the bruises he had suffered.

“I couldn’t help noticing the record on your gramophone. I hope you don’t already have this one?” he asked hopefully.

“No,” she replied, and the smile had now taken on a pensiveness that he was unable to fathom. “You’re very kind.”

“You know, we have so much more to talk about,” he said, and hesitated for an instant, before adding: “I’d like to see you again.”

“You will,” was all she said in reply before slipping out of the restaurant. Evasive and enigmatic as ever.

Chapter 11

After the events of the last days, Frank should have become inured to surprise. But on his return to the hotel later that afternoon, he found the unexpected was still capable of stopping him in his tracks. The tracks in question ran between the reception desk and the staircase up to his room. Past the lobby. Here, relaxing with a newspaper, sat a figure painfully familiar to him. As Frank approached the staircase, the man lowered the newspaper and cast a glaring looked in his direction.

“I believe you have something of mine.”

He fixed Frank with a stare that momentarily froze him to the spot. It was Silverstone. He tried desperately to gather his composure, as the American put the newspaper aside and rose up from his chair.

“I was only talking about you just now.” Frank put on an unconvincing display of cheerful familiarity. It was more for the man on reception than for Silverstone’s benefit.

“Oh yes? And to whom might that have been?”

“But I’m afraid I no longer have what you’re looking for,” Frank confessed, ignoring the question. “A man called Breitner relieved me of it.”

Silverstone continued to fix him with a calculating expression, as if measuring and analysing the words before venturing any closer.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

Frank gestured to the seat from which he had just risen.

“Let’s go to your room instead,” Silverstone insisted. Frank looked across at reception and saw the man on the desk ostentatiously minding his own business. With an uneasy reluctance, Frank turned and directed the American up the stairs to his room. With a sense of trepidation, he contrived to lead Silverstone from behind.

Ushering him into his room, he offered him the armchair on the far side near the window. Silverstone seemed surprisingly content with this perfunctory show of