CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SOLO LOOKED OUT of the window of their suite in the Royal Hotel. Vesterbrogade, sixteen stories below, was almost deserted. The traffic lights winked WAIT and GO without customers.

He said, “A quarter after four, and it might as well be three in the morning. In fact, I’ve seen the place livelier in the small hours.”

“What else would you expect in Copenhagen on Christmas Eve?” Illya asked. “ Everybody’s in church: That’s the drill: Church, 4:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M., then home to Christmas dinner. Rice porridge, goose, red cabbage, and all the trimmings. Then everybody lends a hand with the washing-up. After that, the dancing around the tree, and the carols, and the present-giving, and the games. That’s the way it goes. And all in the bosom of the family. All but relatives, avaunt!”

“That’s nice,” Solo said. “If you’re in a family. Not so good for the stranger within the gate—like us. Switch on the radio and ring for drinks. Maybe after a couple you’ll get to look like Santa Claus.”

He walked over to the table and looked again at the dailies lying there.

“‘FIREBALL OVER JUTLAND’,” he read aloud. “‘WAS IT A METEOR?’ ‘LOST SPUTNIK THEORY’. Well, at least we gave them a more original Christmas story than the Jingle Bells bit—even if none of them got near the truth. “By the way, what about the after-effects? What this lad”—he tapped the front page of Politiken—“calls a ‘nucleic pillar of smoke’?”

Illya said, “Whatever destroyed the saucer wasn’t an atomic explosion. I’ve been in touch with Department XX3. They say no trace of fallout has been reported anywhere. The cloud dispersed completely about ten miles off Jutland.”

“Any wreckage found?

“Nothing. It—”

“Wait!” Solo grabbed his arm and pointed to the door. The handle was turning gently.

Illya drew his Luger and flattened himself against the wall. Solo, gun in hand, crossed swiftly to the bedroom.

The door opened.

There was a second’s pause; then Solo heard Illya gasp, “Well! If it isn’t the fairy off the Christmas tree.”

Solo stepped back into sight.

“Two!” he echoed delightedly. “And one complete with magic wand.”

Karen was lovely in a black cocktail dress under a short Danish mink coat. Her pallor, the only visible evidence of her experience in the “maternity home,” accentuated the glory of her red hair. She held up the slim ivory stick on which she had been leaning.

“I’m sorry,” she smiled. “It doesn’t fire bullets or take pictures or transmit. It’s not even a swordstick. I just need a little artificial support, still.”

Gutte’s dress was in silver lame, with a scarlet rose tucked into the point of the low-cut bodice. Her ermine wrap might have started life on a rabbit farm, but she wore it like a Birger Christensen exclusive. Her gloves were silver and she carried a little scarlet bag.

She said, “Glaedelig Jul. Do you always greet your girlfriends with heavy artillery?” She peeled off the wrap and flung it onto a chair. “When do the drinks arrive?”

“They’re on their way,” Illya said.

“Good! You want to know why we’re here? Simple. The doctors said okay for Karen to travel, so why should she spend Juleaften in a hospital? I went and got her. We both know this can be a lonely town for visitors on Christmas Eve, so—naturligt!—we come to cheer you up. We shall eat Christmas dinner together.”

Solo said, “Great! But shouldn’t you be with your own families?”

A shadow passed across Gutte’s face, to be superseded at once by a wider smile. “We travel light,” she said.

A waiter appeared with a cart bearing bottles, ice and glasses. Illya busied himself with the cocktail shaker. He asked, “You want to eat here? The food is excellent.”

“Here? In a hotel?” Gutte looked shocked. “Of course you come to our apartment. You think we have slaved all day for nothing? Right now, I hope, Knud is laying the table.”

“Sorensen is there?”

“Of course. Could we leave him out? A bachelor all by himself in that creepy old town of his?” She grinned. “Karen, you think we were wise to leave him alone in the apartment with Lise?”

“Don’t worry. They’ll cook the dinner first.” Karen explained to Solo. “Lise is a ceramic artist. She lives in the apartment below. Her family lives abroad, so we asked her into make up the number. You will like her—but not too much, I hope.”

The apartment was in an ancient, pink-brick house in a tiny square tucked away behind Nyhavn. Above the door of the house hung a sheaf of wheat.

“In Denmark we like the birds to have their Christmas, too,” Gutte explained. “You think that’s crazy?”

They climbed the stairs to the second floor and Gutte turned the key in the apartment door. She and Karen went first into the little hall, turned and suddenly formal, shook hands with the men. They said, “Glaedelig Jul og velkom!”

Sorensen appeared in the sitting-room doorway, incongruously domesticated in a woman’s frilly apron and waving a basting spoon.

“Come in! Come in!” he shouted. “You must meet the charming Lise. Would you believe it, Karen? She has even provided a marzipan pig. I tell you, she is wonderful.”

They shook hands with a pretty, black-haired girl whose skin and eyes hinted Eastern ancestry.

Solo asked, “What’s with the pig? I thought goose was the main dish.

She laughed musically. “This is for the risengrod—the rice porridge. In families where there are children, it is the custom to hide a single almond in the dish. The one who finds it in his portion wins the marzipan pig…Somehow, it always happens it is the littlest child who finds it.”

Illya nodded. “I know. We’ve played in such joints. The wheel is crooked.”

“Please?” She looked puzzled.

“That,” said Solo, “was a subtle Russian joke. Ignore it.”

The goose, stuffed with apples and prunes, was a masterpiece. There were lager and akvavit and cheeses and pastries and little torpedo-shaped cakes of almond paste. With the coffee Gutte poured a golden liqueur that held the glow of summer suns and filled the room with the fragrance of orange groves.

“This,” she told Solo, “can have a devastating effect on ones inhibitions. As they say in England: Drink hearty!”

Later they switched off the electric light, lit the red candles and danced around the tree while the three girls sang the old traditional Christmas songs.

“It is perhaps as well,” Illya said, “that Mr. Waverly cannot see us now. I doubt if he would approve of such flagrant sentimentality.”

Gutte said, “Come and help me find some nice music.” She led Solo over to the record player. Sorting through discs in the dim glow of the candles took a little time. Gutte put a Henry Mancini LP on the turntable and the orchestra began to give softly with Moon River.

Gutte patted the cushions invitingly on the long divan, and put the orange liqueur and glasses within easy reach. “Come,” she said. “Now we can be comfortable together.”

Somehow, suddenly, they were alone in the room. Solo took her in his arms. His hand caressed the rounded curve of her cheek.

And outside, in the hall, a telephone shrilled. Gutte sighed and disengaged herself.

“Don’t tell me,” she said bitterly. “Your Mr. Waverly chooses the damnedest times…”