Pray for a Brave Heart Read Free

leather bags buried under some potato patch.”
    “The British searched their Zone. We searched. The French searched—but madly.”
    “Oh yes, I remember now… The Herz collection belongs to France.”
    “The owner having died at Dachau, his daughter in Ravensbrück, and every known relative in Auschwitz. The Nazis were thorough.”
    “I suppose the Russians searched, too?”
    “They assured us there was no sign of Goering’s precious stones. They assured us three times, and then even I ran out of ideas how to ask them again, politely.”
    “You didn’t risk sending any of your own men into East Germany?”
    “We’ve had all kinds of fun and games,” Max said soberly. “Some of them weren’t very amusing, either. Then,” he studied his over-decorated socks with distaste, “I was taken off the job in 1948. Someone higher up was persuaded it was all a waste of time.”
    “Was persuaded?” Denning echoed. “You mean that literally?”
    Meyer shrugged his shoulders.
    Denning said, “And who put you back on the job?”
    Meyer stared. Then he smiled. “I like you, Bill. I like you very much.”
    “But you’ve moved out of Restitution of Property. I don’t see why—” He hesitated.
    “Why I’ve started being interested again?”
    Denning said, “I don’t suppose you ever stopped being interested. But”—he hesitated again—“why not let it all rest, Max? Especially,” he added, “especially when diamonds and emeralds are just a lot of decorative glitter.” He rose, stretching his back muscles stiffly, and started hunting for more cigarettes.
    Meyer watched him as he searched under the ties on the bureau. He said quietly, “I don’t suppose anyone who has been working with displaced persons, as you’ve been doing recently, feels much interest in glitter. Not even in three million dollars’ worth of Herz diamonds.”
    “You’re damn well right,” Denning said. He found the cigarettes and tore open the pack roughly.
    “But what will the glitter buy? That’s something else again.”
    Denning lit a cigarette and walked over to the window.
    “There are people, you know, who will pay a fortune willingly for the Herz collection.” Meyer’s low voice came softly across the room. “No questions asked about how the money will be used. But that’s what interests us, Bill: just how will the money be used?”
    “How?” Denning pulled back the folds of the heavy curtains, and looked down into the prim street with its row of placid grey buildings, now retreating into black shadows, remote and cold under the sparse street lights. People still walked down there, fewer in number, more slowly, but with the same preoccupation in their own lives.
    “If someone wanted to finance a secret project, then the possession of the Herz collection would be doubly valuable. No one suspects its existence: everyone agrees it was a casualty of the war, buried too well, forgotten, probably to be discovered by some astounded farmer a hundred years from now. So the secret sale of the Herz diamonds could start a huge hidden fund. The Dyckman jade would add to it. So would the Delval emeralds. Yes: it would grow into a sizeable fund.” Denning let the curtain fall back into place before he answered. “For what?”
    “For the buying of men’s minds. It costs money to finance treachery.”
    For a moment Denning said nothing. “Then I’d double my advice about giving up your search. Leave the glitter buried safely under the potato patch.”
    “I wish we could.”
    Denning came back into the centre of the room, and stood there, watching Meyer.
    “The Herz diamonds are moving out of Europe,” Meyer said.
    “What?”
    “Moving, secretly. Much too secretly.”
    “But where?”
    “Destination ultimately America, we are told. They will be smuggled skilfully. Sold discreetly. And the secret fund will be established. Or reinforced. To be used—” Meyer shrugged his shoulders.
    “Against us?”
    “It certainly