The Eye of the Abyss Read Free

instruction from Herr Wertheim: ‘Fräulein, please have the directors assemble in the boardroom at five. We’ll serve champagne. And, I think caviar. Not too much of that.’
    â€˜And only one glass of champagne as usual, Herr Wertheim? ’ He was mean with small expenditures, and she teased him about it sometimes.
    He grinned. ‘Now, Fraulein!’
    But when she went out her smile faded and there was a deepening chill in her heart.

2
    S CHMIDT FOUND HE was unable to resume work. Throughout the afternoon, as the news circulated, a decorous excitement bubbled in the bank. Leaving at five with Wagner, he was impatient to learn his colleague’s reaction. But as they walked to their café Wagner kept quiet. In one of his moods, Schmidt decided. Not till they were sitting in the fading sunlight did he open up.
    â€˜God Almighty! Can you believe it? Our esteemed directors are up in the boardroom opening champagne. The damned fools! It should be ditchwater!’Violently, he slapped his pockets for cigarettes, and looked his colleague in his good eye at last. Schmidt took the outburst, the look, calmly. Classic Wagner. He broke the eye contact, and gazed at the Lutheran church across the small platz. He was waiting for the rest: the second barrel. Wagner, an idiosyncratic character at Wertheims, always had someone, something, in his sights. Schmidt turned his auditing eye back to his colleague, who with tics and grimaces was still searching his pockets.
    Wagner was single and forty-eight, and had been deputy foreign manager since 1933. His face was narrow and white, his lank, fair hair always seemed to need cutting. His clothes were expensive, but stained and sloppily worn. Most Wertheim men were capable of becoming inebriated in the correct environment, but Wagner didn’t differentiate. The directors
averted their eyes, as if from a nasty traffic accident, when they encountered him staggering homewards. Helga had called him an aesthete. If so, a brooding and intelligent one. But also a numbers man, and a deal-doer. Chain-smoking stained his fingers ; the state of his nails reflected an indifference to hygiene. Left well-off by his parents, there was a worm of discontent feeding away in him. What had saved him at Wertheims were his banking skills and international contacts, and his father’s service. Insiders understood that he’d reached his promotional limit.
    Cigarette alight at last, Wagner carelessly tossed the packet on the table, took a deep swallow of beer, and gave Schmidt an annoyed, yet acute, glance.
    â€˜Well, my silent friend. I think we can say old Wertheim’s finally lost his marbles. Something’s cracked. My father said our esteemed General-Director was two-faced in his financial philosophy. That he’d dual identities. Those cautionary speeches of his inside the bank: “Dear colleagues, our prime duty to our clients is to maintain the real value of their capital. It’s excellent to increase it, however, never forget the prime duty.”’ Schmidt smiled. Wagner had caught the G-D’s precise tenor. ‘In his private finances he’s frequently been reckless, but it’s been well concealed.You must have an idea of this, Franz?’
    â€˜What’s your point?’ Schmidt asked, evenly. He was thinking: Yes, I do have. But even with Wagner he wasn’t accustomed to speak of Herr Werthein with such familiarity.
    â€˜The point, my dear, is today he rubbed out that borderline.’ Wagner drew on his cigarette, and stared at his colleague. Sensing an interlude a waiter, knowing his customer, brought more beer.
    Schmidt thought: Yes, but why? What’s behind it? He was uneasy but at a different level from Wagner.
    â€˜Well, what does our iced-water-for-blood auditor think?’ Wagner’s wide mouth drooped into a lopsided grin, and the
flesh of his face became flaccid. Suddenly he looked aged. He was clearly irritated