Free Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes

“You’ll need it for tomorrow,” she told him, and the laugh was cut short. “What suit are you wearing?”
    “This jacket and flannels.”
    “Tweed,” she said reflectively. It was lightweight, greyish green. She memorised its colour. “Then a flower in the buttonhole is definitely out. Perhaps the tie will be enough. Have you a raincoat?”
    “Everyone travelling in Austria has a raincoat.”
    “Could you carry it slung over your shoulder?”
    “Limey fashion?”
    She smiled and nodded. “And you’ll carry a French newspaper, folded so that its title is noticeable. Also a copy of Oggi under your arm. It will be glaring enough. You can get these—”
    “Yes, I know exactly where to get these in Kärtner Street. But there’s one thing I won’t do, and that is carry a raincoat slung over my shoulder into any Viennese coffeehouse. Definitely no.”
    “Then carry it folded over your arm. I think that’s all... Have you got the idea?”
    “How I’ll look tomorrow morning when I step into the Sacher café? Yes, I’ve got the picture.” To please her, he ran over the details.
    “I know you think this is all comic, and we may as well have our laugh today. Because tomorrow I don’t think we’re going to be laughing at all.”
    “Tomorrow,” he said, “what do I actually do? Apart from the fancy-dress routine? You were going to tell me the details over our last cup of coffee.”
    “This is what Krieger has planned,” she began, and she gave him more instructions, clear and definite. “So now you know all that I know.” She finished her coffee. “I’ll telephone you tonight around eleven. Very briefly, giving you the exact time when we start moving out in the morning. Now I think I’d better get back to town. I have some shopping ahead of me. For Irina. What type was she—thin, medium, or pleasantly rounded?”
    “Medium slender,” he said curtly. “And not so tall as you. About two inches less.” He signalled to the waitress across the garden.
    That makes Irina five feet five in her bare feet, Jo thought. The height was useful: it didn’t change as much as medium slender in sixteen years. Had there been addition or subtraction? I’ll play it safe; she decided: choose something knitted that can stretch with the curves if necessary, and add a belt in case it floats around her like a tent.
    “She’s bound to have some clothes of her own,” David said impatiently.
    “Not the way Krieger is arranging it.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll really have to hurry. Can you give me a lift? I came here by trolley car.”
    “That’s a new twist.” She had to be kidding.
    “I thought so. The last place the man expected to find me was on a trolley car.”
    “What man?”
    “The one who tried to follow me this morning.”
    “You were followed?”
    “Don’t worry,” she told him. “There’s no damage done. I lost him, way back in Vienna.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    “Quite sure. No one followed me once I had left the second taxi.” David was staring at her with some bewilderment. “Oh, now, do you think I’d have come here if I wasn’t sure?”
    “No.” That he could believe. But had she actually been tailed? Or was she expecting something like that and imagination had done the rest? She certainly was enjoying this little triumph, real or not. “I’ll say this for you,” he said lightly, “you’re one girl who can ride in a trolley car and not even muss up her dress.”
    “But it’s noncrushable—” she began indignantly, and then saw his amusement.
    “Of course, you’re the travel expert,” he said as if he had just remembered it “Now, about this character who tried to follow you—”
    “You don’t believe it?”
    “Well, it might have been for pleasure.” He could imagine plenty of guys who would spend a happy morning following this cutie-pie around.
    “Oh, really—” she said, and shook her head. Strange, she thought, how men never took her seriously,