Free The Quality of Mercy by David Roberts

sumptuous, the chairs comfortable and the food excellent, but what Edward particularly liked was the quiet. There was no floor show and Geiger’s Hungarian Orchestra played in the foyer, where guests sipped their aperitifs before going in to dinner, not in the restaurant itself. The atmosphere was, Edward thought, choosing the word after due deliberation, episcopal.
    He had wondered how he could break it to Verity that he was having dinner with a Nazi in preference to her but, before he had to explain anything, she told him that she had been invited to dinner by her boss, Joe Weaver, and he was not to be refused. In any case, there were to be politicians and other influential people whom she wanted to meet and possibly harangue. Verity was never one to pass up an opportunity of making her views known to anyone who would listen and the more important they were the better.
    So it was with a clear conscience that Edward entered the hotel restaurant and looked about him. He saw Mandl at once. He seemed less coarse and objectionable than when he had seen him at Broadlands. Joan still looked melancholy but this was, he thought, something to do with the way her eyes never seemed to light up even when she smiled. As usual, she was smoking a Sobranie in a long white cigarette holder. Putzi appeared to be a classic ‘lounge lizard’ with smooth, brilliantined hair and eyes black as ink. He was a big man with a heavy ‘stupid’ face but he obviously was not stupid if he had first entranced Hitler and then escaped from him.
    It was not the way of diners at Claridge’s to show that they noticed famous guests. It would have been odd if there had been no one in the room who was notorious for one reason or another. However, Joan’s extraordinary beauty – and no doubt her notoriety as the naked star of Last Night in Vienna – meant that she attracted some quick glances and one or two more deliberate stares. Neither of the men rose to greet Edward. A waiter pulled out a chair for him and, as he sat down, Mandl introduced Putzi with a wave of his hand which was almost contemptuous. Putzi smiled half-heartedly, like a schoolboy who knows he’s done wrong but hardly knows how to admit it. Edward guessed Mandl had been doing his best to persuade him to return home. Joan acknowledged him with the slightest of nods. They were drinking champagne and Edward had the feeling they were already on the second bottle. He decided this was not going to be an evening at Claridge’s he would look back on with any pleasure.
    ‘Am I late? You said eight, Herr Mandl.’
    ‘You’re not late, Lord Edward. There were some things I had to talk to Putzi – Herr Braken – about before you came.’
    ‘He was trying to get me to return to Berlin,’ Putzi bleated, sounding already half-drunk. ‘They are putting so much pressure on me. Last week Colonel Bodenschatz – Reichmarschall Goering’s personal adjutant – was trying to make me believe that all was forgotten and forgiven. Isn’t that what you English say?’ He spoke with an American accent the English he had learnt at Harvard and less salubrious institutions where he had played piano. ‘But I don’t believe it. I think I will be walking into a trap. The Führer used to love me. You see, Lord Edward, I knew him before he was . . . before he became our beloved leader. Did you know Herr Himmler’s father was my schoolmaster?’ He giggled. ‘But now . . .’ He shrugged expressively. ‘Bodenschatz threatened that, if I do not return to Germany, my family will suffer but I told him I did not care. My wife does not love me . . . there is only my son Egon, God bless him. Herr Hitler loved my wife. Did you know that, Herr Mandl? She was the first – before Eva or Geli. I played the piano and he danced with my wife.’
    ‘You should not say such things,’ Mandl rebuked him.
    ‘You were responsible for the foreign press?’ Edward asked.
    ‘I knew how to deal with them. I told them what they