Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 by The Steel Mirror (v2.1) Page B

clothes off?”
                 Her
eyes challenged him, then they wavered and she looked down, flushing, and began
to slowly unbutton her blouse. He said, “For Christ’s sake, sit down!”
                 She
glanced at him uncertainly, and sat down on the edge of the bed. After a time
her fingers fastened up the buttons they had released. There was no triumph in
her face.
                 “Why
don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”
                 He
said harshly, “Anything. Anything that’ll make sense of this mess. Any damn
thing at all that’ll tell me how you can be a material witness to a murder you
claim not to know has happened. But,” he said, “I’ll settle for the clipping
the nurse said you carried. About this Kissel you’re supposed to be going to
see. At least I’d know somebody was telling the truth.”
                 Ann
lifted her head quickly. “I must say I’m getting a little tired of the way Miss
Bethke…”
                 Emmett
did not say anything, and her voice died away. After a while she reached into
her purse, glanced at him through her lashes with a touch of mischief, and
pulled out the mirror and nailfile. With the file she poked beneath the leather
backing of the mirror until she had brought a folded slip of paper within reach
of her fingers. She pulled it out and offered it to Emmett.
                 He
said wryly, “Hell, maybe I should stick to chemistry.”
                 She
did not smile. He looked down at the clipping. It was one column wide, fairly
long, and had been trimmed neatly with scissors.
                  
                 LONG JOURNEY’S END
     
                  
                 Tall,
thin, graying physicist Reinhard Kissel, who walks with a cane as the result of
injuries suffered at the hands of the Gestapo, had waited almost three years to
be allowed to take the final step in a journey which began a few months after
Hitler’s bloodless annexation of Austria. At that time a middle-aged instructor
at Vienna’s Kaisersinstitut, Dr. Kissel slipped across the Swiss border a few
hours ahead of the secret police, charged with disloyal and seditious
utterances against the new regime.
                 In
Paris, which he reached some time later, Dr. Kissel was an undistinguished
member of the colony of expatriate intellectuals existing precariously in that
uneasy prewar capital. With the fall of France, however, the tall man with the
harsh voice became an almost legendary figure who for two years improvised
radio equipment in dimly lighted cellars for the use of those who maintained
France’s contact with the outside world. Captured by the Nazis in 1942, Dr.
Kissel was saved from execution by Germany’s desperate need for trained
scientists. After an experience with the Gestapo that left him with a broken
nose and a crippled foot, he was sent into Germany where he was put to work in
a laboratory under heavy guard.
                 The
guards knew very little about electricity; Dr. Kissel, a great deal. A
short-circuit in a high-voltage line set the laboratory on fire, and in the
resulting confusion the scientist escaped. He was recaptured and consigned to
the concentration camp at Glaubnitz. The disorganization that preceded the
final collapse of the Nazi regime enabled him to escape a second time. He was
taken into custody as he made his way into the American zone on crutches, his
injured foot never having properly healed.
                 Last
week, Dr. Kissel’s three year wait was rewarded. The Department of Immigration
and Naturalization approved his entry into this country. Small but progressive
Fairmount University, near Denver, Colorado, invited him to fill the vacancy in
its physics department left by the retirement of Dr. William O. French.
Accepting, patient Dr. Kissel hoped that the mountain climate would