CHAPTER SEVEN

THE SAS plane touched down at Tirstrup airport within forty-five minutes of leaving Copenhagen. A light snowfall was cutting the dusk as Solo climbed into a cab for the twenty-two mile run into Aarhus.

“Your first visit?” The driver’s voice had the lilting Jutland intonation that was almost like the Welsh.

Solo said, “Yes.”

“American?”

“Yes.”

“You should come here in summer. Biggest Fourth of July celebration outside the United States.”

“How come?”

“Don’t ask it. All I know, every Fourth of July thousands of Danish-Americans and their families get together up in the Rebild hills—that’s about a hundred kilometers from here—and have a real ball. That’s quite a sight, mister. Good for business, too.” He chuckled reminiscently. “I got a fare once—a Texan—gave me a hundred dollars to take him there and back. For a few bucks more he could of had the cab.”

He dropped Solo at La Tour, a quiet but excellent motel on the outskirts of Aarhus. He said, “They’ll treat you right, here, and the food’s wonderful. And if you want to do business in the city or see a little night life, like maybe Den Blaa Fugl—that’s The Bluebird and it’s open till 5:00 A.M.—a taxi will get you there in five minutes.”

Solo checked in and a black-haired chambermaid piloted him to Cabin Ten. It had twin beds, built-in wardrobes, a bedside table, a writing desk and the inevitable radio. A connecting door led to a pint-sized shower room.

Solo showered, shaved and changed his suit. Then he locked the door, switched on the radio and took a tiny black instrument from his valise. It looked like a Weston exposure meter. He turned the calibrated dial, pressed a button and called softly, “Come in, Jester.”

Illya’s voice answered: “Jester here.”

“What’s new in Horsens?”

Illya said, “Not a trace of our friends so far. Karen’s still out, looking. But here’s a queer thing. Ever hear of a man called Sonder?”

“No…”

“He’s a top electronics man attached to one of the factories here. And he’s missing. Walked out of his office three days ago to attend a conference and disappeared. He never got to the conference. His wife’s frantic.”

“The police?”

“They’re working on it,” Illya said, “but so far they haven’t come up with anything. No witnesses. Seems nobody saw the man from the minute he stepped out of his office.”

Solo said, “Get a picture to me here. Have fun.”

He broke contact.

One of the star tourist attractions of Aarhus is Den Gamle By (The Old Town). This collection of town houses and shops, mainly from Aarhus and Aalborg but also from other parts of Denmark, was started almost by chance in 1909 when Dr. Peter Holm moved and reerected a 1597 merchant’s house in the town to accommodate the historical section of the Aarhus National Exhibition. It was the first time in Denmark that an historic town house had been replanted that way.

After the exhibition the house was moved again in 1914 to its present site in the Botanical Gardens, and gradually Holm surrounded it with a unique collection of fifty-three ancient buildings to make a living, inhabited echo of the past. Centuries-old shops and houses line its cobbled streets, there is a post office with its own stamps and postmark, and even a stagecoach that makes its daily run through the town.

As Solo came into the old town from the Vester Alle the thin sprinkling of snow on the high, sloping roofs gave the streets a Christmas-card look. He crossed a wooden bridge over a stream where ducks waddled disconsolately on the ice, and came to the house he sought. The wrought-iron sign over the door announced that the resident was a clockmaker, but the man who answered Solo’s knock looked more like a university professor.

He was small and slim in build, and his skin was the color of old parchment. Thin white hair receded from a high forehead. Almost startlingly blue eyes gazed steadily from behind heavy shell-rimmed glasses. He wore a brown corduroy jacket, a red checkered flannel shirt and gray unpressed pants. His feet were shod in walrus-hide slippers with turned-up points.

He said politely, “Goddag, Goddag! Hvormed kan jeg tjene Dem?”

“Mr. Sorensen?”

“Ja.”

“Do you speak English?”

“I do. But slowly only.”

Solo said, “Good. I bring you greetings from Gütte in Copenhagen.”

Sorensen said cautiously, “There are many Güttes in Copenhagen, my friend.”

“She said you liked this tune.” Solo whistled the opening bars of the Trumpet Voluntary.

The blue eyes lit up and the parchment face split in a wide. smile. “Ah! Gütte.” He held the door wide. “Come in, my friend. Welcome!”

The room was low-ceilinged but beautifully proportioned. Old teak furniture gleamed in the light from the plant-cluttered windows. A huge old-fashioned cylindrical stove in one corner radiated almost tropical heat.

“Please sit.” Sorensen was plainly delighted to have a visitor. “So how is my lovely Gütte? She is well, yes? But first we must drink.” He lit the candle of welcome and set it on the antique table. “You will of course have a beer. Our Jutland beer is very fine. Or perhaps a Cherry Heering?”

“Beer will be fine.”

“Good.” Sorensen went into the kitchen, came back with two bottles of Ceres lager and tall glasses shaped like tulips. He opened a box of Obel cigars and placed it near Solo’s chair.

They went through the ritual of skaaling. Then Sorensen asked, “You know, of course, the significance of the tune you whistled?”

“I was told you would recognize it.”

“It was the—how do you call it?—the theme-tune of the Resistance here in Denmark. This means Gütte did not send you only to bring me hilsener, to enquire about my health.”

“I’m afraid not.” Solo rapidly outlined his mission. Sorensen listened without interruption. At the end he said, “We know this man Garbridge, of course. We should have taken steps. But he was clever. And the evidence against him was inconclusive. Even in the worst times we did not take a man’s life lightly. In his case, perhaps, our tenderness was a mistake.

“As for your flying saucers…I have heard the stories. Who has not? But I have seen nothing and I confess I did not believe the tales. In certain circumstances”—he smiled and lifted his glass meaningfully—“men have also told of meeting trolls and goblins.”

“But you can’t put trolls on film,” Solo said. “We have pictures of the saucers. They exist. Our guess is that they are being made in an underground factory somewhere here in Jutland. That’s why I’m here.”

Sorensen nodded. “One of the old German war factories.” He drew on his cigar, frowning. “There was such a place between Aarhus and Horsens. It is possible…”

Solo said, “This character Sonder. Do you know him?”

“Sonder? Yes, I have met him. He worked during the Occupation with a communist group. Make no mistake, my friend: our Danish communists were brave and loyal fighters in those days. Sonder was a brilliant man but an idealist—and, like many idealists, dangerous. I should doubt that his disappearance is involuntary. An organization like this Thrush would appeal to his impatience to change the world. He would need little persuasion to join them.”

“But what use would he be? You would need a expert, not an electronics specialist, for this kind of project.”

Sorensen shook his head. “These objects, if we are to believe the reports, fly quite silently. That is part of their terror. But jet aircraft make much noise. I think it more probable that a machine such as a flying saucer would have to utilize magnetic fields of force, possibly tapping the electricity of the ionosphere. Such a thing seems impossible—but in developing that kind of propulsion a man of Sonder’s ability and background would be invaluable.”