“What else do ye know?” Brodie continued.
Herr Schmidt angled a look toward the door. Brodie closed it, then took the chair beside me. Herr Schmidt then filled the glasses once more.
“The Hungarian.” He took a drink of Schnapps.
“Then ye do know him.”
Eventually Herr Schmidt replied. “We will trade. I will tell you what I know, and you will perhaps provide something…”
Brodie nodded. “If the information you have is worth it.”
“You would not have come to me if it was not worth it, Herr Brodie.”
There it was again, that squaring off with one another.
“What is it that ye want?”
Herr Schmidt slowly smiled. “My wife’s brother has been trying to come to England for some time. There has been some difficulty here. His name is Karl Schneider. He is a butcher in one of the northern districts in Frankfurt. He can be reached there.”
Brodie nodded. “I will do what I can to help him.”
“I will contact him and let him know,” Schmidt replied, then continued. “Szábo left Hungary a long time ago. Now, his home is wherever he is well paid. You understand?”
“France?” I suggested.
Schmidt shrugged. “France, Spain, Germany, wherever there is money to be had. You understand, Herr Brodie?”
“A soldier of fortune?” I had heard the term before.
There was another shrug. “Not exactly a soldier. He does not command an army or a group of others like him. He puts people together for a price...a very high price.”
“What sort of people?”
“Those who know things and those who want to know, those who have something that could be worth a great deal and those who would like to purchase.”
“Secrets?”
“Ja, information, for those who are willing to pay a great deal of money.”
I exchanged a look with Brodie.
“Who would be willing to pay such large sums…?”
The answer was there—any one of a handful of foreign governments where there had been unrest in recent years.
“What sort of information?” I asked Brodie as our driver pulled away from the sidewalk in front of the gymnasium. “For what purpose?”
My thinking had a tendency to go toward bank robbery, stealing of investment bonds, or perhaps even stealing the crown jewels as had been attempted in the past.
“Perhaps nothing as obvious as the crown jewels.” I looked over at him. “A man of Sir Collingwood’s position might have access to information that could be important.”
And he had then been killed for it. We needed to find out exactly what had happened.
“Will you try to assist Herr Schmidt’s brother-in-law?” I asked after we left.
“I will try. He didn’t however mention what the difficulty was. I will need to be careful with that.”
“Might Mr. Dooley be able to assist?” He had worked with Brodie in the past when he was at the MET, and had now achieved the position of detective.
