Tracy had never heard of him. Her first inclination was to ignore the note, but her curiosity got the better of her, and at 4:15 she was at the entrance of the elegant dining hall of the Ritz Hotel. She noticed him immediately. He was in his sixties, Tracy guessed, an interesting-looking man with a lean, intellectual face. His skin was smooth and clear, almost translucent. He was dressed in an expensively tailored gray suit and wore a red carnation in his lapel.
As Tracy walked toward his table, he rose and bowed slightly. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”
He seated her with an old-fashioned gallantry that Tracy found attractive. He seemed to belong to another world. Tracy could not imagine what on earth he wanted with her.
“I came because I was curious,” Tracy confessed, “but are you sure you haven’t confused me with some other Tracy Whitney?”
Gunther Hartog smiled. “From what I have heard, there is only one Tracy Whitney.”
“What exactly have you heard?”
“Shall we discuss that over tea?”
Tea consisted of finger sandwiches, filled with chopped egg, salmon, cucumber, watercress, and chicken. There were hot scones with clotted cream and jam, and freshly made pastries, accompanied by Twinings tea. As they ate, they talked.
“Your note mentioned a mutual friend,” Tracy began.
“Conrad Morgan. I do business with him from time to time.”
I did business with him once, Tracy thought grimly. And he tried to cheat me.
“He’s a great admirer of yours,” Gunther Hartog was saying.
Tracy looked at her host more closely. He had the bearing of an aristocrat and the look of wealth. What does he want with me? Tracy wondered again. She decided to let him pursue the subject, but there was no further mention of Conrad Morgan or of what possible mutual benefit there could be between Gunther Hartog and Tracy Whitney.
Tracy found the meeting enjoyable and intriguing. Gunther told her about his background. “I was born in Munich. My father was a banker. He was wealthy, and I’m afraid I grew up rather spoiled, surrounded by beautiful paintings and antiques. My mother was Jewish, and when Hitler came to power, my father refused to desert my mother, and so he was stripped of everything. They were both killed in the bombings. Friends smuggled me out of Germany to Switzerland, and when the war was over, I decided not to return to Germany. I moved to London and opened a small antique shop on Mount Street. I hope that you will visit it one day.”
That’s what this is all about, Tracy thought in surprise. He wants to sell me something.
As it turned out, she was wrong.
As Gunther Hartog was paying the check, he said, casually, “I have a little country house in Hampshire. I’m having a few friends down for the weekend, and I’d be delighted if you would join us.”
Tracy hesitated. The man was a complete stranger, and she still had no idea what he wanted from her. She decided she had nothing to lose.
The weekend turned out to be fascinating. Gunther Hartog’s “little country house” was a beautiful seventeenth-century manor home on a thirty-acre estate. Gunther was a widower, and except for his servants, he lived alone. He took Tracy on a tour of the grounds. There was a barn stabling half a dozen horses, and a yard where he raised chickens and pigs.
“That’s so we’ll never go hungry,” he said gravely. “Now, let me show you my real hobby.”
He led Tracy to a cote full of pigeons. “These are homing pigeons.” Gunther’s voice was filled with pride. “Look at these little beauties. See that slate-gray one over there? That’s Margo.” He picked her up and held her. “You really are a dreadful girl, do you know that? She bullies the others, but she’s the brightest.” He gently smoothed the feathers over the small head and carefully set her down.
The colors of the birds were spectacular: There was a variety of blue-black, blue-gray with checked patterns, and silver.
“But no white ones,” Tracy noticed.
“Homing pigeons are never white,” Gunther explained, “because white feathers come off too easily, and when pigeons are homing, they fly at an average of forty miles an hour.”