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"That's not what I meant," Professor Dyer snapped.

"You'll be told what you have to know, Professor," Fulmar said, "when you have to know it. The less you know, the better. I thought I'd made that plain."

Professor Dyer exhaled audibly and slumped against his seat. His daughter flashed a look of contempt at the back of Fulmar's head, and shook her own head in resignation.

Batthyany Palace, directly across Holy Trinity Square from St. Matthias's Church, had been built at approximately the same time (1775-77) as the royal castle (1715-70) atop Castle Hill. Twelve-foot statues of bare-chested men on the facade appeared to be carrying the upper stories on their shoulders, earning the admiration of ten-foot, large-bosomed granite women twined around pillars at each of three identical double doors.

The door at the left was a fake. The center door opened into the entrance foyer of the palace, and the door at the right was the carriage entrance. Von Heurten-Mitnitz turned off the square and stopped the Admiral with its nose against the right door and blew the horn. A moment later, one by one, the double doors opened. He drove through, and the doors closed after him.

Beatrice, Countess Batthyany and Baroness von Steighofen, was standing in a vestibule waiting for them. She was a tall, generously built woman in her early thirties. She was wearing a sable coat that reached nearly to her ankles and a matching sable hat under which a good deal of dark red hair was visible.

Von Heurten-Mitnitz drove past her into a courtyard, turned around, and returned to the vestibule, where he stopped.

The Countess went to the rear door and pulled it open.

"I'm the Countess Batthyany," she said.

"Won't you please come in?"

Professor Dyer and his daughter got out of the car and, following the direction indicated by the Countess's outstretched hand, walked into the building.

The Countess turned to smile at Fulmar.

"And you must be dear cousin Eric," she said, dryly.

"How nice to finally meet you."

Fulmar laughed.

"Hello," he said.

She turned to Von Heurten-Mitnitz, who had walked around the front of the car.

"I see everything turned out all right," she said.

"The Gestapo man at the station personally led us past the checkpoint," he said.

"Oooh," she said.

"I suppose you could use a drink."

"I could," Fulmar said.

She turned to look at him again.

"You look like Manny," she said.

"You even sound like him. That terrible Hessian dialect."

He chuckled.

"Let's hope you are luckier," the Countess said as she started into the house.

"Let's hope there's some of his clothing here, and that it fits," Fulmar said.

"Particularly shoes."

She turned and looked at him again, this time appraisingly.