It turned out that he had never guessed he had acquitted himself so well in our game against a grandmaster, indeed the most successful grandmaster of all at the time. For some reason the information seemed to make a particular impression on him, for he kept asking again and again whether I was sure that his opponent had really been the acknowledged world champion. I soon realized that this fact made my errand easier, and I merely thought it advisable, sensing the delicacy of his feelings, not to tell him that the financial risk of possible defeat would be covered by McConnor’s funds. After considerable hesitation, Dr B. said he was prepared to play a game, but he expressly asked me to warn the other gentlemen not on any account to expect too much of his skill.

‘For,’ he added, with the smile of a man lost in thought, ‘I really don’t know if I’m capable of playing a game of chess properly by all the rules. Do please believe me, it wasn’t false modesty when I said that I haven’t touched a chessman since my schooldays, more than twenty years ago. And even then I was considered only a player of no special talent.’

He said this in such a natural way that I could not for a moment doubt his honesty. Yet I couldn’t help expressing my surprise at the precision with which he could remember every single combination thought up by many different masters; he must at least, I said, have taken a great theoretical interest in the game. Dr B. smiled again in that curiously dreamy way.

‘A great theoretical interest? God knows, I can certainly say I’ve done that. But it was under very special, indeed unprecedented circumstances. It’s a rather complicated story, but it could make some slight contribution to the history of these delightful times of ours. If you have half an hour to spare …’

He had indicated the deckchair next to his, and I was happy to accept his invitation. We had no neighbours. Dr B. took off his reading glasses, put them aside, and began:

‘You were kind enough to say that, as a Viennese yourself, you remembered the name of my family. But I don’t suppose you will have heard of the legal practice that I ran with my father and later on my own, since we didn’t deal with the kinds of cases that attracted newspaper publicity, and we avoided taking new clients on principle. In fact we didn’t really have an ordinary legal practice any more, we confined ourselves entirely to giving legal advice to the great monasteries and in particular administering their property. As a former parliamentary deputy of the Clerical Party, my father was close to them. In addition – and now that the monarchy is past history, I suppose this can be mentioned – management of the funds of several members of the imperial family was entrusted to us. These links with the court and the clergy – my uncle was the Emperor’s physician, another of the family was Abbot of Seitenstetten – went back two generations; all we had to do was maintain them, and this inherited trust involved us in a quiet, I might even say silent form of activity, not really calling for much more than the strictest discretion and reliability, two qualities that my late father possessed to a very high degree. Through his circumspection, he succeeded in preserving considerable assets for his clients both in the inflationary years and at the time of the coup. When Hitler came to the helm in Germany and began raiding the assets of the Church and the monasteries, many negotiations and transactions on the German side of the border also passed through our hands. They were designed to save movable property at least from confiscation, and we both knew more about certain political dealings by the Curia and the imperial house than the public will ever hear about. But the inconspicuous nature of our legal office – we didn’t even have a brass plate outside the door – as well as our caution, for we both carefully avoided all monarchist circles, were in themselves the best protection against investigation from the wrong quarters. In all those years, in fact, none of the authorities in Austria ever suspected that the secret couriers of the imperial house always collected and handed in their most important correspondence at our modest fourth-floor premises.

‘But the National Socialists, long before arming their forces against the world, had begun to muster another equally dangerous and well-trained army in all the countries bordering on their territory: the legion of the underprivileged, of people who had been passed over or who bore a grudge. They had their so-called “cells” in every office and every business company, their spies and listening-posts were everywhere, all the way to the private offices of Dollfuss and Schuschnigg. And they had their man, as unfortunately I discovered only too late, even in our own modest legal practice. He was no more than a poor, untalented clerk whom I had offered a job at a priest’s request, simply to give the office the outward appearance of an ordinary firm; in reality we used him only to run innocent errands, let him answer the telephone and do the filing – that’s to say, the filing of entirely harmless, unimportant paperwork. He was never allowed to open the post; I typed all important letters myself, never making copies, I took every important document home, and conducted secret discussions only in the monastery priory or my uncle’s consulting rooms.