Above Suspicion (17 page)

Their car finished the steep twisting climb from Jenbach, and regained its speed on the road leading round the western side of the long narrow Achensee. Half-way up the lake, the road ended. And there was Pertisau, smiling with the sun on its green meadows to welcome them.

It wasn’t the usual village. As the road curved into the bay in which it lay and they could see it for the first time, it gave the appearance of being a landscape architect’s dream. At the edge of the shore, divided from it by the last of the road, were the hotels and chalets. Behind these, in the large sweep of meadows stretching back to the wooded mountains, lay the peasant houses like a scattered flock of sheep. A very small, neat pleasure boat was taking on passengers at the small neat pier. Everything was neat, even the arrangement of flags fluttering from the bathing houses on their own part of the shore, or the pattern of striped umbrellas shadowing the tables in front of the hotels. It was, self-admittedly, an artificial tourist centre, but its smallness and neatness gave it much charm, and some dignity. The forests and mountains were very real, anyway. The valleys between the mountains converged on Pertisau like the lines of a sundial. There would be good walking and pleasant climbing, thought Richard with some satisfaction.

Frances was frankly delighted. She had watched some of the dull collections of houses as they had skirted the south end of the lake, and had wondered dejectedly if any of them could be Pertisau. In her relief, she was enthusiastic. Even the fact that the Hotel Post had no accommodation to suit them
could not dampen her high spirits. The manager of the hotel was sorry, but there were no double rooms vacant. If the lady and gentleman would consider separate single rooms, or a room in one of the villas… There were some which catered for visitors when the hotels were full… Most comfortable… Highly recommended. And of course they would have their meals at the hotel.

So they left their luggage at the hotel, and followed the manager’s assistant across the road and over a field to a house. It was called “Waldesruhe,” although the woods were at least half a mile away. But it seemed both clean and comfortable. Frances liked the petunias in the window boxes and the balcony in front of their bedroom with its magnificent view of the lake. Richard liked the impersonal owner, who took everything for granted in her calm, disinterested way. This sad-faced woman would not add to their complications. But he hadn’t counted on Frances.

When he returned from the hotel again, after making “arrangements” as the manager euphemistically said, and leaving notes for van Cortlandt and Thornley, he found the quiet landlady talking to Frances on their balcony.

“It really wasn’t my fault,” said Frances. “It was simply that she was delighted to see someone who didn’t come from Germany. They are having a rather bad year here. Most of the visitors are Germans. With special rates of course; and they spend next to nothing. They crowd into the hotels, and all the other visitors are chased away. I expect it’s the way they eat their soup. Remember?”

“I believe you, darling.”

“Really, Richard, all I said was, as she stood and looked at
me on the balcony, ‘How lovely it all is.’ It was said to myself. And then she began to talk.”

“Darling, don’t explain. You’re too kind; you just won’t hurt people’s feelings. You’ll let yourself in for a lot of boredom some day.”

“I rather liked her, Richard. And she kept looking at me, not rudely, not inquisitively, but just as if she wanted to. All the time she talked, she was looking at me, and the strange thing was that I didn’t feel embarrassed. There was a sort of pathetic expression in her eyes. I just couldn’t ignore it.”

Richard laughed, and kissed his wife. “Darling,” he said for the third time, “I love you. Now come and see Pertisau.”

They went down the light pine staircase into the square-shaped room with its small windows and fluttering starched curtains. Like their bedroom, the furniture was simple in comfortable peasant style. Frances noted the number of hand-embroidered or crocheted mats on every available surface in the room. Frau Schichtl must have a lot of spare time she thought, and followed Richard through the doorway on to the coarse green grass which surrounded the house. They chose a narrow road which led them through flowering meadows away from the lakeside and its holiday loungers. Richard was thinking about something.

At last he said, “Where does Frau What’s-her-name sleep? Do you know?”

“Not near us, my pet, if that is what has been worrying you. There is an empty room next us. It separates us from a Leipzig honeymoon couple, and these are all the rooms upstairs. And a bathroom of course. The name is Schichtl, anyway.”

Richard looked admiringly at her. “Now don’t tell me that
you found all that information popping out of Frau Schichtl’s cash register… I must say, my Frances, you have a knack.”

“Now,” said Frances,” it’s your turn to tell me something.”

“What?”

“Don’t be a brute, Richard. No one can possibly hear us.” She looked at the houses across the fields, their wide over-hanging roofs anchored with roped stones, their window boxes gay with rich-coloured petunias. Under the broad eaves sheltered neat piles of logs.

“You take a long time to think up an answer, Richard.”

“Well, darling, there’s no need, is there, for you to know more than you do already?”

“Richard, will you stop doing a Pimpernel? I don’t talk in my sleep, and anyway, I only sleep with you.”

Richard watched two distant figures cutting the grass. Their scythes flashed rhythmically. “All right,” he said. “This is all I know. We were to come to Pertisau. There is a Dr. Mespelbrunn, who has a house here. He collects chessmen. We have to see him, and tell him we heard about his collection in Innsbruck. That is what makes me think he may be the man we are looking for. None of the others knew where we came from. But here we have Dr. Mespelbrunn, who knows about Innsbruck. He is also a musician, it seems, and likes to talk music as well as chess. His love is again a red rose. If he doesn’t think we stink, he will unburden himself. And then we can have our holiday, and send old Peter his Geneva telegram ‘Arriving Friday.’ That’s all.”

“So that’s all… Now, Richard, just tell me what was written in Herr Kronsteiner’s second bill.”

“More or less as I’ve said.”

“Well, what was that?”

“You’re an exasperating creature, aren’t you?”

Frances only smiled and waited.

Richard looked at her, and then recited: “Innsbruck recommends you to Pertisau am Achensee. Dr. Mespelbrunn. Collection of chessmen, songs, flowers.”

“Thank you, my sweet. I just wanted to be quite sure you weren’t trying to do me out of some fun.”

Richard was all injured innocence. “Now, really Frances—”

“I mean, could you have possibly thought of Henry van Cortlandt and Robert Thornley as such nice bathing companions for Frances while you went—mountain climbing, for instance?”

Richard laughed. “Some day,” he said, “I’ll have to believe in woman’s intuition, or is it just woman’s suspicion?”

“Now that’s all settled,” said Frances, “let’s look at the view.”

Their road had led them clear of all the houses. The fields now lay behind them; in front lay scattered twisted trees on a stretch of green grass. It was here that the paths into the converging valleys began. They found a rough wooden seat under one of the small twisted trees beside a small stream. Only the gentle murmur of the running water broke the silence of the valleys. The mountains circled round the meadows, and the sky had arranged its high summer clouds in appropriate clusters to balance the juttings of the peaks into its clear blue.

“It’s a neat job,” said Richard, at last, “almost too neat to be natural.”

“Yes, as if a stage designer had advised nature how to make a really Tyrolean set. I expect a chorus of villagers to enter at any moment.”

“I’ve been wondering at that. It’s not exactly a hive of
activity, is it? There were a few men over there working with the hay, or long grass, or whatever it is. We’ve seen one woman scrubbing a table at her door, and another woman gathering in some washing. Now and again I heard the sound of trees being felled in the forest. Perhaps they find tourists more profitable than the land.”

“Found,” emended Frances. “Here are some children, anyway.”

Three large-haunched cows ambled slowly towards them, the bells at their throat sounding a gentle melancholy with each lazy step. Behind them were the children, four of them, their straight hair sun-bleached and their bare feet and legs stained nut-brown. The cows wandered past them, flicking the flies from their dun hides carelessly. Frances, looking at them, thought of some people, she knew.

“Bored is the word, not contented. They have been bored so long that they don’t know what to do about it. Numbed into contentment.”

The children had halted. They were staring at Frances, at her suit and her silk stockings and her high-heeled shoes. When she spoke they retreated, still staring stolidly, and then when they were at a safe distance they turned and ran, whooping with laughter, after the cows.

Richard was grinning with amusement.

“Nice to be young,” said Frances. “Then you can laugh at the other fellow and leave it at that. You never think that the things which make you laugh can also strike you cold with horror.”

“Stop thinking about goose steps and a property moustache,” advised Richard.

“Don’t worry. I’m out of the dangerous stage of being mesmerised with fear. If I’m cold now it’s with anger.”

“That’s safer, anyway, when you are dealing with those birds,” Richard said, and rose. He took her arm affectionately. “Nice little avenging fury you’d make.”

They chose another road back to the shore of the lake. It led them towards a group of trees, sheltering houses more closely grouped together. As they approached this small centre, they noticed two or three little shops, and even some women and children, in the road which had almost become a village street. There was an inn and a beer garden, which looked as if the inhabitants of Pertisau might be able to enjoy themselves after all without any help from tourists in imitation dress.

“Signs of civilisation,” said Richard, but he surprised Frances by not entering the beer garden. A small shop which was part of a house seemed to attract him. They crossed the narrow street, and looked at its window filled with wood carvings. Most of them were of the present-from-the-lovely-Tyrol variety, but on the back shelf were a few carvings of really good design and careful workmanship. The finest of these were two chessmen. Frances knew Richard was pleased.

“This may be as good a way as any,” he said, and led Frances into the shop.

It had been the living-room of the house. Now there was a table facing the door, on which more carvings were displayed. Behind this under a window at the side of the room was another table covered indiscriminately with shavings, chips, blocks of wood and instruments to cut and mould them. On the bench beside the table was a man. He rose slowly, coming towards them with a half-carved piece of wood still in his hand. He
looked at them keenly, and then smiled.

“Grüss Gott!”
he said.

“Grüss Gott!
May we look at your carvings?”

“Of course. The lady and gentleman are welcome.” He went back to his bench and started his work again. Now and again, he would look up to see what held their interest. He nodded as Frances admired some figures of the Three Kings. His best, most careful work was given to Biblical themes; to them and to the chessmen which Richard was now examining with interest.

“How much are these?” asked Richard. The man watched his face as he told the price. It was reasonable for the amount of work in the carvings.

“It takes much time,” the man said, as if trying to excuse the amount.

Frances wondered how often it had been rudely beaten down by people who had ignored the time, the skill, and the love which had gone into such work.

“The price is not high for such craftsmanship,” said Richard. “I’d like a set of these to take back to England.”

“The gentleman collects chessmen?” The woodcarver was delighted. “Then you will see something. I have still better ones; some which I do not sell.” He rose, quickly this time, and went to a heavy chest at the back of the room. He opened a drawer and took out a large box which he carried carefully to his work table.

“If the lady and gentleman would come over here…”

They went, and as they looked at the contents of the box they found it not difficult to express their admiration.

“I do not sell these; they gave me too much pleasure when I made them,” the man explained. Frances noted the large
clumsy hands, knotted and gnarled with age, and wondered at their expertness, at the delicacy of their creations.

“Do you ever make copies of them, for anyone who wants to buy them?”

“Sometimes. But it takes a long time. A gentleman who lives here in the summer months has asked me to copy them for him during the winters. I have made him one set and here is another which I am now carving for him.”

They were suitably impressed.

“He must know a lot about chessmen,” said Richard, hoping for the best. It came.

“Herr Doktor Mespelbrunn? Yes indeed. He has a large collection. He lived in the South Tyrol before he came here, and he has some Grödnertal pieces.”

“Really?” Richard hoped his admiration of the Grödnertal woodcarvers was emphatic enough.

“But why do the lady and gentleman not go to see Herr Doktor Mespelbrunn’s collection? He shows them to people who really admire and understand.”

Richard looked doubtful. “I should like to see them very much, but after all we are complete strangers to Dr. Mespelbrunn. I shouldn’t like to disturb him, especially as I am only an amateur…” Richard’s words were cut short by the old man’s laughter.

“The lady and gentleman would not disturb the Herr Doktor. He doesn’t work; he writes music.” The woodcarver’s joke lasted him quite a long time.

“Perhaps,” said Richard, when he could, “perhaps I may have the honour of being introduced to the Doctor some day when I visit you again.”