Above Suspicion (18 page)

The woodcarver pursed his lips and shook his head.

“He doesn’t come down into Pertisau much during July and August. He doesn’t like tourists. But if you pass his house—it is the large house with the red shutters on the Pletzach—you should visit him. You can say that Anton advised you to go. It is a very beautiful collection.”

“Perhaps we shall,” said Richard, and dismissed Mespelbrunn from the conversation by placing an order. He insisted on paying Anton half the price in advance, the rest to be paid when the pieces arrived in Oxford.

“That seems fair enough,” Richard said to Frances as they walked back to the lakeside. “By the time he can start work on them summer will be over and then he will know whether it is any use starting them at all. I’ve no doubt that he will be worried about the deposit, but he earned it.”

They met groups of men returning from the woods, with their axes slung over their shoulders. They were lean, weather-tanned men, slow-moving and silent. They might have been a group of Scots shepherds, with the same strong bones and rugged faces. There was even the same upward lilt in their voices as they gravely answered
“Grüss Gott.”
Some of the older men smiled in surprise as if they hadn’t expected the old greeting from a present-day visitor. Children had finished their task of herding cows, and were playing outside the open doors of the houses. Their clothes made them look like miniature adults. Smoke was beginning to curl up from the stone-anchored roofs. There was the smell of cooking food in the air, and the high, tight voices of women when they are hurried and tired.

Down at the lakeside, there were also preparations for supper. Here the women were changing one undistinguished dress for
another, and no doubt fixing their hair as unbecomingly as possible. Those of them who had already succeeded in looking grim enough to satisfy the requirements of a superior race sat at the tables in front of the hotels, contemplating their husbands with housewifely virtue. The men talked and looked at each other. The women looked at the men. Behind them, the shadows of the mountains were mirrored in the still waters.

A gramophone played in the little cafe where the younger men were. There were not so many young men, Frances noticed, nor were there many young girls. Perhaps the new Germany had other plans for the holidays of its youth.

“A few more years of this, supposing that there was no war,” said Frances, “and no one who wasn’t a German could bear to come to the Tyrol.”

“I always know you mean what you say when your sentences run away with themselves,” teased Richard. And then he was serious again. “We had better not rush things at this stage. The ice gets thinner as we get farther out, you know, and the shore is less easy to reach. I’ve a feeling we ought to play doubly safe. Peter’s man, the one he sent out before us, must have managed Nürnberg and Innsbruck; although, to tell you the truth, I had begun to think when we were in Innsbruck that we had reached the snag. So we are going to be very innocent for a couple of days. We’ll relax. What about climbing that blighter tomorrow? It’s an easy one to begin with.” He nodded to the Bärenjoch, black with the sun behind it.

Frances smothered a smile over her husband’s idea of relaxation.

“All right, darling,” she said.

They left the quiet road and turned towards the Villa Waldesruhe. It was as peaceful as its name. There was no sign of the honeymoon couple or of Frau Schichtl. As Frances unpacked she sang. Richard dropped his book on the balcony, and listened as he looked at the steep drop of the mountains on the other side of the darkening lake. He didn’t know when Frances had stopped singing, or how long she had been watching from the door. He rose hurriedly.

“One of those adequate five minutes,” he said awkwardly. He looked at Frances’ hair and lips. “Darling, you are going to be thought most awfully decadent. The master race will disapprove.”

“Too busy eating soup,” said Frances. “Nothing, not even their principles, could ruin their appetites.” She was right.

They did climb the Bärenjoch next day. As Richard had said, it was easy, and it was also useful. Richard spent a lot of time on the peak, studying with his map and pencil the lie of the valleys which met in the green plain of Pertisau. They could see the Pletzach, flowing at the base of the mountain opposite them like a very narrow, very loosely-tied white ribbon. If they were to follow the stream up round that jut of mountain into the valley which it sheltered, they should find Dr. Mespelbrunn with his chessmen and music books. Frances watched Richard. He was interested in the mountains, unsuspected from the lakeside, which stretched into the distance in rough-tongued waves. Two of the valleys led to paths which would lead them over that sea of jagged stone.

“Looking for a quick way out?” asked Frances.

“It wouldn’t do us much good in that direction,” said Richard. “That’s Germany. I wish to heaven that Pertisau had tucked itself near the border of a nice healthy place like Switzerland. Still, even if we have to make a dash for it, it is just as well to have a choice of directions. Yesterday I was worried because Pertisau was such a bottleneck.”

“You seem to expect fireworks. It’s difficult to think of any danger or evil lurking in this kind of place.” Frances settled down on Richard’s Burberry, and fished for a cigarette in one of its pockets. She lit it, and lay back to look at the sky.

“How are we going to do it?” she added.

Richard folded up his map carefully and put it into his pocket. He stretched down beside her and watched the clouds.

“I think Anton is our best bet. We’ll just walk in one of these days, and ask if we dare have the great honour and pleasure of seeing the chess collection. Anton’s name will get us past any servant who’s about the place. All other excuses are pretty obvious.”

“Such as?”

“Well, you could need a drink of water, but unfortunately there’s a nice mountain stream running down that valley. Or you could sprain your weak ankle and need help to get back to the village. But that’s rather a poor effort.”

“I’m glad it is.”

“So we shall blow in, probably on Thursday or Friday, when Pertisau has looked us over and accepted us. There’s no use risking everything by an enthusiastic dash. For if this Mespelbrunn is Peter’s man, then an explanation for his silence would be the fact that he was under observation. And if he is under observation, then his visitors had better be very natural indeed.”

“He must be able to speak German pretty well if Anton and the others in the village accept him.”

“It’s his job. The accent hereabouts, anyway, is so peculiar that he could easily pass himself off as a real Berliner. When he is in Berlin he has a Viennese accent, no doubt.”

“Well, I am looking forward to meeting him.”

“Are you definite about that?”

“Quite. You aren’t going to leave me out at this stage. You know, Richard, the man in Paris was very efficient. So were the others, but they seemed simpler, somehow.”

“I should think the Paris man is second in importance to Mr. Smith himself. The beginning and the end, as it were. Fugger and Kronsteiner are just movable pawns in the game.”

“I keep worrying about poor old Fugger,” said Frances. “I wonder if he did get away? “

“If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here. Or we should have been continuously followed until they could catch us with another agent. Don’t worry about A. Fugger. He’s a wily bird.” Richard suddenly sat up and watched the mountainside.

“I thought I heard voices,” he explained. He was right. Below them were two men.

Frances rose to her feet. The two figures paused and then waved their arms and shouted.

“It’s Henry M. and Robert Thornley,” Frances announced. “You know,” she added in amazement, “I never thought they’d come.”

Richard got up. He waved and halloed back. Van Cortlandt yelled something which they couldn’t make out; but Thornley was laughing and they laughed too. The American seemed to be in good spirits. He kept calling remarks to them which sounded funny although they couldn’t hear them.

At last the two men came over the last piece of rock, and
dropped on the ground beside Frances. The American regained his breath, and pointed to his face. It was crimson.

“Well,” said Frances, “if you will climb at twice the normal pace and make wisecracks to go with it—”

“This,” said van Cortlandt with as much pride as if he had been fishing for marlin, “is my first mountain.”

“We are overcome,” said Frances gravely, and handed him some sliced orange. “It was a most spectacular appearance.”

Robert Thornley explained.

“We motored from Innsbruck this morning, at the most ghastly speed you ever saw. We found the hotel and then your house. A nice old thing—”

“Frau Schichtl,” suggested Frances.

“—told us you were up here. It looked easy, so we came.”

“All lies. Perfidious British lies,” said van Cortlandt. “I drove Bob as gently as if he were in a wheelchair on the Boardwalk at Atlantic City. When we found you weren’t there with flags of welcome, he dragged me away from a very nice little table beside a lot of water. And then he told me it was no climb at all. Just kid’s play.” He looked sadly at his shoes. “They’ll never be the same again.”

Frances laughed. “Remember to borrow some of our first-aid kit tonight.”

“Do you mean to tell me I’ll feel worse tonight than when I climbed this mountain?”

“Your feet will, in those shoes. Cheer up; it wasn’t a bad climb for your first.”

“Wasn’t bad? It’s darned fine if you ask me.”

“Well, have a sandwich,” said Richard. “We’re glad to see you.”

As they ate they explained further. The pavements of Innsbruck had become hotter and harder after the idea of Pertisau had been put before them. Last night they had met and celebrated together and had suddenly decided to get away from cafes and conducted tours for three days. Van Cortlandt felt a holiday was due to him, anyway, and Thornley was becoming bored with being bored.

“It’s the first real vacation I’ve had in two years,” said van Cortlandt. “I’m always either going some place or coming away from it, and I’ve always got an eye open and an ear listening. I’m going to forget all that for three days. I’ll have to be back on Friday. Until then I am going to have some peace for a change.”

Frances caught Richard’s eye. “How do you like the view we arranged for you?” she said quickly.

Richard pointed out the different peaks. Over there was Germany. Down there were the Dolomites, and then Italy. Here the Danube would be flowing to Vienna. Back there would be the Alps of Switzerland.

“So this is what makes some people want to rush up to the top of every mountain they see,” said van Cortlandt. He looked at Thornley pointedly, so that they all laughed, but in the end he was the last to leave the mountain top.

That night the promise of Innsbruck was kept. They enjoyed themselves. By the time they had finished dinner, and had gone into the hotel lounge for coffee, most of the other guests had disappeared.

“They must get their beauty sleep,” suggested Frances, and giggled. She was in rather good form tonight. She had been
worrying during the last two days that if the two of them did come to Pertisau perhaps the party would be a failure. But everything was going well. She looked at van Cortlandt, leaning forward to catch Thornley’s words with a smile on his lips, a smile ready to break into a laugh when the point of the long story was reached. Richard was lighting his pipe contentedly, his eyes on Thornley, who had now risen to his feet to give full justice to the climax. It was when they were all laughing that Frances noticed the man. He was watching them. He sat alone at a small table, a dark-haired man with bold black eyes, heavy eyebrows and a prominent jaw. He was probably about thirty, guessed Frances; and already his muscles were running to fat, but he was powerful enough. She noticed the tightness of his shirt over the expanse of his chest, and the collar, already tight from the thickness of his neck, seemed all the tighter because of a black tie firmly knotted. It was a strange way of dressing for a summer evening. The jacket slung over a chair was a drab green, his-only concession to the Tyrol, for he wore black breeches and boots. Just as a retired Navy man can be guessed by his taste in neat navy blue, so it was easy to guess how this man had spent much of his time. Take away the Tyrolese jacket and add a black one and a heavy black cap and a holster at his belt and a rubber club, and he was typed as accurately as in a Hollywood casting office.

His eyes had been fixed on Thornley. They suddenly swung round to Frances and became aware of her scrutiny. Frances let her eyes pass through and over him, fixing them on the deer’s horns just above his head. She held them there until he had stopped looking at her, and had risen from his table. He threw some coins down with a careless gesture, ignoring two which
fell on the floor. She was very busy lighting a cigarette as he walked loudly out of the room. Van Cortlandt had noticed the last few moments, and was watching Frances with a smile.

“You got out of that nicely,” he said. “That’s one of the boys in the back room. I’ll lay you five to one.”

“Big odds,” said Thornley. “Don’t tell me that the Gestapo finds its way to a place like this.”

“They’ll find their way to any place, even into countries which aren’t under Germany—yet,” van Cortlandt replied sourly. “They give me a bad taste in my mouth,” he added. He began a story about them. Frances listened, but she watched Richard. Apart from a tightening of his lips he did not seem disturbed by anything.

“Not one of the pleasanter-types of humanity,” summed up Thornley. They all agreed on that and rose. An evening walk before they went to bed seemed a good idea. Van Cortlandt looked at his wristwatch and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s only a quarter of ten,” he protested. “I haven’t been to bed at this hour since I was in kindergarten.”

“Don’t you feel you’d like to be a dog, and just risk it once?” Frances asked gravely. He looked at her quickly, and then laughed.

“I’m learning something by living among the English. I now know when to risk a laugh.”