Above Suspicion (22 page)

Frances looked at him incredulously. “And I’ve looked at that stick for years, and I never… When you told me it was used for goading cattle, I thought it was the iron point at the end of the stick which you meant.” She began to giggle; any joke seemed doubly good at this moment.

Richard’s smile broadened. “Really, Frances, you’re wonderful. Have you ever seen Basque oxen?” He laughed quietly and then kissed her. “I wouldn’t part with you for all the gold in America,” he said.

Frances recovered her seriousness. “Now that I’ve supplied the comic relief how long are we going to stay here, and what shall we do, if and when and where?”

“First of all, I was curious to see if we would be followed. We weren’t, it seems. Von Aschenhausen perhaps was quite convinced that we were harmless fools. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, if he checks up on our travels. You know the Teutonic thoroughness. That may have been the reason why he had that afterthought of inviting us to come back and see the chess collection: just so that he can know more about our movements when he meets us again. Probably, too, someone will be sent to keep a watchful eye on us until we leave Pertisau. That’s very likely. That leads to my second idea. I’ve been hoping that Beetlebrows might make one of his evening calls on Pertisau. If he does, then we’ll improvise.”

“And I’ll be quite useless,” said Frances bitterly. “What you need is another man with you. And then we might be able to do something.”

Richard didn’t answer that.

“If we could get to the house in a roundabout way, or something”—Frances went on—“but then we’d have to face two men, armed, as well as the dog—if there is one. It would be madness. What you need is darkness, and someone like Henry or Bob, or both. And at least one gun. It’s hopeless.”

“Let me do the worrying, Frances. I’ll try nothing unless one of them leaves. I can manage one of them alone, easily, if I can get to the house unseen. There is no telephone, and that will be useful for us: I’m depending on Beetlebrows, and his visits to Pertisau.” He looked at his watch again. “It’s getting near his usual time.”

Frances wondered why Richard was so confident that there were only two men to worry about… But his eyes were fixed on the road. She sat beside him and waited in silence She felt she had made enough wifely objections to last for the next few hours. After all, she had insisted on coming. Richard had been against it. Wifely objections would only be doubly irritating. So she sat and finished the job of converting her red socks into a rich chestnut-brown.

It could only have been about ten minutes later when Richard’s arm tightened round Frances and pushed her quickly flat on the ground. She felt a stone dig into the small of her back, but Richard’s grasp was firm. She lay still and watched him. He was lying flat on his stomach, his head raised only enough to let him see that free patch of road. It was the black-haired man, cycling towards Pertisau, with a wolf-hound at his heels… And then he was out of sight, the other trees hiding him from Richard’s straining eye.

Richard relaxed his grip, and Frances sat up and rubbed her back. The stone had become a boulder.

“So that leaves only von Aschenhausen,” said Richard with some satisfaction.

Frances forgot her good resolutions. “How are you so sure?” she asked.

“If there were others, then the noises upstairs would have
been silenced more quickly. And von Aschenhausen had to signal to that man to stop guarding the front door. It was only then that he was free to go upstairs and attend to the noises. If there had been others to stop us from getting away—supposing it had come to that—then he would not have stuck outside until he got the signal.”

“But why only two of them?”

“It’s a small house, and if a group of men had arrived to live there the villagers would have started to talk. Then any prospective visitors might have had suspicions aroused. I expect that black-haired fellow poses as Mespelbrunn’s new servant.” Richard looked at his watch and then added, “We had better let him get half-way to Pertisau, and then he can look round as much as he likes and it won’t trouble us.”

“They haven’t anything definite against us, have they?” asked Frances.

“Nothing except the fact that we were found in a suspected shop in Nürnberg, and that we presented ourselves to an obviously suspected Dr. Mespelbrunn with a highly suspect form of introduction. They may dislike the coincidence. Perhaps von Aschenhausen has started to check up on us already. There isn’t any ’phone, but he has some kind of radio transmitter and receiver, I’m sure. Perhaps Beetlebrows is going down to Pertisau to keep an eye on us. Perhaps all that. And again, von Aschenhausen may be congratulating himself on getting rid of a pair of unwelcome visitors, and Beetlebrows is cycling down to Pertisau to see a girl, or have his beer, or to keep his figure. I think myself that it’s safer to overestimate your enemies than underestimate them, so I’m prepared to believe that they don’t like us one bit.”

“Von Aschenhausen certainly didn’t like me,” Frances said, and laughed gently.

“I could have strangled you myself when you played that trick at the piano. You had me as jittery as he was. For a moment I thought you were going to play that damned music.”

“Was it as good as that? Darling, you’ve made me very happy.”

“It was too dangerous, Frances. Never give in to your impulse for the artistic, not in a situation like that.”

“Oh, it was safe enough. He thinks women have no brains. Even at the very end, he only thought I was parroting some phrases I had heard you say.”

Richard smiled in spite of himself. And then he looked at his watch impatiently, and then he looked at the warm glow of the evening sun.

“I wish it were darker but we can’t wait. Come on, Frances.”

They made their way back to the road, and paused at the edge of the trees. There was no one in sight. They crossed quickly into the rough field which stretched towards the stream, skirting the foot of the hill. They covered the uneven ground quickly but carefully.

“No twisted ankles at this point,” said Richard. Frances nodded. She was concentrating on the varying firmness of the treacherous clumps underneath her feet. The stream was shallow, fortunately. They crossed by choosing stones either jutting up or only lightly covered by the racing water. Frances congratulated herself on having her shoes only wet, and not swamped entirely. And now they began to climb the hill itself, aiming for a point in its shoulder which would bring them just above and behind the house. This side of the hill was
dangerously open; there were no trees, only grass and shrubs which ultimately gave way to the rocky spine. Again Frances had the feeling that the hill which they were climbing was the buttress, and the mountain behind it was the cathedral. It was like a finger pointing out of the mountain’s clenched hand. The climb was more difficult than it looked from the road, for there was no path to lead them over the easiest ground.

Two thirds of the climb found the undergrowth thinning out quickly. They paused for breath, while Richard scanned the ground above them. He shook his head as he noticed the increasing number of small screes. It was madness to try to scramble over their treacherous surface; the stones now under their feet were as knife-sharp as when they had been splintered from smashing boulders. The ridge of the hill was of rock, and at this distance there was a dangerous look to the last fifty feet. It would be slow work getting over that. He looked along the side to the place where the hill joined the mountain. Just at that point there seemed to be a slight hollow. It was the bed of a mountain stream, now dry, but no doubt forming a gleaming cascade of water in the spring.

“Our best bet is to strike for the stream,” he said. “It will take us farther away from the house, but the dry bed of a torrent is easier than a miniature precipice.” He pointed to the crest of the hill.

Frances needed no convincing. They began to climb obliquely up towards the bed of the stream, avoiding any falls of loose gravel, and choosing ground where some persistent green still showed. That at least gave them some guarantee of safety.

It was slow work, until suddenly, to Frances’ joy, they met a small track which had the same idea as Richard. It must have
begun at the road near the place where the shoulder of the hill had formed a jutting curve, and had traced its modest way parallel to the shoulder’s crest.

“We could have followed this all the way,” said Frances, with some exasperation, following their own course up the hill with a bitter eye.

“No, it began too close to the house. The road at that point might have been watched by Herr Von-und-zu strolling in his nice soft meadow.”

Frances was standing very still. “Well, we only postponed it,” she said so quietly that Richard stopped and turned to see her face.

“Down there,” she added. Richard followed the direction of her eyes. The valley beneath them was no longer empty. Along the road which led from Pertisau a man was riding a bicycle.

“Like the hammers of hell,” Richard said, and swore gently but wholeheartedly. “Don’t move. Keep just the way you are.”

“He looks like an ant,” said Frances.

“Louse, you mean.” Richard was worried. “I wonder now… what did he learn at Pertisau to send him back at this rate? No one there knew when we were returning, except Henry or Bob; and he can’t have been talking to them.”

“I wonder if he saw us. Do you think he would take me for another piece of greenery? There are at least two pieces of scrub near me.” She looked fearfully at her socks but the loam had been reinforced by some mud which she had blundered into on the soft bank of the stream. Richard watched the cyclist as he reached the curve in the road.

“He hasn’t slackened pace yet; it looks as if he might not have noticed us. If he had, I should think he would have slowed
up, just to make sure. God, that dog can keep up a terrific clip.”

“What shall we do?”

“There’s still daylight for some time,” Richard said thoughtfully. “Once we are up there we ought to have a wonderful view of the back of the house. Damn it all, if only I had left you in Pertisau, and come by myself.”

“Then you wouldn’t have had either an old English song, or these noises. Let’s go on, Richard. I don’t like the idea of going down the way we came up. And once we get up—we are very nearly there anyway—we might find a decent path on the mountain itself to lead us back to Pertisau. There’s no law against us trying to climb our way back towards the village and if anyone wants to know why we took so long, well then we got lost. That’s all.” But the truth was, she added to herself, that Richard would have gone on if he had been alone or with another man—and that settled it.

Richard still looked doubtful, but he was wavering.

“Well, we can watch from the top for half an hour, and if it all seems hopeless, then I’ll get you back to the road before it’s dark.”

“All right. Let’s move, Richard.”

They started to climb the last stretch of hill.

The path was apologetic. At best, it was little more than a foot broad; at its worst, it effaced itself altogether under slides of stones. As they crossed these slowly Frances held her breath. One slip here, and she would go rumplin’, tumplin’ down the Tankersha’ brae. She kept her eyes fixed on the next step ahead, and avoided looking down to her right. For there the hill now fell steeply away, carved out by erosion into an adequate quarry. If this path had lain across a field
you could run along it, she argued. So there was no reason why she couldn’t walk along it here, provided she didn’t know how far she had to fall. And then the green scrub was again growing thickly, and they had reached the bushes and dwarf trees which edged the bed of the stream. The sides of the dry torrent, and even the bed itself, were piled with large rocks. They formed a staircase. A giant’s staircase, thought Frances, but at least if she slipped here she would always have a boulder behind her, to block her fall.

They were both breathing heavily with the effort of hoisting themselves over the rocks which would form the bank of the torrent when the snows melted in the spring. But the worst of the climb was already past. The boulders in the bleached bed of the stream were thinning out, and the ground was levelling. They were approaching the saddle between the hill and the mountain. As it opened out before them they saw that it was broad and gently sloping. They left the stream which was turning towards the mountain itself, and walked quickly over the grass towards some scattered rocks on the saddle’s rest. From there they could see the valley with the red-shuttered house. When they reached the rocks only half of their expectations were realised. All they could see of the house was some blue smoke which curled up lazily over the tops of the farthest trees.

Richard smiled wryly. “Anticlimax department, I’m afraid. It seems I dragged you up here to admire the view, Frances. I’m sorry.”

Frances let her muscles relax. She pushed her damp hair away from her brow to feel the full coolness of the evening breeze.

“You can always study the paths,” she said.

Richard was already doing that. The saddle seemed the meeting place of the paths on the hill and the mountain. If he could get Frances back to Pertisau as quickly as possible, and if the moon was as clear as it had been last night, then he could use the mountain paths to bring him right up behind the house. He could see both of them clearly from here; neither was difficult. Eastward towards Pertisau stretched the first path he would use, which would bring him easily on to this saddle; and then, from here, there was a westward path, cutting across the mountain where it formed a background for the house—he could see at least one track descending from it into the trees which encircled the back of the house. Then he might try some stalking right up to the outskirts of the house itself. Thornley would be a good man to have along; he knew his way about a mountain. It was just as well that he had come up here after all. He looked at the mountain paths, and photographed what he saw in his memory.

Frances, lying beside him, her chin cupped in her hands, had been staring at the forest beneath her. Her eyes followed the well-marked path, which led from the saddle down through the trees towards the house. This was probably the path which began at the bridge in the valley. She looked at the trees, as if by sheer will-power she might see through them, through the walls of the house itself into that room upstairs. She was comparing her reactions as she had left that house to those of Richard, and the result did not flatter her. She had taken it for granted that their job was over, that there was nothing left to do except send a telegram and then go away and enjoy themselves. She had believed the story about the dog because she had wanted to believe it; it was a subconscious desire to be rid of complications, to avoid any further trouble. Now she
knew that she wouldn’t have been able to enjoy any holiday. She would have had to face the fact ultimately that it hadn’t been a dog, and she would have remembered it just as long as she would remember the cry in a Jews’ Alley in Nürnberg.