Above Suspicion (27 page)

“There is one very important thing, Henry. Send this message to Geneva early tomorrow. Please don’t forget. ‘Reservations uncancelled. Arriving Friday.’ And memorise this address.” He repeated it carefully. “Got it? Good. It’s really important.”

The lights of the town gleamed in front of them across the Inn. Frances turned to Richard, and smiled.

Van Cortlandt said quietly, “I hate to spoil the party, but there’s a couple of cars on our tail. I’ve seen their headlights for some time now, but they are still far enough away, if it should be your friends. I’ll slow up round the first bend. Get ready.”

Frances and Richard looked at each other. Frances remembered how van Cortlandt had increased his speed just when he had asked about difficulties in Innsbruck.

“We’ll say our thank-yous in Paris or Oxford,” said Richard. “Goodbye, meanwhile. And don’t forget to turn up. And remember the telegram.” He was holding the door open in readiness. They were reaching a bend in the road.

The car slowed up. They slipped quickly out.

“We’ll see you,” Frances said quietly, and then without looking back, she raced with Richard for the cover of some bushes. Safely hidden from the road they watched the tail-lights of van Cortlandt’s car streak along towards the town. They waited for some minutes, and then they heard the roar of a powerful engine. A large black car, followed closely by another, flashed past them. Richard watched them disappear after van Cortlandt.

“Henry was right, I think. Two cars together look as if they had urgent business. I hope they stick to that story.”

“They will,” said Frances. “I can see Bob looking rather sleepy and bored, and Henry looking very righteously indignant, calling on his rights as an American citizen. They’ll play it up beautifully between them. I wish I could see it.”

“You’re better here. How are the legs?”

“Not so bad. My arm is stiff, though.” She shivered.

Richard put his arm round her shoulders, and drew her beside him. They waited in silence. One other car passed along the road; its moderate pace reassured them.

Richard watched the clouds in the sky. He chose the time when one of them, thick and white, began to cross over the face of the moon; and they were back on the road. They reached the first houses without any trouble. It seemed they were in an open residential quarter, with scattered houses and gardens, or what might be called parks, surrounding them. Richard remembered they were either in or near the district for the large garden restaurants and family excursions… All the better.

It was also a district for late-evening strollers, making their way slowly back to the town. Ahead of them were a young man and his girl with their arms linked round each other. The man talked, and the girl would laugh as she looked up at him.

“Watch the technique,” said Richard, and measured his step so that they kept a short distance between them and the couple. He slipped his arm round Frances’ waist, and she giggled in spite of herself.

“Perfect,” he said, and won another laugh.

Perfect, he repeated to himself, as they followed the man and girl towards the bridge over the river Inn. In front of the bridge was a broad, open stretch of ground, where other roads met the one they were on. From the other roads came some more men and girls, forming a slow and scattered train back to Innsbruck. And there were some cars. These were being stopped by two efficient-looking men in uniform, as they approached the bridge.

Richard looked down at Frances, and said some words to her in German. Just in front of them were the couple they had
followed. The two uniformed men gave the group of four a brief look, and then turned back to the driver they were questioning.

Once they were over the bridge they left the man and girl. He was still talking; she still looked up into his face and laughed. They would never have noticed who had walked behind them or who had passed them. Richard had taken a street which turned away from the river. After the bright lights at the bridge it seemed dark and safe. But the journey to the house was like a nightmare for Frances. Richard had kept their pace unhurried, so that they appeared just two more walkers going home with the usual reluctance. The slowness of their steps increased her fatigue. She was painfully conscious of each muscle she had to use, of the hardness of the pavement which hurt her back with each step, of the cracks in the stones which caught her dragging feet. The ill-lighted streets emphasised the darkness of the houses; their silence sharpened every sound. It was less than a mile to the address which Smith had given them, but to Frances it seemed more like five.

Richard had knocked as Smith had marked it down on the piece of paper: a spondee followed by a dactyl. In his pocket he fingered the part of the instructions which he had kept, the part with the curious little design marked on it. The rest of the paper had been torn up and dropped piece by piece from the car. As they stood in the darkness of the doorway and looked anxiously up and down the dingy, badly lighted street with its empty pavements and sleeping houses he had begun to wonder if he had got mixed up with the address. They were taking a hell of a long time to answer. He visualised the piece of paper as he had seen it in the car. The name, the address, and then “Knock --, - .” Then the words “Destroy at once”;
and then “Keep,” and a lightly drawn arrow to the foot of the page where the design had been sketched. He remembered everything, even to the jagged line at the top where the page had been torn from Thornley’s diary. He felt Frances sag against him. He knocked again.

The door opened so quickly that he knew someone had stood behind it waiting for the knock to sound again. It was only slightly open, and in any case it was too dark to see anything; but the someone waited.

Richard’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “Herr Schulz?”

The door opened wider and a woman’s voice answered “In!” They heard the door close behind them gently; a heavy lock was quietly turned. The hall was unlit, but light came from a room at the back of the house. The woman who had let them inside led the way towards the lighted doorway. She turned to them as she reached it, and motioned them to enter. Frances saw that she was quite young. Her face was what Richard would call “just medium”: it was neither pretty nor plain. It was quite expressionless.

Richard had looked past the woman into the bare, poorly furnished room. A man laid his newspaper aside and watched them keenly from where he sat. He said nothing, just sat and looked. Richard spoke, slurring his words as he had heard the Bavarians do. The man still sat; his eyes were impassive. He picked up his newspaper again.

“But my name is not Schulz,” he said, as Richard paused to look about him.

Richard’s eyes met those staring down at him from the large flag-draped photograph on the wall. For a moment, doubt halted the beat of his heart. He felt the sweat break in his palms… And
then he was aware that he was still clutching on to the piece of paper in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, and handed it to the man, still watching inscrutably.

The man glanced at it and threw it on the table.

“Who gave you this?”

“A man from Pertisau.”

“Was his name Gerold?”

“No. Mespelbrunn.”

“Where do you come from?”

“From over the mountains,” Richard said.

The man looked at him again, and then at Frances who had slumped into a chair. He nodded to the woman. She closed the door, and stood there, leaning against it.

“Sit down,” the man said to Richard. His voice was warm, almost friendly. His eyes were now alive, kindly. “Relax. Relax. No need to look so cold. Are you hungry?”

Richard nodded. The woman moved from the door where she had been standing and went into another room. It was probably the kitchen. Richard heard the sound of a pot being placed on a stove.

“Relax,” the man said again. “And how is our friend from Pertisau?”

“He is now well.”

“So, he was—ill? We thought so…we have not heard from him for a long time. Well, that’s good news. Good news. What about you? You said you wanted a room. Is there anything else?”

“The usual.”

“You are leaving our happy Fatherland?” The man’s voice was filled with heavy sarcasm as he looked up at the picture on the wall. “Well, it can be arranged. How are you travelling?”

“To Italy. Probably by train. And as quickly as we can.”

“Of course; that is understood,” Schulz said, and smiled. “You might go as Americans or English. You look very like them. Do you know the language at all?”

Richard shook his head—it certainly wouldn’t be safe to go as English.

“You’ll have to go as Germans, then. How would an engineer do? Or a schoolteacher? I’ll get you the right clothes. That will cost you extra, of course, but you’ll find it worth every pfennig. Every pfennig.”

“How much will it cost?”

“How much have you?”

Richard restrained a smile. After all, Schulz had been right that his help would be worth every pfennig.

“Only three hundred marks,” said Richard. “We can get extra tomorrow to cover the railway fares.”

Schulz seemed pleased with the directness of the answer. “Good,” he said. “Good. Three hundred marks will do.”

He rose from his chair and went over to Frances. He walked with a marked limp, but he held himself erect. Richard judged his age to be about forty. He was almost bald. His face and body had thickened with middle age. Frances, white and silent, looked up and saw the shrewd eyes behind the thick glasses, the kindly smile on the broad mouth.

His voice was gentler. “You look afraid of me. You must lose that afraid look. Sometimes people stay here for almost a week, until they lose it. You must look very happy and proud when you cross the frontier. You are the wife of an engineer, who is taking you for a holiday to Florence. But we must change your hair; it is too pretty. Lisa!”

The woman came back from the kitchen. She carried two bowls of steaming soup.

“Lisa, what colour would you make this hair? Black?”

“Not with these blue eyes. Brown is less noticeable.”

“Good. Make it brown, mouse-brown. We can begin tonight. That and the photographs. Then tomorrow we can get the clothes, and the papers. And you will be all ready to leave tomorrow night. Is that quick enough for you? Now, eat up. Eat up.”

The warm bowl of soup brought life back to Frances’ hands. She held her fingers round it, and felt the warmth steal into them. It was almost as good as eating. She felt warm, warm and safe. She looked at the clock on the table. It was almost midnight. She felt warm and safe, safe for the first time in six hours.

The man was watching her curiously. “Eat up,” he said gently. “That’s good, isn’t it?” It was the most wonderful soup she had ever tasted.

The man was speaking to Richard. “You’ve had a difficult time; you’ve come far, today?”

“Yes, we’ve come far.”

“You will be able to travel tomorrow?” Schulz was looking doubtful.

Richard, remembering Frances’ resilience, smiled. “Oh, yes, we shall be all right. We recover quickly. We can keep going until we reach Italy. And then…well, it won’t matter then anyway.”

“When you first spoke of Italy, I thought I might advise you to try the mountains. They would be safer. But I think now that you should stick to your plan about the train. We shall do our best to make the train safe for you. Ready, Lisa? Good. Good.”

Richard had finished eating, and the man began to cut his hair. On the table the woman had arranged basins and some bottles and a saucer. Frances felt her eyes begin to close. Schulz waved his scissors towards her.

“If we can get her into that chair at the table before she falls asleep, Lisa can manage,” he said. “We’ll soon have her upstairs in bed.”

Frances was helped into the other chair. I’m being very silly, she thought, but the trouble is that my eyelids are too heavy. She stretched her head back against the neck rest on the chair. It was hideously uncomfortable, but the eyelids won the struggle. She had dim sensations of the woman’s fingers working with her hair, of water trickling across her face.

When she was awakened, she saw Lisa looking at her with almost a smile. It was enough to warn Frances of what she might see in the hand mirror which was held out to her. That look which only one woman can give another, that look of pity and amusement combined, roused Frances as no dash of cold water could have done. She took the mirror. Her hair was as bad as she had suspected; dull brown, lifeless, with the thickness at the back pinned tightly into a mean little knot. Frances stared in a kind of horrid fascination. Of course it would have had to be her hair, she thought, just because it had been her secret pride.

Richard was grinning at her. Then she saw that he was including himself in that grin. His hair had been clipped until it bristled. There was a funny look at the back of his neck. She began to laugh. She had the pleasure of seeing the half smile on Lisa’s face give way to a look of surprise.

The man looked up from arranging a large box camera on some books on the table. He smiled encouragingly.

“That’s better,” he said. “Pretty ones find it harder to escape. Now, if you’ll sit over here, we’ll soon be finished, and you can go to a real bed.”

The woman was clearing the table of its litter of basins and towels and hand dryer. She seemed to accept all this madness as a natural way of spending one’s night.

Richard was being photographed now. He bulged his eyes, tilted his chin truculently, and looked on the point of uttering a loud
“Heil!”

“Good,” said Schulz, “good.”

It was Frances’ turn. She remembered to stare stolidly in front of her and part her lips slightly. We are all quite mad, she thought, or perhaps I am really asleep and dreaming. Sleep. sleep…it had a pleasant sound.

Schulz nodded approvingly. “That’s what we want,” he said. “That’s what we want.”

They followed the woman up a dark staircase to a room which was cold and shadowy in the meagre candle-light Frances felt Richard draw off her clothes: she awakened slightly as she heard him swear when his fingers stuck on some fastening on the strange dress. Then the cool rough sheets slid round her.