The Numbered Account (17 page)

Colin, sooner than she expected, came slouching down across the meadow.

‘Were they pleased?' Julia asked as he came up.

‘No—I mean neither of the two chaps was in. I shall go in myself; whatever you may say about the Swiss telephones, I don't care about that box here. The door won't shut, and there's always someone in the Bureau next door.
It's only about three hours, anyhow, if I go down by the funicular and get a boat across to Spiez. I'll let you know what goes on—I don't imagine the Bureau-Fräulein speaks Gaelic!'

Mrs. Hathaway took Colin's sudden departure as calmly as she took most things, when Julia told her of it over Cinzanos upstairs before supper. She had a corner room, with Watkins's cell next door, so the question of being overheard hardly arose; Watkins was getting a little deaf, and was totally incurious about ‘Master Colin' and his affairs.

‘How nice that his work should bring him here just now,' Mrs. Hathaway said as she sipped, gazing happily out of the window. ‘The only thing that surprises me is that there should be anything for the Secret Service to bother with, here; the Swiss could hardly get into mischief, one would have thought, because they're so busy; over things like cleaning their cows.'

Julia enquired about this.

‘Oh yes—a peasant we met on the road told me all about it, this morning. Have you noticed those iron rings in that high wall above the road, just beyond our little shop, next to the glen with the waterfall in it?'

Julia nodded.

‘Well those are where they moor their young beasts, before they take them down to the market; they bring cloths, and buckets to fetch water from the glen, and slosh the creatures down, there on the road-side. Isn't it charming?'

Julia thought it was, and said so. But she had a notion of her own in her head.

‘Did you read up about the Alpine Garden at the Schynige Platte? If it's fine tomorrow I thought we might go.'

‘Indeed I did!—and it is something I really do want to see. Yes, do let us go tomorrow.'

‘You're sure you're up to it?' Julia felt a little guilty over her own initiative about making this particular expedition.

‘Well even if I do get a little tired, doing something I
enjoy will do me good,' Mrs. Hathaway said. ‘There are wise ways of spending one's strength, just as there are of spending one's money—and really the art of living is to recognise both.'

The next day was superb, and they set out in good time, on the musical bus. The town of Interlaken, small as it is, possesses two railway-stations: the West-Bahnhof, whence one entrains for Spiez and Berne, and the Ost-Bahnhof, or East Station, which serves Meiringen, Grindelwald, and the Lauterbrunnen valley, including Wengen and Mürren. The Post-Autos all pull up in the big open
Platz
outside the West-Bahnhof, and trains flit fairly often from one station to the other, rattling across an open street and thundering, twice, over the milky-green Aar on iron bridges—Mrs. Hathaway, however, who knew her way about in Switzerland, insisted on taking an open horse-cab from one station to the other. A row of these ancient vehicles is always standing in the Platz, the equally ancient horses drooping their heads, the drivers smoking cheroots and gossiping; in one of them they clop-clopped along the main street between small expensive shops full of souvenirs and summer sportswear, and innumerable hotels, some also small, some large and rich-looking. But what startled and fascinated Julia about Interlaken was that the whole town was full of the scent of new-mown hay. The meadows are all round it, and here and there impinge on the streets, so that the fresh sweet country smell is everywhere, in what is indubitably a town. Towards the end of their drive they passed a building with the words ‘Hotel zum Fluss' across its façade; Julia gazed at it with deep interest. Beastly Wright, the enigmatic Mr. Borovali, and poor June were all housed behind that yellow front.

To reach the Schynige Platte one takes the train from the Ost-Bahnhof for Lauterbrunnen, but leaves it after a few minutes at Wilderswyl, a village at the farther side of the flat sedimentary plain between the lakes of Thun and Brienz—part of this plain is occupied by a military airfield, whose hangars are turfed over to look like grassy mounds. Julia observed them with amusement; appar-ently
the Swiss hadn't yet got round to stowing their operational aircraft in the bowels of mountains or at the bottom of lakes. But she was really keeping an eye open for Antrobus; there had been no sign of him at the Ost-Bahnhof. What a bore if he didn't come, after all! But at Wilderswyl, where they got out and stood on the wide platform, waiting to be allowed to enter the funny little coaches with their red-and-white blinds which carry one up the mountain, there he was; and was introduced to Mrs. Hathaway. It was hot there in the sun, but when an official unlocked the doors of the small train he said—‘Have you a wrap, Mrs. Hathaway? If so put it on—it's often fearfully cold going up.'

Watkins was carrying her mistress's wrap over her arm: that old-fashioned but delightful garment formerly known as an ‘Inverness Cape'—a long coat with a cloak slung over it from the shoulders; Mrs. Hathaway's was in a discreet pepper-and-salt tweed, and looked immensely elegant when she put it on. Then they climbed in, and all sat together; Antrobus and Mrs. Hathaway got on like a house on fire, both staring out of the window on the watch for flowers, and pointing out to one another any treasure that they espied. ‘Oh, there's
Astrantia major!
Mrs. Hathaway exclaimed in the lower meadows, ‘and the purple columbine—do look!' Higher up in the beechwoods—‘Oh, quickly,
Cephalanthera rubra!'
Antrobus said, pointing out some tall spikes of a reddish-pink orchis, just before the train plunged into a tunnel. The moment it emerged Antrobus's head was at the window again, indicating the Martagon Lily, in bud, on the bank.

Julia was more pleased with Antrobus than ever because of his niceness and considerateness with Mrs. Hathaway; after a brief halt at the small station of Breitlauenen (‘the Broad Avalanches') it became really chilly in the draughty windowless little carriage. But still there was more to see, and the detective knew all about it.

‘Come over to the other side, now,' he said. ‘In a big stony valley we're just coming to on the right you might see a marmot.' They all moved across the carriage—the
train was not very full—and there on the stone-flecked slopes they actually caught a glimpse of two marmots before they fled whistling into their burrows, frightened, idiotic creatures, by the familiar noise of the train.

‘They look so like seals,' Mrs. Hathaway said, delighted.

At the top they went straight to the Alpine Garden; Antrobus was greeted warmly by the girl at the entrance who sold tickets. It is certainly a most charming place, the wild plants grouped in situations approximating to the natural habitat of each, and every group with a metal label bearing its name; little paths wander to and fro, up and down; at intervals there are seats on which to rest and admire the splendid view. Mrs. Hathaway moved slowly along the little paths, peering, examining, admiring. Presently they came on a girl in breeches and a blue gardener's apron who knelt beside a new bed, carefully arranging stones and setting in some tiny plants; she too recognised Antrobus and got up, wiping the earth off her hands, to greet him in German with a rueful grin.

‘Ah, you caught us completely over
Petasites niveus var: paradoxus!
We learn from
you!'

‘That one is a paradox,' the man replied, smiling.

‘Please send us some more—you make us
aufmerksam,'
the girl said, and knelt down to her task again.

As they strolled on, Antrobus told Mrs. Hathaway about the two girls, youthful botanists from Zürich University, who took care of the garden; ‘They share that house down by the entrance, and eat at the hotel. They have a laboratory and a library, and prepare specimens. I often send them plants to identify, and they are so helpful and enthusiastic, bless them.'

Mrs. Hathaway presently said that she would sit and rest for a little, and then make her way up to the restaurant. Antrobus instantly suggested that he and Julia should take a short walk outside the garden —‘There's a gate at the top that one can get out by'—and return for lunch. Mrs. Hathaway openly applauded this idea; so, in her heart, did Julia.

The Schynige Platte garden lies at just over six thousand
feet, facing South, on the top of a ridge running East and West above the Lake of Brienz; as with the Niederhorn, on the northern side this ridge falls away in vertical cliffs and buttresses; one or two tall rocky towers stand up from it. A path leads under the nearest of these, known as
Der Turm,
and Julia and Antrobus wandered along it across the open slopes. Here they were soon among the anemones, the white and the yellow—drifts of great sulphur and silvery-white stars nearly two inches across, flowering up out of the rough pale grass—Julia fairly gasped at the sight. Then they climbed by narrow zigzags to the crest of the ridge through a miniature forest of Alpenrosen, the Alpine rhododendron, not yet in bloom, and the dwarf juniper,
J. nanus;
none were as much as two feet high, but it was a true forest all the same, on this minute scale. There were flowers too: the strange-looking Cerinthe and the tiny leafless veronica,
V. apkylla,
carrying its minute blue heads on bare stalks among the white rocks—Antrobus named them all, as botanists do out of pure love; Julia picked one or two of everything for Mrs. Hathaway.

On the crest itself, where there is a small hut to shelter the wayfarer, with—so Swiss—a telephone, they sat on a sun-warmed rock, looking out in front of them at that splendid mountain group of Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger, all blazing and glittering under the sun. Up on the ridge there was nothing but ‘the peaks and the sky, and the light and the silence'—Julia herself was silent, suddenly moved; they sat so for a long moment. Then Antrobus turned from the snowy Jungfrau in the distance to the tawny-gold Jungfrau seated beside him.

‘I get the impression that this says something to you?' he said.

Julia didn't answer at once. Then—‘I never realised that anything like it was possible,' she said, slowly.

‘Those are almost exactly the words that Keyserling used about the Taj Mahal,' he said, looking pleased. ‘But have you never been to Switzerland before?'

‘Only in winter—Zermatt. I can't think why not, since it's like this.'

‘Well when you've finished your cigarette we'll see more flowers; we're too high here for some things.'

Julia went off at a tangent.

‘That's the Lake of Brienz down there behind us, isn't it?' she asked, looking over her shoulder. ‘Is it true that it's full of stores, sunk on the bottom?'

‘Yes, certainly. Who told you? Not that it isn't common knowledge; the very bus-drivers taking tourists over the Furka-Pass show them the entrances to the underground barracks and hospitals, and the embedded gun-emplacements. In some ways the Swiss are strangely casual about security; curious, because their military dispositions are some of the most complicated in the world.'

‘Couldn't the metal containers with all that butter and cheese be spotted from the air?'Julia asked—‘like those forts and circles that Crawford or someone used to photograph?'

‘Not very well. It's much harder to photograph, or spot, objects under six hundred feet of water than under six feet, or a few inches, of soil. And strange planes cruising over these lakes would stir up a hornet's nest of Swiss fighters to buzz them. But who told you?' he persisted.

Julia regretted her careless question. She was in an idyll at the moment, and the need to mention Colin jerked her back to the world of reality, in which this delightful companion at her side might be an enemy—
the
enemy. The thought hurt her surprisingly.

‘Oh, my cousin,' she said airily, to conceal her discomfort.

‘The second Mr. Monro?'

‘Or would you say the first?' she answered brusquely, turning to look him straight in the face.

He smiled his gothic smile at her, and moved one hand in a gesture of brushing something away.

‘Forget it,' he said gently. ‘I'm sorry I said that. Just for today can't we sink Fatima and Bluebeard to the bottom of the Lake of Brienz along with the butter and cheese, and simply enjoy ourselves?'

‘I was enjoying myself,' Julia said plaintively.

‘Well go on! Do please. I'm so sorry; this is all my fault. And by the way I think Julia a much prettier name than Fatima.'

She blushed at that—hard-boiled as she was in many ways, Julia could never control her blushes, and the man watched the apricots ripening in her cheeks.

‘How did you know?' she asked rather defiantly. ‘Oh, Nethersole of course.'

‘Yes—don't you remember that he said you would complete my education?'

‘At least you're continuing mine!—all these names of flowers.'

‘Ah, they're my besetting sin—flowers, and birds. Now I want to show you some more—come on.'

They returned down the zigzags to the path below the Turm; there he stopped, and looked at her feet.

‘What are your soles?—rubber or nails? Do you think you can manage this slope? It's much quicker than going round by the garden.'

Julia was wearing stout leather shoes with thick ridged rubber soles; she held one up for his inspection.

‘Yes, those ought to be all right. Better take my hand, though; this top bit is fairly steep.' Without waiting for a reply he took her hand and led her down the rough grassy slope, tacking diagonally across and across it; he went rather fast and Julia, who had never acquired the mountaineers' trick of the loose-kneed descent—toes out, heels in, and practically sitting back on one's heels—found herself rather breathless when they reached the bottom. (Holding his hand was a faintly breathless affair, too.) Here in a grassy hollow stood three grey-shingled wooden sheds, long and low; these, Antrobus explained, were
Senn-Hütte,
the huts to which the peasants repaired when they brought their cows up to the high alpine pastures for the summer months—the great time for cheese-making. As they mounted up a rutted muddy track on the farther slope—‘Oh, here they are!' he exclaimed. ‘Coming up to get the place ready.'