Richard noted the soprano setting of the song, and smiled gently.
“It’s a good song, but not my cup of tea. What about The Two Grenadiers or something with hair on its chest? I’ll need the music, though. I’m very bad at playing things by ear.” He turned to a pile of music and started to look through it.
Frances rose and went over to the piano.
“You are both so modest. I’ll sing for you instead.” She saw Richard stiffen slightly and give her a blank look. Von
Aschenhausen was watching her now. She returned his smile sweetly and sat down on the piano stool. Richard cursed silently to himself; surely Frances had not been duped by an earnest pair of blue eyes. Surely she couldn’t… He cursed to himself. If he could only reach that little table and upset it by accident before she started to sing… But as he moved, the first notes sounded through the room, and the words of the song gathered strength as her voice grew more confident. Richard looked at von Aschenhausen. His politeness had vanished. The duelling scars on his face were very noticeable.
Frances finished the last melancholy chords. She stood up and faced von Aschenhausen. She spoke directly to him.
“It’s called The Slaughter of the Innocents—one of the old Coventry Carols. Do you know it?” Her voice still held the sadness of the song, but there was a challenge in her eyes.
“Sentimentalising history, isn’t it?” His accent was less English.
“Maybe. But it’s only when you think of history as blood and tears that you can ever learn from it.” She saw he understood the meaning underlying her words just as he had understood the application of the song. The cap fitted. Let it, she thought savagely.
There was a sudden crash upstairs and then the thuds of hollow blows. The noises ceased as startlingly as they had begun. Von Aschenhausen saw the surprise on their faces. He was suddenly casual and polite again; he smiled easily.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “That’s the dog. We keep him out of the way when we have visitors. He’s very savage with strangers. He is just about due for his exercise, and he always lets me know very forcibly when it’s time to take him out for a walk.”
“Oh, we mustn’t keep you, then,” Frances said. “I am sure we have stayed too long, in any case.”
“I am sorry I had to disappoint you about the chessmen. They may be back by Sunday. Come and see them, then.”
Richard, still listening for further sounds, said they would be delighted to come, perhaps at the beginning of next week. He was thinking about the dog. It was strange to keep an animal locked up inside a room upstairs; that would hardly improve its temper— But of one thing he was certain: von Aschenhausen was determined to get them out of the house, as quickly as possible.
Frances had already reached the door. As von Aschenhausen opened it for them they heard two other sounds from upstairs. Weaker sounds, much weaker. But they ignored them, and said their goodbyes as if nothing had happened. And they equally ignored the dark man with the hoarse voice, who stood astride outside the front door, his thumbs tucked inside his belt. At a nod directed from von Aschenhausen, he sprang quickly past them, mounting the steps three at a time. Von Aschenhausen had regained his usual composure, but his smile was too fixed. He stood at the door and watched them until they had reached the trees. Frances hated the feeling of his eyes on her back; she forced herself to walk naturally, as if she were strolling down Holywell. Only now would she admit to herself what she had first known at a sherry party in Oxford. The man who had once been numbered among their friends had long since become an enemy. It was a painful admission.
When they gained the road, Frances took a deep breath.
“Well, I’ve made another step in my education,” she said. Richard did not answer. He was lost in thought.
“What’s wrong? You haven’t forgotten the Geneva address, have you? Or what?”
Richard shook his head. He seemed to be paying little attention; rather, he was watching the road as if he were trying to remember something.
“It’s just about here, I think,” he said, as if to himself. He saw Frances looking at him curiously. “Just about here that the shoulder of the hill stopped hiding the house. We’ll give it another twenty yards.”
The road twisted farther behind the jutting hill; and as it passed through a fringe of trees Richard suddenly pulled Frances up the short steep bank into the shelter of the branches. It was all so quick that Frances did not have time to say anything; her surprise held her silent. Richard looked back over his shoulder, and then relaxed his grip on her arm.
“The shoulder hid us, and they couldn’t follow us yet. Not with the road so open as it is.”
“What’s wrong?” Frances asked again.
“Something. Haven’t quite made up my mind.”
He advanced into the small wood, and Frances followed; the feeling of confidence which had come to her as they left the path and reached the road quickly evaporated. Von Aschenhausen had discovered nothing, except that they didn’t like the politics of his country—and that couldn’t have surprised him, even if it angered him. What worried Richard? He had reached a large tree which had sheltered the ground from the morning rain. There they regained their breath. It had only taken them two minutes to reach here from the road.
The wood had grown over a large mound, and from this elevation they had a clear view of one part of the road, neatly focused for them by the way in which the trees grew. They could see without being seen. Richard moved slightly to the left to get a better sight of the one visible patch of road. From this point it could be seen even if they sat down. He seemed satisfied—but not with Frances’ dress. He pulled off the red silk handkerchief which she wore tucked into the neckline of her white blouse.
“Put on your cardigan properly,” he advised, “and button it right up to cover that white collar. I don’t like the red socks: they shine up miles away. Here—” He reached for a handful of earth mould, and covered the red wool with an efficient layer of clinging brown earth.
“Here yourself,” said Frances with a good touch of annoyance.
“My pet, you aren’t in this for the benefit of your colour schemes.” He kept his voice low, but there was enough sharpness in it to tell her he was worried.
“Well, I’m glad that the cardigan is green, or I’d be rolling in the mud at this moment, I suppose… What’s wrong?”
Richard put one arm round her shoulders, and kept his eyes fixed on the road.
“Frances, what did you think when you heard the noises upstairs?”
So that was the trouble, She looked at him in surprise.
“Well, it could have been a dog,” she said.
“Forget about that dog. What were the noises like? As you heard them, and not as they were explained away?”
Frances studied her muddied socks for some moments. She had been standing beside the piano; the drinks they hadn’t touched had gleamed amber in a ray of sunlight.
“Well, candidly, the first sound seemed a crash, as if something heavy like a piece of furniture, something solid, had fallen. And then came some thumps.”
“Well?”
“They might have been a fist, but I don’t think any fist could have hammered loudly enough for us to hear, even allowing for wooden floors and ceilings. No, I don’t think those thumping sounds came from a fist. They were too powerful for that. I thought afterwards that it could have been a dog leaping against a heavy door. A big dog.”
“But those thuds were clear-cut. They were very sharply defined. There were no scrabbling noises, which generally end a dog’s jump against a door. Even when we were leaving, and we were standing at the foot of the staircase, there were no whines, no pawing sounds. Peculiar kind of dog it must have been.”
Frances looked at Richard, who kept his eyes fixed on the road. She was beginning to see the reason for his worry.
“Yes,” she agreed. “There were only clear-cut thuds. Sort of staccato thuds.”
“And the last
two, which we heard at the bottom of the stairs, and which should have sounded clearer to us if anything, were actually weaker.”
“Yes.” Something haunted her memory. “Wait,” she added. If only she could think of what it was that had that kind of sound. Something she had heard that afternoon… in that room.
“Richard”—her voice was excited now, and Richard laid a finger on his lips warningly—“Richard, if a dog jumped at the door as we are supposed to believe, the thud on the door would have a different sound from a thud on the floor, wouldn’t it? Well, do you remember when that bull-necked man left us to go and tell Mespelbrunn that we had arrived? He swaggered across the floor and his heels made that same flat sound. The thumping was not against a door, it was on the ground. And I don’t believe it was made by anything so soft as a hand or a dog’s paw. You were perfectly right, Richard.”
“You are more right, still. Good for you, Fran. Now for a spot of reconstruction. We heard a crash, as if a piece of furniture or something solid had hit the ground. What about a chair? And what about someone tied to the chair? That would make the crash quite as heavy as we heard it. Then there were the thumpings, harder and stronger than the blows from a fist. What about two legs tied together? Then they would have to be brought slowly up and allowed to fall on the floor. That would give the kind of noise we heard, all right; for with the legs or ankles tied the heels would strike the ground together. It also accounts for the fact that the blows got weaker. It’s pretty difficult and tiring to attract anyone’s attention that way.”
“But everything was so quiet in that house until those last five minutes.”
“Yes, until after you had finished your song.”
“Whoever it was recognised it?”
Richard nodded. “Yes… He couldn’t have made out our voices when we were talking. And there would have been no hope for him if he had heard a German song sung by a German voice. But there was hope enough to try to attract our attention when he heard an English voice and a song which practically only an Englishman would recognise.”
“So he may be our man? What on earth can we do, Richard? We’ve found him and we haven’t found him.” This was something which Peter Galt had not thought of; they should either have met an Englishman, or found he was dead. Something nice and straightforward, and not a hopeless complication like this.
“What’s our next step?” she asked dismally.
Richard drew a slab of chocolate from his pocket. “Eat some of this,” he suggested. He looked at his watch. “It’s well after five now. We had better wait a bit. If any chance comes, we’ll seize it. If no chance comes I’ll take you back to Frau Schichtl’s, and come back here myself tonight. I’d like to look around.”
“You’ve no gun,” said Frances in a very low voice; her fears stifled her. “Perhaps he isn’t our man after all,” she added persuadingly.
“It’s some man, anyway. I’d still like to look around. Henry may carry a gun. If so, I’ll borrow it. If not, then I’ve always got my stick.” He patted the makhila which lay beside them. Frances looked at the Basque stick of rough wood, with its round leather handle and its sharply pointed ferrule. It didn’t look much protection; the iron point on the end was only good for helping you up a steep hill. Richard noticed her expression. He unscrewed the handle with a suspicion of a smile.
“I never showed you this. It’s rather gruesome.” The head of the stick and part of the top of it slipped off, and a wicked eight inches of pointed steel emerged. It was firmly fixed to the rest of the stick, and transformed it into an ominous weapon.
“I’m not really bloodthirsty,” he added. “I bought it on that Pyrenees trip when I was an undergraduate because I liked the way the Basques swung these sticks with the leather thong of the handle fixed round the wrist, when they were returning from market. Going to the town, they kept their cattle in order with the steel point. Coming from the town, they screwed the handle back in place and slipped the thong over their wrist, and swung it jauntily—with their jacket over one shoulder, and money in their pocket, and a smile for all the girls. I liked the contrast.”
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.
15
THE MOUNTAIN
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 p
rospective 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.