“When they do arrive,” Denning said, deliberately and clearly, “will that prove the rest of my story? Or do you prefer to wait until you’ve been murdered like Charles Maartens?”
Georges and Jean stared at him.
“Are you as expendable as Charles Maartens?” Denning asked them. “Will your boss let you be killed too, as long as he gets the Herz diamonds?”
Suddenly, Nicholas was screaming, screaming in high piercing anger like a frenzied woman, his mouth wide open in Picasso-like fear, as he rushed at Denning with his fists clenched, upraised, beating the air as if it were Denning’s face.
Denning caught up a bottle of wine from the table. “Now, now,” he said, as Nicholas halted out of reach and the screaming ended as abruptly as it had begun, “keep those pretty little fingers to yourself. You wouldn’t want them permanently scarred, would you?” He knocked the bottom of the bottle against a hard-backed chair, and dashed the spilling wine in Nicholas’s face. To Georges, who was no fool, he said, “You’ll see Maartens’s death in that paper. Page three.” And even Jean, edging round by the window in a flanking attack, stopped and waited, staring now at Georges, who had picked up the newspaper. Then something else caught his attention, the sound of a car, faint as yet. He looked quickly through the window.
“Someone is coming,” Denning said very quietly. And I hope it’s Waysmith, he thought, but he wasn’t too sure of that.
Jean said, “The car is down on the road.”
“It may pass,” Nicholas said. He wiped his face with a white silk handkerchief. The look in his eyes was an ugly one.
“The car has stopped,” said Denning. Stopped? Or had it passed out of earshot?
“See what it is,” Nicholas said to Jean with a quick gesture towards the door. Now, he was in control of his emotions. His eyes, heavy-lidded again, looked expressionlessly at Denning. “You disappoint me,” he said, with a cool smile, pointing to the jagged bottle which Denning still held ready. “I did not think you were the type of man who’d descend to such violence.”
“That isn’t the first time you’ve guessed wrong today,” Denning reminded him. “Or yesterday.”
Jean’s lightly pattering steps came running through the hall. “There’s a car on the road. Men, too. They’re climbing up the bank.”
“Quick!” Nicholas said as he moved to the door.
“Taking to the hills?” Denning asked, with a smile. “For it certainly won’t be any use driving away in your own car. Have a look.” He pointed to the window and stepped back against the wall, the bottle still held ready in his hand. Slowly, carefully, over the rough track which he had followed to the house, moved a second car.
Nicholas stood quite still. Almost politely, he said, “You have many friends, Mr. Denning.”
“More than I thought.”
“You lied to me,” Nicholas said, sadly. “You said you were not a policeman.”
“I’m still telling the truth. I am not a policeman.”
At the window, Jean cried out, his voice cracking with high alarm, “The car has stopped. They’re waiting—they’re waiting!”
It was strange that a car, halted quietly only fifty yards from the front of the house, should raise such sudden panic in the room. Denning stared in amazement at the three men, now speaking in the quickest burst of French he had ever heard. Impossible to understand them. Did they even understand each other or was the bitter recrimination in their voices enough? Nicholas won the contest, seemingly. The others fell silent, watched him, as if they waited for him to speak. Quickly now, he turned to Denning. “I make a bargain with you. You tell nothing—about me. Yes?”
“That depends on what you tell me.”
“I met the man in Bern, two days ago. He called himself Mr. James. You understand—such a name may be false?”
Denning nodded. “Nationality?”
“Eastern European.” Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he added. “The plan was made as you said. But no talk of murder. No mention of killing.” Again he looked pleadingly at Denning.
“His appearance?”
“Not very tall. Quiet. A gentle smile. He seemed a gentle man. Not one to kill. Business-like, yes. But not a murd—”
“Yes,” said Denning quickly, “and what colour of hair?”
“Nothing.”
“Nondescript?”
“Like yours.”
“Where is he now?” Footsteps were approaching the house from the wood.
“In Falken. He—” Nicholas stopped, staring at the men who passed the window now, men in ordinary country clothes, men with tanned faces and hair bleached by the sun. “They aren’t policeman,” he said, and drew in his breath.
“He told you where to find the Herz diamonds? And the time to take them—when it would be safe for you? How did he know? Nicholas—keep your bargain!”
Nicholas shook his head. He smiled. “They aren’t police. And I don’t think they are your friends. Now perhaps I can make quite another bargain.” His eyelids drooped. “With them,” he added quietly. He hurried into the hall to meet the men who had entered.
He was pushed back into the room. Four men followed him.
For a moment, Denning did not recognise the tallest of the newcomers. But it was Bohren, all right, Inspector Bohren dressed to look as if he spent all his life climbing up through steep woods. Denning lowered the jagged bottle, and then laid it awkwardly on the table. Somehow, he felt foolish with four pairs of grave eyes watching him. The bottle rolled off the table and smashed on the floor. “It keeps doing that,” Denning said.
Bohren almost smiled. “You live here?” he asked.
“No. Just visiting.” Denning sat down on the nearest chair. The back of his collar was soaked with perspiration. He loosened his tie.
“What is this, what is this?” Nicholas demanded. “And who are you? How dare—”
“Police,” said Bohren. He pulled an identification badge out of his pocket for a brief moment.
Nicholas spread his small hands wide. “Police? But why? What have I done? You have no right to enter my house.”
“We’ve not only entered, but we intend to search it.”
“Impossible.”
“We are searching every house in this district.”
“Why?”
“A man has disappeared. He’s ill, loss of memory. He may be hiding.”
“Insane?” Nicholas blinked his eyes with appropriate nervousness. “But, I assure you, no one could have entered here without my—”
“I’ve got a report to file,” Bohren said. “Sorry, but I must search, Mr—?”
“Nicholas.”
“Of Cap d’Hercule?”
Nicholas forgot to control his stare.
Bohren turned to one of the men with him—husky, open-air types all of them—and said briskly, “Heinz, give the Frenchmen the signal.”
“Frenchmen?” Nicholas asked. He glanced at Georges and Jean, but they were standing away from him, moodily, with a kind of fatalism, as if they expected worse to come and could only evade it if they did nothing to attract attention. Perhaps Georges was remembering Maartens—the newspaper was still clutched in his hand; and Jean may have started to think, now that his excitement had suddenly ended, and he faced the cold hard realism of Inspector Bohren.
For an answer, they all heard the waiting car move towards the house.
“Yes,” Bohren said, “two of your fellow citizens who have some questions to ask.”
“Policemen? I tell them nothing, I tell you nothing.” Nicholas spoke contemptuously. “Nothing, nothing at all.” He drew himself erect. “Because I know nothing,” he added as a safeguard.
Denning said wearily, “But he will make a bargain with you. He has a passion for making bargains. Which he won’t keep, I may add.”
Bohren moved into the hall as the car stopped outside.
Nicholas seemed to measure the two stolid men who stood watchfully near the door. Then he tu
rned to Denning. “I keep my bargain,” he said quickly. “The man works in the house. The house.” He glanced nervously at his audience. “Many work there. Well guarded. Tonight, no guards. You understand?”
“Why no guards?”
Bohren had stepped back into the room again. Perhaps he hadn’t gone far beyond the door. He looked interested, certainly.
“Business. Big business,” said Nicholas, and laughed, delighted now with his caution in referring to the house so vaguely.
Bohren came forward with an anger which may have been pretended, but sounded real enough. “What are you two sending each other? Telegrams? What’s your name, anyway?” He glanced at Denning. Jean shrank against a wall.
“William Denning.”
“Identification?”
Denning produced his passport. Nicholas looked worried for the first time.
“What’s your purpose, here?” Bohren asked.
“Travelling for pleasure. I’m staying in Falken. I was told this house was for rent. So I came to see it.” He pulled Paula’s map from his pocket. “That’s the name of the house agent in Bern, stamped there. But his files weren’t up to date, apparently. I find the house has already been leased to these gentlemen.”
Nicholas was visibly relaxing. He nodded his approval. Jean took some comfort, and smiled anxiously all around. Georges was still frowning at some invisible blot on the wooden floor: his process of thought, if slow, was certainly interesting. “I’m so sorry,” Nicholas said to Denning. “We thought you might be— well, a burglar.” He smiled, fluttered his little hands, disposed of all the unpleasantness with a shrug of his shoulders. “So sorry we seemed so rude.”
“I think I’ll wander back to the village,” Denning said. “Is that all right with you, officer?” He pocketed his passport securely.
Bohren gave him a peculiar look. “I place you now,” he said slowly. “You’ve rented a room at the café-restaurant.”
Have I, indeed? Denning thought.
“I’ll find you there when I need you,” Bohren warned him. Then he turned to the doorway, to welcome Heinz and the two Frenchmen.
Nicholas took two side steps towards Denning. His voice was barely audible. “You keep the bargain?”
“Haven’t I?”
“I like you, Mr. Denning. A man I can trust. If ever you need a job—” He paused significantly, tactfully.
“You’d take me on?”
“Why not? You have a certain style.”
“You flatter me, Monsieur Nicholas.” Denning moved towards the door.
“But not at all, Mr. Denning.”
Denning resisted an impulse to sweep an eighteenth-century bow. But why mock a man’s pride when it was going to be so thoroughly deflated within the next two minutes? For the tall, thin Frenchman with the amused dark eyes and the long intelligent face was Colonel Le Brun, back from Genoa. He came forward, now. “What kind of job?” he asked, with a narrow smile.
“In my business of importing and exporting,” Nicholas began with dignity, “there are many openings for intelligent young men.”
“So, Nikolaides—you have become a business-man?”
The hooded eyes looked blankly at Le Brun. “My name is Nicholas.”
“It was Nikolaides, twenty years ago, when you calmly lost such a fantastic fortune at Monte Carlo, and I happened to be sitting—most admiringly—opposite you. It was a night I’ve often remembered. That was before you developed other talents, of course, and other names. Now, I hear you are much too busy for the uncertain joys of gambling, except on useful occasions such as last night’s performance at the Kursaal in Bern.” Suddenly the light, amused voice changed to cold contempt. “You have become a naturalised citizen of France?”
“I am a good citizen. I have done France no wrong.”
“In that case, you will wish to give her every possible help.”
“But of course.”
“Then you will give us all information you possess about the present location of certain stolen property which belongs to the French government.”
“Stolen? What is stolen?” The protests of ignorance and innocence were beginning.
A tactful moment to leave, Denning thought.
So did Bohren. For as Denning moved towards the door, he said, “We’ll search the house meanwhile. Shall I post a man here, or can you manage?”
Le Brun’s companion, his sharp brown eyes watchful, nodded as he produced a neat little gun from his pocket. He released the safety catch. Two of Bohren’s men clattered upstairs, the third started towards the back of the house. But Bohren himself walked silently through the hall, following Denning. Behind them, the act of innocence had begun.
“Let me refresh your memory,” Le Brun was saying. “The stolen property I mentioned is the Herz collection of diamonds.”
“I have never seen it in my life. I haven’t got it. I assure you—”
“You know where those diamonds are. Legally, they belong to the French government. Anyone refusing to give information leading towards their recovery will automatically be aiding and abetting…”
Bohren closed the front door quietly behind him. For a moment, he stood looking at Denning. “All right?” he asked. He drew Denning round to the side of the house, away from the room where Nikolaides was being questioned.
“Reviving rapidly.” This was good clean air. He took a deep breath.
“I’ll have to stay here until Nikolaides starts talking to policemen. Any news?”
“I made a bargain,” said Denning, with a smile.
Bohren was not amused.
Denning said, “Actually you know more about Nikolaides than I do. But find the house where the Herz collection is hidden, and you’ll find the man who planned, and is directing, the attack upon the Falken Committee.”
“The top Communist agent?”
“For this particular operation, yes.”
“He stayed close to the diamonds? Isn’t that a little foolish?” Bohren was sceptical.
“Yes. But who could guess that any dangerous man would be so foolish?” Denning asked softly. “Or that he would be a servant, pretending to take orders?”
“He’s got the right technique,” Bohren admitted. “He will interest Keppler, I think. If he is the top agent, that explains one puzzle—” He looked at Denning, hesitated for a moment, then momentarily discarded his habitual caution. “Now I understand why Nikolaides, himself, came to Bern. He is not the kind of man to take direct action. He likes to plan from a comfortable distance.”
“I didn’t think he was enjoying this trip to Switzerland, particularly. He must have been pretty sure it was worth his while before he started it.” Certainly, Nikolaides wouldn’t have come to Bern to talk to a minor agent. Nor would he have acted on any information unless he was sure he had obtained it from an authoritative source.
“And tonight, big business?” Bohren glanced worriedly at his watch. “Or else,” he looked frankly at Denning, “that is just another of Nikolaides’s elaborations. Like Genoa.”
“I’d take it as the truth, this time. He meant to leave me, trussed and gagged, in a locked room. I was to be released around midnight, by a ’phone call from Bern. Which means he planned to complete his mission and be in Bern by midnight, on his way out of the country. You can work out his Falken schedule from that.”
“Indeed we can,” Bohren said, and his smile was suddenly benevolent. He had got the information he had wanted. “Better get to the village. Take that foot-path, up there to your left. It’s quick.” It was also out of sight from the window of the room where Nikolaides and his friends were protesting.
“Good luck,” said Denning. “And if you need any extra arguments, there are some excellent tread marks on that road. They were made just after the rain stopped last night.”
“The best argument of all will be his false passport,” Bohren said. And Denning remembered the strange expression in Nikolaides’s eyes when Denning had handed over his passport
to be examined. “I’ll send Heinz Gauch after you, just to make sure you reach Falken,” Bohren added as he turned away.
“I don’t need to be convoyed.”
“Don’t you?” Bohren’s grin was wide. “But thanks for leading us back to Waldesruhe. It was searched for Andrássy yesterday evening and found empty. No one knew it had been rented, either.” Quietly he opened the door. Quietly closed it.
16
TROUBLE ON THE BLÜMLISALP
The narrow foot-path, almost unnoticeable until Bohren had pointed it out, led Denning over high meadowland along the lower edge of a fairly dense wood. At first it seemed to draw him away from Falken on its wide curve over the sloping hill; but, as he approached higher ground, he saw that the path was beginning to cut down to the village, a short direct route, a backward approach to Falken’s single street and the main cluster of houses.
Once, he heard a dog bark, powerfully, angrily, somewhere up there in the woods to his left, as if another house was hidden back among the trees. But he kept on, at an even pace, to prove to himself as much as to Bohren that he didn’t need Heinz Gauch to see him safely into Falken. He allowed himself one last glance at Waldesruhe, however, already out of sight except for a match-box chimney on a spread-eagled roof. What on earth had made him go there alone? Would he do it all over again, knowing Nikolaides as he did now? I must have been crazy, he thought. And now he must be sane, for he felt a cold shiver run down his back.
Yet, it wasn’t altogether useless what he had done. Another thing, he had saved time; and, judging by Nikolaides’s planning, time was running out. Stop finding justifications, he told himself as he quickened his pace: you were a damned fool, and luckier than most. That’s what Bohren thinks, and he’s right. In his way, he’s right. In a way. But sometimes it’s useful to be a damned fool, even if it chills your spine when you think about it afterwards.
The dog barked again, nearer now. Suddenly he heard hurrying footsteps coming down through the trees, a clatter of heavy boots slipping on rock, dull steady thuds on soft pine needles, and then a crackle of dry branches as a man stepped on to the path ahead of him. It was Heinz Gauch, red-faced, his jacket slung over his shoulders, his sleeves rolled up. He was looking back at the wood, his hands on his hips, his feet widespread as he waited for Denning.