That made her laugh. She smothered it quickly, looked at the back wall of the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about Mother Seidl. Too much excitement. She’s out for the count.” I hope so, he added to that. I don’t give one damn anyway. But he kept his voice to a low murmur. “You weren’t planning to sleep here, were you?”
“I couldn’t sleep upstairs.”
“Not in one of those beautiful white beds?”
“A beautiful white iceberg. And in a room at the back of the house where I couldn’t even see the road.”
So it was a matter of warmth, he thought, and felt the chill of disappointment. “I’d like to have seen you wrestling this mattress downstairs.”
“It isn’t so big. Trudi helped me. I—I thought I would hear you better—when you got back. But I didn’t. Funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t sleep in a bed, and I fell asleep on the floor. Trudi says she often sleeps down here when winter comes. She—”
“Trudi’s fine. Let’s leave her alone. What about you?” Her face was too drawn, too tense, yet strangely beautiful. The small flickering flames shadowed her cheeks, made her large eyes seem larger.
“A little—shaken. And you?”
He watched her as she looked at him anxiously. “Recovering rapidly.” He dropped on one elbow, stretched his legs gratefully.
“You are exhausted.” Her concern grew. “You didn’t get hurt?”
“I’d be complaining my head off if I were.”
Not you, she thought, not you. She said gently, “You’re tired and you’re cold. Let me get you some soup; it’s waiting over on the—”
“No.”
“Brandy? Chuck left you some in the—”
“No. Just stay where you are, the way you are. Let me watch you looking so worried. Is it for me?”
“Yes.”
“Was that really why you waited down here?”
She nodded slowly. “And it didn’t go as planned. I didn’t hear you come in. You didn’t even see me.”
“I didn’t dare hope,” he said very quietly. He reached out a hand to touch her hair. “Yes, you have the prettiest hair. Chuck may have said that first, but I saw it first. In Zürich—you sat at a window, and the sun on the trees outside matched you. Gleam for gleam.” His hand dropped away from the silken strands. His elbow lowered; he stretched back on the mattress. The warmth from the fire began to soak through his body. “It feels good...” His eyes closed.
They opened again as she lifted his head gently and slipped the pillow underneath.
“A mattress on the floor. Crazy. You really are a crazy girl. That’s why I love you, I guess.” He smiled. “One of the reasons.”
“Yes, I’m crazy.” She was smiling, too. “I must be crazy to fall in love with a man I have only known for two days.” She bent over and kissed him, her hair falling softly over his face.
Sunshine across his eyes; the sound of faraway bells; subdued voices near him. Bill Mathison came slowly out of his long deep sleep, sat up with a start. He looked around the bright kitchen incredulously, pulled himself free from a tangle of grey blankets, rose from the mattress. Near the window, Lynn and Trudi stopped talking. He glanced at his watch and shook his head.
Lynn came over to him. She was dressed in her beige tweed suit and white sweater, her long slender legs immaculate in lace-wool stockings, her buckled shoes polished. Her hair was smoothly brushed, her skin as fresh and clear as the sky outside.
“You’re a miracle,” he told her, tried to forget his crumpled clothes and wild hair, and gave her a good-morning hug.
She laughed, reached up and kissed him.
“No, no,” he said quickly, feeling the stubble of his beard catch against her soft cheek. “I need a shave, a—” But he broke off and kissed her right back.
Trudi was saying, “I have to leave, Herr Mathison. I wanted to say good-bye. And thank you. If you hadn’t—”
He cut that short with a quick, “Where are you bound for? Bad Aussee?”
She nodded happily. “But first I’ll show you where you can wash. Your bag is upstairs, all safe.”
“I’ll be domestic and get breakfast,” Lynn said. In English, she added, “I better warn you it will be a slice of bread, a dab of jam, and a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll settle for two cups and spare the rest. Can you stretch it to that?”
“I don’t know. House rules, seemingly. But I’ll try. Oh, and our car has been returned. And Frau Seidl is at church. She ought to be back in half an hour or so, unless her friends keep her talking. I said good-bye for both of us. She is expecting a lot of company here this afternoon, so we’ll never be missed.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be quick.” He paused half-way up the stairs. “What about the rooms overnight?” His smile was wide. “How do we settle tactfully?”
“I’ve already been through that argument. She won’t take a penny.”
“Better make that one cup of coffee.”
“Herr Mathison!” Trudi was calling worriedly from the upper hallway. As he came running up the rest of the stairs, she burst into new apologies for her haste. “Karl will be here very soon,” she explained. “He promised to give me a lift to Bad Aussee. In his sidecar.”
“Was he here this morning?”
“Yes, he came to see you.”
Mathison looked at her sharply. Her voice had been grave. “Anything wrong?”
She shook his hand, repeated her good-byes, wished him everything wonderful in this world. Only as she turned away to run downstairs did she answer his question. “It was all about Herr Zauner,” she said unhappily over her shoulder.
So the news was out, thought Mathison as he shaved and washed in the closet that had been turned into a simple imitation of a bathroom, no doubt for the summer trade. Karl, as a policeman, would have been told that Zauner had been taken away from the inn. But what about Karl’s own discretion? Trudi should never have been told. Of course, neither Karl nor she would ever know the real reason for Zauner’s quiet removal. But still—he frowned, dressed quickly, putting on a fresh shirt and the spare pair of grey flannels. Bruno really moved swiftly, he was thinking as he carried his bag downstairs, just about as swiftly as old friend Chuck.
“Something wrong?” Lynn asked as he drank the cup of coffee.
“Only something that’s to be expected. And nothing to do with us,” he added quickly. “Did Karl mention anything about Zauner this morning?”
“The big policeman? No, not to me. He came to offer Trudi a lift down to Bad Aussee, then told us that Johann’s jeep had been found somewhere along that little road under the cliffs. It was well hidden, not damaged at all, just as if Johann had left it there. Then Karl took one last admiring look at you, agreed with Trudi that you had been wise to keep guard last night and make sure no terrorist came sneaking around—” Lynn broke into laughter. “You know, that story impressed Frau Seidl, too. She was very touched. No, no, don’t look at me like that; I didn’t invent it. I was completely numb. Trudi brought it up out of nowhere when her mother came into the kitchen this morning.”
He was grinning widely at the picture. And the coffee was good. “Old faithful, that’s me.”
“Of course, Karl may have mentioned Zauner when Trudi walked with him to the road. Finished?” She took the empty cup and saucer, carried it over to the sink to wash and dry. He lit a cigarette, strolled over to the door, then remembered the mattress on the floor.
“Okay,” he said, picking it up, “where does this go?”
“Trudi said we could leave it. Put it under the staircase.”
“No. I’m stowing it out of sight.” And let’s hope that Mother Seidl forgets to talk about it to her visitors, he thought. He followed Lynn, who had lifted the pillow and blankets, upstairs to a small room at the back of the house. “Nice and quiet. Pity we are in such a hurry. Or are we?”
“And what story do you fish up out of nowhere when the mob scene begins in the kitchen?”
&
nbsp; “Come on,” he said, and they clattered downstairs in a rush of laughter.
She stood, as he packed the bags into the car, looking at the mountains. “Is that the Sonnblick?” she asked, aghast. I would have worried even more, she thought, if I could have seen it last night.
“Oh, we didn’t go up that sheer cliff. We went around to the other side. It wasn’t too bad. Plenty of trees to hang on to. Finstersee is just below them. Come on, Lynn. Let’s move. What about Bad Aussee for some lunch? Then you get out the map and we’ll—”
“Would it take too long to drive up to Finstersee? Then I could look at the village, too. We haven’t really seen it, you know. Everything is so different in daylight.” No more grey grass, black bushes, or even shadowy houses that had all looked so withdrawn, even threatening.
“It isn’t far. Just a hiccup of a detour.” He helped her into the car, edged it off the meadow onto the road, and started uphill. “Yes, it’s all different,” he agreed as he looked at the houses they passed, the schoolhouse at the crossroads, the inn on its own high meadow overlooking the village main street with its houses encircled by small gardens and neat fences. Simple and innocent. A smiling place. “Now this is where we start uphill. It’s rough going but direct.” He put the car into first as they passed the side of the inn. It was deserted. “Everyone has gone.” Even the people down on the street had all seemed strangers. Perhaps it was their Sunday clothes, or the solemn church manners that clung to them even as they grouped on the street to talk. Talk. That at least hadn’t changed. He braked quickly. Two men were signalling him to stop. “I know them at least. They were in the car that brought me back last night.”
They were two serious-faced types, but when they got near enough to recognise Mathison, they loosened up. “Grüss Gott,” they said warmly.
“Grüss Gott.”
There was strong handshaking all around.
Mathison said, “Is Finstersee still off limits? Haven’t you caught that man you were looking for?”
“They are fishing him out of the lake right now.”
“Then he didn’t surrender?” Zauner had made it all seem so simple, a matter of routine.
“No. He got Zauner, then slipped and fell.”
“What?”
The grave furrowed face nodded. “He slipped and fell. Slid. Couldn’t stop sliding. It was dark, so he couldn’t make sure of his footing.”
The other said, “If his coat hadn’t caught on a dead tree floating on the middle of the lake, the currents would have had him. We’d never have found the body.”
“He got Zauner?”
“One shot. A lucky one for that damned—” The man broke off the rest of his description. The furrows on his face deepened. He looked apologetically at Lynn.
“Zauner is dead?” Mathison asked slowly.
“That’s right. One shot.”
Dark, they had said; it had been dark. “Why didn’t Zauner wait until the light had strengthened fully?” he asked angrily.
The men looked at him in surprise. “But he didn’t wait for dawn. He went in just after our car left. Said he would flush the bastard out.”
“Well,” said the other, “we lost a good man.”
“That we did. We lost a good man. Went in alone. Saved the rest of us from five remaining bullets. He was a good shot, that one. Good position, too. If he hadn’t slipped—”
“Good-bye,” Mathison said, shook hands again. “Grüss Gott.”
“Grüss Gott.”
Mathison turned the car, drove back toward the crossroads, swung the wheel right. “Hell,” he said as he saw he was driving along the village street, “I took the wrong way.”
“No,” said Lynn, “keep on going. The map says here”—she spread it farther out on her knees—“that we’ll get to Salzburg eventually. Third-class road, plenty of twists and turns. That means scenery. Or did you want to see Bad Aussee especially?”
He shook his head, went into first, began climbing the hill out of Unterwald. Plenty of twists and turns, he remembered as he went back into third. He slowed down, watched the road carefully. At least he would have to stop thinking about Zauner. He had made it all seem a matter of routine: dawn, surrender of a subdued man. All so easy and simple. And he had known it wasn’t. He had made his choice; found the only solution perhaps, even found the only answer to his grim question. The life of his wife, his own happiness, hadn’t been the answer; how much real happiness had Zauner had in those last twenty-odd years with the dead men of his betrayed platoon staring at him with their accusing eyes? They had wives too... “Zauner—” he began, and stopped.
“Would you have stayed up there with Zauner if you had known he was going in?”
“This is quite a road you picked.”
Then he would have stayed, she thought. Thank God that Zauner had somehow managed to send him away. Thank God. “You are a stubborn man,” she said very quietly.
“I like to finish what I start.” He smiled suddenly. “And that goes for you, my girl. When you marry me, you stay married. We don’t give up.”
“Or you’ll break my little neck?” Her laugh ended in a gasp.
“Oh!—” But his speed was in control, and the corner sweeping quickly around the sharp shoulder of the hill was safely taken. She tried to regain her composure. “There’s a church with an onion-shaped spire.” She pointed toward the mountain slope on her right. So small it was, and old, so lonely, perched up there on its own meadow.
But Mathison was looking at the signs of a violent skid, just on his left. A tragic skid. Someone had gone right over the edge there. The despairing wheel marks were rutted deep into the soft shoulder, now frozen solid.
“I’m glad you are driving. This would paralyse me,” she admitted. “I’m afraid I misjudged this road.” She glanced down at the map. “But it gets better after this, it says here.”
And it did. It still ran high along the mountain’s steep side, but the deep gullies that had turned the road into a twisting roller-coaster were ended. “Well,” Mathison said, “there’s one thing you didn’t misjudge. There is plenty of scenery. Good God, Lynn—will you look at that!” For safety, he brought the car to a stop, switched off the engine, applied the brakes firmly. Now he could really look. Hillsides fell away into a broad stretch of green valley, farmland and forest and flowing waters, mountains with ice-rimmed peaks encircling it all in a wide embrace.
They sat in silence. He took her hand and kissed it, his eyes on the distant mountains. “That’s something to remember,” he said softly. Then his eyes looked into hers. “And so are these.” He kissed them in turn. “And so is this.” He kissed her mouth.
When at last he started the car, he drove at a steady speed. Within an easy two hours, they could see the steeples and domes of Salzburg.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen MacInnes, whom the Sunday Express called ‘the Queen of spy writers’, was the author of many distinguished suspense novels.
Born in Scotland, she studied at the University of Glasgow and University College, London, then went to Oxford after her marriage to Gilbert Highet, the eminent critic and educator. In 1937 the Highets went to New York, and except during her husband’s war service, Helen MacInnes lived there ever since.
Since her first novel Above Suspicion was published in 1941 to immediate success, all her novels have been bestsellers; The Salzburg Connection was also a major film.
Helen MacInnes died in September 1985.
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HELEN MacINNES
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“The queen of spy writers.” Sunday Express
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“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.”
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