by Mary Stewart
‘You’ll come back soon?’
‘Yes. Possibly tonight. Certainly by Tuesday night.’
‘What sort of thing, Lewis?’
‘God knows, I don’t. Anything that’s out of pattern. There may be nothing; but Denver asked for me, and Denver was heading for the border, and Denver died . . . You’ve got it clear? I don’t want you to do anything, and certainly to take no risks at all. All you have to do is forget I was here, forget this conversation, and stay with the circus until I get in touch with you again. All right?’
‘All right. And you needn’t keep reassuring me, I’m not a bit nervous, just happy.’ I moved my cheek against the sweater. ‘You did say “by the sheerest luck”, didn’t you?’
‘That you were here? I did.’
‘Hush a minute, I think I heard Tim move.’ From next door came the heavy creak of the bed, as Timothy presumably roused and turned over. We lay still, clasped closely. After a while there was silence again.
He said very softly: ‘I ought to go. Damn!’
‘What about Timothy?’
‘Leave it for the moment. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. The trouble is this bloody alias . . . If you know his people, he’ll find out who I am in any case, sooner or later, so we’ll have to tell him. We can cook up some story for him – a special investigation for PEC involving an insurance claim; something like that. I’ll have to think. He may even decide for himself that I’ve some connection with the police, and that won’t matter; it’ll help to keep his mouth shut. He’s all right, isn’t he?’
‘I’d trust him further than I can see.’
‘Fair enough, as long as we don’t trust him with anything we haven’t a right to. When I get back I’ll talk to him. I’ll really have to go.’ He sat up. ‘Now, final arrangements. Tomorrow, or rather today, you’ll be at Hohenwald. You’d better keep in touch. Try to ring some time during the evening. The number’s Vienna 32 14 60. I won’t write it down, I want you to remember it. Got it?’
‘I think so. Vienna 32 14 60. And do I ask for Mr Elliott?’
‘Yes, please. If I’m not there someone else will answer. I’ll tell them to expect your call. The next night you’ll be at Zechstein, that’s the take-off point for the border. I’ll join you there. There’s a hotel a couple of miles north of the village, a new one; it’s the old castle, and they’ve converted it, and I believe it’s rather a fascinating place. Try and get rooms there, anyway. It’s a fair distance out of the village, so that if I do come and join you there, I won’t be seen and identified by half the parish . . . Have you enough money?’
‘For the time being, anyway. Will this castle place be very expensive?’
‘Probably. Never mind, I’ll see if I can get you on the strength! Book double, will you, in case I can join you as Mr March. Now I really must go.’
‘I suppose you must. Oh, Lewis, it’s beastly cold without you.’
‘Is it, sweetie? Tuck that thing round you tighter, then, and go to sleep.’
‘I never felt less like sleep. I’ll see you out.’
I swung my feet out of bed, reached for my dressing-gown, and folded it round me. He had shrugged himself into his jacket, and was sitting down pulling on his shoes. They were, I noticed, rubber-soled plimsolls.
I dropped a kiss lightly on his hair. ‘You’re too darned good at this, Casanova. Do you suppose you can get back into your own place without being seen and heard?’
‘I’ll try. In any case Frau Schindler will only think I’ve been helping the circus pull-down.’
I unlatched the windows, and pushed them very quietly open. The cold scents of the dawn came in, as the starlight shivered and slackened towards morning. The breeze was rustling the grasses.
Lewis went past me like a shadow, and paused at the veranda rail. When he turned back, I went out.
He said softly: ‘The breeze’ll help. Nobody’ll hear me go.’ He kissed me. ‘Your reputation’s safe a little longer, Mrs Prim.’
I took him by the lapels of his jacket, and held on to them rather tightly. ‘Take care of yourself. Please take care of yourself.’
‘Why, what’s this?’
‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. Take care.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll do that. Now get yourself to bed, and go to sleep.’
And suddenly, I was alone. I thought I heard, over the rustling of the grass, a deeper rustling, and then it was gone.
I turned back from the veranda rail, to see Timothy, in his pyjamas, standing at the open window of his room, staring at me.
For a moment, everything stopped; the breeze, the sounds of the night, the blood and breath in my body: for one long pulse of silence I could neither speak nor move.
He made no movement either, but, though I knew that Lewis had made no sound, I knew also that Timothy had seen him.
I suppose we stared at one another for a full half minute. It seemed like a year. He had not to be told yet; I had had my instructions; and at the unthinking level of fear which had prompted my last exchange with Lewis, I knew that they might matter. There was only one thing to do; assume that Timothy had seen nothing, and hope that he wouldn’t dare broach the subject without my giving him a lead.
I said: ‘Hullo, couldn’t you sleep?’
He came slowly out through the long windows until he was only a couple of feet away. In the growing light I could see him clearly. There was nothing in his face that one could put a name to, no curiosity, or embarrassment, or even surprise. His features had been schooled to a most complete indifference. He was going to play it exactly as I could have wished.
I think it was his very lack of expression that decided me. Boys of seventeen ought not to be able to look like that. Whatever Carmel and Graham Lacy had done between them to Timothy, I wasn’t going to be responsible for adding another layer to that forcible sophistication.
And nothing would serve but the truth. It was emphatically not the time to ask, with exasperated affectation, what he thought I could possibly have been getting up to with Lee Elliott after half an hour’s acquaintance. He had seen the kiss, after all. Besides, as soon as the first impact had worn off, he would certainly put two and two together, and arrive at the truth. He might as well have it now, and from me. Lewis would have to forgive me; but if Timothy could be trusted later, he could be trusted now.
I took in my breath and leaned back against the rail.
‘Well, it’s a fair cop,’ I said, lightly. ‘Now I suppose I’ll have to confess I lied to you about our Mr Elliott.’
‘Lied to me?’
‘Afraid so. You remember I told you he was my husband’s double?’
‘Yes, of course.’ His face had changed, emerging somehow from that pre-selected expression of indifference. I suppose his lightning conclusion was the obvious one, but somehow the relief and pleasure on his face made it a compliment. ‘You mean it was your husband, himself? You mean that chap Elliott – your husband was actually here all the time? The newsreel was right?’
‘Just that. As soon as I saw him I realised he didn’t want to be made known – and then Annalisa said, “This is Lee Elliott”, so I just shut up and said nothing.’
‘In disguise? Really? Gosh!’ The old familiar Timothy was back; even in the cool half light I could see the sparkle of excitement. ‘I said he was mysterious, didn’t I? No wonder you were punch-drunk tonight and wouldn’t make plans about cables to Stockholm!’ He took a breath. ‘But why? Was there something wrong about the fire, then, after all?’
‘Don’t ask me why, he didn’t explain, only that there’s something involved that his firm doesn’t want to be made public, so for the moment we’ll have to keep his secret.’ I gave a little laugh. ‘This’ll be a great blow to his pride; he was so sure nobody’d heard him.’
‘As a matter of fact I didn’t hear him. I’d woken up, and couldn’t go to sleep again straight away, and I felt a bit hot under that eiderdown affair, so I just came over to open the window
wider.’ He added, naïvely: ‘As a matter of fact I got a bit of a fright. I wondered what in the world he was doing snooping around here. I was just going to tackle him, and see if you were all right, when you came out of the window.’
‘And you realised it had been a reasonably friendly visit.’ I laughed. ‘Well, thanks for looking after me. Now you know all, as they say . . . At any rate you know as much as I do, but keep it dark, there’s a dear. I’m not supposed to have told you who he was.’
‘OK. Good night.’
‘Good night.’
And I went back to my cold bed.
9
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps
With gentle majesty and modest pride:
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say ‘Lo, thus my strength is tried.’
Shakespeare: Venus and Adonis
Next morning it was with a sense almost of shock that, as the car approached the other end of the village, I saw in place of the bustle and the big top of the circus, merely an empty field. There was the trampled circle, with the remains of sawdust and tanbark strewn where the ring had stood. Wisps of blowing straw were all that were left of the warm stable where the horses had slept, and where I had operated last night.
Tim stopped the car at the gate of the field.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it? Like a field full of ghosts.’
‘I was just thinking that. It looks quite incredibly deserted, as if Aladdin or someone had rubbed a lamp, and the whole thing had been spirited away . . . Like the end of a story.’ I looked towards the corner of the field, where the blackened grass and a few charred sticks indicated the scene of the tragedy. ‘And a sad story, too. I wonder if they were glad to get away? What did you stop for?’ For he was getting out of the car.
‘I thought I’d get something to eat on the way. I won’t be long – that is, unless you’d like to come back with me, and maybe have a cup of coffee at the Konditorei?’
‘I’ll come.’
The smell of fresh baking from the little bakery-cum-café was enough to snare anybody, and it would have been too much to expect Tim to pass it without a visit. The little window on the shady side of the morning square was filled with fragrant stacks of breads and excitingly foreign confections. Timothy gave them his earnest consideration, while I waited, trying not to look as if all my attention was fixed on the side door, where a notice saying Zimmer frei might indicate that the vistor had already left.
‘Vanessa, do look at the names of these things! Aren’t they marvellous? Sandgugelhupf . . . isn’t that smashing? How about a nice Sandgugelhupf each? Or a Polsterzipf? Oh, look, it can’t really be called a Spitzbub, can it?’
‘I don’t see why not, anything seems possible in this language. What about Schokoladegugelhupf – and I do rather care for the Schnittbrot.’
‘I think that only means sliced bread,’ said Timothy. ‘It is a marvellous language, isn’t it?’
‘I’m going to start learning it, as from today,’ I said. ‘I wish there was a shop where I could get a book, but there won’t be one here, and we’re not going through Bruck, either, today. Have you got one?’
‘Only a phrase book, but you can borrow it if you like. It’s quite a good one, as they go . . . Don’t you just adore phrase books? The things they imagine one might want to say . . . they’re almost as good as one’s Greek grammar at school. I remember one of the first sentences I had to put into Greek was, “She carried the bones in the basket.” I’m still wondering whose bones, and why.’
‘Well, there you are, it’s stuck in your memory all this time, which is what I suppose school books are meant to do. I’ll bet you remember that bit of Greek better than any other you did.’
‘As a matter of fact it’s about the only bit I do remember, and just think how useful. The best thing I’ve come across so far in my German phrase book is in the section for “Air Travel”. “Will you please open the windows” seems to me a funny thing to say to anyone on a plane, somehow.’
‘Not seriously? You must be kidding. Is it really in the book?’
‘Yes, honestly.’
‘Well, if all the phrases are as useful as that—’
‘Good morning,’ said Lewis, just behind us.
He wasn’t wearing the plimsolls this morning, but he had still moved very quietly. If it was getting to be a habit, I thought, it was a habit he could just get out of again. I didn’t want to die of heart failure.
I said, ‘Good morning,’ a little breathlessly, wondering as I spoke if I should tell him straight away that Timothy knew, but Timothy was already greeting him with aplomb almost as professional as his own, and then it was somehow too late.
Timothy said: ‘Oh, hullo, Mr Elliott, good morning. You haven’t gone yet? I wondered if you’d have left when the circus did.’
‘Too early for me. The last wagons were due to go at about five, I think. I didn’t hear them.’
‘You must be a very sound sleeper,’ said Timothy cheerfully. ‘I imagined there’d be a lot of coming and going in the village during the night, but perhaps it doesn’t disturb you?’
‘Thank you,’ said Lewis, ‘no. I had an excellent night; far better than I had expected.’
‘Tim,’ I said quickly, perhaps even sharply, ‘you’d better choose what you want in the way of buns, and go in and buy them. We really ought to be setting off.’
‘OK,’ said Tim amiably, and vanished through the shot doorway.
‘Honours about even,’ I said, ‘but will you please not score your points across my marriage bed? That boy knows, Lewis.’
‘Does he?’ I was relieved to see that he looked, after the first frowning moment, no more than amused. ‘The little so-and-so, does he indeed?’
‘I had to tell him. He saw you leaving last night.’
‘I must be slipping.’
‘No, it was pure accident. But I had to tell him.’
‘I suppose so. Don’t worry. How much does he know?’
‘Only who you are. He thinks it’s some mysterious business mission for PEC. May I tell him you asked me to keep in touch with the circus?’
‘I don’t see why not. Tell him the firm may want more details about Denver’s death, and I may have to come back, so meantime I’ve asked you to stick around. That’s nothing but the truth, after all. You can refer any other questions to me.’
‘I doubt if he’ll ask them. Tim’s all right.’ It was a measure of what had happened in the last two days, that I knew that the phrase – and all it implied – was true. ‘When do you go?’
‘I’m on my way now. You all right?’
‘Fine. We’re just setting off for Hohenwald, but Tim was afraid of starving on the way. Have you got a car here?’
He nodded to one which stood under the trees near by, a shabby fawn-coloured Volvo which nevertheless looked powerful. He was decently dressed this morning, I noticed, though still not recognisably Lewis March, my husband. This was still the anonymous and professionally insignificant Lee Elliott. I could see now that his very ability to melt into apparent insignificance was one of the tools of his trade, but nothing, I thought, could take from Lewis the precision and grace of movement which spoke always of strength and self-command, and could sometimes – when he allowed it – give him elegance.
He lifted his head, narrowing his eyes against the morning sun. ‘What’s the boy stocking up with food for? You haven’t a great way to go . . .’ And then, very softly: ‘Stop looking at me like that, for goodness’ sake, my dear girl. You look as if you were bringing me gold and frankincense.’
‘And why not? I has my rights too, Mr M.’ I added aloud: ‘Exactly how far is Hohenwald, anyway? How far does a circus normally go in a day?’
‘About thirty or forty miles. It’s roughly fifty kilometres to Hohenwald. You should have a lovely run; the gradients aren’t bad, and there’s some beautiful country. Have lunch at Lindenbaum, and take your time.’
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When Timothy emerged from the shop with his arms alarmingly full of packages, Mr Elliott was giving me directions for a pleasant day’s drive, with a map drawn on the back of an old envelope. I noticed that the envelope was addressed to ‘Lee Elliott, Esq, c/o Kalkenbrunner Fertiliser Company, Meerstrasse, Vienna’.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ll go. Have a good journey.’
‘And you,’ said Lewis. ‘Enjoy yourselves . . . Auf Wiedersehen, then, and remember me to Annalisa.’
As we drove off, Timothy shot a sideways glance at me. ‘Was that just a crack?’
I laughed. ‘No. In any case, you’re a fine one to talk about making cracks. I may tell you, Lewis knows.’
He looked startled, then grinned. ‘Oh, you just told him? You mean he knows I know?’
‘Yes, and leave it at that, will you, before I get muddled. All is now in the clear . . . and thank goodness we can talk.’
This was the first chance we had had of private conversation since our daybreak meeting on the veranda. Breakfast had been a more or less public function in the Gasthof, with Timothy’s devoted waitress watching our every move, but now, as we left the village behind us, we had not only the road, but the whole countryside, seemingly, to ourselves.
The road was, as Lewis had promised, idyllic. The morning sun cast long, fresh blue shadows, and the hedges were thick, and full of honeysuckle and white convolvulus. A hay cart had been that way, and the wisps of hay were hanging golden from the hedge in the still morning.
I began to explain to Timothy what Lewis had asked me to do, indicating merely that Lewis and his firm were not satisfied with the verdict of ‘accident’ on Paul Denver, and were still curious to know what connection – if any – the latter had had with the circus people, and if he could have incurred any enmities which might have led directly to his death.
‘All he wants me to do,’ I said at length, ‘is keep in touch with the circus, as veterinary surgeon if they need me, or just as a friend. He’s very emphatic that no questions are to be asked, or detective work done . . . there’s no room for your Archie Goodwin act, Timothy. In fact I don’t know whether you want to stay in on this or not? It chimes in exactly with what I’d like to do myself – I mean, if I can’t join Lewis straight away, then I’m quite happy to stooge around here till he comes back, and maybe be a bit of help to him at the same time. And I do want to keep an eye on the old horse. But if you’d rather cut loose here and now, and go to Piber—’
