by John Burke
“That is not part of the bargain.”
“If I’m going to make plans for shifting the stuff,” said Logan, “I’ve got to know what it is. Come on. Talk.”
Reluctantly, she talked. The words were forced out of her as though they were a curse that would bring misfortune down on her head once more. She said: “There are two horns. Small—what you call one foot, I think. Or something like that.”
“Two horns?” Logan echoed incredulously. “That’s all?”
“That is all,” she said with a quick smile. She was anxious for him to ask more questions. Then she added: “They are made of gold.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Golden horns?” said Martin Slade in a tone of utter disbelief. “Couldn’t be. Not the original ones. And yet, what’s all the fuss if they’re not?”
He sat with Logan and Carol, talking over what Birgitte had said.
“You know about some golden horns, then?” said Logan.
“I don’t remember all the details, but I know that the greatest archaeological treasures in Denmark were the two horns of Gallehus. They were found…oh, some time in the seventeenth century, I think it was. And then they were stolen and melted down.”
“Melted down?”
“I think so. But I’m a bit hazy.”
“This is worth following up,” said Logan decisively. “Where can you get hold of the full story?”
“The National Museum on Frederiksholms Kanal. They’ve got replicas of the original horns there.”
“Get busy,” said Logan.
Martin Slade went off, still looking disbelieving. He was back within an hour, with a couple of sheets of paper covered with scribbled notes.
“I still can’t see,” he said at once, “how this can tie up with what Brigitte’s doing. It’s just not possible.”
“Give me the story,” said Logan, “and we’ll thrash it out afterwards,”
Martin frowned over his notes, and began:
“In 1639 a girl on her way to Tonder, a little lace-making village in South Jutland, stumbled on the path, but went on. A week later she tripped over something at the same spot, and this time she investigated. She found, to her amazement, a golden horn, shaped in an arc and decorated with strange figures and signs. There were pictures of bowmen and animals—and things that were neither human nor animal.
“For some time the girl kept this treasure under her bed, and her brothers and sisters played with it. In due course, however, it was handed over to the authorities, and eventually reached the King. A doctor who was called in to attend to the King’s son became interested in the horn, and made detailed drawings of it.
“The second horn was found almost a hundred years later, in the same field, by a man who was digging clay for his house. A piece was missing from the end of this horn, but although searches were carried out for many years afterwards, this was never found.
“The two horns were finally placed in the Chamber of Arts in the Rosenborg Palace.
“In 1802, a goldsmith called Heidenreich became friendly with the stoker in the Royal Library and the Chamber of Arts, and managed to obtain the keys. One night he let himself in and stole the two horns.”
“And they were never found?” breathed Carol. “He was never caught?”
“He was caught,” said Martin, “and confessed to melting both of them down and making gold coins out of them.”
“Oh.” Carol was disappointed. In that case—”
“It would seem,” said Martin, “that these horns can’t have any connection with the ones Brigitte is talking about.”
Logan tugged thoughtfully at his aquiline jaw. He said:
“It doesn’t follow. It seems an odd thing that a man would carry out such a robbery, knowing that every resource in the kingdom would be brought to bear on tracking him down. He couldn’t hope to get away with it—particularly in a small country like this. And particularly when the horns were a matter of such intense national pride, as they must have been.”
Martin nodded. “That’s true. They were great treasures. They must have represented a large part of the gold existing in the country at the time they were made—which was about A.D. 500, as far as the experts could judge.”
”What were they for?”
Martin tried to decipher an almost illegible scribble down the side of one page.
“One theory is that they were made in honour of one of the most important events that could possibly be conceived in those days—the changeover from the old religion to that of the Nordic deities. They were buried at Gallehus because that’s a freakish part of the country. It was a holy place for centuries, and acquired an awesome reputation because of being struck over and over again by lightning. Underground water attracted lightning—and I believe it does so to this day.”
They were all silent for a moment, as the chill dread of past ages and past superstitions filtered into the room.
Then Logan said: “I don’t know that this helps us much.”
“They couldn’t be the same horns,” said Martin insistently.
“Couldn’t they? What if that goldsmith was just a hired man? Maybe he stole the horns and got well paid for doing so. He took the rap, and when he came out of prison—”
“He didn’t come out of prison,” interjected Martin.
“Oh? What happened to him?”
“He died within a year.”
Logan whistled gently. “Did he, now? How did it happen?”
“There’s nothing about that in the records. He just died.”
“How convenient!” murmured Logan.
“You think they were hidden away by someone else? But why? There’s no profit in sitting on stuff like that. Even if the horns were sold, their price wouldn’t be fantastically high.”
“Not if you base the value on their gold content,” Logan agreed. “But there are other values.” He sat back, musing.
Martin stared down at his notes again. Suddenly he tensed. Carol, aware of his sudden concentration, looked at him enquiringly.
“What is it?”
“I took this down without it ringing a bell,” Martin gasped. “But now it’s just hit me.”
“Go on,” urged Logan.
Martin flapped the paper absurdly at him. “The second horn had a runic inscription on it. It read: ‘I Laegaest, son of Holt, made the horn’.”
Carol looked blank. “What about it?”
“The son of Holt!” spluttered Martin. “In Danish today, that’s Holtesen!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Logan slept on it. He was up early the next morning, abstractedly working his way through coffee and rolls, when Carol came down.
She glanced at him, then slipped into her chair without a word. She knew that Logan would talk when he was ready.
At last he seemed to wake from his trance.
“Pretty clear, isn’t it?” he said.
“About Holtesen? You think he’s really got the original horns?”
“It makes sense that way.”
The waiter came to the table, and Carol ordered coffee and rolls. She was about to speak when the door of the dining room swung open, and Martin Slade appeared. He moved towards them.
Logan glanced up. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t you sleep?”
“No. That’s exactly it. I’ve just been thinking this business through. It’s been churning round and round in my head. I simply had to walk over from my hotel to see you.”
Logan lifted a finger to recall the waiter.
“I think,” he said, “we could use more coffee.”
When it had arrived, Martin drew his chair closer to the table.
He said: “The business of Danish surnames is an old one, you know. It was only rationalised a few generations ago. A child always took its father’s name—Christian name, that is. A boy called Jens, the son of Carl, would become Jens Carlsen. And when he had a boy and decided to call him, say, Carl, the boy would become Carl Jensen.”
“What fun
for the income tax authorities and other such folk,” commented Carol.
“In modern times it began to cause trouble,” Martin confirmed. “That’s why it was stabilised at last, and the modern Western idea introduced.”
“But in that case,” said Logan abruptly, “the theory about Henning Holtesen won’t work. He can hardly claim to be the direct descendant of the maker of the golden horns—the name would have changed over and over again between then and now.”
“Not necessarily. It might have swung back and forth. Laegaest was the son of Holt—then he would have a son, and the name of Holtesen would drop out. But if his grandson adopted the name of Holt, then in due course the surname of Holtesen would reappear. It’s not uncommon for that regular, almost rhythmic reappearance to take place.”
“Early on in this case,” said Logan slowly, “we referred to the presence of fanaticism. I’m beginning to get an even stronger feeling about it. Whoever hired that goldsmith to steal the horns was a fanatic—someone who claimed descent from that son of Holt who made the horns, and therefore believed the horns ought to be in his possession. Since 1802, when they were stolen, they must have been handed down in the greatest secrecy as a family heirloom. The whole family must have been warped and fanatical.”
“Including Henning Holtesen,” said Carol.
“Including Henning Holtesen,” he agreed.
Martin Slade picked up the story: “The value of the horns isn’t just the gold. As you said yesterday, there are other values. Anyone who stole the horns and got them out of the country could demand almost any price from the Danish Government. Once it was established that the genuine horns still existed, it would be a matter of national pride to get them back for the country.”
“Which is why Eiler and Birgitte were so anxious to get their hands on them,” said Carol.
“They must have been successful at first and Clifford succeeded in smuggling them across to England somehow or other.” Martin fingered his lip. “How, I wonder?”
Logan stirred his coffee. “Didn’t you say he played old-fashioned wind instruments?”
“That’s it! That’s it, absolutely. The horns could have been fitted into one of his instrument cases along with the sections of one of his old brass monstrosities. No one would know they didn’t belong to the ancient instrument itself.”
“This is all fitting together very neatly,” observed Logan. His saturnine features darkened. “But I don’t like the way things are pointing.”
“Towards Henning Holtesen?”
“Exactly.”
“But Harry found out that it was Birgitte Holtesen, not her husband, who flew over to London,” Carol pointed out “And if Clifford was taking stuff on her behalf, why should she immediately murder him?”
“And why,” Martin took her up, “should she have attacked me when I got there? She knew I wasn’t carrying the horns.”
“Kirsten,” said Logan, “flew across to join Clifford, as she had promised. She left Copehhagen by plane the day after Clifford—and you—set out by the longer rail and sea journey. Maybe she stayed in London for the night before seeking Clifford out. Maybe she could hardly draw attention to herself by going down to his home in a country district. They must have made some arrangement for meeting in London—that would seem to be the sensible way of fixing it. But he never came up to meet her. Somebody got to him first.”
“Somebody…but who?”
“Henning Holtesen,” said Logan, “Or one of Holtesen’s men. A man as rich as he is must be able to hire a killer without much difficulty. If he missed the golden horns on the day that you and Clifford left, he would have time to catch a flight that same day. He would reach London ahead of Brigitte. And because of your past record, Mr. Slade, and maybe some suspicions he’d had about your relationship with his wife, our friend Holtesen would tackle you first.”
“But Holtesen’s name wasn’t on the passenger lists, was it?”
“No. He could have been travelling under an assumed name. Or, more likely, he sent somebody over to do the job for him. And presumably it was that same somebody who dealt with the burglar a few days ago. The burglar was another one of Brigitte’s employees who came to a sticky end.”
“It all fits,” Martin had to agree. “It explains Brigitte’s quick return, too. When she read about Clifford dying, she came back—”
“Back to her husband?” said Carol. “It seems incredible. If he knew she was concerned in the theft, would he take her back?”
“We don’t know anything about the relationship there,” said Logan. “Whether they openly admit the situation…whether he knows the depth of her implication in these attempts to rob him of the horns…whether our theory is right in the first place….” He sighed. “There are still quite a few things we can’t be sure of.”
Martin said: “I still find the whole idea of the golden horns hard to swallow. To think that they’re still in existence...”
“There’s only one way of finding out,” said Logan, “and that’s for me to play along with Brigitte. As soon as she gives me the word, I’ll get into the house and see what there is to be seen.”
“And if you get the horns…?”
“I think it might be a good idea,” said Logan, “to return them to the Danish people. They can throw out the replicas from the Museum; and restore the original golden horns.”
“You ought to get quite a reward,” commented Martin.
“In that case, I’ll waive your fee!”
Martin was about to speak, but restrained himself as the waiter appeared again. “Miss Dane?”
Carol looked up, “Yes?”
“There is a Miss Nielsen here asking for you. She says it is urgent.”
The three of them exchanged glances. There was a look of barely-controlled yearning in Martin Slade’s eyes.
Logan said: “You’d better see her. Sounds interesting. We’ll wait in the….”
His voice trailed off. Inge Nielsen had come into the room, and was already on her way towards them. She came up to the table, and held out her hands to Carol, who rose swiftly.
“I am so sorry. But there is nobody else. I can go to nobody else. I do not know what to do.” Inge put one hand up to her mouth, thrusting her clenched fist against her lips to stop them trembling. “You were so kind to me—so understanding. I must talk to someone.”
In the rush of that first outburst she seemed to be unaware of the existence of Logan and Martin Slade. But now her head turned, and suddenly she caught her breath. She stared at Martin.
“You!”
Martin put out his hand uncertainly. She took a step backwards.
“Please sit down,” said Carol soothingly. “We are all your friends.”
“No. This man—he belonged to Brigitte. There was something between them. Something—”
“You are mistaken,” said Carol. “Mr. Slade is your friend. If it were not for him, we would not be here. He was worried about you—very worried indeed. He wants to help. We all want to help.”
Inge did not take her eyes from Martin’s face. A new wonder came into her expression. She peered intently at him as though to draw the truth from him. Then she sat down.
“We have been sent away from our home,” said Inge.
Carol took it upon herself to prompt the distressed young woman, while the two men remained silent. “Sent away?”
“My father and I were out this morning. Out.” She struggled for the correct English words. “Thrown out,” she managed at last. “When we came down early this morning, Uncle Henning said we must leave. He gave us ten minutes to collect all our clothes, and everything. Then we were thrown out.”
“But why?”
Tears brimmed into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as spontaneously as a child’s. Martin Slade made another instinctive move towards her, and this time she let her hand rest in his.
She said brokenly: “I do not know. He said that Aunt Brigitte had gone. She had gone away, he said, and
left him.”
Logan started. “That’s impossible,” he muttered.
But was it? Had his interview with Brigitte Holtesen frightened her so much that she had decided to run away?
He found it hard to believe. Terrified she had been, there was no doubt about that; but he was convinced that when she left him she had been determined to use him as a smuggler and have another attempt at getting the golden horns out of the country.
Logan glanced round the dining room.
Fortunately their table was in an alcove, and nobody else appeared to notice the young woman who sat there sobbing.
Carol said gently: “What else did he tell you? Why should his wife have gone away? Didn’t she leave a message for you?”
Inge shook her head despairingly. “I do not understand. He was shouting—screaming at us. He said we were—” Again she fumbled for words. “Treacherous,” she ventured. “He said that my father had tricked him. My father and Aunt Birgitte. And he looked at me with…with hatred. Birgitte had gone away, he kept saying, and she had deceived him. We must get out of the house. We have nowhere to go. My father has worked with Uncle Henning—we lived in his house—now my father has gone off in a great anger, and our luggage is at an hotel. I am so alone.”
Martin’s grip tightened on her hand. She attempted a grateful smile.
Logan leaned towards Carol.
“If Brigitte has walked out,” he said in an undertone, “we’ll have to find some other way of getting into that house. It’s essential to get to the bottom of this—and quickly.”
Carol turned back to Inge.
“Have you got a key to the house?” she asked.
Inge looked uncomprehending for a moment, then looked into her handbag.
“He forgot to take that off us,” she said. “I have a key, of course. And my father has one.”
Logan’s right hand was extended across the table.
“May I borrow it?”
She was doubtful, almost hostile, for a moment. Then something she saw in that lean, compelling face reassured her.
