The Golden Horns

by John Burke

She handed over the key.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Carol Dane walked up to the imposing front door of the Holtesen house with a poise that hid the doubts she must be feeling. Her new green and white dress, with its flared skirt twisting enticingly about her long legs, had been bought on a shopping expedition along Stroget; it made her look cool, self-possessed and expensive.

  She rang the bell.

  From the corner, in a shadow cast by a cluster of trees, Logan watched.

  If Carol’s insolent, straightforward approach succeeded, he would be able to get into the house himself without a lot of trouble. But if Holtesen refused to speak to her, there would be snags.

  He waited.

  The door opened. There was a moment’s delay. Logan could not make out the figure in the open doorway.

  Then Carol went in, and the door closed behind her.

  Logan slipped out of the shadow and went slowly towards the house. Carol did not come out. He went silently up the steps to the door, and took Inge Nielsen’s key from his pocket.

  * * * * * * *

  There had not been a flicker of surprise or even annoyance in Henning Holtesen’s old, drawn face when Carol fired her challenge at him.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said, “about Inge.”

  He turned to the burly chauffeur who had answered the door and called him it into the hall.

  “Meget godt, Bentzon. Gaa bort.”

  Then he motioned towards a door leading out of the hall.

  Carol went in. She felt keyed-up, not sure what to expect. But as long as she could keep talking, so that Logan could get into the house and upstairs, that was the main thing.

  Holtesen’s dry, rustling voice behind her said: “I am sorry the maid is not here. I have got rid of her. She was my wife’s servant, really. Now I have only Nielsen to do things for me.”

  Carol found herself in a study lined with books. On a desk in the centre of the room were piled account books, and lying in front of a telephone was an open pamphlet of what looked like currency conversion tables.

  “Please sit down,” said Holtesen.

  The sound of his voice sent a chill down her spine. His very presence was somehow eerie and upsetting. Or was it only because she thought of him as a murderer: had she felt like this when they first met?

  “Now, Miss Dane…. You mentioned Inge Nielsen. What concern is she of yours?”

  “We are friends,” said Carol boldly, sinking back into an armchair.

  The emotionless death’s-head of a face stared at her across the desk. “You make friends very quickly, Miss Dane.” He glanced at a calendar before him. “You have been in Copenhagen only a few days.”

  “I like Inge,” said Carol. “I liked her at once. And now I’m worried about her. If we weren’t friends, I shouldn’t have presumed to come and worry you about her. But she is very upset.”

  “So am I,” whispered Henning Holtesen. “I, too, am very upset. I have reason to be. You know Inge, so you probably know the full story. You know that my wife has left me?”

  “I understand that’s what you’ve told Inge. But I don’t know anything about the reasons.”

  Holtesen smiled thinly. His lips seemed to draw themselves back against the bone. He said: “The reasons are not your affair, are they?”

  “Of course not,” said Carol. “I’m only concerned with Inge. I’m distressed to learn that she has been thrown out into the street without any explanation. She’s a sensitive girl, and she had a very high opinion of you. It has been very disturbing for her.”

  “A high opinion of me?”

  Carol was about to confirm this and go on, but something in Holtesen’s face stopped her. He seemed to be looking at something far beyond her—or listening to something.

  She tensed. Was that the faint click of the front door? She seemed to hear footsteps in the hall outside, and was sure the frail yet alert little man before her was about to spring from his chair and fling open the door.

  But he was not concentrating on that. If there were any sound in the hall, he did not hear it. There was a strange, almost wistful smile on his face.

  “A high opinion of me,” he repeated. “That is good to hear. And you, Miss Dane—have you a high opinion of me?”

  The appeal was odd and somehow twisted. Carol forced herself to meet his pale, pleading eyes.

  She said: “I don’t know a great deal about you.”

  “I will tell you a few things,” he said, still in a remote sort of way, still in touch with a world of his own that was far from the here and now.

  “I come from a fine old family,” he said, the wistful smile flickering out once more. “One of the oldest families in Denmark. Denmark, my country....” There was a brief pause. “And I have principles,” he went on. A note of menace crept into the dry tones. “When I married, I respected my wife. I knew her brother was not to be trusted, and I knew my wife had not been a spotless woman. But I was willing to forget. I was willing to give her my money, to give her brother a job, and a home, to give her brother’s daughter a home….”

  He tailed away suddenly, and slowly his eyes refocused on Carol. Mistrust narrowed them.

  Carol did not speak.

  Holtesen broke the silence again

  “I wanted children,” he said. “I do not wish the family of Holtesen to die out. I married a beautiful woman—and she cheated me.” He got up, and came round the desk, standing over Carol,

  She felt a surge of nausea. There was something unspeakably repulsive about this man—something sickening in the cold desire of this shrivelled, bleak creature for children.

  He looked down at her. His words were slurred. “You would not cheat a man—betray him—try to rob him because you repented of a bargain?”

  In a level voice Carol forced herself to say: “If the circumstances arose, I hope I would behave decently. But one never knows all the circumstances in such stories.”

  “If my wife does not come back….”

  It was a sinister whisper. There was a hideous promise resonating somewhere behind it—a promise and a perverted appeal.

  Holtesen himself seemed to realize it He suddenly drew himself up, and took a step back from Carol.

  She said: “All this doesn’t really affect Inge. It’s a pity she has to suffer for other people’s troubles. Particularly when you and she have so much in common—patriotism, high principles....”

  She allowed a tinge of irony into the last remark.

  But Holtesen was unconscious of the irony. His smile came back. He wanted to believe—to believe in something—yet he was tortured by a persistent bitterness.

  He reached towards Carol. His dry brittle fingers rested on her bare arm.

  “Why do you not settle in Denmark, Miss Dane?” He was half earnest, half mocking. His face approached hers. “If…if my wife did not return, many things would be possible.”

  “That’s not a job I’d care for,” said Carol icily.

  The rebuff transformed him instantly. His laugh was as icy as her voice—like ice splintering. He said: “But it would be much better paid than your present job, yes? You cannot earn very much as a private detective’s secretary.”

  * * * * * * *

  Logan had gone silently upstairs. Crossing the hall, he heard the murmur of voices from behind a closed door. Carol was doing her job well.

  The house was still. It was the hush of the grave. Nobody who existed in this atmosphere could be truly alive.

  The place was full of silent echoes—echoes of the past. There were replicas of old Viking helmets and shields on the walls. On the first landing stood a giant axe.

  At the top of the building, a skylight threw bleak illumination down the stairs. Warm as it was outside, the air in here seemed cold and stale.

  Logan stopped at the head of the stairs.

  He was on a small landing directly below the skylight. Ahead of him was a heavy door. It was absurdly impressive, up here at the top of the house. />
  This was it.

  He drew a fine steel blade from his pocket and went down on his knees. The point of the blade explored the lock, rasping gently. Logan probed, his head slightly on one side.

  At the end of two minutes beads of moisture gleamed on his forehead, and began to trickle slowly down into his eyes.

  He wiped his eyes, and proceeded.

  At last there was a rewarding click.

  He turned the blade, thrusting it to the right with the pressure of his thumb, then he leaned forward, his shoulder against the door. A further twist, and the heavy door swung slowly open.

  There were no windows in the room beyond. He groped for a light switch, but could not find it. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows within, he picked out the outline of a table in the middle of the room.

  He went in. Light from the skylight through the open door was sufficient.

  Logan approached the table. It stood in solitary grandeur, without any other furniture surrounding it. The room was bare, but clean.

  The table, he thought, had the appearance of an altar. On it stood a black box, about the size of a portable gramophone.

  Logan looked at it for a second, feeling a strange tension in his throat. Then he lifted the lid.

  The box was lined in velvet. Lying on the velvet were two curved horns, one smaller than the other. They gave off a dull gleam in the uncertain light.

  The end of one was broken; the other was capped with a ferrule. Weird contorted figures seemed to move over the golden surface, creeping up from under the horn and making their way around.

  Logan took the larger horn from its cushioned container, and half turned so that the light would fall on it. He was fascinated by the intricacy of the workmanship.

  A thousand years ago, devoted craftsmen had set these figures on the golden horn. They had fashioned creatures that were neither man nor beast, and the writhing shapes were as vivid and disturbing today as they must have been in those remote times.

  It was only the setting that was wrong. These priceless archaeological treasures did not belong in this upper room in the home of Henning Holtesen.

  Logan turned back towards the box.

  Suddenly the room was darker. He froze.

  “So,” said a thick voice behind him. “You have found them. How convenient,”

  Logan spun round. Blocking the doorway with his massive frame was Eiler Nielsen,

  Logan said: “I thought you’d gone.”

  “From the house? I still have a key,” said Eiler flatly. His eyes were fixed greedily on the open box upon the table. “I came back for some of my personal belongings. And I heard a movement up here.”

  The two men stood quite still. Neither made a move towards the other.

  “I hope you got your personal belongings,” said Logan tensely. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

  He could not see Eiler’s face clearly, but heard the hiss of indrawn breath.

  “This is what I want,” said Eiler menacingly. “This I have worked for. I have suffered. Insults…I have borne with them…waiting. And now you and Birgitte think you can trick me?”

  “Birgitte?” echoed Logan.

  “She has run away. That is the story. She has run away. Is in hiding. Yes, that is it. She hides—and you will come to her with the golden horns. That is right, yes?”

  “No,” said Logan, “It’s not,”

  Now he took a step towards Eiler. He could see Eiler’s face. And it was ugly with rage.

  Eiler said: “You shall not have the golden horns.”

  “If you don’t keep quiet,” snapped Logan, “you’ll have Holtesen up here. Now get out of my way. I’ve seen what’s here, and I propose to lock the door again—”

  “No!”

  It was a scream of almost inhuman despair. Eiler’s face was contorted.

  He lunged suddenly at Logan.

  Sheer weight carried the detective backwards. The two of them fetched up jarringly against the table. The edge of it bit into Logan’s back as Eiler pressed down on him.

  Then he twisted free. Eiler spun with surprising quickness for a man of his size, and his huge right fist smacked out like the vicious paw of a tiger.

  Logan reeled, gasping for breath. He dodged, sprang away from the table, and lashed a hard left into Eiler’s face. It met unyielding bone.

  Eiler grunted. Logan followed up. His right cracked up under the Dane’s nose. Eiler stooped, bringing up a protective right arm. Logan hammered it aside, and drove in to his jaw with a left, which would have laid any normal man on the floor.

  But there was too much of Eiler; and all of it was too massive.

  Once again the colossal fist jabbed out…and Logan was conscious of nothing but a mighty blow above his right eye, and then a swirl of engulfing darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Henning Holtesen stood crouching, his head thrust forward. He was sour and evil as a vulture.

  Carol pushed herself up slowly from her chair.

  Holtesen said: “I have my contacts, Miss Dane. I was interested in you and your companion. Very interested. Any friend of Martin Slade was bound to arouse my curiosity. And what do I find? I make enquiries, and I find that Mr. David Logan is a noted investigator in your own country—and many other countries.”

  Carol did not reply.

  “Would you like to explain to me,” said Holtesen softly, “what his interest in me is?”

  “No,” said Carol. “I wouldn’t.”

  “I wish to know. Why does Mr. Logan go to the trouble of visiting me? And why are you here today?”

  Again carol remained silent

  Holtesen stood quite still, his predatory eyes not wavering.

  She wondered if he would attack her She would have no difficulty in coping with him; there was no strength in those frail limbs. Yet she was afraid. There was something cruel and reptilian about the man that struck an irrational fear into her heart.

  She began to experience for herself the hypnotised, speechless fear and terror that Brigitte had spoken of to Logan.

  Holtesen lifted his hand. The fingers moved fretfully, as though he were flexing his claws.

  He said: “You must have had a reason for coming here. I must know it.”

  “I’ve already told you.” Carol forced herself to speak steadily. “As a friend of Inge’s—”

  “You made friends with Inge for a purpose. You wished to find your way into my house. Why? What is there here to interest a detective and his…secretary?” The hesitation before he said ‘secretary’ was a deliberate insult.

  Carol took a step forward. “I think it’s time I went, Mr. Holtesen.” She could only hope that Logan had succeeded in doing what he had come to do; she had kept Holtesen in conversation for as long as she could, and now she longed for the open air and freedom.

  “Not so fast, Miss Dane.”

  He had reached out and thumbed a bell push in the wall.

  Carol did not stop. She went towards the door, His bony hand plucked at her arm. She shook him off, and heard the vicious little scream he made in his throat.

  Then he said: “You will stay here. I wish answers to my questions.”

  She looked into the snout of a gun jutting from his quavering hand.

  “You’re being foolishly melodramatic.” she said levelly.

  The door opened. The burly chauffeur came in and stood there, one hand resting on the knob.

  Holtesen mouthed something in Danish. Bentzon glanced speculatively at Carol, and took his hand off the knob. He moved forward, his arms hanging limp yet ready.

  Carol said: “I wouldn’t advise—”

  She was cut short by a sudden howl of fury from Henning Holtesen. Nielsen stopped, and turned.

  Beyond his great bulk she saw a section of the hall and the foot of the staircase. Another heavy figure moved swiftly into view, and as swiftly was gone. It might have been the chauffeur’s brother. But it wasn’t: it was Eiler Nielsen.

&
nbsp; Holtesen lurched past her, babbling something shrill and incomprehensible. The gun roared thunderously in the room; and still Holtesen was shouting.

  The two men went through the doorway—one huge and brutish, the other small, twisted and vicious.

  For a moment Carol thought they had forgotten her. Then Holtesen, heading for the open front door, remembered.

  He turned and snapped a brief command. Bentzon halted in his lumbering progress. He turned back towards Carol. She ducked, trying to hurl herself past his great arm into the hall beyond.

  He descended on her. His arm was like a flail. It swept her off her feet and flung her against a low sofa against the wall.

  Before she could struggle up. Bentzon reached the sofa. He hit her twice. She sobbed. Then he hit her twice more, and the second of these blows was one she hardly noticed.

  The sofa received her crumpled body and lolling head.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the absence of David Logan and Carol Dane, Martin Slade took it on himself to look after Inge.

  He wanted to wipe the unhappiness from her face. There were reserves of youthful happiness on which he would have liked to draw: in every line of her features was the promise of youth and vitality.

  “Shall we go out and explore the town?” he suggested with a casualness he did not feel.

  “You already know the town,” she said with a sad, prim little turn of the head that moved him more than he dared to admit.

  “But I’m fond of it. I like to walk about. Will you come with me?”

  “You like it?”

  He saw the immediate flicker of response. She was a true Copenhagener: she lived for praise of her city and for signs of appreciation from visitors to it.

  He said: “We can’t sit here until those two get back. Let’s go out. Just for half an hour. We can go along Langelinie and back.”

  Doubtfully she got up. Doubtfully she went out with him into the sunshine. But he sensed a slight relaxation as they turned towards the harbour.

  She was wearing a crisp white blouse and a navy skirt. Both were cu severely, and she wore no jewellery of any sort. The austere lines of her clothes had the paradoxical effect of making her look young and happy. The gaiety was there in her eyes and the corners of her mouth, waiting only to be provoked.