The Golden Horns

by John Burke

  Martin said: “I hope you don’t mind coming out with an old man.”

  “Old?” she said. Then she laughed tentatively, and looked surprised at her own ability to laugh. “You are not too old.”

  “Good.”

  As they moved down towards the harbour, her arm slipped through his,

  It was a childish, impulsive gesture of confidence. Suddenly she trusted him, He knew instinctively that she would be like this in all her ways—frank and impulsive, making up her mind and acting on it at once. Her love would be proud, direct and uncomplicated.

  He said: “You like living in Copenhagen?’”

  “I would not live anywhere else.” Almost before she had finished the remark, a cloud passed over her face. “That is….”

  “Yes?”

  “Once I thought I could live nowhere else. I love it so much. But now…oh, I cannot be sure. I do not know. All is wrong.”

  Martin shook his head. “Things are never as bad as all that. Life’s too short for brooding.”

  “Life should be happiness,” she said very earnestly. “But it is not easy. Not when you are….” She faltered, trying to make words fit her ideas. “Not when one is surrounded,” she went on, “by wickedness—and by things one cannot understand.”

  Martin was silent for a short time. He wanted to keep her mind off the problems of her father, Brigitte and Henning Holtesen. For her own sake, and for his. He just wanted to be with her.

  They emerged on the path beside the water, with the Little Mermaid sitting on her rocks below them. An incoming ship, fluttering with Swedish and Danish flags, sent a surge of wavelets against the rocks. There was a momentary chattering of water, then the gentle silent swell was resumed.

  Martin found himself suddenly speaking. He had not meant to say this—was not even sure what he was doing or where it would lead—but the words came out of their own accord:

  “You wouldn’t consider living in England?”

  She turned her grave, exquisite face up to his.

  “I have never considered it,” she said. “Why would I?”

  “If someone there wanted to marry you, would you go? Much as you love Copenhagcn, would you leave it then?”

  Her expression did not change, but the pressure of her arm against his seemed to increase. Or was he trying to believe this: was he imagining some ridiculous fantasy of his own?

  She said: “If I loved, I am sure there would be no question.”

  It was as simple and straightforward as that.

  They went to the entrance to the yacht haven, and then turned back.

  Gulls swooped, deep-throated sirens coughed and echoed across the harbour, and fussy little motorboats skated over the water.

  Martin, with an abrupt commanding twist of his arm, pulled Inge round towards him. His free hand caught at her shoulder.

  He said: “Inge....”

  Her eyes widened. His mouth fell upon hers gently, then more urgently.

  Her lips moved gently under his. She pushed him very slowly away, and he saw that her eyes were still open, peering wonderingly into his.

  “Not yet,” she whispered.

  “You mean…?”

  “Not yet,” she repeated. “I am not ready. There are too many shadows—too many things wrong. Too many of the…that is….” Her command of English failed her, but the half-formed promise in her tremulous smile elated him.

  He said: “We’ll have to clear the shadows away.”

  She nodded. “I must do that now. I must continue. My father… I should not leave him alone. He is at the hotel. We left our baggage there—all the things we could bring away when we were sent out from the house—and he must need help.”

  “I think perhaps your father is best left on his own for a little while,” ventured Martin.

  “I am afraid. I do not know what he will do. He is in a great rage. I came to you—to Carol—because I was frightened. But now I am frightened in a different way. I must go to him.”

  Her determination was quite clear. She quickened her pace, and they walked briskly up a street towards a corner where yellow trams swung and screeched round a bend.

  Martin said: “I’ll come with you. I’ll wait for you.”

  She opened her mouth as though to argue, and then nodded solemnly. She accepted him. Already, he felt, she was beginning to need him.

  Within three minutes they were at the hotel, in a narrow old side street, where Eiler and his daughter had gone after being contemptuously driven from the Holtesen home.

  “You go on in,” said Martin. “I’ll look in the windows down here.” He waved towards a row of antique shops and a grimy old bookshop full of fascinating relics. “Come down in five minutes and tell me whether you want any moral support.”

  “I will do that,” she agreed.

  “And mind you come. Don’t try to fight things out on your own. The moment you know what sort of a state your father’s in, you must come back to my hotel. You can find a room there if necessary. And when Logan gets back, maybe we’ll be able to fit things together.”

  She smiled, and left him.

  Martin strolled a few yards down the street. He passed the entrance to a yard that the hotel used as a garage, and stopped to peer through a grimy window at some fine old pewter tankards.

  The entrance to the shop was down a flight of six steps. He went down three of them, and studied a stack of old music lying piled in this corner of the window.

  There was something provocative about heaps of music like that. No one could tell what treasure might or might not be concealed there. He could never resist such temptations.

  Later, he must come back here.

  The roar of a car’s acceleration boomed out of the hotel yard and bounced off the opposite wall. Martin glanced up. A car came out of the yard too fast, and swung round with a squeal of tyres.

  He saw a white face pressed to one of the windows.

  It was Inge’s face—a pale, imploring face….

  Martin let out an instinctive cry, and bounded up the steps.

  Already the car was swinging round the corner at the bottom of the street, turning west along a wider road.

  Yet the noise did not die away. Still there was the roar of an engine echoing between the tall houses.

  Martin turned. A large, gleaming Opel was drawing up outside the hotel.

  The driver was lurching out as soon as it had stopped.

  Martin drew back, down two steps into the shop doorway once more.

  The driver was Holtesen’s chauffeur, Bentzon.

  He was in the hotel for little more than a minute. When he came out and opened the car door again, he snarled something in Danish to someone in the back seat. Mark heard a spasm of words, smeared by a splutter of traffic noises from the main road.

  “…left. Traveller’s cheques…German currency....”

  The Opel sprang forward and turned recklessly at the corner. Turned westwards. Was gone.

  But not before Martin had glimpsed a hunched, small figure in the back of the car: a figure that must certainly be that of Henning Holtesen.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Carol swam up to consciousness through a confused haze. She heard a voice talking, gibberish in her ear. Then it all began to make sense.

  “Carol…come on…Carol….”

  She opened her eyes. There was a pain behind them like the steady hammering of a drill.

  David Logan said: “Thank heavens. Can you sit up?”

  His arm was round her. She struggled up, leaning heavily against him. The pain struck again, boring and grinding into her forehead from behind.

  She groaned,

  “Are you all right?” demanded Logan anxiously.

  “I think so.” The faintness of own voice seemed to act as a challenge. She forced herself to sit upright. “Of course I’m all right.”

  She blinked, looked with a warm feeling of reassurance into his grim, purposeful face, and then glanced round the room.
/>   Huddled in an armchair, her eyelids drowsily rising and falling, was Birgitte.

  Carol said. “Where did she come from?”

  “On my way downstairs I felt so sick I tried to find a bathroom. I blundered into another room and found her—drugged. Holtesen must have been keeping her there. We’d better take her with us.”

  Logan himself had a great blue bruise on his right temple. He winced as he bent over Birgitte Holtesen and tried to lift her. Carol went to his assistance.

  For a moment the room swam; then everything stabilised, and she doggedly helped the half-conscious woman towards the door.

  By the time they were out in the fresh air Birgitte was able to stand, though she still looked like an inebriate slowly coming back to reality.

  Logan flagged a cab, which was speeding along the boulevard.

  “Hotel Axelhus,” he snapped.

  All three of them sank back against the cushions.

  Birgitte was the first to speak. She moistened her lips with her tongue, and said unsteadily:

  “He knew. He found out.”

  “About me?” said Logan.

  She nodded. “I did not know Bentzon was working for him in…in that way. Bentzon must have followed me to your hotel. Henning decided I must be kept out of the way. What happened’? How long have I…?” She faltered, and tried to blink away the sleepy oppressiveness of the drug.

  “This morning,” explained Logan, “your husband threw your brother and niece out of the house. He made out that you had run away, leaving a note. Evidently that was only an excuse. He was—to put it bluntly—tired of your attempts to rob him, and he must have decided that this time was to be the last. Or else—”

  “Or else,” intervened Carol quickly, “he was scared pf you. He knew you were David Logan: he told me that. Perhaps he thought he must get his wife out of the way before she told you too much. And he’d only put up with Eiler and Inge because of his wife: he was only too glad to concoct a story which justified his throwing them out.”

  The cab jolted to a stop at traffic lights. Cyclists swirled in about it. Then there was a surge forward, and a moment later they were drawing up outside the Hotel Axelhus.

  Loogan got out, and helped Birgitte on the ground. She leaned on his arm as they crossed the pavement and went in on to the thick carpet.

  An American voice was clamouring at the reception desk. The lift doors clicked gently and sighed open. Two Englishmen sauntered across the foyer and out into the sunshine.

  And Martin Slade, coming agitatedly out of the ’phone booth, almost broke into a run.

  “Where have you been? What the devil has happened? They’ve got away.”

  Logan glanced at Carol. “Take Fru Holtesen up to your room and give her a sedative. It won’t take much to put her out again—and it’ll do her good.”

  Carol headed for the lift. Logan turned to Martin Slade. “All right, let’s have it. What do you mean about them getting away?”

  Martin talked fast. “I saw Eiler drive away from his hotel. He’d got Inge with him. I was waiting for her. Either he kidnapped her, or he talked her into running off with him right away. I don’t like the look of it. Then Holtesen and that chauffeur of his—Bentzon—came right on their heels. I think they’re heading for Germany. But I don’t know why. I don’t get it.”

  “Eiler,” said Logan, “has got the golden horns.”

  Martin gasped. “They really exist?”

  “I’ve seen them, Eiler knocked me out and got away with them. But Holtesen must have found out almost at once. We’ve got to get after them.”

  “I’ve ordered a car,” said Martin. “I rang a hire service run by an old friend. He’ll let me have the best that’s available.”

  Logan glanced at his watch. “They’ve got a good start. I’m not sure this isn’t time to forget all our own problems and call in the police.”

  “No,” said Martin. “Things haven’t altered.”

  “But the police could throw out a net—watch the frontier—”

  “You agreed to do this job for me,” said Martin, “and what I said about keeping the police out of it still applies more than ever now, in fact. I don’t want Inge involved.”

  Logan said: “It’s going to be difficult to pick up those two cars. Maybe we can contrive our own net.”

  Martin stared, uncomprehending.

  Logan went on: “You had friends in the Resistance, and later in the smuggling racket, didn’t you? Right. Contact someone in Copenhagen you can trust and get him to send out an alarm…any of your old associates who live between here and the German frontier. We can stop on the way and pick up any information that’s come in.”

  Martin’s face lit up. He turned back towards the telephone.

  Before he had finished his call, Carol was back.

  Logan said: “You’d better stay with Brigitte.”

  “No,” said Carol coolly. “I want to be in at the kill. Incidentally,” she added, “Birgitte muttered that Eiler would be making for Germany. He’s been talking of it for a long time, and she knows that he’s got a fair amount of German currency ready for any eventuality.”

  “Good. That confirms it.”

  Logan was outwardly calm and relaxed, but inside he was keyed-up and ready for action.

  Martin came back just as a large Renault was driven up to the door.

  Logan said: “All set?”

  “I’ve spoken to Borge,” Martin nodded “He’s sending out a general call, just as we used to. If those two cars stick to the main road we ought to stand a chance of overtaking, provided we’re not held up at the ferry. And if they don’t stick to the main road we’ll hear all about it. Things like that big Opel will be very noticeable on a Jutland side road.”

  Logan slid into the driving seat.

  “You know the roads,” he said grimly. “Just shout instructions—and hold tight.”

  The Renault sprang away into the mainstream of traffic.

  Martin Slade said; “We’ve got to get them. We’ve got to overtake them before anything happens. I want Inge out of it alive. I want Inge.”

  “You shall have her,” Logan promised.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They drew clear of the city, and Logan’s foot went down remorselessly on the accelerator.

  A wide straight road plunged down a slope ahead of them and then climbed slowly again. The Renault hummed down and up, overtaking a string of smaller cars. The outer suburbs flashed past and fell away behind. Tall blocks of flats gave way to groups of detached houses.

  Red and white Danish flags fluttered from poles in small, trim gardens. There were splashes of colour as filling stations flickered away behind.

  Logan said: “There’s no other way to Germany, is there?”

  “Only one other probable route,” said Martin. “The ferry from Gedser, on one of the islands south of Copenhagen. But you couldn’t take a chance on that without booking. Too many complications. West to Jutland and down over the frontier is the usual run.”

  They slowed for the narrow, perverse streets of Roskilde. The cathedral thrust up its copper spires into the blue sky, slowly revolving as the car spun around the town and then accelerated once more on the continuing smoothness of Highway 1.

  Logan, without taking his eyes off the unfolding road, said: “It’s a good job, in some ways, that Eiler’s escape distracted Holtesen and his precious chauffeur. Otherwise you and I, Carol, might have suffered a somewhat unpleasant fate.”

  “Holtesen was working up to something pretty nasty,” Carol agreed, with a reminiscent shudder. “And if he had gone upstairs and found you unconscious….”

  “He might have set Bentzon on me to do one of his surgical operations.”

  Martin glanced at Logan’s set profile. “You think it was Bentzon who did those appalling murders?”

  “It seems most probable. Holtesen is mad. He’s clearly a fanatic, with his head full of dreams of old Danish glory.”

  “But
a weedy little specimen like himself—”

  “It’s the weedy little specimens who like to fancy themselves great big ruthless men,” observed Logan.

  The land rolled away on either side in gentle undulations. Low hills were crowned with saw-toothed churches. Carol sat back. It was almost possible to feel soothed. But there was something in the set of Logan’s shoulders that proclaimed the grim urgency of this drive across country, and denied the contentment of the quiet landscape.

  Martin was saying: “So you think he fancies himself as a sort of chieftain who sends out his warriors?”

  “He stayed at home,” Logan said, “and sent Bentzon out to do his killing. I have no doubt that if we check on those passenger lists we’ll find the name of Bentzon on them. It was Bentzon—not Eiler Nielsen, and not Holtesen—who flew to England. It was Bentzon who laid you out, and who then found Sean Clifford and murdered him. Birgitte Holtesen was too late. She made arrangements to meet Clifford and take over the golden horns—and, I suppose, to fulfil any promises she had made him. But he didn’t come. He was killed, and she had to come back to Copenhagen.”

  “But she must have realized that Holtesen was behind it. She wouldn’t have dared to go back to him, surely?” protested Martin.

  “There’s no telling what women will do. Certainly she couldn’t stay in England. She had married Holtesen for his money, and without him she’d be penniless. Maybe she still felt that she could beat him. She must have known him fairly well—after all, she was his wife. Perhaps she knew that he would never openly accuse her of attempting to rob him. He had never told her about the golden horns, and she had never admitted that she knew he possessed them. It’s a tangled web, but even the most ordinary marriages are pretty tangled affairs. She went back—ready to run away at once if he turned nasty. When she found that everything was all right, she and Eiler began plotting again.”

  “And hired a professional burglar?”

  “That seems most likely,” Logan agreed. “That chap I saw with Eiler had all the marks of a professional small-time crook. He was hired to break into the house and open the room at the top. He was to take the golden horns away—at a time when Eiler and Birgitte could prove that they were elsewhere.”