by Desmond Cory
“Oh, no.”
“In that case, I’m sorry. I’ve apologised for you once already.”
Biel’s expression was one of the deepest concern. “Perhaps it is my constant chattering that has kept the lady awake. I am incredibly thoughtless. Permit me to —”
“No, no,” said Marie-Andrée. “I greatly enjoyed your story, Herr Biel. But is it really as dangerous as that?”
Biel smiled politely. “Naturally there is the element of danger, yes.”
“Then why do people do it?”
“Perhaps for that very reason. People like myself, and yourself, and Herr Videl – we lead quiet and uneventful lives, do we not? Danger is rarely present. To seek it out, or rather to place oneself in a position to accept it as it comes – that is a great thrill, you understand.”
“Thrill?’’ Marie-Andrée restrained another yawn with difficulty. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
“But perhaps you have not tried climbing?”
Marie-Andrée shook her head. “No, never.” She then tried to think of the German for “hot-house bloom”; but gave it up.
“Then perhaps it is not too much to hope that one day you will be converted. There is nothing like it in the world… There are, of course, people who… well… climb for the wrong reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Glory, M. Videl. Individual or national glory. That is not the right reason. Or… because they think it is good for them, for their minds or their bodies. Thank you, I do not smoke. Climbing is an end in itself; to make it a means is bad.”
“I see.”
“Yes, I think you understand. So the answer to your question, Mme Videl…” Biel paused. “Oh, I think your wife is asleep again.”
“She’s had a tiring day,” said Johnny. “I’m sure you’ll excuse her; she’s not used to travelling.”
“You have travelled far today?”
“From Paris.”
“Wie weit. And do you have much farther to go?” Biel blushed as he finished speaking. “Excuse me, please. I am being over-inquisitive.”
“Not at all,” said Johnny. “We’re going to Vienna.”
“Vienna! Ah, charming! I have never been there, I fear. It is not now possible to proceed by train farther than Linz, as you know; and my business does not call me in that direction. But I hear it’s a most delightful city.”
“So they tell me.”
“One must be careful there, of course.”
“What of?”
“Well – the Russians. It is most dangerous, I gather, to enter the Soviet zone of the city; a thing very easily done.”
Johnny smiled. “Oh yes. We’ll watch out for that. As a matter of fact, we won’t be staying there very long. We’re planning to move almost immediately to some quiet village or other, where the atmosphere’s conducive to an unexciting honeymoon.”
“Of course, of course. An excellent plan.” Biel frowned thoughtfully. “Well, you could do very much worse than stay at the little village where I am making my headquarters. It is not peaceful so much as dead, but the surrounding scenery is delightful. Quite delightful.”
Johnny murmured some polite and meaningless phrase.
“There is, too, an excellent inn. Many of these Austrian villages are, of course, very primitive – no modem conveniences at all. But this place is comfortable, cheap and is supplied with electricity – an important consideration. I honestly recommend it. It’s called the Hunting Horn.”
“Sounds promising. What’s the name of this wonderful village?”
“Oh,” said Biel. “You won’t have heard of it. A little place called Oberneusl.”
Marie-Andrée opened her eyes.
MINDELHEIM
CONVERSATION LANGUISHED from that moment onwards; and Marie-Andrée slept. The train chugged steadily onwards towards the German frontier and eventually, with a triumphant whistle, into Feldkirch. The passengers, most of them heavy-eyed and lethargic, allowed themselves to be shepherded through the solemn rite of the Customs examination, and then clambered aboard the waiting train. The journey continued; the mountains of Liechtenstein shrank slowly into foothills and the foothills changed into the rolling, constantly-shifting contours of Southern Bavaria. The moon, high over the Alps, struck silver gleams from the rails of the permanent way, and followed the Munich train as it moved inexorably eastwards. Aboard the train, almost everyone was now uneasily asleep.
Almost everyone.
Marie-Andrée, whose sleep had been growing progressively lighter, woke with a sudden start and stared round the compartment. The full length of the seat opposite her was occupied by the muscular Biel, stretched comfortably out on his tummy and sleeping peacefully. Johnny was still sitting close beside her and would also have seemed asleep, had his eyes not been visibly open. Marie-Andrée had come to such complete wakefulness that the positions of both men were registered on her mind in less than an instant.
“Johnny.”
Johnny’s face turned towards her.
“Johnny… Are you awake?”
“Silly question,” said Johnny gently.
“Well, something woke me up.”
“That, too, I had observed.”
“No, I meant something… Have you just woken up?”
Johnny shook his head.
“And you didn’t hear anything?”
“Not a thing. Look, what is all this?”
“Johnny… I thought I heard a shot.”
Johnny smiled.
“I did, I did, I did.”
“Where?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. Nearby.”
Johnny sighed heavily. He rose to his feet; and then staggered as the train suddenly jerked, like a horse twisting at full gallop. The air was full of the high, angry screaming of brakes.
“You could be right,” said Johnny. And was through the door in a flash. On the other side of the compartment, Biel raised his head and peered owlishly about him.
… The corridor was poorly lit, and it took a long second for Johnny’s eyes to penetrate the peculiar effect of chiaroscuro. He then saw it to be perfectly empty. He whirled round to look the other way and instantly saw, not five yards from him, the crouching figure of a man; tall, well-built fellow with a distinctly ugly expression. He had already swung the door open at the end of the corridor, with the obvious intention of leaping out the moment it was safe to do so; to facilitate this aim, he was standing with one foot on the running-board and his shoulders hunched, his eyes narrowed in a furtive manner and glancing restlessly from side to side. The next moment, however, he ruined the effect by hurling himself bodily outwards and downwards, and Johnny had only time for a single clear impression of his face before he vanished from sight. The train was now doing a bare twenty miles an hour and, Johnny reflected, his chances of a safe landing had therefore been more than favourable.
Johnny had no intention whatsoever of setting out in pursuit. Not ten feet from the door through which the tall man had made his somewhat melodramatic exit was the door of a compartment, presumably of the compartment from which he had emerged; and this door also was open. Johnny took several languid strides and stood poised on the threshold.
A dark-haired man in a well-worn grey suit was kneeling on the floor, with his elbows resting on the rear seat and his eyes staring, glassily into infinity. As Johnny moved forwards again, another spasmodic jerk of the train allied itself to a sudden tightening of the dark man’s back muscles and toppled him sideways; Johnny caught him as he slid, and lowered his head gently to the floor. Blood seeped sluggishly from the man’s chest, unpleasantly obvious on the light grey cloth; and a thin trickle was dripping downwards from his mouth. Johnny estimated the distance of the ugly black hole in the suit from the hypothetical arch of the aorta, and gave the dark-haired man not one chance in a million. Somebody had known exactly where to place his bullet.
He was still alive though; the blood bubbled in his throat as he breathed, and his eyes, no long
er glazed over, shifted agonisedly from side to side. Then they caught and held Johnny’s eyes, and the man’s lips began to move.
Johnny bent forwards eagerly. This was absolutely in the right tradition; the blood-choked, garbled and completely cryptic last message of the Dying Man. Unfortunately, the victim wasn’t proving particularly co-operative. His lips moved all right, but no sound came out of them.
Johnny bent his head even lower; and suddenly, unexpectedly, the man said something. It was clear and precise and anything but cryptic; also quite unprintable. Then the man’s head rolled slowly to the left, and his eyes became fixed. Johnny sighed.
He took a hurried glance behind him and saw no-one there but Marie-Andrée, who was studying the body quite calmly. He turned back, jerked open the bloodstained coat and felt hurriedly in the inside pocket. There was a wallet. He pulled it out, glanced at it, grimaced; and then looked back to find, once more, the dark man’s eyes staring into his own. Johnny felt embarrassed, as though he had committed an unpardonable faux pas.
The man said one more word in a voice so weak and distorted that Johnny only just caught it. And then the assumption was no longer premature. This time, there could not be the slightest doubt about it.
Johnny thrust his ill-gotten gains into his own pocket and stood up. He realised, without surprise, that the train was now still; and the corridor full of the sound of tramping feet and voices upraised in annoyance and expostulation. He turned and, stepping almost daintily, made his exit.
“Any idea who he is?” asked Marie-Andrée.
Johnny shook his head.
“Well. That’s just fine, isn’t it? What happens now?”
“We wait,” said Johnny. “And see what the sunshine brings.”
The man in the mackintosh was big and burly; his face was craggy and his manner, surprisingly, shy and apologetic.
“Now I happen to be a police officer. My name is Kastner. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s desirable this matter should be cleared up at the earliest possible moment, and so I hope you won’t mind submitting to a short interrogation. Might I have your names?… You, sir?”
“Bub.” Biel appeared too stupefied to offer one of his little cards. “B-Biel, Johann Biel. Of Zurich.”
“I see. Swiss nationality. Your passport?… Thank you. And you, sir?”
“Paul Videl. This is my wife.” Johnny flipped open his passport and handed it over; Kastner gave it a swift scrutiny, glanced quickly at Marie-Andrée, closed it and returned it with a little bow.
“Thank you. Now I should like to hear what you know of this incident. Can you tell me what happened when you heard the train begin to stop? You rose at once, I take it?”
“I was up already,” said Johnny. “My wife thought she heard a shot, and I was just going to investigate.”
“I did hear a shot,” said Marie-Andrée firmly.
“That would now seem apparent. But you, Herr Videl, you heard nothing?”
“I heard nothing.”
“That is a little strange.”
“I was sitting upright,” said Johnny equably. “My wife was lying in the corner. Possibly the woodwork acted as a conductor of the shot’s vibrations.”
“A very feasible explanation,” said Kastner. He tapped the sides of the carriage sharply with his knuckles. “Very feasible. Yes. You say you were about to investigate this shot when the brakes were applied?”
“I was just leaving the compartment.”
“Very courageous of you, Herr Videl.”
“Not really,” said Johnny. “It was my wife who heard the shot. Not me.”
“I follow the distinction. Please go on.”
“I opened the door and went out. I looked down the corridor in the direction of the engine, and there was nothing there. I looked the other way, and I saw a man standing by the train door, which he’d presumably already opened. He jumped out immediately. I think he saw me, but I’m not even sure of that.”
“Can you describe this man?”
“I only had a fleeting glimpse. But he was definitely hatless, and fair-haired. Clean-shaven. Wearing something dark, either a raincoat or a light overcoat. I had the impression that he was quite a young man, but that may have been inference. I mean, the train was going quite fast when he jumped.”
“About how fast?”
“Hard to say.”
“Well, that description coincides very well with what I have learnt already. What did you do then?”
“The compartment door was open. I went over and looked in. There was a dead man on the floor, lying on his back. I bent over him to make sure he was dead, and he was, so I thought I’d better not touch anything and I came out again.”
Johnny’s expression was so convincingly guileless that Marie-Andrée had to think back to recall what actually had happened.
“So you didn’t move the body in any way?”
“No.”
“And you have no previous knowledge of the body? By which I mean, it was nobody you had ever seen or met before?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“And then…”
“Oh well, then I just stood by the door talking to my wife. The body, you understand, was… not very pleasant; I didn’t want her to see it.”
“Ah. Very proper.”
“Well, I didn’t know what to do,” said Johnny plaintively, “unaccustomed as I am to proceedings of this nature.”
“These things unfortunately sometimes occur. It is regrettable, but we shall do our best to spare you any inconvenience. Has the lady anything to add?”
“No,” said Marie-Andrée and was horrified to hear her voice emerge as a falsetto squeak. It was, however, in its way as convincing as Johnny’s open countenance, and the policeman smiled sympathetically. “No, I just… followed my husband.”
“And did you see the man who jumped off the train?”
“No, I didn’t. I must have been just too late to catch him.”
“No further comment of any kind?”
Marie-Andrée shook her head. Kastner bowed politely and turned towards Biel.
“Herr Biel. What did you do on this occasion?”
“I was asleep,” Biel admitted, somewhat reluctantly. “I awoke when the train began to – to stop, but it was a moment or two before I realised what was happening. Then I saw the carriage was empty and… as something was obviously wrong… I went and looked out into the corridor.”
“And you saw…?”
“This lady was standing in the corridor near the compartment talking to her husband… to M. Videl. There were a lot of heads poking out of other compartments all the way down the corridor. I was going along to see what it was all about, but M. Videl waved me back… So I stepped back in here, and waited.”
Kastner turned. “You waved this gentleman back? Why did you do that?”
“It seemed best not to have the corridor congested,” said Johnny.
“Quite right; quite right. Are you and Herr Biel previous acquaintances?”
Johnny and Biel both made hurried disclaimers; Kastner sighed, and looked at his wrist-watch. “Well, I don’t think I need trouble you any further. The train will be pulling up at the next station in about five minutes’ time – a small place called Mindelheim. Reports will have to be made, you understand; and while I will act with all possible celerity, I fear we shall be at least half an hour late at Munich.”
“Er… Herr Kastner?”
“M’sieur?”
“My wife and I are, of course, on holiday; and the same is true of Herr Biel. Are there likely to be any complications?”
“Will you be called upon to give evidence, you mean?” Kastner smiled. “It is possible. But I think probably not. The case seems a perfectly straightforward one.”
“Oh?” said Marie-Andrée. Under the influence of her admiring glance, Kastner unbent still further.
“The motive was obviously robbery; the deceased man’s wallet appears to be missing. That creates a sligh
t difficulty in that we haven’t, so far, found out who the poor gentleman was; but that will clear itself. As for your giving testimony, well… I have noted your addresses, and if necessity arises we will get in touch with you. And now you must excuse me.” Kastner sighed. “There are still many more people I must interview…”
The train, shuddering and panting like an overworked dinosaur, pulled into Munich thirty-seven minutes behind schedule. The station in the grey morning light seemed cold and dismal and anything but cheering; Biel, stretching his great body cat-like across the seat, yawned and regarded the scene with distaste.
“Munich. This, I believe, is where we part company.”
Johnny, who had not slept at all but whose blue eyes were as innocently watchful as ever, nodded politely and extended a cautious hand in Biel’s direction. “It’s been nice having the pleasure of your company. And we may meet again – if we decide to spend a few days at this village you so kindly recommended.”
“Well, that would be delightful. It was a pity about that rather distressing… interlude. Not the sort of thing one likes to encounter on one’s honeymoon; not by any means.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Marie-Andrée quite enjoyed it.”
“It would certainly appear to prove that one may find all the excitement one wishes without going on the mountains to look for it – hein?” Biel threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “Ah, well. Madame – I am delighted to have made your acquaintance. Please count me among your sincerest admirers.”
“Thank you,” said Marie-Andrée, sleepily allowing her hand to be kissed in an undemonstrative but obsequious manner. “And enjoy your mountaineering.”
“I’m sure I shall. Can I be of any assistance with your cases?”
“No, no,” said Johnny. “They weigh next to nothing, I can manage them with ease.”
“Then good-bye, M. Videl, for the moment. Auf wiedersehen, madame.”
They waited until the vast rucksack had gone striding down the platform outside; then Johnny picked up the cases and they joined the throng making their way hurriedly out of the station. Marie-Andrée said, pensively,
