“You’re against conformity?” Broach’s voice was mocking.
“Why,” said Paula indignantly, “Andy argues with everyone—even with himself in his sleep.”
But Waysmith was staring at Broach. “Richard van Meeren Broach?” he asked with sudden interest.
Broach nodded. “Do you still want to have a glass of beer with me?” It almost seemed as though he hoped for a snub.
“Why not? In fact, I’d like to hear your point of view.”
“Don’t you know it?”
“Roughly. I know what you’re against. But I’ve never read any explanation why.”
“Do you expect it would be published?”
“Why not?” Waysmith asked again.
“You’d publish my story?”
Waysmith considered that carefully. “If it dealt with facts,” he said at last.
Broach stared as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Then he smiled, that peculiar smile which was a mixture of so many things, yet with the principal ingredient lacking. “Careful,” he said in his humourless way, “or you’ll lose Miss Vivenzio’s friendship. She doesn’t approve of me at all. Do you, Miss Vivenzio?”
Francesca’s eyes were on her hands. Then she looked at Broach. For a moment, she said nothing. And then she rose. “Why must you have other people’s approval? Are you so uncertain in your own heart?” She walked to the door.
“You see?” Broach said. His smile had a bitter twist, but his eyes followed Francesca.
“What—what’s wrong?” Paula asked her husband. She rose, hesitating. “Shall I go and bring her back?” Frau Welti’s knitting needles had stopped.
“She wouldn’t come,” said Broach. “Do you know, these are the first words she has actually ever spoken to me?” He glanced at his watch. “Time for the mail,” he added, and rose. He gave everyone a genial good day. With a small bow, Mr. Walters followed him.
“I’ll find Francesca,” Paula said, but she still hesitated. Broach and Walters had reached the door. They were standing there, looking out into the street, watching the afternoon sunlight and the people who walked there. Watching Francesca? Paula, uncertain of what she was expected to do now, glanced for a cue in the direction of her husband.
He was sitting quite still, studying his long glass of beer. At this moment he could have shaken Francesca until her pretty white teeth rattled.
Keppler stood up, and looked through the window. “I never pretend to understand women,” he said, with a laugh. “I think I’ll go and collect my letters, too. Are you staying here long, Mr. Waysmith?” His voice was clear. It carried easily to the doorway.
“Just snatching a quick holiday before I start work in Bern.”
“Are you doing any climbing?”
“Not if I can find a good excuse to stay where my feet belong.”
“I couldn’t persuade you to join me tomorrow? I’m trying one of the easier saddles. Fine views from there… Ah, well, too bad. I’m sorry. I’ll have to find someone else.” He walked over to the door. Broach and Walters moved away before he reached them. But then, people always fled from someone who bored them: their curiosity was stillborn in the effort to disentangle, to evade, to stay free.
Waysmith rose. “Let’s get unpacked,” he told Paula. Then he remembered he hadn’t brought in their bags. “Oh, hell, where’s that damned car?”
“Let’s just get upstairs anyway. Francesca can find us there.” For once, unpacking seemed of little importance to Paula.
“Francesca—” he began angrily.
“This wasn’t quite my idea of Falken, either,” she reminded him.
So they climbed the stairs, each with a private load of disappointments and worries.
“Women,” Waysmith said as they reached the bedroom, “women should be—”
“Yes, darling,” Paula agreed, slipping her arm round his waist, laughing as he suddenly smiled and kissed her neck, “women should be.”
He opened the door of their room. It wasn’t only Paula’s answering kiss that cheered him. For their bags stood against one wall in a neat row, and Denning’s luggage had been just as quietly removed. Some things, at least, were well under control.
15
NIKOLAIDES
It was a pleasant walk to Waldesruhe, a gentle climb over a green slope cleared of trees to give the house, from its front windows at least, a view of the valley. Here and there, saplings, miniature Christmas trees, pushed their way through long grass, as if the surrounding woods had not yet given up their battle to recapture the wide meadow. The road was narrow and rough, marked by grass ridges between gravelled earth furrows, and occasional patches of mud showed where last night’s heavy rain retreated so slowly before today’s bright sun. Around these dark pools, small butterflies gathered, fluttering up in a blue cloud as Bill Denning approached, then settling again at the edge of the cool wet earth as he passed by.
It was a pleasant walk, with the gentle breeze bringing a scent of pine trees out of the woods, with the sun warming his shoulders, and the soft grass laced with flowers under his feet. Some day I’ll come back and enjoy this place, he promised himself. And smiled at himself, knowing only too well that life had a way of never giving you the time to come back. How many places had he seen in the last ten years which he had meant to revisit, to enjoy? Some day. The most hopeful phrase in man’s language, the most promising in his thoughts, the most unfulfilled.
But now—the harsh word or reality—now he must notice the tyre tracks still soft in the damp earth but firmly moulded in the drier stretches of this road. A car had driven up here, just after the last rainstorm had ended. Late last night, it had driven here. The tracks led him all the way to the house, to be lost there in grass, in overgrown garden.
Waldesruhe seemed deserted. The windows were closed, the door was locked, the house was as silent as the thick woods which surrounded it on three sides. No one answered the clanging bell.
Yet they are in there, Denning thought. I saw them stand on these very steps, watching the car as we drove towards Falken: they watched us, then they turned—as if reassured—and went into the house. He rang again.
And I’m being watched right now, he suddenly thought. He didn’t glance at any window. His throat was dry, the palms of his hands were moist.
“Mr. Maartens,” he said clearly, “Mr. Charles-Auguste Maartens.”
The door half-opened. A small thin man stood there, one hand behind his back, one foot against the door. “What is it you want? This is private property,” he said, all in one breath, his voice thin and high.
He’s as nervous as I am, Denning told himself, and took some comfort from that. “I’ve brought urgent news for Mr. Maartens.”
“You make a mistake. Go away.”
“Maartens is in danger. Doesn’t that interest you?”
“Go away,” the thin little man repeated angrily. He moved uneasily, and then quickly raised his hidden arm.
Denning caught the man’s wrist and twisted it a little. He kicked aside the heavy stick which dropped to the floor with a clatter. “That was stupid of you. Losing your head as well as your grip? What excuse were you going to give my friends when they arrive in twenty minutes?”
“Jean,” said a voice from the doorway of a room, “let the man go.” That was rather a euphemism, Denning thought, as he tightened his grip on Jean’s arm and then released it completely. Then he looked at the speaker, knowing by the peremptory voice whom to expect. It was Mr. Nicholas, Emily’s monster: Nikolaides himself? Only, Denning reminded himself, Nikolaides is one piece of information you had better not let slip: Nikolaides guarded that name too well to allow it to be identified. Nicholas, he told himself firmly now, use only Nicholas, think only the name Nicholas. Nicholas.
“Jean,” explained Nicholas, “distrusts stray callers in such a wild and lonely countryside.” He was studying Denning as he talked. “I’ve seen you before.” His face was polite, expressionless.
“Outside my ro
om at the Aarhof.”
“Ah, yes,” Nicholas said, as if he hadn’t remembered that and had been waiting for an evasion or a downright lie. “Come in.”
“I’ve brought you this,” Denning said, stepping forward and taking the newspaper out of his pocket. “Thought you probably hadn’t been visiting the village to buy any—”
Nicholas made a sign and a powerful grasp from behind Denning pinned his arms back against his shoulder blades. Jean, snickering with delight, danced excitedly in front of him. Denning didn’t resist. “This is extremely uncivil of you, Mr. Nicholas. But you’ll find I am unarmed.”
Jean, at a gesture from Nicholas, began his search. His fingers were light and quick, his sharp white face expectant. His long thin red hair, brushed over a bald spot on his head, hung loose in stray wisps. “Nothing,” he said to the man who held Denning’s arms. “Nothing,” he repeated in disappointment.
“What is that in his right pocket?” Nicholas asked.
“A book.” The little man plastered his hair back into position. He held the volume up in disgust. “In English.”
“There are books in English,” Denning told him.
“That will do, Georges,” Nicholas said. “And we don’t need any sarcasm from you, Mr.—?”
“Denning.” He stretched his shoulders as the man behind him released his grip, and glanced round at Georges. Yes, this was the man who had watched the Waysmiths’ car along with Nicholas. Another white face. Three white faces staring at him blankly in this half-lighted hall. He lifted his book out of Jean’s hands, and put it back into his pocket. Then he walked towards the door where Nicholas stood. “In here?” he asked, and entered.
Nicholas followed him, frowning. “I am a patient man,” he began, “but—”
“—but too suspicious,” said Denning, rubbing his shoulder.
“First, you call me Maartens; then you call me Nicholas, and now you make me follow you into my own room.” The little man was angry.
At least I’ve ended some of that suave control, Denning thought. “The light in the hall was bad. You wouldn’t be able to read this.” He handed over the newspaper. And I wanted to be able to see your face when you read it, he thought. “If you hadn’t left Bern so quickly, you’d have had this news for breakfast. There it is.” He pointed to the paragraph about the death of Charles-Auguste Maartens in the Henziplatz. Then he glanced at the hard uncomfortable room with its hard uncomfortable chairs circled round a central table littered with cans of food, bottles of wine, a torn loaf of bread, a round of Brie half-demolished and turning liquid. He passed the table, dragging one of its chairs quickly to the wall. There, with his back protected by the yellow pine panelling, with the table separating him from the men who watched him so intently, he sat facing them. “That,” he said, as he smiled at the table with its pate, caviare, mushrooms in wine, “that is what I call pigging it in style.”
Nicholas studied him. Then, at last, he looked at the newspaper. His heavy eyelids drooped over the blank brown eyes, and his head with its gleaming black hair bent forward. He read, it seemed, for an endless minute. Denning saw the neat small hands which held the paper tighten. That was all. Unless it was the greenish light, filtering through the trees outside, which made Nicholas’s sallow skin turn more sickly. But apart from that, his control was perfect. Only his stillness gave him away. He must have read the paragraph twice, three times, even four.
Denning lit a cigarette and studied the room.
“You may leave, now,” Nicholas said harshly, looking at Denning.
“Better tell them to leave,” Denning said. Jean and Georges had sensed something was wrong. They had lost all interest in him. “I have other news to give you, too.”
Nicholas wavered for a moment. He gestured to the two men and they went, slowly. He took the chair opposite Denning, his short legs barely reaching the wooden floor, his hands clasped over the front of his tight grey suit which bulged from the heavy woollen sweater he wore, incongruously, underneath its precisely cut jacket. He was tieless, his collar was unbuttoned, perhaps as a concession to country life. He looked, at this moment, a very simple man who waited patiently and politely. He was smiling gently, his eyes seemed half-asleep. But his neck—even as Emily had said—had swollen sideways as if its strong muscles were knotted, as if he had teeth tightly clenched in anger behind that quiet smile. A man, Denning decided, of violent passions, of terrifying control, a man dangerous to thwart, terrible to deceive.
Denning said, “I am not a policeman, nor a detective. Nor am I connected with any organisation, political or criminal. I am here simply because I am interested in one thing.”
Nicholas leaned slightly forward. Was he waiting for the mention of diamonds?
“I want the name of the man who bargained with you.”
“With me?”
“The man you trusted. The man who gave the orders to kill Charles-Auguste Maartens.”
Nicholas’s eyes had opened a little more, his smile had faded.
“I’m assuming,” Denning went on, “that you didn’t know about the plan to kill Maartens.”
“I—kill?” He was horrified.
“I don’t believe so, although the police have other ideas. After all, you destroyed your own alibi last night. You will naturally be suspected.”
“I—of murder? Ridiculous.”
“Who was the man who arranged with you to impersonate Charles Maartens? Who was the man who got you to cancel out Max Meyer’s story?”
“Why are you so interested in all this?”
“The man who was killed by the car, last night, was Max Meyer. He was my friend.”
Nicholas leaned back. He was studying Denning once more. “He was your friend. So you come up here alone, and face—” He smiled broadly. “No, no, no. We could have treated you very violently. Perhaps we might even have killed you. And all that for a friend who is dead? Courage won’t bring him back, Mr. Denning.”
“I’m not as brave as you make me out. I came up here believing you didn’t use violence—at least, not too much.” Denning grinned. This was a little easier now. Suspicion was slowly vanishing. “And I don’t believe that you’re inclined to murder, either. I think that you’ve too much pride in your particular profession to lower it to thuggery.”
Nicholas was both listening and approving. “What is my profession?” he asked blandly.
“Shall we say speculation in fine jewels?”
“What kind of jewels?” The suspicion was returning, suspicion springing from greed.
“No interest. You can have all the jewels in the world for all I care. What I want is the name of the man who bargained with you.”
“Why that man particularly? He couldn’t have killed either Charles or your friend. Believe me.”
“Because he wasn’t in Bern last night?”
Nicholas looked down at his fingers. A hangnail caught his attention. He frowned. “You are less naive than you seem, Mr. Denning.”
“You haven’t told me anything new. Thugs, hired murderers, did the actual killing. The police will catch them. But more thugs can be hired. What we want is the man who hires them, plans, gives the orders.”
“We?” He was stalling now. Suspicion, greed, caution, all were holding him back from frankness.
“You and I,” Denning said firmly.
“Why should I worry?”
I’ve made a mistake, Denning thought: I assumed he would want to see Maartens’ murderers exposed. But all he wants is those diamonds. “You’ve been thoroughly double-crossed,” Denning said. “Isn’t that information worth something from you in return?” He paused, but Nicholas only dropped his eyelids. Denning’s voice became cold, sarcastic, filled with distaste he could barely control. “Apart from the fact that Maartens was your friend, or at least a—a business associate, you are now in danger yourself.”
“You mean I may be killed?” He was a little surprised, but mostly amused. And then, gradually, his amusement eb
bed away. The surprise went, too.
Denning waited. “You can answer that question better than I can.” He rose. “I’ve given you the warning. It was more than you did for Max Meyer. Or for Charles Maartens.”
There was a long silence. Then came the surprising question.
Softly, “Who told you my name is Nicholas?”
“The police heard that.”
“The police?”
“From a telephone call, I believe.”
“An informer?”
Denning walked slowly round the central table. He picked up a jar of pate and studied its label. “It looks,” he said slowly, replacing the jar, “as if you had been twice tricked in the last twenty-four hours.” He looked now at cans of mushrooms, anchovies, a crock of caviare. “And you sit there and take it?”
“But this man you want—he may not have been the informer.”
“Did he know you were Nicholas? And who else could know?”
Nicholas was silent.
“There’s your answer,” Denning said. He glanced at his watch. “If you don’t hurry and give me my answer, my friends will be arriving from the village.”
Nicholas rose, too. He moved over to the door with his quick, light step. “The arrival of your friends,” he said, “is as likely as all the rest of your story.” He opened the door and the two men came in. “Our young friend has a taste for diamonds,” he told them. “And a most vivid imagination. I think we should see that he stays here until we leave, when neither his taste for diamonds nor his imagination can trouble us.” He turned to Denning. “I don’t like violence, but if you resist, we shall tie you up very unpleasantly. However, you can always console yourself that it is only for a few hours. After we leave here, and complete our business in this neighbourhood, I shall try to remember to telephone from Bern and warn the police where you can be found. With luck, you will be free by midnight. Will you kindly walk upstairs?” He was smiling, now. “You almost persuaded me,” he admitted. “Would you care to know your mistake?” He began to laugh. “My friends will be arriving from the village,” he mimicked, “my friends will be—”
Pray for a Brave Heart Page 21
