The Alps Obscure

by Oster, Camille

  “Mrs. Rowland, please tell us where you have been,” the constable said.

  “In my room sleeping. The night's activities caught up with me. Why?”

  “Have you been near the countess’ room?”

  “No. I don’t know where it is. Why? Has something happened?”

  “That message,” Miss Juno said. “The threat. It was on our door.”

  Seems the responsible party wasn’t too wary to act because the constable was here. And for once, the threat wasn’t directed at her.

  In the back stood the rude Italian, not saying anything. Clemmie still wondered if it was him. The Schonbergs were there too, standing together.

  They all stood staring at her as if she could explain this. It made her angry. How could all these people turn on her after everything that had happened?

  Instead of saying anything, Clemmie started walking toward the dining room. She was famished and catching the lunch service was more important than those stupid, gawking people. Finding her usual table, she sat down and waited for service. Truthfully, she was still too tired to deal with all this, but the implication was clear that the threat was still present.

  The presence of someone next to her had her looking up, expecting to see the waiter, but it was the Schonbergs. “May we join you.”

  For a moment, she thought about saying no. It would be rude, but she felt as though she was losing her manners completely. Not quite. “Please, be my guest.”

  They sat down. “Something else has happened,” Mrs. Schonberg said quietly. “One of the servants has gone missing, it seems.” Another man missing. It was almost too common to be shocking. “A Mr. Hubert. A footman in the countess’ party. And now that message appeared on the countess’ door.”

  It did seem like the threat was aimed in that direction.

  “Well, I have neither the strength nor disposition to wrestle three men away from here,” Clemmie said tartly.

  “The constable has been asking questions about you,” Mr. Schonberg said quietly. “It is nonsense, of course.”

  “I don’t even know why he would think I would be responsible.”

  “I think in investigations, the true culprits of crime are often the people closest to the victim,” Mr. Schonberg said.

  Clemmie didn’t know what to say. That didn’t even make sense to her. “Is there a spate of women, in these parts, doing away with their husbands on their honeymoons?”

  “That does suggest a very callous person. You are anything but callous,” Mrs. Schonberg said, and Clemmie appreciated the endorsement. “But the person doing this is still very much here.”

  “What were the circumstances of this footman disappearing?” Clemmie asked. “When was he last seen?”

  “This morning, apparently. He was in the staff room for breakfast, and now he’s gone, and there is blood in his room.”

  “Blood?” Clemmie said, feeling her anxiety soar again.

  “It appears he was injured in some way in his room, and now he cannot be found,” Mr. Schonberg said quietly. “If not for your abduction, it seems this person is very focused on men.”

  “Did anyone take a cart from the hotel?” Clemmie asked. “That was how I was conveyed.”

  It occurred to her that if the constable believed she was responsible for this, her abduction had been something she’d staged, along with all the bruises and scrapes on her body. Even thinking so was inconceivable, but this man seemed intent on believing she was responsible. Which meant, she’d been wandering the mountains all night, then came back and took a bath, subdued and abducted this Mr. Hubert, and then came down for lunch.

  “I must admit I am losing confidence in this man,” she said and wondered how bad things could get for her. Could she be arrested and carted away to prison based on this man’s miscalculations? Who would be there to help her if that happened?

  With a deep sigh, she waited for her food to arrive. Again she felt completely out of her depth. A short while back, she’d been scared of going to the village on her own to buy a book. “I don’t know what to do about all this,” she admitted. “I just don’t know.”

  “Surely someone would have seen a body being carried out of the hotel,” Mr. Schonberg continued.

  “Previously, the people were drugged and hidden somewhere until dark. I was,” she said and they both looked at her.

  “So you think he is in the hotel somewhere?”

  “He has to be. They couldn’t very well pull up a cart and load a man into it without being noticed, especially after what’s happened lately. Can this really be the work of one person?” Then again, she’d been loaded into a cart. That had likely been after dark, though.

  “Technically, yes, but it would be much more risky,” Mr. Schonberg said. “Someone strong enough to carry unconscious people.”

  “And yet they think I’m responsible,” Clemmie said bitterly.

  “That does sound a little ludicrous,” Mrs. Schonberg said. “The constable has forbidden us from leaving. No one is allowed to leave.”

  There had been a party leaving, but that had been before the constable had arrived. Now it looked like no one was leaving until he said they could. And if he thought her responsible, he wasn’t going to let her go.

  A silence descended on the table.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Clemmie repeated.

  “This person has not finished with their activities,” Mrs. Schonberg said. “You saw the message, and then you were abducted. Mr. Carter saw the message, and then he was abducted. And now the countess. It must mean she is being targeted next.”

  “Mr. Carter wasn’t the one to see the message first,” Clemmie said. In fact, she couldn’t quite remember who’d seen it first, but he came afterward after they’d been grappling with the meaning.

  “But he was the only one who knew what the message meant. It had to be for him,” Mr. Schonberg said.

  “What about Oliver?”

  “Maybe he saw the message and dismissed it as unimportant, and it was erased before anyone else saw it.”

  Why would anyone want to abduct the countess? Well, she was wealthy—that was not in doubt—but why abduct Oliver and Mr. Carter, and herself? There had been no ransom demands for any of them. And the messages promised retribution for something—when there was nothing to retribute for. Oliver didn’t have any deep, dark secrets he was hiding—as far as she knew. He was too open and gregarious to be hiding secrets. Mr. Carter—well, she didn’t know. As for herself, her greatest sin was being a young, silly girl who was absorbed with the things that were important to her—rather frivolous things, if she were honest. But it wasn’t as if she was unique, she was like most young women in her society.

  Maybe it was persons of more elevated society this person objected to. She and Oliver weren’t aristocrats like the countess. But then there was Mr. Carter, an American. Granted he was well educated, so he could belong to a fine society on the other side of the Atlantic. But now a servant being abducted, which completely quashed the theory.

  It made no sense. Every time she tried to pin down a motive, it slipped through her fingers like sand.

  Chapter 27

  THE CONSTABLE SEEMED TO TAKE his time speaking to people, especially as three people were now missing. She could so easily have been one of them. And for all she went through, ludicrous that aspersions were thrown her way. It was as though it had never happened.

  The bruises felt very real, however, and she shifted uncomfortably whenever one was pressed too much.

  Again she keenly noticed other people observing her as she sat with the book she’d bought in the village. It seemed she would never need Italian now, but it was something to distract her mind.

  Maybe she should go have a chat with her driver to see if he’d observed anything. But then the building had been searched, apparently, and nothing found. Wherever this Mr. Hubert was held, they hadn’t found anything. It was as though people simply disappeared. But she knew better. They
were taken away on a cart.

  No carts were missing, however. And there was no account of one missing all morning. How could that be? He was here for breakfast, and then simply vanished and no cart was taken. There had to be somewhere in the hotel that the searchers hadn’t found. But how would Mr. Weber not know about it? They had entered every guest room, including hers. They had probably started with hers. As if she’d gone down to the servants’ quarters, rendered this man unconscious and dragged him up two flights to her room.

  With a groan, she rubbed her eyebrows. Her tea was getting cold, but she had no appetite for it.

  “Mrs. Rowland, may we speak?” the constable said. “Could you please join me in the library?”

  She stifled another groan. What could he possibly want now? But instead of asking, she smiled tightly. “If you wish,” she replied and rose. A third groan, from pain this time.

  “You are in pain?” he asked. Clearly the man was observant, but he didn’t believe her story about being abducted, even with bruising and scraps to her very face.

  For a moment, she considered ignoring him. “Yes,” she finally said without elaborating. In the library, she took the same seat as before.

  “I wish to know about the argument you had with Mr. Rowland the night before he disappeared.”

  Clemmie blinked. “What argument? There was no argument.”

  “It was observed.”

  Desperately she tried to think back on what could possibly have been construed into an argument. There was nothing. “Oliver promised to take me up to the observation platform before leaving, and I said that would be nice. I went to the village to buy a book, while he was preparing for our departure. That was all that was discussed.”

  “You were observed having a row.”

  “There was no row.” Where could this have come from? “Who has said so?”

  He ignored the question. “You came from Paris before staying here.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “We stayed two nights in between, but yes.”

  “Have you felt that your husband had been ungenerous with you?”

  “No.”

  “So you assert there was no argument?”

  “Yes. There was no argument. We were excited about the next leg of our journey.”

  “Do you have a lover, Mrs. Rowland?”

  “No, of course not!” she said sharply.

  “And who was this Mr. Coleridge?”

  “A professor. A man we met the day we arrived here.” Was he asserting that Mr. Coleridge was her lover? This was all absurd. If she’d been dragging her feet about asking her father for assistance, her mind was made up now. Dealing with this kind of incompetence was something she needed support for.

  “And you knew him from back in England?”

  “No, we have never met him before.”

  “But your husband had. They were at the same university. If that is true, you must have met his man as you visited your fiancé.”

  “We were not betrothed during his university days. And from the sounds of it, they hadn’t met, simply had people in common. Mr. Coleridge was interested in antiquities, and it is not a subject Oliver is particularly interested in.”

  “Are you interested in antiquities?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “And where did this Mr. Coleridge travel onto?”

  “His destination was England, I believe. I would presume Oxford.”

  “You are a wealthy woman with your husband dead.”

  “My husband is missing, not dead.” Truthfully, it was hard for her to believe that, but she disliked being told he was dead based on no evidence. “We are both from wealthy families, so it makes little difference.”

  “But a widow has many freedoms.”

  “If I didn’t wish to get married, I wouldn’t have. Are you done with these ludicrous questions?” She was channeling the countess’ behavior. Never would she speak so sternly normally, but she was fully within her right to. “I am starting to worry you are too interested in chasing shadows over actually finding these men.” She might as well go for it. “Have you actually done anything to find the missing men? And how dare you assume they are dead. Have you done anything useful at all?”

  The man certainly didn’t like being challenged. The old her would have cringed at the very idea of someone being upset with her, but there were much more important things here.

  “Have you established where and how these men were taken? I can assure you, you won’t find them in my room. They are not in the hotel, so where are they? Where is Mr. Hurbert? He was taken this morning, and no cart has left the hotel.”

  “How do you know that no cart was taken?”

  “Well, I am assuming you would have chased them down if someone had trundled off with one, in light of how I was taken.”

  “Yes, this abduction that you escaped from. Yet you have no idea who or how you were taken.”

  “A man.”

  “What man?”

  “I am not here to do your job for you. That is for you to establish.”

  “No, my job is to arrest the culprit.”

  “It seems your job is to chase delusions.”

  “Was your husband perhaps regretting his marriage to you?”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Mr. Schonberg spent a whole day with him, and he could attest to Oliver’s state of mind, she was going to say, but thought better of it. How did she know who this observation of them rowing had come from? Someone had said it, and it wasn’t true. Who could it have been? Frankly, she didn’t really remember the day before his disappearance. He’d been tramping and he was exhausted, but relatively happy with the day. There had been no quarreling. It must have been some statement that Constable Luchon misinterpreted. The man seemed to be set on proving she’d done this and would twist anything to support his assumption.

  “Now if you have nothing further to ask, I have a telegram to send.”

  “Who are you sending a telegram to?”

  “To my father. He is a man of means and will engage the people necessary to find Oliver.” Because her faith in this man was beyond repair.

  Chapter 28

  AT SUPPER, CLEMMIE SAT AT her usual table. There was a wariness in the room. People wanted to leave, but the constable wasn’t allowing anyone to go, including staff for telegram sending, which was apparently a substantial journey. It seemed even the countess couldn’t get past the man.

  But what was clear was that the threat was still here. Threats were still appearing, and people were still disappearing. More targeted at the countess now—written on her very door. The woman didn’t look happy. Her grandchild fussed, clearly feeling the tension.

  The Schonbergs sat at their usual table too, quietly talking between themselves. Was he the one who’d egged the constable into believing things were poorly between her and her husband? It could be that he’d done so inadvertently. Maybe Oliver had said something in jest that had been taken the wrong way. Oliver did like to jest. He wasn’t necessarily someone who hid his thoughts.

  Then there was the rude Italian, who was there too. Clemmie watched him for a moment. There was still that feeling in her that he could be involved. In terms of irrational motives, he seemed the person who least liked people.

  The countess’ party had lost her footman, and she her husband. There was no one that particularly mourned Mr. Carter on account of him being alone. His family would have no idea he was missing. Maybe there was no way of actually reaching them, or was there an address for them somewhere in Mr. Carter’s room?

  Mr. Weber had promised to send someone to deliver the telegram as soon as it was allowed, but Clemmie knew it would take much too long for someone to be engaged and actually arrive. She would probably be cast in prison before they did. So maybe it was important she send the telegram before the option was denied her. But Mr. Weber had the telegram and the money to send it, so she felt safe in that regard.

  The food was ver
y nice, but Clemmie ate because she had to. She still needed to recuperate her strength from her ordeal.

  Through the door walked the constable, and he took a seat close to the dark window. The room grew more uncomfortable with his presence. Clemmie knew he was asking people about her specifically. His interest in her could hardly have gone unnoticed.

  Suddenly, she didn’t want to stay and watch this horrid man eat, so she left the dining room. The lobby was quiet. Mr. Weber was helping with the dinner service as he tended to do sometimes. It seemed a part of the day he enjoyed, but it left the lobby empty.

  As much as she didn’t want to be in the dining room, she felt the absence of the safety it provided. But she wasn’t going to be a mouse and slink back because things were quiet. Going to her room was something she would have to do sooner or later, and maybe it was best to do it when all the people here were in the dining room. Unless it was a member of the staff responsible. Either way, walking around the hotel was a risk.

  With hurried steps, she entered the hallway, seeing two neat rows of closed doors. Lanterns were spaced, close enough to provide sufficient light down the hallway, but it was hardly bright.

  A creak had her freezing and stopping, and she quickly turned to see if anyone was sneaking up behind her, but there was nothing there. Nothing had changed in the hallway, no doors had opened, and no one was walking behind her. Then she looked back the way she’d been walking and there still wasn’t anyone.

  Her heart was in her throat and that creeping feeling of dread reasserted itself. The stairway was only a few yards away, but she feared meeting someone on it. A place where she had no sight until she actually got there.

  As quietly as she could, she stepped over to it. The upper story felt even more remote. Someone could attack her there and the others wouldn’t even hear. Now her strategy to shift to her room when everyone was in the dining room seemed stupid. This was the perfect time to subdue her and carry her away. No one would notice, and the staff were busy with the supper service.