by Ellis Peters
‘The lantern,’ said Crista, pointing. ‘It is joined by a narrow corridor to the back of the Himmelhof. Like a look-out tower.’
‘But how do we get up there?’ asked Una, eyeing the almost vertical rocks that reared out of the placid water.
‘The jetty is at the other side. You will see, the whole island is like a tiered stage, sloping down to the south-west. We have to round this southern point, then there’s a small beach, and beyond it the landing-stage. Everything here faces the same way, the house turns its back on the town. When you see the view from the terrace you will see why. Every morning to wake up and see that view! No people, no buildings but your own house, just the lake and the far shore, and up above, the Silvretta. Such peace!’ she said, for once with a note of urgency and passion in her voice that made Una turn and look at her in mild surprise. ‘They orientated the house towards the sun, of course,’ she said. ‘The beach faces due south, there’s good, safe bathing there.’
Schwalbe brought the boat round well clear of the southern point, and they came into a little bay where the water shaded off from deepest blue through paling shades of green as the yellow sand showed through. Beyond the scalloped rim of beach a long arm of low rocks curved out again into the water, and terminated in a short stone jetty. Here the sheer rocks drew back to reveal an improbable baroque stage-set, ornate staircases climbing from the sands, terrace after railed terrace, pavilion beyond pavilion, half overgrown with untended shrubs and flowering trees, and studded with massive stone vases and marble nymphs and satyrs, to a glimpse of the white house on the crest.
‘There is another jetty on the northern side,’ Crista said, ‘you can cross from there very quickly to the castle. A path leads down to it from the northern end of the terrace. But this will be the main entrance for the hotel, when it is finished. Because of the beach, of course, that will be one of the main assets. And I think Herr Graf is also planning a swimming-pool on top, close to the house. But the work is only begun. The interior has never been totally neglected, but of course no one has been resident except a caretaker, it is dilapidated in places. Please take care on the staircases, they are very chipped and broken here and there, and of course bringing up building materials hasn’t helped. But there’s no point in repairing them until everything is finished.’
The boat, its engine mute, slid neatly along the stage, and Geestler leaned out from the bow, and made it fast. They climbed ashore and began to mount the first stairway. At each level the path changed its direction, and sometimes its nature, a slope of gravel replacing the steps. Gradually the house on its final great terrace rose into view, a central rectangular block with a classic portico, its cornice ornamented with six carved nymphs; and two lower wings, curving round, one on either side, to make a semicircle open to the south-west. Over the ornate stone railings and balustrades great sheaves of green and cascades of flowers hung. Crista had been right about the broken state of the steps, there were stones displaced and cracked here and there, retaining walls had shed great flakes of plaster, and were patterned with enigmatic maps of imaginary lands. The ceramic vases that fringed the paths were grey with lichens. As they approached the house itself they could see that its plaster was peeling, too, shutters dangled by one hinge at some windows, festoons of stucco garlands had shed half their flowers, tubs were falling apart and spilling soil from their overgrown decorative trees. Clearly Herr Graf had only recently decided to restore the place to its original grandeur, the process had not yet gone very far. But it had a mellowed, decrepit baroque beauty just as it was. It was probably more attractive now in its desolation, Una thought, than it had ever been in its heyday, or would ever be again.
‘To the right,’ directed Crista as they reached the semicircular forecourt. ‘This southern wing is where we shall be living. This has been – not yet restored, but at least made habitable.’
The two wings were only one storey high; but a lofty storey, and a narrow, covered colonnade, supported on slender pillars, lined the curve. The rooms made ready for them were at the end of the wing. There was a great salon, the final room of all, that went right through the wing, and had windows both on the lake and the terrace, an array of smaller bedrooms opening from an inner corridor and looking out over the water, a bathroom, a kitchen, and well-stocked store cupboards. They would be sleeping under gold and white ceilings panelled with allegorical paintings at once elegant and tawdry, and viewing themselves in mirrors airborne by pneumatic amoretti. The furniture, as yet, was still the original, rococo satins and gilt, pastel brocades falling, here and there, into threadbare lace, and even into holes. But to judge by the newly-fitted kitchen and plumbing, this suite would one day be the private apartment of Herr Graf’s manager, when the new luxury hotel was opened at last.
The cabinets in the salon still held fine glass, china figures that looked like Meissen, ivory fans, snuffboxes, all their treasures. The chairs and slender-legged sofas were of white and gilt, upholstered in palest blue brocade. It was easy to see that this had been an appanage of the castle; it had all the excesses, and still retained the shameless charm. Una was so fascinated by it that for the first hour she almost forgot the reason for their exile here.
The bustle of installing themselves and examining their palatial prison kept them occupied for some time. Geestler and Schwalbe had brought up more cartons of provisions from the boat, including a case of whisky, Lucas noted with some amusement. By way of anaesthesia, or am I thought to be so anglicised that I cannot exist without it? Gin, too! The essentials were all taken care of. There were beds for everyone, and these young men of Wehrle’s seemed to be expecting to cater for themselves, and spend their time, watch and watch about, outside Lucas’s door. Una would probably have something to say about the catering, with a new electric cooker at her disposal, and all those stores in the kitchen cupboards. She would be planning to feed everyone.
She was; and Dieter Wehrle’s young men accepted her summons to dinner with the greatest complacency. It was a summer meal of cold meats, cheeses, pickles and salads, in view of the hour, but she had produced, by way of masterpiece, a sweet omelette of heroic proportions, whipped to the table with exact timing which had cost her a considerable expenditure in nervous energy, and repaid her with copious compliments. Briefly and miraculously, in the middle of the hurricane, where the core of calm rests, Una was utterly happy. Lucas was devoutly grateful for that, even if it lasted no more than a breath. He had written and posted his letter to his solicitor; he was ready, he had his own measure of repose.
The two girls were washing up in the kitchen, after all the coffee had been drunk and all the hopeful spurt of conversation had subsided into those separate silences to which Lucas was so accustomed, where everyone walked alone. The two young men had withdrawn to patrol their domain and examine all its defences, to pinpoint the stations that controlled the best views over the Himmelsee, and check all the approaches before the darkness came down on them.
In a sense Lucas had been waiting for this moment when he would be alone in the salon. Alone, you come to grips with the reality about yourself, the things that matter most to you, and those that are dispensable. In the salon, its table now cleared of the communal feast, there was, not a piano – such modernities would have been out of place here – but a very beautiful harpsichord, so polished and immaculate that he dared suppose someone had been tending it during the years of its silence. No wire strings, either! The old, dulcet tone, distant and plaintive. There might be mute keys, he had to be prepared for that. It would be preferable to a modern mock-up in mint order.
He had kept his hands from it until now. He caressed the exquisite, glossy wood, so harmoniously grained, like a perfect, tideless sea. And his eyes lit, inescapably, upon the neat little pile of letters arrayed upon its cover, accurately in the middle, to ensure that they should not be overlooked. Of course! Jörg-Erich had brought over with him the mail received at the festival office. Lucas had had all his letters directed there
, in ignorance of the arrangements made for his accommodation.
There was no escaping the world. Resignedly he picked up and shuffled the meagre pile. Not so many people had found it imperative to remember the existence of Lucas Corinth; a salutary reflection. Three letters from friends in England – perhaps it was not so bad a score to record three genuine friends! – one from his agent, no doubt about some autumn booking, a card from his dead wife’s sister on holiday in Brittany – she had never approved of her sister’s marriage! – and one unstamped envelope, apparently unmailed, addressed to him via the festival office in characterless block letters.
He stood looking at the mute, anonymous thing in his hand, searching the blue-black ball-pen lines of the superscription, bracing himself to open it. There was nothing in it but a slip of manuscript paper, with a few bars of music scribbled on it. He stared at the scrawled notes for a long moment, then he opened the harpsichord, very gently and reverently, and fingered them out on the keys. It wasn’t necessary; he knew already what they were, and what they meant, and they needed no signature.
He had accepted the need to cooperate now, he was the centre of an elaborate and expensive police operation, and he had no choice but to confide everything, even this, which by its very expression seemed to him almost too intimate a communication to be shared with any other creature. Regretfully he went out into the colonnade, where the windows of the wing opposite flashed the reflection of the setting sun into his eyes. Such large windows, like those of the salon here, that he could clearly see the shrouded shapes of delicate furniture within, and the bright, opalescent eye of a rounded mirror on the wall. Hugo Geestler was coming back up the steps from his circuit of the house and terraces.
‘Herr Geestler, will you come in for a moment? There has been …’ He wasn’t sure what to call it. ‘A development.’
‘You’ve seen someone? An intruder?’ The young man came springing up the last staircase three at a time.
‘No, no, nothing has happened. Simply another message. If I’m not reading too much into it.’ But he knew he was not. It was a fitting, even a chivalrous touch, to send him his warnings in music. ‘You remember Herr Fischer said he had brought the mail over with our provisions? I have only just got round to opening it. This envelope – perhaps we ought not to handle it? Though of course I already have!’
Geestler crossed the room with him, and bent his head to examine the envelope where it lay, without touching. The two girls were just coming from the kitchen, and Una came curiously to see what was being inspected so carefully. The distractions and charms of the Himmelhof had so effectively restored her innocence that at first she had no thought of anything sinister, and said eagerly, remembering this young man’s professed interest in keyboard music: ‘Yes, why don’t we have a concert? I bet the acoustics in here would be ideal for a harpsichord.’
Then she saw the torn scrap of paper on which all their attention had been focused, and instantly the shadow came down again upon her face.
‘What is it?’ She looked from the spray of black notes scored deeply into the paper, to Lucas’s face.
‘It is exactly what you see. It was here among the letters – now that I think back, in the middle of the sheaf.’
‘It has not been through the post,’ said Geestler. ‘This has something to do with Gelder? For I think you know what it means.’
‘Yes, I know what it means. You don’t recognise it?’ He picked out the notes again on the keyboard, and sang the first bar or two in a soft, thoughtful voice: ‘“Heut’ oder Morgen …” It’s the Marschallin in “Rosenkavalier”, at the end of the last act, remembering what she herself said in the first. “Today or tomorrow; if not tomorrow, very soon.” But he hasn’t carried the quotation to the end of the phrase, so I take it to mean just what it says. Today – not much left of today, now, but still a few hours – or tomorrow. I’m being given fair warning, and time to say my prayers.’
‘Lu!’ cried Una on a muted gasp of protest, and plucked his hand from the keys as though she had caught him in the act of opening a door to his own murderer.
Geestler, without a word, picked up the telephone and dialled. In the few minutes of waiting they heard the light steps of Richard Schwalbe walk the length of one of the lower terraces, and heard him whistling to himself: ‘Schenkt man sich Rosen in Tirol …’
There would be no one in the festival office at this hour of the evening. Geestler went straight to Jörg-Erich’s home number, and talked for some minutes in German too rapid and colloquial for Una to follow. Then he depressed the rest with a slam of his brown palm, and held it there briefly.
‘Herr Fischer himself collected the letters from the office. He is quite positive that there was no unmailed envelope among them, and he didn’t let them out of his hands – or his briefcase, more accurately – until he put them here on the harpsichord.’
‘He had a boatman with him?’ asked Lucas.
‘He had, but he is sure his briefcase was never touched, and never laid down out of his sight. It’s second nature to retain a hold on a briefcase, as on a handbag.’
‘They had things to carry into these rooms. They might well be in and out, separately, two or three times. It would not be difficult, or take long, to slip one extra envelope among the others.’
‘It would not, but the boatman who brought him out was one of Herr Graf’s employees from long since, far too old to be connected with this Gelder. Herr Fischer has given me the number of the girl who gave him the letters in the office. If she sorted them from other mail she must know whether there was one delivered by hand among them. Herr Fischer might not notice, if it was in the middle of the bunch.’
Jörg-Erich, Una thought but refrained from saying, would know not only how many letters there were, but the post-marks of each, and probably the date of posting, too. Inside information on everything connected with Herr Graf’s business interests was surely part of his essential stock-in-trade. It would be interesting, though, if the girl from the office stated firmly that there had been one letter delivered by hand.
But she did not. She confirmed Jörg-Erich’s statement without hesitation. Geestler cradled the receiver again and sat back, frowning thoughtfully, before he dialled his chief’s own number and made his report.
‘It was not among the letters in the office, it was not among them when Herr Fischer put them down here. Unless,’ he said firmly, ‘we are to think that Herr Fischer is lying, and inserted the envelope himself. Or, just as improbable, that Herr Graf’s boatman, for some obscure reason, inserted it without Herr Fischer’s knowledge before they left the island. Perhaps someone else asked him to do it – either the simple delivery of a message – but then why place it so unobtrusively, and why say nothing about it? – or a furtive errand well paid, and no questions asked.’
‘It couldn’t have been inserted here,’ said Una positively, ‘not since then. There’s nobody here but us.’
‘True,’ said Lucas musingly, closing the harpsichord. ‘There’s nobody here but us.’
How long, he wondered, had these two young men been in the police force, and how long here in Gries? This man might very well be a native, almost certainly was, there had been a whole family of Geestlers here before the war. But the other, the dark boy, Richard Schwalbe – Richard the Swallow …‘Es kehret die dunkle Schwalbe, Aus fernem Land zurück …’ ‘The dark swallow comes back from foreign lands …’ No, there’d never been any Schwalbes in these parts. And Jörg-Erich himself, what were his antecedents? Did his employer know all about his family from two generations back? He was the right age, so far as one can judge these days. Had any of them a look of Valentine?
The truth was that he could recall very strongly all that he had felt for Valentine Gelder as his friend and his chief, but he had long since forgotten what he looked like. The face was there in his mind, but dimmed and half-erased, like a faded photograph. He made no effort to restore its features. It is very difficult to evade a really
punctilious hate, it will find you no matter what you do. Better to sit quietly and wait for it. Otherwise there’s no end, no peace for the pursued or the pursuer; and most faithfully, in his heart, he wished young Valentine peace.
Geestler concluded his call, and cradled the telephone.
‘I must ask you, sir,’ he said, politely but firmly, ‘to stay withindoors tonight. We shall keep watch all night. Obviously the hours of darkness will be the most dangerous time, but your bedrooms overlook the water, and the drop is steep, almost sheer. You will please keep the door of your room locked, and the curtains drawn.’ He had borrowed something of Wehrle’s authoritative tone, and he emphasised it still more when he saw the weary smile on Lucas’s lips. ‘I am responsible for your life now, Mr Corinth, I insist you shall help and not hinder me.’
‘I have a regard for my life, too,’ Lucas assured him. ‘I shall obey orders.’
He crossed to the window that overhung the water, drew it gently to without latching it, and pulled the curtains close over it. He stood for a moment with the folds just parted in his hands, looking across the Himmelsee to the twinkling lights of Gries. The sky was fully dark now, a dusky purplish blue like the petals of clematis flowers; only faint, quivering lines of reflected light transfixed the water of the lake like spears, and between them flashed occasional phosphorescent glints, as the rising night wind ruffled the surface with shudders of disquiet. They were out of reach of all sounds from the shore; the silence here was profound.
‘What a pity,’ he thought, ‘if I’m never to hear “The Horn of Roland” performed after all. What a pity if this is the final silence.’
