by Ellis Peters
‘Oh, I believe you, all right. Trouble is that we haven’t got any way of shanghai-ing this Valentine, and making him see sense. I suppose,’ he said, ‘they are trying to find him?’
‘Every young man who comes near, and looks anywhere around twenty-seven, is suspect. Yes, they’re trying. But the mother left here and didn’t go back to her parents in Linz, and nobody knows where she vanished to. It takes time. And I’m not sure that we’re dealing with an ineffective romantic. I don’t think we have time.’
‘Have you thought of the other way? Find the man your dad spoke to at the Filsertal gate. The man he gave the legitimation to. That would be even more effective, because that would prove he’s telling the truth.’
‘After all these years? He may be dead long ago. But yes, they’ve got that in mind, too.’
‘You mustn’t think like that. Equally he may be alive. Your dad put him at around forty then, that would make him in his late sixties now. But that’s not senile. Not even old, for a Tyrolese.’
‘But look how many people died in the war.’ She was thinking, bitterly, of Willi Bruchmann.
‘Our man was too old to get dragged into that automatically, and too wily, if he was a travelling man. And nobody was rushing armies up and down the Silvretta, or bothered to bomb Vesulspitze. He may very well be still alive, and still running round from fair to fair, if he was what your father took him to be. I’m a connoisseur of travelling men, I’m a bit of one myself. You’d be surprised what regular habits they have. You could set your watch by some of the gypsies. Tell me about him again. Tell me every word your father said, when he was trying to remember for the police.’
At first she had been no more than comforted and touched by his interest, now she was beginning to take heart from it, almost against her judgment, even to believe that if this young man set out to find a single elderly vagabond in the whole of Austria he would have the cheek and the luck to succeed. She shut her eyes, the better to concentrate, and went over the remembered details yet once again. The pitch darkness in the woods, the tree that stirred and became a man, the age, the shape, the smell of him, the way he turned his head side-long to hide his face, the harsh detail of what he had heard while he froze into immobility.
‘Your old man noticed a good deal,’ said Mike, impressed.
‘You daren’t miss anything when your life depends on it. And those things you don’t forget.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you do,’ he said feelingly. ‘Let’s hope that goes double, even after twenty-eight years. There can’t have been many nights like that in the other fellow’s life, either. And you do know, don’t you, that if this chap really was the travelling kind, whether he belonged to one of the shows or was a lone camp-follower, he may very well be in Gries right now?’
‘The police have thought of that, too. They’re looking for him at the fairground. But surely he’d have come forward when he read the account in the papers,’ she objected. ‘Even if he’s still alive, and still on the road, there are fairs at the other end of Austria, too.’
‘There are, and I know it’s a long chance, but long chances are all you’ve got. You know what?’ said Mike seriously, watching her face in the soft, lambent light. ‘You’ve given me an idea. It may not pay off, but it’s worth a try. If I’m right, our man’s range may turn out to be strictly local, probably never beyond the Tyrol. And like me, he doesn’t read the papers. I’ll tell you something! The first three nights I spent in Gries, even after I got taken on with the orchestra, I slept rough on the fairground, and did a few jobs around the shows during the day. I hadn’t any money for a room until I got my first pay, and I’ve lived that way before, when pushed. I met acquaintances I’ve made the other side of the Arlberg, and some from further afield still, and where I don’t know my way around, and can’t talk fast enough, they do, and they can. And it looks,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘as though I’d better get back there just as soon as I can, and not hang around until morning. If today is – maybe – all we’ve got.’
She hardly noticed that ‘you,’ had suddenly changed to ‘we’. There had been nothing deliberate about his self-election, it was as direct and impulsive as everything he did.
Torn between eagerness and doubt, she said: ‘But you can’t. They won’t let you go now.’
‘They will if I come clean. They said so.’
‘But you said you had reasons – I mean, if there are things you don’t want the police to know about you … It’s awfully good of you, but how can I let you …’
‘The police?’ he said, surprised. ‘Don’t you worry, I’m not a wanted man – not any more. No, it was something quite different I was aiming to keep dark, and it doesn’t matter all that much now, not by comparison with this.’ He rose from his knees, and tugged down his sweater like a man preparing for action. ‘Look, it may not even matter at all, if … Is your old man still there?’
‘No, he went to bed some time before I came in here. I hope he’s asleep. He needs it.’
‘That makes it easy,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Look, you can do us all a favour. Well, I hope it’ll turn out a favour! Go find that copper who was doing the talking, and tell him I’m suitably chastened, and knocked on the wall to let somebody know I wanted out, and was ready to talk. That is you in the room the other side of me? And rub it well into him that your old man mustn’t be disturbed, because he needs all the rest he can get. OK? And then you go to bed, and leave the rest to me. I’ve got a hunch, and Mike’s hunches always pay off. One of ’em brought me to Gries, and that wasn’t any dud, you’ll admit. Try not to worry. I’ll be back. And with a lot of luck, not alone. You go get your beauty sleep. Not that you need any more help from nature,’ he said with a candid grin, ‘she went to town on you in the first place. Do you know I still don’t even know your name?’
‘It’s Una,’ she said. He generated a wind of energy that was bidding fair to blow her off her feet.
‘Then I’ll see you at rehearsal. OK? And goodnight – Una!’
‘Goodnight, Mike!’
He had already vanished from the window when impulsively she called him back.
‘Mike, I thought you might like to know … I wouldn’t worry about that horn part, if I were you. After you’d gone he called you an extremely able musician. He never says more than he means, usually not so much.’
‘No!’ breathed Mike, struck mute for a moment. ‘No kidding, he really said that? You wouldn’t pull my leg, would you?’
‘I wouldn’t. And he did.’
Mike hung from his window entranced for a moment. His face gradually broke into an incandescent grin. ‘You know what?’ he said then. ‘If I could reach that far I’d kiss you, Una Corinth!’
She measured the distance between the windows with a speculative eye, and let herself go with the gale. ‘I could come part way to meet you,’ she offered.
But all they could manage, when they stretched out towards each other along the cool, rough wall, was a brief clasping of fingertips.
CHAPTER NINE
Lucas awoke to the smell of fresh coffee, and the scintillating light of the morning sun reflected from the lake water into his gold and white room. He bathed and dressed, and went out into the colonnade, and walked to the edge of the terrace, without so much as thinking of the possible lurker in the bushes below, or the weathered demi-god dislodged from the cornice. He had slept well, and awakened early, and the apparition of the Silvretta peaks, flushed aloft with the dawn like rose-coloured diamonds, and afloat below in a mist as blue as hyacinths, made his heart soar as if this were the first, original, ecstatic day of the world – of his world – instead of the last.
Richard Schwalbe was patrolling the tiers of gardens below him, probing bushes, but perfunctorily, as though he did not quite believe in his task. He was whistling, and his step was a dance step. When he looked up and saw Lucas above him, he waved a hand – definitely less of a salute than a wave this time – and called a good-morning.
He was laughing. He laughed a great deal, not at any private joke, but out of some joyous animal exuberance. Disinclination to words turned him naturally to such outlets as whistling, and laughter, and light, balletic gesture.
‘I hope,’ called Lucas, dazzled by so much energy, ‘you were able to get some sleep?’
‘Two hours,’ said the young man cheerfully. ‘It’s enough. And you, sir? You slept well?’
‘Thank you, I did. Is Herr Geestler anywhere about?’ He was thinking of the prisoner still locked in one of the dust-sheeted rooms. He hoped that at least there had been a bed in it.
‘Hugo went down to the jetty. A boat came in with the mail and the newspapers. He’ll be on his way up by now. Oh, the boat signalled and was identified, of course, everything is in order. It was a quiet night,’ he said blithely, and moved on along the terrace until the overgrown shrubs hid him from sight.
The air was like iced wine, and the sky above the island, still tinted with the dawn, was so remote and delicate a lilac shade that it faded at the zenith into the colourlessness of space. In a little while the valiant blue would emerge, to deepen and deepen into noon’s incredible peacock hue. Now everything was vapour, pallor and sparkle, everything tinkled like frost, though the sun was already warming the stones. Lucas had never felt more alive, or valued living more.
Geestler, coming up the gap-toothed staircases, frowned at the sight of his charge standing thus vulnerably in the full sunlight, visible from every side.
‘You should go in, or at least keep within the precinct. I’m sorry, but you know the need.’ He reproached rather than ordered, and Lucas felt guilty rather than threatened. But he knew he was not yet out of reach of fear; it was merely that the startling beauty of those distant peaks made him forget.
‘Your colleague has just vetted all these levels,’ he said defensively, ‘and you’ve come up from the shore, this seemed the best time for a breather. Shouldn’t we set our young guest free, too? I’m afraid he may have spent a rather wretched night, at least we can offer him breakfast.’
Geestler reshuffled the packages in his hands, and for one moment looked slightly deprecating. His was a rocky, conscientious young face, it took any hesitancy hard.
‘This young Englishman,’ he said, ‘after you had retired, had second thoughts about his situation, Mr Corinth. I think you won’t disapprove. He asked to be released, and voluntarily gave us a complete account of his movements in Austria since he entered. He was candour itself. He offered every safeguard we could require, and there’ll be no difficulty in keeping a watch on him. So I felt justified in allowing him to leave, as he wished.’
‘You got the statement you wanted?’ said Lucas, astonished.
‘In complete detail, yes.’
‘And you let the poor kid row back to Gries? In the middle of the night?’
Geestler smiled. ‘It was not so late, not long after you retired. But in fact I had Richard tow him across with the motor-boat. A matter of ten minutes. He would be back at his lodgings soon after one o’clock. He has to be ready for rehearsal this afternoon, as you have. It seemed a reasonable risk. As you said, quite definitely he is not Valentine Gelder.’
‘But I have his horn,’ said Lucas, amused and dismayed. ‘Why didn’t you call me? Didn’t he insist? He must be feeling terribly aggrieved against me for the whole episode. I wouldn’t for the world have robbed him.’
‘Miss Corinth was most urgent that we should not disturb you.’
‘You mean my daughter was present?’ He was more and more at sea; so many things here, by night as by day, were happening without any reference to him, as though he had already passed out of existence.
‘No, no, no! But Miss Corinth occupies the room next to the one where we had put him. It seems that he knocked on the wall, begged her to call me. She was naturally anxious that we should not trouble you. And the horn … Yes! Mr Brace agreed that you must not be awakened. You will find he has left you a note. And there are letters here, and the newspapers …’
‘Take them in, please,’ Lucas requested, shrinking from the characteristic columnar black and white, pointed with red, of the press. ‘I’ll come in a few minutes. This,’ he said, looking out at the world that composed itself into such a devastating shape at the south-western extreme of the Himmelsee, ‘is so beautiful.’
He saw this young face – all the faces that surrounded him were so young, all of them hovered round that magical twenty-seventh year – quiver and respond, acknowledging and respecting what he felt. Geestler opened his lips to speak, and then after all closed them, having said nothing. He took his bundle of letters and papers, and went away quietly and almost stealthily into the house.
Crista was alone in the salon when Lucas entered. She had laid a small table for breakfast, for two people only, and was ready to pour coffee for him and bring in toast from the kitchen as soon as he appeared. There were flowers on the table, a few sprays cut from the overflowing shrubberies, and she had found some Mozart on the radio as subdued background music. He noticed, too, that she had folded the newspaper away under his letters, so that it should not clamour too blatantly for his attention and spoil his morning, and even mustered the letters themselves carefully, English and private ones first, so that he should be able to begin with normality, whatever vicious freaks might have to be faced later. This was going to be no comfortable day for him, but she was fending off its most hurtful edges as best she could.
On top of the whole pile was a single sheet of paper folded in half, pale blue notepaper from the writing-table beside the window. Lucas unfolded it with a smile, and read:
‘Dear Mr Corinth,
I have now satisfied the police of my bona fides, and they’re letting me go back to Gries, but I find I’m obliged to leave my horn behind. We didn’t want to wake you. Would you be so kind as to bring it with you to rehearsal this afternoon? I’m asking your man to bring up the case from my boat when he gets back from giving me a tow across.
Thank you!’
And the signature: Michael Brace. An unflowing, schoolboy hand. Lucas doubted if his absent friends got many bulletins from him, or his parents when he was wandering. Supposing, of course, that he had any parents living? Lucas had very little experience of what motives drive the young across the world in times of peace; he knew very acutely those impulsions that do the same office for them in wartime.
The case was on one of the brocaded chairs by the wall, as shabby and striking, and fully as assured, as an infantry private quartered in a baroque church. Scuffed black leather over blocked wood, rubbed raw at the corners. Maybe his father had played the same horn before him, maybe his grandfather, too. Horns and trumpets have long, long lives. The Viking lurs can still be blown, and the shattering brilliance of the war trumpet from the Egyptian tomb must be one of the most marvellous sounds ever recorded.
He laid the note gently on the table. Crista’s eyes followed it, and returned to his face. ‘Herr Geestler feels a little apologetic. But it was better not to wake you.’
‘Apologetic?’ He was honestly puzzled for a moment. ‘Oh, for letting me be the young man’s errand-boy? Why not? It was on my account he was inconvenienced in the first place. I’m glad to make amends. Una isn’t up yet?’
‘Not yet.’ She hesitated a moment, her fingers busy rearranging a spray of flowering orange that had tilted too far in the bowl. ‘I don’t know if you have any plans for the morning. I know Herr Wehrle would be grateful if you would stay on the island until it’s necessary to go to the rehearsal. But as Miss Corinth hasn’t seen the castle yet, I thought we might cross over a little earlier, and go to the other landing-stage on the point. I can have a car waiting there for us just as easily as at the town jetty.’
He turned to give her a sudden attentive look, remembering a number of little things that had preceded the flowers on the table, the delicate considerations of the music and the letters. He was alone with her. It was the first time, he realised, and it w
ould surely last no more than a few minutes; and in any case time was potentially a scarce commodity for him. It was as well to say the things that ought to be said, quickly, simply, without hesitation. And one of them was due to her.
‘You thought,’ he said deliberately, ‘that I would prefer not to arrive where the curious will be waiting to stare at me. That’s what you mean. And you’re quite right.’
Her eyes opened wide, but she had nothing to say.
‘Crista, will you allow me to thank you for all you’ve done and are doing for me? Please believe that I know, almost better than you, how much it is, and I’m grateful for the intent even more than for the performance. You’re kind, and you comfort me very much. You’re also very discerning. You see in me a not very brave man who would like to run like a hare from curiosity and criticism, let alone condemnation. And you’re right, I would like to. But I’m not going to. You’ve shown me what’s due from me, and that’s one more thing for which I’d like to thank you. I’ll go ashore at the main jetty. And if Herr Graf has an open car free, as far as I’m concerned he can send that for me. Let them have a good look. It might help them to make up their minds – though God knows which way!’
He’d said more than he’d intended, he realised that. He’d hurt her instead of touching her lightly. She had grown very pale, the colour ebbing even from her lips.
‘I did not mean,’ she began in a low and trembling voice, ‘to suggest that you … that you are afraid …’
‘Why not?’ he said gently. ‘It would be justified. I am afraid. But, curiously, not so afraid as I was.’
‘It is my job,’ she said, ‘to make everything run smoothly for you, I am only trying to do that, as I undertook to do it. You have no right to – to … You make it sound as though I’ve insulted you!’
