Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries

by Martin Edwards

  And yet, Bailey’s work has strikingly modern aspects, not least its emotional power. His hatred of cruelty—especially the mistreatment of children—is evident time and again. His plots are well worked, and (like this one) occasionally benefit from Alpine settings. Bailey and his family were fond of visiting the Swiss and Austrian Alps, and when he retired from work as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph, the Baileys moved to Llanfairfechan, where life in mountainous Snowdonia reminded them of happy holidays in Europe.

  ***

  Mrs Fortune can be easily led to discuss the institution of marriage. She has then been heard to say, with a sad, impartial eye upon her husband, that the trials of being married to a small boy are not adequately explained in women’s education.

  They were eating ices under the trees of Interlaken when she mentioned this to an eminent expert of the Swiss police who put his eyebrows up to his shaven scalp and many tones of sympathic emotion and profound thought into his reply: ‘So? So!’ Herr Stein’s worship of Mrs Fortune’s Olympian beauty is ennobled by despair. He never knows when she means what she says.

  To describe the case scientifically, Mrs Fortune was eating an ice and Reggie Fortune was eating ices. Herr Stein drank coffee and smoked a cigar. A regrettable incident. The afternoon had no other flaw. The white shoulder of the Jungfrau shone clear. Under the trim trees it was delectably hot, but something of the freshness of the high pastures was in the genial air.

  ‘I want a hazel ice,’ said Reggie Fortune.

  ‘My dear child!’ Mrs Fortune’s charming hands went up. She counted on her fingers.

  ‘No. No. I’ve only had two. Peaches aren’t an ice. And the others were only water ices. One of those nut things is clearly indicated. You know, we can’t get them in England, Stein. A great country, but ices are one of the things it won’t understand.’ He looked firmly at his wife. ‘I do want a hazel ice, Joan.’

  And then Adrian Trove arrived.

  There was somebody at every table. None of them showed any desire to make room for the shabby, dusty man with a bandage round his head. He stood bent under his rucksack, his eyes bloodshot, his red face unshaven, drearily ashamed of himself in that clean company.

  Mrs Fortune has an incurable weakness for lame dogs. ‘There’s a place here,’ she said gently. Reggie Fortune sighed and drew in a chair with his foot. Herr Stein sprang up and put it straight, smiled and bowed.

  ‘Thanks awfully.’ Adrian Trove dropped into it. ‘Awful shame to bother you. I’m just down from Mürren. Going on to Kandersteg. There isn’t a train. I just wanted some tea.’

  Herr Stein snapped his fingers at a waitress, who came and took the order. ‘You’ve been climbing?’ Mrs Fortune made conversation.

  ‘Oh, just a bit. I’m no good really.’

  ‘That is very English.’ Herr Stein laughed and nodded to her. ‘You are all no good really. Then we find out what you have done.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ Adrian Trove growled.

  Reggie was looking at him with some curiosity. ‘Have you had a fall, sir?’

  ‘It’s nothing. I was knocked over by a fall of stones.’

  ‘So.’ Herr Stein sympathized. ‘That is nasty luck. The best climbers, they cannot escape that.’ The tea came and Trove drank eagerly.

  ‘Have you had a doctor look at your head?’ said Reggie.

  ‘No. Just tied it up. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I should, you know. I’m a bit of a doctor myself. You oughtn’t to run about till somebody’s had a look at you.’

  ‘I’m all right, thanks.’ He gulped his tea. ‘I must get on. I had a man with me and I don’t know what’s happened to him.’

  ‘Ach, so,’ said Herr Stein.

  ‘You must be anxious,’ Mrs Fortune murmured.

  ‘Yes, rather.’ He looked at her kind eyes. ‘You see, we were crossing from Mürren to Kandersteg and there was a fall of stones that laid me out. When I came to, I couldn’t find Butler anywhere. I went back to Mürren to get help. We’ve searched the whole place. Not a sign of him. So I thought he might have gone on down to Kandersteg.’

  ‘I hope you’ll find him all right,’ said Mrs Fortune.

  ‘Thanks awfully. Thanks.’ He got on his feet stiffly.

  ‘You know you’d better let me take you up in my car,’ said Reggie. ‘That’ll be quicker than the train, won’t it, Stein?’

  Herr Stein laughed. ‘If you drive, oh yes. That is quicker than anything.’

  Trove made civil, stumbling objections, was talked down and led away under the trees to Mr Fortune’s hotel. ‘Now—what about letting me have a look at your head while Stein gets the car out?’ But Trove was absolutely all right. Trove didn’t want to stop, thanks. Mrs Fortune vainly wished he would and Stein shrugged and Reggie went for the car.

  It drew up at the door and Trove made for it. ‘Madame permits?’ Stein bowed.

  ‘You want to go with him?’ said Mrs Fortune.

  ‘Yes. Perhaps.’ He ran for a coat and struggling into it reached the car as they started. ‘I show you the way, my dear Fortune.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Reggie smiled. Under his hand the big car had the abandon of a taxi of Paris. He was not thereby hampered in conversation with Mr Adrian Trove: a very interesting conversation.

  Mr Trove was by trade a chemist, assistant to the eminent consulting chemist Dr Hardy Butler. They had come to Switzerland on holiday together. They were to spend some time with that potentate of the chemical industry, Sir Samuel Ulyett, who was staying at the Bristol at Kandersteg. Dr Butler was a veteran mountaineer. He proposed to train Adrian Trove and began with some easy passes. They went from Kandersteg over the Tschingel Glacier to Mürren, slept there and were on their way back by the Hohturli to Kandersteg when the stones fell and Butler vanished.

  The car rushed through the pastures of the valley and climbed along a ledge above the river into forest. Far below a lake gleamed turquoise blue out of the trees. Herr Stein braced himself in his corner. Round corkscrew curves the car whirled on the outside edge up and up. The valley flattened out into a broad space between mountains and the purring speed rose high. ‘Achtung!’ Herr Stein boomed. ‘There will be peoples, my friend.’ Strolling tourists scattered and fled. The big car cut figures round crawling station buses and stopped at an hotel very new and green and white. ‘So!’ Herr Stein let stored breath out of him. ‘That was much quicker as the train, Mr Trove, yes? And we are still alive.’ He patted Trove’s shoulder. ‘That is wonderful.’

  Trove got out stiffly. ‘Thanks very much, Mr Fortune. Excuse me, won’t you? I want to find out—’

  ‘Why, Adrian!’ A girl came to him. ‘Where’s Doctor Butler?’

  Trove stopped and stared at her. She was a small plump creature, with a chin. Black hair struggled into curls above a dark face.

  Her eyes grew big. ‘Adrian! What’s happened?’

  ‘Isn’t he back?’ said Trove.

  ‘No, no. And you’re hurt. Was there an accident?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Let’s get in, Ruth. I must see your father.’ He hurried into the hotel, she at his heels.

  Herr Stein leaned to Mr Fortune. ‘We drink beer, my friend?’ he suggested.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Mr Fortune said.

  In the hall they found Trove standing before a little plump man, plainly (in every sense) the girl’s father. ‘Eh lad, what’s amiss?’ He bent grey eyebrows. ‘What ha’ you done with Butler?’ And Trove stumbled through the tale which he had told Mr Fortune.…‘Eh, that’s bad.’ Puckered eyes stared at Trove. ‘And you never saw what came to the old lad, the way you tell it?’

  ‘He must have been carried away by the stones. When I came to, there wasn’t a sign of him.’

  ‘But you’ve had men seeking t’other side, eh, and they found naught?’

  ‘Nothing at a
ll, sir. Not a trace.’

  ‘God, it’s a queer thing, lad.’

  ‘I thought he must have lost me and come on here. He may have tried it and broken down. We must search up from this side, sir. I came round as quick as I could. A man ran me up in his car from Interlaken. We ought to get busy at once.’

  Mr Fortune put down his beer and stood up. ‘I say, Trove, I’m afraid you may want me. Your friend’s been lying out rather a long time.’

  Trove stared, not with good will. ‘Oh, thanks. Thanks very much. This is Sir Samuel Ulyett, Mr Fortune.’

  ‘I’m a surgeon, sir,’ Reggie explained.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ Ulyett said. ‘Will you be staying here?’

  ‘I might be of some use, you know.’

  ‘I’ll thank you kindly. If there’s aught you can do. We’ve to find the old lad first. Eh, let’s get about it.’ He bustled away to the office. The landlord was already in the hands of Herr Stein.

  Sir Samuel’s slow effort to explain himself subsided before the landlord’s flow of words. But yes, an accident most distressing. He understood perfectly Sir Ulyett’s anxieties. A search must be arranged at once, a thorough search, the whole Blumlisalp. Yes, everything should be done, Sir Ulyett might be sure. By great good fortune, here was Herr Stein of the greatest experience. He was already making the arrangements. With the dawn they would have men all over the mountains. Sir Ulyett must leave everything to him and—Herr Stein.

  Ulyett looked at Stein as a sharp employer looks at a man asking for a job. ‘You know these mountains here?’

  ‘Yes, I know them very well,’ Stein smiled. ‘But what I do not know, it is where your friend is lost. Let us ask the Mr Trove. Pardon.’ He went out into the hall.

  Trove was still there. He was telling his story all over again to a sunburnt man of his own age while the girl listened, pale and intent, Mr Fortune with the patient interest of a connoisseur in narrative. It ended to exclamations. ‘Good God, Adrian, how ghastly for you! Poor old Butler! But I say—’

  ‘Pardon.’ Stein came forward. ‘Mr Trove, please. There is a map in the office. Could you show me where the stones fell?’

  Trove looked blank. ‘I don’t know. I told them at Mürren. We got up to the place again. At least I think it was the place. But we couldn’t find anything. I feel an awful fool. You see, I wasn’t taking any notice with Butler. He led and I followed. I’m no good at this mountain business.’

  ‘Oh I say, old chap!’ the other man protested. ‘Pretty good work to get down again by yourself.’

  Trove stared at him. ‘Good God, I just followed my nose. Rolled down. Fell down. Oh, damned good work!’ He laughed.

  ‘But come,’ Stein was soothing, ‘let us look at the map, Mr Trove; I can help you perhaps.’

  A large-scale map of the district hung on the office wall. He brought Trove to it. ‘See, there is Mürren and here Kandersteg. Now.’ Trove pored over it and Mr Fortune watched his blank face and Stein demonstrated. ‘You come up here, yes? Then it is down again. There are many stones. On past some châlets. You remember? A stream in a gorge and rocks all twisted. And after—you would be near a glacier—then up over pasture—it becomes very steep—it is all stones. Perhaps you find wet. Then you see the great white mountain—beautiful view, wunderschön! Then—’

  ‘Wait. Wait. It was above the scree. It was somewhere there. A sort of narrow passage in the rock. And a shower of stones came down. About there.’ Trove put his finger on the map.

  ‘So.’ Stein smiled and rubbed his hands. ‘In the couloir, yes.’ He looked at Trove with his head on one side. ‘You were—how many hours from Mürren?’

  ‘Oh, about six. Yes, my watch stopped at noon. It’s broken. We started from Mürren at six in the morning. I got back there in the afternoon. We went off to search in the evening and slept in some châlet, got up to the passage place this morning soon after dawn. But he wasn’t there, you know, he wasn’t there!’

  ‘Steady, old chap.’ The other man took hold of him.

  ‘He is somewhere,’ said Stein. ‘We will be up there by the couloir at dawn to-morrow.’ He turned away to the landlord and talked brisk German.

  Reggie came to Trove. ‘Now, my dear fellow, what about that head of yours?’

  ‘By Jove, yes,’ the other man cried. ‘You ought to have that seen to, Adrian. It looks a nasty one.’

  ‘Oh damn it, I’m all right,’ Trove growled. ‘Don’t fuss me, for God’s sake.’ He thrust his way out.

  The other man looked at Reggie. ‘Are you a doctor, sir?’

  ‘Eh lad, he’s Mr Fortune,’ Ulyett said.

  ‘What, the Mr Fortune? I say!’ He looked puzzled. ‘But anyway—Adrian ought to have a doctor.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Mr Fortune murmured.

  ‘I say, I’ll see what I can do with him. Poor old Adrian, this has rather knocked him over.’ He hurried away.

  Mr Fortune was left contemplating Ulyett with dreamy eyes. ‘Yes. Very distressin’,’ he murmured. ‘Well, I’ll be here, you know.’ He sauntered off to a chair on the steps.

  Stein made an end of his conference with the landlord and came marching out. Mr Fortune arose and fell into step with him. ‘And what about it?’ he said softly.

  ‘I do not understand, my friend.’

  ‘The place on the map?’

  ‘The place—that is all right. The simple Mr Trove, who cannot be sure, he points out the very place where it might have happened as he says, the only place almost. That couloir, often there is a fall of stones there and even a good mountaineer might be caught. Yes, that is all right. But the rest—’ He shrugged. ‘It is most curious. We shall see. If his friend is upon the mountain I will find him. I go to talk to the guides here.’

  ‘I was going to telephone to my chauffeur to bring up some kit. Yours too?’

  ‘Please,’ Stein smiled. ‘Yes, telephone. And my regrets to Mrs Fortune.’

  ‘It is a tryin’ world,’ Mr Fortune sighed.

  Mr Fortune sat in the lounge waiting for dinner when the girl came downstairs alone. She looked at him, hesitated, took the chair beside him. ‘You haven’t seen Adrian?’

  ‘No. No. The patient don’t want to be a patient.’

  ‘Do you think he’s badly hurt?’

  Reggie spread out his hands.

  ‘Of course he’s had a horrible shock.’

  ‘Yes. That is indicated.’

  ‘He will come down to dinner. Father wanted him to go to bed. But David says there isn’t much the matter really.’

  ‘Does he? David—that’s Trove’s friend?’

  ‘Mr Woodham, yes, well, he’s really a friend of ours—of father’s.’

  ‘I see. Have you been here long, Miss Ulyett?’

  ‘Father and I, yes, a fortnight. And Mr Woodham. Adrian only came the other day with Dr Butler. That makes it more dreadful. They were old friends and it was all settled they were going to have a holiday together and father didn’t even see him. Father was away when Dr Butler came, he’d had to go over to Zürich. Oh, if he’d only been here it wouldn’t have happened. Dr Butler was very keen on climbing, you know. He said he’d snatch a day or two on the mountains and he took Adrian. And then—this!’

  ‘I see. Yes. You don’t climb, Miss Ulyett?’

  ‘I? Oh no. I just walked a little way up the valley with them when they started. I—’ Tears came into her eyes. ‘Just seeing them off, you know. Oh, I remember the hay in the morning air. And Adrian and Dr Butler waving—’ She hid her face. ‘I’m sorry. Then we came back.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Mr Woodham and me. He wanted to go with them. But he had to go down to Brigue to see somebody. He only came back to-day—just before father. I—’ The thunder of a Swiss dinner-gong overwhelmed her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Reggie, whe
n he could hear himself speak.

  ‘Oh, it’s horrid waiting, Mr Fortune.’ She clasped her hands, struggled for a moment with emotions and left him.

  He became aware of the presence of Stein at his elbow. ‘I wonder,’ he said to the lifted eyebrows, and they went to dinner.

  A moment later Ruth Ulyett came in with her father and after them Woodham and Trove, much stared at and uncomfortably conscious of it. Washed and shaven, Trove looked even more exhausted than in his squalor. He had made away with the bandage, but a patch of plaster hid one temple. Again Stein’s eyebrows asked Mr Fortune a question. ‘Oh, my dear chap, how do I know,’ he protested.

  Stein nodded. His hand swept the whole affair away. He took up the menu, he praised it, he commended a red wine of Neuchâtel as good for the nerves. Mr Fortune was pained and delivered a lecture on wine and why it should be drunk, which became poetry (minor poetry) when Stein said humbly that an Englishman had told him the Cortaillod would be Burgundy if it could. Mr Fortune sang the little joys of life. And the comfortable dinner lasted long.

  Trove came to their table. ‘When do we start?’ he muttered.

  Two placid faces looked up at him. ‘The guides will start at one,’ Stein said. ‘It is not necessary for you, Mr Trove. You—you cannot help them. And you are too tired. You should sleep.’

  Trove turned on his heel and went out. Ulyett and his daughter and Woodham made haste to follow.

  The two finished their dinner at leisure. When they sat at coffee in the garden, Ulyett loomed up through the dark. ‘Making an early start, sir? That’s good. Everything in train, eh? I’m much obliged to you, I am, surely. This is on me, you understand. Don’t you think twice about spending. Do you want any money now?’

  ‘I thank you.’ Stein waved him away. ‘I spend no money. The guides—the landlord will tell you, Sir Ulyett.’ He stood up. ‘Pardon, I go to sleep. We start early, yes. Your friend calls to us.’ He marched Reggie back to the hotel with a pompous gait. He puffed indignantly on the stairs. ‘Ach, my dear Fortune, that—that is why we do not always like Englishmen.’