by Howard Mason
“Herr von Arnhem?” He nodded, surprised. “That’s the owner of the castle.”
This was more like it. I threw down the directory. “Which castle is that?”
“Burg Endert.” He nodded up to the wooded hills again. High in the hilltops, I could just see a corner of grey stone among the trees.
“How do I get there?”
He pointed down the river. “You see the bridge? Just there is a little river, a stream that joins the Mosel. That’s the Endertsbach. You follow it into the woods, until you come to a path going up the hillside, criss-cross. That takes you up to Burg Endert.”
Mentally translating criss-cross as zigzag, I said:
“Isn’t there a motor road?”
“No. There’s another footpath, round on the east side.”
I said: “Surely there’s a drive up?”
He shrugged. “A horse and cart, yes. That motor of yours, no.”
It was a warm morning, and I didn’t like the look of that climb. I said: “Can you tell me anything about the place—or its owner?”
“Well; Herr von Arnhem I have never met. As for the castle—wait a minute.” He started delving into his pockets, and after a moment came up with a tattered, greasy-looking booklet. I glanced at the cover; it was an English Guide to the Moselle Valley. He thumbed the pages over, found the place, and handed it to me; saying, with an air of proprietary pride, “There’s quite a lot about Endert.” I turned to the spot where his thumb had left its mark, and began to read.
“…from Cochem we come to the mouth of the narrow and tortuous valley of the ENDERTSBACH.
Among the peaceful woods of the Endert valley, crowning a rock 1½ M. from Cochem, lies BURG ENDERT, a rare example of a feudal residence, which has remained in the possession of the Counts of Cochem from 1157 to the present day. It survived all the vicissitudes of the Middle Ages, but was severely damaged by fire in 1912, since when it has been partially restored. The work of restoration still continues. The courtyard is open to the public, and the interior is shown in summer, in the absence of the family. (Weekdays 9-5.30, I Mark 50 Pf.)”
Turning to the front of the guide-book, I glanced at the date of the edition: 1913.
I said: “I suppose this is all out-of-date. Or is the castle still open to the public?”
“No; not now; not since Herr von Arnhem came. He doesn’t allow visitors.”
“What happened to the Cochem family? Von Arnhem isn’t one of them, is he?”
“Only by marriage, as you might say. The last of the family, the Graf Joseph, was killed in the war.”
I studied the waiter’s bald head thoughtfully. “Which war was that?”
Fixing his watery eyes on my face, he said expressionlessly: “Nineteen-fourteen.”
I felt the faint embarrassment which comes over the victorious Englishman in the presence of those he had defeated. It was rather, I felt, as though one had asked “Which tournament?” of a man whom one had happened to beat in the tennis finals on both occasions. I said:
“When did this von Arnhem buy the place?”
“I believe, soon after the war.”
“Did you say he was a relation by marriage?”
“He married the Graf Joseph’s wife.”
I stared at him. Herr von Arnhem seemed to be growing more respectable every moment.
“If he married the wife, then presumably he didn’t have to buy the place?”
“Yes; there was some difficulty, I think. The State had taken it over, and there were several claims. It’s all a long time ago, of course,” the waiter concluded vaguely. “But I believe that’s how it was.”
He could give me no further details, and it seemed high time I was leaving for Burg Endert, so I gave him a tip and left. On my way out, the woman at the reception desk called to me.
“You haven’t signed the register yet, mein Herr. You were so late last night I forgot to ask you. Will you do it now?”
I crossed to the desk and took the pen she handed to me. My eye went automatically to the names at the top of the page, and was arrested by three English names, the last three entered.
They read:
J. Bushy
G. Bagot
J. Green
They had all been entered on the same date: yesterday’s.
I stared at the names, fascinated.
After a moment, I asked the woman if she could tell me what this trio looked like. She was an obliging woman, and she described Agag, Hedge and Rivera to the life.
I said: “Well, I’m a Dutchman,” and then I asked her when they had arrived.
“Early yesterday morning, it was. They got me out of bed—it can’t have been more than six o’clock. I was annoyed, I can tell you.” She looked at me reproachfully, as though to remind me of my own inconvenient hour of arrival, and continued: “They took rooms and went straight up to sleep. It seemed funny to me, but they said they’d been driving all night.”
They had passed through Aix about 4 a.m.; that fitted. They must have come straight to Cochem.
Trying to keep my voice calm, I said: “Are they still here?”
“Are they friends of yours, mein Herr?”
“Yes. That is, we’re acquainted.”
“Well, they’ve gone, now. They only stayed the morning; they left after lunch yesterday. What a pity you missed them.”
“Yes. D’you know where they were going?”
“Well, they didn’t say. But they drove off towards Trier, down-river. I put up some food for them; a lot they wanted, enough to last them several days I should have thought, so they must have been planning a long trip.”
A long trip. Food for several days. Only one morning in Cochem, spent sleeping. Or had they called on von Arnhem?
I said: “D’you happen to know if they paid any visits in the neighbourhood? To Burg Endert, for instance?”
“Ah, that I can’t say. Two of them did go out before lunch, but I don’t know where they went. As for the Burg Endert, well, it isn’t open to the public now, you know; hasn’t been for years, and a great pity for the tourist trade, if you ask me. So if they went to Endert, they’d have been disappointed.”
So they’d been and gone from Cochem with or without seeing von Arnhem. It looked as though I was still several jumps behind them.
Well, there was only one way of catching up. I picked up my hat and set out for Burg Endert.
* * * *
Like most of the Rhineland castles, Burg Endert was a fortress built on the top of a hill, with very little surrounding ground; and the hill was one of the highest of the ridge flanking the Endert river.
As the waiter had indicated, there were two ways of getting up that hill. One was the broad zigzag path on the western slope; and the other was a steep rocky footpath that followed a mountain stream up the sheer north face. It was the same, I noticed, with all the hills of the ridge. They were used to climbing, in those parts. The air down in the village was not very salutary, and if you wanted to get out of the place you could only do so by climbing one of the hills. I had seen little family groups taking their constitutional on the mountainside, and they didn’t seem to get out of breath.
Personally, I was finding it warm work. I had parked the car on the valley road, out of sight among some trees. The path to Burg Endert was, I discovered, a kind of pilgrim’s way; there were little wayside altars at intervals along the hairpin bends. At halfway, I took off my coat and slung it over my shoulders. I looked at my watch and saw that it was past eleven. I began to hope that Herr von Arnhem would offer me something to drink. He must be mad, I thought sourly, living at the top of a hill to be reached only by a pilgrim’s way. I wondered what they did about the milkman and the post. Only the most feudally-minded of delivery-boys would have made that climb every morning before breakfast. Perhaps they came up
by donkey. I could have done with a donkey myself. I derived a certain malicious pleasure from the thought that Agag the Delicate and the plump Rivera had had to make the climb, and presumably to no purpose; if, indeed, they had visited Endert.
I plodded on, looking out across the hills. The morning was clouding over, and it threatened rain. The hilltops and the green hanging woods were shrouded in low-lying mist. The air was freshening, and it was cooler near the top.
When I came upon the castle, it was with surprising suddenness. With nothing in sight but the next bend and the tree-covered slope above it, you turned at the last hairpin corner and were faced with the great grey wall of the castle, looming up out of the trees. It seemed endlessly tall and almost windowless.
I paused for breath, taking my bearings. The wall I now faced was, apparently, the back of the building; the castle front would be on the south-west side, overlooking the river. I climbed the last few yards and stepped on to a gravel approach, reaching level ground. Then I made my way curiously round the walled courtyard, seeing no sign of life. But there were muslin curtains fluttering in the high narrow windows, and smoke was rising from a chimney high above me in the trees.
I emerged, then, on to a stone-flagged terrace, where it was suddenly light and open, with a clear view right across the western hills. Below me the river threaded its way, a curling ribbon, between its humped banks. Among the tiny clustering houses on its bank I could see the little white doll’s house which was my hotel.
From the centre of the terrace, a steep flight of steps led down to a level stretch of walled garden, cut into the hillside. Below that, a narrow rocky path ran sharply down to the river level, flanked by growing vines. I had to admit that the climb was worth making.
I turned, and looked up at the castle’s front. It was well-proportioned, and on this side, where the sun caught its walls, it was much less grim. I stepped up to the massive oak doors, and pulled an antiquated bell.
After a moment the big doors were swung back, and there appeared, incongruously, a very young maid, smart as paint in a black dress and nylons, and clutching a yellow duster. Burg Endert was full of surprises, I thought; I rather liked this one. She was an attractive little piece, not more than twenty, very blonde: a real little Fräulein.
She flashed a pair of bright blue eyes at me. “Was wollen Sie, mein Herr?”
I began, “Kann ich, bitte—I mean, is your master—is Herr von Arnhem zu Hause?” But something ironic in the girl’s expression made my sentence die a natural death, before my German could pull itself together.
She looked at me and said in fair English, in a high cool voice:
“If you want to see my father, you’d better come in.”
I took another look at the black dress then, and saw that it was expensively slung together, with what is known in the rag-trade as deceptive simplicity. She wasn’t a German, either, by the sound of her voice. I said: “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have waved that duster at me.”
“I was just taking it away. The housemaid left it in the hall.”
“Very lax,” I said, coldly. I didn’t like her chatelainish tone. I’d had a tiring morning, and the whole thing was beginning to look more of a frost every moment. My experience with high-class blackmailers was limited, but I didn’t expect them to produce daughters looking like this one. She may have been a good-looker, I thought, but she had an air of being distinctly on the side of the angels.
She held back the door then, and let me pass in.
The hall where I found myself was dark, and its walls were of stone, covered with tapestries. Straight ahead, a wide stone staircase led up to a landing. The wall beside it was hung with pictures, mostly portraits.
I took this much in, and then turned back to the girl, who was watching me with a faint air of mistrust, as though she thought I might be going to pinch the silver spoons. I said:
“You’re Fräulein von Arnhem?”
“That’s right.”
“You speak very good English.”
She didn’t answer that, but said: “D’you want to see my father, or did you just want to look round the castle?”
I decided to feel my way for a bit. I wanted to find out if Mott had been here before me. “Well, I was really interested in the castle. I don’t want to disturb you, though.”
“That’s all right. I’ll show you round if you like.”
“It’s very kind of you.” She was thawing a bit now; we had both become very polite. I went on, “D’you get many visitors? To see the place, I mean?”
She was leading the way into a big room opening off the hall. “Quite a lot of tourists come. We’re not really on show, you know. But it seems a bit hard to turn people away, when they’ve climbed all the way up here.”
“Very charitable of you.” I ran my eye round the room, trying to look like a man with a keen interest in German architecture. It was a dining-room, by the look of it, or perhaps one called it the banqueting-hall; it was on that sort of scale. There were some expensive-looking carpets on the floor, and a lot more pictures, which looked as though they might be expensive, too, but I wouldn’t know for sure because my knowledge of painting stops at Munnings’ Derby winners, and I don’t like them much, anyway. Still, one way or another, it looked as though Herr von Arnhem, blackmailer or no blackmailer, was definitely way up in the higher income brackets. I followed the girl back into the hall and said:
“I suppose you don’t happen to have had a visit from some friends of mine in the last day or two? I think they were in the neighbourhood.” I gave her a thumb-nail sketch of Mott, sounding casual.
When I’d finished, she said: “Was he with a fat dark man, foreign-looking?”
“A Spaniard. That’s right.” Things were looking up. “So they’ve been, have they?”
“They were here yesterday morning. Did you say they were friends of yours?”
I glanced at her face as she spoke, but her expression didn’t convey much, except that she didn’t think much of my taste in friends. I said, “Sort of, yes. I suppose they wanted to look over the castle, too?”
“Yes. They didn’t stay very long; they said they were in a hurry.”
“They didn’t call on your father?”
She turned under a stone archway, looking at me curiously. “No. Why?”
I was asking too many questions. I said quickly, “I just wondered. I thought they might know Herr von Arnhem.”
She stopped, then, and fixed the bright blue eyes on me with a challenging expression. “You’re not a tourist, are you?”
“Well, since you ask, no.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say. My name’s Stonybridge.”
Anyone would have thought I’d stunned her with a poker. She reared like a startled filly who’s just been introduced to a five-barred gate, and said in a dazed way:
“What name did you say?”
“Stonybridge. Lord Stonybridge. D’you know the name?”
She shook her head, and said with sudden decision: “I think you’d better see my father. Will you wait here a moment?”
I said: “With pleasure,” and watched her disappear up the wide staircase.
I was feeling as bright as a two-year-old, because at last it seemed as though I was getting warm. Really warm. I sat down on a great carved chair, got up again, and began to pace about the hall. The girl was taking some time. I toured the hall a couple of times, and then I wandered over to the staircase and began to examine the portraits on the wall.
I only got as far as the first portrait. That was quite enough.
It was a smallish picture, about eighteen inches by three feet, heavily framed in gilt; the lowest of the rising series which lined the stair.
The portrait was that of a man in Renaissance dress, all in black, against a dark background. Ab
ove the black doublet, embroidered with gold, the white face stood out effectively; a long, narrow, pointed face, with a long, pointed nose, and a narrow mouth. The eyes were sooty-black and smouldering. It was a face to look at twice; but it wasn’t the face that had riveted my attention.
The man was seated, with his long, elegant black legs stretched out before him, one slightly bent, the other almost straight. By his left leg, a black-and-white spaniel lay in a conventional pose. On a table at his right hand lay the object that had first caught my eye: an ornate, gilded chess-board, all set out, as though in mid-game, with a red army and a white.
The man’s left hand, narrow, exquisite, and laden with jeweled rings, trailed idly over the spaniel’s silky head. His right hand held a chessman, and was poised over the chequered board in a white drooping arc. And the figure he held between the slender forefinger and thumb was, I was ready to swear, the small red bishop which ten days before had stood upon my mantelpiece in Flood Street, Chelsea.
The detail was perfect. The mitre was worn at a slight tilt, and the tiny sly face, painted on to this canvas several hundred years before, wore a twisted smile which gave him an expression of ironic cruelty, not unlike that of the white face which hovered above him.
It made an effective picture; the spidery black figure, the spaniel, the gilded board, and the glowing red and white chessmen. At the top left-hand corner, a row of tiny golden letters, in old German script, identified the chess player:
Curtius·7t·Graf·von·Kochem·Aet·Sua·49
and, underneath, cracking and barely legible, the date:
17·Fev·1557.
Warm? I was blazing hot.
CHAPTER IX
“So you’ve found Curtius.”
The cool little voice floated down from the shadowy staircase. I hadn’t heard her come back.
She stood halfway down, watching me.
“Yes. He interests me very much.”
“Does he?” She came down a step or two towards me. “My father wants to see you. Will you come up?”
