The Piper on the Mountain gfaf-5 Page 12

  Five minutes, at least, before he ought to move to follow her, and nothing now he could do, except watch that darkening expanse of mountain-side across the valley, and listen with strained ears for any sound. She would be among the rocks now, near the edge of the meadows. Thank God she could run like a deer. And the man with the gun was half a mile away, even as the crow flies, and nearer a mile on the ground. Out of his sight was out of his reach.

  But what had she meant by: “Just in case!”? The words penetrated to his brain only now, and shook him with a new astonishment, and a new and illuminating recollection of her face, half out of focus because of its nearness, reaching up to his. He had never seen her utterly relaxed and at rest until that moment; as though she had only just seen clearly what it was all about, and what was of value in it, and what of no value, and dropped all the non-essentials, like worrying about her own conscience, to concentrate on what really mattered. And kissed you, he said to himself sardonically. My boy, you fancy yourself!

  Detail was lost now in a dimness which was not yet dark—the afterglow was something for which he hadn’t, in fact, made sufficient allowance—but which did confuse vision over any distance. The five minutes were up, surely he could risk leaving now. If he attracted notice, at least she was clear of it, there was one safely away to raise the alarm. And since Tossa had crossed the open space without producing any reaction, the odds were that his original calculations had been accurate, and that whole shelf of rock before the doorway was out of the murderer’s range. No harm, though, in making a run for it.

  He stepped wincingly round the body stretched on the dusty floor, and for a moment the thought of leaving him here alone was almost unbearable. Death is lonely enough in any case. He had never seen it quite so close before, and never so crudely, only in its tamed and mitigated state, ringed with rites and sympathisers. Dominic stood shivering for a moment in his thin sweater-shirt, irresolute over the dead man, and then turned his head aside with determination, and made for the door. The only thing he could do for this poor wretch was not to be done here. He slid round the leaning door, stepped out gingerly on to the rock, and ran.

  Half-way across the open space a stone rolled under his foot, and brought him down in a heavy fall, knocking the breath out of him. The noise seemed enormous, and set echoes rolling from side to side of the valley. He lay half-dazed, but already groping forward with his hands to thrust himself to his feet again; and suddenly a second sharp, dry crack sent sharper echoes hiccuping down the rocks, and something hit the ground close beside his right ear with a horrid leaden plunk and a sharp, protesting whine.

  Every nerve in him curled willingly in upon itself, struggling to make him smaller and less vulnerable. Every particle of energy he had left in him gathered him to his feet in a wild leap, and hurled him forward towards the shelter of the trees. He knew very little about guns, but he knew the whimper of a bullet ricocheting. Not an inch of this shelf was out of the marksman’s range now, and a racket like that fall, to a true ear, made almost as fair a target as a proper sighting. He had changed his position, but he was still up there on the hillside, he’d merely worked his way down-valley on the same level, to cover the doorway. By the only route, then—by the traverse path across the cliff, from which Terrell had fallen to his death.

  Dominic reached the edge of the trees and half-fell into their shelter; and something flew out of the green shade to meet him, and folded thin, straining arms about him with a sob of thankfulness and desperation. The shock fetched a gasp out of him. He clasped the embracing fury tightly, and hissed at her in confused rage:

  “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to keep going!”

  “Without you?” Tossa spat back at him indignantly. “What do you take me for?”

  “Well, come on now, damn you! Get out of here, quick!”

  “My God, I like that! I’ve only been waiting for you!”

  “Shut up, just run!”

  He caught her by the wrist, and dragged her at a frenzied, slithering run down the steep path. Speed was better than silence, now that they were in cover. Whatever noise they made they could out-distance, and the man with the gun, whatever his powers as a shot, had just demonstrated that he was still up there on the opposite mountainside, and could not possibly out-run them on their way down to the hut. Behind them they heard the sound of stones rolling, the faint slither of scree. Perhaps the spent bullet had started a minor slide. They didn’t stop to investigate. Hand in hand they ran, untidily, blindly, bruising themselves against rocks, slipping on the glossy grass, until they reached the main path, and settled down to a steady, careful run.

  Across the meadows they could race silently, the thick turf swallowing their footsteps; and beyond, through the broken heathland, they relaxed their speed a little, feeling themselves almost safe, almost home.

  “Dominic—he didn’t hit you? You’re sure?”

  “No, I’m all right, he didn’t hit me. But, Tossa…”

  “Yes?”

  “We can’t keep quiet now. This is murder. You’ll have to tell everything you know.”

  “I can’t! You don’t understand.”

  “You’ll have to tell how this happened. If you don’t I shall. And it was to him you promised not to tell anything—wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly. They were in the darkness of the forest now, above the brook, and they had to go gently, partly because they found themselves suddenly very tired and unsteady, partly because the path was narrow and the night deeper here. He folded his arm about her, and they moved together, warmly supporting each other.

  “He’s dead, Tossa. It’s for him you have to tell the truth, now. That releases you.”

  “No,” she said, shivering. “You don’t understand. I’ll tell you, but I can’t tell people here. I can’t! You’ll see that I can’t.”

  “Never mind, don’t worry now. Let’s get home and find the twins. We’ll talk it over, we’ll see how best to handle it.”

  Touching each other in the darkness, holding fast to each other where the path was tricky, confounded them almost more than their momentary head-on encounter with death. They were close to the deep green basin where the hut lay; the lighted windows shone upon them through the trees. Hand in hand they stumbled across the open grass towards the door of the bar.

  Chapter 7

  THE MAN WHO WASN’T IN CHARGE

  « ^ »

  The first look at their soiled and shaken faces effectively cut off all questions and exclamations, shocking the twins into silence. The significant jerk of Dominic’s head drew them after him up the stairs, unresisting, to an urgent council of war.

  In the girls’ bedroom, secure from surprise at the far end of a creaky wooden corridor, Tossa sat down on her bed and unburdened herself of the whole story at last: how she had blundered into the affair by accident, through reading Robert Welland’s note left for her mother, how he had come back to reclaim it, too late, and made the best of it by telling her everything, and so putting her under the sacred obligation to keep it secret. She told them everything she had learned about Karol Alda, why he must be somewhere here, close at hand, and why it was almost certain that he was a double murderer. The newspaper photograph, the half-sheet of music paper, passed from hand to hand in a stunned silence.

  “I believe my stepfather recognised this handwriting as soon as he saw it in the Hotel Sokolie. He must have seen it regularly when they were both at the Marrion Institute, and it was his job not to forget things like that. I think he followed Ivo Martínek over here to look for Alda. I don’t suggest the Martíneks know anything much, or even that they’re particularly close to Alda. This place is an inn, the local people do use it, and that piece of paper could easily have been left here some time when Alda was here, maybe sitting over a beer, playing with an idea he had in his mind. He’s a musician, too, it seems he was a very good one. He didn’t get this right. He tore off the false start and left it on the table. Maybe Ivo
just picked it up out of curiosity, and felt interested enough to pocket it. Something like that, something quite casual and harmless, because he didn’t think twice about making use of it when he wanted a paper to score their card game, and he didn’t bother to take it away with him afterwards. But it did prove Alda was somewhere in the vicinity of the Martíneks, known and accepted there. So my stepfather came to look for him here. And he was killed here, up the valley where we went the first day. Opposite the place where Mr. Welland was killed tonight.”

  “And for the same reason,” said Toddy positively, his face sharp with excitement. “Because they both located him! Isn’t it plain? This chap Welland was to try to trace him, and report back to the Institute through the embassy in Prague. And he’d done it! He was in Zilina when we came through, and saw you there, and you tipped him off where he could find you. And three days later he turns up on the telephone, asking you to meet him. He’d found him! He’d been to Prague to send the notification they’d agreed on, and he came back here to keep an eye on events in the meantime. You were a complication.”

  “My guess is,” said Christine, gnawing her knuckles furiously, “he was worried about you turning up on the scene. He’d been thinking it over, and he wanted to have a word with you to-night to get you to lay off. Maybe to tell you whatever he knew, as the best way of satisfying you. But certainly to warn you not to start anything.”

  “Whatever he had to say to me,” said Tossa, “couldn’t be said over the telephone. Maybe he was going to tell me where Alda was, maybe he wasn’t. What difference does it make now? Whoever killed him was taking no chances. And now what do we do?”

  “We report the death,” said Dominic forcibly, “and cooperate with the police.”

  Toddy gaped between the fists that clutched his disordered hair. “Are you crazy? Can’t you see this is a hand we’ve got to play against the police? Against the Czech authorities, against every soul round us? Can’t you see there’s a little matter of national security involved? Tossa’s told you, the affair’s top secret, and big enough to kill for. She’s pledged to keep everything to do with the Marrion Institute secret, and that goes for us, too.”

  “You’re seeing this as a real-life spy thriller,” said Dominic without heat. “I’m seeing it as a murder. Murder is something I don’t play spy games with. Odd as it may seem to you, I believe that the professional police everywhere are dead against murder, and when they run up against it their instinct is quite simply to try to find out who did it, and get him. If you ask me, do I think that goes in a Communist country, yes, I think it goes in every country, and always will, as long as people are people and professionals are professionals. It’s a queer thing about police—by and large, in spite of a few slip-ups, they don’t like crime. And I come from a police family, and I don’t like it, either. So either we go to the police or I go to the police. Whichever way you like.”

  “We go,” said Tossa, faintly but finally. “We have to, I do see that. We owe it to him and to them. Only I can’t tell everything. I can’t tell about the Institute, or anything that’s mixed up with security. You may be right about the police, Dom, they may be absolutely on the level. Only I’m bound, don’t you see that? I’m not entitled to take any risks, it isn’t for me to judge.”

  “You can tell them about the shooting,” urged Christine, “without mentioning the background. You could say you went up the valley for a walk after dinner, and heard the shot, and found him in there. There’s no need to say you went there to meet him.”

  “That’s it! You’d be giving them everything that could possibly help them over Welland’s murder. If they’re genuinely interested in solving it,” said Toddy sceptically, “though that’s a laugh, if ever I heard one. You were out together, you two, you blundered into it without meaning to. That’s all you need say.”

  “Even just to cover ourselves,” admitted Christine, frowning over the perilous tangle that confronted them, “we’d have to go that far. But there’s no need to go any further. What are we supposed to do, go there and say: ‘Please, some of your confidential agents have wiped out two of ours because they got too near to something hot. Do something about it!’? I like to think I’m honest, but my God, I don’t take it to those lengths!”

  “And supposing there’s nothing whatever official or approved about this murder?” demanded Dominic. “Supposing it’s a completely private act, and the police are just as interested in catching the criminal as you are. You think it’ll make no difference to their chances, our keeping back nine-tenths of the facts?”

  “You can’t,” protested Toddy savagely, “be as simple as you’re acting!”

  “Wish I could say the same for you, but apparently you can. All right, we can’t drag the Institute into it, but we could still tell the truth about to-night, we could still say he telephoned Tossa and asked her to meet him, we could even say why—that she didn’t feel satisfied about her stepfather’s death, and came here to see for herself, and Mr. Welland was in her confidence and wanted to help her. Half of which,” said Dominic, scrubbing at his tired forehead, still pallid with dust from the white-washed wall of the chapel, “they’ll know already, and if you doubt that you’re even simpler than I thought. But make up your minds, and let’s get going. I’m for telling as much of the truth as we can.”

  “And I’m for using our gumption and telling as little as possible.” Toddy set his jaw obstinately. “Didn’t you hear, there are plans of secret work involved, valuable stuff, dangerous stuff. Of course it’s no private murder. You just heard the shot, and went in and found him. For God’s sake, whose side are you on?”

  “Christine?” appealed Dominic, ignoring that.

  “I’m with Toddy,” said Christine, roused and belligerent. “Let’s face it, we’re in enemy territory over this, we can’t co-operate.”

  Dominic looked down at Tossa’s tormented face, and gently touched her hand. “It’s up to you, Tossa. Whatever you say, I’ll go along with.”

  She shook her head helplessly, and didn’t look up; after a moment she said huskily: “I can’t! I’d like to. I’d much rather, but I can’t. I’m with them, Dominic.”

  “All right, we’ll do it that way.” He looked at Toddy, who alone had enough German to be sure of communicating, where none of them had Slovak, and English was somewhat less common an accomplishment than in Prague. “Will you telephone, please, Tod? You’ll have to ask Dana which is the right place to call, but all you have to get over is that we’re reporting a death, and where they’ll find him, and that we’re coming in with our statements. We shall have to, so why not now? Find out where we should check in, and I’ll be getting the van out.”

  Liptovsky Pavol, St.-Paul-in-Liptov, turned out to be a small town of perhaps five short streets, all of them converging on the vast cobbled square in front of the church. Two of the streets, which were a yard or so wider than the others, conducted the main road in and out of this imposing open space, which in fact was not a square at all, but a long wedge-shape, inadequately lit, completely deserted except for two or three parked Skodas and an ingenious homemade body on a wartime Volkswagen chassis, and scalloped on both long sides with deep arcades, beneath which the van’s lights fingered out the glass of shop windows. The short side of the wedge was the municipal buildings, the only twentieth-century block in sight; and in the rear quarters of this town hall there were two rooms which did duty as the police office for the sub-district.

  It was past ten o’clock by the time they found it, and locked the van on the cobbles outside; but they were not surprised to see the door open and the lights on inside the dingy passage-way, since their telephone call would obviously have alerted the local force, and presumably sent someone clambering and cursing out to the chapel in Zbojská Dolina long before this. In such a quiet little place the police office would surely be closed and abandoned around five o’clock, at normal times.

  They had agreed on the way that Dominic was to do the talking. Of
the two who had been on the scene, presumably the Slovaks would expect the man to act as spokesman, the girl to confirm what he said. Even such small points affect one’s chance of being believed without question.

  The passage was vaulted, with peeling plaster, and belonged to some older building, now largely replaced. There was an open door at one side of it, and a steep wooden staircase within. Dominic climbed it slowly, his throat dry and constricted, every step carrying him deeper into a strange land. What if Toddy was right? What if the damned cold war was still almost at freezing point, and he was in enemy territory? He had felt nothing but friends round him here, but suddenly he was a little afraid. “He speaks English,” Toddy had reported, coming back confounded from his telephone call. “Good English!” It had frightened Toddy more than anything else, when it ought to have reassured him and made things easier; and it was frightening Dominic now. With an interpreter you have also a protective barrier, you can plead misunderstanding, you can be inarticulate and still credible. With this man he was deprived of any insulation. But at least he was warned.

  “Pod’te d’alej!” said a leisurely, rumbling bass voice, in reply to his tentative knock on the door at the top of the stairs. And next, in the same easy tone: “Come in, please!”

  He spoke excellent English, almost unaccented. Learned from records? Certainly not only from the book.

  Dominic opened the door and went in, the other three filing closely behind him. Toddy closed the door after them. The room was small, twelve by twelve at most, and bare, furnished with a couple of chairs in front of the desk, and two more behind, a battered typewriter, two tall, narrow filing cabinets, and a small, iron stove. The walls were painted a dull cream, and scaling here and there. Behind the desk somebody had used the wall as a convenient tablet for notes, calculations, and pencilled doodlings, perhaps while hanging on the telephone, or filling in very dull duty hours with nothing to do. It would be very surprising indeed if there was much crime in Liptovsky Pavol.