Pray for a Brave Heart (27 page)

“Who was the man who arranged with you to impersonate Charles Maartens? Who was the man who got you to cancel out Max Meyer’s story?”

“Why are you so interested in all this?”

“The man who was killed by the car, last night, was Max Meyer. He was my friend.”

Nicholas leaned back. He was studying Denning once more. “He was your friend. So you come up here alone, and face—” He smiled broadly. “No, no, no. We could have treated you very violently. Perhaps we might even have killed you. And all that for a friend who is dead? Courage won’t bring him back, Mr. Denning.”

“I’m not as brave as you make me out. I came up here believing you didn’t use violence—at least, not too much.” Denning grinned. This was a little easier now. Suspicion was slowly vanishing. “And I don’t believe that you’re inclined to murder, either. I think that you’ve too much pride in your particular profession to lower it to thuggery.”

Nicholas was both listening and approving. “What is my profession?” he asked blandly.

“Shall we say speculation in fine jewels?”

“What kind of jewels?” The suspicion was returning, suspicion springing from greed.

“No interest. You can have all the jewels in the world for all I care. What I want is the name of the man who bargained with you.”

“Why that man particularly? He couldn’t have killed either Charles or your friend. Believe me.”

“Because he wasn’t in Bern last night?”

Nicholas looked down at his fingers. A hangnail caught his attention. He frowned. “You are less naive than you seem, Mr. Denning.”

“You haven’t told me anything new. Thugs, hired murderers, did the actual killing. The police will catch them. But more thugs can be hired. What we want is the man who hires them, plans, gives the orders.”

“We?” He was stalling now. Suspicion, greed, caution, all were holding him back from frankness.

“You and I,” Denning said firmly.

“Why should I worry?”

I’ve made a mistake, Denning thought: I assumed he would want to see Maartens’ murderers exposed. But all he wants is those diamonds. “You’ve been thoroughly double-crossed,” Denning said. “Isn’t that information worth something from you in return?” He paused, but Nicholas only dropped his eyelids. Denning’s voice became cold, sarcastic, filled with distaste he could barely control. “Apart from the fact that Maartens was your friend, or at least a—a business associate, you are now in danger yourself.”

“You mean I may be killed?” He was a little surprised, but mostly amused. And then, gradually, his amusement ebbed away. The surprise went, too.

Denning waited. “You can answer that question better than I can.” He rose. “I’ve given you the warning. It was more than you did for Max Meyer. Or for Charles Maartens.”

There was a long silence. Then came the surprising question.

Softly, “Who told you my name is Nicholas?”

“The police heard that.”

“The police?”

“From a telephone call, I believe.”

“An informer?”

Denning walked slowly round the central table. He picked up a jar of pate and studied its label. “It looks,” he said slowly, replacing the jar, “as if you had been twice tricked in the last twenty-four hours.” He looked now at cans of mushrooms, anchovies, a crock of caviare. “And you sit there and take it?”

“But this man you want—he may not have been the informer.”

“Did he know you were Nicholas? And who else could know?”

Nicholas was silent.

“There’s your answer,” Denning said. He glanced at his watch. “If you don’t hurry and give me my answer, my friends will be arriving from the village.”

Nicholas rose, too. He moved over to the door with his quick, light step. “The arrival of your friends,” he said, “is as likely as all the rest of your story.” He opened the door and the two men came in. “Our young friend has a taste for diamonds,” he told them.
“And
a most vivid imagination. I think we should see that he stays here until we leave, when neither his taste for diamonds nor his imagination can trouble us.” He turned to Denning. “I don’t like violence, but if you resist, we shall tie you up very unpleasantly. However, you can always console yourself that it is only for a few hours. After we leave here,
and
complete our business in this neighbourhood, I shall try to remember to telephone from Bern and warn the police where
you can be found. With luck, you will be free by midnight. Will you kindly walk upstairs?” He was smiling, now. “You almost persuaded me,” he admitted. “Would you care to know your mistake?” He began to laugh. “My friends will be arriving from the village,” he mimicked, “my friends will be—”

“When they do arrive,” Denning said, deliberately and clearly, “will that prove the rest of my story? Or do you prefer to wait until you’ve been murdered like Charles Maartens?”

Georges and Jean stared at him.

“Are you as expendable as Charles Maartens?” Denning asked them. “Will your boss let you be killed too, as long as he gets the Herz diamonds?”

Suddenly, Nicholas was screaming, screaming in high piercing anger like a frenzied woman, his mouth wide open in Picasso-like fear, as he rushed at Denning with his fists clenched, upraised, beating the air as if it were Denning’s face.

Denning caught up a bottle of wine from the table. “Now, now,” he said, as Nicholas halted out of reach and the screaming ended as abruptly as it had begun, “keep those pretty little fingers to yourself. You wouldn’t want them permanently scarred, would you?” He knocked the bottom of the bottle against a hard-backed chair, and dashed the spilling wine in Nicholas’s face. To Georges, who was no fool, he said, “You’ll see Maartens’s death in that paper. Page three.” And even Jean, edging round by the window in a flanking attack, stopped and waited, staring now at Georges, who had picked up the newspaper. Then something else caught his attention, the sound of a car, faint as yet. He looked quickly through the window.

“Someone
is
coming,” Denning said very quietly. And I hope it’s Waysmith, he thought, but he wasn’t too sure of that.

Jean said, “The car is down on the road.”

“It may pass,” Nicholas said. He wiped his face with a white silk handkerchief. The look in his eyes was an ugly one.

“The car has stopped,” said Denning. Stopped? Or had it passed out of earshot?

“See what it is,” Nicholas said to Jean with a quick gesture towards the door. Now, he was in control of his emotions. His eyes, heavy-lidded again, looked expressionlessly at Denning. “You disappoint me,” he said, with a cool smile, pointing to the jagged bottle which Denning still held ready. “I did not think you were the type of man who’d descend to such violence.”

“That isn’t the first time you’ve guessed wrong today,” Denning reminded him. “Or yesterday.”

Jean’s lightly pattering steps came running through the hall. “There’s a car on the road. Men, too. They’re climbing up the bank.”

“Quick!” Nicholas said as he moved to the door.

“Taking to the hills?” Denning asked, with a smile. “For it certainly won’t be any use driving away in your own car. Have a look.” He pointed to the window and stepped back against the wall, the bottle still held ready in his hand. Slowly, carefully, over the rough track which he had followed to the house, moved a second car.

Nicholas stood quite still. Almost politely, he said, “You have many friends, Mr. Denning.”

“More than I thought.”

“You lied to me,” Nicholas said, sadly. “You said you were not a policeman.”

“I’m still telling the truth. I am not a policeman.”

At the window, Jean cried out, his voice cracking with high
alarm, “The car has stopped. They’re waiting—they’re waiting!”

It was strange that a car, halted quietly only fifty yards from the front of the house, should raise such sudden panic in the room. Denning stared in amazement at the three men, now speaking in the quickest burst of French he had ever heard. Impossible to understand them. Did they even understand each other or was the bitter recrimination in their voices enough? Nicholas won the contest, seemingly. The others fell silent, watched him, as if they waited for him to speak. Quickly now, he turned to Denning. “I make a bargain with you. You tell nothing—about me. Yes?”

“That depends on what you tell me.”

“I met the man in Bern, two days ago. He called himself Mr. James. You understand—such a name may be false?”

Denning nodded. “Nationality?”

“Eastern European.” Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he added. “The plan was made as you said. But no talk of murder. No mention of killing.” Again he looked pleadingly at Denning.

“His appearance?”

“Not very tall. Quiet. A gentle smile. He seemed a gentle man. Not one to kill. Business-like, yes. But not a murd—”

“Yes,” said Denning quickly, “and what colour of hair?”

“Nothing.”

“Nondescript?”

“Like yours.”

“Where is he now?” Footsteps were approaching the house from the wood.

“In Falken. He—” Nicholas stopped, staring at the men who passed the window now, men in ordinary country clothes, men
with tanned faces and hair bleached by the sun. “They aren’t policeman,” he said, and drew in his breath.

“He told you where to find the Herz diamonds? And the time to take them—when it would be safe for you? How did he know? Nicholas—keep your bargain!”

Nicholas shook his head. He smiled. “They aren’t police. And I don’t think they are your friends. Now perhaps I can make quite another bargain.” His eyelids drooped. “With them,” he added quietly. He hurried into the hall to meet the men who had entered.

He was pushed back into the room. Four men followed him.

For a moment, Denning did not recognise the tallest of the newcomers. But it was Bohren, all right, Inspector Bohren dressed to look as if he spent all his life climbing up through steep woods. Denning lowered the jagged bottle, and then laid it awkwardly on the table. Somehow, he felt foolish with four pairs of grave eyes watching him. The bottle rolled off the table and smashed on the floor. “It keeps doing that,” Denning said.

Bohren almost smiled. “You live here?” he asked.

“No. Just visiting.” Denning sat down on the nearest chair. The back of his collar was soaked with perspiration. He loosened his tie.

“What is this, what is this?” Nicholas demanded. “And who are you? How dare—”

“Police,” said Bohren. He pulled an identification badge out of his pocket for a brief moment.

Nicholas spread his small hands wide. “Police? But why? What have I done? You have no right to enter my house.”

“We’ve not only entered, but we intend to search it.”

“Impossible.”

“We are searching every house in this district.”

“Why?”

“A man has disappeared. He’s ill, loss of memory. He may be hiding.”

“Insane?” Nicholas blinked his eyes with appropriate nervousness. “But, I assure you, no one could have entered here without my—”

“I’ve got a report to file,” Bohren said. “Sorry, but I must search, Mr—?”

“Nicholas.”

“Of Cap d’Hercule?”

Nicholas forgot to control his stare.

Bohren turned to one of the men with him—husky, open-air types all of them—and said briskly, “Heinz, give the Frenchmen the signal.”

“Frenchmen?” Nicholas asked. He glanced at Georges and Jean, but they were standing away from him, moodily, with a kind of fatalism, as if they expected worse to come and could only evade it if they did nothing to attract attention. Perhaps Georges was remembering Maartens—the newspaper was still clutched in his hand; and Jean may have started to think, now that his excitement had suddenly ended, and he faced the cold hard realism of Inspector Bohren.

For an answer, they all heard the waiting car move towards the house.

“Yes,” Bohren said, “two of your fellow citizens who have some questions to ask.”

“Policemen? I tell them nothing, I tell you nothing.” Nicholas spoke contemptuously. “Nothing, nothing at all.” He drew himself erect. “Because I know nothing,” he added as a safeguard.

Denning said wearily, “But he will make a bargain with you. He has a passion for making bargains. Which he won’t keep, I may add.”

Bohren moved into the hall as the car stopped outside.

Nicholas seemed to measure the two stolid men who stood watchfully near the door. Then he turned to Denning. “I keep my bargain,” he said quickly. “The man works in the house.
The
house.” He glanced nervously at his audience. “Many work there. Well guarded. Tonight, no guards. You understand?”

“Why no guards?”

Bohren had stepped back into the room again. Perhaps he hadn’t gone far beyond the door. He looked interested, certainly.

“Business. Big business,” said Nicholas, and laughed, delighted now with his caution in referring to the house so vaguely.

Bohren came forward with an anger which may have been pretended, but sounded real enough. “What are you two sending each other? Telegrams? What’s your name, anyway?” He glanced at Denning. Jean shrank against a wall.

“William Denning.”

“Identification?”

Denning produced his passport. Nicholas looked worried for the first time.

“What’s your purpose, here?” Bohren asked.

“Travelling for pleasure. I’m staying in Falken. I was told this house was for rent. So I came to see it.” He pulled Paula’s map from his pocket. “That’s the name of the house agent in Bern, stamped there. But his files weren’t up to date, apparently. I find the house has already been leased to these gentlemen.”

Nicholas was visibly relaxing. He nodded his approval. Jean took some comfort, and smiled anxiously all around. Georges
was still frowning at some invisible blot on the wooden floor: his process of thought, if slow, was certainly interesting. “I’m so sorry,” Nicholas said to Denning. “We thought you might be— well, a burglar.” He smiled, fluttered his little hands, disposed of all the unpleasantness with a shrug of his shoulders. “So sorry we seemed so rude.”

“I think I’ll wander back to the village,” Denning said. “Is that all right with you, officer?” He pocketed his passport securely.

Bohren gave him a peculiar look. “I place you now,” he said slowly. “You’ve rented a room at the café-restaurant.”