Pray for a Brave Heart (28 page)

Have I, indeed? Denning thought.

“I’ll find you there when I need you,” Bohren warned him. Then he turned to the doorway, to welcome Heinz and the two Frenchmen.

Nicholas took two side steps towards Denning. His voice was barely audible. “You keep the bargain?”

“Haven’t I?”

“I like you, Mr. Denning. A man I can trust. If ever you need a job—” He paused significantly, tactfully.

“You’d take me on?”

“Why not? You have a certain style.”

“You flatter me, Monsieur Nicholas.” Denning moved towards the door.

“But not at all, Mr. Denning.”

Denning resisted an impulse to sweep an eighteenth-century bow. But why mock a man’s pride when it was going to be so thoroughly deflated within the next two minutes? For the tall, thin Frenchman with the amused dark eyes and the long intelligent face was Colonel Le Brun, back from Genoa. He
came forward, now. “What kind of job?” he asked, with a narrow smile.

“In my business of importing and exporting,” Nicholas began with dignity, “there are many openings for intelligent young men.”

“So, Nikolaides—you have become a business-man?”

The hooded eyes looked blankly at Le Brun. “My name is Nicholas.”

“It was Nikolaides, twenty years ago, when you calmly lost such a fantastic fortune at Monte Carlo, and I happened to be sitting—most admiringly—opposite you. It was a night I’ve often remembered. That was before you developed other talents, of course, and other names. Now, I hear you are much too busy for the uncertain joys of gambling, except on useful occasions such as last night’s performance at the Kursaal in Bern.” Suddenly the light, amused voice changed to cold contempt. “You have become a naturalised citizen of France?”

“I am a good citizen. I have done France no wrong.”

“In that case, you will wish to give her every possible help.”

“But of course.”

“Then you will give us all information you possess about the present location of certain stolen property which belongs to the French government.”

“Stolen? What is stolen?” The protests of ignorance and innocence were beginning.

A tactful moment to leave, Denning thought.

So did Bohren. For as Denning moved towards the door, he said, “We’ll search the house meanwhile. Shall I post a man here, or can you manage?”

Le Brun’s companion, his sharp brown eyes watchful, nodded
as he produced a neat little gun from his pocket. He released the safety catch. Two of Bohren’s men clattered upstairs, the third started towards the back of the house. But Bohren himself walked silently through the hall, following Denning. Behind them, the act of innocence had begun.

“Let me refresh your memory,” Le Brun was saying. “The stolen property I mentioned is the Herz collection of diamonds.”

“I have never seen it in my life. I haven’t got it. I assure you—”

“You know where those diamonds are. Legally, they belong to the French government. Anyone refusing to give information leading towards their recovery will automatically be aiding and abetting…”

Bohren closed the front door quietly behind him. For a moment, he stood looking at Denning. “All right?” he asked. He drew Denning round to the side of the house, away from the room where Nikolaides was being questioned.

“Reviving rapidly.” This was good clean air. He took a deep breath.

“I’ll have to stay here until Nikolaides starts talking to policemen. Any news?”

“I made a bargain,” said Denning, with a smile.

Bohren was not amused.

Denning said, “Actually you know more about Nikolaides than I do. But find the house where the Herz collection is hidden, and you’ll find the man who planned, and is directing, the attack upon the Falken Committee.”

“The top Communist agent?”

“For this particular operation, yes.”

“He stayed close to the diamonds? Isn’t that a little foolish?” Bohren was sceptical.

“Yes. But who could guess that any dangerous man would be so foolish?” Denning asked softly. “Or that he would be a servant, pretending to take orders?”

“He’s got the right technique,” Bohren admitted. “He will interest Keppler, I think. If he is the top agent, that explains one puzzle—” He looked at Denning, hesitated for a moment, then momentarily discarded his habitual caution. “Now I understand why Nikolaides, himself, came to Bern. He is not the kind of man to take direct action. He likes to plan from a comfortable distance.”

“I didn’t think he was enjoying this trip to Switzerland, particularly. He must have been pretty sure it was worth his while before he started it.” Certainly, Nikolaides wouldn’t have come to Bern to talk to a minor agent. Nor would he have acted on any information unless he was sure he had obtained it from an authoritative source.

“And tonight, big business?” Bohren glanced worriedly at his watch. “Or else,” he looked frankly at Denning, “that is just another of Nikolaides’s elaborations. Like Genoa.”

“I’d take it as the truth, this time. He meant to leave me, trussed and gagged, in a locked room. I was to be released around midnight, by a ’phone call from Bern. Which means he planned to complete his mission and be in Bern by midnight, on his way out of the country. You can work out his Falken schedule from that.”

“Indeed we can,” Bohren said, and his smile was suddenly benevolent. He had got the information he had wanted. “Better get to the village. Take that foot-path, up there to your left. It’s quick.” It was also out of sight from the window of the room
where Nikolaides and his friends were protesting.

“Good luck,” said Denning. “And if you need any extra arguments, there are some excellent tread marks on that road. They were made just after the rain stopped last night.”

“The best argument of all will be his false passport,” Bohren said. And Denning remembered the strange expression in Nikolaides’s eyes when Denning had handed over his passport to be examined. “I’ll send Heinz Gauch after you, just to make sure you reach Falken,” Bohren added as he turned away.

“I don’t need to be convoyed.”

“Don’t you?” Bohren’s grin was wide. “But thanks for leading us back to
Waldesruhe.
It was searched for Andrássy yesterday evening and found empty. No one knew it had been rented, either.” Quietly he opened the door. Quietly closed it.

The narrow foot-path, almost unnoticeable until Bohren had pointed it out, led Denning over high meadowland along the lower edge of a fairly dense wood. At first it seemed to draw him away from Falken on its wide curve over the sloping hill; but, as he approached higher ground, he saw that the path was beginning to cut down to the village, a short direct route, a backward approach to Falken’s single street and the main cluster of houses.

Once, he heard a dog bark, powerfully, angrily, somewhere up there in the woods to his left, as if another house was hidden back among the trees. But he kept on, at an even pace, to prove to himself as much as to Bohren that he didn’t need Heinz Gauch to see him safely into Falken. He allowed himself one last glance at
Waldesruhe,
however, already out of sight except for a match-box chimney on a spread-eagled roof. What on earth had made him go there alone? Would he do it all over
again, knowing Nikolaides as he did now? I must have been crazy, he thought. And now he must be sane, for he felt a cold shiver run down his back.

Yet, it wasn’t altogether useless what he had done. Another thing, he had saved time; and, judging by Nikolaides’s planning, time was running out. Stop finding justifications, he told himself as he quickened his pace: you were a damned fool, and luckier than most. That’s what Bohren thinks, and he’s right. In his way, he’s right. In a way. But sometimes it’s useful to be a damned fool, even if it chills your spine when you think about it afterwards.

The dog barked again, nearer now. Suddenly he heard hurrying footsteps coming down through the trees, a clatter of heavy boots slipping on rock, dull steady thuds on soft pine needles, and then a crackle of dry branches as a man stepped on to the path ahead of him. It was Heinz Gauch, red-faced, his jacket slung over his shoulders, his sleeves rolled up. He was looking back at the wood, his hands on his hips, his feet widespread as he waited for Denning.

“Hallo,” said Denning. “And where did you come from?”

“Short cut.” He still watched the woods, his blue eyes hard, his lips tight with anger.

Then the dog appeared, straining at the end of a leash held by a tall, powerfully built man dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. He halted, smiling, as he pulled back against the dog’s forward leaps.

Heinz yelled, “Next time I go for a walk, I take my gun. That isn’t a dog, it’s a wolf. And the land’s free. Do you hear? It’s free!”

The uniformed man laughed, enjoying his sense of power; then he gave a violent tug to the leash, a sharp command, and
walked away slowly into the maze of trees, the dog obediently following. They disappeared from sight.

“All right,” Heinz Gauch said, now ready to leave, and he and Denning continued together on the path. He was silent for at least three minutes. Then, in his slow solemn voice, he said, “That’s a good path through the woods. We’ve always used it. These foreigners—they come here and think they’ve bought the land!” His lips tightened for a moment. He was a man, almost forty perhaps, muscular, lean, who spent most of his time in the open air, for his face was weather-tanned, and fine wrinkles crinkled away from the outside corners of his frank blue eyes. His light hair, sun-bleached, receded from his high broad brow, and his smile—even with two broken front teeth—was pleasant to see. Now, he was giving it generously to Denning, as if to show that the reference to foreigners wasn’t directed against him. “You’re on our side?”

The question, so direct, so simple, was heart-warming. Denning nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’m on your side.”

“There are two other Americans here too. A man and his wife. Came this afternoon. Staying at the inn.”

“At the inn?” The question had escaped him. He hoped it would be taken for polite interest rather than surprise.

“Bad days,” said Heinz Gauch, and brooded over that. “Falken’s a quiet place, usually,” he added angrily. “We live and let live.” Then he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of
Waldesruhe.
“Who were those?”

“More foreigners.”

Heinz Gauch thought over that too. “They’re the kind we can do without.”

“Like the man with the dog? Where did he come from?”
“Up there. That house on top of the hill. See?” He pointed. His forearm was thick and strong, his muscles prominent and hard.

“Does its property stretch to the edge of the woods?” Denning asked in surprise. The house must have been half a mile away.

“We never knew where its property began or ended until these men came. The trails are free.” Gauch swept his arm around the valley where paths, narrow and broad, straight and twisting, wound through green meadows, interlacing the village with the woods and the hills. “Herr Broach is all right. So is his secretary. It’s the men who work up at the house that cause the trouble.”

“Broach? He lives in that house up on the hill?”

Gauch nodded. “He’s all right. Quiet. Pleasant. Buys in the village.”

“How big is his staff?”

“Now he has four men.”

“Now? You mean some are recent additions?”

“Three came last week.”

“What do they find to do?” A chalet might run to eight rooms, perhaps even less.

Gauch shrugged his shoulders. “Each man spends his money in his own way. If I were rich”—he grinned—“I’d have seven pairs of climbing boots, one for each day of the week. Herr Broach likes to have servants.”

“A cosy establishment. Do all people who live here keep such a private army?”

Gauch looked at him. “That’s what the Inspector was asking too. Are you a policeman?”

“No. Are you?”

“I’m a guide. Today—well, I’m just kind of helping out.”

“That’s my status exactly,” Denning said.

“I thought you were a friend of the Inspector’s.”

“Why?”

Gauch grinned. “He came running out of the back door of the inn, got hold of us, and all the way to
Waldesruhe
he kept cussing you.”

“I guessed that, somehow,” said Denning, not too amused. “Tell me, has Broach made any friends in the—” But Gauch caught his arm, silencing him. From a high alp across the valley, on the other side of Falken, there drifted down through the clear air a long-drawn-out call.

“Yodelling?” Denning asked, with a smile. A pretty effect. But the village lying before him didn’t need any additional local colour. He already felt he was stepping on to the front page of a Swiss calendar, with a carpet of blue gentians rolled out in front to welcome him towards the dreaming houses. Yodelling and its silver echoes were too much. Falken was the kind of place you had to take little by little.

“Sh!” Gauch held up his hand impatiently.

Again the high call. And then, again.

“Three,” said Gauch. “That means the Blümlisalp.”

Then came a series of shorter calls, ringing down over the mountainside, running so close to each other that they formed little circles of sound, falling, falling into the valley. Heinz Gauch stared at Denning. “Trouble,” he said. “They’ve found trouble up there,” and he began to run. Denning started after him. In a nearby field, a man dropped his hoe and ran towards his house.

In the village street, there were others who ran. And those
who didn’t run had stopped to look up at the mountains which lay westward. At open doors, people stood. There was nothing to hear but the steady running pace, even, sure, that echoed over the stones.

Denning halted and regained his breath. Gauch had disappeared into a house. The other runners were disappearing into their houses, too.

“What’s wrong?” he asked a white-haired woman standing at the door of the inn. She didn’t seem to hear him.

“Someone needs help, up there,” a very quiet voice said beside him. It was Keppler. “But the guides will take care of it.” He stared up at a green patch, high on a wooded mountainside, sheltering under the ragged rims of grey precipices.