Pray for a Brave Heart (35 page)

They’re waiting for Heinz Gauch, Denning thought as he walked slowly up the village street and noted the lighted windows. They would have been in bed and asleep, these people, if it weren’t for Gauch. What was delaying him? Some trouble that Keppler hadn’t thought of? Stop worrying, he told himself, Heinz Gauch could take care of Nikolaides and Mr. James and a couple more besides.

He kept his steady pace, slow as it was. Tired? Yes. He was tired, suddenly old, with a longing for sleep and sleep and
sleep. He had taken a bath, changed his clothes; eaten—his first decent meal since when? But he couldn’t sleep. Not like Waysmith, who had stretched himself luxuriously after the enormous dinner at the inn, and said, “Now what about bed and some well-earned rest?” But Andy had his Paula. It’s good to see someone happy in this twisted world, thought Denning.

He stopped at the window of the tourist shop, still lit, still open. You’re on vacation, he told himself, remember?… Edelweiss. Carved clocks that popped out voluble cuckoos. Music boxes. Handkerchiefs. Picture postcards…

The woman standing at the door said in surprise, “Of course you may buy a postcard.” She led the way into the little shop. “I’m waiting for my husband. He’s gone up to the Blümlisalp. I’ve had his supper ready for the last hour.” She nodded towards the back room.

“It smells good.”

She tried to smile. “It will be spoiled if he doesn’t come soon. Do you think there’s danger up on the Blümlisalp trail?”

“Don’t worry. The trouble is over now.”

“I hope so. It’s been bad, hasn’t it? No one knows exactly. But we feel—” She broke off, almost in tears. “All these policemen. We never need one policeman. Excuse me.” She rushed into the back room, and a pot lid clanged on a stove’s hard top.

“I’m taking this one. And have you a stamp I could buy?” Denning asked when she returned.

“We have prettier views on that rack over there,” she suggested as she looked at the card he had selected.

“I’m sending it to a friend who collects this kind,” he told her reassuringly.

“I suppose some people like them,” she said politely.

Denning nodded with approval as he smiled down at the sunset having pink and purple fits. Then he turned the card over and began to write: “The monster was tracked to his inevitable lair. Your description fits—he was a croaking toad. Thank you from everyone at Falken. Yours to the last ice-cream soda, William.” He addressed it to Miss Emily White Hyphen Cowper, The Hermitage, Moosegg. He was smiling as he fixed the stamp.

The woman seemed to find his smile encouraging. “Good night,” she told him, almost optimistically.

He slipped the card into his pocket as he walked up the street. When Gauch and Andrássy got back, he’d have the card ready to mail. Thanks to Emily should go off at once, he felt. And tomorrow he would spend sleeping. But the smile still lingered on his face, and his step was brisker.

He reached the church. There were several men waiting near there, grouped together at the entrance to the Blümlisalp trail. But he didn’t go over to join them. He sat on the wall circling the little graveyard. The trees were a black mass of shadow, the mountain slope above them was formless, lost in the night.

A man left the group, and walked over to Denning. It was Keppler. “Why aren’t you having some of Waysmith’s well-earned rest?” he asked.

“How about you?”

Keppler laughed softly. “Lonely men don’t sleep so readily.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Being alone? A case of necessity. My kind of life is too hard for most women to share. Perhaps some day I’ll retire. Some day I’ll go back to school teaching. And then, a house of my own, a garden, a stream to fish.”

“You were a school teacher?”

“With a passion for chess.”

“I can believe that.”

“I heard you were offered a job today.”

For a moment, Denning couldn’t follow. “Oh, yes,” he said, remembering. “Nikolaides. I didn’t take it as a compliment.”

“I should. He’s completely amoral. All he is interested in is brain power.”

“Thank you,” Denning said dryly. “I guess he could use some new talent in his firm.”

“What are you going to do, anyway?”

“I think I’ll start aiming towards that house of my own.”

“I was afraid so. Too bad. And yet—” Keppler sighed gently. “
Wer jetz kein Haus hat, baut sich nimmermehr.
”

There was a silence. Denning was remembering the rest of the poem. Last night—was it only last night?—he had read it in Keppler’s room. Waiting for Max’s message.

The lonely man will keep his loneliness,

Will lie awake, will read, will write long letters,

Will wander to and fro under the trees

Restlessly, while the leaves run from the wind.

“Yes,” he said at last, “that’s just about it.”

“I’ll give you another quotation to balance it,” Keppler said. “Do you know Juvenal?”

“Vaguely. I had only three years of Latin. Above my standard, I’m afraid.”

“Then I’ll translate for you. Let me see, now.” Keppler paused. He began in his quiet voice:

Pray for a brave heart, which does not fear death, which places a long life last among the gifts of nature, which has the power to endure any trials, rejects anger, discards desire…

If we have common sense, Chance you are not divine: it is we who make you a goddess, yes, and place you in heaven.

This time the silence was long. He had translated his own epitaph, Denning thought. His own and Meyer’s too. He found he could not speak.

Keppler rose from the wall. “Did you hear that?” he asked excitedly. Denning pulled himself back into the scene that stirred suddenly into life around him. There was a movement from the shadowy mass of waiting-room, as the call came circling down through the darkness.

“Give them one back,” Keppler shouted. “Tell them all is well here. Tell them to come in.” Then he put a hand on Denning’s shoulder. “I’m going up to meet them—they’re near enough now. Coming?”

“I doubt if I can make it,” Denning admitted. But he stood up.

“Then better wait here. Dark trails aren’t comfortable places. Sit down, man. I never did like conscious heroes.”

Denning half-smiled. “To tell you the truth, I’m not much of any kind of hero. I’m all worn out through being scared stiff for a couple of days.” And he sat down again.

“I’ll see you some time,” said Keppler. “I’ll come and visit you in that house of yours.”

“One more of my guesses—you won’t be called Keppler.”

Keppler laughed softly. He gave a firm handshake. He
moved away.

Was that really a goodbye? Denning wondered. I suppose it was, he thought in amazement. Where was Keppler going now, after he found Andrássy? Back to Bern? Or Geneva? And then, another job?

The group of men, Keppler among them and Gregor, too, had lit torches and lanterns. Slowly the dancing lights flickered away from the church, disappearing, reappearing, climbing slowly up through the woods.

“I thought it was you,” Francesca’s voice said behind him.

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“I had to come, Like you.” She drew her heavy coat more closely around her throat.

“But you were supposed to be—”

“I know. They put me to bed. They gave me pills to make me sleep. But I spat then out when Paula wasn’t looking.”

“Look—I don’t think you should be—”

“Of course I should. I’m all right. They found nothing wrong with me. The doctor was very disappointed. And Mr. Keppler was cross because I didn’t cry. I just kept asking questions. You see, there was so much I didn’t know.”

“You know enough.”

“No. Or I wouldn’t have treated you as I did. I’ve come to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not trusting you.”

“Me?”

“You see, I didn’t trust your friend. I saw him last night at the Café Henzi. The woman who talked to him there—”

“Eva?”

“She was an enemy.”

“So Max could have been your enemy?”

“He could have been.” She sensed his amazement and annoyance. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

He looked at her face, now. “You’re a strange girl, Francesca.”

“Yes. Too strange. Too uncomfortable for most people.”

The bitter sadness in her voice startled him. “But you aren’t alone. You have Gregor.”

She smiled. “Yes,” she said softly, “I have Gregor.”

“And Paula and all your other friends.”

“Paula is only really at home with me when we start remembering schooldays together, and make jokes, and—” Her voice trailed away. “The fault is in me,” she said. “I know that, now. I hurt my friends. I smile for those who would hurt me. I—” She began to cry. She turned her face aside from him. And as she spoke she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, and as she wiped them away they fell again. Her voice became incoherent, telling cruel things against herself. She struggled to make herself clear. She broke into sobs.

“Look—” he said gently, catching her shoulders, “we’ve all had our bad moments, but you’ve no need to feel as unhappy as this.”

She bent her head to hide her face. The tears wouldn’t stop.

“Let them flow,” he said. “Just to please Keppler.”

She gave a half-choking laugh.

They stood there, waiting for Andrássy. She didn’t even notice that his arm was around her. And as for Denning—he only wondered why she, the cold and self-sufficient Francesca, should have broken down before him.

“Why did you say all these things to me?” he asked at last. “Because you dislike me, because—”

“Of all reasons—” he began.

“Because you see me clearly. Gregor would never have listened to me. And then,” she was able to smile now, “I had such a sense of guilt about you, I suppose. You see, I know now what you have done.”

“I don’t,” he said abruptly. He became embarrassed. He looked at the fireflies coming down through the woods. Would the men never arrive?

“I told you I asked Mr. Keppler a lot of questions,” Francesca said. “Andy had to answer me too.” She thought, I wouldn’t be standing here now, if it weren’t for this man. “I couldn’t give any honest meaning to my thanks until I had said, first of all, I was sorry.”

“Which meant tearing yourself to pieces?” He tried to laugh.

“I always had too much pride,” she said. She suddenly started forward, then waited for him with outstretched hand. “There they come—see?”

As they began to hurry towards the edge of the woods, where the first men had stepped on to the roadway, he said, “You’re wrong about some things, though.”

She looked at him.

“I don’t dislike you,” he said.

She still looked at him. “We can be friends?”

“Why not?”

She said, “There’s Andrássy—but they’re carrying him on a stretcher. Oh, Bill—!” Hand in hand, they began to run.

Keppler had gone. He had vanished. Denning kept searching for him among the group that still lingered in front of the church or walked slowly to their houses, talking over the
strange happenings on the Blümlisalp. But Keppler must have slipped away as soon as the two doctors from the neighbouring Schlossfalken-Bad had taken charge of Andrássy.

“Will he live?” Francesca asked.

Gregor said, “He is among friends. He will live. Surely.” Then he looked severely at Francesca. “Why are you here?”

“That’s right, Gregor,” said Denning. “You tell her to get right back into bed and sleep until Sunday.”

“Perhaps I shall.” Francesca held out her hand. “Good night, Bill. Thank you.” Then she hesitated. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you stay here for a few days? Falken can be a happy village.”

“Ah—” Gregor said quickly, “you like it now?”

She smiled a little. “Yes, Gregor. I know my friends.” She looked at Denning. She half-raised her arm, shyly, to signal good night. Or perhaps she thought it was goodbye. Then she turned and walked away with Gregor.

“Well,” Heinz Gauch said, “that is over.” With some pleasure, he watched the two men he had brought down under armed guard from the Blümlisalp trail, now being transferred to the custody of Inspector Bohren and three policemen.

“That is over,” Denning said.

“We surprised them.”

“We certainly did.”

“Now home—for some food, some talk, and much sleep. Good?”

“Nothing better. I’ll walk part way with you.”

They fell into step, Heinz Gauch’s heavy boots scraping against the rough stones.

“You had a bad time?” Denning asked.

“So so. The two men were ugly to deal with. But we surprised them.” Gauch paused. “We were angry then. We saw what they had done to poor Schmid before they left him up there, coiled with ropes, strapped down, in a cold empty hut; you wouldn’t treat a dog that way.”

Denning looked at him. Poor Schmid… Heinz Gauch and his friends had gone out to help a waiter called Schmid.

“This is my house,” Gauch said, halting suddenly. “Come in and eat.”

“Not tonight. Some other time.”

“You’re staying here for a bit?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take you up the Blümlisalp.” Gauch put out his broad hand. “Good night,” he said. And then to a man passing down the street, “Good night, Peter. We surprised them, didn’t we?”

“Good night,” said Peter. “That we did.”

“Good night,” said someone else, laughing too. “Good night.”

Denning heard the friendly echoes of good nights follow him along the street. He stopped at the post office and slipped the postcard for Emily through the slot in the door. For a moment he looked back at the church, glimmering white against dark shadows. The houses were silent now, lights were lessening, doors were closing, the heavy footsteps had left the street, the echoes of voices had died away.

I should feel lonely, he thought.

But he wasn’t. It had been a long time since he had felt such peace as this.

Helen MacInnes, whom the
Sunday Express
called “the Queen of spy writers”, was the author of many distinguished suspense novels.

Born in Scotland, she studied at the University of Glasgow and University College, London, then went to Oxford after her marriage to Gilbert Highet, the eminent critic and educator. In 1937 the Highets went to New York, and except during her husband’s war service, Helen MacInnes lived there ever since.