The Numbered Account (22 page)

‘Oh yes—that's being taken care of. Another dead end, I expect,' he said irritably. ‘I wish to God I knew what all this is about.'

‘Well when are you coming back to hear? I'm not going to telephone the whole story, automatic or no.'

‘I don't know—as soon as I can. But do try to keep
quiet
, will you? This may be rather a crucial forty-eight hours.' He sounded tired, anxious, and overwrought to Julia, who knew his voice so well.

‘Bless you, I'll try to. Oh by the way'—she paused for an instant—‘What about the detective?'

A click indicated that Colin had already rung off.

Chapter 9
Interlaken—the Clinic and the Golden Bear

A Little before nine on the following morning Julia was finishing her breakfast in the restaurant, vulgarly scraping up the black-cherry jam off her plate with the delicious Beatenberg bread—the rolls, which come up from Interlaken, don't arrive in time for breakfast—when once again she was called to the telephone. An obviously Swiss voice asked, in uncertain English—‘It is Miss Probeen who speaks?'

‘Yes.'

‘Miss Probeen herself?'

‘
Aber ja, unbedingt,'
Julia said reassuringly. ‘Who wishes to speak with me?'

‘One moment please, Fräulein.' There was a pause, a faint confused noise of voices ‘off', and then Julia heard June's unmistakable sub-Cockney tones—‘Is that Miss Probyn?'

‘Yes, Julia Probyn speaking. Is that June?'

‘Yes. Oh, I am glad I've got you. You couldn't come down and see me, could you? I
am
so unhappy!—and my ankle's so swollen, it's terrible. The two gentlemen have gone off, so I thought you might come and see me.'

‘Of course I will. Where are you?'

‘Oh, in ever such a funny little hotel—not a bit like the Flooss! And it's got such a silly name, the Golden Bear. Whoever heard of a golden bear?' June demanded, with a fretful giggle.

‘But where is it? What town, I mean?'

‘Oh, poor old Interlarken! I don't know why we had to come here; it's ever so small, and one can't see the steamers—well reelly one can't see anything! And we rushed away from the Flooss in such a hurry, I couldn't pack properly; and here there's no room to hang anything.
My dresses will be ruined, staying in the cases, and not folded right.'

‘I'll fold them for you.'

‘Oh you are sweet!—I would be glad. But can you come soon? You see I don't know when they'll get back, but not before dinner-time, I don't think.'

Julia guessed that by ‘dinner' June meant what she called luncheon.

‘I'll come down at once. Not to worry,' she said, employing an idiotic phrase which she hoped would appeal to June. It did; she was rewarded by a happy giggle, and ‘Oh, lovely!' Bye-bye—see you in no time.'

Outside the telephone-box Julia consulted the bus timetable which is such an essential feature of life in Beatenberg. The next bus for Interlaken left in five minutes; she raced upstairs, collected a jacket, looked in on Mrs. Hathaway with—‘Flying off—can't stop—back some time—and ran down again, out through the
Kleine Saal
and along the gravelled garden to where the bus pulled up, between the cow-stable and a petrol-pump. She just made it, and got the front seat of all, next to the driver.

This happened to be the blond man whose goings-on had exasperated Watkins on the day they arrived. So early in the morning the passengers were mostly local Swiss; they all referred to the driver as ‘der Chrigl', the Swiss-German diminutive for the name Christian—and from him, on the way down, Julia enquired how to find the Golden Bear? In the Cantonal-Platz, he told her: along the main street, and then a turning to the left soon after the Post-Bureau. ‘It is a very small hotel; few foreigners go there,' der Chrigl observed, eyeing her a little curiously—and most dangerously—as he swung his vast machine round one of the hairpin bends. ‘But the Fräulein cannot miss the big golden bear over the door—it glitters.'

The Cantonal-Platz is in the old indigenous Interlaken, which few tourists ever see. Deep-eaved plastered houses line narrow streets, many of which end at the river—then the vista is closed, not by more houses but by the green wooded slopes of the Harder-Kulm, rising steeply above
the farther bank. Local trades are carried on here—timber-yards, warehouses for coke and briquettes or for wine, shops for second-hand clothing; Julia paused before a very small window indeed, in which a splendid pair of climbing-boots was displayed for twelve francs, or roughly one pound. She was tempted to go in and try them on, remembering Antrobus's suggestion that she ought to climb; but June was more important, and she walked on. Presently she found the Cantonal-Platz, a very small square, most of one side of which was occupied by the Hotel zum Goldenen Bären and its garden, as usual shaded by clipped horse-chestnuts; exactly opposite stood a rival hostelry, the Gemsbock, also with a garden. But there was no mistaking the one she sought, for in the strong sunshine a large gilt bear glittered—der Chrigl had been quite right—over the entrance. The small door stood open; Julia tapped on it—a middle-aged woman in black, wearing a grey-and-white flowered apron, emerged from the dark interior of the little hallway.

‘
Grüss Gott
,' Julia said. ‘Could I speak with Miss Armitage?'

The woman, who had a pleasant kindly face, had smiled at the Swiss salutation ‘God greet you'; but at the name ‘Armitage' her expression became troubled and hesitant. ‘I am not sure that the Fräulein is
zu Hause
,' she said doubtfully.

‘
Aber ja
, I know she is. She has spoken with me only a short time ago
am Telefon
, and I wish to see about her foot,' Julia replied firmly.

‘
Ach so!
—you are the friend.
Ja, die Arme
, it does not go so well with her foot. Please to enter.'

This interchange confirmed Julia's suspicions about how Borovali and Wright probably dealt with June. She followed the woman along the narrow hall and up two flights of steep stairs; at the top, at the far end of a tiny corridor, the woman in the grisaille apron threw open a door, saying ‘Fräulein Armitage, you have a visitor!'

In a little, low-ceilinged room June was sitting in a small cheap armchair by a small window, looking out over
the Platz, her injured foot propped on a stool; several pieces of luggage, half-opened, with clothes coming out of them, stood about the floor. Besides the bed and the inevitable commode there was a wash-stand with a ewer and basin, a slop-pail under it; a small chest of drawers on which stood a cheap blurred mirror in a wooden frame, and a row of pegs for clothes along the wall in one corner. That was all—the Golden Bear was clearly a very simple hotel indeed. June greeted her in a way which Julia found quite upsetting.

‘Oh, you
have
come! Well in a way I knew you would, if you promised—but reelly sitting here, I began to think I'd have to live and die in this room. Oh, I do wish I could go home!' As Julia went over to her the little thing stretched up her arms and gave her an almost passionate hug.

‘How is your foot?' Julia asked. ‘Has the doctor seen it again?'

‘No, and it hurts ever so. I am so worried—if it loses its shape I shall be finished for modelling. But I'm not allowed to go out, and Mr. B. says he doesn't want the doctor coming here just now.'

Julia could well understand Mr. B.'s attitude, wicked as she thought it. She pulled down June's stocking; above and below the strapping the flesh was purplish and unwholesome-looking.

‘Dr. Hertz must see this,' she said. ‘Just wait—I'll go and arrange it.'

‘Mr. B. will be mad,' June said, half-alarmed.

‘Let him be!' She heard June giggle as she left the room and ran downstairs. From a tiny office off the dark hall she telephoned; Dr. Hertz was in, but could not leave his clinic.

‘Then I bring you one of your patients—Fräulein Armitage, this young English girl from the Fluss.'

‘Very good—it is time I see this foot again.'

‘Well please see her
sogleich
, when we come,' Julia said firmly. ‘I think it is urgent, and we shall not have any time to spare.'

‘Agreed. Give her name when you arrive.'

Julia asked the woman in black to send for a taxi. ‘I take the Fräulein to the doctor; her foot is very bad.'

‘But she should not leave the hotel!—those were the wishes of
der Herr'

‘If you do not let her go, I shall fetch the
Polizei,'
Julia said sharply. ‘It is essential that she sees the doctor.'

The woman crumbled. ‘Heinrich!' she called—from the kitchen regions a rather dirty youth appeared, and was dispatched to fetch a taxi. Julia went upstairs again, pulled a foolish velvet slipper onto June's bad foot, unhooked the pale tweed coat which she had seen at Victoria from one of the pegs, and helped the girl into it. Then an idea struck her.

‘Where are your hats?'

‘All in the hat-box, over there.'

‘Have you one with an eye-veil?'

‘Oh yes, a lovely one! I've only worn it once, when we went to a bank in Geneva. I'd love you to see it.'

Julia was already pulling hats out of a vulgar tartan-covered hat-box, doubtless Mr. Borovali's choice, and laying them on the bed. ‘This one?' she asked, reluctantly admiring Mr. B.'s astuteness.

‘Yes, that's it.' June hobbled over to the dim little mirror on the chest of drawers, powdered her face, added—quite needlessly—to her lipstick, and skilfully arranged her pale hair with smart strokes from a semi-circular nylon brush—as she watched this process Julia noticed that a much darker shade was beginning to show at the roots of the pretty
cendré
hair. H'm!

‘Have you always been as fair as this?' she asked casually, while the girl was adjusting the hat to a becoming angle.

‘Oh no' June replied, without the slightest hesitation—‘lovely brown hair, mine is; sort of chestnut, with goldy lights in it. But for this job Mr. Borovali wanted me a real ash-blonde, so in the end I agreed. Mum simply loathed it!—but he paid me twenty quid, in cash, just for the colour of my hair; and I thought that was worth it.'

‘It's frightfully becoming,' Julia said. ‘Now stop titivating and come on down; the taxi will be waiting. Pull your veil down.' Slowly, they crept down the dark narrow stairs.

Dr. Hertz's clinic was at the far end of the town, beyond the Bahnhof-Platz; it was clean and functional, with trim nurses in attendance, one of whom ushered them into a waiting-room deplorably full of patients—Julia followed her out into the corridor.

‘Please inform the Herr Doktor that Fräulein Armitage is here. He knows that she cannot wait, and will see her quickly; we have spoken on the telephone.'

The nurse put on the face of obstruction common to nurses the world over. ‘The Herr Doktor sees his patients strictly in rotation' she said smugly.

‘You deceive yourself—and seek to deceive me,' Julia said coldly. ‘This patient the Herr Doktor will see next.' She took out a card and wrote June's false name on it. ‘Have the goodness to take this to the Herr Doktor immediately.'

‘He is with a patient,' the nurse said sulkily, barely glancing at the card.

‘Naturally—I do not imagine that he sits alone in his surgery!' Julia said laughingly. ‘But you can enter and give the card.' She could hear voices from behind a door a little way off, and moved towards it. ‘If you do not,
I
do,' she said.

The nurse gave way, and took in the card; in a moment a short man in a white overall, with grey hair and a pale clever face appeared, her card in his hand.

‘You bring Miss Armitage? Good—in five minutes I see her.' He said this in quite good English—then he disappeared again.

In the surgery Dr. Hertz frowned as he removed the strapping from June's foot.

‘This has been on too long. I arranged it for less than twenty-four hours, and it is now two days'—glancing at a card on his desk. ‘I went to the hotel on Tuesday, as arranged, and you had left, giving no address.' He felt the
ankle skilfully while he scolded, his hands more sympathetic than his voice. ‘Where have you been?'

‘We went to another hotel,' June said feebly.

‘Then why not leave an address?' He pressed a bell on his desk, and a young man, also in white, appeared. ‘An X-ray, at once; and I want the films promptly.' In a moment another nurse came in with a wheeled chair, and June was propelled out.

‘I'll come in a minute,' Julia told her, and turned to the doctor.

‘Is it serious?'

‘I think not, but it is better to know. The swelling may have been just from the strapping, which should have been renewed. But what is this nonsense of changing hotels and leaving no address?' He spoke in the arbitrary manner of a clever busy professional.