Pink Snow

by Edna Dawes

  “You lovely people,” she cried in a trembly voice. “I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life!”

  Of course, the man had vanished into the trees now, so in faltering French, Kathryn managed to get across the fact that she was afraid of missing the post-bus, and once this had been explained to the members of the family they took charge of the situation with true German organization. The younger Herr Braun set off to hold the post-bus, and the other three accompanied her along the final stretch of wooded path until the clearing was reached. There was the Braun’s son holding the door of the yellow bus as though he were prepared to physically prevent the vehicle from leaving should it be necessary. With a hearty handshake all round, the Germans plodded off to retrace their steps, and the postman jumped into the cab of the bus to start the engine.

  He made no attempt at conversation, preferring to whistle loudly as he took the bends at a more reasonable speed than Helmut, and blasting loudly on his horn to warn anyone that he was coming. Now that the danger was past, Kathryn had time to reflect on the incident this afternoon. If the man was out to kill her, why did he wait until she left the glade? He could not have come across her by accident, surely. It was too much of a coincidence that he should be taking a stroll just when the person he most wanted to dispose of happened to appear on the path ahead of him. No, he must have known she was there; must have followed her all day. He could have killed her at any time, yet waited until it was almost too late – until it was too late! It didn’t make sense.

  There were a couple of other things which needed explaining. How did he know she was there? She had asked Frau Petz not to tell anyone, so unless Helmut or his mother mentioned it, she couldn’t understand how he found out. If he was a local man and saw her jump into the van outside the café, he would know where Helmut was going and also that there was no way of returning until the bus left at four o’clock. For a few minutes, she puzzled over the method the man used to get to the top of Karlstein until the answer leapt at her. The Brauns were walking away from the restaurant yet were returning to Mosskirch. Hadn’t she passed a signpost which indicated a downward path to the village? The man had not come up this road at all; he had walked leisurely through the mountain path knowing he had plenty of time. Luckily for her, he had reckoned without the Brauns with their insatiable drive to walk until they dropped!

  Another fact which niggled at her mind was that the man who chased her this afternoon was older than she thought he would be. From the way he ran, and because he had not caught her a lot earlier she would swear he was past his prime, yet the hands which gripped her neck had struck her as young hands. It was the one thing she had really been sure of after that experience in the trout hatchery.

  The bus pulled up sharply, shaking her back to the present, and she took the hand offered by the driver.

  “Thank you very much,” she said as she jumped down. “I’m sorry you had to wait for me. I hope it doesn’t put your schedule all behind.”

  He grinned, said something in German, winked broadly and walked off into the post office leaving her to realize why he hadn’t been talkative on the journey. For once, she had met an Austrian who didn’t speak English!

  The post office was not far from the Gasthaus, so within ten minutes she was in her room and sinking into a chair. A wash, a change of clothes and vigorous brushing through her hair made a new woman of her, but her problems were not over for the day. Half an hour before dinner, Maria knocked on the door to tell her she was wanted on the telephone.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, mystified.

  “Oh yes, quite sure, Miss Davis.”

  She followed the girl downstairs and picked up the receiver.

  “Kathryn Davis here,” she said, not knowing what voice to expect at the other end.

  “Good evening, Kathryn. This is Anton Reiter.”

  Oh, that absurd leap of her heart! “Yes?”

  “I have looked into the matter you asked me about, and I would like to tell you what I have discovered. Will you come over tonight?”

  Oh no, I am not making the same mistake twice, she thought.

  “Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

  There was an electric pause then, “No, I cannot. However, if you prefer not to visit me, we can meet in the Berghof – where the Forellenabend was held.”

  “I’ll be there soon after eight-thirty. Will that suit you?” The awkwardness of the situation made her voice sound coolly aloof and he responded in the same tone.

  “That will suit me very well.” He rang off without any further word, and she sighed. Just when she would have liked to fall into his arms for reassurance, she had to make it plain to him that cheap flirtations were not her line.

  She was slightly early for dinner, partly because of her appointment at the Berghof, and partly because she hoped to avoid Robert. Halfway through her meal he appeared in the doorway, and only after the slightest of hesitations made his way to the table they had been sharing.

  “Good evening, Kathryn. Had a good day?” he asked, as though last night had never happened.

  “Good evening, Robert. Lovely, thanks. I have been working hard.”

  In this civilized manner, they chatted lightly until Kathryn finished her fruit compôte and Maria brought coffee.

  “So, you have finished what you came for. I hope it will be very successful. I suppose you will be going home now?”

  “Oh no. I have no intention of leaving until I am completely ready to go. At the moment, I am not.”

  His hand was arrested in mid-air over the dish of rice from which he was about to serve himself.

  “I see. Do I detect a trace of gauntlet-throwing in that remark?”

  She smiled blandly. “You can detect anything you like in it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date.”

  Having dealt firmly, she felt, with one of the troublesome aspects of her holiday in Mosskirch, she set off to deal equally firmly with another. However, when she left the Gasthaus clad in her warm scarlet coat with the collar turned up against the cold, she found she was no match after all for the man who fell in beside her with a quiet, “Good evening.”

  “Oh, I thought we were meeting at the Berghof,” she floundered, taken off-guard.

  “So we were,” he agreed, “but since we live in neighboring houses, it is not surprising that we might set off at the same time, is it?”

  Despite his reasoning, she knew he had been waiting for her. It was already eight-thirty — she had planned to be late — and a man with his proud temperament was hardly likely to keep a girl waiting. There was an awful lot of the famed Viennese gallantry in him although he lived the whole span of Austria away from that city.

  They walked side by side until Kathryn could stand the silence no longer. “I met Helmut Koch this morning. What a nice lad he is.”

  “Yes, and very courageous. He had what I think you call polio when he was much younger.”

  She risked a look at him. “You have a wide vocabulary for someone who has lived in Mosskirch for thirty years.”

  He smiled down at her. “During those thirty years, which you guessed very accurately, I have left the village from time to time, you know.”

  “And the English teacher?” she couldn’t help asking.

  “Martin Carter. He helped me improve on what I had learnt at school. I stayed with him in Sussex on several occasions.”

  “In Sussex? You have been to England?”

  “Why should it surprise you?”

  Why indeed? Had she forgotten that this man must have travelled extensively at one time, and had mixed with a social group of international flavor? It was so easy to believe he was simply the shopkeeper next door who had taken pity on her.

  “I don’t know. By now, nothing should surprise me any more.”

  He slid his hand under her elbow. “You say that sadly. Are you not happy about anything which has happened to you in Mosskirch?”

  In quick inventive defence she said, “
I haven’t left the village yet. There is still time.”

  They turned into the Berghof, and Anton took her coat, then led the way to a table away from the bar. The room looked very different from the night of the Forellenabend. The greenery had all been taken down and there were barely half-a-dozen customers talking in hushed tones. The festive air seemed to have departed with the guests on Wednesday night.

  With their drinks in front of them, Kathryn decided it was time to stop the social exchanges and get down to business.

  “You said over the telephone that you had something to tell me,” she prompted.

  He stopped admiring the cut of her dress. “Yes. I had not forgotten, but let me pay you the compliment of being reluctant to start on such serious topics. However, for some reason you again mistrust me, so I will tell you about my talk with Dr. Hallstein and Peter. Afterwards, perhaps I may know the reason why you did not wish to be alone with me as you were last night.”

  Kathryn recognized the glitter which was beginning to appear in his eyes, and her heart sank. This man was not going to be fobbed-off with a gauntlet-throwing sentence, as Robert was.

  Anton stood his glass in the dead centre of the raffia coaster and looked up from under his thick fair brows.

  “You are not going to like this, Kathryn. Dr. Hallstein denies being at the garage on the night of the Forellenabend, and agrees with Peter that you may have had a little too much to drink that evening and imagined what you saw.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” she cried. “Robert was with me. He saw it, too.”

  “I told them that. They suggested you had both been a little too merry at the dance. It is not unusual for young people to feel that way after such an evening.”

  She flushed with anger. “How dare they infer that we were drunk! It really is the limit, Anton.”

  “Unfortunately, the police are more likely to believe two highly-respected men from the village – one of them a doctor – than two foreign tourists who were returning from a notoriously beery evening.”

  He was right. She hadn’t a leg to stand on. It showed in her eyes when she shrugged in defeat.

  “That’s it, then!”

  He took a quick gulp from his glass and set it down on the raffia mat again with great precision.

  “Kathryn, how would you feel if I told you I have known those two all my life and know perfectly well they are lying; that I am convinced they are involved in something which is greater than the death of this one man?”

  Chapter Seven

  That was just about the last thing she had expected to hear, but her first reaction was to say, “I’m so sorry. They are friends of yours.”

  “Do not be sorry, Kathryn. In some way they have drawn you into their scheme and I cannot excuse them for that.” He stared at his glass for a moment. “I also cannot excuse them for not trusting me enough to tell the truth.”

  “So it was Peter at the trout farm that day.”

  His head jerked up. “Nein! . . . I mean, no! I cannot believe that either man was responsible for that.”

  “But you said they were lying; that they were involved in goodness-knows-what.”

  “I know, I know.” He clutched at the back of his hair in an agitated gesture, “But killing a young girl is not what I meant. Oh, I am saying this badly, Kathryn. When one is upset it is not easy to speak well in another language. I think my friends are in trouble, and the man on Kapellerpass is part of it – but I do not believe they killed him or wish to harm you in any way. I have known these men all my life. They would not suddenly become murderers.”

  “Then what other trouble could they be in?”

  “I cannot imagine. It is something which is making them very worried. That is all I know.”

  Kathryn could see he was disturbed and tried to head the conversation another way. “So who did I see on Kapellerpass?”

  “The same man who tried to drown you.” He leant forward earnestly. “Kathryn, can you not remember anything at all about this figure you saw?”

  “Don’t you think I have tried over and over again? No, Anton, he was no more than a dark shape. All I can be sure of is that it was a person and not an animal. If you put the man in front of me I wouldn’t recognize him. I was thinking of what I was hoping to do on this holiday as I drove down that road. The last thing I expected was a pedestrian.”

  “Of course, meine Arme,” he said softly. “It was very unfortunate that you should cross Kapellerpass at that moment.” He leaned back against the green upholstery. “What were you hoping to do on this holiday?”

  The question threw her. It was impossible to tell him of the freedom from her mother she was seeking, or the self-assurance she was hoping to gain on this trip.

  “I came to Austria to work, and I made a start today. Yes,” she said as he opened his mouth to speak, “another fairy tale! I have decided to use your local story about the chamois on Karlstein.”

  His eyesbrows lifted. “Not the tale all the lovesick girls believe? You know,” his face was suddenly alive with amusement, “they even go up to the place where the lovers are supposed to have met, hoping to see these animals. Only a girl could be so silly!”

  “I went there this afternoon,” she informed him stiffly.

  With great difficulty he controlled his facial muscles.

  “Of course, there may be some truth in the details of the wicked Earl killing the Captain of his army; it is not unknown for a powerful man to be jealous, and there was definitely a castle which burned down on Karlstein many years ago. As for the lovers,” he shrugged, “I think they have been invented by mothers to tell their daughters. Surely, even you cannot believe they roam as chamois in the pink snow!”

  “I merely went to the spot to get the right background. My book isn’t intended to be read by cynical grown men. It is for children who still believe in good triumphing over evil.”

  “Do you still believe this, Kathryn?”

  “Yes, don’t you?”

  “No.” It was said with bitterness.

  “Perhaps you would sooner hear that I was chased by a man while I was there.”

  He grinned. “It does not surprise me.”

  “It was no joke,” she snapped. “If the Brauns hadn’t appeared when they did, I might not have been sitting here tonight.”

  What she was suggesting got through to him then, and he frowned.

  “Do you mean that this man pestered you? Was not your English friend with you?”

  “No. We . . . quarrelled. I went alone.”

  “Du lieber Gott! Are you telling me that you went to this lonely place on Karlstein with no one to accompany you? Kathryn, you are mad! Did it not occur to you that it might be dangerous?”

  “You said I was safe enough now that I had told the police I couldn’t possibly recognize the man on Kapellerpass,” she cried.

  “And you told me that your friend — who is your countryman,” he couldn’t help adding, “had promised to look after you in my place. I naturally thought he went everywhere with you.”

  “As I said . . . we quarrelled last night.”

  “Then why did you not ask me to take you up Karlstein?” he demanded angrily.

  “Because I wanted to avoid you, too.” It was too late; the words were said! They both stared at each other while they sized up the situation. Anton was the first to speak, but that hauteur was back in his voice.

  “In that case, it would have been better to wait until tomorrow when the chair-lift runs. Did not Frau Petz tell you of this?”

  “I knew about the chair-lift, but I wanted to go when I had the chance of being alone. I can’t work when people are coming and going around me. You should know that – although ski-manuals probably don’t need much concentration, especially from an ex-champion like you,” she said without thinking.

  “As you say, ski-manuals do not need much concentration. They are not serious works – but that is all I am allowed to do.” Bitterness tugged down the corners of hi
s mouth. “For Anton Reiter to think of anything but skiing is forbidden.”

  Sensing that she had touched a nerve, she tried to placate him by saying, “You can’t deny that your name is synonymous with skiing.”

  “When have you ever heard me mention it?” The words were icicles being snapped off at the edges.

  Anxious to stop the evening from sliding into a catastrophe, Kathryn cast around for an example, found none, and subconsciously used a phrase coined by Robert.

  “Everyone knows you were once the golden-boy of the ski-slopes.”

  “Yes – and they will not forget it. The whole village lives in the past as far as I am concerned. One only has to mention Anton Reiter to be told of the career of Mosskirch’s slalom expert. Visitors buy from my store because they may be lucky enough to speak with me, not because they can be sure everything I sell is first-class. Worst of all, my publisher will not even read my serious novel of Austrian history because there is no mention of skiing in it.”

  “It’s not surprising, surely,” she said, feeling her temper rise at his condemnation of his admirers. “For eight years you dazzled everyone with your skill. Wherever I go I am told how wonderful you were on the snow, how many cups and medals you won, how proud the village of Mosskirch felt of its hero. In your book your fellow-sportsmen write very warmly of their friendship for you, and I have no doubt there is many a girl who still sighs over those photographs.”

  He was rigid with anger now. “Is that what you do – sigh over the photographs and remember what a fine fellow I was on the ski-run?”

  “I had never heard of you until I came to Mosskirch. Your name meant nothing until Robert told me of your career.” She matched his anger. “If he had not warned me last night I would never have realized that you were . . .” she broke off abruptly and clamped her lips tightly together.

  “Do not stop,” he snapped. “Of what did he warn you – this friend of yours who is English?”

  That last was sufficient to goad her into finishing her sentence. “His exact words were that ‘I was filling the gap between seasons very nicely for you’.”