Above Suspicion

by Helen Macinnes

  “What happens if he doesn’t turn up before the end of the month?” asked van Cortlandt.

  “That would be a nuisance. I’d have to go back to Prague.”

  “I’d like to join you.”

  “Would you?” Thornley was pleased. “It’s mostly strain, I warn you. Not very pleasant, really. The Czechs are suspicious, the Germans are intolerable. I can’t say I blame the Czechs at all. It is just like that all the time, you see, and then you start to be haunted by the girl too. Tony’s infected me.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I’ve seen photographs. And Tony would say something now and again. She seemed a winner.”

  “Perhaps she is in hiding with her father,” suggested Frances.

  Thornley looked at her. His grey eyes were colder, brighter. “He is definitely dead,” he said gently. It was the kind of gentleness which shocked them all into silence. Frances noted, as she lit another cigarette, that van Cortlandt was looking at Thornley in a different way. The revision process had no doubt begun.

  Richard ordered more beer, and coffee for Frances.

  “We are leaving tomorrow,” he intimated, “for Pertisau.”

  Frances blinked her eyes, and tried to look unconcerned. It was hardly the change in conversation which she had expected.

  “I envy you,” said Thornley. “Good place. Mountains and lake, and plenty of atmosphere. At least, it was four years ago. I suppose it is still: the small villages keep to their own ways longer than the towns, and mountains and forests don’t change.”

  “I envy you, too,” agreed van Cortlandt. “Sidewalks in summer become just one cafe table after another for me. Climbing isn’t up my alley, though. I’ve never understood why people go up, when all they can do is come down again. But I’d like some real swimming. I haven’t had much chance of it this summer.”

  “Then why don’t you both take a few days off, and come along?”

  Both van Cortlandt and Thornley looked surprised.

  “You both look as if you could do with some time off,” said Richard, and left it at that.

  Thornley and van Cortlandt eyed each other speculatively. Each was probably wondering if the idea would be as attractive tomorrow as it seemed tonight.

  “It sounds all right to me,” said the American.

  “It certainly seems a good idea,” said Thornley.

  “I’ve some business to do here. It depends on that,” qualified van Cortlandt.

  “And I’d hate to butt in,” finished Thornley.

  They both looked at Frances. She sipped her coffee, and regained her composure.

  “Richard never makes a suggestion out of mere politeness,” she said. “If he actually invited anyone then that means he really would like them to accept.” She smiled to the two men, and added, “I think it would be fun.”

  “Yes,” agreed Thornley.

  “Well, I’ve had a grand evening,” said van Cortlandt. “It would be a pity to miss any others we could have. If I can arrange the business on hand, I’ll take you up on that suggestion.”

  Richard finished the debate. “We’ll be there for about a week, and if we leave before you arrive we shall ’phone you and let you know. If you can make it, then turn up any time you feel like it. We’ll leave it at that. I don’t know where we shall stay, yet. Let’s say the Hotel Post; there’s always a Post in Austria. If you can’t manage it, then we’ll see you in London, we hope.”

  They rose and straggled to the door. The restaurant was nearly empty; it must have been later than any of them had imagined. They parted with a good deal of warmth. Frances, who had been drinking coffee, wondered how much the beer had to do with it all. She watched the American and the Englishman walk away together, still talking their heads off.

  “I’d like to see them again,” she said and took Richard’s arm. “I wonder if they’ll come. You know, Richard, you did give me a shock when you suggested it. Won’t it complicate matters?”

  Richard shook his head. “Beer or no beer, I liked them. It’s strange how you can meet some people, and you might as well have been spending the evening looking at a fishmonger’s window. And then, again, you meet others, and a small flag waves, and you are a fool if you ignore it.”

  “Especially nowadays,” said Frances. “I’m all for gathering the rosebuds while we may.”

  The street was almost empty. The light tap of Frances’ heels alone broke the silence. She waited until they had reached a part of it where they were sure of being quite alone. She lowered her voice.

  “Did the second bill tell you whom we are to see?”

  “He’s a chess collector, this one. Welcomes any fellow-enthusiast to view his collection. It should be easy getting in touch with him.”

  That was all Richard would tell, then. When Frances spoke again, it was about van Cortlandt and Thornley; she was still worrying about endangering them.

  “They can take very good care of themselves, these two. If they come. What’s more, we were told to behave completely normally. So I did.”

  Frances added nothing to that. For one thing, they were approaching the hotel. For another, she had the dawning suspicion that Richard was going to leave her under the young men’s protection while he was being a fellow-enthusiast. She would see about that.

  12

  BACKGROUND FOR TERROR

  Johann was charmingly regretful in his mild way next morning when he found them completing their packing. He advised Richard about the trains, and arranged to take their suitcases to the station. As he spoke he watched Frances pack bottles and hairbrushes into her fitted hand case.

  “How beautiful,” he said involuntarily, and then reddened as Frances looked up in surprise. “That leather, how is it made? I have admired your shoes each day. The material is so good.” He looked at their flannel suits. “I don’t quite understand it,” he went on. “Are English sheep and cattle and horses so very much better than other countries’?”

  Frances kept her face serious. “No, Johann, I don’t think they are. Perhaps it is because the English are a slow and careful sort of people. Sometimes slowness has results.” She would like to have added that even if his country hadn’t got materials like these, they had always plenty of tanks and aeroplanes, but she didn’t. Johann’s sense of humour didn’t stretch to the irony of that.“Yes, they are slow people, I have heard. Their thoroughness is different from ours; sometimes it seems strange that they should ever get results.” He hesitated. “May I ask the Herr Professor a question? Do you think there will be war?”

  Richard paused in locking his suitcase. He chose his words carefully.

  “Well, that depends, Johann. It depends on Germany. If she makes war against Poland, then there will be war.”

  “But why should England go to war for Poland? The Poles are not worth it.”

  “They do not deserve to be obliterated.”

  “But you did not go to war for the Czechs.”

  “You agreed that the British are slow. It has taken time to change them from hopes of peace to a determination to fight, if it is necessary. If Poland is attacked, the British will see that as a sign that fighting is necessary. It is quite simple, Johann. If Germany does not want war then she must not attack Poland.”

  “Another war would be a dreadful thing,” said Johann.

  “Do many of your friends feel that way?” asked Frances.

  “Of course, gnädige Frau. We are human beings.”

  “It seems so strange then that Germany should have twice built up the most powerful army in the world, within thirty years. Armies cost a lot of money, Johann. And the money is wasted unless the armies are used and pay for themselves by winning. It is a very dangerous thing to build up a huge army when the rest of the world is at peace.”

  Johann was searching for a reply; what was it he had heard so often?

  “But,” he said at last, “we have to prepare against attack.”

  “From whom?” asked Frances gently.
/>   “From all our enemies. France, for instance.”

  “Johann, do you really think that if France was prepared for attack she would ever have had to sign at Munich? Tell me, when you lived in what was called Austria, were you all afraid of being attacked by France? Did you feel then that you must have the biggest air force in the world?”

  Richard signed to Frances to ease up. As he explained afterwards, it would only land the boy in trouble if he really started to think for himself.

  Johann was, indeed, looking worried. “If only you could live in our country for some years, you would understand, gnädige Frau.” Frances, in obedience to Richard’s signal, contented herself with smiling.

  Richard spoke. “The cases are ready, Johann; you can take them away whenever you like. Leave the checks for them downstairs at the desk, and we shall get them there.”

  “Yes, Herr Professor.” Johann looked unhappy about something. Perhaps it was that he hadn’t made any converts to his cause. Or perhaps, thought Frances, he had found a question which the answers he had learned did not fit.

  “You have made our stay very comfortable,” said Frances, and was glad to see him cheer up. “And when you have that hotel of your own in the Tyrol you must let us know, and we shall come and stay there one summer.” Johann flushed with pleasure; he saw that she meant what she said.

  “It would give me the greatest pleasure to have you at my hotel, gnädige Frau.” Johann said with unexpected dignity.

  “Goodbye, Johann,” said Richard. It was always he, it seemed, who had to close Frances’ conversations. Johann bowed deeply, smiled for Frances again, and left them at last.

  Frances walked over to a window, and looked silently down on the street.

  “You would have made a good father confessor,” said Richard, and lit the cigarette which she held between her lips. It was really extraordinary how people would talk to Frances; more extraordinary how she would listen.

  “Don’t let the tragedy of the human race get you down at this time of the morning. Come and have some breakfast first.” He drew her gently from the window. “An empty stomach only turns thought into worry.”

  Frances smiled and kissed him. “You keep worrying about me, Richard.”

  “Well, whenever you start a train of thought these days, it runs non-stop to the sorrows of the world.”

  “I’m sorry, Richard. I’ll give up the habit.”

  “Do. It would be frightful if you ever began to enjoy it.”

  Frances laughed. “A kind of mental pervert, working herself into depths of depression to enjoy her secret thrills of pity No, thank you, Richard. Instead I’ll become accustomed to the idea that man is born in pain, lives in struggle, dies in suffering.”

  “Well, that’s a better defence against the new Middle Ages than the nice ideas you got from your liberal education.”

  Over a cafe table they made their plans. Frances was suddenly demanding action. She wanted to get to Pertisau as soon as possible. By the time they had finished their late breakfast and had walked back to the hotel, the luggage checks a waited them, along with a final bill. Herr Kronsteiner had already left, it seemed, and Richard paid the grim woman who sat behind the desk. He left more than the usual tip for Johann, placing it inside an envelope along with his card on which he had written “Good luck with your hotel,” and a tip for their invisible chamber-maid. Perhaps she had been this grim-faced silent woman.

  At the station their luck still held. The train for Jenbach would leave in less than half an hour. From Jenbach they could hire a car to take them to Pertisau… But it wasn’t until they were in the train, with their suitcases settled safely above their heads in their compartment, and they were watching the pleasant valley of the Inn spreading out before them, that Richard actually relaxed. He admitted to himself for the first time that he was surprised they had got away so simply, that his distrust of Herr Kronsteiner had been unfounded. He had looked like a man who would sell his own sister to the highest bidder. He must be a pretty useful kind of agent to have; crooked men would trust him, because they thought they could use him. Richard was still speculating about Herr Kronsteiner when their short journey ended, and the train stopped briefly at Jenbach to leave them and some other tourists on the sunlit platform. Richard lifted the two suitcases and joined the largest group which had jammed round the exit. Frances kept very close to him, slightly behind and slightly to one side, so that the man who was taking the tickets would only notice her and no more. And then they were out into a broad roadway of hot white dust. There were two decrepit buses and some cars. The tourists, once the first burst of activity of leaving the station was over, had begun to straggle as they made up their minds. That gave them the chance to hire one of the cars. They had already left the station road, and were turning into the outskirts of the little town, before the others had found seats which suited them and places for their luggage.

  Their car finished the steep twisting climb from Jenbach, and regained its speed on the road leading round the western side of the long narrow Achensee. Half-way up the lake, the road ended. And there was Pertisau, smiling with the sun on its green meadows to welcome them.

  It wasn’t the usual village. As the road curved into the bay in which it lay and they could see it for the first time, it gave the appearance of being a landscape architect’s dream. At the edge of the shore, divided from it by the last of the road, were the hotels and chalets. Behind these, in the large sweep of meadows stretching back to the wooded mountains, lay the peasant houses like a scattered flock of sheep. A very small, neat pleasure boat was taking on passengers at the small neat pier. Everything was neat, even the arrangement of flags fluttering from the bathing houses on their own part of the shore, or the pattern of striped umbrellas shadowing the tables in front of the hotels. It was, self-admittedly, an artificial tourist centre, but its smallness and neatness gave it much charm, and some dignity. The forests and mountains were very real, anyway. The valleys between the mountains converged on Pertisau like the lines of a sundial. There would be good walking and pleasant climbing, thought Richard with some satisfaction.

  Frances was frankly delighted. She had watched some of the dull collections of houses as they had skirted the south end of the lake, and had wondered dejectedly if any of them could be Pertisau. In her relief, she was enthusiastic. Even the fact that the Hotel Post had no accommodation to suit them could not dampen her high spirits. The manager of the hotel was sorry, but there were no double rooms vacant. If the lady and gentleman would consider separate single rooms, or a room in one of the villas… There were some which catered for visitors when the hotels were full… Most comfortable… Highly recommended. And of course they would have their meals at the hotel.

  So they left their luggage at the hotel, and followed the manager’s assistant across the road and over a field to a house. It was called “Waldesruhe,” although the woods were at least half a mile away. But it seemed both clean and comfortable. Frances liked the petunias in the window boxes and the balcony in front of their bedroom with its magnificent view of the lake. Richard liked the impersonal owner, who took everything for granted in her calm, disinterested way. This sad-faced woman would not add to their complications. But he hadn’t counted on Frances.

  When he returned from the hotel again, after making “arrangements” as the manager euphemistically said, and leaving notes for van Cortlandt and Thornley, he found the quiet landlady talking to Frances on their balcony.

  “It really wasn’t my fault,” said Frances. “It was simply that she was delighted to see someone who didn’t come from Germany. They are having a rather bad year here. Most of the visitors are Germans. With special rates of course; and they spend next to nothing. They crowd into the hotels, and all the other visitors are chased away. I expect it’s the way they eat their soup. Remember?”

  “I believe you, darling.”

  “Really, Richard, all I said was, as she stood and looked at me on the balcony, ‘How l
ovely it all is.’ It was said to myself. And then she began to talk.”

  “Darling, don’t explain. You’re too kind; you just won’t hurt people’s feelings. You’ll let yourself in for a lot of boredom some day.”

  “I rather liked her, Richard. And she kept looking at me, not rudely, not inquisitively, but just as if she wanted to. All the time she talked, she was looking at me, and the strange thing was that I didn’t feel embarrassed. There was a sort of pathetic expression in her eyes. I just couldn’t ignore it.”

  Richard laughed, and kissed his wife. “Darling,” he said for the third time, “I love you. Now come and see Pertisau.”

  They went down the light pine staircase into the square-shaped room with its small windows and fluttering starched curtains. Like their bedroom, the furniture was simple in comfortable peasant style. Frances noted the number of hand-embroidered or crocheted mats on every available surface in the room. Frau Schichtl must have a lot of spare time she thought, and followed Richard through the doorway on to the coarse green grass which surrounded the house. They chose a narrow road which led them through flowering meadows away from the lakeside and its holiday loungers. Richard was thinking about something.

  At last he said, “Where does Frau What’s-her-name sleep? Do you know?”

  “Not near us, my pet, if that is what has been worrying you. There is an empty room next us. It separates us from a Leipzig honeymoon couple, and these are all the rooms upstairs. And a bathroom of course. The name is Schichtl, anyway.”

  Richard looked admiringly at her. “Now don’t tell me that you found all that information popping out of Frau Schichtl’s cash register… I must say, my Frances, you have a knack.”

  “Now,” said Frances,” it’s your turn to tell me something.”