by Helen Wells
“That doesn’t resemble Toni’s handwriting, either. His is rather scrawly.” Val put the registry book back into its place.
“Then a third person wrote in that notebook,” Cherry said. “But who?” She thought of Toni listening so intently when Lenk had talked to him in the shadowy street. Still, Toni knew dozens of persons—there was no special reason to suspect Lenk.
Val smiled. “‘Who’ is too difficult for now. Let’s try another source of information.”
Cherry followed Val into the chateau’s library. No one else was in there. The small, quiet room held newspapers, magazines, shelves of books, and an atlas. Val placed the atlas on a table, and opened it to maps of Switzerland and Italy. They studied the maps together.
“As you already know, Cherry,” Val said, “in Europe the countries are small and the distances between them are short. We are not like your vast American continents. That is why it’s possible to go from here to Il Guardiano, the mountain that straddles the border, then ski down into Italy—and return to Eagle’s Peak the same day.” Val showed her this route on the maps.
“Round trip between Switzerland and Italy in one day! How convenient for crooks and smugglers!” Cherry said. “But how’s it done so fast?”
“Go by car or bus from here to Forge, a little south of here,” Val said. “It’s almost at the border. At Forge take the cog railway up Il Guardiano Mountain. Then ski down into Italy. Of course don’t use the regular trails.”
“I don’t understand. Could a smuggler just ski across the border without getting caught?” Cherry asked.
“We have legal crossing points. But not every yard of the border can be watched and guarded,” Val explained. “There are plenty of wild, lonely slopes where a skier could cross the border unnoticed.”
“Hm! And where would such a skier land in Italy?” Cherry asked, thinking of the addresses in the green notebook. “How near to Milan?”
Val leaned more closely over the map and measured with his thumb. “It’s only thirty or forty miles to Milan, from almost any point on the Italian side of Il Guardiano. There’s a choice of excellent highways and buses and trains into Milan.”
Milan…shops…merchandise, valuables…. If someone wanted to smuggle something, Cherry thought, wouldn’t this be a good way to do it? The messenger would have to be an expert skier and unscrupulous—an opportunist who considered smuggling to be a sport, or a game of wits.
“Is Toni smuggling?” Cherry wondered aloud. “That skinny elf on skis—smuggling?”
Val returned the atlas to the bookstand. “It’s barely possible. All the way to Milan and return in one day—that would take quite some doing! Toni has only one day off, Sunday.”
Cherry commented, “Toni always disappears on Sundays.”
“But shops are closed on Sundays,” Val said, puzzled.
“It just doesn’t add up,” Cherry agreed.
Speculation was not getting them very far, or was it? She’d better do some firsthand investigating, Cherry told herself.
Next day she happened to meet Madame Sully, out for a stroll. Madame was not at all pleased to see her. Cherry doggedly made conversation, and then asked:
“Have you ever played in Milan, Madame? You surely would have a following there.”
“You are thinking of La Scala Opera in Milan,” Madame said coldly. “I am an actress, not a singer.”
“I assure you I know that,” Cherry said. “Would you be very kind and advise me where to shop in Milan? I may visit there, you see.”
“Shopping bores me in any city,” Madame stated. “I go only to my private couturières and milliners.” And she walked away.
After that, Cherry knew it would be useless to sound out Madame Sully again. “And I may be putting myself in danger by asking questions if something dishonest is going on here.”
Cherry and Val had attended church, gone skiing, and eaten a huge Sunday dinner. Sunday was a peaceful day at the chateau. In the afternoon as usual Mama Nicholas read aloud from the newspaper. Cherry was her audience, while Papa Nicholas fitfully dozed in his chair and Val worked out a crossword puzzle. The only interruption came from the same dowdy ladies, carrying a bouquet and a package of books, to see Madame Sully.
“What, callers again?” Mama Nicholas murmured, and resumed reading aloud.
The Swiss newspapers were full of accounts of a kidnapping case. What impressed Cherry was how swiftly the Swiss police had acted, and what severe penalties the kidnappers now would face. Val said their case ought to warn off future kidnappers.
“Let us hope so,” Papa Nicholas said sleepily. “Mama, remember to save the sports page. Toni asked to read it.”
“Has anyone seen Toni today?” Mama Nicholas asked. “No? The boy must have left very early this morning then, before breakfast.” Her gentle voice held questions.
Papa Nicholas said, “Now, see here, Toni wants to go home to be with his mother. This is the reason he insists he wants every Sunday off—”
Val’s face showed surprise. “Where does Toni’s mother live?” he asked.
No one knew. Papa Nicholas had inquired, but somehow Toni had not said.
“That’s strange.” Val stared at the rug. Then he said, “I didn’t know Toni visits his mother. He never has mentioned his mother to me.”
A maid interrupted to call Val to the door. The mountaineer, Joe Wardi, wanted to see him. Wardi declined to come in in his rough climbing clothes.
Val came back in a few minutes. “Joe wants me to go with him up to the east slope of Mont Vert.” The men were going to look across the valley at Le Solitaire Mountain and study the snow and climbing conditions through a telescope. Joe Wardi was planning to lead a climbing party up Le Solitaire in a few days, weather permitting. The weather was still mild enough for this sport. “I’ll take my binoculars, too,” Val said.
Cherry was not invited along this time. Ten minutes later Jenny, Val’s cousin, came by and invited Cherry on a sleigh ride with a group of singing young people.
After that, Cherry wrote a letter to her parents. She went out to send it airmail. On the way home she stopped in at the clinic, just in case elderly Mrs. Barth needed a hand.
She found Dr. Portman there alone, telephoning. He hung up when Cherry came in.
“I was trying to reach you,” he said. “We’d better wash up. Another ski accident. Joe Wardi phoned in—”
“Not Val!”
“No. Toni. They found him somewhere. I couldn’t hear clearly on that buzzing emergency telephone. It must be snowing or blowing hard up where they are. It’s time for snow up there—we are in the fourth week of October.”
Cherry already had her coat and hood off, and was tugging at her boots. “Where’s Mrs. Barth, Doctor?”
“She developed such a bad cold that I sent her home about an hour ago. It has been quiet here all day. Get my surgical kit, please, in case we need to operate.”
“Yes, Doctor.” At top speed Cherry changed into her white uniform and cap, scrubbed her hands, went to get the sealed surgical kit that she had prepared for Dr. Portman in advance for emergencies. Not knowing whether they would be needed, she did not take out the already sterilized surgical instruments. She kept the doctor’s scalpels and clamps always ready. Next Cherry put water on to boil, then brought fresh linens, towels, bandages, and surgical supplies into the X-ray room with its big examining table and its glaring hanging light.
They scrubbed up, put on clean white gowns, and waited. Daylight was fading. Mama Nicholas sent a waiter over with food for them, and for the three men due to arrive. Somewhere, coming down a mountainside, lay Toni, strapped into a toboggan with Val and Joe Wardi skiing beside him and guiding the toboggan. Other men would bring a stretcher to the foot of the mountain. Then Toni would be brought on the stretcher to the hospital.
Just after nightfall, Joe Wardi and Val carried Toni into the small hospital.
“This way,” Dr. Portman directed them. “No, not on a bed.
Lay him in here on the examining table. Good. Let’s remove his ski clothes.”
Joe Wardi sat down heavily on a chair, wiping his wet face. But Val stood beside Toni, to encourage him. Cherry stood on the other side of the examining table, to assist the doctor, and to smile at that crazy, unreliable daredevil Toni. He wanly grinned back. Dr. Portman took an X ray of Toni’s shoulder, then went into the darkroom with the film.
Cherry’s practiced eyes saw signs of either fracture, dislocation, or severe strain. Toni was not bleeding, unless internally.
The doctor came back, saying, “You haven’t broken anything, luckily.” He examined the skinny boy with thoroughness and asked a few questions.
Toni answered, “I fell on my left arm and shoulder. They sort of got twisted under me…. Yes, my shoulder hurts when you move it like that. Then when I couldn’t get up—”
“Toni was skiing alone,” Joe Wardi explained to the doctor. “Alone! On Le Solitaire, where if the snow cover is poor, one must climb as well as ski.”
Climbing was immeasurably more dangerous than skiing. Dr. Portman shook his head at Toni.
“What were you doing on Le Solitaire Mountain alone? Have you no judgment? Or are you trying to prove a foolish courage?”
“No—I—” Toni hesitated. Cherry half wondered if he would plead that he had gone to visit his mother. No one would believe it. Only a few sheepherders with their flocks lived on Le Solitaire Mountain, and these only in summer. Where had Toni been going, or coming from, when Joe and Val saw him in the telescope?
“I feel so tired,” Toni said. He closed his eyes. “Please don’t ask me to talk any more.”
“All right, rest now,” the doctor said. “You’re a lucky boy that you aren’t hurt badly.”
“Toni has severely strained his shoulder and arm. He’s pulled a ligament,” Dr. Portman said. “Also, he is feeling, and will feel, some effects of exposure and exhaustion. Rest in bed this week, a sedative to ease the pain, and I’m going to strap that shoulder. Cherry—”
Cherry had wide, heavy adhesive tape ready. Skillfully and tightly applied, it would support the weakened shoulder while it healed. Then the men carried Toni to a bed in the ward, and got him into a pair of hospital pajamas. Cherry brought his supper.
Val volunteered to stay in the hospital ward until the night nurse arrived at nine. He would escort Cherry back to the chateau, then return to the clinic. Dr. Portman thought it a sound idea. “Very decent of you, Val. It will be good for Toni’s morale.”
Toni roused up enough to say, “Val, would you be a good fellow and take my skis and poles back to the chateau with you? I wish you’d put them in my room and lock the door.”
“All right, I will. When I take Cherry home,” Val said. “You certainly are concerned about your skis and poles. More than about yourself.”
On Monday morning Papa Nicholas came to the hospital to see Toni and requested that the boy be brought to the chateau. “He will be more comfortable in his own room. It is more convenient for his meals, too. With your permission, of course, Doctor.”
Dr. Portman agreed. In his private office he said to Cherry, “He’s a good man, that Nicholas. I hope the little adventurer does not abuse his trust.”
Toni was brought back to the chateau and his own room on Monday afternoon. Nursing Toni there during the next few days, Cherry got better acquainted with him.
“Listen, this injury is nothing,” Toni boasted to her. “I had a real bad accident when I was skiing for the Gold Medal championship—”
Cherry interrupted. “Surely you don’t mean the Olympics?”
Toni’s face squeezed up in surprise. “How’d you know that? I didn’t say I was in the Olympics, did I? Well, I bounced and hit my hip and rolled over. I was laid up for five days in the hospital. The head coach—he’s a personal friend of mine—said to me, ‘Toni, you’re our downhill ace, the most valuable man on skis that we have!’”
“Really?” Cherry asked. She believed Toni might be telling her what he wished were true instead of the plain, unglamorous truth. If Toni had been a candidate for the Olympics, wouldn’t she have heard of it by now?
Idleness made the boy talkative.
“It’s unfair, people want a ‘name’ ski instructor,” Toni grumbled. “That’s why the schools won’t hire me. Besides, I haven’t a ski instructor’s certificate, and that’s not fair, either.”
Toni never gave reasons for the chip on his shoulder. He was aggrieved at the whole world. In his resentment—Toni hinted strongly to Cherry—he would have no scruples about getting ahead by any methods.
“I’m too good to be waxing skis and running errands,” he told her.
“Too good for work?” she suggested.
“I didn’t say that.”
Toni made faces at her. He did not recognize he had in effect said that, or almost.
“Well,” she said, “possibly you should be doing bigger jobs than waxing skis and running errands.”
“Oh, but I am, I am.” Toni looked at her with the sharp, bright eyes of an animal.
“An exciting job?” Cherry asked.
“Only a skier like me would have enough courage to do it,” Toni boasted.
“I hope for your sake it’s legal.”
“Who cares?” Toni said. “Who worries about danger? But I can’t talk about this job. Not to anyone. I wish I could!”
“You can’t talk even to Val?” Cherry asked.
Toni made a dismissing gesture as if to say, “Val is nothing to me.”
Val dropped in two or three times to see Toni that day. Val was loyal but skeptical. Papa Nicholas visited, too. And Joe Wardi tramped in Tuesday morning while Cherry was there.
Cherry felt an immense respect for this half-legendary man who had explored so many mountains and quietly saved so many lives. He spoke sternly to Toni.
“What you did—to go to Le Solitaire Mountain alone—is not courage! It is folly. You caused Val and me to take unnecessary risks in order to rescue you.”
Toni smirked self-consciously. Wardi said:
“You have no self-discipline, Toni. You never make an orderly and responsible plan. Now I am going to take a climbing party to Le Solitaire Mountain on Friday, we will be out two or three days, and I plan every detail. But not Toni Peter! You are not a reliable man. Now goodbye and get well, Toni.”
Toni was stunned, unable to say a word as Joe Wardi walked out of the room. “The old fool,” Toni muttered as soon as Wardi was out of earshot.
Cherry asked casually, “Where were you going on your skis when you got hurt?”
“I wasn’t going, I was coming from,” Toni retorted.
“You’re mad to take such chances,” Cherry said.
Toni glared at her. “Well, it’s none of your business!”
Still, he was vain and pleased that she considered him daring. His glare altered to a big grin, wrinkling up his face like a sharp-eyed monkey’s.
“You’re a shrewd one, Cherry. I guess you can see I’m mixed up in something out of the ordinary. You might say I’m like an outlaw in one of your Wild West films.”
Cherry wondered whether these conversations about a secret, risky, possibly illegal, job should be reported to the police. Report what? Hints and boasts?
Even if there were something definite, she knew she would have some very mixed feelings about reporting Toni. He was not a hopelessly bad boy, it seemed to her, and to Val and Papa Nicholas. Toni was wild, careless, foolish, pitifully ignorant. He was alone and poor. He could be weak if subjected to criminal influences.
Cherry asked Val again whether he thought Toni might be smuggling.
“Well, I hope not. Nothing so foolish and so flagrant as smuggling.” Then Val added, “It’s true some of the fellows do it, for money and for thrills. Smuggling commands good pay.”
Cherry could understand why Switzerland, in the center of Europe, surrounded by five countries, was a natural corridor for smuggling. Val added:
“Yes. Val, about that notebook—” Cherry said uncomfortably.
“Maybe Madame wants Toni to do some shopping for her in Milan,” Val defended his friend.
“Could be. Let’s hope so,” Cherry said.
Toni was recovering rapidly. He was already out of bed half the time.
“You’ll be well soon,” Dr. Portman said on Wednesday.
“And soon back to work.” Toni screwed up his face in distaste at the prospect. “Who wants to work? I’d rather ski.”
It had been a quiet week at the infirmary. The hospital beds stood empty. This would allow Cherry a free day or two to take a sightseeing trip. Dr. Portman said she need not wait until a Sunday, when certain places of interest were closed. So they arranged that she would take the trip on Friday and Mrs. Barth would relieve her.
Though Toni was so much better, Cherry checked his temperature, and made sure that the heavy tape strapped around his shoulder did not loosen or slip out of place. All week Cherry had made it a point to stop in at Toni’s room several times a day.
She paid attention, too, to Toni’s feelings and fears—to Toni as a whole person, not just his shoulder injury. She knew that nursing is much more than physical care—that physicians and nurses must “treat the individual.”
On Thursday afternoon she found him sitting up in bed writing a large picture postcard. He put the postcard down on the blanket—message side down—while Cherry checked him over.
“I’ll mail that card for you if you like,” Cherry offered.
“No, don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother,” Cherry said. “Look, I have two of my own letters to mail.” She showed Toni the letters in her pocket.
“Val will mail it,” Toni said. “I—uh—have to write some more cards and stuff.”
But since there was neither stationery nor stamps in Toni’s room, it was obvious he was stalling.
“Toni?” Mama Nicholas rapped at the half-open door. She carried a glass bowl of fruit. “How are you today? Val says you like pears.”