by Ann Bridge
Julia expressed sympathy about the child—‘But I had better speak with Herr Kaufmann himself. When does he return?’
‘I await him tomorrow, or even tonight. Übermorgen would be better for the Fräulein to come.’
‘Then I will call again. It does not press,’ Julia said. The woman asked her name.
‘That is unimportant—I will give it when I return.’ Then she asked if she could take any message to the doctor, or the chemist, in the town?
‘Thank you, no; I telephone,’ the woman said, disagreeable to the last.
Walking down the sunny little side street between the snowy gardens, Julia wondered whether Franzi’s screams were another wonderful stroke of luck, or whether the letter meant nothing? Anyhow, she thought, Colin ought to have that chemist’s name and address, just in case. She decided to telephone from the big hotel by the lake; Berne is a longish call, and she knew from the Silberhorn that Swiss hotels have a little machine in the bureau which clocks up both time and price—but of course she had to risk giving the Bureau-Fräulein Colin’s number in Berne.
Mr. Monro was out. When would he be in? ‘No idea.’ A cheerful English voice spoke.
‘Well please ask him to ring up his cousin’—she gave the Silberhorn number—‘as soon as he can; but only after 3.30.’
‘O.K.—good,’ the cheerful English voice replied. ‘Have you got some news for us?’
Julia laughed. This might be half-clever, or too amateurish for words. But she did not want to lose time.
‘Nothing hard,’ she said down the telephone—‘but there is an address that I think it might pay you to keep an eye on—round the clock.’
‘Fine! I’ve got a pencil. Go ahead.’
Julia gave the chemist’s address, and had it repeated. ‘And the ‘phone number?’ the voice asked.
‘Oh please look that up yourself!’ Julia exclaimed—she wasn’t going to say that she hadn’t had time to write it down, over the telephone.
‘O.K.,’ the cheerful voice said again. ‘That shall have attention. Thanks very much.’
Julia paid for her call, and then ordered an iced Cinzano, and sat on the terrace beside the lake—a drink was always cover of a sort. And while she drank she reflected. Yes, on balance she had probably done right to give the Berne chemist’s address to an unknown voice—but still she was worried. Oughtn’t the Villa Victoria to be watched too? If there was anything in her wild guess about the chemist’s letter, Mr. Borovali might call at any moment to drop the papers, and that old sour-puss Frau Kaufmann would pop them in that huge combination safe, and then how could they be retrieved? She lit a cigarette and pondered, gazing at the Niesen—and finally came to another decision. Yes, she would chance her arm with the local police.
At the police-station she handed over her card and asked for the Herr Chef- —she had no idea what the German for ‘Superintendent’ was. Rather to her surprise after a moment she was shown into an inner office, where a tall middle-aged man, with fair hair turning grey, courteously asked her her business.
Julia, in her very moderate German, enquired if he spoke English.—‘I can express myself better in my own language.’
He smiled at her.
‘Fortunately, Fräulein, it so happens that I do; I spent some time in England before joining the Polizei.’
‘Oh, I am very glad.’ Julia did not smile; she spoke slowly and seriously.
‘All I ask of you is to listen to something I have to tell you. You do not know who I am, though here is my passport’—she gave it to him—‘and I do not expect any response to what I tell you; that will be a matter for you and your superiors. Can you spare me five or six minutes?’
This rather portentous opening caused the official to assume the cautious non-committal mask of police all over Europe. ‘Please speak,’ he said.
‘I believe the police in Switzerland have been circulated everywhere with the photograph of a young English girl,’ Julia said; ‘a girl now accompanied by two men, one old and one young.’ She opened her note-case and took out the small snap-shot of Colin and the real Aglaia which she had cut out of Paris-Match at Gersau, and handed it across the table. ‘This is, I think, the same young lady.’
The official took up the photograph and examined it; then went to a cupboard, unlocked it, and took out and laid on the table a coarse photostat of the portrait of Aglaia which Julia had sent to Chambertin. He compared the two—then, completely po-faced, he turned to Julia.
‘And so, Fräulein?’
‘In this town there lives a certain Herr Kaufmann—at the Villa Victoria; an agent for “Corsette-Air”, a foreign firm selling elastic stays. Probably you know his name.’
‘Natürlich’ the man, still po-faced, said.
Julia, feeling that she might be making a frightful fool of herself, nevertheless kept steadily on.
‘I have reason to think it possible that the two men accompanying the young lady whose picture you have there—a Mr. Borovali, though his passport is made out in the name of de Ritter, and the young one, whose passport is in the name of Colin Monro—may possibly call at the Villa Victoria. If they do so, it would almost certainly be to dispose of some documents of the highest importance, which they obtained recently by fraud from the Banque Républicaine in Geneva. The photograph you have there’—she put a pink-tipped finger on the photostat—‘has been circulated, I think, mainly with a view to the recovery of these documents.’
Still superbly po-faced—‘And so, Fräulein?’ the official asked again.
‘Nothing, really,’ Julia said coolly, ‘except that it might assist your superiors, who took the trouble to send you that photograph, if a watch were kept on the Villa Victoria. I think you were also furnished with a description of the two men: the one elderly, grey-haired, with a grey forked beard, the younger very tall, slender, black hair and an olive complexion. If two such people came to the Villa they would very probably have the stolen documents with them, and it would be very useful to the bank, at least, if these documents could be apprehended.’ She rose. ‘That is all.’ She made to leave, as expressionless as he—only no blankness of expression could really make Julia look po-faced.
The official remained seated.
‘Just one moment, Fräulein; please to sit down again.’
Julia sat down, and the man studied her with a long gaze in which surprise, curiosity, and suspicion were blended with a hint of sterness.
‘The Fräulein shows herself remarkably conversant with the personages in an affair which is apparently a crime; and, as you say, you are unknown to me. Have you any documents with you which would throw light on your status? The Fräulein will recognise that the circumstances are a little peculiar.’
‘I have nothing but my visiting-card and my passport, both of which you have seen,’ Julia said, rather stiffly. ‘But if you wish you can telephone to the Pasteur of the Église Nationale at Bellardon; he is the real Herr de Ritter, and knows me well—I have stayed twice at La Cure within the last three weeks. And he is fully conversant with the whole affair.’
The police official made a note, and then asked—‘The Fräulein is staying in Merligen?’
‘No, at Beatenberg; the Hotel Silberhorn.’
‘And do you know the present whereabouts of this young lady?’ he asked, touching the police photograph.
‘But naturally not! If I did, I should have gone also to the police there—wherever she is,’ Julia said, with a chilly smile.
The official reflected.
‘Please excuse me for a moment,’ he said, and left the room. Julia began to wonder if she was going to be put in the cells, or whether he had merely gone to ring up Bellardon—and, again, if what she had been doing was quite idiotic. She pushed her wooden chair over to the window, opened it—Julia was always opening windows—and sat looking out. Below her were more gardens, white and fragrant with spiraea and syringa; beyond them, across the lake, rose the Niesen, with snowy gleams beyond—probably the Wil
dstrubel. There is a certain reassurance, for some people, in the mere presence of mountains; Antrobus had not been wrong in his guess that Julia belonged to this fortunate group. She waited quietly in the bare, clean, official little room; she did look at her watch and saw that it was just after twelve; but she had warned Mrs. Hathaway that she might not be back for lunch—which at the Silberhorn, as in most Swiss hotels, occurred at 12.30. She was feeling perfectly tranquil when after a few minutes the greying-blond police officer returned. But the question he instantly put to her was rather upsetting.
‘Fräulein Probyn, can you explain to me why you connect Herr Kaufmann with the persons of whom you have been speaking?’
Julia hesitated, and thought. The little ‘Corsette-Air’ man’s remarks about touching la haute finance and acting as an intermediary for agencies of foreign powers were far too complicated and tenuous for this blunt intelligent man, with his official limitations. Much better stick to the letter she had read less than two hours ago. She opened her bag and took out what she had scribbled down in the Villa Victoria.
‘A certain chemist in Berne,’ she said carefully, ‘wrote yesterday to Herr Kaufmann to say that “Herr B.” might call on him shortly to deposit “A valuable consignment of goods”; he also mentioned that “Herr B.” had left his recent address “today”—that is to say yesterday. And yesterday morning Mister Borovali left the Hotel zum Fluss in Interlaken at less than an hour’s notice, with that young lady and the young man.’ As she spoke she reached out and took the snapshot of Colin and Aglaia, and put it in her bag.
‘You require this?’ the official asked.
‘Yes—it is mine. In any case it is not the likeness of the young man who is Borovali’s collaborator.’
‘Then of whom?’
‘Of quite a different person, well known in English society, whom I happen to know. This photograph will not help you, and you already have an adequate likeness’—she chose her words carefully—‘of the young lady in the party.’ She paused. ‘I am sure you have already been informed that she is impersonating someone else.’
The man turned po-faced again. As Julia took up her passport from the table and put it in her bag—‘And the name of this chemist in Berne?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes’—she opened her bag, read it out, and as he wrote it down, once more closed her bag.
‘You return now to Beatenberg?’ the man asked.
‘Yes, immediately; I’m late already—I shall miss the Mittagsessen.’ Once more she rose; the official said, ‘Adieu’, and opened the door.
‘Goodbye,’ Julia said blithely, and went out into the sunny little street to find the trolley-bus.
It was nearly a quarter to two when she got back, but Fräulein Hanna had saved her an assiette anglaise (a dish of mixed cold meats, in which veal and tongue predominated) and a bowl of salad—the kind woman told her that die alte Dame had made a good meal, and was gone to rest. Julia made a good meal too, and then went up to her room and brewed some Nescafé, which she drank on her balcony, idly watching more hay-cutting in the field below, and wondering whether she had really achieved anything by her morning’s excursion. Was it all a mares’-nest, and anyhow would the Merligen policeman do anything?
Presently she was summoned to the telephone—it was the Pastor.
‘My dear Miss Probyn, what have you been up to? Stealing edelweiss in a Nature-Reserve? The police have been here to enquire about you.’
‘Oh, splendid!’ Julia said heartily; he laughed loudly.
‘Oh, the English! You really love all police, don’t you? But you are all right? You are not being troubled?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Any news of these individuals?’ he asked, with a change of tone.
‘Yes, I met two of them, but they’ve flitted.’
‘Please?’
‘Gone away—we don’t know where to.’
‘And you actually saw them? How extraordinary! But what has happened today, to cause this interest?’
‘Oh, I had a wild idea, so I went and reported it,’ Julia said airily. ‘I’m glad they paid some attention—I wasn’t sure they would.’
‘Our Polizisten do not pay attention to wild ideas as a rule,’ the Pastor said, again merry.
‘Well I hope you gave me a good character,’ Julia said. Like Colin she found that the door of the telephone-box wouldn’t latch, and there were two or three people in the small lounge outside, which gave onto the garden—she wanted to cut the conversation short. ‘How is Germaine?—and the family?’
‘All very well. Your cousin is with you?’
‘Not at the moment. Give Germaine my love. Goodbye.’
Julia went upstairs feeling on the whole rather pleased. At least the Merligen police hadn’t completely ignored her visit; and if they had been activated to the point of ringing up Bellardon, they might possibly do something about the Villa Victoria. She washed out some stockings and hung them on a string across her tiny balcony; then some handkerchiefs, humming a little tune, happily, as she did so; she was just plastering the hankies on the window-panes to iron them—that invaluable trick of the experienced traveller—when there came a tap on the door.
‘Herein,’ Julia called—and in came Fräulein Hanna, with a distressful face.
‘Fräulein Probyn, I am most heartily sorry, but the Polizei are here, and ask to speak with you! I tell them that it must be a mistake, but they give your name, and insist that they must see you.’
‘Oh never mind, Fräulein Hanna; it’s quite all right.’ She paused, and thought. ‘But I don’t want Herr Schaff-hausen upset. Where are they now?’
‘They wait im Bureau.’
‘Then shall I come down to them, or were it better that they come up and see me here? There are people in the Kleine Saal, aren’t there?’ (The Kleine Saal was the small hall or lounge containing the telephone-box; the Bureau opened off it.)
‘Jawohl.’
‘Well then bring them up to me here, in the lift—that will be less noticeable. Don’t worry,’ she said, seeing the big kind woman’s troubled expression. ‘You will see, there will be no unpleasantness.’
‘It is höchst unangenehm that they come to the trouble the Fräulein at all,’ Hanna said indignantly. ‘All this nonsense about passports! But it is perhaps better so—though das Fräulein should not have to receive strange men in her bedroom.’ She went out, and returned in a couple of minutes with two large, pink-faced, countryfied policemen, whom she ushered into that exceedingly small room, with its single wicker armchair, the two rugs on the waxed floor, and the wooden bed with its white honeycomb quilt. ‘Shall I remain?’ she asked earnestly of the English girl.
‘No, dear Fräulein Hanna; I thank you, but do not give yourself this trouble,’ Julia said easily. ‘Very probably I can help diese Herren better by myself.’ This was of course said in German, and the two pink faces manifested a simple but evident relief. Hanna, casting a baleful glance at them, went out.
‘Also, meine Herren, how can I be of service to you?’ Julia asked—as she spoke she sat down in the solitary chair. ‘I wish I could ask you to be seated, but as you see there is only the bed.’
The Beatenberg police did not fancy sitting on the bed; they stood. It was only a formality, the slightly senior one explained—could they see the Fräulein’s passport? Julia produced this, and the man wrote down her name and the passport number, in a black note-book.
‘And the Fräulein entered Switzerland when?’
‘The date is gestempelt,’ Julia said patiently. ‘Allow me to show you.’ She took the passport and showed him the entry stamp, nearly four weeks previously.
‘And since then the Fräulein has been where?’
At dictation speed Julia gave him all her movements: Gersau, with her host’s name and address; La Cure at Bellardon; the Hotel Bergues at Geneva; Bellardon again, Gersau again; and finally here at Beatenberg. All policemen write incredibly slowly; so did the Beatenberg worthy, poising
his note-book on the small bed-table—however, at last he closed it with an elastic band.
‘And das Fräulein expects to remain here?’
‘For the present, yes. But, mein Herr, I would like to make one request of you.’
‘And that is, Fräulein?’ He looked suspicious at once.
‘That you do not cause the Polizei in Gersau to disturb Herr Waechter with their enquiries. He is a very old man, and it might upset him to have the police calling at the house and asking him about his guests. This cannot really be necessary—you know that I am here, and since when, and the police at Bellardon have already verified my presence there at La Cure, on the dates I have given you.’
A slow look of surprise gradually disturbed the bland pinkness of the older policeman’s face.
‘And may I ask how the Fräulein knows this?’
‘But because the Herr Pastor himself telephoned, only now, to tell me so!’ Julia said merrily. ‘He asked if I had been stealing edelweiss on the Niederhorn—he has laughed very much.’
The two policemen grinned a little, though evidently shocked by such levity. ‘Die Edelweiss are not yet in bloom,’ the younger one added seriously.
‘Nicht? But please hear me,’ Julia pursued earnestly. ‘With the old Herr Waechter it will be otherwise; he will not laugh, he will be greatly distressed. If it is really essential that you verify my presence in Gersau on these dates, can it not be arranged that the Polizei there speak only with his servant Anton—Anton Hofer? He is in the house for twenty years. I beg this favour of you.’