by Ann Bridge
‘Here, under my chair. Not to worry,’ Julia said tranquilly.
After supper they went up in the small cramped lift and tapped on Mrs. Hathaway’s door. The old lady was already in bed, wearing a very becoming lacy Shetland bed-jacket; she greeted them gaily.
‘So there you are at last! But have you had anything to eat?’
‘Yes, a lovely supper, just now. Hanna is an angel. But look, Mrs. H. darling, we want you to do a tiny bit of secretion for us.’
‘Dear child, don’t one’s glands do that? I’ll do anything I can, but I can’t answer for my glands—I believe they get a little sluggish at my age.’
Julia, laughing, opened the zipped pocket of the tartan bag and drew out the big envelope.
‘All we want you and your glands to do is to keep this safe for Colin till tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘There’s a policeman hanging about downstairs, and we don’t want him, or anyone else, to get it.’
Mrs. Hathaway sat upright in her bed. ‘Pull out the top three pillows,’ she said to Colin—he did so. ‘Now put that thing on the bottom one, and put the others back.’ The young man did as he was told, and Mrs. Hathaway leant back again, comfortably, against her four pillows.
‘That should do,’ she said. ‘And now, may I know what I am hiding?’
‘Just some papers we need, that were stolen,’ Colin said. ‘Julia got them back, and I’m taking them to Berne tomorrow.’
‘Oh, I see. To your organisation, I suppose. Well I hope no one steals them from you on the way. But, Julia, I thought you were handing over some papers to Monsieur Chambertin and that nice police chief?’
‘Ah, I was—but these are different ones; they are for Colin’s “organisation”, as you call it, in Berne. The Swiss aren’t to see these—they might be nosy about them,’ Julia said.
‘I see,’ Mrs. Hathaway said again. ‘All right—leave them with me.’ She glanced at Colin. ‘My dear boy, you look quite exhausted. Do go to bed.’
Colin stooped down and gave her a kiss. ‘Bless you, Mrs. H.—I think I will. Have you got such a thing as a Soneryl, by any chance?’
‘No—Seconal is my bed-fellow. Julia, in that little drawer in the night-table.’ Julia got out the bottle. ‘These are the small ones; you’ll need two,’ Mrs. Hathaway said, shaking them into her hand—‘or even three. And don’t make too early a start—I assure you that I will look after your papers.’ Colin blew her another kiss and went out.
‘What has he been doing, to make him so worn out?’ Mrs. Hathaway asked. ‘And is Mr. Antrobus really hurt? If it isn’t too secret, I should rather like to know what has been going on, Julia.’
‘You look quite tired enough yourself,’ Julia said; she had already noticed that her old friend was rather white. ‘You stayed out too long. Do you think you got chilled?’
‘Oh no, it was quite warm. Only it was a little bit of a strain when those men came and asked for you—you see I was completely in the dark, except for guessing, and I tried just to keep them going.’
‘Well now you shall hear it all,’ Julia said firmly— ‘only I think you’d better have some brandy. Where is it?’
‘In the hat-cupboard—the key’s in my bag. You had better have some too; I think there are glasses.’
There were, charming miniature cut-glass goblets; when these were filled, and being sipped, Julia told Mrs. Hathaway the whole story of the theft from the Banque Républicaine, of her encounter with June on the Niederhorn, and finally of the events of the day itself. ‘Poor Colin, you see, has been tailing these crooks since 7.30 this morning, and in an agony of anxiety all the time, because this is his first big job, and he was terrified of falling down on it.’
‘Yes, I do see. Poor boy! And quite an agitating dénouement; the shooting, and those tourists in the way, and then Mr. Antrobus throwing that man into the river! Rather unexpected from such a civilised person.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ Julia enquired with interest.
‘Superficially, yes. Though mind you, I think he is probably capable de tout, in every respect.’
Julia laughed, a little uneasily, at that last remark.
‘And you have bestowed the poor girl, June or whatever her name is, in a safe place?’
‘Yes. With Aglaia’s godfather, Monsieur de Ritter—the people I went to stay with. He fetched her yesterday.’
‘Ah, that is what you were doing! Well now, my dear child, I should like to know a little more about these papers that are in my care. Colin spoke of taking them to Berne tomorrow. To the Secret Service? Have we got people there?’
‘Yes. I believe we have them more or less everywhere.’
For the third or fourth time that evening Mrs. Hathaway said ‘I see’—thoughtfully. Then Julia rinsed out the brandy-glasses in the basin, kissed her old friend goodnight, and went downstairs and rang up the Clinic.
A nurse answered. ‘Justus-Klinik. Hier spricht Schwester Berta’ —and of the Sister Julia made her enquiries. Yes, the operation had gone well, and the patient was sleeping; the Herr Doktor was very satisfied. No cause whatever for Angst. Could one see Herr Antrobus tomorrow? Julia asked. Very probably—but better to ring up the Herr Doktor about ten to make sure that visitors were allowed. Relieved, Julia went to bed.
She too was tired, and slept late; it was not far off nine when she hurried into the restaurant, where sun was pouring in through the plate-glass windows. Colin was already seated at their table, tucking into bread and black-cherry jam—he looked a different being from the exhausted creature of the night before.
‘Sleep well?’ Julia enquired.
‘Far too well—that’s most wonderful stuff of Mrs. H.’s; no back-lash either. But I must get off as soon as I can.’
‘That policeman is still on the door, or a relief—I looked on the way down.’
‘I know—so did I. But if I put the envelope in my rucksack he’d hardly search that, would you say? And I’ve decided not to take the car; I shall go down by the funicular, take the boat to Spiez, and on by train.’
‘That’s a much better idea,’ Julia said, buttering bread and pouring out her coffee. ‘Unobtrusiveness is the ticket, every time. You’d better get off before von Allmen comes to interview me, though.’
Colin ate such a vast breakfast that Julia finished nearly as soon as he did; nevertheless he hustled her over her last half-slice, in his impatience to be off. ‘You ought to think of la ligne,’ he said.
‘Bother my line!’ Julia replied.
Colin raced upstairs ahead of her to collect his rucksack; they met outside Mrs. Hathaway’s door, and went in together—like Colin, Mrs. Hathaway looked much better for a night’s rest, and greeted them gaily.
‘Good-morning, dear children. Colin, I see you have had a good night; I’m very glad.’
‘Wonderful, Mrs. H. And now I’ll just relieve you of that envelope, and push off to Berne.’
‘It’s gone,’ Mrs. Hathaway said.
‘Gone? Gone where?’ Colin asked, in an agonised voice. ‘Did they get in after all? I thought—’
‘Colin, you must learn not to get into such a fuss about nothing,’ Mrs. Hathaway said, interrupting him peremptorily but calmly. ‘I sent it off, by post—that is to say, Watkins has taken it to the Post Office.’
‘But where have you sent it?’ Colin tried to control the anxiety in his voice.
‘To the Embassy in Berne. No one ever dares to interfere with Embassy mail; and with all these police about, and you known by sight, I thought it much the safest way.’
Julia began to gurgle. ‘Oh, splendid, Mrs. H.’ But Colin was not pacified.
‘But this has nothing to do with the Embassy,’ he said agitatedly.
‘Of course not. So I marked the inner envelope “NOT TO BE OPENED. TO BE CALLED FOR’—and now you can either telephone to your superiors and let them know where to collect it, or go and tell them in person. But in the post, I think it can’t be held up.’
There was
a tap on the door, and Watkins came in.
‘There you are, Madam—the receipt for the registered letter,’ she said, tendering a minute and rather grubby piece of paper to her mistress. ‘Good-morning, Mr. Colin. Miss Julia, the police are downstairs; they want to see you again, that Hanna says.’
Julia rose resignedly from her seat on the foot of the bed. ‘Oh very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll come up when I’m through, Mrs. H.’
‘Do. And Colin, in your place I should wait up here till Julia comes back. You can sit on the balcony. Watkins, find yesterday’s Times for Mr. Colin.’
During her talk with Herr von Allmen Julia was mainly preoccupied with getting the thing over in time to ring up Dr. Hertz at ten. They sat out on the long balcony, at that hour in the morning normally unoccupied; one old lady with a deaf-aid at the farther end was hardly a threat to confidential conversation. The police chief opened his enquiries by asking why she, Julia, came to be in the Aares-Schlucht with Herr Antrobus the previous afternoon.
‘We were looking for a bird,’ Julia said.
‘Um Himmel’s Willen! What bird?’
‘It’s called Tichodroma muraria,’ Julia said briskly. ‘It lives there. It’s very rare. We saw it, too—such luck! We watched it for ages—it’s very pretty.’ She began to describe the wall-creeper.
Von Allmen, exasperated—as Julia had wickedly hoped and expected—interrupted her description, and passed on to another point.
‘A German lady who was present said that her bag was stolen—by someone resembling you, from her description.’
‘Does that trouble you? Julia asked coolly. ‘Surely you know that she was the receiving end of the fraud on the bank? I don’t think receivers of stolen goods deserve much consideration.’
Von Allmen would not let himself be outfaced. ‘Do you admit to taking her bag?’ he asked.
‘Of course—I’ll get it.’ She walked into the lobby, and returned with the tartan bag. ‘She had it full of things to eat, chocolate and so on,’ she remarked, laying it on the table between them.
‘Why did you take it?’ he pursued suspiciously.
‘Because she hit Herr Antrobus with it—that’s when all the food came tumbling out,’ Julia replied readily. ‘And because she was a nasty, fat, greedy woman, and I wanted to annoy her! So I just snatched it.’
Von Allmen gave a short unwilling laugh at this.
‘Give it back to her, if she hasn’t gone off to Dortmund, and you mind about her so much,’ Julia added, encouraged by the laugh. ‘I don’t want it—it’s hideous.’
But von Allmen was too astute to be deflected from the purpose of his enquiries.
‘In any case I retain the bag,’ he said. ‘And now, Fräulein, I return to a question that I asked you yesterday evening, to which you evaded giving a direct answer. How comes it that you know the real names of these two fraudulent gentlemen, Mister Borovali and Mister Wright, so well?’
Julia was disconcerted, but she determined not to show any hesitation.
‘Last night I referred you to Monsieur Chambertin for the answer to that,’ she said. ‘I do so again now.’
‘Why are you unwilling to tell me?’
‘Because really I don’t see what this has got to do with you at all,’ the girl said rather haughtily. ‘You are questioning me as if I were a suspected criminal, when in fact—again as I mentioned last night—it was I who supplied the photograph which enabled you to trace the real criminals in the first place, and when you lost them, I found them again for you. What have I done wrong?’
‘Except for a little bag-snatching, nothing that I know of,’ the police chief said, with a small placatory smile. (Good police at some point always try to placate the subjects of their interrogations.) ‘Where did you get the photograph?’ he asked smartly, with a quick change of subject.
‘Out of Paris-Match.’ She paused to watch the effect of this—it seemed to be satisfactory; von Allmen looked rather nonplussed for a moment. Only for a moment, however; then he resumed his questioning, ploughing doggedly on.
‘This photograph was of the young lady in Mister Borovali’s party, who impersonated the heiress?’
‘Look, Herr von Allmen, don’t treat me as a fool,’ Julia said, now rather irritably. ‘Would Paris-Match bother with the photograph of an impersonator? Of course it was of the real heiress, Miss Armitage, who left for South America not long ago.’
‘Then how did you know that the resemblance would help us?’
‘Because I saw all the impersonators on the platform at Victoria, when I was coming out here,’ Julia replied fearlessly. ‘I was struck by the girl’s resemblance to Miss Armitage, and looked at them all carefully. That is why I was able to describe them at the bank, and establish the fact of the fraud. You heard Monsieur Chambertin thank me for this—are the Swiss Police not also grateful?’
‘Undoubtedly, Fräulein.’ Von Allmen sketched a bow. But he was still not to be deflected from his enquiries.
‘This young lady, who played the part of the heiress at the bank, has disappeared. Do you know where she has gone?’
Julia was frightened—this was it. Playing for time—she must think—‘Why do you ask me that?’ she said. But she guessed the answer before it came; that bloody Müller had probably seen her drive June off in the taxi from the Golden Bear. Had he been quick enough to tail them to the Clinic? Or questioned the snobbish taxi-driver? She decided simply to stall completely.
Von Allmen duly gave the answer she expected. ‘You were seen to drive her away, with her luggage, from the hotel.’
‘Why not? Is there a law in Switzerland against rescuing innocent young girls from the hands of international crooks? I know you don’t allow women the vote,’ Julia said nastily, ‘but is what I did a crime?’
She was pleased to see that the police chief looked annoyed when she spoke of the vote, but he kept his temper admirably.
‘My question is, where did you take her? And a second one—where is she now?’
They stared at one another, both stubborn and remorseless, across the table with its red-and-white checked cloth for a long moment. Then:
‘I am not going to answer either of your questions,’ Julia said, very slowly and deliberately. ‘I am alone with you, without a lawyer; I know nothing of Swiss law, so I don’t know whether you are even entitled to cross-question a foreign national like this. I can ring up our Embassy and find out, of course; probably I shall.’ Again she stared at the police chief across the table; her dove’s eyes could become as hard as onyx when Julia was determined. Suddenly, at something she half-saw in the man’s face, her own expression altered completely.
‘Herr von Allmen, need we oppose each other?’ she asked, in quite a gentle voice. ‘I know you must do your duty, but are we not really on the same side?—the side of right and justice?’ Surprised, the man’s face also relaxed; he half-nodded. ‘I have seen quite a lot of this wretched little girl,’ Julia went on. ‘She is an ignorant child, hardly out of her teens, who works for an advertisement agency to support her mother, a widow.’
‘Ah, this is how they found her?’ von Allmen interjected.
‘Precisely. And she took on the job because those brutes bribed her with a lot of pretty clothes! She’s vain, and silly, and as stupid as a rabbit,’ Julia said candidly—‘but she’s fundamentally a good honest girl, who had really no idea of the use to which she was to be put. And because I was a little kind to her—quite by accident—she determined to help me, rather than her beastly employers, and rang me up to tell me that the papers were to be handed over on the Drei-Pässe tour.’
‘Unmöglich!’ von Allmen exclaimed, thoroughly startled.
‘But certainly. So she, not I, is the person you and the Banque Républicaine ought to be thanking for their recovery.’
‘But Herr Antrobus knew this,’ the police chief said, still incredulous.
‘Only because I told him, after she had told me. She warned me that they were arm
ed, too. Now, do you still want to harry and pursue her? Or arrest her, and frighten her out of her wits?’ She paused—the man was silent. Julia leaned across the table, her eyes again dove’s eyes.
‘Look, Herr von Allmen, I have sent her away to good kind people, who will look after her until I can take her back to England. Can’t you just lose her, like you lost the others last week? You’ve got back the papers, you’ve caught the real criminals—can’t you forget about her, and allow her to disappear?’
He laughed a little at this outrageously barefaced request.
‘Fräulein, she cannot cross the frontier. All posts have been told to look out for her passport.’
‘Yes of course; I’d thought of that. But that was a bogus passport anyway—your frontier officials won’t be looking out for one in the name of Phillips.’
‘This is her real name?’ He drew out a note-book.
‘No, don’t write it down,’ Julia said, stretching a long, faintly tanned hand across the table, and laying it on the note-book and on von Allmen’s hand together. ‘Please! This is off the record—aren’t we working together, now?’
The police chief, rather slowly, withdrew his hand from under Julia’s, and put the note-book back in his pocket. Instead of answering directly—
‘It was she who told you their names?’ he asked.
‘Not told—she’s so frightfully stupid that she kept on letting them slip out,’ Julia said, half-laughing at the recollection. ‘But I can easily get her a fresh passport, in her real name.’
‘Is this so easy?’ the Swiss official asked, looking rather shocked.
‘Goodness yes! I’m always letting my passport run out, or losing it, and having to get a new one. Any Consulate can do it.’
He looked more shocked than ever.
‘Actually I expect horrible Mr. Borovali has got hers,’ Julia pursued blithely. ‘If she has it, I shall burn it—and if he has, you can burn it!’