by Ann Bridge
Von Allmen laughed out loud.
‘And we are told that the English are so law-abiding!’ he said.
‘So we are—only we realise that laws, like the Sabbath, are made for man, and not man for the Law. Also’—the tone of her voice changed—‘we are a merciful people. I believe you are, too; who invented the Red Cross? Be merciful, Herr von Allmen—and you shall obtain mercy.’
There was a long pause. Julia forced herself not to look at her watch, though surely it must be ten o’clock by now? But June was the first thing. At last von Allmen spoke.
‘Fräulein, I have had a long experience in administering the Law, which you treat so lightly; but I have never yet encountered a person who appeared to be at the same time completely unscrupulous, and also good. This is very curious.’
‘Oh, I’m not good—only merciful on occasion!’ Julia said lightly. She did not press her appeal—this rather oblique response was probably as much as she could expect; at least he had not refused outright. Better finish now—and at last she did look at her watch; it was five past ten. ‘Herr von Allmen, have we done? Because if so I ought just to go up and see my old friend before I go down to the town—she got rather over-tired last night.’
‘I am sorry for this. Please convey my compliments to Frau Hathaway—that is a most gracious lady,’ von All-men said.
‘Yes, isn’t she? She liked you so much too,’ Julia said. She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye—thank you for being kind.’
‘Have I been kind?’
‘Well, I rather think you’re going to be. Auf-wiederluoge!’ she said, laughing, and ran away to the telephone-box.
She was too late for Dr. Hertz, who was on his rounds, but the Schwester with whom she spoke said that certainly it would be possible to visit Herr Antrobus; he had slept well, taken a good breakfast, and had very little pain. Relieved, Julia went up to Mrs. Hathaway’s room, ascertaining on the way from Fräulein Hanna that the Polizei-Chef had driven off.
‘All serene,’ she said as she entered—at the sound of the door opening Colin came in off the balcony. ‘I’m not in prison, and von Allmen has gone. He sent you his respects, Mrs. H.—you’ve made a hit.’
‘What did he want to know?’ Colin asked.
‘Why I was in the gorge yesterday, and what I’d done with the little stooge, June. I told him that Herr Antrobus and I were looking for a bird in the gorge, and gave him its name—he hated that,’ Julia said, laughing reminis-cently. ‘And I refused flat out to tell him where June was. But it all went very well—we parted friends.’
‘How extraordinary!’ Colin said, beginning to jerk his double-jointed thumb in and out, with a horrible clicking sound. ‘He didn’t ask about the papers?’
‘Not a word. He said the Hun Frau had accused me of snatching her bag, and I said of course I did, because she was using it as a weapon on John. I gave it to him, and he’s taken it off. I shouldn’t worry, Colin—either Chambertin didn’t know about the prints, or if he did, he didn’t tell von Allmen.’
‘That all sounds very satisfactory,’ Mrs. Hathaway said. ‘The police in most countries are quite reasonable as a rule, if one treats them sensibly.’
‘Now, Colin, are you going to Berne?’ Julia asked. ‘Because if so you’d better drive down to Interlaken with me and get a train from the West-Bahnhof—much less hanging about than with the steamer.’
‘Yes, I think I’d better go and report,’ Colin said. ‘There are bound to be repercussions from the Swiss end, and I hope to Heaven there won’t be a fuss with the Embassy.’
‘Colin, I am quite sure there won’t,’ Mrs. Hathaway said. ‘Letters quite often are sent to Embassies to be called for. Anyhow if you go with Julia you will be in Berne as soon as the package. Dear boy, do keep that thumb of yours quiet; it makes such a disagreeable sound.’
‘Yes, go and pack your ghastly great rucksack quickly,’ his cousin adjured him. ‘I want to be off in ten minutes.’
Colin got up—at the door he paused. ‘I ought to see Antrobus, and let him know what’s happened.’
‘I’ll tell him; I shall be seeing him. Do go and pack,’ Julia said impatiently.
When Colin had gone—‘Have you heard how Mr. Antrobus is?’ Mrs. Hathaway asked.
‘Yes, I rang up just now. The operation went all right, and he slept well, and ate a huge breakfast.’
‘The operation?’
‘Oh, didn’t you hear that part? That revolting Wright shot him through the leg in the Schlucht, and they had to take the bullet out, and stitch up the artery. That was why he threw Master Wright into the Aar—he felt a little cross with him.’
‘No wonder,’ said Mrs. Hathaway.
Chapter 15
Interlaken—The Clinic
‘Ah, there you are at last. I expected one of you before this,’ Antrobus said, when a nurse ushered Julia into his small austere room at the Clinic next morning.
‘Couldn’t get away any earlier—I was stuck with von Allmen. He turned up at 9.30 to cross-examine me about the goings-on in the Schlucht,’ Julia said, seating herself in the single wicker chair, with its bright cretonne cushions. The sight of Antrobus lying rather flat in bed, in pyjamas, a cradle over his right leg, brought about in her a set of emotions so strong that she spoke even more slowly and casually than usual.
‘Why didn’t Colin come?’
‘He’s gone to Berne to report.’
‘I think he might have reported to me first,’ Antrobus said.
‘There wasn’t time. Anyhow I can tell you all he can, and a good bit more,’ Julia replied, rather chilled by his tone.
‘I don’t see why the rush to get to Berne. However, as you’re reporting you’d better report. Is everything all right? Did you get the papers?’
‘Yes, I got them. They weren’t in the black brief-case, though.’
‘Good gracious! Then where were they, and how did you get them?’
‘They were in the Hun woman’s tartan bag.’
‘And where are they now?’
‘Well, all old Thalassides’ stocks and shares I gave to Chambertin; the drawings—’
‘Yes, what about them?’ he interrupted sharply.
‘They’re in the post, on the way to the Embassy in Berne. That’s why Colin’s raced off—he wants to be in time for his people to ring up the Embassy to say they’ll call for them.’
‘Why on earth did you do anything so idiotic as to post them to the Embassy?’ he asked, quite irritably.
‘I didn’t. Mrs. Hathaway did. Look,’ the girl said, becoming irritated in her turn by his carping manner—‘if you want to hear my report, I’ll report, but I don’t see why I should be scolded by anyone. If I hadn’t snatched that bag, by now your papers would be safely on their way to East Germany or wherever, and you’d have got nothing but a brief-case full of old newspapers.’ She was upset that this meeting was turning out so disagreeably.
‘Not really? So they did manage to switch after all. I wonder where—your cousin swore he’d never taken his eyes off the black case.’
‘He had to take them off Frau Dortmund when she went into the lav at Andermatt, which is almost certainly where it happened,’ Julia said, and rehearsed what Colin had told her.
‘And when did you find out that this had been done? I still don’t understand about the need for posting to the Embassy,’ Antrobus said.
‘Of course not, till you’re told,’ Julia said, trying not to upset him further. ‘Do let me tell you what happened; but I don’t want to be bullied until you know the facts.’
‘How tough we are!’ he said. ‘All right, my dear—tell me your story in your own way.’
‘I’m afraid your leg must be hurting you,’ Julia said. ‘I believe pain does make people bloody-minded.’ The patronising tone of his last remark had hurt her very much.
He held out a placatory hand.
‘I can’t reach you—come nearer.’ She kept her seat. ‘Oh very well—I’m sorry. Will tha
t do? Now tell me.’
Julia told—of her encounter with Chambertin and von Allmen at the Schlucht restaurant, of finding herself tailed by the grey Volkswagen, and how she had examined the contents of the two bags in the ladies’ lavatory at the Fluss; Antrobus laughed at that.
‘An excellent idea—very neat. So then what did you do?’
‘Divided them. Lolly in the black case for Chambertin, the blue-prints in the other bag for you. John, such an odd thing’—his praise had restored her equanimity.
‘What?’
‘Some of the drawings looked rather like Colin’s description of those under-water food-containers that are sunk in the lakes here; I mean there was a line that looked like water-level at the top, and measurements in metres up to it. Only there were pipes and things going out of the containers as well, as far as I could see—of course I was on a hurry.’
‘Have you mentioned that resemblance to anyone else?—Mrs. Hathaway, for instance?’ he asked sharply.
‘No. Why?’
‘Well don’t—don’t speak of it to anyone.’
‘All right. Am I ever to know what they are?’
‘Some time, perhaps, Fatima!—as a reward for saving them. Now go on telling me about your complications.’
‘Well sure enough when I got back to the pub, there was von Allmen with Chambertin, and the grey Volkswagen, and spare police, and all.’
Antrobus laughed.
‘What were Chambertin and von Allmen doing when you got to the Silberhorn?’
‘Being beguiled by Mrs. Hathaway!’ She continued to recount her and Colin’s doings, including handing over the blue-prints to repose under Mrs. Hathaway’s pillows. ‘I thought that a rather safe place,’ she concluded.
‘So do I,’ Antrobus said, laughing again. ‘But why post to Berne?’
‘That was her idea. When Colin and I went up this morning she told us she’d sent Watkins to post it to the Embassy. Things are pretty safe in the post,’ Julia said. ‘Personally I think it was a sound notion. If Colin had taken it in by hand anyone could have slugged him on the way—as it is he’ll be there by the time it’s delivered, and his people can ring up, or go round in false beards and collect it, or whatever you all do.’
‘The Ambassador won’t like it,’ Antrobus said, looking dissatisfied.
‘Well he won’t have to lump it for more than an hour, if that,’ Julia replied cheerfully. ‘That is, if no one does slug Colin. If they do I don’t know what happens—I go in with a chit from you, I suppose, to the anonymous office.’ She was laughing.
Antrobus didn’t laugh. He reached out and pressed a bell. When the nurse appeared—‘Telefon, Schwester, bitte,’ he said; the nurse nodded, and disappeared.
‘Goodness, can you telephone from your bed?’ Julia asked.
‘Yes—there are plug-ins in two or three of the rooms here, like in American military hospitals; there’s one in this. But they’re rather slow. Meantime, tell me what von Allmen asked you.’
‘How I knew Borovali’s real name, mostly. And if I’d stolen Frau Dortmund’s bag, and why?’
‘I should rather like to know that too. What moved you to snatch the bag? It seems almost like direct inspiration, since you’d got the brief-case. Why did you?’
‘Well really because she’d tried to cosh you with it, I think,’ the girl said rather slowly, the ripe-apricot stain beginning to appear in her cheeks. ‘And she was so fat!’ she added, rather hurriedly.
He studied her face, with its betraying blush, with remorseless steadiness. Julia had expected him to laugh, or at least grin, at her last words, but he did neither. ‘I see,’ he said slowly, still looking at her; Julia became uncomfortable under that steady, non-committal scrutiny. She lit a cigarette, got up, and went over to the window, which looked out on a trim plot with the usual Swiss town-garden mixture of espalier fruit-trees, vegetables in soldierly rows, and narrow edgings of bright flowers.
‘And how did you answer the one about Borovali?’ Antrobus’s voice from the bed recalled her. ‘That involved your little friend, of course. Did you tell von Allmen where you had stowed her? I’m sure he wanted to know.’
‘Yes, he did—and I didn’t tell him,’ she said, turning round.
‘Oh! How did he take that?’
‘Poorly, till I told him that it was she who had provided the information that the papers would be handed over on the bus-tour. That shook him quite a lot—and I suggested that in view of the service she had rendered the Swiss police, he should leave her alone.’
‘Did he agree?’
‘Not in so many words. It must be awful to be police or lawyers, and never be able to say anything straight out,’ Julia said. ‘But I don’t think he will make any trouble—or let anyone else make any. I told him I should take her home myself, when Mrs. H. is quite fit again.’
Now Antrobus was laughing.
‘In fact you got away with it? What a getter-away with things you are, aren’t you?’
Again Julia was hurt by the detached amusement in his voice—it was so unlike his former frequent praise of her skill, his warmth towards her.
‘It’s just as well, for other people, that I do sometimes get away with things,’ she said, turning back to the window.
Before Antrobus could answer there was a tap on the door, and the nurse trotted in with a telephone which she set down on the bed-table; she plugged it in at floor-level, saying—‘Now the Herr can get his connection. I return’—and trotted out again.
Antrobus reached out and set the instrument down in front of him on the honeycombed coverlet; the movement hurt his leg, and he gave a grunt of pain—‘Ough!’ This upset Julia still more. ‘Shall I go out?’ she asked, while he twiddled the dial.
‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ He lifted the receiver to his ear—his intent expression showed her that she was completely out of the picture for the moment.
‘Hullo? Oh, Philip—John here. … Yes, everything’s fine. … No, not according to plan in the least, but perfectly successful. … No, I shan’t be coming for a few days yet. … Because I’m in hospital.… No, nothing much.… Yes, there was a bit of a fracas. … Exactly—young Colin is on his way in to you now; he’ll tell you everything. … No, but as good as. … He’ll tell you, I say. Don’t fuss, Philip—it’s cast-iron. … News for me, did you say? … Yes, I got the letter you forwarded, this morning; the hotel sent it round by hand, but it didn’t say where to … Having Tommy as a colleague! Oh, how perfect!—I’ve always longed to get out there. … Well really, Philip, I can’t say exactly how soon; “the undertaking is completed” all right—in their tedious phraseology—but I’ve had a bullet through an artery, and the doctor won’t commit himself about dates just yet—he only stitched it up last night. … Yes, of course—tell them I shall report the moment I can move. I can’t wait to get out there!—I’ve wanted to see those mosaics all my life. … Of course I shall look in on you on the way—there will be one or two points to tidy up. … What?—this thing’s started to buzz; say it again. … Oh yes, the two main ones, who are what matter. I expect you’ll get the Interpol report tomorrow, or later today possibly. Not the ones from outside. … No, technically impossible. … No, lay off the third; that’s of no importance. I’ll tell you when I see you. … Listen, Philip, did you hear me tell you to lay off? Well do what I say. … No, I won’t explain anything now. You can give me a ring after you’ve actually laid hands on the things; my number is’—he gave it. ‘And don’t get impatient when you ring up—the machine has to be lugged upstairs to my room. Goodbye.’
Listening to one end of a telephone conversation is always a tantalising business, but a shrewd and attentive listener can usually pick up a certain amount of the drift. Julia was fairly shrewd, and had listened with the most concentrated attention; she gathered quite clearly two points: that Antrobus had been insistent with his colleague in Berne not to pursue June, and that he was being transferred to another assignment as soon as he was f
it to move, in a place where there were mosaics. Where would that be? She thought at once of Ravenna, but that was hardly likely; too unimportant, and too near—he had said ‘out there’. Then probably Istanbul—she remembered about an old American restoring famous mosaics in Santa Sofia, the great church that had become a mosque. But what struck her with painful force as she listened was that he was longing to go; there was no hint of regret or reluctance in his words or, more important, in his voice—he was all happy eagerness. In fact—she swallowed a little as she faced and digested the wretched knowledge—he didn’t mind leaving her in the least. He had just been enjoying himself, but he didn’t care—he didn’t care at all.
The last few moments of the conversation gave her a chance to pull herself together, nor did she stop paying attention even after she heard her new-found happiness being knocked from under her feet by a few words—she continued to listen carefully, and so heard that Antrobus was safeguarding June. That was something; indeed it was vital. But while she went on listening, her mind was at work. So he’d had the letter announcing his transfer this very morning, before she came; that would account for his being so different—if anything could decently account for the alteration between his attitude today and his behaviour up on the seat under the rowan-tree. ‘Write it off—a lost option,’ Julia said to herself. She took out her compact and began to powder her nose, as Antrobus replaced the receiver.
‘Well, I expect you heard that I’ve done my best to prevent your little friend from being chased,’ he said.
‘Yes, I did. I heard everything. Thank you.’
‘I think that what with you mopping up von Allmen, and the fact that she did really turn King’s Evidence, it ought to be all right,’ he said. ‘But she’ll have to have a fresh passport, you know.’
‘Of course. We can get that from the Consulate in Berne.’
‘How?’
‘I shall say she’s lost it—that’s what I always do when I lose mine. But if your Philip has the Passport Control Officer in Berne on a string, you might get a word passed to smooth our path when the time comes.’