by John Burke
“And you…you have an automobile?”
Logan said smoothly: “We left our car up the road when we saw that the others had stopped. Five or ten minutes’ walk—we’ll be all right.”
There was another interchange in Danish, with Martin smiling respectfully and nodding—a great shaking of hands—a final sardonic remark about souvenirs for tourists—and then they were out on the road. Three of them: David Logan, Martin Slade, and Eiler Nielsen.
Elier looked stupefied. It was as though freedom were too much for him. He had not expected it. He muttered something under his breath, and then waved despairingly in the direction of the car that must still be tilted half over into the ditch.
Logan said: “You’d better leave word in the nearest town for a breakdown squad to come out in the morning.”
“No,” said Elier. He shook himself awake. “We must go there now. For the golden horns. The real golden horns.”
“What?” spluttered Martin.
“They must be in the car.”
“There’s nothing in the car,” said Logan. “The guards went through it thoroughly before they drove us away in the Opel.”
“But—”
“To hell with all this,” cried Martin suddenly. “Where’s Inge? That’s all I care about.”
Logan put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“If she managed to make a break for it she can’t be far away,” he said. “She’ll be in the direction we’re going, anyway if our friend here put her down before he made his dash across country, she’s bound to be over this way. The thing to do is to get back to the Renault. Carol will be in a fine state by now.”
Martin began to protest, then stopped.
Logan was right. What could anyone do out on this bleak waste, this windswept marshland. The thought of being in a car again and turning towards civilisation was a lure that could not be resisted.
Martin said: “We’ll have to cruise around until we find her.”
“She’s bound to be on the lookout for a car,” said Logan. “Unless she’s already found herself a hotel in one of these villages. In which case we’ll find her in the morning.”
Elier said: “The golden horns….”
“It seems to me,” growled Logan, “that we’d better all put our heads together and think up a good story while we’re on our way back to Copenhagen. There are a lot of loose ends to be tied up if we’re going to avoid trouble.”
They strode up the uneven road, with water gleaming below them. The road wound its way along a low embankment, without hedges or fences. They passed a farmhouse with no windows and no roof—a ghostly shell in the fitful light—and ahead of them lay another shape like the hulk of a derelict ship. It was the ruined farmhouse in whose shelter Carol had been told to park the car.
Martin said: “These places have been struck by lightning. We’re not far from Gallehus, you know—the home of the golden horns.” He turned towards Elier as they walked. “What did yon mean about the real horns being in the car?”
“I do not understand this at all,” lamented Elier. “We stopped in Odense to buy the replicas. I was going to put them in the box and leave the real ones on the seat—quite openly. At a glance, there is little difference. I would declare them openly. Tourist souvenirs—presents for some friends in Germany. It was safer that way. It was safer than hiding them under the seat. Customs men look only for what they do not see.” He shook his head.
“But what happened? I did not have time to arrange it. I did not take the real horns from their box. We saw Holtesen close behind us. In the end I put Inge out, and told her to get away. I did not take the real horns from their box,” he repeated incredulously.
Logan said: “Was Inge carrying anything when she got out?”
“I did not see. There was so little time I told her to open the door and run—I did not want to stop for more than a second, or Holtesen would see. He was so close.” He grabbed Logan’s arm. “You mean…you think….”
They were in the shadow of the gaunt, lightning-shattered farmhouse. The headlights of the Renault came on suddenly, blazing in their eyes.
Logan said: “I mean that when we find Inge we shall find the golden horns.” He reached the Renault. “And,” he added over his shoulder, “we shall have to decide what to do with them—and what story to tell that will fit in with our recent activities. Particularly how much we are going to tell the police about you, Herr Nielsen.”
The door nearest to him opened. Carol said: “And about time, too. What’s happened? Are you all right?”
Logan peered past her into the interior of the car. There was another figure in there. A face turned towards him.
It was Inge.
* * * * * * *
Mark said: “Inge….” And her face warmed into a completely carefree exalted smile as she turned to him.
Her father said: “Inge…my daughter…the golden horns….”
“They are gone,” she said simply.
“Gone?”
“I have replaced them. They are where they belong.”
Logan said: “Sort yourselves out. Move over and let me in. My own immediate desire is for a good hotel, a good meal, and the promise of a quiet night.”
Martin and Elier sat in the back, with Inge between them. Martin gripped Inge’s hand and would not let it go. She let her head fall against his shoulder.
“Why did you run out on me like that?” he demanded.
“My father—I had to come with him. I was frightened for him. When he said I must come, I could not say no. There was no time. No time to talk, to see you.”
Logan backed the Renault out from the sheltering walls of the farmhouse. turned it on the rutted road, and headed back in the direction from which they had come.
“Make for Tonder,” said Martin from the back seat. “Those lights over there. I know a good hotel. We can get a good meal, and sit and talk.”
“Start talking now,” said Logan drily, over his shoulder. “Come on, my dear girl: what have you done with the golden horns?”
The headlights picked out the winding treacherous road ahead. He swung the Renault to and fro, avoiding gashes in thc pitted surface. The lights of Tonder took a long time to come closer.
Inge said, very calmly: “The golden horns of Gallehus belong to no man. They did not belong to Henning Holtesen, whose ancestor arranged for them to be stolen from the Chamber of Arts. They do not belong to my father, who tried to steal them from Holtesen—”
“If we could get away with them,” said Elier sadly. “If we could reach England, or Germany…the price we could ask would be enormous. There is no price the Danish people would not pay.”
“When I discovered what he was doing,” said Inge with icy self-control, “I was ashamed of my father. I knew that the golden horns must not leave Denmark. I knew that they must be replaced.”
“In the Royal Chamber of Arts?” said Logan.
“That would be the National Museum now,” Martin corrected.
Inge said: “No. The golden horns do not belong in museums.”
“All right, all right,” said Logan with weary patience. “Where do they belong? What have you done with them?”
Carol, beside him, turned to look at Inge.
Inge said: “I have buried them.”
Elier let out a howl of despair. “Where? What have you done? Where have you buried them?”
“In Danish ground,” said Inge proudly. “When I got out of the car, I took the horns with me. I ran until I could run no more. It hurt me to breathe. I went on and on, towards Gallehus. I knew the direction. I did not reach Gallehus. But I found patches of bog; and in the end I let the bog swallow up the golden horns.”
Elier slumped forward, his head in his hands.
Inge went on: “The bogs of Jutlund hold much of our history, and preserve it for ever. The golden horns were thank-offering in ancient days, and in our land they must lie.” She paused, then continued in a less exalted tone: “Wh
en I had made sure that the horns had been swallowed without…without trace, I turned and came back. I found the car here. I was tired.”
“She was asleep until you arrived,” Carol confirmed.
The town loomed larger before them. They crossed a railway line below the uplifted red and white arms of the crossing barrier, and Logan slowed.
“A really intensive search,” he said, “with mine detectors and other modern equipment would soon unearth the horns again. If we report what has happened—”
“No,” said Martin Slade.
Logan glanced up at the driving mirror, and caught a fragment of a picture—a picture of Martin with Inge’s head on his shoulder, her face contented as it had never been before.
Carol said: “But the Museum….”
“They’ve got the replicas there,” said Martin. “They’re used to having them there. If Inge wants the real horns to go back into Danish soil, then they go back—and stay there.”
Logan said thoughtfully: “My professional ethics—”
“As far as those are concerned,” retorted Martin, “I commissioned you to work on this case for me because I wanted to find the murderer of Sean Clifford and to save Inge from…well, whatever it was she had to be saved from. You’ve accomplished that admirably, and I now declare myself satisfied with your work. The case is closed.”
Logan shrugged. A sardonic smile sat on his lips as he turned the Renault into a shopping street whose windows were still, at this late hour, gaudily illuminated.
“It’s a good job,” Martin went on, “that I impressed on the frontier guards right away that Holtesen was a dangerous fanatic. We can concoct some tale about him getting a bee in his bonnet about Inge’s father, and about the golden horns. In fact, we can tell him pretty well the truth, missing out the fact that there were some real golden horns in existence—And when it comes to the truth, how do we handle Fru Holtesen?”
“I think an immediate phone call for starters,” said Logan. “After the snarl-ups she’s been through, and punch-drunk on those downers, she’ll be very suggestible.”
“Only too glad to believe what we tell her is best for her?”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Logan.
“Down this turning,” said Martin abruptly, “The hotel’s right ahead of you.”
Logan swung in to a car park alongside the hotel, and cut the engine. There was silence.
It was broken by Inge. “The golden horns,” she said, “have been restored to Denmark. Please let them lie there.”
Logan slid from his seat, walked round the Renault, and held the door open for Carol to get out.
“Please make a note,” he said gravely to her, “to remind me never again to accept a commission which will involve working in conjunction with starry-eyed idealists!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
English writer John Burke was born in Rye, Sussex, but soon moved to Liverpool, where his father was a Chief Inspector of Police.
Burke became a prominent science fiction fan in the late 1930s, and with David McIlwain he jointly edited one of the earliest British fanzines, The Satellite, to which another close friend, Sam Youd, was a leading contributor. All three men would become well-known SF novelists after the war, writing as Jonathan Burke, Charles Eric Maine, and John Christopher, respectively.
Burke’s first novel, Swift Summer (1949), won an Atlantic Award in Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation, and although he went on to become a popular SF and crime novelist, all his work was of a high literary standard.
During the early 1950s he wrote numerous science fiction novels that were published in hardcover as well as paperback, and his short stories appeared regularly in all of the leading SF magazines, most notably in New Worlds and Authentic Science Fiction.
In the mid-1950s he worked in publishing, first as Production Manager for the prominent UK publisher, Museum Press, and then in an editorial capacity for the Books for Pleasure Group. In 1959 he was employed as a Public Relations Executive for Shell International Petroleum, before being appointed as European Story Editor for 20th Century-Fox Productions in 1963.
His cinematic expertise led to his being commissioned to pen dozens of bestselling novelizations of popular film and TV titles, ranging from such movies as A Hard Day’s Night, Privilege, numerous Hammer Horror films, and The Bill. He also did adaptations of Gerry Anderson’s UFO TV series (under his pseudonym, Robert Miall). A member of the Crime Writers’ Association, he published many crime and detective novels on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s. He also edited the highly successsful anthology series, Tales of Unease.
To date he’s written more than 150 books in all genres, including work in collaboration with his wife, Jean; and has also published nonfiction works on an astonishing variety of subjects, most notably music.
Now living in Scotland, Burke continues to write well into his eighth decade; in recent years many of his supernatural and macabre stories have been collected and antholologized. His latest collection, Murder, Mystery, and Magic, is a Borgo Press original—and Borgo will be publishing some of his classic SF and crime novels and stories in the near future.
Borgo Press Books by John Burke
The Golden Horns: A Mystery Novel
Murder, Mystery, and Magic: Macabre Stories