Her answer, she feels, will no doubt sound strange to him, almost fanatical; and she is almost afraid to voice it. ‘Oh yes,’ she replies. ‘Every day for the past week. It’s just a charred ruin, of course, but every day I stand there in the snow and hope I will be able to find a path that will lead me to her. But there are no pathways, no clues as yet. I guess I need some of your special Manny Magic, after all, wouldn’t you say?’
He agrees, and as if to emphasise the point and wanting to lift her spirits, he reaches forward and with sleight of hand audaciously produces one of his calling cards from a place just behind her right ear, and this he twirls adroitly between finger and thumb before handing it across to her. She smiles as she takes it and reads the familiar slogan once again, its diminutive drawing of a top hat and magic wand included - just as she remembers it upon their last meeting, that rainy evening in London, so long ago, it seems.
‘Yes, you offered this to me all those weeks ago, a card just like this,’ she admits, aware of his having travelled so far and taken such pains once again to offer his assistance. ‘Am I to spurn your generosity again? I do not think I can afford to ignore anyone any longer, Manny. It was awfully kind of you to chase me here. You ought not to have …’
But he waves the matter aside, endeavouring to appear gallant - though in truth he feels deeply troubled. This is certainly not the Deborah Peters he remembers from the last occasion on which they had met, the confident and stylish woman he had spoken to in London that evening. He had been shocked when he had met her just a few hours ago at the railway station in the valley below. In the intervening days since leaving England, she has resorted to scarcely more than some ancient cashmere shawl and a well-worn crossbody valise to accompany her on her wanderings. Beneath this, her mourning black is still apparent, and smart enough and tidy, after a fashion, but in the absence of a regular maid or companion to assist her she has relinquished much of her former elegance. There is a slack, unshapely appearance now, something she would surely never have countenanced under normal circumstances - while her hair, or what anyone might be able to see of it beneath her wide-brimmed hat with its trace of mesh veil lingering across her eyes, is no longer bound in its tight chignon, but is instead styled much shorter and abandoned to a tangle of various protruding waves either side of her head.
‘Well, I think there’s every cause to be optimistic,’ he responds, keeping his misgivings to himself as the waitress brings them each a steaming bowl of broth and sets it down upon their table with a glass of Schnapps besides. ‘My voices led me here to you,’ he continues, ‘albeit with a little help from the German telegraph service. Why should they not lead us to Poppy, also?’
She concurs, humouring him with a dutiful smile but clearly not sharing in his confidence. But then her expression changes to one of curiosity as he takes from his briefcase the small painting he had discovered in Heidelberg, loose and unframed now for convenience and which he unrolls and spreads upon the tabletop between them. ‘Look, this is the painting I wanted to show you. You’ve seen it before, I’m sure. But look at the background. There is a landscape included, can you see? Buildings of some sort. Is it a real place, or a fantasy? I can’t quite decide, but there is something unusual about it, isn’t there?’
‘I certainly never thought I would set eyes on this again,’ she volunteers with a look of stunned amusement as she leans forward to examine the canvas, not much more than the size of a book cover, and gazes into it with the eyes of some would-be seer, wanting so much to draw from its surface the answers to her daughter’s vanishment. She regrets having let it go. ‘Some of them I had parcelled up and sent back to London,’ she explains. ‘But it was impossible to keep them all. And what with being short of money - my Cooks cheques ran out pretty quickly after the first week or so here - I came to the conclusion the street vendor was the only solution. At least it helped to pay for a square meal, and another night or two in a half-decent hotel.’
Clearly pleased to have one of her daughter’s paintings back in her hands, she continues to study the backdrop as he suggested - and which does, indeed, indicate an urban landscape of some kind and, roughly rendered in the background, a cathedral-like structure. All very distinctive, no doubt - but really, she reflects, as she returns it to his safe custody, they are surely just clutching at straws now, the pair of them.
‘Do you believe, Manny, do you really believe, there is any hope in finding her, even if we do put our heads together?’ she asks with an abrupt lapse into distraction, raising her face to a rare blessing of sunshine as the clouds part, and unable to concentrate on anything for long, it would seem.
‘Well, I should jolly well think so!’ he exclaims. ‘Why else do you think I would trouble to …’
‘I don’t know. I cannot imagine why else,’ she interrupts before opening her eyes and, in the way of local custom, taking up the schnapps and consuming it in one go. ‘Only I don’t trust people - and especially men. I don’t trust any of you chaps any longer.’
Examining her face with sympathy and concern, he continues to feel slightly alarmed by her illogical reaction to anything he might have to say. Recalling to mind the incident he had read about in the papers, moreover, of her going berserk in a Frankfurt restaurant just the other day, he feels doubly cautious.
‘Listen, Deborah, I am not speaking to you as a chap,’ he urges her, ‘just as a friend, an ally. Does that make sense?’
Not being at all familiar with the notion of any man of flesh and blood being ‘just an ally’ Deborah nods rather bleakly by way of response. She does, however, appreciate that he has not sought to capitalise on her misfortunes, or upon the repeated blows to her vanity of late by making merry or playing the part of the strong, rational male that would be so tempting in the face of her plight. Poor Herman. He clearly even felt embarrassed walking into the restaurant with her an hour ago, trying to avoid the astonished glances, the whispers of derision from the other customers.
‘I know what you are thinking, Herman,’ she begins again in more measured tones. ‘You are thinking I look a mess, isn’t that so? Well, you’re right: I probably do look a mess. I haven’t had a chance to avail myself of a proper dressing mirror for a while, so I cannot say for sure. You might not look so good yourself if you’d been through what I have lately - and I must tell you, I feel quite stunned by how rapidly things have turned against me in recent days. At such a distance from home it is not at all easy to release any of my stocks or bonds so that funds might be transferred, and so it’s not been possible to obtain any more credit with the banks here either. And no one, not one friend of former times, will venture to assist me in journeying home. Only the British Consulate in Munich has come to my aid and arranged for my passage, along with a handful of cash to smooth the way.’
‘Good for them,’ Herman declares, feeling buoyed up by her trust in him at last. ‘So you are all set to return to London. When …?’
‘Well, I don’t really know. I don’t know if I shall return,’ she replies, much to his astonishment. ‘I’ve already spent the money, anyway.’
‘Not go home - but for heaven’s sake, Deborah, why not?’
‘I can’t give up the search, you see: not even for a few days,’ she replies, a little tearful, he senses. ‘I might lose whatever leads I already have.’
‘Deborah. You don’t have any leads,’ he argues patiently - trying to be amiable but, again, flinching inwardly and with increasing alarm at her irrationality. ‘What you are undertaking at the moment - it’s not only unrealistic but downright dangerous, if you ask me.’
‘Herman,’ she continues, a tone of entreaty to her voice as, appearing to have arrived at an important decision, she reaches into her valise. ‘Look, here is an envelope in which you will find the keys to my apartment in Knightsbridge, along with a signed letter to my stockbroker. There is also a key, which will unlock my filing cabinet. Do everything you can, Manny, to release funds so that I may pay off my debts to the
solicitors and the banks. You can telegraph me if you need any help. Use my hotel as recipient. Even if I am not staying there at the time, they will always keep messages for me to pick up or have forwarded. Once these deeds are accomplished you may, if you wish, rejoin me here and help in my search for Poppy.’
This really is absurd, he thinks, and he is far from keen on the idea, especially leaving her in such a state after only having just found her again. ‘But Deborah, listen, why not just come with me, then - just for a few days?’ he suggests, still at odds with her plan. ‘We can do this together, then return …’
At which her mouth trembles for a second before she bursts into tears, great loud, inconsolable, heaving sobs at the prospect of abandoning her mission - and it is this outburst that finally proves too much for the manager of the inn, a smart fellow in a bow tie who approaches and discreetly whispers into Herman’s ear that he really must take the poor woman away, and at once. Empathising all too well with the man’s predicament in such a public space, he complies, leaving their unfinished meal behind.
‘I am sorry, Manny,’ she grizzles, once outside in the porch and where, having taken his arm as if to steady herself, she has mercifully regained some measure of composure. ‘Selling my equity will take days, if not weeks until the money becomes available, and I cannot wait around in London all that time. You really can help me best of all, Manny, if you do just as I ask and go about these tasks for me back home.’
Though still indisposed to the idea, he is just about to agree, if only to placate her, when they are both stunned by the glare of a cameraman’s flashgun - so bright and so startling in the dim overcast gloom of the afternoon that they almost leap into the air with the shock of it.
‘Any truth in the rumour you might be going to Vienna for psychiatric treatment, Ms Peters?’ the reporter alongside the cameraman shouts with all the characteristic bluntness and over-familiarity so typical of the press.
‘It’s Hugh’s paper,’ Deborah whispers frantically, as she turns her head swiftly away from the onslaught and into the lee of Herman’s protective shoulder. ‘I know the chap, the one in the trilby - Bob Small - top journalist at the Chronicle.’
Herman is furious more than anything because he had simply not seen them waiting. The rogues will cobble up a story or two from this, he thinks, and a good picture too - what with Deborah all haggard and being led in tears from the inn.
‘Come on Debs!’ the reporter pipes up again, speaking amid a flurry of biting sleet. ‘Any truth in the rumour?’
‘No, there is absolutely no veracity in anything of that kind,’ Herman answers for her, trying to shield her from any renewed photographic assault - for that is what it had just felt like to them, an assault.
‘Oh, you must be the new man in Deborah’s life, eh?’ Small inquires with loud and brazen simplicity once again - and, it would seem, from the calculating look on his face, writing the headlines themselves as he speaks. One or two other journalists, celebrity hunters mostly, have also converged upon the scene by this time, like a pack of hounds catching the scent of their quarry.
‘I am a friend, that is all,’ Herman states adamantly, by way of reply, ‘and I would thank you, gentlemen, to leave the lady alone and not to harass us any longer.’
‘All right, but how about just one quick shot of you together, eh?’ cries the photographer. ‘Come on, put your arm around her, Herman,’ he adds, already on first name terms with him as well. The nerve! And how on earth have they managed to discover his name anyway?
‘Why don’t you just get lost?’ Herman replies, only to be met with another blinding flash.
‘Ah, that’s it. Nice bit of raw anger, eh!’ laughs Small - an appropriate name, Herman thinks in one odd moment of abstraction, since he is, indeed, small of stature - and busy on his feet, too, like a boxer, which has the effect of keeping Herman moving around also as he turns to address him: prey therefore to yet-more photographs. Herman is also perturbed that the fellow’s face does seem disturbingly familiar. Where has he seen that sharp little face before, he wonders?
‘Come on, give us the shot we want, arm in arm, eh?’ he persists. ‘Then we’ll leave you to get on with whatever you’ve got planned. Deal?’
‘I can’t give you what you want,’ Herman declares, approaching the man swiftly, ‘but by heaven I swear I’ll give you what you need - and that is a jolly good hiding if you don’t cease this harassment at once. Do I make myself clear?’
Surprised, the fellow staggers back momentarily before regaining his balance on the slippery pathway.
‘Cor! No need to carry on like that, sir,’ he grumbles plaintively, re-adjusting his coat collar as if he had somehow just been molested - just as his friend with the camera shapes up for another shot.
‘Don’t even contemplate it!’ Herman shouts, turning his wrath upon the photographer next and pointing in deadly earnest with his cane. And this time the man does desist.
Leaving the modest contingent of pressmen and, by now, several inquisitive bystanders who have been drawn to the fracas, Deborah and Herman hurry away towards the tiny rank of waiting carriages - an assortment of vehicles ready at this late hour, to convey their owners back down by the hazardous hairpin tracks to their hotels below. He can only hope there will be one for hire.
‘Thank God they’re not following us,’ Deborah states with a desperate glance over her shoulder, a hand straying to her hat against the biting wind, which with the approach of dusk is now sweeping in from between the mountains. ‘Bob Small is a thoroughly ghastly piece of humanity. I know him well - the way he works. And once he has his sights set on a story, he never lets up.’
‘I think I might know him, too,’ Herman ventures, happy for Deborah to cling to his arm as they go.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It’s all coming back to me now. Do you remember the night at the Savoy? That awful Carrington Dubois chap, the way they tried to humiliate you?’
‘Yes …’
‘Well, there was someone there, backstage, a man who was giving Dubois his orders that evening, his instructions. I saw them talking at the stage door. And that man, I’d swear to it, was none other than your Bob Small.’
‘Really?’ Deborah remarks, burying her face in his lapels once more, for the icy wind is blasting them from all directions. ‘That would have been orders from on high no doubt - from my dear ex. How very unpleasant.’
Ahead, the black carriages are almost all that can be discerned in the gloom, the lamps being lit by the coachmen already - men all heavily cloaked and hatted and hardly visible themselves in the thick of it all.
‘It’s like a ruddy funeral procession,’ Deborah observes, to Herman’s mystification, as they approach and seek out a vehicle. To his relief there is one ready, a four-wheeled brougham, and he leaves Deborah for a moment as he goes forward to signal aloft to the coachman his intentions before scurrying back to the door to hand her in.
But just then there comes a terrible cry from the coachman above and, upon the road, the thunder of hooves and wheels approaching fast - a lone carriage accelerating downhill out of the snowstorm - its driver, brandishing whip for added speed, clearly intent on propelling its monstrous bulk straight towards anyone in its path. Deborah has seen it, but in terror is frozen to the spot.
‘Look out!’ Herman bellows with a loud warning cry of his own, and in a second has leapt forward, clasped her in his arms and rolled her to safety upon the ground to the rear of their vehicle.
The dreadful bulk of the carriage and its horse thunders past just inches away. There is a shower of slush and ice and within a few seconds it is gone - the awful black beast along with its wayward, utterly reckless driver already vanished around a bend in the lane, leaving Deborah trembling and staring into the space where only a few seconds earlier she had stood: a mesmerised victim facing death or serious injury, were it not for her friend’s quick reactions.
On their knees in the snow, he holds her close
as their own coachman and others hurry to their aid and try to reassure them. It was surely just some maniac, and not one of the regular carriage men, their driver tells them, leaning forward. But Deborah does not respond or stir. Still cradled in the protection of Herman’s arms, she can only continue to stare along the length of the empty roadway, her trembling lips repeating again and again the one strange word, almost like some sinister arcane chant that neither man can understand at all: ‘Hanno,’ she groans again and again… ‘Hanno.’
Chapter 18
It is evening at Craigmull, and every window upon its towering array of assorted turrets and ivy-clad walls is illuminated by a variety of candles, lamps and gaslight - the entire place alive with gaiety and sound. The garden and the approach along the sloping driveway is adorned with coloured lanterns - while just outside the portico even a decorated fir tree has been erected in celebration of a once-holy time when the world would proclaim the coming of the Saviour and the passing of the shortest day.
Such considerations are not, however, uppermost in the minds of those currently in residence at Craigmull, for here in the aftermath of the wedding of Hugh and Rachael Peters, yet another evening of extravagant feasting and raucous entertainment is on the menu; and for Hugh Peters himself, alone in his study, there is also the imminent arrival of two additional and particularly important guests to consider, men whom he has not even met as yet but who have been recommended to him by an old friend and business associate. They are due presently by carriage from the railway station. And the clatter of iron-shod wheels on the cobbled courtyard outside that announces their coming rouses him from a precious moment of repose. Escaping the demands of his guests, he has come here to see to some work - in truth, a welcome diversion from the surfeit of self-indulgence of the past several days, so that he almost resents the intrusion as he hears the latest arrivals in the entrance hall, scraping snow off their boots, and hears Beezley conducting them up the main staircase to the rooms that have been assigned to them.
THE HOURS BEFORE: A Story of Mystery and Suspense from the Belle Époque Page 17