Douglas didn’t like the scenario; it contained just enough paranoia to give it the ring of truth.
Dragon ran back to him and gently pulled on Douglas’ jacket with his teeth. Then he again ran off a few paces, turned and barked.
“Dragon, what the hell-?” The rest of the sentence caught in his throat. Dragon was trying to get him to follow. He had been running in the direction of the mountain to the west; high up on that mountain was the Gornergrat. Douglas slowly rose to his feet. “You know … something,” Douglas whispered. “And you can show me. That’s why they had to kill you.” He nodded his head and clapped his hands. “All right,” he said to the dog, “we’ll do it your way; we’ll play the Dragon variation.”
Douglas walked toward Dragon and clapped his hands. This time Dragon seemed to understand. He gave a small, high-pitched bark and leaped into Douglas’ arms. Douglas skirted around the trees to avoid the fire trucks and official cars, and then started walking directly toward the mountain in the distance.
Dragon lay at the edge of the crevasse, whimpering. Douglas, standing above him, shivered in the freezing, glacier dawn. Fifty feet below them, wedged between two blocks of ice, was the body of a man who could only be Victor Rensky.
It was a perfect grave, an almost perfect murder, Douglas realized. The ice was closing up. In a few days, or perhaps only a few hours, this section of the glacier would be a seamless stretch of ice, and Victor Rensky’s body would begin a slow, inch-by-inch journey that would take a thousand years.
Douglas reached down and touched the dog. “C’mon, Dragon,” he said quietly. “You’ve done your job. Let’s get out of here before we freeze.”
The helicopter came at them from the east, out of the sun. Douglas heard it before he saw it, and it sounded too close. He dropped flat onto the ice, grabbing Dragon and holding him close as the helicopter passed a few feet overhead. Had he remained standing he would have been smashed and hurled into the crevasse.
The craft made a sharp turn and started back. It was a small helicopter, private, and piloted by Jan Vorteg. His father was sitting beside him. Sunlight glinted off metal inside the cockpit. A second later there was a gunshot and the ice next to Douglas exploded in a shower of sparkling slivers of frozen sunlight.
Douglas picked up Dragon and sprinted as best he could across the ice, keeping low, zigzagging on the treacherous surface. Again the helicopter zoomed overhead, and Douglas dropped to the ice as bullets whizzed through the air.
There was no place to run. Douglas knew he was too large a target. He pushed Dragon away from him. “Go, Dragon!” he shouted. “Get out of here!” The thought crossed his mind that now Dragon would have to start all over again, coaxing someone up onto the Gornergrat to find two bodies. He choked off a hysterical laugh. “Run, you damn dog! You got away once! Let’s see you do it again!”
Dragon stood his ground, growling and barking at the closing helicopter. Douglas cursed, jumped to his feet and started running again.
There was a roar of sound to his left, a flash of red, and then there were two helicopters overhead. The shooting stopped, and the two helicopters began a strange, aerial duet orchestrated by hand signals from Karl Henning. There was a double-barreled shotgun sticking out from the open window of his cockpit. Both helicopters banked and set down on the other side of an ice ridge that blocked Douglas’ view.
Douglas rose and, with Dragon limping at his side, began walking toward the ridge. He felt dizzy, almost overwhelmed by the realization that he was still alive. He picked up a handful of snow and rubbed it vigorously against his face, savoring the clean, biting cold. The double shotgun blast was totally unexpected, an ugly mushroom cloud of sound billowing up from the spot beyond the ice ridge where the helicopters had landed. Douglas stopped and waited. His elation was gone.
A few moments later Karl Henning emerged from the other side of the ridge. He walked slowly, his head bowed. He carried the shotgun in the crook of his left arm. The big man walked to the edge of the crevasse and stared down at the body of Victor Rensky. Douglas joined him. Dragon lay down by the tear in the ice and began to whimper again.
“I couldn’t help it,” Henning said softly into the silence. “They both had guns. I guess they didn’t take me too seriously. They just didn’t leave me any choice.”
Douglas touched the other man’s arm. “Thanks for bailing me out, Karl. How’d you know I was up here?”
“It was a guess. Somebody saw Jan Vorteg running away from the fire. He also saw you walking with the dog toward the mountain. Later, when I saw that Vorteg’s helicopter was missing from the pad, I thought I’d better check up here.” He paused, then nodded in the direction of Rensky’s body. “What do you suppose this was all about? Personal feud?”
Douglas shook his head. “I don’t think so. Do you know anything about a Nazi fifth column in Switzerland during the war?”
A muscle twitched in Henning’s jaw. He took a long time to answer. “There have always been a lot of rumors about prominent German-Swiss collaborating with the Nazis. The story goes that they wanted to turn Switzerland, at least the German-speaking part of it, over to the Germans. I don’t know how much truth there is in it.”
“Well, Rensky was writing a book about it. I saw the manuscript and the research materials in his apartment. My guess is that he had a list of the names of some of those traitors. Hans Vorteg’s name was on the list. Somehow Vorteg found out about it. He couldn’t face the disgrace of being branded a traitor, so he got his son to help him kill Rensky. If you check with Rensky’s friends you’ll probably find that he was in the habit of walking with Dragon early every morning on the Gornergrat. The Vortegs knew that. When the slopes were closed to skiers, the Vortegs saw their opportunity. They knew Rensky was up on the glacier before anyone else, so they went up in their helicopter and ambushed him, then pushed his body into the crevasse, but they missed Dragon, and they worried about that for good reason. They knew the dog might be able to lead somebody back to the spot where his master was shot. They spent the whole morning looking for him, just as Vorteg said. That’s why they didn’t get down much before I did, Karl.”
Henning thought about it for a few moments, then slowly nodded. “Jan Vorteg broke into the apartment to get the manuscript and the list of names.”
“Right. When he saw me there, with Dragon, he knew they had problems.”
Henning’s face creased in a half-smile. “How right they were,” he said quietly. He turned suddenly and slapped Douglas on the back. “Well, my friend, thanks to you it looks like I’ll miss my tennis game this afternoon. I’ve got work to do. We’ll have to get that body up. Then I think I’ll go over to Rensky’s apartment and see what names turn up in that manuscript.” He grinned broadly. “But first I’m dropping you off at our hotel. You’ll stay there as the guest of the Swiss government. It’s the least a humble public servant like myself can do to repay you for what you’ve done. And I think our chef can find a steak for Dragon.”
Douglas was staring down at the body. “I may be able to do one more thing for you,” he said distantly.
“What’s that?”
Douglas turned to face Henning. “I think the list of names is in the apartment—but not in the manuscript.”
Henning frowned. “Then where?”
“There,” Douglas said, walking across the room to Rensky’s workbench and placing his hand on the single pile of postcards there.
“On postcards?” Henning sounded incredulous. He was standing by the door. The shotgun he still carried seemed ugly and out of place in Rensky’s world of photos, books and chess sets.
“Rensky was a chess fanatic. Maybe he was also eccentric—or security conscious. In any case, the other postcards are properly notated, and they’re from other people with whom he played postal chess. This deck is a ringer and, if I’m right, they’re in a simple code, alternating letters and numbers corresponding to letters to spell out names, dates and any other information he
might want to record.”
Henning’s voice seemed strangely hoarse.
“Why the hell would he want to do that? Assuming that he wasn’t simply eccentric.”
Douglas shrugged. “I can guess. First, he was dealing with highly sensitive information. But he was also doing a lot of research in East Germany. He risked search every time he went in or out. If routine written notes on the subject of Nazi collaborators in Switzerland were uncovered it might not be taken too kindly by any of the parties involved. Also, there was the danger of leaks if the Germans found his notes; they might warn the subjects of his investigation. So he coded all the important information and mailed it to himself as a postal chess card. He never underestimated the inherent risk in the project; he would be a target right up to the day the book was published. Vorteg somehow found out anyway, and what happened proved Rensky was right in taking the precautions he did. He should have taken more.” Douglas reached across the workbench for a pencil and piece of paper. “It will be easy enough to see if I’m right. Let’s try decoding some of the cards.”
“No, Douglas,” Henning said. His voice was flat, drained of emotion. “Leave the cards alone.”
Douglas glanced up and found himself looking into the large, black, owl-eyes of the shotgun. He slowly let the pencil drop to the bench, then turned to face Henning squarely. Dragon lifted his head from the worn carpt where he lay and began to growl. Henning moved closer.
“What is it, Henning?” Douglas asked softly. The shotgun had dropped to a point on his chest just above his heart.
The large man nodded curtly toward the stack of postcards. “My father,” he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
“Karl, I’m sorry.” Douglas shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up, Douglas! He doesn’t need your pity, and neither do I! My father made a mistake … a long time ago. And he’s always regretted it. He told me about it ten years ago. For decades no man in Switzerland has been more patriotic than my father. To have this … thing … come out now would kill him. The cards must be destroyed.”
“Karl, I don’t give a damn what you do with the cards,” Douglas said with feeling. The gun didn’t waver. “You can’t even be sure your father’s name is in there. Maybe Rensky overlooked a few.”
“It’s there,” Henning said flatly. “Vorteg told me. On the tennis court yesterday.”
Douglas’ breath whistled out through his teeth.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Did he also tell you that he killed Rensky?”
It seemed to take Henning a long time to get the word out. Finally, he said, “Yes.”
“You killed them, didn’t you? Vorteg and his son. You didn’t want to take a chance on their talking. That’s plain enough now.”
Henning’s eyes flashed. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,!” he said with some of the fiery pride that had first attracted Douglas to him, a pride that had seemed sorely lacking the previous afternoon. “You can think what you want!”
“Yours was the only shot I heard.”
“Maybe we fired at the same time. You wouldn’t have heard a rifle over a shotgun blast. Isn’t that beside the point? The important thing is that I didn’t kill you, Douglas. And I didn’t let the Vortegs kill you. Think about that.”
“What the hell did you expect would happen?”
“I was hoping … everything would work itself out.”
Dragon had been silent a long time. As a result, his single, sharp bark startled Henning, causing him to turn his eyes away for just a moment. Disarming Henning was almost ridiculously easy. Douglas reached out and pushed the barrel of the gun with one hand and hit Henning on the jaw with the other. Douglas felt something snap in his hand, but the one blow was enough. Henning dropped the gun and sat down hard on the floor. His eyes were glazed. By the time they cleared again Douglas had the gun trained on him. Henning didn’t move.
“Why didn’t you kill me, Karl?”
Henning didn’t answer. Instead, he slowly pulled his jacket away from his body. There was a bullet hole in the material a fraction of an inch from where Henning’s ribs would be.
Douglas swallowed hard. “So you did kill them in self-defense. You’re still the law around here. You had—have a responsibility. You were going to let two men get away with a murder.”
“To save my father. The only thing I was going to do with you was to threaten; I wanted your promise to keep silent.” He added as an afterthought, “I don’t suppose it would have worked anyway.”
“It’s wrong, Karl. It’s all wrong.” He felt—and sounded—defensive, and he wasn’t sure why.
“What’re you, Douglas? A cop?”
Dragon came across the room and lay down at Douglas’ feet. Douglas reached down and touched the dog’s head. He was surprised to find that his hand was trembling.
Karl Henning pointed to a telephone on a stand at the opposite end of the room. “There’s the phone. Call Interpol, if you want. But you just remember that I saved your life. Now it’s up to you to decide what to do with my life—and my father’s.” He paused, then added, “What are you going to do, Douglas?”
Douglas stared at the phone for a long time. Then he picked up Dragon and walked slowly out of the room.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George C. Chesbro (1940–2008) was the author of twenty-eight books, including the renowned Mongo Mysteries, starring private eye Dr. Robert Frederickson, aka Mongo the Magnificent. He also wrote the Chant Mysteries and the Veil Kendry series, both featuring characters from the Mongo universe, as well as a few standalone novels.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
These stories originally appeared in the following publications: “Strange Prey,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Aug. 1970; “Broken Pattern,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 1972; “Snake in the Tower,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, March 1969; “Wotzel,” Nugget, Oct. 1974; “Four Knights Game,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sept. 1974; “The Club of Venice,” Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, March 1974; “Tourist Trap,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Oct. 1970; “Firefight of the Mind,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1970; “The Tower,” Syracuse University Magazine, June 1989; “Dreams,” Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, April 1975; “The Dragon Variation,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1975.
Copyright © 2004 by George C. Chesbro
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0830-3
This 2018 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
MysteriousPress.com
www.openroadmedia.com
GEORGE C. CHESBRO
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.
MysteriousPress.com. offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all
from one legendary source.
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FOLLOW US:
@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
The Mysterious Bookshop, founded in 1979, is located in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. It is the oldest and largest mystery-specialty bookstore in America.
The shop stocks the finest selection of new mystery hardcovers, paperbacks, and periodicals. It also features a superb collection of signed modern first editions, rare and collectable works, and Sherlock Holmes titles. The bookshop issues a free monthly newsletter highlighting its book clubs, new releases, events, and recently acquired books.
58 Warren Street
[email protected]
(212) 587-1011
Monday through Saturday
11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
FIND OUT MORE AT:
www.mysteriousbookshop.com
FOLLOW US:
@TheMysterious and Facebook.com/MysteriousBookshop
SUBSCRIBE:
The Mysterious Newsletter
Strange Prey Page 21