chamber? I knew—I knew!—I hadn’t done so, but if he had taken the charge full in the face…Why hadn’t the shopkeeper warned me that the blanks were so dangerous? I thought they just made a big bang. Of course, I had never expected anyone would fire the gun….
“Is he gone?” said a voice, quite literally from the grave.
Relief hit me so hard, every muscle went soggy. I collapsed onto the muddy ground beside him. “Yes, damn it. God damn you, John, what’s the idea of scaring me like that?”
“Scaring you?” He rolled over. Knowing Dieter better than I did, he had flung himself aside in time to escape the worst of the powder burns, but the side of his face was speckled with angry-looking scorch marks. One had narrowly missed his eye. “Me?” he demanded, his voice rising. “Scaring
“What was I supposed to do, tell you not to worry, the gun wasn’t loaded? I thought Schmidt would try to steal it back, so I got some blanks from that magic shop in Garmisch and…I assumed you would assume… uh…”
John raised a tremulous hand to his brow. “My nerves will never be the same.”
“I don’t know what else I could have done,” I argued. “I hoped I could bluff him, but I sure as hell couldn’t shoot him, and he would have skewered you before I could get close enough to tackle him.”
“I think you prolonged it on purpose,” John said. His hand moved wincingly from his face to his chest. “Bloody hell. Once these down jackets are slashed, there’s no way of repairing them.”
I pushed his hand aside and began to unzip the jacket. “You did lie to me. You knew it was Dieter all along.”
“I did lie to you, but I did not know it was Dieter all along. Ow—take it easy—”
“Crybaby.” I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed the sodden cloth aside. “It’s only a little hole.”
“Another inch and it would have been a little hole in my lung. I don’t know why I associate with you. Do you realize that I never have work-associated accidents unless you’re around?”
“What, never?”
“Well…hardly ever. There is a nice clean white handkerchief in the inside pocket of my jacket.”
“I might have known. The instincts of a gentleman cannot wholly be suppressed. Even with a liar—”
“It was for your own good. I tried to talk you out of it.”
Without replying, I got up and went to the car for my first aid kit.
“What next?” John inquired, still prone, as I buttoned him back into his clothes.
“I am going to take determined steps to leave this place within the next ten minutes,” I said. “By one means or another. God knows what Dieter will try next. In case you wonder why I am not rushing hysterically for my skis, or making ineffectual efforts to dig my car out of that drift, it is because I am being very calm and weighing all possible alternatives before I fly into action in my inimitable way. And also because for once—just once—for the first time in our acquaintance—I want the simple, unvarnished truth. In this case, it is not merely curiosity that moves me to inquire. I have a distinct and genuine need to know all the facts.”
“A persuasive argument,” said John, nodding. His eyes rolled down toward the hand I had planted firmly on his chest. “That is also a persuasive argument. All right. The simple truth is that I heard rumors about the Trojan gold as long ago as August. In fact, I was approached by a former acquaintance, who claimed that he expected to gain possession of it shortly and asked if I would be willing to assist in—er—marketing it. I told him I had no time to waste on what-ifs, and to let me know when he actually had it in his hands.
“Now what you must understand, Vicky, is that the contact was made through certain channels that allow the communicants to remain anonymous. I never saw this individual, whom I knew only by a code name—Hagen. He had been involved with a little, er, business deal I invested in several years ago. I knew he was connected with a museum and I was fairly sure he was male—though even that information was carefully guarded. I never tried to find out more; that’s part of the bizarre ethics of my profession, you know. One respects a colleague’s anonymity.
“I dismissed the matter then; I had other things to think about. When you told me of your involvement, I realized, with considerable relief, that you really had nothing to go on. It wasn’t until the end of the conversation that you casually mentioned your old academic acquaintances, several of whom had just happened to turn up, and an unpleasant suspicion entered my mind. If one of your friends was the individual I knew as Hagen, you could be in deep trouble. Ensuing development convinced me that my worst fears were justified. Hagen had failed to locate the treasure and was hoping you could do it for him. I decided to keep a brotherly eye on you—”
“And on the treasure.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Your doubts cut me to the quick. The attack on you and Schmidt surprised me; it didn’t fit my theory. Later investigation strongly suggested that a subordinate had gone off half-cocked and acted without authority. Freddy had already committed a major blunder by killing Hoffman before he could be persuaded to talk, and after he tried the same thing on you, Hagen realized Freddy’s stupidity and arrogance could ruin everything. So out went Freddy. In the meantime…God, what’s that noise? Avalanche?” He sat up with a start.
“Snowmobile, I think.” I rose and shielded my eyes against the dazzle of the slopes. “We’re about to be rescued.”
“Vicky.” His fingers, hard and urgent, closed around my wrist. “I withheld no relevant information. I wasn’t trying—”
“Right.” I freed my hand. “Sure.”
The snowplows had been out. The main road was fairly clear and the Marktplatz was walled with ten-foot- high banks. People who live in areas of heavy snowfall don’t let it upset their schedules; church was letting out when we arrived, and the
We went straight to the police station.
At least the headquarters of the local constable was a quaint gabled house, not a grim barracks. There was a tiny Christmas tree on the sergeant’s desk. He was the only one on duty; the remainder of the five-man force was at mass or out with the Ski Patrol searching for lost tourists. He took us for two of the latter and started lecturing us. The storm had been forecast, people had been warned to stay off the slopes; staring pointedly at my battered companion, he suggested I take him to the hospital in Garmisch.
John looked as if this struck him as a splendid idea, but when I launched into my story, he did all he could to back me up. It was some story. I had to do some impromptu editing to make it sound even halfway plausible. I didn’t go into the business of the Trojan gold, figuring that would be too much for a bewildered local sergeant; time enough for complications when the
Tony was in Garmisch too. The sergeant said he had been taken there the day before, since the local lockup was already full of holiday revelers. I would have lingered to inquire about posting bail and such things, but John kept muttering insistently about food and drink, and I figured Tony could wait. I was sure we had not seen the last of Dieter. His tender little ego had taken another lump, and now he knew where the gold was hidden. I didn’t know what he would do, but I knew he would try something. The police would be looking for him, but between the blizzard and the holiday, they would be shorthanded.
I was itching to get back to the cemetery with some tools—including a gun with actual bullets in it, in case Dieter had the same idea. However, as John kept reiterating, that matter could wait until we had figured out a method of transport and replenished our strength. I had to agree with him; I felt as though I would topple over if someone blew hard at me.
The clerk had a handful of messages for me. As I might have expected, all of them were from Schmidt.
“Where is Herr Schmidt?” I asked. “In the restaurant?”
The woman flung both hands shoulder-high in a dramatic shrug. “I saw him earlier, but…
