“Yes, I think you do need to know everything. After your recent effort,” he said tolerantly, “I think you’ve earned it. When I went off into Savoy for my leave, to consider whether or not I should resign, I went up alone into the highest routes I could manage, and kept in touch with no one, either at home or locally. I was trying to wear myself out, body and mind, in the hope of a revelation. And just at the end of my time I was cut off in a solitary refuge in Dauphine by bad weather and a slight injury, and kept there for a fortnight. The place was well stocked, and I was glad of the extension. But when I got down into Briancon at last, with a fortnight’s beard, burned dark brown, and much thinner than when I went up, I found out from the first English paper I bought that the hysteria of the times had turned me into a fugitive and a traitor. The main points of Terrell’s dossier on me were already in print. They hadn’t given me even two weeks’ grace.”
“You mean,” demanded Dominic, the glass shaking in his hand, “you never ran away at all?”
“Never until then, certainly. After that you might say I walked away. The hue and cry was out after me as I sat reading the catalogue of my offences in the middle of it. All I did was to accept the omen. No, I didn’t run, I walked to the nearest exit. It was a work of art, that dossier. No absolute lies, you understand, only double truths. Maybe it was only the work of a suggestible, ambitious mind bent on rising in his profession, and able to convince himself in the process. Maybe it was coldly and deliberately constructed, for the same personal reasons. I gather he got the Security Office on the strength of the job he did on me. He was a junior in the secretariat when I knew him. All I know is, when we ran headlong into each other he sprang back from me, and went over the edge. How do I know what he saw, and what do I care? Why go further into it now?
“I could have come back, of course, but it would have been to a shower of mud, and a hard fight ahead of me to clear my name. The times were against me. But that wasn’t why I walked away. It was disgust I felt, not fear. And something else, too. A sense that a gate had opened before me for a purpose, and I mustn’t hesitate to pass through it. So I simply turned, without haste, and walked away again into the blue.”
Dominic’s teeth chattered faintly against the rim of the glass. “But you must know that you left people in England convinced that you’d changed sides in the cold war. Even your coming back here would be interpreted as backing up that view.”
“Boy, I was born here. The old lady who has the farm just over the col is my grandmother. Her home is my home. I became English at fifteen because my parents became English, at a time when I was a minor, and went along naturally with them. Don’t misunderstand me, I have nothing against being English. I have simply recognised the fact that in spite of the filling in of papers, I am
“But you did bring your gifts with you. To be used here.”
“Gifts are to be used wherever one goes. But what gifts? That attack on me was an oracle and an opportunity. For years I’d worked earnestly in government service, trying to keep my belief in the professed ideals of government, against all the evidence, forcing myself into the mould of a life for which I was never intended. It took that crisis to make me realise I’d been using my energy in the way least suitable for me, and least effective. Every man must use his own tools for the re-shaping of the world. I’ve gone back to mine. Music, tranquillity, human affection, human dignity—they can all be used to state the political truths I believe in. Putting aside, of course, the narrower meaning of ‘political’. I came home and asked them to take me back as what I am first and foremost, a composer. And they accepted me as a Slovak again on my own terms. I chose to take my grandmother’s name, which is Veselsky, simply because I didn’t want to be an international sensation or a bone of contention, in Czechoslovakia or England or anywhere else. I refuse to be used as ammunition against either of my two countries, and I need privacy and peace in which to work. They must have thought them reasonable requests—they’ve been almost too religiously respected.”
“Then you’re giving
“You think all my time is too much? This pastoral life is only part of the picture. For composition I find it ideal here in the mountains, but there are other aspects of my life, too. I give occasional piano recitals, I do a great deal of conducting. Oh, I assure you all my time is hardly enough.”
“No—I suppose not. But in England,” ventured Dominic hesitantly, “you had other work as well, this work with aircraft design, and all that. And that was important, too. Tossa said Welland told her you could have been Director of the Marrion. Don’t you miss all that? Don’t you ever want to get into it again here?” He had not quite the hardihood to add: “And if you don’t, why did you bring your notebooks with you?”
Alda smiled. “I won’t say it gave me no satisfaction. I may even take it up again some day, if I do it will be in a very different way. Meantime, with only one life to spend, I’m making sure of the first essential first. Nothing is going to elbow out music a second time. But I keep in touch,” he said, meeting Dominic’s absorbed stare with faintly indulgent good-humour. “I have a friend in America who keeps me supplied with technical magazines. If I ever do decide to get back into the field I shan’t be starting under any great handicap. Not that I think it likely,” he admitted tranquilly. “If ever I thought myself indispensable, I’ve been cured of that. At least one of my undeveloped ideas went into commercial production this spring with a French company—and to better effect than if I’d worked it out for the Institute. What they’d have kept it for I daren’t imagine. Prunieres have incorporated it in a light helicopter for crop-spraying in tropical countries. No secrets, reasonably cheap production, and a sensible use. They’re welcome to the profit. I’m content. No doubt somebody or other will happen on all the other ideas, too, given a few years. Simultaneous discovery in music is less likely. I’ll stick to music.”
“Then, of course,” conceded Dominic, “I suppose it wouldn’t be liable to occur to you that Terrell might have been prowling round to spy on your work. And you couldn’t guess—how could you?—that there was likely to be another death.”
“Another death?” Alda looked up sharply. “I’ve heard nothing about a death. Surely the police would have contacted me?”
“They haven’t had much time, it only happened last night. And then, the Terrell case would be closed for them, and they only knew the half of it, they wouldn’t connect this with you. And we weren’t as helpful as we might have been, because we didn’t know… we thought that you…”
“That I’d killed Terrell, and might well kill someone else? Yes, I see your point. If you’ve given up that idea now,” he said grimly, “you’d better tell me just what’s happened.”
Dominic told him the story of Welland’s death, and all that had followed it. Alda had risen, and was pacing restlessly and silently across the patterns of sunlight and shadow in the window of the hut, which faced down the valley, away from the doorway and the smooth grey scar of rock.
“So your friend is being held on suspicion? And you came to look for me! As a valuable witness, or as the murderer?”
“How could I know which, then? I hadn’t met you or spoken to you, all we knew was the Terrell version. Didn’t it seem the obvious thing to think at first, that you were picking them off when they got too close? We’d seen you up on the skyline there with the goats, we saw you carried a rifle—”
