The Piper on the Mountain

And he did, and the wires hummed. First, the salvage operations in Zbojska Dolina; then a dutiful call, naturally, to Major Kriebel, so worded that he would, with luck, feel it incumbent upon him, in defence of his dignity, to go to survey the devastation in the valley before he came back to Pavol; and lastly, calls to the two hotels at Mikulas where Freeling, Blagrove and Sir Broughton Phelps had installed themselves, and across the square to the Slovan, where Paul Newcombe had taken a room. None of them was actually in his hotel to be contacted personally, which was hardly surprising on a lovely August afternoon; it was a question of leaving a message in each case, asking them all to report at Ondrejov’s office, in person or by telephone, as soon as possible.

That done, Ondrejov assembled his cast for the last act, the Mather twins from their forlorn and fruitless councils of war at the Slovan, Tossa from a long and blissful sleep on her solitary cot downstairs. And they all talked at last, fully and freely.

After that, Ondrejov talked.

“When Mr. Terrell was found dead,” he said, “I was already in possession of the facts about that death, but not of the background. I therefore knew from the beginning that this was not a case of murder. But there were certain curious features about it that interested me. And when you, Miss Barber, applied for a visa, with your friends, the authorities, who were also on the alert, contacted me. We supplied you with Mirek as an escort, and waited to see what would follow. And it was known to me, before the death of Mr. Welland brought things into the open, that you were making enquiries about your stepfather’s movements. Movements which we already knew, but to which your anxiety gave significance. You even uncovered some points which were not known to us. For instance, at the Hotel Sokolie—you remember the waiter who spoke English? He was a very worried man, Miss Barber, very worried. He had thought nothing of the small matter of the card-game, and the paper on which Ivo Martinek kept the score, until you became excited about it.”

Tossa, refreshed and radiant, sat by Dominic’s side, and smiled back at Ondrejov with all her heart. She had never looked younger, and never in Dominic’s experience half so light-hearted. She was clear of suspicion, clear even of her suspicions of herself. Terrell had not been a hero or a patriot, but only an ambitious schemer bent on climbing in his profession, if necessary over other people’s faces. She was free of him, she had her life back fresh and new, and she had Dominic tightly by the hand. She knew now, though imperfectly, how nearly she had lost him.

“Naturally I questioned the Martineks about that incident; so already I had a picture of another kind of case, with its roots somewhere in the past, even before Mr. Welland was killed. I knew from Mr. Veselsky—shall I call him Mr. Alda, for our purposes?—I knew from Mr. Alda that he had known Terrell, and worked in the same enterprise with him in England. I knew from your activities that you suspected Terrell had been hunting for someone or something in the neighbourhood of Zbojska Dolina, and I knew from Ivo the nature of the lead he—and you after him—had found. Of Welland I knew only that he had known Terrell, and that he, too, was returning with marked persistence to the place where Terrell had died, also plainly in search of something there. It was as evident to me as it was to you that every thread led into the heart of that one valley, and that the person to whom all those threads were leading must be Mr. Alda. The man who had known and worked with Terrell, and reported his death, the man who had an English past of some importance. Which, naturally, we, too, investigated.

“Now you, Miss Barber, have been so kind as to fill in all the gaps. It is very lucky for me, that Mr. Welland was forced by circumstances to confide in you. I had not this detailed knowledge then, but I had enough to show me that certain persons, all English, were very much interested in locating Mr. Alda, and that after the death of the first of them those of you who were continuing the search obviously held that same death to be murder. I knew it was not; but it was interesting to think that there was somewhere, known to someone, a reason why it could have been murder. And the second death was murder. I was not altogether prepared for that, never having taken it quite seriously. Your secret agent game became real, quite suddenly, because it appeared there was someone who was desperate to prevent you from finding Mr. Alda, someone who had killed and would kill again to keep the facts about his departure from England from being re-examined, or the case re-opened in any way.

“But where I had the advantage of you, of course, was in knowing beforehand that it could not be Mr. Alda himself. We preserve his quietness here, but that is not the same thing as keeping his secrets. He lives a life in which not even an Englishman could find anything underhand or controversial, he has nothing to hide and nothing to fear, and he would not care how many English people came investigating him, provided they didn’t hinder his work. For the same reasons, it could not be any other Czech or Slovak, official or unofficial.”

He had reached this point, when there was a knock on the outer door. Mirek got up from his place and looked enquiringly at his chief.

“Let him in,” said Ondrejov, settling his solid body more complacently in his wooden arm-chair, and his chin more contentedly into his chest. “Let’s see who’s the first.”

Every head turned to watch the doorway; and into it, all the more belligerently for his considerable inward disquiet, marched Paul Newcombe. He looked quietly round the circle, caught the excitement that burned in them all, and was alarmed, caught the glow and animation of Tossa’s face, and was reassured. He halted, uncertain what to make of them.

“You left a message for me at the hotel. I was only out for a walk.”

“Come in, Mr. Newcombe, come in. Mirek, find Mr. Newcombe a chair. You’re just in time,” pursued Ondrejov amiably, “to hear me conclude that the only person who could possibly have an interest in preventing an Englishman from finding Mr. Alda was someone connected with the circumstances in which he left England, someone who had gained by that case, and stood to lose by any reappraisal. In fact, another Englishman.”

“I know absolutely nothing about this affair,” Paul said loudly and aggressively, his bull head lowered in an instant. “I came from Vienna only because of Tossa, and that’s all I care about. But I can account for every minute I’ve spent in this country.”

“Ah, but you need not, Mr. Newcombe. Sit down, and be easy. You were never a very likely suspect. Now if it had been Terrell’s murder, I might have wondered… But in any case you have accounted for yourself quite adequately,” said Ondrejov, grinning like a happy demon, “simply by being here—and alive.”

“We have, then, our hypothetical Englishman. Can we give him any distinguishing features? A face? Not exactly, but an office or a status, perhaps, yes. He was connected with Mr. Alda’s life and work in England. He gained by his leaving England. That, at least, was my theory.

“Now, thanks to Miss Barber, I know much more about Welland, how he came into the case, what his motives were, what sort of man he was. We know that he went to the Marrion Institute, and proposed that he, being here on the spot, should investigate what he believed to be Terrell’s murder. He saw it as something they owed to the dead man, and to justice itself. Now I ask you, how could any of those in authority openly deprecate his zeal? They could not. In any case it seems he would not have agreed to drop his quest. I invite you to look closely at Mr. Welland, for I think he is worth it. There is every sign that he was a good, conscientious and honest man. And what follows? He would have insisted on investigating to the bitter end, and I think he would have made the truth known,