The Piper on the Mountain

no matter what that truth turned out to be. Which would not have suited X at all, for X alone knew exactly what was there to be uncovered.”

“I hope,” said Alda drily, “that you can make that good. For I tell you plainly, I am still in the dark.”

“Well, let me theorise, it was all I could do then, and what Miss Barber has told me since fits in with my theory. As for you, you do not know only because you do not care. You will see!

“Given, then, a devoted avenger who means to know the truth, and will not be stopped by persuasion, and cannot for shame’s sake be stopped by a prohibition, what is to be done? Use him! Let him find Alda, and then both he and Alda can be eliminated, and there’s an end of it. Let him find Alda, yes, but only if it can be ensured that he shall report his whereabouts only in the right quarter. It seemed to me that X must be in a position to know all about that interview at the Institute, and also to give orders to Welland concerning this case, to say in effect: ‘You will preserve absolute secrecy, reporting only to me’, and be trusted and obeyed. ‘Security’ is such a useful word, and can blanket so many personal meannesses.

“Now see what Miss Barber has told us about the last words Welland ever spoke to her. ‘He couldn’t have known…’ He? Obviously the expected he, the defecting scientist, the one who was thought to have things to hide, and had nothing, except his personal privacy. ‘—no one else knew…’ No one else but the one, or the ones, to whom he had already reported, the ones who had the right to know! He said it himself, and then he understood what it meant, and he cried: ‘Impossible!’ Impossible that his superior, the person, or one of the persons, for whom he was working, could also be his murderer. But he knew then that it was not impossible, that it was the truth.

“Such was my theory. And if this was true, then both Miss Barber and Mr. Felse were in danger after that death, simply because they had been present, and he might have confided something to them. Fortunately the circumstances made it possible for me to place Miss Barber in safety by holding her on suspicion. You would have made things much more difficult for me if you had told the truth the first time, but luckily you did not. And this, again, enabled me to inform the British Embassy that she was being held. You will surely understand how very curious I was to see exactly who would turn up to take charge of her…”

It was not a knock this time, only the sudden, rather high-pitched, imperious English voice in the outer room. Ondrejov drew in a long, contented breath, knowing this one, and knowing him the most expendable.

“Another chair, Mirek.” He rubbed his hands; how convenient that he had been able to secure all the time he wanted, simply by deflecting Major Kriebel’s most avid attention to the salvage operations already under way in Zbojska Dolina. “Ah, Counsellor! Come in, come in! You received my message, then.”

Charles Freeling closed the door after him with quiet precision, to show how perfectly he was in control of both his own reactions and the right manipulation of inanimate things.

“I should have been here earlier, but I had some trouble hiring a car. I preferred to come in person. Am I to take it that the matter is now cleared up, and Miss Barber no longer under restraint? Or is it intended to charge her?”

He took his stand, significantly, at her side, even laid his fingers delicately on her shoulder in reassurance. She did not even notice; she was clinging to Dominic’s hand, but she was watching Ondrejov, with wonder and delight, her newly released and exuberant senses sharing his slightly mischievous but utterly human pleasure in his game.

“No, there will be no charge against her, Mr. Freeling. I am in process of uncovering the murderer of Mr. Welland, by elimination. I hope you will join us for the remainder of my exposition. We had reached the point of demonstrating that the murderer must be an Englishman, and one in a position of authority.”

Freeling’s eyebrows soared. Ondrejov was meant to notice them, and to appreciate, if it was not beyond him, the neat, satirical smile that accompanied their elevation. “I hope, I do hope, Lieutenant, that I am not your man?”

It was an attractive idea, in its way, and even just barely possible. Was it too much to conceive that a devoted and orthodox public servant might feel called upon to wipe out a less devoted and less orthodox one, in order to keep a discreditable case from being reviewed to England’s embarrassment? It would have made a nice ending. A pity!

“You have good reason to hope so, Counsellor,” said Ondrejov earnestly. “My man is already very, very dead.”

“Well, as you know, there were four who ran gallantly to protect Miss Barber, and to argue eloquently that she should be released in their custody. I did not put her in that somewhat risky situation, naturally, since by then I was convinced that one of them had designs on her life. But I did, with planned safeguards, allow them a chance at Mr. Felse. A chance which his own enterprise considerably complicated.

“We have now reduced our four to two. But we still have those two people to choose from, and the motives are surely taking form. Both of these men gained by ensuring Mr. Alda’s disgrace. One of them, as I have learned, assisted Terrell in the compilation of the notorious dossier, was advanced in his profession as a result, and has now stepped into Terrell’s shoes. The other became head of the Marrion Institute, a promotion which would have been unlikely if Mr. Alda had continued—I believe the word is ‘clean’.”

“It isn’t enough,” said Alda, suddenly and with authority. “Neither motive is strong enough for murder. For his whole career, for his reputation, a man might take such desperate measures. But my return now, even my vindication, would not have unseated anyone or disgraced anyone. Even if they all conspired to produce that dossier on me, and so quickly, all they had to do was sit tight and plead that they had acted throughout in good faith. They wouldn’t be broken for that, either of them. Believe me, I know my England. They would be supported and covered to the limit, short of something like murder. I might get my reputation back, a little finger-marked. They wouldn’t lose theirs.”

“They do not discard their failures?” Ondrejov asked with interest.

“On the contrary, they promote them.”

“And we are too quick to discard ours. Somewhere there must be a workable compromise.” He scrubbed his chin with hard knuckles till the bristles rasped, and spared one twinkling glance to enjoy the lofty forbearance of Freeling’s face. “Well, I accept your judgment. Then there must be more.”

Dominic looked at Tossa, and she looked back at him with all her being open and happy behind her eyes, drawing him in. He closed his fingers on hers. “Tossa, do you remember, you told us at the Riavka that there were note-books that vanished?” It was a detail she had forgotten to mention, in her haste, when rushing through her story to Ondrejov, an hour ago. “Tell them about that. What Welland told you.”