House of Green Turf

The man with the gun said: ‘Achtung!’ sharply and clearly, and came to his feet.

Maggie’s laughter broke off in her throat. She crouched against the wall with head reared, ears straining after those small, stony sounds approaching somewhere outside the door. Robin watched the little sparks of hope come to life softly in her eyes, and the smile shattered by her laughter came back to his lips like a reflection in a pool reshaping itself after the dropping of a stone. He slid from the settle and stretched himself contentedly.

‘Too bad, my dear, it isn’t what you think.’

She had already grasped that it could not be. This was someone who knew the way in here, and approached quietly but without stealth. Not what she had been hoping for; merely what Robin had been waiting for.

The man with the gun crossed to the door and drew back the bolts. Maggie lowered her feet quickly over the edge of the stone shelf and stood up, drawing the folds of her soiled housecoat about her, for it seemed that time had run out.

Into the room walked four men, bringing in with them gusts of the chill night air and the green smell of the wet woods. Two of them were big, raw-boned mountaineers, from which side of the border there was no knowing. The third was slim and lightweight and young, and belted into a wasp-waisted raincoat. The fourth, who was thrust in limping heavily, with blood on his face and a gun in his back, was Francis.

Maggie made not a sound, but as if she had cried out to him his gaze flew to her, and fastened on her with such dismay and despair that her heart turned in her; and what he saw in her face was a mirror image of his own anguish. The only grain of consolation he had left was that she was safe in her bed; the only hope she had been able to keep was that he would launch the hunt for her in time. Both bubbles burst and vanished.

Maggie hardly noticed the dwindling of her own small chance of life in the sudden rush of rage and pain she felt for him. She had bought this fairly, but what had he done? She had brought him into this, unarmed and alone against a highly-organised and ruthless gang, and it was because of her actions that they were both going to die. She was to drown, because they wanted her found and accounted for. But Francis… No, better for them if he vanished altogether. What was the good of shutting her eyes? Since they had taken him prisoner somewhere on the road, perhaps well away from Scheidenau, why bring him back to this place if he was ever to leave it again?

Robin and his men were speaking rapid and colloquial German, Robin questioning, the others answering. She was soon lost in the language, but the implications were clear enough. Any trouble? No, no trouble, everything in hand, everything to numbers. There was something about a car—Francis’s car?-—that should be in Klostermann’s yard by now. They were all easy and content, not elated but extracting a certain workmanlike satisfaction out of their efficiency. Maggie stood almost forgotten, trying to understand, straining her senses in case there should be something, anything, at which hope could claw as it went by, and find a hold. For one of them, at least. For Francis! But she knew there would be nothing now. Just a few hours of deferment, and they had lost their chance for ever.

His captors had loosed their hold of him as soon as they had him inside, and the door firmly locked and bolted. Why not? He was battered and unarmed, and they had several guns between them. Even Robin had a gun in his hand now, a tiny, snub-nosed black thing that he dangled on his forefinger like a toy.

Something had been said about her, a question in the other direction. All three of Robin’s men were eyeing her with some concern; no doubt they had expected her to be in the lake by this time.

‘Oh, Maggie!’ said Robin carelessly, giving her a light glance over his shoulder. ‘There was a slight hitch there.’ He had slipped back into English, she thought, not by chance, but so that she should understand. ‘We shall have to keep her now until the Volga boatmen go home to sleep it off. They’re sure to tire sooner or later. Roker’s keeping an eye on them upstairs, he’ll give us the tip when they quit.’ He looked back at Francis, and spun the little gun in his hand, and the butt nestled into his palm like a bird homing. ‘But we may as well get this one underground,’ he said.

Francis had taken out a handkerchief, and was quietly wiping the blood from his cheek. His face,grey and drawn, kept a total, contained silence. Even when he raised his eyes for an instant to take one more look at Maggie, they gave nothing away beyond a kind of distant, regretful salutation. In the presence of these people he had nothing to say to her, not even with his eyes. The burden of longing and self-blame and love was not something he wanted to display for them or pile upon her at this last moment. As long as he had a card to play—and he had one, the last—he might as well play it, and speak to the point. The rest could stay unsaid; she wouldn’t be any the poorer or more unfortunate for ending her life without any declaration from Francis Killian.

‘There’s one thing you don’t know… Aylwin,’ he said, his voice emerging hoarse and clumsy from a bruised throat, ‘I take it you are Aylwin? Who else? Your boys don’t know it, either, but all the way up that mountain section there was a car following me to-night. It was on my trail yesterday, too, I couldn’t be sure of it then, but I know it now. I thought it was your pack on my heels, till I hit your ambush ahead. There’s only one other thing it could be, you know that, don’t you? A police car keeping an eye on me. They weren’t far behind when this bunch flagged me down. You think they’re blind and deaf? Or do you suppose they’d drop their assignment just when it got interesting? They’ll be hard after us right now, and there’ll be reinforcements on the way. Do you think you’re ever going to get out of here unobserved?’

‘I think,’ said Robin, smiling at him lazily, eyes narrowed and golden, ‘that you are a gallant but hopeless liar, trying the only bluff you’ve got left. But just to be obliging…’ He turned to the three who stood watching and listening, and snapped back briskly into German. They shook their heads in vigorous rebuttal, laughing the story away with absolute confidence. ‘You see? No shadow, no police, no fairy tales. If you had a tail, it got lopped off en route. But I think you never had one.’

‘Your trouble,’ said Francis levelly, ‘is that you have to have too much faith in your understrappers. The usual trouble with businesses that get too big. That Dodge will never get as far as Klostermann’s. If they miss it in Felsenbach, they’ll pick it up before it reaches Regenheim. And in case there’s any doubt about the place where I was waylaid, and about your tie-in with the affair, let me tell you I’ve left them my wallet and papers there on the spot. With the whole set of photographs of your grave.’

The first faint shadow of doubt touched but could not deface Robin’s smiling certainty. He turned his head again to shoot orders at his underlings; and they laid hands urgently on Francis and began to turn out his pockets, though they still poured voluble scorn on his story. He raised his hands out of their way, flinching as they handled him.

‘No wallet, no passport, no driving licence. You think I came out without those, Aylwin? Don’t bother to send a man back to pick them out of the ditch, the police did that long ago. And did you know that there’s an English detective in Scheidenau, co-operating with the locals? He followed me from England. Maybe he’s the one who’s been on my trail all day. He certainly was when we had lunch at The Bear.’

‘All right, so you left your wallet in the ditch. What good is it going to do you? Someone will spend your money and throw the rest away. I’ll believe in your English detective when I see him. And as for your police tail, Max with your hired job would have run head-on into it round the bend, and got word to me long ago.’

‘Maybe he did run into it, and they picked him up on the spot. Ever think of that? Better not write them off so