'Why should I want to do that?' Philip asked as he tucked the card inside his wallet. The card had a phone number.
'Because you are travelling alone. Because the world -even Switzerland – has turned into a dangerous zoo. We collected six bodies off the street after a shoot-out in Geneva a day or two ago.'
'Then Geneva is a good place for me to leave. Are you, if I may ask, on business or pleasure?'
'I am never sure. A detective is on duty twenty-four hours a day.'
'You are travelling far?' Philip enquired.
Damn this for a lark, he thought. I'll be the one who asks the questions.
'To the end of the line. To Milano. A terrible city. You take your life in your hands when you cross a street. The lights are in your favour, they change when you are three-quarters of the way over. The armada of traffic comes straight at you. If you didn't hurry they would run you over.' He waved a hand. 'Different countries, different manners. Would it disturb you if I smoked a cigar?'
'Go ahead. I think I'll use up one of the few cigarettes I smoke in a day…'
The fat man took out a cigar case, extracted a cigar, neatly trimmed off the end which he placed in the ashtray, then used a match to light it, moving the match backwards and forwards.
For the next hour or so Philip, growing more and more intrigued – even fearful – by what he saw out of the window, said nothing. Vincenau, wreathed inside the smoke from the large cigar he was smoking slowly, also said nothing. Philip suspected it was the old police tactic – using silence to compel the suspect to start saying something.
After leaving Montreux, the express entered the vast and endless gorge which was the Valais. Philip looked out on a frozen world. On both sides the world was hemmed in by continuous ranges of high, rugged, grim mountains.
The mountains, their summits towering so far above the express he couldn't see them often, were covered in deep snow. At frequent intervals mysterious valleys disappeared inside the mountain walls, their entrances guarded by immense cliffs.
Every now and again there would be a sinister narrow gash, a crevasse enclosing a threadlike waterfall, now solid ice. He saw great rock outcrops over which, at one time, water had spilled. Now the water was frozen into dagger-like stalactites, often a hundred feet long. Dozens of them formed palisades of ice.
They passed through Martigny, a small town huddled beneath a menacing giant of overhung rock, gleaming like an enormous mirror as a brief shaft of sunlight broke through the low overcast. There was no sign of life and the streets were piled high with snow.
Philip thought he had never before seen such a wasteland, as though this part of the world had returned to the wilderness of the Ice Age. He knew Vincenau was watching his reaction through the smoke and kept his face expressionless.
The floor of the valley, along the centre of which the rail line ran, was a bleak expanse of snow. Here and there was a sign of life. From the chimney of a stone house, perched on a lip, rose a trail of smoke vertically to meet the overcast above them. Could Siberia be any worse?
Vincenau tapped ash from what was left of his cigar, used the cigar as a pointer.
'See that snail-like thing halfway up that mountain? It's a small train.'
Philip gazed in disbelief at the two tiny coaches which appeared to be clinging to the face of the mountain as they crawled higher and higher.
'Where is it going to?' he asked.
'It ends near a glacier. There are villages which have to be served. That is their only communication with the outside world in March. It will have a small snowplough attached to the front.'
'All right, if you like the quiet life.' Philip commented.
'The people who survive here are a tough, sturdy breed. The trouble is all the young folk have left for the bright lights of the cities. There are villages up in those mountains which are deserted, the houses becoming derelict. Old wooden houses with shingle roofs. Apart from tourism and vineyards in good weather later the Valais is dying.'
It was a long speech for Vincenau and, once again, Philip had the feeling his companion, conducting the conversation in French, was studying his reaction. He checked his watch and stood up to lift down his case from the rack.
'You are getting off at Sion?' Vincenau enquired.
'Yes.'
'Look out of the window.'
They were passing more slowly through a small station. On the platform stood a group of what looked like young refugees, waiting for a stopping train. Several were holding broken skis. One girl was on crutches and had her right leg swathed in bandages. All of them looked in a state of misery. Vincenau sighed.
'They will do it.'
'Do what?' Philip asked.
'Go skiing when they have been warned that the weather is changing, that the ski slopes are treacherous.'
The express was slowing even more when Philip saw out of the window an airfield. It was quite close to the rail line and a snowplough stood motionless at one end of a runway it had just cleared.
'That's just outside Sion.' said Vinceneau. 'They must be expecting an aircraft to land.'
'Well, I'd better get to the exit door. These trains don't wait long.'
'One minute at Sion.' said Vincenau.
He stood up to shake hands after stubbing his cigar. He stood close to Philip, who noticed his fleshy nose had red veins. The Swiss detective obviously liked his wine.
'Do not go up into the mountains,' Vincenau said with great emphasis.
'Thank you for your company. I hope conditions in Milan are better.'
Philip was standing by the exit door when the train stopped and the door slid open automatically. He was the only one to step down onto the platform. He waited, seeing no sign of station staff, no sign of anyone. The express moved off and Philip watched it disappearing rapidly. He felt he had just lost his last link with civilization.
Vincenau did not travel on to Milan. He got off at the next stop, Brig. He hurried to a phone, dialled Beck's private number at police headquarters in Zurich.
'Beck speaking.'
'Inspector Vincenau here, sir. Speaking from Brig in the Valais. I accompanied Philip Cardon on an express from Geneva. He didn't give me his name but he fitted one of the descriptions you gave me. I will repeat it…'
He did so while Beck, in his office overlooking the River Limmat, listened carefully. He only spoke when Vincenau had finished.
'Yes. That would be Philip Cardon. Where was he going to?'
'He got off the express at Sion.'
'Who was with him?'
'No one. He was alone. Of that I am sure.'
'Alone! Oh, my God…'
After he had finished speaking to Vincenau and they had agreed Vincenau should catch the next express back to Geneva, Beck, who had been up all night, put down the phone and sat thinking. He was appalled at the news. Beck took quick decisions. He called the Schweizerhof, asked to speak to Tweed, told him he was on his way over.
In his room Tweed told Newman what Beck had said. He had also been up all night. He had held a conference with Newman, Marler, Butler, and Nield on the problem of leaving Zurich alive.
'I have a plan.' Marler had suggested. 'We take a train. Preferably an early morning express before commuters clutter up the station. I will lead a guard team – all disguised in station officials' uniforms.'
'How are you going to get hold of themRIGHT SQUARE BRACKET' Newman had begun, only to be interrupted by Tweed.
'No good. There will be some passengers about and if it comes to a shoot-out innocent people could end up as corpses.'
Whatever plan was suggested it always came up against Tweed's objection that innocent lives could be at
