Half-way across the open space a stone rolled under his foot, and brought him down in a heavy fall, knocking the breath out of him. The noise seemed enormous, and set echoes rolling from side to side of the valley. He lay half-dazed, but already groping forward with his hands to thrust himself to his feet again; and suddenly a second sharp, dry crack sent sharper echoes hiccuping down the rocks, and something hit the ground close beside his right ear with a horrid leaden plunk and a sharp, protesting whine.
Every nerve in him curled willingly in upon itself, struggling to make him smaller and less vulnerable. Every particle of energy he had left in him gathered him to his feet in a wild leap, and hurled him forward towards the shelter of the trees. He knew very little about guns, but he knew the whimper of a bullet ricocheting. Not an inch of this shelf was out of the marksman’s range now, and a racket like that fall, to a true ear, made almost as fair a target as a proper sighting. He had changed his position, but he was still up there on the hillside, he’d merely worked his way down-valley on the same level, to cover the doorway. By the only route, then—by the traverse path across the cliff, from which Terrell had fallen to his death.
Dominic reached the edge of the trees and half-fell into their shelter; and something flew out of the green shade to meet him, and folded thin, straining arms about him with a sob of thankfulness and desperation. The shock fetched a gasp out of him. He clasped the embracing fury tightly, and hissed at her in confused rage:
“What the hell are you doing here? I told you to keep going!”
“Without you?” Tossa spat back at him indignantly. “What do you take me for?”
“Well, come on now, damn you! Get out of here, quick!”
“My God, I like that! I’ve only been waiting for you!”
“Shut up, just run!”
He caught her by the wrist, and dragged her at a frenzied, slithering run down the steep path. Speed was better than silence, now that they were in cover. Whatever noise they made they could out-distance, and the man with the gun, whatever his powers as a shot, had just demonstrated that he was still up there on the opposite mountainside, and could not possibly out-run them on their way down to the hut. Behind them they heard the sound of stones rolling, the faint slither of scree. Perhaps the spent bullet had started a minor slide. They didn’t stop to investigate. Hand in hand they ran, untidily, blindly, bruising themselves against rocks, slipping on the glossy grass, until they reached the main path, and settled down to a steady, careful run.
Across the meadows they could race silently, the thick turf swallowing their footsteps; and beyond, through the broken heathland, they relaxed their speed a little, feeling themselves almost safe, almost home.
“Dominic—he didn’t hit you? You’re sure?”
“No, I’m all right, he didn’t hit me. But, Tossa…”
“Yes?”
“We can’t keep quiet now. This is murder. You’ll have to tell everything you know.”
“I can’t! You don’t understand.”
“You’ll have to tell how this happened. If you don’t I shall. And it was to him you promised not to tell anything—wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said faintly. They were in the darkness of the forest now, above the brook, and they had to go gently, partly because they found themselves suddenly very tired and unsteady, partly because the path was narrow and the night deeper here. He folded his arm about her, and they moved together, warmly supporting each other.
“He’s dead, Tossa. It’s for him you have to tell the truth, now. That releases you.”
“No,” she said, shivering. “You don’t understand. I’ll tell you, but I can’t tell people here. I can’t! You’ll see that I can’t.”
“Never mind, don’t worry now. Let’s get home and find the twins. We’ll talk it over, we’ll see how best to handle it.”
Touching each other in the darkness, holding fast to each other where the path was tricky, confounded them almost more than their momentary head-on encounter with death. They were close to the deep green basin where the hut lay; the lighted windows shone upon them through the trees. Hand in hand they stumbled across the open grass towards the door of the bar.
Chapter 7
THE MAN WHO WASN’T IN CHARGE
« ^ »
The first look at their soiled and shaken faces effectively cut off all questions and exclamations, shocking the twins into silence. The significant jerk of Dominic’s head drew them after him up the stairs, unresisting, to an urgent council of war.
In the girls’ bedroom, secure from surprise at the far end of a creaky wooden corridor, Tossa sat down on her bed and unburdened herself of the whole story at last: how she had blundered into the affair by accident, through reading Robert Welland’s note left for her mother, how he had come back to reclaim it, too late, and made the best of it by telling her everything, and so putting her under the sacred obligation to keep it secret. She told them everything she had learned about Karol Alda, why he must be somewhere here, close at hand, and why it was almost certain that he was a double murderer. The newspaper photograph, the half-sheet of music paper, passed from hand to hand in a stunned silence.
“I believe my stepfather recognised this handwriting as soon as he saw it in the Hotel Sokolie. He must have seen it regularly when they were both at the Marrion Institute, and it was his job not to forget things like that. I think he followed Ivo Martínek over here to look for Alda. I don’t suggest the Martíneks know anything much, or even that they’re particularly close to Alda. This place is an inn, the local people do use it, and that piece of paper could easily have been left here some time when Alda was here, maybe sitting over a beer, playing with an idea he had in his mind. He’s a musician, too, it seems he was a very good one. He didn’t get this right. He tore off the false start and left it on the table. Maybe Ivo just picked it up out of curiosity, and felt interested enough to pocket it. Something like that, something quite casual and harmless, because he didn’t think twice about making use of it when he wanted a paper to score their card game, and he didn’t bother to take it away with him afterwards. But it did prove Alda was somewhere in the vicinity of the Martíneks, known and accepted there. So my stepfather came to look for him here. And he was killed here, up the valley where we went the first day. Opposite the place where Mr. Welland was killed tonight.”
“And for the same reason,” said Toddy positively, his face sharp with excitement. “Because they both located him! Isn’t it plain? This chap Welland was to try to trace him, and report back to the Institute through the embassy in Prague. And he’d done it! He was in Zilina when we came through, and saw you there, and you tipped him off where he could find you. And three days later he turns up on the telephone, asking you to meet him. He’d found him! He’d been to Prague to send the notification they’d agreed on, and he came back here to keep an eye on events in the meantime. You were a complication.”
“My guess is,” said Christine, gnawing her knuckles furiously, “he was worried about you turning up on the scene. He’d been thinking it over, and he wanted to have a word with you to-night to get you to lay off. Maybe to tell you whatever he knew, as the best way of satisfying you. But certainly to warn you not to start anything.”