The body of Robert Welland was by then being manhandled from the chapel towards the ambulance that waited for it at the Riavka hut, on its way to Liptovsky Mikulás, where the experts were sleepily and crossly preparing its reception.
“And the other three?” asked Ondrejov, with hunched shoulders and dissenting face. “None of them can possibly have been involved in the actual killing, only the girl Barber had the opportunity. I take it there’s no need to interfere with their plans? We can reach them at Zbojská Dolina whenever you want them, there’s no particular advantage in keeping them here.”
“On the contrary, I think it’s essential to have them under our eyes. We’d better fix them up here in the town, and keep them under surveillance, at least until we get the medical and laboratory reports. Then we’ll know better what we’re handling.”
All very well being correct and courteous with foreigners, but Kriebel carried the responsibility, and this was murder.
“As you think,” said Ondrejov austerely, with a face so blank that a duller man than Kriebel couldn’t have failed to deduce what it was concealing. “Then after you’ve seen them, I’d better send the young man Felse off with their van to bring their things from the Riavka, and settle them in here at the Slovan.”
“I should be glad if you would,” said Kriebel, his voice noticeably thinning as the woodenness of Ondrejov’s face thickened.
“Certainly, Comrade Major, whatever you say.”
If you want a superior, half your age, to keep things rolling your way, there’s nothing like persuading him that the idea was his in the first place, and that you cordially disapprove of it. Ondrejov wasn’t going to have the slightest trouble with this one.
“By the way, Comrade Major, I’ve notified the British Embassy of the girl’s situation. Since they’re concerned in any case, the victim being one of their own men, I thought it wise to forestall any criticism on that head. I hope that’s all right? It won’t, of course, affect your handling of the case in the least,” he hastened to add, with a nice blend of flattery and malice.
It wouldn’t now, at any rate. Ten ambassadors threatening all the professional reprisals in the world couldn’t have made Kriebel release his hold of Tossa Barber, after that.
It was some hours more before the rescue party began to gather. Even Kriebel had to sleep, after driving some three hundred kilometres from the Slovak capital, and then putting in an hour and a half of intensive work in Zbojská Dolina; consequently the four enforced guests of the establishment were also, by native standards, allowed to lie late, though not, to judge by the look of them when they were finally assembled in the police office, to sleep late.
Only Tossa, once stretched out on the cot in her small, bare room, had collapsed out of the world as though hit English attache the head with a blackjack; it was her only way of escape from a load temporarily too much for her to carry or comprehend. They dragged her out of her refuge too soon, but at least she had been able to withdraw for a few hours into the utter darkness and indifference of irresponsibility.
She came back to her distorted and frightening world drunken and stunned with sleep, but calm. She was glad, in a way, that they had kept her segregated even from Christine; the load was hers, and sympathy and advice would only have confused her. As it was, though she hadn’t spent one waking minute thinking about it, she had a very clear idea of what she had to do. Last night there had seemed no point in correcting her false story, since Mirek had effectively established what was false in it; now it seemed to her essential that she should tell it herself as fully as she could. There were still things she could not talk about; but to admit that she had felt unsatisfied about her stepfather’s death, and set out deliberately to investigate it herself, need not involve the Marrion Institute at all. No lies this time. Truth and nothing but truth, if not all the truth. It might not help her out of her mess, but it would do something to put her right with herself.
“I want to make a statement,” she said, when Ondrejov came to fetch her up to the office.
“So you shall soon, but not to me. And don’t be in too big a hurry.” He looked her over with shrewd and thoughtful eyes. “Finish your coffee, there’s plenty of time.”
She shook her head; it seemed to her an odd attitude. “The men from Scotland Yard came, then?” she said, with a pale, brief smile.
“They’re not the only arrivals. There are three gentlemen here to get you out of trouble.”
“Three?” She was impressed and amused, in a sad and private way, even very slightly curious, but she didn’t care to ask him questions; in her position it didn’t seem to her that it would be the thing to do. “I don’t think they can,” she said, after a moment’s rueful reflection. “Not for a day or two, anyhow, not until your people have found the bullet.”
“No,” agreed Ondrejov smugly. “I don’t think they can.”
“Are the others all right? Shall I see them?”
“They’re all right, and you’ll see them.”
They were already in the outer office when he followed her up the narrow stairs and through the thick brown door. Swollen-eyed and uneasy after a wakeful night, they sat silent, waiting to be interviewed, the youngest detective keeping a cool eye on them from behind the desk. Their eyes lit at the sight of her, and Dominic came eagerly out of his chair; but before anything could be asked or answered the inner door opened, and Kriebel leaned out.
“In here, please, Miss Barber.”
She turned one quick glance in Dominic’s direction, and for an instant they stared helplessly at each other. Then she went on obediently into the inner room, and Ondrejov followed her in and closed the door.
“Miss Barber, my name is Kriebel. I am in charge of this investigation. Please sit down!”
The chair that had been placed for her was in front of a large table, and in the full light from the window. Beyond, the rest of the room seemed dim by comparison, and it was larger than the shabby little outer office, obstinately and characteristically preferred by Ondrejov, so that she did not immediately sort out the strangers from the plain-clothes men among those present. Her tired but competent mind could deal with only one thing at a time.
“I should like to make a statement.”
That brought the rescuers forward to declare themselves at once, as if she had sounded an urgent alarm. Three of them, just as Ondrejov had said, all suddenly revealed as English the moment they moved and drew her eyes to them. English with the ludicrous, staggering Englishness which, as Toddy had rightly observed, is never even detectable at home. And all of them willing her to silence and delay.
“Miss Barber, I advise you to think carefully about your position, and do nothing in haste.”
“We are here to take care of your interests, Miss Barber.”
The first of them was a middle-aged gentleman of immaculate appearance, smooth-faced, grey-haired, rounded and agile, with a lawyer’s cagey face; the second a long, loose-limbed young man with a handsome, superior countenance, like a clever horse or a county dowager, and an alert and impudent eye. The third, who had stayed where he was and said nothing so far, looked at once the most truly concerned and the most likely to be effective. He was perhaps even more English than the others, but in a way which looked more at home here, with the fields only a stone’s throw away, and the crests of the mountains bright in the distance outside the window. Almost elderly, tall and rather thin, with dark hair silvered at the temples, and a good-looking, well-preserved face that could have belonged equally appropriately to a retired military man or a high civil servant. He had on Bedford cords and a tweed jacket worn into the baggy shapes of comfort, with leather patches at the elbows, the sort of jacket that should be accompanied by a floppy tweed hat to match, preferably with flies stuck round it.