Airs Above The Ground Part 21

"I can hardly wait."

"I always did say you weren't a nice girl. d.a.m.n this mist, it's a mixed blessing. From what I can see of this blessed mountain, they couldn't be better placed. I seem to remember that the place has what's called a 'panorama' . . . that is, it's got a clear signalling line across at least two borders."

"What are you going to do?"

"Go straight in, if I can, and pick up Balog, his contact, and the dope. The police might have got more information by just watching the Gasthaus, but Balog knows his cover's been blown, so we might as well muscle straight in and pick up the two of them before they clear out of it. Something'll turn up if they take the place apart-and two birds can be made to sing faster than one."

"What do you want me to do?"

"When we get there, stay under cover till I give the word. I may need you to do the telephoning, if I have my hands too full. . . . Or, if anything goes wrong, you're to get straight downhill with Tim, get to the car, drive down to the hotel, and get them to telephone the police at Graz. Then get the local bobby and a few solid citizens and send them up here. Don't come back yourself." He smiled down at me. "Don't look like that; that's only if things go wrong, but they won't. . . . I'm only doing what they call covering all contingencies. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Now we'd better stop talking. Sound carries in mist the way it does over water, and I don't think it can be far now."

"Look," I said.

Away above us, and slightly to the left, nebulous and faint through the fog, like a strangled star, a light suddenly p.r.i.c.ked out and hung steady.

"Journey's end," said Lewis.

"Or the start of the fun?" I asked.

"As you say," he agreed smoothly.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself.

Shakespeare: King Henry VIII

The gasthaus was not a big building. As far as one could see in that misty half-light, it was solid, long, whitewashed, with the roof of grey wooden shingles so common in the valleys, and to one side a sheltered verandah made of pine where tables were laid in summer. It lay some twenty yards beyond the final halt of the rack railway. At the other side of the Gasthaus lay a terrace edged with a low wall, a belvedere, beyond which the cliff dropped sheer away for some two or three hundred feet, but on the railway side, from which we approached, it was just an ordinary long low building with shuttered windows and a heavy door, to the side of which were the refuse bins and crates of empty bottles.

It was from one of these windows-the only one unshuttered-that the light came which Lewis and I had followed. Half the outside shutter had been pushed open, and the window with it, back against the wall.

It was possible that this had been done deliberately after Sandor's telephone call in order to guide him up the mountain in the mist. There was no other light.

There was a shed at the terminus of the rack railway, a squat oblong building which did duty as a station.

We ran forward under cover of this and dodged through the crush barriers to the misty window at the rear. Between the window and the Gasthaus there was no cover except the stacked boxes and dustbins near the wall. We could see clean in through the open window, and what was going on in the room was as obvious and well lighted as something on a picture stage.

The room was the kitchen. To the left as I looked I could see the gleam of the big cooking stove and above it a row of copper pans and a blue dish hanging. Against the wall, opposite the window, could be seen the top of a kitchen dresser, shelves of some sort with more of the blue dishes, and some cardboard boxes stacked. The wall to the right, where presumably the door was, I couldn't see. The end of a big scrubbed table jutted out near the window. More important than anything, on the wall beside the dresser, at shoulder height, was an old-fashioned telephone, and near this Sandor Balog stood, talking hard to another man, obviously his host, who stood by the stove with his back to the window. From what I could see of him this was a stocky, heavily built man with thinnish, greying hair. He had an old overcoat huddled on anyhow, over what I a.s.sumed were pajamas or whatever he wore at night. He was in the act of lifting what looked like a coffeepot off the top of the stove, and had paused to say something over his shoulder to Sandor.

All this I got in one swift impression, for in that moment Lewis, with a breathed "Stay here," had left my side and was running lightly across the intervening s.p.a.ce between the shed and the kitchen wall.

He ran in a curve, keeping out of the direct line of vision, and in a few seconds, unnoticed, was backed up against the wall to the side of the open window, from where, presumably, he could hear what was being said.

I don't know to this day whether the light in that room was electric or whether it came from a lamp, but in the uncertain dawn it seemed very strong and lit the scene in the kitchen with startling clarity, in spite of the veils and fingers of mist that still drifted between; whereas Lewis, crouched beyond the direct beam of the light, was less than half visible. All the same, I saw the gun in his hand. . . .

But at the same moment a movement within the room caught my eye. The second man carried the coffeepot across to the table, still talking, and proceeded to pour coffee into a couple of mugs. I saw the steam of it rising, and I still remember-overlaying even the excited apprehension of the moment-the glorious sudden pang of hunger caused by the sight of that coffee. I seem to remember that I could even smell it; but that of course was ridiculous. There were still twenty yards of damp grey air between us.

Next moment I forgot the coffee completely. I saw Lewis drift away from the window, along the wall, to try the door.

It was locked; they must have shut it again after Sandor had been admitted. Lewis drifted, ghostlike, back towards the window. I was surprised that they had left that, but perhaps they hadn't noticed, and Sandor, after all, had shown no suspicions of being followed.

Even as the thought crossed my mind, he did notice it. He said something, pointing, then put his mug down on the table and turned towards the telephone. His host glanced, shrugged, then stepped towards the window. He was going to shut it. Sandor had lifted the receiver and was waiting. And Lewis-I could see it now-Lewis, incredibly, had put out a hand to hold the window and shutter tightly back against the outside wall.

The man thrust out an arm and yanked at the window. It jerked, and stuck. He pulled it again, and even from where I stood I could hear his irritable exclamation as it still stayed fast open. Sandor gave a half glance over his shoulder, then turned back to the telephone and said something brief into it, a number, perhaps. The man at the window leaned right out over the sill and reached to one side to pull it to.

Lewis. .h.i.t him hard over the head. The heavy body slumped across the sill, then slowly slipped back into the lighted room. It had hardly begun to slide before Lewis had gone with it and was astride the sill, silhouetted sharply against the light, with the gun in his hand.

At the same moment an upstairs light came on.

I left my hiding place and ran like a hare across the intervening s.p.a.ce towards the kitchen window.

All h.e.l.l had broken loose in the kitchen. Lewis, of course, had had to jump blind for the window and, though he must have heard Sandor at the telephone, he could only guess at the situation inside. Quick though he had been, Sandor had had a moment's warning, for even as Lewis jumped for the sill Sandor slammed the receiver back and whirled round, reaching for his pocket.

But he never got his gun levelled. Lewis shot. He didn't shoot to kill: it seemed he was content with shattering one of the blue dishes on the dresser; but the shot had its effect. It managed to freeze Sandor where he stood, and then at a barked command he sent his gun skidding across the floor to Lewis's feet.

I heard Sandor say incredulously: "Lee Elliott! What in h.e.l.l's name?"

Lewis cut across him. "Who is this man?"

"Why, Johann Becker, but what in the devil's name-?"

I said breathlessly, from the window: "A light went on upstairs. Someone's awake."

Sandor's face, as he saw me, changed almost ludicrously. It held amazement, then calculation, then a kind of wary fury. "You? So it's you who are responsible for this crazy nonsense? What's she been telling you?"

Lewis had neither moved nor turned at the sound of my voice. He said: "Come on in. Pick up that gun.

Don't get between me and Balog." Then to Sandor, curtly: "Who else is in the house?"

"Well, Frau Becker, of course. Look, are you crazy, Elliott, or what? If you'll listen to me, I can-"

"Keep back!" snapped Lewis. "I mean this. It won't be a plate next time." As Sandor subsided, I slid quickly in through the window and stooped for the gun. "That's my girl," said Lewis, still with eyes and gun fixed on Sandor. "Have you ever handled one of those things before?"

"No," I said.

"Then just keep it pointing away from me, will you? It doesn't much matter what happens to Balog, but I want you to keep Frau Becker quiet with that, so-"

Sandor said furiously: "Look, will you tell me what this is about? That girl-the gun-what the h.e.l.l's she been telling you? You must be crazy! She thinks-"

Lewis said impatiently: "Cut that out. You know as well as I do why I'm here. I've heard pretty well all I want to know, but you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you'll tell me just where Becker and his wife come in-"

He got no further. The door of the room was flung open, and in surged one of the most enormous women I have ever seen.

She had on a vast pink flannel nightgown with a blue woollen wrapper over it, and her hair was in tight plaits down her back. She may have been roused by Sandor's arrival, but it was the sounds of the first scuffle that had lit her window, and now the pistol shot had brought her downstairs. It hadn't apparently occurred to her that a pistol shot in the night was anything to be afraid of; what she had apparently come to investigate was the sound of broken crockery. I can only a.s.sume that she thought her husband and his visitor were indulging in some kind of drunken orgy, for she swept into that room like Hurricane Chloe, unhesitating and unafraid -and poker in hand.

I jumped to intercept her, thrusting the pistol at her much as David must have waved his little sling at Goliath.

She took no notice of it at all. She lifted an arm the size of a York ham to sweep me aside, and bore down on the men. And I'm sure it wasn't the sight of her unconscious husband, or the raging Sandor, or even Lewis's pistol, that brought her up all standing for one magnificent moment in front of the dresser.

"My dish! My dish!" It was only later that Lewis translated for me, but the source of her emotion was unmistakable. "My beautiful dish! You destroy my house! Burglar! a.s.sa.s.sin!"

And, poker raised high, she bore down on Lewis.

I'm still not particularly clear about what happened next. I jumped for the woman's upraised arm and caught it, but in her attempt to wrench herself free of me she sent us both staggering across the room, and for a moment we reeled between Lewis and Sandor.

Lewis leapt to one side to keep Sandor within range, but it was too late.

Sandor went for Lewis's gun hand like a tiger to its kill, and the fight was on.

I didn't see the first stages of that fight; I was too busy with Frau Becker. If Lewis was not literally to be weighted clean out of the battle, it was up to me to keep the lady out of it. Even he, I supposed, could hardly shoot the woman.

It was all I could do not to shoot her myself. For two or three sizzling minutes all I could hope for was to hold on madly to the hand which held the poker, and prevent my own gun from going off, as I was shaken about that room like a terrier hanging on to a maddened cow.

Then suddenly she collapsed. She folded up like a leaking grain sack and went down as if I had indeed shot her. By the mercy of heaven a chair was in the way, and into this we went together, me on her ample lap, still hugging her like an avid nursling. I thought at first that the chair had smashed under our combined weights, but it was a rocking chair, and, tossing like a ship at sea, it shot screeching backwards to fetch up against the door just as Timothy, white-faced and bright-eyed, came hurtling through the window, tripped over the prostrate Becker, swept a mug off the table in falling, and landed on the floor in a pool of coffee.

Whether the sight of a third a.s.sa.s.sin was too much even for Frau Becker, or whether (as I suspect) the smashing of the mug had finally broken her spirit, she was finished. She opted out of the fight, sitting slumped there in the rocking chair, ma.s.sive, immobile, wailing in German, while I picked myself up off her and took the poker from her, and Tim rolled off her husband and took the poker from me, and then together we turned to watch the other hurricane that was sweeping that hapless kitchen.

The two men were evenly matched, Sandor's strength and sheer athletic skill against Lewis's toughness and training. Sandor was still hanging on to Lewis's gun hand, while Lewis fought grimly to free himself and regain control with the gun. At the moment when we turned they were both, tightly locked, hurtling back against the hot front of the stove. It was Lewis who was jammed there, for two horrible seconds; I was too distraught to hear what he said, but Timothy told me afterwards with unmixed admiration that he had learned more in that two seconds than he had in six years at public school-which, I gathered, was saying a lot. I know that, as Lewis cursed, I screamed and Tim jumped forward, and then Lewis's wrist was brought with a crack across the edge of the stove and his gun flew wide, to go skittering under the table, and then he kneed Sandor viciously in the groin and the locked bodies reeled aside and came with a backbreaking slam against the table's edge, while Tim's poker, missing them by inches, smashed down on the stove top to send the kettle flying.

"My kettle!" moaned Frau Becker, galvanized afresh.

"Tim! The other man!" I shrieked, holding her down.

Becker was moving-was even on his feet. Sandor saw him, gasped something, and the man lurched forward.

But not to help. He was making for the telephone. He was at it.

Lewis said, quite clearly, "Stop him!" and somehow swung Sandor away from the table. One of Sandor's hands, those terrible steel hands, was at Lewis's throat. I could see the flesh bulge and darken under the fingers. The sweat was pouring off both men, and Sandor breathed as if his lungs were ruptured. Then instead of pulling away I saw Lewis close in. He had Sandor round the body; he heaved him up and across, somehow twisting his own body . . . then suddenly brought him slamming down across his knee in a backbreaker. Before Sandor could roll painfully free, Lewis had dragged him up again and I heard the sickening sound of bone on flesh as he hit him hard across the throat.

Becker wasn't lifting the receiver. He was yanking at the wires with all his strength.

I yelled: "Put that down!" and swung the useless gun away from the struggling men, towards Becker. He ignored me. I didn't know if I had a mandate to shoot him, and I doubt anyway if I could have hit him even at that range. I reversed the gun and jumped for him.

I was just too late. Tim had whirled, jumped, and struck, just as the telephone wires came away with a scatter of plaster and a splintering of wood, and poor Becker went down once more and lay still.

"My dish!" wailed Frau Becker. "My beautiful cups! Johann!"

"It's all right," I said feebly, desperately. "We won't hurt you, we're police. Oh, Tim-"

But there was no more need of Tim and his poker. The fight was over.

Lewis was getting to his feet and dragging Sandor up with him. The latter's breathing was terrible, and though he still struggled, it seemed to be without much hope of breaking the cruel grip that held him.

I think I started forward, but Tim caught at me and held me back. He had seen before I had what was happening.

Sandor was being forced, step by sweating step, towards the stove.

It was all over in seconds. I still hadn't grasped what Lewis was doing. I heard Sandor say, in a voice I didn't recognize: "What do you want to know?" And then, quickly, on a sickening note of panic: "I'll tell you anything!

What do you want?"

"It can wait," said Lewis.

And with the other's wrist in his grip, he dragged the arm forward and began to force it out towards the stove where the kettle had stood.

Sandor made no sound. It was Timothy who gasped, and I think I said: "Lewis! No!"

But we might as well not have been there.

It happened in slow motion. Slowly, sweating every inch of the way, Lewis forced the hand downwards.

"It was this hand, I believe?" he said, and held it for a fraction of a second, no more, on the hot plate.

Sandor screamed. Lewis pulled him away, dumped him unresisting into the nearest chair, and reached for the gun I was still holding.

But there was no need for it. The man stayed slumped in the chair, nursing his burned hand.

"Keep your hands to yourself after this," said my husband thinly.

He stood there for a moment or two, getting his breath and surveying the results of the hurricane: the unconscious Becker, the wrecked telephone, the woman snuffling in the rocking chair, Tim with his poker, and myself probably as pale as he, shaken and staring.

Timothy recovered himself first. He went scrambling under the table and emerged with the gun-the precious Beretta -held carefully in his hand.

"Good man," said Lewis. He smiled at us both, pushing the hair back out of his eyes and seeming suddenly quite human again. "Van, my darling, do you suppose there's any coffee left? Pour it out, will you, while Tim and I get these thugs tied up. Then they can tell us all the other things I want to know."