I opened my mouth to utter a protestation at the injustice of it all. He made an impatient gesture. He did not have the time for the luxury of a debate. “I know that you did not do it. But it would seem to me that at this delicate moment, you now have two options.”
“Which are?”
“Stay where sooner or later you will be discovered.”
“Why? You deemed it secure enough up until now.”
“That was before the alarm was raised.”
“What alarm?”
“That you may not have left the district temporarily after all.”
“Who raised this alarm?”
“I do not know.”
“Anton?”
“We have no time to discuss who did or did not raise the alarm, doctor. You must either stay here and be caught, or…”
“Or…?”
“Or, as I suggested before, make your way to the British Consulate in Bern, where you might seek both sanctuary and legal representation.”
I rose from my nest of hay, and started putting my walking boots and puttees on. In the final analysis, I needed to remain at liberty for as long as necessary. For as long as it took me to untangle everything.
“Won’t they be watching all the tracks?”
“This is a possibility. It is your only hope, though.” He counted off my options upon his fingers, and waved an airy arm in various general directions. “You could go south and round through the valley or go by the Trummelbach towards Stechelberg. You might even go west over the Sefinenfurgge, or even south-west over to Kandersteg…”
I sighed; the names might as well have been Chinese to me. “Which direction would they be least expecting me to take?”
“Well, I suppose directly up. Into the mountains.”
“Up, then.”
“Up it is. You should leave first. I shall amble nonchalantly around the village for quarter of an hour, let my locum know I shall be away for a short while, gather up my own things and so on. Then I shall follow. I can show you the route you must take.”
I did not care for the sound of that. He might never follow. I hesitated again. Then I sat down once more. “Why help me?” I asked.
It was, of course, an absolutely impossible choice. Everything I had heard about the difficulties I was currently in was all total hearsay. In effect, it had come almost exclusively from this Franciscan eccentric before me. He seemed genuine enough, but who could tell? I could not confirm it by asking any other person. If the situation was indeed as he had described it, asking such questions may very well arouse suspicions. People might take it upon themselves to detain me until the police arrived.
And then I remembered the wire in my pocket from Flemyng regarding his warning with reference to Holloway. That too had to be an indication that all was not well. With Holloway, at the very least. And he was a dangerous opponent. Then it struck me. Holloway’s glib “Hello, padre”. I thought he had not noticed me. But it may well be that he had. It may well be that he was the fons et origo of this latest untimely development. That finally decided it for me. I simply had to leave, if only in order to take stock. Here in this hut, I was a sitting target. I did not put it beyond Holloway to suggest to these so-called village worthies that a search of the village might produce results. I had to get out. At least until I could come up with a better plan.
I stood up again, and took hold of the hat, gloves and ice axe that Father Vernon had so wisely brought.
“Splendid!” He clapped his hands together briskly, indicating that he considered the matter finally decided. He would brook no further prevarication. He proffered me my knapsack. He also gave me the satchel he had brought previously; doubtless now re-stocked with further victuals, and other items necessary for flight. “Come along. I shall arrange for your other effects to be packed and sent on to you, when you wire from a position of safety. In the meantime, you merely need to take what has been here provided…”
So I left my hide. Avoiding contact with anyone as best I could, I clambered over the little knoll that stood beyond the village, and scuttled away up into the woods. There I was to wait at an agreed rendezvous.
The grass upon which I sat and waited was crisp and short. Sheep had grazed here recently, and the stubble had been hardened by the sun; clay fired in a kiln. There was a large rock beside me upon which, popular legend had it, Mendelssohn had once sat and composed. He had used the breathtaking view of the village and the mountains and the valley beyond for his muse. I surveyed the view myself, now stretching away beneath me in the evening light that rendered everything into pastels. I consulted my watch and observed that it had been at least forty minutes since I had halted. Moths were beginning to awaken in the pit of my stomach. They produced that dusty fluttering that comes to one who, at first content and settled, begins to doubt the wisdom of that disposition. I took a sip from the flask of fresh mountain water Father Vernon had supplied me. I tore off another chunk of his rustic seeded bread and took some cheese. It was hungry and thirsty work, escaping.
Where could he be?
This was, as it happened, not the first time that exact phrase had borne in upon my reflections, there on the mountainside. Now I noticed, however, that the tone of the question was becoming harsher. More strident. More anxious. Mendelssohn may have noted that it had risen from B minor to F minor. Had the friar, after all, succeeded in some plan yet undisclosed? A plan whereby, despite his protestations to the contrary, I had been surgically removed from the affairs of the village below? The thought of having been thus inveigled rankled. It spoiled the taste of the otherwise wholesome bread and creamy cheese.
A moment later, I became aware of a rustling in the undergrowth. My recent brush with a spent hunter’s bullet had made me more sensitive to such incidents than usual. I scanned the vicinity.
There… in the trees below… a wild animal, perhaps?
A hunter?
Werner with his rifle? This time he might not miss. I’m devastated! An accident! I am mortified! He would tell the village worthies at the peremptory inquest. They would just shrug and reply, Well, he did have it coming to him. No matter. Would you care for a beer?
I looked at Mendelssohn’s rock and calculated how much time I would need to scurry behind it. It is not usually possible to evade a high-powered hunter’s rifle for ever. One only had to consider the silent witness of the venison upon one’s supper plate to know that. Perhaps I should just break cover and bolt? The venison in me counselled caution.
As stealthily as possible, I gathered up my things and repacked them. I kept one eye on the trees and the path in the surrounding area from which I had recently come. The rustling, shuffling sound drew closer. I took up my ice axe. I was tensed and ready to spring like a roebuck surprised at its watering hole. Anger, fear, animal aggression rose in me in equal measures. Whoever it was, was about to receive the full fury of the pent-up frustration and emotion of the past few days. Conan Doyle the author people knew. Conan Doyle the doting father and caring doctor they knew also. Conan Doyle the whirling dervish they had yet to be acquainted with. But acquainted with him they most surely would be. And in a very short space of time.
Then I caught a fleeting glimpse of brown habit. It was flickering briefly in the light through the trees, occasionally turning bronze by the setting sun.
A moment later and the figure of Father Vernon revealed itself in its entirety. He was striding noisily among the trees, making a bee-line towards me. Ever the suspicious one, I peered beyond him to see if he was accompanied, or had been followed. He was alone. He had taken a short cut straight across where the path made
an elaborate hairpin, in order, presumably, to make up for lost time. He caught sight of me and waved a cheery hand.
Soon, he had bustled up alongside me, upon his back he bore a substantial rucksack. We shook hands, I with no little relief. With barely a word between us, save the friar’s apology for his tardiness, we set off on our upward journey.
I glanced across at him as we walked. His strides were rhythmic and natural; he was in his element. However, he looked grave.
“What is the matter?”
“I encountered your Mr Holloway as I was leaving to join you. What has come over the man?”
“In what way?”
“Well, once I would have considered him a rather pasty-faced, sedentary city clerk. But he has been revitalized. Such energy in one ordinarily so dissolute I have never seen. Word has got out, and it was not I, that no one has seen you for some time. You have not been to your hotel; nor have you come for your meals. This has concerned some people greatly.”
“Which people? Holloway?”
Father Vernon shrugged. “Possibly. But there are more than he now concerning themselves with your whereabouts. I am not saying it is a hue and cry just yet. But it is coming to the boil, I would say. They wonder perhaps if you have made good your escape. There was a meeting in the centre of the village to discuss what to do. They are thinking about sending out search parties. Holloway seems to have taken charge of matters. When I left he was clicking fingers and issuing orders as though he were Wellington at Waterloo.”
“Did you tell him where you were headed?”
“Of course not. I let the whole commotion swirl off in whatever direction it chose to take itself. And then, when absolutely sure I would be neither seen nor followed, I set off to join you. Which is why I was so late.”
“So, they are after me?”
“Not necessarily. As I said, they don’t know where you are, but are concerned you have departed. The commotion is more to do with your prolonged absence.”
“Have the police from the valley arrived?”
“Not by the time I left. You still have the advantage of them. They may well soon decide you have gone, however. Though they will not know where. Neither will they know why.”
“Then we had better keep moving; stay one step ahead of them – literally.”
We fell to conversation as we walked. At first we discussed lighter matters, to take our minds off the situation in which I was now immersed. My companion gave me a potted history of himself. It was Francis of Assisi whose story had inspired him to follow suit: to forsake worldly things and serve only God, the disenfranchized, those on the margins of society. One thing led to another and he found himself in the priesthood. He still could not quite understand how. Finally, after serving his God and his Order in South America, he ended up in this tiny little Swiss backwater. Here, after all his idealism and passion for the underprivileged, he had grown slowly disillusioned. Why had his Order sent him here? To this comfortable, sleepy little village that spends its days minding its own business? He didn’t know. He knew that the Order often chose to move its friars away from the places they had felt called to – in Father Vernon’s case, the slums of South America – to places where they might experience a whole new way of life. A different culture. A place where they might develop new skills, new ministries. The only new skills Father Vernon had learned, he confided ruefully, was how to drink good Swiss wine without losing his grip on his parish or his work.
It struck me that our tramp up into the hills was to some extent rekindling the passion he had once had for the life of a friar.
Sooner or later, however, our discussions perforce moved on to other topics.
“You know, of course, doctor, that there is no smoke without fire?”
Here it is, I thought; the real reason why he encouraged me all the way up here. Now I am alone. Now he may dispose of me as he sees fit. How foolish I had been. How gullible. I stopped and turned to face whatever fate he had in store for me. This had all gone on too long; it was good that it was being brought to an end like this. “Do you suspect me of being implicated in some way with Brown’s death all along?”
His reply, however, surprised me. Perhaps it was meant to.
“No. I do not suspect you. However, the fact that someone does is the problem. Someone has put it abroad that you really were the one in with Brown’s body. That it was you who set light to the church. In short, the conclusions the village worthies have reached, they may not have reached on their own. Someone may well have put you and your supposed guilt into their minds at some time. Find that person and we will find the real suspect. That is what I intend to do, once we have spirited you away safely.”
I begrudged him the pursuit of this person in my absence, but said nothing.
The craggy moss-stained rocks that stuck out from the slopes among the trees reminded me of the tors of Dartmoor. Sprinkled among them was an enormous variety of pretty little alpine flowers such as gentian. They were stubbornly refusing to be uprooted, either by the wilderness that surrounded them or anything the weather could throw at them. We passed a track leading to a remote farmhouse where, Father Vernon told me, they made some splendid local cheese. We deemed it impracticable if not downright irresponsible to pay them a call and make a purchase. However, I regretted not having the opportunity to do so.
“What are you thinking, doctor?”
I laughed gently, and shrugged. “I was just remembering. It is interesting that you spoke of spiriting me away when spiritualism seems to be very much one of the reasons I am now tramping uphill with you.”
“Do you believe in the supernatural, doctor?”
“Yes. But I have only just begun to explore it. In this thinking, I am still down in the valley. You are probably, with your faith, already high up here somewhere.”
“I am in the valley, too, doctor. I do not have a faith. I always get cross when people talk about their faith as if it were a possession, something you can own or even earn. It is the faith. We simply explore it. And not at all well.”
“Is spiritualism a faith?”
“It involves a suspension of disbelief. This makes it look like faith. Rational human argument will say it is faith, but it is something else. Impossible to detect the difference. However, unlike a belief in God – which incidentally, some may still possess while practising spiritualism – this is not faith because it demands proof. Faith, by definition, needs no proof. It is experiential and it is subjective. No one else can know what it is that you feel or believe in the fundament of your being. Spiritualism is just humankind’s demand for tangible evidence that there is something out there. So it cannot be faith. Although you can use faith as a tool to achieve this ambition for evidence.”
“But surely there is nonetheless something in the concept of getting in touch with other spiritual planes?”
“Most definitely. However, the general processes that the practitioners go through leave much room for doubt.”
“Are you suggesting that they are all self-deceivers, or worse, charlatans?”
“No – I am suggesting that until peer review can test their methods of exploration of their beliefs, then their belief system will perforce always be diminished in the world’s eyes.”
“Peer review?”
“It is possible for one academic to thoroughly disagree with another’s conclusions, yet respect that person’s methodology and research. Are you familiar with the Bible, doctor?”
“No longer, although I have recently renewed my acquaintance with the Psalms.”
“Religion has tested itself by using all the great academic thought down the centuries and has not been found wanting. I am not talking about research like your Mr Galton’s statistical enquiries into such matters as the efficacy of prayer. One cannot test prayer any more than one can test spiritualism. By definition, the answer to prayer is a gift from God; it cannot be summoned. It most surely cannot be demanded, just because humankind wishes to make a statistica
l survey of its efficacy. However, the only way to assess anything is by conducting one’s research using an accredited system or methodology. If the process can be acknowledged, then the conclusions, while disagreed with, must be at least respected. How many professors of spiritualism or mediumship are there in the world? Oh, I know well-meaning people can fund a chair and try and give it academic status, but how many bona fide universities have set up a paranormal department from choice? Yet they all have theology and philosophy departments.”
I understood what he was saying. But was it not also true that as a practising Christian, he was bound to say that? His notion of peer review was interesting to me, however. Just suppose a thoroughgoing scientific, empirical and assessable approach was taken to spiritualist phenomena? Now that would be something worth exploring. Of course, one does not have to be a believer to be a theologian, does one? Therefore one does not have to have psychic powers in order to explore the supernatural realms.
“Theology is just the study of God; you don’t have to believe to explore the phenomena associated with the Unknowable.”
“Are you a theologian as well as a Franciscan and a priest?”
“As it happens, yes. But I am afraid my theology does not necessarily sit kindly with the Holy See. So I keep it under my hat.” He grinned and scratched his tonsured head. “But we are not here to talk about me. As far as you are concerned, you would be best advised to go to ground for a few days. Let the hue and cry die down, then we’ll see about spiriting you away to Interlaken and home. The whole valley will be alerted for the moment.” At that precise moment, he stopped. He stood stock still, almost as if he were smelling the air like a pointer. He was listening.
“Doctor, did you hear that?” His voice had sunk to a whisper. We both stood and listened intently. In the dusk, everything had taken on a sepia wash from the last of the copper light cast against the western skies by a sinking sun. “Do you hear it?”