“And I have no alternative…” We looked at each other.
Now it was, then.
Father Vernon kilted the skirts of his habit so that he looked as if he were wearing pantaloons. He donned a coat that was hanging on the door, left by some previous visitor, and placed a pair of goggles onto his face. He strapped on the skis and I followed suit.
“Three… two… one… Go!”
We burst out of the door with two eight-foot strips of elm strapped to our feet.
The movement took our hunters by surprise. They were still not close enough for us to make them out clearly. I hoped, similarly, that they would not be able to make us out, either. Father Vernon’s anonymity was vital.
But they could still raise a rifle to their shoulders if they so chose.
As we slid down the great snow-fast glacier away from the hut and the Eiger, I looked over my shoulder. I caught a glimpse of one of the men raising his rifle. The sun glinted dully off the metal. I shut my eyes and huddled as low as I could. For a moment I waited to hear, above the sound of the wind in my ears, the winging of a bullet passing me. Or worse: feel it driving into me like a red-hot poker. Neither happened. A few moments later, I heard the crack of the gunshot. He had missed by a mile. Or, at least, he had missed by enough for me not to have heard the bullet itself. While the glacier was mercifully smooth and not too sheer, allowing me to maintain a semblance of balance, with every second that passed, our velocity and trajectory was taking us further and further away from them. Unless we were most unfortunate, it was now even more unlikely that they would be able to get a sufficient bearing upon us to let off another shot.
My calculation proved correct and we never heard another thing; nothing except the sound of the rushing wind in our ears as we raced down the long sweeping expanse of the gleaming glacier. We directed our trajectory towards the lower slopes with their bright skies opening their welcoming arms before us.
We made an absurd sight: an increasingly bewildered middle-class doctor/author and an unhinged priest careering down a mountainside at gathering speed on lengths of wood.
I started to laugh uncontrollably. I think it was hysteria.
TWENTY
We left the skis, poles, goggles and jackets at the village where we had landed up later that afternoon. We sent them back to the hut on the mountain with a thank-you note and sufficient francs to pay for the hire of them. I signed it “Conan Doyle”.
I was free. Free to do whatever I chose, free to make my way to the embassy in Bern, or just catch the night train to Paris and the ferry home the following day. Home. Home where Touie and my two children, one yet unborn, waited for me and would hug me and enfold me in their love.
But something inside me said something else.
Go back. It is the last thing that they would expect.
When I told Father Vernon of this urge, he gaped at me as if I were now beyond redemption.
I explored my own reasons for going back and tried to explain them to my companion and, I hoped by now, friend. I wanted to clear my name. I was aggrieved that anyone should have considered me worth pursuing. I did not wish to leave under a cloud. Moreover, if I were guilty, would I not make good my escape by leaving the country now? What guilty person in their right mind would consider returning to the people he had just evaded? And, despite everything, I did consider myself to be in my right mind. Unlike one fellow I could mention.
In the event, it did not take much arguing from my side to convince the friar. Perhaps he understood more than I knew. Perhaps he felt exactly the same, but for different reasons. He, after all, was more innocent even than I. His only condition was that I should return to the hayloft in the first instance, until the ground could be properly prepared for my being restored into the village society.
I agreed.
Meanwhile, I almost dared not admit it to myself, but I had become thoroughly possessed of a dark, brooding, seething hatred – of Sherlock Holmes. I did want to kill him. I had already begun plotting his murder. This second part I did not explain to the Franciscan.
“Perhaps when we return you might elicit further help…” I mused, hating the thought that we should continue this enterprise entirely alone.
“From whom?”
“Pivcevic,” I announced in a flash of inspiration.
“Who?”
“At the hotel. A Croat. He is a jolly, rotund fellow with a wife. Of all the guests, I have found him the most sympathetic and rational. He will respond to our needs, I feel sure.”
“If you say so…”
We returned via carriage and packhorse and then came back up along the valley on the last train before the line closed down for the night.
I had barely, once again, been ensconced in my hide in the middle of the village, when, through my familiar crack in the wooden wall, I saw my persecutor. My erstwhile pursuers had undoubtedly straggled back into the village long before. But some of them were still up and about with their lanterns, and their dogs. I could just about discern Holloway in their lamplight. He was talking with someone in uniform judging by the glint of his buttons: a policeman who had been summoned from the valley. I began to grow concerned again. Had they given up the search, or were they yet going to work their way through the night, from house to house… hayloft to hayloft…?
To my relief, after a brief discussion, the gathering finally dispersed and my nemesis made his way back to the hotel.
My hotel. Wherein lay my bed; still denied me.
I rolled over and made the hay as comfortable as possible, which wasn’t very comfortable, it should be said. However, exhausted and drained of all emotion, I fell straightaway asleep.
The subconscious mind is an extraordinary instrument. While one sleeps it can continue making its calculations. It turns data over and over and produces results that one might never have come up with, had one been left to one’s own super-conscious devices. So it was with me. I had fallen asleep disturbed with turbulent thoughts. I had spun and writhed upon my hay bales, never fully believing all the time I was lying there that I had fallen properly asleep at all. Yet now I had found myself in that half-sleeping, half-waking state which so often leads to the most particular and invigorating suppositions.
Once again I found that, as in the case of the alpenstock moment, I had apprehended something I had not hitherto appreciated that I understood. Shaking my head to try to get a grip upon what, exactly, my mind was trying to impress upon me, I realized that it was something to do with Holloway and that violin. Slowly I began to understand that my subconscious mind had raised an important fact. The fellow had played it with a deftness and technique that was simply impossible to acquire through the dour lessons we were all obliged to endure in our youth.
One conclusion was that the spirit of Holmes had been vested in him, and that my creation was an accomplished violinist.
But that was impossible. Holmes could not actually play the violin. He was a work of fiction. Spirit or no spirit, even in metaphysical or supernatural terms, it would be impossible, surely?
And then, as I slowly shook off the remaining sullen shackles of sleep constraining the agility of my mind, it became clear to me. As clear as the Jungfrau and just as obvious. A violinist wears his flower in the right buttonhole. Holloway had picked an edelweiss and put it in his right buttonhole, with his left hand. This could only mean one thing. He was an expert violinist in his own right. He could already play the violin. It wasn’t Holmes guiding his hands at all.
His intention with that night’s display at the café was to indicate to anyone who may have been interested that he had indeed been vested with the spirit of Holmes. I still did not believe that anything supernatural had occurred in that séance. In truth, what had occur
red, it was now abundantly clear to me, was very, very natural indeed. Natural, yet by its nature greatly misunderstood. We have not yet charted the personality to any significant degree in science. Holloway, in short, had a propensity to mania. In his case it was an obsession that was in the main unhealthy. His continued attachment to me, or rather to my creation, Holmes, supported my diagnosis. His dependence on artificial stimuli, his wild accusations when he felt his deductions to be superior to mine, reinforced it.
That was not to say that his psychological relationship with “the spirit of Holmes” was not real. At least in his own imagination. It was not beyond anybody, whatever their emotional state, to adopt a different persona, if it so suited them. Anybody was more than capable of “becoming” someone else. Living, eating, sleeping, breathing a new personality, a person may even lose track of their true selves. Holloway had just such a mania.
If it were not the ethereal and supernatural Holmes vested in Holloway assisting him in his virtuoso performance upon the violin, then the young man’s talents were of an entirely different, and far more prosaic, provenance. I lay on the musty, dusty hay, observing the morning bustle of a village getting about its legitimate business. Holloway was a talented musician. I supposed that he had even earned his living at some time with a concert or chamber orchestra, if he did not still do so. And now I had my purchase upon his real character, I was in a position to make of him and his pretences what I chose.
He must have, for some reason, attached himself to me at Zürich. So he came to the Berner Oberland by chance. Hence his inappropriate clothing and his purchase of that outrageous costume.
To unmask him now was my first instinct. I wanted to rush into town and hammer on his door and call him out in front of the other guests, and Eva; I wanted to denounce him with relish. But there was much that I still did not understand, and to allow him to think I was still far away was my greatest weapon at that present time. Unquestionably, if he had made one such slip, he would make others. It was my duty to observe, remark and make notes as appropriate. Build my case carefully, rationally and stealthily.
I heard discreet voices.
Shuffling to one of my spy holes, I looked down. It was Father Vernon. But my heart stood still at the sight. He was accompanied by the policeman I had seen with Holloway upon his return. Had the priest decided that now, at last, it was time to hand me in to the authorities? He was at the very least more than incidentally acquainted with Frau von Denecker and Francesca. Had the Franciscan finally broken from cover and revealed himself for what he was – a major component in this intricate puzzle? But on the wrong side from me.
I spun round and searched in panic for somewhere to hide, or an opening through which I might escape. However, it was to no avail. I was trapped.
I pressed myself into the furthest corner of the hayloft and awaited my fate.
I continued to listen to the voices of Father Vernon and the policeman. They sounded curiously relaxed for people who were about to effect what was on the friar’s part a betrayal, and on the policeman’s part an arrest.
And then they were upon me. Or rather, they had reached the hayloft. I pressed myself even harder into my corner and fixed my gaze on the door.
I tensed.
There was one last hope.
If I sprang at the two of them as they opened the door, I might just catch them by surprise, bundle them backwards and make my escape. It was all I could think of…
And then they were gone.
I could hear them wandering past. The gentle lilt of the conversation passing casually backwards and forwards between them gave the impression that they were sauntering along; out for a pleasant stroll.
Tentatively, I left my position in the corner of the hayloft and moved as silently as I could to peer out at the two men.
It was about half an hour later that there came a gentle tap on the door. This time, I hadn’t heard anyone approaching – which unnerved me.
“Arthur…? Arthur, it is all right. It’s me, Father Vernon.”
I let him in. Behind him, I noticed, was Pivcevic, who had the most puzzled look on his face.
“He understands why you are here and is happy to help. I have convinced him of your innocence.”
“How?”
Father Vernon shrugged and tapped the side of his nose. “I am a priest,” was all he said.
Somewhere among the mountains there was a flash of summer lightning.
“And the policeman?”
“What policeman?”
“The one I saw you walking and talking with a short while ago…”
“Oh. You saw us?”
“Yes, I thought you were bringing him to arrest me.”
“Doctor… how could you?” the friar smiled. “Do you still not trust me?”
“I do not know who to trust. I dare not trust anyone.”
“Not even me?” asked Pivcevic.
“Only so far,” I admitted. “You cannot blame me…”
There was a rumble of thunder, which echoed around the slopes and down into the valley.
“No indeed, we cannot blame you,” agreed Father Vernon. “However, as to the matter of the policeman: he had come up from the valley expecting simply to find you and take you back with him for an interview. I explained how you had gone missing, how the village had decided to try to find you – but had failed. When you saw us, we were going to find some of the village worthies so he could talk with them about the next step.”
“Which is…?”
“A house-to-house search. I thought it – expedient – to walk with him and hold him in conversation as we passed your hide. Just in case he got it into his head to search here, as well.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The friar grinned. “I must admit a little guilty frisson of enjoyment as we passed – knowing who was inside… But I didn’t lie. He never asked me a direct question. Never assumed I knew anything about anything.”
“You seem to know a lot about all this, though, don’t you?” Pivcevic smiled at the priest.
“I know that the good doctor is completely innocent.”
“Of course,” Pivcevic replied. “Which is why you are absolutely right to protect him.”
“But now, we must decide what to do next,” Father Vernon said.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” said I. “Something you said has struck me as being really quite useful.”
“What did I say?”
“Well, in my view, enough is enough. We need a catalyst. Something that would flush Holloway, Francesca, or whomever out into the open once and for all. And I think you have just mentioned it.”
There was another distant flash of lightning.
“The catalyst? What?”
“The policeman’s house-to-house search. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage. How would it be rather than letting the policeman surprise residents, if we let it be known abroad that he is making his house-to-house search for me?”
“To what purpose?” asked Pivcevic.
“Well, essentially, we can observe the whole of the main street from here. It is possible that guilty parties may make some kind of move during the day, once the word has got around that their homes may be subjected to a search. There is a risk, of course, that absolutely nothing will happen. Alternatively, the whole village might take it into their heads to dispose of illicit possessions, and the main street will eventually be teeming with folk. But at least it is something. If it means, ultimately, catching Holloway disposing of some hitherto unforeseen evidence, or returning Francesca to the same room as Frau von Denecker, then so be it. We could then descend from our observation point and confront them with the facts of the case as I have so far assembled them.”
I heard thunder again, a tympany roll, resounding around the slopes as if it were answering its own call.
&
nbsp; “You mean us to stay here with you?” Pivcevic asked.
“If you are willing.”
“Possibly…”
“Are you perhaps concerned that your wife does not know where you are?”
“No, she knows I have gone off with the priest here. She’s on our balcony, reading; she won’t worry for a while yet.”
“Then all is well.”
“But what about this other evidence you have assembled?” Pivcevic asked.
“No time to go through it all with you at present, my dear fellow. However, I assure you, there are many facts, and they all fit the case…”
Father Vernon moved to the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To start to tell people that the policeman is conducting his search… I know just who to tell. I have not been a priest in this village for all these years without knowing who the most efficient gossips are. I have to say, though, it is not much of a plan. However, if anything is to come of it at all, surely my getting word out is of the utmost necessity?”
“Agreed.”
The friar departed, leaving Pivcevic and me to settle down to our surveillance of the village. We took a crack in the wooden walls apiece and waited.
While we had been talking the skies had turned solemn, grey as granite. A gloom had descended upon the village, as if we had bypassed day and gone directly from morning to dusk. The air, whilst still warm and humid, was heavy and sullen as if nature itself had received some melancholy news.
Father Vernon returned a short while later. “Well, the pebble is in the pond. I have started the rumour mill and it is grinding its way through the village; though not so much a rumour, and not so hard to get started. The policeman’s search is a reality and had already started to ruffle feathers even before I began helping the news to spread.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Oh, by the way,” continued the priest, “here is your telegram.” He handed it over to me. “Anton gave it to me when I went to the hotel to find Mr Pivcevic here. He seemed to know all about your Franciscan disguise and had connected it to me.” He settled down to look out of a spyhole.