Lightning flashed some distance away.
“Come along,” I suggested, in due course. “Let us return to the village where we might talk about everything in more sympathetic surroundings.”
“I am sorry, doctor…” Pivcevic began.
“Quite understandable, old man,” I replied. Although I confess I did not feel in a particularly forgiving frame of mind.
“Should we not bind the lady?”
“Certainly not.”
There was a further rumble of now departing thunder.
Pivcevic did not ask how I might be so certain she would give us no trouble. And I did not volunteer the information. How I knew she would indeed give us no trouble was another matter entirely. It was intuition, mostly. A person thus overcome by grief and remorse, and goodness knows what other dispiriting emotion, is hardly likely to suddenly acquire a criminal disposition. They have to be watched, of course, for any signs of rallying. But I believed that she would not make life any more difficult for us than it had been of late. There were further reasons, though. A logical sequence of events had begun forming themselves in my mind ever since I saw the lady departing the village in such haste and in such a direction. They were linked to my receipt of Flemyng’s telegram. Undoubtedly, a great and piteous tragedy had occurred and, equally undoubtedly, the lady who presently leaned, grieving, in my arms was the person responsible. But there was much that remained unasked and unanswered. My primary concern, though, was that we all get back down to the village where much, if not all, might at least begin to be explained.
There remained the question of Holloway. I was still unclear as to precisely what part he had to play in all of this. And, in terms of being concerned about how he might react at any given moment, unlike the woman, there was much still to be cautious about.
I let go of mevrouw van Engels and stepped across to Tomas Pivcevic. I tapped him on his gun arm and asked him quietly to accompany me. We walked across to where the inert form of Holloway, darkness within darkness, lay upon the cliff top.
“Holloway?” There was no answer. I assumed that I had not spoken loudly enough above the roar of the force, so I spoke again, more firmly. “Holloway?”
He stirred and moaned. He had sobbed himself into incapacity.
“Will you come with us? You will not give us any trouble, will you? My companion here is armed. We do not intend to threaten you. We do not wish you any harm. But you will understand our caution in the circumstances, and will respond as a gentleman. On your honour.”
There was a pause. The longer it persisted, the more concerned I became. At length, mournfully and in a voice slurred by exhaustion, dissolution and dismay, he replied: “What have I done?”
At long last, the rain began to ease off.
We meandered our way back to the village, up hill and down dale. It was a wearisome trudge and we were a melancholy and motley group. To top it all, although the rain had by now stopped all together, we were all still soaked to the skin and shivering. Our diverse thoughts, guilts and anxieties assailed each of us as we trod the muddy path that led inexorably towards whatever fate still held in store for us.
Of course, some of us had less to fear than others. I had been exonerated. Nevertheless, as Pivcevic had shown, popular opinion might not necessarily conform with the facts of a case. I did not know how I would be received in the village by the inhabitants. I would be wise, I told myself, to prepare for the worst.
Pivcevic was, clearly, wracked with guilt, from which no assurances from me seemed capable of absolving him.
Holloway battled with private demons and mevrouw van Engels walked as though to the scaffold.
We entered the village in silence. The last thing I wanted was to be confronted by a hostile welcoming committee of villagers, still probably intent on my capture. In the event, while people still wandered the area in restless knots of twos and threes, we managed by ducking down side streets and plotting a course along the rear of houses to evade everyone.
Somewhere a dog barked and was answered by the bleat of a sheep.
We eventually found ourselves at the hayloft, where we rejoined Father Vernon. Outside we could hear the steady drip of the remnants of the rainstorm as it dropped from the eaves into the mud below. Father Vernon confirmed that there had been no untoward to-ings and fro-ings to report. It would seem that I had received the lion’s share of the adventure. Would that I had not.
Holloway and mevrouw van Engels sat on the hay while we others convened a swift council of war.
“We must surely persist until we have attained a satisfactory outcome to this entire problem,” I said.
Avoiding again, as best we could, encounters with any villagers, we picked our way through the chalets and houses to the hotel. Father Vernon, for his part, had gone to find the policeman. He had promised that he would not return with the custodian of the law, nor even tell him where we were, until he had gained that gentleman’s complete confidence. To accomplish this, he would relate the events at the fall and thus assure him of my innocence.
Diverting a barely comprehending Anton from his paperwork, we occupied the library for our interview session. Pivcevic had gone to report his safe return to his wife. She was now in the room with the rest of us. Pivcevic stood over Holloway and mevrouw van Engels. I could see the shape of his revolver in his still-damp jacket pocket. I was certain there would be no need for it, at least where the Dutchwoman was concerned. The lady was in no fit state to challenge anyone, nor to suddenly take to her heels and flee. Holloway, on the other hand, did cause me some concern. But it would seem even he had resolved to remain compliant. This was, no doubt, related to his cry of dismay up at the fall. What had he done? I wondered. In any case, he had had his fill of adventure and seemed content to drift along with the flow like so much flotsam. Or was it jetsam?
Anton, having supplied us with strong coffee and biscuits, had left us to our deliberations.
Father Vernon arrived shortly afterwards, having found the policeman. I discovered later from Father Vernon that the young man had been enjoying a meal at the mayor’s home. This had followed an exhaustive, earnest, but ultimately fruitless search of a number of homes. Father Vernon had managed to extricate the fellow by saying he had something private to discuss with him. Something the mayor would get to hear about in due course, no doubt; but something in which he would be unable to involve the mayor at that particular moment. In this way, Father Vernon managed to get the policeman to himself and explain as best he might why he had come to fetch him.
The policeman entered our room with the priest, seemingly somewhat dazed by the developments with which he had been confronted by the Franciscan.
“So,” said the upholder of the law in the Canton, “we have a little story to tell, yes…?” He surveyed the room.
Since no one else took it upon themselves to respond, I spoke. “Yes, and we would be very glad if you helped us make sense of it all.”
“This is why I am here.” As if to indicate that the interview had commenced, he sat down on a chair in the middle of the room with his notebook at the ready. From this central position, he was able to observe each one of us and ask his questions; which he did while taking notes and occasionally licking the point of his pencil.
Mevrouw van Engels sat with her fists clenched and her knees clasped firmly together. She sniffled from time to time into a small linen handkerchief, lovingly embroidered by someone; perhaps herself in younger days.
“Mevrouw van Engels?” The policeman spoke good English, and had obviously decided that the whole interview would be conducted in this language, as it was common to all of us. “I understand from Father Vernon here that you said, at the Reichenbach Falls, that it was you who had killed Peter Brown?”
She nodded, slowly.
“Would it be possible to explain what, exactly, you meant by that?”
“It is easy to understand what she meant
by that,” Pivcevic interjected. He was shushed by Father Vernon, and his contribution subsided.
“We are not a court of law, and we are not here to prosecute nor persecute you, mevrouw. We are merely interested at this point in getting to the facts,” the policeman continued, gently.
“I did kill him.”
The policeman looked across at Father Vernon and then back at the woman. “Mevrouw van Engels, I need to be certain of what you mean. Are you perhaps taking the blame for something that was, when all is said and done, an accident?”
“I did kill him,” she repeated. Now in her voice was a different tone. An attempt to convince herself, perhaps. Or perhaps an attempt to convince us.
“Did you? Or did your husband kill Peter Brown? Are you protecting him?” Pivcevic chipped in again.
“No!” she cried.
“But it was because of your husband that Peter Brown died,” I said.
Concern entered the woman’s eyes, and then she looked down at her hands. She knew I knew. At least, she knew I knew something and had guessed much else besides. For the first time I noticed that her fists were not clenched entirely closed. One held her handkerchief, but the other…?
The policeman had clearly also noticed the Dutchwoman looking at her hands.
“What are you holding, mevrouw? May we see?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her eyes jewelled with tears. Keeping them fixed steadfastly upon him, she turned her hand over. Like setting free a sparrow, she unfurled her fingers. In the palm of her hand lay a pipe knife, glinting innocuously as if unaware of all the trouble it had caused me this past wretched week. The policeman took charge of it.
“Does it have the initials P. B. on it?” I asked him.
“It does.”
“This is what she was going to throw off the cliff!” Pivcevic cried. “When she knew there was going to be a house-to-house search…”
“A memento?” queried Father Vernon.
I understood his question. The thought of a murderer keeping an item that had once belonged to his or her victim was a macabre one. Yet it was not unlikely. “A memento, if you like,” I said, “but I daresay it was an accidental memento, in the same way that it was an accidental death. Am I not right?” I looked at the lady. She continued to return my gaze. What was she thinking? She knew I knew something. But how much, she could not ascertain.
I wondered why she was so keen upon remaining taciturn. Perhaps because it was a very private matter. To be dealt with privately. Like Monsieur and Madame Plantin, she simply did not speak of such things publicly. Or indeed at all. Yet she needed to speak of them. For me, this was the whole purpose of the interview. The police might want justice, Father Vernon might want truth, Tomas might want retribution. I simply wanted to help. If she were purged of at least a few of her demons, she might just stand a chance of redeeming what remained of her life. Not now, not tomorrow, but sometime. To do this, I knew that she had to unburden herself of the whole tale. It was too easy to say “I did it” and take whatever punishment was meted out without needing to expand further. She thought it was the better way, no doubt. We needed to convince her otherwise.
She had lapsed again into silence. It seemed to me that it would be a very long time indeed before we arrived at all the facts.
“Perhaps it would help if I explained a little of what happened?” I looked towards the policeman, and then over at mevrouw van Engels. “You can stop me and elaborate if I am uncertain on any detail?” I received no response, verbally or physically, even from her eyes. So I looked again at the policeman. He gave a shrug as if to say, “By all means try if you like, but I am not sure where it will get us…” So I began.
“You were up at the fall with Peter Brown. The gentleman was an eminent mathematician from Cambridge. I could not tell you your relationship or the direct cause for your both being up there. But I suspect it was mutual attraction, was it not?”
I paused to allow her to reply. She chose not to. I looked towards the policeman. He gestured for me to continue and licked the end of his pencil again.
“… he was lonely. You, although you were married, were also lonely, yes? And sad. And vulnerable. And in need of comfort. The comfort of a friendship. A true friendship, do you agree?”
Still she did not respond.
“So… Peter Brown, although a bit of a dry stick, somehow fulfilled that need in you. Your husband, whom you loved, had completely disintegrated, hadn’t he? He was no longer the man you had come to know. It had been hard enough supporting him while he was intent upon, or indeed obsessed by, his work. Once the world had caved in around your ears last year, he had become – well, if not impossible to live with, then it was becoming very difficult so to do. He was a complete stranger to you by now, wasn’t he?”
She gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“It was not just his hopes and dreams that had shattered the day his research project crashed, was it? And you couldn’t cry, because you had learned how not to and, anyway, you needed to be strong. For him.”
Her eyes had closed. I knew that she was urging me on, but couldn’t watch, so to speak.
“Peter Brown was attractive to you. You did not know why, I suspect. The perverse alchemy of humanity. You most probably did not discuss his work at first…” I paused, again to give her the chance to respond. Still she did not.
“Of course you did not discuss it. This was why things went wrong up at the fall, wasn’t it?” I looked at her. “Wasn’t it?”
Once more, she offered the faintest of nods.
“Yes, this is clear. Perhaps I might venture to suggest then, that although innocent – at least, that is how you viewed it – you arranged to undertake an afternoon’s walk with Mr Brown. An excursion to the fall, of which you had both heard but had not seen…”
“He told me about it,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“It was he who suggested it? Yes, I can understand that.” I waited to see if she would elaborate further. She did not. So I proceeded, all the time making my tale sound like just half of a conversation, which she might enter at any time. “There was a kindred spirit which included, among other things, intelligence and loneliness. To this he responded, and wished to explore further with you, am I right? A walk would be innocent enough and yet allow you two to spend long hours together. Your husband spent so little time with you anyway. I suspect that you often had to find ways of passing interminably empty days while your husband occupied himself with his work or, latterly, with his grief. Is that not so? To go off for a few hours would not have seemed unusual to either of you. So you walked for some considerable period of time, growing to like one another. Trusting one another. Responding to one another. Perhaps you even began to wonder why you had not married Mr Brown rather than your husband…?”
“No. It was not like this.” She opened her eyes suddenly.
“What was it like, then?” asked the policeman.
“We became deep friends, yes. But I never doubted my husband. Even in the difficult times.”
“It occurs to me,” said Father Vernon quietly, “that they have always been difficult times for you, mevrouw.”
“We had been for one of our secret walks. Out of sight of the villagers. We always left separately and met somewhere beyond view of prying eyes. He produced a bottle; it was half full,” she continued, slowly, turning her eyes to the priest as if she had seen him for the first time. And then she subsided into silence.
“Absinthe?” Father Vernon asked.
She considered for a moment longer and then recommenced, “Yes, absinthe. I do not always drink alcohol.”
“I am sure that you do not,” the friar replied.
“It was foolishness because we threw away our inhibitions. This is always dangerous. He told me about them, the Reichenbach Falls, and I was very excited to see them. We thought we could be there and back before supper. We took the absinthe with us. We had thought to lay a trail to put off the hunting d
ogs so that they would not track down the poor wild creatures. It was why he had the bottle. Peter was very angry about things like that. The way we kill, kill, kill for fun. But… we stupidly drank the absinthe instead. He threw the empty bottle away before we got there. Probably cut the paw of one of those creatures he wished to protect…” She fell silent, lost again in thought.
“What happened next?” the policeman prompted.
“We walked. We talked. We reached the crest of the fall. We sat and ate the few items of food we had brought with us. We drank some water; we had had enough absinthe. And yes, because of all of that, foolishly, we kissed. And I was warmed and comforted. Then he took out his pipe and smoked and we talked some more. About the world, the mountains, hope, life, dreams. As he put his things away, like a little girl I asked to see the knife he had used.”
“Why like a little girl?” the policeman asked.
“I felt silly. Giggly. Flirtatious. I knew once he had smoked his pipe we would have to go back. I did not want to leave yet. So I pretended to be terribly interested in the pipe knife. So he gave it to me. I knew that once it was all over, we would not be able to see each other again. I kept it and put it in my knapsack.”
“And you went back to the fall tonight, once you thought it might be discovered, to cast it down, like a lover casting a rose in their beloved’s grave?” I suggested.
“Something like that.” What I suspected was shame crept into her voice. “When he had finished his pipe and given me his knife, I still did not want to leave. I felt light-headed… unusual… but happy. Terribly, terribly happy. The happiest I had ever felt. So, to stop us having to leave straightaway, I tried to think of something else we could talk about.”
“That was when you asked him about his work?” I prompted.
“Yes.” She was barely audible.
“You found out that he was working at Cambridge on the same project your husband had been working on. But his work had been crucial to helping the Frenchman you told me about reach his conclusions and destroy your husband’s spirit?”