Operation Pax (19 page)

‘But you have never met other members of the family?’

‘I have not had that pleasure. There was some question, indeed, of our receiving another member of the family – a female.’ The old lady paused significantly. ‘I must confess that my sister and I were a
little
anxious. The lady’s relationship was, somehow, never very clearly
defined
. And with foreigners – particularly, I fear,
aristocratic
foreigners – one is never quite –’ The old lady paused again, and evidently decided that this sentence had better be left in air. ‘But the proposal seemed to “fade out” (as Lady Bronson’s nephew is fond of saying) and I think some other arrangement must have been made.
One
more flight, and then I can simply
set you on your way
… But here is my sister.’

On a landing of modest proportions but lavishly medieval suggestion there stood another silver-haired old lady in another faded Paisley shawl. Appleby’s conductress paused. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘let me introduce Sir John Appleby, a friend of Dr Kolmak’s. Sir John, this is my sister, Miss Tinker.’

Miss Tinker bowed to Appleby. ‘May I introduce you to my sister, Miss Priscilla Tinker?’

Appleby suitably acknowledged the propriety of these proceedings. The landing was small and cluttered on one side with an enormous carved chest and on the other side with a row of
prie
-
dieux
. These latter had something of the air of cabs waiting in a rank, and were no doubt brought into requisition during meetings of the elder Miss Tinker’s Devotional Group. Meanwhile, they made things decidedly cramped. And this effect was enhanced by walls crowded with large Arundel prints themselves illustrative of uncomfortably populous fourteenth-century occasions. Perhaps it was the Gothic suggestiveness of the
décor
that gave Appleby an alarmed sense of the immateriality of the Misses Tinker. They were crowded up against him, and he felt that a single incautious step might take him clean through one or other of them. This would be interesting, but distracting – and he had better concentrate on the matter in hand. He therefore edged politely towards the next flight of stairs.

‘I hope that you may not find Dr Kolmak unwell.’ It was the elder Miss Tinker who spoke. ‘He came in only a few minutes ago, and I happened to pass him on the stairs. We had not the few words of conversation that commonly pass between us. He appeared to be in some distress. I hope it is not an infection. There is not at present any epidemic in Oxford. But we heard only this afternoon that there is a great deal of bronchitis in Bournemouth.’

Appleby was now climbing. ‘Please don’t trouble yourselves further,’ he said. ‘I’ll go straight up.’ And he mounted, two steps at a time – aware of the Misses Tinker watching him still from below, like disappointed sirens whose singing has had only a momentary effectiveness. He realized that they would certainly be there when he came down again.

On the next landing there was a door apparently enclosing an upper staircase. Appleby knocked, but without result. He opened it and climbed higher. There was another doorway, at which he knocked again and waited. From within he could hear strains of music – a faint and uncanny music. If this was the
Baronin
discoursing on the pianoforte that had to be taken in through the roof then there could be no doubt that she in her turn would prove as ghostly as the old ladies below. The door opened and he was confronted by a handsome woman, old but very erect, who it was safe to guess must be the aunt of the man he was after.

‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Is Dr Kolmak at home?’

The woman eyed him steadily for a moment without reply.

Then she opened the door wider and in a manner that invited him to enter. The music came from an aeolian harp set in a window.

‘My name is Appleby, and I was dining in company with Dr Kolmak this evening. He left before I had an opportunity to talk to him, which I am very anxious to do.’

The woman inclined her head. ‘My nephew,’ she said, ‘is unwell.’

‘I am very sorry.’ Appleby’s tone was mild and conventional. Then suddenly he rapped out: ‘You are alone with him here still?’

The unlikely shot went home and the woman’s eyes momentarily widened in alarm. But she spoke composedly. ‘If you will come into my
salotto
,’ she said, ‘we will talk together.’ And she led the way from the tiny landing on which they had been standing into a massively furnished attic room. ‘Please take place,’ she said.

Nehmen Sie, bitte, Platz
… Frau Kolmak, like her nephew, appeared to preserve a good deal of native idiom. Appleby sat down. But his hostess for a moment remained standing. ‘Are you, too, of the police?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Appleby was startled, but saw no occasion for prevarication.

‘Then, if you will excuse me, I must put on the kettle.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Appleby supposed either that he had not heard aright or that, this time, Frau Kolmak’s English had gone very markedly astray.

‘Not on many days has one the pleasure of twice making tea for the English police…it is Mr Appleby?’

‘Sir John Appleby.’

‘Ach!
This afternoon it was Detective-Inspector Jones – which sounds much grander, does it not? But you too shall have tea, Sir John.’

And Frau Kolmak applied herself to a spirit lamp. Appleby, unresentful of mockery, watched her composedly. She had considerably more address, he reflected, than her nephew. ‘You are very kind,’ he said. ‘I shall be delighted to have tea.’

Frau Kolmak set a kettle on the lamp and turned back to him. ‘It would be difficult to express to you,’ she said, ‘the charm of giving tea to a policeman; the charm – to put it in another way – of being in no expectation of being kicked by him.’

‘I see.’ Appleby looked at his hostess soberly.

‘The officer who came this
Nachmittag
had a routine task. Unlike my nephew, I am legally of Hungarian nationality. It makes, at present, some difference in the formalities. But you, I judge, have nothing to do with that. You, who are of
die bessen Stände
, have come to control the police from the army,
nicht
wahr
?’

‘Oh, dear me, no.’ Appleby was rather indignant. ‘I joined the police as quite a young man, and right at the bottom.’

‘That is most interesting.’ For the first time Frau Kolmak looked faintly puzzled. Her urbanity, however, remained unflawed. It was, Appleby judged, too unflawed altogether. Frau Kolmak was really under considerable strain. Nevertheless her hands, as they busied themselves assembling what was evidently her formal tea equipage, were perfectly steady. And presently she spoke again. ‘Kurt talks very well – when his shyness is overcome, that is to say. So I am not surprised at your seeking his conversation. You, too, are interested in the art of the
trecento
?’

Appleby considered. ‘It is an interest of my wife’s,’ he said conciliatingly. ‘I’m afraid I myself know very little about it.’

‘Nevertheless you have followed Kurt home for the sake of talk – knowing that he is
von
grosser
Unterhaltungsgabe
? What you have in mind is a purely social occasion?’ Frau Kolmak quietly poured tea.

‘I want your nephew’s help in an investigation – a police investigation, in point of fact, although my own interest in it is personal and not official. It is a question of somebody’s having disappeared.’

The small silver strainer which Frau Kolmak was manipulating tinkled against a tea cup. ‘Of a man’s having disappeared?’ she said.

‘Yes, a young man – and, as it happens, an undergraduate at your nephew’s college.’

‘A young man from the
Studentenschaft
at Bede’s? But how can Kurt–’

‘
Guten Abend, mein Herr
.’

Appleby turned round. Kolmak was standing in the doorway – pale, and agitated to the point of being unconscious that he had spoken in German. Appleby put down his teacup and rose. ‘Good evening, sir. I think you will recognize me, although we were not actually introduced.’

‘Sir John Appleby.’ Frau Kolmak had folded her hands in her lap and was looking at them. ‘He has come to speak to you Kurt, about somebody – a man – who has disappeared.’

Kolmak bowed stiffly. ‘I am afraid I can be of no assistance to you, sir, on that score. There must be a mistake.’

‘That is perfectly possible, and if it is so I shall owe you, and Frau Kolmak, an apology.’ Appleby judged it tactful to do a little bowing himself. ‘Nevertheless I hope you will allow me to explain myself.’

Frau Kolmak’s eyes travelled from her lap to her nephew’s face, and thence to a chair. Kolmak sat down. ‘I cannot well do otherwise,’ he said coldly, ‘to a guest of our Provost’s. Please to proceed.’

‘I think you overheard something of this matter in common room just before leaving it – and although it concerns somebody at Bede’s I believe that it was news to you. Very briefly, a young man called Geoffrey Ourglass, who ought to be up at Oxford now, has vanished. He is, as it happens, engaged to be married to my sister Jane, who is an undergraduate at Somerville. My own concern with the situation is solely on account of this connexion.’

Kolmak again bowed frigidly. ‘We express our regrets,’ he said. ‘Our sympathy is extended to your sister.’

Frau Kolmak slightly flushed. ‘Kurt,’ she said dryly, ‘you seem quite to have guessed that Sir John is connected with the police.’

‘The police!’ Kolmak appeared not, in fact, to have guessed the fact, for he now sat up very straight in his chair.

‘Please remember that his colleagues have always been friendly to us as well as courteous.’

‘Tante Lise, you do not understand the danger–’

‘I have understood many dangers, Kurt,
Liebling
, for now a long time. I shall say nothing more, but my advice to you is as it has been.’

During this enigmatical interchange, Appleby conveniently occupied himself with his tea. Now he tried again.

‘About this young man’s disappearance we have only one approach to a clue. He is believed to have been seen in a car, driving through a small village in the Cotswolds. It is so out of the way that it is very tempting to believe that his destination must have been a local one. Inquiries, however, have produced no result. I have been prepared to believe that Ourglass was, in fact, passing through to a remote destination, or that the identification was a mistake.’

Kolmak had ceased to sit back stiffly on his chair. He had leant forward, and his head was now buried in his hands.

‘And now, Dr Kolmak, I must be quite frank, and come to my sole reason for calling on you. This evening you heard the story. Or rather you heard the fact of somebody’s disappearance associated with the name of this village – Milton Porcorum. You at once evinced sharper interest and marked agitation. You were so aware, indeed, of having betrayed a peculiarity of behaviour that you abruptly left common room, and hurried home, feeling ill. Please understand that I should be lacking in my duty to my sister and to this young man – who may well be in some situation of great danger – if I failed to make the most earnest attempt to persuade you to an explanation.’

There was a long silence. Then Kolmak looked up abruptly. ‘It is your sister’s lover,’ he said, ‘–her
Verlobter
– who has disappeared?’

‘It is, indeed.’

Kolmak passed a hand wearily over his forehead. ‘If you were but a private gentleman!’ he exclaimed.

‘If you have something to reveal, you ought to reveal it. Here is a young girl in cruel suspense and a young man in unknown danger.’

‘As if I had no cause to feel it!’ And Kolmak looked quite wildly round the room.

‘I appeal to you, sir, as a scholar – as a scholar and a humanist.’ Appleby too had stood up.

‘Come back – come back tomorrow morning.’ Kolmak appeared to be swaying uncertainly on his feet.

‘Tomorrow may be–’ Appleby checked himself. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen Frau Kolmak make him an almost imperceptible sign. ‘Very well. I will call immediately after breakfast – say at nine o’clock. And, meantime, thank you for listening to me.’ Appleby moved to the door and from there bowed to his hostess. ‘And thank you, very much, for entertaining your second policeman to tea.’

The Misses Tinker were on the landing below, tiptoeing about with rubber hot-water bottles. Appleby sustained their conversation in some absence of mind. Their brother, it appeared, had been Junior Proctor some time in the eighteen-eighties and had been a distinguished advocate of higher female education in the University. Their father had visited Germany as a young man, returned under the novel persuasion that dons ought to engage in research, and in this cause conducted sundry heroic skirmishes against both the obscurantists of Christ Church and the utilitarians of Balliol. At a more convenient season Appleby would have derived a good deal of entertainment from ladies who appeared to regard themselves as contemporaries of Mrs Humphry Ward. As it was, he contrived to withdraw through the barrage with civil words. The elder Miss Tinker showed him out. As she opened the front door he fancied he heard Kolmak in colloquy with Miss Priscilla above. Perhaps he was explaining to her that he expected his visitor again at an unconscionably early hour.

North Oxford was already sinking into slumber. Appleby walked through the quiet streets lost in thought. The disappearance of Geoffrey Ourglass was linked – tenuously, it was true – with an unimportant place owning the picturesque name of Milton Porcorum. Between Ourglass and Kolmak there was virtually no reason to suppose any connexion whatever. Kolmak had nothing to do with the teaching side of life at Bede’s, and he had not the appearance of one who cultivates the social acquaintance of undergraduates. Unless there were one or two historians of art among them – and young Ourglass’ interests were certainly remote enough from that – they would be no more to him, in all probability, than vaguely recognizable faces. What had interested and agitated Kolmak was not the disappearance of Ourglass, but the linking together of the concept of
disappearance
and the name of
Milton Porcorum
. It was not necessary to stare at this fact for very long before forming a hypothesis. Only the most slender observation, it was true, lay behind it. Still, it was worth holding on to and testing out.
When people disappear, one hears talk of Milton Porcorum
.