The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (28 page)

Hiram shook his head. 'It wouldn't do. That would be the end for us. But there is always one move left when mate is imminent.'

'Yes....'

'Deeper into the trap. We will make him reach for us. We will move on to the square where the next move made by the enemy will end it. And there is not a chess-player worth the name who will not hesitate a moment before making the mate move under those circumstances.'

Salvator frowned. 'But in the end it's still mate
...'

'In chess,' said Hiram Holliday. 'But we are human beings. Rules limit what a chessman may do. Nothing limits a human being but his own capabilities. When he is driven into a corner
...'

'There is no place left to go. You have said it yourself. He has driven us as far as we can go, the van is useless.'

Hiram looked out of the window at the thin black thread of the funicular against the white of the mountain barrier. 'We will go up to the Schwarzenstein,' he said.

Salvator stared
at
him. 'What the devil have you in your mind, Hiram?'

'Nothing - yet.'

Dr Anton Virslany came to the end of his quest with a sigh of relief. It had not been love of his work or country, but fear that had made
him
carry his enormous bulk on the blind chase

for the three who had taken the Duke Peter from him, the Princess Furstenhof, the American corespondent, Hiram Holliday, and the unknown. He stood in the depot of the funicular railroad and interrogated the conductor. With him were two police officers and four soldiers. The conductor was frightened. Yes, he remembered taking up a dark-haired girl and a young boy, and a man with a round face and steel-rimmed eye-glasses. Yes, there was another man with them. When was it ? Hmmmm. Three
...
no, four days ago, because on the trip back the line had been out of order for two hours. Had they come down ? No, they had not. He was certain he would have remembered. The young lady was extraordinarily good-looking.

The obese Doctor rubbed his hands. Good. They would go up. But it was five o'clock in the afternoon and the last trip had been made. Ah, the Herr Doktor had a special authorization ? Please enter. The machinery began to hum. The hanging car moved up towards the Schwarzenstein.

It arrived there
at
six. Then Dr Virslany commanded it to wait and posted two soldiers at the gate. With the others he went directly to Herr Matthias, the proprietor of the huge resort known as the Schwarzenstein Hotel.

'The four who arrived here last Monday, Herr Matthias, two men, a girl, and a young boy about nine years
...'

'Ah, you mean perhaps the Princess Furstenhof, Duke Peter, and the American gentleman, Mr
Holliday....'

Dr Virslany's eyes started from his head. They had used their own names? He was shaken, but he recovered. 'Yes
...
yes. Where are they?'

'Hmmm,' sai
d Herr Matthias, and permitted hi
mself a long draw at his Tyroler pipe. 'They were off ski-ing this afternoon. Toni and Seppl are with them. They ordered a special supper to celebrate the expected arrival of a friend. They should be back by now. It is almost dark.'

'I
will wait,' said Dr Virslany. 'You are to notify me at once when they return.'

He posted the two policemen
at the ski-house. The other
two soldiers he took with
him on to
the glass-enclosed terrace where he sat down. While he waited, he watched with enjoyment the group of ski roysterers studying the half-moon that was rising out of the mountains to the east, through the huge Zeiss six-inch telescope that was a feature of Herr Matthias' magnificently equipped establishment. Any moment now the quarry would be in his hands, and he shook a little with anticipatory laughter. He had not laughed for many days. It was good that he had them. For if he had failed, he would most certainly have blown his brains out with the little pistol he carried in his pocket and for which he had finally found bullets. For the enormous
Doctor knew too much about con
centration camps and their
conduct....

How Hiram Holliday Led the Princess Down From the Roof and Made His Apologies

The six stood on the high, sharp, Alpine ridge, curiously grouped in pairs. The two guides were in the lead. The girl and the slim youngster were side by side. And the two other men were a little off from the group.

'You are still determined to go, Hiram ?'

'Yes.'

'Even though it is impossible. No one has ever done it. The Lattler ridge to the Gross Moselle is at places no more than three feet wide. And six thousand feet deep.'

'It has been done. Once. I found it out. Seppl and Hannes Schneider did it, three years ago. Seppl remembers the way. The leader is the important thing in a descent. The others simply follow.'

'If they are experts.'

'Heidi and Peter are both experts. Peter has been on skis since he was four.' 'And yourself?'

'I
...
I have skied. I will do the best I can. You will not come with
us?'
The half-moon on the snow made
it very light. The ridge on
which they stood was almost razor-backed. On one side, deep in the shadows, lay Austria. On the other Italy.

The Baron sighed. He was taller than Hiram, but somehow at that moment he looked smaller. 'No, Hiram, my friend,' he said finally.
'I
will return where I belong, and perhaps try to profit from the lesson I have had from you. And besides, you see, Heidi
hat mir den Korb gegeben.
She has refused me.' He shrugged his shoulders and laughed a little, and then suddenly clapped Hiram on the shoulder. 'Go on, Hiram Holliday. You will succeed, not I. I am the weakness that is Austria. You know now. The Heidis are not for me. They are for you, my American friend, who have the strength and the courage and the energy to win them and hold them. For a moment I thought I could play the king-maker. I remember I boasted to you in the restaurant at Grinzing.' He shrugged again.
^c
Auf
Wiedersehen.
I shall go on down into the valley. There is enough light. I know it like a book. I have done it often. Good luck.'

He poled over to Heidi and said:
‘
Auf
Wiedersehen
Mitzi.'

'Good-bye, Willi,' Heidi leaned over and kissed him. 'Willi
...
Willi
...
my good friend. I am sorry.'

'I
understand, Mitzi. Good luck. Hiram will take care of you.'

'Hiram will take care of me,' echoed Heidi.

'And we'll all meet
at
Maxim'
s in Paris a year from now. Ski
Heil!’

'Ski
Heil!
’
howled the guides.

'Ski
Heil
Uncle Willi,' cried Peter.

There was a scuffing of ski edges on hard snow, a flirt of ice crystals, and the Baron was gone. They saw his figure diminishing, a tiny black spot on the whiteness.

'Ready,' said Seppl. They adjusted their rucksacks containing food, brandy, kindling, matches, first-aid kits, clothing. The guides carried lengths of rope at their waists and resin torches which they did not yet light. Hiram looked at his wrist watch. It was nine o'clock. The climb had taken three
hours.

Heidi asked: 'Hiram, can this be done ?'

He answered harshly, almost savagely. 'It can be done. We will do it.' Then he said: 'Heidi, if anything should happen to me
...'

Heidi looked him straight in the eyes. 'Hiram, if anything should happen to me
..
.'-

Maria Theresa in her bronze sarcophagus was so many miles away.

'Hui
!'
called Seppl. 'Ski
Heil!
In order as decided, ten metres apart.' He turned to the right, shoved once with his poles and was off. Heidi followed him. Peter was next, standing straight upright like a young sapling. Hiram pushed off behind Peter. Toni brought up the rear.

The slope at the start was surprisingly easy, broad and gentle, like a roof, the roof of the world, Hiram thought, as he bent his knees and leaned forward. He was wondering, without a good deal of concern, whether he would survive. Perhaps it was better this way at night. Heidi and Peter would not see the dangers they skirted. But he, Hiram, knew them. He had heard them from the guide. He had gone over them a thousand times in his mind.

The descent had been originally planned for the daytime. Hiram had thought of it long before they had arrived at the Schwarzenstein
Hotel.
Virslany
had
herded
them
in
to
the
terrible barrier of the Gross Loffler and Moselle because he knew that it was impossible to cross it. Impossible? Then he, Hiram Holliday, must
make
it possible. In the old days in New York when he did his eight-hour trick on the copy-desk, day in and day out; he had in his spare time acquired some lessons in skiing under rather curious
circumstances. At the Schwarzen
stein he had queried and talked to every guide and teacher. And he had finally won over Seppl, who had agreed to take them.

It was just past five that evening that they had all been on the hotel terrace. Young Peter had been amusing himself looking through the big telescope. Suddenly he had cried out:
'Ach...
look, Tante Heidi. Uncle Virslany is coming up. I can see him.

Hiram had jumped to the powerful instrument. He heard the funicular machinery whirring as he did so. In the clear air he could plainly see the form of Virslany in the cage, although he figured it would take him still forty-five minutes to get there. It had cost Hiram fifteen of those precious minutes to persuade Seppl and his partner Toni to make the descent with them at night. Their rucksacks were all packed for the morning and the skis and outfits they had acquired days before. Ten minutes before the cage had clanged
into its berth at the Schwarzen
stein, the party had turned the corner of the hotel and on a back slope had begun the 3500-foot climb to the ridge beyond which lay Italy. They had left Herr Matthias a story to tell Virslany.

Hiram noticed that the icy wind was biting more sharply against his face. Their speed had increased, and suddenly they were in shadow as towering crags they had passed cut off the light of the moon. A yellow light flared ahead, and one behind, as the guides fired their torches. Peter turned his head and flung back over his shoulder: 'Seppl says to keep your head down now and follow the ski-tracks.'

Ah, that was it. He had imagined it that way. Look neither right nor left, but down
at
those white lines and follow them, follow them, follow them.

Seppl was checking his speed now with graceful Christianas. Hiram had to stem hard to keep his place in line, and the stemming began to tire his legs, already weary from the long, hard climb. He fell and slid on his back. Toni was on him like a flash helping him up, and they had to speed to catch the others. The slope was narrowing now, and needles of rock thrust upward from the snow, and the angle of descent had increased. Hiram's legs were aching from the constant stemming, and his hip hurt him where he had fallen. They crossed a narrow ridge beneath some outcroppings of rock, and Hiram felt himself wavering. He was breathing hard. When the ridge broadened to a slight up-slope and they stopped to rest, Hiram fell again, trying to stop, but picked himself up gasping, his lenses clouded with snow.

'It will be harder now. Are you all right ?' inquired Seppl.

Hiram panted. '
Yes Yes. I am all right. Go on’

Heidi was looking
at
him with a curious expression on her face.

They came to an ice-crusted declivity so steep that it appeared almost perpendicular to Hiram. The others zigzagged it slowly. Hiram simply fell, sliding and slipping, turning on his back, his body banging against rock. He never saw the awful chasm just to the left of where he was tumbling. When he regained his feet, he thought he had lost all feeling in his left wrist.

They skied down a narrow gorge with high walls on both sides which enabled Hiram to recover a little, and then suddenly they shot out of it into bright moonlight that shed itself over the white-capped ocean of tossing peaks. They skirted a ridge and then the way went hogbacked again, a long, narrow stretch that twisted and turned with blackness on both sides. Hiram heard Ton
i behind him grunt: 'Lattler Rü
cken! Steady nerves, boy. Look only straight ahead.'