Trojan Gold (29 page)

“How could I? ‘my strength is as the strength of ten,'” John chanted, stamping his feet in cadence, “‘because my heart is pure.'”

The truce had lasted only one night, and the barriers were up again. I had expected it, but that didn't keep me from resenting it. Silently I extended my hand; briskly he pulled me to my feet, turned me around, and gave me a hearty slap on the backside.

“Dusty,” he remarked. “Let's have a look outside. At this moment, I'd trade you and the gold for a hot breakfast.”

I stood for a moment, stretching creaking muscles and looking around. The ruined building had been stripped of all portable objects, but even in its prime it had lacked the exuberant charm of the local Catholic churches. There was nothing to be seen except a bare floor littered with pieces of the fallen pews, bare stone walls, and boarded-up windows. Sunlight stretched long fingers through the cracks, and drifts of snow marked breaks in windows and roof. The fire had died to coals.

I pushed through the swinging doors and found
myself in a narrow vestibule. The outer door was ajar, held open by a heap of drifted snow. John must have had to force it. No small feat, in that howling storm, with muscles already half frozen and my dead weight encumbering him. His footprints led up and over the drift. Shrugging into my jacket, I followed.

I had to shield my eyes with both hands. The world had changed overnight, into something so beautiful I forgot physical discomfort in sheer wonder. The sky overhead was a pure, cold blue, but behind the eastern mountains the bright shades of dawn framed the frosty peaks. The shadows on the white slopes were not gray but ravishing tints of pastel—pale rose, blue, lavender. The blanket of new snow dazzled like cold fire—swan-white, angel-white, glittering with billions of tiny sparkles.

My sunglasses were in the pocket of my jacket. After I put them on, I dared to open my eyes, and then I saw John. He was knee-deep in snow, even though he stood under the porch eaves where the snow was less deeply drifted. It undulated across the open courtyard in lovely dimpled dunes. My poor precious Audi was only an elephant-sized lump.

John stared dispiritedly at the scene, his hands shielding his eyes, and I decided this was not an appropriate moment to comment on the splendor of the view. “Where are your sunglasses?” I asked.

“In my car,” John said, snapping the words off like icicles.

“And your car is…”

“Halfway down the slippery slope beyond, under a foot of snow,” said John. “Were you aware
that just over the hill the road drops straight down at a forty-five-degree angle?”

“Surely—” I began.

“I didn't see the church until I had passed it. I had no idea where you were going. I've never driven this road before. I was going too fast—as were you—”

From across the valley came a far-off, elfin chiming of bells. “‘Oh sweet and far, from cliff and scar,'” I quoted. “Merry Christmas, John.”

 

“So what shall we do?” I asked brightly. We had gone back inside, and John was doggedly feeding the fire, as if he meant to settle down for a long stay. “You should put it out,” I went on. “We can't leave—”

“That is the situation in a nutshell,” said John. “We can't leave. Not unless you plan to spend the rest of the winter in a snowdrift between here and Bad Steinbach.”

“Oh, come on, don't be a sissy. It's a beautiful day and it can't be more than a couple of miles—”

“Just a nice little downhill run on skis,” said John. “Unfortunately we don't have any.”

“I do, actually. On top of the car. I never got a chance to use them. Hell of a vacation.”

His expression lightened briefly as he considered this new information, but it quickly closed down again. “The plows and the Ski Patrol will be out before long—”

“On Christmas Day?”

“Yes, I should think so. This is an emergency, and there are bound to be idiots like us who were caught in the storm.”

“We can't just sit here and wait to be found.”

“Oh, do use your head,” John said crossly. “Even if we could dig one of the cars out, the road is impassible. I don't fancy a two-mile hike through drifts that are up to my neck, either.”

“I could ski down and get help.”

“It's too risky. If you got in trouble there'd be no one to bail you out. It doesn't take long to freeze to death when you're lying helpless with a broken leg.”

“Are you always like this in the morning?” I demanded.

“No, it's just a performance I put on in order to discourage long-term relationships.”

“I can't sit around here all day! I've got to get poor Tony out of the slammer—”

“Tony?”

“I walked out on him,” I admitted guiltily. “The killer set him up—one of the maids found him standing over Friedl's freshly slaughtered body, and raised the alarm. He was surrounded by what looked like the beginning of a lynch mob when I left.”

“Oh, I shouldn't think they'd lynch him,” John said coolly. “They're very law-abiding in these parts, and Friedl didn't inspire that variety of devoted affection.”

“Even so—”

“I'll tell you what we could do.” John stroked his stubbly chin. “Start a fire outside—smoke signal.”

“On Frau Hoffman's grave?” I asked.

He wasn't abashed. “Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Just as well to have a look before you call the cops,” John went on. “If you're wrong, you'll look a bloody fool—Did you say yes?”

“I said okay. Same thing.”

We used scraps of the broken pews for shovels. The air was cold but utterly still; John had no trouble getting the fire started. It burned clear and bright until we piled pine boughs on it. As we worked, the chiming of distant Christmas bells made a macabre accompaniment. I hated what I was doing, even though I felt Hoffman wouldn't mind.

In between hauling wood from the church, I tackled my buried car. Clearing the ski rack wasn't difficult; there was only a foot of snow on top. On the lee side, away from the wind, a lonely fender protruded, and I was able to dig my way into the door. My emergency kit produced some dried fruit—“petrified” would be more accurate. I carried it to John, like a dog offering a bone, but this time he was not amused.

Smeared with smuts from the fire, his eyes sunken and shadowed, he continued to tend the flames while he chewed.

I sat down on a snowbank a little distance away and watched. The moment I had resolutely refused to consider was approaching. It would take hours of slow heat to soften the ground. We would need shovels, trowels. And then…

Neither of us had discussed what we intended
to do if we found the gold. There was no need. John knew what I would do.

I didn't know what he would do. The trouble with John—one of the troubles with John—was that he wasn't a cold-blooded villain. He wouldn't kill to gain his prize. At least he wouldn't kill me. I thought he was rather fond of me—as a person, I mean, not just as an enthusiastic lover. He might even have wavered, at odd moments, and toyed with the idea of letting me have the treasure. But I knew that when the time came, when the glittering thing was actually before him, there was a ninety-to-one chance that old habits would prevail over…call it friendship.

His lean cheeks were flushed with exercise and heat, but the underlying color was a pale gray. He was short on sleep and on food, burning calories like crazy—but it never occurred to me that I could defeat him in a hand-to-hand fight. Surreptitiously, my hand sneaked into my backpack. The gun was still there. Thank God I hadn't dropped it in the snow.

I don't know how long we were there. Sometimes John sat down by the fire to rest; sometimes I went inside to get more wood. The plume of smoke had been rising darkly for a long time before he came, schussing straight down the final slope between the trees and stopping in a spray of driven snow, skis almost touching in a perfect parallel. He wore ordinary ski clothing, but the face that looked out from under the hood of the parka was muzzled and fanged and dark with rank fur. In his right hand, instead of a pole, he carried one of the long pikes the
Buttenmandeln
had brandished.

I was bent over, adding wood to the fire when the apparition appeared, and it is a wonder I didn't fall face down into the flames. As the snarling muzzle turned toward me, I went reeling back. Even John the imperturbable was taken off guard. He had been perched impiously on the tombstone; struggling to rise, he slipped and sat down with a splash, his back against the granite. And there he stayed, because the point of the pike was planted in the center of his chest.

I got the gun out. Don't ask me how. I was pleased to see that my hands were dead steady as I sidled sideways, away from the smoke, to a spot from which I could get a clear sight.

My voice wasn't as steady as my hands. “Drop it,” I squeaked. “
Hände hoch
—er—”

At first I was afraid I had made a slight tactical misjudgment; the graceful hooded figure started, and a dark circle spread out around the tip of the pike—accompanied, I must add, by a yelp from John. Then the shaggy muzzle turned toward me.

The vocabulary of violence is limited. I heard myself repeating the most ghastly clichés.

“I've got you covered,” I pointed out. “You're dead meat, mister—uh—miss…uh…Go ahead, make my day.”

John's eyes, the only part of him he dared move, rolled wildly in my direction. “For Christ's sake, Vicky!” I don't know whether he was objecting to the sentiment or to the hackneyed phrase in which I had expressed it.

The masked head tilted slightly, as if considering the options. A stand-off, I thought, still sticking to clichés. Now what do I do? I can't shoot…The
top of the pike wasn't in very far, but one quick push would drive it home. The bloodstain continued to spread.

I don't suppose it took the other more than a split second to come to a decision, but it seemed lots longer than that to me. He didn't release his hold on the pike. His left hand moved, pushing his hood back and pulling the mask from his face.

“You,” I said.

The terrible thing was that he looked like the same good old comedian, rosy-cheeked, broadly grinning. “You didn't recognize me, did you?” he said. “These latex masks are wonderful. Keep the face warm, too.”

“Please, Dieter. Put down the pike.”

“But if I do, he may get away.” Dieter's smile stiffened. “You know who he is, don't you?”

“I…yes, I know. How do you know?”

I fought to control my voice and my nerve, but it wasn't easy—there was something so grisly about Dieter's nonchalance, as he held John pinned against the tombstone, casual as a naturalist about to impale a beetle or a butterfly. He looked marvelous on skis, his usual clumsiness transformed.

“Why, I saw the rascal in court, when I testified against him in a case of fraud a few years ago,” Dieter explained. “He had substituted a forgery for a valuable painting; the poor woman had kept it for years as insurance for her old age, and when she was forced to sell it, the truth came out. Such a filthy swindle. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him yesterday in Bad Steinbach. It is good you have the gun; keep him covered while I tie him up, and then we will go for the police.”

The bloodstain was the size of a small saucer. John didn't say anything. He just looked at me.

Dieter's smile faded. He said awkwardly, “I am sorry, Vicky, if he was…If you were…It's the treasure he wants, you know. If he told you otherwise, he lied to you.”

I said, “He's been lying all along.”

“Vicky—” John began.

“You made a number of slips,” I said. “That casual comment about how Hoffman turned up in Bavaria and married the innkeeper's daughter—how did you know it was his wife's father who owned the hotel? I didn't tell you. I didn't know myself, until later.”

Dieter was smiling again. His fingers tightened on the handle of the pike; the bloodstain oozed outward, a scant millimeter at a time.

“There were other things,” I said quickly. “You knew Tony's last name. You were too sure about too many things for which there was little or no evidence. You told me the matter wasn't worth pursuing, but you stuck close enough to me to be on hand when—when…Dieter, please—don't.”

“Then give me the gun,” Dieter said, grinning.

There was nothing else I could do. I said, “I'll trade you.”

Dieter laughed aloud. “Try it, it's fun. There is satisfaction in inflicting pain on someone who has hurt you—your pride, your ego.” With a brutal twist he wrenched the pike out of padding and flesh, and snatched the Colt from my hand.

I reached for the pike but it fell to the ground, brushing my outstretched fingertips. Dieter turned, took aim, and fired at point-blank range.

I
HADN'T EXPECTED HIM TO ACT SO
quickly. He had been having such a good time tormenting his victim, like a nasty little boy pulling wings off butterflies. The sound of the shot, less than three feet from my ears, threw me off balance; I went sprawling in the snow, groping for the handle of the pike. When I sat up, Dieter was pointing the gun at my stomach. John had fallen sideways, face down, across Hoffman's grave.

“Now you,” Dieter said. “I would like very much to hold you in suspense awhile, as I did Albrecht—”

“Albrecht?”

“Perhaps you knew him by another name. He had many.”

“Yes, I know.”

I drew my feet up under me. My fingers closed around the butt of the pike. It left a delicate smear of blood on the snow as I pulled it toward me. Dieter pivoted, planting his pole, gliding out of range. “Amuse yourself,” he said. “I wish I had more
time, but I must not linger—much as I am enjoying your desperate attempt to save yourself….”

“I hurt your stinking little ego rather badly, didn't I? I guess there's something to be said for feminine intuition; deep down inside, I knew you made me sick to my stomach.”

His lips drew back over his teeth. Funny, I had never noticed how long and sharp they were. “If I am careful where I put the bullet, it will take you a long time to die,” he mused. “Think of Dieter the joker, the butt of your laughter, as you lie bleeding in the snow by the corpse of your lover. Think of me enjoying the treasure you were good enough to find for me.”

“No,” I said. “I don't think so, Dieter.”

The damned pike wasn't heavy, but it was long and hard to balance. I got my feet and swung the thing into position. Dieter stepped back, grinning. For all my bravado, I was beginning to feel a wee bit uneasy. Could I have made some ghastly mistake? Surely not…. But John hadn't moved, not so much as a fingertip.

Dieter fired. I couldn't help cringing. It is unnerving to have a gun go off practically in your face, even though you know it is loaded with blanks.

I'd have done more than cringe—fainted, for example—if I had realized that the harmless sounding blank cartridges were capable of inflicting a considerable degree of damage when fired at close range. Luckily for me, Dieter aimed at my midsection, not at my face. The wadding bounced harmlessly off the thick layers of my padded jacket;
sparks from burned powder set tiny spots of cloth smoldering.

The expression on Dieter's face when he saw me still upright and unharmed almost made up for the unpleasantness of the past few minutes, and for the ruin of my expensive ski jacket. I lunged at him, and missed by a mile. He was off-balance too; in a kind of frenzy, he emptied the magazine. The rolling echoes of the shots were followed by a deeper and more ominous rumble, high on the mountain. He'd start an avalanche if he wasn't careful….

As I turned for a second try, Dieter threw the empty gun at me—a spiteful, childish gesture that gave me a certain amount of equally childish satisfaction. I ducked. Dieter planted his pole and skated away from me across the open ground. I started after him, but I knew it was hopeless. Once he reached the road, he had a straight downhill run—not the best of slopes, but well within the capability of a skier of his skill. Anybody who could have made it down the three-encumbered hillside had to be first-rate. As John had said…

John.

He hadn't moved. A few of the blackened spots on his ski cap were still smoking, and the acrid stench of singed wool stung my nostrils as I tugged at him, trying to turn him over. He was dead weight, heavy and unresponsive. Could I possibly have slipped up when I replaced the cartridges in the Colt—left one live one in the chamber? I knew—I knew!—I hadn't done so, but if he had taken the charge full in the face…Why hadn't the shopkeeper warned me that the blanks were so dangerous? I thought they just made a big bang.
Of course, I had never expected anyone would fire the gun….

“Is he gone?” said a voice, quite literally from the grave.

Relief hit me so hard, every muscle went soggy. I collapsed onto the muddy ground beside him. “Yes, damn it. God damn you, John, what's the idea of scaring me like that?”

“Scaring you?” He rolled over. Knowing Dieter better than I did, he had flung himself aside in time to escape the worst of the powder burns, but the side of his face was speckled with angry-looking scorch marks. One had narrowly missed his eye. “Me?” he demanded, his voice rising. “Scaring
you
?”

“What was I supposed to do, tell you not to worry, the gun wasn't loaded? I thought Schmidt would try to steal it back, so I got some blanks from that magic shop in Garmisch and…I assumed you would assume…uh…”

John raised a tremulous hand to his brow. “My nerves will never be the same.”

“I don't know what else I could have done,” I argued. “I hoped I could bluff him, but I sure as hell couldn't shoot him, and he would have skewered you before I could get close enough to tackle him.”

“I think you prolonged it on purpose,” John said. His hand moved wincingly from his face to his chest. “Bloody hell. Once these down jackets are slashed, there's no way of repairing them.”

I pushed his hand aside and began to unzip the jacket. “You did lie to me. You knew it was Dieter all along.”

“I did lie to you, but I did not know it was Dieter all along. Ow—take it easy—”

“Crybaby.” I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed the sodden cloth aside. “It's only a little hole.”

“Another inch and it would have been a little hole in my lung. I don't know why I associate with you. Do you realize that I never have work-associated accidents unless you're around?”

“What, never?”

“Well…hardly ever. There is a nice clean white handkerchief in the inside pocket of my jacket.”

“I might have known. The instincts of a gentleman cannot wholly be suppressed. Even with a liar—”

“It was for your own good. I tried to talk you out of it.”

Without replying, I got up and went to the car for my first aid kit.

“What next?” John inquired, still prone, as I buttoned him back into his clothes.

“I am going to take determined steps to leave this place within the next ten minutes,” I said. “By one means or another. God knows what Dieter will try next. In case you wonder why I am not rushing hysterically for my skis, or making ineffectual efforts to dig my car out of that drift, it is because I am being very calm and weighing all possible alternatives before I fly into action in my inimitable way. And also because for once—just once—for the first time in our acquaintance—I want the simple, unvarnished truth. In this case, it is not merely curiosity that moves me to inquire. I have a distinct and genuine need to know all the facts.”

“A persuasive argument,” said John, nodding.
His eyes rolled down toward the hand I had planted firmly on his chest. “That is also a persuasive argument. All right. The simple truth is that I heard rumors about the Trojan gold as long ago as August. In fact, I was approached by a former acquaintance, who claimed that he expected to gain possession of it shortly and asked if I would be willing to assist in—er—marketing it. I told him I had no time to waste on what-ifs, and to let me know when he actually had it in his hands.

“Now what you must understand, Vicky, is that the contact was made through certain channels that allow the communicants to remain anonymous. I never saw this individual, whom I knew only by a code name—Hagen. He had been involved with a little, er, business deal I invested in several years ago. I knew he was connected with a museum and I was fairly sure he was male—though even that information was carefully guarded. I never tried to find out more; that's part of the bizarre ethics of my profession, you know. One respects a colleague's anonymity.

“I dismissed the matter then; I had other things to think about. When you told me of your involvement, I realized, with considerable relief, that you really had nothing to go on. It wasn't until the end of the conversation that you casually mentioned your old academic acquaintances, several of whom had just happened to turn up, and an unpleasant suspicion entered my mind. If one of your friends was the individual I knew as Hagen, you could be in deep trouble. Ensuing development convinced me that my worst fears were justified. Hagen had failed to locate the treasure and was hoping you
could do it for him. I decided to keep a brotherly eye on you—”

“And on the treasure.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Your doubts cut me to the quick. The attack on you and Schmidt surprised me; it didn't fit my theory. Later investigation strongly suggested that a subordinate had gone off half-cocked and acted without authority. Freddy had already committed a major blunder by killing Hoffman before he could be persuaded to talk, and after he tried the same thing on you, Hagen realized Freddy's stupidity and arrogance could ruin everything. So out went Freddy. In the meantime…God, what's that noise? Avalanche?” He sat up with a start.

“Snowmobile, I think.” I rose and shielded my eyes against the dazzle of the slopes. “We're about to be rescued.”

“Vicky.” His fingers, hard and urgent, closed around my wrist. “I withheld no relevant information. I wasn't trying—”

“Right.” I freed my hand. “Sure.”

The snowplows had been out. The main road was fairly clear and the Marktplatz was walled with ten-foot-high banks. People who live in areas of heavy snowfall don't let it upset their schedules; church was letting out when we arrived, and the
Platz
was filled with red-cheeked, cheerful people exchanging greetings and trying to keep the children from flinging themselves and their Christmas finery into the drifts. Sledges and sleighs mingled with cars in the parking area; the horses' collars were twined with greenery and bright red ribbon, and a team of magnificent white oxen attached to
one painted sledge sported bells and bow-trimmed harness. The laughing voices, the snatches of carols, the bright sun and glittering snow made a perfect, picture-postcard Christmas morning.

We went straight to the police station.

At least the headquarters of the local constable was a quaint gabled house, not a grim barracks. There was a tiny Christmas tree on the sergeant's desk. He was the only one on duty; the remainder of the five-man force was at mass or out with the Ski Patrol searching for lost tourists. He took us for two of the latter and started lecturing us. The storm had been forecast, people had been warned to stay off the slopes; staring pointedly at my battered companion, he suggested I take him to the hospital in Garmisch.

John looked as if this struck him as a splendid idea, but when I launched into my story, he did all he could to back me up. It was some story. I had to do some impromptu editing to make it sound even halfway plausible. I didn't go into the business of the Trojan gold, figuring that would be too much for a bewildered local sergeant; time enough for complications when the
Landpolizei
were on the case. Instead, I concentrated on the mad killer theme. The sergeant readily took to that idea; when he exclaimed, “Ah! A crime of passion!” I knew we had sold him. Everybody understands crimes of passion. Of course, John couldn't resist the chance to show off; baring his breast, he displayed his wound to the admiring gaze of the sergeant, who expressed himself as thoroughly convinced. We told him we would be at the hotel and left him in
animated conversation with his superiors in Garmisch.

Tony was in Garmisch too. The sergeant said he had been taken there the day before, since the local lockup was already full of holiday revelers. I would have lingered to inquire about posting bail and such things, but John kept muttering insistently about food and drink, and I figured Tony could wait. I was sure we had not seen the last of Dieter. His tender little ego had taken another lump, and now he knew where the gold was hidden. I didn't know what he would do, but I knew he would try something. The police would be looking for him, but between the blizzard and the holiday, they would be shorthanded.

I was itching to get back to the cemetery with some tools—including a gun with actual bullets in it, in case Dieter had the same idea. However, as John kept reiterating, that matter could wait until we had figured out a method of transport and replenished our strength. I had to agree with him; I felt as though I would topple over if someone blew hard at me.

The clerk had a handful of messages for me. As I might have expected, all of them were from Schmidt.

“Where is Herr Schmidt?” I asked. “In the restaurant?”

The woman flung both hands shoulder-high in a dramatic shrug. “I saw him earlier, but…
Herr Gott, Fräulein
, it is a madhouse here. Frau Hoffman dead, and no one knowing what will happen next…. The police asked for you, too.”

“That's all right, I've talked to them,” I began.

John took me firmly by the arm. “If anyone else asks for the Fräulein Doktor, she will be in the restaurant.”

Schmidt wasn't in the restaurant. The smell of coffee and fresh-baked rolls made me so weak in the knees, John had to lead me to a table. I tackled the food with a gusto worthy of Schmidt himself. As soon as I started to feel stronger, I started to worry again.

“What do you think he'll do?”

“God knows,” John said placidly.

“What would you do?”

His eyes narrowed, acknowledging the covert insult, but he said only, “Go for the gold—to coin a phrase. It'll take him a while. There is no hurry.”

“But you're not him.”

“No, I'm not. I'm so flattered that you noticed the difference.”

“We did a lot of the work for him, softening the ground,” I mused. “Depends on how deeply it's buried. Transportation will be a problem…. How the devil did he get there this morning? It's all uphill from Bad Steinbach.”