Tanz gave him the two cards, then nodding, Baumann led the way to the lift. Up in their sitting-room, Baumann began to strip off his ski-ing clothes.
“Well? Come on, Cade, don’t be so damn mysterious.”
Cade had taken off his windcheater and now, sitting before the fire, he began to take off his boots.
“There are about a dozen armed men patrolling the grounds of the Château,” he said. “At least two have automatic rifles.”
Baumann gaped at him.
“Are you sure?”
“I watched them for a good twenty minutes. I am sure.”
“Well, what do you know?” Baumann kicked off his boots. He pushed his stockinged feet towards the fire. “But why?”
Cade shrugged.
“How’s the barometer?”
Baumann got to his feet, went over to the telephone and asked the desk about the weather, listened, grunted and hung up.
“It’s rising. Should be fine tomorrow.”
“There’s a big Arolla pine tree at the edge of the forest,” Cade said. “It faces the Château. It’s my only hope to get pictures. There’s a terrace on the second floor. If it is sunny tomorrow, Anita might possibly come out on the terrace. I can’t see any other way I can get pictures. I’ll need a 600 mm Tele Rokkor lens. Where can I get one?”
“What about these armed men?”
“Never mind about them. Concentrate on the lens.”
Baumann thought for a moment, then looked at his wrist watch. The time was a few minutes after midnight.
“I can get you one tomorrow some time.”
“I want to be up that tree with my equipment before daylight.”
Baumann frowned, then crossed to the telephone, dialled a number, waited, then spoke in a low voice. Cade didn’t bother to listen. He moved close to the fire, his mind busy with the technical difficulties that faced him of getting good pictures of the terrace. With the Rokkor lens, he decided he could get good close-up photographs always providing the sun was warm enough to tempt Anita out onto the terrace.
“I’ll send Grau,” Baumann said as he hung up. “I have a friend who owns a photographic shop in Montreux. He has the lens. Grau will have it here in less than three hours.”
He went into Grau’s bedroom and got him out of bed. Grau cursed when he was told he had to go right away to Montreux, but after a brief delay while he struggled into his clothes, he went off.
Cade had brought his camera equipment from his bedroom into the sitting-room. He began loading film into his Minolta.
“I’ll need enough sandwiches to last me for twelve hours, coffee, a half-bottle of brandy, some thin cord, three metres of knotted rope, a good hunting knife and a set of climbing irons,” he said. “That tree isn’t going to be easy to climb, but once I’m up, I’m not likely to be seen.”
Baumann nodded. For the first time since he had met Cade, he looked animated.
“I’ll fix all that for you. Anything else?”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to bed. Call me at six o’clock. That’ll be time enough.”
“Do you want me with you?”
“Once I’m up the tree, I’ll be better on my own, but I might have to get out fast. How can we keep in touch?”
“I have a two way radio you can take with you. It’ll be heavy, but it is the safest way for us to keep in touch. How’s that?”
“Fine. You’ll have to come over the wall with me. If it stops snowing, you’ll have to wipe out our prints and you can help carry the gear, then you can leave me.”
A little after 06.00 hours the following morning, Cade and Baumann left the hotel. Grau had got the Rokkor lens and Baumann had collected the various things Cade had asked for: these he had packed into a rucksack which Cade carried. It was now no longer snowing, and the moon, riding high, cast a brilliant light over the white landscape. It was frosty and well below freezing, the road surface was dangerously slippery.
They stopped beside Sherman’s Simca, still parked off the road. Baumann told him about the armed men guarding the Château.
“What’s the idea?” Sherman asked, looking startled.
“That’s what we are going to find out,” Baumann said. “You are to wait this side of the wall. When I return, it’s your job to throw me the rope. So keep awake.”
Baumann led the way to the wall, hoisted Cade up and then Sherman hoisted Baumann up beside Cade. Sherman tied the rucksack, Cade’s camera equipment and the short wave receiver to the end of the rope and Baumann hauled them up. The two men slid over the wall and cautiously moved off through the dark forest. They walked one behind the other, Baumann careful to step into Cade’s deep footprints.
Finally, Cade said softly, “We’re not far off. Watch out.”
Baumann grunted. They could see through the trees the snow-covered lawn ahead of them, dazzlingly white in the moonlight.
Cade continued more slowly until he reached the tall Arolla pine tree he had noticed during the night.
“See them?” he whispered and pointed across the lawn.
Baumann’s breath hissed in sharply as he saw the sentinels. They were spaced some ten metres apart: dark, motionless figures, holding rifles and looking towards the forest.
Cade stepped back into the shadows. He sat in the snow and began to fix the climbing irons to his boots. His fingers were so cold he had difficulty in securing the straps.
Baumann said, “What the hell do you think they’re guarding?” He was still staring across the lawn at the motionless men.
“You make a guess,” Cade said and stood up. He uncoiled the knotted rope, tossed one end over the nearest bough, then catching hold of the loop, he dug his climbing irons into the trunk of the tree and slowly, laboriously hauled himself up. He reached the lower branches, then paused. “Okay. Let’s have the equipment, then you get off,” he said, astride a branch and leaning forward. “Make sure you get rid of our prints.”
Baumann attached the various things they had brought with them to the end of the rope and watched while Cade hauled them up into the tree. Then with a wave of his hand and a muttered “Good luck,” he moved off into the darkness, pausing at every step to wipe out their prints with a fir branch he had cut off.
Cade waited until Baumann was out of sight, then he began climbing. He moved cautiously to avoid knocking off the thick snow that covered the branches of the tree. Finally, nearly at the top of the tree, he was level with the big terrace under which the massive entrance to the Château was built.
He set up his light tripod, tying the legs to the fir branches, then he secured his rucksack to another branch and settled down to wait. After a cold, dull half hour, he switched on the short wave receiver and called Baumann.
“Listening in,” Baumann’s voice said immediately.
“Keep that way,” Cade said into the microphone. “I’m all set and waiting,” then he switched off.
With nothing to do for at least four hours, he relaxed back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes.
By 11.00 hours the sun was so warm that Cade discarded his windcheater. He had eaten some of his sandwiches and had drunk two cups of coffee, laced with brandy. He had now screwed his camera to the tripod and clipped the long Rokkor lens which, when he peered through the eye-piece, brought the terrace nearly on top of him. He could easily make out the cracks in the terrace wall and see the water dripping off the gutter as the snow began to melt.
Since the first light of dawn, he had been able to see the sentinels clearly. He counted nine of them: big, burly, heavily-built men, clad in black raincoats, rubber boots and plastic, black hoods.
Examining them through the 600 mm lens, he decided he had never seen such a tough bunch of men. He had been right about them carrying automatic rifles. When the sun came up, six of them went into the Château, the other three continued to patrol and Cade got the impression that they were very alert and watchful.