When the noise died away, the inside of the church should have been silent, but it was not. A strange sound came from outside. At first, Harald thought his ears were still registering the din of the engine, but gradually he realized it was something else. Still he could not credit what he heard, for it sounded like the tramp of marching feet.
Karen stared at him, bewilderment and fear showing on her face.
They both turned and ran to the windows. Harald leaped on the box he used for looking out over the high sills. He gave his hand to Karen, who jumped up beside him. They looked out together.
A troop of about thirty soldiers in German uniform were marching up the drive.
At first he assumed they were coming for him, but he quickly saw that they were in no shape for a manhunt. Most of them appeared to be unarmed. They had a heavy wagon drawn by four weary horses, loaded with what looked like camping gear. They marched past the monastery and continued up the drive. “What the hell is this?” he said.
“They mustn’t get in here!” Karen said.
They both looked around the interior of the church. The main entrance, at the western end, consisted of two enormous wooden doors. This was the way the Hornet Moth must have come in, with its wings folded back. Harald had also driven his bike through there. It had a huge old lock on the inside with a giant key, plus a wooden bar that rested in brackets.
There was only one other entrance, the small side door that led in from the cloisters. This was the one Harald normally used. It had a lock, but Harald had never seen a key. There was no bar.
“We could nail the small door shut, then come in and out through the windows like Pinetop,” Karen said.
“We have a hammer and nails. . we need a piece of wood.”
In a room full of junk it should have been easy to find a stout plank but, to Harald’s disappointment, there was nothing suitable. In the end he prized one of the shelves from the wall above the workbench. He placed it diagonally across the door and nailed it firmly to the door frame.
“A couple of men could break it down without much effort,” he said. “But at least no one can walk in casually and stumble over our secret.”
“They might look through the windows, though,” Karen said. “They would only have to find something to stand on.”
“Let’s conceal the propeller.” Harald grabbed the canvas cover they had removed from the Rolls-Royce. Together they draped it over the nose of the Hornet Moth. It reached far enough to cover the cabin.
They stood back. Karen said, “It still looks like an aircraft with its nose covered and its wings folded back.”
“To you, yes. But you already know what it is. Someone looking in through the window is just going to see a junk room.”
“Unless he happens to be an airman.”
“That wasn’t the Luftwaffe out there, was it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d better go and find out.”
22
Hermia had lived more years in Denmark than England, but suddenly it was a foreign country. The familiar streets of Copenhagen had a hostile air, and she felt she stood out. She hurried like a fugitive down streets where she had walked as a child, hand-in-hand with her father, innocent and carefree. It was not just the checkpoints, the German uniforms, and the gray-green Mercedes cars. Even the Danish police made her jumpy.
She had friends here, but she did not contact them. She was afraid of bringing more people into danger. Poul had died, Jens had presumably been arrested, and she did not know what had happened to Arne. She felt cursed.
She was exhausted and stiff from her overnight ferry trip, and racked with worry about Arne. Excruciatingly aware of the hours ticking by toward the full moon, she forced herself to move with the utmost caution.
The home of Jens Toksvig in St. Paul’s Gade was one of a row, all single-story, with front doors that gave immediately onto the pavement. Number fifty-three appeared empty. No one went to the door except the postman. On the previous day, when Hermia telephoned from Bornholm, it had been occupied by at least one policeman, but the guard must have been withdrawn.
Hermia also observed the neighbors. On one side was a dilapidated house occupied by a young couple with a child-the kind of people who might be too absorbed in their own life to take an interest in their neighbors. But in the freshly painted and neatly curtained house on the other side was an older woman who looked out of the window frequently.
After watching for three hours, Hermia went to the neat house and knocked.
A plump woman of about sixty years came to the door in an apron. Looking at the little suitcase Hermia was carrying, she said, “I never buy anything on the doorstep.” She smiled in a superior way, as if her refusal was a mark of social distinction.
Hermia smiled back. “I’ve been told that number fifty-three might be available to rent.”
The neighbor’s attitude changed. “Oh?” she said with interest. “Looking for a place to live, are you?”
“Yes.” The woman was as nosy as Hermia had hoped. Indulging her, Hermia said, “I’m getting married.”
The woman’s glance went automatically to Hermia’s left hand, and Hermia showed her the engagement ring. “Very nice. Well, I must say, it would be a relief to have a respectable family next door, after the goings-on.”
“Goings-on?”
She lowered her voice. “It was a nest of communist spies.”
“No, really?”
The woman folded her arms over her corseted bosom. “They were arrested last Wednesday, the whole pack of them.”
Hermia felt a chill of fear, but she made herself keep up the pretense of idle gossip. “Goodness! How many?”
“I couldn’t say, exactly. There was the tenant, young Mr. Toksvig, who I wouldn’t have taken for a wrongdoer, though he wasn’t always as respectful to his elders as he might have been, then lately an airman seemed to be living there, a nice-looking boy, though he never said much; but there were all sorts in and out of the place, mostly military types.”
“And they were arrested on Wednesday?”
“On that very pavement, where you see Mr. Schmidt’s spaniel cocking his leg against the lamppost, there was a shooting.”
Hermia gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no!”
The old woman nodded, pleased with this reaction to her story, not suspecting that she might be speaking of the man Hermia loved. “A plainclothes policeman shot one of the communists.” She added superfluously, “With a gun.”
Hermia was so afraid of what she might learn that she could hardly speak. She forced out three words: “Who was shot?”
“I didn’t actually see it myself,” the woman said with infinite regret. “I happened to be over at my sister’s house in Fischer’s Gade, borrowing a knitting pattern for a cardigan. It wasn’t Mr. Toksvig himself, that I can say for sure, because Mrs. Eriksen in the shop saw it, and she said it was a man she didn’t know.”
“Was he. . killed?”
“Oh, no. Mrs. Eriksen thought he might have been wounded in the leg. Anyhow, he cried out when the ambulance men lifted him onto the stretcher.”
Hermia felt sure it was Arne who had been shot. She seemed to feel the pain of a bullet wound herself. She was breathless and dizzy. She needed to get away from this awful old busybody who told the tragic story with such relish. “I must be going,” she said. “What a dreadful thing to happen.” She turned away.
“Anyway, I should think the place will be to rent, before too long,” the woman said to her back.
Hermia walked away, paying no attention.
She turned corners at random until she came to a cafe, where she sat down to gather her thoughts. A hot cup of ersatz tea helped her recover from the shock. She had to find out for sure what had happened to Arne and where he was now. But first she needed somewhere to spend the night.