The old man was pointing along the coastline to a small wooded headland about a mile away. ‘You see where the land sticks out into the lake there? That is where the Schloss Alpenstein stands. If you look carefully, you can see part of it above the trees.’
David followed the old man’s finger and could see a gray pitched roof and two pepper-pot towers built from granite in the seventeenth century Swiss style. In the fading light, the chateau had a haunted air, but was everything he’d ever imagined it would be. ‘Who lives there now?’ he asked.
‘After the death of the Baroness, her husband put it up for sale and it was bought by a businessman, who converted it into a luxury hotel and country club.’
‘Do you think they would let me go and take a look around?’ David asked.
‘I do not see why not, but it is not the same as when the Baroness lived there,’ the old man said sadly. ‘All of her beautiful things are gone, and many parts of the Schloss have been changed.’
David stared out over the water at the building for a moment, then said, ‘I was hoping to find someone here who would be able to tell me a little about my aunt, especially about how she died. Can you stay and talk awhile? There’s so much I want to know.’
‘I am sorry sir, but I must get back to my work,’ the old man replied, but seeing the disappointment on David’s face, he added, ‘Tomorrow is my day off. Why don’t you come to my house and meet my wife? She was cook and housekeeper at the Schloss. I am sure that she would like to meet you.’
David was elated. ‘That would be great, thank you. You don’t know what this means to me!’
‘Very well, then. I will see you at ten o’clock. My address is number five Seestrasse, right here in the town.’
David thanked him again profusely and promised to be on time.
Meanwhile, downstairs in the gathering dusk, two hard looking men of Mediterranean appearance had just arrived in town and were checking the number plates on the cars in the hotel car park.
Back up in the mountains, Alice was feeling much better. Philippe had been as good as his word about looking after her. One of the first things he’d done after checking her dressings and giving her some painkillers, was to fix a makeshift toilet for her around the back of the hut, then he’d helped her out of bed so she could use it.
At lunchtime, he’d made her some stew and she’d managed to sit up in bed to eat it. After that, dosed up with painkillers again, she’d spent the afternoon napping, and was now lying half awake, thinking back over her fourteen year relationship with Ross, trying to figure out exactly what it was she’d done to make him want to kill her.
She’d first come to England as a twenty-one year old student, over from the States on an exchange at Cambridge. It had been during that time, at a weekend party on a country estate, that she’d first met Sir Ross Webley, a baronet and one-time subaltern in the Grenadier Guards. Ross was fifteen years her senior, but she’d been enormously attracted to him. To her, he was everything she expected a member of the British nobility to be: tall, dark and handsome, with a dashing air and a Guards and Eton accent.
As a man, he was in great demand by society, never failing to charm and amuse wherever he went. Those who had known him for a long time, pitied him the tragic loss of his first wife, and used that to explain his apparent lack of interest in women. He’d been a constant source of disappointment to the many debutantes and their ambitious mothers, who’d seen him as an extremely eligible bachelor. But he’d remained staunchly single. Until little Alice Sanderson had come along.
She remembered how she’d found him extremely exciting, a condition that had been enhanced by the fact that he’d never tried to take her to his bed. Most of the other men she’d been out with had a tendency to end each sentence with a proposition, but Ross had been different. She’d interpreted his reticence in that department as noble and chivalrous, the mark of a true gentleman. It hadn’t been long before he’d proposed, and she’d accepted, gladly.
Thereafter, a new life had started for her as Lady Webley. They’d honeymooned for a month in Monte Carlo, where Ross had lost a small fortune every night at the tables before crawling into her bed in the early hours of each morning, where they’d both stayed until noon each day. That part of the relationship had been worth waiting for and she’d been ecstatically happy and fulfilled. By the time the honeymoon was over she’d been in what Ross quaintly referred to as ‘a delicate condition’.
After their return to England, they’d divided their time between his house in London and his house in the country, although the country house wasn’t the original Webley family seat. The original had been an enormous estate in Hertfordshire, but over the years Ross had been forced to sell the manor house, the adjoining farmland then most of the other property the family had owned.
Finally, he’d been left with just the house in London and Moor End Farm, one hundred acres of rundown pastureland on the South Downs between Brighton and Eastbourne. Both properties had been in drastic need of a woman’s touch.
Alice employed an architect and set him to work restoring the London house to its original Victorian splendor, whilst she personally designed and supervised the modernization of the farmhouse. Ross had been happy to let her get on with it and allowed her to do whatever she wanted. She’d had all the old farm buildings, with the exception of the main house and the largest barn, demolished to make way for an airstrip for Ross. He was passionate about flying and she’d thought that if he could keep his aircraft at home it would save him the long drive to Redhill or Shoreham every time he wanted to fly. When it was complete, Ross had been delighted with what she’d done.
When their son, Charles, was born she’d been overjoyed and devoted all her time and energy to his welfare. She’d wanted to do everything for him herself and staunchly refused her husband’s suggestion that they employ a nanny. The early years had gone by reasonably quickly though, and the time had soon come for young Charles to go off to prep school. When he’d gone, Alice missed him dreadfully and with Ross away much of the time too, she’d felt at a loose end.
To keep occupied she’d busied herself with charitable work, which had eventually absorbed so much of her time that she’d started to become tired and run down. One day, Ross had surprised her by employing a fulltime secretary, who joined the household staff and lived in. It hadn’t been long before the new secretary was settled and everyone agreed that Alex Crawford was an absolute treasure.
After Alex’s arrival, Alice started having time on her hands again so took to spending weeks at a time in the States to be near her father, who was retired and suffering with ever declining health. They had spent hours in blissful companionship talking about the old days and all the things they used to do together when she was a little girl.
Another great source of happiness for Alice were her frequent visits back to Geneva, where she’d been at finishing school, and to Chamonix. She would often get Ross to drop her at Geneva when he was off on one of his trips, and from there, she would hire a car and head up into the mountains to walk, relax and enjoy the French cuisine. She’d become an accomplished high level walker and had grown to know the Chamonix valley and surrounding mountain trails extremely well.
Alice sighed deeply and opened her eyes, still no nearer to knowing the reason behind Ross’s murderous actions. Outside, the shadows had lengthened and the snowy peaks had taken on an exquisite pink hue. She carefully inched herself out of bed and joined Philippe just outside the hut, where he was sitting on a slab of granite staring at the starkly beautiful mountains.