I laid a hand on the Von Herder case. It was long past time the air rifle saw use.
XV
Two days later, just after dawn, we entered Meiringen, a stopover for alpinists on their way to Trollenberg, waterfall aficionados on their way to Reichenbach and consumptives on their way to the grave.
The Professor called a halt just inside the village limits, and got down from the trap. He would rouse the local constabulary to enquire about the Grecian lady’s death — Moriarty going to the police! — while I was to look up this Steiler at the Englischer Hof. The Thin Man and the Thick Head were likely in residence, and Moriarty had to avoid the detective. It was less likely I would be recognised, though I’d not forgotten than impertinent index card.
‘What about Mabuse?’
‘He is either here, or he has gone,’ said the Professor, not being much help. ‘Be wary, Moran. He has proved himself incalculable.’
You can’t be as fond of dangerous pursuits as me and keep your skin without being habitually wary. Bravery is not the same as stupidity. Indeed, if you’ve the nerve to dance with the big cats you must always be alert. I resented Moriarty giving written instructions, with fifteen separate diagrams, on how to suck eggs. He should know Basher Moran better by now.
Leaving Moriarty to trudge towards the polizei, the trap rattled up the steep main road of Meiringen. Even this late in the season, snow piled on the pavements. It had been there since last autumn. The dirty, grey banks were studded with lumps of dog shit. Baedeker’s misses that detail.
Every building in sight was a hof of some sort. They competed for custom with themes and gimmicks. The Englischer Hof hoped to attract visitors from our shores with a Union Jack hung upside down, conveniences labelled ‘Victorias’ and ‘Alberts’ and a menu offering such British fare as ‘fish and chits’, ‘squeak and bubble’ and ‘plump duff’.
After the night’s travel, I was hungry. But not enough to risk Swiss chits for breakfast.
Leaving the trap, I realised another reason why Moriarty had got off first: he had stuck me with paying the coachman. Funds were becoming an issue. We’d left England with bandoliers full of sovereigns under our combinations. Unavoidable expenses had mounted. We’d skipped out of the Beau-Rivage, where we were registered as ‘Gilbert Smyth’ and ‘Sullivan Jones’, without settling the bill. Our London accounts (and cash stashes) were beyond reach. Our line of credit with any continental Box Brothers associate was cut off when someone shot Ueli Munster in the head. We were in danger of running out of money. If this holiday went on much longer, I might have to resort to picking pockets, getting up card games with strangers in hotels or lifting the wallets from any corpses we might leave in our wake.
Warily — yes, more than usually so — I did a recce. No assassins hidden in the snow piled up against the back of the Englischer Hof.
I entered the lobby, which adjoined the breakfast room, and assumed a downcast, solemn air. I was under orders to examine the body, then disclaim Sophy, leaving funeral costs to whoever might be stuck with them. More penny-pinching. Still, when you’re dead, you don’t care whether you’re under marble or in a sack…
However, when you’re alive, you eat breakfast.
Just as I was about to ring the desk bell, I happened to glance into the dining room. Among the tourists — several with limbs in plaster from skiing — sat Sophy Kratides, tucking into a kipper. The dead don’t, on the whole, have appetites.
Sophy saw me and was surprised. She coughed up a bone, delicately, into a napkin.
I couldn’t put the pieces together.
Then, I could. Meiringen was a killing box. A tiger pit.
For us.
I saw faces. English tourists, local guides, busy waiters, a smiling Swiss who had popped up behind the desk like a jack-in-the-box. Any could be Mabuse.
Anyone could be anyone.
I reached into my coat for my Gibbs.
‘I am Peter Steiler,’ said the Swiss, who hadn’t sent a telegram to Geneva. ‘How may I serve you, sir?’
I was calm. ‘I am joining that lady for breakfast,’ I said. ‘Bring me anything on the menu that isn’t English. And coffee.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
Smiling broadly, I sat down at Sophy’s table. Loudly, I said, ‘Hullo, old thing —’ not risking a name, since I didn’t know what she’d given at the hof — ‘sorry I’m late and all that. Bit of bother with trains. Too used to travelling in France and Italy, don’t you know? Swiss trains actually leave according to the timetable, would you believe it? Funny kind of foreigners, eh, what? Have you heard the cricket scores?’
‘Crick-et?’ she said, equally loud, eyes wide.
‘Yes, old thing. Raffles out for a duck against the Australians!’
Coffee arrived.
Under her breath, Sophy asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Waltzing into a trap, I think. You’ll note who isn’t here with me and probably saw this coming.’
Sophy took a grip on her toast knife.
All around, people were convivial. Conversation, clattering, someone trying to learn to yodel, noisome gustation. A bit too normal and busy. Then, I really saw the faces.
One of the young English lady tourists was Chinese, the Daughter of the Dragon. The dirndl-and-clogs maid who brought the coffee was Alraune, Mabuse’s odd companion. Irma Vep peeped out from behind a Times held upside down. She was sharing a plate of croissants with Princess Zanoni. Leaning on a broom and trying in vain to look inconspicuous was none other than the Hoxton Creeper, dressed in lederhosen and a sou’wester. A waiter trundled a trolley bearing a covered plate to our table. He lifted the cover and took up a revolver. It was Rupert of Hentzau.
‘Come down in the world, Rupert?’ I asked. ‘I hear the succession went badly for the Michaelists. A proper conspirator knows not to kill his favoured claimant in a fit of pique before the crown is on his head. Still, I didn’t think you’d have to go into service.’
Hentzau laughed, showing teeth. Sophy stuck her knife through his hand and he dropped the gun. He was still laughing when he got a look down the barrel of my Gibbs, but there were tears in his eyes.
All noise in the room had stopped.
‘Sebastian,’ said a familiar, feminine American voice. ‘Put the pistol away. One of these days, it’ll go off and you’ll do yourself an injury.’
‘Good morning, Irene,’ I said, not lowering the Gibbs.
Irene Adler was not dressed for the mountains, but for an opera set in the mountains: trim Norfolk jacket, tight britches, polished boots, dear little hat with a feather in the band. She sat herself down opposite Sophy and me. My companion reached for the pot, to fling scalding coffee at the New Jersey nightingale’s face. It was empty.
‘I thought of that, Miss Kratides,’ said that bitch, sweetly. ‘Rupert didn’t see the cutlery coming, though.’
The rascal was levering the knife out of his hand. I hoped marmalade would make the wound go septic. He came at Sophy, intent on cutting her nose off with her own knife.
‘Stand down, boy,’ Irene said. ‘Heel.’
Reluctantly, he stopped.
‘It’s just hired guns, then,’ I said. ‘No Jack Quartz or Nikola or Mabuse. This is below stairs.’
‘No Moriarty, either,’ she said.
I knew I could shoot Hentzau. His swordsmanship would avail him little with that injured paw, though he was a left-hand-dagger-in-the-clinch sort of fellow. With mixed feelings, I could pot Irene from where I sat. Sophy had more knives. And forks and spoons — people forget you can do damage with them too. She could take Alraune, probably Zanoni. But we’d go under. Force of numbers. Irma Vep. The Daughter of the Dragon. The Creeper. Younger, stronger, less vulnerable — plain better.