Presumed Dead, page 5
Philippe took his own crampons off then asked, ‘Are you ready to go on?’
‘I guess so,’ Alice sighed, getting to her feet.
The rocky path to the Montenvers terminus zigzagged back and forth up the side of the valley. Philippe insisted that Alice walk ahead of him so that she could set the pace. They started off well, but Alice was soon flagging and had to stop for a rest. Philippe urged her on, and before long they passed the spot where Alex had done his quick change, then finally arrived at the terminus. Alice was exhausted and just stood shivering with her hood up whilst Philippe bought tickets for their descent to Chamonix.
They went through the turnstile onto the platform and got straight onto the waiting train although it wasn’t due to leave for another ten minutes. All of the human traffic at this time of the day was coming up to the Montenvers with the trains arriving full and leaving empty, so they had the carriage to themselves. Philippe got Alice installed in a corner, stowed their rucksacks, then snuggled up next to her trying to make her warm. Her nose and ears were blue with the cold so she kept her hood up.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Very cold and very tired,’ she said with a shiver. ‘That last part was steeper than it looked, I didn’t think I was going to make it.’
‘You did fine,’ he said, ‘I’m proud of you.’ He squeezed her hand through her glove then said, ‘Wait here a minute, I’ve just thought of something.’ With that, he jumped off the train and disappeared into the terminus.
Alice gazed after him wondering where he’d gone. After a couple of minutes he reappeared carrying two polystyrene cups full of thick, sweet, hot chocolate, which he’d got from the terminus café. He handed one to Alice and said, ‘Drink this, it will make you feel much better.’
She smiled for the first time since leaving the hut. Taking the cup between her shaking hands, she sipped the steaming liquid and closed her eyes with pleasure. It was like nectar. ‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully, ‘you’ve saved my life… again.’
The automatic doors hissed shut and the train jerked into motion. Soon they were heading down the steep single track towards Chamonix, leaving the beauty and sanctuary of the high mountains far behind them. Halfway down, the train stopped in a small siding to allow the upward bound train to pass. As the ascending train lumbered past carrying tourists, climbers and the four Gendarmerie Peloton men, no one took any notice of the couple cuddling in the other train. Further down the mountain they entered a layer of dark gray cloud, which was lying across the valley like a thick, dirty blanket. When they emerged out of the other side it was into gloom and rain, which dampened Alice’s spirits even further.
Finally, the train pulled into the station in Chamonix and Philippe held onto Alice’s arm as they got off and hurried across the road to the car park, where his BMW was parked. He helped her into the passenger side, adjusted the electric seat until she was semi-reclined and comfortable, then secured her seat belt. After stashing their rucksacks he started the engine, put the heating on full blast and switched the electric seat heaters on. Within a minute there was warm air flowing over Alice’s chilled body as she nestled back into the warm, cozy leather with her eyes closed.
‘Are you comfortable?’ he asked.
‘Mmm, yes… this is heaven,’ she said, smiling and snuggling deeper into her seat.
They glided smoothly out of the car park, over the level crossing and onto the road leading out of Chamonix. By the time they were on the Autoroute Blanche, the muted hum of the engine and the flip-flap of the windscreen wipers had lulled Alice into a peaceful sleep.
.
About the same time, over in Weggis, David Wiseman was just leaving the hotel to keep his appointment at the house of the porter and his wife. He’d read in his guide book that it was the done thing to take a gift if invited to the house of a Swiss, so he stopped at a little shop across the road from the hotel and bought a small bunch of flowers.
Seestrasse was easy to find, because as the name suggested, it was the street that ran along the side of the lake. Number five was a green-shuttered, whitewashed house in the middle of a small terrace of identical houses, which looked like they had been newly scrubbed. All the windows were dressed with delicate lace curtains and adorned outside with rustic wooden boxes, bulging with petunias and geraniums. The overall scene, as everywhere else in the town, was one of clean, neat efficiency.
David had also read in his tourist guide that the Swiss were sticklers for punctuality, so he paced himself and knocked on the door at precisely ten a.m.. The old porter came to the door immediately, shook his hand and invited him in. Now that he was out of uniform, he was like a different man, animated, talkative and friendly. He took David through to a small parlor, where an old lady was sitting at a pine table that was set out with cups and saucers.
‘May I present my wife, Frau Schutz?’ he asked David. Then turning to his wife he said, ‘My dear, this is Mr Wiseman from America, the Baroness’s nephew.’
David shook the old lady’s hand and gave her the flowers saying slowly, ‘Very glad to meet you, these are for you.’
‘Thank you Mr Wiseman, they are lovely. I am pleased to meet you too. Would you like tea, or maybe some coffee?’ the old lady asked.
David was amazed yet again at the way everyone in town seemed to speak perfect English. ‘Coffee would be good, thank you.’
She handed the flowers to her husband who took them out into the kitchen then busied himself making a pot of coffee. Turning back to David, she said, ‘I knew someone would come.’
He was taken aback by her intensity. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I knew someone would come here sooner or later asking questions about the Baroness.’
‘Why do you say that?’ David asked.
‘Because there are questions about the Baroness that remain unanswered, even after all this time, and it is the duty of her family to find the truth.’
Ah, David thought. This is what I came for. ‘What truth?’ he asked innocently, ‘what do you mean?’
‘The truth about her death, of course.’
‘But I thought she died from a heart attack,’ David said, leading her on. ‘That’s what we were told.’
The old woman snorted. ‘Heart attack? Nonsense… she was as strong as a horse.’
‘What are you getting at?’ David asked.
Frau Schutz leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘I believe that English husband of hers killed her.’
‘Killed her?’ David asked, feigning incredulity. ‘But why? What possible reason would he have to do that?’
‘For her money, of course,’ the old woman said as if speaking to a dense child. ‘He thought the Baroness was a very wealthy woman, but he didn’t get as much as he had bargained for.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Maybe I had better tell you the whole story,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.
‘I wish you would,’ David said, reaching into his jacket pocket for his notebook and pen.
Just then, her husband came back into the parlor carrying a tray with a coffeepot, milk jug and sugar bowl. ‘What have you been telling him, Mama?’ the old man asked. ‘You promised not to start all that crazy talk again.’
‘It is not crazy talk,’ Frau Schutz snapped. ‘I know what I know, and it is my responsibility to tell Mr Wiseman the truth.’
The old man shook his head in resignation and said, ‘I will be in the garden if you want me. I can not stand to listen to this story again. Please excuse me Mr Wiseman.’
When he’d gone, the old woman poured the coffee then started speaking. ‘When the Baron died, oh… thirty years ago now, the Baroness was devastated. The Baron had been a highly respectable banker, respectable and boring. They had never traveled very far, they had very few friends and no social life at all. They had been good companions to each other and were growing old and fat together, but when he went, the Baroness really did not know what to do with herself. For the first few months we were all very worried about her. She would just wander around the Schloss or sit doing nothing. Then there was a change.
‘Suddenly, it was if she had decided to make a new life for herself. She started to take regular exercise and she asked me to prepare more salad and vegetable dishes and to cut down on potatoes and pastries. Within six months she was riding the rack-railway from Vitznau to the top of Mt Rigi and walking back down to Weggis at least twice a week, and had lost twenty kilos in weight.
‘The doctor was very pleased with her, he had been trying to get her to lose weight for some time. When she had her regular check up, he told her that since she had lost all that weight, her heart was now good for another thirty years. That must have given her a new lease of life because suddenly she gave away all her clothes and had a complete new, fashionable wardrobe made. She also had her hair remodeled into a modern style.
‘After that, we didn’t see very much of her for a time. She went travelling around the world, and by the time she got back, she had made so many friends that she was always being invited away for weekends and short holidays. She took to spending a lot of time on the French Riviera and started gambling in the casinos. Although the Baron had left her well provided for with a regular income, she was spending more than the investments were earning and so to get extra money she started selling some of the antique furniture in the Schloss.
‘She found a furniture dealer in Lucerne who would buy the antiques and supply her with identical replacement reproduction pieces. That way she found she could raise a lot of money but still keep up appearances in front of her friends. When all the furniture had been sold and replaced, she started selling the pictures, again to the same dealer who would have them copied so that she always had a replacement to hang. Within five years, she had gambled away nearly everything of value in the Schloss, all she had left were her jewels. That was when she met Sir Ross Webley, while she was away on one of her gambling trips to France.’ She spat his name out with disgust.
‘I remember the first time I saw him,’ she continued. ‘The Baroness had invited him and a few other friends for the weekend. He was very young, less than half the Baroness’s age, and oily, you know, like a gigolo. At the end of the weekend, the other guests left, but he stayed. The Baroness took him walking in the hills and they went swimming and sailing on the lake. He followed her around like a puppy and she acted like a schoolgirl, making a complete fool of herself. One night she had a little too much to drink and confided to her personal maid that Webley was very rich, and that if she could marry him, it would mean an end to her financial worries.
‘To the rest of us staff, it looked the other way around. If he was as wealthy as he claimed, tell me, what would he want with a plain, middle-aged woman like the Baroness? She obviously thought that he loved her, but that is not how it seemed to me. Every time he was alone, I would see him walking around the rooms, looking at the furniture and paintings, almost as if he was taking inventory.
‘Anyway, after a month, the Baroness announced that she was going on a short holiday to England to stay on his estate. That was the last time we ever saw her.’ The old woman paused to wipe her eyes.
David waited patiently for a moment, then asked, ‘What happened next?’
‘About a week later, we received a telegram saying the Baroness was to be married in England and instructing us to pack up all her clothes and jewels and have them sent to Webley’s estate by airfreight. We did as we were told, then we heard nothing more until a few weeks after that when Webley and the Baroness’s lawyer came to the Schloss. They called all the staff together and told us that the Baroness had died shortly after the wedding from a heart attack.’
‘Just like that?’ David asked.
‘Yes, just like that. Naturally, everyone was very upset, especially when the lawyer told us that the Baroness had made a new will leaving everything to her husband. You see, many of us had been at the Schloss since the Baron and Baroness were first married, and it would have been normal for the long serving staff to have received something.’
‘This new will,’ David asked, ‘when was it made?’
‘I never saw it, but when I went to see her lawyer later, he told me it had been made in England between the time of the marriage and the time of the Baroness’s death. He said that Webley’s lawyers had made it and that Webley had brought it with him, along with a copy of the death certificate.’
‘So what happened after that?’ David asked.
‘After the lawyer had given us the news, he told us that Webley was now our master and asked that we all co-operate with him, then he left. Webley waited until he had gone, then stood up in front of us all and told us that he was selling the Schloss and that we were all on one week’s notice.’
‘One week! After over twenty five years of service?’ David asked with disbelief.
‘One week. That is all he gave us, no bonus, no thank you, nothing. Carl, that’s my husband, and me just walked out and never went back. We heard later that Webley instructed an auction house in Zurich to sell everything, including the Schloss, then he went home and we never saw him again.
‘The only consolation for us was that from what we heard, he made hardly any money out of the sale. All the antiques and pictures were worthless reproductions and the Schloss itself was in need of much serious repair work. The Baroness had not spent a centime on maintaining the old building since the Baron had died, so when it was finally sold to developers, it was for very little money.’
‘What about all the Baroness’s jewels?’ David asked. ‘They must have been worth a small fortune.’
‘We think he must have sold them too.’
‘You’re probably right.’ David thought for a moment then asked, ‘You say you went to see the Baroness’s lawyer afterwards? Why was that?’
‘To tell him that something was not right about the Baroness’s death. It was all too convenient for her new husband.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He did not believe me. He showed me the copy of the death certificate, and that clearly said she had died from a heart attack. He said it was all just very unfortunate and even suggested that it was the Baroness’s own fault for marrying a young man, which I thought was disgusting. I asked him if he had checked with the lawyers in England to make sure the new will was genuine. He told me not to teach him his business, and besides, he had no reason to doubt the word of Sir Ross Webley, who, he said, was a fine gentleman.’
‘A fine gentleman?’ David scoffed. ‘I’ve got to say, the more I hear about it, the more suspicious her death gets. I might have a word with this lawyer myself if he’ll see me. Is his office here in town?’
‘It used to be, but he has been dead for over ten years now. His son took over the business and moved it to Lucerne, but he would not be able to help you, he was not even working with his father when this all happened.’
David was disappointed. ‘I guess there’s not much more I can do here, but I’m going over to England to visit her grave later this week. I’ll see what I can find out over there.’
The old woman smiled. ‘You do that. Do it for the Baroness. She became a foolish woman after the Baron died, but she did not deserve to be murdered.’
David stood to leave then realized he hadn’t touched his coffee, which was now cold. ‘Sorry, I guess I was so wrapped up listening to you that I forgot to drink it.’
‘Never mind, it’s not important. The important work for you lies in England.’ She got up, wrote her telephone number on a small piece of paper, and as they said goodbye, pressed it into his hand. ’If you find anything, please call me and let me know before you leave for America.’
He promised he would.
Frau Schutz called her husband in to say goodbye, and as the old man was showing him to the door, he said quietly, ‘Do not take too much notice of what my wife has just told you. She has been going on about the Baroness like this for years.’
‘You never know,’ David said, ‘she could be right.’
‘Maybe, but I doubt it. That kind of thing only happens in stories.’
David laughed. ‘You’d be very surprised. Living over here you’re insulated from the horrors of the world. Where I come from this kind of thing happens every day.’
‘Then I am very glad I do not live in your world, Mr Wiseman,’ the old man said, shaking his head.
They shook hands and parted. David crossed the street and walked slowly back to the hotel along the lake shore thinking about what the old woman had told him. Add all that, he thought, to the impression I got of Webley the other night, and you could easily start to believe there’s something to it. He decided to reserve judgement until he got to England and could ask a few more questions.
He got back to the hotel and checked out. His plan for the day was to visit the Schloss, then drive on up to Calais where he would stay over before catching a morning ferry to Dover. As he pulled out of the hotel car park, the two men who had been watching him all morning followed at a discreet distance.
.
Back in Chamonix, the rain was now torrential and the clouds were so low that the top of the Jardin du Mont Blanc Hotel, the tallest building in town, was lost to view. Ross arrived at the headquarters of the PGHM and was shown into the duty officer’s room. The uniformed man obviously recognized the solider in Ross, because he stood up and saluted. Ross shook his hand then asked in his best schoolboy French, ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’
‘A little, Monsieur,’ Batard replied, sitting back down behind his desk.
‘What’s the status on the search for my wife?’ Ross asked, sitting opposite him.
‘You told the manager at the hotel that Madame was planning to walk to the Charpoua Glacier, so this morning we have started our search there. We have established that she took the train from Chamonix up to the Montenvers terminus on the Mer de Glace, several of the staff remember seeing her. After that, she could have walked onto the glacier or back down to the town.’ He stood up and stepped over to a large-scale map hanging on the wall. ‘We have already covered the two paths from Chamonix to the Montenvers terminus, here and here,’ he said, tracing the winding paths on the map with a wooden pointer. ‘We have also covered the paths from Montenvers down onto the Mer de Glace, here and here. My men have discovered no sign of her at all.’
