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Authors: Mary Stewart
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searched the crowds.
It was true, then, that my eyes had not deceived me: so much of it was true. Now that I had this confirmation, I found it a profoundly disconcerting experience. The sight of Lewis and the girl in the dark cinema, that flickering brief scene still echoing with ugly tragedy and made more mysterious by its foreign setting, had been like a dream, something distant,unreal, gone as soon as seen, and believed no more than a dream in daylight. And as always, the light of day outside the cinema had set the dream even further apart from the world of reality. My own hasty action in coming out to Austria had seemed even while I did it as unreal as the dream itself; and up to now the enchanting strange prettiness of the country had helped the illusion that I was still far astray from reality.
But now . . . Oberhausen, the circus, the girl herself . . . And next, Lewis . . .?
‘What, no parking ticket?’ It was Tim, back at the window.
‘No parking ticket. You made me jump. I never heard you.’
‘I told you I’d found my vocation.’ He folded his length beside me into the driving seat. ‘I shadowed your subject with the greatest possible skill, and she did go to the circus. I think she must belong there, because she went straight in through the gate and then round towards the caravans. The village people – quite a lot were there with children – were being allowed in, but they all went to the other side; there’s a menagerie or something there, open to the public. There was a man taking the money at the gate, but I didn’t ask questions. Was that right?’
‘Yes, quite.’
‘And I’ve got news for you. They’re leaving tomorrow. There was a sticker across the poster, last performance tonight at eight o’clock.’
‘Oh? We’re just lucky, then. Thanks a lot, Tim.’
‘Think nothing of it. It was fun. I tell you, I’ve cometo the conclusion I’ll be wasted on the Spanish Riding School. James Bond isn’t in it – though as a matter of fact, Archie Goodwin’s my favourite detective; you know, Nero Wolfe’s assistant, handsome and efficient and a devil with women.’
‘Well, now’s your chance,’ I said. ‘If we don’t fall over Lewis pretty soon, I’ll send you after the girl.’
‘What they call “scraping an acquaintance”? Can do,’ said Tim cheerfully. ‘Golly, if this road gets much narrower, we’ll scrape more than that . . . Wait a moment, though, I believe this is it.’
The Gasthof Edelweiss was charming, and, in spite of its name, without a hint of chichi. It was a long, low, single-storeyed house, with a shingle roof where doves sunned themselves, and window-boxes full of flowers. It lay at the very edge of the village, and in fact the road petered out in front of it to continue on past the house as a country track leading to some farm. Between house and road lay a space of raked gravel where tables stood under chestnut trees. There were a few people sitting there over coffee or drinks. Between their feet the doves strutted and cooed. Swallows, thinking already perhaps of the hotter south, wheeled and twittered overhead. One could smell the pines.
Timothy and I were offered adjacent rooms, giving on the wide veranda at the back of the house. Here the windows faced the fields, and the small spotless rooms were very quiet. Mine had a pinewood floor scrubbed white, with two small bright psuedo-Persian rugs, solid pine furniture, and one reasonably comfortable chair. There was a really beautiful old chest of dark woodwith painted panels, a rather inconvenient wardrobe, and a lot of heavy wrought-ironwork in the lamp brackets, and on the door, which was studded and barred like something from a Gothic cathedral. On the walls were two pictures, bright oily colours painted on wood; one showed an unidentifiable saint in a blue robe killing a dragon; the other a very similar saint in a red robe, watering some flowers. It seemed that in Austria there was a pleasantly wide
It was true, then, that my eyes had not deceived me: so much of it was true. Now that I had this confirmation, I found it a profoundly disconcerting experience. The sight of Lewis and the girl in the dark cinema, that flickering brief scene still echoing with ugly tragedy and made more mysterious by its foreign setting, had been like a dream, something distant,unreal, gone as soon as seen, and believed no more than a dream in daylight. And as always, the light of day outside the cinema had set the dream even further apart from the world of reality. My own hasty action in coming out to Austria had seemed even while I did it as unreal as the dream itself; and up to now the enchanting strange prettiness of the country had helped the illusion that I was still far astray from reality.
But now . . . Oberhausen, the circus, the girl herself . . . And next, Lewis . . .?
‘What, no parking ticket?’ It was Tim, back at the window.
‘No parking ticket. You made me jump. I never heard you.’
‘I told you I’d found my vocation.’ He folded his length beside me into the driving seat. ‘I shadowed your subject with the greatest possible skill, and she did go to the circus. I think she must belong there, because she went straight in through the gate and then round towards the caravans. The village people – quite a lot were there with children – were being allowed in, but they all went to the other side; there’s a menagerie or something there, open to the public. There was a man taking the money at the gate, but I didn’t ask questions. Was that right?’
‘Yes, quite.’
‘And I’ve got news for you. They’re leaving tomorrow. There was a sticker across the poster, last performance tonight at eight o’clock.’
‘Oh? We’re just lucky, then. Thanks a lot, Tim.’
‘Think nothing of it. It was fun. I tell you, I’ve cometo the conclusion I’ll be wasted on the Spanish Riding School. James Bond isn’t in it – though as a matter of fact, Archie Goodwin’s my favourite detective; you know, Nero Wolfe’s assistant, handsome and efficient and a devil with women.’
‘Well, now’s your chance,’ I said. ‘If we don’t fall over Lewis pretty soon, I’ll send you after the girl.’
‘What they call “scraping an acquaintance”? Can do,’ said Tim cheerfully. ‘Golly, if this road gets much narrower, we’ll scrape more than that . . . Wait a moment, though, I believe this is it.’
The Gasthof Edelweiss was charming, and, in spite of its name, without a hint of chichi. It was a long, low, single-storeyed house, with a shingle roof where doves sunned themselves, and window-boxes full of flowers. It lay at the very edge of the village, and in fact the road petered out in front of it to continue on past the house as a country track leading to some farm. Between house and road lay a space of raked gravel where tables stood under chestnut trees. There were a few people sitting there over coffee or drinks. Between their feet the doves strutted and cooed. Swallows, thinking already perhaps of the hotter south, wheeled and twittered overhead. One could smell the pines.
Timothy and I were offered adjacent rooms, giving on the wide veranda at the back of the house. Here the windows faced the fields, and the small spotless rooms were very quiet. Mine had a pinewood floor scrubbed white, with two small bright psuedo-Persian rugs, solid pine furniture, and one reasonably comfortable chair. There was a really beautiful old chest of dark woodwith painted panels, a rather inconvenient wardrobe, and a lot of heavy wrought-ironwork in the lamp brackets, and on the door, which was studded and barred like something from a Gothic cathedral. On the walls were two pictures, bright oily colours painted on wood; one showed an unidentifiable saint in a blue robe killing a dragon; the other a very similar saint in a red robe, watering some flowers. It seemed that in Austria there was a pleasantly wide
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