Presumed Dead (3 page)

He’d intended to look Webley up when he got
to England and couldn’t believe his luck when he’d found out the Englishman was
going to be in Monaco at the same time he was there. He’d managed to arrange an
invitation to the party on the rich Italian guy’s yacht through the embassy,
but had been badly disturbed by the reception he’d been given by his uncle. It
had been preying on his mind ever since.

He realized now, after thinking about it
all morning, that he’d been very naïve. Aunt Freda had been such a wonderful
person, he’d just assumed that the man she’d chosen to marry would be wonderful
too. He’d built up a picture in his mind of Sir Ross as an elderly gentleman,
living on a large country estate in regal fashion, who would accept the nephew
of his dear departed wife as a long lost family member and invite him to stay.

Instead, his uncle had turned out to be a
swarthy, smooth, rather petulant playboy, much younger than he’d expected, with
the same guarded, nervous look in his eye as the hundreds of corrupt
businessmen he’d dealt with during his time at the Bureau. Webley, he decided,
was definitely a man with secrets that needed looking into.

By the time the orchestra finally packed
their instruments away, David was thoroughly relaxed. He took a stroll around
the town, and suddenly realized that he’d never been in such a peaceful, clean
place in all his life. The people were happy and friendly, the children were
well behaved, there was no litter or graffiti, no dog’s mess on the sidewalks,
no gangs of kids hanging around making trouble, nobody who looked like he
wanted to rip your head off. Walking the narrow streets, he felt completely
safe for the first time in his life. This place, he thought, is the absolute
antithesis of New York. No wonder Aunt Freda loved it so much.

 It was after five when he finally made his
way back to the car and drove two hundred yards along the quay to the
waterfront hotel where he’d booked a room in advance. The Beau Rivage Hotel
would normally have been way out of his price range at over two hundred dollars
a night, but he’d decided that since he would only be here in Weggis for one
night he would live in style, in memory of Aunt Freda. He pulled through the
gates into the small graveled car park and was just getting out of the car when
a wizened old man in a porter’s uniform approached saying, ‘Guten Abend, mein
Herr.’

David couldn’t speak a word of German. ‘You
speak English?’ he asked hopefully.

The old man smiled, ‘We all speak English
here at the Beau Rivage, sir. Can I take your suitcase?’

David didn’t think the old man looked
strong enough to lift the heavy case, but handed it over anyhow, and was
surprised to see him carry it up the hotel’s steps and into the reception area
with ease. Inside, a pleasant receptionist, who also spoke perfect English,
greeted him and had him fill in a registration form before handing his room key
to the porter.

While they were riding up in the lift,
David wondered if the old man might know anything about Aunt Freda, so he
asked, ‘Do you live here in Weggis?’

‘Yes sir, I have lived here all my life. It
is a very beautiful place.’

‘It sure is,’ David replied. ‘I had an aunt
who came from these parts, name of Freda von Alpenstein. Did you ever hear of
her?’

‘You are the nephew of the Baroness?’ the
old man asked incredulously. ‘From New York?’

‘That’s right! How did you know?’

‘I worked at the Schloss Alpenstein as
chauffeur to the Baron and Baroness for many years,’ he said fondly. ‘When the
Baroness came home from America after her brother had died, she spoke of
nothing but her fine American nephew and how he would soon be coming to visit.
I did not think it would take you twenty-five years to arrive!’

David was choked. So she’d really meant it
about the vacation! And he couldn’t believe his luck, actually finding someone
who knew her. He followed the porter out of the lift and down the hall to his
room. Once inside, the old man put the suitcase down, and going to the balcony
doors, opened them wide beckoning David to follow him out. The balcony
overlooked the lake, which now had a golden hue on it from the setting sun. A
pair of pure white swans glided by on the mirror flat water creating V shaped
bow waves that glistened like fire as they caught the dying rays of the sun.

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.

‘This is always my favorite time of day,’
she said, easing herself down next to him.

‘And mine,’ he replied.

They sat in companionable silence for a
while, watching as the pink peaks gradually turned a deeper red, then Alice
asked, ‘Philippe, who is Luba?’

‘Why do you ask?’ he said softly.

‘During the night, when you were looking
after me, trying to make me warm, I remember, you kept whispering that name.’

His gaze dropped from the mountain peaks,
down onto the cold, icy glacier that stretched away before them. ‘Louisa, or
Luba as I called her, was my wife,’ he said very gently. ‘She died on the ridge
up there at the beginning of the summer when we were climbing the Aiguille
Verte together.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alice said, reaching out
and squeezing his hand with her bandaged fingers.

Seeming not to notice, he continued, ‘We
had reached the summit and were resting, enjoying the view. We had unhitched
ourselves from our climbing rope and Luba said she wanted to take a photograph
of me. She was a fine photographer. She put her rucksack down near the edge and
it started to topple. She reached out to save it, but lost her balance and
fell. They searched for three whole days but never found her. I searched for two
weeks more after that, and I have come back here every weekend since and
searched for her, dreaming of somehow, by some miracle, finding her alive. When
the winter comes I will have to stop, but I will returned next year in the
spring to search for her again.