The Dead Mountaineer's Inn (23 page)

“I can't say.”

“How did you get here?”

“Car.”

“What model of car?”

“Model?… Black, large.”

“You don't know the model of your own car?”

“I don't know, it's not mine.”

“But you're a mechanic,” I said gleefully. “How the hell can you be a mechanic—not to mention a driver—without knowing anything about cars?”

“Give me the suitcase, otherwise it will be bad.”

“And what are you going to do with this suitcase?”

“Take it quickly away.”

“To where? You know that an avalanche has blocked the road.”

“It doesn't matter. I'll take it away. I will try to discharge it. If I can't I'll run away. Leave it there.”

“Excellent,” I said, springing up from the table.

“Let's go.”

“What?”

“In my car. I have a good car, a Moskvitch. We'll take the suitcase. We'll take it away, have a look at it.”

He didn't move.

“It's no need for you. It's very dangerous.”

“That's okay. I'll risk it … Ready?”

He sat without moving a muscle or saying a thing.

“Well, don't just sit there,” I said. “If it's dangerous then we need to hurry.”

“This won't do,” he said finally. “Let's try another. If you won't give me the suitcase, then maybe you'll sell it. Ah?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting down again at the table.

“I give you money, a lot of money. You give me the suitcase. No one will know, everyone is satisfied. You found a suitcase, I bought it. That's all.”

“And how much will you give me?” I asked.

“A lot. As much as you want. Here.”

He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a plump packet of bills. I had seen such a packet of notes only once in real life: at the state bank, where I had been working on a forgery case.

“How much is that?” I asked.

“Not enough? There's more.”

He reached into his side pocket and pulled out another packet just like the other one and tossed it on the table in front of me.

“How much money is this?” I asked.

“What does it matter?” he asked, surprised. “It's all yours.”

“It matters a lot. Do you know how much money this is?”

He kept quiet, his eyes focusing, then drifting apart.

“No. You don't. And where did you get it?”

“It's mine.”

“Give it a rest, Luarvik. Who gave it to you? You came here with your pockets empty. It must have been Moses: no one else has that kind of money. Am I right?”

“You don't want the money?”

“Look here,” I said. “I am going to confiscate this money, and then I'm going to charge you with attempting to bribe a government official. This is going to be a very bad thing for
you, Luarvik … The only thing left for you to do is tell me the truth. Who are you?”

“You are taking the money?” Luarvik asked.

“I'm confiscating it.”

“Confiscating … Excellent,” he said. “Now where is the suitcase?”

“You don't understand what ‘confiscating' means?” I asked. “Ask Moses … Come on, who are you?”

Without saying a word, he stood up and headed for the door. I grabbed the money and went after him. We walked through the hallway and then down the staircase.

“It's no use not giving me the suitcase,” Luarvik said. “It won't be good for you.”

“Don't threaten me,” I reminded him.

“You will cause great misfortune.”

“Stop lying,” I said. “If you don't want to tell the truth that's your business. But you're already in it up to your ears, Luarvik, and now you've dragged the Moseses in with you. There's no easy way out anymore. The police will be here any minute, and when they are, you'll have no choice except to tell the truth … Stop! Not that way. Come with me.”

I took him by the empty sleeve and led him to the owner's office. Then I called the owner and in his presence counted the money and wrote out a statement. The owner counted the money too—it was more than eighty thousand: what I would make over eight years of impeccable service—and signed the report.

All this time Luarvik stood off to one side, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He looked like a man who wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Sign it,” I said, handing him a pen.

He took the pen, looked at it intently and then laid it carefully on the table.

“No,” he said. “I am leaving.”

“As you wish,” I said. “That won't change your situation.”

He turned around immediately and left, banging his shoulder against the doorframe. The owner and I looked at one another.

“Why did he try to bribe you?” the owner asked. “What did he want?”

“The suitcase,” I said.

“What suitcase?”

“Olaf's suitcase, the one that you have in your safe …” I took the key out and opened the safe. “This one.”

“That's worth eighty thousand?” the owner asked with respect.

“Probably it's worth much more. This is turning out to be some murky business, Alek.” I put the money in the safe, locked the heavy door again, and put the report in my pocket.

“Who is this Luarvik?” the owner asked thoughtfully. “Where did he get that kind of money?”

“Luarvik didn't have a penny when he came here. Moses must have given it to him. No one else could have.”

The manager raised his fat finger, intending to say something, but then changed his mind. Instead, he rubbed his chubby chin, barked “Kaisa” vigorously and then walked out. I was left sitting in the office. I proceeded to think things over. I went carefully back over the smallest, most insignificant-seeming events which I had witnessed at the inn. I realized soon that I could remember a lot of them.

I remembered that at our first meeting Simone had been wearing a grey suit, and that at last night's party he'd been wearing a burgundy one, and that his cufflinks had featured yellow stones. I remembered that when Brun begged a cigarette off her uncle, he always pulled them from behind his right ear. I remembered that Kaisa had a small black birthmark on
her right nostril; that when Du Barnstoker wielded his fork he raised his pinky finger elegantly; that the key to my room looked like the key to Olaf's room; and many other useless details like this. I excavated two whole gems from this dung heap. First, I remembered how, on the evening of the day before yesterday a snow-covered Olaf had stood in the middle of the hall with his black suitcase and looked around, as if expecting a more heartfelt welcome, and how he looked past me towards the curtained-off entrance to the Moseses' part of the inn, and how it had seemed to me that the curtain had been swaying—from a draft, I had assumed. Second, I remembered that while I'd been standing in line for the shower, I had seen Olaf and Moses descending the staircase hand in hand …

All this made me think that Olaf, Moses, and now Luarvik really did make up a single party—a party that did not want to let it be known that it was a single party. And if I remembered that I had discovered Moses in the memorial room next to my room five minutes before I found the note referring to the gangster and maniac on the ruined desk in my own room; and if I remembered that Moses's gold watch had been planted (clearly planted, and then removed again) in Hinkus's trunk … and if I remembered that Mrs. Moses was the one person, excepting maybe Kaisa, not in the dining room at the moment when Hinkus was overpowered and stuffed under the table … if I remembered all that, then the picture grew more curious.

Hinkus's statement that one of his trunks had been craftily turned into a piece of false baggage fit this picture well, as did the fact that Mrs. Moses had been the only person who had seen Hinkus's double personally. For it was impossible to say that Brun had seen Hinkus's double: the only thing she'd seen was his coat. She didn't know who'd been wearing that coat.

Of course, the picture still had quite a few blank and completely unclear spots. But at least the balance of power was
now clear: Hinkus on one side, and the Moseses, Olaf and Luarvik on the other. At the same time, judging by the complete ridiculousness of Luarvik's actions and the openness with which Moses had given him money, the situation did appear to be approaching some sort of crisis … And then it entered my head that maybe I'd locked Hinkus up in vain. In the coming confrontation it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an ally, even one as questionable and obviously crooked as Hinkus.

So that's what I'll do, I thought. I'll sic the gangster and maniac on them. After all, Moses probably thinks Hinkus is still lying under the table. Let's see what he does when Hinkus suddenly appears at the table for breakfast. As for who jumped Hinkus and how they tied him up, not to mention who killed Olaf, I decided not to think about those things for now. I crumpled up my notes, put them in the ashtray and set them on fire.

“Breakfast, everyone,” Kaisa squeaked somewhere above me. “Breakfast.”

Hinkus was already awake. He was standing in the middle of the room with his suspenders dangling, wiping his face with a large towel.

“Good morning,” I said. “How do you feel?”

He glanced at me warily; his face was a little swollen, but for the most part he looked pretty good. All traces of the mad hunted ferret that I'd seen only a few hours ago had disappeared.

“Fine, more or less,” he muttered. “Why am I locked in here?”

“You had a nervous breakdown,” I explained. His face twitched slightly. “Nothing awful. The manager gave you an injection and locked you in so that no one would bother you. Want to go to breakfast?”

“I'm coming,” he said. “I'll have my breakfast and get the hell out of here. And I'm taking my deposit back. A vacation in the mountains …” He balled the towel up and threw it aside. “Another vacation like this and I'd go nuts. Tuberculosis or no tuberculosis … Where's my coat, anyway? And my hat …”

“On the roof, probably,” I said.

“On the roof …” he muttered, hoisting his suspenders. “On the roof …”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm sorry, that's some bad luck … But we'll talk about it later.”

I turned and walked towards the door.

“There's nothing to talk about!” he shouted angrily at my back.

No one was in the dining room yet. Kaisa was arranging the sandwich plates. I greeted her and chose a new seat for myself: back to the sideboard, face to the door, directly beside Du Barnstoker's seat. I had barely sat down when Simone came in wearing a thick, colorful sweater. He was freshly shaven, with puffy red eyes.

“What a night, Inspector,” he said. “I didn't get even five hours' sleep. My nerves were a wreck. I can't get rid of this smell of dead flesh—that pharmaceutical stench, you know what I mean? Like formaldehyde …” He sat down, picked out a sandwich, and then looked at me. “Did you find anything?” he asked.

“That depends on what you mean,” I said.

“Aha,” he said, and laughed uncertainly. “You don't look well.”

“Every man wears the face he deserves,” I said, at the exact second that the Barnstokers came in. They looked fresh as daisies. The uncle sported an aster in his buttonhole; the dome of his bald head shone in the midst of silver-gray curls; Brun was wearing glasses, as before, and her nose was still brazenly raised. Uncle rubbed his hands together as he approached his seat, looking searchingly at me.

“Good morning, Inspector,” he sang gently. “What an awful night! Good morning, Mr. Simone. Don't you agree?”

“Hi,” muttered the kid.

“What I wouldn't give for some cognac,” Simone said with a sort of wistfulness. “But that wouldn't be right, would it? Or would it?”

“I don't know, to be honest,” said Du Barnstoker. “I wouldn't risk it.”

“How about you, Inspector?” Simone said.

I shook my head and sipped the coffee that Kaisa had set in front of me.

“Too bad,” said Simone. “Then I would have had a drink.”

“And how are we doing this morning, my dear inspector?” Du Barnstoker asked.

“The investigation is on track,” I said. “The police have the key in hand. Many keys. The entire ring, in fact.”

Simone started cackling as usual, but then immediately made a serious face.

“No doubt we'll have to spend all day indoors,” said Du Barnstoker. “No leaving, I assume.”

“Why not?” I replied. “Do whatever you want. The more so, the better.”

“Escape is futile, anyway,” said Simone. “There's the avalanche. We're locked in here—for a while, too. It's an ideal situation for the police. I, of course, could escape via the cliffs …”

“Then why don't you?” I asked.

“In the first place, because I can't get to the cliffs through the snow. In the second, because what would I do once I'd gotten there?… Listen, gentlemen,” he said. “Why don't we take a walk down the road—let's see for ourselves what Bottleneck looks like …”

“You have no objection, Inspector?” Du Barnstoker asked.

“No,” I said, as the Moseses came in. They looked fresh as daisies too. That is to say, Madame Moses looked like a daisy, like a peach, like the sun itself. As for Moses, he was the same withered old rutabaga as before. He made his way past us without saying hello to anyone, gulping from his mug, and then slumped into his chair to stare dismally at the sandwiches in front of him.

The crystalline voice of Mrs. Moses rang out. “Good morning, gentlemen!”

I glanced at Simone, who was glancing at Mrs. Moses, somewhat suspiciously, it seemed. Then he shrugged spasmodically and grabbed his coffee.

“What a charming morning,” Mrs. Moses continued. “Look how sunny it is! Pity poor Olaf that he isn't alive to see it!”