Ellis Peters - George Felse 05 - The Piper On The Mountain Read Online Free PDF

interest me, yes, up to a point. You didn’t say any of this to your superiors in Prague?”
    “No, I didn’t. One doesn’t like to start hares of that kind without making sure first of as many facts as possible. I had some leave to come, and I used it to come over here. Whatever drew Terrell to the Low Tatras, it can’t have been something private and personal from his own past, because he had no connections there, this was his first visit. He knew nothing of the country, he knew none of the people. I thought, knowing what his work was, and what it might sometimes involve, that there might be a link with something he’d handled or known about in the course of his duty. I hoped to get an interview with his widow, but she wasn’t in when I called at her flat.”
    “She’s in Slovakia at this moment,” said Blagrove, “seeing about having her husband brought home.”
    “Ah, so that’s it, I see. Well, since I could get nothing from her I spent the afternoon and evening among the press files, going back over the details—only the published details that are open to everybody, of course, but you’d be surprised how much that covers—the details of any reportable work handled by Terrell during the last few years. I have friends among the pressmen. I didn’t tell them what I wanted, I didn’t know myself. I just picked over their memories and then worked backwards through the files. I thought somewhere there must be something to dig up, something that would tie in at one end to Terrell, and at the other end to Slovakia—with a lot of luck, even to that part of Slovakia.”
    Blagrove let out his breath in a soft, cautious hiss, and braced his shoulders against the back of his chair. “And you found something?”
    “I found,” said Welland with deliberation, “the unfinished case of Charles Alder.”
    In the moment of silence they stared steadily at each other.
    “Or of course,” said Welland, “if you prefer it, the case of Karo Alda.”
    It was a pity. It was really a pity. To have the whole affair tucked away peacefully in its coffin as an accident would have been so much simpler and more satisfactory; but there were two good reasons for abandoning, here and now, any attempt to dissuade this young man from pursuing his enquiries further. First, he wouldn’t be dissuaded; the supererogatory jaw was set, and the uncompromising eyes expected and would countenance only a zeal for justice the equal of his own. And second, to assume the responsibility for smothering a matter as serious as this was too great a risk. It would have to go to higher authority, however vexatious the results might be.
    “I think,” said Adrian Blagrove, pushing back his chair, “I really think you’d better come with me to the Director, and tell him the whole story.”
     
    Sir Broughton Phelps sat forward at his desk with his lean jaw propped broodingly on a closed fist, and scarcely took his eyes from the visitor’s face as Welland repeated the tale of his reservations and his discoveries, until he reached Charles Alder’s name.
    There was an expectant pause there. Welland looked a little pale and a little anxious when it prolonged itself beyond his expectations. He would have liked someone else to contribute something, a hint of appreciation, or at least belief; better still, a grain of confirmation. But when no one obliged, he did not look any the less convinced or any the less obstinate.
    “I know you must be much better informed than I am, sir, about this case of Alder’s. But if you want me to sum up everything as I find it, I’ll willingly go on.”
    “Please do,” said the Director, fingering the clipped silvery hair at his temple. “I assure you you have my very serious attention.”
    “What I found, of course, was the dossier—or the published part of it—compiled by Terrell after Alder’s disappearance. Otherwise I wasn’t conscious of ever having heard of the man before. So my information comes, virtually,