Elizabeth Peters - Trojan Gold

Smeared with smuts from the fire, his eyes sunken and shadowed, he continued to tend the flames while he chewed.

I sat down on a snowbank a little distance away and watched. The moment I had resolutely refused to consider was approaching. It would take hours of slow heat to soften the ground. We would need shovels, trowels. And then…

Neither of us had discussed what we intended to do if we found the gold. There was no need. John knew what I would do.

I didn’t know what he would do. The trouble with John—one of the troubles with John—was that he wasn’t a cold-blooded villain. He wouldn’t kill to gain his prize. At least he wouldn’t kill me. I thought he was rather fond of me—as a person, I mean, not just as an enthusiastic lover. He might even have wavered, at odd moments, and toyed with the idea of letting me have the treasure. But I knew that when the time came, when the glittering thing was actually before him, there was a ninety-to-one chance that old habits would prevail over…call it friendship.

His lean cheeks were flushed with exercise and heat, but the underlying color was a pale gray. He was short on sleep and on food, burning calories like crazy—but it never occurred to me that I could defeat him in a hand-to-hand fight. Surreptitiously, my hand sneaked into my backpack. The gun was still there. Thank God I hadn’t dropped it in the snow.

I don’t know how long we were there. Sometimes John sat down by the fire to rest; sometimes I went inside to get more wood. The plume of smoke had been rising darkly for a long time before he came, schussing straight down the final slope between the trees and stopping in a spray of driven snow, skis almost touching in a perfect parallel. He wore ordinary ski clothing, but the face that looked out from under the hood of the parka was muzzled and fanged and dark with rank fur. In his right hand, instead of a pole, he carried one of the long pikes the Buttenmandeln had brandished.

I was bent over, adding wood to the fire when the apparition appeared, and it is a wonder I didn’t fall face down into the flames. As the snarling muzzle turned toward me, I went reeling back. Even John the imperturbable was taken off guard. He had been perched impiously on the tombstone; struggling to rise, he slipped and sat down with a splash, his back against the granite. And there he stayed, because the point of the pike was planted in the center of his chest.

I got the gun out. Don’t ask me how. I was pleased to see that my hands were dead steady as I sidled sideways, away from the smoke, to a spot from which I could get a clear sight.

My voice wasn’t as steady as my hands. “Drop it,” I squeaked. “ Hände hoch —er—”

At first I was afraid I had made a slight tactical misjudgment; the graceful hooded figure started, and a dark circle spread out around the tip of the pike—accompanied, I must add, by a yelp from John. Then the shaggy muzzle turned toward me.

The vocabulary of violence is limited. I heard myself repeating the most ghastly clichés.

“I’ve got you covered,” I pointed out. “You’re dead meat, mister—uh—miss…uh…Go ahead, make my day.”

John’s eyes, the only part of him he dared move, rolled wildly in my direction. “For Christ’s sake, Vicky!” I don’t know whether he was objecting to the sentiment or to the hackneyed phrase in which I had expressed it.

The masked head tilted slightly, as if considering the options. A stand-off, I thought, still sticking to clichés. Now what do I do? I can’t shoot…The top of the pike wasn’t in very far, but one quick push would drive it home. The bloodstain continued to spread.

I don’t suppose it took the other more than a split second to come to a decision, but it seemed lots longer than that to me. He didn’t release his hold on the pike. His left hand moved, pushing his hood back and pulling the mask from his face.

“You,” I said.

The terrible thing was that he looked like the same good old comedian, rosy-cheeked, broadly grinning. “You didn’t recognize me, did you?” he said. “These latex masks are wonderful. Keep the face warm, too.”

“Please, Dieter. Put down the pike.”

“But if I do, he may get away.” Dieter’s smile stiffened. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

“I…yes, I know. How do you know?”

I fought to control my voice and my nerve, but it wasn’t easy—there was something so grisly about Dieter’s nonchalance, as he held John pinned against the tombstone, casual as a naturalist about to impale a beetle or a butterfly. He looked marvelous on skis, his usual clumsiness transformed.

“Why, I saw the rascal in court, when I testified against him in a case of fraud a few years ago,” Dieter explained. “He had substituted a forgery for a valuable painting; the poor woman had kept it for years as insurance for her old age, and when she was forced to sell it, the truth came out. Such a filthy swindle. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him yesterday in Bad Steinbach. It is good you have the gun; keep him covered while I tie him up, and then we will go for the police.”

The bloodstain was the size of a small saucer. John didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.

Dieter’s smile faded. He said awkwardly, “I am sorry, Vicky, if he was…If you were…It’s the treasure he wants, you know. If he told you otherwise, he lied to you.”

I said, “He’s been lying all along.”

“Vicky—” John began.

“You made a number of slips,” I said. “That casual comment about how Hoffman turned up in Bavaria and married the innkeeper’s daughter—how did you know it was his wife’s father who owned the hotel? I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know myself, until later.”

Dieter was smiling again. His fingers tightened on the handle of the pike; the bloodstain oozed outward, a scant millimeter at a time.

“There were other things,” I said quickly. “You knew Tony’s last name. You were too sure about too many things for which there was little or no evidence. You told me the matter wasn’t worth pursuing, but you stuck close enough to me to be on hand when—when…Dieter, please—don’t.”

“Then give me the gun,” Dieter said, grinning.

There was nothing else I could do. I said, “I’ll trade you.”

Dieter laughed aloud. “Try it, it’s fun. There is satisfaction in inflicting pain on someone who has hurt you—your pride, your ego.” With a brutal twist he wrenched the pike out of padding and flesh, and snatched the Colt from my hand.

I reached for the pike but it fell to the ground, brushing my outstretched fingertips. Dieter turned, took aim, and fired at point-blank range.

Eleven

I HADN’T EXPECTED HIM TO ACT SO quickly. He had been having such a good time tormenting his victim, like a nasty little boy pulling wings off butterflies. The sound of the shot, less than three feet from my ears, threw me off balance; I went sprawling in the snow, groping for the handle of the pike. When I sat up, Dieter was pointing the gun at my stomach. John had fallen sideways, face down, across Hoffman’s grave.

“Now you,” Dieter said. “I would like very much to hold you in suspense awhile, as I did Albrecht—”

“Albrecht?”

“Perhaps you knew him by another name. He had many.”

“Yes, I know.”

I drew my feet up under me. My fingers closed around the butt of the pike. It left a delicate smear of blood on the snow as I pulled it toward me. Dieter pivoted, planting his pole, gliding out of range. “Amuse yourself,” he said. “I wish I had more time, but I must not linger—much as I am enjoying your desperate attempt to save yourself….”

“I hurt your stinking little ego rather badly, didn’t I? I guess there’s something to be said for feminine intuition; deep down inside, I knew you made me sick to my stomach.”