Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [43]
‘The holy Martyrs? Lord Altamount?’
‘Why do you say Lord Altamount?’
‘I saw him that way–suddenly–that evening. Carved in stone–in a thirteenth-century cathedral, perhaps.’
‘One of us may have to die. Perhaps more.’
She stopped what he was about to say.
‘There is another thing I think of sometimes. A verse in the New Testament–Luke, I think. Christ at the Last Supper saying to his followers: “You are my companions and my friends, yet one of you is a devil.” So in all probability one of us is a devil.’
‘You think it possible?’
‘Almost certain. Someone we trust and know, but who goes to sleep at night, not dreaming of martyrdom but of thirty pieces of silver, and who wakes with the feel of them in the palm of his hand.’
‘The love of money?’
‘Ambition covers it better. How does one recognize a devil? How would one know? A devil would stand out in a crowd, would be exciting–would advertise himself–would exercise leadership.’
She was silent a moment and then said in a thoughtful voice:
‘I had a friend once in the Diplomatic Service who told me how she had said to a German woman how moved she herself had been at the performance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. But the German woman said scornfully: “You do not understand. We Germans have no need of a Jesus Christ! We have our Adolf Hitler here with us. He is greater than any Jesus that ever lived.” She was quite a nice ordinary woman. But that is how she felt. Masses of people felt it. Hitler was a spell-binder. He spoke and they listened–and accepted the sadism, the gas chambers, the tortures of the Gestapo.’
She shrugged her shoulders and then said in her normal voice, ‘All the same, it’s odd that you should have said what you did just now.’
‘What was that?’
‘About the Old Man of the Mountain. The head of the Assassins.’
‘Are you telling me there is an Old Man of the Mountain here?’
‘No. Not an Old Man of the Mountain, but there might be an Old Woman of the Mountain.’
‘An Old Woman of the Mountain. What’s she like?’
‘You’ll see this evening.’
‘What are we doing this evening?’
‘Going into society,’ said Renata.
‘It seems a long time since you’ve been Mary Ann.’
‘You’ll have to wait till we’re doing some air travel again.’
‘I suppose it’s very bad for one’s morale,’ Stafford Nye said thoughtfully, ‘living high up in the world.’
‘Are you talking socially?’
‘No. Geographically. If you live in a castle on a mountain peak overlooking the world below you, well, it makes you despise the ordinary folk, doesn’t it? You’re the top one, you’re the grand one. That’s what Hitler felt in Berchtesgaden, that’s what many people feel perhaps who climb mountains and look down on their fellow creatures in valleys below.’
‘You must be careful tonight,’ Renata warned him. ‘It’s going to be ticklish.’
‘Any instructions?’
‘You’re a disgruntled man. You’re one that’s against the Establishment, against the conventional world. You’re a rebel, but a secret rebel. Can you do it?’
‘I can try.’
The scenery had grown wilder. The big car twisted and turned up the roads, passing through mountain villages, sometimes looking down on a bewilderingly distant view where lights shone on a river, where the steeples of churches showed in the distance.
‘Where are we going, Mary Ann?’
‘To an Eagle’s nest.’
The road took a final turn. It wound through a forest. Stafford Nye thought he caught glimpses now and again of deer or of animals of some kind. Occasionally, too, there were leather-jacketed men with guns. Keepers, he thought. And then they came finally to a view of an enormous Schloss standing on a crag. Some of it, he thought, was partially ruined, though most of it had been restored and rebuilt. It was both massive and magnificent but there was nothing new about it or in the message it held. It was representative of past power, power held through bygone ages.
‘This was originally the Grand Duchy of Liechtenstolz. The Schloss was built by the Grand Duke Ludwig in 1790,’ said Renata.
‘Who lives there now? The present Grand Duke?