Gunner Kelly by Anthony Price

Author:Anthony Price [Price, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9781471900211
Google: 6PXzHGfrFH0C
Amazon: 1471900215
Publisher: Panther
Published: 2013-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

VI

IN DAYLIGHT, finishing his breakfast coffee on the terrace, Benedikt could understand even better how Gunner Kelly had felt the night before. The broad sweep of the manor lawn, wide between thick plantations of woodland on either side of it, rose gently to the ridge itself, without any intervening obstacle: the splendid view, which had surely delighted generations of the Maxwell family, would be no less satisfactory downwards from the crest, almost a thousand metres distant, to delight any well-trained and properly-equipped marksman, day or night; while from the edges of those woods, for those who first looked where they put their feet, even a tiro could hardly miss his mark.

The clunk of the postern door latch, which he had heard for the second time when the nervous servant-girl had ushered him on to the terrace, sounded behind him.

He held his gaze on the ridge deliberately. Nerves were for servant-girls and Thomas Wiesehöfer, not for Benedikt Schneider: that at least he must pretend, now that he could be something like himself.

“Captain Schneider—good morning.”

It was Audley behind him—and that was good, for with Audley he knew more nearly where he was.

He turned slowly. “Good morning, Dr Audley.”

“Was the English breakfast to your taste?” Audley inclined his head politely, and then smiled. “But then perhaps your mother has accustomed you to it?”

I know all about you, Captain Schneider, that was the first signal.

“It was excellent.” Coolly, then. “But my mother never locked my bedroom door, even when I was a child. Is that an English custom with guests?”

“No. But it’s a custom to protect them from accidents, and last night there were some very trigger-happy characters around.” Audley gestured towards the ridge. “You were admiring the view?”

“I was, yes … But I was also remembering that last night Mr Kelly did not do the same. He regarded it as unsafe, as I recall. And so, I think, did you?”

“So I did—quite right!” Audley raised his hand again, indicating the stone steps in front of them, down which Benedikt had stumbled not many hours before with a gun in his back. “Shall we take a stroll? The view from up above, across the valley, is much more interesting … So I did, indeed. But not this morning—and not for us at any time, I’m sure.”

Benedikt mounted the steps. Far above, on the very skyline, the sheep which grazed the ridge scattered suddenly, catching his eye with their panic. A moment later a horseman appeared, and then another. They reined in together and conferred for a few seconds, then split left and right.

“The Dawn Patrol,” murmured Audley at his side. “By autumn the Duntisbury Hunt should be in excellent shape, the exercise the horses are getting.”

They walked in silence for a time, until they came to a curious open grassy ditch which divided off the well-cut manor lawn from the rougher sheep-cropped pasture of the ridge. The upper side of it sloped gently, but the manor side was revetted vertically with stone to form a sunken wall protecting the garden without breaking the clear view from below.

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