The Piper On the Mountain by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters [Peters, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784972837
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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The next ten minutes were confused, noisy and angry. Tossa sat mute and numb in the middle of the storm, too tired to distinguish voices any more, too disoriented to know friend from foe, too deeply aware of having lied, and forced Dominic to lie, to put up any fight for her own liberty. Christine had an arm clasped tightly about her shoulders, and was adding a soprano descant to Toddy’s spirited impersonation of an Englishman at bay. Toddy raved about police states, conspiracies and frame-ups, and threatened everything from diplomatic intervention to gunboats. In the heart of her desperate confusion and solitude Tossa remembered inconsequently that Czechoslovakia had no coastline, and laughed, genuinely laughed, but no one noticed except, perhaps, Ondrejov, who noticed everything, whether he acknowledged it or not. He looked like a good-humoured, clever peasant, and he sat here behind his desk manipulating them all. She suspected that he was very much enjoying Toddy. There couldn’t be much theatre in Liptovsky Pavol.

“Now, now, my dear boy, I guarantee that Miss Barber shall be well treated, and we’ll take every care of her. And since it’s too late now for the rest of you to think of going back to Zbojská Dolina to-night, I’ll make arrangements for beds for all of you, and we’ll call the hut and tell the Martíneks you’re staying here.”

“That isn’t good enough! You know very well that you’ve no right to detain Miss Barber. As the person in charge of this case, you will be held responsible.”

Pale with rage, Toddy stood between Tossa and her captors, his nostrils pinched and blue with desperation, as gallant as he was ineffective. Dominic, deep sunk in his own silence and doubt, stared hard at Ondrejov, and wished he could read his mind, but it was impenetrable. Did he really suspect Tossa? Or had he quite another motive for this move? He swung in an agony of indecision between two opinions. The one thing of which he was in no doubt at all was that it was his job to get Tossa out of this. Toddy could make as much fuss and noise as he liked, it wouldn’t be done that way. If Ondrejov had been what Toddy claimed he was, he would have laid Toddy flat long before this. And let no one think he couldn’t do it single-handed, as old as he was!

“In charge? I in charge of the case?” Ondrejov’s blue, bright eyes widened as guilelessly as a child’s. “You think such cases as this are left to the uniformed branch here? No, no, I am waiting at this moment for the plain-clothes people to arrive from Bratislava. I am responsible to them. That is why I am compelled to hold you available, you see, my field of action is strictly limited. The men from Scotland Yard,” he said, pleased with this flight of fancy, “will be here in a matter of a few hours. You may put your objections and make your statements to them.

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