Eye For A Tooth Read Free

village inn. Perhaps I should have said ‘down,’ for the hamlet was sunk in a valley between two very high hills, some twenty-two miles from Villach and well off the beaten track. It was a pretty place, which progress had left alone. Fine, upstanding timber lapped it about, and a swift, clear stream of water sang through its midst. Its name was Latchet – less Austrian than English, it seemed to me; and it boasted a score of dwellings, not counting its inn. These were pleasant to see, for they were plainly ancient, yet spick and span as pride or affection could make them, and, indeed, the whole place was as clean as any English village that I ever saw. It being the dinner-hour, there was not a soul to be seen, but without the forge, I remember, two magnificent bullocks were waiting, no doubt to be shod; they were neither yoked nor tethered, but stood there very quietly, swishing their tails and blinking their patient eyes. Across the stream hung two bridges of fine, grey stone, and, by the side of one, a cobbled ramp had been made, so that beasts could go down and drink. The inn was a good-looking house, standing back from the road; on either side of its door were a bench and a massive table of grey, old oak, and I know I was glad to accept this invitation, throw out my clutch and bring the Lowland to rest. (This car we had bought for our journey – or rather, Mansel had bought it on our behalf. It was not new, but had been carefully used for two or three months, and it did much more than its duty for many a day. And since Mansel, of course, had his Rolls, we were very well served.)
    Now, unless the murdered man had been carried away by car from the district to which he belonged, it was clear that he must have been staying not far from where he had lain on the Salzburg Road; and Mansel had asked George and me to go on ahead of him and do our best to discover the inn or, maybe, the farm-house at which he had lodged. We were to ask no questions, but only to use our eyes and to play the rôle of tourists, fishing and enjoying the country and caring not where we went.
    In the last three hours we had visited several villages all within a few miles of where, as near as we could make it, Mansel had found the body a fortnight ago; but Latchet was the first one which showed any promise at all, for the inns of most of the others were very rough, and few, I think, could have offered a decent bed. But Latchet’s inn stood far above any of these, and, indeed, as soon as we saw it, we made up our minds we were home.
    As we left the car—
    “Not a shadow of doubt,” said George, with his eyes on the house. “And very nice, too. You order the beer; I want to think out our approach. Why the hell can’t we talk German?”
    There he did himself less than justice, for he could, what is called, ‘get along.’ And I knew odd words and phrases, but that was all. Still, to converse in German was wholly beyond our power. Which was embarrassing; for, if there was to be nothing for us to see, only by idle conversation could we find out whether Bowshot had stayed at some house.
    George took his seat on a table, and I walked into the inn. Bell had stayed with the car and was wiping the windscreen clean of the endless dust.
    I was half way down the flagged hall, when I heard a voice speaking English – and stood very still.
    “I don’t see what more we can do. He disappeared on the first and today’s the fifteenth. Hopeless of course. When did they first report it?”
    Another voice spoke in German, and a woman’s voice made reply.
    Then–
    “She says on the eighth – a week ago today.”
    “Ask her again why she didn’t report it before.”
    The question was put and answered.
    “She says she didn’t want to make trouble – that if Bowshot had come back, he would have been very angry to find they had made a fuss.”
    There was a pause. Then—
    “She says that he carried a note-case. Can she say whether there was anything in that