After the Fine Weather by Michael Gilbert

now.”
    “You mean that you are expecting further trouble.”
    “I mean that we are in a very grave state of emergency. All the graver, that there has been no communication with Vienna since nightfall.”
    “Snow?”
    “It might be snow, but that seems unlikely. The cable through the mountains goes underground. The snow would not affect it.”
    “Sabotage?”
    “I think it very probable. At all events, I am taking no chances. While we are isolated from the capital, I have a responsibility to the state.”
    “Yes,” said Charles. He wondered what was coming.
    “A decree has been drafted, declaring a state of emergency in the district. I am signing it tonight. Cases of sabotage and incitement to disorder will be punishable before a military tribunal. I am restoring the death penalty – for crimes against the state.”
    “Surely,” said Charles, “such very stringent measures are not called for – yet. As soon as communications are restored–”
    “Last winter we were cut off from the rest of the country for eight weeks. It was not serious, because we had easy access through the South Tyrol and the Brenner. That is not now the case.”
    “No.”
    “Are you questioning my measures?”
    “The responsibility for public order rests entirely on the shoulders of the Herr Hofrat,” said Charles.
    “I do not welcome it,” said Humbold. “Neither do I shirk it.” He added, “I am telling you this so that you will understand why your sister has to leave Lienz at once.”
    “How?”
    “She has a British passport. She may be delayed at the Italian frontier, but I hardly think she will be stopped.”
    “Yes,” said Charles. “But–” He broke off.
    “You were about to add, ‘but why?’” said Humbold. “Then you perceived that the question was a stupid one, and you refrained from asking it. I am glad that you are beginning to appreciate the realities of the situation. Would you kindly return now and make arrangements for your sister? The express train for Rome leaves at ten minutes to midnight.”
     
    Laura had made her own way back to the flat from the theatre. She had walked slowly. She wanted time to think.
    The condition of the room in the theatre – the thick dust on the floor, the cobwebs on the windows, the general air of a room which has stood undisturbed for months or years – had been convincing. It had been extremely convincing. Had it not been almost too convincing?
    When had the theatre last been used? A week – perhaps a fortnight – earlier. The posters were still up. Then should the room be quite as dusty as that? It had electricians’ stuff in it. It might not be used a lot, but it would be used occasionally. Yet the depth of dust on the floor suggested a room which hadn’t been opened for a century. It looked as if someone had taken a giant insufflator – something like a vacuum cleaner in reverse – and blown dust over everything, spreading it thick and even, like icing on a cake.
    If that was so, there was a considerable organization at work: an organization able to put a man into that room with a gun which – she had no idea how – but which, somehow, matched the bullets in Boschetto’s gun, and get him away afterward, and clear away all signs of his presence under a coating of dust, and, probably, square the janitor.
    Charles had given her a key to the flat and she let herself in. The noise of the front door brought Frau Rosa from the kitchen. She said, in her slow, careful German, “There is a gentleman in the front room.”
    “Who is he, Frau Rosa?”
    “A diplomatic gentleman. His name I do not know.”
    Laura got rid of her hat and coat, executed some quick repairs to her face, and made her way along to the sitting room. She hoped that the representative of the Diplomatic-Corps would not stay too long or prove too talkative.
    Sprawled on the sofa, reading The Times, was a man in his early forties. He had the sort of stubborn, black beard that needs to be shaved