An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) -Deanna Raybourn Page 0,74
had been furtively examining his pockets.
“You took it, didn’t you?” Norton’s expression was a mask of fury.
“Of course we did,” I told him. “And there is no purpose in trying to get it back. We will only strike you again.”
He held up his hands as if to ward us off. “I think we’ve had enough fisticuffs for one night. But what do you want with Alice’s journal?”
“What do you want with it?” I countered.
“If you know who I am, you will know what I want with it,” he said flatly.
“Her professional notes,” Stoker guessed. “Her routes up and down the most challenging climbs in the world. All the secrets of one of the most accomplished alpinists ever to set foot on a mountain.”
Norton’s expression struggled between anger and misery. “You’ve no idea what it’s like, trying to make a name for yourself as a climber these days. You’ve either got to have family money or a rich sponsor to pay the way, and those are scarce as hen’s teeth.”
“Alice Baker-Greene managed to secure a few,” I reminded him.
“She did,” he said with real bitterness. “She had only to smile at a camera and they came flocking to her. It took me two years to find a sponsor of my own—a Colorado miner who had struck it rich and liked to spread his money around. He gave me a partial share for a season and said he would give me enough for the Karakorum if I distinguished myself. Distinguished! That’s a laugh.”
“What happened?” Stoker asked.
“I went climbing with Alice Baker-Greene and lost my sponsor because she kicked up a fuss and said I beat her to the summit in violation of our agreement.” He rubbed at his jaw, drawing his fingers away to look at the blood streaming from his chin.
“Did you? Or did she lie?” I demanded.
His gaze met mine and then shifted. “I hardly like to say. It was a difficult and dangerous time on that mountain. A storm had risen. We were out of provisions and Alice was faltering. She wanted to rest and I thought she meant to turn back afterwards. She said later that she made it plain she intended to try for the summit, but I never heard that. It was screaming blue murder with wind on that mountain,” he added. “Impossible to hear anything, really.”
“So your climbing partner was, you believed, in difficulty and without provisions, in dangerous conditions, and your solution was to abandon her in order to secure your own glory?” I made my tone as pleasant as possible, but he bristled.
“When you put it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad,” I assured him. “And your reputation suffered accordingly. So much so that you have scarcely been on a mountain since. Unless you count the Alpenwald.”
He flinched as if I had hit him again. “I was never in the Alpenwald.”
“Really?” Stoker said. “I seem to recall a newspaper piece suggesting you were.”
“That is slander,” he said stoutly. “Or libel. Whichever. It is a filthy lie.”
In spite of the cold, tiny beads of perspiration beaded his hairline. “Attempting to summit the Teufelstreppe in order to prove your merit as a climber seems a perfectly reasonable and worthwhile thing to do,” I suggested. “And nothing worth flinging accusations of libel and slander about. Unless you were really in the Alpenwald for a more nefarious purpose.”
“Like cutting Alice Baker-Greene’s rope and pushing her to her death,” Stoker finished.
Douglas Norton’s eyes rounded and his mouth fell slack. “What are you talking about?”
“We are talking about the murder of Alice Baker-Greene,” I said.
“Murder! It was an accident,” he said, thrusting his hands through his hair. His cap fell off and he left it on the pavement. “Oh no.” His voice fell to a series of soft, desperate murmurs. “No, it cannot be.”
“I assure you it is,” Stoker told him.
“I cannot believe it was murder,” Norton said. “The inquest—”
“The inquest was not privy to certain evidence we have uncovered,” I replied. “Evidence that makes it quite clear Alice was murdered. And most likely by a slender man with moustaches,” I added, flicking the end of his with a finger. “Moustaches just like these.”
He drew back sharply. “I had nothing to do with her death,” he said. “I didn’t even know she had been murdered until just this minute.”
“And I suppose you also had nothing to do with another burglary of the club,” Stoker said, nodding towards the direction of the club.