The waitress knew him at once on Pointer's speaking to her.
"As a rule, he's up and away in his mountains. They're wild birds, the Ladini. But lately, two or three tourists have told me that he followed them about. I'm afraid poor Toni has found the year a bad one."
"Can you send for him? I should like to speak to him."
But Toni had melted away.
Back at the hotel Pointer could not learn whether Charteris had engaged any guide in the town or not. Bozen is a walking, not a mountaineering centre. He got the address of Ladiner Toni and his character from the Carabinieri. He lived in Saint Christina, a tiny village in the Val Gardena.
The detective officer took the motor diligence to its mouth, and set out for Toni's house. His father had been the schoolmaster. The driver knew Toni well. He, too, agreed that he had changed of late. He was in and out of Bolzano all day long, hanging around the station, or the post-office chiefly, though he would as like as not spend hours on the promenades or in the big square. He seemed to be always on the lookout for some one, the driver thought. Perhaps some one who had not paid him up.
Pointer was in the little village before he knew it, so dark were the tiny wooden houses that they melted into the earth around them. That of the teacher's widow was like a toy gingerbread cottage.
An old woman, sitting by her spinning-wheel, looked up. She, too, was short and squat, but her brown eyes were very bright.
"Come in. You are looking for my son?" She spoke Italian or German with equal effort. "He will be in soon."
Pointer took a stool and watched her, nimble brown fingers.
"You want a guide, perhaps, Signo?"
All through their talk of the weather she eyed him closely.
The door, opened, and the little man entered. At sight of him, Pointer knew that he had not had his tramp for nothing. A curious pallor came into the man's swart face. His eyes flickered backwards and forwards from Pointer to his mother.
"This gentleman wants to see you, Toni."
"Well?" he asked in German, in a throaty, husky voice. "I hear you're a good guide among the Dolomites, and I want one."
"There's no climbing when the snows are melting." A watchful, suspicious intentness was in the little man's face. He was breathing rapidly. The wheel had stopped, and the old woman, too, was staring at their guest.
"I want you to show me some of the valleys around here. The carabinieri said you were trustworthy, and that what you don't know of the Dolomites towards Cadore isn't worth knowing. I will leave the pay to you, but I want a Ladiner."
"Why?"
"Because I want to hear your legends as we walk."
The wheel turned again. A sudden flurry of spring snow was flung against the window. Pointer had first heard of the Ladine folk lore from the driver that morning. He had spoken of Toni's mother as a repository of those legends, beautiful and haunting.
"Toni, put on more wood, and I will tell you how the snow first came to us mortals."
It was like rolling back the world to King Alfred's days, Pointer thought, as the old woman span and told him wild poetry of moon princesses and gnomes and trolls.
He looked at Toni, who was carving a pipe, and thought of gnomes. But the man's face was honest. He was a good guide, the Carabinieri had said. Pointer would not admit that his work made him need it more than other men, but for a fortnight of every year the Chief Inspector went to Switzerland, and spent his days high up, climbing among ice and the snows that never melt.
Living in a white world, and yet a world all colour, sea-green crevices, sky-blue hollows, long, lilac shadows, and at dawn and sunset every tint of the rainbow to walk on. To be a good guide was, in his eyes, the highest rating that a man could have.
To refill his pipe, Pointer had to hunt for his tobacco pouch. He laid some of the contents of his pockets on the table as he did so. Prominent among them, face up, was the photograph of Professor Charteris.
There was a hissing intake of breath from Toni. The wheel stopped its purr. In the little mirror in the palm of his hand Pointer saw the woman's face. She was staring at her son in piteous uncertainty. Pointer glanced casually at Toni, who lifted a pair of frightened, irresolute eyes. The Englishman continued to speak of the storm as he replaced the objects.
"Can you put me up overnight? I only need an armchair."
He preferred it to any bed the house could have given him, though Toni offered his own pallet.
Pointer settled himself for the night after a supper which made him turn pale for days to think on. He was well wrapped up, and with his legs on a second chair, did very well. Late in the night he heard some one come down the ladder and tiptoe into the room. It could only be Toni, for his mother was next door. From beneath his lashes, Pointer saw him in the moonlight creeping forward, his face distorted with timidity and anxiety. There was nothing in his hands. Pointer guessed what he was after. With the sigh of a sleeping man, he turned in his chair, so that his coat fell open—the photograph pocket in sight.
Toni crept closer. Tiny fingers, which again gave Pointer an odd thrill of physical repulsion which his mind did not share, touched him The photo was pulled out with a difficulty that to the detective was a certificate of the little fellow's previous honesty. Then Toni tiptoed to his mother's room. The door creaked slowly open and then shut. Followed a long whispered dialogue, during which Pointer took a nap. Ladine was not one of his accomplishments.
Back crept Toni. Half-way back went the photograph, then Pointer awoke and caught his wrist.
"A thief!"
"Oh, God!" Toni cried in fright. The door opened. His mother stood on the threshold holding a lamp high above her head with trembling hands. In the heavy folds of her nightdress and cap tied under her chin, she looked like a little white statue of fear.
"What does this mean?" Pointer asked as sternly as possible, for he felt as though he were terrifying two children, "I shall have to hand you over to the Carabinieri."
"I will explain." The mother came quite close. "No, Toni, let your mother explain. Only the truth is ever right. We must take the consequences. My son was having another look at a photograph you laid on the table this evening. It is of a relative? A friend?"
"One does not carry the pictures of strangers about with one. What do you know of the man?"
Again that agonised look exchanged between mother and son.
"Let go of my Toni, who did no harm except to listen to his mother's foolish, oh, foolish words! Now, we will all sit down, and I will tell you the dreadful truth."
"Mother, you will catch cold. Let me wrap a blanket around you." Toni rolled her up like a mummy, with only the wise little face showing.
"That man in the photograph came here just two weeks ago. On a Monday. The snows were hard and firm on the mountains then, and he had been here before. He had climbed with Toni the two last years in succession for a couple of days. Well, he came here in the afternoon, walking as you did from where the diligence put him down. He intended to stop the night and set off at four next morning, for the Val de la Saljeres, as we call it. A place which we here of Dla-ite avoid. The stones of an old watercourse are there. We Ladines know the truth of it, but you of the other people tell a different tale. This man—a sort of school-master like my blessed Antoni, he said he was—"
She paused inquiringly. Pointer nodded.
"Well, he wished to go there, and then go on later over to Meranoo by the Mendel. My son was willing. He liked the man. You did like him, didn't you, Toni?" She quavered, tears in her eyes.
"I did. He understood. He never laughed at the things we know."
"They set off in the morning about