The Key to Midnight

and followed a new river upstream. After a long, winding, but for the most part gentle ascent, past a handful of resort villages, they came to Klosters, which was nearly as famous as Saint Moritz.
        They debarked at Klosters and left their luggage at the station while they outfitted themselves in ski clothes. During the trip from Zurich, they had realized that nothing they'd packed was adequate for high-altitude December weather. Besides, dressed in the usual winter clothes of city dwellers, they were conspicuous, which was precisely what they did not want to be. They changed in the dressing rooms at the ski shop and threw away the clothes they had been wearing, which amazed the clerk.
        After lunch they boarded a train to Davos. It was crowded with a large party of French skiers bound for Saint Moritz. The French were happy, noisy, drinking wine from bottles that were concealed in plain paper sacks.
        A fine snow began to fall. The wind was but a breeze.
        The Rhaetian Railway crossed the Landquart River high on a terrifying lofty bridge, climbed through magnificent pine forests, and chugged past a ski center called Wolfgang. Eventually the tracks dropped down again to Davosersee and the town of Davos, which was composed of Davos-Dorf and Davos-Platz.
        Snow fell fast and hard now. The wind had gained power.
        From the train window, Alex could see that the storm concealed the upper regions of Weissfluh, the mountain that most dominated the town. Up there in the mists, behind a heavy drape of falling snow, skiers began the descent along the Parsenn run, from Weissfluhjoch - at the 9,000-foot level - down to the town at 5,500 feet.
        In spite of the charming village beyond the train window, a sense of absolute isolation was unavoidable. That was one of the qualities that had attracted people to this place for more than a century. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often had come to escape London and perhaps to think about Sherlock Holmes. In 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson had sought the solitude and the healthful air of Davos in which to finish his masterpiece, Treasure Island.
        'The top of the world,' Alex said.
        'I get the strange feeling that the rest of the earth was destroyed,' Joanna said, 'all of it gone in a nuclear war or some other great cataclysm. This might be all that's left. It's so separate… so remote.'
         And if we disappeared in this vastness, Alex thought uneasily, no one would ever find us.
        From Davos the train went to Susch and Scuol. The French were singing reasonably well, and no one complained. In early darkness, the train moved up the Engadine Valley, past the lake, and into Saint Moritz.
        They were in the middle of a blizzard. The wind was coming off the mountains at thirty - gusting to fifty -kilometers an hour. The preternaturally dense snowfall reduced visibility to a single block.
        At the hotel when Alex and Joanna checked in, they were required to present their passports and, therefore, used their real names; but he asked that the Maurice Demuth nom de guerre be the only name kept in the registration file. In a town that was accustomed to playing host to privacy-conscious movie stars, dukes, duchesses, counts, countesses, and wealthy industrialists from all corners of the world, such a request was not unusual, and it was honored.
        They had a small but comfortable suite on the fifth floor. When the bellmen left, Alex tested the two locks and double-bolted the door. He went into the bedroom to help Joanna with the unpacking.
        'I'm exhausted,' she said.
        'Me too.' He took the pistol out of the waistband of his slacks and put it on the nightstand.
        'I'm too tired to stand up,' she said, 'but still… I'm afraid to sleep.'
        'We'll be safe tonight.'
        'Do you still have that feeling? That somehow we're being manipulated?'
        'Maybe I was just wired too tight,' he said.
        'What will we do tomorrow?'
        'Scout around. Find out where Rotenhausen lives, if we can.'
        'And then?'
        Alex heard a noise behind them. He turned and saw a tall, husky man standing in the open doorway between the bedroom and the living room.
         So soon! Alex thought.
        Joanna saw the intruder and cried out.
        The intruder was holding an odd-looking gun and wearing a gas mask.
        Alex lunged for the pistol that he had left on the