Death in Berlin (17 page)

The distant muffled bell purred only twice and then someone lifted the receiver. ‘Lang here,’ said a quiet voice.

‘Simon!’ the word was a sob. Miranda’s voice was shaking and she could barely control it. It seemed to her that she had shouted his name but to Simon it was no more than a soft, indistinguishable sound.

‘Who is it? I can’t hear you.’

Miranda fought to steady herself, gripping the receiver in both

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hands until the fingernails of her left hand cut into the flesh below the thumb.

‘Miranda. Simon, please come quickly! Friedel’s dead, and I’m all alone - Simonf

Simon did not waste time asking questions. He said: Til be along as soon as I can. Ring Dr Elvers, that’ll save me time. You’ll find his name in the book. Or get any doctor.’

‘It’s no good!’ said Miranda frantically. ‘She’s dead! The blood went into her eye and ‘ But Simon had rung off.

Miranda stood shivering, still clutching the receiver to her ear. And as she stood there, she heard a sound. It was a very soft sound, but quite unmistakable, and she stopped shivering and stood rigid; staring with widened, terrified eyes at the receiver in her hand.

She had told Simon Lang that she was alone in the house. But it was not true. There was someone else there. Someone besides

herself and Lottie. Someone who had listened to her conversation

with Simon and then very quietly replaced the receiver of the telephone extension that stood beside Robert’s bed in the big front room upstairs …

Miranda dropped the receiver and whirled round to stare up at the landing above the hall, her heart beating suffocatingly. But the landing was in shadow and from where she stood she could not see the door of Stella’s bedroom.

She backed away towards the cloakroom. There was a bolt on the inside of the cloakroom door. She could shut herself in and

wait until Simon came.

And then, suddenly, she remembered Lottie. Someone was hiding upstairs in one of the darkened rooms - and Lottie was up there too, asleep.

Miranda ran across the hall and raced up the staircase, heedless of what might be awaiting her in the shadows above the lighted hall, and flung open the door of Lottie’s room. She found the switch and pressed it, and the room was flooded with soft light.

Lottie was sound asleep, curled up with her hands folded under her chin. She did not move or wake, and Miranda pulled the key

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from the outside of the door with trembling fingers and locked herself in.

She knew that she should turn off the light again in case it should wake Lottie, but she could not bring herself to wait in the dark, and she found a small green cardigan and draped it over the light instead. The effect was dim and eerie, but at least it was better than darkness, and she leant weakly against the door, struggling to steady herself and regain control over her breathing.

Once she thought she heard a stair creak and someone moving somewhere in the house, but though she strained her ears to listen she could not be certain of the sound or its direction.

Whoever had been in Stella and Robert’s bedroom would not

stay there: that much was certain. And it would be quite simple for anyone to leave, for they had only to walk down the stairs and out of the front door. Or if that was too public, the drop from the balcony outside the bedroom windows was not so great, and the small back landing, from which one flight of stairs ascended to the attic and another descended to the kitchen quarters, lay only a few yards to the right of the bedroom door. Once down the back staircase there would be no difficulty in leaving the house, since the locks were Yale ones and could be opened from inside.

Oh, why didn’t Simon come?

Miranda left the door and went quickly to the window, but there was no sign of any approaching car. Only the moonlight, and the yellow glow of the street lamps gleaming intermittently through the fretted branches of the trees that a rising wind was beginning to sway and shiver.

She dropped the curtain back into place and as she turned away her eye was caught by her own reflection in the looking-glass above the small dressingtable. There were marks on the pale topaz-coloured wool of her dress. A dark stain near the shoulder.

Miranda put up an unsteady hand and touched it.

So it had happened again! The pattern had repeated itself. Once again there was blood on her dress - and now there was blood on her hand too … ‘Circumstantialevidence’.

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She could not let it happen again! She could not. Who would believe her this time? She must change her dress … hide it … burn it! She began to tear at the fastenings with frenzied, frantic hands.

A fingernail caught and tore agonizingly in the catch of the zipfastener, and her hair tangled about the dangling charms on her bracelet and wrenched free as she pulled the dress over her head and threw it from her as if it had been something alive and crawling. Her breath was coming in sobbing gasps and her hands were wet with sweat.

A car turned into the road and its headlights licked the windows with brief, brilliant light; and then it had jerked to a stop outside the house. Quick footsteps sounded on the flagged path below and Miranda heard the front door open.

Simon Lang! And she had sent for him herself. She had lost her head and sent for the one man who already had reason to suspect her of murder. She must have been mad! She should have said nothing; pretended to know nothing; changed the stained dress and waited for someone else to discover the murder. Instead of which she had run headlong into suspicion and danger as once before she had run wildly down the corridor of the night train to Berlin…

‘Miranda!’ Simon’s voice echoed strangely in the silent house. She heard him cross the hall and jerk open the drawing-room door.

‘Miranda!’

Lottie stirred and murmured in her sleep and once again the instinct to protect the sleeping child overcame the nightmare numbness that had held Miranda in its grip. She turned the key in the lock and went out onto the landing, closing the door softly behind her.

Simon was standing in the hall immediately below her, his body, seen from above, looking curiously foreshortened by the drop, and the pupils of his eyes so dilated that his eyes looked black, like a cat’s that has come in from the dark. He stood quite still for a

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moment, looking up at her; and then she saw his face change and he came up the stairs, taking them three at a time, and was standing in front of her, his hands gripping her shoulders, as he had stood in the corridor of the train on the night that Brigadier Brindley had died.

He said sharply: ‘Are you all right?’

‘Ssssh! You’ll wake Lottie,’ said Miranda automatically. She swayed and would have fallen but for Simon’s grip on her shoulders.

Simon shook her savagely. The action was so unexpected that it acted upon Miranda’s numbed faculties like a dash of cold water, and she gasped and jerked herself away.

That’s better,’ said Simon ungently.

He caught her arm and pulled it through his, and holding it tightly against him, turned and walked her down the stairs and into the hall.

‘Now let’s have it,’ said Simon, swinging her round to face him.

His eyes narrowed suddenly. In the dimness of the unlighted landing he had not noticed her unorthodox attire, and had imagined her to be wearing some form of evening dress. Miranda looked down, following the direction of his startled gaze, and her white face coloured hotly. She had forgotten that she wore no dress and was standing in the full light of the hall clad in the scantiest possible underwear.

She tried to pull away, but Simon’s fingers tightened about her arm as his eyes took her in from head to foot - the tangled disorder of the dark curls, the white arms and shoulders, the absurd wisps of lace-trimmed, apricot-tinted transparency, long slender legs and small high-heeled slippers. And suddenly there was a cold anger in his eyes that frightened her.

‘What on earth,’ said Simon softly, ‘are you dressed like that for? Come on - out with it!’

‘I - I meant to burn it.’ Miranda’s voice was a jerky whisper despite her effort to control it, and her eyes were wide and enormous.

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‘Burn what?’ • *’: ””’” •’•’• ;: •• •-•>•*”• ••’-i”’->-

‘My dress. There was blood on it. You see I -1 touched her. And

- and it was like the other time; and I thought you would think

- that everyone would think …’ Miranda’s voice trailed away hopelessly and stopped.

Simon said: ‘I see.’ There was, curiously enough, relief in his voice. He released her arm and Miranda sat down abruptly on the bottom step of the stairs.

Simon turned on his heel, and going over to the coat rack by the cloakroom door, took down a coat at random and returning, tossed it at Miranda.

‘You’d better put that on.’

It was a Burberry of Robert’s and far too large for her, but Miranda struggled into it, wrapping it about her as she sat on the hall stair.

Simon said curtly: ‘Where is she?’

‘In the garden.’ Miranda jerked her head towards the open door of the drawing-room and the moonlit windows beyond. ‘By the gap in the hedge near the lilac bushes.’

He turned and walked quickly across the hall and into the drawing-room, and she heard him open the french window and go out. After that there was silence for what seemed a very long time…

Miranda leaned her head against the newel post and shut her eyes. She felt utterly exhausted and strangely apathetic. None of this was real. It could not be real, because things like this did not happen to ordinary people like herself. They only happened to strange beings whose faces adorned the pages of the more sensational Sunday papers. She would wake up presently and find that the whole thing was a nightmare.

A slight sound aroused her and she opened her eyes. Simon Lang was standing in front of her, frowning down at her, and he did not look in the least like a nightmare.

‘She’s dead all right,’ said Simon. ‘Who is she?’ * i! -

‘Friedel. The housemaid.’ —^ ?

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Simon leant down and pulled her to her feet and walked her across to the diningroom.

The lights still burned above the table and the room was in every way as Miranda had left it halfway through her supper. It seemed as if months of time must have passed since she had last sat here, and yet her half-eaten meal was still on the table and the hands on the clock-face pointed to five minutes past nine. Friedel had said she would be away only an hour. She would be back by nine. But Friedel was dead and her body lay in the cold spring moonlight beyond the curtained windows of the diningroom.

Miranda began to shiver again, and Simon pushed her down into a chair and held a glass to her mouth. She drank obediently and choked as the fiery liquid caught her throat.

He stood looking down at her with a frown in his eyes, and after a moment or two he pulled up a chair, and sitting down facing her said: ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I was alone in the house,’ began Miranda haltingly. ‘It was Mademoiselle’s day out, and Robert phoned to say he wouldn’t be back until late, and then Stella rang up and said she would have supper with him at the Club and would I look after Lottie as Friedel wanted to go out for an hour or two. I said goodnight to Lottie, and Friedel said that my supper was ready, and then - then she went out.’

‘What time was that?’

‘About a quarter to eight I think. I don’t think I looked at the clock…’

She looked at it now. Not much more than an hour ago! It wasn’t possible - it wasn’t possible , , ,,

Simon’s voice jerked her back to the present.

‘What happened then?’

‘I heard someone moving about upstairs and I thought it was Lottie. I called up to her to get back into bed. And then …’ She stopped.

‘And then?‘prompted Simon.

‘I -1 was afraid.’ \ u ” >

i

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‘•• ‘Why? What were you afraid of?’ < • -‘-”’

‘I don’t know. I thought that someone was watching me. I was quite sure of it. I didn’t hear anything, it was just a - a feeling. And after a bit I couldn’t bear it any longer, so I went into the hall to see if anyone was there; but there wasn’t anyone. And then I thought I saw something move outside the drawing-room window, and I thought it was Wally …’ ‘The Wilkin child? Why?’

‘Because he had been playing round here before, and I’d caught him only this afternoon crawling through the bushes under the windows. I thought he was at it again and that this time I’d catch him and give him a good smacking, so I went out and - and found her.’

Miranda’s voice wavered uncertainly and her hands tightened on the arms of her chair. ‘Where?’

‘Near the lilac bushes, in the gap by the hedge. I told you.’ ‘She was on the edge of the lawn,’ said Simon. ‘Did you move her?’

‘Yes… I forgot that. I tried to lift her. I -1 thought it was Stella. ‘ ‘Stella? You thought it was Mrs Melville? Why?’ ‘She was lying face downwards, you see. And - and her head was in the shadow and she was wearing Stella’s coat.’

Simon Lang did not say anything for what appeared to be a very long time. He sat quite still and looked at Miranda, his face entirely expressionless and his eyes intent and unreadable. And once again, as earlier in the evening, she became aware of the clock, chipping off splinters of time into the silence.

She put up a hand to loosen the enveloping folds of Robert’s Burberry from about her throat, jerking at it as though it impeded her breathing.

Simon said: ‘So you thought it was Mrs Melville. What did you do when you found out that it wasn’t?’

‘I dropped her, and ran in and telephoned you.’

‘Why? Why not a doctor? Or Major Melville?’ *

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‘I don’t know,’ said Miranda wearily. ‘I suppose because I knew that she was dead and I remembered your number. You gave it to me. I can’t quite remember what I thought.’

Simon Lang looked away from her for the first time and his speculative gaze travelled over the table.

‘What time was it, would you say, when you went out into the garden?’