Death in Berlin (20 page)

‘Terrible! Come and have some coffee.’

‘I can’t,’ said Stella with an attempt at a smile. ‘I’m being given the third degree.’

‘Do you mean to say that the imbecile gendarmes haven’t finished with their so foolish questions yet?’ inquired Miranda, raising her voice with intent.

Stella frowned and said sharply: ‘Don’t be silly, Miranda!’ She drew in her head and Miranda heard Simon Lang laugh, and then the window shut with a bang.

Miranda poured herself another cup of black coffee and sipped it slowly. She was trying to explain something to herself. She, Miranda, had for a brief space behaved like that fictional character who plays into the murderer’s hands by concealing evidence instead of yelling for the police. Which was understandable, since

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she had, after all, received a series of violent and unpleasant shocks, and could be forgiven for reacting to them a little wildly.

What was not understandable was why, in the bright light of morning, an uncomfortable proportion of the panic that had driven her to tear off the stained dress, and had whispered the words ‘Circumstantial evidence ‘ in her ear, should still remain with her? Because, of course, it was nonsense. Suspicion could not possibly rest on her for the simple reason that unless they suspected her of homicidal mania, she had no shadow of motive for killing Brigadier Brindley or Friedel Schultz; and no possible connection with either of them. And yet she was still afraid. Why?

Because of Simon Lang! The answer presented itself to her as suddenly as though someone had spoken the words aloud.

Simon Lang could see a possible reason why she might have committed both crimes. A motive that had escaped Miranda herself, but was, none the less, a feasible one; since she did not believe that he would waste time on impossibilities. It followed, therefore, that somewhere in all this there was some connection between Brigadier Brindley, Friedel and herself, and a possible motive for the murder of both Brigadier Brindley and Friedel by Miranda Brand.

She heard the drawing-room door open and Stella walk quickly across the hall and run up the stairs, and a moment later the sound of her bedroom door being shut with a bang. Miranda put down her coffee cup and, leaving the room, walked resolutely across the hall and into the drawing-room.

Simon Lang was leaning against the window frame, his hands deep in his pockets, looking out into the garden. He turned his head as she entered and acknowledged her presence with something that might conceivably have been called a smile, and when she did not speak, turned back to his contemplation of the garden.

Miranda seemed suddenly to have forgotten what it was she had wanted to say. She crossed the room slowly and stood beside him, looking out on the green,lsunlit space and trying to imagine it as

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it had looked last night; and would look again when the sun had set: a place of darkness and mystery and shadows.

Something of what was passing in her mind seemed also to be in Simon Lang’s, for he said under his breath: ‘ “Is the day fair? Yet unto evening shall the day spin on ..,”’ He did not finish the quotation, and Miranda spoke the next two lines almost without knowing that she had done so: ‘ “And soon thy sun be gone; then darkness come, and this, a narrow home. ” ‘

Simon turned and looked at her, his eyebrows up and an odd gleam in his eyes.

Miranda shivered suddenly in the bright sunlight and said: ‘It all looks so ordinary, and so safe. It doesn’t seem possible that anything like that could have happened out there.’

Simon said: ‘You’ve forgotten the first line of that poem.’

‘No, I haven’t. You left it out. “Opasser-by, beware!” I was the passer-by: but how is one to know?’

Simon did not reply and the room was very silent; as silent as the quiet garden outside.

Miranda sighed and turned away from the window. ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ she said slowly. ‘You have a theory about me, haven’t you? A possible reason why I might have murdered two people who were complete strangers to me.’

She looked directly at Simon Lang, but her eyes were dazzled by the bright sunlight beyond the window, and his face seemed to be oddly out of focus and once again entirely without expression: as though a blind had been drawn down over it. He did not trouble to deny or confirm her statement, but returned her gaze evenly and in silence.

‘What reason could I possibly have had?’ urged Miranda. ‘I didn’t know either of them.’

Simon said quietly: That might not have been necessary.’ , j

‘I don’t understand.’ ,**-,

‘Don’t you? I wonder.’

Simon was silent for a moment or two, then he said meditatively: ‘Men commit murder for a variety of reasons. But generally

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speaking, there are only two reasons why women do; and they frequently commit them for a combination of the two. It is just conceivable - only just - that you might qualify on account of those reasons.’

‘I don’t understand!’ repeated Miranda angrily.

‘If you don’t, then there’s no need for you to worry,’ said Simon.

‘But I tell you, I’d never even met Brigadier Brindley before that afternoon on the train,’ insisted Miranda.

‘No, I don’t think you had,’ said Simon unexpectedly.

‘There you are then! As for Friedel, I hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to her.’

Simon looked at her speculatively for a moment or two, then he said quietly: ‘Whoever killed the Brigadier need not have known him for more than a few hours.’

‘And Friedel?’

‘That was, I think, a mistake,’ said Simon. He glanced at his watch and said: ‘I must go,’ and turned and walked to the door.

Miranda ran after him and caught at his arm: ‘But you haven’t answered my question!’

Simon looked down at the slim fingers that clutched his sleeve. ‘No,’ he said reflectively. ‘I don’t believe I have.’

He detached her fingers quite gently, as though he were removing some small creeping object that he did not wish to harm, and the hall door closed quietly behind him.

Miranda made a sound like an infuriated and frightened kitten, and turning her back on the door, ran upstairs to find Stella.

.Ťilk

:iTivf)

13:

Stella’s bedroom door was not only closed, but locked. Miranda knocked softly, and receiving no answer, tried the handle.

A voice that she did not immediately recognize as Stella’s said sharply: ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me,’ said Miranda with a fine disregard for grammar. ‘I only wanted to see how you were bearing up.’

A key turned in the lock and the door opened. Stella said: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you knock. Come in. Has Captain Lang left?’

‘Yes,’ said Miranda uncommunicatively.

Stella moved over to her dressingtable, and sitting down in front of it began to fidget aimlessly with bottles and brushes, and Miranda, watching her reflection in the glass, saw with something like horror that she looked old. Sallow-skinned and haggard, and desperate. Stella looked up, and catching sight of Miranda’s face in the glass, started violently. The bottle she had been touching overturned and spilt a stream of scented lotion over the table, and Miranda ran to her and put her arms about her.

‘What is it, Stel’? What’s the matter?’

Stella flinched at her touch and then sat still, submitting to the embrace. But Miranda could feel that her body was tense and trembling, and see that she was staring at her own reflection in the mirror as if it were some stranger she saw there. She said in a hoarse whisper: ‘I’m afraid, ‘Randa. I’m afraid!’

Miranda’s arms tightened about her and she tried to think of something to say that would convince Stella that Robert would never leave her for Sally Page or anyone else. She said to gain time: ‘What have you got to be afraid of, darling?’

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‘Of being murdered,’ said Stella in a whisper.

The answer was so unexpected and so shocking that Miranda released her and took a quick step backward.

‘What on earth do you mean?’

Stella’s hands clutched at the edge of the dressingtable. ‘Someone meant to kill me. Me - not Friedel!’

Miranda opened her mouth to say ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ but a sudden recollection of what Simon had said to her less than ten minutes ago checked the words on her tongue. At the time, preoccupied with her own angle, she had not stopped to think what he had meant when he said that Friedel’s death had probably been a mistake.

After a moment she said: ‘Nonsense!’ but the word lacked

conviction and Stella brushed it aside.

‘It isn’t nonsense! It was night, and she was wearing my coat. Don’t you see - someone thought it was me! Even you did. You said so! Someone thought I should be here alone, as you were. You should have been out - Mrs Leslie told me so - but I ought to have been here. I tell you, someone meant to kill me, ‘Randa!’

Miranda said: ‘Darling, why? Do be sensible! Why should anyone want to kill you? Surely it’s obvious that someone had it in for that wretched woman, and the fact that she had borrowed your coat had nothing whatever to do with it?’ She was trying to be reasonable and comforting, but she did not believe her own words, because if Simon Lang thought that Friedel’s death was a mistake, he must have a very good reason for thinking so. But who would want to kill Stella? Surely you would have to hate someone very much to wish to kill them? Simon had said that women usually killed for one of two reasons; though he had not specified those reasons. Was one of them hate? Who hated Stella? Who would want her out of the way?

Two names leapt to Miranda’s mind: Norah Leslie and Sally Page…

‘No!’ said Miranda aloud. ‘No!’

‘You can believe what you like,’ said Stella in a shaking voice,

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‘but I know that someone meant to kill me. I tell you I know!’

But Miranda had been speaking to herself-or to Sally Page: pretty, young, foolish Sally, who imagined herself to be in love with Stella’s husband. Or to Norah Leslie, who hated Stella for some hidden reason of her own. But neither of them was capable of murder, and it was all nonsense that Stella had been the intended victim. It must be! Simon was wrong, and Friedel had been killed for some reason unconnected with either or any of them.

She tried to make Stella see this, but Stella was frightened beyond the reach of reason. Her insular dislike of foreigners and foreign countries, her jealousy of Sally Page, and the shocking reality of the two brutal murders with which she had been brought into contact, had combined to bring her to the verge of a complete physical and mental collapse. She would only repeat, ‘I know that it was meant to be me,’ in reply to all Miranda’s soothing arguments.

Miranda said patiently: ‘How can you be so sure? Do you know of any reason why anyone should want to kill you?’

‘Yes …” Miranda barely caught the whispered word. Stella was not even looking at her; she was staring in front of her as though she saw someone or something that Miranda could not see, and there was a stark terror in her eyes that made Miranda’s heart miss a beat.

Miranda said quickly. ‘If you mean Sally Page, I think …’

‘Sally?’ interrupted Stella, her gaze returning to Miranda. ‘What on earth has Sally Page to do with it?’ Her voice sounded genuinely startled.

‘Nothing,’ said Miranda hastily. ‘Stel’, this reason you know of

- why someone should want to kill you - what is it?’

Stella’s face changed. It became blank and expressionless, and her violet-blue eyes were no longer terrified, but guarded and wary. She did not answer for a moment, and then she picked up a powder puff from the dressingtable and spoke to Miranda over her shoulder.

‘Of course I don’t know of any reason. How should I? It’s just

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that that woman was wearing my coat. That’s all. Don’t let’s talk about it any more for heaven’s sake, ‘Randa. Oh God, what a mess I look! I must do something to my face before Robert gets back.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Miranda, only too glad to change the subject.

‘Seeing a lot of people about this Friedel business. He’ll be back for luncheon. You might go down and see if the cook is doing anything about it. She’s been behaving in a most peculiar manner. Where the Germans acquired their reputation for toughness I can’t imagine. They seem to me to collapse into tears and hysteria at the drop of a hat! Oh well, I suppose I can’t talk. Go and see about it will you, darling? Robert should be back any minute now!’

But Robert had already arrived, for Miranda found him in the drawing-room with Harry and Eisa Marson. The three had been talking together in low tones, but they broke off as she entered and turned quickly to face her.

Standing together in the cool cream and green of Stella’s drawing-room, they seemed to Miranda to look curiously alike, despite their wide physical dissimilarities. And for a brief moment that fleeting impression of likeness puzzled her, until she realized that it was solely a matter of tension. They had turned simultaneously, and as they stood facing her in silence, their three faces bore the same look of strained wariness. It lasted only for a moment, and then the tension relaxed and Robert said: ‘Oh, it’s

you, ‘Randa. I thought ‘ He bit off the sentence and turned

to Mrs Marson: ‘Eisa, have a brandy and soda instead of that sherry. You look as if you could do with it. We all could.’

Thank you, no,’ said Mrs Marson. ‘I think it is time we go now.’

She looked shockingly ill, thought Miranda. Something had happened to her face since they had first met on that fateful journey to Berlin. It seemed to have aged, as Stella’s too had aged. Yet that was not all. Her face seemed thinner and somehow more un-English, and she had taken to a lavish use of make-up, as though to provide a mask with which to conceal that change. But the bright patches of rouge on her cheeks only served to accentuate

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their thinness and the curious grey pallor of her skin, and no amount of paint and powder could disguise the dark patches under her eyes or dim their feverish glitter. She too looked as Stella had looked - haggard and raddled and afraid. Miranda wondered if her own face bore that same look of fear?