Death in Berlin (29 page)

She ran across the hall and lifted the receiver. But it was not

Simon Lang.

‘Who was it?’ asked Stella as she returned to the drawing-room.

‘It wasn’t the telephone,’ said Miranda. ‘It was the front-door bell. One of the Wilkin children asking if we’d seen Wally.’

‘He’s probably up at the Lawrences’ playing with Lottie,’ said Stella.

‘That’s what I told her,’ said Miranda, and shivered. Wally! Was

he really at the Lawrences’, or was he ? She pulled up her

thoughts with a frightened jerk as they approached the edge of a yawning gulf into which she dared not look. I won’t think of it, she told herself frantically. I won’t think of it! Wally… ! Oh, not Wally!

‘Only the Germans,’ said Stella bitterly, ‘would install a doorbell that is practically indistinguishable from a telephone bell. Oh, what wouldn’t I give to be home! The daffodils will be out in the orchard at Mallow, and the primroses…’ She got up suddenly and went out of the room, and Miranda heard her slam the door of her bedroom behind her and knew that she was crying. ; :

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At four o’clock Miranda rang Simon’s number again. But he was still out, and the same voice assured her politely that Captain Lang would telephone her as soon as he came in: and with this she had to be content.

Robert returned an hour later with the unwelcome information

that he would have to have an early supper, and leave again immediately afterwards to attend a talk by the Commander-inChief Northern Army Group on ‘Allied Strategy in Europe’.

‘I ought to have told you before,’ apologized Robert, ‘but what with all this flap on I’d completely forgotten about the damn thing. It’s at eight-thirty, so I should be back by eleven at the latest; but don’t wait up for me.’

Stella said: ‘Are you taking the car, or is someone fetching you?’

‘No, I’m certainly not taking the car! I don’t see why the hell I should use my own petrol for this sort of show. One of the Volkswagens is calling for me.’

He lifted Stella’s hands and kissed them. ‘I’m sorry, my love. I don’t like having to go out and leave you two alone in the house. Thank God we shall have a batman again tomorrow. The M.O. says Davies is fit for duty again, and until this business is cleared up he can live in. I shall feel a lot better when I know that there is a large and trustworthy chap around the place to discourage the criminally-minded when I’m not on the premises!’

He turned to Miranda and said: ‘Keep an eye on her for me, ‘Randa. She’s just about all in.’

‘I will.’

Robert put his hands on Miranda’s shoulders and turned her about to face the light.

‘You aren’t looking too good yourself,’ he said frowning. This has been one hell of a holiday for you, hasn’t it dear? I wish we hadn’t had to drag you into all this ghastly business.’

‘Don’t be silly, Robert,’ said Miranda crisply. ‘As if anyone could have known what was going to happen! And if I had known, I should probably have thought it sounded thrilling and insisted on coming. It’s only when one is actually involved in a murder case

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that one realizes that it isn’t thrilling at all, but only very terrifying and quite beastly.’

Robert said: ‘When this is all over, you and Stella had better take the next boat back to England and spend a month or two recuperating in some nice, safe, rural spot where the only problem on the hands of the local constable is who pinched the postmaster’s prize marrow off the lectern during the Harvest Festival!’

He kissed Miranda affectionately and went out into the cold spring night.

Stella shivered suddenly. ‘Cold, darling?’ asked Miranda. ‘Why don’t you go and have a hot bath and get to bed?’

‘I’m not cold. It was only a goose walking over my grave; and if I did go to bed I shouldn’t sleep, so what’s the use?’ She closed the hall door, released the catch of the Yale lock and pushed home the heavy bolts above and below it. Miranda saw that her hands were shaking so that she could hardly control them, and that her face was white and frightened. She looked up and seeing Miranda’s expression, smiled a little uncertainly.

‘I know it’s stupid of me, but I feel better with the doors locked. Robert locked both the other ones and any windows large enough for a cat to crawl through! If only I’d known that he was going to be out, I’d have asked a couple of people in to play bridge.’

‘Well, let’s do it now,’ suggested Miranda. ‘Let’s go over and collect the Leslies.’

‘No, don’t let’s,’ said Stella with another shiver. ‘Nothing would induce me to walk through the garden, and I don’t intend to let you go over, and be left on my own in this house even for two minutes! Anyway, Colonel Leslie is sure to be going to this lecture affair too, and I couldn’t stand Mrs Leslie solo just now. Let’s turn on every light in the drawing-room and see if we can find a good programme on the wireless instead.’

The drawing-room looked larger and less friendly with all the lights burning, and the wireless offered them a choice between a mournful and wailing concerto by a popular modern composer, a drama about racketeers on the New York waterfront, a reading

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from Murders in the Rue Morgue, a political broadcast, and a variety of excitable gentlemen declaiming passionately in French, German, Italian and Russian.

Stella switched off impatiently and fetched a book. She seemed disinclined for talk, but Miranda noticed that although she kept the open book in her hands and occasionally turned a page, her eyes were unmoving and fixed in a blind stare as though they were turned inward on some frightening mental vision, and that every now and again she would shiver as if a cold intermittent draught blew through the warm room.

The house seemed strangely empty now that Robert had gone, but Miranda could not rid herself of a conviction that they were not alone, and that from somewhere near at hand an unseen pair of eyes was watching their every movement. Yet the curtains were closely drawn and gave no glimpse of the moonlit garden, and the door into the hall was shut. Could there be someone outside that door, waiting and listening? No, that was absurd! Every window and door was barred and bolted and there was no one in the house but Stella and herself. Nevertheless she found herself listening intently for sounds in the empty house or from the silent garden. Stella seemed aware of it too, for twice she turned her head and glanced uneasily over her shoulder. Her frightened tension reacted unpleasantly upon Miranda’s own taut nerves and the thoughts that she had striven to keep at bay for so many hours came circling and swooping back again, closing in upon her like vultures gathering above a kill.

Had Stella too seen the thing that she had seen, and put the same interpretation upon it? Was she facing the same picture that had taken shape before Miranda earlier that day, and finding it equally feasible and frightening?

Why hadn’t Simon telephoned? Had he ever received her message? If he had, surely only something urgent and alarming could have prevented him from getting in touch with her? He had gone to find Wally … Watty! She had forgotten all about Wally! Supposing he too had - had disappeared?

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Miranda’s hands felt cold and unsteady. Like Stella’s, she thought. We are both sitting here pretending to read and slowly scaring ourselves into idiocy. It’s almost as if we were waiting for something horrible to happen. She looked across the room and saw Stella’s desperate eyes upon her and tried to smile and could not.

Stella dropped her book to the floor and stood up abruptly. ‘It’s no good trying to read tonight,’ she said in a high, strained voice. ‘I can’t concentrate. I think I’ll get some knitting. It’s a nice, soothing occupation!’

She went quickly out of the room leaving the door ajar behind her.

Miranda lowered her own book and thought, shall I try and ring Simon again? No. What’s the use? I’ve done all I can.

She could hear Stella’s footsteps in the hall, and a faint draught of cold air swung the drawing-room door open a little wider and ruffled the pages of the daily paper that lay on the window-seat. The faint rustle of the paper seemed absurdly loud in the silent room and Miranda started violently and bit her tongue, and closing her book with an impatient bang she reached for a cigarette. She very rarely smoked but at the moment, to smoke a cigarette, like Stella’s knitting, seemed a soothing occupation.

The telephone bell rang shrilly in the hall and the cigarette box jerked from her grasp and fell to the floor, scattering its contents over the carpet.

Simon! thought Miranda with a gasp of relief. She jumped to her feet and started for the door, but Stella was already at the telephone.

‘Hullo? … Yes, speaking.’

Miranda lingered near the open doorway hoping to hear Stella call her. But it was not Simon.

Who?’ Stella’s voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched. ‘Oh! Yes, of course I remember.’ There followed an audible gasp and a long minute of silence. Miranda knew she should close the door and not listen to a private conversation, but she did not move.

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There was something in Stella’s voice that frightened her; and Stella was speaking again.

“No!… No, I can’t! not at this time of night! … But why? … Why not tomorrow?… It’s no good, I daren’t! I tell you, I daren’t … not alone. Is Robert there? … Can I speak to him? … Oh. Oh, I see.’

There was another long pause and then Stella’s voice; trembling and shrill, and completely unnatural.

‘How do I know it is you? It might be anyone! … Oh … All right then. I’ll ring you back.’

There was a click as the receiver was replaced and Miranda heard Stella ruffle through the leaves of the telephone book and presently dial a number.

‘Hullo? - Oh it is you. I - I had to be sure … Very well then. I’ll do it… Yes, as soon as I can.’

She rang off and came swiftly across the hall and into the drawing-room. Her face was colourless and her eyes feverishly bright, and she was breathing unevenly. She said: ‘I have to go out. I don’t think I shall be very long. You - you won’t mind staying here alone, will you? You could ring up Mrs Lawrence or someone?’

‘Going out? But where? Who was that on the phone? What’s happened, Stella?’ Miranda’s voice was sharp with alarm.

‘It was Colonel Cantrell. He says he has to see me at once. I said I wouldn’t go, but he says it’s a most important matter and that it can’t wait. He wouldn’t say much on the phone, but Robert is there; and so is Captain Lang, and I think one or two of the others. He said I was to take the car and drive over at once.’

Miranda said: ‘But why! What’s happened? Surely no one else is dead?‘She heard the note of hysteria in her voice, but could not control it.

‘I tell you I don’t know! I’ll try not to be too long.’

Stella turned away and went quickly across the hall to the cloakroom where the coats hung, Miranda at her heels. She took down a dark tweed coat from its peg, struggled into it, and reached for the garage key.

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Miranda saw that her hands were trembling so that she could not fasten the heavy coat buttons, and she caught at Stella’s arm.

‘Don’t go, Stel’! Let them come here. You can’t go alone! It isn’t safe, I tell you. It isn’t safe!’

‘I must,’ said Stella, briefly. ‘I’ll be all right; Robert’s there.’

‘No!’ said Miranda. ‘No!’

Stella must not go out alone into that dark, spring night. It was dangerous; Stella did not realize how dangerous!

But Stella only pulled away from her clutching hand and moved towards the door.

Miranda gave it up. ‘All right, then; but I’m coming with you.’

Stella turned, relief and a tense anxiety on her white face. ‘No, ‘Randa! You keep out of this. Robert was right - we’ve let you in for too much already. You stay here and lock yourself safely into the drawing-room until I get back.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ said Miranda, hurriedly getting into a coat. ‘If you go, I go! I’m not going to let you go running off by yourself. It isn’t safe. Besides, I promised Robert that I’d keep an eye on you. Come on - have we got a torch?’

‘Yes. But ‘

‘I’m not going to argue with you darling,’ interrupted Miranda firmly, ‘but if you think for one moment that I’m going to be left alone in this house, you’re crazy!’

Stella laughed a little hysterically. ‘All right then-on your own head be it!’

She turned away to unbar the door, and a little chill wind breathed against Miranda’s cheek. She turned her head, puzzled, for the front door was still shut. And it was only then that she noticed that the tiny, narrow window alongside the door stood open to the night air.

The window was no more than a slot in the wall; a narrow slab of thick plate glass in a steel frame, that opened inwards and had probably been placed there so that anyone pressing the doorbell could be seen from inside, and letters, small parcels, or messages could be taken in without the necessity of unlocking the door.

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Possibly it had been a useful and necessary precaution in the days of the Nazi regime, and even now Frau Herbach, the cook, would peer anxiously through it before admitting a visitor.

It was seldom opened and it had certainly not been open when Robert had left - of that Miranda was quite sure, for she had watched Stella lock and bar the door and neither of them could have overlooked an open window directly beside it. But Frau Herbach had left before dark, and there was no one in the house except herself and Stella. Then who had opened it?

The window was too narrow for even the smallest child to

squeeze through. Yet supposing someone had thought that by reaching in an arm they could unlock the door? It was not possible, for the window opened to the left and even a double-jointed person could not have touched so much as the edge of the door. But someone standing outside might not know that…

Stella pulled back the last bolt, and turning saw Miranda’s fixed and frightened stare.

‘What is it? What are you looking at?’

The window,’ said Miranda, in a shaking whisper. ‘Did you open it?’

Stella shook her head. Her eyes were wide and terrified.