Dine and Die on the Danube Express (10 page)

Kramer prowled like a tiger, determined to find some hint or trace of significance. Finally, he paused. We were both back in the living area. “Well?” he demanded.

I shook my head. “I don’t see anything that suggests who was here with her. Nor anything to indicate where she was between being killed, disappearing, and getting back here.”

Kramer opened the door to the corridor. Heinlein, the head steward, was outside, and Kramer beckoned him. “Call Herr Brenner. Tell him to send Dr. Stolz here immediately. The police car that we came in is waiting here at the station. Tell the driver to pick up Dr. Stolz and bring him here.”

Heinlein nodded and left. Kramer looked at me. “We don’t want any more people to know about this than is necessary,” he said.

“Dr. Stolz may be helpful,” I said optimistically.

“Yes,” Kramer said, musing. He straightened, the man of action again. “Let us make one more search.”

We did so, but nothing fresh emerged. We were exchanging frustrated looks when Dr. Stolz arrived.

He went through the customary checks. He tested her pulse at both wrist and carotid artery and raised an eyelid. He opened his bag and took out his stethoscope. He listened for a heartbeat in various locations but showed no reactions as to what he was finding. Kramer was watching him impatiently, but the doctor went on with his examination and paid Kramer no attention.

Finally, the doctor folded his stethoscope and carefully tucked it back into his bag.

“Well?” Kramer demanded.

“She is dead,” the doctor said. “Positively no signs of life.”

“Cause of death, Doctor?”

“Kindly assist me in turning her over,” said Stolz. “Be very careful.”

I didn’t think it required three relatively stalwart men to turn one slim female body, so I stayed back while Kramer and the doctor gently lifted her into a sitting position. “Now turn her to one side,” ordered Stolz.

“Poison,” said the doctor. “I cannot be positive but all signs point to Farfalia, a fungus that is lethally poisonous.”

“How long has she been dead?” Kramer asked harshly.

“I would say”—the doctor stopped, went to the air-conditioning control and read it—“at least three hours, less than six.”

Kramer frowned. “That means she died before the limousines left for the Hotel Imperial.”

“So that anyone on the train could have done it,” I completed the thought.

“You think she was murdered?” asked the doctor thoughtfully.

“There is nothing to suggest suicide, and accident seems unlikely,” I pointed out.

Kramer nodded reluctantly. “It looks that way. So,” said Kramer with a heavy sigh, “Magda Malescu, the famous actress, is dead, after all.”

Dr. Stolz turned his head sharply at the words.

“She is?” His tone was full of surprise.

Kramer gave him a contemptuous look. “You said she was!”

Stolz shook his head. “I said nothing of the kind.”

Kramer took a step forward as if he were going to grab the doctor by the throat. “What is wrong with you, Doctor! You just told us she was dead.” He looked at the body, and the doctor, apparently baffled, followed his look.

“Oh, no,” he protested. “I did not say Magda Malescu was dead.” He moved a hand slowly to indicate the body on the bed.

“This woman is not Magda Malescu.”

T
HE DOCTOR LOOKED FROM
one to the other of us as if we were a couple of mentally challenged medical aides.

“Did you think it had to be Malescu just because this is her compartment?”

“We were of that opinion,” I said. I wanted to deflect some of the doctor’s sarcasm, as Kramer looked ready to fire a verbal salvo that would have been less amiable.

Kramer composed himself to a degree. “Then perhaps you will tell us who this woman is?” he suggested.

“Yes,” said the doctor. “She is Talia Svarovina.”

“But she’s a redhead.” The words were out of my mouth even as I recalled the bottles of hair dye in the bathroom.

Kramer had noted them, too, I was sure. “She probably changes her hair coloring frequently.”

“She does? Or Magda Malescu does?” I asked.

The doctor wasn’t finished yet. “Surely you can see the differences between the two women?” He was scornful of detectives who didn’t have his power of observation. “Malescu has high cheekbones, Svarovina’s are much less pronounced. Malescu has bigger breasts, wider hips, and is an inch taller. Also, the two—”

“Thank you, Doctor. You may wish to put these comments in your report.”

The doctor shrugged, unperturbed by Kramer’s acid tone. I was thinking though that I had noticed the high cheekbones of both women, but now that the doctor brought it up, I could see that he was right. He was right, too, in pointing out that Malescu was much more generously endowed although women have ways of at least partly transforming such dimensions.

“They do look very much alike though,” I was obliged to say.

“Of course they do,” Dr. Stolz said, as one stating the obvious. “That’s one of the reasons why Svarovina is Malescu’s understudy.”

To give us our due, neither Kramer nor I repeated the bombshell contained in the doctor’s last word. I could see that Kramer wasn’t inclined to give him an inch more credit than he was obliged. He had had enough examples of the doctor’s superior knowledge already.

“In films,” said the doctor, “the double is supposed to look like the star, but in the theatre, an understudy only needs to resemble the star.” The doctor gave us an amused smile. “Didn’t you know that Svarovina was Malescu’s understudy?”

“No,” said Kramer tightly, “but it would have emerged very soon anyway.” He looked at the doctor more closely. “You must be an enthusiastic theatre fan, Doctor.”

The doctor suddenly seemed a little flustered. “No, I wouldn’t say that, I—”

Kramer seized on the reply, switching from defense to offense in a second.

“You knew both of these women, did you, Doctor?”

“I was Malescu’s doctor for some time.”

“Were you more than her doctor?”

Stolz didn’t reply.

“She had many lovers, I understand,” Kramer went on, relentless now. “Were you one of them?”

“I don’t believe that is relevant to—”

“Everything is relevant in a murder case,” Kramer said, and I wondered which German detective in fiction had repeated that, for it was a Charlie Chanism if ever I heard one.

The doctor considered his reply for a moment. Then he said, “I consoled her during a difficult time in her career.”

“I shall take the answer to my question as positive.” Kramer was really on a high. “And Fraulein Svarovina? What was your relationship with her?”

“I encountered her once or twice when she was understudying Malescu in a role—that was when I was visiting Malescu at the theatre regularly. I had to prescribe medication for Magda—”

“You—encountered—Svarovina, you say, doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Two or three times, you say?”

“It—it might have been more—”

“And your relationship with her?”

“I exchanged a few words with her in the theatre.”

“And you say that was when you were visiting Malescu—at the theatre?”

“Yes.”

“And since then?”

Dr. Stolz raised his chin. “I don’t believe I will answer any more of your questions at this time.”

Kramer was a tiger when he was on the attack, but he was clever enough to know when to withdraw and regroup. “Very well, Doctor, we will talk later.”

“What do you intend to do with the body?” Stolz wanted to know.

“As Fraulein Svarovina is a Hungarian citizen, we must take her body on to Budapest,” Kramer said. “The laws have been carefully delineated in such matters for the DS Bahn which travels through several countries.”

There was silence for a moment.

“You may go if you wish, Doctor,” Kramer said.

Stolz paused, then walked out.

Kramer was looking through the compartment. “Do you see the key?” he asked.

We searched but couldn’t find it.

“The passengers will be returning on board very soon,” Kramer said. “I will arrange for the body to be transferred to the vault coach.”

He prowled still, peering, poking, his eyes roaming everywhere. At last, he stopped. “So—we have more questions now.”

“We do,” I agreed. “How did Svarovina get into Malescu’s compartment? Why did she go there? Who else went there? Was it someone she knew or someone who knew she would be there?”

“Was it someone who had reason to think that Malescu would be there?” Kramer took up the line of questions. “Who was the intended victim? Malescu or Svarovina?” He sighed. “This is very complicated. It is difficult to consider motives when we are not sure of the victim’s identity.”

“It would help if we could learn the precise relationship between these two women,” I pointed out. “We know now that Svarovina was Malescu’s understudy, but did they like each other? Hate each other? Have merely a working association?”

“I will have inquiries made at the theatre,” Kramer said.

“Traditionally, the understudy is jealous of the star she would like to replace.”

Kramer grunted. “Yet it is not the star who is murdered, it is the understudy.”

“Unless there is another factor here that we haven’t uncovered yet,” I said, “it is unlikely that the star is the killer.”

“We don’t even know that the star is still alive,” Kramer complained with a sour look.

“If Svarovina was in Malescu’s compartment,” I said slowly, trying to work it out as I talked, “I wonder who was in Svarovina’s place at the banquet?”

“Or was anyone? Well, that will be easy to establish,” said Kramer. He brightened once there appeared courses of action to be followed.

“Then there’s Svarovina’s attire—” I added.

“Underwear and a sexy robe.” Kramer nodded. “That suggests a rendezvous with a man.”

“H’m,” I said, and he glanced at me sharply. “That was my first thought, too, but these are liberated times. We can’t eliminate all the women on the train from suspicion.”

Kramer was getting a dejected look, but he rallied. “We must search her compartment,” he said. “Let us do it now.”

A steward stood on guard outside as we did so. Svarovina’s compartment was smaller than Malescu’s, and she did not have nearly as many possessions in it. We worked our way around separately. This kind of searching had the advantage that there could be no secret drawers or built-in hiding places, so the search did not take long. I heard a grunt from Kramer at one point, but he did not elaborate on it until we had both finished.

“Find anything useful?” he asked.

“Not a thing. How about you?”

“This was in her makeup case.” He held out a typed half sheet. It was in German, and I read—

‘You will receive this on departure of the Danube Express. Make no attempt whatever to contact me—I will contact you and give you the details.’

It was not signed.

“‘Details,’” I repeated. “This suggests that Svarovina was an accomplice in some plot—to steal either the vines or the manuscript, I wonder?”

“We would not reach that conclusion quite so immediately,” said Kramer, “if she had not been murdered. But it does look that way. So who killed her and why?”

“Someone who knew her well enough to be drinking with her—and whom she did not suspect of poisoning her,” I suggested.

We discussed it further but made no progress. “We must return to Malescu’s compartment,” Kramer said, “take one more look, and arrange for disposal of the body.”

Heinlein, the steward, was still on duty there, guarding the door but not being obvious about it to anyone passing. Kramer gave him a nod, and we went in. We were making a final survey of the compartment when there came a knock at the door. Kramer went to answer it. Heinlein was looking agitated. “I am sorry,
Meinherr
, but someone is here who insists—”

Voices came from behind the head steward. One was a female voice, sharp and strident, “
Meinherr
,” Heinlein went on, “I do not understand it but—”

He staggered sideways, evidently pushed from behind. “Please, I cannot—”

Through the doorway surged Magda Malescu, irresistible as a storm across the steppes.

She was wearing a dark pantsuit that was surprisingly subdued for her, and her hair was red. Her makeup was demure, it minimized the shape of her cheeks and diminished the power of those magnetic eyes. Her mouth was reduced in size, the full lips carrying only a line of lipstick. My immediate thought was that she looked like Talia Svarovina, and I recalled Dr. Stolz’s comments about Malescu’s more impressive physical measurements. The pantsuit was surely a size or two too small …

It took only a few seconds for all these impressions to register, and, as they did, she pushed past both of us, her eyes on the open door to the bedroom.

She saw the body on the bed, and there was little doubt, even to a layperson, that she was dead.

Malescu’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no!” she sobbed, and tears welled in her eyes.

“We need to talk to you, Fraulein,” Kramer said, and his voice was hard.

More tears came, and she tried unsuccessfully to wipe them away. Her face was wet, and her lips quivered. If it was acting, it was an incredible performance.

Fifteen minutes later, we were in Kramer’s office. Malescu had recovered her composure, but her bearing had the right touch of tragedy. She was calm but stiff.

Kramer showed no hint of softening his approach. Nor did he appear to be acquiescing to the status of one of Europe’s greatest dramatic stars. He plunged into his questioning.

“Please tell us, Fraulein Malescu, what you know of this crime.”

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Her voice was low and controlled. “I cannot believe it.”

“That is not enough, Fraulein. Talia Svarovina was your understudy. Why was she in your room?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“This interrogation will continue until you tell us the truth. A woman has been murdered. You will tell us why.”

“I cannot, I don’t know.”

Kramer edged his voice with menace.

“Did you murder her?”

“Of course not!” Some of the dominating actress came through, but Kramer continued.