Gently Continental (6 page)

She goes then, warmed by brandy, into the kitchen, holy of holies! where fowls are browning in the big ovens, and an assistant chef makes strudel pastry. Here she is queen and in her realm; she snuffs the super-heated air. Frieda, her face ashine, is slicing melons with a large knife. Ach, Frieda! That strain again! Frieda lays the knife by. The assistant chef slaps and slaps at pastry already semitransparent. The kitchen-boy, in his corner, is feeding potatoes into a whirring machine, while the second assistant chef, as though he hates them, is chopping herbs on a board. Noise, heat, smell! Frieda – hsst! I have been with the policeman. What have you told him? Not so loud! He is like a gimlet, that Inspektor. You have said nothing – Ach, nichts! But he goes about it as one plucks a chicken – fuff, fuff, off come the feathers; you are turned and twisted every way. Quick, hissed words between mother and daughter. Frieda picks up the knife again, the pointed knife with the straight back. As they talk she slices. The green melons are carved in segments. A sweep of the knife clears the seeds, the knife undercuts, scores the meat. A busy, expert, delicate knife, with a sharp, simple, strong blade, slicing, sweeping, flicking, scoring while Frieda listens and questions. Now he will see you. – In good time. Watch him Frieda, ach, watch him! A pity – Ja! The knife flickers. Still noise, heat, smell. And Frieda goes, when the melons are ready, not bothering to remove her overall coat, not bothering to powder her shiny face: she wipes her hands and goes. Ach, Rudi, ach, Frieda! You could cut the heat with Frieda's knife. The brandy beads on Frau Breske's nose and she swims in the balm of roasting poultry.

Frieda taps and enters the parlour, carrying some poultry flavour with her. Poultry flavour encroaches on the regular parlour-essence of lavender polish and stale roses. Gently is standing at the end of the parlour, a figure too large for that fragile room, examining the photographs on the what-not, the painted, gilded what-not, ex-Prinz Czynska. Your mother has nice things, he says, you have a good trade here. Frieda moves driftingly a few steps, says nothing, looks nothing. These silver frames, Gently says, this pair of figures – aren't they Dresden? – and the Nattier picture in the carved frame, which looks so well between Sèvres vases . . . Frieda looks at them, barely shrugs. Perhaps they don't interest you, Gently says. Frieda shrugs again. They are mother's things, she buys them to remind her of old times. Buys them where? In Vienna, where else? She goes there each autumn to visit her father. Has she other relatives, connections, there? No: just her father: the others are dead. And you, Gently says, do you visit Vienna? Frieda shakes her head. What is that place to her? She prefers the London of her childhood, and Leicester Square to the Ring. Yes, there is London in plain Frieda, her eyes light a little when she speaks of it, her grey, mother's eyes which, however, do not protrude. She has been to Vienna, though? Yes, Trudi and she were there once. She liked it? Well . . . in fact, she was bored. Her mother had been miserable all the trip. They had visited a number of dingy streets and spoken to a number of dreary people, that was what she remembered chiefly about the City of Dreams. That, and the Danube being brown. Vienna was really nothing special. Here Frieda stops, glances quickly at Gently, is alarmed at finding herself speaking freely. Gently apparently notices nothing. He is just taking his pipe from his pocket. May he smoke? Of course. He fills his pipe. Frieda is silent.

GENTLY

Take a seat, Miss Breske.

FRIEDA

(Sits near the window. She folds her hands on her lap, lets her eyes stray through the window.)

GENTLY

(Sitting.)

Is that Trudi we can see, playing tennis?

FRIEDA

Yes.

GENTLY

Who's the young man with her?

FRIEDA

Stephen. Doctor Halliday's nephew.

GENTLY

Her boy-friend?

FRIEDA

I wouldn't know. You'd better ask Trudi.

GENTLY

She's attractive, your sister.

FRIEDA

(Says nothing.)

GENTLY

Well now, Miss Breske, I think you may be able to help me. You do the book-keeping, don't you, so you'll have talked to Wilbur Clooney.

FRIEDA

I have only spoken business to him.

GENTLY

Of course. But you'll have learned something from that. For instance, when his wallet was out, you'd notice if it was thin or fat.

FRIEDA

(Hesitates.)

GENTLY

You did notice?

FRIEDA

I think he had plenty in it.

GENTLY

Plenty?

FRIEDA

I couldn't see how much, could I? But the wallet always looked bulky.

GENTLY

It wasn't so bulky when he was found. There was money in it, but not a lot.

FRIEDA

I don't know anything about that. I'm telling you about when I saw it.

GENTLY

This could be important, Miss Breske. I'd like you to think very carefully. Let's see, he'd have paid you on Saturday, wouldn't he? How did his wallet look then?

FRIEDA

I don't remember.

GENTLY

You saw it, didn't you?

FRIEDA

I may have done. I don't know.

GENTLY

Didn't he pay you?

FRIEDA

Oh yes! I think he just handed me the money.

GENTLY

The exact sum.

FRIEDA

Yes – no, I may have given him some change.

GENTLY

I see. But at other times you noticed his wallet looking bulky.

FRIEDA

I think so, yes. But it needn't have been money.

Gently looks pleased, Frieda Breske less so. She is perhaps beginning to wish she had powdered her shine, had removed her chicken-redolent overall. She smoothes back a straggle of lifeless hair with a deft, secretive movement. Gently puffs a little. His tobacco has a piny, mannish smell.

GENTLY

No, it needn't have been money. That's one of the oddities of the case. He seems to have come here with just enough money to see him through till he was murdered. Unless, of course, he was getting supplies – drawing a weekly sum from somewhere. But he had no mail, nothing in the safe, spoke to no one, made no trips.

FRIEDA

Perhaps after all he killed himself.

GENTLY

Perhaps.

FRIEDA

He may have had money to draw on. When he had finished what he had with him. If he had lived, he might have gone after it.

GENTLY

He told you that?

FRIEDA

Of course not!

GENTLY

But something gave you that idea.

FRIEDA

It could have been like that, couldn't it?

GENTLY

Oh yes.

FRIEDA

It's a suggestion, that's all. Actually, he did mention expecting a letter.

GENTLY

Oh, he did expect one, did he?

FRIEDA

Yes, he told me he was expecting one, an important letter, it was on Saturday.

GENTLY

But no letter has come.

FRIEDA

(Shakes her head.)

GENTLY

Yet.

FRIEDA

He didn't say when.

GENTLY

But we can assume it will arrive soon.

FRIEDA

(Says nothing.)

GENTLY

Yet supposing there was no letter: no contacts, no letter. Just this odd American living on here, with always money enough to pay his bill. Pocket money, subsistence money, but no apparent outside supply. Sufficient money on him when he dies, but no more than sufficient. What does that suggest to you?

FRIEDA

I don't know, it's a mystery.

GENTLY

But what would make it less a mystery?

FRIEDA

I tell you, I don't know.

GENTLY

It would be less of a mystery to me if someone here supplied him with money. Yet who could that be?

FRIEDA

I've already told you—

GENTLY

Of course. You don't know.

Frieda pouts. There is faint colour in her pasty cheeks. She is holding herself in, but one has the impression of violence not far below the surface. She would like to fly at this detective, to send him smarting about his business; but she cannot. That is the impression. Some little matter bars the way.

GENTLY

So, on Tuesday evening, you see him go out.

FRIEDA

I've told the other man all that.

GENTLY

About seeing him leave?

FRIEDA

I didn't say that! I said I saw him at a quarter past ten.

GENTLY

That's the latest he was seen by anyone, he must have gone out soon after. Where was he, what was he doing?

FRIEDA

He was in the dining-room. He was drinking.

GENTLY

Just that?

FRIEDA

He always drank. He sat at his table reading a paper. I didn't notice him particularly, he was just there. As usual.

GENTLY

Was anyone near him?

FRIEDA

Nobody. Most of them were sitting on the lawn.

GENTLY

Any of the staff?

FRIEDA

Not near him. Franz and Johann were stripping the tables.

GENTLY

You noticed nothing unusual about him.

FRIEDA

Nothing at all. He was just sitting there. He'd go out by the french door near his table, that's why no one saw him leave.

GENTLY

It was all very usual, and his usual time.

FRIEDA

Yes. He never went out till dark.

Gently puffs a little more, staring over the lawns at the sea, the sea which, at its horizon, is now a burning haze of azure, over the tennis court where lithe Trudi is skilfully banging back returns, where the doctor's nephew calls the score, where some escaped guests sit watching. His eyes appear absent, or perhaps full of the sea.

GENTLY

Why didn't you like Clooney, Miss Breske?

FRIEDA

(Surprised into glancing at him.)

I haven't said I didn't like him.

GENTLY

But you didn't.

FRIEDA

Well, if I didn't. He wasn't much of a man.

GENTLY

Did he make a pass at you?

FRIEDA

Him!

GENTLY

He must have been rather bored here.

FRIEDA

Thank you very much, but men don't have to be bored to make passes at me.

GENTLY

Perhaps you made one at him.

FRIEDA

Really, that's quite enough!

GENTLY

He did something to upset you. Or didn't do something.

FRIEDA

He was ugly. Old and ugly. He was a yank. He talked like a moron. He drank, wore vulgar clothes. Isn't that enough why I didn't like him?

GENTLY

He wasn't so old and ugly . . .

FRIEDA

Yes, old and ugly. Perhaps not to you, but to me. I couldn't stand him. That's flat.

GENTLY

No other reason.

FRIEDA

None.

GENTLY

Like him staying on, and staying on.

FRIEDA

That was his business. He paid, didn't he?

GENTLY

(Doesn't say anything.)

FRIEDA

Him making a pass – that's filthy! A crude old boozer like that. You don't know what you are saying. He might have been my grandfather.

GENTLY

He was fifty-one.

FRIEDA

My father then. But too old! He stank of drink. Ask Rudi. His nose was blue from boozing scotch all day.

GENTLY

Weren't you sorry for him?

FRIEDA

That's likely. I just wanted him to go.

GENTLY

And he's gone.

FRIEDA

Yes, thank Heaven. Except it's made all this trouble.

Is Miss Breske trembling a little? She is holding her hands clasped very tightly. Her eyes are lowered to the small window-table on which lie six coloured-glass paperweights. They are the right sort of paperweight, it goes without saying, but Miss Breske has surely seen them before. Yet she gazes at them now, their whorls, twists, wheels and flowers. Does Gently notice? It seems not. He smokes quietly, watches the sea.

FRIEDA

I can't help it. I'm not sorry. I won't put on an act.

GENTLY

Your mother cried.

FRIEDA

Oh, her! She would cry about anything.

GENTLY

How does Trudi take it.

FRIEDA

I haven't asked her. What does she have to worry about?

GENTLY

It doesn't seem to have affected her tennis.

FRIEDA

(Shrugs, twists her mouth.)

GENTLY

You are not very close, you and Trudi.

FRIEDA