The October Cabaret

by Nancy Buckingham

Mr. Wyland and I would appreciate it, the one officer who spoke a little English remarked, that until the immediate formalities were over, if we would remain in Prague. The British authorities would be informed, naturally. Meantime, was there any assistance they could offer us? No? Then they would be in touch again later.

  When at last the questioning was over, when Ben had been booked into the hotel and another room found for me, he said, “And now for Kolder. Can you remember exactly where the house is, Tess?”

  “I think so. But he doesn’t speak any English, Ben. Is your German good enough?”

  “I’ll just have to do my best.”

  But first we had to play out the same charade that I had played with Peter. “If the police are not quite as unsuspicious as they pretend,” Ben pointed out, “we might find ourselves being tailed. We’ll act innocently, as if we’re merely filling in the time we’re forced to remain here, by looking around the city.”

  Today, though, I was the guide. Ben and I wandered in an aimless fashion to the Old Town Square. The time had reached an exact hour - which one I don’t remember - and the complicated mechanism of the astronomical clock whirred into action. Christ and the twelve apostles appeared in the little window... followed by the grim figure of Death.

  I turned away, suddenly feeling choked.

  “Let’s find somewhere to eat,” Ben suggested, gripping me by the elbow.

  “I couldn’t face food.”

  “You’ve got to, Tess. You’ve had nothing but that coffee the police ordered for us, and we don’t know what we might have to cope with.”

  But when your stomach is tight with nausea and dread, how is it possible to force down a meal? I settled for a snack at an outdoor cafe, a sort of beefburger with onion, plus another large cup of restoring coffee.

  Then on again, drawing slowly closer to our destination. Crossing the river by the pedestrianised Charles Bridge, we paused midway and leant for a few minutes against the parapet. Below us, the Hradcany was reflected in the blue waters, a shivering image that was broken apart when a skiff shot out from beneath the ancient arches of the bridge bearing a laughing young couple who were obviously lovers. I hated the lovely city views, hated the happy couple, because they contrasted so vividly with my own wretchedness.

  In the Little Quarter I lost my direction, and had to circle round before striking the right narrow cobbled street. Even then the houses all looked alike, but I eventually found the one with the bell-pull shaped like the hilt of a sword.

  This time there was no wait while the crippled Kolder limped to answer the bell. The door was opened almost at once by a different man. I couldn’t see him very clearly in the gloom of the hallway, but I caught a gleam of impassive eyes.

  “We want to see Mr. Kolder,” I said in English, and Ben immediately put it in German. “Heir Kolder, ist er zu House?”

  The man made a slight bow, and gestured for us to enter. He turned quickly and walked ahead of us along the passageway to the dingy room at the rear. The curtains had been drawn across the window, allowing only a glimmer of daylight through. As we entered a voice spoke from the gloom ... a cultured English voice.

  “Close the door, Josef, and let us have a little light on the scene.”

  The central bulb snapped on to reveal a tall figure rising from one of the chairs round the table. But I already knew who it was from his voice.

  “Denzil,” I gasped. “I... I don’t understand.”

  Just behind me, Ben said grimly, “I’ve been a bloody fool, Tess, walking us straight into a trap.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sir Denzil Boyd-Ashby smiled at us blandly. “I’m afraid that you are only too right, my dear Ben. You have indeed walked into my parlour. I was counting on you coming round here post-haste, and I did so want to have a little chat with you. I confess that I’m intrigued to know how you come to be in Prague. It was a great surprise to Josef when you burst into Tess’s hotel room like that. He was expecting her, of course.”

  Josef... Sir Denzil’s chauffeur. I swung round to look at the man who was standing stolidly by the door. I ought to have recognised him when he let us in, but here in Prague a Slavic face was unremarkable, and there had not been much light in the passageway.

  “So it was he who killed Peter,” I said bitterly. “On your orders, I presume?”

  Denzil inclined his head as if it were something to take credit for. “Kemp had become a danger to me, probing into things that were no concern of his.”

  “Come on, Tess,” said Ben, catching hold of my hand. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “I think not,” said Denzil.

  “What’s to stop us?”

  “Take another look at Josef and you’ll see.”

  We both turned again, and found that Josef was holding a gun on us. There was no emotion in the man’s face, it remained coldly impassive.

  “What’s this all about?” Ben demanded angrily.

  Denzil glanced at me, his eyebrows raised. “How much did Peter explain to you before his unfortunate demise?”

  “He told me some of it,” I said, “but he didn’t actually say who it was who had been making use of him.”

  “Making use of him? I hardly think that described the situation,” Denzil objected. “Peter Kemp was an impatient young man who wanted a shortcut to the good things of life. Although he had been in legal practice a mere couple of years, he was already doing extremely well for himself ... largely due to my influence. And in return I asked so little of him. Just a few trifling odds and ends of business that wouldn’t bear too close a scrutiny... things I preferred my solicitors in London not to know about.”

  “Doing your dirty work for you.” Ben said scornfully.

  “Come now, can you call making Tess an offer for her little antique shop dirty work? A most excellent offer, too.”

  “That was you,” I jerked out. “But what did a man in your position want with Pennicott’s Emporium?”

  “My reason concerned a certain item of Sèvres porcelain. I felt convinced that the little sugar box - or news of it - would turn up sooner or later at your shop. It was a real puzzle to me where Maynard could have hidden the thing before he died ... until the other evening when I was taking you home, Tess, you yourself suggested the answer.”

  “Me?”

  “We met your friend, if you remember, out for his regular stroll,” Denzil explained, and continued, “When I telephoned Maynard that last evening, asking him to meet me urgently, he was in a hurry to find a hiding place for the sugar box...”

  “Hiding place?” I echoed. “Why?”

  “Because, d’you see”—this with a rueful smile—“your uncle knew how much I wanted it, and he understood me well enough to know that I was quite capable of having it lifted from his premises, even from the safe itself, while I’d got him out of the way. His old friend round the corner seemed the best solution. Maynard couldn’t have guessed, poor man, that he was never going to return home from that meeting with me.”

  I heard Ben’s quick intake of breath. “You enticed him out with the deliberate intention of murdering him?”

  “Why does the thought shock you? Life is unimportant, my dear Ben. It’s living that matters. Or is that too great a paradox for your conventional mind to grasp?”

  “As long as it’s you doing the living and other people doing the dying—that’s what you’re really saying, isn’t it?”

  “You misjudge me. I rate my own life or death no higher than that of others. But every moment of every day that I’m still here on this earth, I want to feel that I am truly living. Not existing, you understand. Living!”

  “And crime and murder make up your idea of living?” Ben asked sarcastically.

  Denzil’s anger flared briefly, then he gave an easy laugh. “Mere trivialities, Ben. The taking of risks is what it’s all about. But what can a young man of your generation know about that? You have never undergone training in organised crime and killing -aspects of lif
e which you regard as reprehensible. You weren’t parachuted into occupied Europe by the Special Operations Executive, as I was. Here in Prague, back in those days, I had to plot and carry out the execution of a high-ranking member of the Gestapo. Weeks and months of meticulous planning, weeks and months of great danger and enormous excitement. We finally succeeded, I’m glad to say, and most of us managed to get away.”

  “That was a war situation,” Ben pointed out.

  ‘“All life is war, my friend.”

  I broke in, “Was Ludvik Kolder one of your group?”

  “Yes, I recruited him... or his wife, rather. Vlasta was a most delightful woman. She offered me shelter—and other comforts, over a period of almost twelve months. They were living in this same house, but Ludvik was so wrapped up in his job that he quite oblivious of our relationship. He worked for a small art pottery, having been excused further war work on account of the accident that left him crippled. Frequently, he brought home an item of porcelain to be decorated, and it fascinated me to see him at work. He was totally dedicated, a superb craftsman. But no husband for a warm-blooded woman. Poor Vlasta! After me, so I heard, she offered similar solace to a number of German Army officers, and it seems the Russians took exception to this. Ever since the day they carried her off, Ludvik has lived the life of a recluse.”

  “And you made use of him? You deliberately played on his mental condition and made him work for you.” I glanced around. “Where is he now? Have you killed him, too, like my uncle and Peter?”

  “God forbid, I still have use for his unique talents. No, the man was so affected by his orgy of destruction - such a regrettable waste - that he drank a whole bottle of Slivovice. He was barely able to stumble out a coherent story to me about your visit when we arrived, and now he’s sleeping it off. Tomorrow he must begin the laborious task of replacing all that broken porcelain. At least this time he will only need to manufacture ten cabarets. I have two of the genuine originals in my possession ... those for April and October.”

  “But you can’t have,” I protested. “Luke Webster destroyed the October Cabaret. He smashed it up and threw the pieces into the sea,”

  “Pearl told you that, did she?”

  “She spilled it out to me when she realised I knew that Luke was her son.”

  Denzil acknowledged his surprise. “But what she told you wasn’t true, d’you see. She was merely repeating what I’d told here.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “Pearl was desperately worried about Luke, and she turned to me for advice,” he explained. “The boy was running scared by that time. You two had tackled him about that sugar box he’d pocketed, and the old lady was dead and the rest of her porcelain missing. Luke told his mother on the phone that he needed a large sum of money so that he could go into hiding and be safe, and Pearl asked me what I thought she ought to do about him.”

  “Why you?” I said, still bewildered.

  His expression was smugly self-satisfied. “Pearl had been missing your uncle in more ways than one, you understand. So she was only too ready to respond when I offered her my friendship and sympathy. Besides, I had promised her the shop to run when I’d bought you out.”

  “So that’s why Pearl behaved as if it was hers already. I could tell from the start that she resented me. But according to Pearl, Luke told her he had smashed the cabaret because he was so scared ... because he’d been responsible for Miss Willoughby’s death.”

  Denzil looked entertained. “It made a nicely rounded tale, I thought. Pearl swallowed every word, without question. I had promised her, d’you see, that I would talk to the boy, and she was very grateful. Then after his death, I phoned here and asked her to meet me ...”

  “The call she had just before lunchtime on Friday?”

  “Yes. When Pearl met me I broke the sad news about Luke. I told her that when I talked to him, as promised, he had broken down and confessed to having accidentally killed the old lady while he was stealing her cabaret. It was my opinion, I added, that Luke had taken his own life out of fear and remorse.”

  “Peter thought all along,” I said, “that there was something phoney about what Pearl told me. But I refused to believe that any woman could have invented such a terrible story about her own son.” A suspicion leapt into my mind. “And Luke’s ... accident?”

  Denzil gestured to where his manservant stood guard behind us.

  “Josef was with me in the S.O.E. He was only a lad then, but he was a quick pupil in the art of killing. There are so many ways. In Miss Ruth Willoughby’s case, a good push from halfway up the stairs was enough to break her neck. Luke was simply run off the road, without so much as a tell-tale scratch on the paintwork of my Volvo. With Peter, of course, it was a knifing.”

  “And I would have been stabbed to death too, I suppose, if Ben hadn’t come into the room first?”

  “That was the plan,” Denzil agreed. “As it happens, it was the second time Ben’s action saved you from death.”

  “The second time?” My mind zigzagged back. “You mean that day when I was pushed in front of his car?”

  “Exactly. If Ben hadn’t been so quick to brake...”

  “But why did you want me dead?” I asked. “I couldn’t have been a threat to you then.”

  “You had become one, my dear Tess, the moment Peter reported to me that you weren’t interested in being bought out. I promptly set Josef to keep a close eye on you for a day or two, to see what you got up to. As he was standing behind you, waiting to cross the road, he saw his chance of a quick solution to our little problem. Alas, though, it didn’t work out as he’d hoped, and after that we dared not try anything of the same kind again. Once would appear accidental, but twice, no.”

  I became aware that Ben had been edging closer to me. With an urgent, “Keep down, Tess,” he gave me a hard shove that sent me sprawling half under the table, away from the pointing gun, and in the very same movement he launched himself on Denzil, spinning him round and catching him in an armlock from behind.

  “Don’t try anything,” he threatened Josef, “or I’ll break his neck.”

  The gun wavered uncertainly, but Denzil said with a smothered laugh, “Leave it, Josef, I’ll deal with this.”

  The movements he made were lazy, almost contemptuous. He seemed to hitch a foot behind Ben’s leg to rock him off-balance, then twisted away from his hold and administered a hand chop that sent Ben down.

  “It was a good manoeuvre, Ben, I grant you that.” Denzil fussily adjusted the cuff of his silk shirt. “If you had not been dealing with someone trained in unarmed combat, it might well have succeeded.”

  Ben got to his feet and helped me up. “Are you okay, Tess?”

  “Sure.” I managed a limp smile for him.

  Denzil seemed suddenly to become impatient. “Take them away, Josef... the top room. I’ll be up later when I have decided what’s to be done.”

  “Are you planning to kill us, too?” I asked bitterly.

  A sardonic gleam. “That, my dear Tess, is something you must work out for yourself.”

  With Josef gripping my arm and his pistol dug in between my shoulder blades, Ben and I hadn’t much choice. As we were herded out of the room I paused at the door in an unreasoning play for time, and said to Denzil, “Why did you kill my uncle? What harm had he ever done you?”

  “None at all, dear girl, Maynard and I had always enjoyed a most cordial relationship. What concerned me was the harm he would have done by blundering into something he didn’t understand. When Luke Webster brought him that little sugar box he’d lifted, Maynard realised at once that he was on to a big find, and his thoughts ran to the credit that would be his for rediscovering part of the famous Romanov Cabarets. But he also realised that the situation was very delicate, because the sugar box had come into his possession through theft, so he decided the best thing was to try and return it to the old lady before she discovered its loss. His intention was to introduce himself as a dealer in
antique porcelain, and hope to slip the sugar box back into her china cabinet while examining the other pieces there. But when he called at her cottage she was laid up with a cold, and he had to leave the matter in abeyance.”

  “How did you find out about it?” I asked.

  “It was one day when I happened to call at the shop. Maynard very secretively produced the sugar box and asked me for an opinion, knowing that in such matters I was something of an expert. One glance, and I was able to confirm that this was indeed a piece from the Romanov Cabarets. But he flatly refused to say how or where he’d acquired it.”

  “What did Maynard intend doing after he’d put the sugar box back with the rest of the set?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not sure he knew that himself. Much would depend on how it had come into the old lady’s hands... whether she could legitimately claim ownership. But the point was whatever he did would have spelt danger for me. There is a wealthy collector in Athens, d’you see, who two years ago was overjoyed to purchase from me the entire collection of Romanov Cabarets. I had invented an imaginative story for his benefit to explain the need for the very strictest secrecy. I won’t bore you with the details, but it involved an émigré Russian prince now living in Monte Carlo, a member of the Politburo, and a high official at the Vatican. Now what do you suppose this Greek gentleman would think of me if it emerged that I had hoodwinked him?”

  “There’s nothing he could do about it, though,” I said, “considering that he’d been conned into what he believed was a crooked deal.”

  “No? His arm has a very long reach. There would soon be a contract out on me, as the saying goes.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about death,” Ben observed.

  “I don’t. But avoiding death is an interesting move in the game.”

  “Game?” I cried furiously. “Yes, it must have been immensely entertaining to pump my uncle full of insulin and leave him to die.”

  “You’ve worked that out, have you?” Denzil conceded me a small bow. “Yes, it was a neat little operation, despite it misfiring at the end. Josef and I gave him an injection which Maynard knew would prove fatal if he was denied food to balance it. Then I sat back and demanded to know precisely where I could lay hands on both the sugar box and the rest of the October Cabaret. After only a short time he sensibly gave in and provided the name and address of Miss Ruth Willoughby at Malt House Cottage, Plyming. The sugar box, he eventually told me when he was becoming rather faint, was in the safe at his shop. I despatched Josef at once with Maynard’s keys, but unfortunately your uncle took a sudden turn for the worse and went into a coma from which I couldn’t revive him. I hardly thought this mattered, until Josef returned with the news that the sugar box was not in the safe, or anywhere else that he could discover - and he is no novice when it comes to searching a place.”