by M. M. Kaye
‘Frau Ridder? Not a very remarkable woman in any way. Youngish, dark hair and eyes. Medium height, medium size, passably good-looking, but dressed in excruciatingly bad taste. I remember thinking that she must be colourblind. She favoured very bright colours. That peculiar and cruel shade of blue satin that sets one’s teeth on edge.’
‘And what about him? Herr Willi?’
‘The same. A rather average Teutonic type. Blond and ordinary, except for a pair of very pale blue eyes that somehow gave you the impression that they could bore holes through the side of a battleship. A deceptive sort of chap. The kind who would always choose to be the power behind the throne rather than the man who sits on it.’
Stella said: ‘Well, I’ve never been so thrilled in my life! I shall be able to dine out on this for the rest of my days. Robert, tell the waiter we’ll have our coffee in the hall, will you, darling? Coming, Miranda?’
CHAPTER 3
The train rocked and swayed to the clattering rhythm of the iron wheels, but Stella did not hear them for she was already asleep. She had borrowed two capsules of sleeping powders from Brigadier Brindley, who apparently never travelled without them, and these, combined with fatigue and the emotions of the earlier evening, had sent her into deep and dreamless sleep barely a minute or so after her head had touched the pillow. She had taken the upper berth, and the dim glow of the small reading-light at the head of Robert’s berth below faintly illuminated her face and the blond waves of hair that were as neatly pinned for the night as though she had been in her own bedroom at Mallow.
Robert stood looking at her for a moment, swaying to the swing of the train. In that dim light she appeared strangely young and exhausted. Poor Stel’, thought Robert, how she does hate it! But there was nothing he could do about it. He could not, as Stella wished, leave the Army. It was the only profession he knew and he had few illusions as to his abilities. If I’m lucky, thought Robert dispassionately, I may be able to retire as substantive lieutenant-colonel—but only if I’m lucky. That’s about as far as I shall get. But if I chucked the Army now and tried for a civil job, I should probably end up as an office boy or a tout for vacuum cleaners. Stella doesn’t understand. I’d retire tomorrow and try and farm the place myself, if we had the money. But we haven’t, and that’s all there is to it. It’s a pity she hates this sort of life; it’s not a bad one really, but I suppose you have to have some sort of vocation or a military background to enable you to follow the drum and like it.
He yawned tiredly and sat down on the edge of his berth to remove his slippers. He had not realized that the Pages would be on the same train. A bit awkward, their being in Berlin. He would have to be careful. Sally was a sweet creature, but … Robert wriggled in between the sheets and switched off the light____
Fancy meeting old Brindley again! He hadn’t seen him for over eight years—or was it nine? Not since before his father had been killed on the Anzio beaches. Queer story that. It had given Miranda a bit of a jolt. A fortune in diamonds, lost and perhaps still unclaimed. He could do with a handful of diamonds himself … and who couldn’t?
* * *
In the compartment next door Mademoiselle Beljame lifted a woollen dressing-gown of Edwardian design from an aged Gladstone bag, moving quietly so as not to wake Lottie who lay in the shadows of the upper berth. A flannel nightdress followed, and a pair of hand-knitted slippers. Mademoiselle laid them out upon the berth and half filled the small washbasin with warm water. The water sloshed to and fro with the movement of the train and made a soft, slapping sound that provided a counterpoint to the squeaks and rattles of the train. Mademoiselle peered at her watch and then held it to her ear to make sure that it was still going; it was late then! She placed the watch carefully on a little shelf over the basin and, catching sight of herself in the mirror above it, leant forward and peered intently at her reflection. It was time she gave herself another application of the dye. She lifted a bony finger and touched the centre parting of her severely dressed hair. Tomorrow, or the next day, she must see to it.
Before the war, thought Mademoiselle, you were a young woman. Yet now you are an old one. Old and ugly.
She drew a long, quivering breath, and began to undress. It was well that she had been able to procure hot milk for the child. And what luck that the elderly Englishman should have offered her a sleeping powder, for to sleep well on trains was not always possible. But tonight, thanks to the Brigadier, a sound night’s sleep could be guaranteed.
* * *
‘Well here we are, almost back in Berlin!’
Harry Marson yawned and pulled the blankets up about his chin: ‘I shall be quite glad to get back to some central heating again. That house of Uncle Ted’s is hellishly draughty—though I must admit that his port more than makes up for it!’
Major Marson ruminated for a moment or two, but his wife remained silent, and presently he spoke again.
‘What did you make of that old bird’s story this evening? Queer, wasn’t it? I remember hearing about that chap Ridder when I was staying with Uncle Bill in Berlin before the war. I may even have met him. Odd coincidence about the Melvilles’ kid cousin, wasn’t it? If you read that in a book you’d say “too far-fetched”. Except that when one comes to think of it, the Brigadier has probably told that story to so many people that the odds against his eventually telling it to another army chap like Robert are not so high as you’d think.’
There was still no sound from the lower berth.
‘A fortune in diamonds!’ mused Harry Marson. ‘No wonder the blighter decided to stick to them. Any man of sense would probably have felt like doing the same. I wish to God I could get my hands on a fortune! In fact just now I’d settle for a thousand quid, cash down. How the hell we’re going to____Are you asleep, Elsa?’
But Elsa Marson was not asleep. She lay quite still, staring into the darkness and wishing with all her heart that the train was taking her anywhere but to Berlin. If only she need not have come back! If only Harry had allowed her to stay behind in England. But he would not hear of it: ‘Not go back to Berlin? Don’t be silly, darling! No housework, no servant troubles, no rationing; lovely house and loving husband. What more could you want? Besides I can’t do without you—and anyway I can’t afford to keep you at home.’
So here she was, with the train rushing remorselessly through the night and every mile bringing her nearer and nearer to the ruined, fear-haunted, faction-torn capital of Germany.
Elsa Marson, whose soft speaking voice with its slight broken accent so plainly proclaimed her foreign birth, turned on her pillow and wept for the safety of humdrum English towns with as passionate a longing as Stella had wept for Mallow: though her reasons for doing so were not entirely similar.
* * *
Odd seeing George Brindley again after all these years, thought Colonel Leslie. Wonder if he recognized me? Probably not. It’s been a longish time. Just the same talkative ass. Sleeping pills! It used to be quinine. Never knew such a man for dosing himself. I wonder … He climbed cautiously up into the upper berth.
Norah Leslie removed her hat, and taking off her gloves, frowned at the sight of their blackened palms and fingers. Continental trains were so dirty, and British ones almost worse. Perhaps if she gave them a quick wash now they would be dry before morning? The carriage was very hot and she could hang them near the pipes. She removed her coat and skirt and pressed the taps of the small fitted basin, wondering if her sons, left behind in England, would be asleep. Yes of course they would be. Hours ago! It must be very late …
Her thoughts veered off at a tangent: Robert—Robert and that woman! Why had it got to be Robert? Why didn’t men see through women like that? Selfish, spoilt, grabbing, dog-in-the-manger women. The kind who would always try and eat their cake and have it, and who so often succeeded in doing both.
Mrs Leslie reached for the soap and began to wash her gloves, scrubbing savagely at the inoffensive fabric.
* * *
Sa
lly and Andy Page were quarrelling. They quarrelled too often these days and about too many trivial things. They were young, and had yet to learn that the strength of the matrimonial tie is not best proved by subjecting it to constant strain.
‘All right then! You don’t care a damn about him, and he’s just a charming chap who dances like a dream! But is that any reason why you should look at him as though you were some frightful bobbysoxer goggling at the latest American crooner?’
‘I did nothing of the sort!’
‘Oh yes, you did! Everybody must have noticed it. It was quite blatant. You used to do it in Fayid, and now here you go again. One look at that glamorous profile, and you go weak at the knees.’
‘The trouble with you,’ said Sally furiously, ‘is that you’re small-minded and riddled with jealousy and inferiority complexes! Just because someone is better looking and better mannered and senior to you, you’re jealous of him, and I’m not allowed to be even polite to him. If he were uglier and more junior, you wouldn’t give a damn! I ought never to have married you. What do I get out of it? I pinch and scrape and save and wear old clothes and never have any fun, and when anyone under sixty speaks to me there’s a vulgar, selfish, jealous scene!’
‘Sally, you know that’s not true!’
‘It is! It is! You are jealous—and you’re selfish too. You only think of yourself. You wouldn’t let me have a fur coat, but you bought yourself that camera! You sit around and scowl and gloom, and when I talk to Bob Melville, who is amusing and interesting, you resent it and accuse me of behaving like a drooling bobbysoxer!’
‘Sally, that isn’t fair. You know it’s not. You knew before you married me that we’d be very hard up. But you wanted us to get married at once…’
‘That’s right! Blame it on to me. And I suppose you didn’t want to marry me at all?’
‘Darling, don’t! You know I did. Desperately badly. Only I knew what it would let you in for. I can’t buy you fur coats: and as for the camera, you know quite well that I swopped it with John Ellery for two quid and that set of hunting prints you liked. We shan’t always be as broke as this, darling. And you do have fun, whatever you say. We never seem to stop going to parties. Or giving them—in fact that’s what keeps us permanently in the red! That, and the fact that you spend a small fortune on Chanel scent and Lizzie Arden make-up, and always having your hair done by the most expensive hairdresser you can find, even though you know quite well that it’s “coals to Newcastle” and that you’d look every bit as good if you used no make-up at all and just left your face and your hair alone. No wonder we’re always____’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Sally drearily. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more. We shall only start talking about bills again, and I can’t bear it. I wish I had those diamonds that Brigadier was talking about. Millions!—just think of it! It isn’t fair. I wonder who’s got them now?’
But Andy did not answer.
* * *
Amazing! thought Brigadier Brindley drowsily. Quite extra-ordinary! Chance in a thousand … He was asleep.
CHAPTER 4
… clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. The train rushed on through the night towards Berlin, and Miranda began to put words to the monotonous song of the wheels as an alternative to counting sheep. It was long past midnight, but she could not sleep.
‘I want to go home … I want to go home … I want to go home.’ That would be Stella. Poor Stella! It must be cruel to have to live a life you hated in order to be with the man you loved. Well you can’t have it both ways, thought Miranda. But why not? Millions of people did. Stella was just unlucky.
‘Shan’t go to bed! Shan’t go to bed! Shan’t go to bed!’ ‘Lottie-the-Devil-Cat’.
‘Cela suffit! Cela suffit! Cela suffit!’ Mademoiselle. A repellent woman, thought Miranda. Bony, greying and bespectacled: apparently suffering from a perpetual cold and given to nibbling caraway seeds like some desiccated Victorian spinster. It was difficult to realize that anyone like Mademoiselle had ever been young and lighthearted, yet traces of feminine vanity evidently lingered even in Mademoiselle’s flinty bosom, for despite the fact that her scanty hair was obviously grey she persisted in secretly doctoring it with the contents of a small sticky bottle of dye; although the resulting jetty blackness, especially after a fresh application, added to rather than detracted from her years. She had been in Lille when the German Army had swept through France, and had been unable to return to her native Switzerland. Later, under suspicion of being involved with the Underground Movement, she had been sent to a concentration camp in which she had spent the greater part of the war. Mademoiselle was fond of enlarging on her sufferings during that time, but although one could not help feeling sorry for her, it was impossible to like her.
Miranda yawned, wriggled, jerked irritably at her blankets, and wished fervently that she had accepted Brigadier Brindley’s offer of a sleeping pill. She had refused them, watching with inward scorn as the Brigadier swallowed two with his coffee, and thinking that he was just the sort of man whom one would expect to carry about little boxes and bottles of capsules. ‘Never travel without ’em!’ said the Brigadier: ‘Can’t sleep in a train. I found that out years ago, so when I can’t avoid travelling by night I take a couple of these. Works like magic. Like to try one? No after-effects I assure you. Excellent stuff.’
Mademoiselle, who had an incurable passion for pills in any form, had accepted one, and Stella had taken two, saying that she would try anything if only it would give her a decent night’s sleep after the torture of the Harwich crossing. She had broken the small capsules in half, and stirring the powdered contents into her coffee, drunk it there and then. Miranda envied them their forethought.
There were not many passengers travelling to Berlin that night, and the train being half empty, Miranda and Brigadier Brindley had each been allotted a two-berth compartment to themselves. The Brigadier was next door to Miranda, and, she thought crossly, undoubtedly sleeping like a log. Somewhere down the corridor ‘Lottie-the-Devil-Cat’, soothed by hot milk, would be asleep and probably snoring (Lottie suffered from adenoids), while Stella and Mademoiselle, thanks to the Brigadier’s pills, would also be sleeping soundly. Only she, Miranda, was awake …
The narrow compartment was close and stuffy and she wondered if she would do better on the upper berth, but a vague recollection that hot air rises caused her to abandon the idea. She threw off her blankets instead, and after a few moments discovered that it was, after all, colder than she had thought, and pulled them back again. She shut her eyes and tried to will herself to go to sleep, but it was no use, and she opened them again and lay staring into the darkness.
A latch clicked somewhere near at hand and a faint thread of light showed under the locked door that lay between the two compartments. So much for the efficacy of the Brigadier’s sleeping pills! thought Miranda.
The light vanished, and Miranda yawned and presently decided that she was thirsty. She would have a drink of water and read a book.
Almost on the heels of the thought she remembered that she had not got a book: she had lent it to Stella, and Sally Page had borrowed her only magazine during the afternoon and had failed to return it. Worse still, she had no drinking water, having upset the carafe while cleaning her teeth.
‘Damn!’ said Miranda, speaking aloud into the darkness.
She thought she heard someone pass down the corridor, and on a sudden impulse wriggled down to the other end of her berth, and groping for the handle of the door, turned it and pulled the door open. If the elderly and kindly faced sleeping-car attendant was patrolling the corridor to see if all was well with the passengers, he could probably get her a glass of water—or better still, a hot drink.
Miranda thrust her feet into her bedroom slippers and reached for her dressing-gown and having tied the sash round her slim waist, stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her. The attendant—if it had been him—had vanished, and the cor
ridor stretched emptily away on either hand, bounded on the one side by a long line of closed doors and on the other by a blank wall of black window-blinds.
It was colder out here than it had been in her compartment. The train rocked and jiggled to the click and clatter of the flying wheels, but the corridor seemed uncannily silent, and for a fleeting moment Miranda had the disturbing fancy that behind every closed door there was someone who stood quite still, holding their breath to listen.
She shivered suddenly, and pulling the warm velvet folds of her dressing-gown closer about her throat, marched briskly off in search of the attendant.
The Dienstraum, the small cabin occupied by the sleeping-car attendant, was empty, and the lavatory beyond it boasted no drinking water. Miranda gave it up and decided to return to her own compartment: there was sure to be a bell there and it was stupid of her not to have thought of that before. Nevertheless she lingered by the open door of the attendant’s brightly lit room, half hoping that he might return, and seized by an inexplicable reluctance to return down that long, cold, empty stretch of corridor.
What is the matter with me tonight? thought Miranda impatiently. Why do I keep imagining things? She would never have suspected herself of being a person subject to nerves or delusions, or even especially receptive to atmosphere; but even here, in a deserted corridor of the Berlin train, with a dozen people sleeping peacefully near at hand and twenty or thirty British troops not two coaches distant, she was conscious of a queer tremor of uneasiness: a prickling of the scalp as though unseen eyes were watching her, and a nervous desire to look over her shoulder.
Succumbing to that impulse, Miranda glanced quickly over her shoulder and started violently. But it was only the reflection of her own face in a looking-glass in the attendant’s compartment that had startled her, and not someone standing behind her. Feeling exceedingly foolish and more than a little cross, and with her heart still beating uncomfortably fast, Miranda turned and walked rapidly back along the corridor.