by M. M. Kaye
‘How can you possibly know? There were so many people on that train. Dozens of others!’ Once again there was a thin edge of panic to Miranda’s voice.
‘It’s quite simple,’ said Simon Lang softly. ‘He was killed with a knife that had been taken off the reception desk at the hostel at Bad Oeynhausen. It belonged to the manager who used it as a paperknife and for sharpening pencils, and it was on his desk during the earlier part of the evening, because one of the staff remembers using it to cut a piece of string. Someone must have picked it up between then and the time that the passengers left for the train. And it could only have been one of the people who had used the Families’ Hostel. Which rules out everyone except the people you have mentioned.’
‘But—but one of the Germans—a waiter at the hostel—one of the staff could have taken it.’
‘None of them were on the train.’
‘But they could have given it to someone! The attendant…’
‘The attendant was with a sick man in the next coach at the time the murder was committed; and five people can prove it.’
Miranda said: ‘How do you know when it was committed?’ Her voice had wavered a little for she could not believe—she would not—that one of the people who had sat near her at supper only last night could be capable of that savage act.
‘Blood,’ said Simon Lang. The single, softly spoken word sounded horribly loud in the quiet room. ‘It clots and dries very quickly. You had brushed against it; there was a wet stain on you dressing-gown and your slippers were soaked with it. When I reached the carriage it was still wet, but it was beginning to coagulate and the body was warm. Brigadier Brindley cannot have been killed more than ten to fifteen minutes at the most before you entered his compartment. Possibly less. If the murderer had only had the sense to leave the weapon in the wound instead of pulling it out, we should probably not have discovered the murder until the attendant went round calling people in the morning; and by that time it might have been a little more difficult to fix the time of death. As it was the murderer pulled out the knife, which would have served to plug the wound, and the resulting rush of blood was the cause of your discovering it. I imagine that the first idea was to get rid of a weapon that could be traced, and then the difficulty of carrying it away without getting smeared with blood resulted in its being dropped on the floor and left.’
‘It can’t be true!’ said Miranda. ‘There must be some other explanation. I’ve talked to these people. They are all three perfectly nice and very ordinary people.’
‘Three?’ Simon Lang’s expressive eyebrows lifted slightly.
Miranda said quickly: ‘If you think Robert could possibly murder anyone it shows that you don’t know the first thing about him. Well I do. I’ve known him for years, so I know he couldn’t conceivably do it.’
‘Calm down, my child,’ said Simon equably. ‘No one is casting doubts upon your cousin. Although I imagine that given sufficient incentive, more people are capable of murder than one would suppose. In fact some of the world’s most notorious killers have been mild little people whom their families and friends were convinced “wouldn’t hurt a fly”.’
‘You’ve forgotten Stella,’ interrupted Miranda scornfully. ‘If Robert had left the compartment during the night, Stella would have heard him.’
‘But Mrs Melville had taken sleeping powders,’ said Simon Lang gently. ‘Quite a few people saw her take them, including yourself. It might have given him just the opportunity he needed.’
‘You can’t believe that!’ said Miranda. ‘You can’t!’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I wasn’t advancing it as my opinion. At the moment I’m keeping an open mind. No, I was merely interested in your arithmetic. Why “three”? I make it eleven. Or a round dozen, if we are to include the young dead-ender you were pursuing down the passage earlier on.’
‘You mean you think a woman…? It couldn’t be!’
‘Why not?’ There was a distinct glint of mockery in his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you think women are frail flowers incapable of violence? We have it on record that “The female of the species is more deadly than the male!” My dear, anyone could have done the job—in the circumstances.’
‘What do you mean? In what circumstances?’
‘Brigadier Brindley had taken two capsules of a particularly effective sleeping powder, and we can take it the murderer was aware of the fact. The weapon was exceedingly sharp and had a double edge and a point like a needle. Whoever used it walked calmly into the Brigadier’s compartment, either turned on the small reading-light over the top berth or used a torch or a cigarette lighter, drew down the blankets to make things easier, and stabbed the knife home to the hilt. Given those advantages—a doped man and a knife of that type—a child could have done it. And I mean that quite literally. Even young Wally could have done the job; granted he had the nerve and some elementary knowledge of anatomy. However I think we can safely count him out, which leaves us with eleven suspects. Two Marsons, two Melvilles, two Pages, two Leslies, Mademoiselle Beljame, Mrs Wilkin—and Miss Miranda Brand.’
‘“And the last shall be first,”’ quoted Miranda flippantly, an angry sparkle in her eyes. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘Not necessarily,’ returned Simon Lang without heat. ‘I told you that I’m keeping an open mind. So far, I will admit, you are our most promising suspect. Whoever killed Brigadier Brindley either wore gloves or wrapped the handle of the knife in a handkerchief, and we haven’t found anything among the luggage that shows signs of having had bloodstains on it. But the chances are that whoever killed him got some blood on him—or her. On their hands if nowhere else.’
‘But—but I had blood on my hands,’ whispered Miranda: ‘I rubbed my hand over the mark on my dressing-gown … That was how I—I saw what it was.’
‘I know,’ said Simon Lang quietly.
He reached out and took both her cold hands in his and held them for a moment in a warm clasp that was curiously comforting: ‘Don’t let it worry you. You’ll be quite safe as long as you stick to the truth.’
‘I’ve told you the truth,’ said Miranda shakily.
‘I believe you have. With reservations____!’ He released her hands and smiled a little crookedly. ‘Anyway, you would appear to have no motive. Not that that is much help in the present instance, since the same seems to apply to all of you. What we need are a few really reliable alibis.’
‘I’m the only one who needs an alibi,’ said Miranda with an uncertain laugh. ‘Everyone else has got one, because they were all sleeping two to a compartment. That’s an alibi in itself.’
‘Not always. Husbands and wives are odd in that way. They will alibi each other for any number of reasons, ranging from devotion to a desire not to be involved, in any way whatever, with anything as socially damning as murder.’
Miranda said: ‘Well, you can cut Stella off your list, for one.’
‘Why?’
‘You told me a minute ago that Robert hasn’t an alibi because he knew that Stella had taken the same amount of dope as the Brigadier and was therefore out like a light. And you can’t have it both ways.’
‘But I can,’ Simon Lang assured her, ‘I can merely look at it from another angle. Suppose Mrs Melville merely pretended to take the pills? It’s perfectly possible.’
‘Why should she do anything so silly?’
‘To fake an alibi perhaps? It would be quite a good one and very difficult to disprove.’
‘And I suppose Mademoiselle was also faking up an alibi?’ said Miranda coldly.
‘Not such a good one,’ said Simon, unruffled. ‘She only took one capsule.’
‘Or pretended to take one!’
‘Or pretended to take one,’ agreed Simon. ‘So you see we still have eleven suspects and not one watertight alibi among them.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ declared Miranda. ‘Stella has one, and I’ll tell you why. She did take those sleeping pills and I can prove it. She hates s
wallowing pills. She always powders them up first. She didn’t swallow the capsules; she broke them open and stirred the stuff into her coffee and drank it. And we all saw her do it. So unless you think that the Brigadier deliberately palmed off two fake capsules on her, and she knew it, and knew that she was taking something that wouldn’t make her sleep, you’ve lost one suspect.’
‘Are you telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?’ inquired Simon Lang seriously.
‘I don’t have to say that until you’ve got me in the witness-box,’ retorted Miranda bitterly. ‘And I’m not there yet. Yes, of course I’m telling you the truth! Ask Mademoiselle if you don’t believe me. Ask Robert. Ask Lottie! Telephone Bad Oeynhausen and ask the waiter who served the coffee!’
‘All right, all right, all right,’ said Simon Lang pacifically. ‘The point is taken. And disabuse yourself of the idea that I am trying to pin the crime on some innocent person merely for the sake of collecting a victim.’
Miranda’s tense attitude relaxed and she sank back in her chair and gave a shaky laugh.
‘That’s better,’ approved Simon.
There were voices in the hall beyond the lounge, and he glanced at his wristwatch and stood up.
‘Well, that’s about all for the moment. I’m afraid you’ll probably be asked to go over the same ground again during the next few days, so I shall be seeing you. Thank you for bearing with me so well.’
He smiled down at her. A slow smile that broke up the planes of his face and transformed him into an entirely different and very likeable person.
The next moment the lounge was full of people and Simon Lang had gone.
* * *
Miranda went out onto the landing where she found Lottie and Wally Wilkin playing in the lift.
Wally turned to fly at the sight of her, but this time Miranda was too quick for him.
‘Listen to me, you young menace,’ said Miranda, retaining a firm grip upon the writhing child. ‘If I ever catch you creeping into other people’s rooms wearing paper masks again, I’ll—I’ll bastinado you!’
Wally’s eel-like struggles ceased and an unexpected look of interest came over his freckled face: ‘’Ow could you do that? Mum’s got ’er marriage lines: I seen ’em.’
‘What on earth____?’ began Miranda, puzzled; then the sudden realization that he had confused the word with one more familiar to him betrayed her into a laugh.
‘You ought not to know the meaning of words like that!’ she said with attempted severity. ‘Bastinado, you precocious little imp. It’s a Chinese torture!’ Miranda put a slim forefinger to each temple, drew her lovely eyes up into an oriental slant and pulled her curving mouth into a grimace that would have done credit to any cereal package.
‘Coo!’ said Wally, a wealth of admiration in the tone. ‘D’you know any more Chinese tortures?’
‘Lots!’ said Miranda mendaciously. ‘So just you watch your step, young Wally, or you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of them one of these days!’
Wally favoured her with a wide and gap-toothed grin. ‘Garn!’ he said, ‘yer too soft-’earted!’
Miranda tweaked his nose and released him: ‘And now get out of that lift, both of you, or you’ll have the manager after you. What are you doing down here anyway, Lottie? Waiting for your mother to come back?’
‘She’s back,’ said Charlotte. ‘She came back a long time ago. Hours ’n hours.’
‘Oh. Well I’d better go and find her.’
Stella was in her bedroom. And looking remarkably pretty, thought Miranda, for a woman who had travelled non-stop for over forty-eight hours, been interviewed by the police over a murder case, and worked hard taking over a new house and a foreign staff in a strange city. She had lost all trace of weariness, and her manner was almost feverishly gay. A brilliant colour burned in her cheeks and her eyes were over-bright.
‘Hullo, Miranda darling. What a day! I hear you’ve been spending the afternoon being third-degreed by the police? They were around asking endless questions half the morning. They had a session with Mademoiselle too, and another with Lottie. Let’s get Robert to take us out on the town tonight. We may as well eat, drink and be merry while we have the chance, just in case they throw us all into jail tomorrow____
‘Mademoiselle had a crise de nerfs. She said that they were all picking on her because she was a poor, defenceless foreigner, and they would send her to the guillotine—innocent as she was—solely in order to save the head of a guilty Englishman! And Lottie said it wouldn’t be the guillotine because we don’t chop people’s heads off in England, we hang them (how do they learn these things?) and Mademoiselle rushed wildly out of the room in a cloud of smelling salts …
‘The cook can’t speak any English, and Robert’s batman is in hospital with jaundice and won’t be out for another week. Where is Robert, by the way? I haven’t seen him all day. Harry Marson brought me back. Let’s send for a bottle of champagne, ’Randa: I feel we should do something to celebrate our first, gay, glorious day in Berlin!’
Her laugh held a note of hysteria, and Miranda said: ‘What you need is a cup of tea and some aspirin. We’ll try the champagne later. Let’s see what happens if we press a bell. Or do you suppose they only serve tea in the lounge?’
* * *
It was well after six o’clock before Miranda returned to her own room.
Sally Page had suggested that they should all go over to the Officers’ Club for dinner, and Stella had enthusiastically seconded the idea and gone upstairs to change and say good-night to Lottie.
Miranda turned on her bedroom light and drew the curtains over the rain-spattered windows.
The room looked much the same as when she had left it earlier that afternoon in pursuit of Wally Wilkin, but for one difference: someone had visited it in her absence. Someone who had searched through her suitcases and had not had time to repack the contents neatly, but replaced them in a haphazard manner so that shoes, stockings, underwear and toilet articles were inextricably mingled. The drawers of the dressing-table had been opened, and in the cupboard her squirrel coat hung crookedly on its hanger. Even the bed was rumpled, as though someone had searched under the pillows and the mattress and then hurriedly drawn the coverlet straight above the disarranged bedding.
So that’s why he wanted me to go down to the lounge! thought Miranda. So that some of his ham-handed underlings could go through my things again. Why, when they’ve done it once already? What did they think they might have missed? Something that I might have had on me? A handkerchief or gloves with stains on it?
Another thought slid into her mind like a thin sliver of ice. The searching of her room meant something else. Simon Lang had not believed her. He had been kind and friendly and had made her feel that he was on her side. But he was on no one’s side; unless it was the dead man’s.
Once again she seemed to hear his voice saying: ‘Whoever killed him must have got some blood on them—on their hands at least.’ But there was only one person who had had blood on their hands: Miranda Brand.
‘Circumstantial evidence’. Why had she suddenly thought of that phrase? What exactly did it mean?
Miranda turned slowly away from the disordered suitcases and began to take off her coat and skirt with stiff, unsteady fingers. And as she dressed for the Club, and all through the evening that followed, a mocking little rhyme seemed to beat in her brain with the same monotonous cadence as the train wheels on the previous night: Miranda Brand had blood on her hands … Miranda Brand had blood on her hands … Miranda Brand …
CHAPTER 7
The sky was a clear spring blue full of small white clouds, and the sun was shining as Robert drove the car down Bundes Allee, and turned left into the long sweep of the Herr Strasse.
On either side there were widely spaced houses standing back from the road; some of them set among pine trees and the pale green of new spring leaves, and others—a good many others—only ruined shells standing among a
wilderness of stunted bushes, weeds and tangled briars.
‘Not bombs—Russians,’ said Robert in answer to a query from Miranda. ‘They burnt them. “Houses of the bloated enemy capitalists” and all that sort of thing. Or so I am told.’
He turned the car off the Herr Strasse, and after crossing one or two parallel and smaller streets, pulled up in a quiet, tree-lined road before a red-roofed house flanked by budding lilacs and approached by a short flagged path.
‘Here we are: bundle out. I’m late. See you at lunch.’ He kissed Stella, released the brake and went on his way to the barracks which lay some half-dozen miles distant.
The house, though sparsely furnished, was comfortable and not without charm. A white painted staircase led up from a wide hall to a narrow landing that ran round three sides of the stairwell and gave access to four bedrooms. A large drawing-room and a smaller dining-room looked out on half an acre of garden that lay at the back of the house and consisted mainly of a lawn surrounded by a hedge and more lilac bushes and ending in a high reed fence. There were two pine trees in the garden, a few cherry trees and some sad, sandy-looking flowerbeds. A single almond tree provided a gay splash of colour and the cherry trees were already in bloom.
A shallow alcove off the hall held a telephone, and to the right an archway and a short passage led to the kitchen quarters and the back staircase. There was a small study for Robert and a smaller cloakroom.
‘The cellars are about the largest part of the house,’ said Stella. ‘A ghastly waste of space, as there’s nothing down there but a boiler and piles of coke and coal. But thank heavens we have two bathrooms! This is your room, and Robert and I are in here and Lottie next door to you. Mademoiselle’s in there. There’s another bathroom and two servants’ rooms in the attic, but only the housemaid sleeps in; she seems a nice woman and mercifully can speak quite good English. My German is pretty rusty. When you’ve gone, I’ll turn your room into a schoolroom-cum-playroom for Lottie, but until then she’ll have to use that little room downstairs. Robert will never really use it.’