by M. M. Kaye
‘It won’t be hedges,’ said Stella gloomily. ‘It will be some beastly bamboo forest or a rubber plantation, and I expect we’ll be made to paint it a dreary shade of jungle green.’
The eastern entrance to the Stadium area, where Hitler’s Youth Rallies and the Olympic Games of the Nazi era had been held, led into a road that skirted a vast amphitheatre and passed between green playing fields to a large block of buildings, one of which housed the big indoor swimming-pool.
Stella parked the car, and they walked between tall gates and along a wide path, and turned down a short flight of stone steps and past a large outdoor pool which was three parts full of dark, stagnant water and flanked by a bronze bull and his mate, wading knee-deep in rigid bronze ripples, and eventually reached the huge indoor pool.
After the sharp evening air outside the atmosphere seemed to them intolerably steamy and stifling, for the pool was a heated one. But they endured it for an hour, after which Mrs Lawrence, who had also been watching her offspring having a swimming lesson in the pool reserved for children and beginners, invited them back to her house for a drink so that Stella could say good-night to Lottie.
The house lay not more than half a mile from the west entrance of the Stadium area in a quiet, tree-lined road, and it was after half-past six by the time they reached it and were ushered into the drawing-room by Katy Lawrence, who shunted the children off to supper in charge of Mademoiselle and apologized for the absence of the Colonel.
‘He’s having a foul time, poor pet,’ said his wife, dispensing sherry. ‘There’s some terrific flap on. George thinks I don’t know a thing about it, but of course I do. They’re all getting a lecture, or a “briefing”, or whatever they call it, this evening by someone from the Headquarters—Toddy Pilcher. Rather a pompous little man, I always thought. And then there’s this talk by the C-in-C tomorrow night. George says Toddy insisted on a projector in the lecture room. Lantern slides—I ask you! Sounds madly Women’s Institute to me. Was that the doorbell? Let’s hope it’s Monica Bradley with that stuff for the Thrift Shop at last!’
But it was Sally Page who was ushered in by a whitecoated batman. Sally wearing that same look of strain and weariness that Miranda had seen on Stella’s face; and Mrs Marson’s. And on her own as it looked back at her from a mirror. Yet on Sally it was neither ugly nor ageing: she merely looked fragile, childlike and pathetic, and the faint smudges of sleeplessness under the forget-me-not blue eyes only served to enhance their size and colour.
Sally had only called to say that she could not, after all, help in the Thrift Shop the following week, but that she had swopped weeks with Esmé Carroll and did Mrs Lawrence mind? She stayed to drink a glass of sherry and press Stella and Miranda to go back with her to her flat that evening.
‘Do say you’ll come!’ begged Sally prettily. ‘I do so want you to see my flat. And Andy would simply love to see you: he wants to show you some photographs he’s taken of me. And besides I want your advice about what colour to have the drawing-room painted. I hear that your drawing-room is lovely, Mrs Melville. You will come, won’t you?’
Miranda saw Stella’s face pale and her mouth tighten, and noticed that her voice was distinctly metallic as she said crisply: ‘I know Miranda would love to go, but I’m afraid I can’t manage it this evening.’
Left with no option—since she could hardly refuse in face of Stella’s positive statement that she would love to go—Miranda accepted, and Sally smiled disarmingly at her, and having got her way, turned to the subject of Friedel’s murder. Whereupon Stella stood up abruptly saying that she would run up and say good-night to Lottie, and left the room. Miranda endeavored to change the subject, but without success, since her hostess was far too interested in the whole affair to discourage such an entertaining topic of conversation.
‘We had the police round this morning,’ said Sally, ending a long and enthusiastic dissertation on the latest murder. ‘Well, not really the police I suppose, but that nice Lang man, and another creature who just sat there and never uttered—rather good-looking, with dark hair. They wanted to know what we were doing last night. I mean to say—honestly! As if any of us were likely to go round hitting German housemaids on the head with pokers! Not that I haven’t thought it mightn’t be a good thing, because you’ve no idea what a clueless creature the Labour Exchange people have foisted on us …
‘She says her name’s Sonya, and I’m quite sure she’s a Russian spy. I mean, she wears Russian boots and stumps about in them all day and simply never washes. She’s supposed to be a cook, but she can’t even boil a potato, and when I complained she said she didn’t understand English cooking—only German. So of course I said, “Let’s have some German cooking,” because I’m all for fancy foreign dishes. But it seems that German cooking is just the same as English cooking, only worse: I mean all you do is pour masses of grease over everything and that’s it.’
She paused for a breath and Miranda, fearful of the conversation returning to the subject of Friedel, said: ‘Well, personally, I think you’re very lucky to have cooks and housemaids at all. If there is one thing I do detest, it’s peeling potatoes and washing up greasy dishes.’
Mrs Lawrence, however, was not to be drawn into a discussion of the servant problem. She said: ‘But why were you questioned about last night, Sally? Did they explain?’
‘Oh yes. But it wasn’t very exciting, really. It was just in case either of us had seen anyone lurking about, or noticed anything like a car standing at the end of the road. Things like that. And alibis of course. Simon Lang said it would help to clear up things if we could each produce an alibi.’
‘Why “each”?’ inquired Mrs Lawrence, puzzled. ‘Surely Andy was dining in the American sector?’
‘Well, he was,’ said Sally, ‘but it was too stupid—I can’t think how he could have made such a silly mistake—but it seems it was the wrong night, so he came back and went to bed.’
‘Does that mean he hasn’t got an alibi?’
‘Oh no; I’m afraid that as suspects we’re both out of the running,’ said Sally regretfully.
Miranda, noting the tone, thought with some irritation that Sally, whose reading seemed to be entirely of the escapist variety, would rather have enjoyed appearing as a witness in a murder trial: she probably saw herself as the frail and sensitive heroine of this type of fiction, and would have found it pleasurably exciting to be a suspect.
‘Andy couldn’t get the lift to work,’ explained Sally, ‘so he routed out the caretaker, who is rather an old sweetie, and the old boy fixed it for him. Andy asked him in for a beer, and very fortunately noticed that the time was just eight o’clock by that dining-room clock of ours; because he told Herr Hübbe that he could only have missed me by about a quarter of an hour or so and now he would have to cook his own supper.’
‘And what about you?’ inquired Mrs Lawrence. ‘Did you have to produce an alibi too?’
‘Oh yes. Mine’s all right too. I arrived at the Leslies’ at ten to eight and I said, “I hope I’m not late”—not that I thought I was, but you know how one says that sort of thing—and Colonel Leslie looked at his watch and said, “You’re about dead on time; it’s ten to eight.” And the good-looking man with the dark hair wrote something in a notebook and said, “That agrees with Colonel Leslie’s account,” so I suppose they were checking on the Leslies as well.’
‘But why?’ demanded Mrs Lawrence. ‘What possible reason can they think any of you could have for murdering an unknown German servant-girl? The thing’s absurd!’
‘I couldn’t agree more. But Andy has a theory that the police, or the S.I.B. or M.I.5, or whoever it is who is doing all the fussing around over this, think that there is some connection between the murder of that Brigadier and this German woman’s.’
‘Quite ridiculous,’ pronounced Mrs Lawrence firmly: ‘Of course they don’t think anything of the sort!’
‘Then why is it that they have questioned all the same people?’
‘What people?’
‘“Lang’s Eleven”,’ put in Miranda; and instantly regretted having spoken.
‘Lang’s eleven? What do you mean? What eleven?’
‘Nothing really,’ said Miranda unhappily. ‘Only that there were eleven people who might have murdered the Brigadier, and most of them seem to have been questioned again over this murder.’
‘Not most of them,’ corrected Sally Page. ‘All of them.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I asked,’ said Sally, simply. And ticked them off one by one on the fingers of her rather large, schoolgirlish hands. ‘Myself and Andy, Elsa and Harry Marson, the Leslies, Miranda and that Swiss female, Mademoiselle something-or-other, and Mrs Melville and Bob, and—’
‘Bob…?’ for a moment the unfamiliar name puzzled Miranda.
Sally flushed. ‘Robert. We used to call him Bob when he was in Egypt. Then there’s Mrs Wilkin of course. They even checked up on her, believe it or not!’
She laughed her pretty, shallow laugh, and Mrs Lawrence said: ‘Wilkin? Not the mother of that frightful freckled child?’
‘You mean Wally,’ said Miranda. ‘The original Giles cartoon, isn’t he? Where have you come across Wally?’
‘My dear, he has been infesting my house all day! It seems he’s a special friend of Lottie’s. Mademoiselle did her best to chase him off the premises, but I think he came back over the wall.’
Sounds of woe from above penetrated to the drawing-room and Stella reappeared looking worried. ‘That was Lottie,’ she said apologetically. ‘She’s left that tiresome little china bear of hers behind at the swimming-pool, and she won’t go to sleep without it.’
‘Oh dear’, exclaimed Mrs Lawrence, ‘and I’m afraid the car has gone off to fetch George. But I’ll get the driver to go up and look for it as soon as he gets back.’
‘Please don’t bother. I could go, if it comes to that. But Mademoiselle has offered to run up on her bicycle. It’s no distance at all, really, and I do think she might have seen that Lottie had that toy. It’s all right for her to go, isn’t it? I mean, they will let her in?’
‘Of course. She’ll probably be stopped at the gate and asked what she’s doing, but they know her. She took the children there for a walk this afternoon and George gave her a pass in case anyone asked questions. In a month or two, when they’ve moved all those offices and things into the Stadium area, they’ll probably get madly security-minded. But no one bothers much at the moment. They stop a car with a German registration number and ask questions, I believe. But all our cars go through on sight, because of the B.Z. on the number-plates—for British Zone.’
‘Then that’s all right,’ said Stella, thankfully. ‘I must admit that the last thing I want to do is to drive back to the baths and hunt around for twenty minutes or so for a minute china toy. But thank goodness Mademoiselle is made of sterner stuff. I only hope she’s got a bicycle lamp. It’s getting dark. ’Randa, if you’re going to see Mrs Page’s flat, I think I’ll get along home and have a hot bath before Robert gets back. Good-night, Mrs Lawrence, and thank you again for having Lottie. It’s really very good of you.’
Mrs Lawrence saw her to the door, while Sally Page went off to telephone Andy and tell him that she was bringing Miranda back to the flat. She appeared to take an unconscionable time over it, and when at last she returned she looked flushed and defiant: the reason for this becoming immediately apparent on their arrival at the flat, when Miranda realized, too late, that Sally’s only object in asking her there had been to use her as a buffer between herself and Andy. There had apparently been a major matrimonial row between the two young Pages, but owing to Miranda’s presence, Andy was compelled to play the willing host and dispense drinks and social smalltalk.
The flat proved to be large, dim and depressing, and Sally seemed to have made little effort towards improving it. The drawing-room, which was chilly and uncomfortable, smelt strongly of turpentine. ‘The painters have been in,’ explained Andy gloomily.
Sally urged Miranda to stay to supper or, alternatively, to accompany Andy and herself to the Club. But Andy made no attempt to second the invitation, and when Miranda firmly excused herself, he said that he would drive her back; adding curtly that as it was Sonya’s day out, Sally had better get down to cooking something for supper.
He was morose and monosyllabic on the journey to the Melvilles’, and to Miranda’s relief he refused her half-hearted invitation to come in for a drink, and having dropped her at the gate drove away at speed without waiting to see her to the door.
The bell had been answered by Robert.
‘Hullo, ’Randa, you’re just in time for supper. Frau Herbach insisted on leaving before it got dark, so I’ve been trying my hand at a bit of amateur cookery. However, not to worry; it will be quite edible. All I’ve actually done is to heat up the stuff she left ready. Tell Stella to get a move on while I dish up the result.’
He vanished in the direction of the kitchen, and Miranda started up the stairs. She was halfway up when she remembered that earlier in the evening she had left her handbag in the front pocket of the Melvilles’ car; and since it contained her lipstick and powder puff, she turned and went down again to the hall, lifted the garage key off its hook near the hall door, and went out, leaving the door open behind her.
A wandering gust of wind blew down the road, momentarily shaking the branches of the trees before the street lamp near the gate and sending leaping shadows across the house wall. The road looked long and dark and deserted, and Miranda shivered and walked quickly down the short path to the left of the house.
The garage was cold and airless and smelt unpleasantly of petrol and mildew, and the single overhead bulb only served to throw the interior of the car into deep shadow. Miranda reached in and switched on the dashboard light, but the bag was not there, and she realized that Stella must have taken it in when she returned from the Lawrences’.
Switching off the dashboard she slammed the car door behind her, and in the same moment thought she heard a sound behind her: a swift, stealthy, scrambling sound. Miranda whirled round, her hand still clutching at the door of the car, and stood rigid, listening. But the gust of wind that had blown along the street had died away, and the night was quiet again and nothing moved.
The car threw a dense black shadow across a pile of empty wooden packing-cases stacked against the far wall, above which a small window, its panes festooned with cobwebs, cut a dark square in the whitewashed brick. Beyond the open doorway the path lay dark and empty, and the light streaming out from the garage caught the lilac bushes lining the short, concrete ramp that sloped up to the level of the road, and silhouetted their motionless leaves against the surrounding shadows, as though they had been canvas scenery lit by stage footlights.
Miranda did not move. Her fingers, clenched about the metal door handle, felt stiff with cold, and her heart was beating in odd, uneven jerks. Had she really heard a sound, or had it only been an echo from the slamming of the car door? Was there someone crouched among the empty packing-cases, or waiting outside behind the lilac bushes?—waiting until she switched off the light and turned to lock the door? Waiting for her as they had waited for Friedel?
The silent garage and the quiet night outside seemed to be waiting too, and in the silence she could hear the sound of her own uneven heartbeats.
A swift, flickering shadow swept across the small, cold walls and brought a choking gasp to her throat, but it was only a large moth attracted by the naked light. And suddenly the taut thread of terror slackened and she took a deep breath, and walking quickly over to the garage door, turned off the light with shaking fingers, and locking the door behind her, fled back up the path to the house.
Stella was coming down the hall stairs, but she checked at the sight of Miranda’s white face; one hand gripping the banister and other suddenly at her throat, her eyes wide with terror: ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Nothi
ng. I—I went down to the garage to get my bag out of the car, and I thought I heard someone or something. Probably only a cat or an owl. But my nerves are in poor shape these days, and I panicked and ran back here at the double. That’s all.’
Stella swayed and Miranda ran up the stairs and put an arm about her.
‘I’m sorry,’ apologized Stella. ‘But you gave me a fright; rushing in like that. I thought for a moment that something awful had happened.’
‘Something awful has,’ announced Robert, appearing abruptly from the direction of the kitchen: ‘I’ve let the soup boil over. You’ve no idea the mess it’s made. For God’s sake, darling, come and mop up the ruin!’
The strain left Stella’s face and she laughed, and releasing herself from Miranda’s arm ran down to him: ‘Let’s have supper in the kitchen. Then we can serve everything out of saucepans and save on the washing up.’
‘Let’s not,’ said Robert. ‘There’s burnt soup all over the top of the stove, and it smells hellish. Let’s eat in the dining-room, and stack.’
‘It does smell horrid, doesn’t it?’ said Miranda, wrinkling her nose. ‘Rather like petrol.’
‘That’s me,’ said Robert. ‘Only it’s turpentine. I spilt about half a pint of it over my trousers. Our dear governess uses it to discourage moths, and she had left her bottle, improperly corked, on the bathroom windowsill. I knocked it for six.’
‘It goes well with burnt soup,’ commented Miranda lightly, going upstairs to tidy herself for supper.
Apparently a modicum of soup had survived, for by the time she reappeared in the dining-room Robert had produced three plates of it and Stella was already sipping hers cautiously.
‘What were you panicking about in the garage for, Miranda?’ inquired Robert.
‘I was looking for my bag. And I wasn’t panicking—or at least not much.’
‘Well the next time you want to go scouting around in the dark, call me first, and I’ll go along as bodyguard—heavily armed with the offensive weapon which is at present nestling in my cupboard under a discreet pile of underpants. I have even taken the precaution of loading the thing since last night.’