Death in Berlin: A Mystery

by M. M. Kaye

  Miranda stared at the little metal charm with a shrinking distaste. ‘But why should she want it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure that she did. It’s just a theory as yet. But I’m interested in that charm; because you weren’t wearing the bracelet when you arrived in Berlin. Or when I spoke to you that afternoon at the Families’ Hostel.’

  Miranda wrinkled her brows. ‘I must have been! I always wear it. No … You’re right. I couldn’t make the catch work; it’s stiff. So I put it in my pocket.’

  ‘And someone noticed that you were not wearing it, and searched your room for it.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘I don’t. It’s just an idea. But since I knew that your room hadn’t been searched officially, I realized that you obviously had something that someone wanted badly. And having heard at least half a dozen versions of the Brigadier’s story, and its sequel, I made a guess at what it was.’

  Miranda looked from the little metal charm to Simon’s face, and back again. ‘It can’t be true! Why try to kill me when it would be so much simpler to steal it?’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t so easy to steal?’ suggested Simon. ‘You’ve just told me that you always wear it. And possibly time was short.’

  Miranda said: ‘No, you can’t be right. You’ve forgotten the coat. Friedel was wearing Stella’s coat.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But your coat is squirrel, isn’t it? By the moonlight the difference in colouring would be negligible. And there’s another point that appears to have escaped general notice. Both you and Friedel had dark hair, but Mrs Melville is a blonde.’

  Miranda said in a low voice: ‘Stella thought that someone had meant to kill her.’

  ‘I know she did. She was almost scared out of her wits, wasn’t she? I realized that. But it was better to let her go on being scared, in order to allow the murderer to think we were off on a false trail.’

  ‘Stella said that there was a reason—’ began Miranda and stopped.

  Simon looked up quickly. ‘What’s that? What did she say?’

  ‘Very little,’ said Miranda slowly. ‘She said that she knew that someone had meant to kill her, and when I told her not to be silly and asked her if she knew of any reason why anyone should want to kill her she—she said “Yes”.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ demanded Simon.

  ‘Quite sure: she said it in a sort of whisper, as though she were talking to herself. Afterwards she said she hadn’t said anything of the sort; but she had—I heard her. And she was more than just frightened. She was terrified!’

  Simon Lang said ‘Oh’ in a preoccupied voice, and remained silent for a moment or two, watching a thin spiral of smoke curling up from his cigarette, and presently Miranda said: ‘If it was Mademoiselle who killed the Brigadier and Friedel, then the case is over.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Because now Mademoiselle herself has been killed.’

  ‘I was forgetting that,’ said Miranda unhappily. She turned to stare out of the window and said abruptly: ‘Is it Elsa Marson?’

  ‘Now why should you say that?’ inquired Simon with an odd note in his voice.

  Miranda turned to face him: ‘Because I saw her at the hostel the day we arrived, talking to Friedel in German. I wasn’t sure then, but I am now. It was Mrs Marson. And I saw her again in that Russian cemetery place. She had gone there to meet someone, hadn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon slowly. ‘She had. And for that reason it’s possible that Friedel was killed by someone who had no connection with the murder of Brigadier Brindley, and who killed her knowing quite well who she really was.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘She was Mrs Marson’s sister,’ said Simon surprisingly.

  ‘Her sister!’ Miranda stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘How long have you known that? Did she tell you?’

  ‘Since yesterday. She told us everything. Elsa’s mother was French and her father German. They parted in 1938 and the mother took the younger child with her and resumed her maiden name. Elsa’s elder sister and brother remained in Germany with their father. When the war broke out the mother’s family supplied her with falsified identification papers that mentioned a French father, deceased, and got them away to England. The mother died in the last year of the war, and Elsa got a job as private secretary to the head of a firm of importers.

  ‘Major Marson met her and married her, thinking that she was French and an only child. She was afraid to tell him that her father was a German and a Nazi. Then last year the regiment was sent to Berlin, where Friedel saw her by chance and was struck by her resemblance to a photograph of their mother; and also to their elder brother. She stopped her in the street one day and taxed her with it, and Elsa lost her head and admitted it. After that, Friedel blackmailed her.’

  ‘Threatened to tell Harry, I suppose. Beastly woman!’

  ‘Yes. After paying over various odd amounts, Mrs Marson borrowed money and paid Friedel a large sum, in return for which her sister had promised to leave Berlin. But when the Marsons returned from leave Friedel was still here. She rang up Mrs Marson and arranged to meet her at the hostel, which is where you saw them. You interrupted them, and so Friedel, who had got a job with Mrs Melville, arranged another meeting that night. She told Mrs Marson that their brother was in East Berlin. He had played ball with the Communists and risen to a position of some importance, at a shady level, but he was getting frightened and wanted to escape to the West. He also wanted money. More money than Elsa could supply. And he thought he knew how to get it. He had something to sell that he thought the Americans or ourselves would be prepared to pay pretty highly for. And he was right!’ added Simon grimly.

  ‘What was it?’ inquired Miranda.

  ‘That, my dear Miranda, is still Top Secret: and likely to remain so. But I think you saw Mrs Marson take it over.’

  ‘Yes I did. I thought she was doing a bit of black-marketing. But why go to all that bother? Why didn’t he just walk out with it himself? It seems quite easy to go from one zone to the next.’

  ‘Because he hadn’t the nerve,’ said Simon. ‘By chance, and a talent for lock-picking that must amount to genius, he knew he could get his hands on a bit of pure dynamite. He didn’t mind walking into West Berlin with empty hands, but he was scared of a good deal worse than death if he was caught trying it with that packet on him. And I can’t say that I blame him. He and his sister made a deal with Mrs Marson. She was to go on that bus tour, collect the goods, and hand it to Friedel. We kept an eye on Elsa Marson, because for all we knew she might have been working for the Russians. It looked like it, and we wanted to see who contacted her.’

  Miranda said: ‘I thought I saw someone, the evening we were all looking at the ruin of the Ridders’ house. Was that one of your people watching her?’

  ‘I expect so,’ said Simon without interest. ‘When Friedel was killed, Mrs Marson lost her nerve and made a clean breast of it. As it turned out, she and her brother had done us a signal service.’

  ‘Then he has got away?’

  ‘Not as yet; which leads me to believe he has been liquidated.’

  ‘Poor Elsa—what hell she must have been through! So she didn’t have anything to do with Mademoiselle or the Ridders after all?’

  ‘Apart from confusing the issue, no.’

  Miranda said: ‘But there’s something else, isn’t there? The green paint. If there hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have suddenly brought it up like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ inquired Simon softly.

  ‘You said it on purpose,’ said Miranda accusingly. ‘Didn’t you? You wanted to see what she’d do.’

  ‘I must be getting very obvious in my old age,’ said Simon regretfully. ‘Or else you are too acute for your tender years.’

  ‘Then I was right?’

  ‘Almost. You see that picture?’ Simon gestured with his cigarette towards the dark Velásquez print. ‘It makes a very adequate looking-glass, and people are
more likely to display their emotions when they think they are unobserved. It is beginning to dawn on Mrs Marson that the Russians may get to hear of her part in taking that package out of East Berlin, and the mention of green paint in connection with Mademoiselle instantly suggested to her that the governess and her killer had been lurking round her house. I wasn’t interested in Mrs Marson’s reactions. But I was interested in Mrs Melville’s. I wanted to know if green paint meant anything to her. It did.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Miranda sharply. ‘You’re imagining things!’

  ‘Am I?’ said Simon softly. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Miranda stood up abruptly. ‘What are you hinting at?’ she demanded breathlessly.

  Simon leaned out over the windowsill and dropped the end of his cigarette into the bushes. ‘That wasn’t a hint, it was a statement of fact.’ He leant his head against the window frame and looked up at Miranda, his hands deep in his pockets.

  ‘That mention of green paint meant something to Mrs Melville. It gave her a clue to something that had puzzled her, and frightened her badly—so badly that I thought for a moment that she was going to faint. But she hid it very well. Mrs Marson’s hysterics helped her out there, and I have no doubt at all that had I been facing her she would have kept a better control over her features. But I had my back to her, and you and Mrs Marson were both looking at me and not at her.’

  Miranda said angrily: ‘Why are you trying to make her out to be a hypocrite?’

  ‘My dear Miranda,’ said Simon mildly, ‘there is a considerable difference between being an actress and a hypocrite. A good many men and women can act very well if they have to. Some are better than others; that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t know Stella!’ said Miranda shortly.

  ‘Do you, I wonder? Sit down and be sensible.’ Simon reached up and caught her wrist, and pulled her down again onto the window-seat. ‘How can you be sure that you know anyone well enough to tell what they might be capable of under pressure? I’m not accusing your Stella of anything. I am merely pointing out that she knows something, or thinks she knows something, about that green paint on Mademoiselle’s hands. She may decide to tell. I can only hope so. To possess a vital piece of knowledge in connection with murder is a very dangerous thing. After all, a murderer can only hang once.’

  Miranda stared at him, whitefaced. ‘You mean that—that anyone who knew something that might point to the murderer might be murdered too? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course. It occurs in almost every detective story, and you’d be surprised how often is also happens in real life.’

  Miranda put out a shaking hand and clutched at his sleeve.

  ‘Wally!’ she said breathlessly.

  Simon’s brows twitched together in a sudden frown. ‘The Wilkin brat? What about him?’

  ‘He was here this morning. He said he saw the body being taken out of the pool last night—’

  ‘I know he did,’ said Simon grimly. ‘And the bicycle, too! It had green rubber hand-grips that had been daubed with fresh green paint—Wally’s work! He’d done it to get his own back on Mademoiselle, who’d caught him lurking round the Lawrences’ house on the evening that she disappeared. He was looking for Lottie it seems, and Mademoiselle, who also had a score or two to settle, went after him with a stick and evidently landed a few shrewd shots on target. The paint was Wally’s revenge.’

  ‘Then why,’ demanded Miranda hotly, ‘didn’t you say so at once, instead of scaring the daylights out of Stella and poor Elsa Marson with your sinister hints?’

  ‘I’ve already told you why,’ said Simon patiently. ‘I wanted to know if by any chance green paint meant anything to anyone here. It ought not to have done, since only the police—and Wally of course—knew anything about it. You see, it wasn’t applied until dusk on the evening of the day Mademoiselle disappeared. And as it was dark when she set off for the swimming-baths to look for Lottie’s china bear, she wouldn’t have noticed it; though she must have realized that there was something sticky on the handles, once she got started. But then rubber is apt to become tacky with age, so she probably thought it was that; or if she did drive up to the fact that it was paint, she obviously decided to deal with it when she got back. Only she never did get back.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you should have thought that Stel’—’

  ‘Use your head, Miranda!’ interrupted Simon brusquely. ‘No one except Wally, Mademoiselle, and the murderer—who presumably touched the handles when the bicycle was tipped into the pool—could have known anything about that paint. Unless someone else brushed against it by accident, either when it was parked at the Lawrences’, or by the gate into the swimming-pool area.’

  ‘Wally may have told someone!’

  ‘I doubt it. I caught the young demon watching us fish the body out of the pool. Which was when he owned up about the paint—he hadn’t much option, as his clothes were liberally bespotted with it! I tore a king-size strip off him in more sense than one, and told him that if he said one word about the affair, he’d be for the high-jump!’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that,’ said Miranda. ‘But he said he knew who had killed her. Supposing he was hiding there on Tuesday night too—Supposing…’

  Simon stood up as swiftly as though he had been jerked to his feet and his quiet voice had an unexpectedly harsh ring to it: ‘Did he give you a name?’

  ‘No,’ said Miranda, her own voice unsteady. ‘We were interrupted and he bolted.’

  Simon said a single wicked word in a tone that held so much concentrated rage that Miranda flinched and her eyes widened with shock. But it seemed that his fury was directed neither at her nor Master Wilkin, but against himself. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ whispered Simon. ‘It ought to have occurred to me that there might be some particular reason for that kid’s interest in the pool and why he should happen to be hanging about there. I should have jollied the little blighter along—instead of scaring him into clamming up like an oyster. I ought to be hung, drawn and quartered—!’

  ‘But you can’t … but you don’t think that he really knows, do you?’ quavered Miranda.

  ‘We can always find out,’ said Simon briefly. He turned and walked quickly across the room, but at the door he stopped suddenly and came back to her.

  ‘What I told you last night still goes. You are not to tell anyone anything of all this until I give you permission. Anything, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miranda unsteadily.

  He stood looking down at her with an odd mixture of doubt and irresolution on his normally blandly expressionless face, and said something under his breath that Miranda could not catch. And then he swung round, and she was alone.

  CHAPTER 16

  Stella returned, looking white and exhausted, barely five minutes after Simon’s departure. She seemed surprised that he had gone. ‘I thought he wanted to see me,’ she said, sinking wearily onto the sofa. She leaned her head on her hand and shut her eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you take a couple of aspirins and have a day in bed?’ suggested Miranda. ‘You’re looking like a ghost.’

  ‘Am I?’ Stella got up and went to peer at herself in a little Venetian-glass mirror that stood on the chimneypiece. ‘I do look a bit of a hag, don’t I? I feel as if I’d aged ten years since I arrived in Berlin. Oh dear, that Marson woman!’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘I telephoned her unfortunate husband and he came right over. I should think Colonel Lawrence must be going crazy, what with his officers’ time being gummed up by police inquiries and hysterical wives.’

  ‘Was she very tiresome?’

  ‘Awful!’ said Stella feelingly. ‘She appears to have got a bee in her bonnet about Soviet spies. She thinks Mademoiselle may have been one. She also thinks that the Russians mean to kill her in revenge for something or other. I think she must be out of her mind!’

  She leant tiredly against the chimneypiece, her back to Miranda, and
said: ‘It’s because of the green paint. Captain Lang said something about green paint, and Mrs Marson seems to think that this proves that Mademoiselle had been snooping around their house.’

  The words were said casually enough, but Miranda was suddenly aware, with a startled sense of shock, that Stella was watching her in the Venetian-glass mirror: watching her with an inexplicable and furtive intentness. Miranda flushed hotly and looked quickly away. It was true then, what Simon had said! Stella did know something about that green paint—and she wanted to know if Miranda also knew. She had mentioned it deliberately while watching Miranda’s face reflected in the little mirror, as Simon Lang had watched hers in the glass of the Velásquez print.

  Stella … Miranda stared blindly out of the window and thought about Stella, and all that she knew about her. She had said so confidently to Simon: ‘You don’t know Stella!’ and he had replied, ‘Do you?’ Did she? She had known Stella for so long, yet how well did she really know her?

  Stella had been there, part of the background of her childhood and schooldays—taken for granted. She was in many ways a curiously childlike person; a charming, rather spoilt child, simple, direct and not particularly clever. Gay and lighthearted when things went well, tearful and dazed at the unreasonable injustice of life when they went wrong. She was pretty without being beautiful, and always well dressed; always smooth and scented and shining. She had been widowed and remarried, and although she hated army life and the prospect of living in foreign countries she had again married a soldier. She loved England and Mallow—and Robert.

  A sudden thought took root in Miranda’s mind and grew swiftly into a certainty. Robert! Stella adored Robert. She would, thought Miranda, quite literally die for him if it were necessary. She would certainly lie for him and scheme and fight for him, and protect him. Simon had said that most people could act if circumstances forced them to it, and Miranda had thought instantly and scornfully ‘Not Stella!’ But even a bird will pretend to a broken wing and act a part to perfection, limping and fluttering, in order to lure an enemy away from its nest.