Death in Berlin: A Mystery

by M. M. Kaye

‘I’m not cold. It was only a goose walking over my grave; and if I did go to bed I shouldn’t sleep, so what’s the use?’ She closed the hall door, released the catch of the Yale lock and pushed home the heavy bolts above and below it. Miranda saw that her hands were shaking so that she could hardly control them, and that her face was white and frightened. She looked up and seeing Miranda’s expression, smiled a little uncertainly.

  ‘I know it’s stupid of me, but I feel better with the doors locked. Robert locked both the other ones and any windows large enough for a cat to crawl through! If only I’d known that he was going to be out, I’d have asked a couple of people in to play bridge.’

  ‘Well, let’s do it now,’ suggested Miranda. ‘Let’s go over and collect the Leslies.’

  ‘No, don’t let’s,’ said Stella with another shiver. ‘Nothing would induce me to walk through the garden, and I don’t intend to let you go over, and be left on my own in this house even for two minutes! Anyway, Colonel Leslie is sure to be going to this lecture affair too, and I couldn’t stand Mrs Leslie solo just now. Let’s turn on every light in the drawing-room and see if we can find a good programme on the wireless instead.’

  The drawing-room looked larger and less friendly with all the lights burning, and the wireless offered them a choice between a mournful and wailing concerto by a popular modern composer, a drama about racketeers on the New York waterfront, a reading from Murders in the Rue Morgue, a political broadcast, and a variety of excitable gentlemen declaiming passionately in French, German, Italian and Russian.

  Stella switched off impatiently and fetched a book. She seemed disinclined for talk, but Miranda noticed that although she kept the open book in her hands and occasionally turned a page, her eyes were unmoving and fixed in a blind stare as though they were turned inward on some frightening mental vision, and that every now and again she would shiver as if a cold intermittent draught blew through the warm room.

  The house seemed strangely empty now that Robert had gone, but Miranda could not rid herself of a conviction that they were not alone, and that from somewhere near at hand an unseen pair of eyes was watching their every movement. Yet the curtains were closely drawn and gave no glimpse of the moonlit garden, and the door into the hall was shut. Could there be someone outside that door, waiting and listening? No, that was absurd! Every window and door was barred and bolted and there was no one in the house but Stella and herself. Nevertheless she found herself listening intently for sounds in the empty house or from the silent garden. Stella seemed aware of it too, for twice she turned her head and glanced uneasily over her shoulder. Her frightened tension reacted unpleasantly upon Miranda’s own taut nerves and the thoughts that she had striven to keep at bay for so many hours came circling and swooping back again, closing in upon her like vultures gathering above a kill.

  Had Stella too seen the thing that she had seen, and put the same interpretation upon it? Was she facing the same picture that had taken shape before Miranda earlier that day, and finding it equally feasible and frightening?

  Why hadn’t Simon telephoned? Had he ever received her message? If he had, surely only something urgent and alarming could have prevented him from getting in touch with her? He had gone to find Wally … Wally! She had forgotten all about Wally! Supposing he too had—had disappeared?

  Miranda’s hands felt cold and unsteady. Like Stella’s, she thought. We are both sitting here pretending to read and slowly scaring ouselves into idiocy. It’s almost as if we were waiting for something horrible to happen. She looked across the room and saw Stella’s desperate eyes upon her and tried to smile and could not.

  Stella dropped her book to the floor and stood up abruptly. ‘It’s no good trying to read tonight,’ she said in a high, strained voice. ‘I can’t concentrate. I think I’ll get some knitting. It’s a nice, soothing occupation!’

  She went quickly out of the room leaving the door ajar behind her.

  Miranda lowered her own book and thought, shall I try and ring Simon again? No. What’s the use? I’ve done all I can.

  She could hear Stella’s footsteps in the hall, and a faint draught of cold air swung the drawing-room door open a little wider and ruffled the pages of the daily paper that lay on the window-seat. The faint rustle of the paper seemed absurdly loud in the silent room and Miranda started violently and bit her tongue, and closing her book with an impatient bang she reached for a cigarette. She very rarely smoked but at the moment, to smoke a cigarette, like Stella’s knitting, seemed a soothing occupation.

  The telephone bell rang shrilly in the hall and the cigarette box jerked from her grasp and fell to the floor, scattering its contents over the carpet.

  Simon! thought Miranda with a gasp of relief. She jumped to her feet and started for the door, but Stella was already at the telephone.

  ‘Hullo?… Yes, speaking.’

  Miranda lingered near the open doorway hoping to hear Stella call her. But it was not Simon.

  ‘Who?’ Stella’s voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched. ‘Oh! Yes, of course I remember.’ There followed an audible gasp and a long minute of silence. Miranda knew she should close the door and not listen to a private conversation, but she did not move. There was something in Stella’s voice that frightened her; and Stella was speaking again.

  ‘No! … No, I can’t! Not at this time of night!… But why?… Why not tomorrow?… It’s no good, I daren’t! I tell you, I daren’t … not alone. Is Robert there?… Can I speak to him?… Oh. Oh, I see.’

  There was another long pause and then Stella’s voice; trembling and shrill, and completely unnatural.

  ‘How do I know it is you? It might be anyone!… Oh … All right then. I’ll ring you back.’

  There was a click as the receiver was replaced and Miranda heard Stella ruffle through the leaves of the telephone book and presently dial a number.

  ‘Hullo?____Oh it is you. I—had to be sure … Very well then. I’ll do it … Yes, as soon as I can.’

  She rang off and came swiftly across the hall and into the drawing-room. Her face was colourless and her eyes feverishly bright, and she was breathing unevenly. She said: ‘I have to go out. I don’t think I shall be very long. You—you won’t mind staying here alone, will you? You could ring up Mrs Lawrence or someone?’

  ‘Going out? But where? Who was that on the phone? What’s happened, Stella?’ Miranda’s voice was sharp with alarm.

  ‘It was Colonel Cantrell. He says he has to see me at once. I said I wouldn’t go, but he says it’s a most important matter and that it can’t wait. He wouldn’t say much on the phone, but Robert is there; and so is Captain Lang, and I think one or two of the others. He said I was to take the car and drive over at once.’

  Miranda said: ‘But why? What’s happened? Surely no one else is dead?’ She heard the note of hysteria in her voice, but could not control it.

  ‘I tell you I don’t know! I’ll try not to be too long.’

  Stella turned away and went quickly across the hall to the cloakroom where the coats hung, Miranda at her heels. She took down a dark tweed coat from its peg, struggled into it, and reached for the garage key.

  Miranda saw that her hands were trembling so that she could not fasten the heavy coat buttons, and she caught at Stella’s arm.

  ‘Don’t go, Stel’! Let them come here. You can’t go alone! It isn’t safe, I tell you. It isn’t safe!’

  ‘I must,’ said Stella, briefly. ‘I’ll be all right; Robert’s there.’

  ‘No!’ said Miranda. ‘No!’

  Stella must not go out alone into that dark, spring night. It was dangerous; Stella did not realize how dangerous!

  But Stella only pulled away from her clutching hand and moved towards the door.

  Miranda gave it up. ‘All right, then; but I’m coming with you.’

  Stella turned, relief and a tense anxiety on her white face. ‘No, ’Randa! You keep out of this. Robert was right—we’ve let you in for too much already. You stay he
re and lock yourself safely into the drawing-room until I get back.’

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’ said Miranda, hurriedly getting into a coat. ‘If you go, I go! I’m not going to let you go running off by yourself. It isn’t safe. Besides, I promised Robert that I’d keep an eye on you. Come on—have we got a torch?’

  ‘Yes. But____’

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you darling,’ interrupted Miranda firmly, ‘but if you think for one moment that I’m going to be left alone in this house, you’re crazy!’

  Stella laughed a little hysterically. ‘All right then—on your own head be it!’

  She turned away to unbar the door, and a little chill wind breathed against Miranda’s cheek. She turned her head, puzzled, for the front door was still shut. And it was only then that she noticed that the tiny, narrow window alongside the door stood open to the night air.

  The window was no more than a slot in the wall; a narrow slab of thick plate glass in a steel frame, that opened inwards and had probably been placed there so that anyone pressing the doorbell could be seen from inside, and letters, small parcels, or messages could be taken in without the necessity of unlocking the door. Possibly it had been a useful and necessary precaution in the days of the Nazi régime, and even now Frau Herbach, the cook, would peer anxiously through it before admitting a visitor.

  It was seldom opened and it had certainly not been open when Robert had left—of that Miranda was quite sure, for she had watched Stella lock and bar the door and neither of them could have overlooked an open window directly beside it. But Frau Herbach had left before dark, and there was no one in the house except herself and Stella. Then who had opened it?

  The window was too narrrow for even the smallest child to squeeze through. Yet supposing someone had thought that by reaching in an arm they could unlock the door? It was not possible, for the window opened to the left and even a double-jointed person could not have touched so much as the edge of the door. But someone standing outside might not know that …

  Stella pulled back the last bolt, and turning saw Miranda’s fixed and frightened stare.

  ‘What is it? What are you looking at?’

  ‘The window,’ said Miranda, in a shaking whisper. ‘Did you open it?’

  Stella shook her head. Her eyes were wide and terrified.

  ‘Someone did. It wasn’t open when you shut the door after Robert had left.’

  Stella licked her dry lips: ‘Perhaps—perhaps the catch is loose and the wind blew it open.’ She caught at Miranda’s arm. ‘’Randa, you don’t think—you don’t think____?’

  Miranda said: ‘I don’t know. Shut that door again and wait here a minute.’ She turned and ran back across the hall.

  ‘Where are you going? Miranda! Where are you going!’ Stella’s voice rose to a scream.

  ‘I’m going to get Robert’s revolver!’

  A minute later, panting and breathless, she was back again, the heavy service revolver in her hand.

  Stella shrank back at the sight of it. She looked as though she were going to faint. ‘Wha—what are you going to do with it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Heaven alone knows. But it may come in useful. We can always wave it at anyone we don’t like the look of!’

  Stella looked from the ugly weapon to Miranda’s face, and broke into sudden hysterical laughter. The glazed look of terror left her eyes and they glittered with excitement. ‘I never thought of that gun,’ she said. ‘Dare we use it if—if____’

  ‘Of course,’ said Miranda, with a confidence she was far from feeling. ‘Any idiot can pull a trigger. We’ll fire first and ask questions afterwards. At the worst they can only bring it in as justifiable homicide! Let’s go.’

  There was a misty halo about the moon and once again the little chill wind that drifted through the branches of the trees threw slow-moving shadows from the nearest street lamp over the walls of the house and the path that led to the garage.

  The lilac bushes made a dense pool of blackness about the garage door, and as Stella switched on the torch and fitted the key into the lock, the bushes stirred and rustled and a twig cracked sharply in the shadows. It’s only the wind, Miranda assured herself desperately. It’s only the wind!

  She kept her back to Stella and the garage door, facing the dark tangle of the lilacs with Robert’s gun in her hand, and said in an urgent whisper: ‘Be quick, Stella!’

  ‘I’m being as quick as I can; it’s stiff.’ The key grated in the lock and a moment later the hinges creaked complainingly as Stella pushed the doors wide.

  Once again a twig cracked in the darkness, and a shadow that was not thrown by the street lamp slipped across the narrow path near the house and merged with the deeper shadows of the walls …

  Stella opened the car door and switched on the headlights. A blaze of warm light filled the garage and drove back the blackness from around the doors, and in the noise of the engine the small night noises were swallowed up and lost.

  ‘Get in, ’Randa.’ Stella backed the car out into the road and turned it in the direction of the city.

  As the purr of its departure died away down the quiet road, a figure that had been standing in the deep shadow formed by an angle of the wall ran lightly up the path towards the hall door. It paused for an instant and looked intently at the open window, and then slipped through the door that Stella had forgotten to lock, and closed it again.

  A moment later, had there been anyone in the empty house, they might have heard the faint click of the telephone receiver being lifted softly from its cradle, and the sound of a number being dialled.

  * * *

  Miranda sank back against the car seat breathing quickly as though she had been running. The palms of her hands were wet and clammy and she put the revolver down carefully on the seat beside her and rubbed them mechanically against her coat.

  Now that they had left the house she was asking herself questions: foolish, frightening questions to which there were no answers.

  Who had opened the window by the hall door, and why? Had there really been anyone among the shadows of the lilacs by the garage, or was it only the wind or a prowling cat? Why had Colonel Cantrell only wanted to see Stella, and not her, Miranda, as well? Was it really Colonel Cantrell who had telephoned, or someone who wanted to get Stella out of the house? She would not have recognized his voice.

  Miranda said suddenly: ‘How do you know that it was Colonel Cantrell who telephoned? It may have been someone pretending to be him.’

  Stella turned her head to look at her and the car swerved a little on the road. ‘I didn’t know. That’s why I told him I’d ring him back.’

  ‘So you did: I forgot that. Then it must be all right.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Stella impatiently, her eyes on the road again.

  But was it? Supposing it was possible for someone to use Colonel Cantrell’s telephone? Someone who might have reason to know that he was out? And yet if anyone had wanted to get Stella out of the house, why had the window been opened? That looked more as though someone had intended to get in.

  Yet another idea—a cold, horrible idea—slid into Miranda’s mind. If Stella had gone without her, she, Miranda, would have been left alone in the empty house. Had someone intended that, and had she spoiled some carefully laid plan by insisting on going with her?

  Miranda shivered and shut her eyes tightly, as though by doing so she could blot out the ugly pictures that were tormenting her: and instantly she saw again, as it it had been flashed on some screen of the mind, the open window by the hall door.

  That window … if only she could stop being frightened and think clearly for a minute, it could tell her something. She did not know why she should suddenly be so certain of that, but she was certain. There was something simple and obvious about that open window that shouted itself aloud, but she could not hear it because fear was scurrying to and fro in her brain like some terrified animal in a trap.

  Miranda became aware of da
rkness and opened her eyes to find that Stella had switched off the headlights and that the car was cruising slowly down a long, tree-lined road, sparsely lit by two widely distant street lamps that made only small pools of light in the long stretch of moonlit darkness.

  There were no lighted windows behind the screen of trees, but against a night sky made luminous by the lurid, reflected glow of the city’s lights, rose the black outlines of ruined walls and gaping, eyeless windows.

  The car slid softly to a standstill, and in the brief moment before Stella switched off the side lights, Miranda caught a glimpse of a pair of rusty iron gates that were vaguely familiar.

  There was a soft click and the engine was silent. The dashboard light vanished and they were sitting in darkness.

  Miranda felt Stella shiver beside her and then open the car door and slip out quietly into the road. She stood there for a moment, listening, the flow from a distant street lamp drawing a faint gold aureole about the dark outline of her blond head.

  Miranda scrambled out of the car and stood beside her. ‘Where are we?’ She had meant to speak aloud, but the words came out as a whisper. And even as she spoke them, she knew where they were. ‘This is the Ridders’ house! Stella____!’

  Stella turned her head: ‘I know. He said I was to come here.’

  She turned her head again, listening; peering down the dark, moon-splashed road, and said in an urgent whisper: ‘There isn’t anyone here is there? Can you see anyone else? Any car?’

  ‘No,’ Miranda caught at Stella’s arm: ‘Let’s go back! I don’t believe that anyone else is here. Or if they are, it’s a trap. Stella, don’t!’

  Stella jerked away her arm and said: ‘He told me not to be afraid. I was to walk up the path and into the house, and I would understand when I got there. You can stay here if you like, but I’m going.’

  She turned towards the gate and Miranda said: ‘No—wait! Stella, wait for me!’ She groped about in the darkened car. ‘I can’t find the gun.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Stella, ‘I’ve got it.’ They were still speaking in whispers.