More Dead Than Alive (David Mallin Detective series Book 15)

by Roger Ormerod

  Both his hands were bandaged. They were clearly causing him pain, and some anxiety, because he kept flexing one with the other. But he had a pale smile for me. Perhaps he was grateful for my small assistance with Amaryllis.

  “Something involving a tin of corned beef,” he enlarged.

  “I’d better go and check.”

  “Then don’t be long.” He touched my arm. The sudden intimacy brought a rush of warmth to my cheeks.

  When I headed for the door leading to the kitchen quarters, I saw George eyeing me gravely. He moved across, surprisingly quickly for his size, and intercepted me at the door.

  “Elsa…” George, worried, casts a very large shadow in my life. He shook his head slowly. “Don’t ever run from David, Elsa, there’s a love.”

  I remembered the kiss I owed him. He blinked; his eyes flickered. “Promise me,” he said gently.

  “Promise,” I said. “Only in your direction, George.”

  I heard his laugh through the solid door as I closed it behind me.

  There was a long corridor to the echoing tomb they called the kitchen. The actual operations unit of this was in one corner. You could have held a ball in what was left, with room for the Vienna Philharmonic to supply the Strauss waltzes. In the corner, Fisher was exercising his skill as a cook by dumping frozen chips into a saucepan of boiling oil. It was going to be chips and cold corned beef.

  “There’s some tinned rice pudding,” he said, though why with pride I couldn’t imagine. “Won’t take a minute to warm up.”

  “Entrée?”

  “Chop a few melons, my dear. Let’s not get too fancy.”

  I stood by him and watched helplessly. I said: “The two other women aren’t coming down. I’d better get trays.” Then, as an afterthought: “The police are on their way.”

  “Again?” He prodded a chip. “The trick is to take it slow till they’re soft, then speed up at the end for the crispness. What’s happened now?”

  I told him, not with all the details, and certainly with none of George’s logic.

  “Ah, yes,” he said quietly, satisfied. “They said he’d have somewhere to hide himself. And naturally it’d have to be close. Clarice knew, of course.”

  “Now, Martin…” I was surprised mainly at his calm triumph.

  “You don’t think she told the whole truth? Of course she’d know where he meant to hide.” He was ladling the chips out with a wire sieve. “And she’d go back there when things were quiet and shoot him herself. I wonder if the policemen would care for a few chips.”

  “If there’s any to spare,” I said, my mind racing. “But it was obvious he hadn’t been in that room,” I whispered.

  “Obvious? How long’ve you got to be here before what’s obvious begins to strike you as suspicious? There, that’ll do for Clarice. Tell her to get stuck into that. Oh, and remind her – no, tell her, because I’m sure she hasn’t thought of it – tell her not to count too much on £100,000 for Konrad’s murder. We wouldn’t pay out to the person who’d done it.”

  I hadn’t said a word about the undented bed, and the idea that a man, having sat on it, would not trouble to tidy it. But Fisher had seemed to be able to read my mind. A man might not – but Clarice would. Heavens, it was just what she’d think about!

  I had difficulty with my voice. “I hadn’t intended to visit Clarice.”

  “Then I will. Here, my dear, take this to Amaryllis.”

  “I doubt her mouth will take kindly to chips.”

  “Her mouth?”

  So he didn’t know. “She’s hurt it.”

  “Then take a double helping of the pudding.”

  We put covers over the plates. I added a glass to the cutlery and a half bottle of Mouton Cadet, and headed out to the ballroom, on the way to the staircase. Still, I could not attempt to speak naturally to David, and registered only that he smiled tentatively at me. But George read my expression. He was at my elbow in a second, saying: “I’ll help you with that,” as an excuse to get a few minutes with me.

  George solemnly marched up the staircase at my side, carrying the tray with one hand, the other at my arm. I was aware that cars were arriving in the drive, many cars. George said:

  “Persuade her to come down later, Elsa.”

  “I don’t suppose she’ll want to.”

  “After Abel’s gone, Dave’s got some idea for a reconstruction.”

  “Oh, no!” For me? It was taking it too far. “He doesn’t need to do that.”

  “He thinks he does. Short-cutting, he calls it. When Dave gets to trimming the corners it means he’s running out of ideas.”

  He said it absently, his eyes firmly ahead. I glanced at him.

  “You know the reason for this, don’t you, George?”

  “Some theory he’s got.”

  “I mean the real reason.”

  “As I said…”

  “I’m not going to go along with it.”

  We stopped at her door. He spoke gently. “You’ve never been in on one of his cases, Elsa, not from start to finish. Things are apt to get rough, though usually it’s more physical. I can handle that, and Dave’s useful when it comes to it. But this one… it ain’t quite my mark. Nobody to thump. So… how’s about doing it for me, then, and help get this thing out of the way? I want to get away from this damned place.”

  I saw that George, for all his eagerness to tackle problems and discover logical answers, was getting very close to being beaten on this one. He looked hurt and troubled.

  “I want to get you away from here,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t answer. I went in to Amaryllis.

  I suppose that these stage people must have a certain resilience. The show must go on, and all that. There must also be professional methods of hiding wounds and disabilities. Or maybe she was possessed of a fierce spirit of self-protection. Whatever it was, the mess of her face, which I’d expected, was not at once apparent. She was not even close to prostrate, but was standing at her window in slacks and sweater, smoking, and whirled on me when the door opened.

  “I thought I was going to starve.”

  “You could have come down,” I told her severely. But her lips were thick and one cheek showed a slight welling.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, gesturing to the window.

  “They’re here again.”

  I had put the tray on the table, and whisked off the covers. Somehow, I’d expected anyone as delicate and fragile as a ballet dancer, even an ex-one, to recoil at the sight of chips and corned beef and rice pudding. But no. I reminded myself that ballet dancers had to be all muscle and flexibility, and were probably as tough as all-in wrestlers. She laughed, seeing my expression.

  “As recently as six months ago I was touring with Konrad. Things could be pretty rough around the clubs.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see.”

  “What do you see?” She picked up a chip, bit it, nodded, and sat at the table. “Have a chip, why don’t you!”

  “Mine’s downstairs. George found Konrad’s secret room, you know. Up in the top of the tower.”

  She was eating competantly enough. “Then the policeman was right. How wonderful to be so handsome and so clever.” But she was teasing me, referring to David! “And what,” she repeated casually, “do you see?”

  I stood and looked down at her bent head. “When you were touring there’d be no difficulty. You and Konrad, together. Thrown together, you might say. But the past six months… you were living here. It would be awkward, and rather obvious if you left the castle together for a day or two. There would have to be somewhere secret, where you could both go.”

  She cut me short, looking up at me and laughing, then throwing back her head to make the most of that long neck. “Oh, that’s splendid. But he came to me, if he wished – if I wished – in my room. Konrad was never one for pretence—”

  “He was all pretence.”

  “Not in his private life, my dear. He was quite outrageous. It was d
elicious.”

  “But not recently.”

  She looked down at her plate. “That Anthony! He thinks he’s in love with me. Ridiculous. He’s been jealous of his father in his career, and he thinks he’s got to carry it over…”

  “It’s no more than that?”

  “But Konrad noticed. Lately he’d been cool. I tried to reassure him. But no. Obviously he’d got this on his mind, this special illusion of his.”

  “The illusion of his death?”

  “If you like.”

  “But he didn’t confide in you about it?”

  “No, he didn’t. Won’t yours be getting cold?”

  “It can wait. Then you didn’t know about his secret room?”

  She was finishing the wine. The rice pudding didn’t meet her approval, it seemed. “Tell me…” She pointed the glass at me. “Does it have pink curtains and a luxury bed, and soft lighting, and the facility for sexy music? Does it have a dressing-table I could sit at and make myself beautiful for whatever work he had in mind? Does it have a shower…” She laughed at my expression. “Then I wouldn’t be interested.”

  I said: “David wants you to come down later.”

  “Not me.”

  “But why not? You seem fit enough.”

  “Will Anthony be there?”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  “Then no. I could well kill him.”

  “He wants… I understand that what David’s got in mind is some sort of reconstruction.” I paused. It was difficult to say. “He was thinking of you in your uniform, or whatever you call it, your stage costume.”

  “Then he’s going to be disappointed.”

  “It did seem important.”

  “The answer’s no.”

  “Then perhaps I could stand in for you. If you’ll get me the outfit…”

  “You?” She eyed me with something close to contempt. I admit my figure is fuller – admit it, damn it I’m proud of it – but we were much of a height. I stiffened, my cheeks hot. She went on: “You in tights and black pants and a sequined set of tails! My dear, you’d look ridiculous.”

  But my legs are better. “You shouldn’t be afraid of comparisons,” I said, condescending a little. “Where is it?” I headed for her huge, wide wardrobe.

  “You leave that alone,” she snapped, and her eyes were suddenly dangerously bright.

  I paused, and looked back at her. “You are afraid of comparisons.”

  “I’ll come down,” she said savagely.

  “Not if it’s too much effort.”

  “Get out of here!” she screamed, and so I left.

  I had done as David wished, whatever his reasons. You can’t blame me for taking a little pleasure from it. I was smiling when I left the room, and George, hovering, noticed it.

  “You managed it?”

  “There’s no need for you to have waited, George. She’ll bring the tray down herself.”

  “Good girl. David’s going to be very pleased.”

  I didn’t reply. I was aware that George’s deferring of his meal just to keep an eye on me was a distinct and flattering honor. George, too, was silent; no more moralizing.

  Amaryllis had spoken almost casually of her abandoned career as a ballet dancer. She had admitted she could not have reached the top. But she was a fighter, not so easily accepting defeat. No… her switch to the less legitimate stage had centered on Konrad. From their first meeting, he had been able to do anything he wished with her. But now Konrad was gone, and she had nothing. This was what Anthony meant when he taunted her with her ballet music. He offered her the only future that even showed itself, an alliance with himself. It was a vicious way to do it, though maybe he knew her better than I did. Some women respond to cruelty; some women live by violence.

  The air seemed thick with police in casual clothing. Some already nibbled chips from newspapers, which Fisher might have considered appropriate. The printing ink, I understand, gives them a distinctive flavor.

  Mine were awaiting me on a plate. David stood and drew back my chair. I murmured something. He told me that Fisher had been entertaining them. Was still doing it, in fact, and had broken off only in politeness until I was settled, though he obviously wasn’t pleased to have it described as an entertainment. Because Martin Fisher was hell-bent on his Clarice theory.

  I did think they might have kept mine warm; perhaps this is what the newspaper does. The chips were damp and soggy. George, similarly afflicted, swept my plate from under my nose and marched off towards the kitchen, with the awkward result that I had nowhere to concentrate my gaze, and no one had had the kind thought of wine for us, to alleviate the distress.

  Sundry was sitting beside Fisher, opposite me, and was clearly suffering from his good manners. Being a trained gentleman, he was trying to be polite, but letting it boil up inside him was not a good idea.

  “…she goes up then,” Fisher was saying when I began to register again, “and shoots him out of hand. I know that sort of woman, apparently deferring to her husband, but quietly as tough and strong—”

  “Mr Mallin believes otherwise,” said Sundry softly.

  “He hopes to prove that Konrad was shot in his own room.”

  “Can prove,” David murmured.

  “Chuff,” said Fisher in disgust. “That’s a lot of hogwash. The place was sealed off.”

  “He’s promised to demonstrate what he means.” Sundry’s voice was tight.

  David raised his chin. His face seemed more sunken, his eyes, in that light, unhealthily feverish. “I only said I wanted a reconstruction. I thought I could show how he could have been shot by accident. While he was actually using the cabinet, that is. That was all…”

  “David, please,” I whispered.

  He turned his dark, worried eyes on me. “I did tell you it was what I wanted.”

  All was pain. I could see he had to maintain the pretence, for me, and in that way was allowing the conduct of the investigation to become distorted.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  On the face of it, he was attempting to go along with George’s proof that Konrad had been killed in his room. But there was no conviction in his eyes. Not even when he said:

  “I can demonstrate this.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, and Fisher caught on it in grand triumph. “You see! Even your wife knows that Clarice did it.”

  “I did not say that.” I was firm with him, even angry, but I was becoming completely confused. I didn’t know who I was supporting, nor in what. Fortunately, George provided a diversion by banging down in front of me a huge helping of chips, beside which the corned beef had grown by several slices. At least, I could fasten my eyes on it, if only in fascination, and manage to say:

  “Amaryllis is coming down later.”

  “You mentioned the outfit, I suppose?” David asked, not giving an inch.

  “I even offered to wear the thing. But she told me my legs weren’t good enough.” A complete lie; you have to fall back on something.

  “I’m not sure I like this idea,” Sundry protested gently. “I mean, we could use a dummy…”

  “No. I want this to be authentic.” When David speaks like that, there’s no appeal. “I want this to be how Konrad planned the illusion. Was it, in other words, an illusion he might seriously have expected to use professionally, or was it something rigged for the one purpose of faking his death?”

  “We’ve had that!” Fisher shouted. “We’ve heard it all. Clarice admitted as much.”

  “Yes?” David cocked his head. “Then we’ll have to see. What we want to know is what happened, not what he planned. I have in mind…”

  “What you’ve got in mind,” said Fisher scornfully, “is earning your fee, protecting your client.”

  “What I want,” ploughed on David resolutely, “is the whole thing, as it would’ve been on the stage, Amaryllis in full rig, and perhaps Sundry, if he has his tails here—”

  “Not me!” Sundry w
as shaking; his voice was beyond control.

  “Then I’ll do it myself. Maybe…” He glanced round. “Maybe I’m much Konrad’s size – I never saw him. Clarice can surely find a spare set of white tie and tails for me. And I’ll handle the gun…”

  “The gun?” Sundry screamed.

  Anthony put in with calm cynicism: “You’re taking this a bit far, aren’t you?” And spoiled it by giving me one of his special smiles. It would have been devastating on the stage.

  “We’ve got to do the thing right,” David persisted. “And Fisher himself has said that the mechanism didn’t once fail for him. Perhaps, if Amaryllis is nervous, he’d like to go inside himself…”

  “I know what you’re doing,” Fisher shouted. “You’re trying to make a fool of me. But I know! She did it. She’s going to pay for it…”

  Then Sundry’s chair crashed over backwards and he was on his feet, his left hand reaching for Fisher’s lapels, and George moved so fast that I hadn’t seen him get to his feet, and had them separated in a moment.

  David spoke as though nothing had happened. “Or perhaps Fisher was lying when he said it’d always worked for him.”

  “No.” Amaryllis spoke from behind me. We had been so immersed in our own scene that we had not noticed her approach along the length of the ballroom. “Martin wasn’t lying,” she said. “It was working.”

  “But you said…” I couldn’t help it, couldn’t help turning and rising to my feet, if only to level my eyes with hers. “You said it’d failed the last few times. Amaryllis why were you so frightened? Why,” I accused her, “did you leave him alone in the room that night, if you weren’t terrified?”

  She shrugged. Her eyes were all pitiful contempt for me. She was in her dressing-gown, flamboyantly black with a red dragon design, with beneath it, I saw, her ballet shoes, which was why she had been so silent approaching.

  “I had to tell you a lie about the failures or you wouldn’t have believed how frightened I was. Konrad said he had to have at least twenty successes with the dummy before I could try it.” There was silence. I didn't think she seemed quite sane. “But I knew he intended to kill me that first time he got me in there.”

  “Why?” asked David. His half-raised hand silenced the rest of us.