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

by Roger Ormerod

  “He found it was the only way he could get rid of me,” she said negligently, her eyes blank. “Where else could I go, though? But you… David… you don’t want to get rid of me, do you?” He shook his head, not trusting his voice. “Then for you we will re-create it.” Her hair was tied back with a ribbon, her eyes huge with the make-up they use, her head poised on the slender neck. “But that’ll be later,” she decided. “And now…” A glance at Anthony, mocking and challenging. “I think I’m in the mood for Coppélia.”

  The exit was perhaps the most compelling she had ever made. I saw Abel standing by the far door. What he made of the scene I don’t know, but he held the door open for her with a courtly gesture. She walked past him with her flat-footed, toes-out ballet walk.

  “Finish your chips, love,” said David.

  Twelve

  Detective Chief Inspector Abel was both pleased and disappointed with the secret room. He had predicted its existence, and it’s always pleasant to have such deductions confirmed. But he had, finally, to reach George’s conclusion, which was that Konrad had not been shot there. Yet, he was inflexible in this contention that he had certainly not been shot in the laboratory.

  “Apart from the impossibility of his murderer having got out of there why would the rug be taken up to the other room, when there was an open window?”

  David considered it. The four of us were alone in the Cleric’s Library, me basking in the thought that this must mean I was no longer a suspect.

  “A body,” David decided, “might not turn up, and anything else could conceivably be destroyed by the sea and the rocks. But not a rug. A rug’s almost indestructible. It might even get stuck on the rocks and be exposed by the low tide. Yes, I think I’d take it away, if it’d been me.”

  The difficulty was that nobody could confirm that that specific rug had been in the laboratory at all. There were half a dozen old and stray rugs scattered about its floor. That could have been one of them.

  “So we’ll keep looking,” said Abel.

  “For somewhere else? A flat or a cottage?”

  Abel smiled his thin smile. “Or even another room he could’ve been shot in. Another window he could have been dumped from. In the meantime…” He produced the gun from his pocket. “I’ll take this along.”

  “Ah!” George pounced in. “So you’re admitting it’s possible.”

  “I’m covering my bets.”

  So at least David was robbed of his most dangerous prop, and there now seemed a possibility that he’d have to call off the demonstration altogether. But somehow, I doubted it. After half an hour alone in the lounge with Delibes, Amaryllis had emerged in a state of high ecstasy, half drunk, I thought, with the excess of it after all this time, and she had been wildly in favor of the demonstration; in fact had demanded it. She hung, almost, on David’s arm, when he needed no persuasion, and jollied him along with her eyes, and he laughed her off with casual promises. So how was he going to get out of it now?

  The answer was that he wasn’t. When the place was clear of detectives, and every corner had been scoured for leftovers, he announced that it would be at ten o’clock. It required much hammering on doors to make certain the message – the command – had been conveyed. It required somebody, and it had to be me, to visit Clarice in her room, and not simply persuade her that she had to be there – not too difficult when the sanctity of her insurance claim was mentioned – but also to borrow Konrad’s spare white tie, dress shirt and tails.

  You see, David was coldly, implacably determined to do it as a complete performance. I could have killed him. In fact, my exasperation finally overcame me.

  This happened in our room. It was perhaps 9.30. Outside, the wind blew spray on our windows, part rain, part sea, and inside our lights were flickering. David stood in Konrad’s trousers and shirt, the inside leg only one inch too long, the waist only one inch too tight.

  “How long is this going on, David?”

  “This?” He pulled the waistcoat tight.

  “This pretence. You were in her room. All right. You could well have said you were questioning her, in spite of the fact that you’ve questioned no one else in their room. But maybe I’d have accepted it. And then you had to come out with some ridiculous excuse of searching for her outfit.”

  You will see, I was quite calm about it. I was handling something precious.

  “It happened to be the truth,” he declared. I perhaps made a derogatory sound. “The first thing that came to me. I didn’t have time for a good lie.”

  “Oh, really, David, and to take it this far! You don’t have to lay all this on, just to prove your pitiful little story.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize you thought it was pitiful. I was laying it on in any event.”

  “That’s ridiculous! And now… why, you haven’t even got the gun. What do you do – say bang?”

  “But I’ve got this.”

  Then, from the dressing-table drawer, from among my underclothes, he produced a little pistol.

  My first reaction: “Where did you get that?”

  “It’s George’s. He had it in his car. Not the right model, not even the right caliber, but I don’t think anybody’ll notice, do you?”

  It took my breath away. That he could go into such detail…

  Then the lights gave one more flicker and went out. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ve got some matches in my other pocket.”

  “Why should I move?”

  “I thought you were about to slap my face. Ah, here we are.” I heard the scrape. The flame lit his face weirdly. Then he reached for the lamp and lifted the chimney, and my heart settled when the flame caught. I realized why we all had lamps. Those few moments of darkness, with the wind thudding against the walls, had been terrifying.

  The light grew as he replaced the chimney. “David…” I began again, hoping desperately that I could still avert the demonstration, “David, I…”

  Then we heard the screams.

  The lamp was still in David’s hand, his face illuminated with what seemed sudden triumph. “Come on,” he shouted, and he headed for the door.

  I forgot I was in slacks and my bra. The screams were high with terror, confined by that inflexible stone. I stumbled through the door and saw George a yard or so behind him. I was being left alone in the darkness, and ran, my bare feet silent, ran towards the light which streamed, rising and falling in yellow and red, from an open doorway along the gallery. I ran, and screamed myself because fire is a primitive evil.

  There were shouts now and a slamming of doors. Shadows blundered and David’s lamp, the only one, led the confused race for the doorway. I was twenty feet short when Amaryllis fell back from her room, beating at her smoldering dressing-gown, which suddenly flared into naked flame as though the dragon belched it.

  David, at a flat run, slid the lamp on to the table which should already have one and didn’t. I got there in time to prevent his from sliding off and making things worse, as he dived – a running tackle – at Amaryllis, sending them rolling together in a ball of smoke along the corridor. George pounced on them, slapping hands like shovels on the smoking material, tearing it from her in shreds, until David climbed upright and she lay at their feet, her screams now sobs, with nothing on at all but the black smears of the smoldering scraps.

  The room was a furnace. I stumbled into Clarice, who seemed shocked into insensibility on her feet. “Extinguishers,” I shouted “Extinguishers, Clarice!”

  She shook her head, but Anthony knew. He ran, calling over his shoulder: “This way, this way,” and he and George returned to the head of the staircase, where the extinguishers stood – and I’d never noticed – each side the banisters.

  David was on his knees again beside Amaryllis. He wasn’t wearing a jacket to cover her with. I knelt beside him. He turned to face me, his eyebrows singed. “I think it’s mainly shock,” he said quietly. “The burns are only minor.”

  She whimpered. He asked her what had h
appened.

  Gusts of heat moved past us. I didn’t think it mattered what had happened, not just then. But David persisted.

  “The…” she whispered, “the door opened. The lights… they’d gone out. I was… groping for matches. The door opened… there was light. I thought… someone being kind… kind…” She sobbed. “Then he… he threw the lamp right at me. I… managed to move and it crashed on the floor, and there was one… terrible…”

  She’d have screamed again. I put my hand on her arm. Shudders ran through her. Then I stood up, wondering whether we shouldn’t all be heading for the open air.

  With my head higher, I found the smoke to be choking me. I bent my head. David was saying: “Who? Did you see who?”

  But she shook her head. Her protest was almost a howl. “I don’t know!”

  “We’ve got to get her away from here, David.” But he didn’t hear.

  I turned. Clarice was screaming now, flapping wildly at Sundry’s offered assistance. This time, he wasn’t going to be rejected. Half carrying her, he struggled away through the smoke.

  George and Anthony were inside the room. I peered inside with trepidation. White and black billowing clouds were shot through with scarlet, and flames ran wild up the curtains. George was like a tree-trunk, unmoving in the heat as he played the spray. Anthony was darting here and there, fidgeting at fresh surges of fire. But already it seemed that it was contained. The walls were solid rock, and only the room’s contents would burn, and perhaps the floor, and perhaps the ceiling…

  I felt panic engulfing me. David said: “Watch her, Elsa. I’m going to look for another.”

  She was in a tight ball of terror and would not move at my touch. All I could do was crouch beside her. Smoke set me coughing again, and I caught only a glimpse of David running through it, carrying two more extinguishers.

  Then there came a time when there was no more than steam eddying from the open door. There was an acrid smell. I ventured to the door. There were no more flames, but the room was a complete wreck. I didn’t fancy the thought of telling Amaryllis that all her beautiful clothes were destroyed, and all her personal belongings.

  David saw me and came over. The splendid suit of tails was a mess, the shirt black, his face red through the grime.

  “It’s all right now. Can you get her to our room?”

  Which of course was the only possibility, and David had found time to consider it. She would have to share our room with me, David moving in temporarily with George. I thought about it.

  “I’ll get Clarice,” I told him.

  “Shake her out of it. Slap her around a bit, if you have to. There’ll be some cleaning up to do.”

  He meant Amaryllis, I thought, though that was before I reached a mirror. But I went straight to Clarice’s room, expecting the worst, and therefore was agreeably surprised.

  Clarice was the type that always bounces back. Perhaps a lot of her youthful domineering persistence had gone with the years, but it had left behind a stubborn inflexibility. And something Sundry had just said to her, or she to him, had shaken life into her. This was her home, after all. Her eyes went quickly to me.

  “How is it?”

  It, not she. I told her things were in control, and we’d not need the fire brigade. Her face was smudged, and she recognized it in my eyes, reaching for a mirror.

  “My dear, you look terrible,” she said, glancing back at me.

  “Never mind that. We need a dressing-gown and your biggest pot of cold cream, and you’ll have to come and help me with her.”

  Her eyes went dull. “Stupid creature, she deserves all she gets.”

  “It was not an accident. Now do what I say and get off your behind. Auden, surely you could help with the clearing up. It’s chaos in there.”

  I bustled her. She protested, but I wasn’t having any arguments; she was no longer my head prefect. We eventually paraded along the Gallery with our arms loaded with luxurious and therefore comforting clothing, with cleansing cream and soothing lotions, and found Amaryllis sitting with her back to the wall and using language I’m sure they don’t encourage at Covent Garden. Unless it’s the market. David had just told her the condition of her room.

  Clarice and I got her along to my bed. We cleaned her, and discovered the burns to be superficial, painful only when touched with a cream-loaded wad of cotton wool. Clarice enjoyed this so much that I left her to it and went looking for a bath, if only for David to find me clean and sweet and smelling lovely.

  I didn’t reach it. David was in the other room, the door open, arguing with George. They were like a couple of scarecrows. George was saying:

  “But it doesn’t prove anything, Dave. Nothing, damn it.”

  “We expected something.”

  “But not this.”

  They realized I was there. David turned to me. “Elsa love, why don’t you go and clean up…”

  I was about to turn away, but he realized his lack of tact in time, and caught my shoulders in his two filthy hands, and flinched.

  “You’re hurt,” I said quickly.

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “Let me see.”

  “No, really…”

  George put in: “Is the heater working? I’ll go and have a bath.” And he shambled out.

  David smelt of smoke and sweat and singed flesh. I took him over to one of the beds and told him to stay there and I’d be back, and rushed in on Clarice and Amaryllis, who were conducting a silent campaign of mutual hatred, then back with the cleansing fluid and cold cream.

  “Elsa,” he said, “there’s something you ought to know.”

  “Not now.”

  “Now.” There was something special in his voice. I looked up from his puffy, red palms. “I’ve got to tell you why we were going to have the reconstruction.”

  “It’ll do later.”

  “It is later. Later than I should have told you. So it’s now. It was the gun, you see. It’d jammed when the murderer tried to fire a second shot.”

  “But I thought you said the first shot went through the cabinet panel and into the dummy, David.”

  “Whatever it did,” he said impatiently, “it refused to do it a second time. And as Konrad had a gunshot wound in his chest, I’m working on the assumption that he didn’t fire the first.”

  “Keep your hands still.”

  “So – on an assumption, then – that the murderer knows the gun jammed, and nobody else does, I thought if we set it up, and got Amaryllis in the cabinet, and fancied it all up with the right clothes and a bit of blah, it might seem real enough for everybody to expect I’d really fire the gun. And then… whoever protested wouldn’t know the gun had jammed. Whoever didn’t would be the one who’d used it.”

  I kept my eyes down. My heart was bounding. “But why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I was ashamed.” His voice was low. I lifted my eyes. His mouth was miserable.

  “Of what?” I whispered.

  “Of the idea. It was cheap and paltry and inconclusive.” And my heart plummetted.

  Still reaching for it: “There’re worse things to be ashamed of.”

  “Not in my book. I like to prove things, argue them through. To tell you the truth, I’m glad it’s off. What if nobody had stopped me?”

  “But, David!” I couldn’t stand his distress. “Somebody did intervene.”

  “Yes,” he agreed desperately. “We were arguing about that, George and me. Somebody went to pretty drastic lengths to stop it coming off. But I’d argued that only a non-murderer would intervene – in ignorance that the gun had jammed – so are we going to assume that the intervention, which was a near-fatal incident, was just to prevent a possibly fatal one? That’s taking it a bit far. And if it was the murderer who threw that lamp, why should he do it unless he’d seen through my bluff, in which event it wouldn’t need such drastic action just to double-bluff me. I mean, he’d only got to raise his voice at the reconstruction and pretend he thought
the gun would work.”

  “Oh dear, David, you are getting yourself tied up.” My mind wasn’t on it. The sympathy didn’t exactly flood over him. “Does everything have to be logical for you? People don’t react in logical ways, not all the time.”

  “And they don’t go to great lengths just to make puzzles for mugs like me. They do what they’ve got to do, when there’s no alternative.”

  “You’re getting a bit pompous, David. Don’t condescend to me, please.”

  He looked at his hands. “And you, my love, are not being very logical, covering my hands with cream when I’ve still got to take a bath.”

  He was holding them away from him, as though mortally offended. I couldn’t help laughing at his twitching nose. “Oh, David, why didn’t you tell me? You knew what I was thinking.”

  “That was ridiculous.”

  “Not worth consideration?”

  “I’ve just said it was ridiculous.” Then at last he smiled, and how could I mistrust that stupid, blackened and hurt face?

  So that after all the cold cream wasn’t wasted, most of it finishing on my bare skin, which, I realized when George returned, was still mainly uncovered. Still more uncovered, rather.

  He was wearing David’s dressing-gown, so must have been in next door for it.

  “How is she?” I asked. I did what I could with my hair.

  “Aftermath,” he said. “Exhausted.”

  “Is Clarice staying with her?” I asked hopefully, wondering where David and I might discover a bed we could share. And David echoed my own mournful thought.

  “You can’t imagine that, surely!”

  “Then I’ll have to.”

  “I’d realized that.”

  “Then you might have shown some consideration and kept your hands to yourself. George,” I said, “keep an eye on him. He’s suffering from too many fancy ideas.”

  George grinned. “So I see. But I can’t stay with her.”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  They laughed. I suppose I’d been a bit coy, but I was bouncing with happiness and willing to go along with it. I even paused at the door, vaguely aware that I must have looked a sight. But two pairs of eyes encouraged me to believe it wasn’t unpleasant.