by Colin Forbes
`What are you going to do?'
`First, you must realize everything I have told you has to be in the strictest confidence. I am walking a tight-rope – I explained that to you also. Now, we are proceeding with the ambulance to the morgue. I have already alerted poor Anna Kleist who will lose yet another night's sleep. But I wish her to hear Dr Kennedy's diagnosis. And you should be thanking her for being there – not chastising her!'
`You are grateful for her help?'
`Yes!' Beck settled himself more comfortably behind the wheel. They had passed the turn-off to Belp and would soon be approaching the outskirts of Berne. He glanced in his rear-view mirror before continuing. 'Dr Kennedy completely neutralized any authority Lachenal might have asserted by her diagnosis of asphyxiation and possible cyanosis. That made it potential homicide. That put it in my court. That check-mated Lachenal…'
`There is some borderline between yourself and Military Intelligence, I gather?'
`Yes. Tricky on occasion. Officially we always cooperate. We are both concerned with the security of the state. A very flexible phrase. If Lachenal could have made out a case that it concerned counter-espionage the dead woman would have been his. Once it became homicide, even suspected, I had him.'
`I suppose as regards Nancy I should really thank you… `You really should!'
Newman glanced in his own wing mirror and then turned as though to speak to Nancy. The ambulance had dropped back to give reasonable clearance. Some distance behind it was a red streak, a Porsche. He wondered whether Beck had seen it.
`I hate the stink of these places,' Newman remarked without thinking as they sat round a table drinking coffee. 'And an empty stomach doesn't help…'
`There you go again!' Nancy flared in a sudden rage. `Anything to do with a medical atmosphere and you're off – and maybe that includes doctors, too?' she ended savagely.
`We are all tired,' Beck intervened. He clasped Nancy's hand affectionately. 'And we have all had a series of most unnerving shocks.' He glanced at Newman. 'Maybe the best solution would be not to take him with you when you visit patients,' he suggested humorously.
They were sitting in the ante-room of the morgue and they had been quarantined there for a long time. At least, that was how Newman termed it to himself. There was the usual smell of strong disinfectant. The walls, painted white, were bare. There was the minimum of furniture. The single window was frosted glass so there was nothing to look out at in the street beyond.
`Anna does a thorough job,' Beck remarked to break the new silence which had descended on their conversation. am sure she will be here soon…'
Dr Anna Kleist, the pathologist, had been waiting to examine the body of the unknown woman as soon as they arrived. Beck had made brief introductions between Nancy and Kleist, who had asked no questions before she disappeared. Newman had just stood up to stretch his legs when the door opened and Anna Kleist appeared. She addressed herself to Nancy.
I'm so sorry to keep you waiting so long. I think I am now in a position to have a preliminary discussion as to how this unfortunate woman died…'
Tweed came into Geneva on Flight SR 837 which landed him at Cointrin at 21.30 hours. He moved swiftly through Passport Control and Customs, ran across the reception hall, clutching his small suitcase, and hailed a cab. He gave the driver a good tip and he was lucky. Green lights all the way along empty streets to Cornavin Gare.
He caught the 21.45 express by the skin of his teeth, panting as he sank into his first-class seat and the train glided out of the station. His short legs were not built for such sprints.
Reaching Bern Bahnhof – or Berne Gare – at 23.34, he took another cab to the Bellevue Palace and registered.
`Take my bag up to the room for me,' he told the porter and turned back to the receptionist, speaking in French. am the executor of the estate of the late M. Bernard Mason who, you doubtless know, was drowned in the Aare. My London office phoned you about this…'
`Yes, sir, we have a note…'
`Thank God for that.' He paused. 'M. Mason was also one of my closest friends. Can I see any papers he left in the safety deposit? I don't want to take them away – you can watch me while I scan them briefly. Something to do with his estate…'
`M. Mason did not have a safety deposit box…'
I see.' Tweed looked nonplussed. 'Could I make a rather unusual request? I would like to look at the room he occupied. That is, if it is still vacant…'
`I do understand, sir. And it will be quite possible.' The receptionist produced a key. The room has been cleaned and all his personal effects impounded by the Federal Police…'
`Naturally. May I go up alone? Just to look…'
`Certainly, sir. The lift…'
`I know where the lift is. I have stayed here before on several occasions.'
Tweed took the lift to the fourth floor and stepped out. The mention of the Federal Police worried Tweed as he inserted the key, opened the bedroom door, went inside and closed and locked the door. That suggested Arthur Beck. Still, they had no reason to suspect Mason had been anything but the market researcher he had registered as under the heading Occupation.
He stood for a moment just beyond the threshold, a mark of respect, and then the inhuman emptiness of the room hit him and he muttered, 'Sentimental old fool…' The thing now was where would Mason have hidden his report?
Tweed had no doubt Mason had compiled a written report on Professor Armand Grange – for just the appalling eventuality which had overtaken him. Mason was a professional to his fingertips. Had been, Tweed corrected his mental comment.
First, he checked the bathroom and the separate lavatory – without much hope. Chambermaids, especially Swiss chambermaids, were notoriously proficient in their cleanliness. He found nothing in either place.
So, that left the bedroom – and very little scope. Which was the same problem Mason must have faced. How had he solved it? Tweed climbed on a chair and searched behind the curtains at the top near the runners for an envelope attached with adhesive surgical tape. Nothing. Wardrobe empty.
He peered underneath two tables, getting down on his hands and knees. Standing up, he stood with his back to a wall and coolly surveyed the room. The only thing left was a small chest of drawers. He opened the top one. Lined with paper, it was impeccably clean – and empty. He ran his hand along the inner surface of the drawer. Zilch – awful word – as the Americans would say.
The notebook was attached with surgical tape to the lower surface of the third drawer down at the back. He found it when he was checking the bottom drawer. Even Swiss chambermaids could hardly be expected to dust this area.
It was a cheap, lined notebook measuring approximately three-and-a-half inches wide by five-and-a-half inches deep. Comparatively cheap. On the cover it still carried the tiny white sticker which gave the price. 2.20 francs. Also the shop where it had been purchased. Paputik. Am Waisenhausplatz Bern. Near Cantonal police headquarters. Which told Tweed nothing.
The neat script – a fine Italianate hand – inside the notebook, which was so familiar it gave him a pang, told him a great deal. The first page began, Professor Armand Grange, age: sixty… Standing by the chest of drawers, Tweed rapidly read everything in the notebook and then placed it in an inside pocket.
Tweed had exceptional powers of concentration – and total recall. In future, if it should be necessary, he would be able to recite Mason's last will and testament – because for Tweed that was what it amounted to – word for word.
He left the bedroom, locked the door and went down in the lift to the ground floor. He handed back the key and pushed his way through the revolving doors. He hardly noticed the cold night air as he turned right, hands thrust inside the pockets of his worn, patched sheepskin.
He covered the ground at surprising speed, his legs moving like stubby pistons. Crossing the road in front of the Casino, he walked on down the right-hand arcade of the Munstergasse, deep in thought. Another part of his brain kept an eye
on the tunnel of the arcade ahead, the arcade across the street.
Reaching the large square in front of the Munster, he walked round rather than across it. A car could drive you down crossing wide open spaces. He entered the Plattform through the open gateway and between the bare trees the wind scoured his face as his feet crunched gravel.
He walked on to the low wall and stopped, staring down at the Aare far below. Tweed didn't realize at the time, but he was standing at almost the exact point where Julius Nagy had been tipped into the depths. Nor was he making a pilgrimage to look down where Mason had died. Such an idea would have made the dead man snort.
Tweed was trying to work out how they had killed him. It was the work of a professional, of course. A trained assassin, a commando-type soldier – or a policeman. No one else could have got close enough to Mason to do the job. His eyes scanned the river from the Dalmazi bridge to the Kirchenfeld.
Wiley, 'commercial attache' at the British Embassy, had given him sufficient details when he phoned him in London for Tweed to work it out. He started from the premise as to how he would have planned the killing.
Dropping the body into the river so it would be battered by one of the sluices had been deliberate, he felt sure. It was a brutal warning, an intended deterrent. No good pushing Mason over the railings lining the Aarstrasse below – the body might easily have simply drifted into the backwater near the Primarschule in the Matte district.
The Kirchenfeld bridge was out – too great a danger of traffic. No, it must have been the small and much lower Dalmazi bridge he decided. A body – Mason must have been unconscious because he was a strong swimmer – dropped from the centre of that bridge would inevitably be carried by the river's natural flow until it was hurled against one of the sluices.
Satisfied that he knew now how it had been done, Tweed walked back to the exit from the Plattform and continued along the Munstergasse. It was very quiet. No sound except his own footsteps. He walked on into the Junkerngasse and the pavement was sloping downwards now. He paused just before he reached his destination, listening. He was very concerned to protect her.
He resumed his walk a short distance and stopped outside a doorway with three bell-pushes. He approved the sight of the newly-installed speak-phone. He pressed the bell-push alongside the name, B. Signer.
`Who is it?' Blanche's voice twanged through the metal grille.
`Tweed…'
`Come on up…'
Twenty-Three
Anna Kleist pulled up a chair to the table and sat down facing Nancy. The two doctors, Newman had already noticed, were on the same waveband. Kleist removed her tinted spectacles, clasped her hands on the table and began speaking.
`Now, this could be important to me, Dr Kennedy. I was told by Mr Beck you were the first person to examine the body of the unfortunate woman who was brought here. You may like to know I have phoned Dr Kobler of the Berne Clinic. He informs me the patient was called Holly Laird from Houston, Texas. According to his version she was suffering from a state of mental imbalance. She overpowered one of the staff, a woman called Astrid, stole her keys to their poisons cupboard and made off with a quantity of potassium cyanide. Although outwardly calm, I detected in Kobler a state of agitation. He qualified every statement he made. "Subject to further verification", was the phrase he used. Could you please tell me your impression after you examined Mrs Laird?'
`It was not a proper diagnosis, of course,' Nancy replied promptly. 'It was carried out under the least ideal conditions. I was surrounded with not only policemen but also armed soldiers. It was dark. I used a torch borrowed from one of the police. You understand?'
`Perfectly…'
`One factor I had to take into consideration was exposure. It was a bitterly cold night. The temperature was sub-zero. Mrs Laird was wearing only a pair of pyjamas and a thick dressing-gown. She may have run quite some distance before she reached the road.'
`Death due to exposure?' Kleist asked. 'That was what you concluded?'
`No!' Nancy began talking more rapidly. 'I had the strong impression she died from some form of asphyxiation. And the complexion of the face showed distinct traces of cyanosis. Her mouth was twisted in the most horrible grimace – a grimace consistent with cyanosis.'
`May I ask, Anna,' Beck intervened, 'what is your reaction to Dr Kennedy's on the spot conclusions?'
When she sat at the table Kleist had taken a scratch pad from a pocket of her pale green gown and she now produced a ball-point pen and began doodling on the pad. Newman guessed it helped to concentrate her thinking. She continued her doodling as she replied in her soft voice.
`My examination so far confirms precisely Dr Kennedy's impression. We have taken blood samples and they, in time, may tell us more…'
`How much time?' Newman demanded. 'That may be a commodity we are very short of – time.'
`A week. Possibly only a few days. Another pathologist is dealing with that aspect. I have requested that he give the matter the most urgent priority…'
`So we just have to wait,' Newman commented.
`I did find something else, something which puzzles me greatly,' Kleist went on. 'There are unexplained lacerations round the neck and over the crown of the skull…'
`You mean she could have been strangled?' Beck probed.
`Nothing like that. It is almost as though her neck and head had been bound in cloth straps…' She was still drawing something on her notepad. 'One explanation – although it seems bizarre to say the least – is that shortly before she died she was wearing some kind of headgear…'
`Some kind of mask?' Beck queried.
`Possibly,' she agreed, with no certainty in her tone. '1 can only be positive at this stage about the asphyxiation…'
`An oxygen mask?' Beck persisted. 'That would fit in with the equipment you'd expect to be available in a clinic. Maybe the oxygen supply was turned off, causing asphyxiation?'
Kleist shook her head. 'No. You have forgotten – she was seen running some considerable distance according to what you told me. It is the agent which caused death we have to isolate and identify. There we have to wait for the results of the blood tests.' She frowned. 'It is those lacerations which 1 find so strange. Still, I am probably saying far too much at this early stage. After all, I have not yet completed the examination.'
`You said she was a Mrs Holly Laird from Houston,' Newman remarked. Did you get any further information from Kobler about this woman's background? How old was she, by the way?'
`Fifty-five. And yes, I did press Kobler for more details. He was reluctant to say much but also, I sensed, wary of not appearing to cooperate fully. Mrs Laird is the nominal head of a very large oil combine. She was brought to the Berne Clinic by her step-daughter in one of the company's executive jets…'
`Any information on her husband?' Newman said quickly.
`He's dead. I couldn't obtain any further details.' She glanced at Beck. 'I had to use your name to get that much out of him…'
`Another similar case,' Newman commented.
`And what might that mean?' Beck enquired.
`I'll tell you later.' Newman stood up. 'And now I think we have taken up more than enough of Dr Kleist's time. I appreciate her frankness at this early stage…'
`My pleasure…' Kleist hesitated, staring at Newman. 'It is just possible I may be able to tell you more by morning.'
`You're working through the night?' Newman asked with a note of incredulity.
`This man…' Kleist also stood up and linked her arm in Beck's, `… is the most unfeeling taskmaster in Switzerland. You do realize that, Arthur?' she added mischievously.
Beck shrugged and smiled. 'You would do the job, anyway, but I appreciate your dedication. And I have the same premonition as Newman – time is what we don't have…'
`Dr Kleist,' Newman said as they were about to leave, wonder if you would mind if I took your doodle? I collect them…'
`Of course.'
She tore off the sheet, fol
ded it and handed it to him. He slipped it inside his wallet and she watched him with a quirkish smile.
Beck drove them back to the Bellevue Palace in a police car and in silence. Nancy had the impression the experiences of the night had exhausted everyone. She waited until they were inside their bedroom before she asked the question.
`What is on that sheet of paper you took off her?'
`Exhibit A. When they doodle, clever people sometimes reveal what is in their subconscious. Prepare yourself for a shock. The Kleist is very clever. Here you are…'
`Oh, my God!'
Nancy sank on to the bed as she stared at the doodle the Swiss pathologist had drawn while she talked. It showed a picture of a sinister-looking gas-mask.
Twenty-Four
Tweed sat down on the sofa and Blanche Signer arranged a cushion behind him, treating him like a favourite uncle. She was very fond of Tweed. He was a nice man, a kindly man. He watched her as she disappeared inside the kitchen, walking with agile grace.
Settling himself against the cushion, he looked round the sitting-room to see if anything had changed since his previous visit. Then he spotted the silver-framed portrait of a late middle-aged man in the uniform of a colonel in the Swiss Army. He blinked, got up and moved swiftly across to examine it more closely.
`That's my stepfather,' Blanche called out as she returned and flourished a bottle behind his back. 'He adopted me when my mother – who died recently – remarried.'
`I don't think I've ever seen him before,' Tweed remarked slowly. 'He's a handsome-looking man.' He made a great effort to speak casually.
`Look!' she said exuberantly. `Montrachet. Especially for you, this one. See!' She held out the bottle for his inspection, so he could note the year. He felt it and the bottle was as chilled as the waters of the Aare. was going to ask for coffee…'
`No,' she told him firmly, 'you've had a beastly journey. All the way from Geneva – from London, in fact. And it's well after midnight. You need something relaxing.'