by L. P. Davies
“We’re listening,” he said softly.
“There are one or two things I’ve got to get sorted out first.” She leaned against the control panel, suddenly aware of legs that weren’t as steady as they might have been, her hands behind her, resting on cold metal.
“You were responsible for Uncle Vince’s disappearance yesterday, and for returning the car?”
Sibault nodded without relaxing his steady, penetrating gaze.
“We were. I didn’t mention it before because I felt certain you were already aware we were responsible.”
“You brought him here and told him what had happened?” He nodded. “We did, Miss Salter.”
“Is he still here?”
“No.” He looked at Miss Kilby. “Getting something to eat, you said?”
She nodded.
“He should be back by now, sir,” Nolan said. He came to his feet. “Had I better—?”
“Go and see where he is,” Sibault said. “Tell him his niece is here.”
“Yes, sir.” Nolan left the room.
Sibault brought his gaze back to Louise. “Go on, Miss Salter.”
“Did you tell him about the White Room?” she asked. “Did you actually use that expression to him?”
“Did I?” His eyes slid away from her face for a brief moment. “No.” It returned. “I only gave him the general idea.”
“Did he say anything to you about Axel’s dream of a place where everything was white?”
“No.” He leaned forward from the hips. “A dream. Tell me about it.”
“Later.” She was aware of the concentrated gaze of everyone’s eyes on her face. “Were you behind those two men who tried to kidnap me outside the Swan in Littledene?”
Sibault’s very expression answered that without his having to speak.
“The telephone wires being cut?” Louise continued. “The attempt to get me away from Green Ladies by phoning to say Uncle Vince had been in an accident? The man who had a tussle with Axel in the garden?”
“What the hell,” Sibault asked softly, incredulously, “has been going on?”
“No one has asked me yet why it was you found Axel alone in the house when you came for him last night.”
“Let me ask you now,” he said.
“I wanted to go for the police,” Louise said. “Axel said we wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house. I decided to wait for darkness, then cut across the fields towards Littledene. I intended leaving a note for him. I went into the garden to make sure there was a way out at the back. I knew someone might be watching me, but I thought I could take care of myself. I was wrong. Whoever it was, came at me from behind and threw something over my head—his coat, I found out later. He carted me off to a car. We drove for about fifteen minutes. Then I was carried, still wrapped up—I never got to see either of their faces—for about another ten minutes.
I heard a door being opened. I was pushed inside and the door slammed.
‘‘When I had got free of the coat I saw I was in some kind of farm building. There were no windows. I hammered and yelled my head off. After a while I sat down on a pile of rubbish and fell asleep. When I woke it was light, and the door had been unfastened. There was a farmhouse some distance away. I didn’t tell them the truth—they wouldn’t have believe me. I told them I’d lost my way. They gave me breakfast. I spotted Axel’s picture on the cover of a magazine, and they told me about ‘Midas.’ The farmer gave me a lift into Bridford.”
Coxby came to his feet and went to stand at Sibault’s side.
“What’s it all about, Julius?”
“I’m trying to make sense of it,” the big man growled.
Louise said: “They were careful not to hurt me, I think they just wanted me away from Axel so that he would think I’d been taken to Barkley House and go there after me. They must have come back in the night to open the door, which meant they must have known you’d got him back. They must have known what was going on, and their idea was the same as yours—to get Axel back to the studios.”
“That’s how it seems to me,” Sibault said. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless—” He paused, eyes narrowed pensively.
“You said earlier there could be two reasons why Axel rejected the key phrase. But one of them you didn’t take into account. Was that because you didn’t think it possible that anyone could have tampered with the instructions given under hypnosis?”
“Before you came in, Miss Salter,” Sibault said heavily, “I passed a caustic remark about intelligent females. I take it back. And now I think you had better tell us all you can about this dream you say Axel had.”
She told him.
“Two different places—” he mused, gaze remote.
THE WHITE ROOM 1S3
“Uncle Vince seemed to think there might have been two different periods of indoctrination.”
“I think your uncle was right, Miss Salter. At least he was on the right track. I deplore the use of the word ‘indoctrination’ but I will use it now for the sake of simplicity. I indoctrinated Adrian to leave the set as soon as the key phrase was used. The indoctrination was tampered with so that instead of leaving the set he shot himself. The new instruction was ‘You are to kill Axel Champlee.’ If he had obeyed it the first time, then he would have killed himself in front of millions of viewers. And that would have been the end of Axel Champlee, and so of ‘Midas.’
“Instead, it clashed in his mind with the pressure brought to bear by Carla, that he was to kill Kendall. He couldn’t do both, so he rejected both, and rejected the key phrase at the same time.”
Sibault looked at Coxby. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Moses?”
“ICN.” The producer fingered his thick lips. “We’re hitting all the companies, but ICN more than the rest. All the same —a company of their repute and standing, to try something like that…” He shook his head.
“All your faith in human nature destroyed,” Sibault said caustically. “Come off it, Moses—you’ve been in business all your life. Are you forgetting why we started up Mosaic in the first place? A thorn in ICN’s side that we hoped they’d get rid of by buying us out. We hit them badly with ‘Midas, so they hit back. What did you expect them to do—sit back and go under?”
“The odd thing is,” Louise inserted, “Axel and I worked it out that he was in some way involved in the struggle between Mosaic and ICN.”
Sibault ignored the observation. Not because he considered it unworthy of a reply—he was in fact turning to look at her—but because a thought had just occurred to him, one that had to be voiced immediately.
“I’ve only just realised,” he said slowly. “They knew where Adrian was and that the girl was with him. They must have known about everything that happened. Are you with me?”
Coxby was. Dismay changed the contours of his swarthy features.
“A leakage,” Sibault continued almost pleasantly. “A nicer word to use than the one I have in mind. It has to be one of us here in this room. No one else knew.”
There was a short, tense silence. Gregson broke it with his Barkley House clearing of the throat. Joan Kilby looked down at her crossed ankles. Hazel toyed nervously with the white lace frill at her throat. Only Carla seemed unperturbed.
“I spy …” Sibault looked at each face in turn. “Who do we talk to first?”
“We’re not all here,” Carla pointed out coolly. “One member of the family is missing.”
“Nolan.” Coxby rubbed his chin. “The newcomer. Been with us only a short while.” He cocked an unhappy shaggy brow at Sibault. “What do you think, Julius?”
“The obvious choice,” the other agreed.
“And he found an excuse to slip away,” Joan Kilby said. She came to her feet. “Shall I go and see if he’s still in the building?” Her tone suggested she thought it unlikely.
“I liked Nolan.” Sibault sighed. “Yes, Joan—see if he’s still with us.” -
“Wait a minute.” Frowning, Carla put her hand o
n his elbow. “There’s one thing I’m not clear about, Julius. Would ICN have to have known the wording of the exit phrase for them to have tampered with Adrian’s instructions?”
“They would.” He nodded. “One is dependent upon the other. Do this when you hear this spoken.”
“And they must have got at him sometime before Saturday?”
“Before Saturday …” He thought. “Yes. Adrian was with us here in the studios for rehearsals morning and afternoon.”
“We weren’t given the script until the Saturday morning,” Carla said. “None of us, including Nolan, could have known the key phrase in advance.”
She paused significantly. “That is, apart from you, Julius—” and then left him to take over from there.
“And you, Moses,” he told Coxby. “And”—turning to look at the girl by the door—“you, Joan.”
There was no need for anything more. Miss Kilby’s face told its own story.
“So now we know.” There was no anger in Sibault’s voice, only sadness. “For any particular reason? Or just money?”
“They said all they wanted me to tell them was the key,” she told the floor, her voice barely audible. “They offered me more money than I’d ever had in my life before.”
“When?”
She knew what he meant. “On Friday evening. They were waiting for him when he went back to his hotel. I don’t know where they took him. After it didn’t go as they intended, they rang to ask me what was happening here. I told them. I—I was too frightened not to. I think they were even more worried than you were.”
“I’ll warrant they were,” Coxby said grimly. “If it had got out, the press would have crucified them.”
Sibault shook his head at Miss Kilby. “The thing to do now would be to tell you never to darken our doors again. That’s up to Mr. Coxby to decide. For me, I’m too relieved to know Adrian isn’t a potential killer to feel like doing anything of that kind.”
“She can stay if she wants to,” Coxby said. “The same thing’s not likely to happen again. I’m not the man to hold a grudge.”
“And experienced assistant producers aren’t easy to come by,” Sibault supplied drily. “And speaking of producers-”
“‘Midas’ goes out as usual this evening,” the other said. “The viewers won’t know the difference, and ICN are in no position to tell them.”
“I think we ought to tell them ourselves,” the other said slowly. “Make an announcement to the effect that for reasons concerned with Adrian Wolfax’s health we have decided to change our format. Something like that. Conscience—” Sibault smiled a little. “I still have one of those. But so long as we fake, we’d be vulnerable. Right now we have ICN over a barrel. I think we ought to keep it that way.”
“Viewing figures will slump.”
“Obviously,” Sibault said pleasantly. “But our loss will be ICN’s gain. And like I said, we have them where we want them. If we propose a merger, they will have no option but to agree.”
Leaving them talking, Louise moved towards the door. Miss Kilby opened it for her and followed her out into a passage lined with cameras and lights.
“I’m sorry, Miss Salter,” she faltered. “I mean—for what happened to you. They weren’t going to harm you at all. They just wanted to get you away from Adrian. They thought there was more chance of his coming back on his own if he was left by himself. So long as you were with him—”
“My fatal feminine attractions.” Louise felt sorry for her. “Are you going to stay on here?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. ICN’s cheque … I’ve still got it. I’m going to tear it up.”
“I should keep the pieces,” Louise said, and turned to make her way along the passage, treading delicately over snaking cables. A shirt-sleeved man took time out from chalking figures on a blackboard to direct her to reception. Apart from the languid, over-groomed brunette behind the desk, the room was empty. She went to sit in one corner. And there, not very long afterwards, Adrian Wolfax came to join her.
Axel’s face, and yet not quite his face.
Axel’s walk, voice and smile, but with subtle differences.
“Pretty, they told me. Of average height, they added, wearing a red jersey and black trousers. So it has to be.” He seated himself at her side. “Miss Salter. Miss Louise Salter.”
“This is going to take a lot of getting used to,” she told him.
He grinned happily.
“From all I hear we had quite a time together. Or rather Axel and you did. I have a bruise on my forehead, which they tell me is where I tried to shoot myself with a blank cartridge. I also have a painful nose, which they assure me is the result of an encounter I had with a midnight prowler and was not caused by you acting in self-defence.”
“You were the perfect gentleman at all times.”
“Not I.” His deep sigh was wholly feigned. “Axel Champlee, Miss Salter. He has his faults—arrogant, self-centered, conceited, selfish. But whatever else he might be, he is always the perfect gentleman. He would never dream of making a pass at a lady. But then, of course, he is married. Not that that is any criterion. I take it you and he were on first name terms?”
There was an air of unreality about the conversation, of hearing Axel speaking about himself as if he were another person. But this wasn’t Axel talking to her now. Louise tried to adjust herself to the situation. This man at her side was a stranger, a complete stranger, someone she had only just this moment met.
“We were,” she said.
“Then all you have to do,” her companion said easily, “is substitute Adrian for Axel and we take it from there.” He looked at his watch. “For a while my time is my own. They have graciously allowed me a few hours off before we start rehearsals for the evening show. And this time I will have to rehearse, not just stand in while the rest of the cast revolve about me. Axel Champlee is dead. Long live Axel Champlee. I would very much like to see the house where we spent our idyllic hours together. Green Ladies, is it called?”
“And I would like to see Barkley House,” Louise said.
“Then let us away now before the set becomes cluttered with rehearsal.”
He helped her to her feet, holding her hand longer than was necessary, eyeing the curves of her red jumper while his smile faded.
“Don’t be too sure,” he recited slowly, “that wearing that tight jersey affair you’re safe from being raped.”
He brought his gaze back from some faraway place.
“Did I—he say that?”
Louise nodded. “I knew it wasn’t Axel. There were times when I’m sure you weren’t far from breaking through.”
“That’s what they were afraid of. They tell me that I was unconscious when they found me last night, that I must have collapsed some time before. Julius seems to think it was because I’d come pretty close to the breaking point. A conflict of personalities—Axel not caring less about what was going on, only concerned about himself; me trying to break through so I could worry myself sick about you and your uncle. He says if I’d come round to find myself still at Green Ladies, I’d probably have finished up being a little of each: half me, half Axel. In which case I’d most likely have gone off my rocker. A sobering thought. They doped me to make sure I stayed asleep while they brought me back to the set, so that I could wake under what Julius calls controlled environment.”
He took her arm, guiding her towards the door.
“I’ve never talked about this to anyone before, not even to Julius. I should have done—I realise that now. He would have helped. He’s been against the idea right from the start.
“The trouble was, once I had started, there seemed no turning back, even though I could feel him becoming part of me, me part of him. This must sound mad to you—”
“No,” Louise said.
“I remember reading a story about a dummy that took over from the ventriloquist.” Adrian smiled sideways. “In a way it was like that.
“I had to ca
rry on with it at the start because ‘Midas’ was the only thing keeping Mosaic alive. And later, when we were back on our feet again, it seemed pointless to stop— I felt that the damage had been done, that stopping couldn’t undo it. He was here, inside me, established, just waiting for the opportunity of taking over.”
They were in the passage of cameras, lights and snaking cables.
“He’s dead now,” Louise said, and felt as if she had spoken about a real person.
“By his own fair hand. It’s odd—I never thought about that way out. If I’d told Julius how I felt, he’d have come up with it. As it was—God bless ICN and their schemes. And I’ll give Joan Kilby the biggest box of chocolates she’s ever had in her life.”
They stepped aside to allow two white-overalled workmen to pass. One carried a can of paint and a brush.
“They’re tearing the White Room apart,” Adrian said. “They’re painting it a different colour. End of a saga. Amen.”