I reached Schmidt’s door unobserved – I hoped – and turned the knob. The door wouldn’t open. My brain wasn’t working at top efficiency. All I could think was that
they’d locked him in, that he was a prisoner. It took several important seconds for me to notice that the key was in the lock, and several equally vital seconds for my sweating fingers to
turn it.
The room was empty. Not only was Schmidt not there, his clothes and luggage were gone too. I checked the wardrobe to be sure, but one glance had been enough; Schmidt can’t occupy a room
for five minutes without littering every surface with his possessions.
The hinges of the door had been well oiled. If I hadn’t been looking in that direction I wouldn’t have known it was opening again. I made a wild grab for the nearest hard object
– a brass vase, intricately worked in enamel and silver.
John slid through the narrow opening and eased the door shut. He wasn’t as neat as usual; his shirt was dusty and there was a cobweb in his hair. ‘Put that down,’ he said
softly.
I brandished the vase. ‘What have you done with Schmidt? If you’ve hurt him – ’
‘He’s left.’ John kept a wary eye on my impromptu weapon. ‘Of his own free will and under his own steam.’
‘I’ve figured it out,’ I said.
‘Have you indeed?’
‘Yes. How you ever expected to get away with a stunt like this . . .’
He was trying, with great difficulty, to control his temper I knew the signs – the flexed hands, the taut muscles of the jaw. When he spoke his voice shook with fury but it was the same
almost inaudible murmur. ‘For Christ’s sake, Vicky, won’t you ever learn? I don’t know how you got in here – ’
‘Don’t you? You were waiting for me.’
‘In that closet across the hall, to be precise. I was informed you’d got away, and although I hoped I was wrong for once, I had a strange foreboding you’d do something like
this. Now get the hell out of here. If you can.’
I gave him back stare for stare. My teeth were clenched so hard my jaws hurt. I had no intention of going out of that door with John standing by, or of turning my back on him for so much as a
split second. After a moment his hands relaxed and he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. ‘If that’s how you want it,’ he said, and turned
his
back.
He couldn’t have heard me; I was wearing sneakers and the rug was thick. He couldn’t have seen me; there was no surface to reflect my movement. He just knew. His lifted arm struck
mine with a jarring force that made me lose my grip on the vase. It clattered to the floor and I stumbled back, trying to elude those agile, reaching hands. I knew it was wasted effort but I went
on squirming and struggling, even after he had pinioned my arms and clapped a hard hand over my mouth. He had lost the remains of his temper, his face was flushed, and he was hurting me. His nails
dug into my cheek. I felt tears of pain and fury welling up in my eyes.
He took his hand from my mouth and relaxed his grip a little, but not enough to enable me to free myself. ‘You dim-witted twit, I’m trying to get you out of this. If you yell
I’ll squeeze your silly neck.’
Since his fingers were now wrapped around my throat I didn’t doubt he could – or would – carry out the threat. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax, leaning against
him. The angry colour faded from his face and the corners of his mouth turned up.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he murmured.
I wasn’t thinking at all. His hand had moved from my throat to my cheek, long fingers twisting through my hair, tilting my head back.
I hate to think how I must have looked – lips parted, eyes half-closed . . . They weren’t quite closed, though, and I was facing the door. The sudden alteration of my expression,
from vacant acquiescence to shamed horror, was sufficient warning. He let me go and spun around.
She was wearing dark pants and a loose linen jacket that made her look like a little girl dressed in her big brother’s clothes. Her hair was tied back with an amber-gold scarf. It matched
the colour of her wide, unblinking eyes.
‘Why, it’s you, Vicky,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come back.’
‘If I had ever seen murder in a man’s eyes . . .’ I had read that trite phrase Lord knows how many times in Lord knows how many thrillers, and taken it for a figure of speech.
It wasn’t a figure of speech. I saw it now.
He moved so quickly I barely reacted in time, catching his upraised arm with both hands. ‘For God’s sake, John!’
He threw me off with a single snap of flexed muscles, like a man dislodging a snake or venomous insect. I staggered back, slipped, and sat down with a thud. I didn’t hear the shot but I
heard him scream and saw him fall, his body curling into a hard knot of pain.
So that was what a silencer looked like, I thought, staring at the gun in Mary’s dainty hand. For some reason I’d expected it would be bigger.
Her lips parted, and out came a string of obscenities that shocked me almost as much as what she’d just done. It was like hearing Dorothy cursing Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. Her pink mouth
wasn’t pretty now, it had the grotesque shape of a Greek Fury’s, and her eyes were as opaque as coffee caramels.
‘Damn him! Why’d he have to get in the way?’ She turned those yellow-brown eyes towards me and the look in them made me shrink back. That pleased her. ‘Oh, well, it
doesn’t matter. He won’t be going anywhere for a while, and you wouldn’t leave him, would you? See what you can do for him. I’d hate to have him die. I have plans for you,
Vicky dear, and it won’t be nearly so much fun if John isn’t there to watch.’
The door closed. The key turned in the lock.
John sat up. ‘Missed,’ he said with satisfaction.
I stared at the spreading stain on his sleeve. ‘Missed?’ I croaked.
‘She meant to do a bit more damage than this.’
He didn’t have to elaborate. She must have known the only way she could stop him was to put a bullet in one or the other of us, and she probably didn’t care which. If he hadn’t
pushed me away . . .
And if I hadn’t interfered he could have stopped her, before she aimed and fired.
Out of all the questions boiling in my overheated brain I fished the least important. ‘Is she pregnant?’
‘Not by me, at any rate.’ John didn’t look up. He was concentrating on rolling up his sleeve, and not doing a very good job of it.
‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t . . . You never . . .’
‘As you have had occasion to observe, my principles are somewhat elastic, but there are some things at which even I draw the line. All other considerations aside . . .’ He glanced at
me from under his lashes. ‘All other considerations aside, I’d as soon bed a black widow spider. If you don’t believe me, and you probably don’t, I can produce witnesses.
Max and Whitbread took turns spending the night with us. Cosy little arrangement . . . Would you mind helping me with this? She’ll be back before long, and it would not be a good idea for
either of us to be here when that event occurs.’
He had a point. I hoisted myself up and went to investigate the medicine cabinet. It was well equipped. You’d have thought they were expecting a small war.
I slapped some gauze and tape over the bloody furrow the bullet had left. ‘How are you planning to get out of this room?’ I asked. ‘The door’s locked.’
‘With these handy little devices you were clever enough to bring along.’ John plucked one of the pins out of my hair.
‘Was that why you . . . Ow! That’s the one with the hook on the end, it’s caught – ’
‘One of the reasons.’ His fingers brushed my cheek in a caress so fleeting I might have imagined it. ‘You do it, then. I haven’t had much practice at this, since I
usually keep my lock picks elsewhere. Thank you.’
He knelt by the door and started poking at the lock. ‘Maybe we should start thinking about where we’re going after we get out,’ I said uneasily.
‘The operative word, my love, is “out.”’ He seemed to be having some trouble, possibly because he was perspiring heavily, despite the comfortably cool temperature of the
room. ‘Mary won’t be pleased when she finds us gone.’
‘Is she in love with you?’
The pick slipped and rattled onto the floor. ‘Bloody hell,’ said John between his teeth. ‘Keep your grisly suggestions to yourself, will you? If I believed that were the case
I’d cut my throat and be done with it. No . . .’ Something clicked, and his fingers tightened. ‘Her motive is much simpler. She blames me – correctly, I must admit –
for her brothers’ death.’
‘Her brother . . .’
‘Brothers. Two of them.’ After a brief pause he said resignedly, ‘The fat’s deep in the fire now, so I may as well abandon reticence. Or have you enough clues to reason
it out for yourself? Two brothers, a strong streak of homicidal mania, and those bright, empty brown eyes . . .’
It was true; I’d only known one other person with eyes of that unusual golden brown. When I first met him, in Stockholm, I had thought him a gorgeous specimen of Nordic manhood, built like
a Viking, and tall – really tall. It’s hard to find men who are six inches taller than I am. I had been prepared to overlook the fact that Leif’s sense of humour was practically
nonexistent, but when I found out he was Max’s boss and one of the gang, I sort of lost my girlish enthusiasm.
John
had
been responsible for Leif’s death. In this case my objection to murder had been overcome by the fact that Leif had been trying to kill me, and would undoubtedly have
succeeded if John hadn’t intervened.
‘You didn’t kill Georg,’ I said, watching his hands twist and press. ‘Or did you?’
‘No. His cellmate did him in, rather messily, last year. However, since I was partially responsible for sending him away she has some justice on her . . . Ah. There we are.’
He handed me the pins.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked: ‘I know – out. How?’
‘Any ideas?’ John peered cautiously through the slit in the opening door.
‘My room. I want to get my purse.’
‘You won’t need a purse if we don’t make it out of here,’ was the depressing response.
‘My room has a balcony. Someone is sure to spot us if we go through the house.’
‘Point taken. Come on, then.’
My door was locked too. John left the key in place after he had turned it.
I offered him the lock picks. ‘If they find the door is still locked, they may not look in here.’
‘Once they discover we’ve gone they’ll look everywhere.’ He headed for the balcony. ‘You might have mentioned it’s a thirty-foot drop,’ he said,
returning.
‘I assumed you knew.’ We were both whispering. Footsteps had passed my door without stopping, but I had a feeling they’d soon be back. ‘Knot some sheets
together.’
‘Trite, but worth a try. Now what the hell are you doing?’
‘Looking for my bag. Maybe I put it in the wardrobe.’
I’d been expecting it, but I started convulsively when it came – a wordless, genderless shout of rage, hardly muted by the heavy door. The response was just as audible. ‘You
two cover the doors. They may not have left the house.’
I recognized that voice, though it had been several years since I’d heard it. I froze, my fingers clutching the strap of my bag. John grabbed me around the waist, trying, as I thought, to
pull me towards the balcony. Instead he lifted me, shot me into the wardrobe, and closed the door.
And locked it. I couldn’t imagine how, I hadn’t seen a key or a keyhole, but when I shoved at the damned thing it didn’t budge. Then I stopped shoving. I also stopped
breathing. The door of the room had burst open.
Maybe they’d look under the bed first. The wardrobe would certainly be next, there was no place else to hide, and they were obviously thorough, well-organized chaps. And while they
searched for me – and found me – John would have time . . .
He had time. He was as agile as a cat; he could have dropped from the balcony and taken his chances on breaking a rib or two. I would have risked it, given the alternative. He didn’t. I
stood there in the dark, wincing and biting my knuckles and calling myself names as I listened to what was happening. It didn’t last long. They were three to one.
And one of them was Hans, Max’s large, slow-witted associate. I discovered this after I had realized the interior of the wardrobe wasn’t completely dark. The pierced openings in the
grillwork admitted light. A couple of them were big enough to give me a clear view.
Fortunately I was too short of breath to cry out, or I might have done so when I spotted Max, less than two feet away from my wide blue eye. His bald head shone as if it had been polished. The
heavy horn-rimmed glasses provided an additional distraction – he must have worn contact lenses before – but if I had ever gotten a long, close look at him I would have known him.
‘Mr Schroeder,’ Larry’s secretary, had found reasonable excuses for keeping out of my way.
One of Hans’s ham-sized-fists was wrapped around John’s left arm. The guy who held his other arm was familiar too. Rudi always looked as if he wanted to murder somebody, and his
expression hadn’t changed. This time I deduced he wanted to murder John. Rudi had one hand pressed against his stomach and he was whooping for breath, but the gallant lad mustered enough
strength to give John’s arm a sharp upward and backward twist. John yelled, of course. Stoicism was not a quality he chose to cultivate.
‘Gently,’ Max said gently. ‘That is his right arm, Rudi. He must be able to use it.’
There was blood on his chin. (I couldn’t help noticing that Hans was unbruised and unbloodied. John tried to pick on people who were smaller than he was.) Max took out a handkerchief,
wiped his mouth, studied the resultant smear of blood with fastidious distaste, and threw the handkerchief on the floor.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
John opened his eyes as wide as they would go. ‘Who?’
Rudi had got his breath back. His shoulder shifted and John let out a pained yelp.
‘Stop it,’ Max said. He didn’t sound as if he meant it, though.
‘The balcony, I suppose,’ Max went on. ‘While you put up a gallant battle to prevent pursuit. Or was that the reason? I find it hard to believe that you would risk yourself
even for her.’