by Ellis Peters
‘Lord, I’m sleepy! I haven’t had so much fresh air for years. I’m going to have an early night.’ He said his good night across the room to them in English, and to the room in general in German, patted Frau Agathe quite respectfully on the shoulder, and went placidly out of the room.
‘He’s right, you know,’ said Susan, taking the cue, though with disappointment and dismay for a chance thrown away. Not ten o’clock yet, and she had been relying on him to be the last to retire, not the first! But at least if he was really going to bed she could go, too; not to sleep, maybe, but at least to be quiet and alone. She had had more than enough of this day. ‘We none of us got much rest last night,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go, too. Good night, Trevor.’
‘One day nearer home tomorrow,’ said Trevor, smiling at her.
That was one way of looking at it, and he meant it kindly. But how did it look to Laurence in his remote room at the end of the wing? She had been thinking of him every moment of the day, far more clearly and accurately than if he had been present by her side; it was as if in his absence she had spent an age getting to know him.
She let herself into her own room, and sat on the bed listening to the brisk sounds from next door. There was this to be said for McHugh, he made no secret of his presence; wherever it might happen to suit him to be, he was always clearly audible. His progress towards bed was marked by a succession of loud and unmistakable sounds, the crash of one shoe falling, then the other, the energetic thudding of his bare feet about the floor, the loud flow of his tap and the gurgle of a vociferous waste pipe. He sang his way to the bathroom and whistled his way back. She could not exactly hear the snap of the switch when he turned off his light, but the abrupt cessation of sound that followed was so noticeable as to be almost a sound in itself. One would have thought his every move was calculated to inform his neighbours.
It was some time before it dawned upon her that this stray thought might be very close to the truth. Her own light was out, and she was lying fully dressed on her bed, wondering wretchedly whether it was any use making one more attempt to get Laurence to listen to her. Miserably rehearsing gambits which should induce him not to shut his ears, she heard the soft creak of springs from the bed in the next room, and sat up in the dark, holding her breath.
A very different sound, this, from those which had marked his retirement. If she had not been wide awake and straining her ears in the silence she would not have caught it. She leaned her head against the wall between them, and traced with quivering attention the stealthy rustling of clothes, the soft padding of feet as he stepped off the rugs on to the boards, hardly sounds at all, mere stirrings in the silence. No doubt of it, McHugh was out of bed again, and dressing.
The luminous hands of her watch showed just after midnight. While he was still making small movements of his own which might cover hers, she tiptoed to the door and eased back the latch, leaving the door ajar, so that when he left his room she might look out without any betraying noise. Whatever he was up to about the house at this time, after his elaborately public retirement at ten o’clock, she must observe it. She sat waiting for the click of his door opening; but what she heard was the sound of a bolt sliding back in its socket, and it came from the wrong side of the room. He was opening the long window on to the balcony.
She parted the curtains and peered along towards his room, and in a moment heard the slow, faint creak of the hinges as the window was opened. At the end of the house front a wooden staircase led down to the ground; the snow had been shovelled from the steps, there would be no trace of his passing except, perhaps, the darkening of the film of frost which lay over the cleared treads.
She saw a long arm flattened against the glass, and then he stepped out into the starry night, and very quietly, very gently, closed the window after him. The latch settled into place soundlessly. With long, light steps he slipped along the balcony and began to descend the staircase. She saw the bulky darkness of a duffle coat, and a glimpse of his face as he cast one quick glance behind.
Hurriedly she dragged on her coat, and tugged at the bolts of her own window. He must be on the ground by now, and even if he looked back again she would not be visible until she left the shadow of the eaves and ventured down the steps after him. She hugged the wall of the house, where the darkness clung, and from behind the carved corner post at the top of the steps she saw him against the snow, striding away along the village street in the direction of the church. There was no moon, but the faint starlight showed up clearly any movement against the pervading whiteness. He was a confident creature, he would not look back now that he was clear of the house. But she would have to keep a good distance between them, and pass quickly from doorway to doorway and gate to gate, in case he did turn his head.
She was so absorbed now in action that she was not consciously thinking at all. All her energy went into the intensity with which she watched him, and the concentration with which she stole down the staircase after him, and crept along the cleared track between the crouching, broad-roofed houses. From head to foot he was mystery; he scarcely had an identity at all, he was merely the pilot who had brought them here. Sooner or later he must make some unwary motion which would shed a more exact light upon himself; or a more definitive darkness.
He had left the road; one instant she saw him, the next he was gone. She hurried, in a panic that she might lose him altogether, but he had only turned into a narrow alley between the houses, where the deep snow was tramped into treacherous ice, and she had to cling to the stakes of the fences on either side to keep herself upright. He plunged straight ahead, relying on his immaculate balance and letting his feet slide like skis. The shadows of the houses covered her gratefully here. And now he was still; he had stopped with his shoulder braced against a narrow door in the high fence. Susan heard the latch lift with a rustle of frosty metal, and he was inside the small yard of a house, and feeling his way cautiously round towards a shuttered window. She watched him through the pales of the fence. He was merely a darkness in motion in the midst of a still darkness, but by the small bars of light that fell through the heart shapes cut in the shutters she caught one brilliant glimpse of his profile, smiling, pleased, complacent. In her heart she knew everything then, but her mind was set on another ending, and she was unwilling to know.
She was quite close to him, braced stiffly against one of the thicker posts of the fence. She heard him rap at the shutters very softly; there was no need for more. A door was opened in the dark bulk of the house; only a faint light came from within, but Susan was accustomed to the darkness now, and it was enough. Before the paler space was filled with McHugh’s dark bulk she saw clearly the round white arm reach up to encircle his neck, and the flood of fair hair that flowed over his sleeve. For one instant she looked full into Frau Agathe’s face over his shoulder, and saw delight and despair and terror and helpless longing all wildly mingled in the great excited eyes and eager, apprehensive mouth. Then he swept her inside in his arms, and the door closed upon them softly, and the house was quiet; and after a while the light behind the shutters went out.
Susan remained standing by the fence for some minutes more, for want of the will and the purpose to move. She felt a little sick, not because of her own involuntary part as the spy at this meeting, but because of her stupidity in not guessing from the first where he was bound. She should have known enough about him by now, on his own showing, to know that he played his games to a finish; nothing less would ever satisfy him. But the poor fool of a girl! What had she done to herself and that wretched young policeman of hers, chafing helplesly down there in Bad Schwandegg? She wasn’t of the stuff McHugh should have encountered, she hadn’t his self-absorption or his ruthlessness; or – and that had suddenly become clear as glass in one twilit glimpse of her – his experience. Her gallantries had stopped short of this until now. She was no match for her partner, and he could not give her his own amoral tranquillity of mind, for which yesterday did not exist. My God, thou
ght Susan, shivering in the dark, Oberschwandegg has good reason to curse the wind that blew us here for Christmas.
But there they were, and they could not get away, there was nothing to be done about it. It dawned upon her in a moment or two that Frau Agathe’s disaster was her opportunity. McHugh had left himself a way of getting back into his room when he returned. There was no need to consider picking locks now. Nor was she likely to be interrupted for a long time to come, more than long enough for her purpose.
She hurried back to the Horse in the Meadows and let herself into McHugh’s room. He had left the curtains drawn over the window, and slipped out between them, and they were heavy and thick enough to screen the bedside lamp; there was no need for her to grope in the dark. She put on the light and looked round a room very like her own, with the same pale wooden furniture, the same massive bed and rugs of brightly coloured wool. In the open bed the hollow left by McHugh’s big young body preserved in its clear outline something of his challenging assurance and brazen lightness of heart. Anticipation hadn’t made him restless, he must have lain as relaxed as a cat. After all, it was almost a concession on his part to make a pretence of decency and enjoy his triumph in secret. It had taken him just two days to achieve what she was sure nobody had ever accomplished before; by his standards he probably should have been crowing from the rooftop.
She had remembered in time to take off her boots, before the warmth of the room thawed the rims of frost from round the soles and heels, and left wet stains on the pale wood of the floor. She put them outside on the balcony, and drew the window closed again. There was no hurry. She could afford to be methodical, and make sure that she left everything exactly as she found it.
She worked her way steadily through the clothes in his wardrobe, emptying every pocket. Then the few things folded away on the shelves, and the contents of his leather toilet case. He was not a man who burdened himself with very many possessions, apparently, but his clothes were good, casual but well made. There were no books; evidently he did not read. She found two magazines, both from England, one a motoring journal, the other consisting exclusively of variations on the theme of the female, and meant exclusively for the male.
Some of his clothes were very delicately and expertly mended. What did that indicate, a doting mother or a devoted wife? It had never occurred to her that he might be a married man, and even now she did not take the idea seriously until she opened the letter case that lay in the drawer of his bedside table, and found herself looking at a photograph of McHugh domesticated. It was framed behind a thin sheet of celluloid in the front of the case, and it showed him sitting on a lawn playing with a baby boy about a year old, while a young woman sat beside them in a deck chair and beamed impartially upon them both. It could have been his married sister and her baby, of course, or even the wife of a friend of his, but somehow they had the unmistakable look of a married couple, and happily married at that. It was a novel thought that McHugh was probably, in his own fashion, an excellent, considerate, and satisfying husband. And yet – two days this particular conquest had taken him, and was even that his record?
It went against the grain with her to touch his letters, but she set her jaw and examined at least the opening of every one, and as soon as it became clear that they were personal and innocuous put them thankfully back into their envelopes. If Laurence had not been so eternally present in her mind she would have given up in disgust, but what right had she to any scruples? But the little bundle of correspondence thinned down to the last postcard, and showed her nothing but an ordinary young man, complete with family and friends, employer and colleagues.
In his briefcase there was more interesting material, but of a kind which did not help her. Here in another leather folder he kept the nondomestic part of his life. There were photographs of eight girls in all, dark and fair, sleek and sporting, he had no special prejudices. Many of the pictures bore affectionate inscriptions and dates, and the range was as wide as Europe, with one charming little Malay Chinese as an exotic touch. Susan wondered if he had yet asked Frau Agathe for a picture for his gallery, or whether, indeed, he ever had to ask.
By the time she had finished she was in tears, though she could not have explained why. There was such a sadness about this pilgrimage of pleasure that she would have given anything to have been able to wash away the knowledge of it, and see Agathe’s tragi-comedy as at least unique, instead of merely one in a chain of exactly similar incidents. She put everything carefully back in its place, and stood up from the rug a little stiffly, rubbing impatiently at her eyes with the back of her hand. That was that, and she could hardly say she was no wiser, but certainly she was no nearer discovering any connection between McHugh and Richard Hellier, or any motive McHugh might have for wanting Richard out of the way.
She put out the light and let herself cautiously out of the room again, slipping her feet into her boots on the frosty balcony. Under the stars the village lay asleep, and it was nearly half-past one in the morning. She closed McHugh’s window and stole quietly into her own room. The feeling of guilt and shame eased from her mind gradually; she had taken nothing, and she would never tell anything, it was as though she had never invaded his privacy. All the same, she had achieved nothing, and Laurence was still a prisoner.
She might as well try her luck with him once more, since she was wide awake, and the house was fast asleep. She took off her boots and went in stockinged feet along the main corridor and round the corner to the narrow passage on which only one door opened. She stood with her cheek pressed to the panels, listening, but the silence was absolute. He must be asleep. It seemed almost a cruelty to try and wake him, but she rapped softly with her knuckles, and then more sharply with her nails; and then she was caught into the panicky desire to hear his voice, to know that he was there, even if he spoke only to tell her again to go to hell.
There are silences and silences. Some seem to hear and reject you, some are populated and warm but refuse speech, some are remote and impervious, deaf, dumb, and blind. The silence within Laurence’s room hung motionless and dead, not vindictive against her, only unaware of her.
‘Laurence, are you awake? Laurence, listen to me! Say something! Laurence, wake up!’
Her voice had sharpened until it seemed to her frighteningly loud, and the little blows of her nails on the wood rang like hammers, but nothing answered and nothing moved. Not even the rustling and stirring of an uneasy body in the bed, not even a disturbed breath as her voice penetrated but could not break his sleep. Nothing.
CHAPTER XI
Help, help! A surgeon! Murder, murder, murder!
Act 2
Liesl sat up in bed with a squeak of fright at the first touch of a hand on her cheek, and caught up the bedclothes to her breast. Susan took her by the shoulders and held her still, and the draught from the door she had left open in her haste folded them both in a curl of colder air.
‘Ssssh, it’s only me, Susan Conroy. Liesl, I want the key of Laurence’s room. I’ve got to have it, quickly. Where is it?’
‘In the kitchen,’ said Liesl, astonished into making a direct answer, and shrank and hardened into wakefulness at the sound of her own startled voice. ‘But you can’t have it. You know I mustn’t. My father—’
‘I know, but this is urgent. There’s something wrong in there. I can’t get a sound out of him. I’ve got to get in.’
‘But you know he is behaving so,’ said Liesl, gaining confidence rapidly. ‘He does not wish to speak to you, that is all it is.’
‘I tell you it isn’t. He’d have spoken by now, all right, if he was able. He’d have told me to get to hell and leave him alone. We’ve got to go and see. Get the key!’
‘I cannot,’ said Liesl firmly. ‘I am not allowed. And why are you still dressed, in the middle of the night? I think I should tell my father all of this.’
‘Tell him what you like, tell whoever you like, I don’t care, but get me the key first.’ Susan took firm hold of the
billowing white feather quilt, and hauled it from the bed. ‘Come on, get up! If you don’t I’ll go and look for it myself. And if he’s ill or dying in there, remember to tell everyone you wouldn’t help him, won’t you?’ She caught up the thick woollen dressing gown that lay over the back of the nearest chair, and bundled it into Liesl’s reluctant arms. ‘Hurry! I tell you I’m scared, there’s something terribly wrong.’
‘There cannot be,’ said Liesl crossly, but struggling into the sleeves in some haste, nonetheless. ‘He was quite well when my father saw him at eleven o’clock. The doctor said he had taken cold, so I spiced some wine for him, and my father took it up to him.’
‘Maybe it’s more than a cold. Maybe he’s been taken ill. Come with me and let’s take a look at him, at least. He can’t get away – how can he? There’s nowhere to run to, even if he wanted to run. And there are two of us.’ She was wringing her hands with impatience as she hustled Liesl towards the door. The words were only stimulants now, to snap at Liesl’s heels like Corgis after cattle, and make her hurry. ‘Run – please! I’ll wait for you by his door.’
Liesl fluttered down the stairs silently in her felt slippers, and silently came again with the big, old-fashioned key. The rear rooms had never been thoroughly modernised, and the lock of Laurence’s door was large enough and ponderous enough for a prison, and sunk completely into the wood. Almost before Liesl could turn the key and lift the latch Susan was thrusting impatiently past her towards the bed, and reaching for the switch of the bedside lamp.
Neither the sound of the door opening nor the agitated rush of their entry disturbed Laurence; even when the cone of light sprang up and flooded his face he made no move. He lay on his back, his head turned a little towards them, drawing great, slow, shallow breaths. His face was livid, the cheeks fallen into bluish hollows, shadowy stains round his parted lips. The pale domes of his closed eyelids stood out in exaggerated relief from the gaunt, bruised hollows of their sockets. He looked as Richard had looked, dead, but because of his youth infinitely more pathetic and helpless. But he was breathing.
