“I can see,” I said stonily, “that it was a great disappointment to have your victim die too soon. And when I arrived in Brighton, you figured that I might stumble on something about the missing sugar box?”
“As you did, Tess. I’m curious, though, to know what put you on the scent.”
“A set of photographs Uncle Maynard had taken of it. The girl at the chemist’s gave them to me the day after I arrived.”
“Ha!” He glanced at Josef ironically. “We didn’t think of that possibility, eh? Ah, well, c’est la vie!”
“I suppose,” I said, “that Maggie Ayling told you about the other cabaret, the one Ruth Willoughby’s twin sister had?”
“Maggie Ayling?”
“Her domestic help.”
Denzil shook his head. “It was from Ruth Willoughby herself. Naturally I wanted to know how something as precious as one of the Romanov Cabarets had come into the possession of a quaint little English spinster. I needed to know if there were any others lying around to cause me problems.”
“And she told you the whole story about her father at the time of the Russian Revolution?”
Another glance at Josef. “After a little persuasion, yes.”
I felt sick. “And then you killed her?”
“I had no alternative,” Denzil said, his eyes bright with the pleasure of shocking us. “I was glad, though, that I didn’t need to dispose of her twin as well... two sisters dying within such a short time might have raised a question in someone’s mind. But Mrs. Lambert, the dear good soul, was delighted to sell me her porcelain.”
“The nice Mr. Cavendish from the nonexistent Benfields of Bond Street.” said Ben.
“So you know about him, how clever of you.” Denzil gave us a quick smile. “It was quite amusing to get back to wartime disguises, with a false beard and spectacles.”
I said scathingly, “Do you seriously imagine that you can persuade Ludvik Kolder to make more fake Sèvres for you, after all this?”
“Don’t worry, my dear, I know how to handle Kolder.”
I voiced a puzzle in my mind. “I presume it wasn’t just coincidence that brought you to Prague. How did you know Peter and I were here?”
“A stroke of luck, that was. On Friday, I tried to get Peter at his office, but I had to leave a message with his secretary for him to phone me back. When he did so later in the afternoon, I told him to drop the matter of buying your shop, as I was no longer interested. He said it was just as well, as you were getting very curious about the anonymous buyer. He also told me that, as it happened, he was speaking from your place .. that you were a bit upset about something. I didn’t much like the sound of that, so I decided to drop in on you yesterday morning to have a little chat. I found the shop closed but I spoke to the woman who cleans for you, and with a little coaxing she told me about this Prague jaunt of yours.” Denzil gave a sudden brusque wave of his hand. “Take them away, Josef, we’re wasting time.”
Ben was forced to walk ahead. I followed, with Josef still holding my arm screwed behind my back. Each time I stumbled as we made our way up the three flights of dark, narrow stairs, I was corrected by a painful jerk or prod. Once I couldn’t help crying out when the gun dug hard into my spine, and Ben murmured comfortingly over his shoulder, “Take it easy, darling, We’re not finished yet.”
Josef heard him, though. He said in an amused voice, “I’m afraid that you are finished, Mr. Wyland. Sir Denzil is at this moment working out the best way to dispose of you both.”
“You’d never get away with killing us,” Ben objected. “After Peter Kemp’s death, there’d be the very hell of a hue and cry if Miss Pennicott and I vanished.” He added, “We were followed here from the hotel by a police spy, I suppose you realise that?”
This strategic lie didn’t shake Josef’s confidence. “Sir Denzil will have taken that possibility into account.”
We had reached the topmost landing and Josef gestured with the gun for Ben to open one of the two doors. It was a small square room, with a dormer window high above the canal, devoid of furniture except for an old brass bedstead covered by a tatty red blanket.
“Why right up here?” Ben asked.
Josef shrugged. “You will discover in due course.”
In what I realised was another deliberate ploy to somehow catch the man off-guard, Ben became chatty.
“I reckon the idea is to keep us well away from Ludvik Kolder. I doubt if Sir Denzil is as certain of having him in his pocket as he makes out. What’s Kolder going to think when he discovers there has been yet another killing ... Peter Kemp?”
In a contemptuous gesture Josef tapped his forehead to indicate his opinion of Kolder’s mentality.
“Maybe he is off his rocker,” Ben acknowledged, “but that’s not going to help if he refuses to do any more work for Sir Denzil. And another thing, who’s going to handle whatever it was the Kemp did in the setup?”
“His part was not important,” Josef retorted. “He was just the carrier of Kolder’s money, that was all. Sir Denzil will make other arrangements.”
“Pity he didn’t think of it before. Involving Peter Kemp led to all this trouble for you, didn’t it?”
Josef made a scowling face. “If Kolder had obeyed instructions, Kemp would not have got to know any more than he was supposed to know. The arrangement was always for Kolder to call at the Hotel Zobor for the money. But the last time Kolder did that it made him feel unwell, so instead, he sent a message to the hotel for Kemp to come here. And then the stupid bastard couldn’t resist showing Kemp some of the porcelain he’d made.”
That explained why Peter had suddenly become interested when I mentioned the photographs my uncle had taken of the sugar box.
Ben was saying, “How did Sir Denzil ever come to dream up such a fantastic scheme in the first place? I mean, to reproduce the entire collection of Romanov Cabarets. And then to set about doing it.”
For an instant, the usually impassive Slavic face showed a gleam of pride.
“It was clever, yes? The idea came to Sir Denzil when he visited the porcelain factory at Sèvres... in the museum there he saw some of the sketches made in the days of that Madame de whatever-it-is. It made him think of the sort of fancy china Kolder used to make during the war in Prague.” The man gave a fleeting smile. “Only someone like Sir Denzil could have carried off such a plan. It was a right job, I can tell you, getting together all the information about that Romanov stuff. Then he had to dig out Kolder and fit up this place with all the equipment, the kiln and that, as well as putting the fear of God into the old fool so that he’d keep his bloody mouth shut about what he was doing.”
Ben nodded and thoughtfully reached for his wallet, sliding out the photographs of the sugar box that he’d been carrying around with him. He held them for Josef to see.
“It’s a lucky thing, Tess, that I left another set of these back home in my father’s safe at...”
Before the sentence was finished, Josef started forward to get a closer look at the photos. Seizing his chance, Ben shot his foot up in a flying kick that sent the pistol jerking out of Josef’s hand and skidding into a corner. He leapt upon the man and they fell to the floor, grappling fiercely.
They were well-matched. If Ben had the advantage in age and muscle, Josef was by instinct the dirtier fighter. Not that Ben was holding back, I realised, when I saw him stamp his heel down on fingers that were reaching for the gun.
“Get it, Tess!”
I pushed my way past them and scraped the pistol out of Josef’s reach with my foot. It wasn’t easy, though to pick it up with hands that were bruised and swollen and made clumsier still by several thicknesses of lint and sticking plaster. Somehow I managed to grasp it between both palms and hold it pointing vaguely in Josef’s direction. But I couldn’t possibly have fired, because it was equally pointing at Ben. By now, though, Ben had the man locked in a sort of wrestler’s half nelson.
There were running footsteps on the stairs,
and a moment later Denzil burst into the room. He took in the situation at a glance.
“Well well, full marks for initiative, Ben.” But he seemed quite unalarmed. Unflinchingly, even though I was now facing him with the gun, Denzil came walking towards me shaking his head in smiling reproof. I was filled with a sudden rage, a blinding hatred against this suave, aristocratic monster. My clumsy fingers found the trigger and pulled it. With a deafening report, the gun lacked back and bounced out of my uncertain grasp. As it clattered to the floor I felt Denzil’s hands take hold of me and I realised with sickening despair that in the one chance I’d been given of saving myself and Ben I had failed miserably.
“Pretty girls and shooting never go together, Tess,” he chuckled. Still gripping me, he bent to retrieve the gun and remarked to Ben, “I seem to have gained the upper hand once more, dear chap. Be so good as to release Josef, please.”
“And if I don’t?”
The chill of cold metal touched my ear. “Just as you choose,” Denzil said indifferently. “It makes little matter to me which way you both die.”
Ben kept his voice on a level note. “You daren’t pull the trigger, Sir Denzil. If you did, I’d break your man’s neck. I won’t be caught off-guard again as I was downstairs with you.”
“You never give up, do you?” Denzil said, with an amused sigh. But I sensed his uncertainty, and I’m sure Ben did, too. Before anyone could say anything more, we heard the blundering sound of Ludvik Kolder climbing the stairs. We all waited, curiously tense, wondering how his entrance would break the stalemate.
It seemed an age before at last the Czech appeared in the open doorway. He stood there panting, his face distorted into an expression of rage, his eyes hugely swollen behind the pebble lenses. And in his right hand he carried a pistol... a clumsy wartime weapon with a long barrel.
“Ah, splendid,” said Denzil, bestowing him an appreciative smile. “This nicely restores the balance in my favour, I think.”
With a muffled grunt of anger Kolder raised the gun and pointed it at me. While I stood frozen with sick fear, I heard Ben cry out, “Don’t shoot, for God’s sake. Okay, Sir Denzil, you win. I’m letting Josef go.”
Kolder’s gun remained aimed in a wavering threat and Denzil spoke coaxing, soothing words to him, as if to a small child. I couldn’t follow the German but gathered he was telling him not to shoot because, presumably, he had other plans for me. Kolder took no notice, though. Propped on his stick he stood clutching the gun, his eyes glaring fury. Ben made a sudden dart forward to stand in front of me. In the same instant Kolder pulled the trigger. And in the very same split instant before the deafening report, I realised for the second time that day that I was not the target of Kolder’s rage.
Denzil made no sound as the bullet struck him. His grip on me loosened and his body slumped against me, sliding to the floor in a grotesquely graceful slow motion. There was a huge, ragged wound at his right temple and blood was pulsing out in gushes.
For a few seconds we were all of us held in a stunned silence. Then Josef let out a curious whimper that was half grief, half fear; the next moment he had turned and rushed out through the door. His retreating footsteps could be heard as he pounded down the stairs, but inside the shabby room nobody moved.
I could see Ben eyeing Ludvik Kolder warily, sizing up his intentions towards us. The hand holding the gun had fallen limply to the man’s side. Now, as we watched, he raised it again unsteadily. But before either of us could guess what he meant to do, the muzzle was in his open mouth.
Ben jerked forward. “No, don’t...!”
He was too late. A second report from the huge pistol exploded in our ears and Kolder fell to the floor in an untidy heap, his stick clattering down beside him. A moment later I felt Ben’s arms go round me, holding me, turning me away from the terrible sight of those two bodies.
Chapter Twenty-three
Each morning on waking I stood at my balcony gazing out across this city of a hundred spires, and wondered... would it be today that I had my showdown with Ben? And each evening when we said goodnight I had to acknowledge dismally that I had failed to find the courage.
We had innumerable interviews with innumerable officials... both Czech and British. Everybody seemed anxious to play the affair down. The man known as Josef was on the wanted list, and when caught - if ever he was caught - would be charged with the murder of the Englishman, Peter Kemp. But beyond that, the wrongdoers were all dead. The police file was best laid aside and a veil discreetly drawn.
As for the man in Athens who owned Kolder’s first set of fake porcelain ...
“He’s caught a thumping cold,” said Ben indifferently. “But he can afford it, and anyway he deserves it!”
Peter’s sister, Fay, flew out from Edinburgh with her husband to take his body home. She was tall and slender with large tawny eyes, so like her brother that it brought a lump to my throat. When they left again next day, Ben and I went with them to the airport.
“It’s still not very clear to me what this was all about,” Fay said to us wistfully, “and I suspect that everyone has been trying to spare my feelings. I realise, though, that poor Peter must have been involved in something pretty crooked.”
“But not very deeply involved,” I said, wanting to send her away comforted. “And anyway, he was doing his best to set things right. That’s how he got killed.”
In the taxi heading back to the city, Ben said reflectively, “You were fond of Peter Kemp, weren’t you, Tess?”
I glanced at him, glanced away. “Yes, I was.”
“And what did he feel about you? A lot more than fond, I reckon.”
I nodded silently, and wound down the window for the coolness of a breeze against my face.
Ben said, after a moment’s hesitation, “All this has been hell for you, I realise that, a ghastly experience. But I could help you through it, darling, if only you’d stop holding me at arm’s length. What’s it all about?”
“Ben, I...” But yet again I failed to voice those finalising words. I felt my lower lip tremble and stared straight ahead past the peak-capped driver. “We’ll be late for that meeting at police headquarters if he doesn’t get a move on,” I said instead.
“They’ll wait.” Ben dropped his hand lightly over mine where it rested limply on the seat beside me. It was really no more than a friendly, reassuring gesture, yet I reacted by snatching away from him in a panic. I felt the reproachful glance he gave me, but he said nothing.
* * * *
We left Prague in bright sunshine, thankful to get away. Beautiful city though it was, I knew that as long as I lived I should never feel any urge to return.
England was covered in dense cloud, and the rain fell depressingly when we went to fetch Ben’s car from the car park at London airport. We took the main Brighton road and it was a river of traffic, continually stopping and starting, with the wipers whirring in a monotonous rhythm. Brighton looked unbelievably dreary, and the few people in the Lanes had long faces and short tempers.
At Pennicott’s I unlocked the door and, with a nervous smile, turned to take my grip from Ben. He saw my intention and thrust me inside with a firm little push.
“You and I have got some talking to do,” he said.
“But...”
“No buts, Tess.” He slammed the door with a violence that set the crystal drops of the chandelier jingling, and prodded me to the staircase. Up in the living room he tossed down his baggage and caught me by the wrists, holding me in front of him.
“Now, then, an explanation, please.”
“Not now, Ben,” I faltered. “Can’t you see I’m tired?”
“It’s obvious that you’re just about at the end of your tether. But surely to God, I ought to be the one person in the world who can help.” His fingers tightened, hurting me, while his eyes searched mine. “Tess, had you fallen for Peter Kemp, is that it?”
“No, I told you ... I was fond of him.”
“So wha
t have I done that’s turned me into a leper?”
I’m not certain what suddenly stilled my quivering and gave me the strength of white-hot anger. Maybe it was a mental image of Carol Wyland’s face. Her lovely, supercilious, bitchy face.
I said, my voice grating, “I like men to play it straight with me, that’s all.”
“And haven’t I played it straight?”
“Like hell you have. How do you think I felt, to come face to face with your wife at a party one night?”
Ben seemed unshaken. “I agree,” he said evenly, “that Carol’s not your sort of person. But then, you’re not obliged to like her.”
“I’m not obliged to have anything to do with her. Or you.” I wrenched my hands away from him. “You must’ve realised that I’d find out you were married sooner or later, Ben.”
“But you knew already,” he exploded.
“And how was I supposed to know, since you didn’t see fit to tell me?”
“Christ!” He passed his hands across his face. “You mean you didn’t know?”
“That’s right,” I said tightly. “I didn’t know.”
“Your uncle must have mentioned it... you told me that he kept you abreast of the news about the people you’d met in Brighton.”
“Uncle Maynard’s letters,” I said, “were no more than about three lines scribbled on his Christmas card.”
The October Cabaret Page 21
