The Other Side of Midnight

by Sidney Sheldon

  She flinched as he started toward her. "Don't touch me!" Her voice was weak and hoarse.

  "Catherine!" Larry's face was filled with distress.

  "Get him away from me," Catherine begged.

  "She is still in shock," the stranger said. "Perhaps it would be better if you waited in the other room."

  Larry studied Catherine a moment, his face expressionless. "Of course. I want whatever is best for her." He turned and walked out.

  The stranger came closer. He was a short, fat man with a pleasant face and a nice smile. He spoke English with a heavy accent. "I am Doctor Kazomides. You have had a most unpleasant time, Mrs. Douglas, but I assure you you are going to be fine. A mild concussion and a severe shock, but in a few days you will be good as new." He sighed. "They should close those damned caves. This is the third accident this year."

  Catherine started to shake her head, then stopped, as it began to throb violently. "It was no accident," she said thickly. "He tried to kill me."

  He looked down at her. "Who tried to kill you?"

  Her mouth was dry and her tongue was thick. It was difficult to get the words out. "M--my husband."

  "No," he said.

  He did not believe her. Catherine swallowed and tried again. "He 1--left me in the cave to die."

  He shook his head. "It was an accident. I am going to give you a sedative and when you wake up, you will feel much better."

  A surge of fear flowed through her. "No!" she pleaded. "Don't you understand? I'll never wake up. Take me out of here. Please!"

  The doctor was smiling reassuringly. "I told you you are going to be fine, Mrs. Douglas. All you need is a nice, long sleep." He reached into a black medical bag and began searching for a hypodermic.

  Catherine tried to sit up, but a searing pain shot through her head and she was instantly bathed in perspiration. She fell back on the bed, her head pounding unbearably.

  "You must not try to move yet," Dr. Kazomides warned. "You have been through a terrible ordeal." He took out the hypodermic, filled the needle from a vial of amber fluid and turned to her. "Turn over, please. When you waken, you will feel like a new person."

  "I won't waken," Catherine whispered. "He'll murder me while I'm asleep."

  There was a look of concern on the doctor's face. He walked over to her. "Please turn over, Mrs. Douglas."

  She stared at him, her eyes stubborn.

  Gently he turned Catherine on her side, pulled up her nightgown and she felt a sharp sting in her hip. "There you are."

  She rolled on her back and whispered. "You've just killed me." Her eyes filled with helpless tears.

  "Mrs. Douglas," the doctor said, quietly, "do you know how we found you?"

  She started to shake her head, then remembered the pain. His voice was gentle. "Your husband led us to you."

  She stared at him, not comprehending what he was saying.

  "He took the wrong turn and got lost in the cave," he explained. "When he could not find you, he became frantic. He summoned the police and we immediately organized a search party."

  She looked at him, still not understanding. "Larry...sent for help?"

  "He was in a terrible state. He blamed himself for what happened."

  She lay there trying to take it in, trying to adjust to this new information. If Larry had tried to kill her, he would not have organized a search party to find her, he would not have been frantic about her safety. She was filled with a terrible confusion. The doctor was watching her sympathetically.

  "You will sleep now," he told her. "I will come back to see you in the morning."

  She had believed that the man she loved was a murderer. She knew she had to tell Larry and ask his forgiveness, but her head was getting heavy and her eyes kept closing. I'll tell him later, she thought, when I wake up. He'll understand and he'll forgive me. And everything will be wonderful again, just the way it was...

  She was awakened by a sudden, sharp cracking sound, and her eyes flew open, her pulse racing. A torrent of rain was savagely drumming against the bedroom window, and a flash of lightning lit everything in a pale blue light that made the room look like an overexposed photograph. The wind was clawing at the house, trying to scream its way in and the rain beating on the roof and windows sounded like a thousand tiny drums. Every few seconds there was an ominous roll of thunder followed by a flash of lightning.

  It was the sound of thunder that had awakened Catherine. She dragged herself up to a sitting position and looked at the small bedside clock. She was groggy from the sedative that the doctor had given her, and she had to squint to make out the figures on the dial. It was three A.M. She was alone. Larry must be in the other room keeping vigil, worried about her. She had to see him, to apologize. Carefully Catherine swung her feet off the edge of the bed and tried to stand up. A wave of dizziness swept over her. She started to fall and held herself against the bednost until it passed. She walked unsteadily to the door, her muscles feeling stiff and unused, and the pounding in her head a painful, aching throb. She stood there a moment, clinging to the door knob for support, then opened the door and stepped into the living room.

  Larry was not there. There was a light on in the kitchen, and she stumbled toward it. Larry was standing in the kitchen, his back to her, and she called out, "Larry!" but her voice was washed away by the loud clap of thunder. Before she could call again, a woman moved into view. Larry said, "It's dangerous for you to--" The screaming wind carried the rest of his words away.

  "--had to come. I had to make sure you--"

  "--see us together. No one will ever--"

  "--I told you I'd take care of--"

  "--went wrong. There's nothing they can--"

  "--now, while she's asleep."

  Catherine stood there paralyzed, unable to move. It was like listening to stroboscopic sounds, quick pulsating phrases of words. The rest of the sentences were lost in the howling wind and crack of thunder.

  "--we have to move quickly before she--"

  All the old terrors returned, shuddering through her body, engulfing her in a nameless, sickening panic. Her nightmare had been real. He was trying to kill her. She had to get out of here before they found her, before they murdered her. Slowly, her whole body trembling, she started backing away. She brushed against a lamp, and it started to fall, but she caught it before it could hit the floor. The pounding of her heart was so loud that she was afraid they would be able to hear it over the sound of the thunder and the rain. She reached the front door and opened it and the wind almost tore it out of her hands.

  Catherine stepped outside into the night and quickly closed the door behind her. She was instantly drenched by the cold, driving rain, and for the first time she became aware that she was wearing nothing but a thin nightgown. It did not matter. All that mattered was that she escape. Through the torrents of rain she could see the lights of the hotel lobby in the distance. She could go there and ask for help. But would they believe her? She remembered the doctor's face when she had told him Larry was trying to kill her. No, they would think she was hysterical, they would turn her over to Larry. She must get away from this place. She headed for the steep rocky path that led down to the village.

  The torrential storm had turned the path into a muddy, slippery mire that sucked at her bare feet and slowed her down so that she had the feeling that she was running in a nightmare, vainly trying to escape in slow motion while her pursuers raced after her. She kept slipping and falling to the ground and her feet were bleeding from the sharp stones on the path, but she was not even aware of it. She was in a state of shock, moving like an automaton, falling when a gust of wind hurled her down and picking herself up and moving down the path toward the village again, unaware of where she was running. She was no longer conscious of the rain.

  The path suddenly opened out onto a dark, deserted street on the edge of the village. She kept stumbling ahead like a hunted animal, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other, terrified by the awful sounds
that rent the night and the flashes of lightning that turned the sky into an inferno.

  She reached the lake and stood there staring at it, the wind whipping the thin nightgown around her body. The calm water had turned into a seething, churning ocean driven by demonic winds that built up high waves that brutally smashed against one another.

  Catherine stood there, trying to remember what she was doing here. And suddenly it came to her. She was on her way to meet Bill Fraser. He was waiting for her at his beautiful mansion so they could be married. Across the water Catherine caught a glimpse of a yellow light through the driving rain. Bill was there, waiting. But how was she going to get to him? She looked down and below her she saw the rowboats tied to their moorings, spinning around in the turbulent water, straining to break free.

  She knew then what she had to do. She scrambled down to a boat and jumped in. Fighting to keep her balance she untied the rope holding it to the dock. Instantly the boat leaped away from the dock, soaring in its sudden freedom. Catherine was knocked off her feet. She pulled herself onto a seat and picked up the oars, trying to remember how Larry had used them. But there was no Larry. It must have been Bill. Yes, she could remember Bill rowing with her. They were going to meet his mother and father. Now she tried to use the oars, but the giant waves kept pitching the boat from side to side and spinning it around, and the oars were pulled out of her hands and sucked into the water. She sat there watching them disappear from sight. The boat was hurtling toward the center of the lake. Catherine's teeth began to chatter from the cold, and she began to shiver in an uncontrollable spasm. She felt something lap at her feet and she looked down and saw that the boat was filling with water. She started to cry, because her wedding dress was going to get wet. Bill Fraser had bought it for her and now he was going to be angry with her.

  She wore a wedding gown because she and Bill were in a church and the minister who looked like Bill's father said if anyone objects to this marriage speak up now or...and then a woman's voice said, now, while she's asleep, and the lights went out and Catherine was back in the cave and Larry was holding her down and the woman was throwing water on her, drowning her. She looked around for the yellow light in Bill's house, but it was gone. He did not want to marry her any more, and now she had no one.

  The shore was very far away now, hidden somewhere beyond the beating, driving rain, and Catherine was alone in the stormy night, with the screaming, banshee wind of the meltemi in her ears. The boat began to rock treacherously as the huge waves smashed against it. But Catherine was no longer afraid. Her body was slowly filling with a delicious warmth, and the rain felt like soft velvet on her skin. She clasped her hands in front of her like a small child and began to recite the prayer that she had learned as a little girl.

  "Now I lay me down to sleep...I pray the Lord my soul to keep...If I should die before I wake...I pray the Lord my soul to take." And she was filled with a wonderful happiness because she knew at last that everything was all right. She was on her way home.

  At that moment a large wave caught the stern of the boat, and it slowly began to overturn in the black bottomless lake.

  Book Three

  THE TRIAL

  Athens: 1947

  23

  Five hours before the murder trial of Noelle Page and Larry Douglas was to begin, Room 33 in the Arsakion Courthouse in Athens was overflowing with spectators. The courthouse is an enormous gray building that takes up an entire square block on University Street and Stada. Of the thirty courtrooms in the building, only three rooms are reserved for criminal trials: Rooms 21, 30 and 33. Number 33 had been chosen for this trial because it was the largest. The corridors outside Room 33 were jammed and police in gray uniforms and gray shirts were stationed at the two entrances to control the crowd. The sandwich stand in the corridor was sold out in the first five minutes, and there was a long line in front of the telephone booth.

  Georgios Skouri, the Chief of Police, was personally supervising the security arrangements. Newspaper photographers were everywhere and Skouri managed to have his photograph taken with pleasing frequency. Passes to the courtroom were at a premium. For weeks members of the Greek judiciary had been besieged with requests from friends and relatives. Insiders who were able to secure them bartered them in exchange for other favors or sold them to the jackals who were scalping them for as high as five hundred drachmas apiece.

  The actual setting of the murder trial was commonplace. Courtroom 33 on the second floor of the courthouse was musty and old, the arena of thousands of legal battles that had taken place over the years. The room was about forty feet wide and three hundred feet long. The seats were divided into three rows, six feet apart, with nine wooden benches to each row.

  At the front of the courtroom was a raised dais behind a six-foot polished mahogany partition with high-backed leather chairs for the three presiding judges. The center chair was for the President of the Court and above it hung a square, dirty mirror reflecting a section of the courtroom.

  In front of the dais was the witness stand, a small raised platform on which was fixed a reading lectern with a wooden tray to hold papers. On the lectern in gold leaf was the crucifix, Jesus on the cross with two of his disciples by his side. Against the far wall was the jury box, filled now with its ten jurors. On the far left was the box where the accused sat. In front of the defendants' box was the lawyers' table.

  The walls of the room were of stucco, and there was linoleum on the floor in contrast to the worn wooden floors in the courtrooms on the first floor. A dozen electric light bulbs hung from the ceiling, covered with glass globes. In a far corner of the room, the airduct of an old-fashioned heater ascended into the ceiling. A section of the room had been reserved for the press, and representatives were there from Reuters, United Press, International News Service, Shsin Hau Agency, French Press Agency and Tass, among others.

  The circumstances of the murder trial itself would have been sensational enough, but the personae were so famous that the excited spectators did not know where to look first. It was like a three-ring circus. In the first row of benches was Philippe Sorel, the star, who, it was rumored, was a former lover of Noelle Page. Sorel had smashed a camera on the way into the courtroom and had adamantly refused to speak to the press. He sat in his seat now, withdrawn and silent, an invisible wall around him. One row in back of Sorel sat Armand Gautier. The tall, saturnine director was constantly scanning the courtroom as though mentally making notes for his next picture. Near Gautier sat Israel Katz, the famous French surgeon and resistance hero.

  Two seats away from him sat William Fraser, special assistant to the President of the United States. Next to Fraser a seat had been reserved and a rumor swept through the courtroom like wildfire that Constantin Demiris was going to appear.

  Everywhere the spectators turned was a familiar face: a politician, a singer, a well-known sculptor, an internationally famous author. But though the audience in the judicial circus was filled with celebrities, the main focus of attention was in the center ring.

  At one end of the defendant's box sat Noelle Page, exquisitely beautiful, her honey skin a bit paler than usual, and dressed as though she had just stepped out of Madame Chanel's. There was a regal quality about Noelle, a noble presence that heightened the drama of what was happening to her. It whetted the excitement of the spectators and sharpened their blood-lust.

  As an American newsweekly expressed it: The emotion that flowed toward Noelle Page from the crowd that had come to witness her trial was so strong that it became an almost physical presence in the courtroom. It was not a feeling of sympathy or of enmity, it was simply a feeling of expectation. The woman being tried for murder by the state was a superwoman, a goddess on a golden pedestal, who was high above them, and they were there to watch their idol being brought down to their level and destroyed. The feeling in the courtroom must have been the same feelings that were in the hearts of the peasants who watched Marie Antoinette riding to her doom in the tumbrel. />
  Noelle Page was not the only act in the legal circus. At the other end of the defendant's box sat Larry Douglas, filled with a smoldering anger. His handsome face was pale, and he had lost weight, but those things only served to accentuate his sculptured features, and many of the women in the courtroom had an urge to take him in their arms and console him in one way or another. Since Larry had been arrested, he had received hundreds of letters from women all over the world, dozens of gifts and proposals of marriage.

  The third star of the circus was Napoleon Chotas, a man who was as well known in Greece as Noelle Page. Napoleon Chotas was acknowledged to be one of the greatest criminal lawyers in the world. He had defended clients ranging from heads of government who had been found with their fingers in the public coffers, to murderers who had been caught red-handed by the police, and he had never lost a major case. Chotas was thin and emaciated-looking and he sat in the courtroom watching the spectators with large, sad bloodhound eyes in a ruined face. When Chotas addressed a jury, his speech was slow and hesitant, and he had great difficulty expressing himself. Sometimes he was in such an agony of embarrassment that a juror would helpfully blurt out the word that Napoleon Chotas was fumbling for, and when this happened the lawyer's face would fill with such relief and inexpressible gratitude that the entire panel of jurors would feel a wave of affection for the man. Outside the courtroom Chotas was a crisp, incisive speaker with a consummate mastery of language and syntax. He spoke seven languages fluently and when his busy schedule permitted, he gave lectures to jurists all over the world.

  Seated on the lawyer's bench a few feet away from Chotas, was Frederick Stavros, the defense attorney for Larry Douglas. The experts agreed that while Stavros might be competent enough to handle routine cases, he was hopelessly out of his depth in this one.

  Noelle Page and Larry Douglas had already been tried in the newspapers and in the minds of the populace and had been found guilty. No one doubted their guilt for a moment. Professional gamblers were offering thirty to one that the defendants would be convicted. To the trial, then, was lent the added excitement of watching the greatest criminal lawyer in Europe work his magic against enormous odds.