I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection)

by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

  A few minutes later he heard Winifred open her door softly, presumably to see if anyone was in the sitting room. Then she closed it. Montemayor immediately opened his, darted into the sitting room and listened at Winifred’s door.

  He heard her making a telephone call in a hushed voice and ask for Mortimer. Though she spoke a few words, it seemed she had got the wrong number, because she immediately rang again. Now she spoke for longer, her voice getting louder and more urgent; finally she put the receiver down and then rang once again, this time the reception at the Bristol. Then she rang off.

  Montemayor at once stepped back from the door and got back to his room, not a moment too soon because he now heard Winifred enter the sitting room, lock her door, remove the key and go out.

  Montemayor, hatless and without his overcoat, followed her immediately. She ran down the stairs. Once or twice she turned around, but he managed to conceal himself in the nick of time behind a corner or a pillar so that she didn’t notice him. She left the hotel, as did he, too, a couple of moments later. He saw her rush across the street, her brocade opera cloak shimmering in the light of the street lamps. It was only about a couple of hundred yards to the Bristol. She went in, and through the glass door Montemayor saw her talking to the hall porter. Then the porter made a telephone call. In the meantime she ran up the stairs. The porter, it seemed, made as if to hold her back; he called something out, but she had already disappeared behind a bend on the stairs. The next moment Montemayor also entered and ran up the stairs. He saw Winifred run along the corridor of the first floor, open a door and disappear inside; he, too, rushed towards the door.

  Winifred closed the door behind her, found herself standing in a lobby, opened the next door and stood in Mortimer’s salon.

  She was so ill prepared for the person she was rushing towards not to be Jack Mortimer that she discovered this only when she was nearly on top of him. She stopped dead with a light shriek, held up her hand, sparkling with rings, to her mouth, half agape with horror, and stared at Sponer with ever widening, blazing eyes, without uttering a single word.

  Sponer, too, still leaning against the mirror stand which held the telephone looked at her in motionless silence.

  Finally, she mumbled something in English, probably an apology that she’d entered the wrong room, turned around and made to rush out through the door.

  She had, however, barely taken a couple of steps when her eyes lit on the things that Sponer had pulled out of Mortimer’s suitcases and that were now strewn all over the place.

  She hesitated, seemed to recognize them, turned round again, the cloak slid off her shoulders, and the expression in her wide-open eyes, showed that she understood everything.

  She stood there stock-still for two more seconds, only that the expression of fear intensified ever more, then she let out a cry which rose in pitch, swung around and dashed towards the door.

  But in two bounds Sponer was already in front of her and had barred her way. She wanted to push him aside, but, slamming the door with his left hand, he grabbed her by the shoulder with his right. He flung her on the sofa and, through clenched teeth and with an almost demented look in his eyes, hissed, “You so much as cry out or try to get away and I’ll knock you into next week!”

  7

  FROM THE FORCE with which he flung her down and her overwhelming sense of fear, she lay there crouching, staring at him in utter bewilderment. Also, possibly she hadn’t understood what he had said. Yet she guessed well enough, for initially she remained subdued and then finally made a movement as if to jump up, but fell back when she saw his expression, but only in order immediately to straighten herself up and cry out:

  “Where’s Jack Mortimer?”

  “Shut up!” he hissed, then he listened whether anyone in the corridor or in the adjacent rooms had been alerted by the shouting and slamming of the door. But everything was quiet. The woman, too, was now silent, only panic flickered in her eyes. He approached her slowly; she shrank back again. He stood in front of her and, staring down at her, formulated in his mind a few words to say in English.

  “How did you get here?” he asked finally.

  “Where’s Mortimer?” she mumbled again.

  He gestured with his hand.

  “Answer me!” he barked. “How did you get here? Were you the person who phoned earlier?”

  She appeared not to understand him. He began to think that perhaps he hadn’t expressed himself clearly enough. At school he’d learnt English, but only for a fairly short time, and very superficially. He repeated slowly and clearly: “Did you phone earlier?”

  “Yes,” she answered finally. “Who are you? Where’s Mortimer?” And she began once more, getting ever louder, to speak so quickly that he no longer understood her. With a flick of his hand he cut her short. She fell silent; only her eyes continued to flicker.

  “I can’t tell you where Mortimer is,” he said.

  “Why not?” she retorted. “How come you’re in his room? Why are his things lying about here?”

  And she repeated her question when she noticed that he understood her poorly, and also added a few more.

  “Can’t you speak German?” he asked. But when he realized that she hadn’t understood him, he said in English, “I’ve several things to ask you. When you answer, don’t say so much and”—at this point he didn’t know how to say “above all”—“not so quickly. Otherwise I won’t understand you. Who was…”—here he corrected himself—“Who is this Jack Mortimer?”

  She replied with a question that he didn’t understand.

  “I want to know,” he insisted, “who Jack Mortimer is.”

  “Surely you must know that yourself!” she shouted. “You must!”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t.”

  She looked around wildly, was about to answer, but then merely pointed at Mortimer’s things.

  “No,” he said. “Even so, I don’t know. But you’re going to tell me.” He thought for a moment, then took the letters from the table and held them out to her.

  She immediately snatched at them and glanced at him in horror.

  “Are these your letters?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Are these your letters?” he repeated. “Was he a friend of yours?”

  She stayed silent and clutched the letters tightly in her hand.

  “Was he a friend of yours?” he insisted. “Answer me!”

  She broke into tears.

  He turned away. The appearance of this woman had made his situation utterly intolerable. When he turned and looked at her again, the expression in her eyes was one of fury and unmitigated hatred.

  “It’s not my fault,” he said, “that I’m now here instead of Mortimer. Believe me!”

  Her eyes continued to flicker in hatred.

  “It’s not my fault,” he repeated. “Do you understand?”

  She remained silent.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Where did Jack Mortimer come from?” he asked finally.

  He had to repeat the question twice before she answered, “From Paris.”

  “And how,” he asked, “do you know him? Have you known him long?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Listen,” he said, slowly searching for the right words, “you have to answer what I ask you!”

  “You know it all yourself!” she retorted.

  “No,” he said, “I told you already that I don’t, but you’re going to tell me. If not, I’m going to”—he searched for the right words for a moment—“make you. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to make you speak.”

  He wanted to add that his position left him no choice, but this proved too difficult to translate. He reached for her hands and squeezed them together till she let out a cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and took a step back.

  She again began to cry. He wished he hadn’t hurt her, and wanted to stroke her hair. She immediately flared up and lashed out at his ha
nd. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “So, I want an answer,” he said curtly. “Who are you?”

  She clenched her teeth.

  “What’s your name?” he repeated.

  “None of your business!” she shouted. “I didn’t want to come to you. You’ve no right to ask my name!”

  “Too bad,” he said. “You’ve got to tell me who you are!”

  “No!”

  “Yes,” he said, and reached for her hands again. She snatched them away.

  “Well, what’s your name?” he asked.

  “Jane,” she hissed.

  He thought for a moment. Then he suddenly grabbed the letters out of her hand, flipped through them even though she was trying to snatch them back, found the one he wanted, and showed her the letter W.

  She blushed to the roots of her hair.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “That’s my surname,” she mumbled. “I’m Jane Ward.”

  “Since when,” he wanted to ask, “have people signed love letters with their surnames?” But again he couldn’t translate it. Looking hard at her, he pointedly touched with the tip of his shoe her evening bag, which was lying on the floor. Then he picked it up. She thought he was going to give it to her but he only pointed at the metal monogram, a W and an M.

  She reddened even more, couldn’t think of anything to say, and merely tried to grab the bag. However, he drew it out of her reach, opened it hastily, saw a couple of letters inside and pulled them out. They were addressed to Mrs Winifred Montemayor: one to Vienna, the Hotel Imperial; the other was poste restante. Then he let her have the letters and the bag.

  He had gained the upper hand. In the course of the next few minutes, while she was in a state of confusion and seeing that she had the bag in her possession so that she could wipe away her tearstains and powder her nose, he managed to drag her story out of her.

  The name Montemayor was, of course, familiar to him. He even remembered having heard a couple of his records. He also questioned her about Mortimer. Only there wasn’t much she could tell him, except that he was the son of a banker and that she had known him fleetingly and had then met him in Paris once more.

  Suddenly he realized that she was at his feet. She had slid down from the sofa, was clinging to him and imploring him to tell her where Mortimer was.

  “Did you love him a lot?” he mumbled.

  Then his eyes wandered round the room. He saw the two cigarette packets: Mortimer’s on the settee; and the second one, which the waiter had brought up, on the dining table.

  He extricated himself from Winifred’s grip and went over to get himself a cigarette.

  He hadn’t reached the table when a sound made him look around.

  Winifred had jumped to her feet, run to the door, had flung it open and was now running through the lobby towards the exit door.

  Before he could take even one step in pursuit, she had torn the exit door open and was about to run out, but instead let out an almighty cry and staggered back. A man in an evening suit came in. He banged the door shut after him and clapped his hand on her mouth to stifle the cry. She struggled for air. He grabbed her with his other, free hand and dragged her into the salon. His face was so distorted with rage, the likes of which Sponer had not seen before.

  He glanced around, appeared not to notice Sponer at all, and dragged Winifred over to one of the windows. There he reached behind the curtains and yanked one of the curtains cords with such force that the whole rail came crashing down. He folded the rope double and began to lash the woman with it.

  So far he hadn’t said a word; now, however, he began to accompany every word with a suppressed expletive. Under the blows Winifred’s thin evening dress immediately tore into shreds and red welts began to appear on her naked back. At first, when she had got her mouth free, she began to yell; however, the blows came down so thick and fast that she immediately found herself short of breath. She hid her face in her arms, stopped turning around and just groaned. The man continued to whip her.

  At first Sponer observed the scene in bewilderment till his mind slowly began to comprehend what was going on. Above all he didn’t know what to make of the intruder. He now grabbed him by the shoulders, yelled at him and pushed him aside. Since the fellow nevertheless paid not the slightest attention to him and carried on lashing blindly, even catching him once or twice with the ends of the swishing rope, Sponer spun him round and with his clenched fist hit him square in the face.

  The man went down immediately and the woman, too, whom he let go, fell down and lay there whimpering.

  *

  A couple of moments later the man began to move again, pressed his hand to his cheek, straightened himself up unsteadily and took two or three shaky steps towards Sponer.

  Sponer recoiled and was ready to confront him again. However, this attack amounted to no more than that the man, in coming forward, lost his balance and merely tumbled into Sponer’s arms. Sponer pushed him away. The man took a couple of steps back, pulled out a handkerchief, pressed it to the spot where the punch had landed, and also felt his chin and the rest of his face while he eyed Sponer. Then he shook his head as though he wanted to shake something off; he began to sway again, but managed to hold onto the edge of the table. Sponer was ready to support him. The man, leaning on the table, looked at Sponer. “Who are you?” he asked.

  Meanwhile Winifred had sat up, groaning, had pulled the tatters of her evening gown round her shoulders and was groping her way to the sofa. Sponer picked up the brocade cloak from the floor, approached her and threw it over her shoulders.

  “Why did you hit her?” he asked the man.

  “Because,” the man hissed, “she is my wife!”

  “Are you Montemayor?”

  “Yes.” He turned to face Winifred again and, leaning on the backrest, took a couple of steps towards her. “What did you want here?” he said in a cracked voice. “Didn’t you want to get to Mortimer?”

  She shrank back even more as he approached. Sponer pushed him back.

  “Leave her alone now,” he ordered. “How did you get here in the first place? How did you know your wife was here?”

  “Because I heard her telephone just a while ago. Did you think,” he said, turning to Winifred, “I was asleep already? Didn’t it occur to you, I’d be expecting you to get in touch with that man?”

  “What man?” she cried.

  “Mortimer!”

  “Where is Mortimer?”

  “‘Where is Mortimer?’ she asks me!”

  “Yes! He’s not here! He’s gone! Instead there’s this man here,” and she pointed at Sponer. Montemayor turned to Sponer; however, the woman went on to speak so quickly that Sponer could no longer understand her, nor the man when he answered. After that, the woman rattled on and cried ever louder, then she finally felt silent; only, her eyes kept darting from Montemayor to Sponer and back again.

  Montemayor looked at Sponer.

  “Are you Austrian?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Sponer said after a pause.

  “My wife,” Montemayor said in broken German, “says this is Mortimer’s room and these,” he pointed at the things scattered about, “are his clothes. Which they are. I know them from Paris, where he was wearing them. Where is Mortimer? How come you’re here?”

  Sponer was silent for a moment, then he asked, “How is it that you speak German?”

  “I studied music here.”

  “In Vienna?”

  “No, in Germany. So, who are you?”

  “And you followed,” Sponer interrupted him, “your wife when you heard that she had phoned Mortimer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you suspected your wife would ring Jack Mortimer. What made you suspect that?”

  “Because,” Montemayor replied, “even in Paris…”—and he turned to Winifred and shouted in English again—“Because even in Paris she wanted to get together with him, and because she, when we were coming here, had arranged that he’d
follow. I knew all about it, I wasn’t born yesterday! And they wanted to meet here!”

  Winifred glanced at him with an indescribable look on her face. “Why then,” she interrupted, “did you have to hit me if I wasn’t with Mortimer at all?”

  “Because,” he yelled, “you wanted to be with him! Or maybe you didn’t want to be with him after all? Is he the one,” he said, pointing at Sponer, “you wanted to be with? How do you know him anyway?”

  “I don’t know him at all! He was here when I came in, but he won’t say where Mortimer is!”

  Montemayor looked at Sponer. “Well?” he asked. “Where is he?”

  Sponer did not reply. Since these two, who knew Mortimer, had found him here, it made no sense to continue publicly playing Mortimer’s part to the end. It was madness to have taken it on in the first place. Because, in spite of all that he’d done, he had achieved nothing except to incriminate himself hopelessly and let the real murderer go absolutely scot-free.

  He shrugged his shoulders, glanced around, went over to the table, took a cigarette and headed for the door.

  Winifred sat up on the sofa, leapt to her feet, ran after Sponer and held him back by his arm.

  “Where are you going?” she cried.

  He looked at her, and a look of hatred came into his eyes. If it hadn’t been for this woman, he thought, if it hadn’t been for her obsession to see Mortimer, it might perhaps have been possible to fake the departure the next morning, to leave the hotel, take a cab, disappear, save himself. As it was, she had deceived her husband, saved the one who had shot her lover and ruined him, Sponer.

  He turned to go.

  “Where are you off to?” she cried.

  He freed himself from her with a jerk. He looked at her pretty, vacuous face, staring back at him at close quarters; there was no other expression except obsession for the man with whom she wanted to double-cross her husband. Uncontrollable anger welled up in him. Had he been able to destroy her with the words he yelled into her face, he’d gladly have done so.