More Dead Than Alive (David Mallin Detective series Book 15)

by Roger Ormerod

  “Get some sleep,” I said.

  Then I went to do my duties as night nurse.

  Thirteen

  I am not denying that I got a little sleep. But George had been wrong about the exhaustion. Amaryllis might have been maudlin, even a little delirious, but she was not tired. So I went from David’s arms to her mumbled, tearful torrent of self-pity, and if hers was worse than mine, I was sorry for her.

  Most of the night was taken up by a recital of her passionate, and rather sordid affair with Konrad, and I had never realized that anyone could be so inflamed by desire as to be completely helpless, and at the same time, miserable with longing for what she had left behind. Oh, make no mistake, it was a past dream now. With ballet, there’s no let-up. You can never recapture that certain edge… to my fury, I was beginning to feel for her, actually sympathize…

  I slept. I awoke to her voice, wailing that he was gone, gone… I tried her with brandy and she seemed to relax, the tears still hot on her cheeks. I slept again.

  “…not really ballet,” she was saying, “but close enough, so I could fool myself that I hadn’t deserted it. But when the act folded…”

  I think I dozed. The tap on the door woke me. It was David.

  “Aren’t you coming down to breakfast, love?”

  Somewhere in the confusion, my own bath had been forgotten. I was lying on the top of the bed, still in the same slacks. Amaryllis slept like a conscienceless child, and David looked fresh and vibrant.

  “When I’ve had a bath,” I said.

  “I had to shave in cold water. The heater’s not working.”

  What I needed was a small allowance of sympathy myself. He said he’d see me downstairs, then, and did I know where George could find a length of rope, and, when I did get down there, not to worry because he’d remembered the tow-rope in the back of his car. Then he went to help George measure it, or something.

  I think David must have done the cooking, because it was his touch with the bacon. I discovered I was ravenously hungry; that it was raining, from Fisher, who had been for a walk and claimed he hadn’t heard a word the previous night; that Clarice would be down, from Sundry, who might not have left her side all night; and that Amaryllis was having a fit, from Anthony, who had been in her room examining the mess when she’d walked in.

  Anthony, it seemed, had been there all night, just to see that nothing smoldering should burst into flames. It was his home too.

  “Blames me for it,” he said morosely. “What she needs is a good spanking.”

  And she might, I thought, even enjoy it.

  Then George came in and said there I was and was I ready.

  “Didn’t Dave tell you,” he asked. “We need you for a small experiment.”

  “Why me?” I demanded. “Why must it always be me?”

  “You’re the lightest, Elsa.”

  I was about to suggest Amaryllis, but then decided he included her, and how could I resist such a sweet compliment?

  “I hope you’re not taking me up to that room again, George.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, yes.”

  “No wonder I’m light, you’re wearing me out.”

  “More theories?” Anthony inquired, returning to his old sarcasm.

  “Trying out an idea,” agreed George affably.

  Fisher’s head came up. “Oh, nobody can beat you for trying. If it’s ideas you want—”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “And if you,” said Sundry, moving aggressively towards Fisher, “make one more accusation against Clarice, I’ll pile so many lawyers on you that you’ll die of suffocation.”

  “Threats, threats!”

  “Oh, Lord,” said George, “let’s get out of here.”

  David was waiting in the hall, looking restless. Whatever George’s idea might have been, it was clear that David did not share it. He was worried, and shot brief and anxious glances at me. I noticed that he was holding his hands clear of his sides.

  “Let me see them.”

  “Elsa, please… listen to what George has got to say.”

  George beamed, but didn’t get round to saying it because it was then that we heard the car on the gravel outside. David and George looked at each other, and I went to open the door.

  It was Abel and his sergeant.

  Seeing the three of us together, he plunged straight in with what he had to say, his voice amiable enough but his eyes cold.

  “I hear you’ve had some trouble in the night. I hear it. I was not informed. Nobody called the police, and yet I understand there was an attempt on Miss Moore’s life.”

  “We’d better go somewhere,” said David.

  “I think we should.”

  As I followed them, I realized it must have seemed strange that nobody had phoned the police. But really, only David, George and myself knew that the fire had been started deliberately, apart from my one casual remark to Clarice, which had gone over her head.

  We found the Cleric’s Library to be empty. Abel seemed disinclined to sit, but the rest of us did.

  “How did you hear?” From David.

  “An anonymous phone-call.”

  “Ha!” From George.

  Only the three of us knew – and Amaryllis.

  “What does that mean?” asked Abel.

  George shrugged. “It was not necessarily an attempt on her life. She’s highly strung, and loves a bit of self-dramatization. Else why should she phone you?”

  “And fail to give her name,” Abel pointed out. “Where’s the dramatization there? Somebody’d better tell me all about it.”

  David took it up. In one corner of the room, unobtrusively, the sergeant was scribbling in his notebook. It was a comfort to realize that at least we three were now trusted.

  Or so I thought at that time.

  David concluded his statement. He does that sort of thing very well.

  “I should have left a couple of men here,” Abel muttered in self-criticism.

  “You weren’t to know…”

  But Abel’s glance at David was angry; he did not welcome comfort from anyone but a superior. But David met his eyes steadily, and his voice was quiet when he went on: “None of us expected anything like that, though I at least should have expected something.”

  “Why?” It positively cracked.

  David looked at me, I thought with apology. “I was trying to rig a scene to trap the murderer.”

  “You had no right!”

  “Based on the fact that an attempt was made to fire two shots from that gun, but it jammed on the second. Only the murderer could know that, and I thought—”

  “You thought! You did? I’m the one to do the thinking around here. I’ve a good mind to hold you for impeding the course…”

  “What damned course?” said George flatly. “We couldn’t see anything going on.”

  Abel seemed more pale and more tense with the growth of his anger. “And you’re two ex-policemen! It’s clear why they chucked you out! You know as well as I do that it’s routine that counts, the sifting, the detail—”

  “And the failing to notice,” David observed, “that the gun had jammed.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Now, yes. And made what out of it?”

  “I’m not here to answer your questions. And the blasted gun’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “No?”

  And then Abel was abruptly calm. It was as though he had realized he was not getting anywhere, and was losing control of the interview. “I think not,” he said. “I think not indeed. You’re sidetracking the real issue. We know the gun was fired once. There is one bullet hole in the cabinet, and there was a crash heard when the cabinet fell over, or was pushed, or whatever. That much we must accept. But because there’s one bullet hole in Konrad Klein’s body, and one shot was fired, you’re letting it confuse you. You’ve got to go for essentials.”

  “Such as?” asked George with interest.

  Then at last Ab
el did take a seat, though only on the arm of an easy chair, his manner casual. He might have been lecturing at the Police Academy.

  “The fact that somebody walked out of that room. Either Klein did so himself, and was therefore alive when he did it, or he was shot in there, his body dumped out of the window, and his murderer walked out. That is the basic, essential fact.

  David said: “Unarguable. Or is it? There could be ways.”

  “Which I’ve examined in detail. D’you think my men have been standing around, doing nothing but eat chips! There was apparently no place of concealment in the room, if we’re to accept what Anthony Klein said as truth.”

  “But…” I began, but he gestured, and I was silent.

  “And that leaves the window,” he said. “You’ve all seen it. Out of there, either up or down, is impossible without a rope. There’s no evidence that any rope was ever inside the room, so it would need to have been taken there. By the murderer or by Klein himself. But to do what? It could not have been fastened, earlier, to the roof, because the trapdoor hadn’t been opened in a score of years. It could not have been tossed up over one of the crenellations around the edge, not with any chance of success – and we’re talking about something planned. It could have been used to slide downwards perhaps, but to where? There are windows beneath that one – though none above – but those, too, are about fixed solid, and there’s no evidence of one being opened. Can we agree that the window could not have been used?”

  David and George agreed. They nodded to each other. Abel took it that they were exchanging complimentary gestures, and went on with enthusiasm.

  “And so, that’s the whole point. Somebody got out of that door, cabinet or not. The question is, how? Get the how and we get the somebody. There’s already been some talk about how the cabinet got there. Well, that’s not the point, unless the way it got there explains how somebody managed to get out. Oh, I know we’ve had one demonstration of that, but we’re a bit short of men as strong as Coe here – unless Klein himself could have done it. But we all know that when Coe tried it there were score marks down the door, which weren’t there before. So… any other suggestions?”

  Again, the impression of a training session; a problem in logic. But I was suspicious of this previously angry man now calmly asking for advice. George grunted, though, as though to speak, then shook his head.

  But David said: “That means you’ve got an idea.”

  “Something. An idea – or the only possibility left. That’s why I came here, to speak to your wife.”

  Then slowly, and I found terrifyingly, he turned to face me.

  “I wanted to take you through a few points again.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I glanced at David, who was leaning forward in his chair. He nodded encouragingly. I cleared my throat. “Very well.”

  “You said you heard the shot and the crash?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because your window was open?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you said it was a cold night.”

  I swallowed. His eyes seemed to take me apart. “The wind was from the sea, and my window faces the courtyard. It was… fresh.”

  “If your window faces the courtyard, and his faces the sea, how could you have heard anything?”

  I considered that. “The wind carried the sound – it echoed perhaps in the courtyard. But I did hear it.”

  “But your friend Clarice only heard the crash.”

  “She didn’t say…”

  “She said it to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought it was a question.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said with annoying condescension. “You both heard it, and you both ran for the Tower.”

  “Yes.”

  “She leading?”

  “Well… yes. If it matters.”

  “I’ll decide that. You reached the door to the room. It wouldn’t open. Who turned the ring of the latch?”

  “I think… yes, she did.”

  “You didn’t try it yourself?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I?”

  “It’d perhaps be natural. The attitude: here, let me have a go.”

  “I didn’t try it.”

  “So, for all you know, she may not have turned the handle enough to release the latch inside?”

  “But why… I mean, she wouldn’t do such a thing.” I looked towards David for assistance, and he sat like stone, his lips tight, his eyes on Abel. He inclined his head a fraction. “It’d be natural for her to turn it all the way,” I said firmly.

  “Or you thought she did.”

  “I have no reason to doubt it.” I could be as formal as him.

  “Very well. We’ll leave that. You turned and went down to fetch one of the men, and met Anthony Klein coming up. Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mentioned he was not out of breath.”

  “He was coming up slowly. I merely meant… he’s a fit man.”

  “Or he had not come far.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do.”

  “No… no…”

  “You’re not stupid. If he’d not come far, where could he have been?”

  “You’re saying it, not me. You say what you mean.”

  “That attitude doesn’t help. Where… could… he… have… been?”

  Then George grunted and I heard him move. At last, Dave spoke. “No, George.” I fought for what Abel wanted, angry that he’d provoked me to it.

  “In the room below?” I offered.

  “But I’ve said the rooms hadn’t been opened.”

  “You said the windows,” I said angrily.

  “That’s what I like, an eye for detail. You’re quite correct – but the doors too. So, with your powers of observation… what else about the doors?”

  “Oh… I don’t know. I just don’t…”

  “They’re deeply set. At least a foot.”

  “You’re not saying…” I was aware that my voice was breaking.

  “What?” he asked quietly.

  “That Anthony… stood in a doorway… and we passed him going up!”

  “Why not? A slim man in a dark suit – it was, you know, I asked him – with his face and hands covered…”

  “You’re just being stupid.”

  “I’m sorry that you said that. I was going to suggest that your friend, leading, carrying the lamp – is that correct?”

  “Yes, she was carrying it.”

  “Then she’d be dazzled, and the lamp would throw the shadow of the door recess forward for her, hiding him. But for you? Perhaps. But you say I’m stupid. So maybe I’m wrong that you missed him. Maybe you saw him there…”

  “By Christ!” George burst out, and David said flatly: “Don’t bully my wife, friend, with your inverted logic.”

  Abel never glanced away from me.

  “Of course I didn’t see him!” I cried.

  His mouth flexed. He was amused at my lies. “Very well. Take it on. Anthony went back up with you. He turned the ring handle and put his shoulder to the door. And it moved slowly. But he comes of a family of illusionists. What if the door did not have the cabinet behind it, and he was simply giving an impression of effort…”

  I was very tired and my head swam. “I heard the cabinet move,” I said impatiently.

  “But did you? You expected to hear something move, and…”

  “I heard it.”

  “But he could have groaned with effort.”

  “It was a sliding sound.”

  “Which he imitated with his mouth.”

  “All I know is that it sounded like something sliding.”

  “Ah, that's better.”

  “It’s not better or worse,” I shouted. “It’s just fact.”

  “Quite so. But you’re also saying that the room was empty. You saw it searched by Anthony.”

  “It was empty.”


  “No one hiding – not even behind the door?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said wearily. “Anthony said the wind almost took the door from his hand. So he was holding it open, was he?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Suppose? Don’t you know?”

  “I had my back to him. I went to shut the window.”

  “But when you turned back?”

  “It was… open. But that’s just plain… ridiculous.”

  A tiny smile reached his eyes that I’d flinched from the word stupid. “Isn’t it?” he asked. “So all we’re left with – the only possibility is that the cabinet was not against the door.”

  “But I heard it sliding back!” I moaned.

  “An imaginative woman, impressionable.”

  “You’ve gone far enough,” David suddenly broke in, his voice harsh. “All you’ve come up with is a theory involving Anthony. So go and arrest him – but leave my wife alone.”

  “Do you think I’ve got a case?” Abel turned to him in interest, not at all affected by David’s tense anger. “I didn’t take you to be slow-witted. Now – what have I been saying?” He paused, luring David to a defence of his own intelligence. But David remained silent. Abel’s voice became more brittle.

  “I’m saying that he could not have done it alone. I know he’s a professional conjuror. I’ve taken that into account. I’ve wondered if he could have fixed that door latch so that only he could turn it fully. But even allowing that as a possibility he would still not have had time, between the crash of the cabinet and the expected arrival of somebody, to get right down the Tower stairs and on to the Gallery, without being seen. And so – he would need somebody as an accomplice, to mount those stairs and not see him hidden in a doorway below. Deliberately not see him. And thus give him an alibi of a sort, if he found he needed one. But who? That’s the point. There’s been talk of complicity to defraud. This is more serious – complicity to murder. So I have to ask myself: did he fix it with his stepmother, she to pretend to turn the latch – and your wife arrived unexpectedly on the scene, and failed to spot him hiding? Or did he fix it with your wife – the stepmother being the one to miss him – and your wife being the one to try the latch – and be lying about it? Or did he work it with both? You can see my difficulty.”