Lady Sativa

by Frank Lauria

  Orient grinned. “Any special reason?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that he reminds me of the count: distinguished and very kind.”

  “Who is this count?” Orient asked, avoiding her question.

  She sighed. “He’s a lovely man. Count Germaine is the leading member of our board. A remarkably gifted hypnotist. Very tall. Stately. He’s the head of the library in Amsterdam. And so kind, so gallant.” Her reverie was interrupted by the arrival of the stewardess with the drinks. She plucked a glass from the tray and handed it to Orient.

  “The count devastated Anthony,” she said, relishing the moment.

  “Carl and Anthony seem to have a messy time of it.”

  “Oh, it was awful. For a long time. It was especially hard on Carl. He’s such a gentle soul. But after he lost the court suit Anthony went back to his silly big-game hunting.”

  “Now that you mention it, that coat you’re sitting on looks like a big-game trophy,” Orient said.

  “Damn right, darling.” Sybelle winked. “I begged a dear French furrier who was mad about me.” She patted the red coat draped over her chair. “Isn’t it marvelous? It’s the warmest thing I have. And it’s perfectly legal. It’s an antique that was made pre-ecology.”

  Seven hours later, when the plane landed at Arlanda, near Stockholm, Orient discovered that his own trench coat was poor protection against the sharp North wind cutting steadily through his clothing, Sybelle, wrapped to her pink ears in red fur, was ecstatic. All during the long cab ride into Stockholm, she continued to chatter. Orient half-listened and watched the scenery, grateful for the comparative warmth of the taxi. Sybelle’s words filtered through his thoughts as a splendid parade of trees, their gold and rust leaves brilliantly arrayed against the dark green foliage, flashed past his widow.

  “Maxwell is a dear. He’s a genius. Only twenty-one and he’s been a member of our board for three years. Marvelous boy. I’m sure the two of you will have a lot in common.”

  “Who?”

  “Maxwell Andersen. You must have heard of him. He’s the British chess champion.”

  Orient half-closed his eyes. Sybelle’s enthusiastic drone set off a contagious air of well-being and he began thinking ahead to the details of their presentation.

  “Don’t you dare go to sleep,” she scolded after he failed to respond a few times. “We still have the whole train ride and I need company.”

  “Just going over the check list for the televised section.”

  “Are you having it shipped?”

  “It’s on the plane. In my suitcase.”

  “But you only have two bags. Didn’t you bring anything to wear?”

  “All we need is the equipment in one suitcase. All portable-screener, laptop, and CD. Unless your friends are beyond electricity, we’re in good shape.”

  “That’s lovely, dear,” Sybelle murmured. “Now do try to stay awake for a few hours longer. I detest traveling with no one to talk to.”

  They reached Stockholm’s central station only thirty minutes before the departure time of their train. After checking their bags in their compartment, they decided to take a stroll around the station to unwind from their flight.

  They wandered through a maze of food shops, boutiques, and restaurants thriving in the fluorescent light of the underground market. Sybelle bought a huge box of candied fruit. “For Carl’s wife,” she told Orient, “she loves them so.”

  “Is she a member of SEE?” Orient asked as they walked back to the train.

  “No, but Hannah understands Carl’s work; she’s his secretary. She doesn’t have a psychic gift, but she does have great faith. I’ve heard it said that Anthony wanted to marry her, but she was in love with Carl. She made a fabulous choice. Imagine having to tramp around in the jungle after a man who enjoys shooting helpless animals!”

  What about your coat, Orient thought.

  When they reached their compartment, Sybelle tucked her fur coat under her round chin and promptly fell asleep.

  Orient, now fully awake, was left to stare out at the approaching darkness as the train rolled out of Stockholm and headed North. A small seed of anticipation took root and flowered as he looked ahead to a busy week in the company of professional colleagues. As the hours passed, however, the sleepless grind dried up his optimism and anticipation eroded into impatience to reach Bestman’s home and find a bed.

  Sybelle slept the entire six hours and when the train arrived at the small station marked Hudiksvall, Orient had to try three times before he succeeded in rousing her. He looked in vain for a porter and finally had to pass the six suitcases through the window to a still-bleary Sybelle on the platform, and then hurry off the train just as it started moving.

  “Okay, we’re here. Where’s Bestman?”

  Sybelle blinked and looked around. “See a big black Mercedes anywhere?” she mumbled.

  Orient pulled his collar up and jammed his hands into his pockets. The wind blew in gusts down from the dark hills behind the station and swept across the wide canal on the other side. The station house was a dimly lit, two-story building. It looked closed. Orient shivered as he waited for Sybelle to get her bearings.

  “Carl always sends his car,” Sybelle insisted. “Try the entrance.”

  Orient walked around the unlit side of the building, moving slowly in the unfamiliar shadows. The blackness above him was crammed with thousands of stars, their hard sparkles competing with the velvet glow of a distant moon.

  He stepped out of the darkness to the front. The station faced a single, deserted street. He took a few steps toward the streetlamp.

  There was no car in sight along the narrow road that ran from the station entrance into the wind-swept darkness. A dog barked somewhere.

  He heard the sound of an approaching motor, and he stood waiting in the light of the streetlamp, hopping from foot to foot, to keep his blood circulating in the numbing wind.

  A pair of headlights beamed through the shadows, bobbing across the tangled branches of the trees lining the road.

  The car wasn’t a Mercedes, but, to Orient’s relief, was an unoccupied Volvo taxi. He waved it to a stop and in a halting mixture of Swedish and English asked the driver to pull around to the side of the station.

  After the bags had been fitted in the trunk and overhead rack, Orient crawled into the back seat. “We’re loaded. Now just tell our friend where to deliver us.”

  Sybelle stared at the driver. “I don’t recall. Oh, dear. Does he know Bestman Herrgard?”

  The driver scowled at Orient and shook his head. “Nay. Nay Bestmon Herrgard.” He raced the motor impatiently.

  “I just can’t remember the address, but I’ve heard it many times before.” She bit her lip. “Sounds something like Weekhawken. I’m so bad with linguistics. North Weecoogan. I think that’s it.” She smiled brightly at the driver.

  “Nord-vee-coo-gan?” she pronounced slowly.

  The driver shut the motor off and turned around to squint glumly at Sybelle. “Hey?” he said finally.

  “North wee-cow-gen?” she ventured hopefully.

  The driver shrugged. “Norbo-scoogarna, maybe,” was all he could suggest. He started the car and pulled away from the station.

  The slow, steady throb of the motor was monotonous but reassuring as the taxi moved through the enclosing stillness.

  The car’s headlights only managed to pierce the blackness for a short distance before their glow was swallowed by the shadows at the edge of the road. They drove slowly through an immense stretch of forest on a road that seemed to be getting narrower with every mile.

  “Recognize any of this?”

  “Could be...” Sybelle said without conviction as she leaned forward to peer through the windshield. “Let’s wait to see where he takes us.”

  Orient stared ahead into the night, trying to make out some crude signs of habitation. There was nothing except the empty road.

  “I hope he’s going somewhere” Sybelle gr
unted. “I have the exact address and phone number written down, but it’s packed. Carl is usually so prompt about sending the car. Perhaps he didn’t get my wire. Didn’t we send a wire from the train station?”

  Orient shook his head slowly. “No wire. All we did was buy a box of candied fruit.”

  Sybelle brightened. “Oh yes, for Hannah. That explains it.”

  “Explains?”

  “Why Carl didn’t send the car. We bought the candied fruit instead”

  “Right on.” Orient sat back and watched the lights drill forward through the tangled darkness. “I hope the driver sees it your way.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Sybelle muttered. “It’s so lonely out here.”

  A few minutes later the driver brought the car to a stop. He got out of the car and disappeared into the shadows, leaving the motor running. He came back a few moments later, took his post behind the wheel, and - without any word of explanation resumed driving through the brooding forest.

  “Did he stop to wee wee or get directions?” Sybelle whispered.

  “Probably getting his bearings. Look.”

  Sybelle followed the direction of his finger and looked out the window. The wall of trees parted, revealing a. three-quarter moon that sent orange streaks rippling across an ebony surface of water.

  “The lake,” Sybelle exclaimed. “I’m sure he’s going the right way.” A fork appeared in the road and the driver turned onto the smaller, rougher path. The car crawled along the edge of the lake toward a luminous dot in the distance. The dot became the outline of a window on the second floor of a small wooden house set off the lake. The driver parked the taxi in front of the house and went to the door. A light winked on in the first floor and the door opened. Orient could see the driver talking to someone through the steamed windows, but all he could hear was the gentle rumble of the idling motor. The door shut and the light went out as the driver came back to the car. The return of the darkness was somehow comforting to Orient. The driver opened the door.

  “Bestmon?” he growled at Sybelle. “Bestmon Herr-gard.”

  Orient told him in Swedish that Bestman Manor was correct.

  “You speak the language!” Sybelle was outraged. “You could have told him all the time.”

  “I just hope that we understood each other properly,” Orient said. “I don’t think he’s going to give us a second chance.”

  “If you speak Swedish, why didn’t you translate my directions for him?”

  “He speaks dialect,” Orient explained, closing his eyes. Twenty minutes later the taxi turned off the road into a grove of huge trees and continued along a high stone wall until they came to a gate. Before Orient could ask Sybelle, the driver guided the car through the open gate and headed for a group of lights back above a rolling, terraced lawn. The lights were part of a house which stood on the highest slope. The structure rose in jagged silhouette against the star-dusted sky as they approached.

  “Thank goodness.” Sybelle patted her hair and tried to see her reflection in the rear-view mirror. “Here we are. I can’t wait to have a hot brandy.”

  The driver stopped at a door lit by an ornate overhanging lamp. Orient took the suitcases from the rack on the car and paid the driver while Sybelle ran ahead to the door. As he watched the lights of the cab recede, he began to entertain visions of an open fire and a snifter of cognac. When he joined Sybelle, however, he found that no one was answering the bell.

  “Those lights are from Carl’s study,” she whispered in the stillness that crept in around them as the noise of the departing taxi faded into the shadows.

  “Try again.” His voice sounded unnaturally loud. He shivered in the damp wind.

  The door opened and the slash of light released seemed to provide a sudden wave of warmth. A pointed, balding head peered turtlelike from around the door.

  Sybelle’s hand fluttered to her face. “Is Dr. Bestman at home?” she stammered in confusion.

  The head receded and the door opened wider. A short man, who resembled a truculent reptile, stood at the threshold. His bullet head was supported by a thin, lined neck that moved back and forth between his narrow shoulders as he looked at them.

  “Who are you please?” he asked in a voice much too deep for his size, suggesting that his chest was hollow to allow his head to retract. Even his nubby green suit seemed reptilian in pattern.

  “Sybelle Lean and Dr. Orient,” she said, somewhat flustered. “Is Carl at home?”

  The man stepped back from the door. “Come in, please. You’ve been expected. I’m Mr. Neilson, Dr. Bestman’s attorney.”

  Orient followed Sybelle inside a long wood-paneled hall.

  “I’m sorry,” the little man began, “there’s been a change....”

  A door opened at the end of the hall and a female voice called out. Orient looked up and saw a pale woman in a long black dress coming toward them.

  “Sybelle,” the woman called out. “I’m so glad you’re here.” A tall man followed her through the door.

  “... you see Miss Lean, Carl Bestman was buried this morning,” Neilson was saying.

  Orient heard something fall. The box had slipped out of Sybelle’s hands and spilled its contents on the carpet.

  The woman rushed up to embrace Sybelle. “Carl is dead,” she wailed softly. “Oh, Sybelle, he’s gone.”

  Orient looked at the man who came behind her. He was much taller than Neilson and his hard-set triangular face was set off by thick eyebrows that angled beneath the shock of white hair on his wide forehead.

  The face seemed to separate from the man’s body and come crashing against Orient’s memory. He had seen it recently.

  It was the same looming face that had disturbed his meditative trance, weeks before.

  “It happened two days ago,” the face was saying.

  3

  Orient ran his tongue across his dry lips and took a deep breath.

  Neilson edged closer. “You must forgive us doctor,” he boomed. “It’s been a shock for us all.” He took Orient’s arm. “Allow me to present Count Germaine of Amsterdam.”

  The tall man bowed.

  Orient recovered his scattered presence of mine sufficiently to return the bow.

  “I had hoped to meet you under happier auspices,” the count said, his voice low and melodious.

  Orient glanced at the woman who was pressing her tear-streaked face against Sybelle’s shoulder. “Please accept my regrets.”

  Neilson’s balding, mottled head wagged back and forth. “A shock for us all,” he repeated. “Very sudden.’

  A robust man holding a cigar in front of him like a direction finder came into the hallway and hurried to join the two women.

  “Come now, Hannah,” he soothed as he gently tool her arm from around Sybelle’s neck.

  Hannah stepped back from Sybelle and pulled her arm free. “Please don’t touch me, Tony!” she snapped.

  The man glowered at her then turned abruptly and fixed his glare on Neilson. His small, dark eyes glinted from deep inside his fleshy face. His bristling mustache gave his mouth a fierce, tenacious curve. “I won’t have this disturbance at this time,” he warned.

  Neilson folded his arms and pulled his head closer to his chest. “I’m only going according to Carl’s own wishes.” There was a note of flinty stubbornness in has slow, deliberate words.

  The man looked at Orient and Germaine. “Can’t you people see Mrs. Bestman is under a great strain?”

  “Please leave my husband’s guests alone, Tony,” Hannah said softly. “It’s you who are unwelcome here.”

  Anthony Bestman stabbed the air with his cigar. “You’re talking nonsense, Hannah.”

  Hannah smiled. “Please, Tony.”

  Anthony started to speak, then clamped his mouth shut and stalked back to the door at the end of the hall.

  “Please, Hannah, let me take you upstairs,” Neilson said, reaching out for her arm.

  “All right, Nels,” she sighed wearily
. “In a moment.” She came closer to Orient and extended her hand. “Welcome doctor,” she said, “my husband told me he was looking forward to meeting you.”

  Orient could see that she was maintaining her composure by a sheer effort of will. Deep shadows of grief and fatigue lined her pale face. When he took her hand her skin felt damp. “You have my deepest sympathy,” he murmured.

  She nodded absently, took Neilson’s arm, and began walking slowly to the stairs. Sybelle moved to assist her but Neilson frowned and put a finger to his lips. She came back to Orient’s side.

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered, looking at Germaine. “How did it happen?”

  “Suicide. Carl shot himself.” His full mouth tightened into a regretful smile, but his eyes were oddly flat, like pieces of gray slate. Orient studied the man who had appeared in his innermost consciousness, weeks before, as a looming image.

  Count Germaine was tall. He held his slender frame erect and straight with an almost determined dignity. Near sixty, he had the, supple grace of an expert skier or swordsman. He betrayed a guttural, non-European accent under his flawless English when he spoke.

  “I’m sure we could all use a drink. Why don’t-you come inside and join the others? We can take care of your bags later.”

  “That’s a divine idea,” Sybelle said, taking Germaine’s arm. She smiled wistfully at him. “I’m absolutely shattered.”

  “I understand,” Germaine said as they walked to the room at the end of the stairs. “Carl was a dear friend. I shall miss him. But let us remember that he believed, as we all do, that death is merely a transition -like birth.”

  “Hannah will be lonely.”

  “All things must pass,” Germaine said softly.

  The first person Orient saw when he entered the library was Anthony Bestman, sitting behind a massive desk, his jutting, aggressive chin resting on his hairy fists. His eyes were dark swirls of anger as he watched them enter.

  Germaine ignored the stare and guided them to a couch on the other side of the room. All three of the armchairs around the couch were occupied, by two men and a girl. Both men rose as they approached. “Sybelle, you already know Maxwell and Daniel,” Germaine was saying, “but I’d like you to meet a new friend, Lady Lilith Sativa.”