Unknown

by Muriel Spark

  Hildegard, with her talent for summoning up new fighting energy, was already on the offensive. She would hunt Lucan, threaten him if absolutely necessary; not he, her.

  She would chase Lucan, she would hunt him down, confront him, challenge him, dare him to reveal her secret. “You are charged with the crime of murder and attempted murder,” she could say, “and I am not. You haven’t a chance, given the state of the evidence; you have no extenuating arguments to support you; I have.” And she thought: not to speak of my personal documents so carefully prepared in Marseilles.

  It was a question, perhaps, of getting to know Maria Twickenham. That for a start.

  Hildegard had not sat in her hired car near the house in Lennox Gardens frequently enough to realize that it was no longer the smart one-family residence of twenty-five years ago. It was still verging on smartness but it was broken up into flats. There had been a coming and going of men and women in their thirties, businesslike and attractively dressed; they largely left home around 9 A.M. and returned around 6 P.M. Some passed in and out about lunchtime. A white-haired, large woman of about sixty, who might well have been an older version of Maria’s photograph, dressed in a woolly jacket and trousers, emerged every morning and returned with at least one full shopping bag. She must be Maria Twickenham, thought Hildegard. But no, on following her with some difficulty to the nearby supermarket, Hildegard managed to squint at the name on her credit card. It wasn’t Twickenham, Maria’s name, the name in the phone book. It was Louise B. Wilson.

  At least this waiting and watching and surreptitious stalking was more to Hildegard’s taste than the boring, very boring, daily brood in her hotel room. She set forth once again to sit near the white front door of the Twickenham house with its shining brass door-plates. It was Hildegard’s fifth wait when a taxi pulled up, and a tall, thin woman in her sixties emerged from the house under the evening lamplight. She stepped into the cab. Hildegard followed as best she could, but lost it at a traffic light. She felt sure it contained Maria.

  Next morning, about 11 A.M., out stepped the large white-haired Louise B. Wilson again. Hildegard leapt out of her car and approached her. “Excuse me,” she said. “I wonder if you can tell me, are there any rooms or flats available in this house?”

  “I wouldn’t know really,” said the woman. “I’m just the home-help for Mrs. Twickenham. You’d have to ask her.” “Is she in now?”

  “Well, if you have any references. Do you have a reference-who sent you, I mean?”

  “Yes, of course. I got the name and address from someone in Paris, where I live. I’m only here doing a university course for some months.”

  The ground-floor flat had been reserved for Maria’s own use, and Hildegard was asked in to wait while Louise B.Wilson went to make enquiries. In a warm, upholstered sitting room Hildegard thought she saw in the large mirror over the mantelpiece another woman behind her. But on looking back, there was nobody. Of course, my blonde hair, Hildegard remembered. But this fragmentary episode put Hildegard in an ever more guarded and inventive frame of mind, so that when tall Maria came smiling into the room, Hildegard was ready with her plausible tongue.

  “I was given your name by an old school friend of yours in Paris.”

  This is a tactic in the con business that usually works. The mention of a school friend one doesn’t remember generally gives rise to a slight feeling of guilt rather than suspicion. Instead of a reaction like: “This person is probably a fake. I don’t know or remember any such school friend,” it is more likely to be: “My God, have I become so forgetful? or so grand? or so detached from my youth? Don’t I remember who got married? Well, I don’t really care about their fate.”

  Maria said, in fact, “I vaguely remember the name.

  What was her maiden name?”

  “I think it was Singleton, but maybe not. She got married as you probably know into Carters’ Publications, tall, brown-haired, extremely athletic. After her divorce, of course, she married someone else, I think. She remembered you so well and knows all about you here in London braving it out as you do. I’m sure you can recall . . .”

  Hildegard had an address in Paris ready on her tongue, but it wasn’t necessary. “Yes, of course,” said Maria. “Of course I remember her. And you’ll have some coffee, won’t you? I’m about to make some. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  There she told Hildegard, yes, there would be a two room flat on the fourth floor available from the week after next. The tenant was out at his job at the moment, and wouldn’t mind her showing it to Hildegard. “Will you be staying long in London?”

  “I have to complete some research. I’m a psychiatrist.”

  “How fascinating!” (They always said that.) Like most people, Maria was intrigued by the thought of having a psychiatrist at hand to talk to, without actually taking the plunge of consulting one. There was nothing wrong with Maria, but she herself thought there was; in reality her problem was boredom.

  This problem was about to be solved. Maria, although she really had quite a number of friends, had not for many years met anyone quite like Dr. Wolf. Hildegard Wolf was the name on her passport and her fake birth certificate. She had not changed it while hiding in London, so that she would not appear to be hiding, if discovered. And it was much easier to deal with people under a name to which she was accustomed. So she was Dr. Wolf (”call me Hildegard”) to the enchanted landlady, Maria.

  As they talked, Maria almost felt she could recall Hildegard’s apocryphal Fay Singleton, so like was she, in any case, to the girls of her day.

  “And, of course,” said Hildegard boldly, as the morning wore on, “you knew Lucan, didn’t you? Fay told me. It must have been a shock to find that someone you knew so well was wanted for murder.”

  By now, they were in Maria’s living room, drinks in hand. “At one time, well, we couldn’t believe it. Of course, I was away at the time. My late ex-husband and I believed it, yes, and yet we didn’t. Now that we know more . . . And, after all, times have changed, and after all, Lucky Lucan failed to show up, which was really lowering our standards, we all feel different. Or nearly all of us who knew him of old. Most of my friends who knew Lucan now have a poor opinion of him. He might at least have stood trial. And we all feel, now, for poor Sandra Rivett’s son, who was deprived of her so tragically without ever knowing her as a mother; she was supposed to be a sister. Poor girl. Of course, you know Lucky Lucan was a very great bore. I was too young to notice that he was a bore, if you know what I mean. He was just one of the chaps. Very good looking. But I know someone who was at school with him, at Eton. He sat beside him in the choir. My dear, what a bore he thought Lucan was. And the same in the Guards.”

  “Is he alive?” said Hildegard.

  “I think so. Personally, I think so. Very few people do.

  But my daughter, Lacey, is actually trying to trace him. She’s going to write a book. She’s in Paris just now with Lucky’s old friend, Joe Murray-he’s the zoologist you’ve probably heard-trying to track him down.” She took up a photograph and handed it to Hildegard. “That’s Lacey,” she said.

  “How lovely,” said Hildegard quite justly.

  “And intelligent, too,” said Maria.

  Jean-Pierre’s workshop was becoming a place of pilgrimage for Hildegard’s abandoned patients. Dr. Hertz, a thin man in his mid-forties, of medium height and wearing tinted glasses, darkened the doors of Jean-Pierre’s place two days after their conversation on the phone. He rang the bell, and Jean-Pierre opened the door.

  “I’m Hertz.”

  “Come in.”

  “Have you heard from Hildegard?”

  “Well, what if I have heard?”

  “I want to know. I must know what has happened to her. I had a fixed appointment for this afternoon.” “At her office?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you are a patient, after all.”

  “You might say patient, you might say colleague.

  She c
onfided in me. We speak in German.” Jean-Pierre could have knifed him at that point, but in reality would not have done. He said, “What do you know about Hildegard’s youth?”

  “Everything vital. I know she posed as a stigmatic. That I admire. I don’t blame her for doing something constructive with her own blood. What else should a woman of imagination do with her menstrual blood? I am a psychologist. I see that now comes this Lucan with blood on his hands in a manner much worse, and his money supply is getting shaky, and his friends are no more, nearly all, and he has heard of Hildegard’s activities. So he will expose her for her old crime.”

  “And his old crime?” said Jean-Pierre.

  “Lucan is elusive. Do you know Hildegard never knew his address in Paris? And in the end, he would turn out to be not Lucan but the other, that man Walker. They had lived on that evasive principle till a few years ago, my friend. Now we have DNA identification, it is more difficult for Lucan, and he is even more slippery.” “What do you want with Hildegard?” Jean-Pierre said.

  “I need her consolation. I am weeping over my dead wife, these three months.”

  “I, too, need her consolation.”

  “But I will marry her. You will not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you haven’t done so.”

  “We’ve been together more than five years. She doesn’t want marriage.”

  “If I knew where she was I would go and find her. She could marry me. We have a profession in common.” Hertz looked round the workshop. Jean-Pierre had on his workbench a wooden model of Milan’s ornate cathedral, inset with ivory. It was a very elaborate affair. Jean-Pierre was restoring it. The tiny pincers and pieces of ivory lay ready beside the model edifice. Jean-Pierre knew what Hertz was saying with his look: “She can’t be satisfied fully with a companion who is merely an artisan. I am her equal, a professional man.”

  “But she hasn’t taken refuge with you,” said Jean-Pierre.

  “No, but she has left you,” said Hertz. “I hoped you would know where she has gone.”

  “Why not try Nuremberg, as you suggested. Her birthplace?”

  “I will try. I feel sure she thinks of me.”

  “I don’t.”

  Hildegard was not thinking of Dr. Hertz. She hadn’t given him a thought since her flight from Paris. What she thought of now was her project of pursuing Lucan rather than being pursued. From her successful infiltration into Maria Twickenham’s house Hildegard was alive to the possibilities of combining with Lacey and Joe Murray in their search.

  Hildegard was to move into Maria’s flat the following Monday. She had paid a deposit. Nonetheless, she had now no intention of occupying the flat. She meant to return to Paris and as soon as possible make Lacey and Joe serve her turn. “Maria,” she said on the phone. “This is Hildegard Wolf. Maria, I’ve been called back to Paris.” “Oh no! That means you won’t be moving in here.”

  “Unfortunately no. I-“

  “Your deposit . . .”

  “The deposit-don’t think of it.”

  Maria, who needed money these days, was quite happy not to think of it. But she said, “I’m terribly disappointed,” and meant it. She had felt the force of Hildegard’s company.

  “Oh, I’ll be back. Let’s keep in touch. You know, Maria, I think I can help Lacey with her book. I have friends who might be able to help her trace Lucan. I know he’s been heard of recently around Paris. If you could give me Lacey’s address or phone number in Paris I’ll get in touch with her. And with Dr. Murray.” “Do you know what? I heard only last night from Lacey. They’ve been having a wonderful time, but they keep missing Lucan. They thought they saw him the last day of the season at Longchamp, but they were too late. It would be so thrilling for Lacey if she could locate him.

  Really, Hildegard, she doesn’t want-neither of them wants to turn him in. She just wants an interview, anonymously, the story of his wanderings over the past twenty five years. You need not have any fears about their turning over Lucky Lucan to the police.”

  Hildegard, well insulated from such fears, took down the name and phone number of the hotel in Paris where Joe and Lacey were staying.

  “Tell her,” said Maria, “to remember that we didn’t know Lucan all that closely. He played blackjack, craps, mini-bac. We played bridge.”

  “I’ll keep in touch with you, Maria.”

  “Oh, Hildegard, yes, please do.”

  Lucan had put his check into the bank under the name of Walker, and had cashed a large part of it. He lost all of that at the races next day; it was a day further beclouded by rain, and disturbed by the clear, sudden sight of his two pursuers, Joe Murray and the Twickenham daughter. He thought she caught his eye, that she was very startled. He didn’t wait to see how else she looked, but cleared off among the crowds which were dispersing in search of their cars or the shelter of a bar.

  He was wary all the time, now, far more than in the past when he had been able to conceal his existence in one or another of Africa’s vast, lesser-known territories.

  There, his aiders and abetters, the politicians, the heads of tribes, were sick, dead, changed or changing. Democracy was rearing its threatening head in nearly all the comfortable corners of that land. Even the simple trick of alternating his identity with that of Walker could now more easily fall foul of the law. DNA profiles and other new scientific perforations of bland surfaces were the enemy now.

  Lucan, in the crummy room off the Place Vendôme which he had moved into on his return to Paris, rang the number of his former flat.

  “Who’s there?” It was Walker’s voice. Lucky put down the phone. Walker would have to go. There was no place left for him in life’s arrangements, no money to go round. Gamblers always lose eventually, and if they can’t afford to lose it is symptomatic of the situation that the wife should increasingly be blamed for the gambler’s “bad luck,” and that she, in turn, should ever more display her dissatisfaction with her reduced domestic life. No household could stand firm in such circumstances. Lucan’s children were not the issue; Lucan had come to detest the symbol of his bad luck: his wife and her substantial legal dues awarded by the courts, and had determined to eliminate her. He bungled.

  Now Walker was taking her place. Once more, Lucan had come to the end of a cycle of fortune. Old friendships were falling off; people were dead or dying, or they were always somewhere else doing something else. Lucan was still alive? Who cared? Walker was now a liability.

  Lucan remembered vividly the horror of his botched murderous attacks. In his frantic telephone calls on that night in 1974 he had reportedly muttered incoherent phrases among which the words “mess” and “blood” were distinguished. He now decreed to himself that there should be no blood, no mess, in the disposal of Walker. In the meantime, having lost heavily at Longchamp, he thought he might as well call on Jean-Pierre Roget, lover of Hildegard Wolf the ex-stigmatic of Nuremberg, to see if there was any news of her, and maybe something to collect in exchange for his dangerous knowledge. Jean-Pierre was completing a new intricate inlay job on a chest of drawers for a museum of antique furniture, when the door of his workshop opened and in walked a good looking dark haired woman of about thirty five who seemed obviously, to Jean-Pierre’s sharp mind, one of Hildegard’s patients. He was right.

  “I’m Mrs. Maisie Round, and I’ve come to dialogue with you,” she declared.

  “Oh, I thought you said you were going to sue for damages, Mrs. Round. Has your lawyer advised against?” “My guru suggests eyeball to eyeball, M. Roget. She’s usually right.”

  “You know,” said Jean-Pierre, “I’m not in touch with Hildegard.”

  “I have to dialogue. I have come to this venue to address the problem that Dr. Wolf has left me traumatically in midair. At the end of the day, instead of being cured I’m a worse wreck than before. I missed out on a marriage proposal. I want to stipulate that if this situation perpetuates I will need to have recourse to help in a private assisted liv
ing facility.”

  “Can’t your guru assist you in this-“

  A tall man had entered the shop. That melon-shaped head . . . Walker?-No, Lucky Lucan. He had entered before he could see Maisie Round standing behind Jean-Pierre at his workbench.

  “Lord Lucan,” said Jean-Pierre, “may I present Mrs.

  Maisie Round, another of Dr. Wolf ’s patients?”

  “Lord Lucan!” she said.

  Lord Lucan had turned and walked swiftly out of the workshop. He could be seen hailing a taxi at the end of the street.

  “He’ll be back,” said Jean-Pierre. “He’s looking for money.”

  “Am I crazy or is that the Lucan who murdered the nanny years ago?”

  “You are right on both counts. Now I have to close shop, I’m afraid. I am late for a lunch date, hence the confusion.”

  Walker was crossing Paris in a taxi. He had seemed to spend a great deal of his life crossing cities in taxis. Lima, Rio, Boston, Glasgow, London, not to speak of Bulawayo, Lagos, Nairobi. All to get from one point to another in aid of Lucan. Now it was Paris, northeast to south, from a Banque Suisse to a Credit Lyonnais, and this time with no hope whatsoever in his heart. The account in the first bank had been closed, all the assets withdrawn in two operations, one day following the other, and this was, again, a day after a large deposit had been made in the name of Walker. Lucan must have returned to Paris, he must have gone to some gambling place (or, let’s think, yes, the last week of Longchamp) and cleaned out the Scottish connection loot. Now, if there was nothing deposited in the Lyonnais,Walker was practically penniless, alone in a rented apartment, the rent of which had been owing for eight weeks. Shortly, he would be homeless.

  And shortly, having discovered that his account in the French bank was also empty, he was on his way, in the Metro, to Jean-Pierre’s workshop.

  “No,” said Jean-Pierre, when Walker made directly plain his need for “a loan.” “Walker,” said Jean-Pierre, “you are Lucan, in which case you are wanted for murder and attempted murder, or you are Lucan’s double, guilty of the offense of aiding and abetting a criminal in his long term evasion of the law; in other words you are a couple of criminals and you can kindly step out of my workshop.” “The story of Beate Pappenheim is not very pretty.