Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart
‘What happened?’ I was feeling sick, but I had to know.
‘Oh, one of them spoke, and he turned and looked at the little man, and smiled. Quite a pleasant smile. Then he just moved a hand, idly enough, and said something. We couldn’t hear what it was, because the express was coming up, roaring between the sheds, but the little Jew screamed again, and began to struggle.’
‘Oh God,’ I said.
‘They threw him down across the line,’ said Richard. ‘He seemed to lie there for ever, like a little black broken golliwog in the snow, then that damned great express engine burst out from behind the sheds and went by like a shrieking guillotine. I – I don’t know what we were doing. Our carriage was locked, of course, but I remember battering at the door and cursing like a fool and our guard trying to stop me, because he knew the officer and was afraid of him – and of course we weren’t supposed to have been there at all.’
‘Did the officer see you?’
‘Yes. After the express was gone he heard the racket we were making, and he turned and saw us. We were hauled up in front of him then and there, and I think we’d have been shot out of hand if we hadn’t been on our way to being interrogated by General von Lindt, who was a bit more important even than Herr Ober-fürer Kramer.’
‘That was the officer’s name?’
‘Yes. Max Kramer. A great big blond handsome brute with eyes like slate. He stood there, staring at Tony and me, and I think it was the worst couple of minutes I ever had in my life. He wanted to shoot us – my God, how he wanted it! His mouth went wet, and his gun-hand was shaking a little.’ He shook his head sharply, as if to dodge a memory. ‘I can see it at this moment – that gun pointing at us like a wicked little eye, and that hideous hand curled round the butt; there was an ugly scar running right down the forefinger, and the nail was twisted and deformed. I remember how the scar showed white, and the whole thing, hand and gun, shook with a kind of lust. …’
I broke across it. ‘But he had to let you go.’
‘Oh yes. We went. I never saw him again. Our train moved off straight away, and we ended up, conventionally enough, in Oflag XIV. But Charity—’
‘What is it?’ The shadow was deep in his eyes. I wanted to tell him to forget it all, to stop talking about it, but I knew that the time had not yet come when he would be able to forget. ‘What is it?’ I said.
‘The little Jew. I recognized him.’
I stared back in a kind of horror. ‘You mean, you knew him?’
‘Oh, no, not like that. I’d met him once, that’s all, in a Bond Street gallery. He was a painter – a good painter, too. His name was Emmanuel Bernstein.’
‘I see. Yes, that does make it worse.’
Richard’s mouth twisted as he stabbed out his cigarette viciously in the ash-tray. ‘One of the best things he’d done,’ he said, ‘was called Landscape under Snow.’
19
I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in
which thou art more puzzled than the
Egyptians in their fog.
(Shakespeare)
It was very late. It seemed absurd that it was only a few hours since I had stepped on to the Marseilles quay straight into Richard Byron’s arms. Then he had been my enemy, my nightmare, and now …
‘I seem to have been sitting talking to you over café tables all my life,’ I said inconsequentially.
He looked up at that, and seemed all at once to come out of his dream. He smiled, ‘And I’ve been talking too much,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that beastly story. It’s over and done with, and, as you see, it has nothing to do with this affair.’
‘It certainly doesn’t seem to,’ I agreed. ‘And there’s one thing certain, that Mr. X is not Kramer – at least Marsden isn’t Kramer. He was never a big blond in his life.’
‘So that’s that.’ Richard looked at his watch. ‘Time for bed. More coffee?’
‘I couldn’t drink another drop.’
‘I’m with you there. Now we’re going to decide what’s the next thing to do, and then I shall see you back to your hotel.’
His plan was very simple. I was to return next day to Avignon, tell Louise what had happened, and get David to go sightseeing with me once more. I was to deliver him into his father’s hands, and then Louise and I were to remove ourselves quietly from Avignon, to a hotel Richard knew in Aix. Here we were to lie low for a day or so. Richard would take David to some friends of his, the Dexters, who were spending the summer at Hyères, further along the coast, and then would get into touch with me again.
‘Now that I’m forewarned to some extent,’ he said, ‘I should be able to deal with Mr. X, or whoever is following David about, providing he’s on the job alone. And then, when I’ve put things straight with David, and got him tucked safely away with Bill Dexter, I’ll be able to work out what to do. With David still in the open, my hands are tied.’
‘It’s all nice and clear and simple when you put it like that,’ I said, ‘if only it works. Where shall I take David sightseeing to meet you?’
He gave me a grin of pure malice. ‘What about the Cathédral at Tarascon?’
‘Beast!’ I said, with feeling. ‘I wish I was a good liar. Don’t remind me of it!’
‘Well, what about Arles – the arena, above the main gate? I’ll be there by ten-thirty, and I’ll wait all day if necessary. Of course, if you could lose Mr. X on the way … but don’t take any risks. If anything should go wrong, you can ring up the Légionnaire at Nîmes, and leave a message – for Richard Coleridge, remember. Right?’
‘Right.’
We stood up, and he paid the waiter. Then we moved out into the bustling throng of the Canebière. There was still, for me, something dreamlike in the teeming, sparkling, roaring streets of Marseilles. The crowd flowed round us, jostling and chattering, the buses clanged past, the cafés were hives of laughter and music, but for me, still, the only real thing in all that glittering pageant was the feel of Richard’s hand on my arm.
‘This way,’ he said, and we were suddenly out of the throng and walking up a dark, half-empty street. ‘Where did you leave your car?’
I fished in my bag for the little paste-board slip, and read it aloud: ‘Bergère Frères, 69 Rue des Pêcheurs. But I haven’t the foggiest idea where it is, I’m afraid.’
‘I know it. I’ll call at your hotel in the morning, say eight-thirty; we’ll have breakfast somewhere, and I’ll take you to get your car. Then we’ll go in procession again up the road to Avignon.’ He grinned. ‘And don’t try running away again, my girl.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You nearly foxed me at Cavaillon, you know. Who on earth taught you to drive, by the way? You’re pretty good.’
‘Johnny.’
‘Oh, of course. It would be.’
‘It was his hobby,’ I said. ‘It had been his job, before he joined the R.A.F. He’d raced cars practically ever since he’d had a licence. He was wonderfully good.’
‘He certainly taught you a thing or two.’
‘Did you pay my bill at Les Baux?’ I asked suddenly. ‘Because I ought to ring up—’
‘I had to,’ said he, with grim amusement. ‘I’d asked for it, after all, hadn’t I, after spending the night in your room? I managed to avert arrest by some story about your being ill recently, and a bit unstable—’
‘Dash it—!’
‘Don’t worry, you’re getting better rapidly, but you’re still prone to sudden impulses: it was quite a good story, anyway, and she believed it, mainly because it was less trouble to believe it than otherwise, and I was paying anyway. The French are realists; so don’t you bother about Les Baux.’
‘I’ll never dare go back again.’
‘One of the things that really began to puzzle me about you,’ said Richard, ‘was why the devil you should go up there at all; and why you should go armed with a book of medieval French poetry in any case. I somehow couldn’t see an accomplice of Loraine’s sitting a
‘I taught French before I was married,’ I said, ‘and there are translations in the book anyway.’
‘Well, I thought—’ Then his voice broke off, and I heard his breath drawn sharply between his teeth. His hand gripped my arm, and I felt him stiffen. He stopped.
‘What on earth—?’ I said startled.
There was no one to be seen. We were half-way down a narrow, badly lit street, which curled its seedy way to join two wider thoroughfares. It was a street of tallish, faintly furtive-looking houses, which had seen better days, and now masqueraded as offices, garages, warehouses, and even shops. It was at one of the latter that Richard was staring now. I followed his gaze. The shop-window we had been passing was the only lighted one in the street, but apart from that I could, at first, see nothing remarkable about it. It was long and low, and was crammed with an artful and rather attractive confusion of chairs and tables, faldstools, jugs, and ivory chessmen.
I read the legend above the window: ‘Werfel et Cie, Paris et Marseilles, Objets d’art … Antique dealers!’ I said reproachfully. ‘Richard, you shop-hound—’
And then I saw it, too.
It was lying, beautifully placed on the sweep of a velvet drape, glittering in the light of the single lamp. It was a silver bracelet, where the arms of a noble house were wrought about with lilies and griffins and the wings of birds. And I had seen it before.
Richard’s arm had relaxed under mine, and he gave a little sigh. ‘How odd to see it there!’ he remarked. ‘I gave that bracelet to Loraine before we were married. She must have sold it in Paris, and it’s found its way here. It startled me to see it, I don’t know why.’ He turned away. ‘Let it lie,’ he said.
I said: ‘If she sold it, then she sold it today in Marseilles.’
He swung round at that. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean I’ve seen it before, too – or one very like it.’
‘It’s unique,’ he said shortly. ‘Fifteenth-century Italian. It was made for Lucrezia di Valozzi, and there isn’t another like it.’
‘Then Loraine was wearing it yesterday morning,’ I said.
There was a pause. I was angry to find myself beginning to shake. Richard’s hand, hard and excited, gripped my arm. His voice was apprehensive, but I knew the fear in it was not for himself. ‘David,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to find out what’s happened to David. This means Loraine’s in Marseilles already.’
‘The trap,’ I said shakily. ‘The trap …’
‘Trap be damned,’ said Richard curtly. ‘They’d take a shorter chance to catch me than this. They’ve none of them seen me since Nîmes, I’ll be bound, and Marsden wasn’t on the road today. Now listen—’ He had drawn me back from the lighted window, and his voice was low and urgent: ‘I’m going in to see who hocked that bracelet, and when. Your hotel is in the street at the end of this one, the Rue Mirabell; turn to the right, and it’s about fifty yards along. Go straight there, and telephone your friend Louise at the Tistet-Védène. Find out from her when Loraine left, if Marsden’s with her, and David – anything she can tell you. You know what to ask. Then come back here. Got any change?’
‘Plenty. But, Richard, I don’t want—’
He loomed over me in the darkness. His face was all at once grim, remote, frightening, the face of my enemy. His voice, too; it was hard, and the edge was back on it.
‘You’ll do as I tell you,’ he said, and pulled me towards him and kissed me hard upon the mouth.
Then I was half walking, half running up the dark street, and, as I went, I heard the shop-door open and shut behind him.
Louise’s voice, across ninety-five kilometres of crackling French telephone-wire, sounded surprisingly clear, and blessedly unruffled.
‘Why, Charity! I’d been wondering if you meant to come back today. How’s the ghastly village with the ghosts?’
‘Not too bad,’ I said. ‘Louise, can anyone hear you?’
‘Only the concierge, and he’s as deaf as a post,’ said Louise very sensibly.
‘Well, listen: I’m speaking from Marseilles—’
‘From where?’
‘Don’t repeat it aloud, for goodness’ sake; Marseilles. Listen, Louise, I haven’t time to explain now, but I just want you to answer me a few questions; it’s terribly important. I’m in a bit of a jam, and—’
Louise’s calm voice spoke in my ear. ‘Is David with you?’
So it was true. She had taken David away. The damned woman had taken David away.
‘… Charity? Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you all right? You sound a bit odd.’
‘I’m all right. Are you trying to tell me that the Bristols have left the hotel?’
‘Yes indeed. Such a flap,’ said Louise placidly, ‘as you ever saw. Mrs. Bristol screaming and throwing hysterics and swearing you’d abducted him, and Mr. Palmer and the Germans and that handsome Paul Véry out searching—’
‘Louise! Do you mean that David’s run away?’
‘This morning. He left a polite note for his mamma, and moved out, complete with dog. They found out at lunch-time. So he’s not with you?’
‘Of course he’s not!’
‘Well, I just wondered,’ said Louise reasonably. ‘You’ve been so thick with him, and then you suddenly announced that you wanted to go to Les Boos, or whatever it is, which seemed an odd thing to do. However, I’m glad you’re not a kidnapper.’
I was thinking furiously. ‘Louise, I suppose it’s all genuine? I mean, he really has run away?’
‘My lord, yes! There was nothing phoney about the way Mrs. B. went for me today and demanded to know where you’d gone. She was as white as a sheet, and—’
‘Did you tell her?’
‘No,’ returned Louise calmly. ‘I didn’t imagine you’d kidnap anyone without due cause, and I don’t like the woman anyway. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all. Louise, you are the most wonderful woman in the world.’
‘Well, it wasn’t anything to laugh about. In fact, the hotel was so awful that I just went away for the rest of the day. Naturally.’
Naturally. ‘Go on. Tell me what’s happened. Is Mrs. Bristol still there?’
‘No. Apparently she champed around all day while the various men hunted about in cars and things, and then she left just before dinner.’
‘Alone?’
‘As far as I know. I didn’t get in till after dinner. I must say I was glad to find everyone gone.’
‘Everyone?’ I asked sharply. ‘Has Mr. Marsden gone too?’
‘Yes. He left this morning. And the Germans—’
‘Before David disappeared or after?’ My hand was sticky on the receiver.
‘Nobody knows. He checked out at about ten, but of course no one saw David go.’
‘I – see.’ I leaned against the wall of the telephone booth, with my free hand pressed to my brow, trying to sort it out. David had vanished. And Marsden too. That didn’t look so good. But then, I thought confusedly, Marsden couldn’t have gone with David, or Loraine Bristol wouldn’t be so upset that she had gone to the lengths of accusing me of kidnapping.
‘Was there any suggestion of going to the police?’ I asked.
‘Well, there was, of course,’ said Louise. ‘Madame wanted to, but Mrs. Bristol wouldn’t hear of it. She quietened down after a bit, and said she’d been hysterical with shock – which was true – and she apologized for what she’d said about you. Then, apparently, she said she thought she knew where he might have gone, and that no one was to worry further about a boy’s prank, and she herself would go to find him. So she packed up, according to Mrs. Palmer, and left on the seven o’clock train for Marseilles. If I were you, I’d come straight back to Avignon, Charity, my
‘I shall, very soon. Has anyone else left the hotel?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t in to dinner, and the Palmers were the only people in the court when I got back. I can’t say I was sorry; it’s been a trying day, on the whole. I say, Charity?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you know anything about this business?’
‘A little,’ I acknowledged, ‘but I didn’t know David had bolted; and I don’t know where he is. I wish I did. Had he any money, d’you know?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Louise’s tranquil, faraway little voice. ‘He hadn’t. That’s why he took Mrs. B’s bracelet. He pinched that and his passport. He explained in the note that he needed the money and he’d send her the pawn-ticket.’
‘I – see,’ I said again. My heart had begun to jolt, painfully. Two facts: David was in Marseilles, and Loraine was on her way. And Mr. X …
‘Louise, I must go. One more thing – did David say anything else in the note?’
‘No. I saw it. She was brandishing it all over the place. It just said he was going, he was taking the bracelet because she’d never liked it anyway, and goodbye. Charity, tell me—’
‘Dear Louise,’ I said rapidly, ‘be the utmost angel that you always are and forgive me, but I can’t explain now. Don’t ask me about it; I’ve got to go. I’ll ring up later on. Angel. Goodbye.’
The voice in the telephone rose the barest fraction of a tone. ‘I wasn’t going to ask you about it, whatever it is. But please just tell me where you’re staying. If,’ finished Louise on the faintest note of interrogation, ‘that’s not a secret too?’