Last Act (19 page)

“Yes.” Hilde sounded embarrassed. “Gertrud knows a pub up in the mountains. The Wild Man, or something. She says we'll ruin our figures on dumplings, but it sounds worth trying.”

“Pity you can't come.” It was very far from being an invitation. Gertrud rose to her feet. “Time to go, Hilde. Mustn't keep them waiting!” And then, over her shoulder. “Your regards to Michael?”

“If you see him.” It was as near a question as she would go, and got her merely a quick, speculative backwards glance from Gertrud as the two of them left the bar.

It was nearly empty now. Most of the cast must have decided on a change after the day's depressing rehearsal, and she did not blame them. She should have brought down a book to read over her dinner. She would go and fetch one. As she rose to do so John Fare entered the bar. “All alone, our prima donna?” His voice was slurred as if he had been drinking already in his room. “Let me buy you a drink, since the others have chosen to abandon us.”

“Abandon—?”

“Some party up the mountains. Very carefully arranged,
sollo voce,
behind our backs. Damn their eyes. What'll you have?” Then, “Tell you what—better idea; come to the Golden Cross with me.” He swayed on his feet as he spoke and his breath was strong with whiskey.

She smiled at him placatingly. “What a nice idea. But—you know my problem. I'm just on my way to ask Josef for a tray in my room.” It was the only thing to do. Swearing, he lurched away towards the bar while she retreated into the lobby and went straight to Josef at the desk.

“Yes?” He looked tired tonight.

“I wish you'd have a word with the man in the bar. Mr Fare's had quite as much as is good for him already. We don't want another disaster of a rehearsal tomorrow.” And then, the words almost speaking themselves, “What in the world's become of Michael? We're all in the dumps. We could do with a bit of cheering up.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.” Josef did not seem particularly surprised. “As to Michael.” He smiled and shrugged. “He's still working with the police, so far as I know. And not a clue in sight, I believe.”

“They're keeping very quiet about those murders.”

“We don't like crime in Lissenberg. So—we don't talk about it, Miss Paget.”

The use of her surname was like a door closed in her face. “Thanks for the warning,” she said with some bitterness and moved away from him to the lift. Then, turning back, “But if you should happen to see Michael you might tell him his conspiracy of silence is playing hell with the cast. Could I have a tray in my room, please? I'm tired tonight.”

Tired of living. And that was absurd, when she had so little of it left. She had thought of her room as sanctuary, but when she got there, it had never seemed so unwelcoming. Rain, sheeting down, cut off her view of mountains and castle. She had finished
The Birds Fall Down
and was reduced to a diet of thrillers from the paperback stand in the hotel. This is despair, she thought, dropping her fur jacket on a chair, stepping out of her shoes and kicking them, suddenly, one this way, one that. I can't face it. A whole evening sitting alone here, face to face with death. Well: death? A solution? She still had the pain-killers the doctor back in England had given her. How many would it take?

Nonsense. She remembered what Falinieri had said to Fare.
Regulus
was jinxed enough without a suicide. But Alix would sing
her part, and sing it well. She thought of the headlines: “Princess Takes Part at Last Moment.” Doubtless Michael and the police would hush up her suicide as capably as they had the three murders. Josef would help. “We don't talk about it, Miss Paget.” The snub direct. If she knew his surname, or Michael's, she would use them. Write them a note? Miss Paget regrets …

She shivered. Poison in the air. She could not, actually, be considering suicide? Impossible. Unthinkable. Imagine poor. Lisel finding her. On the impulse, she hurried into the bedroom, found the pain-killers and flushed them down the lavatory. Then, to the mirror, to comb her hair, put on lipstick and smile wryly at herself, thinking of that other night, when she had had to fend off the advances of both Prince Rudolf and James Frensham. I could just do with that tonight, she told herself. If either of them were to ask me out, I'd go like a shot.

And, on the thought, the telephone rang. She picked it up. “Yes?”

“Josef here.” Had he the grace to sound slightly embarrassed? “Dr Hirsch called to say he was passing this way and would like to drop in and see you.”

“Oh, how nice! Thank you.” She put the receiver down but the bell rang again at once.

“Anne?” This time it was Alix, the deep voice unmistakable. “Good. Dear Anne, I'm having a short-notice dinner party tomorrow night. For the cast … The principals, that is. Do come. It won't seem right without you. I know you're supposed to rest, but enough is enough, surely?”

“So far as I am concerned, enough is a great deal too much,” said Anne. “Thanks, Alix. I'd love to come. I've got Dr Hirsch turning up any minute. I'll tell him I'm coming.”

“That's right.” Alix's warm laugh was approving. “So—eight o'clock tomorrow. And, Anne, the others are coming by car, but Winkler wants you to take the walkway.”

“Walkway?”

“It's a well-kept secret. Father's idea. Well, there's always been a lift down from the palace to the town—to a private room in the Golden Cross. Very handy for incognito dinners. In the old days, that is; when diplomatic guests always stayed there.
When they planned the conference centre and the hotel, Father insisted he must still have his private way in. It took some engineering, I can tell you: a kind of moving stairway up sideways through the rock. But useful for tomorrow; we don't much want our prima donna out on the roads. Herr Winkler said he'd send someone to escort you up. He didn't really want you to come at all, but he agrees it would seem odd if you didn't. There will be a couple of journalists at dinner, by the way, friends of Mother's who've turned up early.”

“Not so small a party as all that,” said Anne.

Alix laughed. “Small in palace terms. And I promise you the food will be good. No ipecac. You sound as if you could do with an outing. What's the matter, Anne? Aren't you feeling well?”

“Just bored,” said Anne. “We're all a bit overtired and edgy. A night out will be lovely. Thanks, Alix.” Replacing the receiver, she felt slightly sick. If the Prince had invited her out to the Golden Cross again, she had meant to go. And there was a lift up from there to the palace. Melodrama? But here in Lissenberg anything was possible.

A knock at the door heralded Dr Hirsch, and, letting him in, she cast a regretful glance at the untidy room.

“A bad day, I hear?” After the first greetings, he put his hat and raincoat tidily on a chair as she swiftly gathered up her abandoned fur coat and shoes. “I've just given John Fare an injection,” he told her. “Good thing you warned Josef or there would have been trouble tomorrow. I think he'll do as it is. I thought I might just drop in and thank you.” His glance was friendly, enquiring.

“I'm glad you did.” Curiously enough, the pain—absent when she was thinking those mad thoughts of suicide—was back now, full strength. And—she had thrown away her pain-killers. Absurd. Just part of the general melodrama. “Dr Hirsch.” He was taking her pulse, and she got it in fast before he could silence her with the thermometer. “I've done something stupid.”

“Yes?” He sat down comfortably beside her on the sofa.

“I threw away my pain-killers.”

“Oh you did, did you?” He turned to give her a very sharp look. “Not, I take it, because there was no more pain.”

“Well… no.” She could not meet his eyes.

“A very bad day,” he summed it up. “I think perhaps I am a little proud of you, Miss Paget. But you would never have done it, you know. Not with Marcus to sing. Not with Carl Meyer and the others depending on you.”

“I … I suppose not.” She blessed him for his quick comprehension.

“I know not. So—how wasteful to throw away the good painkillers.” He opened his black bag. “Which I will replace. Only— too many of these would make you very sick indeed, my child. So …”

“Thank you. But you're right, I don't think it will happen again. Or, anyway, not till after … not till I'm off your hands. I suppose, at the end, one might have the right …”

He was shaking his head at her. “I do not propose to let you ‘off my hands' as you put it. You are my patient, child. I have taken, as a doctor, a great responsibility in letting you sing in this opera. Do you think, when it is over, I will send in a fat bill, kiss your hand, and say goodbye?”

“Do you know, I hadn't really thought.”

“That is good. Then go on not thinking, and let me do it for you. If all goes well, when
Regulus
closes, you will be Lissenberg's new star. I do not think it will be difficult to find somewhere pleasant for you to stay.”

“You mean, to die. Will they give me a state funeral, do you think?”

“That's no way to think—or to talk. But I will forgive you this time, because I can see it has been a very bad day. I only wish it was the Princess's party tonight. You are going, of course.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I said I would. I thought you'd be cross.”

“Like the ogre in the fairy story? Lock you up in this palatial suite of yours to bore yourself into morbid thoughts. No, no. You will put on your best dress and go to the ball, Cinderella. Only— go carefully. Who is taking you?”

“The Princess is making arrangements. So—you think there is still danger?”

“With three murders unexplained? What do you think?”

“I think they have been most scandalously hushed up. Dr Hirsch, who owns the
Lissenberger Zeitung?
”

“I thought you didn't read German.”

“I don't. But Frau Bernz mentioned that it had said nothing about the murders for days.”

“So.” He said thoughtfully. “Yes, it's true; they have kept remarkably quiet. But as to who owns it, which could be the explanation, I'm afraid I cannot tell you.”

“Cannot?”

“Just so. It's about the best-kept secret in Lissenberg. It could be Prince Rudolf; it could be the Frensham empire. Or, of course—” he finally produced the thermometer—“it could be both of them. It's one of the questions one doesn't ask, by the way. Don't go discussing it at the castle, if you want a pleasant evening. The pain has gone again?” he asked as he rose to his feet.

“Why, yes. So it has. But thank you for the pain-killers just the same.”

“Pain is a strange thing. If we only understood … But one thing I do know: the less you think about it the better. Now, Miss Paget, before I go, who do you think is spreading the poison through the opera cast?”

“Poison? Funny, it does feel like that. And—dangerous. But the answer is, I absolutely don't know. John Fare is the obvious person to pick on, but he … he's not strong enough, somehow.”

“Think about it, Miss Paget, and watch, and if you get an idea, come to me, fast. I don't like it.”

“No more do I.” She thought of her own desperate moments earlier on, of John Fare's injection. “At least it can't be Michael,” she said on an impulse. “He's not been near us.”

“And why in the name of madness should it be Michael?”

“There's something very odd about that young man.”

“Of course there is,” said Dr Hirsch heartily. “And now, forgive me, I'm late at the hospital. Have a good party, Cinderella.”

Next day's rehearsal went almost too quietly. Everyone seemed subdued, listless … It was a stage Anne recognised, when they were beginning to know their parts but were not yet quite into them, but also, she thought, everyone was tired. Gertrud and Hilde both had dark circles under their eyes, while John Fare was white as a sheet and shook a little. Even Carl, who had so far managed to seem a tower of confident strength, looked tired and anxious, and Anne wondered all over again at the change in him. She thought she preferred the shaggy Bohemian she remembered, so sure of himself and his music. It was that confidence that had infuriated poor Robin. And since when had she been thinking of her dead husband as poor Robin?

It was a relief when the rehearsal ended without disaster and they separated to dress for the Princess' dinner. Twisting her Woolworth chain in the neck of the green velvet dress Mrs Riley had made for her, Anne thought for a moment of Prince Rudolf and his jeweller's box. Did she actually regret not having looked inside? Ashamed of herself, she reached for the telephone to call Hilde and suggest a drink, but as she did so it rang.

It was Josef. “Your escort is here.”

“He's early,” said Anne.

“He suggests a drink.” Michael's voice.

“Lovely. Oh, I am so glad it's you, Michael!” But how absurd. Picking up her coat to hurry down and join him, she felt all her old doubts creeping back. While he had been so mysteriously absent, she had simply missed him. Now that he had returned,
she could not help wondering what he had been doing. Helping the police—or hindering them? Searching, perhaps, or pretending to search, for himself? Because—she made herself face it, now she was thinking again—his complicity might help to explain the curious cover up of the murders. He had friends, powerful friends, in Lissenberg. Might they not be trying to protect him? She shook the doubts out of her mind and hurried downstairs.

“Stunning!” He was waiting at the lift door and led the way into Josef's office. “I thought we'd hide peacefully in here.” He pulled out a chair for her and poured slivovitz. And then, drinking to her, “I've missed you.”

“You've kept very quiet about it.” It came out more sharply than she had intended.