Last Act (20 page)

“I've been … busy.” He paused for a moment, as if that was all he was going to say, then went on. “Away part of the time. An errand for Winkler.”

“About which you don't intend to tell me.” But then, think of all the things she probably would not ask him.

“Quite right.” His smile was teasing. “Anyway, I achieved nothing.”

“But you're still working for the police?” Surely, if Winkler trusted him, so could she.

“Off and on. Here and there. Escort duty tonight. We're taking no chances with our prima donna. Hence the trip through Rudolf's folly.”

“Rudolf's—”

“—Folly. You've no idea what it added to the expense of the whole opera project. But he would have it, and, then, he was boss. God knows it's convenient enough tonight. They're using the hotel taxis to take the guests up to the palace, and you know how I feel about them, even without Herr Brech.”

“Is there any news of him?”

“Not a word, I'm glad to say, since he was politely seen to the frontier and urged not to come back. Above all things, we are trying to avoid a scandal—the wrong kind of news story.”

“Cover up,” said Anne. “I don't like it. It's all wrong when it's murder.”

“You and Winkler both. But ‘don't like' is a bit mild for the
state he's in. Cheer up, it's not long now.”

“No. Only six days until we open. Michael, it terrifies me. It's not together yet, that opera. I'm … worried.” And then, almost regretting having admitted it—even to him—she changed the subject. “What are you tonight?” He had discarded his jeans for a remarkably well-cut corduroy suit and turned, in the process, from shaggy student into—well, what? Professor? Poet? And— she had been right, he was older than he seemed.

“What am I?” He repeated her question. “Oh, I see.” He smoothed back unusually tidy hair and smiled at her. “Devil of a time with my tie. I'm clean out of practice, but, you sec, tonight I'm a guest.” The smile melted into a laugh. “Don't look so horrified, Anne! We're democrats here in Lissenberg, and besides, think how useful I'll be if anything goes wrong with the service.”

“Or the lights,” said Anne. “Or practically anything else, so far as I can see. What can't you do, Michael?” Perhaps, this way, she could work round to her questions.

“Oh, lots of things.” He looked suddenly harassed. “Drink up. It's time we started.” He helped her into her coat and opened an inconspicuous door in the corner of the room to reveal a flight of dusty stairs, going steeply down. “Watch how you go.” He switched on a light and started down.

“It's cold.” She was glad of her fur jacket.

“Yes. We're right at the back of the building. These stairs are against the rock.” He pushed open a door at the bottom. “I came up this way,” he explained. “Left it unlocked.” He flicked a light switch and a series of naked, low-powered bulbs came on and revealed a long, drab passage stretching away to the left. “You could say this was the complex's life line,” he told her. “It runs under the whole thing.”

“You mean you could get to the hotel this way?”

“That's right. Or the conference centre, if you could get in. The locks on these doors are pretty special.”

“I should hope so! Where's the entrance from the opera house?”

“That
was
a problem. As the corridor is at the back of all the buildings, it runs clear under the stage. We're about there now.”
He pointed to a door. “If you could get through there, which you most certainly cannot, it would take you up to the opera house.”

“It's a bigger door than the others.”

“And a wider stair. Did you ever stop to think of what would happen if there was a fire in that opera house?”

“My God.” She thought of the chorus, stumbling off through the two narrow exits.

“The fire-proof curtain would come down,” Michael said, “and the cast would be trapped. That stair's the answer. It leads from a concealed entrance, centre-back of the stage. The falling of the fire-proof curtain releases the locks on the doors at the top and bottom of the stairs so they can be opened by hand.”

“Pity we can't use it for the opera,” said Anne. “The central exit. We could just do with it.”

“I know. But what it would have cost … Maybe one day when you've made our fortune for us, we'll do something about it. Here we are.” They had reached another door. “Be a love and look the other way while I open it. What you don't know—”

“Won't hurt me.” She turned to look back down the long, bleak corridor and heard a noise like a telephone being dialled.

“There. You can turn round now.”

This door led not to a stair but to another corridor. “They certainly trust you,” she said, as Michael closed the door behind them.

“Which is more than you do. Right? You've been looking at me like Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf ever since I turned up. What's the matter?”

“Oh, nothing … Everything. I've got the horrors tonight, that's all.”

“Horrors general or horrors particular?”

“Oh, I don't know. The rehearsals seem to go worse and worse. And nobody says anything about the murders. Michael, what would it do to the peace conference if the opera was a disaster?”

“Well, it would hardly be the best of omens, would it? Don't fret, though; it's always darkest before the dawn. As for the murders, the less said, surely, the better?”

“From the murderer's point of view, certainly.”

His hard hand caught her elbow and pulled her to a standstill facing him. “Now I begin to understand. You think I—” He stopped.

“Michael, I don't know what to think.” She was shivering now. With cold, with fear, with misery? “If you'd only explain …”

“How I wrecked Brech's taxi while I was driving you just behind? How I killed James Frensham? But—why?”

“I don't know.” It came out slowly, more of an admission than she had intended. She pulled her arm away. “Oh, please, Michael, let's stop. I hate this.”

“Not a bit more than I do. But you're right. We'd better stop. You're shivering. And we can't afford to risk that voice of yours. Not in idle chatter in a cold cellar.” He crossed the passage and pressed what looked like a rough lump in the wall. “Your magic carpet, my lady.”

“Good God.” For a moment she forgot the misery of their misunderstanding as the fake cement rolled back to uncover a sleek, modern lift door. Michael pressed a button at the side and it slid open, revealing the bottom of a moving stairway that sloped very gently away into the darkness.

Michael flicked a couple of levers and a string of lights came on, while one side of the stairway purred smoothly into life. “Miracle of modern technology.” He steadied her with a casual hand as she grasped the moving rail. Was it her imagination, or was the hand less friendly than before? Well, no wonder. Stepping on behind her, he let go her arm. “Damned expensive, the whole thing.” His tone was impersonal. “Do you begin to see why this opera has to pay?”

“My goodness, yes. But Michael, was it really necessary?”

“Of course not. But have you ever tried to persuade our Rudolf that something he wants is not necessary? Well, don't!” The cold rage in his voice made him suddenly formidable “And that's something I've been wanting a chance to say to you. Don't you kid yourself that he cares so much about the opera that he won't do anything to upset its star. Because Rudolf doesn't work that way. What Rudolf wants, he gets. Regardless. So, if he says, at dinner tonight, just suppose he says: ‘Come on, beautiful diva,
one last drink at the Golden Cross, just with me.' Don't you go, Anne Paget. Don't you be fool enough to go. There's a lift from the Golden Cross to the castle.”

“I know. Alix told me. But, Michael, he wouldn't!”

“Want to bet?” said Michael.

Since Princess Gloria was still in full mourning for her cousin, Alix was acting as hostess, and the party was held in her suite of apartments. Plainly, even austerely decorated, they were in remarkable contrast to the rest of the palace, and Anne liked them much better. The other guests were already assembled and she noticed a glance or two of surprise when Michael followed her into the room.

“Your bodyguard, I take it,” said Hilde,
sotto voce.

“I suppose so.”

“You'd have thought they might have run to evening dress for him.” The other men were all in formal black and white. “Michael.” She summoned him over with an imperious gesture borrowed from the stage. “Fix my lighter for me, would you?” It was more command than request.

“Gladly.” He took it and returned to a window embrasure.

Hilde turned back to Anne. “Ghastly rehearsal, wasn't it?”

“We are not talking of the opera tonight. Or—not in that tone.” Carl appeared from behind her and took an arm of each. “Come and meet the press and, for all our sakes, be cheerful. We've a great success on our hands, remember.”

“Who says?” But Hilde went with him willingly enough.

Princess Gloria's journalist friends were an American and an Englishman, who explained that they had come early in order to write “in-depth” pieces on Lissenberg. “And a fascinating place it is,” said the American, Jarrold. “Medieval law of succession— Salic, do they call it? No trades unions, no votes for women, three murders and no publicity.”

“Marvellous landscape,” said the Englishman with heavy tact.

“Stupendous,” agreed his colleague. “I want to see the secret path the refugees used in World War II, but no one seems to know just where it runs. Quite a gang they are here in little
Lissenberg. What they don't want you to know, you sure as hell don't find out.” He turned to Anne. “Miss Paget, I've been wanting a word with you. We know all about that voice of yours. What I want to know is, what have you been doing with it all your life? Where have you been?”

“Married,” said Anne.

“Oh?” He looked around the room. “Your husband is here, perhaps?”

“My husband is dead.”

If she had hoped to silence him, she was disappointed. “I'm sorry.” It was perfunctory. “A musician too, perhaps?”

Michael appeared between them. “The Princess would like a word with you, Anne.”

Moving away by his side, Anne heard the journalist's question to Hilde. “Who is that?” And her answer, “The hired help.”

It did not improve her temper. “Thanks for the rescue,” she said.

“A pleasure.” If he had heard Hilde's description of him, he gave no sign of it. “Sorry I couldn't stand by you, but Frau Bernz must be obeyed.”

“You don't like her?” asked Anne, surprised.

“Do you?”

“Why, of course.” But did she? She thought of last night, of the ruthless way Hilde and Gertrud had abandoned her to go off to the Wild Man. Ruthless? How odd to think of it like that. “Michael—” She was going to ask him if he had met them at the Wild Man as Gertrud had implied.

But he was looking past her into the room. “I have the strongest feeling that Frau Bernz is telling those newshawks
Regulus
is going to be a disaster.”

“But Carl told us …”

“Precisely.” He was gone.

Left alone, Anne made her way across the room to where Alix was standing between Adolf Stern and James Frensham. “You wanted to speak to me?” She felt foolish intruding on their conversation, but Alix greeted her with relief.

“No,” she said, “but I'm delighted to.”

“Oh.” Anne felt more foolish than ever. “Michael said…”

“That Michael!” said Adolf Stern. “What in the world is he doing here, ma'am?”

“He is my guest, Herr Stern, just as you are.”

“Only more so,” said James Frensham. “I hope you've warned your father, Alix. He's not going to be exactly pleased.” He sounded as if he rather enjoyed the prospect. “I cannot imagine why you insist on standing up for that young troublemaker.”

“Can't you?” Alix gave him a very straight look, and Anne felt a sudden, horrible pang of jealousy. Alix and Michael? Michael and Alix? Impossible. Absurd. And yet… She must pull herself together. Frensham had turned impatiently from Alix to speak to her.

“I'm glad to see that the doctor has let you off the leash at last,” he said.

Anne laughed. “You sound as if he had had me in purdah.”

“Well, hasn't he?” He had contrived to isolate her from Alix and Stern. “We have missed you at the hotel this last week.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Can I hope that you will join us later tonight? They have a new late show that I am sure you would enjoy.”

“
I
am hoping to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Paget home.” Anne turned in surprise at Prince Rudolf's voice. “I am late.” He bowed elaborately over her hand and she thought for a moment that he was going to kiss it. “As guest of honour, you must forgive me, Miss Paget, but I have a million things on my mind just now.”

“I am sure you have. I do hope everything is going smoothly.”

He laughed. “You hope for a miracle, then. But if miracles fail us, it is remarkable what hard work will do. You will let me tell you something of my labours over a drink at the Golden Cross on your way home?” It was hardly a question.

“Why, thank you.” She looked from one to the other, thinking of all those long, lonely nights in her suite at the hostel. “But I have promised the doctor I will go straight home. I am only out on leave, you know.”

“But you have to get home,” protested the Prince.

“I think Herr Winkler has made arrangements,” she began,
but the Prince was not listening. A furious gesture had summoned Michael over to join them.

“What the hell do you think you are doing here?” Naked rage flared in the normally cold blue eyes.