The Riddle of Sphinx Island (22 page)

‘You are being unduly morbid, darling,’ Feversham said, his cup of coffee poised in mid-air.

Mrs Garrison-Gore deliberated whether to admit that she had been spying on Doctor Klein and decided against it. No one looks kindly on a snooper.

‘Where
is
Doctor Klein?’ Lady Grylls asked. ‘Does anyone know?’

‘He is in his room. He is asleep,’ Ella said. ‘I didn’t want to wake him up. I believe he’s got a number of ailments, some of them very serious. Heart, liver, blood pressure. He’s also got diabetes –’

‘So
that’s
why he didn’t touch the trifle last night,’ Sybil said.

‘Most seriously, there are the side effects of the special medication he takes. Some hormonal therapy. He is not yet – how shall I put it?’

Feversham regarded her through his eyeglass. ‘Fully male?’

Antonia turned to Ella. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what Oswald said to you. He told you to go and change your dress. I thought it was quite appalling. We were waiting for you to come back but when the library door opened it was Doctor Klein who appeared – and he was wearing a dress. There was a certain symmetry about it. You told him about the dress, didn’t you?’

‘I did tell him, yes. I went to his room. As it happens, that was the latest humiliation inflicted on me by Oswald,’ Ella said. ‘I am afraid I was in tears. Doctor Klein had an odd look on his face. He said – he said –’

‘Yes?’ Payne put his cup down.

She bit her lip. ‘He was very concerned about me. We are friends. He is the only person to whom I have dared unburden my soul. He knows all about me and Oswald. He feels sorry for me. He cares about me. I am worried about him. Extremely worried.’

She thought back to Doctor Klein’s exact words.

This has gone on for too long, Ella. An outrage too far. I don’t think he should be allowed to go on. Oswald needs to be stopped.

‘Is that why you switched round the glasses?’ Payne asked.

‘Oh that was so silly!’ Ella shook her head. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I did think it might have been him, so I did it to protect him. So you noticed!’

‘Is he Freddie? I mean, is he
really
Freddie?’ Maisie asked. She was gazing at Ella with wide eyes.

‘Yes. There is the horseshoe mark above his left eyebrow. This morning, when I went to his room, he told me who he was, though I think I’d guessed it without fully realising it. I had a dream. He said he’d kept dabbing powder over the mark. He told me what happened.’

‘Tell us more about it.’ Payne leant back in his seat.

It took Ella about three minutes to relate the story of Oswald Ramskritt’s spying activities and his involvement with the two young sisters.

‘Freddie was reported to have been executed by the East-German authorities, but that story was a fabrication. It had been deliberately spread by the Stasi to demoralise Gabriele. In which they succeeded. When she heard of her sister’s death, Gabriele committed suicide. That had been the final straw. Gabriele had been very upset by Oswald’s sudden disappearance. She had been expecting his child. She realised Oswald had been deceiving her … Freddie was thrown into jail. It had been a
mixed
jail.’ Ella’s expression changed.

‘Why
did
she have a sex change? Did he say? What reasons could she have had? No woman in her right mind would ever do a thing like that. Something must have gone wrong, very wrong. I mean in her brain. She couldn’t have been thinking straight.’ Maisie’s voice shook.

‘In her first week in jail Freddie was raped by three men. Three of the male inmates. What I believe is called a “gang rape”. Later that same day she was raped by a prison guard –’

‘Oh, no,’ Maisie whispered.

‘She was left semi-conscious – bruised – bleeding. She told the prison authorities what had happened, but they showed little sympathy for her. They suggested she must have been asking for it. Shortly after she was assaulted again.’ Ella paused. ‘She had a nervous breakdown. She broke a window and tried to cut her wrists with a piece of glass. She was transferred to a psychiatric hospital. When she recovered, she decided she no longer wanted to be a woman. She decided to have an operation.’

‘She couldn’t have recovered then,’ Feversham said.

‘But why –
why
? This is too horrible!’ Maisie cried.

‘She did it,’ Ella said slowly, ‘so that she would never be vulnerable to men again. That’s the explanation Doctor Klein gave me. He doesn’t seem to have any doubts about the rightness of his decision. So perhaps something did go wrong in her brain after all.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Eventually she was released from the clinic. She managed to leave Germany and go to America. She had already learnt of the suicide of her beloved sister Gabriele … She underwent the sex change operation a week after arriving in New York. She was warned that the process of recovery would be long and laborious and painful and that there was no absolute guarantee that things would go without a hitch. Despite all the warnings, she chose to go through with it.’

‘She must have been desperate,’ Maisie said.

‘Or unhinged,’ said Feversham.

‘Freddie’s intellectual faculties appear to have remained unimpaired. She – or “Friedrich”, as she became – managed to get a degree in psychiatry as well as in several other medical disciplines. She always held Oswald responsible for what happened. She – he – referred to Oswald as a “murderer”. Doctor Klein blames Oswald for her sister’s death – for the death of Gabriele’s unborn baby – for the death of hope – for her own death as well.’

‘Does she regard herself as dead?’ Payne asked.

‘Well, yes. Freddie
is
dead. She is no longer recognisable as Freddie. The only thing she and Doctor Klein have in common is the horseshoe-shaped mark above the left eyebrow. Plastic surgery could easily have removed the horseshoe, but he wanted a reminder, Doctor Klein said. One tiny memento of his former self. He set his sights on Oswald. He kept looking for him and eventually succeeded in tracking him down.’

‘How did he manage that?’ Antonia asked.

‘It was a photograph in a newspaper – Oswald and Martita, that’s Oswald’s first wife, outside the Metropolitan Opera. That’s what put him on the trail. Doctor Klein was by then a famous psychiatrist with an established clientele. Most of his patients were super-rich. He had also acquired a degree in cosmetology – that had helped him to cope with some of the terrible things he had had to go through – the endless procedures – removal of breasts – modifying certain organs – adapting and disciplining parts of the body –’

‘Oh no.’ Maisie’s face twisted squeamishly. ‘Poor, poor Freddie!’

‘A tragedy too sacred and intimate for human consumption,’ Feversham murmured.

‘Doctor Klein managed to become friends with a doctor who had been treating Oswald for some rare allergy and got him to recommend him, Klein, to Oswald. Oswald didn’t have an inkling as to his true identity and employed his services. Doctor Klein was able to bring great improvement to Oswald’s health. After Klein started treating him, Oswald’s nervous rashes all but disappeared. Oswald thought Doctor Klein was the best thing that had happened to him, so he made him part of his entourage. He came to regard Doctor Klein as indispensable.’

Sybil de Coverley leant forward. ‘While all along Doctor Klein plotted revenge?’

Mrs Garrison-Gore produced a notebook from her handbag. ‘I hope I will be allowed to make a note or two. One doesn’t know when a story like that might come in useful, eh, Antonia?
Everything exists to end up in a book
. That’s how Mallarme or someone put it … I actually saw Doctor Klein conceal the mark above his eyebrow by dabbing some powder on it – though of course I had no idea at the time he had anything to conceal.’ Mrs Garrison-Gore went on rummaging inside her bag. ‘My pen’s missing. My bullet pen. Has anyone seen it?’

‘I think you lent it to Mr Feversham last night.’ Maisie was the only member of the house party who called Feversham ‘Mr Feversham’.

‘So I did! He asked me for it last night. You wanted to write something down’

‘Did I? Oh yes, I did, I meant to write down a reminder to myself about something, but I am sure I gave it back to you, Romany.’ Feversham patted his pockets. He looked a little flustered. ‘Didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t. I would hate to lose it. It was a present from Sybil. It’s my lucky charm. Hate to make a fuss but I tend to get a trifle obsessive. Perhaps the pen is in my room. Let me go and check. Am I allowed a temporary leave of absence, Major?’ Mrs Garrison-Gore rose from her seat. ‘I won’t make a dash for freedom, I do promise.’

‘It would be a bit difficult for anyone to swim one’s way to the mainland.’

Payne smiled at the idea.

It was half past eleven now, the storm had abated somewhat, though it was still raining. The company had dispersed and Antonia and Hugh Payne were trying to see people individually.

‘Can you smell fear?’ Sybil de Coverley asked. ‘I read somewhere that detectives can smell fear and that can lead them to the guilty party.’

‘We are not detectives,’ Payne said.

‘Of course you are. I am sure you are insanely thorough and exhaustive.
The smell of fear met them, sour as a sickroom miasma
. That was the sentence I came across in a book, though I can’t remember which book it was.’

‘You mustn’t believe everything you read in books.’ Antonia gave a little smile.

‘I keep thinking of the vagaries of Fate, you know. If the storm hadn’t smashed the library window, Oswald might have been alive now. I mean, his champagne was most probably poisoned in the library and it must have happened
after
the French window got smashed – we all looked in the direction of the explosion, didn’t we? I can’t help thinking that the killer took advantage of the chaos.’

‘Is there cyanide in the house?’ Payne asked.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. We’ve never had wasps’ nests or rodents or anything of that sort. I don’t recall my parents ever referring to cyanide.
Cyanide
. Sorry. I am an inveterate Scrabble player, that’s all. Comes before cybernation and cyclamen. I mean in the dictionary.’

‘What about your brother? Has he never mentioned cyanide?’

‘I don’t think so. Of course John hated the idea of the island changing hands – but how
could
he have contrived to poison Oswald’s champagne given that he never left his room?’

‘He couldn’t have,’ Antonia said.

‘I think the two of you are quite terrifying.’ Sybil shuddered. ‘You bring to mind a pair of surgeons approaching the operating table for a difficult and dangerous operation … Can you think of a motive
I
might have had for killing Oswald?’

‘You might have formed a powerful and somewhat irrational attachment to someone who benefits financially from Ramskritt’s death. You might have become obsessed with this man – who happens to be in dire straights. He needs money badly – you have marriage on the mind – you are determined to help him – by hook or by crook – so you kill Ramskritt.’

‘Most ingenious, but, as it happens, no such man exists!’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about your pill box,’ Antonia said. ‘Where is it? May I see it?’

‘My pill box? I seem to have mislaid it. It was so silly of Romany to suggest I might have carried cyanide in it, wasn’t it?’ Sybil glanced at the clock. ‘What about some brunch? I would hate to be caught out in dereliction of my duties as a hostess. I am sue you are feeling peckish. I’ll see to it.’

‘That’s terribly kind of you,’ Payne said.

Sybil left the room.

Antonia frowned. ‘What
is
cybernation?’

‘Control by machines, I think.’

‘Sybil said something very interesting, actually. It’s given me food for thought …’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘One of those “what if” questions,’ said Antonia. ‘What if Fate hadn’t intervened? What if there had been no storm? What if the library window hadn’t smashed? What if our attention hadn’t been diverted? Would Oswald Ramskritt have lived?’

‘Anything, yes. Anything that might be interpreted as out of the ordinary.’

‘Well, I did notice something, but I don’t think it’s of any importance,’ said Maisie. She sat on the edge of her chair. She looked very young.

‘What was that?’

‘I’d hate to waste your time. All right. It was a light. There was a sudden little light in the library. I saw it flash in the middle of the room. It happened for a split second. I immediately forgot about it – so much happened
after
that – only a moment later there came the blast – the window exploding – the wind and the rain – books flying – then we went to the library and Oswald died …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘A sudden light … How very interesting,’ Payne said. ‘We could do with a little light right now – we are still labouring in Cimmerian darkness.’

‘No one flicked a lighter, did they?’ Antonia said. ‘Or struck a match?’

‘I don’t think so. No one lit a cigarette or a candle or anything of the kind.’ Payne stroked his jaw with his forefinger. ‘Perhaps it was Tinker Bell deciding to put in a sudden appearance? Or was it a stray firefly? Could it have been a signal? But who would have wanted to send a signal to whom and with what?’ He shook his head.

At midday they had brunch. Scrambled eggs on buttered toast and tea. Earl Grey for Payne, Lady Grey for Antonia (which Payne thought somewhat twee – apparently it had been Maisie’s idea – like His and Her bath towels, which the Paynes most definitely did
not
keep in their bathroom in Hampstead). This was followed by roly-poly pudding with lots and lots of jam, which, as it happened, Payne liked and Antonia didn’t.

Mrs Garrison-Gore marched in as the clock was chiming the half hour.

Her eyes were puffy. Her face sagged.

‘I feel dog tired. I shouldn’t have drunk that champagne. I get high, but then I get terribly low,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said. ‘I tried to have a nap in my room, but couldn’t. Doctor Klein next door was singing in that padded voice of his. It gave me the horrors.’