Vorpal Blade (27 page)

'I guess I could. Why?'

'I saw in the hotel register someone arrived here two days
ago. A Mr Mannix. Remember the name of the patient
in the asylum near Pinedale? The mysterious one, in the prison room as Millie called it.'

'Mannix. It couldn't be the same one, could it?' won
dered Paula.

The corridor on the third floor was deserted. Newman
took very little time operating the instrument he always
carried since his training session with the locksmith. Before
unlocking the door he pressed the bell three times. No
reaction.

Paula whispered to Tweed. 'I think Bob should stay
outside. Then he can warn us if the chambermaid turns up. Three presses of the bell means trouble.'

'I heard that,' said Newman. 'I'll stand guard. In you go.'

Tweed went first, followed by Paula. If there was some
one in the room he planned to say, 'The door was open. I know a Mr Mannix and thought you were him.'

Tweed explored the living area while Paula checked the
bedroom. The sheets had been turned down on the bed
and two wrapped chocolates were perched on the pillow.
She started opening closets, found they were occupied
by men's clothes. When she opened the next one she
gave a little cry of fear. Tweed was alongside her in
a flash.

'What is it?'

'Look in here. A long black coat and that wide-brimmed hat. It's just like the second shadow which stood behind me
in that side street off Piccadilly at night. I told you. When I swung round the figure throwing the shadow had gone,
probably down inside a dark alley.'

'Mr Mannix is tall and all his clothes seem new. Suggests
he has a pile of money. I checked the bathroom, found
a hairbrush but not a single hair in it. Something very
odd here. Two empty brand-new suitcases parked in the
living room.'

'Let's get out of here. We've seen what we can and it's creepy . . .'

Outside Newman closed the door, which automatically
locked, and Paula made a suggestion.

'This is close to my suite. Wait while I rush along and
check something.'

After a short absence she came running back. She spoke quietly.

'Just as I suspected. My bed isn't turned down yet. I
don't think Mannix has slept in that
bed.'

'We'll go down and have a word with the receptionist. . .'

Tweed approached the desk and now the night recep
tionist had taken over. Tweed stared at him as he explained
what was bothering him.

'I have a friend, a Mr Mannix, staying here. I wanted to take him to the bar. He doesn't ever seem to be in.'

'No, sir, he does not. We have talked about it. Since I booked him in two nights ago no one has seen him. Not
even in the restaurant.'

'Maybe I've got the wrong Mr Mannix. Could you
describe him?'

'When he booked in we were very busy.' The reception
ist frowned. 'I seem to recall a tall man in a long dark
overcoat. He wore an unusual hat. A very wide brim and
the brim was well pulled down. He also wore large dark
glasses.'

'Doesn't matter,' Tweed said as though it wasn't impor
tant. 'Nabokov, the man who wrote
Lolita,
stayed here for
fifteen years, the last years of his life.'

''Sixteen
years,' the receptionist corrected him.

'Probably before your time,' Newman remarked wick
edly as he moved away.

'He didn't like that,' Paula whispered. 'He can't be a
day over thirty and Nabokov died in 1977.'

'I know. Maybe we ought to get to bed.'

'I'm dropping,' said Paula. 'If anything happens you'll wake me with the code - four knocks, a pause, then one knock.' She was thinking as they walked down the hall. 'I suppose the mysterious Mr Mannix couldn't be the body in the lake? Weird thought.'

Paula forced herself to have a shower, then flopped into
bed. She fell fast asleep within minutes. She was confident
she would enjoy the deepest sleep she'd experienced for a
while. The nightmare invaded her mind suddenly.

She was by herself, searching the grassy ground close
to the asylum at Pinedale. It was very quiet and clouds
of mist floated towards her. She was looking for a lot of
blood, where the head of Foley must have been held up
by his hair. The asylum still existed, a vague shape as the
mist swirled round it. Where were Tweed and Newman?
She had no idea.

She heard a sound like the slow padding of heavy feet coming towards her. Her right hand dived into her looped
handbag. Then she remembered, with a spasm of fear, they
had brought no weapons with them to Maine. She did not
have her .32 Browning. She looked round for a weapon, a
heavy branch. Nothing. She turned in the direction of the
approaching padding footsteps.

A shadowy figure moved in the mist. Something tall
and wearing a long black coat. It wore a wide-brimmed
hat pulled down so she could not see the face - only a
white blur. She tried to run but her legs wouldn't move,
felt like they were made of lead.

The figure advanced closer, the long black coat swinging
with its motion. Then she saw it more clearly and her
throat choked up. There was still no wind but the hat
was blown off, exposing the head. She wanted to scream
but couldn't make a sound. Below where the hat had been
was a horrific face, twisted in a grimace of hate, one eye
twitching. The face of Roman Arbogast as Marienetta had
painted it 'when he was in a rage'.

In his right hand he held a long-handled axe. He was
lifting the axe as he came very close. Her feet were glued
to the ground. He elevated the axe, the blunt end in front.
He was going to smash her skull before he decapitated her.
She screamed. Someone was hammering somewhere. She
woke up, covered in perspiration. Her mind blurred, she
threw back the bedclothes, hobbled to the door in her
pyjamas. Her trembling fingers unlocked it. Tweed was
outside clad in a dressing gown.

'You screamed,' he began. 'What happened? Are you
all right?'

'I'm OK. I had a nightmare. I think it was triggered off
by seeing those clothes in the Mannix room.'

'You're sure you're all right now? Drink a lot of
water.'

'I will. Why are you here?'

'Just heard from Beck. They have the body. The patrol
boat scooped it up on its huge shovel, then dropped it close
to the
pic-bot.
Is that how you say it?'

'Your French is perfect. I need ten minutes.'

'So do I.'

She had another quick shower. Her pyjamas were soaking-
wet. The shower woke her up and she was alert. She was
ready when Tweed, half-dressed, returned with Newman.
She let them in, hauled on her trousers and jacket. She'd
checked the time. 7 a.m. It was dark outside and would
be very cold.

Newman asked her, 'Recovered from the nightmare
yet?'

'Completely. I'll tell you about it later. I'm ready.'

'Bring a torch,' Tweed advised.

'And my little camera,' she added.

There was no one about inside the hotel as they approached
the exit. Newman had reconnoitred the route after dress
ing swiftly and throwing on his overcoat, then returned
to the hotel. He led the way. The early morning air
chilled her face as they crossed the Grand-Rue and descended a steep flight of steps to the promenade and
the lakeside. On their way down the flight of steps Paula
saw autumn leaves plastered to a stone wall.
Some were
orange, some blood-red. It had been quiet in the hotel
but the atmosphere changed as they came close to the
police tape.

Crowds jammed the promenade, men and women in
dressing gowns and scarves with overcoats pulled over them. Over them TV lights glared above huge cameras.
The bush telegraph had brought out the media in swarms.
Three uniformed police barred their way, shaking their
heads, pushing towards them with gloved hands. Beck appeared.

'Let these three people through,' he ordered in French.

The sightseeing crowd was silent. Paula heard the swish
of small waves breaking against the front. The storm had
gone away. Tweed noted that Beck was well organized.

Further along the
quai
a large truck carrying a hoist was
backed to the edge. The hoist was lowering a stretcher.
The body, Paula realized, had to be floating alongside the
pic-bot.
The strange vessel was as she remembered it, like a long metal barge with slanting sides sloping
down to its capacious flat bottom. Its two crew-members
were seated at one end, smoking. Their tools rested on
the base - a long-handled rake for hauling in debris, a
long-handled scoop for lifting the debris into the
pic-
bot.

'They thought they could help,' Beck explained. 'They
can't, as you see now.'

The large stretcher hovered just above the lake's surface.
Two divers were starting to lift a gleaming body bag into
the stretcher.

'Now don't rush it,' a high-pitched voice shouted in
French. 'Do not disturb the body bag in any way.
Slowly!
Treat it as though it were alive. You
do
hear me.'

A short plump man wearing a raincoat buttoned to his neck was responsible for shouting the orders. He couldn't
keep still as he paced, never taking his eyes off what was
being lifted and placed in the stretcher.

'That's Dr Zeitzler, the pathologist from Zurich,' Beck
explained. 'He's very fussy that nothing should be disturbed until he's conducted his autopsy. He's right, of course.'

The stretcher now contained the rubberized body bag.
The hoist lifted it very slowly, swung it away from the
lake, carefully lowered it on to the promenade near an
ambulance backed to the kerb.

'It might just be someone we know,' Paula said quietly.
'If you want an immediate identification.'

'The three of you come with me,' Beck said, grasping
Paula by the arm.

'Dr Zeitzler,' Beck said in English and a commanding
voice, 'we have someone here who might be able to identify
the body. And I need identification at the earliest possible
moment to pursue my investigation.'

'I am only prepared to open the bag a few inches,'
Zeitzler replied in English. 'She'll probably faint anyway if the corpse is indeed headless.'