I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection) (11 page)

Sponer looked up with a start. Fiala had entered from the adjoining room.

“Marie isn’t back yet?” he asked.

“No,” said Sponer, and he looked at him blankly.

“It’s already a quarter past three,” Fiala said.

“A quarter past three?”

“Where on earth have you sent her?”

“Who? Marie?”

“Yes. She’s been gone more than half an hour.”

It wouldn’t have taken her more than a few minutes to reach Sponer’s place, then another ten minutes at most to collect his things—for she knew, of course, where they were—and then another couple of minutes to return home. He had told her to come back, that it was urgent; she herself must,
of course, have realized that. Why then wasn’t she back yet? Perhaps, he thought, perhaps…

“Well?” Fiala asked.

“What?” Sponer shouted nervously.

“Where is Marie?”

“I don’t know!” Sponer replied. “I’m waiting for her myself!”

Something must have happened, otherwise she’d have returned by now. Obviously the Montemayors had already called the police, and it was lucky for him that he hadn’t gone to his flat. If, however, they’d arrested Marie, he’d never be able to get his things, above all the money. How then would he escape? And besides, they’d ask Marie where he was, and although, of course, he had asked her not to say anything and she’d keep her mouth shut, nevertheless they would in any case come and search her flat, for it was likely that…

He jumped to his feet. “What’s the exact time?” he asked Fiala.

“Almost half past,” Fiala said. “Tell me, where’s Marie?”

“I’ll go and meet her,” Sponer said. “She must almost be here by now. I’ll ask her to come straight up.”

With that he dashed out of the room. Fiala watched him go. Sponer opened the door to the apartment, which was not locked, closed it behind him, listened for a moment in the darkness of the landing, and ran down the stairs. The front door was locked. He struck a match, looked for the housekeeper’s door and knocked. After a couple of seemingly
endless minutes the housekeeper finally appeared, woken for the second time.

“Open the door!” Sponer commanded.

“Why didn’t you get the key from the Fialas?” she asked.

“Come on!” Sponer shouted. “Open the door!”

She shuffled to the door, mumbling to herself, and unlocked it. He quickly peered into the street and then stepped out. She closed the door behind him.

He first hurried in the direction from which Marie would have to come—if indeed she came. However, if she did, then she probably wouldn’t be alone. He therefore turned back, went past her front door, and stopped round the next corner.

The street was completely silent except for the flapping of a loose strip of lead under a roof guttering in the damp wind. After some time two people appeared from a side street, crossed the road, and disappeared at the far end.

He waited a further quarter of an hour. Nobody came. He was now convinced they’d caught Marie. And soon people would come, burst into Fiala’s house, and search the apartment.

He could not escape without money. At best he could try to lie low somewhere in the city, but there was no one left at whose place he could shelter. Besides, wherever he went, they’d immediately report him. So, from now on, all he could do was stay on the move and hope they wouldn’t find him. However, after a couple of days they’d be sure to catch him.
He might just as well give himself up now. It was as short as it was long. He really didn’t have a choice.

He was now no longer Jack Mortimer; he was no longer even Sponer, the driver; he was no longer anybody.

He was finished. However, when he realized that the game was up, he didn’t do what he would have done if he were still Sponer, namely go and report to the police. He did what Jack Mortimer would probably have done in his shoes. He glanced once more along the silent streets and then walked on.

He went to Marisabelle’s.

The street lights flickered and swayed. His steps echoed between the bleak, grimy fronts of the suburban houses. However, as he drew near the city centre, he became aware of a continuous clanging and rattling sound, and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, as if an occupying force were approaching while the city slept: it was the traffic from the country, coming to supply the early morning markets. When he turned into Burggasse, it was full of vans and carts. A straggling mass of draught horses and vehicles, with small lamps on the shafts of horse-drawn carts or dangling above the coachmen’s seats, were all bathed in the dim light of gas-lit street lanterns. Brass-inlaid leather finery dangled from the horses’ halters; their drivers, huddled in coats and blankets, crouched half asleep; milk carts laden with metal churns rattled over the
cobbles; and the smell of horses and petrol, mixed with the smell of fruit, vegetables and autumn flowers, hung in the air.

Every night, out on the farms, carts are loaded, horses are brought out of the grange stables; every night a train of these conveyances performs its ghostly journey, which goes on for several hours at walking speed. Isolated farmsteads swim into view along the sides of the road and then sink back into the darkness; a wind blows from the wet fields. These are replaced by the brick walls of the suburbs; the roads are now paved; heavy hooves strike the surface noisily; the carts sway from side to side; the city finds its reflection in the horses’ huge eyes as in a dream; and as in a dream the people perceive the rattle of the carts outside their bedroom windows. Come the morning, everything’s gone. The horses, as they are unharnessed from the empty carts on their farms where snowflakes or blossoms fall from the fruit trees, have forgotten that it was a city they’d been to at night, and the city has forgotten that a procession of carts comes and goes every night.

Sponer hurried down Burggasse alongside the rumbling and clanking carts, then turned right onto Lastenstrasse, which was equally busy. Only at Karlsplatz did he turn off, and the clatter and rattle died away in the distance.

It must have been close on four in the morning when he reached Marisabelle’s house.

He went up to the front gate and rang the bell. While he was waiting, he suddenly fancied he could see Marisabelle’s outline in the shadow of the gate, like the other morning when her shadow receded as she shrank back, and the gate closed. He had not followed her then. Now, however, he would go through the gate, and the fact that she had backed away wouldn’t help her in the slightest. He would reach her.

Finally a light appeared in the glass panes over the gate; he could hear the sound of approaching steps echoing in the entrance hall, and the gate opened. A porter—a man of about fifty-five or sixty, clean-shaven and casually dressed—peered out of the gate and asked Sponer what he wanted.

“I must speak to Fräulein von Raschitz,” Sponer said.

“Who?” the porter asked.

“Fräulein von Raschitz.”

“What, now?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not possible,” the porter replied.

“Why not?” Sponer asked.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s urgent.”

“What do you mean, urgent? Can’t it wait till the morning?”

“No,” Sponer said. “It can’t.”

“Can’t you leave a message?” the porter enquired.

“A message?” Sponer asked. “No, I can’t leave a message.”

“But I can’t let you in all the same. You’ll wake up the whole house if you…”

“If I what?”

“If you ring.”

“Possibly,” Sponer said. “However, I have to speak to the lady.”

“Is it so urgent?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you speak to the major?”

“No,” Sponer said and stepped through the gate. He knew that he would speak to Marisabelle. Now that he was so close to her on such a night, a porter was no longer an obstacle. The servants, too, wouldn’t prevent him, nor the major, not even Marisabelle’s mother. He pushed the porter aside and entered. The man immediately grabbed his arm.

Sponer tore himself free. “Keep away!” Sponer yelled out and pushed past him into the entrance. It was similar to the one in Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, where he had approached Marisabelle the first time. He could see the staircase on the left. A large electric ceiling lantern cast everything into light and shade. “Which one’s her flat?” he asked as he headed for the staircase.

The porter ran after him and asked if he was out of his mind or what.

“I have to speak to the lady,” Sponer barked. “Do you understand?”

“But you can’t wake them up at this hour!”

“That’s for me to decide!” Sponer retorted. “Which one’s their flat?”

The porter stood there, not knowing what to do.

“Well?” Sponer shouted.

“First floor, the one on the left,” the man said finally.

Sponer immediately made for the staircase, followed a moment later by the porter. He turned the landing light on and walked up the stairs, while the porter remained below, looking up at him.

On the first floor Sponer read: Raschitz.

He rang the bell.

While he waited for the door to open, he rested his hand on the heavy, polished door, then leant forward and let his forehead, too, rest against the door.

He had closed his eyes.

There was no smell of cooking or stale air on these stairs. The people who lived here didn’t have to drive a taxi for a living and wouldn’t be suspected of having killed Jack Mortimer. Although the difference was just a single rank, Major von Raschitz lived here, and not the son of Captain Sponer. Also, Marisabelle lived here, not Marie. One was an aristocrat, the other a simple seamstress now under arrest because of him; one had sacrificed everything for him, the other hadn’t even condescended to listen to him. However, he knew that she would listen to him now. One listens to a person who comes in the scarlet cloak of a murderer, even if he is only a driver.

He could hear steps approaching. He straightened up. A housemaid with a dressing gown over her shoulders opened the door.

“What’s the matter?” she asked softly. “What do you want?”

“I want to speak to Fräulein Marisabelle.”

“To Fräulein Marisabelle? Now? You must be mad!”

“Listen,” he said, “I must speak to her. It’s very important. I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“But I can’t wake her up now.”

“You must!”

She stood there, indecisive. She was still very young and rather pretty.

They looked at each other, and when she saw his eyes maybe she somehow realized that something special and important might have occurred between a man with such beautiful eyes and Marisabelle, which explained the urgency of the matter at this time of night.

“What’s your name then?” she finally asked.

“Sponer,” he said. “However, there’s no need to mention my name to the lady. Just say someone needs to speak to her urgently.”

“Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “You’ll wake the house up if you haven’t already done so!”

“Go and tell her,” he pleaded.

She fell silent and looked at him again, and he looked at her too.

“All right,” she finally whispered. “I’ll tell the lady.”

Then she closed the door and he heard her scurry off.

Sponer stood there, and after a few moments he heard the porter take a couple of steps down below on the staircase,
obviously wanting to know whether Sponer was still there. Then it became quiet again, the porter was probably
listening
to what was going on above. The maid opened the door again.

“She’s not in,” she whispered.

“Who’s not in?” Sponer stammered.

“The lady.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s not at home.”

“How come she’s not home?”

“She was invited out last night and she’s not back yet.”

“At this hour?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not true!” Sponer shouted dejectedly.

She furrowed her eyebrows.

“What’s not true?” she asked.

“That she’s not in! You simply don’t want to announce me.”

“So,” she said, “you don’t believe me. Of course, I can’t ask you to see for yourself. Whether or not you believe me is up to you.”

With that she closed the door. Sponer tried to put his foot in the way, but was too late. He knocked loudly on the door and shouted that he believed what she’d just told him, but he at least wanted to know when Marisabelle would return. There was no answer. He stood there fuming, and finally descended the stairs.

The porter was standing down below.

“Well?” he asked.

“They said she’s not in,” Sponer muttered.

“There, you see!” the porter said, and switched off the light on the staircase.

“What do you mean, ‘You see’?” Sponer shouted. “You yourself thought she was in! Where else would she be! Of course she’s upstairs!”

“She was invited out,” the porter said. “I saw her leave the house some time before ten o’clock. If she’s not back yet, she’ll…”

Sponer had motioned to him to stop talking.

They stood there together in the entrance, and heard the sound of a car drive up to the house; people got out, conversed in front of the house, and then bade one another goodbye. Sponer recognized Marisabelle’s voice.

A key was inserted into the lock at the top of the front gate, but was not turned since the gate was, of course, unlocked; nevertheless, the porter’s keys on the inside fell to the floor, and the gate opened.

Marisabelle and her brother entered.

She was wearing an evening dress and a fur; he was wearing a coat over a tuxedo and a black top hat.

While the porter greeted them and picked up his keys from the floor, and the young Raschitz asked him what the matter was, Marisabelle took a couple of steps and recognized Sponer.

She stopped dead in her tracks, and the young Raschitz looked up.

Sponer went up to Marisabelle.

She didn’t flinch, however; she merely stared at him, perfectly composed, for she probably sensed from the circumstances and the expression on his face that
something
quite extraordinary must have happened. He stood there in front of her, bowed, and whispered something in her ear.

At that moment the young Raschitz approached and asked her in a shrill and demanding voice what this man wanted.