I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection) (9 page)

“Mortimer,” he yelled at her, “is dead!”

She collapsed straight away. While Montemayor, after a momentary shock, lifted her up and carried her to the sofa, Sponer went back to the table, filled a glass with water, dipped a napkin in it, and handed the napkin to Montemayor. Montemayor pressed it to her forehead. A few seconds later she came to and began to sob desperately, mumble something and cry out the same question over and over again. She was in total shock.

At last she buried her face in her hands and grew calmer, only now and again her whole body would convulse with a shudder.

Leaning against the table, Sponer looked at her closely.

“Listen,” he said finally, “I didn’t do it. I’m a taxi driver, my name’s Ferdinand Sponer. I’d never seen Mortimer until he got into my cab tonight. When I reached the Opera House, he was dead. I don’t know who shot him. I saw so little of what had happened that I said to myself, ‘If I’m unable to give any evidence, I’ll be taken for the murderer.’ I wanted to play Mortimer’s role to avoid being suspected myself. All I’ve achieved as a result is that I’ll be taken for the murderer. I can’t disprove it. You can report me. If you do that, however, you’ll ensure that the real murderer is never found.”

While he spoke, she had raised her head again and was staring at him wild-eyed. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. Montemayor interpreted it for her in a few words.

“You,” she shouted at Sponer, “killed Mortimer yourself!”

Sponer shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever for?” he asked. “I didn’t know him from Adam. All I know is what you told me. Do you think I did it because of his money? He hardly had any on him.” He took Mortimer’s wallet from the table, pulled out the cheque book and the little money that it contained, and threw them down. “There!” he said. “Or do you think it was because of his things? He only had these two suitcases and a few odds and ends on him.” He produced Mortimer’s passport and the Colt revolver, and also chucked them down, followed by the silver and a couple of cartridges. “That’s the lot,” he said. “Hardly worth killing for, is it? I didn’t do it, but neither do I know who might have done it.”

Winifred glanced at the things with horror, and Montemayor looked at them, too.

“Perhaps,” Montemayor said, “his fate just caught up with him.”

“What fate?” Sponer asked.

“He was,” said Montemayor, “after all, a gangster.”

“What was he?”

“A gangster, a criminal.”

“Who? Mortimer?”

“It’s not true!” Winifred cried.

“Yes, it is!” Montemayor shouted back. “He was every inch a gangster! His whole character proved it! His success with women proved it! The way in which he chased after
you, and the way you reacted to him proved it! You knew that yourself anyway!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! It was George Anstruther himself who told me that!”

“What did he tell you?”

“Everyone knows about it there!”

“A man of his wealth wouldn’t…”

“He had none any more! He was through! And if he wasn’t a criminal himself, he lived off the crimes of others! He sold stolen stocks and shares, he was in cahoots with crooks and I don’t know what else! He was in no danger of getting into trouble with the police, that’s for sure! Whom do the police go after over there do you think? Gangsters? They wouldn’t dare. But he did seem to run the risk of getting into trouble with his own kind, the crooks. Let’s face it, it’s the gangsters themselves who bump off one another, isn’t it?”

“Here in Europe? You must be mad!”

“No, not at all! He was gunned down. They saw a chance and took it. It wouldn’t even occur to the local police, who are quite ignorant of such things, to make the connection.”

“And who would have done it?”

“One of their own. Every so often they come over here, too; the world’s their oyster. And the art is to do it in a moving car! To hop on, fire, hop off without even the driver noticing, and…”

“He must have noticed it! You heard the shot, didn’t you?” she yelled at Sponer.

“There were three,” Sponer said coldly. “One in the throat, two in the chest.”

She was about to say something, but couldn’t. “And where,” she muttered at last, “is he now?”

“Mortimer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He made a vague gesture.

“Where is he?” she yelled.

“Do you want to see him?” he asked. “You won’t be able to. No one will see him again.” He lit a cigarette and gave the woman who had ruined his life a cold, hard look.

“What do you mean?” she mumbled. “Where is he?”

“In the river,” he said. “The river’s long. It’ll take him some time to get to the sea. How should I know where Mortimer is now!”

She let out a cry, jumped up from the sofa, clenched her fists and pounced on him. He looked at her coldly without defending himself or trying to restrain her. The woman’s mortification was the dead man’s only revenge. But how long, Sponer thought to himself, is this going to go on for? I shall probably never taste freedom again. Whereas she?… In a few months, perhaps in a few weeks, she’ll go on deceiving her husband with another man, just as she did with Jack Mortimer.

He grabbed her wrists and shoved her away in exasperation.

She tumbled backwards, was about to say something, but swung around suddenly, rushed to the phone and grabbed the receiver. Montemayor was immediately at her side.

“What are you up to now?” he asked.

“Get the police!” she snapped.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said. However, she paid no attention to him whatever, lifted the receiver and had already opened her mouth to ask for connection when he snatched the receiver out of her hand.

“Leave it alone!” he commanded, and rang off.

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” she cried, and reached for the phone again.

He held the receiver firmly. “Stop it!” he cried.

“What’s come over you?” she shouted.

“You’re not going to phone!”

“Why not?”

“Because I, your husband, forbid you!”

“You’re no longer my husband, and there’s nothing you can forbid me!”

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Is that so? Maybe because you wanted to double-cross me, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Only you haven’t done it! Sure, you wanted to do it, but it didn’t quite work out, did it?”

“Let me phone!”

“No!”

“You no longer own me! I was already unfaithful to you in Paris!”

He laughed. “Really?” he said. “Do you think Mortimer would still have followed you here after that? It wouldn’t even have entered his head, I tell you. He wasn’t that type. Do you imagine he loved you? He didn’t love you. He only wanted to use you to hurt me, that’s all!”

“That’s a lie!” she shouted.

“I knew him better than you.”

“No, that’s not true! But even if it were, I’d still love him and hate you, because I can’t live with you any more!”

“You’ll just have to get used to it. You’re not a free agent. You haven’t been unfaithful to me and, rest assured, you won’t! Nor will I allow you to compromise yourself by
contacting
the police! No one need know that you’ve been here!”

“Not even the police?”

“Yes, that’s right. Because they’re just not going to know.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not going to report it to them!”

“You think you can stop me?”

“Yes.”

“No, you can’t!”

“You’ll be surprised! And I shan’t go to the police either. Because my reputation is worth more to me than yours and all this sordid murder of your lover. Have you mentioned your name downstairs at the reception? No! Does anyone here know who you are? Again, no! Therefore you’re not going
to go out of your way to get mixed up in this affair! We’re going to leave the hotel, and no one will ever know who we were. Early tomorrow morning we’ll be off. This gentleman, the driver, too, for whom Mortimer’s role is equally…”

“Ha,” she snarled. “And you honestly believe that I—?”

“Go on…”

“—that I shall travel with you and not say word? That I shan’t immediately make a full statement and ensure that everything possible is done to catch Mortimer’s murderer?”

“Mortimer?” he bellowed. “I couldn’t care a toss about him, nor what happens to any of your lovers, never mind this man, who certainly isn’t Mortimer’s murderer!”

“He is!”

“No, and you’re not going to make a fool of me or get an innocent person into trouble.”

“He’s not innocent! He’s at least an accomplice!”

“No, he’s not, but even if he were, I couldn’t care less! I forbid you to compromise me! You better keep your mouth shut!”

“No, I won’t!”

They continued bawling and quarrelling like this on and on. For the most part Sponer didn’t understand what was going on; however, he saw that here was a chance for him. He doubted that Montemayor could succeed in gagging the woman for good, but this quarrel could certainly delay the investigation, at least till he could make his getaway. To where? Abroad. Anywhere.

Of course, were he to flee, there was the danger that they might catch him before he was across the border. He had mentioned his name to the two of them; true, they might not have registered it or might well have forgotten it, but they knew that he was a taxi driver. It would therefore be the easiest thing in the world to track him down. And that very moment his eyes lit on Mortimer’s passport that was lying on the table, and the idea occurred to him that it would possibly be easier to make his getaway using that rather than his own. At the border it would probably be the name of the suspect rather than that of the victim that was on the wanted list. He’d be safe only on Mortimer’s passport, at least until such time as the dead man’s name was reported everywhere in the papers.

He flipped open the passport. One passport photo is usually much like another, never mind the bearer. Moreover, the passports might very well be inspected en bloc, that is, collected up on the train, the names noted down, but the photos not checked for likeness with the bearers. And if it came to it, he could always try to swap his and Mortimer’s photo. Perhaps he could get away with it.

From the moment the idea with the passport occurred to him, his brain went into overdrive. He slipped the passport in his pocket, which the quarrelling pair didn’t notice. He moved towards the door. However, Winifred immediately shouted out. And, strange to say, so did Montemayor.

“Where are you going?” he cried. “Hold on!”

Sponer was already at the door. Montemayor, who was holding Winifred, couldn’t release his grip on her to stop him. Sponer rushed into the hallway, slammed the bedroom door behind him, grabbed his coat from the hook where the page boy had hung it, pulled the key from the main door, stepped into the hall while slamming the door behind him, turned the key in the lock twice and thrust it in his pocket. Only then, as he was running along the corridor and was putting his coat on, did he realize that it must have been part of Montemayor’s plan that he, Sponer, should stay in the hotel till the next morning and then leave, but only if he took Mortimer’s things with him. It was now, of course, too late for him to go back and get them. Nor did he expect the enraged woman to keep quiet for long. Everything was collapsing about his ears. There was nothing left for him but to flee. He rushed down the stairs past the porter, who was half asleep, and dashed out into the street. The illuminated clock on the Opera House showed nearly two.

T
O THE LEFT
, in a side street between the Bristol and the Grand Hotel, there were still some taxis. A few drivers, a couple of whom Sponer knew, were standing on the corner. He edged past them, went quickly to the last car and pulled the door open. “Next!” someone called out. A driver rushed up. Sponer got in hastily. He didn’t know the driver. He gave the address of his flat. The driver slammed the door shut, got in, pulled out of the rank and drove off.

He’d get a few things from his flat, money above all—he had some savings—and then make his way straight to one of the railway terminals, no matter which, but best to the Südbahnhof, from where he’d be able to get across the Yugoslav border, imagining for some reason that from there it’d be easiest of all to get to Slovenia or Croatia, and
disappear
; he pictured there to be vast mountain tracts and huge forests there, dotted with isolated villages that the authorities had difficulty in looking after. It was now two o’clock; he could be at the station by a quarter to three, or three at the latest, because he’d literally not need more than a couple of minutes at his flat to throw together a few necessities, and he’d get the taxi to wait for him. As a matter of fact, if he were
then to drive on to the Südbahnhof, it’d be a good idea to change cabs on the way to throw them off the scent, because by morning, when the matter would already be common knowledge, the driver would more than likely make a beeline for the police. Yes, he’d driven a man and his luggage from the Bristol to Sponer’s flat and then on to the Südbahnhof, and he’d immediately become suspicious, and so on and so forth. That it’d be all over the morning papers he had no doubt; however, it no longer concerned him, because he was certain he’d reach the border first, well before the papers that carried Mortimer’s name. He had at least eighteen hours’ start on Mortimer’s passport. And yet he was pretty sure that, having left Mortimer’s luggage behind and departed so conspicuously, Montemayor himself would have to yield to his wife and make a statement. Clearly there was no way in which the latter could force the woman to keep quiet. It therefore made no difference whether the luggage had been left behind or not. The police might that very minute be in the process of taking down evidence, or have even finished doing so almost as soon as he had left the hotel room. Had the Montemayors got his name right, or just nearly right, it was likely detectives were already heading for his flat, or would do so before he had time to reach it himself, because the police operate with lightning speed in such cases, knowing full well that you’ve got to strike the iron while it’s hot.

He knocked on the glass partition. The driver turned half around. Sponer called out to him Marie Fiala’s flat.

Surely he needn’t tell her what had happened. He’d merely ask her to fetch him a few things and the money from his flat, as he’d got himself into an awkward situation upon which he needn’t elaborate; just ask her to do him a favour that she couldn’t possibly refuse. All he had to do was to make it sound sufficiently urgent.

After all, she loved him. The night before, she had even cried. She’d go, all right. Let’s face it, he thought, she ran no risk at all, because even if they found her in his flat, she could easily say…

The taxi pulled up in front of her house. He got out quickly and reached in his pocket to pay. It was empty. He’d thrown all his silver on the table at the Bristol. He had also left Mortimer’s wallet on the table, it was an unpardonable mistake, because with the money that it contained, and the cheques, he could have… All he’d taken was the passport. Dammit! He swore and searched through all his pockets, and he’d even handed in his afternoon’s takings to Haintl.

“Wait here!” he shouted to the driver, rushed up to the front door and rang the bell. At this moment he recalled that Haintl, when totting up the takings, had changed some of the coins for a banknote. Where was it? He felt in his breast pocket and found it.

While the driver was giving him his change, the front door was opened by the sleepy housekeeper, half hidden behind the main door and still in her nightclothes. He thrust a coin in her hand, said, “The Fialas’!” and started running up the
stairs. The staircase was in darkness. He struck a couple of matches, and when he reached the Fialas’ flat he rang the bell, then once more a few moments later.

It was dark behind the glass door. He stood and waited. It stank on the staircase. He rang a third time, keeping his finger on the bell. At that moment a light came on in the flat; he heard footsteps, a key was turned in the lock and the door opened.

It was Marie’s father, who had thrown a coat over his shoulders and looked at Sponer.

“I’ve got to see Marie,” said Sponer, walking in.

“Now?” Fiala asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s happened?”

“I’ve got to see her.”

“Is it important?”

“Of course! Please wake her, and tell her to come out straight away.”

“You’ve woken us all up anyway!”

“What took you so long?”

“I didn’t know who it was in the middle of the night.”

“All right, all right, but get her to come out now!”

Fiala looked at him. “What is it you want see her about?”

“I can’t tell you. Just send her out. I’m in a hurry. Please!”

Fiala hesitated for a moment, muttered something, then turned around quickly and shuffled in his slippers towards a small door, opened it and went in. As he was closing
the door, Sponer saw him turn on the light. Then he said something, and after that Marie’s voice was heard. He reappeared shortly. “She’s coming,” he said. “Wait here in the meantime.” He opened the door to the sitting room, turned the light on and saw Sponer in. He was restless, but afraid to say anything. Sponer slumped into an armchair. Fiala stood still for a moment, but said nothing; finally, he went into an adjoining room and shut the door behind him. There was the sound of a woman’s voice asking a question to which he was heard to reply.

He was a minor clerk. Apart from Marie, he had two more children, ten and eight years of age; Sponer heard one of them talking in his sleep. Marie had also had a sister named Hedwig, but she had died.

The air in the room was stuffy and it smelt of food. On the stairs it had smelt the same, just as in the flat he rented from the Oxenbauers, and in the flats and on the stairs of the friends he had, and the acquaintances he sometimes visited. The air was stuffy and it smelt of food. Here people lived and then married, and their children in turn were brought up in flats where the air was stuffy and it smelt of food and a few other indefinable substances. Such was their life.

Sponer’s father had been a captain in an infantry regiment. In his flat it might not have been so stuffy, nor had it smelt of food as strongly, except perhaps of fish on Fridays, but Sponer no longer recollected any of it. His mother had died long ago, and he himself was only just over eight when his father
died, too. All he knew was how strange it had felt when the captain had been laid out between six candles, in uniform with the neat rows of shining buttons, the draped flag and his folded hands in the white suede gloves. A lot of people had been coming and going—medals, uniforms, shakos, and at the internment it had started to rain. But after the thin blue smoke of the abrupt salvo discharged over the grave had wafted away, everything else wafted away too, once and for all, and the succession of flats in which the child then lived stank of food and the air was stuffy. True, as an officer’s son in 1917 he was accepted into a cadet school—there the air was, of course, good and the food, bad; but a year later he was back in the flats where the air was stuffy and it stank of food, and that’s how it remained. That’s what life was like. That’s what his life was like, but now that it was coming to an end, it was nevertheless mighty difficult to bid farewell to it.

When Marie entered, he emerged from his short reverie and looked at her helplessly. She wore a pair of rubber-soled shoes and had a dressing gown over her shoulders. Her hair was hastily combed back and shimmered in thousands of loose strands against the light. Her face was very white and the look in her eyes was tense and alarmed. She stopped in the doorway.

“What is it?” she asked.

He got up. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got to ask you a favour.”

“Yes,” she said without taking her eyes off him. “What sort of favour?”

“Come closer,” he said. “I’ve got to keep my voice down.”

She approached him slowly. He reached in his pocket, drew out a cigarette and looked for matches. “You’ve got to,” he said, “get me something out of my flat.” He lit the cigarette.

She didn’t reply immediately.

“Now?” she asked finally.

“Yes.”

“From your flat?”

“Yes. A suit and some underwear. Preferably the dark-grey one. You know yourself where the underwear is. And a pair of shoes from under the washstand. And the things from the top of the washstand itself, together with the shaving gear. Put it all in the smaller suitcase, which is on top of the wardrobe. Not the big one, the small one. And then you’ve got to get me the money, too. It’s in an envelope in the far left-hand corner of the table drawer. Here’s the key.” He pulled out a small bunch. “This is the key to the drawer, this is the key to the main door, this is the one to the flat. The room isn’t locked… But the wardrobe is. This is the key to it.” And he pulled out a single key from his pocket.

She had turned even paler and her lips were trembling. “What,” she asked, “have you done?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve done nothing.”

“Why do you need the things?”

“Because,” he said, “I’m going away.”

“For long?”

He made a vague gesture. “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you going to get the things for me then?”

“Why can’t you get them yourself?”

“I’d rather not go back to my flat.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t ask me,” he said. “I can’t tell you. Anyway, you don’t have to go. I merely asked you. You’re free to say no. Only, in that case, this is the last you’ll see of me.”

He threw the bunch of keys on the table.

“And if I,” she stammered, “get you the things? Will I see you again?”

“Then,” he said, “perhaps.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Won’t you tell me,” she asked finally, “what’s happened? Not because… because I want to pry into your affairs. But because I’m so scared for you!”

He looked at her, drew her close, kissed her and remained silent. She pressed her face against his shoulder. A few seconds later she straightened herself up again.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll go.” And she took the keys from the table.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I’ll just get dressed,” she said quickly and disappeared. He followed her with his eyes. In the adjoining room he heard a bed creak; shortly afterwards Fiala came in again. He wanted to ask something, but kept quiet.

“Marie,” Sponer said, “has agreed to do something for
me. It won’t take her longer than half an hour. Then she’ll be back.”

“What about you?” Fiala asked.

“I’ll stay here in the meantime.”

“What,” asked Fiala, “is it that she has agreed to do?”

“She’s going to get me something.”

“From where?”

“From some friends. I’ve forgotten something there and would rather not go back myself. It’s a small favour she’s doing me, that’s all. Please don’t let it worry you. Go back to sleep, I beg you; you’ve no need to keep me company.”

“Won’t you,” Fiala asked finally, “tell me what’s going on?”

“No. It’s not very interesting either.”

“I’ve never,” Fiala said, “spoken to you about your
relationship
with Marie. And anyway, you’ve always been very good to her, at least as far as I know, and if you didn’t have the money to get married, there was nothing for it. But why do you have to come in the middle of the night and demand something so extraordinary? You’re not going to… you’re not going to get the girl to…”

“Mr Fiala,” Sponer cried, “I’ve told you already that it’s only a question of a small favour. Nothing to get worked up about. I…”

He fell silent because just then Marie entered. She was dressed and was wearing a coat. “I’m going now,” she said. Fiala shook his head and went back to his room.

Sponer saw Marie out. “It’s possible,” he whispered, “someone may ask you where I am. If so, tell them you don’t know, you came to my place only because you expected to find me in. For Heaven’s sake, don’t say I’m here. Do you understand?”

She just nodded.

He kissed her hands. She opened the front door. Then she went out and didn’t return.

Just after the driver Georg Haintl had taken over from Sponer, there was a phone call to the garage for a cab to 73 Kaiserstrasse.

Haintl, who, as we already know, was slightly tipsy, filled up and drove to Kaiserstrasse.

He had to wait a little in front of No. 73, but then a party of five people in evening dress came out of the front door and bade one another goodbye: three set off towards Mariahilfer Strasse; while a man, and a woman in an ermine cape, got into the car. The man said, “Hotel Ambassador”.

The journey took just over ten minutes. The hotel entrance was still lit brightly. A bellboy ran out and opened the door. The passengers alighted. The man put his hand in his pocket in order to pay, but found he had insufficient small change and wanted to offer the driver a note, whereupon the woman said she had some silver, and she went up to the driver and opened her evening bag.

“What’s that on your back?” her companion suddenly asked.

“Where?” the woman enquired.

“On your cape,” the man said. “The back’s all dirty.”

“Dirty?” the woman exclaimed.

“Yes,” the man said, and pulled off one of his gloves and bent forward. “And it’s wet, too,” he said. When he withdrew his hand, his fingers were stained with a ruddy, coagulated gunge.

“But that’s awful!” the woman shouted. “How on earth did it happen? It must be from the car!”

“From the car?” Haintl shouted loudly, still flushed with wine. “Are you saying my car’s dirty?”