The Riddle of Sphinx Island (20 page)

So
that’s
what he had been trying to conceal.
That’s
what he had been dabbing at when she saw him sitting in his room. She had seen him take out a powder compact and dab at his forehead …

‘But you can’t be,’ Oswald Ramskritt said. ‘Freddie’s dead.’

‘I am Freddie,’ Doctor Klein said again.

Oswald’s face had a sickly grey tinge to it. He took a step back.

Mrs Garrison-Gore glanced across at the windows, at the darkness outside.

Another crack came. One giant billiard ball might have hit another. A sound like a breaking-up of icebergs. The house shook.

‘King Lear in all his madness couldn’t have bawled for a more clamorous storm,’ she heard Major Payne murmur.

Doctor Klein made as though he was about to rise to his feet. Oswald swore under his breath. All eyes, as far as Mrs Garrison-Gore could see, were on the two of them.

Later she was to say to Antonia that sometimes the purveyor of sensational fiction in her tended to take over. She couldn’t help herself. Awful of her, but there it was. People stopped being people and became
characters.
Was that a feeling Antonia Darcy was familiar with? It was terrible, wasn’t it?

As the wind intensified, it seemed the house would be torn off its foundations and hurled into the sea.

The sound of glass smashing, when it came, was deafening.

For a wild moment Payne imagined that a bomb had been detonated somewhere close by.

One of the French windows had given up its resistance. The blast of the wind was so powerful, that books, papers, bowls of dried flowers and brick-a-brack as well as bits of glass flew up in the air and swirled round the room in a frenzied dance. The library was filled with rain.

Someone screamed.

The portrait with the bullet hole in Charles de Coverley’s eye was swept off the wall and crashed to the floor.

‘I hope no one is hurt? Have you all got your drinkies? Make sure the library door is shut, whoever’s fetching up the rear. Who
is
fetching up the rear? Is that you, Maisie?’ Sybil de Coverley glanced over her shoulder. She was leading the exodus down the corridor and seemed quite unperturbed. ‘
Well done
. No danger of anyone being sucked into the stratosphere now, Dorothy-fashion. Thank God we have no dogs. A dog is the last thing we’d want. Do let’s go into the drawing room, shall we?’

‘Why not the dining room? What about brekkers?’ Payne asked his aunt
sotto
voce
. He smoothed back his damp hair.

‘We all had toast and marmalade in the kitchen. That was
before
you put in an appearance. Far from satisfactory but we meant to give you a proper scare.’

‘You made it look as though everybody had vanished into thin air, or that you’d been murdered in your beds.’ He shook his head.

‘That was another of Mrs Garrison-Gore’s ideas.
So
glad we are on speakers again.’ Lady Grylls beamed. ‘Nothing like a crisis to bring people together. I am sure Ella and Maisie can rustle up some bacon and eggs for you. Not the way you envisaged your tenth wedding anniversary, is it?’

‘Not quite the way, no.’

They entered the drawing room.

‘We can draw the curtains across the windows and turn on all the table lamps,’ Sybil said. ‘This room can be made to look terribly cosy. We can light the fire. Have you got the champers, Fever? Well done. Goodness, dear boy, you are bleeding!’

‘
Ay scratch, ay scratch, tis not as deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door.’
Feversham held up his bleeding hand. ‘Some treacherous shard. Not to worry.’

‘It looks bad to me! I’ll bandage it. It may turn septic. Hope no one else is injured? Well, I must say I’ve never seen anything like this on Sphinx Island before. Never!’

‘Your poor library, Sybil,’ Lady Grylls said.

Sybil shrugged. ‘Nothing’s permanent, nothing endures.’

‘I suppose it would be impossible to start boarding up that window right now?’

‘I don’t see how it could be done and who could possibly do it.’

‘I used to do carpentry as a hobby. Not any longer. I’m a martyr to back pain,’ Feversham said with a heavy sigh. ‘Old back injury.’

‘If I have to be perfectly honest, Nellie, I don’t care two pins what happens to my “poor” library,’ Sybil said. ‘It’s full of unreadable books.
To swift destruction doomed
. Sometimes the poet gets it
just
right, don’t they? No regrets, as
la
Piaf put it. Well, it’s begun.’

‘What’s begun?’

‘The demolition process. Oswald said he’d have the house pulled apart and a brand new one built the moment he took over, didn’t you, Oswald?’

‘Yes, ma’m. That is correct.’ Oswald seemed preoccupied.

‘We’ll sign the papers as soon as possible, shall we? I’m yearning for the lights of London. Can’t wait to get out of this hole … I see you managed to save your glass. Well done.’

‘My glass, yes.’ Oswald put down his glass on a small table beside his chair. He ran his hand across his face.

‘Oh, what about the anniversary cake? We left the anniversary cake behind!’ Maisie cried. She was standing beside Oswald. ‘Couldn’t someone go back to the library and fetch it?’

‘Too damned dangerous.’ Feversham was walking round, turning on lamps. ‘I have the feeling the cake wasn’t exactly a hit, eh, Payne?’

As the house shook again, Payne observed that in his opinion the anniversary cake’s chances of surviving the storm were negligible.

‘Doctor Klein is not here,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said. ‘Did anyone see where he went?’

‘I suppose he went upstairs, to his room, which is perhaps for the best. Oh hallo, my dear,’ Sybil said as Ella entered.

Ella looked stunning in a dress of shimmering gold with bare shoulders and elbow-length gloves. She was holding a golden purse. Her outfit was quite inappropriate for this time of day, but perhaps that was the intention, Antonia reflected. It was a gesture of showy defiance. Ella’s expression was impossible to fathom.

Even though she passed close by and paused beside the table with his champagne glass, Oswald Ramskritt took no notice of her. He was staring before him.

‘I can’t believe that Doctor Klein is a woman, is he?’ Maisie said, glancing round. ‘I think he is very ill.’ She turned towards Ramskritt. ‘What did he want from you? Who is Freddie?’

There was a pause. Oswald slowly looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. ‘Who is Freddie? You really wanna know? It happened such a long time ago. Freddie was a German girl. She lived in East Berlin. She was attractive in a haggard, offbeat kind of way. Nothing like you, my sweet.’ He patted Maisie’s cheek. ‘You look like a young goddess.’

‘Was she very young?’

‘She was then in her twenties, I reckon
.
She rather liked me. She took to me. She believed I could help her join her sister in West Berlin. I recruited her. I was a master spy of sorts. Freddie did a couple of jobs for the free world, but, unfortunately, was arrested and tried for treason. She was executed by the East German authorities. At least that’s what I was told. Crucified by the Commies, as our wordsmith here may wish to put it, eh, Mrs G-G? Tragic of course. Very tragic. Not my fault. I told her to be careful.’

‘Doctor Klein said he was Freddie.’

‘He did, didn’t he? Well, he
does
seem to have the same kind of a horse-shoe mark above his eyebrow. I remember the mark.
Kleine Fraulein Horseshoe
. Little Miss Horseshoe. That’s what I used to call Freddie. Maybe that’s why she chose the name ‘Klein’? I mean after she became a he. Unless,’ Oswald Ramskritt reasoned, ‘that was some kind of faked-up thing intended to unsettle me? What do you think, Major?’

‘I really can’t say,’ Payne said stiffly.

‘Perhaps that was the work of my enemies? My enemies would do
anything
to destroy me. Perhaps it was a scheme concocted by our model of efficiency here, eh, Ella? Ella and Klein are buddies. Strange but true. I am sure Ella’s been badmouthing me, for which of course there’s a price to pay, as she knows perfectly well … A mighty high price … I seem to be a magnet for preposterous and unverifiable stories …’ Oswald sighed. ‘So unfair, given that I’ve always done my best to act according to the dictates of my conscience … Let’s drink to it, shall we? To truth!’

Picking up his glass of champagne, he drank it off at a gulp.

Too quickly perhaps. He choked – rather badly by the sound of it. His face twisted, turned purple. He coughed – started gasping for breath – he made an awful gurgling sound. The glass fell from his hand. He clutched at his throat, then pitched forward and collapsed on the floor.

As he fell, his toupee detached itself from his head and in death Oswald Ramskritt was revealed to have been almost completely bald.

For a stunned moment they remained still as statues, staring at the crumpled figure on the floor.

‘Oswald?’ Maisie took a step towards the body. ‘
Oswald?
’

Sybil said, ‘Dear me – his heart, must be – there’s so much electricity in the air, can you feel it? Static electricity. We need a doctor – Doctor Klein – it
must
be his heart – he had a terrible shock. Would somebody be an angel and go and fetch Doctor Klein? Fever?’

‘Don’t think that would be such a good idea, Syb.’ Feversham put up his eyeglass.

‘I don’t think he’s breathing!’ Maisie cried. ‘Please do something!’

Ella did not move. She sat with her hands crossed on her lap, unnervingly still. Her face was completely expressionless. She raised her glass to her lips and took a sip of champagne, then another.

‘There’s something in his drink,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said in a very loud voice. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she wished she had kept quiet. Everybody was looking at her now. She was a fool. Suddenly she felt sick. The room swum before her eyes. She hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself by swooning into a dead faint or throwing up.

Sybil said, ‘You can’t possibly mean poison, Romany, can you?’

No, not again, Antonia was thinking as she watched her husband bend over Oswald Ramskritt’s body. Not
again
.

This time Payne was taking no chances. No more tricks. He checked Ramskritt’s pulse by holding a forefinger at his neck. He then made sure Ramskritt’s neck was his own and not made of rubber. Overcoming his distaste, he pinched some of the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He tried not to let his eyes linger on Ramskritt’s slack mouth –

The next moment something extraordinary happened. Ella sprang to her feet and with a sob she flung herself across Oswald Ramskritt’s body. She pushed Payne to one side, causing him to marvel at her strength. She was still holding her golden purse and empty glass but now she let them slip from her hands. She reached out and stroked Oswald’s face.

‘I loved him once. I loved him very much. For a while I even considered him the very reason for my existence,’ she said quietly. ‘Now that part of me is dead too.’ She laid her head across the dead man’s chest.

Sybil and Antonia tried to pull her away but succeeded only after their second effort. Before she allowed herself to be led out of the room, she picked up her purse and her glass. It was Sybil who went with her. Antonia stayed in the room.

Payne bent over the body once more. He sniffed at Ramskritt’s lips. He then wrapped his hand with a lightly starched napkin he found on a side table and picked up Ramskritt’s glass.

The glass hadn’t smashed. It had fallen on the carpet and rolled away from the body.

He dipped his little finger in the dregs and then cautiously licked it.

‘There was something in his champagne, wasn’t there?’ The irrepressible Mrs Garrison-Gore said.

‘There isn’t.’ Payne rose. ‘There is nothing wrong with this champagne.’

She stared back. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Oswald is not – he is not –
dead
– is he?’ Maisie whispered. She had a dazed air about her.

‘I am afraid he is,’ Payne said. ‘He was poisoned all right. His lips exude the unmistakable whiff of bitter almonds which strongly suggests poisoning by cyanide.’

‘I don’t understand. In what other way could he have swallowed the cyanide? He couldn’t have popped a lump into his mouth like a pill, could he? We’d have seen it. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that he was a spy once? That’s what he said, wasn’t it? Spies keep cyanide capsules under their tongue and crack them when faced with imminent capture. At least that’s what spies did during the war.’ Feversham might have been wrestling with an abstruse mathematical problem. He was holding his handkerchief over his bleeding hand. ‘You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Payne said. ‘It didn’t
look
as though he was committing suicide. He was raising a toast to Truth.’

‘Wouldn’t that count as suggestive?’ Lady Grylls said.

‘He wasn’t the suicidal type, but then not many people are,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said.

‘He can’t be dead,’ Maisie said. ‘Oh my God.’ She started crying.

Payne rubbed his nose and looked sideways at his wife. ‘No doubt about it this time.’

The gel couldn’t really be sorry for that fellow, Lady Grylls thought. Not really. No one could be sorry for him. It was the shock. Or perhaps the gel was doing it for form’s sake?

The door opened and Sybil de Coverley re-entered the room.

‘Poor Ella. I don’t think she is quite herself. I believe her nerves are in tatters. You’d never guess what she did, not in a million years. She did something terribly peculiar. You see, when we reached her room she begged me to leave her alone, which I did, but then I went back to ask her if she would like some brandy. I saw her open the window. For a wild moment I imagined she was about to throw herself out –’ Sybil’s voice tailed off. She stood looking down at Oswald Ramskritt’s body. ‘I can’t believe any of this is happening. Oswald didn’t commit suicide, did he?’