Colin Forbes: The Power

'The monster responsible for this obscene crime is in this room,' Tweed announced. 'She was seen in Padstow on the day of the mass murder – even though she was supposed to be in Zurich. Eight people – including the butler – died. Add Helen Frey, Klara and Theo Strebel and she has coldly ended the lives of eleven human beings. Add Celia Yeo and the real postman…'

Jennie stifled a scream. Eve sucked in a deep breath and whipped a 6.35-mm. Beretta out of her jacket pocket. She aimed it point-blank at Tweed as Paula produced her Browning, pointed it at the widest target – Eve's chest.

'Pull that trigger,' Eve warned, 'and Tweed is dead. Very dead. Drop the bloody thing, you bitch.'

Her voice had changed, was a harsh growl, her eyes stared with a near-insane expression. Paula stood her ground as she snapped out a reply.

'Not that easy, Eve.' She lowered her aim. 'Shoot Tweed and you get bullets in your abdomen. It will take days for you to die in terrible agony.'

'Then we play it different, dear.' Eve's face seemed to be carved out of marble. 'I'm leaving this room. If anyone tries to stop me, Tweed is dead. If you all stay sensible – still – Tweed survives. Everyone except Tweed and Paula move away from the door…'

Newman grabbed Amberg, who seemed frozen with fear, by the arm and forced him further into the room. Gaunt and Jennie obeyed the order. Backing towards the open door, Eve kept her weapon, gripped in both hands, aimed at Tweed. Paula's Browning swivelled slowly, constantly aimed at its target.

Reaching the open door, Eve held the Beretta in one hand. With the other she slammed it shut as she stepped into the hall. As the door was closing she yelled out: 'First one who follows me is dead as a doornail…'

Paula was the first to react. She saw Eve dart past the windows of the dining-room, crouching low, heading for the stables. Running to the casement window, she flung it open and climbed outside. Instead of heading for the stables she ran to the Land-Rover, jumped into the seat behind the wheel. Tweed had left the key in the ignition. Men could be so careless.

She heard the clatter of hooves a second before switching on the engine. Newman was running towards her.

'Wait for me!'

'No time…!'

Paula shoved her Browning under the seat cushion beside her with one hand, driving in a semicircle with the other, driving towards the passage between manor and stables. She saw Eve on her horse, fleeing behind the manor, followed her. Beyond the stretch of rough grass extending away behind the manor Eve rode her horse through the gap in the firs on to the moor. Paula pressed her foot down, bracing her back against the seat, careering through the same gap…

Only a four-wheel-drive vehicle could have negotiated the rough rocky terrain of the ascending moor. Her target rode like the devil, titian hair streaming behind her in the fury of the gale. Grimly, Paula maintained her pursuit. This was personal: Eve had threatened to kill Tweed.

As Paula narrowed the gap between herself and the horsewoman, Eve turned several times in her saddle, fired the Beretta. Paula counted the rounds and knew when Eve's gun was empty. Not a single bullet had come close, not even penetrating her windscreen. Firing from a racing horse, Eve's self-control had finally cracked.

Paula suddenly realized Eve was heading for Five Lanes. She had a cottage there. High Tor loomed up ahead. As the cluster of whitewashed cottages came closer Paula saw a cream Jaguar parked outside one – Eve's hope of escape. She accelerated, came so close to the flying horse that Eve gave up all hope of using the Jaguar. Eve changed direction, plunged up a steep slope, heading for the summit of High Tor.

Paula drove up after her, had almost caught up with the flying horse when her right-hand front wheel mounted a boulder. She braked automatically as the vehicle tilted violently and she was hurled out to the left. She rolled like a parachutist landing, stopped, saw to her horror she was at the edge of the sheer abyss where the servant girl, Celia Yeo, had been hurled over.

Half-stunned by her fall, she saw the Land-Rover had righted itself, was standing four-square on its wheels. Then she saw Eve riding towards her, face twisted into an evil grimace of triumph. She was going to use the horse to kill Paula, its hooves hammering into her skull. On the verge of reining in her mare, the horse reacted with terror as it saw the drop. It reared up without warning. Paula stared as Eve left the saddle, was catapulted over the brink. She heard her long scream, saw her somersaulting body plunging down beyond the abyss, saw her head smash into a massive boulder, her arms jerk out sideways, then she was still, a broken corpse similar to that of Celia Yeo whom she had pushed over the same drop.

'The tableau in the dining-room was constructed of dummies with wigs,' Chief Inspector Buchanan explained as Paula drank sweetened tea. 'The blood was red oil-paint – nice and sticky. I enlisted the aid of a friend who worked at Madame Tussaud's Waxwork Museum before he retired. Most effective job.'

'But Amberg's face – or the dummy used to fake him. The face was also destroyed with acid.'

She looked round at all the people in the living-room at Tresillian Manor. Tweed, sitting close, with Newman near by. Amberg in a chair next to Newman, looking dazed. Jennie, gazing at the banker as though she couldn't believe what she saw.

'Yes, we used acid,' Buchanan went on. 'It exposed the metal struts inside so we painted them with red oil-paint.'

'It needed a powerful shock to crack Julius Amberg and Eve,' Tweed explained, taking over. 'The tableau worked the oracle.'

'Julius Amberg? You mean Walter,' she said. 'Julius was killed in the massacre.'

'No, Walter was. That man sitting over there is Julius.'

'Identical twins,' Tweed went on. 'Julius has admitted the whole conspiracy while you were pursuing Eve. He viewed the film, listened to the tape Joel Dyson handed him for safe-keeping. He was frightened, but Eve, the driving force behind the whole thing, saw an opportunity to make a fortune – to blackmail Bradford March for twenty million dollars. Julius had been playing with the bank's money gambling in foreign currencies. He lost ten million. The other ten million was to keep them in luxury for the rest of their lives.'

'But where did Walter come in?' Paula asked.

'I said Julius was frightened – taking on the US President was a frightening thing. Eve came up with the solution. Walter, who knew nothing about the film, was persuaded to travel here, to impersonate Julius. They told him I was a specialist in securities, that I could tell Walter how to make a lot of money. But they also explained I only trusted Julius, who pretended to be ill. Walter was the scapegoat-they counted on the news of the fake Julius's death being broadcast as part of a sensational mass murder case. The guards who travelled with Walter were to ensure the secrecy of the meeting. With the news of Julius's death reaching President March they thought they'd be safe – that Joel Dyson would be the target.'

'What first made you suspicious?' she asked.

'Have some more tea,' Newman urged, refilling her cup.

After her grim experience on High Tor Paula had driven the Land-Rover back along the main road. Halfway to the manor she'd been met by police cars Buchanan had sent out to find her, but she'd insisted on driving the rest of the way.

'Suspicious that the so-called Walter was Julius?' Tweed continued. 'First the acid – why destroy his face? To make true identification of the victim impossible. Then Eve kept going everywhere with Amberg. Her excuse – to get money out of him. A lawyer could have done the job. Also it would take strength to garrotte the two call-girls in Zurich – to the extent of nearly severing the head from the neck. At the swimming pool up at the Chateau Noir I noticed how fit and strong she was…'