Elizabeth Peters - Night Train to Memphis

I didn’t have a little rest or eat any of the food on the tray. It wasn’t very appetizing – dry sandwiches and a wilted salad that probably contained a whole colony of healthy typhoid germs. That suggested there were few or no servants in the house. Larry might not have his full crew with him. Some of them would have to stay with the boat. Mary and Hans were here, and that probably meant Max and Rudi were also with Larry. How many others?

And what the hell difference did it make? I couldn’t get out and there was no way John could get to me without being caught.

I went onto the balcony. Down below – far down – I saw a stone-paved terrace without so much as a shrub to break one’s fall. Rudi was down there too. At least the shape in the shadows, slim as a weasel, looked like his. To complete the picture of total disaster, the railing of the balcony swayed under the pressure of my hands. No point in trying the old bedsheet routine even if Rudi hadn’t been lurking. Those rails wouldn’t support the weight of a healthy six-foot female.

I was inspecting the bathroom, hoping to find a used razor blade or a nail file, when I heard the bedroom door open.

‘He’s on his way. He telephoned a few minutes ago.’

Her eyes glowed. Little flecks floated in them like the dead insects in amber. My heart couldn’t sink any farther; it was already trying to shove through the sole of my shoe.

‘So,’ Mary went on briskly, ‘we must get ready to receive him, mustn’t we. Sit down in that chair. Not the big carved armchair. That one.’

It was a straight chair, the seat and back covered with faded gold brocade.

‘No, thanks,’ I said, backing away. ‘I’d rather stand.’

‘If you prefer it this way.’ She turned to the door. ‘Hans. Come in.’

Hans’s face wasn’t capable of displaying subtle emotion, but I got the impression that even he was beginning to wonder about little Mary. ‘Aber, gnädige Frau, Herr Max hat mir gesagt – ’

‘From whom do you take your orders? I’m not going to hurt her,’ she added unconvincingly. At least it didn’t convince me. Poor bewildered Hans shrugged, setting off a miniature avalanche of muscles, and advanced on me.

Just for the look of the thing, I picked up a bowl from the table and heaved it. To my surprise it hit him square on the chest. Not to my surprise it didn’t halt his advance.

So I sat down in the chair and Hans took the cord Mary had foresightedly brought with her, and he tied my wrists and ankles. He worked with slow deliberation. The knots weren’t painfully tight. Hans didn’t get any jollies from hurting people. He just killed them.

‘Larry isn’t going to like this,’ I said.

‘Larry knows I’m here.’ Mary assisted Hans out the door and closed it. ‘My darling husband is an ingenious swine, and as I pointed out to Larry, it would be foolish to take unnecessary chances.’

‘Are you really married?’

‘Bell, book, and candle.’ Mary leaned against the table, hands in her pockets. ‘Not for long, though,’ she went on conversationally. ‘I regret that, in a way. I shall hate wearing black. It’s not my colour. And sharing his bed was quite an interesting experience.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ I said. ‘You’re wasting your time with that routine, Mary. He could hardly stand to touch you. It was always you hanging on to him, instead of – ’

I wouldn’t have believed a soft little hand like that could hit so hard. When my ears had stopped ringing I said, ‘Did Larry authorize beating me up?’

‘He took my knife away.’ Mary’s voice deepened and the golden eyes glittered. ‘But he can’t object to this. A few bruises will have a persuasive effect on John. You’ve got him trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I don’t understand how you accomplished it – ’

She examined me curiously, from head to foot and back again. I could see her problem; the idea that any normal man could resist a cuddly little cutie in favour of a six-foot Amazon with a sarcastic tongue and the disposition of a hedgehog absolutely baffled her. To be honest, it baffled me too – not that he could reisist little Miss Mary the Ripper, but that he had stuck with me so long.

With an abrupt movement she pulled the lovely little Greek heads from her ears and flung them at me. ‘These were meant for you, you know: I made him give them to me. Did you enjoy seeing me wear them?’

‘I did wonder. They aren’t your style.’

‘But they were clearly a love token, weren’t they? Something distinctive and different, carefully chosen for a woman who would appreciate them.’ Her thumb caressed the gaudy diamond on her finger.

I knew what she intended and I was contemptibly relieved when she decided to try a little mental torture first. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how your other friends are faring?’

I shrugged. ‘You haven’t got Schmidt or you would have said so. Feisal . . . I assume Feisal is dead.’

‘Oh, no,’ Mary said softly. ‘He’s still alive. He may never walk again, but that won’t concern him after they hang him for treason.’ The tip of her little pink tongue showed between her parted lips. She was having such a good time she didn’t even hear the voices outside.

There’s a poem about a highwayman who came riding, riding, up to the old inn door. The soldiers used his sweetheart as a decoy, tying her to a chair with a rifle pointed at her breast. She managed to get one finger around the trigger, and when she heard him coming she pulled – ‘and warned him with her death.’

I always wondered why she didn’t just yell.

Oh, well, maybe he couldn’t have heard her over the pounding of his horse’s hooves. Or maybe it didn’t fit the metre. I didn’t have a rifle at my breast. Anyhow, John knew the soldiers were there.

I threw my head back and opened my mouth and screamed. But the name I called was not that of my lover. ‘Max! Hey, Max!’

John was the first one through the door, but Max was right behind him. It wasn’t until much later that I understood the significance of that sequence.

The Pavlonian conditioning didn’t seem to be as strong as Mary had believed. After a few steps John stopped. He had only glanced at me; his eyes were fixed on Mary.

‘More melodrama,’ Max said in exasperation. ‘How weary I am of this! You were forbidden to come here, Mary. Mr Tregarth is willing to cooperate. You will only irritate him if you persist in this nonsense.’

‘I am already irritated,’ John said. His eyes returned to my face. ‘Are you – ’

‘Fine, just fine,’ I said, stretching my mouth into a smile. My cheek hurt. ‘I do hope you have a couple of aces up your sleeve, because if you haven’t, this was not one of your brighter moves.’

He was still wearing Keith’s suit, but he had washed the cheap dye out of his hair. Avoiding my eyes, he remarked, to the room in general, ‘She tends to babble when she’s nervous. Mary does affect people that way. Get her out of here.’

Blenkiron was the next to arrive. ‘Damn it,’ he exclaimed. ‘Mary, I told you – ’

She laughed contemptuously. ‘What a conveniently bad memory you have, Larry.’

‘Well, I certainly didn’t give you permission to . . .’ He couldn’t even say the ugly words. ‘I’m sorry, Vicky. I told her to stay with you but I never authorized . . .’

‘Swell,’ I said. ‘So how about untying me?’

Nobody reacted to that naive suggestion. Mary backed off a few steps and Max said, with poorly concealed exasperation, ‘Can we now discuss the situation in a reasonable way? You have the pectoral, Mr Tregarth?’

‘You know I haven’t,’ John said. ‘You watched Rudi search me.’

‘Where is it?’