Twenty-two

IFrances Cary, carrying her overnight bag, walked down Mandeville Road,chattering with the friend she had just met on the corner, towards thebulk of Borodene Mansions.

“Really, Frances, it’s like living in a prison block, that building. Worm-wood Scrubs or something.”

“Nonsense, Eileen. I tell you, they’re frightfully comfortable, these flats.

I’m very lucky and Claudia is a splendid person to share with — neverbothers you. And she’s got a wonderful daily. The flat’s really very nicelyrun.”

“Are there just the two of you? I forget. I thought you had a third girl?”

“Oh, well, she seems to have walked out on us.”

“You mean she doesn’t pay her rent?”

“Oh, I think the rent’s all right. I think she’s probably having some affairwith a boyfriend.”

Eileen lost interest. Boyfriends were too much a matter of course.

“Where are you coming back from now?”

“Manchester. Private view was on. Great success.”

“Are you really going to Vienna next month?”

“Yes, I think so. It’s pretty well fixed up by now. Rather fun.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful if some of the pictures got stolen?”

“Oh, they’re all insured,” said Frances. “All the really valuable ones, any-way.”

“How did your friend Peter’s show go?”

“Not terribly well, I’m afraid. But there was quite a good review by thecritic of The Artist, and that counts a lot.”

Frances turned into Borodene Mansions, and her friend went on herway to her own small mews house farther down the road. Frances said“Good evening” to the porter, and went up in the lift to the sixth floor. Shewalked along the passage, humming a little tune to herself.

She inserted her key in the door of the flat. The light in the hall was noton yet. Claudia was not due back from the office for another hour and ahalf. But in the sitting room, the door of which was ajar, the light was on.

Frances said aloud: “Light’s on. That’s funny.”

She slipped out of her coat, dropped her overnight bag, pushed the sit-ting room door farther open and went in….

Then she stopped dead. Her mouth opened and then shut. She stiffenedall over—her eyes staring at the prone figure on the floor; then they roseslowly to the mirror on the wall that reflected back at her her own horror-stricken face….

Then she drew a deep breath. The momentary paralysis over, she flungback her head and screamed. Stumbling over her bag on the hall floor andkicking it aside, she ran out of the flat and along the passage and beatfrenziedly at the door of the next flat.

An elderly woman opened it.

“What on earth—”

“There’s someone dead — someone dead. And I think it’s someone Iknow…David Baker. He’s lying there on the floor…I think he’s stabbed…hemust have been stabbed. There’s blood—blood everywhere.”

She began to sob hysterically. Miss Jacobs shoved a glass into her hand.

“Stay there and drink it.”

Frances sipped obediently. Miss Jacobs went rapidly out of the dooralong the passage and through the open door from which the light waspouring out. The living room door was wide open and Miss Jacobs wentstraight through it.

She was not the kind of woman who screams. She stood just within thedoorway, her lips pursed hard together.

What she was looking at had a nightmarish quality. On the floor lay ahandsome young man, his arms flung wide, his chestnut hair falling on hisshoulders. He wore a crimson velvet coat, and his white shirt was dappledwith blood….

She was aware with a start that there was a second figure with her inthe room. A girl was standing pressed back against the wall, the great Har-lequin above seeming to be leaping across the painted sky.

The girl had a white woollen shift dress on, and her pale brown hairhung limp on either side of her face. In her hand she was holding a kit-chen knife.

Miss Jacobs stared at her and she stared back at Miss Jacobs.

Then she said in a quiet reflective voice, as though she was answeringwhat someone had said to her:

“Yes, I’ve killed him…The blood got on my hands from the knife…I wentinto the bathroom to wash it off—but you can’t really wash things like thatoff, can you? And then I came back in here to see if it was really true…Butit is…Poor David…But I suppose I had to do it.”

Shock forced unlikely words from Miss Jacobs. As she said them, shethought how ridiculous they sounded!

“Indeed? Why did you have to do anything of the kind?”

“I don’t know…At least—I suppose I do—really. He was in great trouble.

He sent for me—and I came…But I wanted to be free of him. I wanted toget away from him. I didn’t really love him.”

She laid the knife carefully on the table and sat down on a chair.

“It isn’t safe, is it?” she said. “To hate anyone…It isn’t safe because younever know what you might do…Like Louise….”

Then she said quietly, “Hadn’t you better ring up the police?”

Obediently, Miss Jacobs dialled 999.