Last Act Page 12

  She was distracted by a question from Frau Bernz, the plump, competent Austrian singer who took the part of Regulus’ wife. “Oh, I’m all right, thanks.” She joined Hilde Bernz in the queue for the light meal that was served for their lunch. “Just a bit tired.”

  “And no wonder.” Hilde Bernz helped herself lavishly to cold meat and salad. “All this drama! Sabotage and murder. I don’t like it, Miss Paget. We might all have been deathly ill today. What kind of a joker would try to poison us all?”

  “Not exactly poison,” said Anne.

  “We’d not have got much work done today. Somebody sure has it in for this opera.” She spoke amazingly good English, with a strong American accent. “A little bird told me you had some trouble on the way here. Lost your purse; got misdirected? Did it strike you that if you’d not been here for that first audition, Signor Falinieri might have gone straight back to Italy?”

  “No.” Anne picked up her tray and followed Frau Bernz to a table for four. “I hadn’t thought.” It was true. So much had happened in the few days since her arrival that she had almost forgotten about the odd business of the wrong train. Could kind Herr Schann, the computer trouble shooter, actually have been part of the plot against the opera? It was true enough that if she had found herself on the wrong train, and without money, it might easily have taken her a couple of fatal extra days to get to Lissenberg. And, now that she was thinking about Herr Schann at last, she remembered how hard he had tried to persuade her that she was not well enough to travel. Having failed in that, had he intentionally given her first brandy and then champagne on an empty stomach, warded off the coffee that might have cleared her head, and then neatly removed her purse and directed her to the wrong train? She looked unhappily at Frau Bernz. “I believe you’re right. I’d just assumed it was a series of accidents, but in the light of what has happened since …”

  “Precisely,” said Hilde Bernz. “I think you’re a very sensible girl to be too tired to go out at night. Only, lock your door, eh? There’s things go on in this place, too, and that odd character Michael thick as thieves with the old man who runs it. I wouldn’t make any late-night dates with him, if I were you. We can’t spare you, my dear, and don’t you forget it. All the rest of us are replaceable. Not you.”

  “Oh well … There’s Lotte, and, surely, Alix?”

  “You didn’t hear about Lotte?”

  “No?”

  “Course. You left early last night. When the floor show started, Lotte chose to delight us with a selection of songs from Regulus.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Comic, really, when you think how we’ve been rehearsing behind locked doors, to keep the element of surprise. She didn’t get far, I can tell you. Meyer and Falinieri advanced on her like a pair of male Valkyries. I imagine she’s over the border by now.”

  “She’ll be lucky,” said Anne. “They closed it after Mr Frensham was found.”

  “Murdered!” Hilde Bernz shivered dramatically. “Honey, sometimes I wish I were safe back in Vienna, singing light opera. I know Regulus might make all our names, but what’s a name if you’re dead? I tell you, you’re not the only one who’s going to stay home at night. It’s so dark here in Lissenberg. I wish they’d get the lights fixed along the arcade.”

  “The lights?”

  “Didn’t you notice? You must have been tired! They blew while we were at dinner last night. Black as pitch coming home, and me in my high-heeled slippers. I asked that sinister old Josef about it on the way in to lunch. They can’t find what’s wrong, he says. So—stay home, my dear, stay home tonight. Alix’s throat is worse, I hear. She’s not going out tonight either. Well, what would you do if you were her? Invitations from James Frensham and Adolf Stern. So—her throat’s worse. Let me get you some coffee—you do look tired. What did the doctor think was the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Yes, I’d love some coffee, thanks.” Glad to be alone for a moment, Anne resolved to be careful what she said to Frau Bernz, who showed every sign of being the cast’s gossip, and a malicious one at that. It was a comfort when Gertrud Stock joined them over coffee and firmly changed the subject from last night’s dinner to the absorbing one of the opera, and her part in it. It suited Anne very well, and she sat silent, half listening to the other two, sipping strong coffee and trying not to wonder about Michael.

  “—Heard about the opera house?”

  She realised that Gertrud’s question was addressed to her and pulled herself together. “No? What about it?”

  “The lights have gone there, too,” Gertrud told her. “No rehearsals there until they’re fixed, and it seems to be taking long enough. They’ve had every electrician in town up there this morning and none of them can find the fault. If we don’t start rehearsing in there soon we’re going to be in real trouble.”

  “Yes,” agreed Hilde. “For the principals’ movements the rehearsal room’s fine, but what’s going to happen to the chorus? All those comings and goings and only two exits.”

  “Only two?” asked Anne.

  “You’ve not been in to look?”

  Anne laughed. “No time.”

  “Of course. You weren’t here for the first conducted tour. Well—it’s built right into the rock, see, like the Felsenreitschule at Salzburg. Brilliant bit of design, but damned awkward. All your management from above and the side, and only the two exits, right and left. Even principals are going to have to hurry like hell to get off in time. We ought to have been in there from the start. Besides, I’d like to be singing when a helicopter lands on the roof and find out just how good the sound-proofing really is. Mad idea, if you ask me.”

  “James Frensham’s,” said Gertrud Stock, as if that explained everything. “But of course the landing strip is above the audience, not the stage.”

  “So they’ll get the noise, if any. Much comfort that would be.” She sighed, looked at her watch and finished her coffee. “Back to the treadmill.”

  Emerging into the arcade, they were confronted by a high double ladder, on which a man in overalls was perched, working on one of the lights. “I’m not going under that,” said Hilde. “This opera’s had enough jinxes without asking for them.” She walked across to the steps below the cloisters.

  “Sorry!” The man had heard her and turned to look down and smile at Anne. “I promise I won’t drop anything.”

  “Michael! What in the world?”

  “Jack of all trades, that’s me. But this is one problem that’s going to take a bit of solving. Ask Signor Falinieri not to keep you after dark, there’s good girls. There’ll be no lights in this arcade tonight, I’m afraid.”

  “We can ask,” said Gertrud, “but will he take any notice?”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “Well, then. Wait for me, when he does let you go, and I’ll see you home. All of you.”

  “It’s only a few steps,” protested Anne.

  “A few steps are enough to break a leg.” He looked up the arcade. “Falinieri’s just gone in. Off with you, ladies, and watch how you go.”

  Falinieri had heard about the light failure in the opera house and was beside himself with rage. “Not the moment,” whispered Hilde to Anne, “to make any suggestions about when we stop.”

  “I should rather think not.”

  The rehearsal did not go well. Falinieri’s obvious bad temper communicated itself to the singers, who were tired anyway, many of them having stayed up late at the hotel the night before. And, behind all this, loomed the fact of the murders. Over and over again Falinieri brought his baton down with a crash to rebuke whisperers at the back of the small auditorium. “Is this an opera we are working on,” he asked at last, between gritted teeth, “or a disaster? I can tell you which it will be if you do not pull yourselves together and stop gossiping. We have sixteen days until the opening night; God knows when we will be able to get into the opera house for full rehearsals, and all you can do is chatter and giggle in the back there. You, the chorus, go away, for G
od’s sake, and think about your movements, if you can’t make them. I will spend the rest of the afternoon with my principals.”

  After that, things went better. Adolf Stern still sang Regulus with unfortunate Wagnerian overtones, but at least his attitude to Anne had changed completely. Someone must have spoken to him, she thought. Michael’s doing? In any case, now that he was working with instead of against her their scenes together were rapidly taking satisfactory shape.

  Hilde, too, behaved like the professional she was, and Gertrud knew her part so well that Anne could not blame her obvious impatience with her own inevitable blunders—though it would have been easier without her ill-suppressed exclamations of annoyance. Still, things were improving. The two weak points in the cast, as, Anne suspected, in the opera, were the Carthaginian and Roman leaders, played by an Englishman, John Fare and an Italian, Claudio Ricci. Throughout the opera, they had a kind of private musical duel, or duet, fighting, like the angels of light and darkness, for Regulus. Interestingly enough, the Carthaginian, who had come to Rome with Regulus, had become his friend, and was always on the brink of urging him not to return to Carthage, and certain death, while the Roman was his ancient enemy and, it was hinted, his wife’s lover, with every inducement to get rid of him.

  Two very complicated parts, and very difficult musically, and Anne could feel and sympathise with Falinieri’s anxiety about them. Claudio Ricci had obviously worked hard at his part and had the voice for it, but somehow, when he came to sing with John Fare something always went wrong. “There,” whispered Hilde to Anne as they sat at the back of the auditorium and watched the two men rehearse their first duet. “He’s done it again!”

  “Done what?”

  “Miscued him. Very subtly. Ah!” Falinieri had crashed his baton on his music stand. “He’s no fool, thank God. If anyone can make this opera a success, he should.”

  “You’re doubtful?”

  “Well, the cards do seem stacked against it, don’t they? Talk about jinxes …”

  8

  When the three women emerged, well after dark, from the rehearsal room where Falinieri was still struggling with Claudio and John, Michael was waiting for them, dressed in jeans and windbreaker. “Still no luck with the lights, I’m afraid.” He produced a handful of flashlights from his pocket and gave them out. “Compliments of the management.”

  “How about the opera house itself?” asked Anne.

  “No luck there, either. We think there has to be a connection. The palace has been trying all day to reach the electricians who wired the place. Pity they didn’t use local labour. How did the rehearsal go?” Flashlight in one hand, he had taken Anne’s arm and was leading the way down the pitch-dark arcade towards the hostel.

  “So-so,” she told him.

  “That John Fare should be pickled in slivovitz,” put in Hilde Bernz. “Anyone would think he was trying to wreck the opera. I know he and Claudio are enemies from way back, but that’s no excuse for what he’s doing.”

  “Which is what?” Michael asked, as they reached the hostel door and paused for a moment outside it.

  “Oh, the subtlest kind of sabotage: a missed word, a missed cue; a mistimed movement. I guess Falinieri’s sorting him out back there.”

  “I certainly hope so.” Gertrud sounded angry. “This opera’s my big chance, but the way things look right now …”

  “Oh, come.” Michael pushed open the bronze door. “It’s early days yet. Come in out of the cold, ladies, and let me buy you a drink.”

  “Lovely,” said Hilde. “Just what we need. Sherry for me, thanks, and something warming for Anne here, who looks tired to death.”

  Death. Anne shivered, but forced a smile. “A long day,” she said. “I’m out of practice. I’ll have a slivovitz please, Michael.”

  “I can’t imagine how you could bear to let that voice of yours go so.” Malice in Gertrud’s tone? How very strange. And then, on a different note. “My usual,—thanks, Michael. I don’t change my habits.” She turned back to Anne. “The way you pick up the part is amazing, Miss Paget.”

  “Oh, do call me Anne.” She resisted the temptation to say, “No thanks to you.” There were enough hostile undercurrents already. And how odd to find that Michael and Gertrud were apparently old friends. But then, of course, they were both Lissenbergers … cousins, would Michael say? “Have they caught Mr Marks yet?” she asked as they settled themselves at a table in the hostel bar.

  “Not a trace of him.” Michael was pulling back a chair for Hilde. “But one of the hotel taxis crossed the border just before it was closed last night. He could have been in it.”

  “Unless someone local is hiding him,” said Anne.

  “Why in the world should they? A stranger.” Did he sound almost too surprised at the suggestion?

  “Well,” said Anne, “there do seem to be people round here who don’t much like the Frenshams’ plans for the country.”

  It won her a very sharp look indeed as he turned away to order their drinks. Returning with them, he sat down beside her, and was starting a question, when Josef appeared. “Telephone, Anne. Will you take it in your room, or in my office? It’s from the palace.”

  “Then your office, if I may. Mustn’t keep the palace waiting.” Grateful to him for the warning, she gave herself a moment to get settled in his office before she lifted the receiver, “Miss Paget here.” The palace staff must speak English.

  She had hoped it would be Alix, but it was the Prince’s rich voice that finally greeted her. “I have to thank you, Miss Paget, for your help last night. Without you, the evening would have been a disaster.” How often that word kept cropping up. “And now, I hope I am not too late in inviting you to dine with me. Quite informally, at the Golden Cross in town. I cannot tell you what pleasure it would give me, nor how eagerly I look forward to hearing you on our opening night.”

  “I do thank you, Your Highness.” Lord, she was grateful to Michael and the doctor. “But, unfortunately, I am under doctor’s orders. He has confined me to barracks for the duration.”

  “Confined? Oh, I see … But, Miss Paget, an early evening like this? A nothing. You shall be safe in bed by eleven, I promise you.” And then, as an afterthought. “You are not, in fact, ill, I do hope?”

  “Oh, no.” It weakened her stand. “A bit of overstrain, that is all. But Dr Hirsch was most definite. I feel I cannot possibly disobey him the very day he gave the orders.”

  This got her one of the Prince’s warm laughs. “I understand, Miss Paget. That Dr Hirsch is a great bully. In a few days, when the order is less immediate, I will try again, and hope for a different answer. In the meantime take the greatest care of yourself.”

  “Your Highness is too kind. I mean to do just that. Josef has promised me a tray in my room, and I intend to be asleep by ten.”

  Now why had she said that? she wondered, as she rejoined the now cheerful party in the bar. Corroborative detail, presumably, intended to give substance to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

  “The palace?” Michael had contrived to meet her in the doorway as he was leaving.

  “Yes. A dinner invitation.”

  “Which you refused, I trust.”

  “Well, of course. Doctor’s orders.” Was it ungrateful to find herself irritated by the cross-examination? And why had he assumed the invitation was from the Prince? “Good night.” She moved over to join the other two women.

  “Mysterious young man that,” said Hilde Bernz.

  “Mysterious?” Gertrud’s usually fluent English seemed to fail her.

  “More to him that meets the eye, if you ask me. Always about when there’s trouble. Want to bet he’s at the back of it? Stirring things up. One of those students who think they can change the world, and end up making things worse for everybody. What does he do anyway? Aside from failing to fix our lights.”

  “He used to work for the other taxi firm,” said Anne. “Not Brech’s, at the hotel.”

&nbs
p; “Right. And look what happened to them.”

  “What did?” asked Anne.

  “Mortgage suddenly foreclosed. End of business. Funny thing; no one seems to know who held that mortgage. But then, Lissenberg is full of funny things like that. I’ll be glad when I get back to Vienna. Let’s go and eat. I’m starving.”

  They had reached the coffee stage when Hilde looked up. “I wonder where Josef is off to in such a hurry.”

  “Good gracious,” said Anne. “I didn’t think he ever took time off.”

  “He doesn’t much,” said Gertrud. “How should he?” She was facing the door. “Here come the men. Still arguing. I think I will say goodnight.”

  “And I.” Hilde gathered up her furs. “I see Herr Stern has taken himself off. To the palace, no doubt, to make sheep’s eyes at the Princess.” She laughed. “A blow for him when you turned up, Annchen. He did enjoy singing with her. Those fatherly pats on the head—and elsewhere. Oh, he was devoted to his page. I’m not entirely sure that didn’t have something to do with Princess Alix’s sore throat, though she doesn’t seem to mind him hanging about the palace. Anyway, I’m glad to see he’s stopped taking it out on you.” She turned and rose to her feet as Signor Ricci approached their table. “I trust your rehearsal went better after we left you to it.”

  “A little.” He made an expressive face. “May I join you ladies?”

  “I’m afraid we are just leaving. Miss Paget is under doctor’s orders, you know.”

  “Alas.” He held Anne’s chair for her as she rose. “Take good care of yourself, Miss Paget. We cannot do without you.”

  “I can tell you someone we could do without.” Hilde was watching John Fare join a group of male chorus members at a large table on the far side of the room. “Well, good night, Claudio. I wish you a peaceful evening.”