Read Online The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson - Free Book Online Page B

other bar from which sounds of livelier activity were emanating and saw Val and Audrey, the couple who had given the party during the week. The ageing model girl waved at me, and I waved back, but I didn’t go across. I watched this group with some curiosity, noticing other familiar faces and wondering which, if any of them, had been spying on me. It was a profitless speculation. I left and walked slowly back to the car and put the covers on and let myself into the house.
    It was a quarter to ten. The hall was dark. From an upstairs room there was the soft mutter of a wireless. Somebody listening to a Sunday night play. But nothing so strange as this play, I thought, as, with a feeling of the strangest detachment, I dropped the coppers in the box and dialled Cunliffe’s number.
    He answered at once, and I said, ‘This is Nicolas Whistler.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Whistler.’
    ‘You asked me to ring.’
    ‘Yes. It is good of you to do so. I wished to be sure you had returned from Bournemouth. But I have already been informed of that.’
    My scalp began a slow and unpleasant crawl. I said, somewhat breathily, ‘Are you still having me watched?’
    ‘One must exercise a little prudence. It is an important assignment you have undertaken. You are holding yourself ready to leave at ten on Tuesday?’
    I did not answer, thinking of the noisy group in the Musketeers. Any one of them could have slipped out after I had left. Mrs Nolan, even, I thought, recalling suddenly the small, transfixed figure by the television. But Mrs Nolan had not known of the jokes about Bela. Only friends had known about Bela – friends of Maura’s and mine. Maura. Could it posssibly be. … But not Maura. How Maura? Maura did not know I was back.Shamed and confused by this thought, I said loudly into the telephone, ‘I’m not sure yet. I haven’t made up my mind.’
    ‘I understand perfectly,’ Cunliffe’s wry voice grated in my ear. ‘Perhaps you could come and see me at eleven in the morning. Your visa has come through.’
    ‘I’ll see.’
    ‘It’s rather important,’ he said, and rang off at once. I replaced the phone and walked upstairs slowly in the darkness.
    On the second landing I began to have an unpleasant suspicion. The muttering of the wireless had grown louder, but it had not come from the first floor, and it was not coming from the second. The only room on the third floor was mine.
    I climbed the next flight softly and stood outside the room with my heart thudding. There was a crack of light under the door. The wireless was unmistakably on inside. I put my ear to the door. There was a small creaking from the divan and the rustle of paper.
    I was not feeling heroic. I wondered if I should sneak just as softly right down the stairs again to get a poker or a policeman or a fire engine. I did none of these things. Reckless suddenly in the dark, I bent and took off my shoe and, holding it as a weapon, flung open the door, shouting gruffly at the same time, ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘I am,’ said Maura. She was sitting on the divan unwrapping a toffee. ‘I wondered how much longer you’d be.’
5
    Her lopsided smile had acquired a faint roguishness of late. She said, ‘Who did you expect to find in your room?’
    I licked my lips. ‘How did you get in?’
    ‘I rang the bell.’
    ‘Mrs Nolan’s out.’
    ‘An old man on the first floor let me in. He seemed a bit annoyed.’
    ‘How did you know I was back?’

    ‘Your car was outside the door.’
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘Well, really,’ she said, the roguishness departing swiftly. ‘I don’t know. About half an hour ago, I suppose. Aren’t you ever going to come in?’ she asked impatiently. ‘And why have you taken your shoe off?’
    The return to her old asperity was some faint comfort, but there was still rather too much to take in here. I gazed at the shoe and at her, and licked my lips again. If she had telephoned Cunliffe would she have come up and waited for me in my