7
FROM THE FORCE with which he flung her down and her overwhelming sense of fear, she lay there crouching, staring at him in utter bewilderment. Also, possibly she hadn’t understood what he had said. Yet she guessed well enough, for initially she remained subdued and then finally made a movement as if to jump up, but fell back when she saw his expression, but only in order immediately to straighten herself up and cry out:
“Where’s Jack Mortimer?”
“Shut up!” he hissed, then he listened whether anyone in the corridor or in the adjacent rooms had been alerted by the shouting and slamming of the door. But everything was quiet. The woman, too, was now silent, only panic flickered in her eyes. He approached her slowly; she shrank back again. He stood in front of her and, staring down at her, formulated in his mind a few words to say in English.
“How did you get here?” he asked finally.
“Where’s Mortimer?” she mumbled again.
He gestured with his hand.
“Answer me!” he barked. “How did you get here? Were you the person who phoned earlier?”
She appeared not to understand him. He began to think that perhaps he hadn’t expressed himself clearly enough. At school he’d learnt English, but only for a fairly short time, and very superficially. He repeated slowly and clearly: “Did you phone earlier?”
“Yes,” she answered finally. “Who are you? Where’s Mortimer?” And she began once more, getting ever louder, to speak so quickly that he no longer understood her. With a flick of his hand he cut her short. She fell silent; only her eyes continued to flicker.
“I can’t tell you where Mortimer is,” he said.
“Why not?” she retorted. “How come you’re in his room? Why are his things lying about here?”
And she repeated her question when she noticed that he understood her poorly, and also added a few more.
“Can’t you speak German?” he asked. But when he realized that she hadn’t understood him, he said in English, “I’ve several things to ask you. When you answer, don’t say so much and”—at this point he didn’t know how to say “above all”—“not so quickly. Otherwise I won’t understand you. Who was…”—here he corrected himself—“Who is this Jack Mortimer?”
She replied with a question that he didn’t understand.
“I want to know,” he insisted, “who Jack Mortimer is.”
“Surely you must know that yourself!” she shouted. “You must!”
“No,” he said, “I don’t.”
She looked around wildly, was about to answer, but then merely pointed at Mortimer’s things.
“No,” he said. “Even so, I don’t know. But you’re going to tell me.” He thought for a moment, then took the letters from the table and held them out to her.
She immediately snatched at them and glanced at him in horror.
“Are these your letters?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Are these your letters?” he repeated. “Was he a friend of yours?”
She stayed silent and clutched the letters tightly in her hand.
“Was he a friend of yours?” he insisted. “Answer me!”
She broke into tears.
He turned away. The appearance of this woman had made his situation utterly intolerable. When he turned and looked at her again, the expression in her eyes was one of fury and unmitigated hatred.
“It’s not my fault,” he said, “that I’m now here instead of Mortimer. Believe me!”
Her eyes continued to flicker in hatred.
“It’s not my fault,” he repeated. “Do you understand?”
She remained silent.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Where did Jack Mortimer come from?” he asked finally.
He had to repeat the question twice before she answered, “From Paris.”
“And how,” he asked, “do you know him? Have you known him long?”
She didn’t reply.
“Listen,” he said, slowly searching for the right words, “you have to answer what I ask you!”
“You know it all yourself!” she retorted.
“No,” he said, “I told you already that I don’t, but you’re going to tell me. If not, I’m going to”—he searched for the right words for a moment—“make you. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to make you speak.”
He wanted to add that his position left him no choice, but this proved too difficult to translate. He reached for her hands and squeezed them together till she let out a cry.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and took a step back.
She again began to cry. He wished he hadn’t hurt her, and wanted to stroke her hair. She immediately flared up and lashed out at his hand. He shrugged his shoulders.
“So, I want an answer,” he said curtly. “Who are you?”
She clenched her teeth.
“What’s your name?” he repeated.
“None of your business!” she shouted. “I didn’t want to come to you. You’ve no right to ask my name!”
“Too bad,” he said. “You’ve got to tell me who you are!”
“No!”
“Yes,” he said, and reached for her hands again. She snatched them away.
“Well, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Jane,” she hissed.
He thought for a moment. Then he suddenly grabbed the letters out of her hand, flipped through them even though she was trying to snatch them back, found the one he wanted, and showed her the letter W.
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Well?” he asked.
“That’s my surname,” she mumbled. “I’m Jane Ward.”
“Since when,” he wanted to ask, “have people signed love letters with their surnames?” But again he couldn’t translate it. Looking hard at her, he pointedly touched with the tip of his shoe her evening bag, which was lying on the floor. Then he picked it up. She thought he was going to give it to her but he only pointed at the metal monogram, a W and an M.
She reddened even more, couldn’t think of anything to say, and merely tried to grab the bag. However, he drew it out of her reach, opened it hastily, saw a couple of letters inside and pulled them out. They were addressed to Mrs Winifred Montemayor: one to Vienna, the Hotel Imperial; the other was poste restante. Then he let her have the letters and the bag.
He had gained the upper hand. In the course of the next few minutes, while she was in a state of confusion and seeing that she had the bag in her possession so that she could wipe away her tearstains and powder her nose, he managed to drag her story out of her.
The name Montemayor was, of course, familiar to him. He even remembered having heard a couple of his records. He also questioned her about Mortimer. Only there wasn’t much she could tell him, except that he was the son of a banker and that she had known him fleetingly and had then met him in Paris once more.
Suddenly he realized that she was at his feet. She had slid down from the sofa, was clinging to him and imploring him to tell her where Mortimer was.
“Did you love him a lot?” he mumbled.
Then his eyes wandered round the room. He saw the two cigarette packets: Mortimer’s on the settee; and the second one, which the waiter had brought up, on the dining table.
He extricated himself from Winifred’s grip and went over to get himself a cigarette.
He hadn’t reached the table when a sound made him look around.
Winifred had jumped to her feet, run to the door, had flung it open and was now running through the lobby towards the exit door.
Before he could take even one step in pursuit, she had torn the exit door open and was about to run out, but instead let out an almighty cry and staggered back. A man in an evening suit came in. He banged the door shut after him and clapped his hand on her mouth to stifle the cry. She struggled for air. He grabbed her with his other, free hand and dragged her into the salon. His face was so distorted with rage, the likes of which Sponer had not seen before.