Terror's Cradle

That left the attic rooms and I looked up the gloomy stair in trepidation. It was possible Alsa was up there. And if she was . . . well, if she was, there hadn't been a sound. The stair rail must have been well polished in its time by dedicated Swedish housewives, because it was still shiny brown in patches where the dust had been disturbed as somebody held on to it to go up or down.

I took a deep breath and hurried up. There were two doors on a little landing at the top. As it happened I opened the wrong one first. That room was empty. The other room was not. In there, two men lay on the floor, both wearing suits, both in early middle-age. Behind me Elliot said suddenly, 'Jesus!'

I stepped forward and went to look at the man nearest me. His face, mottled with tiny skin haemorrhages, was already darkening, and round his neck was a deep, heavy red mark made by the ligature that had been used to strangle him. The other man had died in exactly the same way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I recognized neither of the two dead faces. As I crouched beside them, my heart thumping, I wondered whether they'd be unknown to Schmid. Somehow, I thought they wouldn't.

A moment earlier, Elliot had said in astonishment, 'Hey, those guys are dead!' But the rising inflection in his voice seemed tinny and forced.

I turned my head and looked up at him. The sound he made wasn't consistent with the expression he wore. Elliot may have been surprised to find the bodies but he wasn't shocked at the sight of them.

`Who in hell are they?'

Ì don't know.' I lifted the jacket of one of them and felt in the inside pocket, looking for papers. The pocket was empty. All the pockets were empty.

Elliot said, 'Hell, you're on this story. You got to have some idea!'

`You too !' I said. He looked at me in surprise, and somehow that wasn't convincing, either.

'Me? What do you mean, me? I'm just the guy who drove you here!'

I said, 'Christ, I'm not stupid. The first time we meet, we just meet. The second time it's 'coincidence. But this — !' `You're crazy!' he said. 'I'm just waiting. I told you—' `Don't wait any longer,' I said. 'Get the police.' Òkay,' he said angrily. 'But Jesus!'

Àsk for Inspector Schmid.'

Ìnspector . . .? Listen, what is this?'

`Get Schmid first, then you can tell me.'

He nodded and clattered away downstairs. Twenty minutes later there were feet on the wooden steps. Two pairs, at least. Would there be three? Would Elliot have left? No, he'd stayed.

Schmid glanced at the two bodies, then looked at me grimly. 'Strange, is it not, Mr Sellers?'

`Do you know who they are?'

`Do you?'

I said, 'I have an idea. Just instinct. They could be those two Frenchmen, Maisels and Cohen.'

`You have not seen them before?'

`You know I haven't. Are they?'

He nodded. 'I should like to know how you found them. Here in Storgatan, I mean.'

À telephone call,' I said. 'Somebody telephoned me at the Scanda and told me to come here. I don't know who it was.'

Schmid was watching me carefully, but he didn't comment. Instead he turned his head and spoke in Swedish to Gustaffson who promptly went away down the stairs. Then Schmid asked, 'Did you touch them?'

Ì looked in their pockets.'

`That was wrong. And the rest of the house?'

Ì opened the doors. There's nothing. A few paper cups. They'd been here a while.'

Ànd this man? Mr . .

Èlliot. Harvey Elliot.'

Why are you here, Mr Elliot? You are American?' Ì am. I drove John Sellers here, that's all.'

`So.' Schmid listened to the feet on the stairs, waiting.

Gustaffson came in, panting a little and spoke softly to him. `The doors were locked. You broke in?'

Ì did,' I said. 'That didn't seem important.'

`Perhaps.' He looked again at the bodies on the floor. 'I can hold you for that. Perhaps for more than that.'

I said angrily, 'For Christ's sake! You know why I'm here?'

Ì know,' he said, 'why you say you're here. I know why Mr Elliot says he's here.'

Ì told you. I had the transportation,' Elliot said. 'That's all.'

`Not all, Mr Elliot. You also entered the house. A criminal act.'

I was watching Schmid's face carefully, but there was nothing in it to indicate whether he was just going through formalities, or getting ready to be unpleasant. Schmid had made it clear enough a couple of hours earlier that police business should be left to him. He might feel it useful to keep me out of the way for a while. I said, 'Can I talk to you privately?' I didn't want Elliot there. There had to be more to Elliot than there seemed.

`Later,' Schmid said. Then changed his mind. 'All right, Mr Sellers. Downstairs, please.'

He stood at the ground floor window looking out at the street. 'Well?'

Àlsa . . . Miss Hay must have been here!'

`Why do you say so?'

I said, 'My God, they were in the next room the night she disappeared! The same night there was a fire in the hotel!'

Ì know that.' Schmid was extraordinarily impassive. He missed very little, that was clear, but he hardly seemed to react at all. And always the same maddening pat-back of everything I said to him.

`Then let's speculate a little,' I said savagely. Ìf she was here, with those two upstairs, and she isn't here now, it, means somebody else has taken her!'

`No. It could mean two other things. Even three. One, she killed them herself—'

`For Christ's sake!'

Òh, it is not probable, certainly. Though she could have had assistance, or been party to the killing. No, it is a possibility from a police point of view.'

`But – '

`Secondly, she may have been released.'

Ànd third?'

`Thirdly,' Schmid said, 'she may not have been here at all.' Then those greyish eyes crinkled a little at the corners. `However, I think you are perhaps right. We will examine

–' Outside, tyres squealed and two cars disgorged men with equipment. Schmid moved to open the door and added, 'We will examine the evidence and the facts. I promise you that.'

Men carrying equipment poured past him towards the stairs and he gave rapid instructions, then turned to me again. 'This man Elliot?'

Ì don't know,' I said. I told him briefly about our first , Meeting on the plane, our second in the hotel and how we'd come to the house together.

Schmid listened quietly and when I'd finished, said, 'I am a policeman, Mr Sellers. If I met a man who said he was also a policeman, I would know quickly if it was the truth. Is Mr Elliot a journalist?'

`What else do you think he might be?'

Ì do not know. Answer my question, please.'

`He seems to know quite a lot about it. '

`But you are not certain?'

`Not certain, no.'

Ànd the question arose in your mind before I asked it?' I said, 'He says he's with the National Geographic Magazine. A cable to them would confirm it.'

Ìt might, Mr Sellers. It might.' Then he walked towards the stairs, adding almost as an afterthought, 'Stay here, please. A statement will be required. I am sorry but it may take some time.'

It took a hell of a white and all the time Schmid kept me carefully apart from Elliot. We were driven to the police

headquarters in separate cars and interviewed in separate rooms. It was after nine that night before Schmid produced the typed statement and told me I could go when it was signed. He also told me there was nothing in number forty-one Storgatan that suggested Alsa had been there.

`You're sure she wasn't?'

`No,' he said. 'I simply have no proof Miss Hay was in the house.'