I Was Jack Mortimer

10

HE WOKE AS THE GREY DAWN was creeping in through the curtainless windows. Marisabelle was still sleeping. He withdrew his left arm from under her without waking her. Then he got out of bed noiselessly. The windows looked out onto a garden. The early light revealed clumps of grey, denuded trees shrouded in mist against a background of damp tiles and dirty chimneys that appeared to protrude from a muddy sea of foam; the stark outlines of polished furniture, mirrors and fittings only emphasized the general gloom of the interior. Stretched out on the bed lay Marisabelle, her pale, mildly resplendent face framed by a mass of dishevelled hair.

It must have been about six o’clock.

He carefully groped around for his things and gathered them up. Then he tried to look Marisabelle in the face. In her sleep she had drawn her eyebrows together as if she were not sleeping at all, but reflecting on something anxiously, though for the rest her face showed that she was indeed asleep. Like all people in the land of Nod she looked remote and indifferent, as if she were dreaming of something intangible and short-lived that she would not recollect on waking.

He wanted to kiss her on the mouth, but decided not to, in case he woke her. Anyway, what would he have said to her if she woke? That the morning had broken, and all was at an end? Everyday thousands of people get up and say, “Adieu, that’s the end.” There’s no need for it. It’s a complete platitude.

He bent over and brought his face close to hers until he could feel her breath. He waited a little, quite motionless. That was their last kiss. Then he left.

He closed the door silently behind him and crossed the entrance hall; the keys were still in the door to the apartment. He opened it, stepped out, and closed the door behind him.

The light was on in the staircase. He had walked down one flight when it suddenly went out. The pale dawn was already trickling in.

Down in the entrance hall the porter had just unlocked the front door, and it was he who had switched off the light. As Sponer approached, the man looked at him in amazement that he was still in the house. Sponer walked past, but suddenly turned round and said, “Is something the matter? Maybe you think I’ve stolen something? Why don’t you report me to the police? Go on, report me. We’ll go together. But just imagine what they’d say if you were to report me simply for spending the night here.” Then his thoughts wandered back to Marisabelle again. He swung around and walked away. In the meantime he had resolved not to go to a police station, give himself up and expose himself to all the bureaucracy. Instead he decided he would return to the Bristol, go up to Mortimer’s room, call the police and await his arrest with a certain degree of dignity. He walked down Alleegasse and came to the municipal gardens where he had spoken to Marisabelle, disturbing, as he approached, a flock of crows which rose cawing from the lawn. Noisy, fast city traffic was at its peak. All the slow-moving carts from the country were gone.

A tram came rattling round a bend. He crossed the Ring and walked into the Bristol.

No one stopped him when he entered. Surprisingly, there weren’t any porters in the lobby either. No one was standing by the lift, though a couple of staff came out of a side corridor and scurried up the stairs.

He followed them slowly. He turned left at the first floor. There was the shimmering marble corridor again, brightly lit, windowless, claustrophobic and hermetic, as in a dream. Or like the passageway between the cabins of a sunken liner, he thought. The lights were on because the electricity generator still hadn’t stopped working. The water couldn’t get to it. The compressed air kept it out. It’s a wonder the floor wasn’t sloping, he thought.

The air really felt as though it were actually under pressure, overheated by the central heating, dry and dusty as last night. He was breathing heavily. Farther on, he saw a group of people standing in front of a door, some entering, others leaving.

It was Mortimer’s room.

Ah, he thought, of course! I quite forgot. The police are already here. No doubt going through Mortimer’s luggage. Why though, if he’s dead, as they must know by now, do they still want to rummage through his belongings? And then he remembered that he had locked the door when he fled, and the Montemayors had been left locked inside for some time; he couldn’t help smiling at the thought.

He still had the key in his coat pocket. He’d hand it in before he was sent to prison, so the hotel wouldn’t be the loser. No one, of course, would pay the bill.

However, he realized the Montemayors would have been able to ring the bell or phone for the doorman, and someone would have come and unlocked the door. How in fact did they get out?

He was wrong, they were still there.

When he reached the door, he glanced into the entrance hall and saw Winifred. There she is again! he thought. She was making a statement which was being recorded by several people who were standing about; some hotel staff were also present, though not the night staff, who had been relieved. It was now already day, though the light was still on in the entrance hall. The door to the salon was shut.

Winifred was still in her evening gown, her brocade coat slung over it. In her left hand, hanging down by her side, she held her handbag, and rested her right hand on her hip. Funny, the way she stands there like that, Sponer thought, erect as if giving a speech. She seemed really proud of the fact that she had exposed the false Mortimer. She could at least have changed her clothes instead of parading around in her red and gold finery. She was being questioned, and replied in the way that prominent people do when answering several interviewers at once; everything that she said was being taken down. However, the men stood there with their hats on, not even bothering to remove them in the presence of a lady.

Now, Sponer thought, how embarrassing! She’s putting on airs, insisting on playing the prima donna, even though Montemayor may in the meantime have already woken a lawyer and started divorce proceedings. However, I’m number one here now.

He stepped into the hallway. Winifred looked up, while the others wrote down something she had said, and caught sight of Sponer. He could see from the expression in her eyes that she recognized him immediately, but surprisingly she ignored him as if he didn’t exist. Instead of shouting out, “That’s him!” she just looked at him for a couple of seconds and then turned away.

Sponer was, he had to admit, more than surprised. Had he simply imagined that she’d looked at him? But the others, too, ignored him completely. One of those taking notes, and another person who had just dictated the last statement verbatim in German, appeared to be from the police. And the others, Sponer wondered, who were also writing things down? Presumably reporters. There was also another man there, obviously someone from the hotel management to judge by his formal suit. The hotel staff stood there as if they were just doing their job, their hands by their sides, listening attentively to what was being said. They all looked at Winifred, and no one paid any attention to Sponer. One of the detectives was dictating, the others were writing, and the staff looked on.

He wanted to go up to them and say that here he was, that he’d come voluntarily, but a strange sense of unreality suddenly overcame him. None of the people bothered about him. It was also true that no one had bothered about Mortimer either when he lay dead in the car and the passers-by hurried past as if nothing had happened. But they had looked for him, Sponer; Marie Fiala hadn’t returned, she’d been detained… Or, he thought, maybe there was some other reason why she… What? It was conceivable, of course, that they still didn’t know that I… But Winifred knew, of course! Why was she behaving as if he weren’t there? He was overcome by the bizarre fancy that he actually wasn’t there, that he’d simply imagined that he had checked in at the Bristol…

Just then, the detective who had been dictating asked Winifred another question.

“When,” he asked in passable English, “did Montemayor leave you yesterday evening and when did he return?”

“He returned from the rehearsal at about five-thirty,” Winifred said. “We had tea in the lounge, but he left after a few minutes and said that he still had to attend to something. He took the lift to his room, but came down after a short while. I was still sitting there and saw him come out of the lift, walk past the office and the porter, and the leave the hotel. He returned just before seven o’clock. I was already in my room…”

“From where you had already called the Bristol in the meantime?”

“Yes. I then heard my husband enter the salon and go to his room.”

Every word was noted down. Sponer looked from one to the other. Winifred glanced at him again. She couldn’t have failed to notice him this time! However, after a brief moment’s reflection she glanced away. The detective asked her another question.

“When was it,” he asked, “that you entered the Bristol?”

“About one o’clock in the morning,” she said.

“And when did your husband come?”

“He came immediately after me.”

“I mean when did he enter here?”

“A quarter of an hour, half an hour later; I can’t remember that exactly anymore.”

The detective continued his questioning while all this was being written down, “Did you know Mortimer was a gangster?”

“No,” she answered.

“But your husband did.”

“He said he did.”

“And you? Did you think it was possible?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Yes,” she said. “It was possible. My husband said it was even common knowledge over there.”

“How then do you explain the fact then that the police didn’t take any action against him?”

“Against Mortimer?”

“Yes.”

“Which police? The American?”

“Yes.”

She laughed dismissively. “You don’t understand, here,” she said. “The police over there don’t take any action against gangsters. Against a petty band of crooks, maybe. But certainly not against people of Mortimer’s standing. The police are far too powerless for that. They can’t afford to expose public prosecutors, senators and possibly even their own people who may be gangsters. Besides, at any time Mortimer could have come up with the excuse that he was being protected.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean he’d have claimed the gangs had put pressure on him and he had been obliged to do what he did. Protection means that business people, bankers and industrialists are left in peace as long as they give a certain proportion of their income to the gangs. Mortimer could simply have come up with the excuse that his own bank was under protection, and the police would have had to accept this since they were in no a position to shield him against such protection.”

The detective gave a sign to indicate that these comments were off the record.

“So,” he said, “Montemayor claimed, therefore, that Mortimer had been the victim of bandits?”

“Yes. These people are always fighting one another for control. It’s a case of open gang warfare. Don’t you know that? Doesn’t it happen here?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Our police,” the detective observed curtly, “appear to be more efficient than the American.”

“Or your bandits,” Winifred retorted, “appear to be less ruthless than theirs.”

“We don’t wish to go into that!”

Winifred shrugged her shoulders.

“All the same,” she added, “my husband had a better opinion of your police than I have. Otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted to prevent me reporting the crime. He assumed, however, that even if I’d reported the driver, it wouldn’t have misled the police, and they’d have tracked down the real murderer all the same.”

“No doubt,” the detective said.

So, Sponer thought, the driver — that was him.

“Do you think so?” Winifred said. “Of course, as has already been said, José was also of the same opinion, though he still maintained for a long time that I’d only cover the tracks of the real murderer if I reported the driver, with the result that he’d never be found. He prevented me using the phone, and after the driver had gone, José kept on and on about it until almost morning, and only then did he give up.”

The detective began translating this into German and dictating it. Sponer took this opportunity, stepped forward and touched the detective’s arm.

“Could I have a word with you, please?” he said.

“Yes, what’s the matter?” the detective asked.

“Here I am,” Sponer said.

“Who are you?”

“I am Ferdinand Sponer.”

“Oh?” the detective said.

“Yes. Ferdinand Sponer.”

“And what do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“Yes. Were you told to come?”

“Told to come?”

“Yes, told to come!”

“No, I came of my own free will!”

“Then please be kind enough to wait,” the detective said, “until you are called. Please don’t interrupt the proceedings.” And with that, he brushed past him and continued dictating.

Sponer, bewildered, stared at Winifred, but she ignored him completely. She opened her handbag and looked inside, then closed it again. The others just stood still and looked straight ahead. Sponer asked himself whether he was going mad.

“Montemayor,” the detective continued, “wanted to leave with you this morning?”

“Yes,” Winifred replied.

“After the driver had gone, your husband must have said to himself that both Mortimer’s and the driver’s disappearance would be noticed immediately. Didn’t he want you to report the matter after all?”

“No,” Winifred said. “He tried to silence me right up to the end. And it was only when he finally realized that I’d report the matter as soon as I could that he told me the truth. He even believed that the police, once they’d got the driver, would also be sure to find the murderer. I didn’t agree. I thought that they’d suspect the driver and no one else. My husband would have denied everything he ever said to me and he would have talked himself out of it. That’s why I shot him.”

Sponer could have sworn he misheard her. Was she mad? Whom had she shot? Mortimer? Impossible! But the others, too, when it was now being dictated in German, appeared not to have understood, judging by their calm looks.

“Mortimer’s Colt,” Winifred continued, “was still lying on the table where the driver had left it, together with Mortimer’s other things. Montemayor finally said to me that even if I didn’t want to keep quiet, in spite of him begging and even ordering me to do so, I’d surely keep quiet after I found out that it was he, Montemayor, who did it because of his love for me. I didn’t quite understand him at first. Then he said that he’d known when Mortimer was arriving, had driven to the station, waited until Mortimer had left the station and got into a taxi, whereupon he had jumped on the running board from the other side as the taxi drove off, opened the rear door, fired several shots at Mortimer, slammed the door shut, jumped off, run away, and was back in the hotel a little later. After he had finished, I took the Colt from the table and shot him.”

The reporters went on writing. The others stared silently at Winifred. The words hit Sponer like an avalanche. The car screeched, Mortimer’s car, with Montemayor on the running board, the shots echoed in his ears, the three bullets that had passed through Mortimer on that fatal journey… The dark night, the drive with the dead man on board, the streets, the surge of the river, the dark staircases, the look in Marisabelle’s eyes, the greying dawn — the scenes of the night all raced through Sponer’s brain like a terrible tornado.

“José did not love me,” Winifred continued. “It was only vanity, jealousy and hatred that drove him to kill Mortimer. But I loved Mortimer with all my heart. If I could have died for his sake, I’d have gladly done so. Now he’s really dead, and I’m alive. But my life is merely a sacrifice for him, because I killed Montemayor for his sake.”

There was a pause. The detective said something in connection with the statement to the effect that it would still have to be corroborated by evidence that Montemayor had actually murdered Mortimer. The sequence of events leading up to the murder could, however, be provisionally reconstructed on the basis of the available evidence.

He opened the door to the salon. Montemayor lay there on the carpet in his evening suit and, with Winifred at the head, they all filed into the room and stood round the body in silence. By the light that poured in through the windows, the powder and rouge on her face looked strangely incongruous. Her bleached hair appeared unreal, and the folds of her crimson evening gown seemed to shoot up her body like tongues of flame every time she moved. Montemayor lay stretched out on his right side, his fists clenched, and his face, which was turned upwards, was already deathly white. At the same time, however, it bore a strangely calm and serene expression.

For even though an ocean separated this city and the savannas, he had fallen like the true peon that he was. He had fallen like a peon falls in a fight with his enemy, a fight for a beloved one, with a bullet, with Mortimer’s bullet, in his heart.

While the rest stood there in silence, Sponer started backing away without making a sound. Nobody took any notice of him. Slowly walking backwards, he reached the door. Feeling behind him, he opened it, bounded out of the room, slammed the door and ran along the corridor, down the stairs, through the entrance hall and the revolving door and out into the street. He ran straight across the ring road. He knew that, come what may, he would still have to report to the police and make a statement, and would have to explain the disappearance of the body. But now, at that moment, he just couldn’t be restrained. He ran across Karlsplatz, through the gardens, and down Alleegasse to Marisabelle’s house, flung open the gate and dashed through the entrance hall and up the stairs. He stopped, breathless, in front of the Raschitzes’ flat and rang the bell. Still panting for breath, he pulled his cap off his head and smoothed his hair. The door was opened after a short pause. The young girl to whom he had spoken the night before stood there. He wanted to say something, but was still so out of breath that at first he was unable to utter a word.

“The Fräulein!” he finally stammered.

She stared at him. “It’s you? It’s you again?”

“The Fräulein!” he repeated. “Please call her!”

She appeared not to understand fully.

“But she hasn’t come home yet!” she finally said.

“Not home?”

“No. She isn’t back yet. What do you want to see her for? Don’t you know where she is? Has something happened? What is it you want from her?”

He was no longer paying any attention to her. Marisabelle must still be upstairs! He turned and ran up. The girl stared after him. At the Dorfmeisters’ flat he rang the bell and banged on the door with his fists. He leant one hand against the door and rested his head on it briefly, before quickly bringing both hands to his face and closing his eyes, and although he was still gasping for breath, he suddenly smiled; he smiled as if in a dream, as if it were once more Marisabelle’s hands in which he had buried his face.

He heard light, hurried steps; he straightened up, and the door opened.

It was Marisabelle, woken from her sleep, her hair dishevelled, a fur coat slung over her shoulders. He stepped silently over the threshold, not taking his eyes off her, hands outstretched towards her.

She looked back at him in amazement.

“I…” he finally stammered, “I’m free! It was Montemayor.”

She shrank back.

“What?” she stuttered. “Who?”

“Montemayor! The man who killed Mortimer… It was because of his wife… He told her he jumped on the car and shot him during the ride from the station.”

She retreated a further couple of steps.

“Why are you here then?” she finally asked.

He didn’t understand. “Why am I here?” he asked, and took a breath and tried to laugh as he looked at her.

“Yes, what made you come back?”

“Where?”

“Where? Here of course!”

“Where else?” he shouted. “Where should I return other than to you!”

“Keep your voice down!” she hissed. “You’re mad! Go away!”

He didn’t understand.

“Go away!” she repeated.

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes! Immediately!”

“I don’t understand you,” he said.

“I don’t understand you either!” she shouted. “What on earth induced you to come running back here! What if someone sees you?”

He stared at her. He wanted to say something, but his lips didn’t respond.

“Did you too think,” he finally stammered, “that you wouldn’t see me again?”

“Well, at any rate not now!”

“Ah,” he stammered, “you only did it because you thought I’d be lost otherwise?”

“You’re not anymore, though, are you?” she shouted. “You say that you’ve been released!”

“Is that any reason why I should go away?”

“Someone may see you! How could you leave without waking me? How could you let me go on sleeping upstairs here? You compromised me!”

“I compromised you?”

“Of course!”

“And in the night,” he shouted, “I didn’t compromise you?”

“In the night you were on the run!”

“In other words, you only did it because you thought I’d had it?”

“Do you hold that against me?”

“I don’t, but why are you ruining everything?”

“You’re doing it yourself! You’re putting me in an impossible position!”

“That I should have thought of you before anyone else?”

“No, by coming here! What does that make me then?”

“The same what you were for me in the night!”

“So?” she shouted. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. You’re now free, you say! You’re no longer what you were! And besides, it’s no longer night now. What on earth did you mean by compromising me?”

“That’s the last thing I wanted to do!” he stammered.

“Yet you’re doing it now! And what’s more, first you come to me and say you’re lost, and now you come and tell me none of it is true and nothing has happened.”

“I thought,” he mumbled, “that you’d be happy for me.”

“Of course,” she said, “but nevertheless, how on earth can you put me in such a position?”

“What position?”

She didn’t answer. They just looked at each other.

“What position?” he repeated. “You mean of seeing me again?”

She was silent.

“Are you trying to tell me I had no right to come back?”

“I’d have done anything for you, but you shouldn’t have then turned around and told me that it wasn’t necessary. It’s all over now, and you shouldn’t remind me of what I did. Don’t you understand?”

So that’s how it is, he thought. Understand? Oh yes, I do understand. At least I’m beginning to understand. There are women one shouldn’t see again, and there are men who shouldn’t make a nuisance of themselves. Drivers, for example, if they’ve had a fling with a girl from a posh family. There are girls that one shouldn’t compromise, and others who’d gladly let themselves be arrested for a man. Those whom one shouldn’t question about what they had been up to, and others who would have it splashed all over the papers that they wanted to sacrifice themselves for you. Girls to whom one mustn’t return, and others who wait for years and to whom one doesn’t return…

“Don’t you see,” she said, “you can’t just turn up here like that? You’re compromising me, you must show me some consideration! If I got carried away last night,”—she cast her eyes to the ground—“that was something else. But now you can’t just barge in like that. You’re forgetting that…” She broke off, searching for words.

“You’re quite right,” he said after a pause. “I’m forgetting that you’re not some girl from the suburbs that I can see when and where I please. I’m forgetting that you’ve got to heed your reputation, otherwise your family will disown you. I’m forgetting that it’s impossible for us to be seen together, that everything that you did for me was just a one-night stand, just a matter of a few hours, and that you can’t be my lover. I’m forgetting that I have to forget this. Nevertheless, I thank you,” he said, and came close to her and kissed her hands. “I thank you for doing what you did.”

With that, he looked at her for a moment, then let her hands fall and turned. She grabbed his arm. “Listen,” she said, “I don’t want you to think that I…”

She fell silent. There was the sound of someone coming up the stairs. They were quick, hurried steps, two treads at a time. The next moment Marisabelle’s brother appeared in the doorway. He looked at them both, as if wanting to say something. However, when Sponer approached the door, he stepped back onto the landing.

Sponer crossed the threshold. At that moment the young Raschitz leapt from the side towards him. Sponer, as quick as a flash, turned round towards him and knocked him to the ground.

Then he walked away.

He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets, through the suburbs. In his eyes there was a strange expression, as if he didn’t quite see where he was going.

After for some time, he lit a cigarette. After a couple of puffs, however, he noticed that it tasted of honey. He still had one of Mortimer’s cigarettes. He threw it away. It was more than half an hour before he came to his district. However, he didn’t turn off in the direction of his flat, but went to Fiala’s house instead.

He walked past an organ-grinder standing in the pouring rain. His instrument was covered by a sheet. He was playing ‘Castilliana’.

As he walked past, Sponer tossed him a coin, for the song stirred something in the depth of his soul. He had heard it before, only he no longer remembered when and where.

Then he saw Marie standing on a street corner.

For a moment he was overcome by a feeling of shame. But then he realized that he must overcome it.

When Marie noticed him, she came running towards him, almost tripping over in her excitement, and held out the envelope containing the money. Then, sobbing, she threw her arms around his neck.

He embraced her, and they stood there for a few moments without moving or speaking. A couple of people turned and glanced at them.

He stroked her hair.

“Thank you,” he said, and took the money. “But I don’t need it anymore. I’m not guilty.”

“What did you do then?” she sobbed.

He kissed her. “You probably won’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “I was just on my way to you. I was Jack Mortimer.”