Weep No More, My Lady

She wanted desperately to be alone, but she managed to ask the Baron one more question: 'Did you see Syd near Leila's apartment that night?'

Could she trust the look of astonishment on his face? 'No, I did not,' he said firmly. 'Was he there?'

* * *

It is finished, Elizabeth told herself. She put in a call to Scott Alshorne. The sheriff was out on official business. Could someone else help her? No. She left a message for him to phone her. She would turn over Alvirah Meehan's recording equipment to him and get on the next plane to New York. No wonder they'd all sounded so on edge from Alvirah's relentless questioning. Most of them had something to hide.

The sunburst pin. She started to put it into a bag with the recorder and then realized she hadn't listened to the last cassette. It occurred to her that Alvirah had been wearing the pin in the clinic… She managed to extract the cassette from the tiny container. If Alvirah was so concerned about the collagen injections, would she have left the recorder on during the treatment?

She had. Elizabeth turned up the volume and held the recorder to her ear. The cassette began with Alvirah in the treatment room talking with the nurse. The nurse reassuring her, talking about Valium; the click of the door, Alvirah's even breathing, the click of the door again… The Baron's somewhat muffled and indistinct voice, reassuring Alvirah, starting the injection; the click of the door, Alvirah's gasps, her attempt to call for help, her frenzied breath, a click of the door again, the nurse's cheerful voice, 'Well, here we are, Mrs. Meehan. All set for your beauty treatment?' And then the nurse, upset, on the edge of panic, saying, 'Mrs. Meehan, what's the matter? Doctor…'

There was a pause, then the voice of Helmut barking orders -'Open that robe!'-calling for oxygen. There was a pounding sound-that must have been when he was compressing her chest; then Helmut called for an intravenous. That was when I was there, Elizabeth thought. He tried to kill her. Whatever he gave her was meant to kill her. Alvirah's persistent references to that sentence about 'a butterfly floating on a cloud,' her constantly saying that that reminded her of something, her calling him a clever author-did he perceive that as her toying with him? Had he still hoped that somehow Min wouldn't learn the truth about the play, about her Swiss bank account?

She replayed the last tape again and again. There was something about it she didn't understand. What was it? What was she missing?

Not knowing what she was looking for, she reread the notes she had taken when Helmut described Leila's death. Her eyes became riveted to one sentence. But that's wrong, she thought.

Unless.

Like an exhausted climber within inches of an icy summit, she reviewed the notes she had made from Alvirah Meehan's tapes.

And found the key.

It had always been there, waiting for her. Did he realize how close she had been to the truth?

Yes, he did.

She shivered, remembering the questions that had seemed so innocent, her own troubled answers that must have been so threatening to him.

Her hand flew to the phone. She would call Scott. And then she withdrew her fingers from the dial. Tell him what? There wasn't a shred of proof. There never would be.

Unless she could force his hand.

Eight

For over an hour, Scott sat by Alvirah's bedside, hoping she would say something else. Then, touching Willy Meehan's shoulder, he said, 'I'll be right back.' He had seen John Whitley at the nurses' station and followed him into his office.

'Have you anything more you can tell me, John?'

'No.' The doctor looked both angry and perplexed. 'I don't like not knowing what I'm dealing with. Her blood sugar was so low that without a history of severe hypoglycemia we have to suspect that somebody injected her with insulin. She sure as hell has a puncture mark where we found the spot of blood on her cheek. If Von Schreiber claims he didn't inject her face at all, something's screwy.'

'What are her chances?' Scott asked.

John shrugged. 'I don't know. It's too soon to tell if she has incurred any brain damage. If willpower can bring her back, that husband of hers will manage it. He's doing everything right. Talking to her about chartering a plane to get here, about fixing the house when they go home. If she can hear him, she'll want to stay around.'

John's office overlooked the garden. Scott walked to the window, wishing he could spend some time alone, think this through. 'We can't prove Mrs. Meehan was the victim of an attempted murder.

We can't prove Miss Samuels was the victim of murder.'

'I don't think you can make either one stick, no.'

'So that means even if we can make a stab at figuring who would want those women dead-and have the guts to attempt to kill them at a place like the Spa-we still may not be able to prove anything.'

'That's more your line of work than mine, but I'd agree.'

Scott had one parting question: 'Mrs. Meehan has been trying to talk. She finally came out with a single word-'voices.' Is it likely that someone in her condition is really trying to communicate something that makes sense?'

Whitley shrugged. 'My impression is that her coma is still too deep to be certain as to her recall. But I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.'

* * *

Again Scott conferred with Willy Meehan in the corridor. Alvirah was planning to write a series of articles. The editor of the New York Globe had told her to get all the inside information she could on celebrities. Scott remembered her endless questions the night he had been at the Spa for dinner. He wondered what Alvirah might unwittingly have learned. At least it gave some reason for the attack on her-if there had been an attack. And it explained the expensive recording equipment in her suitcase.

He was scheduled to meet with the mayor of Carmel at five o'clock. On his two-way car radio, he learned that Elizabeth had phoned him twice. The second call was urgent.

Some instinct made him cancel his appointment with the mayor for the second time in two days and go directly to the Spa.

* * *

Through the picture window, he could see Elizabeth on the phone. He waited until she put the receiver down before he knocked. In the thirty-second interval, he had a chance to study her. The afternoon sun was sending slanted rays into the room which created shadows on her face and revealed the high cheekbones, the wide, sensitive mouth, the luminous eyes. If I were a sculptor, I'd want her to model for me, he thought. She has an elegance that goes beyond beauty.

Eventually she would have surpassed Leila.

Elizabeth turned the tapes over to him. She indicated the writing pad with its lines of notations. 'Do me a favor, Scott,' she asked him. 'Listen to these tapes very, very carefully. This one'-she indicated the cassette she had taken from the sunburst pin- 'is going to shock you. Play it over and see if you don't catch what I think I've heard.'

Now there was a determined thrust to her jaw, a glitter in her eyes. ' Elizabeth, what are you up to?' he