It was probably originally the family schoolroom – there was a chalk-whitened blackboard fixed to the wall facing me. There were two iron beds, a deal trestle table, and a couple of whitewood cupboards. Near the door was a sink with a long draining board to one side and on this was a small electric ring. Standing at the ring, a frying-pan in hand, was a young man of about twenty-odd, his back to me, singing quietly to himself as he turned the onions and bacon in the pan. The table was set with a place for one. From a schoolroom it had now been turned into a barrack room. Hung on the wall between the beds was a sub-machine gun and a couple of pin-up photographs.
The young man turned away from the electric ring, came over to the table, and scooped his fry out on to a plate. He had very close-cropped sandy hair, wore a white singlet and black, tightly fitting breeches. He had his boots off with a right toe sticking through the grey wool of heavy socks. He had a pleasant enough face but was clearly tough, brawny, and a handy companion in a fight. He sat down and began to eat. Once he looked straight up at the ventilator grille, chewing reflectively, a far-away look in his eyes. Maybe he had a girl in some distant village and was wondering why she hadn’t written.
I moved on. But now, I kept the torch beam dead in front of my feet. If this passageway did the round of the upper rooms in the Schloss, I didn’t want any of my torchlight shining through the ventilator of an unlighted room. That could have caused trouble if anyone were inside lying awake and counting sheep.
This secret passageway had clearly been put in when the Schloss was built. One way and another I had a fair picture of the kind of fun that had appealed to the past owners of the Schloss.
The next patch of light was round a corner and about thirty yards farther on. It was the same arrangement, a ventilator grille, double-sided, and through it I had my first really good look at Lottie Bemans.
It was a pleasant little boudoir type bedroom, all hanging drapes and frills around the dressing-table, and bows of ribbon worked into the lace curtains that hung from a baldacchino affair over a small four-poster bed.
Lottie Bemans was lying in bed, reading by the light of a small bedside lamp. She had her blonde hair piled up in a sort of Grecian fashion on top of her head and her shoulders and arms were bare except for the thin straps of a silk nightdress. She was a good looker, but her face was longer and, in repose, more serious and intelligent than Katerina’s. She was reading a magazine and smiling now and then to herself. It was a nice smile.
I moved on, hoping that I could find Katerina’s room. I tried to keep in mind the twists and turns of the passageway. As far as I could judge, I had dropped down from the higher level of my wing and was now moving along the inner side of the centre block, with the bedrooms which faced the front courtyard on my left. Both ventilator grilles had been on my left.
I moved forward slowly so as to make the least noise possible.
After another thirty odd paces, the passage turned, dropped four steps, and turned again. Ahead, there was a much bigger, hazier patch of light coming through low down and on my right hand.
It was an inset of ornamental grille work, about three feet long and two feet deep and I had to drop on one knee to look through it.
I was high up, right under the large glass dome which I had seen bulging up in the roof of the centre block. The glass was hung inside with an elaborate arrangement of purple lengths of silk. From hidden lights, a soft haze of blue light flooded down from the dome into a wide circular hallway whose floor was about a hundred feet below me.
The floor of the hall was covered with large black and white tiles. Most of the way around the sides of the hall ran a roofed-in cloistered walk, supported by marble pillars. From my view point I couldn’t see any windows lighting it and there was only one main door, a tall, elaborately carved wooden affair with great iron hinges and ornamental work. Standing with his back to the door, facing the centre of the hall, was a young man who seemed the exact counterpart of the one I had seen frying onions, except that he was dressed for duty. He was hat-less, blond, wore a black silk shirt buttoned tightly up at one side of the neck, the sleeves ballooning a little, black breeches, black, heavy, Army-type boots, and cradled across his arms was a sub-machine gun. He was standing with his legs slightly apart, in an attitude of complete alertness and there was no movement from him.
In the centre of the hallway, raised up on a three-stepped marble platform, was a sort of catafalque affair about ten feet long, three feet wide and about two feet high. The whole thing was draped in a great black velvet covering that fell from splendid golden, pineapple shaped knobs at each corner. Three figures stood facing the catafalque on my side of the hall.
They were Professor Vadarci, Siegfried and Madame Vadarci. The two men were in dinner jackets. Madame Vadarci wore a long black dress, that left her great arms bare, and a double rope of pearls cascaded from her neck over the generous curve of her bosom almost to her knees. In one hand she held a great black plumed fan, wide open, and on top of her red hair was a little coronet affair
