It almost worked, but he was still stronger than I was and the point of the blade merely scratched his chest. Even as I was fighting to turn the hand again he shuddered and died.
A ruse would not have tricked me—but this was no ruse. I felt every muscle in his body tighten rock-hard in a spasm as he fell sideways. My grip on his wrist didn’t lessen until the light came on in the room behind me. Only then did I see the ugly yellow stain halfway up the blade of the knife. A quick-acting nerve poison, silent and deadly. There, on the sleeve of my shirt, was a thin yellow mark where the blade had brushed me. I knew these poisons didn’t need a puncture, they could work just as well on the naked skin.
With infinite caution, struggling against the fatigue that wanted my hands to shake, I peeled my shirt slowly off. Only when it had been hurled on top of the corpse did I let myself drop backwards, gasping for air.
My leg could work now, though it hurt hideously. It must have been bruised but not broken since it supported my weight. Turning, I stumbled to the high window and threw it open. Light streamed out on the body behind me. Angelina was sitting up in bed, her face smooth and her hands folded on the covers in front of her. Only her eyes showing any awareness of what had happened.
“Dead,” I said with a dry throat, and spat to clear it. “Killed by his own poison.” I stumped into the room, testing my leg.
“I was sleeping, I didn’t hear him open the window,” she said. “Thank you.”
Actress, liar, cheat, murderess. She had played a hundred roles in countless voices. Yet when she said those final words there was a ring of unforged feeling to them. This murder attempt had come too soon after the earlier traumatic scene. Her defenses were still down, her real emotions showing.
Her hair hung to her shoulders, brushing the single ribbons of her nightgown which was made of some thin and soft fabric; intimate. This sight, on top of the events of the evening, removed any reserve I might have had. I was kneeling by the bed, holding her shoulders and staring deep into her eyes, trying to reach what lay behind them. The locket with the broken chain lay on the bedside table. I grabbed it in my fist.
“Don’t you realize this girl doesn’t exist except in your own memory,” I said, and Angelina didn’t move. “It’s past like everything else. You were a baby—now you’re a woman. You were a little girl—now you’re a woman. You may have been this girl—but you are not any more!”
With a convulsive movement I turned and hurled the thing out of the window into the darkness.
“You’re none of those things of the past, Angelina!” I said with an intensity louder than a shout. “You are yourself … just yourself!”
I kissed her then and there was no trace of the pushing away or rejection there had been before. As I needed her, she needed me.
XVIII
Dawn was just touching the sky when I brought the assassin’s body in to the Count. I was deprived of the pleasure of waking him since the sergeant of the guard had already done this when the roof sentry had been discovered. The guard was dead too, from a tiny puncture of the same poison-tipped blade. The guardsmen and the Count were all gathered around the body on the floor of the Count’s sitting room and chattering away about this mystery, the inexplicable death of the sentry. They didn’t see me until I dropped my corpse down by the other one, and they all jumped back.
“Here’s the killer,” I told them, not without a certain amount of pride. Count Cassitor must have recognized the thug because he gave a shuddering start and popped his eyes. No doubt an ex-relative, brother-in-law or something. I imagined he hadn’t believed that the Radebrechen family would really go through with their threats of revenge.
A certain uneasiness about the guard sergeant gave me my first cue that I was imagining wrong. The sergeant glanced back and forth from the corpse to the Count and I wondered what thoughts were going through his shaven and thick-skulled military head. There were wheels within wheels here and I would like to have known what was going on. I made a mental note to have a buddy-to-buddy talk with sarge at the first opportunity. The Count chewed his cheek and cracked his knuckles over the bodies, and finally ordered them dragged out.
“Stay here, Bent,” he said as I started to leave with the others. I dropped into a chair while he locked the rest out. Then he made a rush for the bar and choked down about a waterglass full of the local spirits. Only when he was working on his second glass did he remember to offer me some of this potable aqua regia. I wasn’t saying no, and while I sipped at it I wondered what he was so upset about.
First the Count checked the locks on all the doors and sealed the single window. His ring key unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and he took out a small electronic device with controls and an extendible aerial on top.
“Well look at that!” I said when he pulled out the aerial. He didn’t answer me, just shot a long look at me from under his eyebrows, and went back to adjusting the thing. Only when it was turned on and the green light
