Vorpal Blade (24 page)

There was a flurry of people leaving to go and fetch warm
clothing. Tweed said he was popping up to see Howard
to keep him in the picture and vanished. Only Paula and
Newman were left in the office with Monica, who was
already calling Beck. Paula suddenly realized she no longer
felt jittery. The prospect of action had rejuvenated her. She
unlocked a drawer, took out Wylie's
A History of Executions.,
packed it carefully in her briefcase. Bedtime reading, she
said to herself. I don't think.

'Lord,' she said aloud. 'I have to phone Marienetta.'

'What for?' Newman asked.

'We were going to fix a date for dinner. I must tell her
I'm not going to be available for a while.'

Newman shrugged. She was talking on the phone while he read the latest issue of the
Herald Tribune.
Not a word
in it about the murder of Hank Foley. Tweed returned as
Paula put down the phone and spoke.

'That's strange.'

'What is?' Tweed asked, heading for the cupboard to
check his suitcase.

'I phoned Marienetta and her secretary said she had
gone abroad a couple of days ago. So has Sophie. They never travel together, the secretary informed me after I
prodded, suggesting I'd better speak to Mr Arbogast. Then
the girl told me Mr Arbogast also was out of the country.
They all left independently a couple of days ago.'

'Which,' Tweed remarked from behind his desk, 'was
the same time Russell Straub disappeared into the wild blue yonder. A coincidence? I wonder.'

'Had you better phone Mrs Brucan to tell her you have
to go off somewhere?' Paula suggested. 'It might save her a
wasted journey - she doesn't seem to be able to keep away
from here.'

'I suppose I'd better.'

Tweed looked up the number he had written down in
his notebook. Picking up the phone, he called the number, waited. Thinking maybe he had misdialled, he tried again. He listened for a while, then gave it up.

'No reply. Just the ringing tone. All these people disap
pearing. It's like a massacre by absence. Howard is fully
informed, will take over while I'm away. He was very
shocked by my news. I told him it might be anyone.'

'Anyone?' queried Paula.

'The third headless corpse found in Montreux.'

'Let's hope to Heaven it's no one we know.'

15

The flight to Geneva was little more than an hour. This
time they sat near the pilot's cabin. Again Paula was in a three-seater but she occupied the middle seat with Tweed
by the window and Newman by the aisle. The plane was
half-empty so they were able to talk with no risk of being
overheard. Several rows behind them Butler sat with Nield.
At the rear Marler sat alone. He liked to be able to keep an
eye on everyone aboard.

Outside it was dark as Paula delved into her briefcase and brought out her cherished book. Slips of paper protruded where she had marked several pages. She glanced
at Newman.

'This is pretty grisly. Hope you've got a strong stomach.'

'I'll be happy with this,' he replied, raising his glass of
Scotch. 'Do your worst.'

'They were very methodical with their executions,' she
began. 'Here's phase one - a condemned man mounting
to the top of the scaffold, arms tied together.'

Tweed peered over to look at the picture drawn in
what he suspected was charcoal. On the platform the
executioner waited, a big tall brute with his head covered with a woollen helmet with eye-holes. Grim. In his right
hand he held a long-handled axe. The victim was then laid
on his back, his neck placed carefully on a wide curved
block. The executioner raised the axe above his head.

The next drawing showed it descending. Then the blade
slashed through the neck, the head rolled back, dropped
onto a large piece of sacking. Black blood pooled down
on all sides from the ragged stump of what remained of
the neck.

'Good job it wasn't in colour,' Newman commented.

The executioner lifted the severed head by its hair to
display it to the crowd below. It was then dropped into the
sacking. The executioner gathered up the sack, wrapping
it round the head, dropping it into a cart below.

'Now that is important,' Paula said.

'I guess it was important to the poor devil who had his
head chopped off,' Newman remarked.

Paula nudged him hard in the ribs. 'Be serious. This is
very serious.'

'What is?' Tweed asked.

She had turned back a page which showed the sack
spread out behind the block, in front of the executioner
standing waiting with his axe.

'The sacking,' Paula emphasized. 'The heads were
missing from Hank Foley and Adam Holgate. I think
it
used sacking placed behind a makeshift execution block
- then the head rolled free and fell on the sacking. That
would give it something to carry away the head and put
it inside some kind of container.'

'I'll have another Scotch,' Newman called out, sum
moning the steward.

Paula closed the book until the drink had been served
and the steward had gone.

'So what kind of container would hold a human head?'
asked Newman.

'I think Paula is right,' Tweed decided. 'We should have
thought of that before now. I did once see a human head
preserved in formalin after an autopsy. Stored in a huge
laboratory glass with a glass lid on top. If I'm right what would it put a large laboratory
glass in, to carry it away?'

'One of those wheeled suitcases people cart around these
days when they're travelling,' she said.

'Must have been a lot of blood dripping from a head,'
Newman pointed out.

'So it holds up the head by the hair until only dribbles of blood are dropping,' Paula explained.

'We really
should
have thought of that,' said Tweed. 'At
Pinedale we should have searched further. There must
have been an area where the ground had been soaked
with blood. And at Bray.'

'Any more delicacies?' Newman enquired.

'There's the guillotine where you see the same system.'
She turned to another marked page. 'You see, again
behind the execution block there's sacking waiting to
receive the head.'

'Look at the neck's stump,' Newman said. 'Now turn back to the earlier example of a portrait.'

She found the page immediately. Newman stared at the
hideous drawing. He pointed.

'See? The neck stump again is ragged. Whereas Foley
and Holgate had their necks severed neatly just below the
chin. No raggedness.'

'It must have practised on something inert,' Tweed
reflected. 'Maybe a dummy.'

'I'm not at all sure it would be a dummy,' Paula
objected.

'What then?' Tweed asked.

'I don't know. I'll have to think about the problem. And
we're descending.'

She wrapped up the book, placed it carefully back inside
her briefcase. Then, to clear her mind of what they had
been studying, she gazed out of the window.

The night was now cloud-free. As the descent continued
she looked down on the Jura mountains rising up behind
the vast pale blue smoothness which was Lake Geneva, or
Lac Leman. There was snow on the peaks and the scene
was one of great beauty as their machine swung out over
the lake, like a giant flat plate, motionless in the moonlight.
Then they were landing, wheels bumping gently on the tarmac.

Walking out onto the concourse at Cointrin Airport,
Geneva, Tweed and Paula were surprised and pleased to
see Arthur Beck, Chief of Federal Police, waiting for them.
Behind him several uniformed police formed a protective circle. Beck ran forward, hugged Paula, shook hands with
Tweed and Newman, led them to two waiting limos.

Beck was tall, fortyish, lean with greying hair and a
trim moustache. His head was long
with a well-shaped
forehead, a Roman nose, a determined mouth and jaw.
Tweed regarded his friend as the most efficient and ener
getic policeman on the Continent.

Beck was carrying Paula's suitcase although she had
insisted on hanging on to her briefcase. The cold was icy
but this was the sort of weather Tweed thrived on. Very quickly both Tweed and Paula were seated in luxurious seats in the middle section of the limo, behind the driver
who had two policemen alongside him. Newman and
Marler occupied the row behind them while Nield and
Butler travelled together in a second limo. They were
gliding beyond the station, heading east, when Beck,
seated beside Tweed, spoke.

'I have negative news for you, I fear. After bringing you
out here at such short notice.'

'You've lost the body?'

'Only temporarily, I'm sure. It was alongside
the
pic-bot
when a storm blew in suddenly off the lake. So the body
was washed further out. Not to worry - the storm is due to
end tonight and then the body will be washed in again.'

'Was there time to get any idea of its appearance?'

'Only that it was headless. It was sealed inside a body
bag - or body pouch, as the Americans call them. The bag was zipped up. One of the crew of two men reached down, unzipped the bag, saw what was inside, had an attack of sickness, the fool, so he let it go.'

'It wouldn't be a pleasant sight,' Paula said quietly.

'The other crew-member was made of sterner stuff. He
moved fast, took one Polaroid photo, leaned over the side
and zipped the bag shut just before it was swept away. I
have the Polaroid.'

He glanced uncertainly at Paula. She knew exactly what
his reaction was.

'Don't worry,' she assured him. 'I've seen headless
bodies in Maine and out at Bray. I won't faint,' she said
smiling.

'Here it is, then.'

He produced the colour print out of a transparent
envelope taken from inside a leather case. He gave it to
Paula while Newman leant over from behind them. Earlier, before saying a word, Beck had slid the glass partition shut
so the driver and his companions could hear nothing.

'It's a good photo, even taken looking down on the stump of the neck,' Newman commented.