Roots of Evil(144)

There was another thing they would see, if they had the knowledge or the memories: the reproduction of the closing scene from an old film that had flickered shockingly and darkly across the silver screen all those years ago…A film that had made Lucretia von Wolff famous.

Alraune, catlike and soulless, tearing out the eyes of a man she hated, and then arranging his body in a macabre sacrificial pose.

There were eight minutes left. She had better concentrate on her own death. She would have preferred to use fake blood – there was probably some in the wardrobe room next door, but there was no time to get it and she dare not be seen. There were, however, two bottles of nail varnish in her make-up drawer, both of them the deep blood-red that were the baroness’s trademark. Once out of the bottle the stuff would dry a bit too quickly and the smell would be dangerously distinctive, but the room already stank overpoweringly of Dreyer’s blood and there was an acrid tang from the candles as well. She unscrewed the top of each bottle and put them ready.

Six minutes left. She could hear Ilena’s voice now, telling people she was worried; Ilena’s voice was strident, but it was tinged with panic. Exactly right.

A quarrel, Ilena was saying. A dreadful quarrel between the baroness and Herr Dreyer – no, Ilena did not know the details. But they had locked the door, and certainly Herr Dreyer had been a camp commandant at Auschwitz, and there would be enmity between the two as a result.

Good! thought Alice. And perfectly true. She looked quickly round the room. Was there anything else to be done? Yes. The signs of a fight, of a fierce quarrel. She flung a table lamp hard against the long glass, shattering it, and breaking most of the smaller bulb-lights around its edges, which instantly made the room darker. What else? She swept brushes, make-up boxes – everything – to the ground, and for good measure overturned a small side table. From beyond the door, Ilena let out a screech.

‘We must stop them!’ shrieked Ilena. ‘They are fighting – they will kill each other—’

People were gathering outside the door; someone was calling for a key, but someone else was saying, Oh, leave them to it; von Wolff’s famous for her tantrums.

Alice let out a gasping scream, and threw a cut-glass scent bottle at the door. The bottle smashed.

‘He is killing her!’ cried Ilena. ‘I know it! Please to hurry—’

‘We’d better break in,’ said a man’s voice – Alice thought it was the floor manager. ‘There’s certainly some kind of struggle going on in there.’

She lay down on the floor, near to the chair. Her heart was beating so fiercely that she could have believed it was outside her body altogether. Beat-beat…Beat-beat…As if someone was standing outside her head, knocking against her mind. Beat-beat, let-me-in…It would be the people outside trying to get in, of course.

But it was not coming from the door, it was coming from the adjoining room – from the small wardrobe-room next door. A soft light tapping. And a kind of scrabbling against the wall. Could it be mice, or even rats? Tap-tap…Let-me-in…Or was it, Tap-tap…Let-meout…?

She had been avoiding the sight of Dreyer, but now she raised her head cautiously to look up at him. Supposing he was not dead, after all? Supposing he was scrabbling to get out of his chair? But he had not moved, and the candles were still in place, casting their uncanny shadows. A sick shudder went through Alice at the sight of his face, the blood forming a crust where the eyes had been. Was there time for her to check for a pulse? Because if he were to be still alive – if he survived long enough to tell people the truth about Alraune…?

But there was no time; people were trying to force the lock, and someone was saying it was no use doing that; they would have to kick the door in.

This was the cue. Alice lay down again, and reached for the nail varnish bottles. Would there be enough? There would have to be. And Dreyer’s blood was spattered everywhere, and some of it was on her hands anyway, from arranging him in the chair. From the doorway and in the dim light it should look all right.

At least the oddly sinister tapping had stopped, or if it had not, it had been blotted out by the sounds from outside. A new voice was saying, ‘Try kicking. A couple of good slams and the lock should snap. God knows what’s going on in there.’


As the second blow fell on the door, Alice tipped the contents of the first bottle over her left wrist, and then the contents of the second one over her right wrist, feeling the thick stickiness ooze over her hands. She thrust the emptied bottles in the folds of her shawl – she could trust Ilena to scoop them up before anyone saw them – tumbled her hair over her face, and thrust her arms straight out so that the glossy crimson fluid would be seen.

At the same moment the lock snapped and the door was flung open. Alice heard the cries of horror, and a genuine gasp from Ilena as she took in the scene. And then Ilena took charge, bossy and firm.

Please to keep well back, Ilena called out. She was a doctor and she would make an examination. It was already plain that Herr Dreyer was dead, and the police must be called, of course. For now the concern was Madame. She bent over Alice – Alice felt the warmth of Ilena’s fingers feeling for a pulse at the base of her throat, and then for a heartbeat.

‘A faint pulse,’ cried Ilena. ‘But so very faint—Hand me something to use as a tourniquet – scarf – stocking, anything to stop the bleeding from the arteries. Quickly!’ Alice felt the tightness of silk being tied over each of her arms, and then something being wrapped around her wrists, covering the now-hardening nail varnish. She heard one of the men saying he would telephone for an ambulance.