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mind and wants veal. First sauce, then no sauce. What's the matter with his
brain today? You take a man who can make so much money, you think he get his
brain straight. Look at all this snapper, straight in the trash.'
The assistant said something inaudible in reply and then the door was slammed.
Randolph listened to hear if the chef locked it but as far as he could tell,
the key remained unturned, the bolts unshot. Cautiously, he peered around the
corner.
There was a row of garbage cans, then two concrete steps, then the kitchen
door. Its glass panes were opaque
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and it was impossible to see the inside of the kitchen clearly, but Randolph
could make out the distorted image of the chef as he crossed from one side of
the room to the other. Then abruptly the chef disappeared. One of the kitchen
lights was switched off and Randolph heard a brief clatter of pans as they
were stacked.
'Come on,' he breathed to Wanda and together they tiptoed past the garbage
cans and up to the door. When Randolph pressed his face against the glass, he
could distinguish a large, white-topped table with a rack above it for
bains-maries, kettles and ladles, and beyond that, an illuminated gas range.
To the right of the gas range there was a closet and then the dark rectangle
of an open door.
Randolph grasped the door handle and slowly turned it. The door swung open
without a sound. Waverley Grace-worthy obviously believed in keeping his
hinges well oiled. On soft-soled golf shoes, Randolph stepped into the kitchen
and Wanda followed. They closed the door behind them.
'No dogs yet,' Wanda breathed. 'I hope I don't have to carry this steak around
all night.'
They hurried quietly to the open door at the far end of the kitchen. Only one
pan was simmering on the gas range. It smelled like chicken broth. Randolph
peered around the door to see if there was anyone outside; then he tugged
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Wanda forward and into the corridor.
'I hope you know your way around,' she said.
'I'm making this up as I go,' he told her.
The corridor was twenty yards long, its walls painted with dark green gloss.
They made their way along it until they reached a panelled oak door that had
been left ajar.
'Probably one of the dining rooms,' Randolph suggested.
'Let's just hope that Waverley hasn't decided to have a late supper in here,'
Wanda whispered back.
Randolph hesitated and bit his lip. 'Well, if he's in there, he's in there.
This looks like the only way into the house.'
Gently he reached forward and eased the door open a
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few inches. The dining room beyond was dimly lit and panelled with the same
pale oak as the door. Randolph could see the glint of reflected light from a
gilt frame and the sparkle of a crystal decanter. He pushed the door open all
the way and stepped inside.
The table was laid for one. There was a white Brussels-lace placemat, a napkin
in a silver-gilt napkin ring, a crystal glass for white wine and a service
plate edged in gold. A lone candle dipped and flickered in a tall silver
candlestick but there was nobody in the room. Presumably the chef had gone to
tell Waverley's butler that the master's dinner was almost ready. Not the
snapper, the veal, and without the sauce.
Randolph and Wanda negotiated the dining room, making sure to leave the door
behind them open an inch, the way they had found it. Then they went through to
the main hallway, the only part of the house Randolph so far remembered from
his previous visits. It was in darkness except for a huge chandelier that hung
from the main ceiling, its electric candles turned down to a glimmer. There
was a strong smell of lavender floor polish, and an electric floor polisher
stood on the opposite side of the hallway close to the sitting-room doors. But
there was nobody around - at least not for the moment - and Randolph and Wanda
were able to make their way to the foot of the stairs undetected.
'We'll search the house from the top down,' Randolph whispered, looking around
anxiously. 'Keep an eye out for locked doors.'
'Suppose we find one?' Wanda asked.
'Then we tap on it and see who's inside.'
'Isn't that dangerous?'
'Of course it's dangerous. Just coming here is dangerous. But if anybody
answers - anybody who isn't Michael - all you have to say is something like,
"Sorry, maid," and get the hell out. Just remember that Waverley has a
major-domo, a butler and a valet, and maybe ten full-time ladies who don't do
anything but clean the place. Even he won't
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know if you're a maid or not unless he gets to take a look at you.'
Wanda took Randolph's hand. 'Randolph, I'm scared. Could we call it a night?'
'Come on,' Randolph chided. 'We're here. We have to give it our best shot.'
She glanced up the dark, forbidding staircase. 'All right,' she said at last.
They climbed the stairs side by side until they reached the second-floor
landing. There were huge Persian carpets hanging on either wall, and
sculptures of women and strange beasts. The upstairs corridor extended
directly in front of them, unlit except for a double wall lamp at the far end,
which was almost a hundred and fifty yards away. The length of the corridor
was carpeted in patterned Stark rugs, and that isolated wall lamp gleamed on
what looked like an endless succession of polished brass handles.
'You take the left side, I'll take the right,' Randolph said.
Slowly, pausing every now and again to listen, they progressed down the
corridor, grasping each door handle, holding their breath and then turning it.
If the door could be eased open, they would quietly close it again. If it was
locked  and almost a third of them were - they would rest their heads against
the white-painted panels and call softly, 'Michael? Are you in there?
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Michael?'
They were two-thirds of the way up the corridor when Randolph thought he heard [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]