Death in Berlin by M. M. Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

water and read a book.
    Almost on the heels of the thought she remembered that she had not got a book: she had lent it to Stella, and Sally Page had borrowed her only magazine during the afternoon and had failed to return it. Worse still, she had no drinking water, having upset the carafe while cleaning her teeth.
    ‘Damn!’ said Miranda, speaking aloud into the darkness.
    She thought she heard someone pass down the corridor, and on a sudden impulse wriggled down to the other end of her berth, and groping for the handle of the door, turned it and pulled the door open. If the elderly and kindly faced sleeping-car attendant was patrolling the corridor to see if all was well with the passengers, he could probably get her a glass of water - or better still, a hot drink.
    Miranda thrust her feet into her bedroom slippers and reached for her dressinggown and having tied the sash round her slim waist, stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her. The attendant - if it had been him - had vanished, and the corridor stretched emptily away on either hand, bounded on the one side by a long line of closed doors and on the other by a blank wall of black windowblinds.
    It was colder out here than it had been in her compartment. The train rocked and jiggled to the click and clatter of the flying wheels, but the corridor seemed uncannily silent, and for a fleeting moment Miranda had the disturbing fancy that behind every closed door there was someone who stood quite still, holding their breath to listen.
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    She shivered suddenly, and pulling the warm velvet folds of her dressinggown closer about her throat, marched briskly off in search of the attendant.
    The Dienstraum, the small cabin occupied by the sleeping-car attendant, was empty, and the lavatory beyond it boasted no drinking water. Miranda gave it up and decided to return to her own compartment: there was sure to be a bell there and it was stupid of her not to have thought of that before. Nevertheless she lingered by the open door of the attendant’s brightly lit room, half hoping that he might return, and seized by an inexplicable reluctance to return down that long, cold, empty stretch of corridor.
    What is the matter with me tonight? thought Miranda impatiently. Why do I keep imagining things? She would never have suspected herself of being a person subject to nerves or delusions, or even especially receptive to atmosphere; but even here, in a deserted corridor of the Berlin train, with a dozen people sleeping peacefully near at hand and twenty or thirty British troops not two coaches distant, she was conscious of a queer tremor of uneasiness: a prickling of the scalp as though unseen eyes were watching her, and a nervous desire to look over her shoulder.
    Succumbing to that impulse, Miranda glanced quickly over her shoulder and started violently. But it was only the reflection of her own face in a looking-glass in the attendant’s compartment that had startled her, and not someone standing behind her. Feeling exceedingly foolish and more than a little cross, and with her heart still beating uncomfortably fast, Miranda turned and walked rapidly back along the corridor.
    The door of her compartment was ajar, and she pushed it quickly open and went in. It seemed very dark in there after the comparative brightness outside, and she groped for the electric light switch, but could not find it. Well, it did not matter, for she had lost all desire for a drink and could get back to bed quite easily in the dark.
    The train rocked round a curve and Miranda’s foot slipped
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    suddenly, and she stumbled and flung out a hand to feel for the edge of her berth.
    But the berth appeared to be further from the door than she had imagined, and moving forward, she hit herself sharply against something hard and unyielding. Catching at the edge of it she discovered with surprise that it was one of the fitted basins with which each of the compartments was provided. But