Walking Into the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

the sky over the ocean and flashed on the black limousine as it crawled up the winding drive.
    Reaching into his pocket, he fetched the guest list and peered at it. He reckoned he could guess who was arriving—friends of Miss Davies from Los Angeles, Miss Bette Davis with a director and two other actresses.
    “They must have been held up on the way,” he said to himself.
    Without waiting any longer he turned on his heels and continued his patrol of the buildings.
    In the orchard nearest the main building a long trestle table had been set up in a quiet clearing. Pergolas led to the clearing, lined with lamps and torches which would be lit once darkness fell. By the swimming pool a tent was being erected, white with a blue ceiling studded with stars. Wax statues of violin players and a priest with a mouth organ stood side by side outside the tent. Kristjan wiped some bird droppings off the priest’s shoulder. He thought he seemed oddly out of place.
    He noticed the apple on the table as soon as he looked into the tent. Reacting quickly, he asked someone to fetch the chef and his assistant to repair the table ornaments, ordering two waiters to bring a new cloth. He impressed upon them the importance of keeping their eyes open.
    “You’re lucky it was me and not the Chief who noticed this,” he told them.
    In the kitchen, quails, ducks, and pheasants turned on spits over hot coals while outside men were shoveling bundles of wood into a stone-built oven and preparing buffalo joints for roasting. The wood had begun to smoke. Kristjan’s gaze inadvertently followed the smoke as it curled out into the quiet afternoon, then he got a grip on himself and continued his patrol before his thoughts could follow it and lose themselves yet again in the stillness.
    There was a sweet smell in the air. In the morning two kitchen maids had gone down the hill to pick fruit from the orchard— pineapples and pears, oranges, bananas, and nuts. They had washed the fruit, placed them in rows on trays, and arranged them meticulously in numerous bowls. Kristjan paused in the kitchen to check that they had performed their task properly, before reminding the stand-in chef yet again that the Chief liked his meat rare.
    An hour later the guests were gathered in the Assembly Room. Kristjan alerted the Chief and Miss Davies when everyone was present. They took the elevator together from their adjoining bedrooms and entered through the concealed door in the paneled wall, like gods, with a calm, distant look in their eyes. They stood motionless side by side until their guests became aware of them. A murmur passed through the crowd, then voices were lowered, people looked up from their chessboards or jigsaw puzzles; those who were visiting for the first time glanced around in the hope of picking up clues on how to behave. But there was no need for guidance because after a few seconds Miss Davies came to life like a wax doll touched by a magic wand. Her face broadened in a smile as she released the Chief’s hand and vanished into the crowd that welcomed her with hugs and kisses. David Niven, dressed as a pickpocket. Bette Davis with a beard. Carole Lombard in a Tyrolean outfit. These were her friends and they adored her.
    The Chief, meanwhile, turned aside to check his messages on the Teletype machine.
    Kristjan thought Hearst didn’t seem right that evening. There had been no warning earlier in the day but now he saw that something was wrong. He was sure it wasn’t business that worried him, because the Chief never let it show when times were tough. “Miss Davies,” he muttered to himself, and determined to keep a close eye on her during the evening.
    He noticed that a guest at the other side of the room looked rather the worse for wear and nudged one of the footmen, indicating that he was not to fill the man’s glass again. According to the Chief’s rules, the guests were not permitted more than two glasses of spirits before dinner or three