Felix leaned on her arm and she helped him through the outer office and into the lift. He sat down as they descended, his head bent.
Karina tried to feel sorry for him, at the same time she wished that he was well enough so that she could face him with the news that she had seen Uncle Simon. But it was not a moment for recriminations or conversation.
In silence she helped him out of the lift, called to the doorman to hail a taxi and waited until he was safely in it.
She heard him give the address and she waved as he went away.
‘I really could not say anything when he was ill,’ she excused herself.
She went back upstairs and only when she reached her own office did she remember that she had not locked the safe.
She hurried through the door and saw that the two notebooks were lying on the desk where she had left them. She went to the safe, but the door was shut to and she was just about to turn the lock when she remembered that she had put the papers back in a hurry and wondered if they were untidy.
She opened the door again.
For a moment she thought that she must be dreaming.
Then she knew all too clearly what had happened.
The papers marked ‘Holdings’ had gone!
For some moments she stood staring, believing that by some miracle she could have inadvertently put them at the bottom of the pile of papers. But she knew all the time that it was only wishful thinking.
Slowly in her mind she went over exactly what had happened, Cousin Felix coming in through the door, the papers marked ‘Holdings’ in her hand, the way she had put them hastily into the safe, turning her back on him, the way he had lurched into her causing her to stagger, pulled at his tie and gasped out his cry for water!
It was all too obvious. The whole thing had been an act.
She closed the safe door, locked it and tore into small pieces the instructions Miss Weston had given her for opening it.
Then, picking up the notebooks, she went into her own office. She put on her coat and hat and, before going outside, called the senior clerk and handed him the notebooks.
“Miss Weston says will you please post these immediately to Mr. Holt?” she said. “She is unable to come today as she is ill. I have to go out. It’s rather important. If she happens to ring and ask for me, will you say that I shall be back shortly.”
“Very good, Miss Burke,” the clerk answered. “I will send these at once.”
“Thank you,” Karina said.
She tried to smile but felt that her face was too stiff to permit movement of any sort. She hurried to the lift, willing it to go faster and yet faster so that she could reach the street in record time.
She called the commissionaire to find her a taxi. When he had one, she jumped in, gave Cousin Felix’s address and said to the driver,
“Go as quickly as you can. Hurry, please, hurry!”
“It isn’t going to be easy in this traffic,” the taxi man replied. “Not unless you can turn the cab into a helicopter!”
He laughed at his own joke and Karina lay back against the seat with her eyes closed.
She had to stop Felix, she thought – somehow, in some way, she had to stop him from using the information he had stolen from the safe.
She tried to imagine what use he could make of Garland’s list of holdings. She was very vague about financial deals, but she could imagine that Garland had competitors who would like to know how many shares he held in different companies so that they could out-vote or even out-bid him.
Yet it seemed preposterous that Felix could think of competing in the world of finance of which Garland was one of the big figures.
She could not understand it and yet she knew that in stealing that list Felix was in some way a deadly threat to Garland’s interests.
The taxi seemed to go into one traffic jam after another.
‘Hurry! Hurry!’ she prayed.
If only she could be there in time, if only she could stop Felix from using the information that he had stolen from her by such perfidious methods.
She hated him, she thought. How could she ever have trusted him for a moment?
And yet she knew that when he had come to Letchfield Park he had seemed to her, in her misery and fear, a Knight in shining armour.
The traffic in the West End seemed even worse than it had been in the City. They crawled down Piccadilly and at last turned into the side streets of Mayfair. She had the money ready in her hand when the taxi drew up outside the imposing block where Felix had his flat.
She jumped out, paid the man and ran up the steps.
“Is Mr. Mainwaring in?” she asked the porter.
“He came in about five minutes ago, miss,” the porter replied, smiling. He knew her by sight and she had already learned that he was a friend of Carter’s.
Karina ran towards the lift.
“You’ll find the door open, miss,” the porter called after her. “Mr. Carter’s just stepped out to buy somethin’ and he told me he had left the door ajar because he’s expectin’ the coalman.”
“Thank you,” Karina managed to say as the lift shot upwards towards the fifth floor.
She stepped out, shutting the lift doors behind her, and went towards the smart red door with its polished brass plate, which was the entrance to Felix’s flat.
Only now did she pause and feel a sudden shyness, or was it fear, at facing Felix and accusing him of what he had done.
She was conscious that her fingers were cold and that her heart was beating quickly as she pushed open the door and stood for a moment in the faint gloom of the incense-scented hall.
It was then that she heard Felix’s voice.
He was in the sitting room and the door was ajar.
“Finally, twenty thousand shares in Moores and Pethering,” he was saying. “That’s rather what we thought, isn’t it?”
The person at the other end of the line must have replied and Felix went on,
“Well, it’s not too bad and, if you start buying first thing Monday morning, no one should suspect anything until Wednesday at least. He is in India, so they will have trouble in getting hold of him. You can catch a plane from Zurich tomorrow and I will meet you at the airport. It could not have worked out better, could it?”
There was a pause and then Felix chuckled.
“Yes,” he said. “I can congratulate myself on being pretty astute over this. Everything went according to plan.”
Again there was a long communication from the other end and then he said,
“The secretary? Oh, I disposed of her quite cleverly, the chocolates from that man you suggested. She will be well again in a few days. She is not likely to have them analysed, people never do.”
The man on the other end of the line had a great deal to say before Felix continued,
“One minute, Eric! I have a list of those in my safe. Hold on and I will fetch it for you.”
Karina suddenly awoke to the fact that he might be coming out and would see her. She turned quickly and went through a door on her left.
She realised as she did so that she was in Felix’s bedroom and looked round wildly for somewhere to hide.
She saw another door that obviously led into the bathroom and sped across the room. She had just reached it and pulled it shut behind her when she heard Felix come into the room.
“Are you there, Carter?” he said as if he sensed that there was someone about.
Karina held her breath. She heard Felix moving about. She heard various clicks, which she recognised as the lock of a safe.
Then she heard him go out again and his voice coming faintly from the sitting room. She opened the bathroom door.
“I have them,” she heard him say. “Shall I read them out to you?”
She moved cautiously into the bedroom. Beside the mantelpiece a picture had been swung back from the wall and behind it was a safe. It was open and it also contained papers rather as Garland Holt’s had done.
Karina glanced at them casual
ly and then stood suddenly still as if turned to stone.
Above the papers on another shelf, standing shining and twinkling in the light from the window, was the pink quartz elephant that Garland had called his luck!
For what seemed to her an eternity she stared at it.
From the other room Felix was still talking.
Then, acting on an impulse quicker and stronger than thought, Karina ran across the bedroom floor, put her hand into the safe and drew out the pink elephant.
Just for a moment she felt it cold and heavy in her hand before she cradled it against her breast under her coat. Then, slipping out of the bedroom and through the hall, she reached the landing and rang for the lift.
It came up to her with a clang and she flung open the gates.
It was now speeding down!
A few minutes later, breathless, her eyes wide in her white face, Karina found herself standing at the corner of the street clutching under her coat a pink quartz and jewelled elephant worth ten thousand pounds and wondering wildly what she should do next!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For some moments Karina stood on the pavement staring blindly at the traffic, trying to think what to do or where she should go. And then she saw a telephone box on the other side of the road.
She crossed to it and closed the door behind her.
It took her some time to thumb through the pages of the directory and find the name of the firm Jim worked for, but at last she found it and, picking up the receiver, was just about to dial the number when across the other side of the road, through the traffic, she saw Felix.
Instinctively she shrank against the wall of the telephone box, watching him looking up and down the road, first one way and then the other.
He was hatless and she realised at once that he was looking for her.
Then, as the traffic cleared for a moment, she saw the expression on his face.
He looked almost like a man possessed of the devil.
She felt herself shrink and shiver, but she could do nothing but hold the buzzing telephone to her ear, standing there feeling the pink elephant hard against her breast and knowing, with a feeling of sick horror, that she was being hunted like an animal.
For the first time she realised what she was up against. This was no joke, no amusing incident, to the man she had just tricked out of his evil spoils.
It was something far more dangerous and desperate than that.
Felix moved away a little up the street to look down another turning. Now he had his back to her, but still she could feel, even at this distance, the anger and the evil of him.
He turned again and now she felt as if the very fact that she was looking at him must draw his attention to her.
She turned her back with an effort that was almost like a physical pain.
It was agony to stand there, not knowing what he was doing and not knowing if he might not be advancing towards her. And to stand trembling, still with the buzzing receiver to her ear, to wait and wonder what would happen if he found her.
She thought how precarious her position was. If she disappeared, who would know or care? She was so small, so ineffectual. Felix was strong and utterly ruthless.
It seemed to her that she must have stood with her back to the road for an eternity before she peeped over her shoulder, scanning the whole street, both to the right and to the left.
Felix had gone!
But he would not have given up the search, she was certain of that. She could not go back to her lodgings and she could not return to the office.
With shaking fingers she dialled Jim’s number again.
It was answered immediately, but it took a long time for them to find him and the minutes seemed to tick by almost like hours.
“Hello!”
It was his voice at last.
“Jim! It’s Karina!”
“Don’t say you are going to put me off for lunch,” he said, “because I will not stand for it.”
“No, no, I am not going to put you off,” Karina said. “But something terrible has happened. Jim, I am in trouble. Please help me.”
“Of course I will help you,” he answered soothingly. “What has happened?”
“I cannot tell you on the telephone. Let me meet you somewhere – anywhere. I will take a taxi.”
He did not waste time in asking her again what was the matter.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At the corner of Curzon Street,” she answered.
“Then tell the taxi to take you to Leicester Square Tube Station,” he said. “It’s about halfway between us and I will be there at the same time as you.”
“Thank you, Jim! Thank you!”
Karina’s voice broke on the relief that his words brought her.
“Cheer up,” she heard him say. “There is nothing so bad that it cannot be mended.”
She put down the receiver and, after looking once again up and down the street, she stepped out of the telephone box and ran as fast as her feet could carry her into Park Lane.
There were plenty of taxis and she hailed one within a few seconds.
“Leicester Square Tube Station,” she said and, getting into the taxi, sank back in the corner.
She was frightened even to look out of the window in case Felix, by some wild coincidence, should be passing by in his car or walking down the pavement.
‘What would he do to me?’ she asked herself and was afraid to formulate an answer.
There was a traffic jam in Piccadilly and it took nearly twenty minutes to reach Leicester Square Tube Station. But to Karina’s relief, as the taxi drew up, she could see Jim standing on the pavement, his bowler hat set at a jaunty angle on his head, his rolled umbrella in his hand.
He looked ridiculously and reliably English and she felt as if all her ideas of being pursued and persecuted were just nonsense, things that did not happen outside a green-backed thriller.
She waved and Jim stepped up to the taxi and opened the door.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Anywhere,” Karina answered. “But I must not be seen. Somewhere where no one will recognise us.”
Jim gave the taxi driver an address and climbed in beside her.
“What has happened?” he asked expectantly.
In answer Karina drew the pink elephant out from beneath her coat and held it out to him.
Jim looked at it and gave a low whistle of surprise.
“Garland’s luck!” he exclaimed. “Where did you find it?”
“I – stole it,” Karina told him.
Jim’s eyes widened.
“From Garland?”
“No, no, of course not,” Karina replied, almost laughing at the idea that he should imagine she had been the original thief. “No, from the man who must have helped steal it in the first place.”
“Who?”
Karina took a deep breath.
“Cousin Felix.”
Jim whistled again and then he said,
“Does he know that you have it?”
Karina nodded.
“Then I understand why you don’t want to be seen,” Jim said. “Had you not better tell me all about it from the beginning?”
The taxi came to a standstill as he spoke and Karina looked out to see that they had stopped outside the National Gallery.
She looked at Jim in surprise, but he smiled at her.
“The best place to hide I know,” he said. “You never find anyone here but students and artists.”
He paid the taxi and, taking her arm, helped her up the steps.
Hastily she put the pink elephant under her coat again and they entered one of the long galleries and sat down on a seat. As Jim had said, there was no one about except a woman sketching at the far end of the gallery and a few rather scruffy-looking students with long hair and duffel coats.
“Tell me what it’s all about,” Jim urged her.
Karina looked over her shoulder instinctively and he put ou
t his hand and took hers.
“It’s all right,” he said comfortingly. “You are safe here, I promise you. I will not let anybody hurt you.”
Karina tried to smile, but her lips were trembling.
She was beginning now to feel the reaction from all that she had been through.
“It’s all right,” Jim said again. “Just start from the beginning.”
She told him then exactly what had happened the day before when Felix had taken her out to lunch and made her repeat to him the names of the people who Garland had made appointments with for the following week.
“I suppose I ought to have refused,” she said miserably.
“Nonsense!” Jim asserted. “You could not do anything else in the position you were in but tell him. Go on. Why would you not dine with me last night?”
She felt her face flush and was suddenly conscious that he was holding her hand very tightly.
“I-I had a headache,” she said, unable to meet his eyes.
Jim watched her without saying anything, but she knew that he was not satisfied with her explanation.
“It was better this morning,” Karina went on. “I rose early and arrived at the office– almost before anyone else.”
She told him about the cable from Garland, how Miss Weston had rung up and how ill she was, having been sick all night.
“It was Cousin Felix who was responsible for that. I heard him say on the telephone that the chocolates he had given her were responsible.”
“The sort of trick he would play!” Jim exclaimed.
“Of course, I did not know that at the time,” Karina went on.
Then she told him how she had the safe open when Felix came into the office.
“He must have timed it very cleverly,” Jim said. “But he knew that you would have been told the combination, so that even if you had closed it he would have forced you to open it again.”
“But how did he know that I would have to open it,” Karina enquired. “He could not have known – about the cable.”
“Of course he knew,” Jim replied. “He sent it himself.”
“And pretended it was from Garland?” Karina enquired.
“Naturally,” Jim answered. “I expect the man he is working for has a stooge or an agent in India. It would be quite easy to instruct him to send a cable in Garland’s name. Or, in all probability, you will find that the cable did not come from India at all, but from somewhere like Rome or Zurich. Miss Weston would never have suspected that it had not been sent by Garland on his way to India, she might have thought that perhaps the delivery had been delayed. Go on, finish your story.”
The Runaway Heart Page 17
