‘M’m … this is what I call good home cooking,’ said Johnny, wrinkling his nose appreciatively, thereby making Mrs Todd his friend for life. ‘I just can’t wait to get started.’
When Mrs Todd had disappeared, he said, ‘You’ve certainly got a treasure out there. I didn’t think there were any like that left nowadays.’
‘What about your Mr Winwood?’ she smiled.
‘Oh, Winwood’s all right, I guess.’
‘We’d better not introduce them,’ said Verity, ‘or they might marry and leave us in the lurch.’
‘In that case, we’d just have to look after each other. And that might not be such a bad idea,’ concluded Johnny with a speculative gleam in his eye. Hastily, she changed the subject and asked if there was any more news of the Brighton robbery.
Mrs Todd had brought in the coffee and left them sitting in the comfortable arm-chairs when she suddenly returned carrying a flat parcel.
‘It’s my memory again, miss,’ she apologized, in an abject tone. ‘It came while ye were out yesterday and I put it at the back of my sideboard and forgot all about it. I hope it’s nothing urgent.’
Verity took the parcel and turned it over. There was no stamp or indication as to who had sent it.
‘Wasn’t there any message, Mrs Todd?’ she asked.
‘No, dear. One of them cheeky little errand boys brought it. He just said it was for you and ran off before I could get in a word. Isn’t it somethin’ ye’ve ordered, miss?’
Verity wrinkled her forehead.
‘I can’t recall asking for anything to be delivered.’
‘You didn’t sign for it, Mrs Todd?’ asked Johnny.
‘No, sir. The little devil was away before I could even turn round.’
‘Maybe it’s a present from an unknown admirer,’ suggested Johnny lightly.
‘Drink your coffee while I open it,’ she said, dismissing Mrs Todd, who was obviously a little disappointed.
She produced a pair of scissors and snipped the string round the parcel, unfolding the paper and produced a very ordinary ten-inch record made by a well-known company. She looked inside the cover and searched through the outside paper, but there was no sign of any message.
‘This is all very mysterious,’ she said.
‘Maybe some unknown admirer—too shy to put a note inside,’ he suggested, sipping his coffee. Verity looked across at him.
‘Johnny—it wasn’t you, was it?’ she asked.
He shook his head somewhat wistfully.
‘No, Verity, I’m sorry to say it wasn’t. I never seem to get any good ideas like that when I should.’
More intrigued than ever, she took the record from its cover and examined it.
‘It’s come from someone who knows me pretty well,’ she decided. ‘This is my favourite piano piece—Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” It’s the very latest recording, too, by that new Hungarian pianist.’
‘Maybe someone at the office,’ suggested Johnny vaguely, ‘or even one of your readers.’
‘Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m simply dying to hear it—I’ve already worn out three records of this piece.’
‘Finish your coffee first,’ said Johnny quickly, as she moved towards the large radiogram that stood near the window. He couldn’t have told her why he suddenly felt anxious that she should not play the record immediately. However, she did as he suggested, returned to her chair and began to drink her coffee. When he had finished his own, Johnny set down his cup on a side table and walked over to the radiogram.
‘This is a pretty nice little job,’ he said admiringly. ‘Looks as if it’s a hand-made cabinet.’
‘Yes, it is. My brother gave it to me for a twenty-first birthday present,’ she replied, and there was just the barest perceptible catch in her voice.
Johnny walked round the radiogram, examining it from every angle, and was still doing so when she rose from her chair, opened the lid and slipped the record on the turn-table. She was just about to press the switch, when he caught her hand.
‘Wait a minute, honey,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling there’s a catch in this somewhere.’
‘A catch in it?’ she echoed. ‘But that’s just an ordinary record—what possible harm can there be—’
Nevertheless, he took her arm and gently pushed her back into her chair.
‘Looks to me like we’re walking right into something with our chins stuck out,’ he mused. ‘Whoever sent you this was sure you’d rush to put it on the gramophone so as to hear this wonderful new pianist …’ He picked up the record and looked at it closely.
‘This seems to be the genuine article all right; there’s nothing sinister about it …’ He put it back on the turn-table. Then he took a magnifying glass from his waistcoat pocket and looked at the needle in the sound-box. As far as he could see, it was quite harmless.
‘That leaves the gramophone itself,’ he mused. ‘And whoever sent you that record obviously intended you to play it. By the way, is the radiogram in its usual position?’
She came over to him.
‘It has been moved a little farther from the wall, but Mrs Todd might easily have done that when she was dusting.’ She bent down and looked at the front of the cabinet.
‘This gauze in front of the speaker seems rather more loose than usual,’ she told him.
‘All right,’ he nodded. ‘Now you go and sit down over yonder, well out of harm’s way.’
Having checked the connections at the back of the set, and ascertained it was properly plugged in to the power supply, he turned the knob which switched it on and waited for some seconds until he heard a gentle hum. Then, standing well to the side of the cabinet, he lifted the tone arm and swung it over to the turn-table.
As he did so, there was a loud report and the tone arm jumped out of his hand to grind noisily across the record. A wisp of acrid smoke slowly filtered through the gauze in front of the speaker.
‘Johnny!’ exclaimed Verity starting from her chair. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sure, I’m all right.’ He walked across the room and noted that a bullet had chipped the top of a picture frame and buried itself in the wall. It had obviously had an upward trajectory from a revolver somewhere down inside the speaker, and had been fired by the movement of the tone arm.
‘Lucky I wasn’t standing right in front there, as you would have done if I’d let you start that record,’ he told her. The girl shuddered.
‘Thank goodness you were here,’ she said.
He borrowed a screwdriver and removed a section of the radiogram, to reveal the revolver neatly clamped in position and connected to the tone arm by an ingenious spring device.
He whistled softly to himself as he worked, then said presently: ‘I don’t want to scare you, Verity, but we’ve got to be pretty careful from now on. This is a warning in more ways than one.’
She nodded understandingly.
‘You mean,’ she whispered, ‘that Grey Moose knows my real name?’
CHAPTER XIV
A STRAIGHT TIP
WITH a hand that shook slightly, Doctor Randall depressed the lever of the siphon for a fraction of a second to send the suspicion of a splash of soda into his half-filled tumbler of whisky. By the time he had returned to his arm-chair he had already taken two large gulps. The doctor was plainly ill at ease.
He settled in his chair and lighted one of the black cheroots to which he was addicted, but even this did not seem to soothe his nerves. Ever since he had received a mysterious telephone call to inform him that the police had picked up Slim Copley, he had been irritable and on edge. This was the first time the Yard had managed to bring in one of the gang alive, and it had him slightly rattled. The mysterious caller had ordered Shelagh to meet him in the entrance to Charing Cross Underground station at 11 a.m., so she had taken her car and left for Town just after ten. Since then, he had heard nothing.
Though he had combed the Sunday newspaper reports of the Brighton affair, the
re had been no more reference to Slim than the brief intimation that ‘a man was detained at Purley police station late last night’.
It was nearly two o’clock when there was a sound of hastily applied brakes outside, and presently Shelagh came in. She was obviously not in the best of tempers, peeling off her gloves and throwing them on the settee with an impatient gesture.
‘For God’s sake give me a drink!’ she snapped, and he hastened to obey. While he poured it out, she went on:
‘Has he telephoned?’
‘Who?’ he asked in some bewilderment.
‘The chief, of course.’
He shook his head.
‘I thought you went to Town specially to see him.’
She drank nearly half the contents of her glass before replying.
‘I only know I walked round that blasted Underground station for over two hours,’ she replied. ‘There wasn’t a sign of him.’
Randall looked more worried than ever.
‘Then you haven’t heard anything more about Slim?’ he queried anxiously.
‘Not a word,’ she shrugged. ‘They’re still holding him as far as I know.’ Randall emptied his own glass.
‘I hope to God he doesn’t talk,’ he said, with a troubled frown. ‘I always said he was told a damn sight too much.’
‘He had to be told a certain amount,’ she retorted.
‘There was no need for the chief to let him know who he was.’
She went across to the sideboard and got another drink.
‘It’s too late to go into that now. Whether he talks or not, he’ll be taken care of. You can rely on the chief for that at any rate.’
At that moment the door opened and Cosh Wilcox came in. His cherubic features were less cheerful than usual; it was obvious that he, too, was somewhat worried.
‘Any news?’ he demanded hoarsely.
‘No,’ replied Randall abruptly. ‘And I’ve told you not to come here in broad daylight. We don’t want to attract any more attention than we can help, with those plain-clothes men still hanging about the village.’
‘I come the back way,’ said Cosh. ‘Not a soul set eyes on me. This place is quiet as the grave on a Sunday—fair gives me the jitters. Mind if I have a drink?’
‘Help yourself,’ said Randall shortly.
Cosh poured himself a generous measure of rum.
‘You got the stuff out all right?’ he asked Shelagh.
‘As far as I know,’ she replied somewhat distantly. ‘It went off right on schedule.’
Cosh heaved a sigh of relief.
‘That’s all right then. If only that damn fool Slim hadn’t let them get him, this job would have been plain sailing right from start to finish. As sweet a little job as ever I was mixed up in.’ He fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette and lit it.
‘Doc,’ he went on cautiously, ‘d’you think Slim will tell ’em anything?’
‘Oh, shut up!’ snapped Shelagh, whose nerves were plainly on edge. Cosh looked from one to the other apprehensively.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘There’s nothing gone wrong, has there?’
‘We don’t know—we haven’t heard anything,’ replied Randall. Cosh immediately began to look troubled again.
‘Supposin’ … supposin’ they get it out of ’im who Grey Moose is,’ he breathed. ‘I reckon that’d just about bust the whole set-up. They’d hunt us down like rats in a hole—’
‘Will you be quiet!’ cried Shelagh, her eyes blazing. ‘They’ll never get the chief … never!’
‘Maybe not,’ sniffed Cosh. ‘I dare say ’e’s got ’is plans made for doing a bunk—we ain’t all of us as lucky.’
‘Oh, pull yourselves together,’ said Randall abruptly. ‘Things aren’t as bad as that yet by a long way. Whatever they get out of Slim, they’ll only have his word for it. They’ll never get any real proof.’
This seemed to cheer Cosh up a little.
‘Yes, and what’s more they won’t find it easy to make Slim talk,’ he went on. ‘That boy knows how to keep his mouth shut.’
He was about to enlarge on this when the telephone rang.
‘I’ll take it in the study,’ said Shelagh quickly, going out of the room.
‘That’ll be him I reckon,’ nodded Cosh. ‘And about time, too, if you ask me.’
‘Nobody is asking you anything at the moment,’ said the doctor restlessly. ‘Better have another drink and say as little as possible.’
So the two men lapsed into a moody silence that was unbroken for nearly five minutes until the door handle turned and Shelagh came back. For perhaps five seconds they looked at her without speaking. Then she said quietly:
‘That was the chief.’
‘Well?’ asked Randall, moistening his lips.
‘Slim Copley’s dead,’ she announced in what was almost a casual tone.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Randall. ‘How did it happen?’
She shrugged her elegant shoulders.
‘He was just about to talk … but Grey Moose got him in time.’
‘Was that why he didn’t meet you?’ inquired Randall.
‘He didn’t say. There were so many other things to discuss.’
‘Such as?’
She went over and sat in a straight-backed chair beside the table.
‘Cosh, have you ever heard of Trevelyans, the jewellers just off Bond Street?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course I have. I was in a smash-and-grab job there about five years ago. Proper swindle it was—the ruddy commissionaire got in the way and we had to make a run for it empty-’anded.’
‘Well, this time, there won’t be any slip-ups like that,’ she assured him.
‘You mean the chief’s planning a new job already?’ Randall inquired.
‘Yes, and you’ll never guess where the tip came from.’
‘Where?’
‘Duke Leroy got it from our old friend Mr Washington. On the phone. Of course, he gave the wire to the chief the minute he heard.’
‘Is it something special then?’ asked Randall.
‘I’ll say it is. Lord Brailsham’s family estate are putting the Brailsham Diamond on the market at last—and it’ll be on view at Trevelyans!’
Cosh whistled softly to himself.
‘That’ll be worth a packet! Best part of twenty thousand I shouldn’t wonder.’ He paused for a moment, then said:
‘How the ’ell does Washington get to ’ear these things?’
‘You know Johnny,’ said Shelagh. ‘He’s got his nose in everybody’s business. Leroy says he’s after that diamond and the chief has other plans.’
Randall looked up suspiciously.
‘Are you quite sure of this?’
‘The chief was in no doubt about it on the phone.’
Randall seemed frankly incredulous. ‘After all we’ve heard about Johnny Washington—’
‘It’s that girl,’ put in Shelagh curtly. ‘He’s fallen for her. He needs more money to create an impression.’
‘More likely it’s those blasted cards I ’ave to leave around,’ snorted Cosh. ‘I always said that was a ruddy silly idea.’ Shelagh swung round on him.
‘You’re paid damn well to do as you’re told,’ she snapped. ‘You haven’t done so badly out of it so far.’
Muttering to himself, Cosh went over to the sideboard and poured himself another drink.
‘The chief is quite certain about Washington and this girl?’ asked Randall.
‘Of course.’
‘Then why is he acting on his tip?’
‘The chief is more than a match for Johnny Washington, whatever he may be up to,’ retorted Shelagh. ‘Besides, the tip was to Duke Leroy.’
‘I see. Anything else?’
‘Yes, the chief sent a special message to you. He says Johnny Washington has got to be taken care of. Can you handle it?’
Randall laughed mirthlessly.
‘Leave Mr Washington to me.’
C
HAPTER XV
AN INFORMAL VISIT
STANDING just round the corner from Bond Street, the old-fashioned family firm of Trevelyans specialized in antique jewellery. They had their own exclusive clientele, and bought up the heirlooms of many an impoverished county family.
Jonathan Trevelyan was a keen business man, but he appreciated the policy of paying a fair price that left him a reasonable profit and a satisfied customer who would recommend him to other profitable clients.
Eric did not approve of all his father’s ultra-scrupulous transactions, nor indeed of some of his cautious business methods. He often complained that a shop of their repute should have a turnover of at least three times its present figure, but the old man would rebuke him sharply and tell him that all too few people left in the world concentrated upon quality nowadays, and Trevelyans had a duty towards their blue-blooded customers which must never be allowed to take second place to any get-rich-quick policy.
On the Thursday after the Brighton robbery, Eric rang up Johnny Washington just before lunch and said: ‘About that little matter … could we meet some time fairly soon?’
‘O.K.—see you this evening,’ replied Johnny promptly. ‘Not at the shop, though. Is there anywhere near we can talk?’
‘There’s my club—’
‘No use—I want to bring a girl friend along, if you’ve no objection.’
‘None at all. I’ll see you at the Vine—it’s the little pub in the next turning to ours, as you come from Piccadilly.’
‘I’ll find it,’ promised Johnny. ‘Six o’clock be O.K.?’
‘That’ll do nicely.’
Johnny replaced his receiver, then picked it up again to telephone Verity’s office. She had not seen him for three days, but he had been telephoning her twice a day during the week to make sure she was all right.
He arranged to call for her at the office that evening and was waiting in the main hall promptly at five-thirty. A taxi dropped them outside the Vine just after six o’clock, and they found Eric Trevelyan lounging against the bar counter in the lounge. Noting with some satisfaction that the room was otherwise empty, apart from the barman, Johnny quickly introduced Verity and Eric, and they carried their drinks over to a distant corner.
Beware of Johnny Washington Page 13
