He led her through the opening in the counter, drew a chair forward near the roll top desk, and asked her to sit down.
‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ he declared, ‘but there is a bit of business I must attend to before we have our chat. Do you mind if I leave you for a moment? The inscription on a football cup which we are making has been changed, and I want to stop them before they cut the lettering.’
He went out through the door into the entry and she presently saw him pass the window at the back. After a short stare the clerk had resumed his occupation of transcribing entries into a book. His appearance comforted her strangely. It was impossible, she felt instinctively, that anyone as stupid looking as he could be a party to a plot. The sight through the window of the stream of passers-by and the sound of their feet on the pavement still further eased her mind. Reassured, she set herself with a growing and wholly delicious excitement to await Style’s return.
She was not impressed by the appearance of the office. It was positively filthy. The floor looked as if it hadn’t been swept for weeks and dust lay thick on the furniture and the calendars and pictures on the walls. Compared with the spick and span establishment at the cinema, with its typewriters, calculating machines, filing cabinets and busy air, this place seemed like a reversion to the conditions of a century earlier. Molly smiled as she contrasted this uncouth, almost imbecile looking youth, with his untidy clothes and his inkstained fingers, with the neatly dressed, efficient staff to which she was accustomed.
Presently there came the whistle of a speaking tube. The youth put down his pen and slowly shuffled across the room to just behind where Molly was sitting.
‘Yeh,’ he said. ‘Yeh. Two bob? Right.’
He plugged the speaking tube, and taking his cap, lounged slowly out into the street.
Then Style re-entered. He in his turn went to the speaking-tube.
‘Just a moment, Miss Moran, and I shall be at your service,’ he apologised as he picked it up. Then he began to speak. ‘Jenkins … Is that Jenkins? … Oh, Jenkins, I want you to get out that presentation shield that we did last month for Mr Hargreaves. I’ve sold it to Otway’s people, and all we have to do is to change the inscription. You might—’
The voice suddenly trailed away into silence, as a sickening blow crashed down on Molly’s head. She gasped, while momentary stars flashed before her eyes, then great waves of darkness seemed to rise up round her and she felt herself sinking down, down, down, into the blackness of unconsciousness.
Aeons of time passed, and then slowly sensation began to return to Molly Moran. First she realised only pain, indefinite but terrible pain. Then this seemed to localise in her head and to pass from there down through her whole body. Still she was in darkness, still a roaring sounded in her ears, but gradually she became conscious of movement. The place that she was in was shaking. At first she realised it only as something which added to her misery, but as she slowly regained her senses she realised where she was.
The sounds and the movement told her that she was in a motor car, travelling at a fair rate of speed. She was lying on the floor of the tonneau, entirely covered with a rug. This intelligence having sunk into her brain, experiment told the rest. Attempted movement showed her that her wrists and ankles were bound together and at the same time she found that she was securely gagged. Recollection of the scene in the silversmiths’ office then returned to her and she knew what had happened. She had been kidnapped by Style!
Cold terror took possession of her as she remembered the story French had told her of the fate of the three girls who had attempted to betray the gang to the police. Had Thurza Darke, she wondered, lain bound in the tonneau of this terrible car as it jolted her on towards her doom? And what had befallen her at the end of the journey? Was drowning painful? As Molly pictured what might have happened, a cold sweat of fear broke out on her. It was too ghastly even to think of. And yet before many hours, before many minutes perhaps … Almost she swooned away again as she lay trembling in sick horror, her mind numb and scarcely functioning.
But she was young and strong. Gradually the paralysing sharpness of the first shock passed. Whatever faults she had, cowardice was not one of them, and soon she was striving desperately to pull herself together and to put as brave a face on the situation as she could. Things in her case were not quite so hopeless as in that of poor Thurza Darke. French was looking after her and she would immediately be missed. He would trace her to the silversmiths’ and so learn what had happened. With the great organisation of the Yard behind him it could not be long until he found her. In fact he had evidently foreseen what might occur when he gave her his warning. Oh, that she had taken that warning!
But suppose he didn’t trace her in time? She shivered, though she strove resolutely to shut her mind to the suggestion. She was not dead yet. While there was life there was hope.
To divert her mind from these harrowing thoughts, she fixed her attention more deliberately on her surroundings. Could she learn anything as to her destination from the sounds she heard?
It was immediately clear to her that they were bowling along at a fair speed on an extremely good road, asphalted, she thought. But she was conscious also of a reduction in the sound. She wondered if this were due to meeting fewer vehicles, as if so, it would indicate that they were getting farther from London. As she was considering the point they slowed down, and turning, she believed to the right, passed at a slower speed over a road with a much worse surface. After a few minutes they stopped altogether and she heard movements as if her driver were performing some gymnastic feat in the front seat. Then he got out and walked round the car and she heard a sort of click behind it. A moment later he re-entered and again they drove off.
For what she judged at about ten minutes, they drove off slowly along the bad road, then a slack, a sounding of the horn, another turn and they were once more on the smooth surface of a main thoroughfare. A few minutes of this, a few minutes of another byroad, and after another slack and turn, the wheels grated on the gravel of a drive. It was evidently a short one, then they bumped over some kind of obstruction and came to rest on a smooth surface. A rolling sound followed by a clang gave the necessary hint. They had driven into a yard and the big entrance gate had been shut behind them.
Presently she heard muffled voices and the door of the tonneau was opened. Then she felt herself being lifted and carried, still rolled in the rug, into some building and upstairs. One, two, three—six flights they went up. A few steps more on the level and she was laid down on something soft. Immediately the rug and gag were taken off and her bonds loosed.
She found herself in a dingy, whitewashed attic, with slanting ceilings and a skylight. The lower walls were stained and dirty and the boarded floor looked as if it had not been washed for a year. The furniture consisted of the bed on which she was lying, a chair, a table, a wash basin and a jug on an old box, a fireplace with fender and fire-irons but no fire, and in a corner a pile of old, untidy books. Over her were bending Style and Gwen Lestrange. They watched her in silence and at the look in their eyes a paralysing fear again swept over her.
‘So you thought you could get off with it,’ Style said at last, and his voice was like the snarl of some vicious animal. ‘You thought you could play the traitor, speaking us fair and taking our money, and all the time spying on us and telling that cursed French what we were doing. You thought you could, did you?’
Molly was not prepared for this direct attack, but she countered as well as she could.
‘What do you mean? I didn’t tell anyone what you were doing. Sure, how could I when I didn’t know myself?’
Style shook his clenched fist in her face.
‘None of that, you traitor!’ he answered harshly. ‘You’ve made the mistake of your life! You thought you had us, but we have you. You’ve betrayed us to French, but French can’t help you now. You’re in our power and you’re going to pay.’
Molly felt his gaze almost as a physical
touch. It sapped her strength, but she clutched her courage with both hands.
‘I don’t know what you’re meaning. Who is French anyway?’
‘Liar!’ Style shouted savagely. ‘Do you think we’re fools? Do you think we act before we’re sure? Let me tell you you’ve been watched. When you were telling French about us on the seat in Charing Cross Gardens yesterday, our agent was reading the paper within twenty feet of you! He saw you offering to show French your vanity bag and French’s quick refusal. And we’ve watched you with him before. Fool!’ he glared at her, ‘to think that you could fool us!’
To Molly, his abuse seemed to act as a stimulant. She felt her courage coming back.
‘Ah,’ she retorted, ‘you’re a bit off the track, Mr Style. That was me uncle you saw me with. He often meets me and takes me out.’
Gwen Lestrange spoke for the first time.
‘Little fool!’ she said harshly. ‘Lies like that will only finish you up.’ But Style held up his hand.
‘Just tell us his name,’ he demanded with a suddenly ingratiating manner and a sly look on his narrow face.
His friendliness terrified Molly even more than his anger. She realised that she had made a mistake and tried to recover.
‘French,’ she admitted. ‘I see there’s no good trying to deceive you. And he is an inspector at Scotland Yard. But he’s me uncle for all that and he often takes me out and we’ve never discussed you or your affairs at all.’
Style made a furious gesture.
‘You—!’ He used a foul name. ‘Do you know what happens to liars and traitors? Did you ever hear of Smith and the brides of the bath—how he drowned his wives in a bath? Well, that’s what’ll happen to you. There’s a bath in the next room all ready for you. The water rises slowly, slowly, slowly; up to your mouth, up to your nose, over your head. French won’t help you then. Uncle indeed!’ He paused and gazed gloatingly down at the helpless girl.
‘He is me uncle,’ Molly persisted, but in spite of herself her voice faltered.
Again Style raved at her.
‘Look here,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll get one chance and one only. Tell us everything that passed between you and French and we’ll let you go.’ He lowered his voice and spoke almost in persuasive tones. ‘Make a clean breast of the whole thing and we’ll put you in the car and drive you to some deserted place from which you can make your way home. You’d like to be back in London, wouldn’t you?’
He paused expectantly, but Molly did not answer.
‘I’m sure you’d like to be free and home again. Well, tell us everything and you’ll be there in a couple of hours. Hold back the least fact and you’ll never see London again. No power in heaven or earth can save you. Tell me,’ he bent forward again and stared fixedly at her with his sinister eyes till she felt all the strength draining out of her, ‘tell me, did you ever hear of a young lady named Thurza Darke? Ah, I see you did. And none but French could have told you. You fool, to give that away! Well,’ his look became indescribably evil, ‘Thurza Darke wouldn’t tell either, and she went and lay in the bath while the water slowly rose … We had to stop her screams lest they should be heard outside the house. Then after a long time the water rose above her mouth and she didn’t scream anymore … That’s what’ll happen to you. It’s just next door.’ He motioned with his hand.
Molly couldn’t speak. She felt too sick with horror. She lay gazing up at that narrow face with its evil, staring eyes and its expression of almost maniac hate. Presently Style went on:
‘Perhaps you don’t believe me? I tell you there were more than Thurza Darke. You never heard of Eileen Tucker, did you? Nor of Agatha Frinton? You don’t know what happened to them? Well, you soon will.’ He pushed forward his face till Molly could scarcely refrain from screaming. ‘They went to the bath, and afterwards their bodies were found in rivers and quarryholes. But yours won’t be found. We’re going to hide it so that it’ll never be seen again. No one will ever know what happened to you. Not even your beloved French will ever know, you—’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake dry up and leave the girl till we’re ready for her,’ burst in Gwen impatiently. ‘You’ve something else to do than stand here spouting like a bum actor in a dime circus! What about those machines?’
There was hatred in the look Style turned on Gwen and something of fear also. But his manner changed at once.
‘You’re right. We must get on,’ he said sullenly, then he turned again to Molly.
‘There’s a bell beside the fireplace. If you want to go back to town, ring and we’ll come to hear your statement. If not—there’s the bath in the next room!’
He walked to the door, let himself and Gwen out and locked it. Molly heard their steps descending the stairs, then all was still.
17
The Shadows Loom Nearer
For a few minutes after she had been left alone, Molly lay motionless, too full of horror even to think. She felt herself near death, and with all the intensity of her being she longed to live. Never had life seemed so sweet. She wanted to get out of this awful room, to see the sun, the fields, the trees, to feel the fresh air blowing on her cheek, to hear the birds and the sounds of life around her. More than that, she wanted to see her friends and to be once again amid her familiar surroundings in London. Even to be back in her box office, weary of it though she often had been, would now be heaven! But death was before her and at the very idea she grew once more sick and faint.
However, in the course of time her youth and health once again reasserted themselves. Things perhaps were not so bad after all. For the time being, at all events, she had a respite. It was evident that Style and Gwen were profoundly anxious to find out how much French knew. She believed they were going to keep her alive in the hope that they could make her tell. If so, she had only to refuse to speak and her life would be prolonged.
But this mood of optimism soon passed and terrible forebodings once more filled her mind. Was she safe under any circumstances? When they got all they wanted out of her, would her fate not still be that of Thurza Darke. For she did not believe their promise to free her if she did their bidding. They had not liberated Thurza Darke or her two unfortunate predecessors. These girls had almost certainly been forced to reveal what they knew, but it hadn’t saved them.
The more she thought over her position, the lower sank her heart. There was just one ray of hope. She would be missed immediately. When she didn’t turn up at the cinema they would ’phone to her boarding house. And her landlady would certainly ring up the Yard. Mr French would know within an hour or at most two. Then he would begin without delay to trace her. In fact, he was probably doing it at that moment. She had only to hold out so as to give him time. That was it. To hold out. She steeled her mind to the idea. No matter what happened, at no matter what cost to herself, she must hold out.
But would he trace her in time? She shivered as the thought forced itself into her mind. Then resolutely she pulled herself together. She must not allow herself to dwell on such a possibility.
To occupy her thoughts she got up from the bed and began to investigate her surroundings. The room was certainly very dilapidated. From the ceiling and walls hung festoons of cobweb and dust and scraps of old rubbish lay thick on the floor. The chair and table were of the plainest kind and the table rocked on three legs. There was no water in the jug, and both it and the basin were thickly covered with dust. The truckle bed bore blankets but no sheets, and one of its legs was broken and tied together with string. In the otherwise empty grate was an accumulation of dirty rubbish. The skylight was out of reach, and there being no other window, she was unable to look out.
The pile of old books in the corner seemed to offer more promise of distraction and on these she tried desperately to fix her attention. All were dusty, but she turned them over in the hope of finding something which she might force herself to read. They were an extraordinary collection, all very old and all well thumbed. There were two Bibles, a large
one with pictures, and a small thin one on India paper. There were The Lamplighter, Queechy, The Fairchild Family, The Scarlet Letter, and others, many of whose names she had never heard. Most of them were without inscription, but in one was written in a thin angular hand, ‘Christina Wyatt. February, 1864.’ Dully Molly wondered who Christina could have been and how her Pilgrim’s Progress had survived during the sixty odd years since she had obtained it.
Among the collection was one book which might throw light on these problems and Molly, desperately anxious to fill her mind with something other than her own condition, picked it up and forced herself to read. It was an old manuscript book, bearing on the flyleaf the same name and containing notes in the same thin handwriting as well as pasted-in cuttings of various kinds. The book was of fair size, probably nine inches by six and an inch thick. Only about quarter of it had been filled, the remaining pages being blank. The notes took the form of a diary interspersed with moralisings, after the fashion of the period.
But Molly found it utterly impossible to fix her attention on it. Her own position was too precarious to allow her to think of anything else. Throwing the manuscript book back into the corner she sat down on the bed, buried her head in her hands and gave herself up to a detailed consideration of the situation.
She was trapped. Could she do anything to help herself? That was the burden of her thoughts. The problem had been in her mind subconsciously since her capture, but now she set herself definitely to think of ways of escape.
But the more she thought, the less hopeful the idea seemed. There was first of all the door. She got up and examined it. Opening inwards, it was strongly made and fitted with a mortice lock whose heavy bolt she could see passing across the narrow slit between the edge and the jamb. In no way could she force the door.
Inspector French and the Box Office Murders Page 18
