by John Creasey
Beresford introduced her to Maria, and explained carefully that Maria was Samuel’s mother. Samuel said, “’Ere!” and then said, “Sorry,” and all four laughed.
“Breakfast before business?” suggested Tony.
“Yes, if you like.”
“Fine. And let me tell you, lass, not to worry your head about my goings, comings or stayings. I do those things by habit, and I always get home in the end. What I mean,” he added with a quick smile, “is don’t worry about me, Valerie. Just at the moment I’m busy, and I hop about all over the place on those rare occasions. Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, please.”
“Share my table, share my tastes,” said Tony. “Bacon and tomatoes or grapefruit? First, I mean?”
Valerie rejected grapefruit, which was a thing of habit rather than sustenance, and they commented on many things, not forgetting to praise Maria’s cooking. It was a happy meal, the more so because it was unexpected and unorthodox, and Beresford was sorry when Valerie finished her coffee and looked at him squarely. Samuel carried the tray into the kitchen, and the door closed behind him and Maria.
“Well,” said Beresford, “I suppose we’d better get down to it, Valerie. What’s been worrying you?”
Valerie Lester said, “This,” and handed a folded sheet of notepaper across the table. She had kept it in the pocket of her tailor-made, Beresford noticed, and not in her bag. He unfolded the note, prepared, he thought, for anything. But he was not prepared for what he read.
I have reason to believe [the note said] that you are financially embarrassed. If you will call on the writer to-morrow morning at eleven-thirty o’clock, it is possible that your problems can be partially solved.
Yours, etc.,
Leopold Gorman.
Beresford read the note twice, automatically registering the fact that the notepaper was of finest texture, and the thick writing sloped backward twenty degrees from vertical. But the message itself left him in a state of near coma. It was a veritable bolt from the blue, in more ways than one, and it made him swallow hard as he looked at the girl.
“When did you get this?” he demanded.
“Yesterday morning,” said Valerie Lester.
“And you kept the appointment?”
The girl nodded, and smiled.
“I—I couldn’t resist it. It was so extraordinary.”
“I’ll say it was!” muttered Beresford.
“And coming from a man like Gorman,” said Valerie, colouring a little, “I couldn’t keep away. Besides, you and Diane had been talking about him——”
“So we had,” said Beresford, smiling. “So that was why you went, was it? Because Diane and I had discussed the glares and the glowers at the Two-Step. Thank you, Valerie.”
“That was the real reason,” admitted the girl. “I—I suppose I ought to say that there’s no truth in the——”
“Financial embarrassment,” grinned Beresford.
“I’m not rich,” said Valerie Lester, “and I lost a lot of money a year ago, when Wall Street went upside-down. But I’ve enough money to keep me going nicely, and my father isn’t a poor man.”
“Call that part read,” said Beresford, his eyes glinting. “What happened? Did you see Gorman himself?”
“Yes.”
“What was his game?”
Valerie Lester took a deep breath, and her eyes showed a mingled uncertainty, amusement and, Beresford thought darkly, a hint of fear.
“Putting it bluntly,” she said, “he asked me to keep you from leaving England during the next ten days, and he offered to pay me a hundred pounds a day while I was doing it!”
Beresford stared at her as if she had asked him to marry her! For a few moments silence reigned over the table, while Valerie Lester wondered why the effect of her words had been so devastating. At last:
“Well, well, well,” gasped Beresford, “that’s the coolest piece of work since Noah! What in Hades did you say?”
“I—I didn’t say one thing or the other. He didn’t approach the subject as bluntly as that, of course. He—he said that he had reason to believe that——”
Valerie broke off, and a red flush mantled her cheeks.
“That you could tie me down,” Beresford chuckled. “And then what?”
“And he said that you threatened to interfere with a matter which he wanted to handle in his own way, and that it would be worth my while to—to try it.”
Beresford looked at the note again, as though trying to read the secrets of Leopold Gorman’s brain in that thick, sloping handwriting. The thing was absurd. The obvious thing for Valerie Lester to do, unless she was in desperate need of money, was to tell Beresford, just as she had done. And the big man could not bring himself to believe that Leopold Gorman, who was clever if nothing else, would have taken so grave a risk in providing the one thing that Department Z wanted—direct proof that he was behind the attacks on the big man in Auveley Street.
It just didn’t, Beresford told himself, ring true. It had happened, of course; he would as soon have doubted the sincerity of Gordon Craigie as the honesty of Valerie Lester. But the motive was not what it seemed to be. Leopold Gorman had written that note to the girl for a very different purpose than he had professed when she had called on him. Damn it, thought Beresford, he’d need no telling when he saw the girl that she wouldn’t rise to his bait.
“Well,” asked Valerie in a very low voice, “what do you make of it, Tony?”
Beresford grinned.
“I think Gorman’s going batchy,” he said cheerfully. “He ought to know that you wouldn’t take the job——”
“How could he?”
“He’s a judge of men,” said Beresford, looking at her straightly, “and he’s a judge of women. He wouldn’t have got where he is if he wasn’t. So—it stands to reason.”
The girl from America smiled—a slow, grateful, appreciative smile, but Beresford thought there was a shadow in her eyes.
“You have a wonderful way of presenting your compliments,” she said.
“It’s all a matter of inspiration,” said Tony genially, but there was an underlying note of sincerity in his voice. “And it’s the source of the inspiration that should take the kudos, my lass. I’m very glad you came to England, Valerie.”
The girl’s eyes gleamed.
“So am I,” she said frankly.
“And one day, in the not too distant future,” went on the big man, “I’m going to tell you why, and not leave you to guess. But for the moment——”
“You’re busy?”
Was her expression humorous, or quizzical, was it understanding, or was it regret that he should let that moment slide? Beresford didn’t know. He told himself that it was a mixture of all four, and he told himself too that she was very, very lovely. But there were things to do.
He hardened his voice perceptibly, and his smile was less in his eyes than usual.
“I’m busy,” he agreed. “Mr. Leopold Gorman and I are having a difference of opinion, as he told you, and I’ve got a lot to do to stop him from having his way.”
“I didn’t know you dabbled in finance,” said the girl.
“That’s because you know nothing about me,” said Tony, puffing out his chest with mock complacence. “I dabble in all things——”
“Tony!” Valerie leaned across the table, and her slim white hand rested against the brown of Beresford’s skin. Her eyes were wide open, and in them was an appeal which he could not fail to read, and her lips were quivering as her voice came slowly: “Tony—don’t fool. Gorman told me enough to make me fear that something would happen to you, if—if you went abroad.”
The humour, the facetiousness, dropped from Beresford’s face, and his body went rigid.
“The devil he did! He frightened you, or tried to, to try and keep me in England. Is that it?”
His voice was rough, harsh almost. His eyes were like unwinking orbs of steel. Just for a moment Valerie Lester saw the Bere
sford which existed beneath his mask of tolerant good-humour, of genial foolishness. And she was amazed.
“I—I think that was it,” she said.
Beresford drummed his fingers on the table.
“I see. That explains why he tackled you, anyhow. And one of these days, my Valerie, I’ll wring that lopsided brute’s neck to teach him not to drag women into this game.” He laughed suddenly, abruptly. “And now we’re having a spot of heroics, lass. Will you do something for me?”
“I’ll try.”
“Forget that you ever went to Gorman. Forget what he told you, and what he hinted. Remember that nothing in the world can stop me from fighting Gorman——”
“But why?” There was anxiety in Valerie’s voice.
“I can’t tell you.” Beresford spoke almost roughly. “It’d be too dangerous for you to know, anyhow. Just forget it.”
“I might,” said Valerie Lester, quietly but firmly, “just as well try to forget that this is London, not New York. And I think I should know——”
“The devil you do!”
“Yes.” The girl’s chin went up, and her eyes flashed. “You say it’s too dangerous to talk about. Well, I’m in it now. Gorman forced me into it. It’s as dangerous for me now as it will ever be. For instance”—she paused for a moment, and drew a deep breath—“I was followed from Regent’s Park. I was followed all yesterday afternoon, when I went shopping. I shall be watched all the time—and if I don’t try to keep you in England, I shall be in as much danger as you.”
Beresford felt cold. He heard her quiet voice, filled with emphasis of tone rather than words, and he knew that there was a great deal of truth in what she said. And he realized the cunning with which Leopold Gorman had made this mood. The financier had reckoned on using the woman to hamper the man, that age-old trick which rarely failed. To himself, Beresford swore, and Valerie Lester saw the moving of his lips and guessed at what was going on behind those hard grey eyes.
“Isn’t that right?” she demanded suddenly.
Beresford drew a deep breath.
“H’m. I suppose it is, up to a point. But it doesn’t alter facts, Valerie. I can’t talk. I can tell you that Gorman’s playing a big game and a dangerous one. I can tell you that there’s death behind it and death in front of it, and that anything might happen before it finishes. And,” the big man added, putting his hand over hers, “I can ask you to do one thing, Valerie.”
“And that is?” Her voice was steady, only her eyes showed fear.
“Get back to America,” said Beresford. “You’re not safe here now. You won’t be safe until the job’s finished, and I haven’t time to look after you as I’d like. Will you go?”
She drew a deep breath, and Beresford grunted to himself when he saw a smile lurking in her eyes.
“No,” she said quietly, “I won’t go back. Gorman thought that I might be able to—to influence you, and he thought that I was—interested—in you. And, Tony, I am. I want to see it through, now I’ve started.”
Beresford stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. Slowly:
“You really feel like that?”
“Yes—really.”
Beresford stood up and went round the table, and gripped her slender shoulders with his great hands. He smiled, chuckled, and in his eyes Valerie Lester saw what she wanted to see.
“All right,” said Tony Beresford. “I’ll give in. I ought to send you back to America, but I don’t think I can, after that. Valerie...”
“Tony?”
“You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”
“I’ve a pretty good idea.”
“Do you mind if we keep it like that, for a while? No words. Just in our minds. Because I’ve a big job on, Valerie, and I don’t think I can tackle two at once—and I can’t drop the Gorman one.”
“I’d hate it if you wanted to,” said Valerie Lester.
Beresford realized that the girl was a weak link in his armour against Gorman, for men do mad things when a woman is the prize. On the other hand, she was level-headed, not likely to take fright easily, and if an emergency did present itself, she would probably handle it well. For the sake of safety, however, he telephoned Superintendent Horace Miller before Valerie left the flat, and arranged with the detective to keep the girl under watch. Valerie grimaced at the precaution, but did not protest.
“Stick to the ordinary rules,” Beresford cautioned her. “Don’t go anywhere on the strength of letters, wires or telephone calls, and keep in the crowd as often as you can. I think,” he added thoughtfully, “that you’d better tell Aubrey that there’s a spot of bother in the offing. He had a similar spot of it with Devenish last year.* Aubrey doesn’t look much,” he said, with a grin, “but he’s sound.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Valerie, drawing on her gloves.
“I don’t know. I’ll let you know if I’m going out of England at all, and, other things permitting, I’ll hop round to the mausoleum some time to-night. Unless you’re booked up?”
“I’ll be there,” said Valerie.
Beresford sat back in his chair and looked hard at the unproductive ceiling for ten minutes after the girl had gone. It was an unexpected complication, but, looking back to the previous Monday, Beresford could see, now, that it had been coming. The thought of Valerie Lester’s glowing eyes, the slimness of her lovely figure, made his lips curve. He felt a deep sense of satisfaction, a gladness different from anything which he had ever experienced before. But it was tempered, as it must be tempered, by the Gorman aspect. He mustn’t let up on the Gorman job. He must think as little as possible about anything else. Afterwards . . .
The Echo de Paris, London edition, mentioned the murder at the Hôtel Royale, and Beresford saw that Piquet had given a story out to the Press—the French police are better able to control the mouthpieces of public opinion than the English—which made it appear that the brutal murder was a sequel to the dancer’s love affairs. For Timothy Arran’s sake the big man wished that that had not been necessary, but it was unavoidable. There was no mention in the paper of the discovery of Robert Lavering. Picot and Piquet between them were doing well.
Beresford folded the paper and put it in his pocket before collecting the Hispano and going to Whitehall.
Craigie was waiting for him, and heard the new development without comment until Beresford had finished. Then:
“Gorman must have guessed that she would come to you,” he said. “The bribe wasn’t big enough.”
“It wouldn’t have been big enough if it stretched into six figures,” grunted Beresford.
Craigie looked at his Number Two thoughtfully.
“Like that, is it? Well, you’re probably right. But I think we ought to look up Miss Lester’s financial position, Tony. I’ll get Miller to find out. Gorman must have had something in his mind before he wrote that letter. Where is the letter, by the way?”
Beresford passed the note across the Chief’s desk.
Craigie looked at it for a moment and Beresford saw the frown puckering his forehead. Craigie grunted, and pulled open a drawer in his desk, taking from it a file of papers which Beresford knew covered the whole of the Gorman affair. For a moment the big man failed to understand; but he realized what Craigie was doing suddenly, and his mouth went dry.
“Well?” he snapped, as Craigie looked up from the papers which he had been comparing.
The Chief of Department Z looked worried.
“Sorry, Tony,” he said. “But this writing isn’t Gorman’s. It would pass a quick glance, but not a close inspection. Look for yourself.”
Beresford rounded the table and stared down at the note which he had taken from Valerie Lester, and at a second note which Craigie had secured for his file. The thick, slanting writing was certainly similar, but it was not the same.
“She told you that after getting this she saw Gorman, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” grunted Beresford.
“And she knew wha
t Gorman was to look like—she saw him at the Two-Step the other night.”
Beresford grunted, and stared at Craigie’s hands without seeing them.
“Well,” said the Chief, “she took you in, Tony. If she hadn’t known Gorman to look at, she might have been duped herself. We know Gorman didn’t sign this letter; yet she says she went to see him about it; that he discussed it with her.”
“Meaning,” said Beresford in a dead voice, “that she was lying?”
Craigie shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
* First came a Murder. By John Creasey. Melrose
CHAPTER XI
VALERIE LESTER PAYS A VISIT
VALERIE LESTER did not go direct from Beresford’s flat to the Chesters’ Regent’s Park house, called by others as well as Beresford the mausoleum, because of its vastness, the age of its servants and the longevity of its traditions and the Dowager Lady Chester, Lord Aubrey’s mother. Aubrey and his wife inhabited a small corner of the great house, which corner was as bright and lively as a charade after the thick drama of the entrance hall and the dining-room through which it was necessary to pass when visiting the Chesters; but Valerie had no wish, then, to see either of them.
She walked quickly towards Bond Street, knowing full well that a detective was trailing her, and deliberating on her best move to shake him off. As she walked, she saw a mental picture of Tony Beresford, and twice she bit her lips as she imagined his reactions if he learned that she had deliberately tricked him.
But, she told herself, he didn’t know. It might be possible to get herself out of the tangle of complications in which she was caught before he discovered it.
After ten minutes, she had picked out her trailer, a weedy-looking individual who kept within twenty yards of her as she walked along Bond Street, stopping when she stopped to look in a window, starting in pursuit as soon as she moved. Despite the disadvantage of knowing London only a little, she doubled on her man at the roundabout beneath Eros, and reached the Haymarket subway when the weedy one was breaking his neck to reach the stairs leading to the London Pavilion. She saw the detective hesitate and look about him quickly, and chuckled to herself as he hurried down Shaftesbury Avenue on a false trail.
