Then it seemed very silent after the ringing shots. The barrel hissed as the rain fell on it.
“Eight live shells,” I said, for some way of breaking the silence.
“It can’t be.” He looked at the Renault. “It can’t be!” he said angrily, and he marched towards the car. He stuck the gun through the window under Poole’s nose.
“ This gun?”
“I don’t know. How would I know that?”
“You said you heard it click.”
“Well… maybe not.”
George lifted the barrel. It was pointed between Poole’s eyes. “Like this?” he asked softly, and pressed the trigger again. The firing pin snapped home, and Poole gave a little squeak of fear.
“Like that?”
“So… so loud,” Poole croaked. “No, not like that. I… I suppose I thought… It seemed that he pulled the trigger.”
“Dave, it seemed. It just seemed.”
We got back into the car. I took the gun from George’s hand, and left the door open for the moment, so that the courtesy light stayed on.
The rain had done its worst, the hot metal hadn’t helped, along with George’s massive paws and his pocket. But it was there, clearly enough. Under the barrel and trapped round the trigger guard: blood. Dried now, but I know blood when I see it.
“Why assume that Connolly might have fired it, George? Why assume that?”
He was staring at it. “There was one in the breach. The important thing is — why wasn't it fired?”
“The important thing, George, is that you’ve gone and buggered up the fingerprints.”
Chapter Nine
We sat for a few minutes, wondering what to do. Theoretically, we should have hastened to phone the police, but we both knew that such an action would lead to our being detained for a long while, particularly as George would need to explain why he had tampered with the murder weapon. Of course, there was no proof that the gun had killed Fossie, but finding out would undoubtedly absorb even more time.
At the same time, in both our minds there was an urgent desire to see Wally as soon as possible. There were a few details to be extracted from Wally, preferably painfully.
“Aren’t we going anywhere?” asked Poole plaintively.
I admit we’d rather forgotten him. But of course, with the shocks he had been absorbing, Poole ought to be taken home to a warm bed, or to the police station for a warmer interview. He was just another of our distracting worries.
“We must get to a phone,” I said.
“But where?” asked George. “We might have to go for miles to find one.”
“If we headed across country, say in the general direction of The Penguin, we’d be sure to come across one.”
“Yes,” he approved. “And if we didn’t, we could always phone from there.”
“Of course we could.”
We considered the idea for another minute or two. But in both our minds was the cooling factor that we had very little chance of actually reaching Wally in any condition to press him with questions. Besides, I was beginning to realised with some annoyance, we had acted without consideration in the matter of Niki. At the time, it had seemed a good idea to embarrass Wally by flinging the good Colonel Toombs in his face. Now, I saw, we had probably landed Wally in the middle of an intense police investigation, and therefore beyond our reach.
“George,” I said, “I’ve got an idea we’ll come across Fyne at The Penguin.”
I looked at my watch. It was the first time I’d thought of it for hours, and was surprised to see that it was three-thirty. In the morning. It had been a long day.
“Then let’s go and see,” said George, slipping the Tokarev automatic back into his pocket.
Helping us find the shortest route to The Penguin seemed to rouse Poole a little from his lethargy.
“What time do they usually close?” I asked.
“Around three.” Poole leaned forward behind me. “But there’s normally a few stragglers.” He touched my shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
Take it as it came, I thought. “We’ll see.”
I’d expected more light on the scene, a dozen or so police cars sprawled around the car park, with a few odd police drivers smoking behind their wheels. But all was silent.
The lights on the poles were still working, but the car park was nearly deserted.
We parked in the deepest shadow available. A little to our left, where we had seen it before, was the colonel’s Jag, but now with no chauffeur in it.
“This Toombs,” I asked, “d’you know him?”
Poole was becoming uneasy. The general atmosphere was of a listening tension. The very absence of action was disquieting. He said: “I’ve seen him at the tables.”
“A big gambler?”
“He always plays large stakes.”
I got out of the Renault and went to have a look at the Jag. Superficially, there was every reason why it should still be there, because we’d taken the battery lead. Toombs might well have left by taxi. But the body of Niki was no longer there, and clearly Toombs had not called in the police. We had perhaps landed him in a difficult position. If he’d started shouting the odds about bodies in his car, then Wally would have had to silence him before he reached a phone.
Though, come to think of it, Toombs would have had to pass the gaming tables to reach a phone, and with two rejections for credit behind him, he might have been diverted by their sudden acceptance, and by the random teasing of the roulette ball, long enough for Wally to plan something. Such as a couple of hundred in the chauffeur’s pocket, for him to carry the girl to the far side of the lake. Such as a couple of thugs to ensure that the chauffeur joined her in the water…
My imagination was running wild. I turned in desperation to George for sober inspiration.
He was staring at the bridge. This end — the reception cubicle thing — seemed to be quiet, but there were still dim lights inside it. At the far end, I could see that the double glass doors were now shut. The flimsy bridge itself, with its inadequate canopy in that lashing rain, was desolate.
“Looks quiet,” he said, easing his jacket over his shoulders.
“Don’t leave me here,” Poole appealed weakly.
Then clearly I heard the sharp bark of a heavy pistol. It came from the club. Immediately there were three shots in reply.
“How wide would you say it is, Dave?”
“The bridge? Seven feet or so.”
“Get in the car.”
“You can’t — ”
“The bodywork’s ruined, anyway,” he snarled.
Poole and I scrambled in as George blipped the engine. The tyres spun, and then we were bucking round to the car park exit, lining up the nose of the bridge.
“Keep your heads down,” George bellowed, and he gave it a heavy foot-full of throttle in second.
Quiet it might have been, but the reception cubicle was not empty. There was a spurt of flame from its shadows, though I heard nothing over George’s self-bracing roar. The screen starred just above the licence disc, then we were in there amongst the flying hardboard panels and whirling curtains, and out into the open air again on the bridge.
I don’t know how they’d built it, but certainly it had not been intended for heavier traffic than pedestrians. The boards roared beneath the wheels and the headlights darted this way and that, disturbingly too often over the water each side. Ahead of us galloped the reception gnome, waving a gun too large for him, but with no time to turn and use it. With the bonnet eventually six feet from his rear, and the closed doors still twenty feet ahead, he finally gave up and dived over into the water.
The engine revs were high when we hit those doors. They flew before us like a curtain of shimmering light, and then the windscreen went opaque. Not that it mattered at that juncture, because the only control that George now had to worry about was the brake pedal. The inner velvet curtains shrouded us briefly, and I was momentarily aware of the sweep of stairs just beyond.
/> We stopped. The nose had made two throbbing bumps, and was now low. George cut the engine and leaned forward, clearing the screen by putting his elbow through it, just in time to open the way for a bullet coming in the other direction. There was a choked howl behind me.
We were looking into the restaurant and dance floor. Now no combo played, no couples swayed, no waiters threaded the tables. The lights were so low that the place seemed asleep.
Miraculously, one of the headlights was still working. It cut through the after-game haze, pointing sightly downwards, and centred against the foot of the far wall, where a slowly crawling figure was caught and halted by its intensity. She lifted her head. It was Pat, her hair streaked with blood, her eyes wild.
There was another shot, and plaster showered her.
George snapped out the light.
Relying on the dazzle and the aftermath of darkness, I dived out of the car and headed for the wall, crouching low and threading the tables. She had made a few more feet, and then collapsed, lying very still. Another shot, a bit optimistic, was way out. But I got my arms under her all the same and took her twenty yards towards the circular bar. I thought there could be protection there.
She was not unconscious. We rested for a few moments.
“Where are you hit?”
“My leg. Left. Not too bad.”
“But… your hair.”
“It’s not my blood. Carl tried to hold me, and I bit him in the ear.”
“The same one?”
“Yes.”
I grinned, and fished Wally’s gun out of my pocket. I hadn’t had time to examine it, so I didn’t know how many shots I had left.
“Where’s Fyne?”
“Behind the bar. I think he’s hurt.”
Certainly no shots were coming from the bar, but Fyne was in a difficult position. The bar was still rotating steadily, and it was still lit as it had been before, quietly enough, but in the surrounding gloom it looked like a circus roundabout. Not only that, he was presented one minute to the restaurant as a target, and a little later to the gaming room, where, I guessed, most of the heavy stuff would be operating.
As I thought it, a dozen shots sounded raggedly from the far hall.
George shouted something from behind the car. I didn’t reply in case I gave my position away.
“I’ll get you right into the corner, then I’ll have to leave you. Will you be all right?”
She said: “Leave me — why?”
“I’ve got to talk to Wally.”
“You’d never get up the stairs. Krasnov's up llierc, and Toombs, and half a dozen…”
“Toombs?”
“He travels for Wally. All over.”
“Including Merseyside?” I wondered.
Toombs, the military man! The minibus incident would have been a minor engagement to a retired officer.
“I’ve still got to get to him.”
“He’s up in his office clearing his stuff out.” Her voice was tight with pain.
“What happened?”
“Niki,” she whispered. “She was the colonel’s special girl. The… the chauffeur came in, straight to Toombs, and spoke to him. I was quite close. The colonel said something dreadful, and left. We were closing up. Toombs had been having a last drink with Wally. He usually… usually…”
“Later, then. Later.”
“No. I’m all right. Toombs… went out, and then he came back in a few minutes. He’d got poor Niki in his arms. I didn’t… realise at first, until he threw her on the bar, all amongst the glasses. He was raging mad. I thought he’d kill Wally, and I was screaming. I went at Wally, and Carl got in my way, and Wally shouted for a couple of his men. And then… then Mr. Fyne came in. Just walked in, and said he was arresting Wally. As though he could, here…”
So all hell had broken loose, and Wally had lost control of the situation.
“Hush now. Lie still. I’ll be back.”
When I turned from her, my intention was to rush the bar and maybe scramble over. But George, without Pat’s assistance, had realised the situation, and had the same idea. He came from behind the car like a charging rhino, and I saw Fyne’s head pop up, forehead and eyes only. To Fyne, George would’ve looked like one of Wally’s heavies. The nose of a large revolver poked over the edge of the counter, levelled at George.
I got moving.
Maybe I’m faster. I was diving over the counter, now, not with the simple objective of getting there, but to disrupt that shot before it disembowelled George. I took Fyne down under me, the gun hard in my guts, and my skin crawled with the implication.
I got out: “It’s me.” Then we both hit solid floor. Fyne groaned and went limp, as George barrelled over the top above us, and I watched with fascination as he poised, then came on. And there was darkness.
George was slapping my face. “Lay off,” I croaked. He slaps hard. Fyne was clear out, the gun lying beside him. When I looked, he had his left arm smothered in blood, and he was probably better out of it, because the arm had been under all three of us.
Glass was exploding all round us as bullets shattered the fancy bottles against the back surface of mirrors. Liquid splashed me, but it tasted like water. I might have guessed.
“And how the hell do we get out of here?” I demanded.
I had observed the circular counter rotating, and I had not seen any opening in its external surface. The bar tenders had to be able to get in; they had certainly got out. Then… how?
“We sit and wait for the big boys from the station,55 said George.
“What gives you the idea they’ll be coming? Fyne might not have been in contact. And Wally’s in his room, clearing out all his nasty little secrets.55
“I’ve got to talk to Wally.”
“Then think of something, George.”
I picked up Fyne’s gun, hoping to use it as a spare. It was a.38 Colt Police Positive, a nice gun, but with only one unfired cartridge in it.
“There has to be a way out of here,” said George.
And then I realised. The bar tenders must have entered from inside. I left the gun beside Fyne, in case he came round, and we crawled forward to investigate.
The inner circle of the bar was a mirrored cylinder, perhaps forty feet across, towering right up into the high ceiling. If there was possibly a door, I thought, it would surely lead to freedom. Only I didn’t want freedom — I wanted Wally.
“A door,” I said, and more mirror glass exploded, conveniently revealing it.
“Don’t stand up,” I cried, as George raised his head.
So, on his knees, he reached up, fingering for a fastening or handle. Nothing. He shook his head. The trouble was, he was expecting it to open away from him.
“Try pulling,” I hissed.
He did, using his nails, and a normal-sized door swung out towards us.
We were through there, on hands and knees, like a flash. I elbowed it shut behind, and we felt safe enough to stand.
Facing us was about ten feet of narrow passage. This end was dark, the other lightly illuminated. In the yellow light, a spiral staircase was slowly revolving. Or rather, we were revolving around it. George led the way to a small, stationary platform. The spiral staircase led upwards.
“Dave, there was only one maroon Jag in the car park.”
“Yes,” I agreed impatiently.
“And there can’t be any garage over on the island.”
“So?”
“They shared the car. It was Wally’s and Toombs’s. The company car. So… how would Wally expect to get to it? He wouldn’t cut himself off from freedom, with one narrow bridge as the only way out.” He looked up. “Dave, he wouldn’t own a helicopter?”
We raced up the staircase; raced, that is, for the first twenty or thirty treads, then slowed a little, and finished up, gasping, on a small landing. It didn’t go any further.
“The bastard’ll get away,” said George in agitation.
Two doors to try. We took on
e each. Mine opened into a large, deep wardrobe, hung with a dozen or so dress suits. George’s opened into their rest room. Bar tenders, apparently, are not too fussy away from a polished counter. The room was a shambles, the table scattered with empty, unwashed glasses, the ashtrays overflowing. The sink against one wall was filthy. The towel, which hung from a single nail, I wouldn’t have cleaned my shoes with. We stood and looked round. A second. No more. There was another door, and George headed for it — and under his hand it opened towards him.
What would work one way, would work the other. Somebody had decided that this was one way of getting in behind us. He followed his gun with the bluff face of a military man, and the narrowed, crinkled eyes of a gambler. Colonel Toombs, surely.
“Colonel Toombs?” I asked, and George kicked the door back into his face.
Toombs had been very slow with the automatic in his hand. I bent and retrieved it. He cursed, and clasped his wrist. His nose was bleeding.
“A good idea,” I said. “Get down behind us and shoot us in the back.”
“Oh no. No,” he pleaded. “Not at all, my dear fellow. I was looking for Wally.” His voice was quite casual and friendly. “I thought therc’d be just one left in that gun. Do check for me, there’s a good chap. I wanted to put it between his blasted eyes.”
We stared at him. He blinked. “He killed Niki, you know.”
And I hadn’t given her a thought! The last I’d heard, this character had hefted her across the bar. But there had been no sign of her.
“Niki,” said George dangerously. “What’ve you done with her?”
“Quite safe, I assure you. Out in the corridor. If you’d give me a hand with her, out to the car, I’d he eternally grateful. I shall take her home.”
The old idiot was quite crazy. And there I’d been, cherishing the exciting, but tentative, idea that Toombs was the man behind Wally, his Mr. Big. I mean, there were the elements; the shared car, the travelling, his casual use of the club. But he was far gone in early senility. Either that, or it was a splendid act.
It was an act. He moved the supposedly sprained hand in one rapid gesture towards his lapel, and another weapon appeared in his fingers. The thin lips revealed his teeth, and the gun came up to George’s middle before George got a fist swinging.
Cart Before The Hearse (David Mallin Detective Book 14) Page 10
