1972 - Just a Matter of Time

by James Hadley Chase

  He continued to think. It looked set, but there could be snags. Things happened that you didn’t think of or couldn’t foresee, but the overall plan was working well. He had listened to the tape Sheila had played on the old lady’s recorder. What an artist Sheila was! If he had written the script for her, he couldn’t have done better. And this inspiration of buying the tape recorder for the old lady! This was something he wouldn’t have thought of. How this must have shaken Patterson when he had seen it! He was sure he had Patterson now where he wanted him. Now thanks to Solly Marks, Gerald had been removed from the scene and would be kept on ice until the time was ready to use him. Yes . . . the operation was going well!

  He got to his feet and left his room. The time was 19.10. Mrs. Morely-Johnson would be having cocktails with friends on the terrace. He entered the hotel lobby and crossing to one of the telephone booths, he called the penthouse. Sheila answered.

  ‘Jack,’ Bromhead said.

  ‘Come up,’ she replied and replaced the receiver.

  Bromhead nodded approvingly. No words wasted . . . like him . . . a professional.

  He walked into her office, hearing the chatter of people on the terrace, sure it was safe for them to talk for at least half an hour.

  ‘He’s gone to L.A.,’ Bromhead said, standing by her desk. ‘You don’t have to worry about him now.’

  Sheila stiffened.

  ‘Gerry’s gone? What happened?’

  ‘Don’t let’s waste time . . . he’s gone and he’s safe. You must now talk to Patterson.’

  ‘I can’t believe it! You really mean Gerry’s gone?’

  ‘Stop worrying about him . . . he’s gone.’

  She drew in a long breath. Perhaps for the first time, she really realized she was dealing with a man who would let nothing stand between himself and money. She thought of Gerald. He wouldn’t have gone unless he had been under some kind of pressure. She looked at Bromhead who was regarding her thoughtfully. She got no clue from his expression as to what had happened.

  ‘Patterson . . .’ Bromhead said quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ She tried to dismiss a frightened Gerald from her mind.

  ‘Don’t worry about Patterson,’ Bromhead said. ‘He’s hooked. I bet by now he will have read the will. I don’t have to tell you what to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He is having dinner with the old lady tomorrow. You’d better contact him. After dinner, he can come up to the 19th floor and you can have him in your bedroom to talk.’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought for a moment, then picked up the telephone receiver and dialled Patterson’s home number. The call was immediately answered.

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘Oh . . . Sheila! I was expecting to hear from you.’ Patterson’s voice sounded bland.

  ‘You will be dining with Mrs. Morely-Johnson tomorrow evening,’ Sheila said. ‘When it is over, come to the 19th floor and walk up to the fire door on the 20th floor. You will find it open. I will be waiting for you.’

  ‘I’ll do just that, Mata Hari,’ Patterson said and hung up.

  Sheila looked at Bromhead.

  ‘He could be difficult.’

  Bromhead shook his head.

  ‘No one is ever difficult when he wants money,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  * * *

  Abe Weidman, short, thickset, balding, walked with Patterson across the lobby of the hotel to the exit. The two men had been in the bar for a nightcap. As Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s attorney, Weidman imagined he and she were the only people to know that the old lady was leaving Patterson one hundred thousand dollars a year for life. He now regarded Patterson as one of his important people: a future client. He also liked this handsome man and he conveyed this by holding Patterson’s arm as they walked across the soft pile of the carpet to the revolving doors.

  ‘An excellent dinner,’ he said. ‘A first-class claret. The old lady still knows how to entertain.’

  ‘Yes,’ Patterson said. In a few minutes, he was thinking, he would have to face Sheila. His mind was excited. He had read the will and knew for certain that he was to inherit this big income. But he had still to cope with Sheila. It needed will power to appear relaxed and interested as he walked by Weidman’s side.

  ‘She looks well,’ Weidman said, pausing at the top of the steps. ‘Of course, none of us are getting any younger. Still, she could last for years. Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘Thanks . . . no. I have a telephone call to make.’

  ‘You bankers . . .’ Weidman patted Patterson’s arm. ‘You’re always busy.’

  Patterson laughed.

  ‘You know how it is.’

  Weidman clasped his hand.

  ‘Have lunch with me next week. I’ll get my girl to call your girl.’

  ‘Sure. I’d like that . . . thanks.’

  Weidman waved his cigar.

  ‘Then next week.’

  Patterson watched him walk heavily down to his glittering Cadillac. As the chauffeur held open the door, Weidman turned and waved again and Patterson waved back. He knew Weidman knew and this was the reason why he had been invited to lunch. Weidman was looking ahead: a future client. Well, it wasn’t in the bag yet, Patterson thought as he recrossed the lobby and entered the elevator which was now on automatic. He felt it was now safe to go up: the old lady would be in bed.

  Joe Handley, the hotel detective, was in the lobby. He watched Patterson enter the elevator and decided Patterson who he knew had been dining with Mrs. Morely-Johnson, had forgotten something. He watched the indicator as it moved swiftly from floor to floor, then when it stopped at the 19th floor, Handley frowned. Why had Patterson got out on the 19th floor he asked himself. Handley kept a notebook in which he jotted unusual happenings that seemed to be of importance. There could be, of course, a straight forward explanation, but this puzzled him. None of the four old couples, living on the 19th floor, were likely to want to see an assistant bank manager at 22.15. Then remembering Lawson’s warning not to stick his nose into Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s guests’ affairs, he made a note in his book and left it like that.

  As the elevator took Patterson, swiftly and smoothly, up to the 19th floor, he tried to relax. He knew for certain the dice was loaded against him. If he hadn’t walked into Sheila’s trap, he could be confident that when Mrs. Morely-Johnson died, he would be a wealthy man for life, but he had walked into the trap and now he had to negotiate. He was worth around thirty thousand dollars. At a pinch, he could pay Sheila’ fifteen hundred dollars a month out of his salary. But would she be content with that? He doubted it, but it was no use speculating until he had talked to her. She might have completely different ideas, but whatever her ideas, he had made up his mind, even if he had to pay outrageous blackmail, he would try to hang on to Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s legacy.

  Arriving at the 19th floor, he walked up the stairs facing him to find the fire door standing ajar. He moved into Sheila’s bedroom and closed the door.

  Sheila was sitting in a small lounging chair, an open book on her lap. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt: the same clothes she had worn when receiving Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s guests.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, her voice low. ‘Sit down.’

  Patterson sat in the other lounging chair, facing her and regarded her. Her calm expression and her remote, smoky blue eyes bothered him. He remembered the woman clawing at him and gasping as he had thrust into her. She was an enigma to him and enigmas worried him.

  ‘You have read the will?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve read it.’

  ‘Good. Then you know now I’ve been telling the truth.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want all this money?’

  They stared at each other. Both kept their faces expressionless.

  ‘I want it,’ Patterson said.

  ‘You would be stupid if you didn’t. Are you prepared to earn it?’

  Here it comes, Patterson though. God! She’s a professional
! Not one word wasted.

  ‘That depends,’ he said.

  There was a long pause as she regarded him.

  ‘Depends on . . . what?’

  He resisted the urge to uncross and recross his legs. He forced himself to appear relaxed.

  ‘On the conditions, of course,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘You do realize this is blackmail, don’t you? You can go to jail for quite a while for blackmail.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes . . . I know.’ She waved to the telephone standing on the bedside table. ‘Call the police . . . tell them.’

  Again they stared at each other.

  ‘You’re quite a woman,’ Patterson said. ‘Okay, so what are the conditions?’

  ‘You have the will?’

  ‘Yes . . . it goes back to our legal department tomorrow.’

  ‘I want it.’

  This startled him and he stared at her.

  ‘You want her will? What use is it to you?’

  She opened a box by her side and took out a cigarette. Patterson left his chair to light the cigarette. Her soft, warm fingers touched his and he felt a stab of desire go through him. He returned to his chair and again they looked at each other.

  ‘Would you like to hear the tape?’ she asked. ‘I’ve borrowed the recorder.’

  Patterson, uneasy that simply by touching her hand, his blood had become on fire, shook his head.

  ‘I can imagine.’ He pulled himself together. ‘Let’s get this right. The theory is if I don’t do what you want - whatever it is you want - you play the tape to the old lady and I lose my job at the bank and get cut out of the will . . . that’s it, isn’t it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes.’

  His mind working swiftly, Patterson asked, ‘You want the will . . . and what else?’

  ‘Will you give me the will?’

  ‘I could do. Look, Sheila, you have me in a trap. I admit it. I want the old lady’s money. I admit that. It could change my life. I’m ready to go along with you because I have to. Wouldn’t it be better for both of us if you put your cards on the table and told me just what this is all about?’

  As Sheila hesitated, the fire door opened and Bromhead came in. He was wearing a charcoal grey suit, a white shin and a grey tie. He looked like a bishop attending a committee meeting.

  Patterson stared at him. His quick mind immediately saw the connection between these two. Even as Bromhead quietly closed the door, Patterson had recovered from the shock.

  ‘Perhaps I had better explain,’ Bromhead said, looking at Sheila. ‘We must take Mr. Patterson into our confidence.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sheila relaxed back in her chair.

  Bromhead came further into the room and moving around Patterson, he sat on the bed.

  ‘You ask us to put our cards on the table, Mr. Patterson,’ he said. ‘Let me do this. You have read Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s will. There are several million dollars involved. With your assistance I propose to alter the will so that her nephew receives a million and a half dollars. Your bequest, of course, won’t be disturbed. You will still receive one hundred thousand dollars a year for life which represents a considerable capital outlay. But the money is there. You might say, Mr. Patterson, that I am acting on behalf of Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s nephew who has been excluded from the old lady’s will. I feel people who give large sums of money to charities, even if they are such worthy charities as the Cancer Research Fund should first consider their relations.’

  Listening to the quiet voice, absorbing what he was told, Patterson was also thinking.

  ‘I had no idea the old lady had a nephew,’ he said.

  ‘Yes . . . she has a nephew: not what you could call a success. He has had trouble with the police. Mrs. Morely-Johnson doesn’t approve of him. But to me, that is neither here nor there. I like the young man. Sheila likes him. We have decided to help him by rearranging the old lady’s will so that he gets a million and a half. It will be arranged with your help in such a way that the old lady won’t know.’ Bromhead regarded Patterson and he smiled his benign smile. ‘I think it would be a fair statement if I said, the dead don’t care . . . but the living do.’

  Patterson considered this, then he nodded.

  ‘Yes. You’re not being entirely philanthropic about this?’ He regarded Bromhead. ‘The nephew won’t get all this money?’

  ‘No, Mr. Patterson, there will be a division,’ Bromhead said in his bishop’s voice.

  ‘So what do you expect me to do?’

  ‘You have admitted that if you are uncooperative, you will lose your inheritance,’ Bromhead said. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m bluffing. With so much money involved, bluff is dangerous. Would you be patient please? I think you should hear the quality of the tape we have.’ He looked at Sheila. ‘Would you please?’

  Sheila leaned down. The tape recorder was on the floor out of sight by her chair. She pressed the playback button.

  Patterson heard his voice saying: I, Christopher Patterson think Sheila Oldhill . . . and so on. Then he listened to the real damning thing he had said: Do you want me to spell it out? At the age of seventy-eight, she is vain, half blind, gushing and she can’t keep her eyes off young men.

  He listened to the rest of the tape with indifference. He was trapped and he knew it. If the old lady ever heard this . . . no job . . . no one hundred thousand dollars a year for life.

  ‘It’s impressive, isn’t it?’ Bromhead said quietly. ‘A nice recording. I have a copy of course.’

  Patterson produced his gold cigarette case, selected a cigarette and lit it with his gold lighter.

  ‘I asked you what you expected me to do?’

  ‘First, I want the will.’

  ‘You can have it, but I don’t see what good it will do you. You’re not telling me you hope to forge her signature, are you?’

  Bromhead nodded.

  ‘That’s what I intend to do.’

  ‘You may think you can,’ Patterson said impatiently, ‘but Weidman, her attorney, won’t be fooled. Weidman and I know her signature backwards. That’s something you won’t get away with.’

  Bromhead took from his hip pocket a scratch pad and he produced a Parker pen.

  ‘Mr. Patterson, allow me to give you a little demonstration. Would you sign your name on this pad, please?’

  Patterson hesitated, then taking the pad he scrawled his signature and handed back the pad. He watched Bromhead study the signature.

  ‘This is, of course, a little more complicated than Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s signature,’ Bromhead said. ‘Still. . .’

  He tore off the sheet, then without hesitation reproduced Patterson’s signature, shuffled the two pieces of paper quickly and handed them back to Patterson.

  ‘Which is yours?’

  Patterson studied the two signatures, then he felt a tingle crawl up his spine. In spite of his years of experience checking signatures while working in the bank, he could not tell which was his signature nor which was the one Bromhead had forged.

  ‘It’s an art,’ Bromhead said. ‘You see that now? You realize now, Mr. Patterson, I would have no trouble in reproducing the old lady’s signature.’ He took up the pad and scrawled, then handed the pad to Patterson. ‘I have studied her signature. Look . . .’

  Patterson studied the signature, then slowly tore up the three pieces of paper. He put the bits in the ashtray.

  ‘So . . . you can forge the old lady’s signature. I go along with that, but there are the witnesses.’

  Bromhead nodded.

  ‘Of course. That has been arranged. I have two witnesses who, for a small sum, if questioned will swear they witnessed the old lady’s signature.’

  Patterson shook his head.

  ‘No . . . that won’t work. Her attorney would never stand for that. No, he would start an inquiry.’

  ‘Mr. Patterson, you must give me credit for thinking this out. You have read the will. You will have seen that Mr. Weidman, her attorney, get
s nothing. Now, I will arrange it that the old lady has changed her mind. Mr. Weidman is going to inherit her three Picasso paintings. I know he wants them. I have often observed him looking at them when calling on the old lady. I can tell by his expression these are really what he covets. It is very simple. She wants to surprise him. So she makes a new will, using a new attorney. She gives her nephew a million and a half dollars and her attorney three Picassos worth maybe five hundred thousand. Do you imagine Mr. Weidman would contest such a will?’

  Patterson stubbed out his cigarette as he thought.

  ‘So what do you expect me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘You will give me the will so I can redraft it, and you will tell Mr. Weidman that the old lady has drafted a new will and she has used another attorney because she wants Mr. Weidman to be surprised. You will also tell him she has had a change of heart about her nephew and is leaving him a considerable sum. We want Mr. Weidman to be prepared and not to make difficulties.’

  ‘You talk as if the old lady is dying,’ Patterson said, staring at Bromhead.

  ‘This is a long term operation, Mr. Patterson,’ Bromhead smiled his benign smile, ‘but no one lives forever.’

  ‘And if I do this,’ Patterson said, ‘I get the tape?’

  ‘No, you don’t get the tape, but you can be sure we won’t use it. This is a long term operation: give me the will, convince Mr. Weidman and you can forget the tape. It certainly wouldn’t be in our interest to let the old lady hear it . . . you can forget it.’

  Patterson lit another cigarette. He was in a trap. If he went to the police he would lose his job and this glittering inheritance. The dead don’t care. That was right. Why should he care so long as he got his inheritance? Why should he care if the Cancer Research Fund lost a million and a half dollars?

  ‘Okay,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll talk to Mr. Weidman. I’ll leave the will in a sealed envelope addressed to Miss Oldhill with the hall porter.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Patterson,’ Bromhead said.

  There was a long pause while Bromhead and Sheila listened as the elevator descended, then Bromhead smiled.

  ‘You see? It worked. You must never worry.’