Dr. Morelle and the Drummer Girl

by Ernest Dudley

  She pointed across at the alley.

  ‘I followed him round the corner. He must have dived down there —’

  She broke off and caught her breath. Something in the man’s attitude sent a warning bell ringing at the back of her brain. Suddenly in the darkness she was aware of his quiet regular breathing. She glimpsed the line of his shadowed jaw — hard, cruel. Then he was moving towards her, both hands reaching out.

  ‘You’re not a detective,’ she gasped. ‘You’re —’

  With a desperate sob she pulled the automatic from her pocket and levelled it at him.

  ‘Stop where you are.’ Her voice hit an hysterical note. ‘Or I’ll shoot.’

  But it was as if the other couldn’t stop himself. He seemed to loom over her.

  Closing her eyes, Miss Frayle pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Nineteen – Grim News

  Dr. Morelle closed the front door of 221B Harley Street behind him.

  He experienced a sense of weariness as he took off his coat and hat. He realised the strain of the night’s events had taken its insidious toll of him. He frowned a little as he made his way towards the study. He had expected Miss Frayle to be awaiting his return with her usual breathless interest.

  She was probably preparing an inevitable cup of tea for them both. He greeted the idea with anticipatory pleasure. He would find a cup of tea more than refreshing.

  He went into the study and switched on the light. He stood at the door for a moment, then stepped back into the hall and called Miss Frayle. There was no reply. With a faintly puzzled frown Dr. Morelle called again. Still no reply. He glanced at his watch. Just on half-past twelve.

  Perhaps, he thought, she too had been feeling the effects of the last day or two and had gone to bed. He reached this conclusion with somewhat mixed feelings. Surprise on the one hand at her having adopted such a sensible course, disappointment on the other at her not being there eager for his account of what had occurred at St. Julian’s Church.

  Besides, he could have done with a cup of tea.

  He closed the door of his study and lit a fresh cigarette. He went through to the laboratory, filled the electric kettle from the tap in the corner, and plugged it in. He got a cup and saucer and then, muttering irritably to himself, went back through the study and along to the kitchen for a lemon. By the time he returned to the laboratory he fancied the kettle was beginning to simmer, and he cut some slices of lemon. He stood staring at the kettle, smoking reflectively while he waited for the water to boil. He heard the echo of one of Miss Frayle’s typical remarks to the effect that watched kettles never boiled, and turned away involuntarily to pace the laboratory.

  He calculated that at any moment Inspector Hood would be telephoning with the news of the kidnapper’s capture. In his mind’s eye he pictured Harvey Drummer also anxiously awaiting news. Dr. Morelle had promised to telephone him immediately on hearing from Inspector Hood. He wondered if by now Inspector Hood’s triumph was complete. With not only the kidnapper of Doone Drummer, the young woman herself, but also the murderer of Leo Rolf in his hands? The Inspector’s independent investigations into Rolf’s murder had been on purely routine lines. He was convinced the kidnapper and the murderer were the same person which was why his co-operation on the plan put into operation that night had been so wholehearted.

  Dr. Morelle dragged at his cigarette as his mind wandered over the various aspects of the case. A case amounting now to much more than the abduction of Doone Drummer. While it remained possible there might be no connection between the girl’s disappearance and the murder of Leo Rolf, he had little doubt in his mind that both crimes had been committed by the same person. If so, then his method of dealing with the kidnapper would be justified. By gaining the ruthless criminal’s confidence he had undoubtedly reduced the chance of Doone Drummer’s life being endangered.

  In what way had Rolf been concerned in the abduction, and why had he been murdered? The answer to that question was something he anticipated with interest. He wondered if it would implicate Neil Fulton. The film-actor had telephoned twice asking for news of the missing woman. The second time Miss Frayle had told him he would be advised as soon as there was definite news.

  The kettle bubbled over suddenly, interrupting his ruminations. While he waited for the tea to brew he considered his theory that the kidnapper must be familiar with the house in Park Lane. A picture of Rosie Huggins formed in his mind. Would he soon know the reason for her deliberate lies? Was she implicated in the crime?

  The picture of Rosie Huggins was obscured by that of the man in the pince-nez. Pearson. Where did his black silk gloves enter into the puzzle? Was the person who should by now be fast in Inspector Hood’s grasp none other than Harvey Drummer’s secretary?

  For a moment there flashed across his mind the image of Doone Drummer’s father. He toyed again with the possibility that he himself was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance. He pictured Inspector Hood’s reaction if the kidnapper turned out to be Harvey Drummer. Then it occurred to him that even if he had not actively participated in the crime, the possibility that Drummer had instigated it might yet remain.

  He heard the telephone ring in his study and, his face set in grim lines, he went quickly out of the laboratory.

  ‘Dr. Morelle speaking,’ he said, anticipating Inspector Hood’s familiar voice in reply. What jarred against his eardrum, however, was a woman’s high-pitched squawk.

  ‘So sorry to disturb you at this hour. But I rather felt you worked late —’

  ‘Who is it?’ the Doctor snapped.

  ‘I’m Miss Widgewood. You’ve never heard of me, of course, but I’ve heard so much about you. It’s my cat, you see, Doctor. Ptolemy. That’s his name, you know. He’s utterly vanished. I’m sure something dreadful will happen to him unless you —’

  Dr. Morelle gave a snarl and, speechless with rage, slammed down the receiver. Muttering angrily to himself he paced the study. He stubbed out his cigarette and was deciding whether or not to return, to the laboratory and pour himself another cup of tea when the telephone jangled again. He eyed it warily for a moment, then lifted the receiver.

  A man’s voice answered him, and for a brief moment he thought it was Inspector Hood. Once again he was disappointed.

  ‘Dr. Morelle? I’m the driver for Welbeck Car Hire.’

  ‘Are you about to inform me,’ Dr. Morelle interrupted him sarcastically, ‘that you have lost a car?’

  ‘Eh?’ Puzzled. ‘Lost a car —?’

  ‘Never mind,’ Dr. Morelle snapped. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I wondered if Miss Frayle’s got back all right?’

  ‘Miss Frayle? Got back? I was not under the impression that she had been out.’

  ‘Oh yes. Took her myself. About an hour ago. Behind Lancaster Gate I dropped her.’

  ‘What nonsense is this?’ Dr. Morelle exploded. ‘You are obviously confusing Miss Frayle with someone else —’

  ‘Hold on, Doctor,’ the other begged him. ‘I tell you, Miss Frayle ordered me to be waiting outside your house at half-past eleven. Other side of the street I was to be. I got there on the dot. Saw you come out. Miss Frayle nipped out after you, and we followed your taxi to Lancaster Gate.’

  Dr. Morelle could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘There must be some error,’ he replied. ‘Miss Frayle has been here all the evening.’

  ‘All right. It’s none of my business, only rang up because when I dropped her she told me to wait. But she never came back. I hung around half an hour, then turned it in. But if you say she’s been home all night, then I been dreaming.’

  Dr. Morelle spoke calmly, his tone restrained.

  ‘I believe I know what has transpired,’ he said. ‘I am most grateful to you for taking the trouble to telephone.’

  ‘Not a bit, Dr. Morelle. If she’s all right, then it’s all right.’

  Dr. Morelle hung up slowly. He stood for a moment as if turned to stone. Then galvanise
d into action he went out of the study and up the stairs. Miss Frayle’s bedroom and sitting-room were at the top of the house. Dr. Morelle pounded on the bedroom door. There was no reply. He opened the door and looked in. Miss Frayle was not there, the bed had not been slept in.

  He descended to his study trying to imagine what fantastic motive had been responsible for her deliberately to disobey his explicit instructions. What had driven her to take the foolhardy step of following him to his rendezvous with a dangerous criminal? And where was she now?

  The fact of her having instructed the driver of her car to await her return suggested to him she intended to return to Harley Street before he did. That was the explanation for there being no message, which otherwise she would surely have left him, explaining her absence. What blindly insane adventure had she embarked upon? What dreadful trap had engulfed her?

  Dr. Morelle drew a deep shuddering sigh. Then he noticed the edge of the drawer in his desk. It was open a bare half-inch, but it was sufficient, for him to bend with a swift movement and wrench it wide.

  The automatic pistol which was always kept there had gone.

  Remembrance of Inspector Hood’s advice that he should arm himself for his dangerous rendezvous came back to him. He recalled how impressed Miss Frayle had been by the Inspector’s warning. At once the realisation of what lay behind Miss Frayle’s unprecedented disobedience struck him. Convinced he should not go to his appointment unprotected she had secretly resolved to follow him with the gun.

  Unthinking, foolish Miss Frayle. She had been determined to act as his guardian-angel. Blithely, unwittingly, she had placed herself in appalling danger.

  The door-bell jarred into the grim turmoil of his mind. Could it be her? He pictured her woebegone and guiltily waiting outside, the sole result of her wild-goose chase a lost handbag containing her frontdoor key. Swiftly he strode along the hall. The vitriolic flow of words intended to disguise his relief at her return rose to his lips as he wrenched open the door.

  But it was not Miss Frayle who stood there with bowed head before him.

  The bulky figure of Inspector Hood faced him. Dr. Morelle glimpsed a police-car drawn up at the kerb. The light from the hall showed the Inspector’s face sunk between his hunched shoulders. Dr. Morelle had never before seen those genial features carved in such bitter lines.

  ‘Afraid, Dr. Morelle,’ Inspector Hood grunted. ‘I’ve got bad news for you.’

  Chapter Twenty – Double Disaster

  Inspector Hood slumped in a chair in the study making no attempt to relight his cold pipe. Dr. Morelle had made no comment as, closing the front door, he had followed after the Inspector. Now he stood waiting for the other to tell him what disaster had overtaken Miss Frayle.

  ‘It was just sheer bad luck,’ the Inspector mumbled lugubriously. ‘One of those things it’s impossible to guard against. Chap in the belfry’s walkie-talkie packed up at the crucial moment. Burnt-out transmitter valve.’

  Dr. Morelle stared at him. Then he realised he had mistaken Hood’s remark at the front door. It had been a reference not to Miss Frayle, but to the plan for trapping the individual at St. Julian’s Church.

  ‘Everything went exactly as you foresaw,’ Inspector Hood was saying. ‘Our man in the belfry was able to see the chap arrive, then you. He saw him grab the package you chucked over to him, and you push off. After a few minutes he saw our man nip over the gate and hurry away.’ He paused and then exploded: ‘And not one ruddy word of his running commentary came over. Just because of some flaming little thing going wrong which was nobody’s fault.’

  Inspector Hood’s bulky frame reverberated with a great sigh. Dr. Morelle remained silent, and the other continued:

  ‘It was five minutes before the chap in the belfry realised none of us were getting a thing,’ he said bitterly. ‘By then, of course, it was too late. Only thing we’ve got out of the whole flaming business is we know it’s a man all right. Our chap in the belfry’s damned sure it wasn’t a woman dressed up.’

  Dr. Morelle, only half-listening to what the other was saying, nevertheless grasped the significance of what had happened. His scheme for unmasking the kidnapper and rescuing Doone Drummer had been an utter fiasco. It struck him that the plan’s collapse might account for Miss Frayle’s failure to return to her waiting car.

  Was it possible, he wondered, that by some means she had become aware of what had transpired and had decided to set off on her own investigation? None knew better than Dr. Morelle that beneath her feather-brained timidity Miss Frayle could rise to moments of courageous action. She might faint with irritating frequency at a spot of blood, but she was also capable of calling upon sources of hidden resolve and strength. Dr. Morelle found it easy to visualise her comforted by the possession of his automatic attempting to demonstrate that single-handed she was capable of succeeding where Scotland Yard had failed.

  ‘I was waiting in my car,’ Inspector Hood burbled on, oblivious of the Doctor’s divided interest. ‘When we realised the belfry walkie-talkie had packed up it was about ten minutes past twelve. I was pretty certain you and the blighter in the graveyard had gone — I had to take the chance, anyway — and we drove round to the church. As I expected the bird had flown. Got well away and none of the others, waiting with their walkie-talkies, with the faintest idea which direction he’d taken.’ He paused and sighed again. ‘We gave the graveyard and all round as thorough a once-over as we could by torch-light. Just in case he’d left behind any clue. But there was nothing. Sorry, Dr. Morelle,’ he wound up, heavily apologetic. ‘Afraid I’ve let you down.’

  Dr. Morelle gave him a glance of sympathy, but said nothing. The other regarded him for a moment, then gazed round the study. He stood up slowly.

  ‘Miss Frayle gone to bed, eh?’ he said, then added glumly: ‘What do we tell Drummer?’

  ‘I am afraid,’ Dr. Morelle said, ‘I have some disconcerting news for you.’

  ‘About Drummer?’

  ‘Miss Frayle.’

  ‘Miss Frayle?’

  ‘You will recall your fear that I might be walking into a trap tonight, and that I should arm myself. So deeply was Miss Frayle impressed by your warning that she took it into her head to follow me to St. Julian’s Church. With her went my automatic pistol which I keep in that drawer. Unfortunately, however, she omitted to note that it was unloaded.’

  ‘Good God,’ Hood exclaimed. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘That is something I wish I could tell you,’ Dr. Morelle replied.

  ‘You mean she hasn’t come back?’

  Dr. Morelle nodded. He went on:

  ‘The driver of the car she hired was the last person to see her. He telephoned just before you arrived. He explained that he put Miss Frayle down a short distance from the church. It appears she anticipated being away only a few minutes, instructing him to wait for her. He waited some thirty minutes before finally returning to his garage.’

  ‘What the devil can have happened to her?’

  Dr. Morelle stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘I can only assume that in some way she learned tonight’s scheme had gone awry,’ he said. ‘Knowing Miss Frayle it is quite conceivable that she determined to achieve what we had failed to do.’

  ‘And thinking she was armed with a loaded gun,’ Inspector Hood nodded. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  ‘Either she is at this moment still trailing the individual concerned, or she has fallen into his clutches.’ With a glance at Hood, he went on: ‘I cannot but help feeling she is, in fact, in his hands. Otherwise she would have found some means of allaying my not unnatural anxiety by communicating with me before now.’

  The Inspector had been chewing on his pipe-stem in obvious agitation. Now he threw a shrewd glance at Dr. Morelle from beneath his shaggy brows. It was plain to him the Doctor was shaken to the very roots by this catastrophic twist to the night’s events In all his experience of his varied moods the Inspector had never known Dr. Morelle appear
so emotionally affected. The hand that was lighting a fresh cigarette was unmistakably trembling.

  It flashed across the mind of that stolid man from Scotland Yard he was now receiving demonstrable proof that Dr. Morelle’s outward manner to Miss Frayle was merely a pose concealing his secret regard for her. Hood had always suspected Miss Frayle’s romantic inclination towards her employer; had been amused by the apparent hopelessness of her affection. The possibility that her feelings were, in fact, reciprocated came to him as a tremendous revelation.

  ‘What in hell do we do?’ he growled, his heavy jaw thrust forward. ‘And what about Drummer?’ he added. ‘He’s going to go up in a sheet of flame when he knows what’s happened.’ His voice rose in desperation.

  ‘We shall contribute nothing to the solution of the problem by adding to the conflagration,’ he was reminded in familiarly calm tones.

  The other gave Dr. Morelle a glance of frank admiration. Shattered as he was by what had happened the Doctor was keeping a grip on himself. He wasn’t going to let himself fly off the handle. The Inspector took his cue accordingly and pulled himself together.

  ‘Suppose he’s parked by his ’phone waiting for news,’ he said. ‘Or has he already ’phoned you?’

  ‘He is expecting me to telephone him immediately I have any information.’

  ‘Glad it’s you who’s got to tell him and not me.’

  ‘I think we shall agree,’ Dr. Morelle was regarding the other coolly through a cloud of cigarette smoke, ‘that nothing will be gained by informing Drummer of both reverses we have suffered.’

  ‘We don’t have to tell him about Miss Frayle,’ Inspector Hood agreed. ‘But we can’t keep him in the dark about the rest of it.’

  ‘No reason why we should not be perfectly frank,’ Dr. Morelle returned. ‘Make it clear to him that because our part of the scheme failed it need not necessarily prevent his daughter’s return. We have kept our bargain to the extent of paying over the ransom demanded. I fail to see why the criminal should not keep his part of the bargain and return Miss Drummer.’