‘A short while ago in the snuggery at the Prince Regent. I met Harry Fitch there for a drink before the Rotary lunch upstairs. She was with this man at a window table. They got up and left before we’d finished our gins.’
‘So you’re thinking of the bank manager.’
‘Cecil Weddon’s a friend, Rollo.’
‘You’ve got to think of yourself, John.’
The doctor looked at his wife. ‘I don’t want to stir up unnecessary trouble,’ he said defensively.
‘A knife in the back isn’t rated as trouble. It’s termed murder, darling,’ his wife reminded him.
‘Aunt Judy’s right, John,’ said the younger man, and turned to look closely at the troubled face of the doctor. ‘Maybe I’ll get a chance to lead a hint or two into my report if old Simpson’s agreeable, John. Would that help?’
‘It would. But I can’t see the chance arising because I’m the only one who knows. If you hint this Drury will soon reach from you to me, Rollo. You might be doing yourself some no-good.’
‘Let me judge that. After all, it might be my big chance to put a noose round the neck of the girl who jilted me.’ Rollo’s brief laugh was a mocking sound that made both his hearers flinch. ‘Think what a hell of a story that would be.’
‘Rollo — don’t,’ pleaded Judy Cadman.
‘Why not?’ the young man snapped. ‘I’m still in love with her. And don’t anyone tell me I made a mistake. I didn’t and I’d stake my life on Carol. But you just might have given me a way to help her, John.’
‘I fail to see how.’
‘She’s in trouble. Can’t you see that?’ the nephew urged earnestly. ‘Somehow she’s got into a mess and opts out so as not to involve me.’
‘You’re merely guessing, Rollo,’ his aunt said sadly.
‘No, Aunt Judy.’ He shook his head slowly, giving her a smile that managed to reflect the sadness in her voice. ‘I’m feeling — if you can understand.’
She looked at him until a moisture gathered in her eyes.
‘I really think I can,’ she said. ‘Carol Wilson is a very lucky girl even without an engagement ring.’
An hour after finishing the report Dan Simpson of the Morning Gazette had okayed, Rollo picked up a taxi and was driven to the big square modern block that housed the new New Scotland Yard in Victoria Street. He had put through a phone call and tried to speak to Drury.
‘You won’t get him,’ Dan Simpson, the grunting news editor, had promised. ‘Why the hell do you think we have a crime reporter, laddie?’
‘I’ll keep from under his feet,’ Rollo had assured him.
‘You’d bloody well better. Joe Murphy hasn’t an Irish name without the temper to go with it.’ Simpson had glanced over the piece Rollo had hammered out on his typewriter. ‘But I can’t stop you trying any more than I can stop you cutting your own throat if you’ve a mind to. But I’ll give you a piece of advice. Use a sharp instrument. It’s more effective and a hell of a lot less painful.’
The news editor had been proved right. Rollo hadn’t got through to Frank Drury, but he had spoken to Bill Hazard, who had been about to slam down the phone when something the caller said altered things in the Scotland Yard office where Hazard stood holding the phone and Frank Drury sat smoking and watching him.
What Rollo had said was, ‘I might be able to help in identifying the victim.’
There had been a pause filled in with some muttering that could not be made into words before Hazard said, ‘In half an hour.’
So Rollo was deposited at the Yard and was shown up in a lift to where Hazard and Drury awaited him. Just for a moment as a uniformed constable held open the door he felt a stirring of misgivings, but hastily thrust them aside.
Frank Drury looked at him from the far side of the office and said, ‘I’m Superintendent Drury and you’re Rollo Hackley of the Gazette. What’s happened to Murphy? He been fired for fiddling his expense accounts to afford two families — or is it three?’
Hazard grinned. ‘Families doesn’t fit. Harem might,’ he said.
Rollo felt he had to come out with something to establish a good enough reason.
‘I thought I could help. I’m Dr Cadman’s nephew.’
Drury stopped being humorous and moved closer to his visitor.
‘The doctor’s remembered something.’
Rollo nodded.
‘About the dead man?’
He nodded again and said, ‘It was the moustache that fooled him. When he took away the moustache he remembered where he’d seen the man before.’
‘Go on.’
‘In a local hostelry which has an upstairs restaurant for club meetings. I don’t mean he saw the man in the restaurant. Actually it was in the snuggery downstairs, where my uncle was having a drink.’
‘The man wasn’t alone, was he?’
Bill Hazard was looking as though something had suddenly pleased him.
‘A woman. It had to be,’ he said.
Drury didn’t wait for his visitor to answer his question. He pointed to a chair.
‘You’d better sit down, Mr Hackley,’ the Yard man invited. ‘Start at the beginning and leave nothing out. But first, did the doctor send you?’
Rollo lowered himself on to the chair indicated.
‘In a way he did,’ he said cautiously.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I think you’ll know, Mr Drury, when I tell you what I’ve been told.’
Frank Drury spent several seconds regarding his visitor’s face. He was debating how Dan Simpson had been inveigled into allowing this poaching on Joe Murphy’s special preserve. The Irish crime reporter of the Gazette was likely to sweat pure Bushmill’s when he learned what had happened.
‘I’m listening,’ he said at last.
Rollo related what he had learned from his uncle, omitting only what he had been told about Carol being in the front garden of Holly Lawn. When he had finished Drury looked at his assistant.
Bill Hazard lifted his broad shoulders. ‘He looked as though he could have been interested in women. Natty dresser, talc on his skin, hair carefully waved, and the moustache and sideboards. But a woman didn’t push that knife in his back and lock up the cutlery in its glass case afterwards.’
Hazard scratched his chin. He sounded cynical, possibly because he saw life from a cynical angle. He was unmarried and untarnished with ideals. Frank Drury was a married man with plenty of domestic commitments to take the place of ideals.
‘You thinking of a certain bank manager, Bill?’ Drury asked.
‘This Cecil Weddon’s got problems. One less today than he had yesterday. Point is, does he know it?’
Drury’s head turned slowly and he was looking at his visitor again.
‘You know this Mrs Weddon?’
‘I’ve seen her. My aunt calls her flashy and manages to make her sound like a nympho. Her name’s Beryl.’
‘Only semi-precious,’ sniffed Hazard. ‘Probably fits. She doesn’t sound priced far above rubies.’
Drury stood up and the visit was over. He held out a hand.
‘Thanks for coming along, Mr Hackley. If you learn anything further I’d appreciate sharing it. And a word of advice. Don’t get Joe Murphy’s back up. He’s not the most predictable of men — at the wrong time.’
Bill Hazard walked with him to the lift. His parting words were, ‘I saw you look at the phone extension number. Don’t forget it.’
He nodded and walked back to the office where Frank Drury waited for him. As the lift slid smoothly down to ground level Rollo Hackley was feeling a trifle disappointed. He had helped his uncle, as he had promised, but he hadn’t learned something he had hoped to hear — the identity of the dead man.
On his way into the Gazette building he ran into Joe Murphy, wearing a scowl. Before the crime reporter could snarl at him he said, ‘I looked for you earlier, Mr Murphy. If you’ve got five minutes I can tell you something — about the murder at Holly
Lawn.’
The crime reporter looked puzzled. ‘Holly Lawn? Where in hell’s that, boy?’
‘The house in Croft Avenue where — ’
Rollo was given no chance to say more. He was dragged into a ground-floor waiting-room, where the Irishman locked the door against intruders.
‘That right you been playing Sherlock, boy?’
‘No. But I have been making things easy for my uncle, who found the body and forgot to say he’d seen the dead man before. In fact, he told the police he hadn’t and it wasn’t until — ’
Joe Murphy waved a hand. The Irishman was grinning, and not with malice.
‘Skip it. I’m not Frank Drury and I haven’t got your doctor uncle on a hook. Just spell it out.’
So Rollo told his piece, again omitting any reference to Carol. But when he finished Murphy was watching him very thoughtfully.
‘A womanizer, huh? Now that sounds promising, boy. Didn’t I hear your girl returned you her ring?’ The Irishman’s eyes became very sleepy-looking and almost closed. ‘You don’t know if she knew this character in brown?’
Rollo felt himself growing hot. He wanted to throw a fist at the broad, shrewd face confronting him.
‘Maybe not,’ said Murphy reflectively. ‘But did she ever mention that house?’
‘Why the hell should she? So far as I know she’d never seen the place.’
Murphy rose. ‘Some women can keep their own counsel. They’re the ones to beware of. In return for which advice, boy, I’ll expect to share anything you find for Drury.’ He turned and unlocked the door, opened it, and paused to look round before continuing down the corridor outside. He appeared amused at something he had thought of, and said, ‘Who knows? I may grab something I can show you, boy, before I pass it over to old Dan.’
But not that day.
The remaining hours in Fleet Street proved to be something of an anticlimax to Rollo, who had expected too much because of his personal interest. All Murphy handed in was a padded-out rewrite of a lukewarm statement prepared by the Yard’s Press Bureau. A Gazette staff photographer came back with some shots of Holly Lawn. They were only exteriors, with uniformed constables on guard and the front door shut. One of the pix agencies shot along a photo of Dr John Cadman which it had sent a man to get. Under the copyright line on the reverse were a couple of stale quotes.
When Rollo left for the day he was feeling let down, but still anxious about the girl he was convinced he still loved. He drove back to the street where he had a modest top-floor bachelor flat, found a parking space, and walked to the steps of the Victorian house that had been made over into self-contained flats.
Just as he started to mount the stairs there was a power cut. He cursed and felt for his pocket torch, switched it on and climbed to his front door. Something stirred in the angle of the landing wall. He swung the torch’s bright ray in a short arc, and immediately jerked erect with a smothered exclamation of surprise. Sitting propped in the angle of the wall was a girl in a trouser suit, her chin tucked down as she stared upwards at him.
She said in a voice completely empty of surprise, ‘Are you Rollo Hackley?’
Chapter 3
With his total store of three candles guttering on the dining-table at one end of his compact sitting-room, Rollo sampled his gin and tonic and regretted not keeping a lemon in the fridge.
‘Sorry about the dearth of lemons,’ he apologised.
The girl seated on the settee across from him smiled and pushed back a strand of hair. She looked tired and trying to crowd from view an agitation that was just below the surface. It was the smile that tugged at his memory, made him feel she should seem familiar and have a name he could produce.
‘This is a life-saver.’ She held up the glass as though toasting him. ‘I’m really a sweet tooth, anyway.’
As she drank from the glass he asked, ‘How long were you waiting?’
‘About four hours.’
‘Good God!’ Rollo finished his drink, collected her glass, and poured two fresh drinks. When he handed back her glass he remained standing over her, looking down, as he had in the hall when he first saw her. ‘What made you ready to spend four hours crouched down outside? I don’t have to be told it is something urgent.’ He frowned, shaking his head. ‘I feel I should know you, but I can’t place your name.’
‘You’ve only seen me twice, once for a very short time. I’m Mellie Smallwood.’
She watched comprehension change the expression on his face.
‘Now I remember. You used to share an apartment with Carol. But you remained close friends, didn’t you?’
She nodded. ‘But I haven’t seen Carol or heard from her for over a week. I’ve rung her every day. There was no reply.’
‘So you’ve come to ask me where she is. Well, you could have phoned and saved those four hours outside.’
She shook her head. ‘Carol’s in danger,’ she said softly. ‘I know.’
He stood back and the candlelight washed over her face, brightening the staring eyes watching him for reaction to her words.
‘Tell me,’ he said simply.
‘The day after she returned your ring she phoned me, said she wouldn’t be in touch with me again and asked me not to try to contact her. Before I could ask any questions she rang off. I tried getting through to her again but without success. She wasn’t picking up the phone. That’s not like Carol. So something’s happened.’
‘It wasn’t like her to break off our engagement the way she did. How did you find out?’
‘I didn’t have to. She told me when she asked me not to get in touch with her again. As I said, I’ve tried to get through to her each day. You had any better luck?’
‘I didn’t try ringing,’ he informed her. ‘I was asked not to.’ He jumped to a conclusion. ‘Now you’ve heard from her, Mellie? That’s what made this visit urgent.’
She drank, watching him over the rim of the glass.
‘I arrived home this afternoon to find a letter from her. Here, see for yourself.’
She opened the handbag on the settee beside her and took out an envelope with a blurred ‘London’ in the franking mark over the bright blue stamp. As he took it he recognized Carol’s familiar handwriting. He removed the single sheet of paper from inside the envelope and read the undated letter that had no heading.
It ran:
‘Dear Mellie,
Before I left I forgot to ask a favour of you. I know you’ve still got the spare key to our flat. Be an angel and look in sometime and forward any post that may arrive for me to Burroughs Hotel, Newlyn Road East, Edgware. I know I may rely on you.
Yours ever —
Carol.’
The letter had every appearance of having been written in blue ballpoint in a hurry, for the signature, as well as several other words, had been smudged when the sheet of paper was folded.
But Mellie had another explanation. She pointed to the blurred letters and said, ‘You see? I think she was crying when she wrote this letter.’
Rollo was on the point of challenging this conclusion when he changed his mind.
‘Go on,’ he invited. ‘You’ve something on your mind.’
‘I think Carol wrote this letter. It’s her handwriting. We both recognize it, don’t we?’
He jerked his head. ‘So?’
‘I don’t think it’s her letter, if you understand. Oh, I don’t mean someone’s forged it,’ she hurried on. ‘But I’m convinced Carol didn’t write it voluntarily. She did it — what’s the word? — under duress.’
Rollo looked stricken. ‘You’re saying she was forced to write this letter, Mellie.’ He caught his breath in a thin hiss. ‘Can you tell me why?’
‘No. That’s why I decided I must see you without delay, Rollo.’
He said nothing for some seconds, then finished his drink and walked back to his chair while she replaced the letter in her handbag, and said as he sat down, ‘You haven’t explained the danger.’
‘Perhaps this will.’
She crossed to where he sat, carrying another letter she had taken from her handbag. It was in a stout manila envelope, was addressed to Miss Carol Wilson, and comprised a report from a detective agency on one Humphrey Peel. She saw Rollo start with surprise and said, ‘So you recognize the name.’
‘Of course. Humphrey Peel was that forger. He was in a flat that caught fire and was burned to death. The police decided it was an accident. But what the devil could Carol want with him?’
In reply this surprising visitor unfolded the map she had kept in her hand and spread it under the guttering candles.
‘Come and look,’ she said. ‘Tell me if you don’t think this interesting.’
Peering over her shoulder, Rollo followed the finger with which she pointed to a group of streets to the north of London. The word ‘Edgware’ was printed across the area.
‘Newlyn Road East,’ she said, ‘and here,’ following the movement of her finger, ‘about half a mile away is Cotswold Crescent, where Peel was found in the upper burned-out flat.’ She paused, still pointing to where her finger had arrived on the local map that had an estate agent’s name in one corner, and turned to look at him over her shoulder. ‘Or, keeping strictly to the facts, the remains of Humphrey Peel.’
Rollo’s eyes turned from the map to the report from the detective agency. It set out clearly the terms of imprisonment served by Peel, his police record, and his address at the time the report was drafted, which, according to the date on it, was a day or two before the tragedy in Cotswold Crescent.
Rollo looked back at the girl who had produced these amazing documents.
‘You’re quite a girl, Mellie,’ he said with a note of awe blended with admiration in his voice. ‘But — ’
‘Don’t say it,’ she cautioned. ‘I will. What made me snoop with Carol’s post? When I got her letter this afternoon and decided she was in trouble and being compelled to write it, I went over to what she calls our flat in the letter, but strictly is now hers, because I don’t share it. I have that spare key still. It was agreed by us that I should keep it to see how things worked out, and it’s lucky I did, Rollo. I found this report from — what’s their name? — the Temple-Moore Inquiry Agency. I came on here. For one thing, I know you’re on a newspaper and you might be able to tell me if this agency is a reputable one.’
Killer in the Shade Page 3
