by John Creasey
Now she really sparked his interest.
“Oh? What about? Eric?”
“Yes,” Foster’s sister said wryly. “She said that Eric had been murdered. She sounded quite hysterical, and rang off before I could get any more sense out of her.” Flo Addinson paused, eying Gideon very intently, before she went on: “Was Eric murdered?”
Gideon answered bluntly: “It’s just possible.”
After a pause, Foster’s sister said quietly: “Thank you. I thought you might look for this woman, Estelle.”
“Believe me, we’ll look for her,” Gideon promised. “You’ve given us a lead which might be invaluable. If there’s anything else—”
“There’s just one thing,” she said. “I’d like to help actively, and I think I might be able to.”
Now he was wary. “How, Mrs. Addinson?”
“I could harass Chang,” she said. “There’s a picture of a dancer outside his office, and her name’s Estelle. It could be the same one.” How Lemaitre would benefit from some of her caution! “I thought if I went to see Chang, asked him about what really happened, asked about Eric and Estelle—”
“No,” Gideon was abrupt, “leave Estelle right out of it; you’d only warn Chang that we were interested in her. I’ll check the dancer, though, that’s most useful.”
He stopped.
“May I try to harass Chang?” she asked, and added very quickly, almost fiercely: “I don’t think anything could keep me away, but if—if you could suggest how to handle him—”
Gideon chuckled.
“Not bad,” he said. “Admire your honesty, Mrs. Addinson. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to shake Chang, but you might be able to try one angle.”
She leaned forward eagerly.
“If there was an association between Chang and your brother, and Chang thinks your brother confided in you, he’ll be very edgy,” Gideon said. “Edgy men make mistakes. Hm.” He hesitated. “Hm, yes,” he repeated. “Go along and see him, Mrs. Addinson; give him cause to think you know something. He’ll probably try to square you, although he might conceivably try to harm—”
“Oh, he wouldn’t dare that,” she exclaimed. “Not if I told him you were having me followed.”
Gideon shook his head sagely.
“You’ve got a head for this kind of thing,” he conceded. “We’ll follow you, all right. Go home, Mrs. Addinson, and wait for word from us. We won’t keep you long.”
They shook hands, and he walked with her to the lift. As she went down, he watched and reflected that she was a very fine-looking, finely built woman.
Five minutes later, he’d laid on inquiries about the unknown Estelle, and made arrangements for Foster’s sister to be followed. After that, he was able to work for twenty minutes without being interrupted.
Perhaps it was going to be a quiet night, after all.
He knew nothing of Alex Fitzroy.
Fitzroy was in his West End flat, not very far from Chang’s restaurant, but just outside the fringes of Soho. He stood in the tiny bathroom, shaving. His hand was absolutely steady; he was testing his nerve, making quite sure that it wouldn’t let him down.
When he had finished shaving, he felt quite confident.
He left the bathroom, lit a cigarette, and looked at a decanter of whisky. He wanted a drink, but told himself that it might be a sign of weakness, and that he ought not to have one.
He put the temptation behind him by going into his bedroom. He sat on the side of the bed, and went carefully through all the plans to rob the safe deposit in Wattle Street. Nothing was written down, and only he knew all the arrangements for the coup. He did not trust either of his cronies with everything, although they were reliable enough.
It would be necessary to start for the safe-deposit building soon. The others, who had further to travel, were already on their way. The escape car was parked – a car which had been left near the Mid-Union Safe Deposit building nightly for several weeks, so there would be nothing unusual about it tonight – except that when it was driven off it would be carrying a fortune.
He checked over every single part of the plan, and decided again that it was fool proof.
He jumped up, lit a cigarette, and went into the living room. This time he didn’t argue with himself, but poured a tot of whisky, and tossed it down. He felt angry because of the words “fool proof”; he told himself that his attitude was completely realistic, and only a fool would call this a job which couldn’t go wrong.
It wasn’t likely to, but it could.
If an inspector or official of the Mid-Union company were to visit the safe deposit, he would be familiar with all of the night staff, and, seeing strangers, would certainly try to raise an alarm. But he’d be bound to ask questions, and so give his own identity away. He could be dealt with before doing any harm, like the other members of the night staff would be.
Perhaps it wasn’t fool proof; but it certainly wasn’t far short.
Fitzroy went back into the bedroom, knelt down in front of a dressing chest, opened the bottom drawer, and rummaged among the underclothes in it.
He drew out a gun and some ammunition. He loaded the gun, a .32 automatic, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he had another whisky, and left his flat.
The little widow with whom the Reverend Julian Small lodged watched him as he sat at the table, that evening, toying with his food. She was a woman of mercifully few words, one of the few regular churchgoers in the district, and a familiar if faded figure at St. Mary’s. She was fond of the new curate, but knew as well as he did that the task was too big for him; at least, he showed no sign that he would ever be able to handle it well.
He was far too gentle.
She was surprised by that, in some ways. When his luggage had arrived a few months ago, and she had looked through it, she had found boxing gloves and other things to indicate that he was a dab at games and sports. So when the weedy-looking, rather timid man with the narrow nostrils had arrived on the doorstep, she hadn’t realized that it was her lodger.
She had given up hope for him now.
Julian Small had almost given up hope for himself.
He had not properly recovered from the fall that morning. His nose was raw as well as red, and painful whenever he touched it, which was often, because he had a slight cold. His bitterness had gone, however, and in its place there was a sense of shame – that he should have betrayed his trust as he had; “suffer little children—”
He could not find the way to their confidence or their friendship. It wasn’t their fault; it was his.
He did not wholly convince himself of that, but he had one narrow wedge of hope: the club, tonight. It was officially the St. Mary’s Club and twenty-odd years old, but when he had arrived, there had been the bare hall, a few pieces of damaged furniture, a table-tennis top with the plywood warped and chipped, a dart board so badly eaten away by the darts over the years that some holes went right through it. Small had put all this right. There were three new dart boards, a regulation-size table-tennis top with trestles, draughts, dominoes, chess, a small library, and, what he regarded as more important than anything else, plenty of comfortable chairs. Thirty youngsters could sit in upholstered comfort and read books or magazines taken from the club library. There was also a small bar, offering coffee, tea, soft drinks, cakes and biscuits. In fact, everything that a flourishing club of a hundred or so youths could revel in, and—
The club had eleven members.
Usually, most of these failed to appear on club nights, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. No one had ever said so to the curate, but he believed that the others had been intimidated by youths who didn’t come; or else made to feel ridiculous for having anything to do with him.
There was to be a special effort tonight; each member was to try to bring one new member. Until the string incident, Julian Small had told himself that it might be the turn of the tide, and, as he set out from his lodgings for the hall next to the church, he
tried to induce a cheerful mood.
Twenty-two lads and lassies instead of one would make all the difference.
Lights were on in the hall.
It was very quiet.
He realized that this was partly due to the fact that the noises of cranes and derricks were missing. So were all the usual sounds which came from the docks by night. He didn’t think much about this, but wondered how many would in fact turn up. Twenty-two was absurdly optimistic. Fifteen? Sixteen? He shivered with a kind of excitement as he drew nearer the hall; fifteen would make it a successful evening, and give him hope for the future.
He glanced across at a light fixed to the wall of a ruined warehouse, nearby. Some movement by it caught his eyes, but he couldn’t identify the movement. He took no notice until suddenly the warehouse wall light went out.
That made him miss a step.
Tight-lipped, he strode on to the hall. The door was open, light shone out from it, but he saw no one and heard nothing.
He reached it… .
He stood quite still on the threshold, feeling almost choked. Nothing was in its proper place. The table-tennis top was in pieces, strewn about the floor; an axe had been used violently. Pieces of a dart board were almost under his feet, as small as corks. Books were ripped open, pages strewed the scrubbed floor like pieces of giant confetti. And the chairs—
There wasn’t a whole chair left.
He went in, falteringly. He looked round at this savage destruction of his hopes and at the shocking waste of money which he had needed for himself. He looked round, forgetful of his thin, bruised nose, aware only of disaster.
Then, slowly, he spoke to the deserted room.
“If I ever set my hands on them,” he said, “I’ll break their bloody necks.”
Suddenly, without having been given the slightest warning, he felt in a different mood from anything he had known before. He was savagely, viciously angry.
Also unknown to Gideon, there was Rose Bray.
Rose, at sixteen, was on her first job, and although all of her friends had scoffed when she had said what she was going to do, she was revelling in it. She was a lady’s maid. She had a modest but nice little home with her parents, in Acton, and had been to school until she was nearly sixteen. She knew shorthand, typing and was qualified for many other varieties of jobs, but chose to be a lady’s maid.
She liked beautiful clothes.
It was not the kind of liking that creates envy. She was content just to see and handle them, to help dress Lady Muriel, who was nice and natural, not at all like she’d expected real ladies to be – so high falutin’ and imperious. “Imperious” was a word which Rose’s boyfriend had used with great scorn when she had told him what she was going to do.
“These rich people,” he added, smartingly, “just a lot of wealthy tarts, that’s all they are.” And after a moment’s pause for research: “Just a lot of parasites.”
Rose was thinking about her boyfriend at the time that Gideon was looking up at the brown spot in the ceiling, without wondering how it had come there. She was thinking that if Dick only knew Lady Muriel and her husband – who wasn’t a Lord or a Sir, she didn’t quite understand the reason for that but accepted it – he would have an entirely different idea about the wealthy. Certainly they were rich. The diamond necklace which Lady Muriel had left on the dressing table was worth at least fifteen years’ wages for her father. The value did not intrigue Rose so much as the beauty, and Rose preferred coloured jewels to diamonds, which seemed to her so cold.
But more than precious stones, she loved the clothes: the rich satins, the smooth velvets, the tulles, the luxurious silks, the colours which were so beautiful that they often made her catch her breath. There were three large wardrobes, all filled with clothes, but Rose’s favourites were in the dressing room: the evening gowns and cocktail dresses. Sometimes she would open the door, just to look at and to touch the materials.
Many things here had taken some getting used to: this room, for one. It had two doors, one opening into the passage, the other into the bedroom. And across the bedroom – with its two high beds, the rich, soft bedclothes and the twin canopies, each rather like a big baby’s crib – was his dressing room. Rose did not go in there much; just occasionally to get something if his valet, Forbes, was out.
Rose did not like Forbes. She could not have explained why, but she didn’t trust him. That evening, Lady Muriel and Mr. Simister were downstairs, with friends. About a dozen in all; just a little informal cocktail party, Lady Muriel had said, as she had carelessly selected a dress which had cost over a hundred guineas. Rose was probably one of the few remaining people who could admire such an attitude toward money.
She stood looking at a rich, red velvet gown, and felt irresistibly drawn toward it, longing to smooth the pile of velvet between her fingers.
She heard a sound in the bedroom.
It did not occur to her that anything was wrong, but she assumed that Lady Muriel had come upstairs for something she’d forgotten. The carpet on the floor of the dressing room was thick, muffling the sound of her footsteps as she went toward the communicating door.
She actually began to open it, and then saw the man. He was crouching over the dressing table. In his right hand was the diamond necklace. There were other jewels in the trinket box which he had taken out of a drawer, a drawer usually kept locked. He didn’t look up. She couldn’t see his face, because of the brown scarf which was drawn up over his nose, but she saw that he wore gloves, which looked skin tight.
After the first shock, Rose felt just one thing: fear. It made her want to run away crying for help. Her heart suddenly began to beat so fast that she felt as if she were choking. She knew that her cheeks went chalk white. She watched, hypnotized, as the man thrust the jewels into a small bag – it looked rather like a chamois leather, the kind window cleaners used. She heard the hard stones grate against each other.
She knew what she had to do, if only she could make her legs do what she told them. It was difficult even to turn around. She let the door go, and managed to turn, then stood quite still: her legs simply would not move. Gradually, she made them. She reached the passage door, which was closed turned the handle and pulled; the door scraped along the carpet and the sound seemed very loud to her.
If only Forbes would come!
She heard no other sound. The big house in Madeson Square, overlooking beech and plane trees and a small grass plot where the people of the square aired and exercised their dogs, was solid and silent. A door closed out sound as well as sight.
The passage was carpeted.
She crept out of the dressing room, and now she found that her legs wanted to move too quickly, wanted to run. She dared not. She must go past that door and then downstairs to raise the alarm; if she shouted or if she ran she would warn the thief and he would get away.
Being out here, with the bedroom door closed, she felt safe; excitement replaced the panicky fear. Suddenly she saw herself as the heroine: the girl who had saved Lady Muriel’s jewels. It would be easy! She tiptoed toward the door – yes, it was closed, just as it had been when she had passed. It wasn’t far to the head of the stairs, and once she reached them she could hurry down.
She drew level with the door.
It opened, and the thief grabbed at her.
13. The Thief
Rose saw the door open, the grasping hand, the masked face, in the same awful moment of fear. She opened her mouth wide, to scream, but the thief slapped her face. He hurt less than he terrified her. She choked back the scream. He shifted his grip, took her wrist and dragged her into the bedroom.
The door slammed.
“Don’t make a sound or I’ll break your neck,” he growled behind the mask.
She could not have made a sound then, even to save her neck. He was hurting her arm, and pulled her across the room, toward the beds. Toward the beds. Then he changed the direction, first pulled and then pushed her into a corner. She did not realiz
e that they were safe, here, from the sight of anyone outside, especially the people on the other side of the square.
“Keep your voice low. Have you warned anyone?”
She couldn’t get a word out, could only make the shape of the words: “No, no, no, no, no.”
“If you’re lying to me, I’ll—”
"No, no, no!”
“You’d better be telling the truth,” he said roughly. “Turn around.”
"No!” That gasp came out.
“Turn round!” he said in a harsh whisper, and pulled at her shoulder. She gasped again, and turned helplessly. Then something fell over her head; she started to scream until it reached her mouth, thick, and muffling; then it was drawn tight, and she could hardly breathe. Next moment, she felt her hands seized, felt tightness at her wrists, and then realized that he had tied her wrists together behind her.
He spun her round again.
“Sit down,” he said, and before she could realize what the order meant, he bent down and picked her up, then dumped her heavily on the floor. With her hands behind her, she couldn’t get up easily. The scarf or whatever it was still bit into her mouth, and she was struggling for breath.
He left her.
He must have spent another three or four minutes at the dressing table, cramming things into the wash-leather bag. Then he turned away, and took notice of her again. She had not recovered from the first fear, and all this made it much, much worse.
“Now what am I going to do with you?” he said softly. “If you raise the alarm—”
He came toward her slowly. She wanted to cry out that she wouldn’t raise the alarm; if only he would go, she’d never say a word to anyone; but she couldn’t utter a sound of any kind. He stood looking down at her. He wasn’t really very big, but from that angle he looked enormous, and she was absolutely in his power. All the stories of murder she had ever heard about seemed to flash through her mind.
