As the door opened and old Matt Phillipson’s face appeared, still wearing the contented expression from his encounter with Polly, Gerry fired carefully and once again the distinctive noise, as of a heavy wooden box falling upon a polished stone floor, a sound as sharp and violent as a pistol shot, echoed up the well of the staircase.
Gerry did not close the door, but, bending swiftly over the old man, he thrust his hand into the inside breast pocket and drew out the plump black wallet hidden there. Then he swung the box up into his arms again and stamped up the staircase with it.
All the time he was listening for a hue and cry behind him, but there was none. As he had hoped, Mr. Phillipson had kept his bargain and had waited alone.
As Gerry reached the hall the lift came down and he was swept out of the building amid a flurry of young girls, typists from the pool on the top floor.
There was no need for him to explain the fact that he still carried the box, for the old commissionaire was surrounded and not looking at him, but his original plan had contained cover for this point and he did not alter it. From first to last he behaved as what he so nearly was, a well-trained animal without imagination or moral sense, and it was probably because of that that he aroused no instinctive alarm in the crowds through which he pressed. There was no danger signal from him, no smell of fear.
As he reached the doorway he peered out into the misty shadows and bellowed to his non-existent van driver.
“Wrong ’ouse, mate! Try the Square.”
He plunged out into the throng. Despite the crowds he reached the mouth of the alley in nine seconds and was beside the car, now in considerably deeper shadow than before, in a further ten. It took him four minutes to lock the box away, rearrange his jacket and scarf, put on his trench coat, and scrub his face with a couple of clean handkerchiefs. There was no outcry from Minton Terrace, no sound of police whistles. Presently he was not even out of breath.
He had reckoned on it taking him an extra two minutes to get back to the Tenniel, because the furniture shop would now be closed and that short cut denied him, but in the narrow street which was his alternative route he passed behind an open truck held up by the lights and he threw the looped rope in the back of it. He was still holding his beret rolled up in his hand. There was nothing upon it to distinguish it in any way but he had planned to get rid of it, and because the exact method of doing this had not been worked out he was worried out of all proportion by the little problem now that it arose. He had been alone in the pump passage but had not dared to drop the cap there, and came out into the street again still holding it. Finally the matter was solved for him.
Half a dozen yards before the turning leading to the long slope up to the Tenneil a dog appeared in his path. It was a big yellow animal with a large benign face and a long waving tail, who had been let out for brief personal reasons from one of the blocks of luxury flats further down the hill. It came up to him and he stooped to pat it, thought better of the impulse and offered it the beret instead. To his surprise and secret relief it took it promptly and galloped away with it into the gloom.
Gerry strode on. He was making excellent time and already the lights of the hotel were visible from the top of the street. He hurried and was almost level with the door which would lead him back to the row of telephone booths when a second unrehearsed encounter occurred. There was a patter of light feet behind him followed by a familiar but not instantly placeable laugh. They brought him swinging round to confront Mr. Vick of all people, looking unexpectedly small and prosperous in a blue Melton coat and a velvety black homburg. The barber was delighted.
“Why Major!” he cried exuberantly, “it is you! What a coin-ci-dence!”
Since Gerry remained silent, his face wooden, Mr. Vick hurried on.
“It’s quite a liberty, I know that,” he said, “and I hope you’ll forgive it, but as I was only saying this very morning that I’ve known you donkeys’ years and never seen you outside my shop, when I actually caught sight of you just in front of me turning out of Petty Street—well, I had to follow you all the way up the hill just to make up my mind.”
He took a breath and stood smiling, his inquisitive eyes bright in the lamplight.
“You’re just off to catch Mr. Moor’en I suppose?” he added wistfully. “My word, Major, you don’t ’alf walk fast, you know.”
Chapter 11
RICHARD TO PLAY
“IN T’REE WEEKS this ’otel will be anole in the road. I shan’t be ’ere no more. I shall be livin’ wit’ my daughter in Saffron ’Ill. It don’t matter to me what I tell you, see?”
The old waiter was only just intelligible and had Richard known more about London he would have guessed that he was listening to a local dialect rather than a foreign accent, inasmuch as the man had no other tongue and had never had any other home.
To look at he was remarkably like a toad and moved with some of that pleasant creature’s spry difficulty. At the moment he was bending sideways at the tea table, leaning heavily on his hand. His dark-skinned face flecked with little black patches was tired with the wear of a lifetime and he spoke to the boy like some comically allegorical figure of Age talking to Youth—hurriedly, timidly, and out of the corner of his mouth.
“If ’e should come back I’ll give ’im your message if you say so,” he went on furtively, “but I shouldn’t leave no message. I shouldn’t say you waited no hour for ’im. You’ve just met ’im today, ’ave you?”
“Well yes, I have as a matter of fact.” Richard was exasperated with himself, principally for not being much older and more informed. His vivid blue eyes were fierce under his dark red hair and the old man looked away nervously and flicked at a crumb on the table with his napkin.
“’E told you I would know ’im again,” he muttered presently. “Did you ’ear that? I don’ think you did. When I was a young man I wouldn’t ’ave ’eard it, but now being old I did and I thought.” He coughed. “You un’erstand now, don’ you?”
“Not entirely,” said Richard frankly. “Have you seen him before?”
The waiter looked round with elaborate casualness but there was not a soul in sight in the vast doomed hall. All the same he lowered his voice still further.
“ ’E come in yesterday, just walked round.” There seemed to be some deep significance in this statement for he stood watching for a moment before he tried again. “ ’E cased the place,” he said. “Cased it. Don’ you know that word, sir?” Receiving no response, he became very foreign indeed. “How you say, sur-vey for da crook.”
Crook! The familiar and likely word registered on Richard with something like relief. But his new friend raised a protesting hand and became so Latin as to be almost incomprehensible.
“No,” he said, “no no, I don’t know nothing about that. But don’ you send ’im no message and when the police come and ask you if you know where ’e was today you say no, jus’ like that. You don’t know ’im and you don’ know ’is name, you never saw nor ’eard of ’im before. You don’ want to get mixed up with ’is troubles.”
“An alibi?” The explanation, so obvious as soon as it was pointed out to him, startled Richard rather than astonished him. He had begun to expect his new acquaintance to turn out to be some sort of confidence trickster, but not to discover that he personally was being used by him as a shield.
The old waiter, who was watching his face with interest, ventured another observation.
“ ’E left ’ere twenty-five minutes after five,” he remarked.
“How do you know?” Richard recalled the wristwatch held out for his inspection and the repeated insistence that the time was a quarter to six.
The waiter’s grey face split into a gap-toothed smile and he jerked his thumb towards the tall archway in the wall behind them.
“I ’ear the glasses,” he explained. “Bar opens ’alf-past five.”
“I see.” Richard ran an absent-minded finger round his collar. It was patently obvious that for some rea
son of his own Gerry had thought it important to have some completely disinterested person to vouch for him during the twenty minutes between five twenty-five and a quarter to six. The more Richard thought about it the more uncomfortable he felt, for he realised that had the man returned from the telephone booth after any reasonable interval the chances were that he would have been tricked into answering for him. “He hasn’t been out of my sight since this morning.” He could hear himself saying it.
“Why didn’t he come back?” He spoke aloud and the old man shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?” he enquired with magnificent sophistication. “Maybe t’ings don’ go too well. Maybe some feller bolts a door ’e don’t usually bolt, or some cashier girl stays on too late at the office waiting for a friend. Maybe ’e jus’ runs into someone ’oo knows ’im and ’oo could say ’e’s seen ’im outside this ’otel when ’e ought to have been inside it telephoning. Anyt’ing. You go off and enjoy yourself. Forget ’im. You don’ know ’im no more.”
Richard laughed. Had it not been for the one uncomfortable fact that Gerry had appeared so remarkably at home in the house which had swallowed Annabelle, the advice would have suited him perfectly. As it was, he paid the bill, assured the old man of his gratitude, tipping him sufficiently to convey sincerity, and went along to the telephones himself.
To his relief he found Mrs. Tassie’s number without any difficulty and was surprised to hear such a warm comfortable voice answering him. The moment he heard her he began to feel that his terrors were silly. It was such an ordinary voice, a little fluttered because a young man was asking to speak to a girl, but sounding not even sophisticated, much less sinister. It belonged to a different world, he felt, to the one in which he had spent the day.
Annabelle was fetched immediately and as he heard her burbling over the wire his heart jumped, a surprising and interesting phenomenon. A little to his chagrin she appeared to be enjoying herself enormously.
“The Aunt’s all right,” she assured him in reply to his question. “Wait a minute. No, it’s perfectly okay. She’s being tactful. She’s gone upstairs. She’s an old poppet, Richard, just rather lonely I expect. She’s a bit formal though. You know, a bit as she’d been Uncle’s girl-friend rather than his wife. Old-fashioned careful. Understand?”
“I think so. Can I come round and see you.”
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“I’m being taken to the movies. It’s the char’s day off and we’re eating out.” Her eager child’s voice hesitated before rushing on again, anxious to soothe. “I’m dying to see you and you’re going to be invited to a meal on Sunday. You see what I mean by formal. I shall get her out of it, of course, but it’s ingrained so it’ll take a week or two. Be ready to accept for Sunday. Best clothes, I think, for the first time. I do so want her to like you. I can’t ask her now because she’s a bit upset. Some visitors came and seem to have worried her.”
“Very well.” He was trying to sound neither amused nor disappointed. Annabelle was a sweetie. He could see that amazing new beauty of hers as vividly as if her face were before him. For some reason it made him feel old and careworn. “Listen,” he commanded briskly. “Before you go, tell me, who is the man, thirtyish, fair, tall, slightly boiled eyes, face haggard-handsome….”
“In a sort of trench coat?”
“That’s the chap. He came out of your museum gate about fifteen minutes after you went in. Know who he is?”
“Yes. Gerry Hawker.”
“Horder?”
“No, Hawker. H-a-w-k-e-r. Think of the bird. He’s a pet of Aunt Polly’s.”
“Is he? Does he live there?”
“Here? No, of course not. He’s just someone she’s known and treated as a sort of son for years. He lives in Reading and was passing through London today, so he called in to see her. Why, you don’t know him, do you?”
“No. But I saw him coming out of the house….”
Annabelle laughed contentedly. “You couldn’t possibly by straining it have been jealous, could you? I should like that.” She made it sound a request and he scowled at the telephone.
“I certainly couldn’t. What are you talking about? You behave yourself.”
She sighed with mock regret. She was enjoying herself hugely, he suspected.
“Shame. I feared you might not have fallen for me at first sight. This is Aunt’s influence. You’ll enjoy her. She’s as romantic as a valentine. As far as I can gather she adored her husband and wants every girl to have the same glorious experience. I fancy she was hoping to get me off with the Gerry person.”
“Oh God, don’t do that.”
“Of course I won’t. Don’t be silly. He must be close on thirty-five. But I think that was the idea originally and why she was asking for the twenty-four-year-old daughter.”
“I see,” he said slowly. “Do you expect him back this week? Before Sunday?”
“I don’t know. Aunt Polly didn’t say. Why, what is all this? What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing much.” Richard’s face was hot with anxiety. “However, if you do see him do not mention my name, that is vital. Do you understand?”
“Then you do know something about him? Or does he know something about you?”
He could feel her interest quickening.
“This is all very mysterious and sounds exciting.”
“Well, it isn’t,” he said flatly, “but I beg you to shut up about me and to do all you can to get me asked over to see you just as soon as you can. I’ll tell you all I know then.”
“All right. But don’t be so bossy. You needn’t worry. I’ll keep your beastly name out of it, whatever it is.”
The unfairness was too much for his stoicism.
“It’s not me, it’s you I’m thinking about.”
“Oh, Richard, how charming.” She sounded just about as sophisticated as a six-year-old in lipstick. “I’d call you darling if it wasn’t so old hat. What’s wrong with the poor man? I thought he was rather a honey, if he hadn’t been so old. Aunt Polly says she could cure age when she was sixteen, by the way.”
“She says what?”
“Forget it. Actually that wasn’t quite fair. She didn’t mean it. I was just making a good story. What do you know about this man Gerry? I’m fascinated.”
“I’m not,” he said bitterly. “Shut up about him now. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”
He hung up and stood looking at the silent instrument. As far as he could see, the position was more than awkward and he was not at all sure what he ought to do about it. Finally he decided to verify what facts he had, and once more took up the directory.
The receptionist at the Lydaw Court Hotel had one of those refined yet fruity middle-aged voices which suggested to Richard tesselated pavements in palm courts and very-well-looked-after cane furniture with spry old ladies and depressed young ones sitting about in it, waiting either for a meal or bedtime.
“Mr. Chad-Horder?” She said with very much more warmth than had appeared in her original greeting. “No, he’s not in yet, I’m afraid. We’re expecting him at any moment now. He’s later than he said already. Can I give him any message?”
“No, please don’t bother.” Richard was bearing in mind the old waiter’s advice, but he was curious. Lydaw Court sounded such an odd place for a man like Gerry to live in. “Have you a—a dance there tonight?” he added on impulse.
“Yes, indeed we have.” The voice was archly enthusiastic. “One of our regular Thursday evenings. Excuse me, but are you one of the gentlemen whom Mr. Chad-Horder thought he might be able to bring?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not. Thank you very much. Goodbye.”
“Wait.” The command was imperative. “I really must ask you to leave a name. Mr. Chad-Horder is very particular. He will insist on knowing who called.” At this point even she appeared to notice that the approach was a trifle high-handed, for an embarrassed laugh escaped her. “He always asks if there hav
e been any calls or messages, and I do like to be able to tell him,” she added and sounded suddenly pathetic.
Richard, who was not a natural prevaricator, looked round for inspiration which he found in the largest type in the place, the cover of the Directory.
“Tell him Mr. London,” he said hastily. “Only a general message. Just that I made a call.”
He rang off and the woman in the desk at the Lydaw Court Hotel jotted down four somewhat ominous words on her memorandum pad. “Chad-Horder. London. General call.”
Richard came out of the booth undecided on his next move. He had found out a little about Gerry as Chad-Horder, but almost nothing about him when he called himself Hawker. It seemed unlikely that Edna would be of much help, even if she were not actively unco-operative, and Torrenden, the racing driver, sounded difficult to approach.
As he stood hesitating he suddenly remembered the starting handle and the label upon it. Gerry had removed it but not quite quickly enough, and Richard could see it clearly in his mind’s eye and could read the words on it. Hawker. Rolf’s Dump.
He asked the way from a young constable on the corner outside the hotel, who went to considerable trouble to look it up in the pocket street directory which each man on duty carries with him.
“It’s some distance, sir,” he announced after study. “East, right round by the Regent’s Canal. If I were you I should take a Number Seven ’bus to Liverpool Street and ask again.”
He was a big gangling youth with squat widely spaced teeth and a permanently anxious expression and he eyed Richard’s conventionally clad figure dubiously before he returned again to the shaded area on the section of the street map in the book in his hand.
“Are you sure you want to go there?” he enquired, bending a little to show the page. “That’s it, Rolf’s Dump. There’s miles of it, see? All along the canal. It won’t be what you might call very salubrious this time of night.”
Hide My Eyes Page 11
