‘A warning? What did she say?’
‘She said, “Whatever happens, don’t go down to Reading.” I told her I had no intention of going down there.’
‘But why Reading?’
‘God knows. I tried to press her but she just repeated those words and then she clammed up.’
‘Do we know anybody at Reading?’
‘Not a soul. I’ll bear it in mind, though.’
Mike ordered a drink from the flaxen-haired bartender and then asked Linda, ‘How did you make out with Sanders?’
Linda made an expressive gesture of exasperation. ‘That is undoubtedly the dullest, most conceited, most crushingly boring ass I’ve met in a day’s march. He has no more idea of the art of conversation than a stone Buddha!’
‘Give the poor chap his due – he was probably pretty fed up at his girlfriend getting plastered.’
‘Anyway, the only bright spot, apart from watching your intriguing exhibition on the dance floor, was the brief glimpse we both caught of Charles Corina.’
‘Corina? He was in here?’
‘He just put his head round the corner of the bar, back entrance, to give some instructions to that blond specimen there. He looked somewhat the worse for wear. I don’t think he particularly wanted anyone to see him.’
‘Too bad. Well, let’s get our coats, we’ve got some visiting to do.’
‘At this time of night? Where on earth are we going?’
‘Reigate House, Chelsea.’
Linda opened her eyes wide and laughed. ‘Darling, if you’ve got a heavy date with your new girlfriend wouldn’t you be better off without me?’
Mike put his arm through hers. ‘Let’s say I need a chaperon.’
Chapter Eleven
The caretaker of Reigate House was brewing tea and spreading sardines on a piece of toast when Mike pressed the bell of his basement apartment. They gathered through the badly fitting door that he was not very pleased to be interrupted; the tail-end of some solid North Country swearing accompanied his movements as he reluctantly came to the door.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you the caretaker?’ asked Mike with careful deference.
‘That’s me. Dan Appleby.’
‘Splendid, we are in luck!’
Mike beamed at Linda, who nodded, and flashed the portly caretaker a smile that would have melted butter on a cold plate. Even Dan Appleby’s hostile stare seemed to thaw a trifle.
‘You’re not the bloke from Littlewood’s, I suppose?’ he said.
‘From where?’
‘The chap I’ve always dreamed about, the one that’s going to knock on my door one day and tell me I’ve won the jackpot in the football pools.’ He grinned and stared at them closely, finally shaking his head. ‘No, I suppose that would be hoping too much. What d’you want?’
Mike had noted the war ribbons on the threadbare battle-dress blouse which the caretaker wore. ‘In the Desert, were you?’
‘Aye, Eighth Army,’ the man answered with a glint of pride in his eyes.
Mike nodded, admiringly.
The caretaker opened wide the door to his cosy little den and ushered them in. Whilst Linda was made comfortable in a rickety wicker chair Mike encouraged him to talk about desert warfare for some minutes, until he felt he could judiciously steer the conversation round to the purpose of their visit.
‘I’ll tell you why I’m bothering you at this time of night, Mr Appleby. But I’d be obliged if you’d treat everything I tell you as strictly confidential. I want to make some inquiries about one of your tenants here.’
The caretaker’s manner, which had thawed considerably during his recital of wartime exploits, became sharply suspicious. ‘Are you working for the coppers, by any chance?’ he demanded.
‘The police? Good heavens, no! This is purely a private inquiry of rather an intimate nature, you understand.’
Mr Appleby got the message. Nodding sagely and giving Linda a knowing look he asked, ‘Who’s your client?’
‘That’s just it: I’m not sure what name he might be using. But perhaps you can tell me who occupies the flat alongside Miss Irene Long, and who is above her, or even below?’
Appleby thought for a moment, then answered, ‘No one below, and the flat alongside is empty at the moment. People above are the Carbreeds, a Danish couple.’
Mike frowned. It was obviously not the answer he had hoped for. ‘What do the Carbreeds look like?’
‘Young, blond, both on the tall side. Nice people. They’re not here at the moment. Gone back to Denmark for a few months, on a holiday.’
‘And the flat? Is it empty during that time?’
‘No, they sub-let. New chap’s called Williams.’
Mike’s interest quickened. ‘What does he look like?’
Linda just gaped, but Mike nodded without surprise as Dan Appleby proceeded to give an unmistakable description of the elderly, limping, grey-haired Hector Staines.
‘Is that the man you’re after?’ he asked, his eyes glinting with inquisitiveness.
Mike steered clear of the question. ‘How long have you known this Mr Williams? Can you tell me anything interesting about his habits, where he goes, when he comes back, what he does for a living, if he has any visitors, and so on?’
Appleby could tell them little. The new tenant, it seemed, did not actually live in the flat but was content to use it at irregular hours a few times during the week, mostly during the evenings. On the whole he was quiet and well behaved, even if his movements had struck the caretaker as being a little odd.
Mike discreetly took out a note from his wallet as Appleby came to an end, and slipped it without ostentation under an ashtray on the table.
‘You’ve been most helpful, Mr Appleby,’ he said, rising from the creaking wicker chair that was blood-brother or even great-uncle to the one Linda sat in. ‘My client is of a generous nature and will be most grateful for this information.’
Appleby’s interest quickened at the sight of the note. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?’
‘Well, I hardly like to put you to any more trouble …’
‘No trouble at all, sir.’
‘I was just wondering if I might take a look at one of the flats? Of course, if you don’t have the necessary authority I can always apply to—’
‘I don’t know about the authority but I’ve got a pass-key.’ He winked heavily again at Linda. ‘Was there any flat in particular you’d like to look over? Mr Williams’s, for example?’
Mike gave him a conspiratorial smile and murmured, ‘That would be very convenient.’
‘Mike, I don’t get it!’ said Linda quietly whilst the portly Yorkshireman shuffled off in his battered carpet-slippers to fetch the pass-key. ‘What’s all this about a client? And why do you want to look at Staines’s flat?’
‘Our North Country friend has assumed I’m collecting evidence for a divorce case. We’ll let him keep his illusions. As for Staines’s flat, let’s say I’m plain nosy!’
Dan Appleby shuffled back into the room holding the key aloft. He was whistling ‘Twenty-one Today’ softly and looked as though he were enjoying the midnight conspiracy enormously.
He took them up in the lift to the fourth floor and let them into Staines’s flat. It had the dull, unwelcoming atmosphere of rooms not lived in, accentuated by the condition of neatness in which the few personal possessions had been left.
Mike surveyed the living-room critically. A hip-high radio baffleboard filled one corner of the room; the others were empty except for occasional tables and a standard lamp. He went over to the radio and moved it carefully away from the wall. Linda and Appleby watched with sharp curiosity as he inspected the few wires, traced their passage, shook his head, and returned the baffleboard carefully to its original position. An arm-chair thrust against one wall aroused his interest, but again the search proved apparently fruitless.
He found what he was looking for behind a heavy settee that ran
the length of the wall opposite the fireplace.
As he pulled it clear he asked Appleby, ‘Which room of Miss Long’s is directly below this one?’
‘Same as this – her living-room.’
Mike grunted and heaved the settee a foot from the wall to reveal a square metal box about the size of a small portable typewriter. He found a spring catch and flicked open the metal lid. He became aware of Dan Appleby breathing heavily over his shoulder.
‘By gum, I reckon I know what that is, all right!’ the caretaker exclaimed. ‘That’s one of them listening devices like we used to put in a Jerry prison camp to hear what they was saying.’
‘You’re right, Mr Appleby,’ Mike said, unhooking a small set of earphones and examining the dials on the face of the case. ‘No wonder Mr Williams only bothered to use this flat in the evenings; that would be about the only time there would be any conversation in the room below for him to listen to.’
‘My God, the tricks people get up to nowadays, all in the name of Cupid! Life used to be a lot simpler in the olden days. I just hope my Missus doesn’t get to hear of this; it might put ideas into her head.’
Mike glanced at Linda, who managed to keep a straight face, and replied. ‘You’re right, Mr Appleby. One cannot be too careful.’
‘No wonder the old rake didn’t want no cleaners about the place. Insisted on doing all his own tidying up and everything. Slipped me a regular quid a week, he has, just to make sure I understood.’
Mike carefully replaced the listening-set in exactly the position he had found it and pushed the heavy settee back against the wall.
‘Aren’t you going to rip them wires out?’
‘No, my client wouldn’t want Mr Williams to know that we’ve tumbled to his … spying activities. For the time being we’ll let him stay at his listening post. And I’m putting my faith in you, Mr Appleby’ – he drew out his wallet and extracted a pound note – ‘as a man of the world who understands the meaning of the words “tact” and “discretion”, to say nothing about our little visit.’
The caretaker’s grimy paw closed over the note with practised skill and he smiled broadly. ‘You can rely on me, sir. And the more I look at you the more you begin to look like that chap from Littlewood’s I’m always dreaming about.’
There was the sound of a door slamming below and footsteps crossing the room of Irene Long’s flat. All three were instantly alert.
Appleby said in a hoarse stage-whisper, ‘Reckon that’ll be Miss Long. It’s a woman’s walk, by the sound of it.’
Mike smiled. ‘You should have been a detective.’
‘She’s been quite a time saying goodnight to the Colonel, hasn’t she?’ Linda murmured.
Appleby led the way out and Mike said quietly to his wife, ‘All the better for us. Let’s hope she’s sobered up in the meantime.’
Linda looked at him in astonishment and then glanced at her watch. ‘Are we going to tackle her now?’
‘I can imagine few more suitable occasions,’ Mike replied in a grim voice.
Miss Irene Long found herself faced with a very different Mike Baxter from the smooth flatterer who had been with her only an hour earlier at La Pergola. She hesitated at the doorway and did not invite them in, but Mike simply thrust the door aside and strode into her flat. She tried to protest.
‘Really, Mr Baxter, it’s very late and I think I’ve had just about all I can take for one evening.’
‘The evening’s not over yet, Miss Long. Sit down.’
‘But this is outrageous! I’m tired, I’ve got a splitting headache, and Victor made me drink far more than is good for me.’
‘Rubbish! It isn’t Sanders who is making you drink, Miss Long, it’s your conscience, or plain fear. You’re as sober as a judge now, though you’ll have a cracking hangover tomorrow. Meantime I’d be glad to have a satisfactory explanation of that “warning” you gave me on the dance floor. What exactly did you mean when you told me not to go down to Reading?’
Irene Long sank into a chair, looking frightened and forlorn. She moistened her lips. ‘I really don’t know! My tongue must have run away with me. I didn’t mean anything in particular.’
‘Stuff and nonsense! I’m going to get this out of you if I have to stay all night.’
‘I’ll call the police,’ she remonstrated, without much conviction.
‘I doubt it. They’re the last people you want to see.’
‘Please, Mr Baxter, you must believe me …’ Tears began to well up in her eyes and suddenly she looked her years, no longer a smart and capable Bond Street saleswoman but simply a frightened and fading middle-aged blonde. Linda felt a pang of compassion for her but Mike was relentless.
‘Spare me the histrionics – it’s too late for that, in every sense.’ He took a seat opposite to the weeping woman and looked her full in the face. ‘In less than a week Harold Weldon will be hanged by the neck for the murder of Lucy Staines. A murder he did not commit. Are you going to sit here indulging in feeble hysterics whilst an innocent man goes to his death – an innocent man whom you might be able to save?’
‘I … I need a drink.’
‘No you don’t! You’ve had your ration for one night.’
‘Please leave me alone. I’m tired and upset. I want to go to bed.’
‘What for? You won’t be able to sleep. You’ll get no peace of mind. Why not tell the truth? What do you know about the Weldon case? What are you hiding from the police, and from me? Why shouldn’t I go down to Reading?’
She swallowed hard and said, ‘I’ve told you all I dare. Please leave me alone.’
Linda caught Mike’s eye and begged him to desist.
He nodded and stood up. ‘Very well, Miss Long, if you won’t play, be it on your own head. I’ve a hunch there’s more trouble in store for you. But in return for your delivering a warning to me tonight let me also give you a warning: be careful what you say in this flat, in this very room.’
Irene Long raised her head and gave him a haggard look, the glimmerings of new fear dawning in her mascara-damaged eyes. Her voice was thin and shaky. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you ever seen the man who has the flat immediately above this?’
‘Mr Carbreed?’
‘No, he’s back in Denmark with his wife. They’ve sub-let to a man called Williams. That doesn’t happen to be his real name. It’s Hector Staines.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then ask the caretaker.’
Irene Long turned in desperation to Linda. ‘Is this true Mrs Baxter? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’
Linda was very pale and her voice carried utter conviction. ‘Neither of us wishes to lie to you, Miss Long. We want to help you. You’ve got to be on your guard about what you say in this room because Hector Staines has wired it to a listening-set upstairs. He’s been listening to all your conversations for quite a while. That’s why he took the Carbreeds’ flat.’
Irene Long opened her mouth to speak but no sound came – and for a very good reason. She had fainted.
Mike and Linda sat over a final night-cap in the lounge of their Sloane Street flat. They were utterly exhausted by the events of the day but strangely reluctant to go to bed.
‘Why on earth do you suppose Staines wanted to keep tabs on her with his listening-set?’ Linda mused.
‘Not because she talks in her sleep, you can be sure of that. It must be her conversations with visitors, and who those visitors are, that interests Staines.’
‘Poor old Irene Long,’ said Linda. ‘Do you think she’ll be all right, darling? She looked pretty awful when we left.’
‘She’ll survive.’
‘You can be very hard at times.’
‘There are times when one has to be,’ said Mike with a frown. ‘The end justifies the means. Irene Long shouldn’t have got mixed up in this business if she was scared of a few hard words now and then. She’s lucky I didn’t give her the full treatment, like someone ha
nded Jo.’
Linda nodded in silent agreement.
‘I’ll give her a few hours to simmer gently,’ Mike went on. ‘After a ragged night she’ll be ready to come to the boil …’
Chapter Twelve
The following day Mike made a careful examination of the two heavy books which had been sent by special delivery, and had just joined Linda in the lounge when the front door bell rang and Mrs Potter came in to say that Mr Corina wished to see him.
Charles Corina’s manner, as he came into the room, was tense; he scarcely remembered his customary stiff little bow towards Linda, nor did he attempt to kiss her hand.
Uppermost in his mind, it appeared, was a recent encounter with Inspector Rodgers, and a brief and irritable account of it ensued.
‘… There is nothing I detest more than being hectored by those bull-necked individuals,’ he went on. ‘I told him I’d report him to the Chief Commissioner of Police, and bring his behaviour to the notice of the Press.’
Mike shrugged. ‘Rodgers probably thought he was just doing his duty, Corina.’
‘Duty! The man’s a sadist, an out-and-out ruffian! He should have been removed from the Force long ago. Just because he’s too dim-witted to make any progress in his elephantine investigations there’s no need to pick on me as a scapegoat.’
‘Aren’t you exaggerating a trifle?’ Mike said quietly. ‘I don’t think Rodgers has much time for scapegoats.’
‘Then why did he go on pestering me with all those silly questions?’
‘For the simple reason that the unknown gang who kidnapped Jo Peters were apparently interested in one thing: why she was watching your night-club.’
‘My club? But I’m the only person who would be curious about that!’
‘Exactly,’ Mike replied softly, watching Corina with great care.
Corina’s unusually pale, agitated features froze into a stiff mask as he sought to gain control of himself.
Linda cut across the taut silence. ‘Was that your only reason for coming to see my husband, Mr Corina?’ she asked.
‘No, not exactly. I saw Mr Baxter yesterday afternoon, and he asked me certain questions about a Nadia Tarrant … I’m afraid I lied to you,’ he remarked blandly, turning to Mike. ‘We all have our little vanities, and I’m afraid my pride would not allow me to admit that a woman like that had ever found her way into a place of La Pergola’s quality.’
Another Woman's Shoes Page 13
