by John Oram
Jevons indicated a couple of chairs. He said, "Make yourselves comfortable — if you can. I'll have to leave you for a couple of minutes while I have a word with my chief. Smoke, if you want to."
He returned five minutes later. Behind him came a uniformed policeman carrying a tray with three thick mugs of canteen tea.
Jevons said, "I'm sorry we can't manage anything stronger. The wheels of crime are lubricated with this stuff. We drink gallons of it, day and night."
Illya tasted it. It was scalding hot and had a flavor reminiscent of tanning solution. He said, "It's excellent," and put the mug carefully on the floor beside his chair.
"An all-station call has gone out for Bambini," the inspector said. "By this time there are C.I.D. men and uniformed patrols combing every dive in the West End. If he's in London we'll find him. It may take a bit longer if he's got out of town, but we'll get him in the end. Now, all we can do is wait."
"You've tried the Gloriana, of course?" Solo asked.
"First port of call," Jevons assured him. "Not a sign of him. But we've got one man inside the building and two men in Newport Street, covering the place in case he shows up."
"Have your people talked to Anna or Dancer?"
"No. We don't want to alarm them at this stage. Not till we've talked to Bambini. We've no evidence that either of them is involved."
Illya asked, "Is there anything that we can do to help?"
"Not a thing," Jevons said. "I would suggest that you go back to the Savoy and catch some sleep. I'll call you as soon as there is anything to report."
They turned out of the big gates and walked slowly back along the Embankment toward Charing Cross Underground Station. The illuminated sign above the entrance showed that the trains were still running.
A cab came cruising from the direction of Hungerford Bridge and Solo hailed it.
Illya protested, "We don't need a taxi. We're only a few steps from the hotel."
"We're not going to the hotel," Solo said. "We've got a lead the police don't know about. I've got a hunch that our little chum Merle knows more about Bambini than she's told us. Let's go."
The door of the house in Berwick Street was standing ajar. They pushed it open and went up the stairs to the first floor. A twenty-five watt lamp burned on the landing in front of Merle's door. Solo pressed the bell and a shrill yapping came from inside the apartment.
"That sounds like Blodwen's poodle," Illya said. "What is she doing here?"
"Probably had the same idea we did," Solo replied. He pressed the bell again. The yapping redoubled, but the door remained closed.
"What's going on in there?" Illya said. "Why don't they answer?"
"I don't know," said Solo. "But I'm going to find out."
He took a strip of celluloid from his pocket, eased it into the jamb of the door and ran it down toward the Yale lock. He pushed and the door opened. The little dog, yapping hysterically, burst out onto the landing. Illya managed to catch her before she bolted down the stairs.
Solo called, "Blodwen! Merle!"
The sound echoed through the apartment.
They went into the living room. A pink-shaded standard lamp bathed the room in an intimate glow. There was no sign of Blodwen, but Merle was sitting in an armchair facing the door. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in the caricature of a smile. Her eyes stared at them stonily. A knife was buried to the hilt in her half-naked left breast. She was very, very dead.
Chapter Thirteen
After Solo and Illya had left the restaurant with the inspector, Blodwen had ordered drinks for Solly and herself. They sat talking for a quarter of an hour, then Solly shook hands and departed. Blodwen paid the bill and went back to the hotel.
She bathed leisurely, luxuriating in the caress of the hot, scented water against her skin, and took more time than she needed over fixing her hair and face. Then she slipped off her flowered bathrobe and climbed gratefully between the sheets. This, she had determined, was going to be one night of complete relaxation. She felt she had earned it.
She was already more than half asleep when the bedside telephone rang. She picked up the receiver irritably and gave the extension number.
A woman's voice asked, "Yvonne?"
"Who - Merle! How the devil did you find me?"
"Never mind that." The voice sounded strained. "I got to see you urgent. I got some information. Can you come around?"
"I'm in bed," Blodwen said.
"Well, bloody well get out of bed. This won't wait, I tell you. Yvonne, I got to see you — about you-know-who."
"All right," Blodwen sighed. "Give me ten minutes to get some clothes on. Are you at the apartment?"
"Yes. And, Yvonne — don't bring nobody with you. Not even your boyfriend. If you do, I won't talk."
"All right. I'll get a taxi."
Blodwen dressed hurriedly. As she pulled on her stockings she tried to figure out how Merle had discovered that she was at the Savoy. She had been fairly confident that she was not being followed when she left Berwick Street for the Bond Street salon where the dye had been removed from her hair.
Before she left the apartment she opened a suitcase, took out a 7.63mm Mauser pistol in a skeleton holster and strapped it to the inside of her left thigh. There had been a note of near-panic in Merle's voice toward the end of their short conversation. There was no sense in taking chances.
She decided to leave Dolly in her basket, but as soon as she put her hand on the doorknob the little poodle came high-stepping to her side. She had no intention of being left behind. Resignedly, Blodwen picked her up.
There is seldom a shortage of taxis at the entrance to the Savoy Hotel. Blodwen got one right away and it deposited her in Berwick Street within seven minutes.
She found the key of the street door in her handbag and hurried up the stairs. The door of Merle's apartment was half open. She knocked, and Merle called, "In here."
Blodwen went through the short hall to the living room, stopped just too late.
She saw Merle, her black eyes terrified, being held down by a swarthy young man who looked as if he was enjoying his job. Then a pad was pressed over her face from behind, and she lost consciousness.
When she came around she was lying on the stone floor of a room that had the dank smell of a cellar. The pain in her head and shoulder told her that she had been thrown there. She screwed up her eyes against the light from an unshaded bulb near the ceiling and moved her limbs experimentally. Her hands and feet were unbound. And, miraculously, she could still feel the weight of the Mauser against her thigh.
She forced herself to sit up, fighting the wave of nausea that was the aftermath of the drugged pad. She rested for a minute, then got to her feet and leaned against the wall to take stock of her surroundings.
The cellar was long and low, with steel girders supporting the ceiling. The bulb lit only the section nearest the locked iron door. The rest was in semi-darkness, but she could make out the bulk of stacked cases in the shadows.
With sudden shock she realized that the little poodle was not with her. In her weakened state the sense of loss almost unnerved her. She hoped that they had killed her painlessly and not left her to run the streets in panic. For the first time in years she cried.
But even while the tears came, her mind was working on the problem of escape. There was no hope of getting through the door. It fitted flush with the wall and there was no keyhole in its blank inner face. Yet the air in the cellar was fresh. Somewhere there must be a ventilator, perhaps even a loading shaft from the street. She moved toward the back of the cellar, her eyes searching the walls and ceilings.
She reached the first of the stacked cases, and something about their size and shape caught her attention. She looked at them more closely. They were identical with the banded cases she had seen with Illya in the farmhouse at Cwm Carrog. The cellar was one of the stockpiles for the currency operation.
Sounds outside the door brought her swiftly back under the l
ight. She lay down as nearly as she could remember to her original position and closed her eyes.
There came a creak of hinges and then footsteps. A shoe caught her none to gently in the ribs and a man's voice said, "Snap out of it."
She moaned artistically and made a business of turning over. The shoe hit her again, harder this time, and the voice snarled, "Come on. I 'aven't got all night."
She opened her eyes. The dark-haired hoodlum she had seen in Berwick Street was staring down at her. He had a Browning automatic in his right hand and his finger was on the trigger.
He motioned with the barrel toward the open door. "On your feet and start walking. And don't try nothing."
Blodwen said, "What do you think I'm going to do? Bite you?"
"Ah, shut up."
He stayed so close behind her that she could feel his breath on her neck as she climbed a steep flight of twenty stone stairs. He was pretty much of an amateur, Blodwen thought. A more experienced villain would have known better. It is comparatively easy to disarm a captor who fails to keep his distance.
There was an unlocked door at the head of the steps. They went through it into a carpeted passage. Blodwen could smell cooking and hear the muffled sound of a dance band combo. The man prodded her with the gun barrel and said, "Keep going."
They came to a door on the left-hand side of the passage. The man reached past her, turned the handle with his left hand, and said, "Inside." He accompanied the order with a shove that sent her headlong into the room. She recovered her balance just in time to avoid crashing into a fragile table.
Anna Soo Lee watched her unceremonious entrance from her throne-like chair. She said calmly, "I must apologize for Luigi's manners. I assure you that I did not order you to be ill-treated. I wished merely to talk to you."
"You could have called me," Blodwen said. "It would have saved us both a lot of trouble."
Anna smiled. "I doubt whether you would have answered my questions over the telephone."
"Well, before we go any further, I've got a question for you," said Blodwen. "Where's my poodle?"
The delicate eyebrows arched. "Poodle? I am afraid I do not understand you."
"You understand, all right. I was carrying a poodle when I went into Merle's apartment — just before your thugs jumped me — and I haven't got her now. What have you done with her?"
"I know nothing about this," Anna said. "No doubt she is still in the apartment...with your friend." She smiled again. "If you are reasonable, we shall endeavor to reunite you."
"What do you expect to get out of me?
"Simply a little information. You must realize I know a great deal about you already. I know, for example, that you and your friends Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin, are agents of U.N.C.L.E. I am aware that you made great nuisances of yourselves in Wales and, indeed, quite seriously hampered certain operations of the organization which I have the honor to represent —"
"Thrush," Blodwen interjected.
"Exactly. You will notice that I used the word 'hampered,' not 'defeated.' Our plans are too carefully devised and too far advanced to be defeated by your clumsy intervention. You have been watched ever since your masquerade brought you to my club. Your quarrel with the woman called French Louise was a bad mistake. That brought you into the open."
"Then what's your problem?"
She made a deprecating gesture. "Please do not attempt to be facetious. I wish you to tell me exactly and in detail how far your investigations have gone."
"That," said Blodwen, "will be the day."
Anna was unmoved. She said, "I can assure you the day has come. The only question is whether you tell me of your own free will the things I wish to know. If you do not, the alternative will be unpleasant but inevitable."
Blodwen laughed. She said, "I don't suppose another murder would worry you. But I won't be much good to you dead."
"I did not mention murder. It is conceivable, however, that death might seem preferable to continued existence." Anna rose and went to the bellpush in the wall. When she returned to her chair she said, "No doubt you have been told many times that you are a very pretty girl."
"So?"
"You will see."
There was a tap on the door and Luigi entered.
Anna said, "Bring Emile to me."
He looked at Blodwen and grinned unpleasantly. "Right away," he said.
The creature with whom he returned was barely human. He was not more than five feet tall but his chest under a ragged plaid shirt measured all of forty-four inches. Long arms, gorilla-like, swung loosely as he shambled into the room. Coarse, matted black hair hung low over the vacant eyes of a cretin. The thick-lipped mouth hung half-open, showing yellow, broken teeth.
Luigi said, "Stay!" as one would to a dog, and he halted obediently, his unfocused eyes shifting from one woman to the other.
Anna spoke gently. "Emile," she said, "do you like this pretty lady?"
He turned his head slowly toward Blodwen and made an inarticulate sound halfway between a growl and a moan. She stepped back involuntarily as he reached out a paw to touch her.
Anna said, "That is enough. Take him away."
Then, to Blodwen: "In a few moments Luigi will take you back to the cellar. I will give you exactly one hour in which to consider your position. If at the end of that time you have not become more amenable, I shall send Emile to persuade you. To make the experience more interesting, I have instructed Luigi to remove the light bulb. You will be able to have a pleasant game of hide-and-seek though I fear the end will never be in doubt."
Luigi came back and stood waiting in the doorway.
"There is still time," Anna said. "Are you sure you have nothing to say to me?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," Blodwen said. "Fry in hell, you Chinese cow."
Chapter Fourteen
Detective-Inspector Jevons arrived at the Berwick Street apartment within minutes of Solo's telephone call. He brought his detective-sergeant with him. Hard on their heels came the police photographer, the fingerprint experts and the divisional surgeon.
"I'll want statements from you both," Jevons told Solo and Illya. "It's a pity you weren't candid with me in the first place. Have you touched anything?"
"Only the telephone receiver and the outside of the door," Solo said.
"Good. There'll be enough fingerprints to check, without your complicating the issue. She wasn't exactly a nun."
He turned to the doctor, who had just finished his examination of the body. "What's the verdict, Doc?"
"In non-technical terms, a clean stab straight to the heart, delivered from above by a right-handed assailant."
"Man or woman?"
The doctor took off his glasses and polished the lenses. "It would have taken a pretty hefty woman to deliver a blow of such force," he said. "And it was a strictly professional job. I think I should be inclined to go for a male."
"Time of death?"
"Give or take a few minutes, not more than an hour ago. You'll get my report in due course, but it looks like a straightforward case." He nodded, picked up his bag and hurried out of the room.
Illya, still carrying the poodle, looked gloomily at the photographer busy with his pictures. He asked, "What do you make of it, Inspector? Another Bambini job?"
"It could be. He knew the woman," Jevons said. "But it doesn't look like his style. He'd have been more likely to cut her face to ribbons. And the weapon doesn't tell us much. It's an ordinary Commando dagger. There must be thousands of them in circulation. There are no prints on the hilt. The killer must have worn gloves. Like the doctor said, he was a professional."
"And a kidnapper," Solo said. "Whoever he is, he's got Blodwen. She would never have walked out of here without the dog. It was like a kid to her."
Jevons brought a pouch out of his pocket and began to fill the pipe. "What was she doing here?" he asked. "Did you know she was coming to see the woman?"
"You know as much as we do," Illya said. "You hear
d her say in the restaurant that she was going back to the hotel. We haven't seen her since."
Jevons called to the fingerprint men: "Have you finished with the telephone?"
"All clear, sir."
"Good." He picked up the receiver and dialed the number of the Savoy.
"Well, that's that," he said at last, replacing the instrument. "She went back to the hotel but left again with the dog shortly after eleven o'clock. She got into a taxi and the doorman heard her tell the driver to take her to this address. We'll but out a call for the cabbie, of course, but I don't suppose he'll be able to tell us much."
The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver again and listened. Then his expression lightened. He said, "Right! We'll be over."
He turned to Solo, "They picked up Bambini in Stephen Street. They've just brought him in. You'd better come back with me."
The three men went down the stairs and pushed through the crowd of rubbernecks gathered around the front of the building. Reporters struggled to get at the inspector before he could gain the sanctuary of the police car.
"No statement," he told them. "Ring the press room." The car moved off, leaving them still shouting questions."
Back in his office Jevons told Solo and Illya, "You realize that you're here quite unofficially. I can't allow you to be present while I interview Bambini. What happens after he's been charged is something else again. Maybe your people will get in touch with the Home Office and regularize the position. Meanwhile, I'm hoping you may be able to help by filling in on the background of any statement I get out of him."
"Where is he?" Solo asked.
"Down below, in an interview room. I'm going to talk to him now. It may be a long job, so make yourselves at home."
He picked up a file from his desk and went out.
After a while a constable appeared with the inevitable mugs of tea. He looked at the poodle, which was padding moodily about the room, bent down and scratch its ear. "Nice little chap, isn't he?" he said. "Though personally I prefer something with more meat on it."
