by John Creasey
Chane endeavoured to triumph over his urgent desire for laughter, but it was not a complete triumph, for his words were interspersed with giggling laughs, making Quinion ache to hit him. De Lorne’s brows were cocked inquiringly.
‘He—he called—he called her …’ the exhausted Reginald’s chin nearly touched the table as he doubled up. ‘… oh, boy! He called her scraggy! …’ He leaned back in his chair weakly, just saved from prostration. ‘But don’t you dare harm a hair of her head, Peter.…’
For a moment Quinion struggled between indignation and amusement. His sense of humour gained the day finally, and he grinned, but without enthusiasm.
‘I suppose it is funny,’ he conceded. ‘But mind that wineglass, Reggy, or it’ll cost us more in damages than in drinks.’ He drummed the table with his fingers. ‘Who in this wide, wide world would have thought it? And how are we going to discover what it means?’
De Lorne smoothed his cheek with pale, manicured fingers.
‘Sure you haven’t hit a miss, Jimmy? Did the girl put one over you?’
Quinion who had acted on Gordon Craigie’s advice, and pictured the girl as being under the thumb of her father when relating the story to de Lorne and Chane—shook his head slowly.
‘I don’t think so. I tell you that she’s only doing what she’s forced to do. The best thing to do is to carry on as we’d arranged. You two get off, sleep for a few hours, and then go down to Runsey. Loder and the girl may be returning by car to-night. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on them. If they’ve a London rendezvous, I’ll find where it is. All right?’
‘Right with me,’ responded Chane, who had recovered from his near-hysteria sufficiently to cast admiring glances at a scantily dressed damosel for whose dance the floor had been cleared—she was being far more South Sea Island-ish than the most confirmed South Sea Islander—and who displayed some reluctance in going, despite his words. ‘Of course, you would say “shoot” just when the star turn of the evening rolls up, wouldn’t you, curse you?’
‘Stop indulging your baser instincts,’ commented de Lorne, craning his neck to get a better view of the dancer. ‘She’s got a nice turn of speed.’
‘Very nice,’ agreed Chane. ‘There’s only one thing the matter with her, Peter.’
‘Being?’ demanded de Lorne suspiciously.
‘Scraggy!’ answered Reginald, with a prodigious wink.
Quinion had been too pre-occupied with his thoughts to notice the gibe, however, and his wave of the hand as the two young men left the table was equally absent-minded. Margaret Alleyn and this girl from New York—New York was the then Big Noise in musical comedy—seemed to occupy two separate and distinct personalities; anyone less like an actress of the undress age than the girl of Oak Cottage he found hard to imagine; but it was her all right; her features had become etched on his mind too deeply to allow for the possibility of a mistake. He settled down to wait until Loder and his companion moved.
It was nearing one o’clock, and the Café of Clouds was beginning to reach its high spot of the evening. The pseudo-Hawaiian was finishing her dance, and from a cleverly concealed opening in the floor two lines of girls, dressed—in parts—to resemble the stars of the heavens, were moving gently towards the tables, amongst which they twirled dexterously and sinuously. The lights faded gradually until only silhouettes and sparkling gems were visible. With a steadily increased swell of music a glow of blue light spread upwards from the floor. The Queen of the Clouds was coming.
The hum of talk was hushed. For this moment the whole gathering had been waiting; the Queen of the Clouds possessed a voice purer by far than any that could be heard in musical comedy. Her head, crowned with a waving, swaying, voluptuous mass of feathers, appeared above the level of the floor. Her lips were parted.
High above the music, which had softened slowly, came a sharp report of a shot. A man in evening dress gurgled queerly, and slipped from his chair into the circle of light which was being spread over the Queen of the Clouds, an ugly stream of red running from an ominous hole in his forehead.
For a second there was no sound in the room. Then a woman screamed, a man called stridently for lights, and a dozen chairs scraped the floor. Near the door a girl fainted and collapsed, sending a small table over, to the crash of breaking glass.
Quinion was the first man to reach the body on the floor, and a name was hurling itself against the confines of his mind.
‘Loder … Thomas Loder.…’
8
Help from Aunt Gloria
QUINION did not need more than a glance to see that Loder was dead. The bullet had pierced his brain, and death had been instantaneous. He made way quickly for the manager of the Café of Clouds, and went to the side of Miss Margaret Alleyn.
She was deathly white. The lights had been switched on immediately, and her eyes were expressionless. Quinion had to jerk her arm before she looked at him without recognition; and his fingers touched something hard and cold which was laying near her hand. His own hand closed over it quickly and he slipped it into his pocket. He felt his heart beating more quickly than it should. What was that revolver doing on the table, as though dropped from Margaret Alleyn’s fingers?
Quinion knew that the only chance of getting out of the Café lay in moving quickly. A number of half-scared men and women were already making a crush at the doors; at any minute the police might arrive to force everyone back in their places. Pulling an opera cloak round the girl’s shoulders, he supported her with his arm, making grimly for the door. Before they reached it, Margaret Alleyn seemed to come out of the trance into which she had fallen. Jimmy felt her body stiffen and heard the sudden intake of her breath.
‘Push hard!’ he said tersely.
She glanced towards him, and he caught the look of recognition which sprang into her eyes. There was no trace now of the stupor, and she realized the urgency of the need for escape.
They were through the door when Quinion saw two blue helmets towering above the crush of diners-out, and heard the gruff: ‘Keep back, there, keep back, no one’s to go out.’ He looked round desperately, catching the eye of a waiter who beckoned him with a barely perceptible nod. A five-pound note changed hands, the waiter motioned them to follow him, and within three minutes the Hon. James and the girl were being rushed into a taxi, which moved off quickly.
Leaning back on the cushions, neither the man nor the girl spoke for several seconds, and it was not until Quinion had stopped the taxi and had a brief talk with the cabby that he broke the silence. In the dim light the profile which he had admired against the blue background of the sky over the Sussex Downs seemed to possess an added beauty.
‘It serves to prove,’ he said lightly, ‘that the regulations are justified in objecting to the lights being turned down.’
She responded with a ghost of a smile.
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’ She moved towards him suddenly, and he caught a wave of perfume. Her voice, still husky, was filled with urgency. ‘Mr. Quinn, you are putting yourself on the wrong side of the law by doing this.…’
Quinion chuckled and patted her hand.
‘It isn’t the first time—it probably won’t be the last—and there certainly won’t be a better cause.’
Her smile came more naturally.
‘I suppose that it’s all a matter of practice?’
She glanced towards the Egyptian cigarette that he was smoking. Hastily, he threw it out of the window.
‘Part of my up-to-London rig-out,’ he said humorously. ‘My pomade is nearly as bad too. It’s all a matter of …’
‘Practice?’
‘I was going to say “habit”,’ retorted Jimmy, ‘but it amounts to the same thing, and beyond a temporary irritation, it doesn’t amount to a great deal. But let us talk of more imporant things.’
She took in a deep breath, as though squaring her shoulders for what was coming.
‘You mean Loder?’
‘I mean nothing of the kind,’ r
eplied the Hon. James with decision. ‘It’s far too late, and I’m far too tired for discussion about him. He’ll do in the morning. No, I mean you.’
She looked at him levelly.
‘Just how, Mr. Quinn?’
‘What do you propose doing to-night?’ he inquired.
‘I don’t know. With Loder I would have gone back to Runsey, but …’ she sank back with a gesture of weariness. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘Everything has got out of hand.…’
‘The very words that I used myself earlier in the evening. The thing is, are you prepared to let me try to get them back?’
‘How can you? You know nothing of Loder, nor my father. The business has been going on for years. I shall just have to let it work itself out.’
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ he said, ‘but it was burnt in a night. A large young man with plenty of practice at throwing people about can do all kinds of unexpected things. What I want you to do is to place yourself unreservedly in my hands. After we’ve had a little chat in the morning, forget as much as you can of Loder and his “business”; remember that queer things happen in this world, but they usually turn out brighter than they look like doing. For instance, I don’t always smoke Egyptian cigarettes.’
Margaret smiled obediently.
‘What is it you want me to do?’
‘This is how I’ve been thinking,’ said Jimmy. ‘At Runsey Hall I have a perfectly angelic aunt who simply glories in looking after young and beautiful maidens who are worrying about something that has got out of hand. Come with me there, keep pretty close indoors for a few days, and let me tackle Oak Cottage. If you like, I’ll exchange notes with you occasionally. It isn’t too terrible a proposition, is it?’
She brushed her hair back from her forehead with another gesture of weariness which yet held a hint of relief.
‘It sounds heavenly!’ she admitted. ‘But why should you put yourself out, Mr. Quinn?’
Quinion smiled. Margaret Alleyn felt the warm blood rushing to her cheeks under the close regard of his flecked grey eyes.
‘Because I have a foolish, unreasoning desire to hear you call me “Jimmy”,’ he said, ‘and I couldn’t very well ask Aunt Gloria to look after someone who only knew me as Mr. Quinn—could I?’
It was approaching five o’clock, and the early grey light of dawn was spreading across the sky when the taxi turned into the drive of Runsey Hall. Quinion, after a hurried consultation with the taxi-driver, ushered the girl into a room which contained, amongst other things, a luxurious settee. He saw her comfortably settled against the yielding cushions, spread a rug over her legs, and grinned gaily.
‘Welcome to Runsey,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll have a look in the cook’s quarters and search for tea—or would you prefer coffee?’
Assured that her preference was for tea, he went into the hall, collected the cabby, who was staring in fascination at a large oil painting which by reason of its ‘back to nature’ movement, would have shocked the susceptibilities of his suburban-minded spouse, and made for the kitchen. As a bachelor he was not unacquainted with brewing tea and slicing bread-and-butter—although he held doubts of his ability to cut the latter thin enough for the enjoyment of a delicately nurtured maiden, but he was incurably optimistic—and the cabby demonstrated his domestic training by grilling bacon and frying eggs to perfection. Glowing with justifiable pride, the two men carried their spoils into the presence of the girl; and the Hon. James was once more convinced of the wisdom of optimism.
9
Who Shot Loder?
‘I’VE told her,’ said Quinion, smiling into the eyes of Lady Gloria Runsey, ‘that you are, bar none, the most angelic angel on earth. Mind you live up to it.’
Lady Gloria smiled back.
‘I’ll look after her, Jimmy. I’m glad …’
‘Finish it!’ commanded Quinion sternly.
‘I’m glad that you seem to have adopted a serious purpose in life.’
Quinion grinned.
‘One wonders whether the great Colonel Damn, knowing the full circumstances, would approve. They might even shock you,’ he added. ‘You see, I am officially on holiday.’
A cloud, which might have been of apprehension, chased the smile from Lady Gloria’s eyes. For a long time she had had suspicions of the nature of her nephew’s frequent ‘holidays’ from England, a suspicion which had been engendered after he had returned from one five weeks’ trip abroad, swathed in bandages which were officially the results of a motor accident. ‘But why,’ Lady Gloria had demanded of herself, ‘did none of the papers mention the accident?’ For the Hon. James Quinion, she knew, was ‘news’ for the most conservative gossip columns. On the previous day Jimmy had given her a guarded hint that his activities during these excursions were not solely the ‘wine, women and perdition’ efforts in which Colonel Cann, his uncle, firmly believed.
Quinion saw the sudden change in her expression, and placed one hand beneath her chin.
‘There’s positively nothing to worry about—providing you keep Margaret near the Hall,’ he said.
He went from the large, sun-lit room to his own bedroom. A short, thin, sombre-looking man, dressed in black, smiled a welcome.
‘Good morning, sir. Will you have the blue, the grey, or the silvers, Mr. Quinion?’
‘None of them,’ said Jimmy definitely. ‘I’m going to wear those trousers and that coat which you wanted to burn five years ago, Tally, and if I ever catch you trying to smuggle them out again I’ll punch your nose.’
Augustus Tally, Quinion’s devoted but often disapproving valet endeavoured to smile, but failed. From the hidden depths of a vast wardrobe he brought forth the disreputable garments and laid them out, his white fingers touching them gingerly.
‘Very good, sir.’
‘You’re an old hypocrite!’ said Quinion calmly. ‘You don’t think its very good at all; you fancy that if I wear those togs more than once a year I’m sinking rapidly in degeneration and what-not. Don’t you?’
‘I have seen you in clothes which are more fitting, sir.’
‘But not more comfortable. Comfort is one of the few things worth worrying about in this wicked world. However, let us end the discussion. Find out whether Miss Alleyn, who is in the blue room, sleeping off the effects of my eggs-and-bacon, is showing any signs of recovery, and ask her whether she’s fit enough for the sight of me. She calls me Jimmy, but if you don’t feel up to that you can say “Mr. Quinn”.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Tally, without enthusiasm.
‘Then hurry!’
Augustus Tally moved soberly towards the door and closed it behind him.
It was nearing twelve o’clock, six hours and more since the oddly assorted trio had made their impromptu meal. Quinion had not slept for long, however; he possessed a useful facility of being able to manage without sleep for long periods, and it had often served him well. He had been into Runsey, seen the man named Smith, who was but slowly recovering from the effect of his meeting with the two men—being Reginald Chane and Peter de Lorne, who had introduced themselves exuberantly as ‘sent by Archie’—and who was inclined to doubt whether he was safer with them than with Thomas Loder.
Quinion assured him that he was much safer with Loder. ‘You see,’ he had said briefly, ‘Loder is dead.’
He had plunged into an account of the happenings at the Café of Clouds, omitting the incident of the automatic which he had taken from the table, and endeavouring, as he talked, to straighten the whole affair out in his mind.
It was then that he recalled a fact which had made him stop suddenly in the middle of his story.
During the whole of the disturbance at the Café of Clouds the music had continued to play!
As he walked across the downs from the Tavern to Runsey Hall—the three men at the Tavern were to watch events at Cross Farm and Oak Cottage and to telephone him should anything untoward happen—he had turned that recollection over in his mind.
He
admitted that he was willing, over-anxious, perhaps, to build up a story that would free Margaret from any suspicions of having shot Thomas Loder. It was difficult. Her temporary stupor, the little revolver near her hand—on its silver handle he had found the initials ‘M.A.’ much to his dismay—and the general circumstances, all suggested that she had fired the shot. She had motive, too. Quinion was quite sure that she hated Loder, and yet she had been forced by some reason that obviously concerned her father, to put up with his company. On top of which there was the dark fact that in the dimly lighted Café of Clouds, no one who was not close to the dead man at the time of the shooting could have directed a shot with such accuracy.
It was, Quinion thought, a very black outlook. His chief hope was that the police—he did not doubt but that they were investigating the affair thoroughly—would not learn of Margaret Alleyn’s connection with the victim of the affair.
Another point which puzzled Quinion was the dual identity of Margaret as the ‘latest thing’ from New York. From de Lorne he had learned that she was appearing in a minor part, and that she had only been in the show for two or three days. He hoped that the girl herself would explain her appearance on the stage. Her name, de Lorne had said, was shown on the bills as ‘Elise Farily’.
Quinion was arrayed in his sports jacket and ghastly trousers when Augustus Tally returned.
‘Miss Alleyn is awake, sir. She will be ready in twenty minutes.’ The man’s expression suggested that the estimate was optimistic; he had, apparently, ideas on the time which it took young women to dress.
‘I take it that someone has looked after clothes and things?’ Quinion said. ‘Miss Alleyn’s visit was unpremeditated; moreover, it is unnecessary to discuss it with the lads of the village; you might inform the other servants about that, will you?’
‘I will give instructions, sir. Regarding wearing apparel, Lady Gloria has instructed Alice to wait on Miss Alleyn, Mr. Quinion.’
‘Quick work,’ said Jimmy. ‘Right you are, Tally—oh——’
‘Sir?’
