The Doorway to Death

by John Creasey

  “I’ll stay,” Quist promised, and stood and watched as she hurried to the porch, opened the door and stepped into the house. Then he went towards the small shears she had been using, bent down, and picked them up. Doing so, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the comer of his eyes, and saw Sybil’s father standing at a top-floor window.

  It was like looking upon fear.

  Quist felt sure that he knew the cause of that fear.

  He had wanted to tell Sybil the truth, long before this had happened. That he, Michael Quist, had been spying on her father. That he believed Henry to be party to a serious crime. That he had schemed an introduction to her so as to get to know her father, and had fallen in love with her.

  Soon she was going to be hurt. If she learned about his part in it, she would be hurt even more.

  If she loved him.

  Chapter Two

  Meeting

  It was twenty minutes before Sybil came out again, and in that time Quist had clipped about two square feet of hedge, and spent much of the time day-dreaming. But the exaltation he had felt when he had asked Sybil to come out for an hour or two had faded completely. There had been magic, and the magic was gone; he had the sense to know that he couldn’t command it to come back. He also had the sense to know that something quite exceptional had happened to him when his heart lurched, almost painfully, at sight of Sybil coming out of the side door of the house. She moved with such easy grace, very light on her feet; but her expression told him that there had been no easing of the tension indoors. As she came out of the shadow of the house into the sunlight of the garden, he saw a vivid likeness between her and her father, in spite of her father’s full, fleshy face; and in spite of his fear.

  Sybil had startlingly blue eyes.

  Quist smiled, and held out the shears.

  “All right, I surrender,” he said. “I’ll come again tomorrow, and hope things are better.”

  “Mick,” she asked, “will you do something for me?”

  That was quite unexpected, and he showed his surprise, but said quickly: “Yes, of course,” and waited for her to explain.

  She hesitated, glancing away from him towards the road where people walked by, and then back at him, as if she wasn’t happy about the request she had to make.

  “There’s no reason why you should,” she said rather quickly. “It isn’t your affair, and—well, we hardly know each other, do we? If you’d rather not do it, please say so.”

  “I want to help if I can.” God knew he did.

  “I mean, if you’d rather not do this particular thing.” Sybil hesitated, and looked quickly over her shoulder, as if afraid that they were being watched. Then she took Michael’s hand and led him further away from the house, as if to make sure that they weren’t overheard. “Mick, it’s a long story really, and I can’t explain because I don’t know what’s behind it, but about two or three months ago my father—my father started to act a little oddly.”

  Quist just said: “Mm-mm,” non-committally.

  “Mother hardly noticed it at first,” Sybil went on. “Father was home a little later some evenings, and occasionally he would go out without telling her where he was going. Trivial things like that. It—it was especially strange because he’s always been a creature of habit. You know that he works at Southern National Bank, don’t you?”

  “You told me.” As if he hadn’t known before he’d met her! “He’s head cashier at the Hadworth branch.”

  “Yes, he—but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he began to worry mother,” Sybil went on quickly, and it would not take much to make her wish that she hadn’t started to talk. It behoved Michael Quist to be very careful what he said and how he looked; it would be easy to make her stop, and so cause embarrassment which would give them a new problem of their own. “Once or twice most weeks he has a telephone call in the evening. Sometimes he shuts himself in his room upstairs after it, sometimes he goes out. When he goes out, he’s usually gone two hours or so. Mother has no idea where he goes or what he does. At first he pretended that he was going to see a friend, but lately he’s given up pretending. She keeps trying to make him explain, but he won’t, and—well she’s frightened by it now. And I could kick myself.”

  “What have you done?”

  “That’s the trouble. I’ve done nothing.”

  “Didn’t you know what was going on?”

  “Well, I suppose I did,” Sybil said slowly. “Mother told me that something was worrying him, and he’s certainly looked ill. I suppose the truth is that I didn’t take it very seriously, even when I was home. Mother didn’t tell me how unhappy it was making her, and I can see now that she was anxious not to worry me. I should have realised it, but I’ve been so busy with my own silly affairs—” Sybil was a little flushed, and the colour in her cheeks and the glint in her eyes made Quist wish he could stand and look at her for a long time.

  At least she was finding it easier to talk.

  “I can’t alter what’s been done,” she said, still vexedly, “but I can try to help now. I wonder if you would try to find out where—”

  She broke off, as if only then did she realise what she was asking. She looked away from him quickly, as if she was anxious not to see his expression.

  “Mick, I’m sorry; you can’t possibly. Forget it. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Quist said quickly. “There’s no reason at all why I shouldn’t try to find out where he goes, if you really want me to. Er—there’s one thing you might have overlooked, though. I don’t want to drop a brick, but you know the obvious explanation, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes; another woman,” said Sybil, almost offhandedly. “I hate even to think that’s it.”

  She brightened up a lot when Quist insisted on trying to help; but if her father was involved with another woman, she and her mother would be in for a nasty time. And if Sybil then found out why Quist had come to know her—

  Her hand on his was light but firm. Trusting.

  “Sure you don’t mind, Mick?”

  “I’m positive,” he said. “But don’t blame me if you wish you’d never heard of me when I’ve reported.” He sounded almost grim.

  “Mick, don’t be silly! I’ve been talking to mother, and she says she knows that father often catches a bus at the end of the road and gets off at Hadworth Station. She doesn’t know what he does then. If you—”

  Quist took her by the shoulders, kissed her firmly and then dropped his arms and turned and walked off. She watched every step, until he turned from the gate to wave.

  Sybil saw Michael glance up at the upper windows, and then sit astride his bicycle and pedal off. He didn’t look back again, and she was glad, for there were tears in her eyes, and she saw him through a haze.

  Why had this thing happened now, of all times?

  She felt a great bitterness towards her father because he had spoiled the magic of the evening. No matter how understanding Michael was, he could not fail to be affected by this dismal family trouble. She wished that she hadn’t asked him to spy on her father, and could well believe that she had only made the situation worse. It was hard to understand the expression in Mike’s eyes when he had agreed to go; hard to understand why he had said that she might wish she’d never heard of him.

  It was almost as if he knew something already.

  Nonsense!

  Her mother came to the window and looked out, but did not speak or beckon. Then Sybil heard footsteps. Her father appeared at the front door, carrying a bowler hat and an umbrella, looking as respectable as a man could; a tower of strength, a regular pillar of society, she thought bitterly. She saw the way her mother was looking at him, and realised what awful hurt he had caused her; that turned bitterness almost into hatred.

  Then she saw her father’s face.

  Bitterness and hatred faded in deep compassion. It was easy to see how much he suffered, too. Some cruel thing was tormenting him, and suddenly she
wanted to help, to do something, anything, to ease the burden.

  She hurried towards him, hands outstretched.

  “Dad, is there anything at all that I can do?”

  “Go to your mother,” he said in a harsh, commanding voice.

  She drew back, dropping her hand, coldness quickly replacing the warmth of compassion. That was how it had always been; he had managed to stifle her affection.

  Her mother had seen her gesture, and the rebuff.

  Sybil went in to her, wishing more than ever that she had not asked Michael to go.

  What had he meant?

  She heard a motor-cycle start up.

  That was not unusual, for in Laurel Avenue there were a dozen youths with motor-cycles or Vespas, the staccato noise of engines was a part of the background noise of the neighbourhood. Sybil did not even glance towards it; it did not occur to her that her father was being followed, and that Michael would be noticed, too.

  Her thoughts were mostly on Michael. How hard he worked, how much he studied in the evening, how he had snatched precious hours for tonight, how he preferred a bicycle to a car, because the car would tempt him out into the country too often.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” he had told her, half laughingly.

  That reminded her how little she really knew about him. An acquaintance had introduced them only three weeks ago, at North Hadworth Tennis Club, the day he had joined. She knew that he worked at Saxby’s, a manufacturing company with its works on the outskirts of the London suburb. He was in the secretary’s office in the West End, training for some kind of job which he hadn’t talked much about. He had a small flat in Hadworth, near the station, and spent part of his time at the factory, part at the West End office.

  That was really all she knew.

  Except that she was desperately in love with him, and although she had tried not to admit it, had been from the first time she had seen him. Love at first sight had seemed too absurd, so school-girlish, but there it was.

  She would have to stop thinking about Michael now, and hope desperately that this would not make any difference to the way he thought of her. Even while she was talking to her mother and trying to comfort her, that thought was uppermost in her mind.

  As Michael Quist reached the end of the avenue, a man on a motorcycle, at the side of the road, glanced at him but showed no sign of deep interest. But after he had reached the main road, the motor-cyclist followed, and watched him as he rode down the hill towards the station. A few minutes later, Charles Henry appeared, and boarded a bus going in the same direction as Quist.

  The motor-cyclist went ahead of the bus, and reached Hadworth Hill station a few seconds before Quist, who saw the man without really noticing him.

  The bus came up.

  Henry got off, heavily, and made straight for one of the several taxis waiting nearby. The motor-cyclist watched Quist, who sat astride his bicycle on the other side of the wide road.

  Obviously he had to choose between trying to keep up with the taxi on the bicycle, or hurrying across the road, hiring another cab and asking the driver to keep the first in sight. In the moment of indecision, another crowd came from the station and two men hurried for taxis. The one which Henry had hired was already moving away, and Quist cycled off first, going very fast down a short, steep hill. By day, his task would have been easy, for traffic would have slowed the taxi down; but there was little about now, and the High Street stretched wide and almost empty. The motor-cyclist, following, saw him shoot past a set of traffic lights as they changed from amber to red; the taxi was held up. Quist’s next problem would be whether to turn right at the second lights or go straight on, towards London. If he waited, he would lose the taxi anyhow, so went straight on.

  The taxi followed, with the motor-cyclist a little way behind.

  Now it was a kind of game, and a cyclist’s only hope of keeping the taxi in sight was to keep ahead or catch up with it at traffic lights. One after another these turned red, and helped Quist, who kept looking round. The taxi took a corner behind him, and he braked fiercely, made a U turn, and cycled furiously back.

  The motor-cyclist grinned.

  The taxi was out of sight of them both.

  There was a warren of streets here, some at right angles, some at acute angles to others; there were small cul-de-sacs, too, a dozen places where the taxi might go. Quist sped on, glancing right and left into turnings and narrow streets with small, terraced houses on either side, all looking very much alike. Most had a bush or two outside in a tiny garden. The road surface was of loose gravel, for it had been freshly tarred, and the warmth of the evening made the smell stick in his throat.

  Then, the taxi came out of a street, its For Hire sign up, and along the same street, Charles Henry was going into a public-house.

  Quist didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. He cycled along, and saw that the pub was the Rose and Crown, and that the door Henry had entered by was marked “Saloon Bar”. Quist went into the Lounge Bar, and ordered a beer; he could just see Henry in the next room.

  Henry soon moved out of sight.

  Quist downed his beer, hurried into the street, and saw Henry already turning a corner. Quist got on to his bicycle, and tried not to show how much he hurried.

  Henry was fumbling at the letter-box of a house a little way along. He pulled something out – obviously a key dangling on a piece of string inside the door. Henry let himself in, and pushed the key back again.

  Quist cycled past.

  Two minutes later he turned back. He noticed a motorcyclist at one end of the street, but took no notice of him. At the window of a room upstairs was a woman whom he saw quite clearly; fine, bold, handsome.

  Then he saw Henry join her.

  It was ten o’clock before Quist got back to Laurel Avenue, and even then he was ahead of Charles Henry, Sybil saw him turning in at the gate. Her mother had gone into a neighbour’s to help with a sick child, jumping at the chance to take her mind off her worry. For nearly an hour Sybil had been alone.

  She hurried to the door as Quist came up the path. The light from the porch and the hall shone on his face, and she searched it for news. It was set hard, relaxing into a smile only when he saw her.

  “Darling, ever since you left I’ve been hating myself for asking you to go. I’m so sorry that—”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” Quist said, and took her by the shoulders. His eyes seemed to be searching hers intently. “Sybil, you want the truth, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s out, it’s all right. Mike, was it—was it another woman?”

  “Yes.” Obviously he hated telling her, and his grip was harder. “It was a woman of about forty, quite presentable, rather big and handsome. I saw him go into her house and saw them together at a window upstairs. I hate saying it, darling, but you must be prepared for—for a lot of unpleasantness.”

  Sybil didn’t speak. Of course her mother suspected the truth, but when she heard of this—

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” Quist said, almost roughly. “I ought to have said that I couldn’t find anything out, but lying would only hurt more.”

  “Of course you had to tell me,” Sybil said, rather wearily. “I suppose she’s got him under her thumb, and he can’t get away. I wish I knew how to help him.”

  “Listen, sweetheart,” Michael said, “don’t even try. It wouldn’t be any use interfering, this is a thing he has to work out for himself. Your job is to help your mother, that’s all. Don’t you go following your father, or trying to find this woman. It would only make things worse.”

  He was almost fierce in his insistence.

  “It’s all right,” Sybil assured him. “I won’t be so silly as that. I just wish it hadn’t happened. What was she like? Really attractive?”

  “Well, I only had a glimpse of her,” Quist admitted, as if grudgingly. “You know Lorna Morn
e, at the club?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not unlike her.”

  Sybil had a mental picture of a woman in her late thirties, dark-haired, with a fine, full-breasted figure and a small waist; a rather handsome, colourful, sexy type, as different from her mother as anyone could be. Somehow it was easier to understand; and somehow she felt even more grateful to Michael.

  “Listen, Sybil,” he said abruptly. “I couldn’t help hurting you. Whatever happens, remember that.”

  “Of course I’ll remember,” Sybil promised.

  His manner puzzled her, and she wanted to ask him what he meant by ‘whatever happens’, but she heard her mother coming back. She was glad that Michael decided to go then, and slipped out by the side door.

  About eleven o’clock her father came home, and went straight up to the bedroom. Sybil caught a glimpse of him on the landing, and was surprised to see that he looked almost cheerful. A little later she heard him talking quite amiably to her mother. He’d had a drink or two, of course, but sometimes drink made him morose.

  Could he have freed himself from that unknown woman?

  Certainly there seemed no reason why Michael should have been so worried.

  It was lunch-time next day when Sybil, sitting on a bench in St. James’s Park with her sandwiches, saw a photograph of her father’s mistress. It was the word ‘murder’ which caught her eye, and she found herself leading over the shoulder in an evening paper of a woman who must be rather like of the man with the newspaper.

  There was a bold headline, followed by a short paragraph which seemed almost as if it was there for her to read.

  WOMAN MURDERED IN BED

  Scotland Yard officers are anxious to interview a cyclist known to have been in Page Street, Elwell, at about nine o’clock last night, and who is believed to have cycled away in the direction of Hadworth. Anyone in the Hadworth or Elwell district who saw a cyclist riding a new-looking, pale green machine, wearing grey flannel trousers, a brown sports jacket, and without a hat, is asked to communicate with Chief Inspector West of New Scotland Yard immediately.