Warrant for X

by Philip MacDonald

  Pike said: “No doubt, of course, he might——”

  Anthony interrupted: “Don’t be so subjunctive, Pike! If I want to call our Napoleon Evans, let me call him Evans.” Pike grinned: “Have it your own way, sir.”

  Garrett said: “How d’you know Brent was an intimate of—of Evans?”

  Anthony said: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Wait for another slice and see what you get. Now then: Miss Ada Brent, an intimate associate of Evans and therefore more than the usual KJB blackmail operative, nevertheless takes on an ordinary operative’s job in the case of Mrs Bellingham. Why she does this we don’t know but needn’t worry about. What we do know is that Miss Brent sees confederate Jenks under arrest. She also sees that connected with the arrest is one Anthony Gethryn, whom she recognizes because—despite all his efforts—his photograph has frequently appeared in newspapers. Being quick witted, she does not get out of the taxi from which she sees all this but directs the driver to go on. Later, in at least temporary safety, she thinks things over and comes to a decision, one of the effects of which is to tell us what we have already stated, namely, that she is a confidant of Evans. She decides that she had best save her own skin by double-crossing Evans—not by going to the police, who can only turn her into king’s evidence and get her a reduced sentence, but by going to the Gethryn man. He is not an official policeman but he does have the ear of authority. With him she can bargain.”

  Garrett said: “Wait a minute! I don’t follow you. How does all this prove that she’s an intimate of the Big Shot’s?” Anthony smiled. “Special allowances made for recently cracked heads. Because, my good Garrett, her decision to talk—whatever the reason behind it—must mean that she knew something more than the general KJB blackmail activities. Brent was, you must admit, obviously a young person of shrewdness. Therefore when she sees Jenks arrested for blackmail she knows either that (i) by degrees the police will find out all about the blackmail and KJB, in which case she has nothing to bargain with; or she knows that (2) Jenks, Hines and Company are so well protected by and/or afraid of Evans that they will inculpate no one but themselves.”

  “Ye-es.” Garrett’s tone was doubtful. “It’s probable. . . “ Anthony said: “Think, man, think! Just like that it’s so probable as to be almost certain. But it’s sure when you add to this hyper-probability the facts (a) that Miss Ada Brent called at Travers Hoylake’s nursing home this afternoon and asked for you and (b) that the second and third lines of Miss Brent’s note to me read something like this: ‘Knowing you are interested re Arthur Jenks and consequently re a great deal more which I could tell you about. ’ “

  Garrett put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. He said:

  “Of course! Of course! I’m sorry.”

  There was a small silence, broken by Pike. He said slowly, looking at Anthony:

  “Seems to me, sir, that whenever we think we’ve got anywhere in this case we come to a blind alley, as you might say. What do we know now about the Murch angle, as you might call it, that we didn’t know at the beginning?”

  “We know it’s there,” said Garrett without lifting his head.

  “And we know it’s big,” said Anthony.

  “Big!” said Pike. “It’s more than that, sir. But what I mean is, where are we?”

  Anthony grinned. “You mean, where’s Murch. Oh, where is Janet, what is she, that we poor swine can’t find her?”

  Pike did not smile. “Lady Ballister might’ve helped us: she’s dead. This Brent was going to help us: she’s dead. And we don’t look like finding this Aunt——”

  Garrett said: “If only you people had put Brent in jail!”

  Anthony looked at Pike. “And that’s what Lucas’ll say. But if we had, Garrett, she wouldn’t’ve talked. She’d have taken her chance with Jenks and Hines. Turning king’s evidence would only have got her a reduced sentence. That wouldn’t have appealed. She’d’ve gambled, that girl.”

  Garrett raised his head. He stared first at Anthony; then at Pike. He said:

  “Shan’t we get Evans or whoever he is through this murder?”

  Pike said: “If painstaking work will do it, Mr Garrett, we shall. Two of my best men are in Swinburne House now, trying to get any line on Brent—habits, friends, anything. But——”

  “You’re not very sure,” Garrett said.

  Pike looked at him. “You don’t want what Colonel Gethryn calls jam, do you, sir? . . . Well then, my personal feeling—my private opinion, as you might say—is that we’ll get the murderer; but that it’ll take us time. And plenty of it!”

  “And in that time the—the Murch affair will probably be finished.” Garrett was despondent.

  Anthony said: “That’s if we regard the murderer as our only line on Murch.”

  “You know,” said Garrett, “what we’ve got to do is get hold of the old Bellows dame. . . . We’ve got to! Don’t you see that some hellish thing’s going to be done?” His words were coming fast now; he sat bolt upright for the first time. “It was bad enough at the beginning. Now it’s worse. At the start we just smelt crime—now we know; and know it’s something bad enough to make the people behind it try to kill me and then butcher one of their own gang. And we sit here and gab and——”

  Pike interrupted. He said stiffly:

  “You can rest assured that the department——”

  Anthony said: “Don’t get official, Pike. This is Mr Garrett’s case. If it hadn’t been for him . . .”

  Garrett looked at Pike and essayed a smile. “Sorry, Superintendent. Didn’t mean to knock. But this thing’s got me. You see, I know, personally, what kidnapping means.” His voice dropped; he looked down at the floor between his slippered feet. “It’s—it’s . . .” He checked himself. “But skip that! Just remember that this bunch tried to bump me off!” A hand went up to the back of his head.

  Pike said earnestly: “Believe me, Mr Garrett, I understand your feelings.”

  Anthony said: “Tomorrow’s tasks: One: put more men onto the Brent murder. Two: ginger Midlothian about Mother Bellows. Three: go over Brent’s chattels at——”

  Garrett started. “For God’s sake, haven’t you ” He cut himself short. “Sorry, Gethryn!”

  Anthony smiled. “We’re not as bad as that. As far as the flat’s concerned, Pike and I have been over everything—and found that It comes to nothing. What I was talking about was the trunk or what not she must have left at Avis’. We haven’t got round to that yet.”

  Pike said: “It’s being fetched tomorrow morning, sir.” Garrett said: “I don’t suppose there’d be anything in it.

  She’d hardly take——” He broke off, staring at Anthony.

  Anthony had got to his feet. A sudden frown was drawing his brows together and, although he was motionless, all ease had dropped from him. His face seemed leaner than ever and beneath the frowning brows the curiously green eyes were blazing.

  Garrett said: “What’s the matter?”

  “What’s Avis’ number? Quick!”

  Garrett stared, his eyes widening.

  “Quick!” said Anthony. Now he was at the writing table, his hand outstretched for the telephone.

  Garrett said: “St John-4383.” He found himself on his feet.

  Anthony was working the dial. He said, his voice coming over the whirring little cackle of sound:

  “We ought to be shot, Pike! He was running because he was in a hurry.”

  The dialing ceased. Pike, too, was now standing. Garrett went to Anthony’s side and clutched his shoulder. He said: “What’s happened, Gethryn? Explain, for God’s sake!

  “Wait!” said Anthony.

  There was silence. Through it came, even to the ears of Garrett and Pike, a soft, intermittent purring from the telephone which told of a bell ringing at the other end.

  Anthony listened. The purring went on. Then his face lightened. The purring had stopped, with a click which told of the removal of the far receiver.


  “Hullo!” said Anthony. “Hullo!”

  There was no answer.

  He said: “Hullo! Hullo, there!” His voice was rising.

  Garrett said: “Here, give it to me!” He snatched the instrument from Anthony’s hand and put it to his mouth and shouted into it.

  There was no answer.

  Anthony looked at his watch. The time was twenty past midnight.

  Garrett was shouting into the telephone. “Hello! Hello!”

  Anthony said: “Shut up a minute, Garrett! P’r’aps she’s out and someone else took off the receiver.”

  Garrett said: “Talked to her this evening. She was going to bed early. And there’s the maid. Why shouldn’t she answer if she goes to the phone!” He shouted again into the receiver.

  Pike looked at Anthony. “Got another phone, sir?”

  Anthony nodded. “Private line. My dressing room. Know the way?”

  Pike was gone.

  Garrett was shouting: “Hello! Hello!”

  Anthony caught him by the left shoulder and swung him round and snatched the receiver and slammed it back on its hook. He said:

  “Waste of time. Pike’s onto Hampstead Police now. I’m going.”

  In three strides he was at the door. He wrenched it open and was gone.

  3

  It had stopped raining and the sky was clear; but the wind was now stronger and colder. And the engine of the Voisin was cold.

  Anthony cursed and adjusted the choke and trod again upon the starter. The engine coughed; stuttered; burst into low, full-throated life.

  The near-side front door was snatched open. Gasping, Garrett scrambled into the car.

  “Damn fool!” said Anthony. “You’re ill!” But he leaned over and clutched at the still open door and slammed it shut. He said:

  “Hold tight!”

  The black car shot down the length of Stukeley Gardens and swung right, with a pull which sent Garrett’s body lurching against Anthony’s shoulder, into the broad stream of Knightsbridge itself.

  Garrett pulled himself upright. The needle on the speedometer jerked to fifty . . . sixty. . . . Past Garrett’s painfully straining eyes flashed the bulk of the Hyde Park Hotel. He shouted:

  “The Park, man! The Park!”

  But by the time the words had left his mouth the car was nearing the yellow nimbus of light opposite St George’s Hospital which guides the belated to the coffee stall known as the Junior Turf. Anthony said out of the corner of his mouth: “Park’s shut.”

  The coffee stall was passed; then the double gates of the Corner. The Voisin swung left into Park Lane. Garrett was hurled against the door at his left shoulder. He pushed himself upright. He said, almost shouted:

  “What d’you think’s happened! Tell me!”

  Anthony was driving almost on the crown of the empty road. On the left the black railings of the Park streamed by. On the right loomed the dark mass of Dorchester House. From the turning just past it there suddenly shot out, right across the Voisin’s path, a yellow taxicab.

  Garrett involuntarily closed his eyes. A short breath hissed between his teeth and his right arm came up to guard his head. He felt the car swing violently under him and once more was thrown against the door. His ears were filled with the screaming of tortured tires. Suddenly, beneath him, came a bump which straightened his body and threw it off the seat. Then a lurching twist to the right, another bump—and once more smooth progression.

  Garrett became aware of the arm across his eyes. With a little unreasonable pang of shame he took it down. He heard Anthony’s voice. It said:

  “Close one! Lucky the curb wasn’t high.”

  And now they swung left, between the Marble Arch and the Park itself and were on the broad straight thoroughfare to Notting Hill Gate.

  The needle on the speedometer dial touched seventy and passed it; the engine began to give out that low humming note which she achieves at high speeds. Then, as Lancaster Gate drew near, Anthony’s foot was transferred from accelerator to brake. Garrett said:

  “For God’s sake, Gethryn! Tell me what you think has happened.”

  “Hold tight!” said Anthony.

  Garrett clutched at the window and held himself steady while—it seemed on two wheels—the car swung right into Westbourne Terrace. Anthony’s foot came down again upon the accelerator. In the comparative darkness of the terrace his headlights cut a white swathe. Garrett said:

  “For God’s sake, Gethryn! D’you think that devil has——”

  The rasping, two-noted blare of the Voisin’s klaxon drowned his next two words. They were approaching, at fifty miles per hour, the last cross street before the Marylebone Road, and across the blackness of the macadam, from the right-hand mouth of the cross street, was shining a single approaching headlight. Steering obliquely to his left, Anthony slammed his right foot down. The car seemed to throw itself forward. It flashed with an actually safe but apparently perilous yard to spare across the path of the owner of the headlight—a motor-police cycle and sidecar.

  The Voisin roared on; but from behind her came the sudden and infuriated wail of a police siren.

  “We’re off!” said Anthony.

  Over the Canal Bridge . . . then right . . . then left . . . then right again and up to Westbourne Grove. . . . Left and on the straight again. . . . The needle on the speedometer hovered over the eighty mark. . . . The two-noted klaxon blared continuously. Behind, the police siren screamed its rage. . . . A bad tenth of a second with a van without a taillight. . . . A worse fifth with a careless or legally minded taxi driver. . . .

  Then the long wall of the Lords . . . a squealing of brakes. . . . A sliding to the curb opposite the entrance to Lords’ Mansions.

  Anthony thrust himself out of the car, slamming its door behind him, the siren rang once more in his ears and he was bathed in the white flood of a single headlight. A deep, irate voice shouted at him. Coming through the sound of the voice was that of the far door of the Voisin slamming and those of men’s footsteps as Garrett came round the front of the car at a stumbling run and two bulky, dark-clad, flat-capped forms detached themselves from cycle and sidecar and ran for their quarry.

  Anthony, already halfway up the flagged walk which joins the portico of Lords’ Mansions to the pavement, shouted back over his shoulder. To Garrett’s ears, in which the blood pounded with a sound like the hammer of Thor, came two words: . . explain . . . card . . .” And at Garrett’s feet, which persisted paradoxically in feeling as if they were made of lead and yet treading upon air, something landed with a little soft plop.

  4

  The flat of Mrs George Bellingham is upon the second floor of Lords’ Mansions. Anthony, knowing that there was no lift attendant after eleven at night, took to the stairs. As he reached the first landing he heard from beneath the sound of the swing doors and heavily shod feet running along the tiled vestibule.

  He passed no one in his ascent and there was no one upon the second landing. He ran down it and with long strides to Avis’ door. It was smugly closed. Behind its ground-glass, curtained upper half no light showed. He tried its handle but it did not give. With his left hand he beat a sharp tattoo with the knocker; with his right thumb he pressed the bellpush. But he did not wait for answer; knock and ring had not been appeal but admonition. His hands came away from knocker and bell. In one movement they had unbuttoned and ripped off his dinner jacket. He dropped it over his right hand, clenched this into a fist and wrapped about it, in a thick bundle, the soft black cloth and softer black silk. He thrust with a short stabbing punch at the pane of glass nearest to the lock. The tinkling crackle of the breaking glass mingled with the sound of heavy boots racing up the stairs.

  He shook the coat from his arm and it fell and lay like a black stain upon the carpet. He thrust his shirt-sleeved left arm with swift caution through the broken pane and groped with long fingers and found the knob of the lock and turned it.

  The door opened. He thrust his way into the dark
ness of the little hall. Inside, the memory of his only two visits to this place serving him well, he reached for the wall to the left of the door and found a light switch and pressed it. Above his head a softly shaded amber light jumped into life and flooded down upon a scene of perfect order. Nothing was out of place. To his right the drawing-room door stood closed; and closed, too, were all the other doors in the corridor which stretched away to the left.

  The heavy running feet pounded close outside. The door creaked again and there came a fresh little tinkle of broken glass as it moved. Anthony swung round. He saw a policeman but not the policeman he had expected, for here was no motorcyclist but a helmeted sergeant with beads of sweat glistening on a round and red but shrewd-eyed face. Anthony sighed relief. He said sharply:

  “From Hampstead Station? Superintendent Pike’s orders?”

  A hand went up to the helmet in salute. “Yes, Colonel Gethryn?” The voice was jerky from recent exertion.

  Anthony said: “Yes. Look in all the rooms on the right. Watch your step!”

  Again the hand went to the helmet in salute. Anthony made for the drawing-room door and threw it open. The room was dark. He reached his arm round the door for a light switch and found it after groping. Into view sprang another scene of complete and charming order. He turned and went back into the hall. From the first door upon the right—that of the dining room—the uniformed figure of the sergeant came out. He looked towards Anthony and said:

  “All right in there, sir.”

  “Get on! Get on!” said Anthony and himself ran to the first door upon the left.

  What room this led to he did not know. He threw it open. It was dark like the drawing room. He reached his arm round the doorjamb but this time his groping fingers found no switch. He took a step forward, then checked himself. To his ear had come two sounds—or rather, one group of sounds and one particular sound. From outside the flat two or three more pairs of heavy running feet; from inside the flat, in the sergeant’s briskly hoarse voice, words whose shape he did not catch but whose tone brought him back into the passage in a leap and sent him running towards the second door upon the right. This stood open and light streamed from it.