by John Creasey
“She will,’’ Rollison said. He knew that the C.I.D. man was within earshot, and must be wondering about the talk of a ‘kid’. “What else did you notice about the girl?”
“She was a blonde, like I told Miss Abbott on the phone. If you ask me, I did pretty well. Only had a look now and again. I had passengers to look after and a dozen things to do at once. Haven’t got eyes out of the back of my head, have I? I—” He broke off startled, when Rollison held out his hand, and a pound note was neatly transferred; the feel and the rustle of paper created a great change in the manner of Smart the porter. “Always do the best I can, especially for anyone up at the girls’ school.”
Two minutes later, walking along the alley to his car, Rollison said to Jeff: “The father of one of the girls at the College seems to have wanted to get care of his daughter before the marriage broke up. That’s why we want to keep this as quiet as we can.” The story would serve for the Hapley police for a while, at least. At the back of Rollison’s mind was the thought of that curt message on the card still in his pocket: the card which was more likely to have fingerprints than the envelope.
“This yours, sir?” said Jeff, as they reached the Rolls-Bentley. “What a beauty! After you, sir.”
He stood back, holding open Rollison’s door; and Rollison saw two things at the same moment. On his seat was something small and white, like a visiting card; and not far along the road a small car was parked, without lights, so that he could not read the registration number. He did not think Jeff saw the white thing. He got in, touching the card, which seemed about the same size as the one which had been delivered to Miss Ellerby. He switched on the reading light, and glanced down. It said: “Get £20,000 ready, in cash. They must be old notes.”
Well, that didn’t surprise him, and was not desperately urgent. He slid it into his pocket, and a moment later, eased off the brake and began to move along. The parked car didn’t move. He purred past, glancing towards it as Jeff said: “Our chaps will get him all right; crazy place to park without lights. Not so bad under a lamp.” He seemed to take no more interest in the little car, but Rollison saw its side lights go on, and realised that they were drawing nearer as he went slowly towards the main part of the town. The car number still did not show up.
On his own, he would have known exactly what to do; with the C.I.D. man beside him, it was difficult to decide. He turned a corner under Jeff’s direction, and a minute later the small car turned too. If the driver was deliberately following him, and that seemed likely, he would soon know about the visit to the police station. The warning on the card might be serious: it would be taking too great a risk to ignore it.
“Jeff,” he said, “there’s just a chance that there’ll be a message at Miss Ellerby’s. Mind if I look in there first?”
Jeff said promptly: “Of course not,” and gave him directions.
The little car followed.
The problem now was to get hold of the driver while shaking Jeff off, and it was not going to be easy.
“I don’t know whether you know it, Mr Rollison,” Jeff said suddenly, in a conspiratorial undertone, “but a Hillman’s been on our tail for the last few minutes. Why don’t you stop suddenly in the middle of the road, and let me jump out and tackle the blighter?”
6
JEFF
So Jeff was smart.
If he were so quick on the uptake, he would quickly guess if Rollison tried to fool him. The only wise thing was to let him do what he suggested. The police could be as discreet as anyone, and if they believed that Caroline Kane was in danger, they would certainly be discreet over this; more harm would come from trying to pull the wool over Jeff’s eyes than in giving him his head.
“Right,” whispered Rollison, and then realised that there was no need to keep his voice down. “I’ll pull in towards the school drive. He won’t be surprised to see the rear light go on then.” The drive showed up dimly beneath a street lamp, twenty or thirty yards away. The car hardly moved, and when it stopped it was with the gentlest of a forward sway.
Jeff’s left hand was already on the door handle, and he pressed down and flung open the door almost before the car had stopped. He was swivelling round, legs thrust towards the open door, too, and in a flash he was standing alongside the car, then racing back towards the little car, which was fifty or sixty yards behind him. Rollison saw him vaguely in the mirror, which was anti-glare and, by night, filled with shadows. He saw the headlights of the car go on. One moment Jeff was a shadowy figure, the next he showed up stark and vivid and black, arms still stretched out as if defying the driver of the small car to try to pass on either side. Rollison pushed open his door and started to get out. The headlights went off for a second, and then shone out again. Rollison’s feet were on the ground and he was starting towards Jeff and the small car, when, horrified, he realised what the driver intended to do.
“Look out, Jeff!” Rollison bellowed.
Jeff would know what was coming as well as he did; he was moving forward, obviously at a disadvantage, and unable to fling himself to one side in the split second that he had left. The small car’s engine roared. “Look out!” Rollison shouted again, but it was useless, there was nothing he could do.
Jeff leapt desperately towards the right.
He showed up vividly in the headlights, but the driver of the car was just a shape.
Rollison felt as if the car were coming at him. He stood quite still and held his breath. He saw Jeff fall. He saw the car strike him, and lurch over him. He heard a choking cry. He saw Jeff’s arms rise for a moment, and then flop down. By then, the small car was coming at Rollison as if determined to mow him down, also. Rollison flung himself to one side, and on to the boot of the Bentley. The car swept by, engine still roaring, and he felt the wind of its passing. He scrambled off the back of the big car. The rear light of the other seemed a long way off, and suddenly the headlights swivelled, as it turned a corner to the left; and then the rear lights vanished, and the street seemed very dark.
There was no sound from Jeff.
Rollison felt a fierce urge to rush into the driving seat and hunt the car down, but he forced himself to swing round, and run towards Jeff. Only the distant hum of the vanished car’s engine sounded. “Higgs!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Higgs!” A light at the window seemed to mock him; so did the small lamp near the entrance to the school, only a few yards away. “Higgs!” he bellowed, and then reached Jeff’s side. There was sufficient light for him to see how motionless the detective was. Jeff’s face was turned away from him, and he lay on his stomach. Rollison called out for the porter again, his voice pitched high, then shone his tiny torch with its pitifully slender beam. It shone on the crimson of blood, and on Jeff’s hand; it shone on a dark stain on Jeff’s white shirt, where the coat had been caught up; and it shone on the tyre marks across the shirt and the top of the trousers, the car must have gone right over him.
The murderous swine . . .
A man came, hurrying, not far along. “Help!” Rollison called, and saw a uniformed policeman passing beneath a street lamp. At the same time, Higgs limped from the driveway; so the shouting had not been useless. “Ambulance, quickly,” Rollison called. “A man’s been run over.”
He saw Higgs hesitate, and then the policeman drew up, gasping for breath but managing to ask: “Is he hurt badly?”
“Very.”
The policeman did a simple thing: he blew his whistle.
Now Rollison had to decide how much to tell the men at the police station as well as how much to tell Eve. He could imagine what she would feel if she believed that her daughter had been taken away by people who would act as ruthlessly and cruelly as the driver of the small car. He was still suffering from a kind of shock, and had not really started to ask himself why the driver had been so ruthless and cold-blooded.
Jeff was alre
ady on his way to the hospital. The constable had asked the formal questions and Rollison given the formal answers. Miss Ellerby had come out to see what the fuss was about, had been told there had been an ‘accident’ and had gone back, with that tight-lipped tension. Rollison had not seen Eve again yet. A car drew up and the policeman he had seen at the railway station got out, with a tall, thin man whose hair showed very silvery in the lamp light.
“Mr Rollison, this is Chief Inspector Dawson,” he introduced.
“Glad to know you, Mr Rollison.” Dawson had a slow speaking voice. “Not going to try to persuade me that this was a coincidence, are you?”
That made Rollison’s mind up for him.
“No,” he said. “Will you come into Miss Ellerby’s house, and give me a few minutes with the mother of a girl who’s missing? Then I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Very well,” Dawson said. He made that sound ominous.
Eve was with Miss Abbott and Miss Ellerby in the big room. Her eyes seemed frightened, and she looked at him as if she had some premonition that the news he brought would not be good. The two mistresses went out, and Eve stepped towards Rollison, and said in a taut voice: “She isn’t hurt, is she?”
“I still haven’t the faintest idea where she is,” Rollison told her. “But we’re going to have to tell the police some of the truth, in spite of that note.”
Eve didn’t speak.
“I don’t think year husband is responsible,” Rollison went on. “I can’t believe that this has anything to do with your married life, either.”
Eve caught her breath. “Why?”
“A policeman has been run down and badly injured, trying to talk to one of the men we think are concerned,” Rollison said, hating the need to give greater cause for fear. “The driver of the car got away. He may not have intended murder, but it was a murderous assault.” He was watching her all the time, sharing her distress, admiring how she fought against breaking down. “I’ll have to tell the police and ask them to keep it from the newspapers. I think they will, so I don’t think the people who have taken Caroline need know that the authorities have been told, but there’s no certainty.”
“I see,” Eve said stonily. “You must do what you think best.”
“Have you thought of anything that might explain what has happened?”
“Only – ransom.”
“Have you the slightest idea who might be behind it?”
“No,” Eve said. “No idea at all.”
“Would they be likely to try to get ransom from your husband as well?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He isn’t rich,” she answered, and her eyes closed for a moment; Rollison thought that she would faint. “He has a good income, that’s all.”
“Is he a private consultant?”
“No,” she told him. “He’s a consultant with Colfax World Advertising. He travels for them, he—” She broke off. “Are you—are you sure that talking to the police wouldn’t make things worse for Caroline?”
“Eve,” Rollison said, “we can’t be positive about anything, except that the police will help all they can. You needn’t be present when I tell them.”
“I’d rather know everything that’s going on,” she said.
Dawson, the policeman whose name was Moss, and the three women were all back in the big, square room while the whole story was related. Once he knew that he was being told everything, Dawson became prosily cooperative, and there must have been some measure of reassurance for Eve in his words. A widespread search was already on for the Super Snipe as a result of the Yard’s request. He, Dawson, had been in touch with the police of all the neighbouring counties. Rollison’s description of the Hillman which had run Jeff down had already been telegraphed to all nearby police stations, and all small cars on the road would be searched and all Hillmans examined.
“We can deal with this simply as a hunt for a man who ran down one of our men,” explained Dawson carefully. “It need not be connected with your daughter’s disappearance, yet, Mrs Kane. Except in case of dire emergency, it never will be.” He seemed a little ill-at-ease when he looked across at her. “Mr Rollison, I’ve had that envelope tested for prints, and there are only three sets – Miss Ellerby’s, Mrs Higgs’s and Miss Abbott’s. The address must have been written by someone wearing gloves. From what I’ve seen of this card, the same can be said of that.”
“You mean they don’t help?” Eve asked.
“We cannot assume that by a long way,” Dawson said didactically. “There are a dozen ways that it can be of assistance, and—” He paused momentarily, for the telephone bell rang, an unexpected thing so late at night. Miss Ellerby stepped across and lifted the receiver with obvious impatience.
“Miss Ellerby speaking . . . Yes, he is,” she said at once, and looked at Rollison. “It’s a London call, Mr Rollison, for you.”
That could only be the Yard.
“Thanks,” Rollison said, and took the receiver while everyone in the room stared expectantly. “Rollison speaking . . . Oh, yes, Nick?”
Superintendent Marshall said sharply: “Is your inquiry about a Super Snipe connected with the running down of that policeman at Hapley?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want to know exactly what’s on.” Marshall was even sharper.
“The local police will brief you. I told them directly their man was run down,” Rollison assured him. “Keep it right away from the Press, Nick, until I see you.”
“Sure I should?”
“I think you’ll be making a grave mistake if you don’t,” Rollison answered carefully. “Have you found any trace of the car?”
“I think so.”
Rollison asked: “What, exactly?” and tried not to show by the inflection in his voice that there was news of any kind, since nothing in Marshall’s manner suggested that it was good.
“It was one of the staff cars belonging to the Colfax Advertising Agency,” Marshall told him. “It was taken out eight days ago by a Captain Ralph Kane, an advertising consultant of the Colfax. Kane hasn’t kept any appointments since. I don’t know much about it because very few of the Colfax people can be found at this hour, but I did get the company’s secretary out of bed. The car was found parked inside London Airport, and arrived about the time you’d expect if it was driven from Hapley. No others did, and there’s a copy of a Worcester newspaper in it, so it came from there. I’ve got the airport police trying to trace whoever was in it, and where they went. There was one thing found in the car which I don’t like the sound of.”
“What?”
“The broken needle of a hypodermic syringe,” Marshall said. “It’s being tested to see if we can find out what it was used for, and whether it was used recently. Is this a kidnapping or an abduction case?”
7
SECOND NOTE
“So it is Ralph,” Eve said in a flat voice.
“It begins to look as if your husband is involved,” agreed Dawson. “There is at least one great reassurance in that, Mrs Kane.”
“I can’t think of one.”
“In your husband’s care, your daughter is not likely to come to any harm. The use of the hypodermic syringe suggests that she was put to sleep quickly, probably in order to avoid frightening her more than necessary.”
“I suppose so.”
“You can be absolutely sure that everything possible will be done,” Dawson assured Eve earnestly. “Apart from your daughter, we want to get the man who ran Jeff down, and we do not intend to lose any time. The Yard will feel just as strongly, and the best available men will be working on this case until we’ve solved it.”
“Thank you,” Eve said woodenly.
Rollison, watching first one and then another, saw how unimpressed Eve was, and h
ow impatient Miss Ellerby was getting. Miss Abbott looked ghostly pale, and her eyes were large and glassy; she was not used to being up in the early hours of the morning. Dawson, with his grim earnestness, also had an impatient look as he went on: “I’m sure that Mr Rollison will cooperate in every way, and you have my absolute assurance that nothing will be done that is not in the interests of your daughter.”
“Thank you,” Eve said mechanically.
“I think it’s time we all had some rest,” Miss Ellerby interpolated, energetically. “It won’t do any good if we stay up all night. Is there anything more we can do for you, Mr Dawson?”
“I would like to look through the young pupil’s desk and belongings,” answered Dawson. “There is a possibility that we shall find some indication there—”
“Oh, nonsense,” Miss Ellerby exclaimed.
“It is essential not to leave any stone unturned,” insisted Dawson, and Miss Ellerby threw up her arms and looked almost furiously at Miss Abbott. “Miss Abbott, I’m sorry it’s so late, but will you please take Mr Dawson wherever he wants to go? Try not to wake the girls, won’t you? If they get any idea of the gravity of this situation they’ll talk about nothing else tomorrow.” She was still brisk, still held herself under rigid self-control. “Mrs Kane, I think you ought to go to bed with a hot drink and a sedative. My spare room—”
“Rolly, are we going to help at all by staying here?” Eve asked, and Rollison, noticing how easily and naturally she used the ‘Rolly’, had a moment of real satisfaction.
“I don’t see how we could help,” he answered.
“Have you enough energy to drive me back to London?”
“Of course.”
“I think it is ridiculous to return,” declared Miss Ellerby, “but I suppose you’ll do what you want.” She glanced at the door, and then jumped up as if in alarm. A girl who looked very young appeared, and by her side was Miss Abbott. The child was dressed in washed-out pink pyjamas and a cotton dressing-gown of the same colour. Her eyes looked huge, and her face was pale.
