JOHN CREASEY

The Scene of The Crime

Copyright Note

This e-book was created by papachanjo, with the purpose of providing a digitized format of the books written by John Creasey without the least intention of commercial gain of any sort. This e-book should hence be utilized for reading only and if you like it and can buy it, please do to support the publishers.

I am trying to create at least an ample collection of all the John Creasey books which are in the excess of 500 novels. Having read and possess just a meager 10 of his books does not qualify me to be a fan but the 10 I read were enough for me to rake up some effort to scan and create these e-books.

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from back cover

STRANGLED

A pretty young girl

A crippled old woman

STOLEN

A fortune in antique jewellery

 

Were all three crimes the work of the same left-handed killer?

If so, Superintendent Roger West had the wrong man in custody. But how could he prove the evidence?

Fortunately, Janet West was house-hunting, Martin, called Scoopy, caught calf-love, and ‘Handsome’ narrowly missed being blown into eternity . . .

Table of Contents

 

Copyright Note

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1

THE FIRST CRIME

 

WHEN Alice came towards him, eyes glowing, great eagerness and love in her, John Payne felt the first twinge of conscience, the first hint of shame. He crushed them. She had thrown herself at his head from the beginning, and but for her the crime would never have been planned. Curiously, for the first time he saw how attractive she was in her demure way; perhaps that was because she was touched with radiance and excitement. She was twenty-three, and looked younger. She had quite nice legs and arms, but hardly any figure; with her hair cut short, as she liked to wear it, and in trousers, she was more like a youth than a young woman. She walked well, and clutched her handbag tightly.

It was ludicrous for her to think that she might ever lure him away from Gwen. She knew Gwen slightly; and anyone who met his wife must be aware of her surging vitality, must surely know that there was hardly a woman who could hold a man against her. Yet he was sure that Alice had fooled herself. An occasional meal, a drink together, a few evenings in the back row of a suburban cinema, two evenings at her flatlet and—promises. She had needed nothing else to convince herself that he was in love with her.

Poor, simple Alice.

It was a clear winter evening, with the stars out, and the street lamplight shone to give her an added sparkle. Payne was standing in the doorway of a shop near the cinema, and she was looking out for him, but had not yet seen him. When he stepped forward, her eyes lit up.

She looked quite beautiful.

“Darling!” she breathed, in that whispering way she had acquired because of the furtiveness of their meetings. “I’ve got it!”

“Wonderful,” Payne breathed. “Wonderful!” He drew her into the shop doorway, and she came in eagerly. He slid his right arm round her and pressed her close to him, then sought her lips, and kissed her with a simulation of passion which had always deceived her. When he drew back, she was gasping a little and the light sparkled starlike in her eyes. “Alice,” Payne whispered, “you’re beautiful —even more beautiful tonight.”

“You’re the most handsome man in the world,” she whispered back.

She meant it—as years ago, Gwen had meant it. Now his hair was greying a little, but he still dressed well; at forty- seven he had no stomach to speak of, could still play squash, racquets or tennis vigorously, and had the hard, chiselled look of the outdoor man.

“Did you have any trouble ?” Payne asked.

“Not really.” She was beginning to open her handbag already. She was never too demanding, was satisfied with surprisingly little. She took out a small, sealed package, about the size of a packet of twenty cigarettes, and handed it to him. “There it is.”

She put it into his hand.

He took it, and held it very tightly, then took her hands with his free one, and squeezed, drawing her to him again. He could feel the feathery softness of her breath upon his cheeks, and the beating of her heart betraying the tumult within her.

“Wonderful,” he said again, and slid the package into his pocket.

It was the key to Anderson’s strongroom.

She believed that it was the key to their future, that with It he would steal enough money and jewels to take them out of England. She really believed that he would settle somewhere in Europe with her, perhaps even farther afield. Winning her round to face the actual theft had been the difficult, delicate task; it had taken many months, of hints, suggestions, words of love and longing.

If only they had sufficient money, nothing else would stop them. If only, if only, if only . . .

That hardly mattered now. She had been won round, after the first sharp reaction against it, and one by one she had brought him keys of the safes, taking them back after he had made replicas. She had never doubted that she would be able to get hold of the complicated strongroom key long enough for him to make a replica; or that she could get it back to Anderson’s flat without the old man knowing that it had ever been missing. She had tried to take an impression of the key on soap and plasticine, but the rounded barrel and the intricate cutting had made it essential to work from the key itself.

She did not know that it was virtually a key to her coffin.

That was an ugly thought; Payne did not like it, and told himself that now the time was getting nearer he must not become soft-hearted. With her alive, the whole scheme would fall down, for he would be far too vulnerable. He must not even think of the possibility of leaving her alive.

“What do you mean—you didn’t really have any trouble ?” Payne made himself ask.

“Just as I was leaving his bedroom, his son came in,” Alice answered. “I had to stay and be nice to him for nearly half an hour! The key was burning a hole in my—” She broke off, gave a little laugh which he knew indicated the tension she felt, and went on—”I’d dropped the key down the front of my dress, to make sure Julian—”

“I’d like to break his neck!” Payne exclaimed, and there was a harsh note of ferocity in his manner; that would please her. One thing she disliked more than any other was having to endure some of the little attentions of Julian Anderson.

Alice said : “Oh, I can handle Julian all right now!” She was looking up into Payne’s face, and there was only one word for her expression : adoring. “I had to stay until he was ready to go, he was the only one who might possibly have noticed that the key was missing.”

“Alice,” said Payne, huskily, “you’re absolutely superb. You’ve got nerves of steel.”

“A year ago I would have been so scared I would have dropped the key in front of his eyes,” Alice said. “Darling, I wonder if you know how good you’ve been for me! Until I knew you, I wasn’t much more than a schoolgirl. Now—” She broke off, and laughed again. “When—when do you think you can do it, John ?”

“I think about this time next month,” he said. “The middle of February.”

“I can hardly wait!”

“How do you think I feel?” Payne demanded. “I won’t delay a minute longer than necessary. When it’s over, we’ll wait for a week or two, then go across to the Continent separately.” He caught his breath. “You can hardly wait,” he echoed roughly. “I wish to God we could spend the evening together, but I must get this duplicate made tonight. It would be tempting fate to keep the key any longer. What will you do while you’re waiting ?”

“I might as well go to the pictures,” Alice said, philoso-phically. “There’s quite a good main feature on.” She gave that little, nervous laugh again. “A crime story !”

“Just right for. the night,” agreed Payne. “I’ll be finished by eleven o’clock, so if you’ll catch a Number 22 bus and get off at the usual place, we can snatch half an hour together.”

“Wonderful,” Alice said; and she meant it.

Payne took a slim box of chocolates from his topcoat pocket and gave it to her; she was as pleased as if it were a sumptuous box. He kissed her fiercely again, then let her go. Immediately, she turned her back on him and walked briskly towards the entrance to the cinema. A middle-aged man, passing, glanced at him; a policeman was coming along on the other side of the road. Payne stepped out of the shop doorway, took out cigarettes, lit one, and looked towards Alice. She was disappearing, and did not look round. She had learned all the tricks of deception, of making sure that they were not seen together too often, and that they did nothing to attract attention. He had used Gwen as a bogey, and often wondered how he would explain Alice away to Gwen, if it should ever become necessary.

He did not think it would.

He went a hundred yards along Fulham Road, where his small car was parked, a ten-year-old Austin. He got in, but did not start the engine immediately; he needed a respite. He slid his hand into his pocket and touched the key, then suddenly laughed to himself. The laughter became almost uncontrollable; he had to stifle it, to make sure that he did not startle passers-by. Reaction, of course. He had the key, he already had the dummy ready, one of the right type and size which it would be easy to cut. Even if he didn’t finish tonight, he could make an impression of this one, and finish the job tomorrow.

The timing was perfect.

They had waited months for the opportunity, knowing that it was bound to come, for every winter old Anderson went down with his bronchitis, and was so afraid of complications that he stayed indoors, mostly in his room, doing only essential work. Alice was his secretary, and she went to his room every morning and afternoon, to take down letters and to take them back for signing. Payne wondered how she had managed to get the key off the ring, but she had often told him that the keys themselves were in a drawer of the dressing-table in the room. He, Payne, had never been inside that room, but she had described it so well that he almost believed he knew it, with the red, mahogany furniture, the big mirrors, the huge dressing-table, the high bed, the easy chair close to it, the small desk where Alice worked.

How she had contrived it didn’t matter; the important thing was that Anderson should never know that the key had been out of his possession.

The next twenty-four hours would be the tricky ones. Twenty-four hours, at the end of those long months of thinking, dreaming, planning. It was over a year since he had first thought about robbing Anderson’s, where he had worked five years ago, but had left, so as to start his own business. He had been so full of confidence at the time, so sure of success, but he hadn’t made a go of it.

The worst thing about that had been letting Gwen down.

The thought of robbing Anderson’s had come when he had gone to try to sell the old man some French jewellery, and Anderson had taken him downstairs and shown him that the place was still in a hopeless confusion. That was the day he had first met Alice, too, and he had sensed how he impressed her. After that, it had been easy to meet her ‘by chance’, easy to cultivate her, although more difficult to win her round to what he wanted to do.

He was in a perfect position to dispose of the stolen goods, too, for his own business was that of buying up second-hand and antique jewellery, polishing it, sometimes resetting, and always reselling it. With a few thousand pounds in capital he could have made a fortune; and he had always promised Gwen a fortune. Now it was all over bar the shouting.

Payne started the engine and drove off; in twenty minutes he was in the garage of his Richmond home. Gwen and the youngsters were out, it was as if everything was conspiring to give him exactly the opportunity he wanted. He did not go into the house, but went straight to the workshop at the back of the garage, where he did his polishing and resetting. He had a few tools, a small lathe, a little stock of old gold and silver settings, everything he needed.

Except plenty of stock.

Once he got all he wanted from Anderson he would release the stock cautiously, over a period of years. It would be worth that fortune all right, and would get him and Gwen out of this rabbit-hutch into a decent house. He would show Gwen that he wasn’t a big-mouthed braggart, too.

He kept the shutters up at the workshop, working in artificial light, so that neighbours shouldn’t know that he was there. Then he put on his raincoat, to keep his suit clean, and set to work.

It should take an hour to make the key . . .

It took him exactly fifty-five minutes.

He had two keys then, absolutely identical, as well as the master keys to the safes in the strongroom beneath the shop. What an old fool Anderson was! He should have built in new safes years ago—he, John Payne, had recommended that he should when he had worked for the old miser, and Anderson had always said:

“Yes, I must, I will. I’ll get round to it, one day.”

The mean old so-and-so.

Payne held the new key up to the light, turned it round and round in his fingers, gloatingly, then put it in the false bottom of his toolbox, with the others; keys to a fortune— and keys to Alice’s coffin. That ugly thought came again, giving Payne a ghoulish feeling.

It passed.

He wiped his fingerprints off the original key, and wrapped it up again. Then he went outside, switching off the light of the garage. For the second time that night he noticed a policeman, this time one near the front gate of the small semi-detached house not far from the Upper Richmond Road.

The policeman said : “Good evening, sir.”

“Evening,” Payne returned, heartily. “Just going out,” he added unnecessarily, and stepped to his car. “Nice night.”

“Very cold though,” the policeman said.

Cold, thought Payne, and felt one of those paroxysms of laughter coming on; he had to fight to control it. When it had passed, he drove off. It was too early for Alice, but he had to be away before Gwen arrived. Gwen believed that he was at the Sports Club playing billiards; there was always a chance that one of the other members would ask her why he hadn’t shown up, but that was another risk he had to take. He had always been able to concentrate on the immediate task, without worrying about what would come next.

Tonight he had the key.

Tomorrow he had to make sure that Alice could never tell anyone about that.

Tomorrow, or the next day—

“No,” he said angrily. “Tomorrow.”

As he drove slowly towards Putney, he kept seeing a picture of Alice in his mind’s eye. Why had she seemed so attractive tonight? Why did she remind him so vividly of his own daughter? They weren’t even remotely alike, for Hilda took after Gwen in every way. When his son Maurice felt in a teasing mood, he could make Hilda angry to a point of tears by making bland references to Sabrina or Jayne.

“My God!” Payne exclaimed. “Do I need a drink!”

He wasn’t quite himself. Something was working inside him so that he was not as cold and calculating as he wanted to be. Ahead, the lights of a pub showed yellow, and brighter light streamed out as two men came from it. Payne slowed down. A double whisky was exactly what he needed to put him right. He pulled up opposite the pub, switched off the engine, sat still for a moment, and then said in the same rough angry voice:

“Don’t be a bloody fool. I can have a drink when it’s all over, if I start knocking whisky back now I’ll have had it.” He started the engine again, and drove off much faster than he intended. He would have to wait nearly an hour to see Alice again. It was almost a pity that he had to, tonight, but until the key was safely back with Anderson, this first part of the job wouldn’t be finished.

*     *     *

He saw Alice step lightly off a bus, and stand for a moment looking up and down. His car was parked near the tow path, where there was little light. She came hurrying towards it.

At least she would die happy.

2

FAMILY

 

THE next evening, there was a drizzle of rain, making the light shimmer on wet roads. Alice was a little late. Even two or three minutes seemed a long time to Payne while he stood in the doorway near another cinema, this time at Hammersmith; they seldom met in the same place twice in succession. Traffic swished by. A bell rang with urgent warning, and a white ambulance passed; Payne saw it swing off towards Chiswick. He was clenching his teeth hard. They had been due to meet at half past six, and now it was twenty-five minutes to seven. Two buses passed, and he stared at the platforms, hoping that Alice was on one of them, but she was not.

A police car went by very swiftly, carrying the same air of urgency as the ambulance; and a big black Humber, with four or five big men inside it, swung along behind the police car. Payne had a feeling that they were from Scotland Yard, and blamed his edginess for the thought. He watched the Humber as it swung round the corner towards Chiswick, and the light of another car showed the men inside clearly; big, hulking shapes.

“Hallo, darling,” Alice said.

Payne swung round, and startled her because his expression was so tense.

“John, what—” She began.

He took her forearm and drew her into the shop doorway. His heart was thumping, and he could see that he had alarmed her. For a moment he could not get words out, and she asked again, anxiously :

“John, what is it ? Are you all right ?”

“I—I thought something had happened to you,” he man-aged to say.

“Of course it hasn’t,” replied Alice. “Everything went off perfectly. I—I had a little difficulty getting away from Julian again, that’s all, he followed me to the bus stop !”

Payne said: “Oh. Oh, I see. I was afraid—” He broke off, found his voice more easily, and went on with a savage note: “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you, don’t you understand ?”

“Yes,” Alice said, very quietly. “I understand because it’s exactly what I feel about you, darling. But I’m not very late.”

“Hardly at all, really, but—” Payne broke off. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. You’re sure there was no trouble ?”

“When I got to Mr. Anderson’s room this morning, he was having a bath,” Alice said. “I was able to put the key back on the chain with ten minutes to spare. Darling, I always knew how easy it would be!” She was a little choky with excitement. “But I wish—”

“What?”

“I wish my part weren’t over,” she said. “I wish I could help you when it comes to—to taking what we want.”

Could anyone be more naive ?

“You don’t want to be anywhere near when that happens,” Payne said, firmly. “That’s essential. You’ve got to have an alibi, and—anyhow, no one will ever suspect you.”

They would, of course. When they discovered that the safes and strongroom had been opened by a duplicate master- key, she would be the first person to be questioned, and she would not be able to stand up to the police. That was another reason why it was essential that she should die; and why it should be over soon.

Tonight.

He was smiling, hiding his edginess.

“That’s why we’re waiting a few weeks before breaking in,” he said. “The old man’s bronchitis will have been forgotten by then.”

“I hope so,” Alice said, and startled him by laughing. Every now and again something unexpected amused her, and her laugh could be most attractive. “Oh, I’m not worried at all, darling. I trust you absolutely, and—it’s rather funny really, isn’t it ?”

Funny! “What is?”

“Everything,” said Alice. “There was a time when the very thought of having anything to do with this would have horrified me, and now I wish that I could do more! I hope I don’t become a hardened criminal.”

“Keep your voice low,” Payne said urgently, although there was no need to caution her, he simply needed a moment’s respite. “We—we’ll never have to do anything like this again. We’ll get enough to last us for the rest of our lives, and—sweetheart, everything is going to be just as we planned.”

“I’ve never doubted it,” Alice said, and turned her face upwards, to his. He hadn’t kissed her, he had been so worked up. He kissed her now, rather gently, the obvious reason being that this doorway was shallow, and more people could see them. He let her go.

“Must you go home now ?” Alice asked. She wasn’t really demanding more, just speaking wistfully.

“I hate it,” Payne said, “but I mustn’t risk my wife asking a lot of questions, must I ?”

“No,” Alice agreed. “She—” She hesitated for a moment, and then asked in a rather louder voice than usual: “Are you sure she’ll give you the divorce ?”

Payne said, very softly: “There isn’t a shadow of doubt. I’ve told you that time and time again, but there mustn’t be any upset just now. Until everything’s over, I need to be as normal as possible. She mustn’t have the slightest reason to suspect there’s anything wrong.”

“Of course not,” Alice said. “I do understand, darling.”

Payne said: “If I had my way, I would spend every minute of the night and day with you.” He managed to speak as if with passionate feeling, and drew her to him, kissing her as if he could not hold back his desire. Then he stood her to one side, almost roughly. “I’ve got to go! I don’t trust myself. I’ll see you on Monday, at Sloane Square.”

“Yes, darling.”

“Three .whole days,” Payne said, as if he hated the thought. “Three—” He broke off, and then thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out the slim box of chocolates. “Alice, I really don’t trust myself. I’ve got to leave you. See you Monday.” He thrust the chocolates into her hand, squeezed her arms, and turned and strode off. For a few seconds, he could hardly see where he was going, he was so disturbed and distressed. For some ridiculous reason, he hated lying to her. If she hadn’t told him how utterly she trusted him he would not have felt so badly, but here he was, planning her murder, knowing exactly how he was going to kill her that very night; and those clear, trusting, beautiful eyes seemed to damn him, and her whispering voice seemed to mock.

He did not look back.

He went home, arriving a little after seven o’clock—his normal time on a Friday. As he opened the front door, he heard the loud voice of someone on the television, and hesitated for a moment before closing the front door. Then he heard Maurice laughing. Hilda said something, and Payne gathered that they were in one of their really friendly moods; they often were, although Hilda was two years older, at eighteen, and Maurice sometimes showed a sixteen-year- old’s crudeness and unthinking unkindness. They were wonderful kids. Wonderful. Payne took off his hat and coat as the door of the living-room opened, and Gwen appeared, outlined against the light.

“Hallo, darling,” she greeted in her rather deep voice; the voice which was always on the point of breaking into laughter. “I thought I felt a draught!” She came along towards him, tall, big for a woman, with a magnificent figure. She had a swaying walk which she could do nothing about, and was inclined to wear her clothes too tightly, as well as to have her neckline too daring; but that was Gwen. She drew up. “All right, dear?”

“Yes,” said Payne. “Yes, of course it is, why shouldn’t it be?” Quite suddenly, he felt afraid, and that put extra vigour into the way he took her arms and held her to him; extra feeling into his evening kiss. He wanted to stay alone with her, did not want to go into the room with the children, for she was a great source of strength. In the few seconds which passed he told himself that he would alarm her or give her reason to think there was something serious the matter if he went on like this, so he let her go and said heartily : “Whatever’s cooking smells good.”

He could hardly smell a thing.

“Forgotten that your wife is a good cook ?” Gwen asked lightly. So she had noticed nothing, and turned away from him. He thrust his arms round her, and pressed her back against him for a moment; that was normal, and that was how he felt about her, too. She laughed, put her hands on his for a moment and said :

“We don’t want the children to see, they learn too fast as it is.”

“Children,” he echoed, and let her go. “They’ll be teaching us before long.” He went along with her, suddenly happier, the tension gone, the fear lifted. Gwen opened the door wide, and Maurice looked round from the television set, then jumped up. That must have been quite an effort, for a Western serial was on; his grande passion.

“Hallo, Dad!”

“Hallo, old chap. How’s Deadshot Dick ?”

“Doing fine,” said Maurice. He was tall for his age, rather thin, almost an ugly duckling, but he had a twinkle in his eyes.

Hilda was putting down some frilly things she had been mending. She was a natural blonde, with a fair skin which had hardly a blemish, quite beautiful blue eyes, and those incredibly vital statistics; when they were forgotten she was the most natural girl in the world.

“Hallo, Dad!”

“Hi, Topsy,” said Payne, and kissed her lightly, but on the instant he seemed to see Alice in her place. He waited until the moment passed; it did not last long. He clapped his hands together heartily, and went on: “First food and then slippers and the fireside with my dutiful family,” he boomed. He was overdoing the heartiness, but could not prevent himself. Gwen, her hair still flaxen, was going into the kitchen, and Hilda began to lay the table.

“You didn’t forget the chocolates, Dad, did you?” she asked.

“On a Friday ? Certainly not,” said Payne. Again he felt a twinge as of compunction, but it soon passed. “They’re on the hallstand.” He went out to get a pound box, every Friday night’s treat for fifteen years. He was glad of a few moments’ respite, and when he went back the table was laid and a sizzling sausage toad was in front of his place. “My I” he exclaimed, “that’s about the record, isn’t it ?”

His appetite was nearly as good as Maurice’s, and Gwen did not yet need to check hers.

Payne brought the chocolates out about a quarter to ten, and wondered how many Alice had eaten from her smaller box. He was quite composed, and the tendency to be too loud had gone; he was in complete control of himself, as he believed he would be until it was all over.

He selected his own chocolates carefully, as he always had; it was a family joke that he should have first choice. He chose those without even a slight blemish on the top, for the blemish marked the ones which contained a sleeping draught. It had been quite a job, getting the capsules, taking out the contents, making it into a paste, inserting it in the chocolates with an icing syringe. Only if someone examined the chocolates carefully could anyone find out that they had been tampered with.

He wanted the family to sleep soundly tonight, while he was out.

Just as Alice, whose chocolates had been treated in exactly the same way, would sleep soundly—with the gas hissing from the fire in her room. He had once thought of poisoning Alice with chocolates, but although sleeping powder was fairly easy to come by, deadly poison was difficult, and might be traced back to him.

At half past ten, Gwen said: “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, I must have eaten too much. I think I’ll go up early, Jack.” There was the inevitable glint of laughter in her eyes. “You may stay down and read.”

“I’ll see about that,” he said, ominously.

Hilda was already upstairs, getting ready for bed, and Maurice would be in bed within a few minutes.

Alice . . . ?

Payne went upstairs at half past eleven, and found all the family sound asleep. He crept downstairs, let himself out the back way, walked stealthily to the garage and took out Maurice’s bicycle. He wheeled this into the street when he was sure that no one was about, and cycled towards Alice’s rooms in Chelsea. He wore thin cotton gloves, and his hands were very cold when he reached the corner of Manville Street. Two men were walking briskly along on the other side of the road. They did not appear to take any notice of him. He heard a little gasp of sound, looked round, and saw a couple in a doorway. He wheeled the bicycle into a car park where several cars were standing, put the chain round the back wheel and locked it, then walked briskly towards the next corner. Just round it, Alice had a bed-sitting-room and kitchenette in a house which had been converted into a dozen small flats. The street door was always locked about midnight, but not bolted, and he had a key. He stepped inside, closed the door very softly, and stood listening. The sound of music came faintly, probably from a record-player. He went up the linoleum-covered stairs towards Alice’s room on the third floor. The music was coming from a room near hers, and helped to cover any sound he made.

He opened Alice’s door with a key, just a crack at first; there was only darkness beyond. His heart began to thump.

He stepped inside softly, and the music sounded farther away. He closed the door hesitatingly, in case it made too much of a click; he hardly heard it close. He stood with his back to it, looking across at the divan bed against the door wall. He could just make out the white sheet, and Alice’s dark head on the pillow. The music was a long way off and he believed that he could hear Alice breathing. He stepped towards the fireplace. The room was familiar, although he had seldom been here; whenever he had, he had made sure that he studied the layout of the room, and the position of the furniture.

There was an armchair by the fire, a small table next to it, and a box on the table. Used to the light, now, Payne saw that the box was open, and three parts empty. That labour had not been in vain! He felt in his pocket for his matches, and then thought: Fool! He wasn’t going to light the gas. He picked up the box of chocolates and put it into his pocket; the paper inside rustled loudly. He glanced round, and made sure that Alice hadn’t stirred. How could she? She would probably sleep until ten o’clock next morning.

He winced, realising that his mind had almost rejected what he was going to do. She would sleep if left alone, but when the gas filled the room she would pass out of sleep into death.

He bent down, and turned on the tap; there was a faint hiss, followed immediately by a smell of gas. He turned the tap on fuller.

The fire was only two yards from the bed.

He went across to the window, and began to push the top half up cautiously, closing it tightly; then he drew the curtains. He looked across the room, to make sure that the door leading to the little kitchen was closed. The main door fitted flush, and he had noticed how difficult it was to push open when he had first come in here; everything had worked out perfectly, as if this had been willed to happen without hindrance. The police might suspect murder, but there was no way they could prove it, certainly none in which they could trace it to him.

The gas hissed; that and his breathing were the only sounds he could hear. He stood by the foot of the bed, looking down on Alice, and for the first time since he had entered he felt frightened. He gritted his teeth, moved swiftly, and stepped to the door. His hand was actually on the handle when he heard the movement at the bed, and as he turned his head, he saw the light go on.

Alice’s arms was stretched out towards it, and Alice was hitching herself up in bed, staring at him.

3

THE MURDER

 

PAYNE saw her vividly, and knew that she had recognised him. She had that long, thin arm stretched out, still touching the lamp switch. Her eyes looked huge. Her lips were parted, as if she were about to scream for help; but when she realised who it was, they moved, and formed his name : “John.”

She must have been awake a long time; time enough to see him moving about the room, and to realise what he was doing.

“I—I just had to see you,” he said jerkily. “I just couldn’t keep away.” He could not tell whether she would believe him, but had to keep her quiet until he was near enough to—to strangle her. -He knew that was the only thing to do.

He saw the puzzlement in her eyes as he drew nearer, and something in his expression must have warned her. Terror flared up in her, and she snatched her hand from the switch to strike at him. Then the room seemed to go round and round, and there were hard, confused noises; she had knocked the lamp off the bedside table. She brought her clenched fist down on the side of his head, but it made no difference to him, and at last his fingers closed about her slender throat. The lamp crashed. Strange shadows filled the room. Light and shade were upon her face, making her look like a gargoyle, as hideous as he must be. The only things he could see clearly were her enormous eyes, bright with terror, eyes close to him, eyes which began to close. He saw her lips twisting, writhing. He felt her beating at him, his head, his shoulders. He felt his fingers burying themselves in her flesh, and he squeezed and squeezed.

Her eyes closed; it was as if a light had gone out.

He kept squeezing, although his right shoulder was pressed awkwardly against the head of the bed; his left hand was quite free.

He was sure that she had stopped breathing, but dared not take the slightest chance of being wrong. Now there was another fear, that someone below or next door had heard the lamp fall, and would come to find out if Alice was all right. He crouched there, sprawled across the bed, fingers still embedded in the soft throat, head turned so that he could see the door, gasping for breath and yet trying to keep silent, to be sure that no one was coming.

All he could hear was a thudding in his own ears and his chest.

He stared more fixedly at the door, the handle especially; it did not turn. He began to ease his position so that he could move more freely, but did not look away from the door. He must have been there for three or four minutes before he began to take his hands away, and the fingers seemed as if they were held tight by the flesh; he had to pluck them away.

He shivered, violently.

He straightened up, pushed his gloved hands through his hair, and then thought in panic : I mustn’t leave any hairs in here! He snatched his hands down, and stood staring at Alice. She did not look very different, really, there was only puffiness at her neck, a kind of relaxed look on her face. He moved convulsively, snatched at the sheet and pulled it up over her head.

He shivered again.

The light was so strange, the shadows so peculiar. Of course; that lamp was on the floor. He hesitated, then stepped to the door, switched on the main light, and looked round the room. He was glad that he had covered Alice’s face. As far as he could see, little had been disturbed, after all. He righted the lamp, then stepped towards the armchair and the table by it. The smell of gas was heady now, and he bent down and turned off the tap.

He opened the cupboard just behind the chair, and saw two boxes of chocolates on a handy shelf. He picked them up, ripped off the top of the boxes, and saw the tell-tale blemishes on the smooth, dark surface of the bottom one. She did not eat a box full in one evening, that was just her joke.

Joke!

He put the drugged chocolates into his pocket, reminded himself that the others might have his prints on, and wiped them clean, then looked about very carefully, trying to make sure that he had left no clue. He searched the plain carpet and the bedspread and eiderdown for his own hairs, found two, took off his gloves to pick them up, and put them carefully on to his coat collar. He did not look much at the figure on the bed, but noticed that the sheet had fallen more closely to the shape of her head. He clenched his teeth and went close, pulling the sheet back, to find out whether she had loosened any of his hairs when beating at him; there were several, grey and wavy, actually on her hair.

He picked them off.

Steeling himself, he looked at her hands, and between the fingers of the right hand were more hairs.

He pulled these free.

He felt and heard his teeth grating as he turned away. He had to stand still for a minute before being steady enough to move. Then he drew on his gloves again, stepped to the door and listened carefully, heard nothing, and put out the main light. The bedside light hardly showed, and he hadn’t the nerve to go back to switch it off. He pulled the door open stealthily, and the only sound was the rubbing against the carpet. A dim yellow glow shone at the head of the stairs, just outside the door. He closed the door again, holding his breath until it was closed tightly, and he waited for the click which would tell him that the latch was home; it seemed an age in coming, he ought to use his key. Then the click came very softly.

His heart was pounding.

He went down the stairs in the quiet, eerie house; there was no sound at ail, not even of music, until he reached the ground floor. He heard a noise which alarmed him, and which he could not place at first; then he realised that it was a man snoring. He glared at the door. No light shone except that at the landing, to show latecomers the way.

He touched the handle of the front door, then heard a car engine. He drew back, snatching his hand away. It sounded like an old car, missing on one cylinder, and it was slowing down. He pressed tight against the wall behind the door. There was no doubt that it would stop near here, and might stop right outside. He moved away from the door and looked around desperately for a place to hide, but there was none; all the doors were locked, and each led to a small flat. There was Alice’s room, but— He stood irresolute in the middle of the passage, and the car stopped, the engine stopped; then there was silence. He went closer to the door, ears straining for the slightest noise, but there was none. He bent down on one knee and tried to pull the letter-box open, but the spring was strong and he could not shift it. Without opening the door, there was no way of telling whether the car was just outside.

What the hell were they doing ?

He drew back, staring longingly at the door handle, aching to open the door even an inch, but not daring to for at least five minutes. Five minutes, what the hell were they doing? He simply couldn’t go back to Alice’s room; he could not. His forehead and neck were clammy with sweat, the palms of his hands were moist and hot in those thin gloves.

The couple were necking, what else would they be doing ? A couple in a car outside oblivious of—

There was a sound—a creaking—and the slamming ol a door, followed by footsteps. A man said in a low-pitched voice:

“Won’t be a jiffy, pet.”

Pet, pet, pet—pet!

Another door opened. A girl spoke, but Payne could not hear the words. There was a sound of footsteps, very soft and confused, and then footsteps came slowly towards this door. Payne pressed himself against the wall behind it again. If it were thrust right back, it would squash him, and whoever opened it would know that someone was there. Would the man or the woman come in ? The woman, of course, he was a fool to wonder. The woman—

A woman would be easier to handle, he thought; and he did not realise exactly what passed through his mind.

Why didn’t they come?

The next sound was very close to the door, so close that It startled him.

The girl said : “No, sweetheart.”

The man said : “I needn’t stay long.”

“I know, darling, but—”

“Ten minutes!”

“If you stay for ten minutes you’ll stay all night, you know you will.”

“It’s what I want most in the world.”

The girl said, with a soft-voiced insistence: “No, darling, we—we’ve got to wait.”

“But why should we? We’re going to get married soon, why should we—”

“Ted, darling, please.”

In a flurry of panic, Payne thought that she was weakening; of course she would weaken, the man would get his own way. That meant the pair of them would come in, and would be bound to see him. He would have to fight. There would be two of the others, and he had no idea how powerful the man was. He stood absolutely rigid, hands clenched, feeling icily cold. Whispering was going on outside, and the little soft sounds of lovers; then the girl said :

“Ted, you must go.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to, but you must.”

“You’re hard, honey!”

“We’ll both be glad, in the morning.”

“Don’t you believe it!” the man exclaimed, in a louder voice than he had yet used. Payne detected a note of laughter in it, a rueful acknowledgment of defeat. Thank God for that! “Sweetheart.”

“Yes?”

“Sure you won’t change your mind ?”

“Positive, darling.”

“Hard, that’s the word for you,” the man insisted, but the laughter was louder in his voice. “Bless you! You couldn’t be more right. But I must see you as far as your door.”

No!

The girl laughed.

“I’ve seen you before,” she said dryly. “There’ll be a light on, and I’m perfectly capable of unlocking my own door, thank you. You can unlock this one for me, Sir Galahad.”

Their mood had changed completely to one of light- hearted banter. The clever little bitch, Payne thought; she knew exactly how to handle the man—but there was still a possibility that he would insist, after all, that he was really playing the game his own way, that once the door was open, he would come in with her.

A key scraped on the latch; the girl laughed in a way that was almost a giggle. The key was inserted, and there was a sharp click. Payne pressed so tightly against the wall that the back of his head hurt, and he felt as if the pressure would soon pitch him forward. The door opened several inches, and the street light came through. The girl’s voice sounded very much clearer.

“Good night, my darling.”

“Good night, beloved.”

He wasn’t coming in—the girl had him where she wanted him. The door opened wider, but it didn’t yet touch Payne. Wider still, until he could see shadows, and he felt the awful fear, that the man would make a last minute effort to have his way.

There was a rustle of sound, and a kiss, then a flurry of movement. The girl stepped straight into the passage, with the door pressing hard against Payne’s toes. She did not seem to notice.

The man’s voice had a husky note.

“Good night.”

Get it over, you lunatics, Payne breathed.

He was almost at screaming pitch. If the girl turned round this way to close the door, she could not fail to see him, and it was the natural way to turn. One scream before the door closed, and the man would rush in; one scream after it was closed, and the alarm would be raised. Payne could almost hear the man battering on the door, to come to the girl’s rescue.

The girl turned the other way, so that she could look out for the last time, and whisper:

“Good night, darling.”

“Good night!”

She closed the door. She stood by it for a moment, her back towards Payne. She could still turn this way, but every second was a help to Payne, for the man’s footsteps sounded clearly. The other was losing no time, he would soon be at the car. What was this little fool doing? Was she going to open the door to have a last glimpse of him ? Could anyone be so cloying, so—

She turned round, without facing him, and moved towards the stairs. He pressed against the corner, holding his breath. Her footsteps were soft, because she wore rubber soles. In this pale light, she looked young; she had rather long fair hair and wore a pale-coloured coat which was draped from her shoulders like a tent. She went straight to the stairs and started up them. Now the only danger was when she turned the bend in the stairs; if she looked round, she would be bound to see him, bound to scream.

He ought to go after her.

He could catch her up, and make sure that she couldn’t raise the alarm.

The engine of the car started up, noisily. The girl hesi- tated for a moment, and Payne thought she was going to turn. Payne actually began to move forward, but instead of turning, she quickened her pace, rounded the bend in the stairs and went up. Her head vanished, her shoulders, her body, her shapely legs and feet. The car moved off.

*     *     *

Cycling away from the adjoining street, Payne felt a nausea which caused agony, and he began to say to himself:

“I would have killed her if she’d seen me. I would have killed her.”

4

SUSPECT

 

SUPERINTENDENT Roger West of the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard woke a little before seven o’clock on the morning after the murder of Alice Murray. Janet, his wife, was snuggled close against him, with the eiderdown piled up on her; there was very little left for him, so there was a cold streak down his back. He edged a little closer to her, and promptly she edged away; he grinned. The cold streak was the argument for twin beds, the snugness the winning argument against them; they weren’t likely to change until they were decrepit! He lay still for five minutes, then heard the clock strike in the front room downstairs. If he were sensible, he would get up now, shave and bathe, and bring Janet’s tea in about half past seven; then there would be no need to hurry. He could call the boys at half past seven, too, and so create the outside possibility that Richard, the younger, would be ready for school without having to rush.

But this was comfortable; cosy; seductive.

He slid his arm round Janet, suspecting that she was be-tween waking and sleeping; it was a pity to make her wake up earlier than she must. He made the effort, and got out of bed; brrrh! This house was like an icebox in the cold spells. He thought again, as he often did these days, that it was time they moved, when they did the new house must have central heating. Why did the English pretend that it was an invention of the frail and sickly ?

He slid his arms into the sleeves of a woollen dressing- gown, and went out. The boys’ door was closed. That was another reason for wanting to move; they really needed a room each at fifteen and sixteen, yet if they had it, the spare room would go, and there would be no room for friends and relations. Fifteen and sixteen—good lord! And he and Janet had been here for five years before Martin had come along. Twenty-one years in the same place, and with much of the same furniture; no wonder he felt that they wanted a change, and no wonder Janet was beginning to revolt against paint and patching.

The house had been suitable for a detective sergeant, even a detective inspector, and just passable for a chief inspector— but it wasn’t good enough for a chief superintendent.

Roger shaved and had his bath, went downstairs, and was putting the kettle on when the telephone bell rang. He hurried into the front room to answer it, as always wishing that he had a telephone extension in the kitchen. Why was it that he could keep putting off an essential thing like that? He went into the front room, the sitting-room-cum- parlour, and the curtains were drawn, there was a slightly stale smell of tobacco smoke, making him wrinkle his nose. He put on the light and grabbed the receiver.

“West speaking.”

“Sorry to worry you, Mr. West.” This was the traditional piece of nonsense if he was being called out when not on duty. “But Mr. Sloan would like a word with you.”

Bill Sloan, recently promoted to superintendency, was on night duty; and he would not call Roger unless there was really a good reason.

“Put him through,” Roger said, and there was only a moment’s pause before Sloan came on with his deep voice holding an occasional undertone of Cockney. Roger could picture this big, red-faced man who was beginning to put on weight.

“Morning, Roger,” Sloan greeted. “How would you like a nice little job right on your doorstep ?”

“What job ?” Roger asked cautiously.

“Murder,” answered Sloan briefly. “A girl strangled round in Manville Street. See what I mean by saying it’s on your doorstep ?”

Roger said: “Yes, Bill, thanks.” Sloan knew that if he took over an inquiry so close home as this, he would be able to slip indoors for meals and look in during the day; it was a piece of cake which seldom came a Yard man’s way, and characteristic of Sloan to make sure that he had a chance at it.

“If you get along right away, you’re bound to be handed the job,” Sloan said.

“I will. Who’s there now?”

“Freddy Thompson, of the Division, and he’s been bleating for help. We only had the flash ten minutes ago. I don’t even know how the body was discovered yet. Freddy’s due of! at eight, and he’ll be glad to unload everything on to you.”

“Okay,” Roger said. “Tell him I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour or so, will you ?”

“Needn’t break your neck,” Sloan told him. “Or were you up and about ?”

“Just up,” Roger said. “What’s this girl’s name ?”

“Dunno. The address is 24, Manville Street, and it’s an apartment house.”

“A flatlet house,” Roger corrected, thoughtfully. “I know the place. Thanks again, Bill.”

“Forget it,” Sloan said, and chuckled. “Don’t make it last too long!”

He rang off.

Roger made the tea, and was carrying it upstairs when Richard, tall, thin, with an unruly mop of dark hair, a very clear, fresh complexion and blue eyes which looked huge and sleepy, was coming out of the bathroom.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Morning, little ‘un. How’s tricks ?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“The catarrh?”

“Haven’t been awake long enough to know,” answered Richard, “but I think it’s getting better.”

“Keep at the exercises and the tablets,” Roger urged. “You’ll beat it if you work hard. How’s the big ‘un ?”

“Still in bed,” Richard answered.

“Oh, no, he isn’t,” observed Martin—called Scoopy— in a sepulchral voice. He put his head round his bedroom door, which was close to the bathroom. “I’ve been up for at least twenty-seven seconds. Morning, Dad. Was that a case?”

“Yes”

“Murder?”

“Yes.”

“I hate murders,” Richard declared with sudden shrill-ness. “Why do people have to kill people?” He stood rubbing his eyes, pyjama trousers gaping unashamedly, jacket fastened at the wrong buttons, looking worried and indignant. Martin came into full view, naked except for a pair of short pants, a little taller, much broader and much more powerful than his brother, hair between colours and much more untidy. His chest was massive—already forty-one to Roger’s forty-four. He threw out his chest and pummelled it, saying:

“You want me to deal with them, that’s what you want I I’d give ‘em murder!”

“You put something on or you’ll die of cold,” Roger said. He hesitated, aware of Richard staring at him intently; Richard never gave up without getting some kind of answer to any question he posed, and here was a question which should be answered. “Fish,” Roger said, “you remember when you were younger, you used to get into flaming tempers ?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“He used to think he could fight me,” Scoopy remarked, grinning.

“Some people lose their temper far worse than you did, they commit murder as a result, and spend the rest of their lives wishing they hadn’t,” Roger said. “Others get frightened of being found out in some crime, and kill to save themselves. Others get greedy.”

This wasn’t very good, but it seemed to satisfy Richard for the moment, for he said :

“Oh, I see.”

Scoopy grinned.

“Well, that’s more than I do.”

“You get washed,” Roger ordered, and smothered a grin as he turned round with the tea tray. It didn’t surprise him to see Janet sitting up in bed, dressing jacket wrapped tightly round her shoulders, hair net already off; her dark hair was beginning to turn grey. She had a very clear complexion and always looked fresh in the mornings. “Hallo,” Roger greeted. “So you can wake up.”

“Have you got to go out already?” Janet asked, as he leaned forward and kissed her.

“Only round the corner,” he answered. “I’ll be back for breakfast.”

Ten minutes later, he was out of the house, one of many detached ones in Bell Street, each with its well matured garden, neat hedge and winter-trim lawn. At the first corner was the largest house in the street, exactly right for him and Janet, and he had heard rumours that it was for sale. Would the price be too high? He paused, heard a whistle, looked round and saw the boys waving from the main bedroom window. Two neighbours were passing on the way to the buses in King’s Road, and there was a flutter of good mornings. Two paper boys were standing by their bicycles, in earnest consultation. A small girl with ridiculous spike-heeled shoes and over-painted lips and cheeks closed the door of a house at the comer, and came hurrying along the garden path, obviously late for her bus. She glanced at Roger and he said : “Good morning.”

“Good morning, superintendent!”

Roger turned the corner, his back to the girl, and saw two police cars and three policemen standing outside 24, Manville Street. Although it was just round the corner from Bell Street where he lived, the houses here had a different style and character. These were fifty years older, and stood in a terrace, all of them five storeys high. Number 24 was two houses made into one, and thirty years ago a fairly good job of conversion had been done. The landlord and his wife lived in a basement flat approached from the entrance to Number 22, and the main flatlets were approached by the single staircase of Number 24. It was an advantage to know the layout in advance. A uniformed man recognised Roger, saluted, and waved two excited-looking schoolboys away. Roger turned into Number 24, seeing the narrow passage and hearing voices, including those of a querulous, scared-sounding woman. Then he heard Thompson’s deep voice. Thompson was a senior superintendent in his last years at the Division. For some reason, he had always preferred night duty. He was a massive barrel of a man dressed in crumpled brown, and was talking to a dumpy grey-haired woman who still had curlers in her hair.

“But I keep telling you,” the woman said. “I just happened to be awake early and I’d run out of milk. I popped down to see if the milkman had been but he hadn’t and I was coming upstairs. Then I saw a light at Miss Murray’s door, the door wasn’t quite closed you see, it often springs open if it’s closed from the outside, her door does, the lock needs attention. I thought she wouldn’t mind lending me a little milk if she was awake, so I tapped, and when there wasn’t any answer I pushed the door a little wider, wondering if she was all right, and then I saw her.”

It was a good, straightforward, breathlessly told story.

Thompson said: “Thank you, Mrs Cartwright. I won’t need to worry you any more just now. You’ll be in for the next hour, won’t you ?”

“I’ll be in all the morning,” Mrs. Cartwright declared, and turned to see who Thompson was staring at. She looked into Roger’s eyes, and he saw the defensiveness in hers; she was afraid that he was going to ask her to repeat what she had said.

He smiled, not knowing that it was the way he did so, and his briskness, which had helped to earn him the nickname ‘Handsome’; that had stuck during his twenty-five years at the Yard.

“Did you get any milk, Mrs. Cartwright ?” he asked.

“Did I—” The woman opened her mouth wide, and then said in vexadon: “Would you believe it, I completely forgot.”

“Not really surprising,” Roger said lightly, and turned and called to the constable just outside the front door. “Rustle up a pint of milk, constable, the milkman’s just along the street.”

Mrs. Cartwright managed to say: “Thank you everso,” as Roger passed her. Thompson was smiling behind his heavy moustache. Roger winked, and they went upstairs, Roger in the lead because the staircase was not wide enough for two such massive men.

“Public relations, that ought to be your field,” Thompson declared. “You’d have them eating out of your hand. How are tricks ?”

“We live.”

“That what you call it?” Thompson asked with heavy sarcasm. There was little humour in his rather heavy-lidded brown eyes. “Got a nasty one here, Handsome. Wondered if Sloan would give it to you.” He pointed upwards. “One more flight.” A minute later, Roger stepped into the one- room flatlet where the dead girl lay on the bed, and three Yard men were taking measurements showing the position of the bed in relation to the doors, window and furniture. Another man was fiddling with a camera on a tripod. The Yard could be as old fashioned as a small county force. “Here she is,” Thompson said, needlessly. “Named Murray —Alice Murray.”

“Sent for a doctor?”

“On the way.”

“Anyone touched her ?”

“Nope.” Thompson moved towards an outflung arm. “I felt her pulse, that’s all. Cold already.”

“Stiff?”

“Yes.”

“Been dead some time, then,” Roger observed. He stood looking down at the oval face of the girl, seeing the now dark bruises at her throat, seeing also the odd angle of her neck. Could there be a broken neck as well as strangulation? The police surgeon would have the last word about that.

The girl looked quite charming as she lay there. Her dark hair was short, with the rather untidy kind of cut that some girls thought was attractive, and she had very ordinary features, but a fine complexion.

“We had any luck ?” Roger asked.

“Not a thing, yet,” Thompson answered. “But we haven’t had much time, Handsome, give us a chance. What would you like to do ?”

“It’s your case,” Roger said.

“Only for another two and a half minutes,” Thompson declared, taking a big gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket. “Don’t mind me, you won’t tread on my toes.”

“Have it your own way,” said Roger. “We’ll have the room vacuumed as soon as we can, but have a look round for obvious things first. Didn’t send for Fox, did you ?”

“He’s on days.”

“We have to have some luck,” Roger said, and turned to one of the detectives who was busy with measuring tape, pad and pencil. “Go down and radio the Yard for Detective Sergeant Fox and his bag of tricks, will you?” he asked. “Speak to Mr. Sloan. He’ll still be there, and he’ll fix it.” Roger looked at Thompson. “How many chaps can you spare for questioning everyone in the house and in the street ?”

“Half a dozen, I s’pose.”

“I’ll get another half a dozen from the Yard,” Roger said. “We don’t want to lose any time. The tenants won’t like it, but no one must leave the house until we give the okay. Anyone tried to leave ?” he inquired.

“Not yet, but Mrs. Cartwright said there are two people who left at about a quarter past seven.”

“Pity,” said Roger. “We’ll find out where they work from the landlord, though, that shouldn’t be much trouble.” He was thinking exactly what should be done, and what reaction to expect from anyone inconvenienced by the investigation. In the next half hour, most of the residents would want to leave for their offices and shops, there would be protest and possibly uproar when they were detained. The daily exodus would start any minute, and the best way of making sure there wasn’t a build-up was to station a man at each landing, and keep the residents there as they opened the doors of their flats.

“Drop those jobs,” Roger said to the two men in the room, “and take over a landing apiece. Be very nice and polite, but tell everyone they can’t come out, and ask them if they heard anything—all the usual routine. Don’t forget to lay on the honey.”

Thompson said : “I’ll go and bring a couple more of my chaps up, Handsome.” He went out, leaving Roger alone with the body of the girl. He stood looking down at her, and then very gently turned the sheet down farther from her chin. He saw the pyjamas hugging the almost adolescent curves of the breasts, the legs drawn up a little, but there was nothing to suggest that this girl had fought hard, or that anyone had attempted to rape her; one good thing. He studied the angle of the neck again, saw the bruises, saw that the right arm was flung out, almost straight. He could imagine that she had been disturbed, put on the light, and been attacked as she did so. This had the look of a burglar having been caught by surprise, but what would a burglar think was worth taking from here ? No one with any money or valuables would live in this kind of house, so the obvious solution had a self-evident snag. Obvious things too often had. He moved to the window and opened the curtains an inch or two. It was a bright morning and would soon be broad daylight; when Fox arrived, he could make his search by the naked eye first, and then get busy with his vacuum cleaner. Fox was the best man at the Yard for a room search, a man who could spot even split hairs.

Thompson came back. “That’s fixed, every landing’s watched, and the first squawk made,” he said. “Old Dammit is coming up the stairs, he won’t waste any time.” Old Dammit was the affectionate nickname for Dr. Claude Mortimer, the chief divisional police surgeon. “I’m going back to clear up at the office. All right ?”

Roger looked straight at him.

“The girl didn’t get out of bed, so she didn’t open the door. She wouldn’t be likely to go to bed with it open. If he’d picked the lock we’d know—that lock was turned with a key. So, it was someone who had a key. Boy friend, lover, brother, sister, girl friend, that’s who we’re after.”

“You know your trouble,” growled Thompson. “You think too fast. If you ask me, the best witness for your money is Mrs. Nosey Cartwright, if she would push open a neighbour’s door like that—” Thompson broke off, and grinned, his eyes widening. “Oh, I see, that’s why you fixed her up with some milk! Crafty so-and-so, that’s what you are. I’ll be seeing you, Handsome. Happy the case is in good hands!”

He grinned again and went off, to bump into Claude Mortimer at the door.

“Dammit,” Mortimer complained, “you don’t have to tread on my toes.”

“Sorry, Doc.”

“Morning, Doc,” Roger greeted. “Couldn’t be more glad to see you. Mind having a look at this, while I have a word with a neighbour who might have heard something?”

“Pleasure to have you out of my way,” Mortimer declared. He was a short, paunchy man, breathless from the stairs, always inclined to be crotchety, but a very able police surgeon who worked quickly and who seldom gave an opinion which wasn’t subsequently confirmed by an autopsy or evidence. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said as he looked at the girl. “Dammit, why do these things have to happen ?”

Roger went across to Mrs. Cartwright’s door, and was not surprised when it opened the moment he tapped; she must have been listening intently. Nor was he surprised that she had a fund of knowledge about the tenants, or that she knew that once or twice Alice Murray had had a man in her room, or that she believed she knew who the man was.

A rather young, bald-headed man, ever so well dressed, who had a Jaguar car. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but this man had driven her home sometimes; he had never come in, but young people were so cunning these days, weren’t they? Why, Miss Murray had even called the man Mr. Something, not by his first name, although the man had called her Alice. A smooth type, if Roger knew what she meant, and the name—oh, yes, she remembered the name, it was Anderson. So unapt, if he knew what she meant!

*     *     *

Mrs. Cartwright also knew that Alice worked for a jewel merchant named Anderson, who had a shop in Kensington High Street.

5

LATE MORNING

 

JOHN PAYNE felt a tug at his shoulder, waking him out of the stupor of sleep. On the instant he felt the kind of panic which had seized him several times last night; his body went rigid, he kept his eyes tightly closed, almost afraid to see who was shaking him.

Then, Gwen said : “What on earth is the matter with us this morning ?”

The laugh, never far away from her, sounded in her voice—like that of the man, last night. Payne opened his eyes slowly, and looked at her through his lashes, anxious that she should not see the expression in his eyes at first. She was wearing a dressing-gown, her flaxen hair was very fluffy, as if she’d just run a comb through it, and she had on no make up. She was bending over and shaking him.

“Hallo, Gwen,” he mumbled. “Is it late?”

“Late? It’s ten o’clock.”

“What?” he exclaimed, and opened his eyes wide at last. “It can’t be!”

“It is,” Gwen insisted. “Goodness knows why, but we’ve all overslept. Thank goodness it’s Saturday, and only Hilda has to go early.”

“Good lord!” Payne said, and hitched himself up in his pillows. The bedside clock showed that it was a little after ten. “We haven’t done this for months.”

“And then only after a late night,” said Gwen. “It must have been that sausage toad.”

“But we’ve had—” Payne began, and then broke off, seeing her smiling at him. “Well, it doesn’t matter what caused it, we’ve overslept.”

“Did you have anything special to do this morning?” Gwen asked.

“I wanted to see a couple of customers, but it wasn’t urgent, and I had no appointments. Just as well,” Payne added, “we might as well make a morning of it, now.”

“You can if you like, but I’ve got to go and do the shopping,” Gwen said. “Maurice wants an early lunch, he’s playing football at Harrow this afternoon, and the kick off is at two. Like breakfast in bed ?”

“Er—no,” decided Payne. “No, I’ll have a cup of tea, and then get up. You forget all about me, I’ll get what I want to eat.”

“Please yourself, duckie.” Gwen stood back, looking at him, and he was uneasily aware of the broad daylight on his face; the sun was much brighter than most winter mornings. “Arc you feeling all right, Jack ?”

“Bit heady, that’s all,” Payne said. “I slept too long.”

“What time did you come to bed ?”

“Soon after midnight.”

“You look as if you hardly slept at all,” Gwen remarked. “I’d lay in, if I were you.” She drew back, and Payne was glad when she turned and was no longer looking at him. Her dressing-gown was tied tightly round the waist, and nothing ever disguised her swaying walk, but he was not thinking about Gwen and her curves. He was thinking of the restless hours he had spent here; the dread of waking her when he had first come home; the way he had un-dressed and crept into his cold bed; the way he had tried to sleep, but had been haunted by Alice’s face. It would not have mattered if he had left Alice sleeping, but to know that she had been aware of what he was doing, that her last few minutes alive had been in awful fear, was the haunting horror.

He wanted to be alone.

His head ached, and when he leaned forward to see his face in the mirror, he could understand why Gwen had been so concerned. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin pasty.

Shock of course—it would be a long time before he recovered from the ordeal of the night. If that couple of love birds hadn’t come when they had, he might have been all right, but it had been a long drawn out agony.

At least no one would even know he had been out; no one could connect him with Alice . . .

Could they?

Had he been careful enough ?

He tried to tell himself that there was nothing to worry about, but fears which had not even occurred to him before the murder crowded his mind, and suddenly he shivered. He would have to get over this mood, Gwen would soon begin to suspect that there was a guilty reason for it. He got up, went to the bathroom, and washed vigorously. Cold water stung some colour back to his cheeks, but his eyes remained bloodshot. When he got back to the bedroom, Gwen was coming up the stairs with the tea tray, and Hilda called out:

“ ‘Bye, Mum! ‘Bye, Dad!”

“Off you go,” Gwen called.

“ ‘Bye!” Payne made himself shout, and his head pounded after the exertion. “She’ll be in trouble,” he said to Gwen. “They hate her being late on Saturday mornings.”

“Well, they’ll have to lump it,” Gwen declared, and put the tray down and studied him again. “Are you sure you feel all right? You look a bit flushed. I’ll pop into the bathroom and get die thermometer, see if you’re running a temperature.”

He shouted : “Don’t fuss me! I’m perfectly all right!”

Gwen stared in astonishment; it was months, perhaps years, since he had raised his voice at her.

“You must be feeling bad,” she observed drily. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to take your temperature.” She put the tray down and went out, leaving Payne lying back on his pillows, frightened at himself. To shout at Gwen. He felt perspiration cold on his forehead, and on his neck. He strained up so as to look at his reflection, and saw the flush receding, pallor replacing it; no wonder she thought he was ill.

He must get a hold on himself, and tell her something, anything, which would help to explain that outburst. But his head ached so much. Without warning, Maurice began to whistle on a high pitched note; he wanted to scream at the boy. A door banged. Payne clenched his teeth. Maurice came walking and whistling along, saw the bedroom door wide open, looked in and flicked a salute.

“Morning, Pop!”

“Hallo, Maurice,” Payne said.

“Say, what’s the matter with you ?”

“Maurice,” Gwen called, “your father isn’t well this morning. Stop that whistling and go downstairs and start cooking the breakfast.”

“Sure,” said Maurice, promptly, and his face was a study in concern. “Sorry you’re not well, Dad. It’s nothing serious, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t,” his mother declared, bustling along from the bathroom. “It’s something we ate last night.”

“I feel fine, now I am awake,” Maurice said, and looked hard at his father, then turned and walked quietly away. At the foot of the stairs, he began to whistle, softly for him.

Gwen sat at the side of the bed.

“Let’s take this temperature before you drink hot tea,” she said, and Payne opened his mouth like a small boy.

In a way, Gwen had always seemed older than he, although they were the same age almost to the month. She looked years younger because of her smooth skin, and there was only a hint of lines at her eyes. She had a natural merri- ness which made her extremely popular with nearly everyone who knew her. Payne believed that she was truly a happy woman, not even disappointed because he had failed to make good his boasts of what he would do for her and the family. In a way her lighthearted comments on their modest income had made him keep longing for success. He had never been able to bear being laughed at, even good- naturedly, even by Gwen.

She watched him with her head on one side, obviously his outburst had amused more than annoyed her, as he should have known. The thermometer seemed to become larger, and he kept wanting to gulp. It was a relief when she took the thing out, turned towards the window, and read it; she was frowning as she twisted it this way and that, then her face cleared and she said :

“It’s as near normal as can be.”

“Of course it is,” Payne said, gruffly. “I’ve got a shocking headache, that’s all. I—” Suddenly, the ‘explanation’ came to him, surely enough to make her think she knew what had put that harshness into his voice, yet something that could easily be laughed off. “Gwen, I’m sorry, but—you won’t laugh?”

She chuckled.

“I can’t promise that!”

That made him smile, and also made his heart lighter.

“I had the most god-awful dream,” he declared. “I can’t tell you exactly what it was about, but—but Hilda and Maurice were somehow mixed up in it, and there were gravestones and headstones.” He took her hand. “Kick me if I behave like that again.”

“It must have been beastly,” Gwen said. She took him more seriously than he had expected, and he wasn’t really surprised when she went on : “It’s a funny thing, but Hilda has had several nightmares lately. I’ve put it down to her age, but once she woke up screaming—that night you were in Bournemouth.”

“We must watch her,” Payne said. “Must be a reason for it.”

Gwen poured out tea, then began to dress. Payne lay back, watching. Her figure could stir him to desire and to passion now as quickly as it had in their early days, and she had a boldness, almost a brazenness, as if she deliberately set out to hold his gaze and to stir his desire. He watched as she put her hands behind her back, to fasten her bra; the ends slipped and the bra dropped. She pursed her lips as if in vexation, but the gleam of humour, of enticement, was unmistakable in her eyes. Suddenly he seemed to picture Alice Murray by her side. Oh, God, it was funny. Funny! He actually wanted to laugh. He drank his tea, put the cup down, and said :

“Strip tease over ?”

“This performance,” Gwen said, then wriggled into a dress which clung to her figure, came over to the bed, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and said : “Lie in for the morning, anyhow. Business can wait.”

“Business can never wait,” Payne rejoined, and in the lighter mood, he went on buoyantly : “As a matter of fact, sweetie-pie, it’s picking up extremely well. I’ve one or two big deals which might make us a fortune.”

“You and your fortune, it’s always round the comer,”. Gwen scoffed. “Just make enough to get us out of this house and buy me a mink stole, and I’ll admit you’re a better business man than I thought you were.”

“Before we’ve finished, you shall have a mink coat which drags on the ground, and a Rolls-Royce to go with the new house,” Payne declared earnestly.

“I’ll settle for a Jaguar.” Gwen was still joking, without malice but hurtfully. If only she knew what he had done for her! She stood with the tray in her hands, looking down at him. “You look twice the man you did already. The next time you have a nightmare, tell me about it right away.”

“Take it from me I will,” Payne said.

There wasn’t going to be a next time. There was going to be the theft from Anderson’s, followed by a series of business deals, all carefully arranged to show substantial profits in his books. He would ‘win’ one or two good bets, too; nothing excessive, nothing to attract attention, but a hundred pounds or so at a time, to build up his bank balance gradually. There was no end to what he could do once he had that stock from Andersons. If he chose a Friday night, there would be the better part of two thousand pounds in cash, to go with it.

He lazed until lunch-time, felt quite himself again when he went downstairs, and could think of Alice without panic or alarm. It was a pity it had happened the way it had, but she had only suffered for a minute or two, and it was even possible that she hadn’t known who was attacking her.

She was dead; buried in the past. Now he had to make his future.

In this new mood of confidence, it did not occur to him seriously that the police would ever catch up, but when he went out, about six o’clock that evening, to get some cigarettes and the classified football edition of the evening newspapers, tension suddenly gripped him again. On most Saturday evenings the family sat round the television, with a sandwich supper, a comfortable armchair for everyone, and Gwen was getting it ready. Payne was alone, and desperately full of disquiet. He kept a look-out for Hilda, who usually got home by half past six but occasionally arrived half an hour earlier. He hoped that he would not meet her tonight—certainly not until he had seen the newspaper.

He bought the Evening Globe. Instead of looking for the Fulham result, he stared at the headlines. There had been a serious plane crash near Paris; there had been an avalanche in Scotland, and two climbers were missing; and there had been a murder in south-west London.

He stood quite still, reading about it. How Alice’s murder had been discovered, how the police had arrived at once, how Superintendent Roger West of New Scotland Yard was in charge of the investigations, and how :

Mr. Julian Anderson, son of the owner of the jewel merchant for whom the dead girl worked, may have information of value to the police.

Payne’s head jerked up.

“My God!” he breathed. “When they say that, they usually mean they want the devil! Julian, the swine!” He began to laugh, actually laughed aloud, and made several people turn round to stare; a man said half jokingly :

“Got your treble chance right, mate ?”

“Pulled—pulled off four draws,” Payne made himself answer. He mustn’t let himself get out of hand. What he wanted was a couple of stiff whiskies, that would put him right, and there was no need to keep off drink now, these could be the doubles he had promised himself. One in the pub and a couple at home. If the spectacular show on television was good tonight, he could laugh as much as he wanted to; he could be positively hilarious! He folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm, thinking again of Julian Anderson, and how Alice had disliked him, how he had actually tried to follow her last night! Although Alice had been too nice-natured to say so, there wasn’t much doubt that Julian was a man who encouraged his hands to stray. He looked the type.

This would teach him!

Payne strode towards the local public house, the King’s Arms in the High Street, saw a bus pull up at the stop opposite, and caught sight of Hilda. Waving, she jumped off the bus and came to him eagerly, trustingly; again she reminded him of Alice, although physically she was so different.

“Hallo, Dad ! Been getting your paper ?”

“Yes. Nothing turned up on the pools,” he answered.

“Our ship will come home one of these days.”

She turned to walk beside him, and reminded him of Gwen when she had been younger. Gwen had had the same flamboyant figure and had flaunted it perhaps a little more; or perhaps it had seemed more, in those days. Payne decided to wait for the whisky until he got home, it was a bad thing to encourage a girl of eighteen to go into pubs. Hilda would start that soon enough with boy friends. It was good to have

her walking alongside him, chattering about the day at the shop—she worked in a mantle and gown shop in Hammersmith—about television, about the way they had overslept, and how Mrs. Cowley—the manager—had been quite rude about it. As they walked on, Payne noticed how many men,  young and old, looked at her, some of them covertly, some with open admiration. Well, that wasn’t surprising. Gwen would be able to give her all the tuition she needed! The thought made him frown. How much did he, how much did Gwen, really know about their own daughter?

“. . . Oh, I remember what I was going to say to you. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the evening paper yet,” said Hilda. “You remember Anderson’s, the place where you used to work years ago ?”

Payne said, stiffly, heart turning over : “Yes.”

Hilda did not notice the strangeness of his voice, and went on without a pause :

“A terrible thing happened, absolutely awful. Mr. Anderson’s secretary was murdered last night. I wonder if she was there when you were, Dad. Her name was Marshall, I think, Alice Marshall, or Marbel, or something like that. I read it in the Star. And it looks as if Anderson’s son did it. You used to say what a nasty piece of work Julian Anderson was, didn’t you ? His name was Julian, wasn’t it ?”

Payne said, more normally: “Yes. What a dreadful thing.” As they walked along, he realised that he should have been prepared for this, and that it was a good thing that Hilda, not Gwen, had come out with the story. Gwen would have noticed the way it affected him.

He wondered where Julian Anderson was now.

6

STATEMENTS

 

CHARLEY FOX was a little man by the standards of the Metropolitan Police, and just young enough to have squeezed in when the regulation height had been lowered to five feet eight inches. He was not only small, but thin, bony and ugly, and his shoulders were slightly rounded. On the only occasion when Roger had seen him stripped, just after an investigation when they had been caught out in a heavy rain storm, he had been astonished by Fox’s powerful chest, biceps and forearms; all these were over-developed, and his arms were very long, giving him almost a simian appearance. His ugliness was monkey-like, too. But he had the sharpest pair of eyes in the Force, and his power of observation of physical things had marked out a course for him.

He called himself chief of the Dry Cleaning Department at the Yard.

His main job was to examine the scene of a crime for anything which might be used as evidence, but he also cleaned clothes, examined boots and shoes, studied the art of finding things which nine men out of ten would have missed. Generally, this was all he was expected to do. Roger West, studying him that morning, and watching the way he considered all aspects of the case, wondered whether Fox had ambitions to get out of the rut in which he could never hope to get beyond detective inspector’s level.

He briefed Fox to look for anything in the room or between the room and the front door of Number 24, and then went out to face the sarcasm, the annoyance, the anxiety and the impatience of eleven residents who wanted to leave at once, and who were already late for work. There was a girl, almost in tears, saying that if she were late she would almost certainly lose her job. There was an elderly man, bowler-hatted and carrying a furled black umbrella, who said in tones of abject misery :

“I have not been late once in thirty-four years.”

“Time he was,” a detective sergeant named Noble muttered to Roger.

Roger said: “If it will help, I will arrange to have all your employers telephoned officially and told that the delay has been caused by us, and that we will see that you get away just as soon as possible.”

The little girl gasped : “If only you would!”

“That would be very considerate of you,” said the bowler-hatted man, perking up. “I am sure that it would not then be registered against me, and if it were an official message—”

“Collect all the telephone numbers, and get that laid on,” Roger instructed Noble, ignoring the man’s look of disgust.

Then Roger began to question the neighbours, and soon had cause to wonder whether he would get far. No one appeared to have heard anything unusual during the night except a middle-aged physiotherapist who looked vaguely like a circus lion-tamer, and who had heard ‘something fall’ in the flat below her at about a quarter to one. It might have been half past twelve or even a little earlier, she admitted, but she had been in bed for a while, after turning in about midnight. A nice-looking, fresh-faced girl with long, fair hair, who wore a tight fitting black jumper with a high neck and long sleeves, and the latest kind of elasticised, figure-fit slacks, volunteered a little hesitantly:

“I came in about half past eleven, sir.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?” asked Roger mechanically. He saw that the girl was a little ill-at-ease, then noticed that an older woman was looking down her nose in apparent disapproval.

“Well, no, I didn’t really,” the girl said.

“I wonder if you’ll spare me five minutes a little later,”

Roger said. “May I come to your room?” The girl went off with obvious relief. He finished with all the others, and promised that they would be able to leave immediately the police had finished the search of the staircase and the hall. Then he checked what Fox was doing.

Fox was bending over the dead girl’s body, which was now completely covered, and plucking at something on the pillow with a pair of tweezers.

“What?” asked Roger.

“Hairs, Mr. West.”

“Not hers ?”

“Grey as a badger’s.”

“Keep it up,” Roger said. “Had any other luck ?”

“Not a sausage. Not in my department, anyhow.”

Roger stood by the door.

“Any department?”

“Well,” Fox said, a little hesitantly, “I watched them taking the pictures and I heard what Old Dammit said, but no one noticed what I think I did. The thumb marks on the neck. The strangler must have been standing about where you are, and lunged forward at her. The way she’s lying against the head panel you’d think his right hand would be higher than the other, and the pressure would be from her left side to her right, wouldn’t you ?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it wasn’t—her neck was bent the other way,” Fox said.

“Translate it, will you ?” Roger asked.

“Sure you need me to ?”

“Sure, I want to know if you can !”

Fox grinned; he was more attractive when he smiled than when in a serious mood.

“Well, that left hand went higher and used a lot more force. I’d lay odds the chap was left-handed.”

“Chap?”

“Don’t imagine it could have been a woman, do you ?” said Fox, astonished. “I shouldn’t have—” He broke off, turned his eyes towards the ceiling, and said: “Strewth! There’s a physiotherapist upstairs with bulging muscles. She could, I suppose. Any reason to think she did ?”

“None at all,” Roger said. “Just reason to wonder if it’s safe to take it for granted that it was a man. Keep at it, Charley.”

“About finished, except that I’ve got to vacuum clean the carpet,” declared Fox. “I did manage to get onto the stairs and the passage pretty quick. There’s one thing you could do for me, Mr. West.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me get the vacuum busy before half a dozen other yobs stamp about the place,” pleaded Fox. “I’ll bet I’ll find dust or bits of dirt from a dozen different places, most of them from our chaps’ shoes. Hell of job when it’s as complicated as that. I know everyone wants to get here first, but it’s worth thinking about.”

“I’ll see if I can lay it on,” said Roger. “Did you find anything on the staircase ?”

“Nope.”

“Pity,” Roger sympathised. “I’ll be seeing you.” He hurried down the stairs and into the street, where a Divisional detective inspector was organising door-to-door calls by the police to find out which people living nearby had been awake at midnight or after. That was another chore which would not be popular but could not be avoided. Several neighbours had been up and were now being questioned, and the Divisional man said :

“There’s one description of a chap who brought the girl home in a Jaguar sometimes, Mr. West.”

“Reliable?” asked Roger.

“Well, I’ve got it from three neighbours,” the other told him. “It was a black Jaguar, probably a 1957, Mark VII, and the man was shortish, bald headed—he didn’t wear a hat—and rather broad.”

“Did he ever go in ?”

“He wasn’t seen to.”

“Keep at it,” Roger urged.

It was then nearly half past nine, he was feeling hungry, and was acutely conscious of the number of things that he wanted to do; among them, go to Anderson’s shop in Kensington, where the girl worked and where the Andersons— her employers—lived in a flat above the shop. He had talked to the Yard, and a Detective Inspector Gill and a couple of sergeants had gone to the shop to start questioning the staff, and to find out if anything was missing, but he wanted to be there himself as soon as he could. He went into the murder-house again, and found the girl in the close fitting slacks and jumper waiting for him in a room at the top of the building. This was Jennifer Ling, according to the list of residents Noble had prepared. She had a slim figure rather like that of the dead girl, and a fresh, wholesome look. There was an appetising odour of bacon which made Roger feel more hungry than ever, and the girl was buttering a slice of toast.

“I’m very grateful that you didn’t question me in front of the others,” she said, and Roger liked her smile and her frankness. “There’s a friend of my mother in one of the other flats, and she tittle-tattles so much you wouldn’t believe. Actually, I was in about one o’clock.”

“Did you notice anything?”

“Well, yes,” the girl said hesitantly. “I saw that there was some light at Alice Murray’s door, it wasn’t properly closed. I—but would you like a cup of coffee ?”

“Nice of you,” Roger said. “Yes, thanks.”

“I’ve just made it, and I put an extra spoonful in, in case,” the girl said. “I thought you might have been on duty since the early hours.” She poured out, obviously doing all this to cover her nervousness, as most people were nervous when talking to the police. “Sugar?” she asked.

“Thanks.”

“I hope it’s as you like it,” Jennifer Ling went on. “The truth is, I’ve seen the door like that once or twice. I don’t think it closes properly unless you slam it, and there are times when you don’t want to slam it. I—I get in very late sometimes, as late as two and three o’clock, if I go dancing.”

“Have you ever seen a man in the room with Miss Murray ?” asked Roger. This was probably what she wanted to tell him, but wanted to be led.

“Well, I did once.” Jennifer spread her hands. “Actually I’d come in late, and thought I heard something so I looked downstairs, and a man was leaving her flat.”

“Was that the only time you saw him ?”

“Yes.”

“And the only man you’ve seen leaving or entering her flat?”

“Yes, although sometimes Julian Anderson brings her home,” Jennifer reported. “He’s the son of the man she works for, and he’s always hanging around. The trouble with Alice,” went on the girl, jumping up and walking about the room on her toes, “is that she was too kind-hearted. She just couldn’t tell him where to get off.”

“And he needed telling?”

“He needed telling all right!” Now, Jennifer moved to the window and stood looking at Roger, slender, black-clad legs close together and rising on her toes, rather like a silhouette of a dancer seen on a coloured screen. “But he wasn’t the man I saw leaving Alice’s room, I—oh, I feel an utter beast talking about her like this.”

“You needn’t,” Roger said. “You might get us to the killer before he can kill someone else.”

“You mean—”

“I mean what I say,” Roger assured her; there was no better way of making sure that the girl would hold nothing back. “What was this second man like?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” the girl answered, “but there was something about him which suggested he wasn’t young —not a boy, anyhow. He was rather tall, and wearing a trilby hat. I heard him whisper good night to Alice, and then he went downstairs. He didn’t hurry, but walked rather stealthily. Do you know what I mean ?”

“I wish all witnesses were half as good,” Roger praised. “And I hope you’ve something else for me.”

“I have and I haven’t,” said Jennifer Ling, “but I think I saw Alice with a man a few weeks ago. He was middle-aged, rather handsome as a matter of fact, and very well dressed. They were going into a cinema together, and I was passing. Alice saw me but didn’t wave or anything, so I assumed that she didn’t want me to take any notice.”

“Was it the man you saw here ?”

“I couldn’t swear to it, but I think so. I only caught a glimpse of him here, you know, looking down on him.”

“Yes, of course. How long ago was it you saw Alice and this man together ?”

“About a month, I suppose,” replied Jennifer. “I couldn’t honestly be sure, but I think I could make sure, if it were important, because it was when Ted—that’s my fiancé—was in bed with flu, and I’d been to see him straight from the office.”

“I’ll let you know if it would help to be sure of the date,” Roger said. “Did Alice ever speak of an affaire ?”

‘ Well, yes and no—she didn’t put anything into words, but I think she was in love at last,” the girl answered, quietly.

“Can you be sure ?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have said so a few months ago, but since I—since I met my fiancé, I know the signs! Alice was always absurdly shy and timid, I used to get vexed with her sometimes. We were very good friends, really, although she didn’t ever talk much about herself. She didn’t have boy friends, didn’t really like dancing, and I used to tell her that she wasn’t giving herself a chance to live. Suddenly, everything changed. I was out most evenings, so I didn’t know much about what she was doing—we’ve hardly had a chance to gossip lately, because I’ve spent every minute I could with Ted! But you could tell from die way she laughed, even the light in her eyes—I suppose that sounds absurd.”

“Not a bit absurd,” Roger assured her, and realised how much he liked this girl. “It’s a good thing to see. Didn’t she tell you anything about this man ?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Jennifer assured him. “As a matter of fact, I wondered if that could be because he was married. I mean, I wanted to tell the world when I fell in love!”

“I can imagine,” Roger said, and grinned. “Miss Ling, I’m going to get you to think about this statement, add anything that you recall, and dictate it to a shorthand writer who will come and see you later in the day. Are you going to be in?”

“I’m seeing Ted at half past one, he’s calling for me.”

“Perhaps he can help you remember,” Roger said. “Will two o’clock be all right ?”

“We were going out for a spin,” Jennifer told him, “but I’m sure Ted wouldn’t mind.”

“Did he know Miss Murray ?”

“Only slightly,” the girl answered. “She did come in for coffee with us one night, but that was before she started going out a lot.”

“Did you notice anything at all last night ?”

“Nothing,” Jennifer said firmly. “Nothing at all. I— well, shall we say that I was rather preoccupied ?”

Roger laughed . . .

When he left her, he saw Fox, who was nearly finished in the bedroom, and had another word with the Divisional man in charge of the questioning in the street. Only two pieces of information had come in about the previous night; one man, arriving home late from his work as a waiter in a hotel, had noticed a man come along on a bicycle. This man had left his machine round the corner from Manville Street, along a stretch of Bell Street which was set aside for official parking. Another man had noticed an old car standing out-side Number 24. Roger made mental notes of both of these and, a little after ten o’clock, went home.

Janet wasn’t in the kitchen, and he felt a momentary pang of disappointment. Then he saw a note stuck on to a dish which held two sausages, two rashers of bacon and two eggs.

Sorry, dear, but if I don’t do the shopping early all the vegetables will have been picked over. I’ll be back about eleven. P.S. The boys have gone to the baths.

Roger shrugged off his disappointment, went to the larder and took out two cold sausages and a loaf of sliced bread, had a snack, washed it down with half a pint of milk, and went into the front room and telephoned the Yard. Nothing fresh had come in, but there was a message from Gill, at Anderson’s shop; old Anderson was confined to his room with bronchitis and his son, Julian, was somewhere in the country, believed to be viewing some jewellery and silver plate at a mansion where the goods were to go under the hammer early next week.

“So Julian isn’t handy,” Roger mused, and then asked: “Do you know when he’s coming back ?”

“Mr. Gill didn’t leave any message, sir.”

“Right. Tell him I’m going to see old Mr. Anderson first,” Roger said. “Ask him to find out when the son is expected back at the shop.”

“Very good, sir.”

Roger went out, took the car out of the garage, and drove across town towards High Street, Kensington, thinking mostly about what the girl Ling had told him. Two men were already in the case, and he wished he could trace the middle- aged man, the lover-boy. His thoughts ranged over several possibilities; a jealous lover, for instance, or a married man who might be under some kind of pressure, who might possibly have been blackmailed. The quicker he had a look at the dead girl’s bank balance, the better. Jennifer Ling was probably right in thinking the other girl being in love, but Alice Murray might also have been very pleased with herself if she were getting a handsome pay-off for not telling a wife about a husband’s peccadillo. Roger called in at the Kensington branch of the MidPro Bank, the one named on her cheque books, and found it busy because it was Saturday morning; but the manager was eager to help die police.

When he heard of the murder, he looked really upset.

“I’m terribly sorry, terribly,” he said. “I knew Miss Murray quite well, she used to come and bank money for Anderson’s as well as herself. A most trustworthy and efficient young lady, I would have said. What a pity, what a pity! „ Her own account—well, she kept a balance of about two hundred pounds, and had nearly a thousand pounds in national savings certificates. As far as I know, she had no other securities, and certainly she hasn’t been paying in any more money than usual—just her monthly cheque for a little over sixty pounds.”

Certainly nothing here suggested that Alice Murray had been banking extra money; as certainly there was no obvious .reason for thinking that a thief had killed her.

He went to the shop, where Gill, a tall and very thin man with a mournful expression, met him outside, and told him briefly what he could about the staff. There were four salesgirls, two salesmen, and a so-called ‘manager’, an elderly man named Parsons. The shop was double-fronted, one side filled with modern jewellery, the other with second-hand pieces, including some magnificent diamond rings.

“No sign of trouble here?” asked Roger.

“No, Handsome,” Gill said, as if this was exactly the lack of results he had expected. “I checked the safes and the strongroom, and they’re okay. There’s a stock list in the little office at the back of the shop, where the girl worked, and old Anderson keeps another up in his flat. Nothing seems to be missing.”

“Any word about son Julian ?”

“Should be back this morning some time,” Gill answered. “He had a crush on the girl all right—all the staff knew it.”

“She respond at all?”

“The story is that she was too soft with him, she should have told him where to get off,” answered Gill. “One of the girls says that she thinks that the real trouble was fear of losing a good job—she let Julian pet her a bit because of that.”

“Julian a universal pawer ?”

“Can’t say the other girls have complained,” answered Gill.

“What about the old man ?”

“Very upset, I’d say,” Gill answered. “Er—there is one thing I don’t think you’ll be very pleased about, Handsome. Would have prevented it if I could—” He broke off, obviously ill-at-ease.

“Let’s have it,” said Roger.

“Well, there are some newspaper chaps about, of course, and one of them overheard me saying that I wanted to talk to Julian, and when was he expected back. You know how these things get exaggerated in the press.”

“Can’t see that it will do any harm,” Roger said, thoughtfully. “Who’s with Anderson now ?”

“An old housekeeper, who looks after both father and son,” replied Gill.

Roger went upstairs to the flat, on his own. The elderly housekeeper was Scottish, tired-looking, and very harassed this morning, and she seemed worried about her employer. Roger heard the old man call out in a wheezy voice, and a minute later he stepped into the large bedroom, with its heavy, shiny mahogany furniture, figured tapestry curtains at the window, a little table at the foot of the bed with a typewriter on it, and the large double bed. Anderson was sitting up, a thin, bony-faced man with heavy-lidded eyes. He looked as if he were not just distressed, but grief-stricken; after the first few questions, he leaned back on high pillows, and said hoarsely:

“I simply can’t imagine what my son will feel. He was so much in love with her. She was an obsession, a positive obsession.”

“Was his love returned ?” as if casually.

“No,” answered Anderson quite frankly. “No, she had very little regard for him. She was a very kind person, but she had very little regard for him, although she wouldn’t hurt his feelings for the world. There was a time when I thought there might be some hope for him, but lately—”

He broke off.

“What happened lately?” asked Roger, less casually.

The old man said in that hoarse voice while air bubbled in his chest: “I am a great believer in telling the truth to the police, Mr. West. I believe that you will find it out, whatever might be done to try to hide it, and I also believe that the truth cannot harm my son. Recently, Alice ob-viously fell in love with another man. Quite obviously so. Julian—Julian was terribly distressed by it, and he will be even more distressed by this awful news.”

Even if he did it himself, Roger thought. He asked aloud: “Do you know the name of the man Miss Murray fell in love with, Mr. Anderson ?”

“I do not, but my son might,” answered the old man. “And if he can do anything to help you find this wicked murderer, I am sure he will.”

Roger thought: I wonder if you’re more cunning than honest. He didn’t speak, just watched the man, whose blue- veined, scraggy hands were still on the white sheet, who looked as if he might die before this winter was out. He was old and shrewd and he was probably very, very clever. He might have talked of being honest and of making a statement which could implicate his son, simply to fasten attention on to Alice Murray’s mysterious lover.

Then the housekeeper called out: “Mr. Julian!” and there was a flurry of footsteps, followed by heavier steps outside the door, which was thrust open.

Julian Anderson stepped inside.

7

MAN TO DISLIKE

 

IT would be easy to take a dislike to Julian Anderson on sight.

Roger studied the man, aware of the danger of prejudice and trying to push it away. It wasn’t easy. Julian was in his early forties, nearly bald, with an unusually shiny, almost polished pate. Fleshiness disguised the fact that he was very like his father in features. He had a curiously powdered look, very smooth cheeks, a little chin framed by a roll of fat. Curiously, he was not really fat in the body, only plump. He wore a flowered waistcoat, beautifully coloured and smoothed down over his stomach, and a well-cut suit of a pale beige-coloured worsted, or some smooth material. A diamond ring flashed on his right hand; and his hands were plump and as pale as his face. Because of the fleshy face his eyes looked very small, but they were alert and intelligent, and much darker than his father’s.

“What is happening?” he demanded. “What are all the men doing in the shop ? Has there been a robbery ?”

Roger glanced at the old man and saw how anxiously he was looking at him, Roger, not at his son.

“Father, tell me—” Julian began, and moved forward, hands spreading; and then he stopped, frowned, stared at Roger, and exclaimed: “You are Superintendent West!”

“Yes,” Roger said.

“I thought so. I saw you in court on one occasion. But— only a very serious crime would bring you here. What is it ?” He had a curiously mannered way of speaking, almost as if English were not his native tongue.

“My boy—” old Anderson began, and then broke off as if he could not bring himself to break the news.

“But what is it?” cried Julian.

Roger said : “Miss Alice Murray was cold-bloodedly murdered in her bed last night.”

When his voice faded, there was silence except for the bubbly breathing of the old man; even that seemed subdued,, as if he were trying to hold his breath. Roger kept reminding himself that he must not be prejudiced, that he must study this case with absolute detachment. Yet undoubtedly Julian looked as if he were putting on an act. He did it extremely well; perhaps too well. He stared at Roger, his eyes screwed up at first, his lips parted. Then his eyes opened wider, and he began to open his mouth slowly. He drew in a long, deep breath. The expression in his eyes changed, as one might expect it to change from shock. He began to raise his hands, which were clenched very tightly.

“No,” he breathed. “No.”

“My boy—” Anderson began again.

“No!” gasped Julian. “It isn’t true, it can’t be true. Not Alice, not—”

Roger said harshly: “A man with a key broke into her room, and strangled her while she lay in bed.”

“Oh, God,” gasped Julian. His right hand went to his collar, and he tugged at it as if it were choking him. He moved away from the door towards a chair, but did not sit down. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “I can’t believe—”

“Do you have a key to the flat?” demanded Roger.

Julian drew in a hissing breath.

Please—” the old man began.

“Answer me. Do you have a key to Miss Murray’s flat?”

Julian muttered: “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” His face began to wrinkle, and he looked as if he were going to cry; if he did, it would be nauseating. Yet he also gave Roger the impression that he was really fighting hard for self-control. He lowered himself slowly on to the chair, putting one hand against a table, and pulled at his tie again.

“Do you or do you not have a key ?” Roger rasped.

Julian stared at his father.

He said, still muttering: “Yes. Yes, I have a key. Oh, God, Alice! Who did this thing to you ? Who did this awful thing?”

“Where is the key, Mr. Anderson?” Roger demanded icily.

“It—it is in my pocket.”

“Did Miss Murray know that you had it ?”

Julian didn’t answer.

“Did she know, Mr. Anderson ?”

“No,” admitted Julian hoarsely, “she didn’t know.” He stared at his father, but gave the impression that he was not doing that consciously, that he was looking at some figment of his imagination; at the ghost of Alice Murray? He moistened his lips. “No, she didn’t know.”

“Why did you have it?”

“I—” Julian broke off again, letting the pronoun hang in the air.

“Mr. Anderson, the quicker you answer my questions the better it will be for you,” Roger warned coldly. He wished that he had a sergeant here, taking notes; but if he sent for one it would break the present tension, and he wanted to hold that as taut as he could. “Why did you have the key?”

Anderson answered, hoarsely : “I loved her so much. I— I always believed that she would love me, that I would be able to win her round. I—I loved her so much. I couldn’t think about anything else or anyone else. I only wanted to be with her. I dreamt of being in her flat when she came home, I used to try to make myself go there and wait for her, I thought if she knew how much I loved her she would submit to me. Oh, God,” he breathed. “And she’s dead.”

“Were you at her flat last night ?” Roger barked.

“Were you?”

“No, no I wasn’t!”

“Were you at her flat last night?”

“No,” Julian whispered. “I swear I wasn’t.”

“When were you last there?”

“I—” Julian kept breaking off, but it was hard to say whether he was deliberately evasive, or whether he was genuinely suffering from shock.

“When were you there?” Each word was like a knife, slash; and was meant to be.

Julian answered, dismally, despairingly : “I—I was in the street yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening rather. I hoped to meet her when she got home. She told me she was going straight there, she said that she was going to wash her hair, but—but she wouldn’t let me take her home in the car. She did, sometimes, if I was waiting for her outside the shop, but last night she wouldn’t let me. She said she wanted to do some shopping on the way. So I went to meet her as she reached her home but—she didn’t come. I waited until seven o’clock, and she still didn’t come, and—well, I’ve waited there before, and she’s been back very late. Sometimes—sometimes I’ve actually gone into the house but I couldn’t make myself go into her room. I thought—I thought she might misunderstand.”

“Did you go in last night ?”

“No. No, I couldn’t wait out in the cold any longer, and I had some work to do.”

Roger asked : “What work ?”

“I was making up some invoices,” Julian said, and then his face puckered up, and quite suddenly he started to cry. “Oh, God, not Alice, I can’t bear it.”

Roger wondered : “Can a man act like this ?”

The tears in the man’s eyes were genuine enough. He fought against crying aloud, and choked back his sobs. Pulling out a pure white handkerchief, he began to dab at his eyes, ft was less crying than snivelling. He used his right hand, Roger noticed; nothing suggested that he was left- handed.

“Mr. West, can’t you leave my son alone now ?” asked old Anderson querulously. “He has suffered such a great shock, surely you can see that. Can’t you let him rest ?”

Roger said : “I’m afraid not, Mr. Anderson. I want him to come with me.”

The old man exclaimed : “No!” He leaned forward from the bed, a scraggy hand stretched out, the sleeve of his pyjamas dragging back over the arm and baring it to the elbow; it was just brown, mottled skin and bone. “You’re not going to arrest him.”

“If Mr. Anderson can prove that he wasn’t at Miss Murray’s flat last night he has nothing to fear,” Roger said formally. “I want him to come along with me to the morgue to identify the body.”

“Oh, no,” breathed the old man. “No, don’t make him do that. Please don’t make him do that.”

“I understand that Miss Murray has no relatives in London,” Roger said, “and identification by some person who knew her well is necessary. Have you any objection, Mr. Anderson ?”

Julian looked at him vaguely. “Objection—objection to what?”

“I would like you to come and identify the body.”

The man stared as if he did not really comprehend, and the shock had affected his mind and stultified it. The old man pleaded again, but there was neither vigour nor hope in his voice. At last Julian said : “I suppose—I suppose so.” Roger took him downstairs, where a car was waiting with a sergeant at the wheel. He did not speak to Julian, but said to the sergeant:

“The morgue where the Murray girl’s body is.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julian was staring straight ahead.

Roger had a feeling which seldom came to him these days; repugnance at what he was doing. One half of his mind was convinced that young Anderson was putting up an act, that all of this was being done in a tremendous effort to save himself from the consequences of the crime. The other, that this man was really grief stricken, and that he would be horrified and desolated by the sight of the dead girl.

The job had to be done.

The car pulled up outside the morgue next to the Chelsea police station. The sergeant jumped out. Moving automatically, Julian climbed out of the back of the car, and his legs seemed to be propelled by mechanism, not by any conscious effort of will. His cheeks had sagged. He kept blinking, rubbing his eyes, and sniffing.

The room where the body lay was cold. There were several empty stone slabs, and only one slab laden. A sheet covered the girl’s body, which looked pathetically slender and small under the white shroud. There was no sound except Julian Anderson’s sniffing. The morgue attendant was standing by the head of the girl. Roger went to the other side, with Julian close to him. He nodded to the man, who pulled back the sheet briskly, and Roger asked:

“Is that Alice Murray ?”

Julian seemed to choke. “Yes—” he gasped. “Yes, that—” Then his legs bent beneath him, and he would have pitched on to the body had Roger not held him up.

*     *     *

“Funny how some of them can’t take it,” the morgue attendant said. “He the husband ?”

“No,” answered Roger.

A man could not make himself faint, he reasoned, and the suspect had been out dead cold. If Julian Anderson had murdered the girl in a fit of jealousy, or if his desire for her had reached an obsessional pitch, so that if he could not have her for himself he would prevent any other man from having her, collapse reaction now would be quite reasonable. The act of murder could shock a man so much that he would behave completely out of character. Awful repentance after it could explain such behaviour as this. Roger waited in the small office near the morgue, while Julian Anderson leaned back in a wooden armchair, coming round gradually, looking a dreadful colour.

The immediate question was whether to charge him.

If Roger did make a charge, there would be a chance of shocking this man into a confession, whereas if he were once given time to recover, his resistance might stiffen. He would undoubtedly get a good lawyer; his father would see to that. There was an odd fact to consider, too; neither of them had thought at once of sending for a lawyer, which might imply that they had in fact been taken by surprise. If Julian had anticipated a visit from the police, surely he would have decided well in advance what to do; and a man who had a sense of guilt would be ready to run to a lawyer.

That hadn’t occurred to Julian, apparently.

His eyes were open now, and he took out his handkerchief and dabbed his damp forehead. The attendant came in with a cup of steaming coffee and a bowl of brown sugar. Roger stirred in two spoonfuls of sugar and handed the cup to Julian, who gulped, took it in trembling fingers and began to sip. He went on sipping mechanically, he did everything mechanically. When the cup was half empty, he put it down.

“Thank you,” he said. “I won’t have any more.”

“Was it Miss Murray, Mr. Anderson ?”

“Yes,” Julian answered in the husky, whispering voice.

“Mr. Anderson, can you tell me where you were between twelve midnight last night, and two o’clock this morning ?”

Julian didn’t answer.

“Mr. Anderson, I know you have had a very severe shock, but it is essential that you answer my questions, for your own sake. Will you tell me where you were?”

“I—I was in my room,” Julian replied. “Where else do you think I was ? I was in my room.”

There was a change in his manner; a kind of protective hardening.

Roger interpreted it as the transition from shock to fear. It showed in the glint in the little, buried eyes, in the way Julian’s body seemed to hunch up, as if in self defence. He realised suddenly how vulnerable he was, perhaps realised that if he could not prove where he had been during those vital hours, there would be a case against him. He stared intently and intelligently into Roger’s eyes, and there was no doubt at all that he was becoming more and more frightened.

“Can you prove that ?” Roger asked.

Julian moistened his lips. “I—I went to bed at eleven o’clock, I didn’t see anyone else until seven thirty when Jennie brought in my morning tea.” He said all that almost gaspingly, as if he expected to be challenged, and he feared that it could be proved untrue.

“Very well, Mr. Anderson,” Roger said, and stood up briskly. “I shall have to make a number of inquiries and check your statements. It would be in everyone’s interest if you will co-operate in every way you can.”

“What do you want me to do ?” Julian Anderson asked, almost humbly.

“I would like you to come along to New Scotland Yard with me, make a statement confirming what you have already said, allow your clothes to be examined, and allow us to take scrapings from your finger-nails, a few hairs from your head, other things which may be helpful. At the moment you are under no compulsion to do these things. You would be, of course, if you were charged with the murder.”

Now, the man really understood the danger he was in.

“I’ll do anything you like,” he said huskily, “but I didn’t kill Alice.”

*     *     *

He did everything that Fox asked him. Scrapings were taken from his shoes, dust from the turnups of his trousers, a few hairs were plucked from his head and nose and ears. He handed over the key of the girl’s flat, which he admitted taking from her bag some weeks ago. His statement reiterated over and over again that he had been in love with Alice Murray, and that his unrequited love had almost driven him mad. And he talked of her meeting another man.

Roger studied the statement late that afternoon, and went along to the waiting-room to see the suspect again. Julian was looking more collected, but very pale.

“Did you ever see this other man ?” Roger asked.

“No”, answered Julian. “I used to follow Alice to try to find out who he was, but I didn’t want her to know what I was doing, and she kept getting away from me.”

“How do you know there was a man ?”

“She changed,” Julian answered, very slowly. “She—she used to be quite willing to let me take her home, and now and again she would come to the pictures with me. But about six months ago all that was over. I could tell she was in love with someone else, there was no doubt about that, and—and it made me desperate. I was afraid I would never win her.”

If he were guilty, would he make such a statement as that?

And if he were guilty, surely he would have asked for a lawyer by now ?

Did he realise how much the case against him would be weakened if the police could find this other man ?

Roger knew that he would soon have to make up his mind whether to make a charge; this man had been here too long already. Roger asked him to wait for another ten minutes, and went up to his office, a small one overlooking the embankment. The lights of the traffic on Westminster Bridge showed up, and the lights of the bridge itself and of the embankment reflected on the swollen waters of the Thames. There had been flood warnings in the higher reaches, and a close watch was being kept on the river, but he gave that no thought as he thumbed through Julian’s statement again, and looked through the reports from the Division and the Yard men who had worked at Manville Street as well as at Anderson’s shop. The mass of statements and reports added nothing to what was already known. This other man seemed to exist, but only Jennifer Ling appeared to have seen him, and her description was never likely to help in evidence.

There was a tap at the door, and on his ‘come in’, Fox appeared. His bright eyes had an eager look, and Roger reminded himself that Fox might have ambitions to get away from his ‘dry-cleaning’. He carried two plastic envelopes, and put them on the desk in front of Roger; this was plainly a moment of triumph.

“Well,” Roger asked, and looked at several hairs inside one envelope, and two inside the other; they were short, grey and thin. “Whose ?”

“Julian Anderson’s.”

“Positive?”

“Positive,” asserted Fox. “Exhibit A, plucked from his head. Exhibit B, taken from the pillow of Alice Murray’s bed. Exhibits C, D, E and F, on her clothes.”

“Well, well,” Roger said, and in that moment he felt as nearly certain as he could be that they had the right man in the unrequited lover. “Now all we want is to establish that he wasn’t in his own room all last night.”

“He wasn’t,” Fox said with satisfaction. “In that memo you asked me to send round the neighbourhood, I asked for any garage which might have supplied petrol. Found one on the Great West Road, sold him ten gallons about twelve fifteen last night. The description fits to a T, and they had the car number off pat—two K’s and three 2’s. So Julian A. was out and about! Going to charge him ?”

“I think I will, now that I know he lied to me,” Roger said, and ignored the fact that fear could make a man lie. Once a single lie was proved, it might be easier to make Julian admit to others. “Nice work, Charley, but do it my way in future, will you ?”

“Your way ?” Fox looked puzzled.

“If you want to add anything to an instruction, check with me first unless you can’t find me. Then be absolutely sure it’s the right thing to do.”

“I won’t forget,” Fox said. “Thanks, Mr. West.” He stood back as Roger stood up. “Like me to come along ? My shorthand’s good.”

8

HOUSE FOR SALE

 

THE Sunday morning newspapers were delivered to John Payne’s house about nine o’clock most Sundays, and the day after the family had slept so late he was up soon after eight o’clock. Gwen was still sleeping, although as he slid into his dressing-gown, he thought that she stirred. He went downstairs, made himself tea, and kept looking out of the front room window, in the hope that the delivery boy would be earlier than usual. At a quarter to nine, he heard Maurice whistling, and at ten to nine, Gwen called out:

“Maurice, go downstairs and see if your father’s made tea.”

“Okay, Mum !” Maurice came hustling.

The timing was bad, because the newspapers would come when he was drinking a cup of tea to keep Gwen company, Payne thought, but it would look odd if he stayed downstairs. He was on edge, although he felt sure that nothing would really worry him now; he was past the moment of crisis.

Maurice banged open the kitchen door.

“Hi, Pop! Mum says—”

“I heard her,” Payne answered. “Put the kettle on, will you, and I’ll take the tea up.”

“Right-i-ho. Feel better this morning ?”

“Much.”

“You looked as if you’d spent a night on the tiles last night,” Maurice said, and gave the kind of wink that he had learned from Gwen : he had Gwen’s droll way of raising an eyebrow, and her broad humour; Hilda was the least humorous of the family, just a nice girl with a tendency to be affected whenever she wanted to create an impression.

“I’ll give you night on the tiles,” said Payne. “If you talk to me like that—”

There was a sound at the front door; the newspapers.

“—tan your hide,” he finished. “You make that tea, I’ll see what the latest sensation is.”

“Never anything much in the papers on a Sunday,” Maurice declared. “Wonder if they’ve arrested that chap Anderson yet, though.” The murder had been a topic for eager family discussion last night.

There were two newspapers poking through the letterbox, and Payne hesitated before pulling them out. He felt almost as bad as he had once or twice yesterday; if this was going to keep on, it would make Gwen suspect some serious reason, and he must make sure that none of the family got that idea. Maurice’s ‘night on the tiles’ worried him; would Gwen jump to the same kind of conclusion ? Was it possible that she would suspect that they had all been drugged?

He pulled the newspapers out, with a sharp clack of sound, and opened the Sunday Echo. He clenched his teeth, for on the front page there was a photograph of Alice, and beneath it another, larger one, of Julian Anderson—a studio portrait taken some years ago.

The headline read:

EMPLOYER CHARGED WITH SECRETARY’S MURDER

After the first moment, when it seemed to leap into his throat, Payne’s heart stopped pounding. He began to smile. After a few seconds, he felt completely free from any kind of fear, and in its place was a fierce kind of jubilation. Nothing could make him more secure than this. They must have a pretty strong case against Julian, and—it would take weeks, months, to get round to his trial! There was no need at all to worry, the heat was off for good.

As for Julian—

He had always thought him a stinker! It wouldn’t do him any harm to stand trial. The police were bound to find themselves up against it eventually, he reasoned, when it really came to a trial they wouldn’t be able to prove that an innocent man had committed the murder. So Julian wasn’t really in danger. In any case, the question of proof would come much later. It wouldn’t do the fat slug any harm to kick his heels in a remand cell, might even do him good.

Payne overcame his half-hearted scruples without much difficulty, and chuckled.

Maurice called : “Tea’s made, Dad. You going to take it up, or am I ?”

“I’ll take it,” Payne said, and hurried to the kitchen. “And here’s the Echo.” He tossed the boy the newspaper. “They charged Julian Anderson with Alice Murray’s murder,” he called out, so that everyone in the house could hear. “I never had much time for that nasty piece of work, but I’d have thought he’d stop at murder.”

It would be the main topic of conversation for the next ten minutes, but after that there were likely to be only passing references. From this moment on, he could really begin to live. He’d show Gwen whether he could buy her mink and a new house! She would have to admit that he had not been bragging, he had just been waiting his opportunity.

He took it for granted that breaking into the shop and the strongroom would be easy; after all the care and thought he had given it, he could hardly go wrong. All his life, a facile optimism and overconfidence in himself had led him to failure, but he had never learned from his mistakes, had never learned how shallow his planning and his reasoning were. Now, excitement dulled any fear of failure, he was almost exhilarated as he watched Gwen while she read the report. She showed only a passing interest, and then turned the paper over in her hands.

“Let’s start looking for somewhere better to live, pet,” Payne suggested. “I’ve got a feeling in my bones that we’ll be able to manage it soon. Any idea where you want to go?”

Hilda, coming along the passage, called : “Wouldn’t it be lovely in the country, say out at Sunningdale, or—”

“I want to be within a threepenny bus ride of Piccadilly Circus,” Gwen declared, flatly. “No one’s going to get me to move out of this house to go any farther away. I feel buried even out here, and I can be in the West End in half an hour!”

“Better be near the West End for business, too,” Payne agreed.

“I used to think that St. John’s Wood would be a good place,” Gwen went on, looking down the pictures of house advertisements, “but I’ve rather changed my mind. I think we ought to stay this side of London. Chelsea, say—I’ve always liked Chelsea.” She wasn’t looking at Payne, and did not see the way his lips tightened. “Somewhere between the river and King’s Road, handy for the buses and nice for the evenings,” Gwen went on. “It wouldn’t be too far for Hilda, and Maurice’s technical school would be within walking distance. Don’t you think Chelsea would be the ideal place, Jack ?”

She looked at him.

“Yes,” he answered.

The moment he agreed he knew that it was a mistake; he should have been non-committal, or even found some quick reason for preferring some other part of London. The truth was, there was none better for his business, or for the children. Anyhow, Chelsea was a large borough, and he would soon forget how often he had been to Manville Street. The real reason for that spontaneous ‘yes’ was his fear of an argument with Gwen; he was frightened of her wanting to know why he cared so much, of being questioned about dislike of Chelsea. There was probably nothing suitable for them in Chelsea, anyway. It was like Gwen to start thinking where, already. She could never sit back and think about a thing, but had to be up and doing all the time. Well, why not let her? It would give her something to do, and houses were so difficult to find that it would probably take months before she came across anything suitable. In a month or so, he would almost have forgotten, wouldn’t he ?

And in a month or so, Julian Anderson would be up for trial.

Payne’s almost ecstatic delight that someone else had been charged so that there was not the slightest risk of danger for him, became tinged with anxiety. If the police had not picked on Julian, the case would soon have died out of the newspapers; murders always did. Now there would be the police court hearing, then the trial, possibly a long one, and an appeal; it would be freshened in everyone’s mind over a period of months, instead of dying quickly.

There was nothing he could do about it.

“You don’t seem very interested, after all,” Gwen said.

Payne laughed.

“I wasn’t thinking of going out and getting a house tomorrow ! I’ve these deals to put through, and they’ll take a lot of negotiating before it’s over. By the middle of March, say, we might start thinking seriously.”

“You’d better be,” Gwen said, and raised her voice. “Hilda! You ran get the breakfast this morning, and bring mine up, I feel lovely and lazy. If Maurice wants any fried potatoes he can use up that mash we had the night before last, and mix in those sprouts. Tell him to use the pork dripping, that’ll be tastier.” She stopped shouting, and looked at Payne with the seductive smile which hadn’t changed since they had first met. “Going to have your bath, or are you coming in with me ?” she asked, wickedly.

*     *     *

Julian Anderson was formally charged with the murder of Alice Murray at a special Sunday morning court, held at half past ten. Roger and Fox gave evidence of arrest, Roger asked for a remand in custody, and a brisk, youthful looking solicitor who had been summoned after the arrest said that he had no questions to ask but wished to state that his client had a complete answer to the charge and, of course, pleaded not guilty. Julian Anderson seemed to be in a daze. The old man, out of his sick room for the first time for three weeks, looked as if he had not the strength to go back to it.

“I’ll bet a fiver that Julian A. wishes to God he’d never done it, probably hates himself for it,” Fox said. “I don’t know how you feel, but I don’t dislike the chap as much as I did. Something a bit pathetic about him.”

“I know what you mean,” said Roger.

He went from the West London Police Court to the Yard, and looked through reports, including a long list of articles found at the dead girl’s flat on which there were fingerprints other than hers. There were cigarettes, some boxes of chocolates, books, magazines, some shiny books of matches. All of these had been taken to the Yard, and would be in Fingerprints now.

No one yet knew whose bicycle had been parked nearby last night, but Jennifer Ling had signed her statement and her boy friend, Ted-for-Edward Hardy, had added one of his own; he had heard and noticed nothing unusual.

Roger went up to Fingerprints, where a junior was on duty. There was the list of articles from the flat, with photographs of the prints found on them. Only one print found on each of two boxes of chocolates had not been identified as tradesman or neighbour.

“Same print on each box—a man’s, larger than average,” the trainee said.

“Hm, yes,” grunted Roger. These might be taken as evidence that someone had bought the girl chocolates, but they might have been bought from a shop anywhere in the district, or farther afield. “No sign of this print on anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“What about prints from the shop ?”

“We’ve got specimens of all the staff’s and old Mr. Anderson, sir. And the accused, of course.”

“Any at the flat?”

“No, sir.”

“Thanks,” said Roger.

He saw the meticulous way in which each print had been photographed and registered, ready for the file; the Yard was nothing if not good at records.

He was back home in Chelsea in good time for the midday meal. The boys were out, Janet was in the kitchen, the pressure cooker was on. It was a surprisingly mild day for the middle of January, and the sun was shining on the misty film which covered the grass in the back garden, the three apple trees, and the few bushes which had been pruned close to the ground. Beyond the garden was another one like it, and beyond that a house which was let in three flats, and which badly needed a coat of paint.

“I’m really beginning to hate it here,” Janet said, looking round from the pastry board, and then she made herself laugh. “Is that ungrateful, darling ?”

“Ungrateful, what?” Roger had been thinking about Fox’s change of feeling over the younger Anderson.

“After all, we have had some wonderful times here, even if you’ve forgotten,” Janet said, half protestingly. “And the two boys were born here.”

“Good lord!” Roger exclaimed. “So they were!” He leaned forward, pulled a small piece of uncooked pastry from a strip waiting to be placed across an apple pie crust, chewed it, and said : “We’ll keep the children wherever we go, I’m all in favour of that. Sure you want to move?”

Janet turned to face him, a little flushed from the oven, a little wrinkled at the eyes and the corner of the mouth, but her eyes as bright and grey as ever. She wore an absurdly small, frilly apron, pouched rather high at the breast—a Christmas present from the boys.

“I am quite certain. Now don’t start hedging.”

“I was wondering whether you’d prefer to have this place really redecorated, top to bottom, and a lot of new furniture,” Roger said, seriously. “All the front room and our bedroom for a start, and—”

“No,” Janet answered, emphatically. “Twenty-one years in the same place is long enough, if we stay any longer we’ll never want to go. What we need is a house large enough to turn into two flats when the children leave home, so that we can let one and add a bit to your pension.”

“I don’t get a pension for another fifteen years,” Roger reminded her. “How are you going to support me before then?” He realised that flippancy was not suited to her mood, and went on hastily : “You’re absolutely right, sweet. We’ll start looking soon. But there’s one condition.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Roger, do you really mean it.”

“I really mean it.”

“I don’t care what the condition is !”

“You probably will. Not a penny more than six thousand pounds, and not more than twenty minutes’ drive away from the Yard.”

“Oh, I don’t want to change the district,” Janet declared. Her eyes were glowing. “And if we can’t get what we want for six thousand, we’ll put up with what we’ve got. I know exactly what I want,” she added, and although he was grinning at her she took no notice; but she had made him realise how deep was her longing to move from this house.

At five minutes to one, hot and flushed from a cycle ride, the boys came in. At five past, after a superficial wash, Richard’s dark hair flattened with much water and brushing, and Scoopy’s flat at the front but sticking up in a dozen ducks’ tails at the back, they slid into their places at the table. Roger started to carve a leg of lamb. The boys were still flushed and eager, and it was Richard who said :

“I say, Mum, you know that house on the corner, where the people with that funny name live, Monty something.”

“Montifiore,” Scoopy supplied. “Can I help, Mum?”

“You can pull your table napkin up higher, I don’t want to wash another shirt after it’s been worn for five minutes. What about the house, Richard ?”

“It’s going to be sold,” announced Richard, taking a plate from Roger. “Thanks, Dad.” He began to help himself to roast potatoes, quite oblivious of the way his mother was staring at him. “Micky Roberts told me, he lives next door, and his mother’s always popping in and out of the Montforeys.”

“Mon—ti—fi—or—e.” Scoopy corrected, solemnly.

“For goodness sake let him say what he has to say,” said Janet. “Go on, Fish.”

“Well, apparently the Mon—tee—fee—or—ees are getting a bit old, she’s over sixty-five apparently, and he’s nearly seventy and they’re going to retire and move down to the south coast, or Devon or somewhere, so the house will be for sale. Mrs. Roberts seems to think they’ll have a difficult job selling it, though; they’re going to ask some ridiculous sum, like eight or nine thousand pounds.”

“Good lord !” gasped Scoopy. “He actually got it right!”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Janet said, and her eyes were sparkling even more brightly. “They’ll never get a penny more than six thousand five hundred. It’s just—”

“Barefaced robbery,” Roger put in quickly.

Scoopy’s eyes widened, he stared first at Roger and then at Janet, and asked swiftly: “Here, what’s on ? We’re not thinking of moving, are we? Why, the Montifiore’s house must be the best in the district! Mum! Dad!”

“Could we, possibly ?” pleaded Richard. They were both young again, children and not teenagers, with swift enthusiasm and glorious hopes.

“Well—” began Janet.

“We’d better tell them what we’re thinking,” Roger said, and thus began the longest lunch-time session they had had for months. Given their heads, the boys would have called on Mrs. Montifiore that very day.’ At last the telephone interrupted the excited discussion, and Roger got up to go into the front room, reflecting ruefully that the kitchen extension would never get done now. The boys began to help clear the table without prompting. Roger sat on the arm of an easy chair, feeling almost sure that this would be the Yard.

“West speaking.”

“Good afternoon, sir.” It was Fox, and his tone was subdued, immediately suggesting cause for alarm. “Sorry to worry you, but there’s a bit of news that I think you ought to know right away.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Old Mr. Anderson collapsed just before lunch, and died before they got the doctor,” Fox reported. “Poor show, isn’t it?”

Roger said, slowly and heavily: “Very. Thanks for calling.” He hesitated, and then went on : “Does Julian Anderson know ?”

“No, sir.” Fox’s voice quickened. “That’s a job for Kes- ton, his solicitor surely.”

“Is it?” asked Roger. “I think I’ll go along to Brixton.” It wasn’t going to be a pleasant task, or one he would be proud of, but if he gave Julian this news the man would surely be in the very depths of despair, and might possibly be shocked into telling the truth.

*     *     *

Julian Anderson sat very still on the wooden chair in the remand cell. He had not moved since Roger had come in. He had not flinched when he had been told about his father, and yet Roger had the impression that the news struck deep. The silence lasted for a long time, before Julian said, in his slow, hurt voice:

“Thank you for coming, Mr. West. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, it would have been easy to leave it to someone else. But Mr. West—this is two lives the murderer is responsible for. He really killed my father.” The little porcine eyes were strangely steady as he went on : “You won’t mind me saying that I like you, Mr. West. That may sound peculiar, but although we’re on different sides you’ve always been very considerate. You’ve got your job to do, and if I’m the innocent victim of circumstances I can’t blame you. I can see exactly how your mind works, and how black it looks against mc. But as true as I’m standing here, I did not murder Alice. I did go into the hall, I lied to you about that because I was frightened, but I was not in her room on Friday night. I left, and went for a long drive, I was so miserable, and speed helps me a little. But I did not kill Alice. Someone else committed that crime, and the same person is responsible for the death of my father. It may sound rather sentimental to you, Mr. West, but they were the only two people for whom I really cared. That is the simple truth. If I were outside, free to do what I liked, I would dedicate my life to finding the murderer, I mean that in deadly earnest—I would dedicate my life to the task.” He paused again, as if he realised just how telling this quiet statement of his case was; how cunningly he was putting doubt into Roger’s mind. “If the law does find mc guilty, Mr. West, it will be a mistake. I understand that I cannot be hanged, as the law now stands, but I can lose my liberty for life. I want you to believe me when I say that I would sacrifice that, readily, if I could only make sure of finding the murderer.

“Whether I am found guilty or innocent, Mr. West, I would like to feel that you were still looking for the killer. Will you do that?”

*     *     *

Was he almost fiendishly clever; or was there the simplicity of truth in what he said ?

Roger was uneasily preoccupied by this question as he drove back to Chelsea, and glad that the boys had gone out with some friends. Janet was content with the Sunday afternoon television and her dreams, and Roger was able to sit back and let everything about the Murray girl’s murder pass through his mind. As if they realised that he was pondering over the case, the boys were in a quiet mood when they got back, and Janet did not harass him with questions until they were getting ready for bed. Then she asked shrewdly :

“Aren’t you sure about Julian Anderson ?”

“I’m going to spend tomorrow combing every bit of evidence with Gill and Fox, and then take the case to Hardy,” Roger said. Hardy was the then Assistant Commissioner for Crime. “If I’ve slipped up on this, the quicker it’s put right the better.”

Next morning, he was still uneasy, almost to a point of being worried; Anderson’s earnest simplicity seemed to haunt him. He found Fox and his own chief aide, Detective Inspector Cope, huddled together over his desk. Cope was a big, burly man who had broken an ankle some months before and was just getting about again; he still needed a stick. Fox looked as if he had just come out of the forests.

“What have we got ?” demanded Roger.

“The last nail for Anderson’s coffin,” Fox said, without jubilation. “We’ve got everything, now. Remember that Jennifer Ling’s fiance said he saw a Jaguar pass in Bell Street?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve had the number checked : it was Anderson’s car. And we’ve had a bit of luck from a neighbour who was out yesterday and Saturday. Got in about half past eleven on Saturday night, he says, and saw Julian A. actually going into Number 24. So he’s lying hard to save himself.”

Roger didn’t say that Julian had already admitted that, and didn’t speak, until Fox said with unexpected feeling:

“Poor devil.”

“I’d poor devil him,” Cope said. “We ought to wave flags because we’ve got him so quick.”

9

NEED FOR SPEED

 

THE case against Julian Anderson seemed as tight as it could be. The Assistant Commissioner and the Public Prosecutor’s office agreed. For safety’s sake, another eight-day remand in custody was asked for, but after that it would almost certainly be plain sailing, with a straight committal for trial at the Old Bailey. From Roger’s knowledge of the Assize calendar, it would be March before the trial, and it might possibly wait over until May.

Julian was allowed to leave Brixton on the Tuesday, for his father’s funeral. Tearful Jennie and two elderly friends of the old man were there, as well as a sprinkling of business acquaintances, and a representative from the bank—the manager to whom Roger had spoken. And, of course, there was a hoard of newspaper men. Julian, white and drawn, stood up to the strain well. The two policemen, and two prison officers with him did not crowd him too much, and although every precaution was taken to make sure that he made no attempt to escape, the whole function went off without sensation. The evening newspapers gave it headlines :

TRAGIC FIGURE AT GRAVESIDE

That was about right, Roger thought.

When he got back to the Yard, there was a buzz of excitement over an escape from Dartmoor, and a spasm of acton over a post-office van hold -up in the West End. A man the Yard had been looking for during the past three weeks was picked up not five minutes walk from his home, and a harassed and alarmed bank official reported that he had discovered some remarkable forgeries of one pound notes; there would be upheaval over that if the notes had been in circulation for long, and it promised to become a major inquiry.

The case against Julian Anderson became a matter of routine, now mostly handled by the P.P.’s office. It stopped nagging at Roger, because of that last piece of straightforward evidence. There was virtually no doubt that the jury would bring in a guilty verdict.

Roger did hear, three weeks later, that Julian was putting the family business on the market. That looked like a covert confession of guilt, or at least acceptance of the fact that he would not be free to run the business. The plump man with the fat face, whom it was easy to dislike on sight, became more and more a tragic figure.

*     *     *

The fact that Anderson & Son was on the market became generally known in the jewellery trade just three weeks after Julian’s arrest, and John Payne heard about it when he called on a firm of wholesale jewellers and gold- and silversmiths in the Chancery Lane area. A little old man with owlish eyes and a permanendy husky voice stood in his shirt sleeves behind an overheated shop, and said :

“I expect you’ve heard, Mr. Payne, about what is happening at your old place of business.”

“What’s new, Mr. Benoni?” asked Payne, opening the case in which he had a few sets of cheap jewellery, and several small collections of antique jewellery which he had picked up at a sale three weeks ago. He was visiting all the main wholesalers, knowing that some would buy without asking too many questions, for he might possibly need to sell a great deal of the Anderson stock in a hurry. He had also visited several of his retail customers, telling them that he had taken over two or three small shops in the provinces, and that he would have a much larger selection to offer within the next few weeks. When eventually he showed them jewels taken from the Anderson stock, no one would be surprised; die vital thing was to make sure that he did nothing to attract attention.

“So you haven’t heard,” little old Benoni said. “You spend too much time out of London, Mr. Payne. London is the place for keeping your ear to the ground. It is up for sale.”

Payne exclaimed: “What?” and positively gaped at the man.

“Well, well, is that so surprising?” Benoni asked. “What can Julian do there now ? And old Clayton, was he any use even in your day? What a pity it is that you don’t work there now, Mr. Payne, you might have been given a chance to manage the business.”

Payne said, with a jerky laugh : “I’m doing a lot better on my own than I ever was there. I couldn’t stay in all day, anyhow—give me a life on the open road! Are you sure about this, Mr. Benoni ?”

“Oh, yes,” the old man assured him. “I was in the silver vaults this morning, and Clayton was at the Anderson vault. He is worried in case the new owners find out what a useless old man he is!”

“Why don’t you buy it?” asked Payne.

“Me? What would I be doing with a retail business, my boy ? Now there is something I want to tell you. I have a big market, in America, a very big market, for Regency jewellery. I can sell all antique jewellery there but just now the Regency market is very big for America. That is what I wanted to say to you—remember me, when you go round to see these different collections.”

Payne said : “I won’t forget you, Mr. Benoni.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” the old man said. “I am not telling a lie, Mr. Payne, when I say that I could sell a hundred thousand pounds worth of Regency jewellery—and Louis XVI, if it comes to that. It’s a big market, and I will get a good price, so I could pass on a good price, couldn’t I ? You will give me the first offer, Mr. Payne, won’t you ?”

“You’ll get the first offer,” Payne assured him.

He left the shop and went straight across the road to a snack bar where he bought a cup of tea and a doughnut, and took them to a table in the window. He watched the passers-by, the rumbling buses, the speeding taxis, but hardly realised they were there. His heart was racing with excitement fired by new anxiety. If the Anderson business was to change hands, valuers would soon be going down into the strongroom, and checking over the stock. There might soon be new, complete stock lists available, so that practically everything at Andersons would be easily identified. No one in the trade would buy the business without a valuation, and the physical task might take several weeks. It was even possible that there would be special precautions at the strongroom; Julian Anderson had grown into the habit of doing whatever his father wished, but anyone with half-an- eye would know that the old strongroom and the old- fashioned safes could be opened almost as easily as a tin can.

That was the cause for anxiety.

Old Benoni was the cause of excitement. His offer to buy practically anything was precisely what he, Payne, needed. Manna from heaven. Benoni didn’t talk out of the back of his neck, either; the market was there. He had betrayed the fact that he had access to it, but not exclusive right to sell to it, when he had asked for a first offer of anything that Payne picked up. This meant that there was a big American buyer in London, on the look-out for exactly the kind of jewellery that Anderson’s specialised in. Payne knew it so well. There were stacks of old ‘junk’ in the strongroom, some of which hadn’t been dusted for years, kept by old Anderson as a kind of safety valve; Anderson had always been a great believer in having a big stock and a small bank account. Today’s stock might double its cash value in ten years, he had reasoned, and cash would almost certainly lose its value.

“I’ve got to get there soon,” Payne told himself, and fought down the excitement. He drank the lukewarm tea, and added : “I’ve got to do it tonight or tomorrow.”

He was almost sick with excitement.

There was no new problem, of course; he knew exactly what he had to do, exactly how to get into Anderson’s and out again. From the conception of this plot, he had known that there was only one serious problem: how to get enough of the stock away. Jewellery weighed heavy. He would take it out of its cases, and wrap it in cotton wool, but there was enough at Anderson’s to fill a dozen trunks. The problem had always been one of selection : what would pay him best ? Now, it looked as if he knew.

Words dazzled him. An old man’s voice thrilled him. A hundred thousand pounds worth.

“Take it easy,” Payne advised himself anxiously. “Don’t be greedy.”

Gwen didn’t want a fortune, and the safe thing would be to take just enough to set him up properly in business, and to buy that new house. Say, thirty thousand pounds. But if it were as easy to get a hundred thousand as thirty thousand, why not ? He could discount old Benoni’s figure, of course— take twenty-five per cent off. But even then, seventy-five thousand pounds was worth thinking about, and this way it would be through the normal channels, it wouldn’t be ‘hot’ in the accepted sense of the word. Alice had told him exactly where the records were kept at Anderson’s shop; the old fool had just muddled on, and Julian hadn’t been any better. Once the records were destroyed no one would really know how much had been stolen.

Payne snorted with laughter, it was so perfect.

He made three more calls that afternoon, and each time was told of the fact that Anderson’s was on the market. By casual questioning, too, Payne made sure that old Jennie was still at the flat, and there had been no other changes as far as was known. Locks and keys were the safeguard. His mind was racing furiously as he talked and listened. He certainly had little time to lose, but the fact that the crisis compelled him to act quickly was a stimulant, and he checked over his preparations with great care. He would get into the hallway of the flat, the door of which had the window between it and the shop door. The flat door opened on to the narrow hall and an equally narrow staircase. A door led from this passage into the shop, and also to the door of the strong-room. If the flat door from the street was bolted as well as locked, he would go round to the back, where there was another entrance to the passage. The shops in the street were served from a road which ran along the back, and among them was an off-licence and a pub, which were open until half past ten, so there was risk of being seen. But he could take a car or a van right to the back door.

If he rigged up a false number plate on his car, and that would be easy, he could have one in the boot against emergency ; it could be done easily, too.

The familiar thumping sensation at Payne’s chest was almost painful; he could hardly wait.

He had to get in about eight o’clock in the evening, he reasoned, he had always known that. If he went much later he would be too conspicuous, for after eleven o’clock, the police often sneaked up at the back of the pub and the off-licence to find out if sales were being made out of hours. So he had to be finished by ten thirty. The task itself would take very little time; once inside it was simply a question of opening doors and filling up the suitcases.

He had four, in which he kept his larger samples. When he had bought them, months ago, he had made sure that they were lightweight but very strong. Each was medium- sized, because he had checked and made sure that a larger case would be too heavy. Two of medium size should win him about twenty thousand pounds worth of jewellery each, because he would make his first selection among the better quality goods; a second trip would be worth about half as much.

He had planned two trips; now he began to think of the possibility of a third. Each should take about twenty minutes, no more. If he had his car, or hired a van for the occasion, he could have it close to the back door of the shop, and be able to load straight away. He could have three loads out in an hour.

Of course there were risks, but he believed that he had reduced them to an absolute minimum. Even the fact that he had to operate more quickly than he had expected reduced one—the possibility that the waiting would begin to wear at his nerves.

Tomorrow ?

Or tonight ?

He could tell Gwen that he had a special offer of goods to inspect—that would be the simple truth. Suddenly, he burst out laughing. That was right: strike while the iron was hot! He had the suitcases, he had his car, he only needed false number plates to fit over the genuine ones, and the risk would be almost negligible once he got inside the premises.

It couldn’t fail.

*     *     *

It looked as if the fates were working with him, Payne thought exultantly, for rain began to fall about half past six that evening, and rain kept people in, while those who braved it did not look about them when they were out. He had telephoned Gwen, who had accepted the news without protest; she seldom protested, partly because he was not often out in the evening; she was always sure that whenever he was it was for a good reason.

He selected a car park not far from Anderson’s shop, to fix the false number plates, and had no difficulty. It was a little before eight o’clock when he turned off Kensington High Street into the side turning and the service road. Very little traffic was about; people were in the restaurants, in pictures and theatres or watching their television, for this was the dead hour of the evening. He drove carefully past the back of the well-lit public house and the off-licence, as carefully past a shoe shop and a little caf£, which was open. Then he reached the yard at the back of Anderson’s.

The whole place was in darkness.

“It’s just right,” he told himself aloud. “Everything’s going right.”

He left the car and went round to the front to try the door; he was not really surprised to find it was bolted. Just as well! He hurried round to the back again, and thrust the key into the back door. He felt it turn, and pushed the door. It hardly moved. God!

Why was it bolted back and front? It had never been in the old days until late at night, when everyone was in bed. It—

God!

Old Anderson was dead, Julian was in prison awaiting trial, so old Jennie lived here alone, scared out of her wits. She would see to the bolts. He ought to have realised that the place would be locked and bolted more securely than he had known it, but hadn’t given that a thought.

The silly old bitch !

It did not occur to him to blame himself, and he fumed at old Jennie as he stood with the rain hissing and splashing behind him, the sound of occasional cars in the street beyond the houses.

He couldn’t get in without breaking a window, and that meant making a noise.

He knew the old alarm system and how to get past it without attracting attention, but at last he woke up to the fact that the police or the trustees of old Anderson’s estate might have put in a new one. That was another thing he had overlooked; there would be trustees, the bank—the MidPro Bank with its branch just along the street. Banks always took excessive precautions. Other possible obstacles seemed to rise up in his mind. The people he had questioned might have been guessing, it was even possible that most of the stock had been taken away. Was there a night- watchman ? Was the shop being kept under observation ?

Sweating, he moved away from the door. No one appeared to be about, it was raining more heavily, and there was a shed with a tin roof on which the rain hissed and rattled. He reached the High Street. No one appeared for a full half minute, then several cars came along, lights shimmering on the wet road, and several pedestrians hurried. He saw nothing to suggest that the shop was being kept under surveillance, and when he came to think about it dispassionately, he realised that there was no reason why it should be : no one had been murdered here.

So that he could see into the doorways of the nearby shops on the same side of the road as Anderson’s, Payne crossed over. Then he saw the light at the third and top floor window, and realised Jennie was there, or else someone was in Jennie’s old room. He began to feel better. Why imagine that it would be anyone else? The old crow had lived there for fifty years, where else would she go ? He could picture her sitting up in her bed-sitting-room, with the television. The old man had bought her a twelve-inch television several years ago, and she sat huddled over its wriggly picture evening after evening. Payne had been there only now and again when he had been employed by Anderson, always with a message for the old woman.

If she was in, she could open the door, couldn’t she?

Would she ?

Why shouldn’t she? Payne reminded himself that there had been no violence here, and that the shop was locked and bolted back and front, there was no reason why Jennie should expect trouble, she would just be nervous.

Then an idea darted into Payne’s mind: why not telephone her, why not say he wanted to sec her? He was an old employee, she surely wouldn’t suspect him. He could say that he had heard that the shop was for sale, and he believed he had a buyer. He could even say that he had done so well that he was in the market for it himself! Of course, she would see him. That was the whole point—she would let him in because she knew and trusted him.

Of course, he couldn’t let her live, but—

What good did an old woman like that do herself or anyone else ?

He walked quickly through the teeming rain towards a telephone kiosk, and swore beneath his breath as his wet cuffs and wet coat made it difficult to get out the coppers he needed. But soon the number was ringing, and before long old Jennie answered.

10

COINCIDENCE?

 

“COME to the back door,” Jennie had said in her broad Scots, “and I’ll meet ye there.”

Payne waited for her.

It was five minutes since he had put down the receiver, and he could not understand why she had been so long. Because the raid had started badly, his mind was full of forebodings, and he was obsessed by them just as he had been by the advantages. Could Jennie possibly suspect his purpose ? Had she anyone else with her ? He had not asked, hoping to make sure that her suspicions weren’t aroused. Had she even telephoned the police ?

Why the devil should she ?

Payne began to shiver, only partly because of the cold. Then a car turned into the service road, its headlights on and dipped, and in a moment of awful fear he thought that this might be a police car. Could she have sent for them? The car came on, slowly. He could see the silvery streaks which the heavy, rain made against the headlamps. He could just make out the outline of the driver and a passenger, a man and a woman. The police wouldn’t come in courting couples, he told himself fiercely. The car came on, and passed very slowly; it stopped three or four shops along, out of sight. He heard the car door open, and then close with a bang; he thought he heard footsteps, but soon silence told him that someone had gone into one of the other shops.

He heard a creak behind him, and spun round. The door bolts were being drawn back. He waited tensely until the door opened a foot, and saw Jennie outlined against the dim light of the back staircase. He saw no one else. She wore a black shawl, and her grey hair was frizzy and wispy against the light A squall of rain blew in, and she said testily:

“Ma goodness me, man, come in oot of the rain.” She stood aside, and Payne went in, his wet raincoat brushing against her. “Man, ye’ll catch your death,” she said, in the half querulous, half complaining tone that she had often used, with old Anderson. “Why don’t ye take your coat and hat off and leave them doon here ?”

“Yes, I will,” said Payne. “Nice to see you again, Jennie.”

“I don’t know what ye’ve come for,” she said, more shrilly than before. “I’m not saying there’s any information I can give ye, Mr. Payne. Tae think ye’ve made enough money to consider buying Mr. Anderson’s own business!” There was a note of admiration in her voice, and Payne thought that he detected something else, a kind of craftiness. “I’d like tae feel it was owned by someone I knew,” she went on. “I’m too old a body to be thrown out to find somewhere else to live.”

So that was it! The old crone was thinking of her future, and eager to find out what he had in mind. It was difficult not to laugh. She walked slowly up the stairs, one step at a time; she had an arthritic hip, he knew, and he could hear it creaking with every step she took. Life was really a burden to her, and whoever took over the premises would not want an old cripple on their hands.

Payne said : “Don’t you get nervous, living here by yourself, Jennie ?”

“Och, what is there for an old body like me to be nairvous aboot?” she asked, and gave a cackle of laughter. “No one would want anything of me, would they now?” She was halfway up the first flight of stairs, and for the first time, Payne heard the television voices. “Is it for yourself you’re thinking of buying the business or are you acting for a thaird party ?”

Payne said : “It’s for myself.”

He was wondering : How shall I do it ?

He remembered how he had killed Alice, how easy it had been, how quick. It would be even easier with Jennie, because she was older and would not be able to put up any kind of fight. He had to shift that shawl, which would prevent him from getting a tight grip on her neck, but the ends might be pinned together under her chin, he couldn’t remember whether that was her custom or not. They reached the first landing, and Jennie stopped, grunting, and turned to look at him.

The shawl was not fastened; all he need do was to whip it of! when she turned her back on him again.

The television voices sounded louder.

Jennie went on towards the next, narrower flight of stairs, and started up them slowly; she was breathing more heavily, and did not attempt to talk.

They were halfway up the stairs when Payne snatched a corner of the shawl away, and bared her scraggy neck.

*     *     *

He could not stand the television voices.

He stepped over old Jennie’s body, and went up to her room. An electric fire was burning, both bars on, and the room was much hotter than she would ever have dared to keep it in Anderson’s days. The television was on too loud. The picture was blurred a little, but it showed a girl answering a question in some quiz programme. The girl reminded Payne of Alice Murray. He stretched out his gloved hand and turned the set off; the ensuing silence seemed to hum about his ears. He saw that Jennie had put out a whisky bottle, so she had been going to do the honours. He eyed the bottle longingly, and then promised himself aloud :

“Later.”

He went downstairs, climbed over the motionless body again, but when he reached the door leading to the shop and the strongroom he had forgotten old Jennie. It was going to be easy, all the difficulties were over. The keys turned smoothly, and the first door opened. Excitement held him taut for a few seconds, but he soon began to thaw. The strongroom door was as straightforward as he had hoped, because of the key which he owed to Alice.

The safes were easy to open with the old keys, too, and were crammed from top to bottom with all he had hoped to find; they had accumulated a huge stock. The only problem was to grade it, most of it was in a hopeless jumble. He told himself that this was due to Clayton’s inefficiency; with both the Andersons away, the manager was carrying on by himself, and he had always been a muddler.

Silly old fool.

Then Payne opened a safe which was in apple-pie order, and recognised the hand of Julian. Soon he realised that this was the valuable jewellery he had really come to find.

*     *     *

The job was over in an hour and twenty-five minutes from the time Payne had first parked the car at the back. He had filled the cases, and had destroyed the stock lists in the strongroom and in the little office—and no one was ever likely to be surprised, because everything else was in such confusion. Probably no one would ever be sure that there had been a stock list, and old Clayton would be blamed for losing it, anyhow.

The whole operation went just as smoothly as he had planned.

He closed and locked the back door, and drove back to Richmond Hill Road. He took out his ‘sample cases’ and carried them one at a time to the workshop, bent down and cleared away the oddments which covered the hiding-places, and put the stolen goods in there. He felt as sure as it was humanly possible to be that no one would dream of looking there—unless the police had some reason to suspect him.

Why should they ?

And even if they did, even if they ever found some of the jewellery, why should they think it was stolen? It was as near certain as could be that the records at Anderson’s place were poorly kept. The insurance cover was for overall value, seldom for specific items, and he knew that no single piece he had taken was worth more than a hundred pounds or so. Very few would have to be described for insurance purposes.

Within a day or two he could start selling to Benoni!

Now, he needed that drink.

It was still raining, and the wind was gusty and unpleasant. He went in by the back door, switched on the bright light of the kitchen, heard the television set going, hung his wet coat behind the back door to drain off, kicked off his wet shoes, and went on his stockinged feet towards the living-room. He heard Gwen say :

“Oh, why don’t you turn the rubbish off, and read a book or something ?”

“It’s jolly good, Mum,” Maurice protested.

He ought to be in bed, of course, but Payne was in no mood to act the heavy father. He banged a door, and strode into the living-room. Maurice jumped up from his chair, voice eager in spite of shadows beneath his eyes.

“Hallo, Dad! Mum said I could just stay up and see this Western.”

“And I’ve regretted it ever since,” declared Gwen. “Did you get very wet, Jack ?”

“Not too bad, but I’d better change my trousers,” Payne said, then clapped his hands together with a report which drowned the shots coming from the screen. He had to talk, he had to boast, he had to have their praise. “Turn that off, chaps, and gather around! Maurice, pour me out a whisky, and be sparing with the soda!” He saw the excitement in their eyes, Gwen’s especially, and went on with his arms spread out as if he were exhorting a crowd. “Believe it or not, I have just completed the biggest deal of my life!” As he said that, it was the most natural thing to look excited, to put the right note into his voice; and this was exactly what Gwen wanted to believe. He had not felt so good for years for both wife and son were already eager and excited. “I’ve been nursing the deal for weeks, and wasn’t sure it would come off,” he went on. “There was an old shop in Watford with a lot of stock, mostly Regency jewellery and some French baubles, and I knew that there was a big American buyer coming over from New York for that kind of junk. So I got ad option on the goods at a give-away price, the chap who owned them didn’t know the value of what he’d got! I paid him a fair price though, young Maurice, even though business is business. He wouldn’t have got any better from anywhere else, and I happened to have this inside knowledge. Anyhow, the Yank’s in England, he’s buying big, and without putting a penny of our savings down, I can make enough for the deposit on that new house!”

He saw radiance spring into Gwen’s eyes.

Maurice brought him the whisky and soda, but before handing it to him slapped him on the back.

“Marvellous, Pop! I always knew you’d make it.”

“It’s wonderful!” Hilda said.

“So you’ve really pulled it off,” Gwen said, and her quiet tone was a tribute in itself.

“I’ve pulled it off, and there’s plenty more of the same,” Payne said gloatingly, and downed his drink.

From now on, it was simply a matter of filling in the details, and none of the family was ever likely to question him closely about the deal. The whole thing was working out like a perfectly planned operation should.

When undressing that night he wondered when the police would find the old woman’s body.

*     *     *

Roger West stepped into his office the next day, a little after eight o’clock, early because there had been a bank robbery during the night and he had to check some of the fingerprints found at the scene of it. He worked solidly on the case until half past nine, eased off, ran through all the other reports on his desk, then glanced across at Cope, who was looking harassed and restless; before long he would tire of the indoor work, bad ankle or not.

“How about a cuppa, Jim?” Roger asked. “Shall we send for one ?”

“Mind if I hobble down and get one at the canteen ?” asked Cope. “I don’t mind your ugly dial, but sitting cooped up in one place gets on my wick. Don’t think I can stand it much longer.”

“What’s the latest report on the ankle?”

“They hope to take the plaster off next week,” Cope answered. “Shall I send a cup up to you ?”

“No—I’ll go down when you’re back,” Roger said. “What makes you think having an ankle in plaster is the only reason to hate being anchored to a desk?” He won a grin from Cope, and the burly man was in a better frame of mind when he went out. It was a pity about Cope; a Yard doctor had said that he doubted whether the ankle would ever stand up to heavy work again, and Cope had been one of the most active of men.

Roger was looking through the bank break details, so far as he yet had them, when the telephone bell rang, and Hardy, the Assistant Commissioner, said :

“Can you come and see me, Handsome ?”

‘Can you ?’ was rhetorical.

“Right away,” Roger said. He rang off, called the exchange to put his calls through to Hardy’s office, and went out briskly. Charley Fox was coming out of a sergeants’ office.

“Dry-cleaned that bank properly ?” Roger demanded.

“I will say one thing about banks, they keep the spit and polish on,” Fox retorted. “I’ll have a report ready by eleven o’clock. Can’t say I expect much for you.”

“Do the best you can,” Roger urged. He saw Fox lug the bag of a vacuum cleaner into the small room where he did most of the examination of the proceeds of his cleaning, then went along to Hardy’s office. Hardy was another heavily built man, rather quiet and sometimes aloof, who had come up from the ranks. He was not popular with everyone, but Roger had never had a serious clash with him, and rather liked what he knew of the man.

“Come in, Handsome,” Hardy said. He had on a new, well cut navy blue suit. His grey hair had just been cut very short and he had a fresh, scrubbed look. Roger thought: The Commissioner’s Conference; of course. It was a morning to pay deference. “Good morning, sir.”

“Got a funny one for you,” Hardy said. “Don’t remind me that you’ve got enough on your plate already, I know it. But if it’s necessary, hand that bank job over to Soames or McLiesh.” He paused, picking up a slip of memo paper, and Roger knew that whatever job he had in mind must be an important one; the Yard disliked switching its senior officers from one case to another. “Remember that old woman at Anderson’s flat ?”

Roger’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes. Jennie Campbell.”

“That’s right. Found on the stairs this morning—dead.”

“Not strangled.”

“Strangled.”

“Good God!”

“Funny turn up for the book, isn’t it?” Hardy remarked. “Could be coincidence, of course.”

Roger didn’t speak, but his mind was already beginning to race.

“Don’t you think so?” Hardy asked.

“Coincidence? Wouldn’t like to rule it out, but I want to see that body, quick,” Roger said. “Any of our chaps over there yet ?”

“No, only the Divisional people,” Hardy replied. “I told them you would be coming over. I suppose you want Fox,” he added, with one of those quick flashes of understanding which made him easy to work with. “Better take him.”

“Thanks,” Roger said gratefully. “I really ought to have the same team as with Alice Murray.”

“Prise ‘em away from other jobs if you can.”

“Thanks,” said Roger again. “Any other details ?”

“Thomas of the Division called me when you were over at the bank,” Hardy replied. “Just reported that he’d had a call from the shop, and he thought we ought to know pretty quick. Trying to wash his hands of this one, of course.”

“Suits us, sir,” said Roger.

There were mornings when Hardy would say ‘forget the sir’; this morning it bolstered up his ego. In a few minutes he would be with the other bigwigs, feeling rather out of place. Roger went out, striding, and looked into Fox’s cubby hole. Fox was peering at a little pile of dust which had been shaken out of the bag of the vacuum cleaner on to a sheet of white cardboard. He had a pair of eyebrow tweezers in his hand, and kept picking out small objects.

Roger let the door bang.

“That’s right, that’s right, let’s have an Atlantic gale in here so we can make a proper dust storm,” Fox said irritably. “Why the hell—oh.” He looked round. “Sorry, sir!” The change in his expression was comical.

“I’m the one to be sorry,” Roger said, grinning. “Cover that up with a windproof bag, will you ? I’ve got some real work for you.”

“Dunno that I like the sound of that,” Fox said. “What is it?” !

Roger told him.

“Well, you never know, do you ?” said Fox, heavily. He shook out a large polythene bag, and Roger held it open while Fox slid the sheet of cardboard with the pile of dust into it, then folded the end of the bag and sealed it; Fox was one of the most thorough men at the Yard. “I’ll go and get die vacuum cleaners,” he added. “Shall I meet you downstairs ?”

“How long will you be ?”

“Five minutes.”

“Downstairs, then.”

Roger called for a driver, collected his own case with his equipment, then hurried down to the canteen. He told Cope where he was going and what men he wanted to join him, and swallowed a cup of coffee. By the time he reached his car, both the driver and Fox were waiting; Fox with a large and a small vacuum cleaner and a box of envelopes, bottles and small jars. He got in the back with Roger, and within ten minutes they were at the shop. Being in the High Street, the police cars had aroused a lot of attention, and several policemen were on duty to make sure that the crowd did not encroach on to the roadway, and so hold up traffic. Their ‘pass along, please, please pass along’ seemed to have an edge to it. There must be a hundred people standing, staring and pushing. The Division had come to the front instead of the back—a bad tactical move, but probably there had been no way of avoiding it.

Roger went in, to find bald-headed Clayton, the manager of Anderson’s, standing with a Divisional D.I., and looking as if he would soon go the way of old Anderson; two girls were standing just inside the shop, too, obviously shocked.

Roger remembered that the shop, with its crowded shelves and show cases, had always looked untidy; now it was in a state of chaos, because there was no controlling hand.

“Where is she?” he asked the Divisional man.

“On the second flight of stairs, sir,” the man answered. “We thought it best not to move her.”

“How was she found ?”

“Mr. Clayton here—” the man began, but Clayton interrupted him with a wave of his hand, and spoke as if he were reciting blank verse.

“Every morning for twenty-five years Jennie’s brought me a cup of tea as soon as I arrive. Every morning for twenty- five years. She unbolts the front door and I always unlock it and get ready by nine o’clock, then she comes down with my cup of tea. She didn’t come down this morning, so I went to see if she was all right, and—and I found her lying there. I found her, dead.” He closed his eyes and raised his hands, the tips of the thin fingers pressed together. “There is a curse upon this place,” he declaimed. “There is the brand of Cain.”

Roger said: “I can imagine how you feel, Mr. Clayton. Take it easy for a while. You’re not opening the shop, I imagine ?”

“No, sir, I am certainly not opening the shop.”

“That’s very wise,” said Roger. “Look after him,” he added to the Divisional man, and then went up the stairs, seeing two plain-clothes men on the first landing. He hurried past, turned, and saw the old woman’s body. Except to make sure that she was dead, no one had touched it. From the landing ahead, a man was saying in a testy voice :

“Dammit, I haven’t got all day to wait. She’s dead and that’s all about it.”

“Sorry if I kept you, Doc,” said Roger, cheerfully. “Just wanted to know if you could solve it for me.”

“No need for your sarcasm, either.” Old Dammit said, but his annoyance was only superficial. “Do you believe in coincidence ?” he demanded.

Roger said : “Now what ?”

“Remember that the pressure against the right side of the wind pipe was greater than that on the left in the Murray girl case?” asked old Dammit. “Well, this time the pressure’s greater on the left. This woman was strangled from behind. Strangler probably left-handed. Not certain, mind you, but you ought to bear it in mind. Now I formally declare that life is extinct, and if you don’t mind I’ll go and see if I can do something for people who have a little time left in this wicked world.”

11

SIMILARITIES

 

“NOT much doubt that old Dammit’s right,” Fox remarked, as he and Roger straightened up from Jennie’s body. “Wonder if there are any other similarities.”

“If there are we’d better find ‘em quick,” Roger said. He glanced round at more Yard men who had arrived, some with measuring tapes and cameras. “You chaps get busy.” He went upstairs to the big room, with the old woman’s tiny bed in one corner, the chair facing the television and drawn up too closely, the whisky and the two glasses, hidden by the bottle. Roger bent down and sniffed the glasses, called Fox over, and said : “See if you can smell anything.”

Fox sniffed in turn.

“Now!,” he announced. He stood back and stared at the shining glasses and the whisky bottle with its screw cap still tightly on, and said: “See what that means, Skipper?”

“You tell me.”

“She knew who it was. She was expecting him, but he didn’t get this far for his drink.”

“Seems like it.”

“She went down to open the door for him, and he killed her as she led the way upstairs,” Fox continued. He rocked on his heels for a moment or two, and Roger went across to the television, breathed on and peered at the dialling knob, for prints. Then he went to the switch of the electric fire; his impression was these had been wiped off. “Skipper,” Fox went on, “we could be wrong about that left-handed business.”

“We could be wrong about most theories,” Roger retorted dryly. “Why this one, in particular?” He had seen why almost as soon as he had looked closely at the body and the position on the stairs, but he was anxious to let Fox have his head; the sergeant looked like a good candidate for early promotion.

“At Alice Murray’s flat, the man’s right side was against the bed panel, and his left was free. He’d press harder with a free arm,” Fox said. “The wall of the staircase here was against his right side—you can see that from the way the woman fell. The handrail’s on the right side going up, the woman would be clutching that—I’ve seen her hauling herself upstairs. So the killer would have to get his main grip on the side away from the wall—the right. He would have room to move on the left, but be cramped on the other.”

“Nice reasoning,” Roger approved. “Ta.”

“As far as I could see downstairs there must have been some pretty clear footprints,” Roger said, “and it looked as if the Divisional chaps covered them with some wood, we should be all right there. So get them and sec if they match up with anyone we knew in the Murray case. I’ll put Gill on to checking if there are any fingerprints which match up.”

“And I’ll get busy,” Fox promised.

It was an hour before Roger left the flat and staircase, and he was pondering over the real or apparent similarities between this murder and the Murray girl’s. Strangulation; uneven pressure of the hands; association with the same business and premises. He glanced in at the shop, to find Clayton standing and still talking in a drab, ceaseless monologue to the girls. Through the window Roger saw policemen moving the crowd on; some were attempting to get closer, to look inside. He went along to the cellar and the strongroom. Divisional men had been here, but they reported no signs of theft. Roger stood in the room, which was really a cellar, and saw the shelves piled with cheap jewellery and trinkets which hadn’t been cleaned for years. There were five tall safes, all securely locked. The floor was dusty, and he could see footprints clearly as if they had been damp, and had carried away some dust, but he doubted if any could be identified. He saw some spots, each about the size of a sixpence, leading in a trail from the door towards one of the safes. This was taller and newer than most of the others. He went down on one knee, opened his case, and took out a small magnifying glass. He studied the spots carefully, then stood up and called to one of the men :

“Get these covered, will you? They look like rain spots to me, and it was raining last night. Those footprints could have been made with wet boots or shoes, too. Then fetch old Clayton.”

Clayton came downstairs almost at once, and seemed eager to talk. In fact he talked so much that it was difficult to separate the real information from mournful words for words’ sake.

“There were two sets of keys, Mr. West,” he said. “One of them Mr. Anderson always had, and the other set was kept in the bank, just in case Mr. Anderson lost his, but it wasn’t very likely, it really wasn’t very likely at all. I was allowed to use the safe keys, but only Mr. Anderson or Mr. Julian had the strongroom door key, and they never let it out of their possession, I’m quite sure of that. Mr. Julian was in the process of sorting out the stock. I’m afraid that Mr. Anderson and I were rather over burdened with work and we had very little time for it, but Mr. Julian was a real worker . . . He used the new safe, the Cannor, that one over there.”

Clayton pointed to the safe by the spots.

“And who had the keys after Mr. Anderson died ?” Roger asked.

“Why, you know very well, I did,” answered Clayton with dignity. “I would guard them with my life, Mr. West. As a matter of fact I have a special arrangement with the bank. I drop the keys into the night safe just along the road, and at a quarter to nine every morning I call at the back door of the bank and get them. There is always an official on duty at eight o’clock, to get ready for the morning rush and to count the night safe deposits.”

“Did you collect the keys this morning ?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. West. No one could possibly get in here.”

Roger examined the handle of the safe closely, and began to feel uneasy, because the handle was unsmeared and probably free from prints. Surely the old man’s should be there. Without betraying his suspicions, he asked:

“Will you open that safe, please ?” and watched Clayton’s unsteady fingers as he thrust in the large, complicated key, and turned the lock. The safe was at least forty years old so the word ‘new’ was a euphemism, but of its kind it was a good one, and there were no signs that anyone had attempted to force it.

The door was very heavy, and he helped Clayton to pull It. So, he was the first to see that the shelves were empty.

“But that’s never been opened since Mr. Julian finished working on it,” Clayton cried. “I’ve never opened it!”

*     *     *

It was a routine matter to arrange with the Governor of Brixton Prison to release Julian Anderson in police custody. Roger waited at the shop for him, and it was a little after twelve o’clock when he arrived. By now, die press were there in force, someone exclaimed: “There’s Julian Anderson!” cameras flashed and there was a surge from the rear of the crowd. A reporter asked :

“Are they treating you all right in Brixton, Anderson?”

Julian didn’t speak. Police forced a lane between the people, and he stepped inside the shop. Roger was waiting, met him civilly enough, and took him down to the strongroom. The girls watched from the side doorway of the shop itself, as if in awe. Old Clayton was still downstairs, and as Julian entered he came forward and put out his hands. Julian gripped them. Roger watched the man soon to stand trial for Alice Murray’s murder very closely. Julian’s face was thinner, and he looked older; his body was thinner, too, and he did not look so immaculate in the suit which had once made him like a tailor’s dummy. He had acquired a kind of dignity, nevertheless. Roger had seen that before on people who were going through the rigours of awaiting trial for murder. ‘Tragic figure’ was still exactly the right description for him.

He let Clayton’s hands go, and turned to Roger.

“I understand that there has been a robbery here, Mr. West.”

“Yes,” Roger said, and pointed to the open door. “Can you tell me how much of value there was in this particular safe?”

Julian replied, very softly: “It was crammed full, there was no spare room. It contained at least twenty thousand pounds worth of the best antique jewellery in our possession. I had sorted it out and put it aside for a visit from a Mr. Goldstein, from New York—he is an important buyer of this kind of jewellery, and makes a yearly visit to London. It was crammed full, Mr. West.” Julian was beginning to feel the hurt, now. “It is a terrible loss, terrible.”

“Was there a list of its contents ?”

“There was one inside, and one in the office,” Julian answered, and drew in a sharp breath. “Haven’t you found the one in the office ?”

“Mr. Julian, it was there yesterday, I swear it was,” Clayton said. “I was looking for some old bills to see if I could make a reduction on a pair of earrings for a lady, and I actually saw it with my own eyes. But it isn’t there now.”

“Did you have a copy ?” asked Roger.

Julian Anderson answered, as if this new blow had defeated him: “No, I didn’t, God forgive me. I didn’t. I thought that two were enough, Mr. West. There seemed no reason why I should take a third.” He closed his eyes, and the lids were criss-crossed with little blue veins. “The goods were to be valued soon for insurance, at the moment there is only a single overall insurance cover, no special items were insured because none was of exceptional value.”

Huskily, he went on: “What is happening here, Mr. West? Why should this place be robbed ?”

“Possibly because the thieves knew that neither you nor your father had had time to make special arrangements, and it might have looked easy, with old Jennie here on her own,” Roger replied, and paused. He always seemed to be turning the screw on this man, and never liked doing it. He studied the pale face closely, and it was obvious that Julian was beginning to realise there was another shock to come. “Jennie was murdered, Mr. Anderson. Strangled. And she was strangled by somebody whom she knew. Can you supply a full list of her acquaintances?”

Julian stood absolutely still.

“Oh, dear God, dear God,” breathed Clayton.

There was nothing to read from Anderson’s expression except shock and grief. He pressed his pale hands to his forehead, and swallowed hard, then he answered in a voice that was barely audible :

“I think I can, Mr. West. I think I can.” A glint sparked into his eyes, and there was a firmer tone in his voice : “Mr. West—couldn’t this have been done by the same person ?” He didn’t add: ‘And if it was, then you know I didn’t kill Alice.’

“Why should the same person murder both Jennie and Miss Murray ?” demanded Roger.

Julian said, in that more eager voice :

“I’ve had a lot of time to think, Mr. West, and I realise that I haven’t long to save myself. I have been trying to imagine why anyone could conceivably want to kill Alice, and there is one possible motive. It wasn’t any use talking about it before because it looked like a wild guess, as nothing had been stolen. But now this has happened—” He broke off, raised his hands and clenched them, and there was a touch of colour on his pale cheeks. “Alice had access to all the keys! My father and I trusted her implicitly. Now if some man made up to her only to get hold of those keys, wouldn’t he want her dead once he got them ?”

He broke off, as if hope dazzled him.

“If there was such a man, we’ll find him,” Roger said.

*     *     *

He wished that he were on his own, driving back to the Yard, instead of with a driver and Fox, who was sitting be—’ side him. Fox had discovered little more, and was anxious to examine everything he had found more closely. Roger checked that nothing new had come in at his office, had a word with Cope, who seemed contented enough, went downstairs to the canteen for some sausages and mash and a steamed raisin pudding, then went back to see Fox. Fox had a dry-looking sandwich and an empty coffee cup on his bench; he would work night and day if necessary.

“What’s new ?” inquired Roger.

“Not a bloody thing,” answered Fox. “I’ve checked with Fingerprints, and the only dabs in that room were the old woman’s. Nothing on the glasses, the television or the door handle. No stranger’s prints anywhere, for that matter; our chap wore gloves. Can’t get a thing from the footprints, except a guess at the size of the man’s foot: he takes nines or tens.”

“Fairly large?”

“Large,” rejoined Fox. “Those spots you saw were probably rain spots. I’ve scraped some up and analysed the scrapings as far as I can—there doesn’t seem to be more than a speck or two of dirt from the cellar floor, and a tiny bit of metal—nothing that seemed to have been carried in on the man’s shoes. This joker’s no fool. If you ask me, our main hope is to find someone who saw him. Had anything in from the boys doing the knock-and-natter job ?”

“Can’t expect anything until this evening unless we get a lot of luck,” Roger said. “Found anything at all to link this up with the Murray girl ?”

“Only the pressure on the neck, the sex and the Anderson tie-in,” answered Fox.

Roger moved across to a section on a shelf marked : Alice

Murray. In boxes on the shelf were different exhibits which Fox had obtained—including the matches with prints, the quarter-pound chocolate boxes with the prints carefully preserved and a small plastic envelope with a label twice its size, marked : Steel Filings found on carpet in A.M.’s room. There was little doubt that someone had been in the room some time after working with a lathe, turning steel, that some of the filings had fallen on to his boots or shoes, lodged in the welts, and shaken off when he had moved about the room. Fox had made sure that these were analysed, and Roger read: Case-hardened mild steel, 18% chromium, 8% nickel, tensile strength about 40 tons per square inch.

“Charley,” Roger said, sharply.

“What’s that, Skipper?” Charley Fox was sorting through dust taken from the staircase at the Anderson place, and from old Jennie’s room.

“Know what is made of steel like this ?”

“Like what?” Fox turned his head; in profile, he was positively simian. “Oh, those. No, I can’t say—”

He broke off.

“Keys,” Roger said.

“Gawd!” breathed Fox.

“Keys,” Roger repeated. “And keys were used last night, although the only two sets known to be in existence were at that bank, one in its vaults and one in the night safe. So there’s a third set in existence. The set must have been made from impressions of the originals or from the originals themselves. Julian’s quite right, too—Alice Murray had access to them. How are the odds on coincidence ?”

“Getting longer,” Fox declared. “If only I could get one piece of iron filing at the shop, anything that would really tie the two jobs up.” He frowned, turned round to face Roger squarely, and said: “I don’t know that I like this job much, Mr. West.”

“I can’t say I do,” Roger concurred. “The circumstantial case against Julian Anderson is as strong as ever, but we could still have the wrong man.”

“Think the Public Prosecutor’s office would withdraw the charge if we told ‘em it was weaker than we thought?”

Roger said, slowly, thoughtfully: “It would be a hell of a job to persuade them to unless we could give very good reasons. The case is being built up on evidence we supplied, sound evidence, too. We haven’t found a thing to disprove any of it. It stands up just as well today as it did a month ago—and it will stand up just as well at the Old Bailey, if it gets that far. See what we’d be up against ?”

“Red tape !” Fox replied, disgustedly.

“Not just red tape,” Roger reasoned. “We’ve built up a case, and it’s a good one, because we thought we had the right man. Now we’re seeing it from the defendant’s angle of bias. All we’ve got to break it down is an uneasy feeling that we might be wrong. If we could get a tiny iron or steel filing to prove that the man who killed old Jennie killed that girl, it would be different.” He rubbed his chin, very slowly, and went on : “We could be wrong in sympathising with Julian Anderson, too. He could be working with someone else. He could have arranged for these keys to be cut. The fact that he was caught for the Murray girl’s murder doesn’t mean that he didn’t have an accomplice who is carrying on with the job.”

“The job being what ?” Fox demanded.

“Remember that when the Murray girl was killed, no one realised that old Anderson would die of a heart attack,” Roger pointed out. “This is a junk shop in some ways, there’s one overall insurance cover for thirty thousand pounds and little to prove the actual value of any goods stolen. Julian might be in the racket. It’s even possible that Julian and his father were planning to rob their own shop, or else that Julian planned to rob his own father. Alice might have discovered that, so his future would be at stake in case she talked. Julian would be pretty sick if he’d been forced to kill the girl he loved, and then discovered that the shock of the conspiracy killed the old man. He’d be the tragic figure all right.”

After a pause, Fox said: “I don’t know whether I feel any better or not.” He came over, and picked up the empty chocolate box which had a piece of transparent plastic fastened over the print, to preserve it; there was no real need for the photographs were in the files, but Fox always liked to keep the original evidence as long as possible. “If we could find the mate to that print we might get places. I’ve checked with Records until they hate the sight of me. Come across it one of these days, I daresay,” he added, and scowled. “I wonder if Julian is foxing us. You want to know something?” he added, and there was a gleam in his eyes. “I was one of the don’t-do-away-with-hanging boys, this is the first time I’m glad a chap convicted for murder isn’t always hanged. If Julian A. gets sent down for life, he could always get a Queen’s Pardon.”

“It’s a thought,” Roger said, and realised how heavily doubt weighed on the other man’s mind. He went back to the exhibits Fox was preparing on the Jennie murder, picked up the dust from the rain spot scrapings, and said:

“Sent any of this up to the lab for analysis ?”

“Yes.”

Roger peered at it, and after a long pause, went on :

“Send this up, too, Charley. Make sure we don’t slip up over a trifle.”

“Suits me,” Fox agreed.

Roger looked in at Anderson’s shop on the way home that evening. No other news had come in, not a single witness appeared to have seen anyone approach the front or the back of the shop the previous night; it had been too wet and windy for people to look about them much. Old Clayton wanted to close the shop for the next day or two, but said that his conscience worried him—if they stopped trading it might mean that the eventual buyer would pay less for the goodwill. No list was found of the stolen goods. Julian Anderson was helping to prepare a list of Jennie’s acquaintances, and Clayton was to check and add to it, but there was nothing very promising in that line of inquiry yet. Julian was also drawing up a list of the set pieces of jewellery which he could remember were in the safe; this was likely to be only a rough guide, but could be sent round to jewellers and dealers, as well as to police stations up and down the country; a single set piece found on the market might help them.

One trouble was, of course, that a lot of this kind of jewellery was sold abroad.

At home, before getting out of his car, he made a note: Check if any American buyers of antique jewellery are in London; the years were teaching him that it was not wise to rely on memory. It was about half past six when he got in, quite an early evening. There was no sign of the boys, but the radio was on, and Janet was upstairs, singing to keep it company. He called out and hurried up, and she met him at the door of the bedroom. One glance was enough to tell him that she was excited.

“Darling, I’ve been over the Montifiore’s house!” she greeted. “They are asking seven thousand five hundred, but Mrs. Monty said that she thinks her husband would come down a lot. It’s a wonderful place. We’d have to go all over London to find one better.”

“My sweet,” said Roger, “at seven thousand pounds or so, we’d have to! It’s no use loading ourselves up with expenses we can’t meet. Six thousand’s the absolute limit.”

“Oh, I know,” said Janet, quite casually. “It’s impossible at the price, but—well, if it doesn’t sell in the next few weeks, he’s bound to lower his price. Every time I pass the place I shall have my heart in my mouth, in case the For Sale board is down.”