Comes the Dark Stranger (7 page)

Shane shook his head and moved across to the door of his room.

‘I’ll be all right when I’ve had some sleep,’ he said. ‘I’m rather tired - that’s all.’

He closed the door of his room and stood with his back to it and waited, but there was no sound and only the quiet shadows waited for him in the corners of the room. He went and sat on the edge of the bed and smoked a cigarette, his head spinning. There had to be a rational explanation because if for one moment he dared to admit to the possibility that he had imagined the whole thing, he was lost.

He drew the smoke deep into his lungs and tried to steady himself. All that was needed was someone with a key to the attic door. Someone who was interested in frightening him away or in driving him insane, perhaps. Whoever it was would have had ample time to leave the attics while he had gone down to the hall for the porter.

He went out into the corridor and moved along to the end. He tried the door to the attics again, but it was securely locked. There was another door behind him and he opened it and discovered a dark flight of stairs which he descended quickly.

A stale smell of cooking rose to greet him and somewhere along a dimly lit passage he heard voices and the clatter of pans. A door faced him and when he opened it he looked out into the alley at the side of the hotel. He closed the door again and went back upstairs, his mind working furiously.

It had to be someone he had met that day, someone who wanted to frighten him because they themselves were afraid. And then he remembered Adam Crowther. He had certainly lied about his association with Steele and if he had nothing to hide, why had he so deliberately avoided a meeting outside the Garland Club?

For a little while longer Shane stood just inside his room, a frown wrinkling his brow as he thought about the whole thing and then he came to a sudden decision and reached for his trench-coat. A moment later he closed the door behind him and went quickly downstairs.

To save time he took a cab from a rank in the centre of the town. Crowther’s address was in a quiet residential district not far from the university, and Shane told the driver to stop at the end of the street and walked the rest of the way, his collar pulled up against the rain.

The place he was looking for turned out to be a bungalow, a modern Canadian-style place in mellow brick, pine board, and rough stone. It was sandwiched in between two large town houses in grey stone, each standing remotely in a sea of smooth lawns and flower-beds.

Shane walked slowly up the drive and mounted a flight of shallow steps to the porch. He pressed the bell-push and waited. After a moment the porch was flooded with light. Out of the corner of one eye he became aware of a movement in the window of the lounge. A curtain fluttered, and as he turned his head a figure drew back into the darkness of the room and a hand twitched the curtain back into place.

He waited for the door to open, but nothing happened. After a while he pressed the bell-push again, keeping his finger on the button, and the shrill clangour echoed through the house. A moment later he heard steps approaching and the door opened.

A pleasant, dark-haired young woman with candid grey eyes and a firm mouth looked out at him inquiringly. ‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Mrs Crowther?’ Shane said, and when she nodded went on, ‘My name is Shane - Martin Shane. I’m an old friend of your husband’s. I wonder if I might speak to him?’

She hesitated, and a slight frown appeared on her face.

‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible, Mr Shane,’ she said. ‘Adam came home from the university this evening with a temperature, and went straight to bed. He’s sound asleep at the moment.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Shane told her. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘Oh, no,’ she said hastily. ‘A touch of flu, I think.’ She pushed back a tendril of dark hair with one hand. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, Mr Shane. Perhaps if you were to phone Adam at his office in two or three days. He might be all right then.’ She sounded genuinely sorry.

Shane smiled at her. ‘Yes, I think I’ll do that, Mrs Crowther. Give Adam my regards, and tell him I’ll be getting in touch with him.’

He went down the steps quickly, and walked towards the gate. When he reached it he looked back. She was still standing on the porch, gazing after him, but as he started to walk away she went inside, and a moment later the porch light went out.

Shane stood in the shadow of the garden wall for two or three minutes, and then he went back up to the bungalow, walking on the grass verge. The woman had been lying, he was certain of that. Not only did Adam Crowther not want to speak to him, he wanted it to appear that he hadn’t left home all evening, and for that he had to have a reason.

Shane crossed quickly to the flat-roofed brick garage which stood at one side of the bungalow. The door was unlocked, and he opened it quickly and went inside. He struck a match and held it above his head. Crowther’s car stood before him, a small dark saloon, and it was still wet from the rain.

As the match extinguished itself Shane turned and went back outside. That settled it. It had been Crowther he had seen leaving the Garland Club.

He went round the side of the house. The kitchen was in darkness, but the rear door opened to his touch and he passed inside. He stood listening intently, and faintly from somewhere at the front of the house he could hear voices. He went forward cautiously, and passed along a narrow corridor which emptied into the hall. Light showed beneath the crack at the bottom of a door on his left-hand side, and he went closer and listened.

Crowther and his wife were arguing about something. She was pleading with him, her voice low and desperate. It was impossible to tell what they were saying, but suddenly Crowther said ‘No!’ very loudly. There was a sudden unexpected movement, and the door was flung open and Mrs Crowther appeared.

As she saw Shane she raised a hand to her mouth and screamed. Shane pushed her gently back into the room, and moved after her, closing the door behind him.

Adam Crowther was standing by the fire-place filling his pipe from an old leather pouch. He stared at Shane in astonishment, and then anger appeared on his face. He dropped the pipe on to a small coffee-table, and came forward, fists clenched. ‘I’ll give you about ten seconds to get out of here,’ he said.

Shane leaned against the door and regarded him calmly. ‘Not until I’ve had some answers,’ he said. ‘Such as why your wife just lied to me.’

Crowther paused a few feet away. ‘I didn’t want to speak to you again. I should have thought that would have been sufficiently obvious.’

‘Is that why you wouldn’t stop to talk to me when I saw you outside the Garland Club?’ Shane said.

Crowther frowned. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Shane shook his head. ‘You’re lying, Crowther, just as you were lying this afternoon when you told me you and Steele weren’t friends. You visited him tonight at the Garland Club.’

‘You must be out of your head.’ Crowther laughed contemptuously. ‘I haven’t been out of the house all night.’

‘You visited Steele at the Garland Club,’ Shane said calmly. ‘Afterwards you went to my hotel and tried to frighten the life out of me. But you tried that on earlier today, didn’t you, Crowther? You followed me all over town dragging that blasted foot of yours, trying to make me think it was someone else.’

There was a moment of stillness as he looked searchingly into the other man’s eyes, and then Crowther said quietly. ‘What are you afraid of, Shane? Who did you think was following you in the fog?’

Cold sweat sprang in great beads to Shane’s face. ‘Colonel Li,’ he whispered hoarsely.

Crowther shook his head. ‘But he died a long time ago, Shane. A very long time ago.’ He smiled gently. ‘You need a doctor, my friend.’

A sudden cold terror moved inside Shane, and his hands started to tremble. ‘It was you,’ he said. ‘It has to be you.’

Mrs Crowther moved forward quickly and laid a hand on his sleeve. There was something close to pity in her eyes as she gazed up at him and shook her head. ‘But my husband is telling the truth, Mr Shane,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t been out of this house all night.’

For a moment Shane looked down into those candid grey eyes, a sudden emptiness inside him, and then he remembered. He gripped her arm and pulled her close. ‘But I’ve been into the garage,’ he said. ‘I’ve checked the car. It’s still wet from the rain. You forgot about that.’

She moaned suddenly, and beat at his chest with her free hand. ‘My arm, you’re hurting my arm.’

As Crowther started forward with a roar of rage, Shane flung the woman to one side and went to meet him. He ducked under Crowther’s arm, and then turned and pushed him solidly in the back so the other man staggered wildly across the room, his hands clawing at an old-fashioned mahogany desk to keep his balance.

As Shane went towards him Crowther moved quickly round to the other side of the desk, and jerked open a drawer. His hand scrabbled wildly amongst a pile of documents, and when it came out he was holding a .38 Webley revolver.

Shane took a deep breath, and stopped dead in his tracks. ‘You got a licence for that?’ he said softly.

Crowther held the revolver steady, and there was a quiet desperation in his eyes. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here before this thing goes off.’

Mrs Crowther gave a sudden gasp and came forward quickly. She touched Shane on the arm and said pleadingly. ‘Please go now. Please go before he does something we’ll all regret.’

For a little while Shane looked down into her frightened face, and then he walked slowly across the room and out into the hall. She opened the door for him and he moved out on to the porch. When he turned, Crowther was standing in the hall, the revolver hanging limply from his right hand. He said deliberately, ‘Don’t come back, Shane. Don’t ever come back. Get out of Burnham.’

For a long moment they looked into each other’s eyes, and then Shane turned away and walked down towards the gate, and behind him the woman started to cry.

The sound of that crying seemed to pursue him all the way back to the hotel, and when he reached his room he sat on the edge of the bed, his head spinning, so that he could not make sense of any of it.

He lit a cigarette and lay back against the pillows, staring up into the darkness, and after a while there was a light tap at the door and he ran his fingers through his hair and got to his feet. When he opened the door, Laura Faulkner was standing there.

He stood to one side, and she walked past him into the room. He closed the door and said, ‘How did you find me?’

She shrugged. ‘It was easy. I worked my way through the classified directory, telephoning each hotel in turn.’

He frowned. ‘You must have wanted to see me pretty badly.’

‘I was worried about you,’ she said. ‘Especially after that phone call this afternoon.’

He laughed lightly. ‘It didn’t mean a thing. I thought I saw you in town, that’s all, and I wanted to make sure.’

She was wearing a loose, open coat over a black cocktail dress that moulded her exquisite figure. Her dark hair hung down to her shoulders, framing the lovely face and she had brought a faint trace of delicate perfume into the room that set his nerves tingling.

‘Who’s looking after your father?’ he said. ‘Or is he fit to be left on his own?’

She shook her head. ‘I arrange for the cleaning woman to come in if I want to go out. She’s very dependable. I was supposed to go to a party at a friend’s house tonight, but I changed my mind.’

‘Because of me?’ Shane said.

‘Because of you.’

There was a moment of fragile stillness between them, and she seemed to sway towards him, and then there was a sudden excited whining at the door and a scratching sound.

She laughed lightly. ‘Oh, damn that dog. I left him to look after the car.’

She opened the door, and the Dobermann slipped into the room like a black shadow and sniffed suspiciously at Shane’s shoes before going to his mistress.

For some inexplicable reason Shane felt alive again. He reached for his jacket, and said, ‘It seems I’ve spoilt your evening. Is there anywhere reasonable you’d like to go for a drink and a dance perhaps?’

She smiled warmly. I’d like that. ‘I’d like that a lot.’ She appeared to think for a moment and nodded her head. ‘I know just the place. It’s a roadhouse about five miles out of town. It’s always nice and quiet during the week.’

‘Sounds just what I need,’ he said, and pulled on his trench-coat.

He opened the door and stood to one side to let her pass. She paused in front of him, a strange expression on her face, and lightly touched the bulge under his jacket that was the butt of his Luger. ‘Do we really need that with us?’

For a moment he hesitated, and then he went back into the room and slipped the Luger under his pillow. When he returned she smiled and slipped a hand through his arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. He locked the door and they went downstairs.

Visibility was still very bad, and she drove slowly and carefully on the road out of town. The car was a small coupé and far from new, but the engine pulled well; and when they had climbed the hill out of the valley in which the town lay, the fog was thinner and visibility much improved.

The red glow from a neon sign indicated the roadhouse long before they reached it. It was a low, rambling building with a large car park at one side, and Laura Faulkner turned the car through the gates and halted. ‘What about the dog?’ Shane asked.

She smiled. ‘I’ll leave him in the car. We can’t stay long anyway. I’ve got to be back home no later than midnight.’

There were no more than a dozen couples dancing on the small floor when they went inside. A waiter showed them to a corner table, and Shane ordered two Martinis. When the drinks came he gave the girl a cigarette and sighed. ‘This is nice. Very nice. It’s a hell of a long time since I last did anything like this.’

She gently slid one of her hands over his. ‘You look tired.’

He nodded. ‘I’ve had a hard day.’

A shadow passed across her face. ‘Have you - have you seen anybody?’