Red Shadow (28 page)

The hand pressed on the glass—the palm of it and three finger tips. The face did not touch the pane, but appeared to float in the thick air like a pale shadow. Jim stared down at it and saw the eyes gazing and the lips parted. They looked dark; the rest pale and very nearly formless. The hair on the nape of his neck stood up and a cold finger touched his spine. Then, as the silence in the room behind him broke in a torrent of Russian oaths, the hand left the glass and went with a quick movement to the dark lips, pressing them—pressing.

With a jerk of the pulses, Jim became aware that it was Cissie Stark who stood there with nothing but the thickness of a sheet of glass between them. Then, even as he recognized her, she was gone, swallowed up by the fog.

Had she seen him? Impossible to say. He had seen her. Why was she there, and what did she want? There was an easy answer to this—she didn't trust Vassili, and wanted to know what he was up to.

He dismissed Cissie Stark and her affairs. He had got to make up his mind what he was going to do. The odds were hopelessly against him here. Suppose he were to wait for Alec Stevens by his car..… He would have a good chance of catching him off his guard. Well, now was the time to get away, with Vassili making the father and mother of a row in the room behind. He blessed the inventor of casement windows, and took hold of the catch. And on that there came a lull, and Alec Stevens speaking in a tone of pleasant mockery.

“Well, well—what an exhibition! It must really be very uncomfortable to have a temper like yours. I expect you find it quite a relief to let it go for once.”

“What are you going to do?” said Vassili in a voice of rage.

Alec Stevens laughed.

“I am going to collect on the Sanquhar invention. I told you that before.”

At the curse that followed he laughed again, and as he did so, a loud and prolonged knocking resounded through the house.

Jim stood rigid behind the curtain, one hand on the latch.

Vassili stopped short in the midst of a pungent phrase and said sharply,

“What's that?”

Alec Stevens said in a careless voice,

“Quite possibly the police.” He spoke in English as he had done throughout.

“The police!”

“What it is to have a guilty conscience! Why should you be afraid of the police? You're in your own house, aren't you?”

The knocker fell again insistently.

“You think it is the police?” said Vassili. The wild beast anger was gone; he used a hesitating tone.

“You'd better go and see.”

“I?”

“Certainly. You are the tenant, are you not? Come on, man, pull yourself together! They won't eat you.”

Whilst they were speaking, Jim's hand moved with the moving latch. As a final burst of knocking made Vassili exclaim, the catch came clear. He had only to push the window and his way was before him. He heard Vassili go out, leaving the door open. And on that the sound of Alec Stevens crossing the floor and the noise of the slammed door. Back in the room something clicked as he swung the window wide. The smell of the fog came into his nose and throat. He put one knee on the window-ledge, and was drawing up the other, when the curtain rings clattered overhead and in a glare of light something cold pressed hard upon his neck, A hand with an iron grip took his shoulder. Alec Stevens said pleasantly,

“Hands up, Mackenzie! I've got you cold.”

If the window had been a wider one, he would have risked the forward plunge, but with the narrow casement there wasn't a chance. He stuck up his hands.

“Now step back!” said Alec Stevens—“three paces! No—keep away from the window!” He drew the curtain close and stood before it, pistol in hand, frowning a little.

“You're damned inconvenient, you know,” he said, and then stopped to listen to the wrangle of voices in the hall. “What am I going to do with you?” he went on after a moment. “Of course, there are the police. You could probably be run in for burglary, or at any-rate breaking and entering—I suppose you did break and enter. No—you'd better go on keeping your hands up.”

“It would be a very interesting job for the police,” said Jim. Then he laughed. “There's the telephone. Why don't you get a move on? You can charge me with burglary—and Vassili can charge you with pinching his pocket-book—and I can get in a piece about some one who pinched my charwoman's latch-key and broke open my dispatch-box. Unfortunate for you, meeting Kennedy Jackson like that on the stair—he'll be a valuable witness.”

The handle of the door turned, but the door did not open.

Alec Stevens did not look round. He kept his pistol hand steady and his eyes on Jim. Only the contraction of the pupils gave away the fact that he was under a strain. He raised his voice and said easily enough,

“That door is locked, Vassili.”

It was most violently shaken.

“Open it! Open it! Do you hear me?”

“Presently.”

“At once! Do you hear me? I say at once, or I break in!”

Alec Stevens's predicament was plain. He had robbed Vassili, and he had robbed Jim. If they made common cause against him, he could scarcely hope to get away. He might, of course, shoot Jim; in which case Vassili would be equally interested with himself in hushing the matter up. He might..… Jim saw the thought in his eyes as Vassili beat again upon the door. Should he rush him and chance a miss?

As he drew himself together for a desperate spring, the danger was past. Alec Stevens reached for the writing-table drawer and, jerking it open, caught up the pocket-book containing the five-pound note and slipped it into his breast pocket. As he took a long step backwards, the door splintered under a furious kick. One panel gave, but the lock held. Vassili shouted, and a woman screamed. Alec Stevens took another backward step, looking only at Jim and keeping that steady aim. Then, as the door gave with a rending crash, he threw up his hand and shot out the light. The violence of the report, the splintering of glass, a smell of powder and Cissie's piercing scream exploded together, and immediately there was a confused darkness, with the hall light showing through the doorway. The smashed door swung drunkenly. Cissie screamed again, and Vassili came into the room with a rush.

Jim had not waited for him. As the light went out, he sprang for the window and, with his knee on the sill, heard Alec Stevens's laugh and the sound of running feet. He dropped on to the earth of a flower bed, blundered into what must have been the kitchen wall, and had to feel his way along it with the noise of angry voices following him through the open window. The wall turned, and he with it. His feet were on the brick pavement. Suddenly he remembered that there would be no need for him to climb the wall; he could skirt the house and go out by the front gate. Vassili would scarcely have stayed to lock it.

The fog was thicker than ever. He kept by the wall of the house, and when he could feel gravel under his feet he turned and went groping down to the gate. The solid oak door was ajar. He pulled it open, took a forward step, and ran into a woman in the dark. Her hands closed on his arm. She pressed against him, breathing in a quick sobbing way, whilst a scent of violets came warmly up from her soft furs.

“Mr Jim—” said Cissie's voice, tripping over a caught breath.

“What is it?”

“Oh, Mr Jim!”

He said, “Let me go;” but she pressed closer, throwing her weight on his shoulder.

“Take me with you! I'm afraid.”

He began to hurry her along towards the car.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don't know. I'm afraid he'll kill me.”

Jim frowned in the darkness. What a damned nuisance women were.

“I could take you to Stark. What's his address? He's moved, hasn't he?”

“26 Rolling's Court, Mornington Road,” she said. Then as they reached the car, she added quickly, “But I can't come.”

“I can't wait,” said Jim bluntly.

She held on to his arm.

“What's it all about? I came because I wanted to know what Vassili was up to. And he's mad—right down mad. But all the same I'd better get back. It's Sasha he's mad with really, not me—at least——”

“Come along to Stark.”

“No—I can't. I'm all right really. I didn't bargain for the shooting—that's all.” She giggled suddenly. “I thought we'd have the neighbours in, but it don't seem to run to any. Cheery sort of spot, I don't think I Well, so long!”

She came nearer, kissed him on the cheek, laughed rather unsteadily, and was gone.

Leeming Lane was full of fog from end to end. Jim started the car, and crawled. The open windscreen let the raw thick air into his eyes and his throat. Somewhere ahead of him Alec Stevens must be crawling too. He wondered whether he would finish the evening by bumping into him. And then he wondered how on earth either of them were going to get anywhere unless the fog lifted. He remembered that the lane took an S-shaped curve about fifty yards beyond. The Walled House, but he had almost touched the paling on the left before he realized that the curve had begun. Another crawl, another near shave, a violent bump over something that felt like a paving stone; and then after twenty or thirty yards a sudden and most welcome rift in the fog. Five minutes later he was on the main road, and the fog no more than a light mist. It was a most tremendous relief to be able to move again.

He had no idea which way Alec Stevens had gone, and didn't intend to waste any time looking for him; he felt perfectly clear about that. What he had to do was to find Eliza Huggins and tell her straight out what had happened—and to find Eliza Huggins he must get hold of Stark. It was tolerably certain that Bertram Hallingdon would have provided for his old servants, and in that case Stark would be able to lay hands on the address. He might even remember it off hand—he had that sort of memory.

Mornington Road is N.W.—a long road, full of dingy shops. Rolling's Court is the third turning on the left. Jim pulled up in front of No. 26 and rang the bell. There was a considerable delay before a depressed-looking middle-aged woman opened the door. She had a long face and thin hair scratched together with aggressive black hairpins. She wore an overall of faded chintz with a magenta pattern. She said that Stark was out, and that she didn't know when he would be back, and with that made to close the door.

“You can't give me any idea where he's likely to be?”

“No, I couldn't really.” She paused, rubbed her nose, and added, “Unless he's down, at the club.”

“What club?” said Jim quickly.

“There's a good many of them goes there, and I don't say there's any harm in it——”

“If you would kindly give me the address—” said Jim.

“And of course there's no saying whether he'll be there or no, and so I told the other gentleman.”

“What other gentleman?”

“Come to the door and asked for Mr Stark same as you did, and I'd no more than got down the stairs—scarcely turned round, as you might say—when I heard the bell go again.”

Jim got the address in the end—the address, and the knowledge that Alec Stevens was also looking for Stark.

He found the club easily enough, inquired for Stark, and was presently asked to “step this way.” He followed his guide into a room thick with smoke, where a game of billiards was in progress and about twice as many men as the room was meant to hold were looking on and betting on the play. It took him a minute or two to discover Stark, and more than that to make his way to him. When he touched him on the arm, Stark turned round with a kind of nervous impatience, but when he saw who had touched him, his jaw fell and he went green.

“Evening, Stark. Did you think I was Stevens?” said Jim, a little grimly.

Stark's jaw stayed dropped.

“Mr J-Jim!” he said at last.

“Yes—not Alec Stevens. I suppose you thought he'd come back.”

“Comeback?”

“Yes, come back. You needn't bother to lie, because I know he's been here, I also know what he wanted—Eliza Huggins's address. I want it too,”

As soon as Stark turned, he lost his place by the table. By the time he and Jim had exchanged a couple of sentences he had been squeezed out to the edge of the crowd. Jim took him by the arm and walked him into the passage.

“I want Eliza Huggins's address. You've just given it to Alec Stevens, haven't you? Well, now you can give it to me—and I'm in a hurry.”

The perspiration shone on Stark's pale forehead.

“I—Mr Jim—we're not allowed to give addresses—I'd get the sack.”

“Cut the cackle, Stark! I want that address. It's worth a tenner to me, and I haven't got time to talk about it.” He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a thin crackling note. “Here's the tenner. Now, what's the address?”

Stark looked at the note, looked at Jim, ran his tongue over his lips, and said,

“3 Laburnum Cottages, Smayle, near Exeter.”

Jim laughed out loud.

“What—all the way back again?” Then he gave Stark the note, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Buck up! You're not dead yet, but you'd better be, if there's any hanky-panky about that address.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

Eliza Huggins had been trained for service in the days when early rising was early rising. She had her own opinion about girls who lay in bed till seven or even later—“Reading novels when they did ought to be sleeping, and sleeping when they did ought to be doing their work!” In her honourable retirement Eliza breakfasted at eight sharp; and she did not breakfast until her stove had been blackleaded, and her kitchen brought to the highest possible pitch of shining cleanliness and order.

As her clock struck the hour, she sat down to a table spread with a spotless cloth and partook of two rashers of bacon, two rounds from the loaf, a large pat of fresh butter, and two cups of very strong tea. She ate slowly, savouring her food and enjoying it. Her bulky old-fashioned figure was encased in a tight dress of lilac print made after the manner of her youth with innumerable gussets and a long full skirt. Her very abundant dark hair, which scarcely showed a thread of grey, was parted in the middle and done in a large knob at the back of her head. She had so much of it that it stood out on either side of her broad fleshy face and made her head look very big. But if her head was big, her shoulders were immense. She had been heard to thank God that she was not as other women were—“They haven't got no busts, and they haven't got no hips, and they haven't got no waists, and what the world's coming to, I don't know and I shouldn't like to say.”