Rolling Stone (19 page)

But at the moment, for all he knew, Louisa was cooking Sir John Morleigh's dinner and wondering whether she had said too much about Mrs. Simpson to Peter Talbot.

The car moved on, and stopped presently in a quiet, foggy street.

CHAPTER XXVII

Peter stood in a basement kitchen and heard the car recede.

They had come to a dark street where tall old houses rose like cliffs and were lost in the fog. And then down area steps, the driver going ahead and ringing a bell which could be heard giving a prolonged tinkle from somewhere inside the house. After an interval footsteps, and the door opening an inch or two upon the chain. A mutter from the driver, and he turned on his heel and was off up the steps to his taxi. The door swung wide, and Peter came in upon a dark, stuffy passage. There was a slam behind him, and the turning of a key in the lock. The man who had let him in went past him without a word, and through a half open door on the right.

Peter followed him into the lighted kitchen. He took stock of it now. A good-sized room lying to the front of the house below the street level. Two windows furnished with strong wooden shutters looked into the area. The shutters were closed. They had been painted, but the paint was scaling off. There was an old rusty range, a deal table, some wooden chairs, and two more of basketwork very down at heel, with padded backs and seats covered in a chintz whose pattern had long been lost beneath successive layers of dirt. A fire burned in the range, and the room was hot.

There were two men at the table, with a pack of cards between them and an unshaded electric light bulb overhead. The man who had let him in had his back to the door and was dropping into his chair again. A gentleman whom Peter had no difficulty in recognizing as the Bruiser stared at him out of small piggy eyes—a powerfully built hulk of a man with a pale, heavy face and a blank, bald forehead. Peter nought it must be a long time since he had been in the ring, and that he would be put to it to last a couple of rounds today, but he still had a fist like a ham and a formidable reach.

Then it was Jake who had let him in and who now turned to look at him out of a pair of bright, shifty eyes. Not a very likeable person Jake. Quick on his feet, quick with his hands, and quite possibly quick with a knife. Black eyes in a sallow, dirty face. Black hair, with a lock falling forward. Long, delicate fingers, and nails well rimmed with black.

Both men stared, and Peter gave them an indifferent nod.

“Spike Reilly,” he said, and went over to the fire. “One of you can go off now. Which is it going to be?”

Jake threw down his cards and got up.

“We tossed for it, and he lost,” he said. “Twelve hours on and twelve hours off—what a life!”

Peter stopped him.

“Just a minute. You've had your orders the same as I've had mine. No papers to be brought in—that's very particular.”

“That's all right.”

“What about food?” Peter threw back his head and laughed. “We're to be well fed—that's orders too.”

“O.K. There's enough in the larder. But we'll be dead if we eat our own cooking.” He took the door key out of his pocket and tossed it to the Bruiser.

“Come along and lock up after me,” he said.

The two men went out together. There was a whispering in the passage. The outer door banged. The sharp click of the lock came to Peter in the silence, and the rattle of the chain.

The Bruiser came back, sat down again at the table, and began to deal the cards. Presently he jerked his head in Peter's direction and said in a hoarse voice,

“Play?”

Peter said, “Presently. I'll take a look at the girl first. What's the lay-out?”

The big head jerked in the direction of the door.

Peter went out into the passage and along it. There was a locked door facing him. He had two keys tied together with a bit of string—the key of the girl's room and the key that locked her shutters. Neither of them fitted this door. The passage went on, and brought him to two more doors. The first was ajar—a lavatory with a dirty basin, a cracked piece of soap, and a grimy roller towel.

One of his keys fitted the last door. It opened, and he felt for and found the switch. The light poured down from the ceiling and showed him a small room with linoleum on the floor and a narrow iron bedstead against the farther wall. There was some bedding. Blankets and a couple of pillows. And Terry Clive, lying on her left side facing the door. She was still in her blue dress, but the hat had been thrown on to a chair, and they had taken off her coat and put it over her. It covered her to the waist. Her right arm lay outside it, the hand hanging downwards quite open and relaxed. Her bright curls were rumpled, her lips parted, her eyelids not quite closed. There was a glimmer of grey between the lashes. She had the pallor of very deep sleep, and the innocent, unguarded expression.

A cold, still anger came up in Peter as he looked at her. He put up his hand to the switch, but before he could pull it down Terry Clive had opened her eyes and was looking at him. He remembered her eyes—lovely eyes, wide and clear and candid. They stared at him without a trace of fear, but with the utmost surprise. Then she got up on her elbow.

“Who are you? What's this place? How did I get here? I was in a taxi talking to an old lady with a cough. I told her she oughtn't to be out. What happened? Where is she?”

“I don't know,” said Peter in his natural voice.

Terry sat up, pushed away her coat, and swung her feet down on to the floor. One hand went up to her tumbled hair.

“Will you please tell me what happened. I didn't faint—I've never fainted in my life.”

“No, you didn't faint.”

“How did I get here? Can't you tell me what happened?”

“You were brought here. Does your arm hurt you? She bruised it, didn't she?”

She looked at him. She was neither dazed nor confused. The look was steady and clear. She put her hand to her left elbow and felt it. Then she said,

“She caught hold of me. Why?”

“To run a hypodermic syringe into your arm.”

The colour came into Terry's face. Her chin lifted.

“Why?”

“To bring you here, Miss Clive.”

Something flickered in her eyes. She sprang up.

“Who are you? I've seen you before. You were in the garden at Heathacres. You had the pearls. I knew I'd heard your voice.”

“Well, that makes it all quite easy—doesn't it?” said Peter.

She opened her lips to speak, and was suddenly giddy. The floor tilted and sent her stumbling against Peter—stumbling, and catching at him for safety. His arm held her, and she heard him say from a long way off, “You'd better sit down. It's all right, you know—nothing to worry about.”

She found herself on the bed again, sitting with the pillows propping her, and an arm behind the pillows. The voice of the young man who had tried to steal Emily's pearls assured her again that there was nothing to worry about. Anger dispelled the last remnants of her dizziness. She sat right up and said in an indignant voice,

“I'm not in the least worried, thank you. I was just giddy. Anyone might be giddy if they'd been hypodermicked and—and kidnapped.”

Peter withdrew his arm and got up. Behind the sparkle in her eyes he thought he could discern a faint expectation. He thought, “She hopes I'll say she hasn't been kidnapped.” And what was the use? If he was to get her clear and run Maud Millicent Simpson down, he must play the gaoler and the bravo. He said,

“Well, that's reasonable enough.”

Terry looked at him. She couldn't believe her eyes, and yet she had to believe them. He didn't look like the sort of person who would drug you and kidnap you, but he did look like the man at Heathacres—the man who had had Emily's pearls. She wouldn't have been sure if it wasn't for his voice. And it was quite a nice voice too. What business had a drugging kidnapper to have a voice like that?

She rose to her feet, picked up her hat, and pulled it on. There was a cheap looking-glass on the rather battered chest of drawers beneath the shuttered window. Terry went over to it and stood there patting her hair into place and adjusting the brim of the hat. Her bag was lying in front of the glass. She opened it, took out powder-puff and compact, and tidied up her face, all with her back to Peter, and with the greatest appearance of unconcern. She might have been any girl who was getting ready to go out.

Peter watched her, and wondered what next. He thought he would hold his fire. But in the end she turned round, swooped up her coat from the bed, and said,

“And now I think I'll go home.”

He admired the assurance with which she said it, but he did not stand away from the door.

“I'm ready to go home,” said Terry Clive.

“Well, I'm afraid—”

“Please stand away from that door.”

Peter remained where he was, his hands in his pockets, a shoulder against the jamb. He saw her colour flame into brilliance.

“Did you hear what I said?”

He nodded.

“I'm afraid you don't understand the situation, Miss Clive. You were brought here for a purpose. I'm afraid you will have to stay here until my employers consider it safe to let you go.”

Terry went back a step, and said,

“What purpose?”

“Well, I rather gather you were thinking of having a heart-to-heart talk with the police. The idea is to prevent you having it. It's a pity you looked out of your window, and it's a pity you didn't hold your tongue about it. As it is—well, there you have it.”

Terry went back as far as the bed and let her coat fall.

“You mean to keep me here?”

He could admire the way she took it, head up and colour bright. He nodded and said,

“You'd better get this straight. It's no use your thinking you can get round me, because you can't. And it's no use your thinking you can get away, because you can't do that either. If I wanted to let you out I couldn't. There's another man on guard with me, and he has the key of the outer door. He's a very rough customer, and you'd better keep clear of him. I've got the key of your room, and I'll see that he doesn't bother you. You'll be well treated. I don't want to lock you in except at night. There's a wash-place next door you can use. I'll go along now and get you something to eat.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

Peter Talbot was not given to having sleepless nights, but that night he lay awake and watched the dying glow from the range and wondered whether a bigger fool than he had ever walked into a more obvious trap, and wondered how he was going to get out of it, and how he was going to get Terry Clive out of it. Here he was, bedded down for the night on a mattress against the kitchen wall, his feet half across the door which gave upon the passage. This was Terry dive's security. The Bruiser couldn't open that door without waking him—he could bank on that. But the door was locked, and the key was in the Bruiser's pocket together with the key of the outside door and the key that locked the shutters front and back.

The keys were in the Bruiser's pocket, and the Bruiser was sleeping noisily on a twin mattress to Peter's on the farther side of the kitchen. His snores mingled with those of a fine bull-terrier which he had brought in from the yard before he went to bed. This and the removal of his boots were the only preparations he made. Now the blankets covered him and the bull-terrier snuffled at his feet. But whereas the man might not have waked to the touch of a very careful hand feeling for his keys, the dog certainly would. Every time Peter turned, the snuffle dropped to a whisper. When a coal fell in the fire the white head came up, an eye gleamed from the pink skin which surrounded it. When Peter rose and crossed the floor the lips drew back to show white teeth and firm pink gums, and a warning thrum came from the muscular throat. If he was any judge of dogs, he had about as much chance of getting those keys as he had of mounting the kitchen poker and flying up the chimney. Whoever had organized this show—and he supposed it was Maud Millicent Simpson—deserved full marks for ingenuity. He was a check on the Bruiser, and the Bruiser was a check on him. The unpleasant word check-mate peeped from the shadows of his mind and was sworn at for an intruder. Maud Millicent undoubtedly knew her job. She wouldn't have lasted all these years at it if she hadn't.

Peter went over the whole lay-out, and found it discouraging. There was the kitchen with its two windows on to the area, shuttered now and barred behind the shutters. Beyond the kitchen a large scullery, a coal-cellar, the larder, and a door leading into the yard. The scullery had a window over the sink, the larder had a small square window high in the wall, and the coal-cellar had nothing but a grating about eight inches square. The scullery window was barred and had a shutter which locked. The back door, like the area door, had a heavy lock, and was further secured by a chain and padlock. All the bars were sound and good, and all the locks were strong. He judged it quite impossible to open them by force, to pick the locks or file the bars, without rousing the bull terrier. His name was Alf, and Peter would have liked him a good deal if they had met in less difficult circumstances. But for the moment they were in opposite camps.

Not for the first time, Peter felt the handicap of not being a criminal. He had a pistol in his pocket. He could shoot Alf and the Bruiser as they slept and get away at his leisure. As far as possibilities go he could, but when it came to actualities, he couldn't. It needs practice and a considerable induration of the heart and mind to be able to kill in cold blood. Peter lacked these qualifications. It would have given him a good deal of pleasure to knock the Bruiser out—his conversation, though sparse, had been disgusting. He would have liked to make friends with Alf. But, friend or enemy, he didn't see his way to doing murder.

He thought how much more comfortable things would be if Frank Garrett knew where he was, or even if he had any idea of his own whereabouts. He might be almost anywhere on the tape-map. They had driven for the best part of half an hour. You can get a long way in half an hour, or you can drive round and round and come back to very much where you started.