by John Creasey
Rollison banged heavily against the wall. His right hand was already at his pocket, and he fired along the hall. He did not know whether he had scored a hit, but as he peered cautiously into the hall, the man had disappeared. Danny was muttering and trying to get up.
“Keep down!” Rollison ordered.
Danny flopped out again. A bullet struck the wall; apparently their attacker had taken shelter behind a door. Rollison went forward cautiously, and saw another flash. The other man was using a silencer, for only a soft, sneezing sound came.
Rollison said: “Squirm back, Danny. Keep this door open, show yourself now and again, but don’t stay in sight too long.”
Danny, reaching him, muttered: “What the hell’s going on?”
Another bullet hit the wall, and Danny seemed to realise for the first time what was happening.
“Can you keep his attention?” Rollison went on.
“Yes.”
So far the high wall had hidden them from passers-by, and there had not been enough noise to attract attention. Rollison drew away and looked up the side of the house. The thick creeper was strong enough to give him a hold, but if he went up here he would be in sight of the people in the streets. He hurried past a window, but there was no one in the room. He reached the corner, looked round, and saw that the other wall was bare. He ducked past a second window.
The back of the house was overshadowed by the tower of an old church, and there were no tall buildings overlooking the garden; there was another patch of strong ivy, its dark green bright in the sun. The ground-floor windows at the back of the house were shuttered.
He walked to the back door; it was locked. There was a small lawn, some crazy paving, and a garden seat close by. He moved the garden seat, stood it up on end, and rested it against the door, which opened outwards. Escape by the back door was effectively blocked. Then he hurried to the wall, stretched up, took a grip on a stout branch of the ivy, and gradually hauled himself up.
The creeper tore away from the wall in places, giving him a nasty feeling of insecurity. Suddenly he dropped a foot or more and hung from the ivy, but it did not break. Heart beating fast, he wormed his way up the wall, until he could haul himself to the window-sill. He looked into a bedroom where a four-poster bed stood immediately opposite the window. The casement was closed, and the catch was fastened. He took out his knife and, with a very thin blade, pushed it between the upper and lower frames of the window. Then he exerted enough pressure to push the catch back; it seemed to make a lot of noise.
Kneeling on the window-sill he tugged at the lower half of the window. It was jammed. He made a greater effort, and it shot up. He nearly fell into the room, and saved himself only by grabbing at the curtain.
No one appeared.
He spared little attention for the room, a large one with a high ceiling, as he tip-toed to the door. As he opened it, he heard the now familiar sneezing sound of a bullet from the silenced automatic.
In front of him was a square landing with wooden banisters, and the floor was covered with brown carpet.
He crept forward, and looked down into the hall. Danny was crouching behind the front door, and there was a hole in its woodwork; the younger man seemed unhurt. He could not see the room from which the gunman was firing until he leaned over and looked immediately beneath the landing. He saw the door and the man’s hand, holding the gun, but from that position it was impossible to shoot with any accuracy.
The passage ran in the shape of an L with a long base, and there were no other passages. There were seven doors, all but one of them closed. The only way to get at the gunman was from a point halfway down the stairs, and directly he reached that point he would come under the man’s fire. There seemed to be only one man there, however. He pressed close to the wall and crept down until he could see the man’s legs. He took a step lower, saw the other’s gun, and took aim carefully.
“Look out!” a man screamed.
The cry startled Rollison so much that his shot went wide, and the man in the doorway skipped out of sight. The cry had come from the landing. Rollison saw the second man outlined against a door, with his right hand at his pocket. Rollison fired and heard a gasp. The man in the doorway lurched forward, swayed, and then fell heavily; both his hands were in sight, and he had not reached his gun.
Then Rollison saw Danny Bond do a crazy thing.
He left the cover of the door, and rushed towards the gunman on the lower floor. The man fired but there was no report, only a click. The gun was empty. The man darted inside a room and slammed the door.
“Come out, you swine!” roared Danny Bond. He flung himself at the door as Rollison ran down the stairs and out at the front. A man was racing from a window towards the wall, and disappeared behind some bushes. The next moment he saw him vault over the wall. Rollison heard the thump as he landed, and his footsteps as he raced away.
Someone in the street shouted.
Rollison turned back to the house. By then Danny had realised the folly of battering at a locked door, and was walking across the hall, brushing his hair back from his eyes.
“Did he get away?”
“Yes, but the man upstairs didn’t.”
“Good God!”
Danny ran up the stairs and Rollison followed. He heard voices, and the sound of footsteps. He ignored them, and found Danny on his knees beside the man who had been shot.
There was a curious expression on Danny’s face.
“Do you recognise him?” asked Rollison.
Danny said “Yes.”
The victim, who was unconscious from a wound in the chest, was a long-haired, exquisite-looking young man with sallow features, a pink shirt, and a yellow tie. There was nothing pleasing about his slack mouth and his heavily-oiled hair. He was a type which haunted clubs like the Kim-Kam, and there was little to be said in favour of the type.
“Well, who is he?” asked Rollison.
“One of—one of the gang. His name is Tenby. Claude Tenby. Is he badly hurt?”
The man was wounded on the right side of the chest, and there was a possibility that he had been shot through the lung. Rollison was pulling up his shirt when footsteps sounded in the hall and a man called out authoritatively: “Who is in here?”
“Are you the police?”
“I am!”
“You could telephone to the nearest hospital for an ambulance,” said Rollison, “a man is badly hurt up here.”
He heard the policeman speak to someone else, and then heavy footsteps came on the stairs. A telephone tinged. Rollison took out a clean handkerchief and padded it over the wound in Tenby’s chest. It was not bleeding freely, a bad sign which suggested internal bleeding. He put a pillow beneath the man’s head, and Bond stood staring down.
“He wasn’t a bad chap,” he said huskily.
“He nearly murdered you,” said Rollison, and then looked up into the lean face of a middle-aged policeman. “Good afternoon, Constable, a spot of bother for you.”
“For me?” said the constable, meaningly.
“For several of us.” He stood up and gave the man his card. “Superintendent Grice will vouch for me. I shot this man in selfdefence. Another one got away by climbing over the garden wall.”
“He didn’t get far,” said the constable.
“You caught him, did you?”
“I didn’t catch him, but he was caught all right.” He read the card. “You know Superintendent Grice, do you, Mr.—Rollison!” His voice rose.
“Nice to know that I’m not forgotten,” smiled Rollison, while Danny Bond looked in astonishment at the policeman’s altered expression. “The sooner the Superintendent is told about this, the better. What about the one you caught—where is he?”
“They’re bringing him in, sir,” said the constable.
Within a quarter of an hour the ambulance had arrived and Tenby had been taken away. The bleeding still appeared to be mostly internal, and Rollison was not happy about the possibility that his shot might prove fa
tal. There was nothing about Tenby to indicate the same hardened villainy as he had seen in Arnott; the youth was another victim of a vicious circle and might just as well have been Danny Bond.
Grice arrived.
“So this is where a killer was waiting for Bond,” he said. He went with Rollison and Bond into a morning-room overlooking the front garden. “I didn’t give it a thought.”
“Nor did I, until I saw scratches on the lock, and it warned me that the lock had been picked,” said Rollison. “If they’d forced the back door, Bond and I would now be on the cold stone mortuary slabs.” He told Grice exactly what had happened. “Nothing could be more obvious, now. They knew that Bond would come here, and were waiting for him.”
Grice looked at Bond. “Why did you come?”
“All my possessions are here,” said Bond.
“I should have sent a man with you to collect them. All right, wait outside, will you—and ask the constable to send the prisoner in.”
The man who was brought in, standing between two uniformed policemen, was more Arnott’s type, a hard-mouthed, hard-eyed individual, with padded shoulders and a wasp waist. He had sideboards, like Lancelot Stewart, and there was a look of the Southern European about him. Rollison was surprised when he spoke in a pronounced American accent.
“You can save your breath,” he said, before Grice spoke.
Grice looked at him coldly.
“You are charged with attempted murder, and shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.”
“So what?” demanded the prisoner.
“What is your name?”
“That’s my business.”
Grice said to the policeman: “Search him.”
The man protested, but didn’t try to struggle. Papers in his pocket showed that his name was Barney and that he had come over with the American forces; he admitted at last that he was a deserter from the U.S.A.A., and said he expected to be dealt with by a military court. Grice quickly disabused him. He would not say who had sent him, nor deny or confirm that he had fired at Rollison and Danny Bond.
At the end of half an hour Grice looked at the police escort and said: “Handcuff him, and take him to Cannon Row.”
Rollison expected the man to make a fight, but presumably the presence of four men deterred him, and he submitted to being handcuffed, and was led out.
Grice frowned.
“It won’t be easy to get information from him.”
“No. Tenby is the brightest hope,” Rollison said. “Bill, Tenby was in one of the rooms, and probably he was searching for something while Barney was busy with us.”
“Which room?” asked Grice sharply.
“The one where you saw him.”
“That was Bond’s room,” said Grice. “Come on.” He passed Danny, who was standing in a corner of the hall, smoking, surly looking. Rollison smiled at him, but Grice passed without a glance. As they turned into the room, Rollison asked sotto voce: “Why the knife in Danny Bond?”
“Why not?” asked Grice. “And what did these chaps expect to find? They must know he can’t have got the package.” After a pause, he went on: “All I know is that it started with Bond, and it looks like finishing up with Bond. The room doesn’t look as if it’s been searched,” he added.
The room was a large one with a single bed, pleasantly furnished in old-fashioned style. Rollison looked with interest at the furniture. Most of it was old, much antique. He was reminded of the grandfather clock and Jeremiah Murgatroyd. By the window was an early Victorian winged armchair and next to it, against the wall, a small book-case. There were volumes of Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens, several well-known English histories, but nothing at all modern. The initials in the fly-leaf of the three he looked at were ‘D.B.’. He would have expected Danny Bond to have a more modem taste in literature.
When Grice went to the dressing-table it was obvious that there had been a search, for the drawers were in a state of great confusion. Only one was tidy, and that was half-open. Tenby had probably been about to open it when he heard Rollison.
Grice pulled the drawer right out, and carried it to the two-poster bed. He lifted out the contents – underwear, ties, and oddments. He began to examine the other drawers, for a secret hiding-place. Rollison did the same thing with a bureau by Sheraton, and a Jacobean wardrobe. They found nothing.
“Looks as if we’re wasting our time,” Rollison remarked.
“Bond must know something about it!” exclaimed Grice. He went to the door. “Bond! Come up here, will you?”
Rollison, poking about, came upon a small photograph in an expensive frame. It was of an oldish woman, with a pleasant face about which there was something vaguely familiar. Grice joined him.
“What’s caught your eye?”
“Have you ever seen her before?” asked Rollison.
“I think so.” Grice examined the photograph closely. “It’s Mrs. Fotheringay.”
“Is it?” asked Rollison, thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve seen the lady, and yet the face reminds me of someone.”
“She’s aged considerably since that was taken,” said Grice. “I wonder where Bond is?” He went to the door again and looked out into the passage; apparently Bond was coming up the stairs.
Rollison took the photograph from the frame and slipped it into an envelope which he put into his pocket.
When Danny entered, Rollison was looking at some cardboard boxes which he had found in the bottom of the wardrobe. One had a shop label, partly torn off, but he could read ‘inchester’ and he did not have to guess much at the missing letter.
“Bond, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. You have been cleared of all suspicion of the attack on Mrs. Fotheringay, but there are other factors which must be explained. Tenby was searching for something, and you must know what it was—in exactly the same way as you know the contents of the package.”
Danny said: “I can tell you where I found the package.”
“Where?”
“Here.” Danny stepped to the floor beneath the window, moved aside the book-case, went down on his knees, and lifted the edge of the carpet, which fitted flush. Peering in the same direction, Rollison saw the faint lines in the wainscoting. Danny took out a pen-knife, pushed it at the back of the wainscoting, and a piece nearly a foot long moved outwards. It did not come away, for it was fastened to the floorboards with a small brass hinge. The little compartment beyond was empty.
“Why didn’t you report this before?” demanded Grice.
“You took it for granted that I had knocked Mrs. Fotheringay about, and as far as I was concerned you could work the rest out for yourself. I came across it by accident the day before Mrs. Fotheringay was attacked. I dropped a piece of writing-paper behind the bookcase, and it stuck in the wainscoting.” There was a defiant expression in his eyes. “I couldn’t get it out without difficulty, and the strip came away, just as it did now. I found the packet, and as I’ve told you, when Arnott had lost it he was in the devil of a stew. I thought I had the swine then.” He drew in his breath. “And don’t ask me why I didn’t bring it to the police. If you’d ever been threatened by Arnott you’d know why!”
“If you’d reported this before you might have saved the lives of several people.”
“I might not,” retorted Danny Bond.
Rollison said: “Arnott was probably out for blood, yours first of all. You knew that, Danny, didn’t you? And you believed what Arnott told you—the contents of the package could damn you in the eyes of the law.”
“I did.”
“Do you still say that you don’t know why?”
“I suppose it was because I got sick of the racket, and threatened to walk out,” said Danny Bond. “I’ve never thought of any better reason. Can’t you think one up?”
“Yes,” said Rollison gently, “I can.”
Danny said: What?”
Grice stared.
“Yes,” repeated Rollison. “They wanted Danny out of Londo
n, and eventually out of the way altogether, and if the reason doesn’t stare you in the face now, it should. He lived in this house, where there was a secret hiding-place and a package which Arnott wanted. In other words, while he lived with Mrs. Fotheringay he was a permanent danger.”
“They could have come here when I was out.”
“I think we can explain that, too,” said Rollison. “Danny, do you know who rented this room before you?”
“Yes,” said Danny. “It was used as a pied-a-terre by a chap named Murgatroyd.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mr. Murgatroyd In Different Mood
Mrs. Fotheringay had let the room to Murgatroyd and told Danny Bond that she had often been worried because he was seldom in at night. She had talked about Murgatroyd frequently. She hadn’t liked him, but as far as Danny knew had known nothing against him.
“Well,” said Rollison, sitting next to Grice in a police car, “we should soon be pretty close to the end of it, Bill.”
“I hope King keeps his eyes on Murgatroyd,” said Grice. “If Murgatroyd gets wind of what we’ve discovered, I wouldn’t like to answer for what will happen.”
“You told King to be careful, didn’t you?”
“Murgatroyd knows all the local policemen, and I was fool enough not to leave a man or two down there to help him,” said Grice. He looked at the speedometer needle, which was quivering on the seventy mark. The clock on the dashboard had stopped, and he asked: “What’s the time?”
“Half-past five.”
“And we’re not at Basingstoke yet,” said Grice.
They swept along the Basingstoke By-pass ten minutes later, and should cover the eighteen miles to Winchester in twenty-five minutes at most. Behind Rollison and Grice were two C.I.D. officers.
They reached Winchester just before six o’clock, went up the steep hill, and then along the narrow streets to the police-station. On the way, they had to pass Murgatroyd’s shop. Rollison thought he caught a glimpse of Murgatroyd at the window. When they reached the station, King greeted them with a smile.
“No trouble?” Grice asked.
“None at all. He hasn’t left the shop since you telephoned. I must say it shook me. I knew he was a sharp business man, but I didn’t think he was involved in crime. Took you in too, Mr. Rollison, didn’t he?”