by John Creasey
‘Oh, Anne,’ breathed Judy Lyons. ‘Oh, think what you’ve done.’
‘Then on evidence available I should have to charge you with an offence and take you to Scotland Yard or to the nearest Divisional Headquarters.’
‘I have a defenceless baby here, Sergeant,’ Anne said, silkily.
‘All necessary arrangements would be made, Miss Miller.’ Again the Sergeant’s gaze flickered towards the Toff. ‘I am quite sure Mr Rollison would advise—’
‘I am quite capable of making my own decisions,’ Anne said, coldly. ‘I will stay here.’
‘I hope you will have no cause to regret your decision,’ said Sergeant Adams, with a formality which Rollison had not heard from a policeman for a long time. ‘Good afternoon, Miss.’ He nodded to Rollison. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Rollison.’ He moved towards the door, hesitated, and then turned back. ‘Were you a witness to the brick throwing, sir?’
‘I didn’t see it leave,’ answered Rollison drily. ‘I saw it arrive.’
‘Did you see the injury caused to Sir Douglas Slatter, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘In all likelihood, sir, a statement will shortly be required of you. Will you undertake to be—’
‘I’ll be in London,’ promised Rollison briskly. ‘Anne, don’t make any more admissions, but do make preparations for being away for a few days. Will one of the others look after your baby?’
‘Oh, I will!’ cried Judy.
‘Yes,’ said Anne. ‘I shall be perfectly all right. But I may not be at the meeting tonight,’ she added with a touch of bitterness.
Rollison looked at her for what seemed a long time, and then he moved towards the door, saying: ‘I don’t know whether you’re very good or very bad, but I do know you’re a remarkable young woman.’ He reached the door with one of his unbelievably swift movements, slipping past the two detectives as if he were a wraith; once out of the house he walked swiftly towards his car, and drove off. He was watched by two policemen and the detectives, and he caught a glimpse of Angela on the doorstep of Slatter’s house; the doctor’s vintage Rolls Royce was still outside.
Twenty minutes later, Rollison turned into a narrow lane off Fleet Street, parking his car half on the roadway and half on the pavement. Striding along a narrow alley, which had run between two buildings for at least a hundred and fifty years, he came to a modern plaza from which rose a vast edifice of cement and glass, dwarfing the ancient buildings nearby.
This was the new house of The Globe Newspapers Limited.
If he had any luck, Gwendoline Fell would be in her office.
She was indeed, an unbelievable Gwendoline Fell, wearing a huge, floppy-brimmed flowered hat, a sleeveless dress of a delicate shade of puce, and elbow length kid gloves; and she was ravishingly made-up. Four girls and a long-haired youth sat in an outer office reading newspapers, two of them cutting out columns and articles with huge, shiny shears. Each looked up at the Toff with unashamed curiosity; and each manoeuvred to get a better look at him as he shook hands with Gwendoline.
‘Do sit down,’ she said.
‘Where do you keep your motor scooter?’ he inquired.
‘Near enough to give me no difficulty in following shady individuals,’ answered Gwendoline Fell, half-smiling. ‘What trouble can I help to get you out of, Mr Rollison? Or perhaps I should ask if you’ve come to plead with me not to make a big story out of your latest abysmal failure. Do you feel proud to have been sitting with poor Sir Douglas when the glass splintered in his face? And how clever you were - only two small scratches yourself, I see.’
‘Ah,’ said Rollison. ‘But I lead the charmed life of the indolent and the lucky.’ He gave his gayest smile. ‘Do you want to find out the truth about the vendetta against Naomi Smith and her fallen angels?’
‘Her—what? Oh, I see. Your name for them. How very poetical. If I were in an argumentative mood I might toss up whether to challenge the first part of it or the second. But please go on.’ She smiled, suddenly all charm.
‘You’re very kind,’ said Rollison drily. ‘I now doubt very much if Sir Douglas Slatter is the villain, which means that I think someone else is engineering the hate campaign. If it is believed that Sir Douglas has given in and is allowing the girls to stay in Number 31, the campaign to drive them out will be stepped up, and—’
‘You are on the side of the fallen angels,’ interrupted Gwendoline. ‘Do you want them all to have their heads bashed in?’
Rollison sat back in his chair and looked at her levelly, then slowly rose to his feet and turned away. He did not hurry, neither did he dawdle. He could just see the outline of Gwendoline’s face and hat in one of the glass walls turned into a mirror by two filing cabinets, and beyond he saw the occupants of the outer office trying to disguise their interest. Gwendoline neither moved nor spoke, even when he opened the door. She believed he would turn back, of course, that he was merely bluffing. He nodded pleasantly to the others and went into the glass-walled passage beyond, without once looking back. At last he came upon a wall through which he could not see; beyond was the battery of lifts, and a clock made in the shape of a map of the earth with the words 7th Floor above it.
He pressed for a lift, to go down. He was not angry, not even annoyed, and only slightly exasperated; he simply did not see how any good could come of such persistent conflict; and as Gwendoline had not come after him or sent one of her staff, she was apparently in no mood to change. It was a pity, but he had friends in Fleet Street who would undoubtedly give this case the kind of publicity he believed it required.
The automatic lift was some time in arriving. He was the only occupant, and as he strode through the hall he met only messenger girls and doormen. He stepped on to the plaza of near-dazzling white steps, opposite the alley, and turned towards the narrow entrance. As he did so, a motor scooter engine pop-pop-popped from the right, and round a corner of The Globe building came Gwendoline Fell in all her finery, including the hat, astride her motor scooter. Rollison stopped, and she drew level with him.
‘Please come back,’ she pleaded. ‘I won’t be bitchy again.’
He looked at the absurd hat, and his determination waivered.
He could impose conditions; he could complain or explain or ask her to listen to reason. Instead, he found himself smiling.
‘Whatever you are, you’ll be. But yes, I’ll come back. Shall I come with you, or—’
Gwendoline gave the stand of the scooter a most unladylike kick, and got off. She raised a hand to one of The Globe employees. ‘George will look after this, won’t you George,’ she said, then strode along at Rollison’s side, back to the building.
None of her staff looked up this time; only their scissors seemed to snip with very much greater vigour. Inside the main office, Gwendoline went back to her chair, tapping the arm of Rollison’s as she passed it.
‘How can I help?’ she asked.
‘Tell the world in your column tomorrow that Sir Douglas has a heart of gold and you have it on good authority that he has given way to the angels, who may stay in possession of the house.’
‘Has he?’ asked Gwendoline.
‘Can I speak strictly off the record?’
‘Yes.’
‘He is not going to renew the lease of Smith Hall but he is going to give them another house.’
‘Give?’ echoed Gwendoline, her eyes rounding.
‘Give,’ repeated Rollison solemnly.
‘And I can’t say that?’ sighed Gwendoline. ‘I am only flesh and blood, you know.’
‘He told me in strict confidence. And even if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t want you to use the full facts yet. Isn’t the truth enough to make your story sensational? Before the rat incident he was adamantly hostile, so he had a remarkable change of heart.’
‘He certainly did,’ agr
eed Gwendoline. ‘Can you be sure that if I tell the story, as you ask me to, it will get the results you want?’
‘I’m sure there’s a good chance of it doing so. I think there will be more attacks, but that house and those girls will be as closely protected as royalty. I don’t believe, this time, there will be the slightest chance of the attackers either doing harm or getting away.’
They sat quite still, their eyes meeting in a silent challenge. At last Gwendoline gave a decisive little nod.
‘I’ll do it your way,’ she said. ‘May I add one plea?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Can I know what help you’re going to get?’
Rollison chuckled.
‘Yes, gladly. Meet me at ten o’clock tonight outside the entrance to Aldgate East Underground Station, crash helmet, motor scooter and all.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Gwendoline with relish. ‘I will certainly be there! Is there anything else I can do to help?’
‘At this moment, check at the Yard to see if Superintendent Grice is in and if he’ll see me right away,’ said Rollison.
Before he had finished speaking she was lifting the telephone, and he listened as she spoke crisply and precisely: at the desk she seemed much more mature. She replaced the receiver, and nodded with satisfaction.
‘I understand that he wants to see you,’ she said, and this time the glint in her eyes was mischievous. ‘I hope you’ll be free to meet me tonight.’
Grice was in his bright new office at the bright new building which would never, for Rollison, capture the romantic appeal of the old Scotland Yard. About a quarter of the size of Gwendoline Fell’s, there was all glass in one wall. The others, decently opaque, were hung with photographs of police football and cricket teams, and long-pensioned-off senior officers. Grice motioned to a chair.
‘What’s the latest news about Slatter?’ Rollison asked.
‘He’s now at the Moorfields Eye Hospital,’ answered Grice. ‘They’re checking for glass splinters. He’s still in a state of traumatic shock, and it could last for days. I’m told you were present when the Miller girl admitted throwing the brick.’
‘I was,’ said Rollison. ‘I was also there when the brick came through the window, and if I hadn’t shown how alarmed I was, Slatter wouldn’t have looked round - and then all he would have got would have been splinters of glass in his scalp. With hair as thick as his I doubt if that would have amounted to much more than a few scratches. Are you going to charge Anne Miller?’
‘Yes - I’ve no choice. I’m going to pick her up this evening, after she’s finished her motherly chores, and ask for the case to be heard early in the morning,’ Grice answered. ‘And I shan’t oppose bail. That will give you a week to find a way of getting her off!’ Grice spoke almost bitterly. ‘Do you yet know what’s behind it all?’
‘I only wish I did,’ Rollison said. ‘I was hoping you would have an idea. Do you know anything more about the rats in the children’s pen?’
‘No.’
‘No trace of the assailant?’
‘None.’
‘No clues as to the deaths of Brown and Webberson and the two girls?’
Grice hesitated, and then said: ‘Well, yes and no. It’s beginning to look as if they knew both Winifred de Vaux and Iris Jay a little more intimately than is usual between professor and pupil.’
‘Hmm. Do you know if any of the other girls were associated with any of the sponsors?’
‘As far as I’ve been able to trace, none at all. Nimmo is married and has a very good reputation, Carfax is incapacitated because of his paralysis, and Offenberger is courting an Austrian woman who keeps house for him.
But I’ve no evidence at all to show why Brown and Webberson should be killed, or why Mrs Smith should have been attacked. One obvious possibility is that they all shared some knowledge which the murderer doesn’t want divulged. Has Mrs Smith given you any hint?’
‘No,’ answered Rollison, truthfully.
‘Have you turned anything up?’ Grice asked.
‘No,’ said Rollison again. ‘All I know is—’ he told Grice all he could, including what he had arranged with Gwendoline Fell, and he told him of Slatter’s offer of a house. Then he left, a little after half-past five, with only one thought in mind.
He needed a talk with Naomi Smith, who might know more, much more, than she had yet admitted.
Chapter 16
‘NO,’ SAYS NAOMI SMITH
‘NO,’ said Naomi flatly. ‘I know absolutely nothing more than I’ve told you.’ She looked so earnest and so plain, so homely and so wholesome; throughout the crisis she had maintained her outward composure remarkably. Now, her make-up was fresh, with just enough lipstick to make the best of her full lips, and she had a scarcely discernible shade of eyeshadow, so that her chestnut-brown eyes seemed to have a slight sheen over them. Rollison thought of Slatter’s injured eye. ‘Naomi,’ Rollison said, almost harshly, ‘if you are protecting someone—’
‘But I am not,’ she insisted. Her voice had a tone of restrained indignation. ‘How can you think that I would allow such terrible things to happen in order to protect any individual? It is unthinkable. Four—four of my friends, brutally murdered. Sir Douglas perhaps blinded—no, Mr Rollison, I know nothing that could help. I am at the edge of a dreadful precipice. All I have fought for and believed in, all I have tried to do, is faced with absolute disaster. If I knew a thing - if I had the slightest suspicion against any individual - I would tell you. But I know nothing.’
Without a pause, Rollison asked: ‘Did you know that Keith Webberson was friendly with Winifred de Vaux? - so friendly, in fact, that he had a large photograph of her displayed in his flat? And that Professor Brown—’
She looked at him furiously. ‘How knowledge of these girls’ misfortune distorts everything they do! Is no man to be their friend without the grossest interpretation being put on it?’ Alarm added to the brightness of her eyes, and her lips trembled.
‘Do—do the police think as you do?’
Rollison shrugged.
‘Will it be made public?’
‘Whether some bright newspaperman will find it out and tell the story, I don’t know. It wouldn’t be surprising.’
‘No,’ she said in a low-pitched voice. ‘Obviously it would be exactly the kind of scandal the newspapers would glory in. And that does mean the end of this house and all I’ve tried to do. You must see that in a place like this, rumour that it is little more than a brothel and I the Madame, are always possible. However dormant the suggestion, it is there, ready at the slightest excuse to be taken up by a certain section of society. And Douglas warned—’ She broke off, and closed her eyes as if suffering from a spasm of acute pain.
The ‘Douglas’ came out with unexpected familiarity, strangely at variance with the formality of her previous references to Slatter.
‘What did Sir Douglas warn you about?’ asked Rollison gently.
‘That the house and I would get this reputation,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘We are old friends, Mr Rollison, although until I came here we hadn’t met for many years. When I first knew that he owned this house I went to see him, asking for his help - but he had no sympathy at all with what I was trying to do. He was furiously angry because he had signed the lease without being told what it was going to be used for. It—it was not a very pleasant meeting,’ Naomi finished, on a note both saddening and dreary.
‘How often have you met since?’
‘Only occasionally.’
‘Socially?’
‘Once or twice. He—he is a very good man, Mr Rollison, and he did not believe that because we differed fundamentally on this aspect of society - I have always believed that unmarried mothers and illegitimate children should be given special consideration, because of what they inevita
bly miss, having no husband, and no father - we should not remain friends.’ She raised her hands and dropped them again. ‘Douglas maintained that if you broke the rules of the society you lived in, you should accept the consequence. I can see his point of view, of course.’ Unexpectedly, her voice sharpened. ‘Can you, Mr Rollison?’
‘I can see both points of view,’ parried Rollison.
‘A friend to both sides is said to be a friend to none,’ Naomi said a little bitterly. ‘Nevertheless, I still need your help Mr Rollison, can you help Anne? I know she shouldn’t have done what she did but it was under terrible provocation, and I am sure she hadn’t the slightest intention of injuring Douglas.’
‘I can get a good lawyer to speak for her and ask for bail,’ said Rollison.
‘Oh, if only you will!’
‘I’ll have a word with Professor Nimmo and make sure I’m not treading on any corns,’ promised Rollison. ‘Are the girls going to meet together tonight?’
‘Yes,’ said Naomi, and caught her breath. ‘I think at least half of them will leave at once.’ She gave herself a little shake and rose to her feet. Her movements and her manner had become more decisive, as if for the moment at least, she had done with brooding and with being sorry for herself. ‘I’m very grateful for all you are doing. Will you come this evening?’
‘If I may.’
‘I don’t think you can do anything to help them,’ said Naomi, ‘but you will at least see and understand the mood of the girls. It’s so very sad,’ she went on, in her brisker voice, ‘only a few weeks ago everything appeared to be going so well.’ She led the way to the door, and then touched the back of his hand. ‘Mr Rollison, please understand and believe one thing. Professor Webberson and Dr Brown did not take advantage of their position as sponsors. There was a very real friendship in both cases.’
Friendship, love, or simply lust, thought Rollison grimly, neither men had deserved to be murdered; nor had either of the girls.
And now Naomi Smith was telling the truth, which he wanted and hoped to be the case, or she was a consummate liar.