by John Creasey
‘Utterly,’ admitted Higginbottom.
‘Well, try getting those notes back,’ said Rollison. He grinned to himself. Higginbottom had almost made him forget the disappearance of Susan. If she did not meet Horniman for lunch, or if the police did not know where she was by the afternoon, the word ‘disappearance’ would have a fuller meaning. He telephoned Grice, but the Superintendent was out. He frowned at the ceiling, wondered what was wrong with him, and realised that he was feeling hungry. So, probably, was Higginbottom. He glanced towards the young man, who appeared to be typing for dear life.
‘Let me see what you have been doing.’ Rollison looked through the pages with a cursory interest, for he had already decided.
‘You’ll do,’ he said, ‘and Jolly’s told you everything you need to know. If he hasn’t, he will’ He reflected for a moment. ‘I find Jolly hard to please,’ he said, gravely, ‘and extremely sensitive over the kitchen.’
‘Advice to be treasured,’ said Higginbottom, gratefully. ‘When shall I start?’
‘You’ve started already,’ Rollison told him. ‘This afternoon you will break the news to the other six applicants, pay their expenses and take letters.’ He heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Now you’d better come and have some lunch with me.’
It was arranged, during luncheon, that Higginbottom should try to rent two rooms nearby, rooms which Rollison knew were vacant. If successful, Higginbottom would use one as an office and the other as a bed-sitting-room.
At four o’clock, Rollison finished dictating and decided that he would go out to tea.
The telephone rang as he was about to leave.
‘Yes, Jolly,’ he said.
‘Miss Susan is here, sir,’ Jolly’s voice boomed sedately over the wire. ‘She is at this moment having tea with Horniman and Mrs Drayton, at Bobby’s Restaurant. There is a train from Waterloo at 5.30, sir, but the best train is the 6.30.’
‘I’ll catch that,’ promised Rollison.
‘Have you been successful with the applicants?’ asked Jolly in a tone which suggested that he hoped very much that Rollison had failed.
‘Yes,’ said Rollison, and grinned. ‘A man named Higginbottom, but don’t worry, he answers very happily to Snub.’ He rang off.
Chapter Five
Rollison Changes Rooms
Horniman and Susan seemed quite content.
Barrow went to see Susan and later confided in Rollison that she had scoffed at the very idea of ‘disappearing’. She had every right to go where she wanted; she had said fiercely. Nor had she seemed worried when told her flat had apparently been searched. Barrow also saw ‘Mrs Drayton’, but learned nothing new from her.
After two days, Mrs Drayton returned to London and Barrow went on the same train. Susan and Horniman showed no sign of leaving. There was one remarkable feature about their second visit to Bournemouth. They lunched or dined every day with different couples. What they talked about Rollison did not know.
On the Sunday evening Rollison strolled into the dining-room of the Norfolk. The friendly head-waiter espied him and came across the room.
‘Is the Colonel dining here again?’ asked Rollison.
‘He’s reserved his usual table for four, sir.’
‘Find me a quiet corner, will you?’ asked Rollison; and he was promptly led to a window-seat.
A loud-voiced, hearty woman with a limp-looking man came in with Horniman and Susan. The woman was good-looking in a coarse way, and appeared to be very pleased with life. So, too, did Horniman, who ordered champagne.
Horniman leaned forward, covered Susan’s hand with his own, and said something to the hearty woman, who immediately cried out: ‘That’s wonderful, Horny, wonderful! Congratulations!’
So it was an engagement; nothing had warned Rollison of such a development; had Susan lost her head?
‘I do hope you will be happy, my dear, but you’re bound to be with such a husband. Wonderful! George, fill our glasses!’ The limp-looking man obeyed, but Rollison was interested chiefly in Susan. For she was looking at Horniman with an expression of acute dislike. It was gone in a flash and the others did not appear to have noticed it, but Rollison was sure he was not mistaken. Why, then, had she agreed to an engagement if she did not want to?
Twice in the next ten minutes, while the others were chattering and the rest of the diners were looking with tolerant amusement towards the table, Susan glanced towards Rollison, and this time her glance seemed to hold an appeal.
Dinner over, the party surged into the hall. Rollison heard the hearty woman’s voice booming through the foyer: ‘Then that’s settled, Horny, good! Oh, and every happiness, Susan, every happiness!’ She pecked at Susan’s cheek. Horniman waved casually to the departing taxi, then turned to Susan. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
He went towards the cloak-room while Rollison waited near the reception desk, hoping that Susan would come over. Never had a girl who had just become engaged looked so unhappy.
Had the body in the burnt out cottage really been Bruce’s?
Rollison, seeing that there was little hope that she would talk freely just then, decided to go back to the Lorne Hall Hotel. He badly wanted to find out what would pass between Susan and Horniman that evening; for the first time since he had come to Bournemouth, the tempo of the affair had quickened.
None of the hotel staff saw him go up the stairs. He knew that Susan had taken Mrs Drayton’s room, and that near the end of the passage from which the rooms led, was a linen cupboard. He waited until he heard Horniman’s voice on the stairs, then slipped inside the cupboard.
Horniman was saying: ‘You must be sensible, Susan, I wouldn’t have done that unless—’
‘You had no right to do it!’
‘But my dear, it was always understood—’
‘You should have consulted me first. It—it’s unforgiveable. And to her, of all people! It will be in every newspaper tomorrow, everyone will think that I—oh, how I wish I’d never listened to you. I wish I’d demanded proof that he’s—’
‘Be quiet!’ A different note had crept into Horniman’s voice, a hint of menace which Rollison noticed but which Susan was too angry to observe.
They were standing outside Susan’s door, and Rollison could just see her face and the back of Horniman’s head.
‘I won’t be quiet. I don’t even know that he is alive. I’ve done exactly what you’ve told me, my friends think I’m a heartless beast, they—but it doesn’t matter what they think so long as he is alive. But is he? You’ve promised to prove it, you’ve told me that he’ll see me here, instead you’ve made me meet a lot of foul people who aren’t worth a moment’s thought. Even his mother—’
‘Susan,’ said Horniman in a tense voice, ‘I won’t have you talking to me like this.’
Susan said: ‘You haven’t bought me!’
‘You mustn’t talk so freely up here, someone might hear you. I have explained the difficulty, and—’
‘You haven’t satisfied me! You’ve gone too far. I’m going back to town first thing in the morning.’
‘You will do nothing of the kind!’
‘Won’t I?’ asked Susan, in a taut voice. ‘We’ll see.’
She turned away abruptly, and opened her door. Horniman put out a hand to stop her. She wrenched herself free and hurried into the room, shutting the door in his face.
Rollison heard the key turn in the lock. He also noticed Horniman’s expression. There was something malignant about it, in the set of his thin lips. Abruptly, he went into his own room.
Rollison stepped into the passage. No one was about. He went up to Horniman’s door, and heard the ting! of the telephone bell.
‘Get me Boscombe 01534,’ said Horniman, and he appeared to be tapping his foot impatiently as he waited. Then: ‘Mrs Lenwell, please … Hallo, Jane …’ ‘Jane’ was the hearty woman; Rollison was glad to learn her other name.
‘Jane, you must get that story out tonight,’ Horniman went on. ‘Yes, all
the papers you can, use what influence you’ve got … She’s being difficult, but I’ll handle her.’ There was a long pause, and then Horniman snapped: ‘I said I would handle her.’
Rollison thought: ‘He’d have a shock if I went in now,’ but as the notion entered his head a maid came along the passage carrying a pile of linen. With as much nonchalance as he could muster Rollison walked towards the stairs.
He waited in the hall for a few minutes, and presently Horniman came downstairs, wearing a light coat. The Colonel hurried into the street and hailed a taxi. Rollison followed and was near enough to overhear the direction given.
‘Take me to Christchurch, the Old Barn,’
Rollison approached another taxi driver. ‘Do you know the Old Barn, Christchurch?’ he inquired.
The man grinned. ‘Who doesn’t! Cosy little spot, sir.’
‘I would like to get there in a hurry,’ murmured Rollison.
The man jerked his head towards the disappearing taxi.
‘Before him?’
‘You’ve got it exactly.’
‘Okay. Hop in.’
The run took a little more than twenty minutes.
‘Want me to wait?’ the driver asked.
‘Yes, please.’
‘Tell you what,’ said the driver, tentatively. I know the chap who’s driving him. Name of Joe. I’ll have a word with him if you like. Might save you waiting about.’
‘An excellent idea,’ said Rollison heartily, and a note changed hands.
The Old Barn was a restaurant of some character, and appeared to be exceedingly popular. Rollison went to a quiet corner where he was moderately sure he would not be easily spotted.
Horniman came in five minutes later.
Immediately, a little man with round shoulders, whom Rollison at once recognised, sidled across the room from a table where he had been sitting alone. Horniman said something which Rollison did not catch, and they went out together. Rollison hurried after them, but he was only in time to see the red light of the taxi disappearing in the direction of the New Forest.
His cabby loomed out of the darkness.
‘I’ve fixed it,’ he said. ‘Joe’ll let me know and I’ll let you know, sir. Okay?’
‘Excellent,’ said Rollison pleasantly.
‘Of course, if you’d rather follow him—’
‘No,’ said Rollison. ‘Back to the Lorne Hall Hotel, I think.’
He got in beside the driver, who, under the impression that Rollison was a detective, recounted various improbable examples of his own sagacity in that direction. To all of which Rollison replied amiably. Horniman would be away for some time, he was thinking, and all he, Rollison, needed was ten minutes in his room.
‘Any time I can do anything else for you, sir,’ said the driver, ‘it will be a pleasure.’
‘If a job’s going, it’s yours,’ promised Rollison, and waited until the man drove off.
Then he sauntered into the hotel, sat in the lounge for ten minutes, then, with a stifled yawn, left the lounge for the first floor. None of the staff noticed him. He reached Susan’s door, and wondered whether he might, after all, try to see her, but decided that she was in too emotional a mood to tackle. He went on to Horniman’s door.
He took a knife from his pocket.
Two minutes later, he opened the door and went inside. As he closed it, he heard footsteps along the passage.
He waited until they had passed, then bolted the door and put on the lights.
Horniman’s room was neat, too neat for Rollison’s liking. His clothes were on hangers in the wardrobe, the waste-paper basket was empty. Rollison stood for a moment, considering where to start looking, and then he noticed an attaché case by the side of the dressing-table. It was locked, but the fastenings were not good, and, using the knife, he forced them open.
Within was a writing case, all partitions crammed with papers. Horniman’s neatness might prove helpful after all. He found the prospectus for a new fabric company, other prospectuses of smaller concerns. There were a few bills and receipts, but no private correspondence.
Then Rollison found an envelope bearing an East London postmark. It was torn at the edges, as if Horniman had ripped it open in his anxiety to read the contents.
Rollison took out a single slip of paper.
There was no address, and only two words: ‘Be careful’. Beneath them, placed horizontally, was a rubber-stamped impression of a claw-headed hammer. Rollison stood staring at it. Somewhere before he had seen that impression, but he could not remember where.
Then he heard footsteps, and a woman’s voice. At first he did not hear what she was saying, but one word attracted his attention. ‘Suspicious,’ she said, ‘it looked suspicious to me.’
The footsteps stopped, and someone tried the handle of the door. Then a man asked: ‘Are you there. Colonel Horniman?’
Rollison’s heart began to race. The handle rattled again. Rollison darted a glance towards the wardrobe, but it was no use as a hiding place. He grunted, as if waking from sleep, and the man called out again.
‘Eh?’ muttered Rollison. ‘Eh? What’s that?’
‘Is that you. Colonel Horniman?’
‘Of course it is. Who else?’ grunted Rollison irritably. ‘What the devil’s the matter? I was asleep.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but the maid said she thought you had gone out, and there was a light in your room.’
‘Tell her to mind her own damn’ business,’ growled Rollison. Would it work? Or were the suspicions deep enough for the man to insist on coming in? There was a moment of indecision. Then the man said: ‘I see, sir. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’
Rollison drew a deep breath of relief, but his nerve was shaken.
He had been in the room for a quarter of an hour, and Horniman might soon be back at any moment. He had not learnt very much, but there were the prospectuses, a useful hint as to the way Horniman’s mind was working, and there was that cryptic, warning note. ‘Be careful.’ Then the hammer impression …
Rollison peered into the passage, made sure it was empty, and slipped out, leaving the door ajar, so that no one could hear it close. Not until he was at the head of the stairs did he feel easy.
It was at that moment that he remembered where he had seen the hammer impression before.
There had been talk of a leader of a smash-and-grab gang operating from the East End of London, who was known as the Hammer. Rollison had seen the story in one of the sensational Sunday newspapers. Now he put the whole thing out of his mind for the time being and scribbled a note to Susan. ‘I must see you downstairs, in twenty minutes – that is, at five past ten.’
He amused himself – and he hoped it might amuse Susan – by adding a top hat, a monocle and a swagger cane. These had been the insignia of the Toff, in those days when he had roamed the East End of London in quest of excitement.
He found a porter, and asked the man to deliver the note immediately. Then he hurried to the station yard. He found his taxi driver easily enough.
‘Is Joe back?’ he inquired eagerly.
‘Not yet,’ the man answered. ‘I haven’t—but this looks like him,’ he added, as a taxi pulled into the yard.
It was Joe’s cab all right, and Joe was ruffled. He had taken a dislike to his passenger, and to the little man who had been with him. No, he hadn’t heard much of their conversation, but when the little man had been dropped at the Lansdowne, the stiffshirt had said: ‘Don’t forget, it must be tonight, and make a job of it. If there’s trouble, come into my room.’
Rollison’s mouth set in a hard line. He paid Joe well, and walked back to the Lorne Hall Hotel. The words were clear enough to him. The little man was to visit Susan’s room; and Horniman had said: ‘I’ll handle her.’ Rollison recalled the expression on the man’s face; and he was in no two minds about Susan’s danger.
She entered the hall exactly at five minutes past ten.
Rollison took her arm and led her outs
ide. Nowhere within walls could be counted safe from Horniman’s overhearing.
‘What is it?’ she asked, listlessly.
‘Susan,’ said Rollison. ‘I want you to forget that we’ve not seen eye to eye lately, and to believe that I mean what I say. I am afraid that you are in imminent danger. I want you to go upstairs, collect your things and go to the Norfolk Hotel, using my room. I will stay in yours.’
‘What an absurd idea!’
‘Not really,’ said Rollison. ‘You’re planning to leave in the morning. It doesn’t matter whether you leave from my hotel or yours.’
After a long pause, she said: ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Heaven send me patience,’ said Rollison sharply. ‘You must just take it from me that I wouldn’t tell you that I thought you were in danger for a joke, or just to get you out of here. You’re risking nothing by doing what I ask. You don’t have to put up with my company, and you won’t have to keep on the alert in case Horniman tries to plead his case.’ After a pause, he added: ‘I am serious, Susan, never more so.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Nor do a great many things that have been happening lately.’
There was another pause, and then she said: ‘All right, I’ll change hotels with you.’
Rollison took his key out of his pocket. ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for my things later. They only want putting into a case.’
‘You’d better collect them first,’ Susan objected, but without much heart. Undoubtedly something had frightened her that night, and Rollison thought he knew what it was. She had been convinced that Bruce Drayton was alive; now she was not sure.
Thinking it best to let her go back to the hotel alone he watched her out of sight, and then went to a public call-box and rang up Horniman.
He was not pleased to learn that his caller was Rollison.
His voice rose to a tone of bluster. ‘I told you once before not to meddle in my business, Rollison.’
‘The word “meddle” is open to quite a variety of interpretations,’ said Rollison cheerfully. ‘But I didn’t ring you up to argue the niceties of conversation.’
Rollison was enjoying himself. Just so long as he could keep Horniman on the line, Susan would be safe.