by John Creasey
‘Did the Hammer persuade you to visit me in the same way?’ asked Rollison.
‘Yes, but I only did one job,’ she went on, and there was a despairing note in her voice. ‘It was before I met Jim. I drove a car. I didn’t know it was for a robbery. When a window was smashed I just lost my head and drove off, and—since then I’ve had to do what the Hammer wanted. Jim—you don’t know Jim,’ she added. ‘If he thought I had done anything like that, it would be all over between us.’ She caught her breath: ‘How did he find out?’
‘People talk,’ Rollison said.
‘Damn their lying tongues!’ cried Ethel. ‘Well, that’s all. I used to get orders from Finnigan. They were always the same. I was to scream and make a distraction. After I’d come away from you tonight I decided to finish with it all, I went to tell Jane and then I went to see Finnigan. We had a row. He told me that when the Hammer gave orders they had to be obeyed. I told him flatly that I wouldn’t obey any more … but I would have done,’ she added, pathetically, ‘I wouldn’t have been able to stand up to him on my own.’
‘Was Finnigan all right when you left?’
She stared. ‘Quite all right. Why do you ask?’
Rollison told her, watching her and Jane Lenwell closely. Jane threw up her hands, and immediately began to moan, while Ethel’s eyes widened.
She said quietly: ‘So they think I killed him.’
‘They may do,’ Rollison said. ‘Though I’m not sure that they know you were there, but Jim knew.’
‘And said—nothing.’
‘Not a word about you.’
Her eyes shone. ‘Even though he knows I might—’
‘Yes,’ Rollison said. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Will you … advise me?’
‘Advice is more usually asked for than taken,’ said Rollison dryly, ‘But if you really want it, I suggest that you go to the police immediately and tell them everything you know about the Hammer. They’ll see that you come to no harm.’
Ethel said quietly: ‘You’re right, of course. It’s strange how one sees it all so clearly in the end—when it’s almost too late. But I’ll do what you say.’
‘Good girl!’ said Rollison, warmly. ‘Telephone Scotland Yard, and ask for Superintendent Grice. Give him my name and tell him I think he would be wise to come here at once. Will you do that?’
She nodded.
But before Grice arrived Rollison had time to hear Jane Lenwell’s story.
She had believed in Horniman, and for a long time did whatever he told her; nothing had been even vaguely criminal at first. Then, twelve months before, there had been talk of the Hammer. She said that she believed Horniman was frightened of him. He was always nervous when the name ‘Hammer’ was mentioned. This seemed odd to her, for she had heard that the Hammer was supposed to be a benefactor to the people of the East End.
‘I didn’t know the real truth about the Hammer until Ethel told me,’ declared Jane Lenwell, her voice taking on a note of whining complaint. ‘She told me about the smash-and-grab and what he made her do, and then I knew why Horniman was so scared of him.’
‘How did you meet Mrs Kent?’ asked Rollison.
Both women stared at him, and Jane exclaimed: ‘Didn’t you know that? We’re sisters. Well, half-sisters.’
Ethel said: ‘Jane did well for herself and I didn’t see much of her until she was in trouble.’ There was no malice in the words, it was a simple statement of fact. ‘She was worried about Horniman and the Hammer, and so we got together.’
Rollison looked at Jane.
‘What did you do for Horniman?’
‘I got snippets of news in the papers about his companies, and the social side, he just wanted to build up a reputation. That’s all I ever did, I swear it is!’
‘Didn’t he tell you to spread the story that he was married?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t,’ said Jane. ‘My husband wouldn’t let me. He had no time for Horniman. It was my money I put into the company, not his.’
‘What did you think Horniman meant when he said that he would handle Susan Lancaster?’ asked Rollison, curiously.
‘Why, that he’d get her to marry him,’ said Jane Lenwell. She broke off, helplessly.
Rollison believed that she had told him all she could, and that Ethel would not go back on her word. He drove his car into a side street, and waited until Grice arrived.
Grice was only there for a quarter of an hour; both women were with him when he left.
Rollison pulled at the self-starter. There remained one woman whom he had not questioned but who might be implicated: Mrs Willis, alias Drayton’s ‘Mother’. He knew her address, and he drove towards Chelsea at a good pace.
He was not surprised to see a plain clothes man on duty outside. Grice was taking no chances.
It was past midnight, but there were lights in the downstairs rooms, and when Rollison rang, a maid answered the door.
She would see whether Mrs Willis were at home, she said.
Rollison waited for a few minutes in the spacious hall. The contrast between this house and the less luxurious one of the Kents was striking. Grice had said that Mrs Willis was wealthy, and here was ample evidence of it.
How well had she known Horniman?
Did she know of the Hammer?
The maid came out of a room on the left. ‘Mrs Willis can see you now, sir.’
She led Rollison to a large drawing-room, furnished with the same unostentatious luxury as the hall. Mrs Willis was lying back in a comfortable chair with a book on her lap. She put it aside and stood up to greet him. In the soft light of the room, she looked not only well-groomed, but beautiful. She smiled up at him with quiet composure.
‘Isn’t this rather late for a call?’ she asked. ‘And haven’t I seen you before?’
‘At Bournemouth, probably,’ said Rollison. ‘You were with Colonel Horniman. I am a friend of Miss Lancaster’s.’
‘Then I think I know why you have come,’ she said.
‘That helps,’ smiled Rollison.
‘And I am glad that you are here,’ she told him. ‘I would rather tell you than the police.’
Rollison said: ‘The police may have to know.’
‘I understand that. But please sit down.’ She waved towards a chair. ‘I have been very worried for a long time,’ she went on, ‘but I have much less to fear now that Horniman is dead.’
She smiled. ‘Of course, I know that gives me a motive for murdering him, and I think I might have done, had I had the courage. But it is easier to talk of murder than to do it. To be brief, Mr Rollison, Colonel Horniman had been blackmailing me for a long time. He forced me to invest money in this new company that he was forming, and he forced me to see Miss Lancaster and pretend to be Mrs Drayton. It was useless to protest. I had reached a state of mind when I did what he told me. Provided I did that, he left me alone.’
‘Considerate of him,’ murmured Rollison.
‘As for his death—’ she shrugged her shoulders. ‘A blackmailer plays a dangerous game. It’s always on the cards that one of his victims can stand it no longer, and takes the law into his own hands.’ She raised and dropped her own expressively.
‘He had a fairly strong hold over you, Mrs Willis, to make you quite so subservient,’ Rollison suggested.
‘A very strong hold.’
She stubbed out her cigarette, poured out two whiskies, and handed him a glass, drinking the contents of her own rather too quickly.
‘A very strong hold,’ she repeated. ‘I have three children, Mr Rollison. I am devoted to them. I was never married,’
Rollison sipped his whisky.
She said lightly. ‘You will not need details. The fact is self-explanatory. None of my children suspect the truth, I do not want to bastardise them. If you force me to—’ she paused.
Rollison said: ‘The police will uncover all the information they can, of course, but I think a wor
d from me will help to satisfy them. But I, myself, must be fully satisfied first. I’m sorry.’
She looked at him gravely.
‘What else do you want to know?’
Rollison disliked this task intensely, but made himself go on.
‘The police will not be interested in your private affairs unless at any time they crossed the dividing line between the lawful and the unlawful.’
She smiled. ‘I have done nothing criminal, and Horniman had the sense to realise that it would be a waste of time asking me to. All the money I have was settled on me by Mr Willis during his lifetime. He left the rest of his possessions to the children. What else might the police think? Bigamy, perhaps? No, it is all painfully, distressingly straightforward. We were unable to marry.’
Rollison said: ‘Thank you.’
‘Are you satisfied?’
‘Yes. But the police will want to know all your dealings with Horniman.’
‘I have already told them,’ she said. ‘I “invested” in every new company. I pretended to be Mrs Drayton. That is all.’
‘Do you know why he wanted you to act that part?’
She said quietly: ‘Horniman told me that he wanted the girl convinced that her fiancé was alive. There seemed no harm in that. And I—’ she paused, stood up, and flung her cigarette away, she had grown pale. ‘Of course there was harm in it! It tortured her, or made her liable to torture. I wish I had not cheated her. I know now how she loves Drayton.’
‘Is he dead?’ asked Rollison.
‘I don’t know. Horniman didn’t tell me that; only what he wanted me to say to the girl. You see, now, why I’m glad that he’s dead.’
‘Others may take up where he left off,’ Rollison murmured.
She stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Others may blackmail you.’
She shivered. ‘Yes,’ she said, heavily. ‘Yes, of course. I have been telling myself since I saw the police that it was all over, but—’
‘It can be,’ said Rollison.
She said: ‘I have guarded my children from the truth all their lives and I am going to go on guarding them, whatever it costs. If money can keep the secret, the secret will be kept. You must forgive me if I sound melodramatic.’
‘If you are approached again, you can try a different cure,’ Rollison said,
‘And what is that?
‘Try me.’
She toyed with her glass.
‘I think you mean that,’ she said.
‘I do. Because I think that whoever killed Horniman may have killed Bruce Drayton, and I am fond of Susan. Will you tell me if anyone else does attempt to blackmail you? Now or later … if I can help when Susan’s affair is settled, it will be repaying a debt. Now! Who else do you know among Horniman’s friends?’
‘I knew only Jane Lenwell. Poor Jane!’
‘Poor Jane?’
‘She has a guilty secret, too,’ said Mrs Willis, and there was an edge to her laugh. ‘Not infidelity. Nothing that would worry a normal woman, but there is Jewish blood in her veins and she has a morbid terror of it becoming known. Not the least of the evil Hitler left behind him.’
‘I see,’ said Rollison. ‘And Horniman used that to influence her, did he?’ It sounded probable, and it would be in character.
‘Yes. But I think she rather liked the man.’
‘So I gathered. Do you know her husband?’
‘I’ve met him. I don’t think very much of him,’ said Mrs Willis, ‘but he is not quite so much under Jane’s thumb as he likes to make out when in public. He’s a little perverted, I think.’ She laughed, without humour. ‘I am being frank, aren’t I?’
‘It’s what is needed. There’s too much confusion, too many half truths. In what way is he perverted?’
‘He takes pleasure in taunting her with her guilty secret,’ said Mrs Willis. ‘Usually it’s when he’s drunk. He’s one of the men whom drink makes cruel. Yet she’s fond of him,’ she added, ‘in some ways they’re devoted. I’ve known Jane for a long time.’
‘I see,’ said Rollison. ‘And you know none of the others?’
‘None at all.’
‘Has Horniman always dealt personally with you?’
‘He once sent a little round-shouldered man to collect some money,’ said Mrs Willis. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Just one more thing,’ Rollison said, and took a pencil from his pocket and a visiting card. He sketched a hammer, then showed it to her.
‘Do you recognise that?’
She laughed rather helplessly. ‘No. Should I?’
‘If you ever get a letter signed in that way, telephone me at once,’ said Rollison.
‘I will,’ she promised, and he rose to go.
The sergeant outside wished him good night.
Rollison sat in the Talbot for a few minutes, smoking. The woman had charm, it might almost be said that she cast a kind of spell. She had strength of character, too.
He drove to Gresham Terrace, and the door was opened as he walked up the stairs. He prepared to greet Jolly, but instead saw the face of Higginbottom. It was looking rather plaintive.
‘Jolly is still out,’ he said, ‘but what news he has gleaned will be the same as mine. You did send him after me didn’t you? I’m sorry you thought it necessary.’
‘Oh,’ said Rollison.
Snub went on gravely, ‘Sergeant Barrow turned up. Questions here and questions there. Also, a friend told me today that the police had been asking him about me. Unease at Scotland Yard is one thing, and can be taken fairly tranquilly, but unease at Gresham Terrace … well.’
Rollison said: ‘Yes, of course. On the other hand, if you take a detached view you’ll admit that it’s necessary. Odd things are happening. Much of the information coming through here is highly confidential. And there was the little matter of the pillar box,’
Snub stared. ‘The pillar box?’
Rollison told him the story of the suspected raid on the pillar box.
‘A little far-fetched, don’t you think?’ Snub said coldly. Rollison replied that where the Hammer were concerned, nothing was really far-fetched.
‘I suppose I’ve got to admit that it is possible,’ conceded Snub. ‘Still, to know one’s under surveillance rather cramps one’s style. Have you any direct suspicion?’
‘Only on one count.’
Snub gulped. ‘Let’s have it,’ he invited.
‘Someone knew that Ethel Kent had been to Finnigan’s house. By “someone”, I mean the Hammer. You were there.’
After a long pause, Snub said stiffly: ‘I caught a bus at the end of Bray Street and got off at Piccadilly. I didn’t speak to a soul, except the bus conductor, and he wasn’t chatty. That’s gospel. After all, a lot of people might have seen her go in. I mean, there were watching eyes, weren’t there?’
‘Yes,’ said Rollison, and added gently: ‘Snub, if I thought you were up to any funny business, you wouldn’t be sitting there.’
A gleam shone in Snub’s eyes.
‘Well, I am all right, you know. Apart from any natural foolishness that is. I agree you’ll have to keep a look-out, but you needn’t.’ He grinned.
Rollison grinned back. ‘Well, let’s shelve it for the nonce, shall we. There are a few notes I would like taken down.’ He sat back, the tips of his fingers together and his eyes half-closed, letting his thoughts roam, going over everything he had heard, giving emphasis to those things which he thought might prove important later. Snub’s pencil flew over the lined pages of his note-book. Suddenly the quiet was broken by a crash of breaking glass.
Snub was nearer the door; he reached it ahead of Rollison, sped across the hall, and flung the kitchen door open.
His voice, pitched high with incredulity and a little disappointment in that no villain had been discovered, came back sharply to Rollison.
‘Someone’s thrown something through the window. It looks like a hammer!’
Chapter Fourteen
It was a hammer.
Rollison took out a handkerchief, wrapped it round his fingers and picked it up. Snub was now on the iron landing of the fire escape. One pane of glass was broken and pieces of it were all over the kitchen floor. There was no sound outside, and Snub came back, disappointed again.
‘That was an odd thing to do, wasn’t it?’
‘Just a message,’ said Rollison.
Snub’s eyes widened. ‘Of course, the Hammer! Do the police really think there is such a man?’
‘They know there is. But I shouldn’t think the Hammer has had much to do with this job,’ Rollison said. ‘The hint is much too broad. Nice little tool,’ he added, swinging it, ‘It would look well on the wall, don’t you think?’
‘Jolly wouldn’t think so,’ said Snub.
Rollison chuckled. ‘Give Grice a ring at the Yard and tell him about it, will you? If he’s not there, leave a message. And then get off to bed. You can type those notes out in the morning.’
Grice was not at Scotland Yard, which was hardly surprising, for it was well past midnight. Snub went off, and Rollison wondered again whether Grice had other grounds for suspecting Snub than those he had listed.
At a quarter to one, as he was about to switch off the light in his bedroom, Jolly came in.
His whisper, muted yet determined to be heard, sped across the room. ‘Are you awake, sir?’
‘Yes, come in.’ Rollison sat up in bed and watched the prim figure of his factotum with affectionate amusement. Jolly looked tired. It occurred to Rollison, almost with a sense of shock, that Jolly was getting old … well, oldish. The thought was hardly in his mind before he asked abruptly:
‘Are things here too much for you? Do I work you too hard?’
‘Not at all, sir, but I do admit to feeling rather tired lately. That is one reason why I am extremely glad that Mr Higginbottom is—may I say, promising?’
‘Sit down,’ said Rollison, and when Jolly did so, he went on slowly: ‘Are you still quite satisfied with Snub?’