Dr. Morelle measured him with a cold stare.
‘You forget,’ he said, ‘that one of your captives happens to be Miss Frayle. Stupid, blundering fool that she may be, nevertheless I hold myself responsible for her well-being and safety.’ His mouth closed like a trap, and he said through his teeth: ‘Where is she?’
‘I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Dr. Morelle’s grip on the swordstick handle tightened.
‘Still trusting in your capacity to brazen it out? Still calculating that you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb?’
The other’s cold stare faltered for a fraction of a second. It was enough for Dr. Morelle to fling at him:
‘Hanged — for the murder of Leo Rolf and the woman Huggins.’
Once more the other blinked. The tip of his tongue moistened his lip.
‘You’re crazy,’ he gasped.
‘Leo Rolf, whom you had been blackmailing,’ Dr. Morelle went on relentlessly. ‘And whom you induced or forced to assist you to abduct Doone Drummer. You murdered him for reasons best known to yourself, but I hazard the suggestion it was because, fearful of the consequences, he threatened to denounce you. Just as you administered poison in Mrs. Huggins’ drink because, I surmise, she accidentally met you in the mews last night. You were either on the way to telephone me or returning from having already done so.’
The other’s eyes blinked again. The perspiration was running down his face. Dr. Morelle leaned forward, his voice harsh and compelling.
‘Miss Frayle — whom you brought back to this house last night — where is she? And your other victim?’
The man’s mouth twisted in another sneer.
‘Brimful of newsy items, aren’t you? Why so sure they’re here?’
‘It is not unreasonable to suppose,’ Dr. Morelle retorted, ‘that where one is the other will also be found.’ He plunged his free hand into his pocket and held out a fragment in his palm. ‘I picked it up,’ he said, ‘a short while ago. Outside the garage.’
The other’s jaw sagged as he stared at the object before him.
‘You may recognise it,’ Dr. Morelle continued smoothly, ‘as a broken piece of Miss Frayles horn-rimmed spectacles. Obviously dislodged from her apparel in which it had caught when the glasses were broken.’ His voice rose suddenly in an enraged snarl. ‘Where is she? Answer me — before I skewer your throat to the cupboard-door behind you.’
The man uttered a choked cry of terror as the needle-sharp point at his throat drew a spurt of blood which trickled down to his collar.
‘For God’s sake, don’t —’
‘Where is Miss Frayle?’ Dr. Morelle’s voice lashed him. ‘For the last time.’
‘Behind here,’ the other gasped. ‘Through — through this cupboard. A secret door that had been covered over. Leads into some empty rooms over the mews.’
Dr. Morelle’s eyes blazed with triumph. Then suddenly the other gave a moan and slid slowly to the floor in a crumpled heap.
‘You scared the swine into a dead faint,’ a familiar voice boomed out, and Dr. Morelle swung round to find Inspector Hood framed in the doorway.
Two other plain-clothes men were crowding behind the Inspector. They sprang towards the unconscious figure on the floor, and there came a click of handcuffs. Inspector Hood shook his head at the inert heap, the blood oozing over his collar.
‘All very reprehensible,’ he turned to Dr. Morelle rebukingly. ‘But ruddy successful.’
Dr. Morelle was wrenching open the cupboard-doors facing him. He crashed his shoulder against another narrow door at the back of the cupboard. There was a splintering sound as the light wood gave way before his attack, and he plunged through. He found himself in another large cupboard the doors of which were unlocked. He stood on a bare landing with a flight of uncarpeted stairs leading below. The air was musty, the place echoed to his footsteps and had an unlived-in atmosphere. He realised he was in an empty two-storeyed flat above Harvey Drummer’s garage. He recalled having noticed two storeys over the garage, the windows dirty, and dark, the iron stairway to the front door broken and dilapidated, the door itself heavily boarded up.
Dr. Morelle crossed to two doors facing him. Both were locked. Inspector Hood at his back jingled a key-ring he had taken from the man still insensible in the room behind them. He said to Dr. Morelle, who was eyeing the locked doors aggressively:
‘No need to go overdoing breaking up the happy home. Try if one of these keys will do the trick.’
Miss Frayle lay stretched out on the bed in the corner. She was unconscious, moaning faintly now and then under the influence of the narcotic.
In the next room Doone Drummer was just recovering from the last injection she had received. She was muttering incoherently as Hood and one of the plain-clothes men carried her carefully through to Harvey Drummer’s house. There a police-surgeon and nurses who had been called in against any such emergency swiftly attended to her.
After assuring himself that she was in no danger Dr. Morelle himself carried Miss Frayle into the house and down to a waiting police-car. Inspector Hood followed and gave a hand settling the pathetic-looking figure comfortably in the back seat. He stood back and grinned broadly at Dr. Morelle.
‘Never forgive herself, she won’t,’ he said. ‘Being unconscious while she was in your arms.’
Dr. Morelle glanced at him sharply.
‘I shall esteem it a favour if you will forget ever having witnessed the incident,’ he replied stiffly.
Inspector Hood chuckled, but Dr. Morelle’s face was uncompromisingly stern.
‘I have your word?’ he pressed.
‘Anything you say,’ the other laughed. ‘I’d promise you the earth after what you’ve pulled off this morning.’ Shaking his head ruefully. ‘If only I’d got that tip-off about Bertie Herberts earlier —’
‘And deciphered the anagram he had chosen as an alias,’ Dr. Morelle insinuated, recalling the name he had doodled on Miss Frayle’s notes when Hood had telephoned him about Herberts.
‘Colossal nerve of the so-and-so,’ Hood grunted. ‘Rearranging the same name to make it ‘Brethers’. Herberts . . . Brethers,’ he rolled the names round his tongue. ‘What a blighter. Got to admit he looked the part too. References were faked, of course. Drummer’s just told me he took ’em for granted. But Drummer’s so excited over having his precious daughter back that’s all he can think of.’
‘Not to mention the diamond bracelet also safely recovered,’ Dr. Morelle reminded him.
‘Everything’s sewn up neat and tidy,’ Inspector Hood beamed, giving the Doctor a wide grin of gratitude.
Dr. Morelle offered no comment, but merely permitted a smug, self-satisfied expression to settle on his face as he stepped into the car and sat beside Miss Frayle. She gave a little moan and seemed to slide sideways so that her head was nestling against his shoulder. He was about to push her away, and then appeared to recall that she was not conscious of what she was doing. He gave Inspector Hood a somewhat uncomfortable look and leaned as far away from Miss Frayle as he could. Somehow her head still contrived to nestle firmly against his shoulder, Hood noticed, as he closed the car-door.
Had he detected Miss Frayle’s eyes flutter open for one brief moment? the Inspector wondered. Just before she had re-settled herself comfortably close to Dr. Morelle? Inspector Hood’s pipe gurgled and spluttered as, chuckling aloud, he watched the car drive off, bearing Dr. Morelle and Miss Frayle back to 221B, Harley Street.
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[1] Published by Manning & Hopper (London) and Karter (New York). As already stated, Dr. Morelle has disposed of Lombroso’s theory that physiognomy has any scientific basis for the determination of characte
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[2] ‘Dictionary of Underworld Slang and Phrases,’ published by Bullen & Joyce (London).
[3] See his monograph, ‘Chemical Mutations in Blood as Result of Endocrine Reaction to Emotional Disturbance’ (Manning & Hopper; London).
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