Murder: One, Two, Three

by John Creasey

  These were dampish photographs of fingerprints, clear evidence of the high pressure at which the Hoole police had worked.

  “As far as we can tell they were made about the same time—in the dust of the bedroom, anyhow, and that dust must’ve come from the ceiling when the hole was made. So it’s pretty certain that unknown chap was there when the others were—or just after. Always the same,” Wortleberry added, permitting himself a little grumble. “Either you get too many prints or too few. Too many, this time, we could do without that chap; but he’s been there.” He didn’t actually smile, but his tone softened as he went on: “Not yours, either, Mr. West, Bradding’s sure of that!”

  “A complete newcomer on the scene,” Roger said, “and a man with big fingers.”

  “That’s it. Might be a big man altogether, but you’re right—the only thing we know for certain is the big fingers. Bradding and some of my chaps are having another go at the cottage, Mr. West, I don’t think they’ll miss anything.”

  “I’ll bet they won’t!” Roger found himself smiling almost freely. “Anything more up your sleeve?”

  “Well, not really,” Wortleberry said. “I brought duplicate reports of everything. I’ve been trying to find a line on Reedon before he moved to Hoole. Only things at the cottage were one or two school certificates—and this.”

  Wortleberry took out a foolscap envelope, extracted a piece of stiff paper, and presented it to Roger. It was a certificate from an Institute of Engineering, showing that a man named Rawson had served his apprenticeship as a locksmith.

  “Hallo!” Roger exclaimed, as he read. “Locksmith—safe breaker. Now we’ve got a line. Rawson—” He glanced at Chatworth. “Mind if I get ’em moving on this?”

  “I’ll see to it,” Chatworth said, and pressed a bell; almost on the instant his secretary came in, a middle aged woman wearing a white blouse and black skirt. He handed her the certificate. “Have that man Rawson checked, quickly—give it to Turnbull, if he’s in.”

  “Yes, sir.” The woman went out.

  Roger said: “Don’t tell me there’s anything else.”

  “Just a bit,” said Wortleberry almost smugly. “If Reedon had a cache at the cottage, and was a crook, it looks as if Mallow found out. Had a bit of luck—found a letter on the beach which must have been washed out of Reedon’s pocket. Smudged, but legible.”

  He produced the note, and Roger read: “Tony, I’m in a bad fix. Will you see me tonight, midnight, at your place? Don’t want Daff to know. And could you find fifty quid, just to tide me over? Michael.”

  Got a smell of blackmail, somehow,” Wortleberry surmised.

  “Could have,” Roger agreed.

  Wortleberry broke off, almost in alarm; it was quite clear that he had been talking much as he would to his own men, and suddenly pulled himself up.

  “See what I mean,” he added in some confusion.

  “We do indeed,” said Chatworth briskly. He smoothed down the fringe of grizzled hair at the back of his head, and ran a palm over his large bald patch. “Well, we need to know who the chap with big fingers was. That won’t take long if he’s known to us. What do you recommend next, West?”

  “The thing that worries me most is Daphne Mallow,” Roger said. “We’ve got to face this threat, that Ginn will kill her if we don’t let Mallow go.”

  Chatworth didn’t speak.

  “Chap can’t think we’ll knuckle under to a threat like that,” Wortleberry protested.

  “We want Ginn, and we want him as quickly as we can get him.” The sharpness of Roger’s voice stopped the words from sounding too formal. “Ginn thinks that Mallow has the money, and that he can make Mallow turn it over. Judging from the reports on Mallow’s attitude about his wife, he’s probably right, if he—”

  “If he has it,” Wortleberry put in. “Lot of things suggest he’s on his uppers, don’t they? Wouldn’t be, if he’d lifted that cash.”

  “What about that envelope with the fifty one pounds in?” West asked.

  Wortleberry opened his mouth, and closed it again, almost fish like. He flushed, and then stooped down again, grinning, to take something else from the suitcase.

  “Forgot that,” he said. “It had a few smudges and two lots of prints, Charley Ray’s, the postman’s, and the same big prints as we found in the dust at the cottage. Not Mallow’s,” Wortleberry added, with deliberate emphasis. “The new lot.”

  “There’s considerable evidence that someone else has the money,” Chatworth put in. “In statements made to you last night, West, Mallow denies having had that money, but denies nothing else. Think you can make him talk now?”

  “I can have a good try,” Roger said grimly. “But the basic problem’s the same, whether he talks or not. Can we get Ginn? If Mallow is freed, Ginn will try to get at him. We could release Mallow, and watch. It’s the old trick, but no worse because of that. We can hold Mallow if we want to, but we’ve a pretty logical reason to let him go. The risk is that Ginn might kill him. Provided Mallow’s worried about that—”

  “You really want to release Mallow, and follow him?” Chatworth was sharper.

  “I’d take a lot of risks in order to get Ginn quickly,” Roger said. “Ginn’s the only man who knows for certain where Daphne Mallow is.”

  “Go and see Mallow,” decided Chatworth. “See what you make of him this morning. If you’d like to be present at the interview, Superintendent, I’m sure Chief Inspector West will be glad of your advice.” He was cherubic again, all sharpness dulled. “I’ll see you later—no, don’t worry about the exhibits, I’ll have them sent down to the Chief Inspector’s office.”

  Roger went with Wortleberry to the door. The Hoole man made an elephantine turn, to smile timid thanks at the great Assistant Commissioner, before they walked towards the stairs.

  A lot had come in at once; it wasn’t what Roger hoped for, but it took them a little farther. A little? Those fingerprints might come to mean everything. The unknown “Rawson” as a locksmith might, too. Rawson alias Reedon?

  The vital thing was to make Mallow talk.

  Wortleberry said: “Bit of a tiger, isn’t he? Er—don’t think I don’t want to be helpful, but I’d much rather you handled the interview. Too many cooks, you know.”

  Mallow obviously hadn’t slept much. He’d had a shave, and looked more together, but his eyes burned. He kept getting up from his chair, as if he couldn’t stay in the same place for long. He looked more like his photograph now, with his hair standing up on end, thick and wiry, most of the effect of the brilliantine gone. His hands were continually working, he kept banging a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand.

  “I tell you the only thing that matters is to find my wife. What are you doing about it? Why are you wasting time here, when every policeman on the Force ought to be on the look out!”

  “A great many are,” Roger said, his one concession to mildness. “Stop pacing about, and let’s have the truth. You could have saved your wife by handing that money over.”

  “I don’t know anything about the bloody money!”

  “You were at the cottage when—”

  “I went to see Reedon. Okay, I went to borrow some money! I’m broke, but I didn’t kill anyone. When I got there, I found a chap lying at the foot of the stairs with his head bashed in. I—I looked for Tony, and couldn’t see him.” Mallow flung the words out, as if it were the tenth, not the first time that he had said them. “Then someone I didn’t see clumped me on the back of the head. If you don’t believe me, I’ve still got the bruise, look!” He lunged forward, bending almost double, to let them see the back of his head. The hair, glistening with the brilliantine, was unexpectedly thin in the centre, and there was a slight bruise; the skin was broken and there was a pink scab. “I thought I’d had it,” Mallow went on, his voice now almost a screech. “I thought he was going to smash my head in, like he had the other chap’s. Was I scared! When I came round, I couldn’t believe I was still alive, I just
couldn’t believe it!” He caught his breath.

  “Where were you when you came round?” Roger asked.

  “In the cottage. Near the other man, with his head—That was—awful.” Mallow seemed to shiver uncontrollably. “Awful. There was—there was a whacking great rat, creeping—” He closed his eyes. Wortleberry snuffled, as if in sympathy. Roger’s expression didn’t change; he watched every expression on Mallow’s face, and in the blue eyes. “That’s all,” Mallow went on, much more slowly. “I went home and—and decided to run away.”

  “Why?”

  “Haven’t you got any sense? Can’t you understand why—?”

  “No,” Roger said flatly. “If that’s really what happened, in your place I would have sent for the police. Why didn’t you?”

  “I—I was scared.”

  “What makes you scared of the police?”

  Mallow closed his mouth, tightly, and didn’t make any attempt to answer.

  “Look here, Mallow,” Roger said roughly, “this man Ginn is a killer. He has your wife somewhere, so she’s in acute danger. Get that into your head. We’ve got to know everything you can tell us. Never mind risking your own neck; if you care anything for your wife, let’s have the whole truth.”

  Mallow said thinly: “I’ve told you it all.”

  “You haven’t told us why you ran away. Why you wanted to leave your home. Let’s have the truth. You killed your friend Reedon, didn’t you? You banged him over the head and then pushed him over the cliff into Demon’s Cove. You went to burgle his house and found the others there. Come on, let’s have it!”

  “It’s not true,” Mallow gasped. “I didn’t kill Tony. He was my closest friend, why the hell should I kill him?” He paused; and it seemed for a long time. Then he burst out: “When are you going to find my wife? Daff, oh, Daff—”

  He broke off, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “Oh, he’s keeping something back,” Roger said to the A.C. “I wouldn’t like to guess what. I would like to say he can’t switch on tears as he wants to. This love for his wife could be a big act. One queer thing, if he has told us the truth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He was knocked out in the cottage, fingered the door to get in, probably touched other things—but left no prints. Did he wear gloves, I wonder? Did he make sure he left no prints?”

  “Good point,” Chatworth said. “Still recommend letting him go?”

  “I think it’s worth a chance. If he knows where Ginn is, he’ll probably lead us to him. To tail him I’ll select a man who won’t make any mistake, and we’ll leave it until we can send look out calls to all the stations and divisions. I can’t believe he’ll escape—”

  Roger said that as if he wasn’t really at all sure.

  Wortleberry said: “If you don’t mind me putting a word in, Assistant Commissioner, I’d like to say that I agree with West. Er—Mr. West. Fully. I should say that Mallow and Ginn have worked together in the past, eh—er—Mr. West?”

  “Could be,” Roger agreed.

  “Do what you think’s best,” conceded Chatworth, “but don’t lose Mallow.”

  He didn’t add, “Like you lost the others,” but the rider seemed implicit. Wortleberry made no further comment.

  Roger went down to his office, to give orders for a shadow to get ready to follow Mallow, and to arrange a general lookout for him. He arranged for two men to do the tailing, but knew, as did Chatworth and everyone else, Mallow could give them the slip if he really wanted to; any man could.

  One question stood out. If Ginn didn’t feel sure that Mallow would get in touch with him, why had he sent that “ultimatum”?

  Another: if Mallow hadn’t the money, why was Ginn so sure that he had?

  The importance of the unidentified fingerprint was mounting, but there was nothing in the Yard records to help; the prints were of a man without a police record.

  There was no record of anyone named Rawson, either, but the Institute had records of an Anthony Rawson who’d served an apprenticeship with the Landon Lock Company; a Yard man was now checking with Landon’s. Rawson had been there ten years or so ago, and was bound to be remembered by some of the staff.

  Would they recognise Reedon as Rawson?

  Just now, that question hardly seemed important.

  Too much seemed to depend on whether Mallow and Ginn met. There was more than a solution of the case; there was the life of Daphne Mallow. That harried Roger more than anything else. Whenever he looked at her photograph he thought of Janet’s words, and what he knew of the girl.

  He had only known her when she was frightened.

  In Ginn’s hands she would be terrified.

  If she was alive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Steel Cupboard

  At the moment when West released Michael Mallow, Daphne Mallow was conscious.

  For several hours, in the cupboard that might well become her tomb, she had been in a coma, sleep and unconsciousness merging together; at least, she had been less conscious of fear than she had when she had been fully conscious. Occasionally, she stirred and had a few moments of absolute clarity of vision; of awful understanding.

  It was like being in a dark, cold hell.

  She began to shiver and shake. The knot of the scarf pressed against her teeth, so that she couldn’t open her mouth properly, could only try to gnaw at the cloth. She didn’t try very often, for her muscles as well as her will went limp.

  The air was so foul.

  She sat on the cold floor part of the time, head against the wall. Each time she woke herself up she was in that position. Then she would get to her feet and kick at the steel door, until it hurt so much, and she had to stop.

  She made no sound that travelled far, had no reason to hope. She would sink back into the stupor, and wake up to go through it all again, as if in a recurring nightmare.

  There were other things.

  Hunger; physical weakness; thirst. Her mouth was so dry that it felt hard and brittle against her tongue. There was something oily on the scarf, which made it worse. She kept trying to work her lips up and down a little, and sometimes it seemed easier; once or twice, without realising what she had done, she gnawed through a few strands of the material, and slackened the pressure slightly.

  Most of the time, there was just the coldness, the silence, and the creeping fear that she was going to stay here until she died.

  Outside, the police were searching the derelict land again, in the better light of day.

  Roger stood outside the shop in Whitechapel, and looked up at the green painted window, with the words, Sol Riddle, Glove maker, Special Orders, Surgical Work Done, painted in black. He could just see the heads of some of the girls working in the shop. The door itself was open, and that was marked Trade Only. He went in. The whirr of sewing machines came insistently from a back room; different noises, carrying their tale of busyness, came from beyond a wooden partition which separated the Trade Counter from the workroom. A door in this partition opened before he had pressed the bell marked: Ring.

  A flamboyant looking young man with dark, wavy hair, very heavily oiled, a teenager’s dream of a pink and white complexion, and beautiful honey coloured eyes, came into the little cubicle. He seemed to fill it; it was like seeing an orchid growing on the waste land where Gladys Domwell had died. His full, beautifully shaped lips were ready to break into a smile. Large, well kept hands were ready to gesticulate. He hesitated when he saw Roger, obviously puzzled and doubting whether this was a customer.

  “Good morning.” His voice was pleasant, with just an overdose of nasal twang.

  “Good morning,” Roger said, and produced a card. “May I speak to Mr. Soloman Riddle?”

  “Certainly, sir,” said the flamboyant looking young man. “I am Sol Riddle. How can I help you?”

  “Is there somewhere we can talk quietly, Mr. Riddle?”

  Riddle glanced down at the card, and widened his eyes. He looked more puz
zled, and on his guard; perhaps wary. That didn’t mean a thing; in this district there was a sound chance that anyone questioned by the police would have some sense of guilt on his conscience.

  “Certainly, let’s go upstairs,” Riddle said promptly enough. “My flat is above the workshop, Chief Inspector—West, isn’t it?” He flashed white teeth. “Thought I’d seen your face before, Mr. West, pictures of it anyhow!” He called out: “Rachel, I shall be out for a little while, please look after things,” and pushed up the flap in the counter and ushered Roger out, then into a doorway adjoining the shop, and up the stairs. “It’s a small flat,” he said apologetically, “just room for my poor old mother and me, don’t take any notice of her if she sees us, Chief Inspector, she’s stone deaf. Such a pity.”

  The flat and the rooms were small, but well furnished. In the room where Sol Riddle took Roger there was a large television set, a Bergere suite with royal blue cushions in its couch, and two chairs, a walnut cocktail cabinet, and a sprinkling of valuable oddments, placed with excellent taste. The carpet looked newish Persian.

  “Sit down, please, and tell me what I can do for you?” invited Riddle. “Not serious trouble, I hope, is it?”

  He sat down, looking less flustered.

  “Very serious,” Roger said flatly. “You have a girl named Gladys Domwell working for you?”

  The honey coloured eyes seemed to grow larger. There was a long pause, as if Riddle was trying to grasp the significance of that, before he said: “Yes, yes, that is so. Is Gladys in trouble? Such a pity, she is a very good girl, a very good worker, one of the best in the trade. It isn’t so easy to get a good girl now, not a conscientious girl. Gladys would always put her best into a job. And such a clever worker, too. If I can help her, Chief Inspector, I will be glad to.”

  “I’d like to talk to any of her friends, anyone she knew particularly well here.”

  Riddle’s eyes were steady, and his hands lay motionless in his lap.

  “Chief Inspector, is there trouble with that man she has been going with? That Ginn?”