Murder: One, Two, Three

by John Creasey

  That was all.

  “We’ve never had more evidence on a man,” Roger said roughly. “Short of catching him red handed, we couldn’t have a stronger case. The hell of it is, I don’t feel sure that he’s lying. But if we don’t uncover a lot more evidence, he’ll hang. And his wife—” He broke off.

  “What about the search near St. Paul’s?” asked Chatworth. “Calling it off?”

  “Every possible spot will have been searched by nightfall,” Roger said. “I’d rather wait until then before stopping it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Chatworth said, without enthusiasm. “It will be a remarkable thing if she’s in the last place you look. But I know, I know, you have to be thorough. What about this man Norris—know anything more about him?”

  “He was certainly at the cottage when Chips Silver was murdered,” Roger said. “The red hairs were his, we’ve proved that. Wortleberry’s checking where he can, but Norris had no record. All we know is that he and Ginn were at the cottage. It looks as if they might have planned to frame Mallow for Reedon’s murder, but the mystery is in the missing green bag. If Norris stole it, and Ginn thinks that Mallow did, then Ginn—” He broke off. “The man who followed Mallow today was Abbey, of the Echo,” he declared abruptly. “The only man we’re still after is Ginn himself. The East End’s been turned upside down, and there isn’t a whisper of any kind. It’s almost as if the swine had never existed. The only two people who knew him really well are dead—Chips Silver and Gladys Domwell. He’s been going in and out of the country for years, may be on board a ship that’s hours out at sea. We’ve broadcast his description to all ships which he might be on, but we’ll be lucky if that leads anywhere. If we don’t find Ginn, I think we’ll hang Mallow—although I’m not sure that he’s a killer. And if we don’t find Ginn, we may never find Mallow’s wife.”

  Chatworth didn’t speak.

  Roger said: ‘We’re going all out on Norris, and we’ll check Mallow’s movements again. If we could only find the stuff, we would get headlines in the Press. Ginn might ease off the girl if he knew we’ve got the goods.”

  “Couldn’t we pretend—” began Chatworth.

  “Before we could convince Ginn that we had the bag, we’d have to be able to give the Press a description of its contents,” Roger said simply. “We can’t, until we find it.”

  They could not find the green bag – at Norris’s hotel, at Mallow’s, or anywhere. They searched for cloakroom tickets, safe deposit keys, any evidence of a hiding place, and they found none.

  They did find that a photograph of Reedon, taken some years ago, tallied with one of a youth named Rawson, locksmith apprentice who had once been suspected of a part in a major robbery, and had afterwards disappeared.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Wall

  Wortleberry snuffled and grunted as he sat in the car next to Roger, kept looking at Roger’s set face, gulping, staring at the massed traffic ahead, then looking back at Roger. They were near the end of Blackfriars Bridge when at last he said what was on his mind.

  “If only I’d suspected Norris—”

  “No one did, no one had any reason to,” Roger said.

  There was a gap in the traffic; he put the car into it, and Wortleberry’s head bobbed forward; so he swallowed his words and, settling down, looked even more ill at ease.

  They just beat the lights.

  Roger stared straight ahead.

  “You worry too much,” he said, “and you’re one of the few country cops I haven’t wished back in their own nice cosy offices.” His tone didn’t match the words, but he tried to make it. “Think Mallow was lying?”

  “Could be,” said Wortleberry. “It’s a hell of a good story.”

  “Prints prove that Ginn and Norris were both there,” Roger said.

  “Some crooks never learn, and always leave their dabs,” Wortleberry said. “Smart ones, too.”

  Up to a point, that was true.

  “You’ve taken to Mallow, haven’t you?” Wortleberry went on.

  “Wouldn’t say that.” They were at Ludgate Circus, and a glance to the right showed the great dome; massed pale granite with the sun shining on the cross which crowned it. “I just have a nasty feeling that he may be telling the truth. There’s a hell of a lot of room for doubt.”

  Roger turned off the main road, and was soon parked near the main body of police cars. The little groups of men, police as well as firemen, were still dotted about. Fifty or sixty idlers were watching, with the intentness which the empty minded often showed in a hole in the road.

  Newspapermen came up to Roger.

  “That true you’re calling it off, Handsome?” one man asked.

  “Anything in the rumour that Ginn’s got out of the country?” a second inquired smoothly.

  “What’s this about another murder, Handsome?”

  “Gentlemen,” said Roger, as nearly sarcastic as he would let himself be with the Press, “the answer to the middle one is that the police don’t listen to rumour; to the last, yes, there has been another murder—read the newspapers to find out all about it. As for calling it all off—”

  “Are you?” two insisted.

  The bleakness came back. The futility of looking for anyone amid this desolation, now that one search had failed, swept over Roger. No matter which way he looked, there wasn’t much in it for him. If Daphne Mallow were near here, she was probably dead or dying. The day might come, in a year or in ten years, when they got round to building again and putting in new foundations, when they’d find her skeleton. If she weren’t here – the laugh was on him.

  He’d no proof at all that she had been here for more than a few minutes.

  The nearest newspaperman was very short, with a button nose and button eyes; an aggressive little terrier of a man.

  “Give us a break, Handsome. Are you calling it off?”

  Roger looked at him bleakly.

  “Yes,” he said. “Within the next hour.”

  He hardly knew why he added “the next hour”. He’d no authority; just Chatworth’s instructions to call it off, given less than an hour ago. He would search on, while daylight lasted and through tomorrow, if he had his way; but Authority had spoken. He didn’t hide the fact that he disagreed with the verdict, but no one referred to that. Wortleberry pushed his hands deep in his baggy pockets.

  Two minutes later, when his mood was at its worst, Roger saw a huge uniformed policeman coming towards him, with a small boy at his side. They were hand in hand. The boy was probably average size, but the policeman made him into a Lilliputian; at any other time it would have been comical.

  The boy was one of those who had been throwing stones. He had the sharp features and the keen eyes of the Cockney; a fine natural quiff of hair; clothes which needed the needle; a face which needed washing. He couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve, but had the forced maturity of a youth twice his years. Yet he was ill at ease.

  Why bring a kid along for some silly misdemeanour, Roger wondered irritably; some of these damned flatfoots behaved as if they’d never had a kid of their own. This one’s right ear stuck out more than his left.

  The constable came ponderously to a standstill.

  “Chief Inspector West, sir?”

  Roger said, “Yes,” and tried to find a grin for the boy; it wouldn’t come.

  “This lad has an interesting statement to make, sir.”

  Roger thought savagely: “I’m getting dull witted.”

  He hadn’t even seen this ill assorted pair as heralds of hope, and slid out of the mood of despondency with the unthinking speed of a thirsty man who sees water.

  “Has he, then. What’s this about, son?” There was no difficulty in his grin, now; Martin and Richard would have recognised it. “Found some stolen loot?”

  He won a responding grin.

  “Loot, nothing,” the boy said. He hadn’t a nasal accent, barely a hint of Cockney. “I asked the copper what you’re all looking for, he
told me about this cove, Ginn.”

  “I considered that advisable,” said the constable, speaking as he would write his report.

  “Seen him?” asked Roger.

  “I don’t say I have, I don’t say I haven’t,” answered the boy, “but I might have, mister. Over there.” He pointed towards the high wall, with the sign which so clearly said danger. “Two or three times I seen him, when it’s getting late. I can show you the door he goes through, if it’s the chap.”

  “Door?”

  “He states,” announced the policeman, “that he has seen this person climb down into one of the basements that was, and pull open a door in a corner.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Roger demanded sharply, and started off. “What’s your name, George?”

  “Nark it,” the boy said. “You know.” He grinned again. “Seen this guy several times—had a moll with him, sometimes.”

  They were hurrying, and drawing nearer that brooding wall. Nothing suggested that it was as dangerous as that notice said; it stood sheer and tall, darkened by weather, flames, and smoke, with the empty window frames letting through the light of day. Huge wooden beams which shored it up seemed strong enough to hold it for another fifty years.

  “What do you mean, moll?” Roger demanded, but he wasn’t thinking of keeping the youngster at ease, only about this door in the wall of a basement. He didn’t give the big wall a thought.

  “You know. Dame, peach, skirt, moll.”

  “I’ll ‘moll’ you,” Roger said. “Nip ahead and show me the spot, will you?”

  The big policeman and Wortleberry were following; so were two newspapermen, including the little chap with the button eyes and button nose; an odd procession. Elsewhere, the police worked at the same steady pace, and the watchers gazed without knowing what was going on. Roger and the boy came within the shadow of the wall, and the boy reached the place where Ginn and Gladys had climbed up from the basement; he nipped down, and disappeared from sight.

  When Roger reached the edge, the boy was at the far corner.

  That was the first sharp disappointment, for it looked just like a part of the rest of the basement wall; made of brick, not at all like a door. Roger hesitated. The police and the pressmen were twenty yards behind. The boy nipped across round and beckoned, then began to prise at the wall with a piece of stiff wire; he was certainly in earnest, even if he’d made a mistake in the actual spot.

  “You sure that’s the place?” Roger called, as he jumped down.

  “‘Course I’m sure, seen it open often enough,” said the boy scornfully. “Tried to get in, too, but never managed it. I think he has a key. This brick’s a bit loose, see.”

  He was poking the wire beside the brick, and the brick actually moved.

  Roger’s heart jumped.

  “Fine! Let me—”

  “Got it,” breathed the boy, and then pulled the loose brick out.

  He pulled too quickly, and it dropped and fell on his toe. At any other time his language would have shaken the hardest bitten Yard man, but Roger wasn’t thinking about a schoolboy’s profanity, only of the gap in the wall.

  Beyond, was a keyhole.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to get at that keyhole with a pick lock. Obviously the bricks were built on the outside of a steel door; probably this had once been a vault, possibly beneath a bank. That didn’t matter; what mattered was getting at the door.

  “Get someone with pick axes,” Roger called. “Hurry!”

  He glanced swiftly round, and caught sight of the boy, darting to the right. The boy’s fingers closed round a broken piece of iron girder, some two feet long and twisted in the heat of the fire.

  “This do, sir?”

  Sir.

  “Fine, George. What is—?” Roger didn’t finish the question, but jumped out of the way, for the lad raised the broken girder in his two lean hands, then brought it down at the wall with all the strength he could muster.

  The eagerness on the young face was unbelievable; Roger hadn’t the heart to stop him, and let him bring it down three times – a rain of blows far less puny than seemed likely.

  No one noticed that the tremors ran along from the ground to the high wall.

  No one noticed the wall trembling.

  “Let me,” Roger said. He didn’t use his full strength, but levered at several bricks near the keyhole; the lad had loosened them, and they came out with trouble. “That’s fine. You did the work, I get the pickings! Ever seen a pick lock?”

  “You mean skeleton key?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’re a copper!”

  Roger grinned, lively as the boy.

  “That’s right, too!”

  He stopped speaking, because of the onrush of excitement. This couldn’t be coincidence, could it? The boy had really seen Ginn, if Daphne Mallow were anywhere here she would be behind this door. He had to take it carefully – more haste less speed. Old saw! The boy’s gaze was tense and taut, like a physical thing. Roger’s hands moved, he felt the key get a grip and began to turn firmly.

  He heard a sound which seemed to come from a long way off; a kind of crunching, followed by a loud crack. He took no notice, although he heard a man say sharply: “What’s that?” Two policemen were jumping down into the basement, then turned to pick up pick axes; one newspaperman was half way between the edge and Roger and the boy.

  All of these looked round, startled.

  The lock clicked back.

  “Got it!” breathed Roger. “Lend a hand, George, pull like the very devil.”

  He gripped a brick on one side of the hole; the boy gripped another. They pulled with all their weight, desperately. The door began to open, and yielded up its darkness. The unfamiliar, grinding and cracking noise came from behind, a shadow seemed to be moving over them slowly and remorselessly.

  Wortleberry bellowed in a voice which blasted the rending, ominous noises.

  “Get away, Handsome! Wall’s falling!”

  Roger heard; and in a moment of frightening clarity understood what the noises were. The boy realised it, too. They turned round, moving in jerks, like running down clockwork toys. The great dark wall towered above them at a monstrous height; and was falling slowly, falling so that loose pieces fell from the top and crashed into the basement.

  There was no hope for anyone in the basement. The newspaperman and the two policemen were rushing madly away, arms folded above their heads in almost pathetic gesture of defence.

  The boy was petrified as he watched the wall falling faster and faster.

  Something cracked inside Roger. He grabbed the boy and thrust him into the darkness beyond the door, squeezed through, jumped into the black void, banged into the boy and grabbed him.

  Then all light was cut off as the avalanche of brick fell against the door, slamming it. A crack as of thunder was followed by a deafening, frightening roar. The earth trembled and the unseen walls shook.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Cupboard

  The avalanche of sound had ceased. Man and boy stood together, closely, as if they were father and son, the boy’s arms tight round Roger’s waist, his face buried against Roger’s coat. Dust, shaken up by the impact, rose in choking clouds and made it difficult to breathe. It stung the eyes and made it easy to think that they would suffocate, that there was no hope of breathing fresh air, or of breathing at all for long. Roger struggled for breath, and fought his own fear; and he must also fight the boy’s.

  It was all quiet, now; there was just the choking dust.

  He eased the boy away.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “This wall held. Our lucky day.” It wasn’t easy to speak, he paused between every two or three words, and his voice sounded strange even on his own ears. The lad still gripped him – his hand, now that he couldn’t encircle his waist. “Let me have my hand back,” Roger managed to say, “then I can get a light.”

  The boy snatched his hands away, desperately ea
ger for a light. He was much more help than hindrance, for he forced calmness to Roger; the moment of panic had already passed. The dust was just dust, unpleasant but not deadly, and they could breathe.

  Roger took out his lighter.

  “I filled it last night,” he said, “we’re all right for a bit. It won’t be long before they dig us out.” Reason told him that men outside were already starting; and reason told him that there were others to dig for besides him and the boy. He thought of Wortleberry, who might have been struck down. “Half a mo’.”

  He flicked the lighter.

  The small yellow light was so strong at first that it dazzled them both. He caught a glimpse of the youngster’s face smeared with dust, and then it vanished; he could see the brightness of the boy’s eyes as he might see the filament of a lamp after staring at it.

  He opened his eyes narrowly.

  The swirling dust was not thick enough to prevent them from looking about; and the boy was as eager as Roger.

  There, on the box which served as a table, was a candle in the neck of a beer bottle. Strictly speaking, half a candle, with the wax set hard on the outside of the bottle and looking like a tiny frozen waterfall. Roger’s hand wasn’t steady, and the boy’s voice shook.

  “L—l—look, someone—someone lives here.”

  Roger gritted his teeth as he went forward and lit the candle. The wick caught very slowly, the dust sparked, the lighter went out; just a tiny little ball of yellow light remained, with the dust swirling about it, as if intent on putting it out.

  Then the candle flame grew larger.

  He had to have light, but mustn’t keep it for long; they would need every precious bit of oxygen, and the open flame would burn it too quickly.

  They looked about them, seeing the bed in the corner, the pin up photographs, the oddments of food, the chair – and the door of the cupboard in the corner.

  And on Daphne Mallow’s suitcase, with its bright red corners.

  Roger stared at it.

  After a long pause, the boy said: “What—what’s the matter?”