by John Creasey
“There’s one thing about Brian,” Halloran said, “he thinks of everything.”
They all chuckled.
Even the tall man who had followed them, and was listening from a spot between two mammoth cars, smiled so broadly that it looked as if he would like to laugh aloud. He waited until they were half-way towards the airport buildings, and then followed again. He watched them go in. He did not catch up with them but, five minutes later, he was within earshot when Brian Conway came out of a telephone booth and looked thoughtfully at Valerie. Mike Halloran, who proved to be rather a short man and not particularly broad, stood by the girl. His wide-brimmed hat denied most passers-by a view of the uniqueness of his face.
“I talked to the floor clerk this time,” Brian Conway said, “and she tells me that your brother left the hotel at half-past eight. That should have given him plenty of time - more than plenty.”
Now Valerie Hall looked really alarmed.
“Say, Miss Hall,” said Halloran, as if seized by a great idea, “I sure hope that brother of yours hasn’t run into any trouble.”
2
COINCIDENCE
To Valerie Hall the journey from Idlewild Airport to the heart of Manhattan began at a furious speed, threatened to become a nightmare and at last, in spite of her anxiety for her brother, took her on the brink of wonderland again. The first mile or so seemed to be along wide, winding roads which led to nowhere at all, but in the distance there were the headlights of many cars, and soon they joined a mass of vehicles, all heading the same way, and all going at a speed which seemed suicidal. It was as if every driver put his foot down and then locked the controls, so that the car could not swerve either right or left. Every now and again all the cars nearby seemed to slow down at the same moment; then all began to surge forward at precisely the same time.
Next they drove along a wide road, with service roads on either side, and shops which were so brightly lit that it might have been daylight itself. Many shops were open, which surprised Valerie. The streets were thick with people, too.
They came to the long, dark approaches to a bridge.
“Here’s Queensborough Bridge,” Conway told Valerie Hall, and they swept up a wide roadway towards the main span of the bridge, and suddenly came upon the wonderland. Great buildings, rising to vast heights, all shimmered with countless lights; not one but a hundred of these were lit up, as if by magic. The wheels hummed noisily over the bridge, and then gradually the fairyland faded. They came to one sharp corner, then a second - and were soon in a flow of traffic heading west.
“Now we’re really here,” Conway said, with satisfaction. “This is 52nd Street. We’ll be at the Arden-Astoria any moment now, and there might be a message for you.” . . .
“Thank you,” said Valerie.
The fascination was beginning to fade, and anxiety took its place. Brian Conway seemed to understand all this, and his hand closed over hers. They were sitting in the front of the car, with Halloran at the wheel, and Valerie in the middle. Halloran was a single-purpose driver, and except to curse mildly at one or two other motorists, hadn’t opened his mouth all the way. Now, in the brightness of the New York street, he proved to know his way around almost as well as a taxi-driver, and soon he delivered them to Park Avenue and slid to a standstill outside the unimpressive entrance of the Arden-Astoria.
“You take good care of Miss Hall,” he said. “I’ll park the car and be right back.” If he had lived with grizzlies during each of the past five years he could not have had a gruffer voice.
“Right,” said Conway. “Do that.”
He handed Valerie out.
As they stepped into the hotel, a red-and-yellow taxi drew up behind, taking the place of Mike Halloran’s sky-blue Ford, which slid silently away. Out of the taxi there stepped the tall, dark man who had been so interested in the girl while at the airport, and who had flown in the same stratocruiser. He watched Mike’s car out of sight, and then went into the hotel. Conway and the girl were at the reception desk, talking earnestly. A bell-boy approached the dark-haired man, and asked:
‘Can I help you, sir?”
“Later, thanks,” the man said.
“Yes, sir.”
There were bright lights in show-cases, models, jewels, perfumes and cosmetics in priceless containers. There were thick carpets and luxuriously comfortable chairs. Smartly uniformed bell-boys were dotted about, and lads, a little taller, were at the elevators. Oddly, few other people were about, and an elderly man with a bald patch in his white hair, and a little woman with obviously aching feet, looked out of place and pathetic.
Valerie said: “But what shall we do? What can have happened to him?” She didn’t actually utter the next sentence, but obviously it was at her lips: “He must have met with an accident.”
She looked sweet, pretty, desirable and alarmed.
“You could call . . .“ began a reception clerk who looked as if his clothes should be on a dummy in one of the show-cases.
Conway did not let him finish.
“Don’t you worry, Valerie; don’t worry at all. Let me take you to your room, and then I’ll get busy finding out what there is to find. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had a puncture or some trouble with his car - why, it would even be possible that we passed him on the road. Just don’t worry. Mike and I will sort things out for you.”
“You’re so good, but . . .“
“Just forget it, and leave the worrying to us,” urged Brian Conway. He gripped Valerie’s arm tightly, then looked at the clerk. “We’ll go right up to Miss Hall’s suite,” he declared.
“Yes, sir.” The clerk raised a hand for a bell-boy, and the wheels of the hotel were set in motion. Bell-boys to elevator, elevator to Floor Clerk, Floor Clerk to chambermaid and porter who were waiting in the room with Valerie’s luggage. Conway dispensed tips, and they were left alone in a huge room; a beautiful one, which looked as if it should be in a castle or some stately home - there was too much munificence for a hotel. A thick cream-coloured carpet, exquisite furniture, exquisite lampshades, including a small chandelier of Waterford glass or a very fine imitation. There was a sitting-room which would hold fifty people, when standing, and beyond was a bedroom with one canopied bed and pale-blue satin drapes. Off this, a queenly bathroom.
Conway took a swift look round.
“Everything seems fine,” he said. “Now, Valerie, you only have to tell me if there’s anything else you want.”
“All I want is news about Wilf,” said Valerie Hall.
“Sure; but don’t you worry, Mike will be back by now and we’ll get busy,” Conway promised her. “In my experience the worst thing you expect never happens - why, when I put every penny I had into Mike Halloran’s hands, five years ago, I seemed as if I was parting with my heritage. It was every penny I had. And Mike walked off with it. You know Mike; ask yourself if you would have liked the idea. I hardly knew the guy in those days, but he sold me on this prospecting, told me he had staked a claim to some hundreds of square miles right in the north of Quebec, country so wild that man hadn’t set foot in it before. But he knew there was uranium there, and oil too. All he needed was staking, and I told myself I could judge men. Was I right!” Conway laughed again, on that excited, triumphant note. “But it was nearly five years before I knew I was. Then Mike arrived back in New York and he cabled me the good news. Came over here a month ago, then went back to settle my affairs in England for a little while, and now I’m back with Mike, ready to cash in. And what might have happened?
He might have been a confidence trickster, ready to walk off, but” Conway broke off.
Somehow he had managed to hold Valerie’s interest, and for a few minutes the nagging anxiety about her brother had faded. She watched the strong, handsome face, while Conway slid a hand into his coat pocket, and then brought it out.
“That’s what he gave me as security,” he said. “That’s my talisman for the rest of my life. A little piece of rock, worth how much? Worth nothing - until you run the Geiger counter over it. Then you get the rattle, then you know there’s radio-active material in that piece of rock, and it’s called uranium! And there’s another word for uranium, Valerie - money. Fortune! Why, if you knew”
He broke off again, and this time his expression was ludicrous. He slipped the rock away, took both her hands, and gave an apologetic little laugh.
“What’s the matter with me, Valerie? I’m really sorry; I know how worried you are; I was forgetting. But this piece of rock shows you how worried you can get without any need. I wouldn’t mind betting that your brother will turn up before long, and you’ll be as happy as you’ve ever been. You start unpacking, and I’ll go and make some inquiries.”
“All right,” Valerie said. “How long will you be?”
“I won’t be a minute longer than I can help,” Conway promised. “Not a second, take it from me.”
He squeezed her hands, and went out.
After he had gone, she watched the door for several seconds and then, still worriedly and very thoughtfully, she went across to a window and looked through the net curtains. Slowly she pulled one aside. Park Avenue wasn’t brilliantly illuminated, like some of the other streets, but there was light enough. Cars flashed by. Some people strolled. Not far away there were lights of a hundred colours, and they spread their glow high into the sky.
Valerie turned away from the window.
It wasn’t easy to get on with the unpacking, or to take her mind off her fears for her brother, or her doubts - inescapable doubts - about Conway and Halloran, who were so obviously confidence tricksters that it was inconceivable that they believed they had fooled her.
She opened a case, took out a few things, put them in a drawer - and then went to the window again, as if she could hope to see her brother from there. She was at the window for nearly three minutes, and still looking out when the telephone bell rang.
She swung round, and her eyes lit up.
“It’ll be Wilf!” She flew across the room to the bed and snatched up the telephone from the bedside table. “Hallo!” she cried. “Wilf, darling!”
“Just a minute, please; I have a call for you,” the operator said, and kept her waiting. She dropped on to the foam-rubber comfort of the bed, and sank into it. She leaned back and drew her legs up, curled there with her head on the pillow, a sight to warm the heart and excite the hopes of any man. The belief that the caller was her brother might be illogical, but for these few seconds it drove fear away.
Then:
“Is that Miss Valerie Hall?” The voice was rather hoarse, and unmistakably American; not Wilf’s. Disappointment made Valerie sit up, slowly; worriedly.
“Yes,” she said.
“Listen, Miss Hall,” the man said quickly; “your brother’s in bad trouble, and you’ve got to help him quick. Can I come and see you right now?”
She didn’t speak; fear seemed to paralyse her.
“May I come and see you right now?” the man demanded, and his voice rose. “I think I can help, but there isn’t any time to lose.”
“Plea - please come at once,” Valerie said, and then with a rush: “Where is my brother, what . . .“
She didn’t finish, for the man rang off.
Valerie put the receiver down slowly, and moved away from the bed, but this time she did not go near the window. She had no idea how long the caller would be; ‘at once’ might mean almost any time within the next half-hour. Or longer? She just didn’t know; but she was much more frightened now.
What had he meant by ‘trouble’? By big trouble.
It seemed part of a pattern. Wilf missing, Conway and Halloran out to impress her and win her confidence, and now this. She found herself looking at the door; moving towards it; and when she heard a sound outside, she actually wrenched it open to see who was there.
It was a stranger, but she didn’t think it was the man who had telephoned. She had seen this man before, and anyhow there was no sense of urgency about him. He was tall and startlingly good-looking. He had an air. He was smiling as he strolled towards the door from the corner of the passage, and he seemed to be too far away to have made the sound which she had heard. His face was tanned, his grey eyes were very bright and somehow very gay.
She stood staring.
He paused. “Hallo,” he said; “can I help you?”
Valerie said: “No!” much more explosively than she had meant to, and drew back sharply. She didn’t see what happened to his smile, did not even have time to see whether he went past or not. She closed the door, and immediately wondered why she had shouted, why he had frightened her; it was hard to imagine any sight more reassuring than the well-dressed, handsome Englishman with the Mayfair look and - that air. It was as if he found her and the whole wide world amusing.
It was an odd coincidence that he was in this passage at the same hotel, but she supposed that several people off the aircraft had come to the Arden-Astoria; it wasn’t really remarkable.
Forget him.
Where was Wilf? What was his danger? When would the man who had telephoned come?
The thought was hardly in her mind before the apartment door-bell rang. This time, she moved more slowly, staring at it; and her hand went to her breast, as if to quieten her pounding heart. After a moment’s pause - far too short a time - the bell rang again; and as she moved more quickly it rang for a third time.
“Oh, don’t be in such a hurry!” she cried aloud, but now she moved swiftly, reached the door and opened it.
Before she could get out of the way, it was thrust hard against her.
“What . . .“ she began, and then fear rose starkly. All the things she had heard about the crime in New York flashed into her mind, she uttered a sharp scream, then tried to push the door to.
She could not.
A man was leaning against the door - a heavy man, who prevented her from closing it. The odd thing was that he made no sound.
3
HELP
In those few seconds after she had screamed, and before she saw more than the man’s hand, Valerie Hall was less terrified. She was badly scared, but much more herself. The seconds passed very quickly; just a flash of time. Then, still supporting the door, she edged to one side so that she could see the man more clearly. He was leaning heavily against it. His head was lowered, and she saw dark, curly hair. He wore a light grey suit. His left arm was stretched out, and he clutched the edge of the door. As she stared, she saw his fingers gradually relax, until he lost his grip and slumped down further.
She said in a low-pitched voice: “Oh.”
She knew now that the man was hurt, for he had collapsed completely. She heard his heavy breathing - laboured and tense. If she let the door go, he would fall and the door would bang back against the wall.
She needed help.
She could hardly think, beyond that.
This might be the man who had telephoned her - who else was it likely to be?
She edged towards him, gradually, wondering how she could save him from falling and then bring him in. She did not hear the faint sounds of someone approaching. Odd thoughts flashed through her mind; that this man had been taken ill, had rung for help, had tried desperately to make her open the door before collapsing.
If she pushed the door back, now, he would fall against her and she could hold him up, drag him into the room and then telephone for. . . .
She fought back a scream.
There was blood on the man’s back - blood at his neck, collar, coat - red, spreading blood.
He fell heavily agai
nst her, and the shock of what she had seen robbed her of strength. She staggered back beneath his weight. Somehow, she managed to save them both from falling, but it was only by thrusting her arms round him; and her hands met at the back of his waist and there was the warmth of blood on her fingers.
This time, she didn’t scream.
Then, the dark-haired Englishman appeared again.
He came in and closed the door before she could speak, and then without showing the slightest surprise or alarm, he put his hand beneath the wounded man’s arms, and eased him back from her, while keeping him at arm’s length. As he did so, there was a sound in the throat of the wounded man, a kind of rattle. Valerie had never heard anything like it before, and had not the slightest idea what it was. She felt a great surge of relief; for here was help, the wounded man was no longer in her arms, the tall Englishman still held him up. She saw that he was wearing a plastic raincoat, but didn’t give that a thought then; a moment later she was shaken out of herself, for he lifted the big, heavy stranger right off the ground; then he said quietly:
“Get my key out of my right jacket pocket, will you? It’s Suite 552, next door. Go along and open the door, leave it ajar, and go and wash your hands in my bathroom.”
Valerie stared blankly.
“But- . . .“
“If you don’t do it quickly,” the man said, “you’ll spend your first few days in New York in and out of police stations. I should hurry if I were you.”
He smiled.
As Valerie moved, slipped her hand into the Englishman’s pocket for his key, and then hurried out of the room, she kept seeing that smile. It hadn’t been simply one of amusement, and it hadn’t seemed out of place. Instead, it had given her a reassurance, taking away some of the bewilderment and the fear. It wasn’t until she was handling the key and opening the door of Suite 552 that she remembered that her hands were bloody; and sticky. She shivered. The door opened, and she went inside, careful not to touch anything with those sticky hands. She had never realised how bright was human blood. She began to shiver again as she walked across the first room towards the bathroom, and stepped inside. She ran water into the hand-basin - and as she dipped her hands in, it became crimson. She emptied it; the next lot of water was only pink, but that didn’t reassure her. She couldn’t stop trembling; even when she had dried her hands, she was quivering from head to foot.