Except For One Thing

by John Russell Fearn

  CHAPTER VIII

  At quarter to eleven Richard drew up his Jaguar a few yards from Valerie Hadfield’s apartment building. One or two people were passing up and down the street, mere passers-by and of no significance. He drew the rubber gloves from his pocket, slipped them on, got out of the car, locked it, then walked briskly along the pavement until he came to the steps of the building.

  The usual entrance-hall light was shining through the glass of the doors. He felt for the keys he had taken from Valerie’s handbag, clenched them in his palm, then hurried up the steps quickly and across the hall. It was as deserted as usual and the lift took him up to the fourth floor.

  The thick pile carpet deadened noise as he went along to Flat 7. Since the maid lived out the chances were that she was nowhere on the premises, but to make certain he knocked lightly — enough for anybody in No. 7 to hear him but not enough to attract anybody in the neighbouring flats. There was no response, and as far as he could tell no light either under the small space below the door.

  He slid the key in the lock, and glided into the dark room beyond. Then he paused, took off his shoes, and put them together edgewise on the carpet by the door. They were slightly muddy; they could leave prints in the carpet pile and maybe even enough deposit for a spectrograph analysis.

  In stockinged feet he went with complete sureness to the windows to make certain that the draperies were over — and they were; heavy velvet which would show no light outside. Since Valerie had left the flat for the theatre after nightfall they were just as he had expected to find them.

  Turning, he took his scarf from about his neck and laid it along the bottom of the door; then he switched on the light and looked about him. There was nothing changed, no obvious signs of anybody having been in the room, though he guessed it was quite possible that the maid had been present some time during the evening — and possibly the chauffeur too.

  First he went through to the bedroom, searched the dressing table, his rubber gloves still on, until he found the securely locked ornamental metal box which he guessed contained trinkets and jewellery, though whether the costly diamond ring he was looking for was inside it or not he did not know.

  Selecting the right key from the bunch he had appropriated from Valerie he turned it in the lid catch. To his exasperation there were only paste jewels and odds and ends of stage adornments; no sign of the ring he wanted. He closed the box up again and returned it to the table, stood thinking with his lips compressed.

  “Safe, I suppose,” he muttered.

  He strode back into the drawing room and went across to the hinged landscape painting behind which, as he had seen several times, was the wall-safe. He contemplated it for a moment or two, searched for the right key by trial and error and finally had the heavy door open. In the circular well beyond there were papers and documents neatly tied up in red tape, a wad of Treasury notes amounting to some three hundred pounds — and there, at the extreme back of the safe, lay the thing he wanted…a small plush box. He took it out, snapped back the lid, studied the engagement ring he had given the girl, then thrust it quickly in his pocket.

  He was about to close the safe when he hesitated. Letters! That was the next thing he wanted — those impassioned letters he had written to her before he had learned better sense. They might be in the locked bureau — but equally they might be here. He began to sort the documents quickly and suddenly came upon what he wanted. They were bound up separately in red tape. He leafed through them quickly. Every one of them was there. He stuffed them in his pocket and relocked the safe door, swinging the picture back into place.

  “Ring…letters…” he muttered. “That only leaves that inscribed cigarette box.”

  He went across to the table to look for it; then he stopped., frowning. It was not there! A faint stirring of panic went through him. This was not the first snag that had revealed itself in the unfolding of his plan. Suddenly haggard, he roved about the room, looking on the sideboard, on top of the bureau, even on the floor where he remembered he had thrown the box when the lid snapped off. There was no sign of it — nor in the bedroom, or bathroom.

  He opened drawers and cupboards and searched them from top to bottom. For fifteen minutes, with ever mounting anxiety, he pried into every place he could think of and the box was not to be found. Slowly he came back into the drawing room, perspiring freely. A flaw. A terrible flaw with which he hadn’t reckoned. What the devil had Valerie done with it? He thought for a wild moment of finding the maid’s address and asking her; then he knew he couldn’t do that.

  “Think it out,” he told himself, forcing calmness down on his mind.

  He switched off the light, put the scarf back round his throat and got into his shoes again. He left the flat silently and closed the door behind him.

  As he turned to move towards the lift the grille slammed back. His heart jumped as it had done when he had failed to find the cigarette box. He glanced up and down. In the long corridor there was no chance of concealment — so he took the only other alternative and stood waiting, fighting to appear calm. His hands, with the rubber gloves still on them, he plunged abruptly into his overcoat pockets.

  To his inward horror it was the plum-liveried figure of Peter, the chauffeur, who stepped out into the corridor. He took a few urgent steps, the light gleaming on his polished leggings and boots, then as he saw Richard he slowed a little and took off his peaked cap.

  “Hello, Mr. Harvey!”

  Richard nodded but he did not speak. The man hesitated, put his cap back on again and gestured to the door of No. 7.

  “Miss Hadfield come back yet?” he asked.

  “Apparently not.” Richard kept his voice steady. “I came along to have a few words with her but she doesn’t seem to be in; so I decided to hang about and wait. I think I must have missed her at the theatre. I was delayed and — ”

  “But you don’t understand!” Peter interrupted. “She’s disappeared! I’ve just come now to see if by some chance she’s got back — from wherever she’s been,” he finished ambiguously.

  Richard frowned most convincingly. “Disappeared? What the devil do you mean?”

  “It sounds so idiotic — and yet it happened! I drove her to the theatre as usual — to the alley where the stage door is…You know it, sir?”

  “Of course I know it,” Richard agreed.

  “Well, she set off for the stage door — only a few yards’ distance — but she never got there! She hasn’t been seen since. She’s vanished utterly, just as though into thin air.”

  “But — it isn’t possible!” Richard declared blankly.

  “It happened, sir, and that’s all I know. I didn’t find out about it until ten-thirty when I went as usual to pick her up after the show. I found the theatre staff in a ferment — stage manager raving, producer having grey hairs, audience grumbling about the understudy — whom they’d guessed was an understudy despite her uncanny resemblance to Miss Hadfield…That is, the latecomers. The others were told about it before the show opened, of course. Well, there it is — or was. Miss Hadfield gone. Completely!”

  “Naturally the police have been told?” Richard demanded.

  “I don’t think so, sir. Not until tomorrow if she hasn’t returned by then — ”

  “But why not?” Richard cried. “Dammit, something serious may have happened to her!”

  “The stage manager thought of that, then decided that was hardly likely since I’d actually seen her set off for the stage-door. Now he thinks she’s gone off on some jaunt of her own. She’s an erratic woman, Mr. Harvey, if I may say so — full of odd little notions. Likes to keep to herself a lot and gets sudden impulses…Anyway, the police will be told tomorrow if she hasn’t come back. The chances are that she’ll return and laugh right in everybody’s face — maybe even married or something. That would be just about like her.”

  “Married?” Richard repeated slowly. “To whom?”

  “A Mr. Williams, who has been writing to her
a lot lately.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was Ellen, the maid, who told the stage-manager about it. Seems Miss Hadfield has been having letters from an admirer and the latest letter asked her to have tea or something with him today, so they must have been pretty intimate.”

  “She never told me about that,” Richard said, musing. “And I don’t really see why she confided the fact to her maid.”

  “As I understand it, sir, Miss Hadfield is quite proud of her conquest with this unknown Mr. Williams. Anyway, it’s pretty clear that she may be able to explain the thing herself. I’ve had the evening off, of course, after leaving her at the theatre — but ever since I returned to pick her up I’ve been driving to all the spots in town she frequents, but I’ve drawn blanks. Then I came back here to see if she’d returned. I called at Ellen’s room on the way here but she’d had no news either…If this goes on, the police will have to be told, naturally.”

  “I should damned well think so!” Richard declared. “If nobody else does it, I shall! I have the uneasy feeling this may be more serious than it looks…Miss Hadfield wasn’t very popular, was she?”

  “Wasn’t, sir?”

  Richard hesitated. “Isn’t, then! Shows how this thing’s getting on my nerves. I’m already thinking of her in the past tense.” The chauffeur reflected briefly, his keen blue eyes studying Richard’s face.

  “No, sir, she’s not too popular,” he admitted finally. “In private life, that is. You think maybe some enemy of hers — ”

  “It’s possible. In her position as an actress an enemy would know just where to find her…”

  There was silence for a moment or two. The corridor was still deserted except for the two men. Richard pondered the two mistakes he had made — one, the fact that this damned chauffeur was here at all; and the other the slip in grammar, which had momentarily aroused the man’s suspicions. He was no fool, and Richard realised it.

  “This may look awkward for me before long, I suppose.” Richard took up the thread again, frowning. “I’m Miss Hadfield’s closest acquaintance and if anything has happened to her — which I hope to God it hasn’t — the first person to draw a load of grief on top of himself will be me!”

  Peter nodded; then he shrugged. “Naturally you’ll be questioned if the police are called, Mr. Harvey — same as I shall. Same as all of us will be.”

  “But don’t you realise the adverse effect it will have on my career and position to be involved in such a business! I’ve got to keep my name out of it, Peter. You are the only one who knows of my association with Miss Hadfield.”

  The chauffeur waited, keen blue eyes watching.

  “I’ll pay you well to keep quiet,” Richard added. “I’ve got to have your co-operation.”

  Peter reflected. “Well, sir, without meaning to sound disrespectful, I have a career too in a manner of speaking. In fact since I am a chauffeur, police are more keen on me than they are on people in a less exacting job. If I were found to have been telling lies I’d probably lose all chance of ever being a chauffeur again…”

  “To keep me out of this, should it become necessary, I’ll give you enough money to make up for years of employment at a good salary,” Richard said tersely. “It’s worth it to me.”

  Peter still held back, a quizzical expression on his strong-jawed face.

  “I’d rather not, Mr. Harvey. Thanks all the same.”

  Richard fumed inwardly, wishing he could decide how much the man had guessed — whether the offer had been so lavish it had appeared suspicious for that very reason. He was gripped now by the inner conviction that he had already said too much.

  “I still think we can perhaps hammer out some sort of compromise,” he said finally. “And look here, this is no place to talk. Where do you live? Rooms?”

  “I live with my widowed mother, sir, about a mile from here. We happen to have a garage on the premises, which just suits Miss Hadfield since there isn’t one for this apartment building. She rents it from us, of course.”

  Garage? Private house? Dim, unexpected thoughts stirred in Richard’s desperate mind. This was no part of his plan: it was an addition and it had to be dealt with right away before this blue-eyed man with the agile mind put two and two together.

  “Suppose I go home with you and we’ll have a chat?” Richard suggested. “We may be able to work out something suitable for both of us…”

  “Okay,” Peter agreed. “But I can’t see it’ll make much difference. The car’s at the front, sir”

  Richard kept beside him as they went down in the lift and then outside. The passers-by had thinned considerably with the lateness of the hour.

  “Your mother won’t object to you bringing home a visitor at this hour, I hope?” Richard asked, as Peter opened the front door of the Daimler for him to sit next to the steering wheel.

  “She’ll be in bed by now, Mr. Harvey.”

  In bed! Richard reflected that perhaps things were going to work out in the way he wanted them, after all.

  To get into the car he had to use his hands, but in the dim street lighting the tight-fitting rubber gloves were indistinguishable from natural skin. Peter slammed the door and hurried round to the driving seat. In a few seconds he had the powerful car gliding away from the kerb.

  “Only a short distance,” he said. “How about you, sir? Have you got your car?”

  “Just down the road,” Richard replied. “I’ll walk back.”

  Peter nodded and drove along for a few minutes, then he swung right down a side road. The glimmer of lights revealed to Richard a sudden change in the style of property. The residential goliaths of the main road had given place to smaller houses, mostly semi-detached and of the middle-class residential variety. Halfway down the road, between two sets of street lamps, Peter swung the car’s big bonnet leftwards and swept gracefully through an open gateway. The headlights blazed upon the green doors of a brick garage. Peter halted the car, climbed out, opened the garage doors, then returned and drove the car into it. It just fitted in the space.

  “One advantage of not living far away from your work, Mr. Harvey,” Peter said, grinning, and switched off the ignition and headlights, leaving only side and rear on.

  Richard climbed out, saw an ordinary door leading to the yard and house. Then he looked about him quickly. The first thing he noticed which came anywhere near what he wanted was a tool-rack on the whitewashed wall, and in it, among other things, were a pair of heavy tyre-levers; he took one of them in his gloved right hand and strolled round the back of the car.

  Peter had got out now and was busy throwing a rug over the car’s bonnet, stooping towards it. Silently Richard moved up behind him, jaw set hard, eyes measuring the man. Up went his hand — then down again. The heavy steel tyre-lever struck Peter at the base of the skull and slumped him helplessly over the car’s offside wing.

  Silently Richard dragged him up and then laid him down so that the back of his neck was exactly along the edge of a nearby sand bucket. On the floor he put a bulb-handled screwdriver from the tool-rack, about an inch from the man’s out-thrust foot. The impression given was that he had slipped on the screwdriver and struck the base of his skull on the bucket edge.

  Returning to the tool-rack Richard replaced the tyre-lever in it, then he closed and bolted the double garage doors on the inside. Getting inside the car he switched on the engine again and adjusted the throttle control until there was a mere whisper and the exhaust was puffing out in faint blue clouds at the rear.

  He opened the door of the driver’s seat, left the side and rear lights on, then climbed out again and closed his own side door as quietly as he could. Turning, he moved to the ordinary door in the wall leading out towards the house and let himself into the darkness of a small flagged yard. Pushing the door to behind him he heard it click into place.

  Around him everything was silent. Cautiously, quivering from the strain of this second and entirely unrehearsed murder, he fled into the drive, out
through the gateway, and walked swiftly along the deserted street and so to the main road. Here he slowed his pace, breathing hard.

  “Had to be done!” he said to himself as he walked. “He’d guessed — no doubt of it. But it’ll look like an accident. It’s got to!”

  Reaching his own car, he stripped off his rubber gloves. Getting into the car he reversed it and drove back swiftly down the street, finally sweeping into the night-and-day garage where he normally kept the Jaguar. He manoeuvred it into its accustomed position, locked it up, then with a nod to the night mechanic on duty he departed. Shortly afterwards he was back again at his own home, entering the laboratory where the lights were still on.

  He closed and locked the outer door, made sure the house door was also secure after he had satisfied himself that the Baxters had gone to bed — then he pulled off his overcoat and scarf and hung them up. For a moment he pressed finger and thumb to his eyes, his head throbbing with strain and weariness…But there was still a hard night’s work ahead of him.

  He mixed a stimulant for himself, felt better after he had drunk it, then he got into his smock. Next he recovered “Mr. Williams’” clothes from inside the cupboard and tossed them, brown paper as well, into the sink. Over them he poured nitric acid and there left them; the tart, lung-tickling fumes setting him coughing for a moment…

  His eyes moved to the big, cotton-stoppered Dewar flasks by the wall with their pale blue liquid contents — then he glanced at the selection of tools in the rack over by the nearby bench. Finally his eyes went to the dissolving parcel in the acid…

  He walked across to the steel storage cupboard.

  *

  Richard went to bed at four o’clock — but couldn’t sleep. His nerves were too taut, his brain too active. He was discovering gradually that he was not devoid of conscience, a calculating schemer well satisfied with his handiwork. He was instead in the same awful plight as murderers before him…He realised what he had done, and however perfect the plan had been so far, he was secretly appalled by the immutable fact that there was no way back, no way of untying the knot.