by John Creasey
“What prompted Hilda to be so kind?” asked Rollison.
“Her own generous heart,” said Gwendoline, and contrived to prevent the words from sounding trite. “She is quite the most generous person alive. If there’s a suggestion that anyone is in difficulties she’s on the spot as soon as she can get there. Surely you know her well enough for that.”
“Of course,” said Rollison, although he would not have rated Hilda quite so high. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Find out the truth about this woman.”
“Anyone who claims to have lost her memory comes under the jurisdiction of the police, you know, and they’ll find out who she is and whether she is telling the truth. They’re not unused to people who pretend.”
“Oh, the police,” said Gwendoline, scornfully. Then her eyes widened with alarm. “The police! I hadn’t thought of that. You can’t tell what clumsy idiots like policemen will do or say, they haven’t an ounce of tact in their make-up. Why, they might discover that the woman’s seen David before and tell Hilda without stopping to think.”
Rollison laughed.
“You’re too hard on the police.”
“I’m not,” said Gwendoline, warmly. “I’ve had some dealings with them over parking my car—they’re always unimaginative and sometimes unbelievably dense. Don’t grin like that! Rolly, will you help?”
“Why did you select me?” asked Rollison.
“Well, everyone knows that you’re interested in mysteries, and this is a mystery. Don’t forget that David is a banker of some standing. He has a lot of influence, and his support for a project, for instance, would persuade a lot of other people to support it.”
“What kind of project?”
“A loan, or a new Company, or something like that,” said Gwendoline. “This is exactly the kind of mystery which should interest you, and—well, we have some claim on your friendship, haven’t we?”
“You certainly have.”
“Then you’ll help?”
“If I can,” said Rollison, “and without admitting that you’re justified iii being alarmed. Let’s go back to my question— why select me? I don’t think you would pay much attention to the rumours concerning me. You’re not usually interested in anything that makes for notoriety. I would have put you in the category of those who strongly disapprove of my goings-on.”
Gwendoline coloured furiously.
“Well, sometimes I have, but—well, everyone knows that you’re sometimes called The Toff and that you do seem to have some influence with the police. As a matter of fact, I’m interested in the psychology of crime, and I’ve followed some of your cases. In their way they have been quite interesting.”
“Thanks,” said Rollison, humbly. “Have you ever written to me, Gwen?”
He felt quite sure that if she had first sent the photograph to arouse his interest, and was now following that up, he would have got some indication from her reaction. She looked blank and a little impatient, and at the same time puzzled.
“I sent you the invitation to the Bal Masque, didn’t I?” she asked. “Why do you ask?”
“I had an unsigned letter to-day on die lines of your diatribe about the lady.”
Gwendoline sat very straight in her chair.
“I do not send anonymous letters!”
“People do unexpected things when they’re driven to desperation,” said Rollison. “It rather looks as if someone else takes an equally poor view of the loss of memory, doesn’t it?”
“That shouldn’t surprise you.”
“I suppose not. Have you ever talked to the woman?”
“No.”
“Nor met anyone who knows her well?”
“No. If I could give you any more information I would, but surely you’ve enough to start work on.”
“I could hint broadly to your father”
“No!” Gwendoline rose abruptly from her chair and stood over him. “No, you mustn’t do that. He would know in a moment who had put you up to it. If I thought it would do any good to question him I would speak to him myself, but there must be some reason for him keeping it secret, or he would have told us by now. Rolly, don’t be indiscreet. I’m relying on you to—to make sure that”
She broke off, at a loss for words. Rollison stood up and lit another cigarette for her. He promised her that if there seemed any way in which he could find out the truth, he would try to help. The suggestion of speaking to David Barrington-Ley had upset her so much that he found it necessary to talk for several minutes before she calmed down and looked at him a little shamefacedly.
“I’m afraid I’ve been nearly hysterical,” she said.
“Not a bit! And I’m glad you managed to stop me from talking to Hilda before I saw you. How did you find out that I might be going to see her, by the way?”
Gwendoline stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Were you at the house?”
“Yes.”
“What on earth made you go there?” demanded Gwendoline. “Jolly told me that you were out, I’d no idea where you’d gone. Rolly! Did you know there was any reason to think
that this woman was trying to influence David?”
“I hadn’t a notion,” said Rollison. “The anonymous letter included a photograph, and a photograph and a story were in The Record. As I told David, when I met him coming out of the house, idle curiosity took me along. So you see I’ve already an excuse for being a prodnose!”
“I can tell you one thing,” said Gwendoline. “Nothing you say will make mother change her mind; when she’s set on helping someone in distress there’s just no holding her. Don’t let her think that you’re unfriendly towards this woman, will you? Otherwise she’ll probably get difficult and be as unhelpful as she can.”
“I’ll be very tactful,” Rollison promised.
He saw her to the door, and she hurried down the stairs. Looking out of the window, he could just see her on the pavement immediately beneath him. She spoke to the taxi driver, who was still there. The man’s words floated upwards.
“Sorry, I’m engaged.”
Gwendoline walked on, and Rollison looked towards the little green car. It began to move. He stepped swiftly to the door and called for Jolly, and his man appeared from die main bedroom.
“There’s a taxi downstairs,” said Rollison. “The driver’s acting under my orders and is about to follow a green car that’s just started after Miss Barrington-Ley. Hurry, Jolly!”
“At once, sir,” said Jolly, and, taking his bowler hat and his furled umbrella from a hall-stand, he hurried downstairs. Rollison returned to the window in time to see him step into the taxi as it moved after the little green car.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE TOFF MEETS THE LADY
ROLLISON turned away from the window and sat down. He leaned back and contemplated the ceiling, lit a cigarette and, after a few moments, hummed, Why oh Why oh Why with some gusto. He was not thinking about popular songs, however. He was thinking of the curious fact that the Barrington-Leys appeared to be associated with the mysterious lady, and the even more significant fact that Gwendoline was greatly disturbed. Her excitement and hysteria—and in so staid a person as Gwendoline her behaviour had amounted to hysteria—had not quite rung true. It would not surprise him if she had behaved in this manner solely in order to arouse his interest—with the same purpose, in fact, as the sender of the photograph.
One fact had emerged, obvious enough and yet he had missed it before. The photograph had been sent before the lady’s arrival at Barrington House. Consequently the sender could not have expected him to see another likeness in The Record.
The grandfather clock behind him struck one o’clock.
He sat up, stubbed out his cigarette, and picked up his hat. He wished he could have followed the green Morris, but there was no telling how long that trail would take.
He had lunch at a small restaurant which served the flat in Gresham Terrace, and then took a taxi to the Lawley Nursi
ng Home, which was in Grosvenor Place. He was most anxious to meet the lost lady.
A stately, well-preserved woman in a navy blue dress received him. With his card in front of her, she was very gracious; how could she help Mr. Rollison?
Rollison said, mildly, that he would very much like to see the patient who had lost her memory.
“Why, do you know her?” asked the stately woman, who was the matron.
“I think I might,” murmured Rollison.
“I do hope you do,” said the stately woman. “We all feel so desperately sorry for her, Mr. Rollison; we have had some experience of amnesia cases, you know, and I assure you that there is nothing more distressing. She is not well, of course, but we have little doubt that she will soon be physically herself. As for her memory”
“Time will tell.” said Rollison.
“Exactly! And if she sees someone whom she knows, it might bring everything back to her. You won’t mind if I come with you, I hope? I can watch the patient closely when she sees you. I’ll first make sure that she is awake,” the matron added, “it would be a pity to disturb her is she has fallen asleep.”
“If she has, I’ll come again later,” said Rollison.
He waited in the office while the matron was out, and he looked about the room with casual interest. There were photographs of royalty and other distinguished patients, and on every hand there were evidence of a discreet effort to impress visitors.
After five minutes he began to fidget. At the end of ten minutes he stood up, and almost immediately the door opened. A young nurse who looked a little scared entered, coughed in some confusion, and said:
“Matron says, sir, if you don’t mind, sir, perhaps it would be better if you were to come back to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow,” ejaculated Rollison.
“Yes, sir. This way out, sir.”
“What room is the patient in?” asked Rollison.
“Number 4, sir, this way out, sir.” She led the way to the front door, and only when she reached it did she realize that Rollison was going in the opposite direction. She exclaimed in concern. Rollison ignored her; he had seen that the door of a room on the ground floor was marked 4. As he stood outside it for a moment the nurse came back, speaking in a low-pitched but appealing voice: the patient could not be allowed visitors that day. Rollison held up his hand, and succeeded in silencing her as he listened to the murmur of voices from the room beyond. First there were two voices, then only the matron’s, raised a little so that he could hear every word. She was holding a disjointed conversation.
“YesYes, doctor, she was perfectly all right at half-past
two, and had a good lunch . . . . Her pulse is very low and she
is running a hundred-and-one . . . One, yesYes, complete
coma.” There was a longer pause, before she went on: “I have done all that, doctor . . . . In half-an-hour, that’s splendid.”
After she finished there was the ting of the telephone being replaced.
Rollison put his fingers on the handle of the door.
“Oh, please!” appealed the nurse.
“I shall tell matron that you did all you could to stop me,” promised Rollison, and opened the door.
The matron was standing by the side of a single bed, in a room where everything was white or green. A nurse in starched cap and white dress, was standing with a hand on the forehead of the woman who lay on the enamel-painted bed, a woman whose pallor was so marked that Rollison drew in his breath in surprise. The sound made the matron swing round.
“Hallo,” said Rollison. “Serious trouble?”
“You shouldn’t be in here!” whispered the matron. “Go out at once.”
“Not just yet,” said Rollison. He gave her a most charming smile, and approached the bed. There he stood looking down on the woman of the photograph. Because of her pallor she was remarkable. Apart from it, she looked as she had done in the newspaper photograph, and he got the impression that all vitality, all personality and charm had been drawn out of her. She seemed hardly to be breathing. Her high cheek-bones looked more prominent than in his photograph, and her lips were parted slightly. Now that he saw her with her eyes closed, the fact that they sloped upwards a little towards the temples confirmed his first impression—that she was not English.
“Mr. Rollison!” said the matron, sharply.
“I’ll come into your office,” said Rollison, but instead he stepped across the room and examined the window carefully. The day had turned warm, and the window was wide open. It was of the modern type, with a patent, self-locking fitting, and, when ajar, could easily be opened from the outside. He stood there for some moments, and then turned to the cabinet by the side of die bed.
“Has anything been touched since you found her?”
“No, of course not,” said the matron, while the nurse looked at him with startled curiosity. “Mr. Rollison, I must insist”
Rollison ignored her and picked up a medicine glass. There was a little green liquid at the bottom.
“What time did she take this?”
“After lunch. I positively must insist—what are you doing?” The matron’s voice rose a shade as Rollison took a folded handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped it about the glass, and stuffed it back in his pocket. “You have no right to do that!”
“I want to make sure that nothing happens to it before the police arrive,” he said.
“The—police!”
“Obviously we must tell them of this at once,” said Rollison, and his expression was bleak. “It isn’t nice and it might be murder. But then, you know that, don’t you? What are the symptoms?” When she did not answer, he went on: “Acute narcotic poisoning, aren’t they?” He judged her agreement from her expression, and nodded. “I was afraid so. Have you any men on the staff?”
“We—Mr. Rollison!”
“Have you?” insisted Rollison, and added very gently: “The nursing home has an excellent reputation, matron, and I should not like anything to happen which would cause it harm.”
The matron became almost as pale as the patient.
“We have—two porters.”
“Have one of them stand outside the window and make sure that no one attempts to force an entrance,” said Rollison. “Have the other outside the door, with the same instructions. I’m afraid it’s a case of locking the stable door after the horse has gone, but it might come back, you know. Will you do what I ask?”
“I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she said. “I will send for them at once, but please come out.”
“Will the nurse be here all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Good. It isn’t likely that the patient will come round, but if she shows any sign of returning consciousness, send for the matron at once, nurse. And remember, that if she should utter even a single word, it might be helpful.”
The nurse promised hoarsely that she would do what he said. She looked as frightened as the matron, presumably worried so much because there had been a serious lapse of discipline. He followed the matron out of the room. The little nurse was waiting outside, obviously apprehensive. The matron gave her instructions to send the porters to the office, and maintaining her stately poise, she walked to the office and sat down at her desk. She was inwardly in a state of great agitation.
“What else has gone wrong?” demanded Rollison.
A tinge of colour stained the woman’s cheeks, and he admired her as she pulled herself together and answered.
“She should not have been left. The police asked us to arrange for a nurse to be with her all the time, and the doctors were equally emphatic. Nurse Armitage, who was on duty, was taken ill, and we could not find another at short notice who was free. It was only a matter of half an hour that the patient was left. She was well enough at lunch, because I was there with her myself.”
“I see,” said Rollison.
“What is your interest in her?” asked the matron, now rallying well. The shock of th
e discovery had temporarily unbalanced her, for if the patient died some blame would undoubtedly be attached to the nursing home. Now, however, she resumed her cloak of authority.
“I think she is a friend of a friend,” said Rollison, evasively.
There was a tap at the door, and the porters came in, two ordinary men in white smocks. The matron gave them precise instructions, dismissed them, and turned to Rollison.
“Why were you so—officious?”
“Someone had to make sure that everything necessary was done,” said Rollison. He touched the little bulge which the medicine glass made in his pocket. “That would probably have been washed, and someone might have closed the window. Should that have been left open?”
“Not at the bottom—there is a special ventilation shutter at the top. The nurse on duty was careless, and I didn’t notice it. I should have done, of course; the responsibility is mine.”
“I wonder if it is all yours,” murmured Rollison, and having won her hopeful interest, he went on: “This nurse who was taken ill—where is she?”
“She has gone home.”
“Has she been with you long?”
“Only a few weeks.”
“Have you found her quite satisfactory?”
“Perfectly,” said the matron, who obviously caught the drift of his questions. “I do not think that she co-operated with the people who administered the poison—if there was a poison. We are speculating, and I really cannot allow it, Mr. Rollison. It may be a natural illness, a result of the prostration, or of some trouble which had not been discovered. I really can’t assume that the patient was poisoned. She was to have had a dose of Neuro-Phosphates before tea—before all meals—so that was quite in order. The drop of liquid at the bottom of the glass was green, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Rollison.
“Then it is almost certainly Neuro-Phosphates.”
“Where is the bottle from which it was taken?” asked Rollison, and when she hesitated, he added: “I saw the police before I came here, they won’t object to these questions.”