Warrant for X

by Philip MacDonald

  “It’s very trying, sir, waiting like this.” Pike’s tone was soothing. “Especially when, as you might say, our hands are tied.”

  “Yes, Auntie; yes indeed!” An antidote for oil was noticeable in Anthony’s voice. “Jet is black, and the clouds over the mountaintcp are the purest white. . . . In other words, Pike, call me either here or at the theatre the minute you hear where the Lesters lodge.”

  “Yes sir,” said the telephone.

  Anthony went back to the bar and his unfinished drink. He said:

  “Just spoken to Pike. Lesters last noticed as having tea in Burtonbury. Then drove on. Pretty soon they’re bound to put up for the night. Then we’ll fly up——”

  Garrett drank more slate-pencil water. “God!” he said. “I wish they’d hurry.”

  “Yes,” said Anthony, and concealed irritation behind his glass.

  Garrett said: “I wish we could do something! . . . Pike going to call you here?”

  Anthony set his glass down on the bar—so hard that he experienced relief that it did not break. He said:

  “No. At the Buckingham.”

  “The what?”

  “The Buckingham Theatre,” said Anthony. “It calls itself a Palace of Variety. In your tongue—a vaudeville joint.”

  “Oh!” said Sheldon Garrett. “But I——”

  “But nothing!” said Anthony. “We’re going.”

  2

  Patricia Van Renseler waked. Her head hurt badly, worse than it ever had in all her ten years. And something had happened to the sheets, so that the blanket was scratchy against her chin. And she ached all over the way she had when scarlet fever had made her so ill. There was a bad taste in her mouth, too, and she was so thirsty that she could not think of anything but water.

  She opened her eyes upon darkness. She closed them again, quickly, because with the lids lifted a funny, burning pain shot through them.

  She opened the parched lips. She tried to shout “Bunchy!” but only a croaking sound came from her mouth.

  This frightened her—and, opening her eyes again in spite of the pain, she made as if to sit up.

  But she could not. There was something around her body, outside the bedclothes, which pressed her down. And now she could see a little—and she did not know the room she saw!

  Her aches were forgotten, and the funny pain behind her eyes, and her thirstiness, and the scratchiness of the blanket—all swallowed up in a great, unreasoning, comprehensive wave of terror.

  “Mummy!” she screamed.

  The sound, though roughly edged from the dryness of the small throat, was high and sharp and piercing.

  A door opened, showing a rectangle of yellow light and a tall slim woman’s figure, which advanced.

  Patricia screamed again. But this was only half a scream, cut short by something soft which fell across her nose and mouth and was then pressed down by a hand whose weight made no concession to the youth of the face it crushed.

  “Quiet!” said a voice which Sheldon Garrett would have recognized among thousands. “Quiet!”

  It was a deep, harsh voice and had in it a definite ring of masculinity which accorded strangely with the ultrafeminine grace of the woman’s body and movements as she sat upon the side of the bed, still pressing down upon the cloth and what was beneath it.

  “Quiet!” she said again. “Understand me?”

  Desperately Patricia’s small head was nodded. Air, now, was her one desire; a necessity more vital even than water had seemed.

  The pressure was eased; the cloth pulled away. Patricia drew in shuddering draughts of air. Her small body shook—but beyond the gasping of her breath no sound came from her.

  “And now,” said the woman, the deep voice even deeper, “you’d better go to sleep again.”

  With one hand she took the child’s right wrist, drawing the whole naked arm clear of the blankets.

  Through Patricia’s dry, bruised lips came a whisper of sound; a shaking whisper which was inadequate gauge of the terror which gripped her.

  “Please!” said the whisper. “Please, I——”

  “Quiet!” The deep voice was savage in its harshness.

  The woman’s free hand came from her side as she spoke. It held something which faintly glittered.

  “Oh!” said Patricia on a high note of pain. Something had pricked her arm just above the elbow. It hurt.

  She tried to pull the arm away, but the woman’s hand about her wrist was like steel. . . .

  “A-ah!” sighed Patricia on a low note of drowsiness. And then: “Theo . . . Helen . . . I . . .”

  The voice died away—to be replaced by heavy, laboured breathing.

  Once more Miss Patricia Van Renseler slept. . . .

  3

  The first performance at the Buckingham was in full swing.

  There were two acrobats and a girl in tights who handed them things. There was a performing seal who applauded himself and his self-satisfied trainer. There were a “Whirlwind” dance team; a Lancashire comedian who was redolent of cabbage, dripping, pigs-trotters and lust; a family on stilts called the Stargays Brothers, and a remarkable person who wrestled and fought with a dummy.

  And then there was Eustace Vox—a name which minimized the surprise of finding that he was a ventriloquist and a good one. Billed as THE MAN WITH THREE FRIENDS, he presided at a dinner table for three, his two guests being life-size dummies.

  The audience, held silent for nearly two minutes by the skill of the one human on the stage, began to titter, then to laugh uproariously. For the dialogue, said by many to be the work of Mr Vox himself, was excellent.

  And then the third friend of the title made her appearance. It was another life-size dummy, operated by ingenious mechanism. It wore the neat uniform of a parlourmaid.

  It spoke—and somewhere in the middle of the third row of stalls a man stood up, clapped a hand to his head, and in no uncertain voice called upon a traditional power.

  He was a tall man who, by accent, clothes and bearing, should have known better. And he did not improve upon his first inexplicable gaffe by his subsequent actions—which consisted of seizing the arm of the man sitting next to him and dragging this person—heedless of the shoes and knees and comfort of others—out of his seat and the auditorium.

  4

  Garrett blinked in the sudden light of the exit corridor. He was breathing hard and his head hurt him. Behind him the laughter from the packed house dwindled in volume as the door through which Anthony had dragged him swung shut. He said irritably:

  “What’s the big idea!” and then suppressed further speech as he saw his companion’s face.

  Anthony said: “The women in the teashop: there was a short square masculine one?”

  Garrett nodded.

  “And a tall, willowy, feminine one?”

  Garrett nodded.

  “And the short masculine one had a deep harsh masculine voice as she bullied the tall willowy one, who had a high soft feminine voice?”

  Garrett nodded.

  “How do you know,” said Anthony slowly, “which voice belonged to which woman?”

  Garrett stared. “Damn it! I was there and . . .” His voice tailed away, and he looked at Anthony with open mouth. He said in a whisper:

  “My God! I don’t know! I just assumed——”

  “Come on!” said Anthony—and was gone.

  CHAPTER XXV

  IN THE SITTING ROOM OF SUITE 306 in the Alsace Hotel Helen Van Renseler sat in a straight-backed chair. She was motionless and rigid. Her face was blank and on her cheeks the dustings of rouge showed angry against the surrounding pallor. Every now and then the pupils of her eyes would narrow to pin points; then gradually widen until they well-nigh covered the irises.

  She was trying, without success, to keep these eyes from looking towards the clock upon the mantel. Its hands stood at five minutes past nine. It seemed to her that they would never move. She wished passionately that they would and prayed desperate
ly that they would not.

  They did. They reached the sixth minute; then the seventh.

  A soft knocking came upon the outer door of the suite. A scream welled up in Helen Van Renseler’s throat, but she forced it back—and found herself standing.

  The knock came again; a little louder—and she found herself just beside the outer door, her fingers on its handle. . . .

  The fingers turned the handle, and their arm pulled back the door.

  A tall man stood upon the threshold. Her eyes took in a picture of him which told her mind nothing. He said:

  “Mrs Van Renseler?”

  Her head nodded. The man stepped over the threshold, taking the handle from her grasp and shutting the door.

  Through the grey mist which seemed to swirl about her mind she was aware of his eyes. They were green eyes, hard with purpose.

  “Mrs Van Renseler,” he said, “is your daughter with you?”

  The grey fog was ripped apart. She said in a strange, shrill voice:

  “Who are you? I——”

  The man interrupted her. He said:

  “Mrs Van Renseler: Is your daughter here with you—

  now?”

  She breathed through distended nostrils. She said:

  “Of course. She’s been asleep for hours. Who are you?”

  For a moment the man looked at her; then moved quickly past her to the first of the inner doors and through it.

  She stood bewildered—amazement and fear bemusing the exhausted mind. She clasped her hands and wrung them so that the physical pain made her gasp a little. She thought:

  “What shall I do? What shall I do?”

  The man came back. Helen stood where she was. Even if she had wanted to move she could not have done so. He opened the outer door and put his head out into the corridor and spoke to someone invisible. He said:

  “Get over to the Yard. Tell Pike to drop the testers and stand by.”

  He pulled his head back and shut the door and turned once more to Helen. He said:

  “My name’s Gethryn—Anthony Gethryn. You can consider me a policeman.” He moved closer. “When did you discover that your daughter had been stolen? And have you heard from anyone claiming to hold her?”

  She said harshly:

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I must ask you to go.”

  Anthony took her by the arm. Under his fingers the bare flesh was cold and the muscles beneath the soft skin set like iron. He said:

  “I can help. Come in here.” He moved towards the living room.

  Helen Van Renseler swayed. The fog was back in her mind now . . . swirling . . .

  She found herself in an armchair in the living room. Anthony stood over her, a glass in his hand. He held this to her lips in such a way that she was forced to sip. Brandy burned her tongue and throat, and she coughed and fought away from the glass and sat upright. She said, choking:

  “Don’t! Don’t! . . . I’m all right!” Her eyes shot a glance towards the clock, whose hands stood now at twelve minutes after the hour.

  Anthony watched her.

  “So there’s a time limit!” he said, and sat in a chair to face her and set the glass on a table beside him. He looked at her steadily. He said after a long moment:

  “I think that a little while ago you engaged a nursemaid who crossed from England to America to work for you. I think that at some time today this woman took your daughter out—and did not return. I think that since then you’ve received some sort of message from the kidnappers. I think, as you’re alone, that your husband has gone to get in touch with these people as a result of the message. Am I right?” Her eyes were wide as they stared at him, and their whites were visible all round the irises. Her throat worked and her lips moved, but there was no sound.

  Anthony stood up. He said:

  “And I think you won’t admit that all this is right because you’ve been threatened that any interference will mean that you won’t see your daughter again. . . . But, Mrs Van Renseler, you’d better tell me all about it.”

  She got to her feet with a sudden jerky movement which sent her chair crashing to the floor.

  “I won’t!” she said in a flat voice which cracked. “I don’t care who you are!” Her words began to come fast and faster. “In this country you don’t know about . . . about this sort of thing. We Americans do!” A sobbing gasp shook the voice again. “My God, how we do! After I’ve got Patricia again I’ll tell you anything—everything! I’ll spend every minute of my life with you until these devils are caught! But I won’t say another word until she’s back! If I did, you might make everything wrong, and then . . . and then——”

  Her voice ceased abruptly. All numbness had gone from her now; all control. She was a distraught woman whose child was lost. Her face worked and her breath came in hard, irregular gasps. Her eyes flickered yet again towards the clock.

  Behind expressionless face Anthony’s mind was racing. She must tell; must be forced to tell. But how, when her every instinct told her that to tell might cost her the child? How, when . . .

  A sudden light came to his eyes. Into the racing mind words had flashed; a sentence from the report of Detective Inspector Andrews, C.I.D., upon Garrett’s first visit to Scotland Yard: “. . . some criminal undertaking involving possibly the abduction of a child and the execution of bodily harm upon some other person. . . .”

  In one long stride he was close to her. He took her by the shoulders with hands which were not gentle. He said:

  “Tell me! Unless you want to lose your husband as well!” She was very still under his hands. Her eyes stared up at him. She said:

  “Oh, God! I can’t stand this! I——”

  Anthony tightened his grip. “From the beginning of this case as we know it there’s been this suggestion—that a child was going to be kidnapped and that someone else—a man—was going to be killed.”

  The shoulders twisted in his grip. Hands thrust vainly at his chest. She panted:

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  Anthony said: “Tell me where your husband’s gone!”

  She struggled with desperate strength. The fingers upon her shoulders bit into her flesh. She shouted: “It’s a trick! That’s all I see! Let me go!”

  Anthony said: “Listen to me! These people who have your daughter are going to hurt your husband—perhaps kill him. He’s probably got ransom money with him; don’t you see that if they take that and put him out of the way, they can still hold your daughter, for more money? Think, woman!”

  She broke. The struggling fury became a limpness which needed his arms to uphold it.

  He picked her up bodily. He set her upon the sofa by the long windows and stood over her. Tears rained from her eyes—helpless, hopeless tears which rolled unchecked. And sobs tore at her.

  Anthony dropped to a knee beside her. He did not touch her, and he did not speak. . . .

  The sobbing grew less.

  “Tell me!” said Anthony—and suddenly she got to her feet with a sure, lithe spring.

  Anthony rose to face her; and now it was she who touched him. Her hands gripped his arms, just below each shoulder. Her eyes fixed their gaze upon his eyes. Her face was ravaged, but the new fire in her burned bright and steady. She said:

  “I’m going to tell you. If it turns out wrong, I shall kill myself. My husband has gone to see—these people. He has the money with him, and my emeralds. He has to wait for someone on the westbound platform of a subway station. Cromwell Road. He has to be there at nine-thirty.”

  Her eyes went to the clock. Its hands were at nine twenty-one.

  She said in a sort of dead whisper:

  “There’s not time! There’s not time!”

  She swayed and fell. But Anthony did not catch her, for he was already at the telephone.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  A TAXI SPED down the grey, interminable length of the Cromwell Road. In the back of it Theodore Van Renseler sat huddled. His face was a dull mask, bu
t behind drooping lids his eyes were alive. Upon his knees was a large dispatch case of dark leather—and his hands gripped it with a strength in odd contrast to the limpness of his body.

  Upon the right of the cab the tall ugly houses gave way, with a sort of sullen enmity, to a row of small bright shops which nestled about the glass-canopied, brick fagade of an underground station.

  The cab stopped. It had barely ceased to move when Van Renseler was out of it. He thrust a ten-shilling note into the drivers hand, muttered something and was gone.

  In the station vestibule the clock over the lifts showed nine twenty-five. A ticket collector lounged and yawned, and, save for Van Renseler, was the only human visible. At this time and in this place there is always lack of life; the workers are at home, the pleasure seekers already carried to their goals.

  Van Renseler’s step was heavy; without elasticity. He walked like a man who has to give thought to the business of movement.

  At the only open booking window he bought a ticket for Piccadilly Circus—the only station his aching mind could remember. The clerk looked curiously at the white, expressionless face of his customer and was a little slow with his giving of change.

  Van Renseler forced himself to wait: nothing, nothing must be unusual in his behaviour.

  He took his change and turned and glanced at the clock. Nine twenty-seven . . . Three minutes . . . Then, the ransom paid, a frightful, sick waiting. “Patricia Van Renseler,” that letter had said, “will be returned to you before tomorrow evening.” The wait—the nightmare, agonizing interval—might, then, be twenty hours!

  He checked the groan that rose to his lips. The liftman threw open the grilled gate and stood aside.

  Van Renseler shook his head. “No,” he said between lips which barely moved. “Can’t stand elevators. Where ‘re the stairs?”

  The liftman pointed. “Over there, sir. Past the bookstall.”

  “Thanks,” Van Renseler said. He walked away—very erect, very deliberate in gait, the black dispatch case at the end of a long right arm.