The Cummings Report

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  When it was too late to retreat, she realized that the lights were on and a man was coming out. A man followed by a girl. Well, it wasn’t difficult to guess who the girl was ...

  “What are you doing here?” asked Jill Crescent grimly, “and how did you get that key?”

  The woman stood there for a while, as if recovering from the shock of finding the flat occupied. Then she said: “I’ll explain if you let me talk to you alone.”

  “You’re in a packet of trouble,” said the man, stepping between Jill and her, “so you had better explain yourself to both of us. You’ll have to eventually, in any case.”

  The woman stood her ground. “I want to speak to the girl,” she said. “Then I’ll do whatever you say.”

  Jill turned to her companion — the escort that Miles had sent to bring her there. “It’s all right. I’d like to talk to her.”

  The man obviously disapproved. “All right, miss,” he said eventually. “I’ll wait out here and give her five minutes. Then I’ll have to take her along to headquarters.”

  “Thank you,” said the woman. “I won’t give any trouble.”

  Jill ushered her into my sitting-room, and directed her to sit down. She noticed, though, that the woman couldn’t keep her eyes off the piano.

  “Now,” said Jill, “you’d better start by telling me who you are, and what you’re doing breaking in to Mr. Cummings’ flat.”

  “My name is Daphne Eldemore,” said the woman. “And I came to retrieve some documents I left inside the piano.”

  “Yes, I thought you might have something to do with that.”

  “Honestly,” pleaded the woman, “I didn’t realize what I was doing. I mean, I didn’t realize what ...they were up to. I am an actress, and I was hired to do certain jobs for someone who said he was smuggling gold across the Channel. Oh, I realize I broke the law, and I’ll have to pay for it. But when I found out what ... what they were really up to I was ... disgusted; disgusted and horrified at what I had done. I read about the charges that have been made against Mr. Cummings, and I realized then that I was in much deeper water than anything I had dreamed of.”

  “Why didn’t you go straight to the police?” demanded Jill angrily. She found to her surprise that she was trembling.

  The woman’s terror was obviously genuine. She looked round the room foolishly, as if expecting someone to leap out of a cupboard at her. When she spoke her voice was lowered, husky.

  “I was afraid. Not of the police, so much. But ... theothers.”

  “What about ‘Gertrude’? Does she know you’re here?”

  “No!” This idea seemed to terrify her. Then, more calmly: “No. She doesn’t know.”

  Jill said: “You realize what you’ve done, don’t you? Perhaps you don’t?”

  “I know I’ve helped to land Cummings in some kind of a mess.”

  “That’s an understatement, all right! What else do you know?”

  The woman hesitated. Then went on: “Only that after our first few jobs we were told to lead Mr. Cummings on a wild-goose chase. For instance, we knew he was using Dandy Roberts — he’s a theatrical agent — to try and identify us. So we made sure Mr. Roberts got a clue as to our address. I got in touch with another agent, Cliff Miller, and asked if he had any work going. To my amazement he offered me a small film part — if I’d really wanted it I wouldn’t have stood a chance! That’s life. Anyway, this Mr. Miller told Dandy Roberts — we knew he would, because Dandy was putting out a sort of SOS all over London and Miller used to work for him.

  “Sure enough, next day — or rather evening — they met at theSandbag Club, and Cliff Miller spilled the beans. And then Cummings walked straight into it — that same evening.”

  “I see,” said Jill. She did see, and at the same time a great wave of relief was threatening to overcome her, and the tears weren’t far away.

  But she went on relentlessly. “Are you prepared to tell the police what you have told me?”

  She hesitated. “Will you put a word in for me?”

  “Is that all you can think of? Haven’t you done enough harm to other people without just thinking of your own miserable skin?”

  Eldemore looked at Jill pathetically. “You are young and pretty,” she said. “And have your life before you ...”

  “...Which you did your best to destroy!”

  “Not when I found out, I didn’t! You don’t know what it’s like — to miss the bus and just be a miserable failure. To tat about the provinces in third-rate shows full of third-rate people, trying to kid yourself that one day ...one day! ...” She gave a gesture of futility. “To discover that you are just third-rate yourself — no better than the drunks in the next dressing-room or the man with the performing seals that won’t perform.

  “I was out of work, nearly starving. I found employment, off and on, as a daily woman — and was getting fired because I didn’t like being shoved around. I’d been shoved around for nearly thirty years by people who knew they could afford to treat me like dirt, because I couldn’t stand up for myself and say ‘go and take a running jump’ ...” She held herself in check. “All right. It’s a hard-luck story. But I needed work — I am not the sort to stick my head in the gas oven; it’s more than a shilling is worth! So Gertrude comes along with a proposition — no risks, no bloody auditions — and plenty of lolly. What would you have done? Don’t tell me — you would have gone straight to the police! I could have done that and gone on starving. I chose the other way.” Her voice was a whine. “Look, youcouldinfluence them a bit in my favour! You work for them, and this information I have given you — proving that your Mr. Cummings is innocent — will be vital to them.Please!”

  “Just tell me one thing,” said Jill, weighing every word, “what did you hope to achieve by coming here?”

  “I was going to take those phoney letters away — the stuff in the piano.”

  “And what would you have done when you found that they weren’t there any more? Would you have held your miserable, snivelling tongue just the same?Well,would you?”

  For a few moments Jill could only stare at the woman with a sickened disgust. Then she said: “Well, very fortunately for us you weren’t put to the test. However, I’m not here to discuss your moral values. But before I attempt to do anything to help you, you’ll have to tell me a lot more than you have so far.”

  “I don’tknow any more.”

  “Don’t you? That’s too bad. I’d better call the detective in, and we’ll drive to headquarters.”

  “Wait a minute! What do you want to know?”

  “You could tell me where Gertrude Fenton is, for instance.”

  Daphne Eldemore couldn’t answer fast enough. “The only person who knows that is Adrian ...” She broke off, and stared speechlessly at the girl.

  “Adrian Fenton? Her brother? But he’s dead! Found in that aircraft.” Then she understood. “Then he’s not dead?” she asked quietly, menacingly.

  Daphne’s words came tripping over each other in their haste to assemble themselves in an explanatory sentence. “I made a mistake! I meant to say she’s staying with friends. Let me go, and I’ll find her. I promise!”

  “You made a mistake, all right!” said Jill. “He’s alive!Isn’t he?” She took the woman by the shoulders and shook her. “Where? That murder was a fake, wasn’t it — like all the other things, like the number 22 bus and the business about Delanez and everything else? Well, let’s have the truth! Tell me where Fenton is, and I’ll guarantee to do all I can to save your rotten skin.”

  The woman had stopped shaking now and was staring straight ahead of her. When she spoke her voice was quiet and controlled, too. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you ...

  *

  “Thank you, Miss Crescent,” said Miles, when he had heard her story. “We didn’t do so well on the piano tuner, but this more than makes up for it.”

  Jill hesitated. Then she said: “I promised that wretched woman I would do all I
could for her if she gave us some useful information. She’s not worth a snap of the fingers, but I did promise. Is it possible to make things easy for her?”

  Miles seemed hardly to be listening. “Who, Eldemore? Oh, yes, we’ll let her go. She’s not important — she’s just a fool.” He dismissed the matter from his mind. “Now, Jill,” he continued, using her Christian name for the first time, “get on the phone to Mr. Harford and Alice straight away. Tell them I want them here as quickly as possible. You might arrange for the car to pick up Alice; Cy has got his own. Do that, will you? Use the outer office; I am expecting a call from Washington on this one.”

  “Right, sir.” She made a move to the door, but he stopped her.

  “Oh, and Jill ...”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled sympathetically. “You did well — very well. And please forgive me for not being sure about Joel. You see, in this business you can never bequite sure of anybody. You told us we were all blind; well, we were.”

  She did not reply, but there was a little smile playing round her lips as she turned and left the room. It could have been pride in somebody ...

  “That’s quite a girl,” wheezed Brian, who was choking over his fiftieth cigarette in twelve hours. “Quite a girl! She’s got guts. Now why can’t I get hold of one like that?”

  “Because,” said Miles, “as you know perfectly well, you’d be bored to tears after a week. She’s anice girl, and you don’t like nice girls.”

  “Oh dear,” complained Brian with an asthmatic sigh, “howboring to be old and depraved like me! As you say, I would get tired of it in no time. She’s too sort of hygienic, like a hospital ward. You’d feel you’d have to wash your hands in Dettol before you put your arms round her. Oh, well! What’s the next move?”

  “I hope to hear from Frean any moment. Let’s see, it’ll be about nine o’clock over there now. You know, at times like these the difference in time between here and the States seems almost unreal. It is so very much the middle of the night in London, isn’t it? And yet, it’s hardly the first interval in the Broadway theatres; and David Robdale will probably still be eating his dinner.”

  “Lord Robdale? Do you know him?”

  “Oh yes, he was one of my officers during the war. He was quite a character then, but I expect he’s settled down pretty solidly now to the business of being filthy rich. He spends a lot of time in New York — but not, I fancy, quite in the same style as Cummings! Robdale is probably quite inhuman now — that’s what money does to people! However, I’m getting off the point. I’d give my eye teeth to know what Cummings was up to at this very moment ...

  *

  It takes about two and a half hours to fly by commercial airliner from New York to Pittsburgh, and we had about three-quarters of an hour to go. And so far I had gone unrecognized.

  Peter Loring had booked me in the name that he had bestowed upon me when I was installed at theHotel Ajax — Thomas A. Hedley, salesman. I felt a lot better now, though I had felt a little dizzy on take-off. I found it hard to concentrate, too, and I realized how badly I needed that injection. If I managed to carry out my plan on the train — and that would be the hardest test of all — I knew I would use up all that I had left of the reserve of energy and resistance to the threatened attack.

  Well, in about three hours’ time, when the train was due to pull out of Pittsburgh Station, with me on it, things would be settled one way or the other. If I could hold out that long, I would be satisfied ...

  *

  A vice-president at C.B.S. television received a highly unusual telephone call a few minutes after he had finished dinner.

  Yes, ‘I Love Lucy’ was a filmed programme ... which episode did they want? Yes, a copy would be in the library, and could be flown down from New York in an Air Force plane immediately ... Yes, a police escort to La Guardia airport would help considerably. The necessary equipment, together with an operator, would be sent as well. Not at all, it was no trouble ...

  *

  Frean hung up, and immediately called Captain Powell on the intercom.

  “Frean here. Did you get details about any phone calls made to Major Russell?”

  “No, sir. I can’t understand it — unless, of course, there was no such call.”

  “Doesn’t make sense!” snapped Colonel Frean. “Russell’s conduct was sudden and unpremeditated. And I just won’t believe that his disappearance isn’t linked with Buche’s decision to leave Chicago. Did you call Mrs. Buche?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Sounded very shaken at first; then she covered up pretty well. She seemed to have a sort of resigned attitude to it all — like she had already anticipated that something like this would happen.”

  “I see. That’s not conclusive, though. All right, Powell. Keep trying about that phone call.”

  “Sure thing. I suppose it’s not possible that Russell — that Major Russell had the phone call deliberately hushed up? I mean, he might have told the operator to scrub it from the record. After all, if you had suspended him from duty he must have known he wasn’t entitled to take any action.”

  “You mean, he might have bribed the operator? Well, God help that operator when I find out who did it!” His voice returned to normal. “There’s some high priority stuff on the way down to you, by the way. So have some special messengers ready to roll at a second’s notice. Also, notify main gate and all duty personnel that I have called a conference in my office for 21.30 hours. That should just give us time to break down this scrambled message, if we’re on the right track at all. There’ll be some top-ranking people coming, so see there are no mistakes. Some of the stuff will be arriving any moment, so don’t waste time.”

  “I’m right with it, sir.”

  Frean paused before he threw the switch. Then he said: “Incidentally, Powell, you may be interested to know that Cummings is innocent. London just came through. They better be right!”

  “Yes,indeed!”

  Frean flicked up the switch, and took a gulp or two from the cup of coffee that an orderly had just brought in. Then he went through the swing door to the room where they’d got the television set rigged up.

  “You got everything ready, boys?” he demanded.

  The chief engineer spoke up. “Nothin’ to do but wait, Colonel. Till that machinery arrives from New York.”

  “Okay. Well, you better switch on Ed Murrow and keep yourselves amused. Because once that stuff gets here, you won’t have much time to sit on your backsides.”

  The intercom, buzzed in Frean’s office. He went through the partition door and clicked the key up. “Yes?”

  It was Powell’s voice; and there was a peculiar tone to it. “A call was put through to my room in error, sir,” he said. “A lady asking for ‘Lollipop’. I did hear that ...” Frean spoke slowly and carefully. “Never mind what you heard; put her through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “By the way, I hate to disillusion you, Captain, but she happens to be my wife.”

  “I’ll put her through, Colonel.”

  “You do that.”

  CHAPTER 20

  ABE SHAPELLO was startled. The knock was not the recognition signal he had expected.

  “Are you expecting someone?” he said to Buche. He waved the gun in his hand impatiently. “Come on, Buche! I’m asking you a question.”

  Victor was unmoved. “You’d better let him in,” he said. “He’ll fetch the conductor if you don’t.”

  Abe’s expression wasn’t pretty. “You planned this, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean, ‘planned it’?” replied Buche evenly. “I didn’t exactly invite you along. If you followed me you have only yourself to blame.”

  The knocking was repeated, more insistently. “You’ll have to let him in,” repeated Buche.

  “All right; I’ll take care of you both — or however many there are. It makes no difference. You see, Loring got on at Pittsburgh; he’l
l be here any moment. Meanwhile, don’t try anything funny. You’ll only make it necessary to deal with you a bit sooner, that’s all.”

  Abe opened the door. It was the coloured porter. Shapello quickly got the gun out of sight.

  “Just came to see if you wanted anything, sir. That is ... I came to ask the gentleman who booked this drawingroom.”

  Abe knew the quickest way out of this one. The porter was speaking his very own language. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a five-dollar bill. “That’s for not disturbing us any more,” he said curtly. “Not tillafter the train has stopped in Washington. Got it?”

  “Yes,sir. Thank you, sir!”

  Abe slammed the door. “So,” he said to Buche, “youwere expecting someone? Set quite a trap for yourself that time! What’s the idea? To introduce me to some of your friends? Well, I’m not buying.”

  “Just what can you do?” asked Buche. “You can’t ...knock off — isn’t that the phrase? — you can’t knock off everyone on this train.”

  Shapello, leaning casually against the window-side of the compartment, looking as relaxed as ever. He seemed almost bored now, as he pulled up a rather too loose-fitting sleeve to consult his watch. It was one of those outsize affairs, with a large, round dial in black, and silver studs instead of figures. The case was of gold. Somehow this watch seemed to reflect much of his personality. It suggested that he longed for the day when he would possess the swimming pool and the Jaguar and the house in Beverly Hills that went with it. The watch was the first step up the chromium ladder.

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” he was saying. “You see, I wired Peter Loring from Chicago and gave him the number of your drawing-room; so unless your friend — or is it friends? — know where to find you, Loring is almost certain to get here first. Then we can sort of arrange a reception committee, if you dig me.”