Richard began to say No, and then stopped, recalling Gillian’s eager voice on the telephone.
“Well, yes, she may have—a Christmas present. I haven’t seen it myself. Do you mean she’s here?”
“There was a girl here who could have been yours. Sort of Gainsborough’s Blue Girl,” he added, brilliantly. “Her first visit, I’d say. I mean, she obviously didn’t look on the Angel as a home from home.”
“What happened to her?” Crook’s heart warmed to the anxiety in the keen young voice.
“She went out with as smooth a Charley as ever I set eyes on. Wearing a sizeable ring, too, very natty. Funny, y’know, I never could fancy a fellow who wore a ring.” His voice changed. “If she’s your girl you should take more care of her—letting her come to a place like this on her own.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” protested Richard. “I didn’t even know she’d come till I found her note. She promised me she wouldn’t go out again to-night.”
“Note?”
“Yes. Pinned on her door. A matter of life and death, she said. I’d just telephoned to say I’d be round in half an hour ...”
“And Juliet’s proper place is the balcony,” Crook approved. “I couldn’t agree with you more. Not that I’m much of a balcony hound myself. No mention of Charley in the note, I take it?”
“None.” He pulled the bit of paper out of his pocket. “It must have been something quite unexpected. Did you say she left with this chap?”
Crook nodded. “And, unless my ears are missing a beat, in the sort of car no honest man can afford to run these days, unless he gets it on expenses. A Panther, big, vulgar affair like a night-club.” He spoke with some derision, recalling his own ancient yellow Rolls, that caught every eye and no wonder, he’d tell you, the “Old Superb.” He was aware that Richard’s anxiety had changed to something much stronger.
“Look here,” he said, “I don’t know who you are ...”
“Crook’s the name,” said the big, brown man, obligingly. “Arthur Crook,
and trouble is my business.” He hauled a card out of his pocket. “123, Bloomsbury Street’s where I operate, and praise the pigs no one’s thought of a closed shop for lawyers, because if anyone put me on to a forty-hour week I’d go off my nut. I work all round the clock when the work’s there, and if it ain’t I go out and look for it. Same as now,” he added.
“I don’t get it,” said Richard, who wasn’t paying much attention to any of this. “What on earth would bring a girl like Jill to this place at a minute’s notice?”
“Got the note there?” Crook asked.
Richard pushed it at him. Crook looked at it for a moment, then said politely, “Code? I don’t follow. This looks to me like a telephone number.”
Richard turned the slip over. Crook read through the note and handed the paper back.
“She could have been a bit more forthcoming,” he acknowledged. “Matter of fact, I can tell you one thing; she didn’t come empty-handed. She had something with her—don’t ask me what it was—but I saw her hand a packet of some sort to this chap. After that they had a drink ...”
“It can’t have been Jill,” Richard broke out, and Crook said easily, “Well, that should be simple. I dare say you’ve got a picture of the young lady somewhere about you.”
Blushing in a manner highly unbecoming to a man who meant to have his plate up within the year, Richard drew a photograph out of his wallet.
“That’s her,” said Crook, with no hesitation at all. “I don’t say she’s the most beautiful girl I ever saw, but she’s got something. That’s why I didn’t care for the company she was keeping. Now, look, we don’t want to make prize idiots of ourselves; it could be it’s all on the up-and-up” (though his expression said that pigs might fly, only he’d never seen them do it) “and she may be home by now, wondering what’s happened to you. There’s a call-box in the passage, and I dare say you don’t have to look up her number ...”
He hadn’t time to finish the sentence before Richard disappeared. He was back a couple of minutes later, his brow as black as the fog.
“I don’t like it,” he announced abruptly. “In fact, it stinks. Know what this number is?” He indicated the slip of paper he’d taken off Gillian’s door. “The number of this pub. What does that add up to to you?”
“That she rang up and made a date,” returned Crook, simply. “If someone had rung her, she wouldn’t have troubled to write the number down. She came here to hand over a parcel—maybe she brought it home by mistake or something.”
“With his name and address on it? Anyhow, if that’s the answer, why didn’t he come to fetch it at the flat?”
“You wouldn’t have liked that any better,” was Crook’s grim reply. “I’m no young maiden myself, but I’d as soon find a wolf on the doorstep as that catastrophe in human shape she went off with. Well, that’s the way it is, son. Question is, where do we go from here?”
“If I could find the chap responsible for this,” said Richard, with classic simplicity, “I’d break his ruddy neck for him, and I don’t mean maybe.”
* * *
Gillian opened her eyes to see the unaccustomed snow swirling past the window and to hear the sound of church bells ringing triumphantly to announce one more anniversary of the coming of the Prince of Peace. She lay very still, aware that she had passed through some ordeal of whose nature she was still in doubt, waiting for consciousness to become complete, as on other occasions she had waited to watch the new light struggle into the sky. Glancing cautiously about her, she found herself in an unfamiliar room, lying on an unfamiliar bed. A small coal-fire burned in the hearth, throwing shadows on the ceiling. Somewhere a clock ticked. So far as she could discover, she was quite alone.
After a minute she made a movement to sit up, and realised immediately that whatever had overtaken her the night before had left a physical legacy of languor and discomfort. Her head ached and there seemed loaded balls behind her eyes.
“Where am I?” she wondered aloud, putting one hand to her forehead.
In the corner someone stirred. “Are you feeling any better?” said a voice, and a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman swam into view. “As to where you are, you’re in my house. A more pertinent question would be: Who are you? and what on earth were you doing on a bench on the Embankment at ten o’clock last night?”
At the sound of the unexpected voice Gillian turned sharply and a red-hot needle seemed to pierce her temples.
“Now, don’t talk till you’re ready,” advised the stranger. She came over and took the girl’s wrist between competent fingers. “You’re perfectly safe so long as you stay here.”
“Did you say I was on the Embankment?”
“When I found you. It was the merest chance, anyway. I happened to be driving home, and I caught sight of you, and somehow you didn’t look the sort of girl who should be sitting there at that hour. Though sitting is rather complimentary. You were all slumped over. I thought at first—well, never mind that. You’re all right now, or soon will be, according to the doctor.”
“The doctor?”
“I called him in. Well, I felt responsible for you. There was no way of telling who you were or where you lived ...”
She made a great effort. “My address was in my bag.”
“My dear, you hadn’t any bag.”
“It was in my hand when I left the Angel.”
“The Angel?” The woman’s brows creased. “Do you mean the Underground station?”
“No. It’s a public-house ...”
“Ah! So that’s why ... My dear, haven’t you a mother?”
“She’s dead,” said the girl rather shortly. “So’s my father.”
“So you’ve no one?”
“There’s Richard.”
“Who’s Richard?”
“Oh! A friend.” She couldn’t discuss Richard with a stranger, no matter how kind. But the woman persisted.
“Was he with you at the Ange
l?”
“No. I went there to meet someone ...”
The woman sighed. “How old are you? You hardly look more than sixteen now. It’s the old story, I suppose. You had one and then you had another and—did you know this man?”
“No. I didn’t say it was a man,” she added.
“Do girls meet each other at public-houses nowadays? What was this Richard of yours doing, letting you run about meeting other men?”
“He didn’t know.” A fresh thought struck her. “Is it Christmas Day?”
“Of course. Can’t you hear the bells?”
She sat up higher against the pillows, fighting against the sickness.
“I must get in touch with him at once. He’ll be worried to death.”
The woman put out a capable hand and restrained her. “It’s no good your meeting him till you’ve got things straight in your own mind. What happened after you left the Angel?”
“I don’t know—I don’t remember. Only there was a car. He said he was going to give me a lift home.”
“Who was?”
“I don’t know. The man called Smith, the one I took the parcel to, said he had a friend going my way.”
“What parcel was that?”
“One I’d promised to deliver—for an old man called Benn in a shop near Paxton Market.” The mists were dissolving now. “And Smith said it was urgent, a prescription for his wife, and she must have it that night. And when I got to the Angel he made me drink a glass of sherry and said this friend ...”
She paused. “Wait a minute. There was something wrong. I remember that.
But I don’t remember what. It was just then everything became swimmy ...”
“And all this happened last night?”
“Yes. It must have been about half-past seven. I promised Richard I wouldn’t go out again; I told him.... Oh, please, I must ring him up.”
“You’re not fit to ring anyone at the moment. Anyway, the telephone’s downstairs. Why not give me his number and I’ll ring through? I don’t think
you told me his other name.”
But she didn’t like that idea. It seemed of paramount importance she should speak to him herself, making him understand this nightmare as no one else could do.
“Tell me about him,” said the woman, gently.
“There isn’t anything, really. Just that we’re going to be married... .” Her voice softened. “he was coming to dinner last night—it was going to be the best Christmas ever, and now, now ...”
To her horror she found the tears squeezing between her lids. “You do see what happened, don’t you?” she pleaded. “What must have happened? There was something in that sherry. I mean, one glass wouldn’t knock me out. And I remember now he made me drink it. And then he said the car was at the door. It was a very big car,” she added vaguely. “And there was someone inside already.”
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. It’s coming back in bits, like a jig-saw puzzle. I have to fit them together. It was a plot, of course.”
“Why on earth should anyone want to plot against you?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“And why dump you on the Embankment?”
“Well,” protested Gillian, reasonably, “they’d have to leave me somewhere.”
“If they’d got the parcel why shouldn’t they let you go home?”
“Perhaps because of it, what was in it, I mean. He said it was a prescription for his wife, who was sick, but he didn’t look like a man whose wife is ill. I remember thinking that at the time.”
“What were you doing in the old man’s shop?”
“There was a ring in the window—” Her glance fell automatically to her hand. The next instant she had started up. “It’s gone,” she cried. “My ring’s gone. My beautiful blue ring.”
The woman was looking at her oddly. “My dear,” she said. “I’m old enough to be your mother. You needn’t be afraid of what you tell me. Are you sure that’s just what happened? Are you sure you didn’t have rather more than one glass of sherry and—well, get just a little tipsy and lose your road home? You might so easily drop down on a bench—or perhaps someone snatched your bag and the ring with it. Was it valuable?”
“I paid five pounds for it. I don’t know what it was worth. No, it wasn’t valuable, it was just beautiful. I thought Richard would like it as much as I did. Oh, please, let me telephone Richard. If it were the other way round and it was he who was missing, I should be quite, quite mad. With fear, I mean.”
“You’re very much in love, aren’t you?” said the woman gently. She sat by the bed and held Gillian’s hand. “The doctor’s coming in a minute, and if he says you can get up you shall dress at once.” She stroked the girl’s cheek.
“It’ll come out all right in the end, I’m sure it will. Can I trust you to lie quiet for five minutes while I make you a cup of coffee?
“You’re very kind,” said Gillian, her voice still trembling. “My dear, I’ve got as daughter of my own about your age.”
She went out of the room. Before she returned the front-door bell rang and Gillian heard the sound of voices.
“Come in,” said the woman clearly. “Yes, she’s awake. She remembers quite a lot. I’ve told her you’re coming. She wants to get in touch with someone called Richard.”
“So do we,” said a man’s voice. “We want to find out quite a lot about the young lady.”
The door opened and a tall man came in. “Sitting up and taking notice?” he asked, genially. “Thisisn’t precisely how one would choose to start Christmas Day ...”
But Gillian said nothing. She lay frozen against the pillows. For this wasn’t a stranger, someone she’d never met before; this was a face she had been hanging in a patch of darkness between the swing-doors of the Angel not much more than twelve hours ago. She hadn’t been meant to see it, of course; she’d looked up and there it had been, reflected in the mirror; and the head had nodded and the man who called himself Smith had laughed, and said, “Ready?” and they’d got up—and the horror had begun.
“Aren’t you going to wish me a Merry Christmas?” said the voice, and as he spoke the door opened again and the woman came in.
“This is Dr. Belvedere,” she announced.
At that Gillian found her voice. “Oh, no,” she said. “He isn’t a doctor. I know him now. He’s the driver of the car that took me away from the Angel last night, and you—of course—you’re the one who was in the car—your story about finding me on the Embankment is all a lie. You’re in the plot too—oh, isn’t there anyone to be on my side?” The tears were shaking her voice, but she fought them back.
The woman came over to the bed and caught her hand. “There’s Richard,” she said, softly. “You hadn’t forgotten him, had you? You’re going to ring him up, aren’t you? Oh, yes. I think you will. I think you’re going to do everything we say. Because, if you don’t ...”
But she wouldn’t, all the same. They were quite angry, quite rough with her before she was able to convince them that she didn’t propose to betray Richard. They realised it was hopeless, at last; she wouldn’t even tell them how much Richard knew. And when they saw they were wasting their time the woman caught her arm, and the man produced a syringe, and though she struggled, she was no match for the pair of them. She felt the prick, felt her arm tossed roughly down, and almost at once, for the second time in twenty-four hours, she swam away into the dark.
* * *
There was to be no rest for Richard this Christmas Eve. Long after he was convinced of the futility of such action, he found himself pulling open the doors of telephone booths, slipping his coppers into the slot and dialing Gillian’s number. Every time, as the bell began to ring, his heart pounded in unison, and every time it rang to a despairing silence. On—and on—and on. Yet, though he went back into the street swearing he’d make no further effort, he had but to pass another box to remind his ravaged heart that this nig
ht was the anniversary of the greatest miracle the world has ever known, and in he went again, click, click, click, went the pennies—and always with the same result. He even paid another visit to Gordon Street; this time there was no need to ring the bell, for Miss Beachcroft was watching avidly from the window and came scuttling into the hall to assure him there was no news.
“Have you tried the hospitals?” she demanded, twitching her ancient crimson garment round her shapeless form. “Anyone could be knocked down on a night like this.”
Richard brushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time, till he reached the third floor. It was then that he discovered the door on the latch and pushed it open. When he saw the brave, gay preparations she had made, the happy tree, the parcels tied with silk ribbons, the cards strung along the wall, he almost forgot his manhood. If he had been tempted for one second to doubt her good faith, this would have reassured him, but, in fact, no such temptation had assailed his tormented heart. He was as sure of her love as he was of his own, had a terrifying glimpse of what loneliness could mean for the un-companioned, the undesired and the bereaved.
There was no further message here, and he came down with a new resolve in his mind. Gillian’s disappearance was connected in some way with this fellow Benn, from whom she’d bought the ring. Evidence? Crook might have murmured, and of course there was none. But—what was in the parcel and where had she found it? If she hadn’t got it from Benn ... but she hadn’t spoken of it over the telephone. Perhaps someone had called her up after she’d spoken to him. Perhaps—perhaps. At all events, he couldn’t rest and was in the mood of desperation when men snatch at straws. If Benn knew anything he was going to talk. The telephone directory showed quite a number of Benns, but only one who appeared to answer to his requirements. Benn, H., Marine Store Dealer. That would be the fellow. Richard got out his little car and turned east.
Mr. Benn’s shop was as shuttered as the ancient tombs of one of his own ancestors; no amount of ringing and knocking called forth any response. There wasn’t even anything to indicate that the old man actually lived on the premises, no private door, no card. The rooms over the shop might be used as storerooms—Richard couldn’t tell. One thing was obvious, no one was coming down to the door to-night, and though he peered industriously, like some night animal after its prey, he couldn’t detect a gleam of light anywhere. “Probably gone off somewhere for Christmas,” Richard supposed, taking stock of his environment. There appeared to be no residential quarters on either side of the shop. A large building with a blank wall, that was probably a factory, stood on one side and a door leading to a work-yard on the other; the little shop was sandwiched, like a very thin slice of meat between two hunks of bread, amid these formidable walls. There was a bomb-site opposite, where nothing remained but part of a wall, a basement window-frame, bricks among which the coarse grass flourished and a fair amount of rubbish shot there in defiance of restrictions. The only life he discerned was a thin, young black cat, which streaked off the site, looking like a bit of black velvet with a shining green stone in it, that was her eye. He didn’t stop to wonder, as a clod like Arthur Crook would have done, what brought her out so suddenly, and it didn’t occur to him to look over the broken wall, and so it was he never saw the shadow moving in that world of shadows, a bit of flotsam in a lost world, who leaned over the smashed brickwork and thoughtfully watched him go.
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 12