“And what makes you think I wouldn’t be happy to see her?” he asked lightly. “Some coffee and sandwiches, Jolly.”
“At once, sir.” Jolly disappeared by the alternative route to the kitchen, and Rollison beamed down at Gwendoline.
“Come and sit down.” As they went into the big room, he added : “Are you old enough to be offered a drink?”
“You really do have the most execrable sense of humour,” she remarked.
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry about that. What will you have?”
“What are you going to have?”
“I might have a spot of brandy in my first cup of coffee, to make it interesting and to wake me up’ “May I have that, too?”
“Yes, of course.” Rollison looked at his large armchair longingly, and sat on a corner of his desk, with the Trophy Wall behind him. He did not need telling that the girl had come with serious purpose, and his respect for her had risen the moment he had seen her, for many a young columnist so disrespectfully treated would have assuaged her dignity by a vitriolic attack in print.
Perhaps she had done so.
“What brought you?” he asked.
“I heard about the trouble at Smith Hall and that you saved Naomi Smith from having her head bashed in.” She spoke as casually as if she were recording the buying of a penny stamp. “So I put in my stand-by column and postponed the one on you.”
“Pity,” he said. “I was looking forward to reading about my parasitic and anachronistic way of life.”
“You might still do so.”
“You mean, if I do what you want me to do, you won’t write scurrilously about me?”
“I never write scurrilously about anyone. And in any case, your background and your innate sense of superiority—of being untouched by such things as public comment—would protect you. No, I mean—I might change my mind about you.”
“Oh. Why?”
“You might get Smith Hall and Naomi Smith off the hook.”
“Oh,” said Rollison, and resisted a mischievous impulse to ask whether she was qualified to reside at Smith Hall. “So you now know she came to see me?”
“And that you promised to help.”
“Who told you?”
“I’ve a friend who lives there—Judy Lyons.”
“Scatterbrain,” remarked Rollison.
“Who on earth told you she was a scatterbrain?” asked Gwendoline, in astonishment. Her expression changed and she went on : “Oh, Naomi, I expect. Well, I talked to Judy on the telephone when the story came in about the trouble at Smith Hall, and she told me you’d made yourself quite a hero. And she said that Naomi seemed to think that you would and could help. So-—” Gwendo-line glanced up expressively. “I thought you and I might bury the hatchet, and work together over this.” She glanced at Jolly who put a laden tray down on the low table at her side, and went on : “The one certain thing is that you’ll never solve this case on your own.”
After a moment of startled silence, Jolly drew back, looked at Gwendoline with a withering dislike, and said : “I trust that will be all, sir.”
“Yes,” said Rollison. “You go to bed.”
“Thank you, sir. If there is any word of Miss Angela you will wake me, won’t you?”
“Yes,” promised Rollison.
“If you want to know where Angela is, don’t go to bed yet,” advised Gwendoline. “Because I’m pretty sure I know where she is.”
CHAPTER 10
True Or False?
ROLLISON moved from the desk, towards Gwendoline. Jolly, on his way back to the kitchen, stopped and turned round. The two men dwarfed the girl, and there was something almost threatening in their manner. Her eyes showed a sudden awareness of this.
“Where is she?” demanded Rollison.
“We have to make quite sure whether that statement was true or false, sir,” Jolly said, roughly for him. “This young woman is quite capable of proffering false hope in order to get the information and assistance which she desires from us.”
“Yes. Where is Angela?” Rollison repeated, in a steely voice.
“I—I didn’t say I was certain—I said I was pretty sure,” said Gwendoline, looking apprehensively from one man to the other.
“Where do you think she is?” demanded Rollison. “Next door to Smith Hall, in Sir Douglas Slatter’s house.”
“What!” gasped Rollison.
“I tell you that’s where I think she is. Oh, for goodness sake stop towering over me in that melodramatic manner!” exclaimed Gwendoline, straightening up abruptly. “Angela suspected that some rather unpleasant telephone calls came from the house next door, and she found out that they wanted a housemaid. So she took the job. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well I’m—” began Rollison, but his heart was lighter than it had been since he had first heard that Angela was missing. It was so like her—to pretend there was nothing to report while she was working ingeniously and desperately hard to prove her capacity as a detective. “When did you know about this?”
“Only tonight—from Judy Lyons. That’s why I decided to come here, I thought you and I might come to an arrangement. If I put your mind at rest about your niece, will you give me inside information which no other newspaperman or woman can possibly get? I suppose it’s too late to strike a bargain now,” she added resignedly. “I—what on earth are you doing?”
Rollison turned away suddenly, and picked up the telephone and began to dial. He did not answer. His heart was thumping, and he was staring at the far end of the Trophy Wall, hardly aware of the old-fashioned cutlass or the bicycle chain in his direct line of vision; each had been used for murder.
“What are—” began Gwendoline.
“Please be quiet, Miss!” Jolly was sharp.
“This is Smith Hall,” a man answered Rollison.
“Is Mr. Grice still there?” asked Rollison urgently. “This is Richard Rol—”
“Hold on, sir! He’s just moving off !” There was a clatter of the telephone, and then silence, and at last Rollison turned to Gwendoline and Jolly.
“If she’s at Slatter’s place, I mean to find out. If the police won’t search his house, I will.”
“Oh,” said Gwendoline, in a small voice. And then, while Rollison was still holding on to the telephone and Jolly, also tense, was watching him, she asked almost petulantly: “May I have some coffee, please?”
Jolly opened his mouth as if in anger, closed it, relaxed, took a table napkin off a silver dish of sandwiches and poured out coffee.
“Hallo,” Grice said to Rollison. “What is it now?”
“Bill,” said Rollison. “I’ve just been told that Angela took a job as housemaid at Sir Douglas Slatter’s house. If she did and she’s there now, she might be in acute danger before the night’s out. Too many people now know who she is and what she’s doing.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Grice, slowly. “Hold on a moment.”
Rollison held on while Gwendoline, reaching for her coffee cup, stared at him; and Jolly, hot milk in hand, looked up from a half-stooping position over her.
“Yes,” repeated Grice. “We’ll have to find out. I wouldn’t mind having a look round there, I’ve been thinking over what you said.” A chuckle fluttered his voice. “I’ll need a search-warrant, though and that—” Grice broke off, only to go on more decisively. “I’ll go and ask him to let me search and see what happens. If I have to get a search-warrant, what evidence do you have?”
“This time, will you just take my word for it?”
“I will, but a magistrate might not. All right, Rolly. I’ll call you back in half-an-hour, don’t come charging over here yet.”
“If you’re thirty-one minutes, I’ll be on my way.” Roll-son said.
* * *
Five minutes later, Sir Douglas Slatter, massive in a camel-hair dressing gown, and tight-lipped with bad temper, growled at Grice : “If you have to I suppose you’ll have to, but if you’re doing it without a good reason I shall have questions asked in the House.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Grice.
He had four men with him and they went from room to room, with Slatter accompanying one couple and a middle-aged grey-haired housekeeper the other. Grice went out to his car, had a message telephoned to Roll-son, and then rejoined his men. They had nearly finished, when he heard the housekeeper say to the two policemen with her :
“This is the last room—and there’s a girl sleeping in it. A maid. Don’t frighten her out of her wits.”
Grice reached them as she opened the door, and peered over their shoulders.
There, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, one bare arm over the bedspread, hair spread like leaves over the pillow, was Angela. She looked what she was : little more than a child. Grice eased himself inside the room and looked down at her closely. She was breathing evenly, her lips lightly closed. He gave a half-smile, of pleasure, and then withdrew.
Outside, he said : “Now I would like to see the attic and the loft, please.”
* * *
Just after half-past three, Rollison’s telephone rang again. It made Gwendoline start up from the chair in which she had been dozing, and as he lifted the receiver he heard the one on Jolly’s extension lifted, too.
“Ronson.”
“She’s all right, Roily,” Grice assured him. “She’s sleeping naturally, and I didn’t wake her. There’s no-one who shouldn’t be in the house, no sign of a man who fits the description you gave me, and no mud on any of the doorsteps. I’d leave Angela there. She’s safe enough for to-
night, anyhow, and I’ll have that house watched as well as Smith Hall. We can decide what to do about her to-morrow.”
“Good enough,” agreed Rollison. “The little devil!” But he laughed. “Thanks very much, Bill, and goodnight.”
As he rang off, he heard Jolly’s muted : “Thank God for that,” and he saw Gwendoline by his side, bright with excitement, pretty as the proverbial picture. She clutched his arm and her grip was surprisingly strong.
“Now will you do a deal?”
“Yes,” answered Rollison. “I’ll do a deal and I’ll see you get some inside information, but before we come to terms I’d like to sleep on the situation and see how I feel in the morning.”
“You mean, you’re tired out,” said Gwendoline, giving way to a vast yawn. “So am I! What time tomorrow?”
“Will two o’clock in the afternoon suit you?”
“Are you going to sleep that long?”
“I shall ask Jolly to see that I’m up by nine o’clock, I’ve a lot to do before going to Smith Hall at noon to-morrow,” said Rollison.
“Do you know,” said Gwendoline Fell, “I think that given encouragement, you might be quite funny, after all.” She turned towards the door. “Thanks for the coffee, and the sandwiches were lovely.”
Rollison went with her down the stairs; she was un-believably light-footed and graceful; even when she threw a leg over her motor-scooter she showed grace. She placed her crash helmet firmly on her head and then shattered the street with the roar of the engine, raised a hand, and moved off at startling speed. Rollison watched her out of sight, then, went up to his flat, and along to Jolly’s room.
Jolly was in bed.
“Well, what do you make of that young lady?” asked Rollison. “Do you trust her?”
“I grew to dislike her less as time went on,” admitted Jolly grudgingly. “But I certainly wouldn’t trust her too far.”
“No, nor would I,” agreed Rollison. “Tomorrow, see what you can find out about her background and also about Smith Hall residents Anne Miller and Judy Lyons. Be discrete, and if necessary ask Mr. Grice for help. He’ll probably give it gladly.”
“He is obviously deeply worried,” said Jolly. “It’s very hard to believe that Professor Webberson is dead, sir, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Rollison heavily. “Hard to realise that two of the girls are probably dead, too, and Naomi Smith is on the killer’s list. At least he won’t use the same hammer again,” he added. “About nine on the morning. That will give us five hours’ sleep, with luck.”
“I’ll call you, sir.”
Rollison went to bed with so much on his mind that he half-expected to be a long time getting off, but in fact he was asleep as soon as he had adjusted the sheets and blankets. The reassurance about Angela, shadowed by the other murders, by the dangers, by the threats, had exhausted him.
Jolly brought him tea at five minutes past nine.
At ten o’clock he pulled up outside the modern severity of the new New Scotland Yard, was recognised and passed from constable to sergeant, sergeant to Chief Inspector and finally into Grice’s office. Grice was not there. Three newspapers were open on his desk, an indication of sudden departure.
“He’s with the Assistant Commissioner, sir,” said the Chief Inspector. “He isn’t likely to be long.”
“Thanks,” said Rollison—and the door opened and Grice came in. He did not look in the best of moods, and simply nodded before rounding the desk and shuffling the newspapers into position. “Good morning, Bill,” said Rollison. “I wanted to come and say ‘thanks’ in person.”
Grice grunted.
“The Assistant Commissioner doubts the need or the wisdom of my search of Slatter’s house,” he said. “Slatter’s already been talking to M.P.s and they have been talking to the Home Secretary. Did you have to choose as suspect a millionaire who owns more property in London than any other single person?”
“No,” said Rollison. “Angela chose him.”
“She has been seen in the house this morning,” Grice went on. “I want you to find out why she went there as soon as you can, and if it’s some damned flight of fancy, I want her out.”
“Yes, Superintendent,” said Rollison with tactful humility. “Any news?”
“The sledge hammer was the one used to kill Keith Webberson.” Grice touched a file on his desk. “It had been stolen from a building site nearby, a small block of flats is going up where there used to be a big house. No fingerprints, but there are burned initials on the shaft,” Grice added.
“What intitials?”
“T.S.—and don’t start jumping to any more conclusions.” Grice’s interview with the Assistant Commissioner for Crime must have been very unpleasant. “And don’t ask me whether I’m trying to find the owner, either.” He moved his right hand as one of three telephones on his desk began to ring. “Why should anyone try to murder Mrs. Smith, if we could answer that . . . Grice here.”
His expression changed as he listened, the sense of grievance died.
“Yes .. “ he said. “Are you quite sure? . . . Well, now we know where we are. Is there any way of finding out whether she was killed by the same sledge hammer? . . . Yes, compare the wounds with those on the back of Professor Webberson’s head . . . Yes, as far as I know I’ll be here all the morning.”
He put the receiver down, and leaned back in his chair. Rollison was almost sure what the main news was but he waited for Grice to deliberate, without trying to rush him.
