Dorothy Eden (47 page)

M
RS. BLUNT’S NOTE WAS
propped against the coffee tin: “More coffee, please. Those police are fair devils for it.” Harriet read it with a glimmer of a smile. She had just come back from her rehearsal of the evening’s performance, and a strange desolate stage it had been, with the fog clinging coldly about the ruined bricks and mortar, the billboards advertising detergents, and the wild wet tangle of weeds growing over the bomb crater. It would not be difficult to hide among that debris, especially when it was dark. Already she could imagine the peering eyes, and the sudden greedy outstretched hands as she tossed the parcel of banknotes down.

It was not a difficult assignment. It merely filled her with horror and distaste.

To explain her continued absence from rehearsals she had had at last to tell Len what had happened, but had begged him not to talk about it until after this evening, at least.

If this evening failed, every morning newspaper would carry the story, with photographs of Jamie and Arabella. Joe’s mother in Boston would have to be told. Journalists and photographers would besiege her flat. It would not be amusing.

So she had to pray there would be that lurking figure near the bomb crater this evening, and that he would walk into the police trap like a fox into a snare.

She went into the children’s bedroom for the twentieth time to assure herself that the beds were ready, their night things got out and favorite toys on the pillows. Jamie must have missed his trucks frightfully, but when he came back he would have eyes for nothing but the puppy.

Millie, rather surprisingly, offered to make tea. It was the first voluntary thing the girl had done since the shock of that awful first day. But before they could drink it, the inspector had come back.

So Harriet had to take a tray into the living room and pour tea for the inspector while he talked in his mild, pleasant manner. They had checked on Jones’s wife, he said. Her illness was genuine enough. It was one of those forms of slow, creeping paralysis, and early this afternoon she had had a scene with her nurse, which had reduced her to a state of collapse. She seemed very dependent on her husband, and he, perhaps mistakenly, encouraged this attitude. He had been with her when the Yard men had left, and had sent a message that when he got her sufficiently calm he would come back.

“Poor fellow. Conscientious devil,” Inspector Burns said. “You can hardly wonder, can you. Now that porter, Fred Helps, is another matter altogether. He has a police record, did you know? Receiving stolen goods, and earlier than that some kid stuff about breaking into unoccupied premises. His mother says he’s reformed, but that may be wishful thinking on her part. I’d guess he’s an ambitious young man, and also, that he likes to show off, particularly to women. There must be a woman in this, you know. Someone’s got to feed that baby.”

“Yes,” Harriet said soberly.

“Mind you, if the boy hadn’t rung you this morning, I’d have been more doubtful—”

“About their needing to be fed any more?”

“I guess that’s what I mean. But don’t worry. We’ve got it under control. I’ve checked the other tenants in this building. Mostly elderly people, aren’t they?”

“A good many retired people live here.”

“Yes. Eminently respectable. I don’t think our man is any of your neighbors. Personally, I still stick to the theory that it’s some complete stranger who’s simply sorted out a victim, after doing a nice bit of preliminary watching.”

The blonde woman, thought Harriet involuntarily, and called Millie to bring some hot water.

Millie did not answer or obey. With an exclamation of impatience Harriet went to the kitchen. There was no one there. Neither was there anyone in Millie’s bedroom or in any other part of the flat.

“Well, really!” she said. “She might have asked me if she could go out, or told me she was going, at least.”

“Millie gone?”

“Yes. Taken French leave, apparently.”

The inspector went quickly into the hall and picked up the telephone. He spoke for a little while to someone, then came back.

“She hasn’t been seen leaving the building. She’s probably dropped in on somebody.”

“She couldn’t drop in on anyone here except Fred.”

“My man’s checking on that. You know, Mrs. Lacey, I’m still not happy about Millie’s story, but I can’t shake her from it.”

“I know. She’s even got the home perm stuff to prove she went into Woolworth’s that day.”

Where had Millie gone? Harriet, expecting her to come back any moment, full of breathless apology, went to her bedroom and looked in her closet. Just as she discovered that Millie’s topcoat was missing, the telephone rang.

The inspector came back from answering it, looking perturbed.

“She doesn’t seem to be around. Apparently rather a large party left from the ground floor flat about half an hour ago, and she could have been among them.”

“Her coat’s gone,” Harriet reported.

The inspector said something under his breath, then apologized.

“Never mind, Mrs. Lacey, this may be an interesting development. We’ll see what her story is when she returns. Miss Millie isn’t that good a liar.”

“If she returns,” Harriet said involuntarily.

“Oh, she’ll come back. She has a reason for what she does, that young lady. Now how long would it take her to reach her home from here?”

“About three-quarters of an hour.”

“Very well. We’ll check on that later. In the meantime, I’ll just have a word with the Yard.”

It was hard waiting. Harriet was filled with the most profound uneasiness. It was all very well for the inspector to remain so calm and confident, and it well may be that Millie had felt impelled to go out for some fresh air. Poor kid, she hadn’t had much of that lately. But nothing was simple any longer.

Supposing Millie, for all her apparently straightforward story, was hiding something. Supposing she knew too much for someone’s safety…

She kept thinking of the blonde woman, the strange creature whom she had never seen, but who was suddenly becoming as fearful to her as she had been to Millie.

“Inspector Burns,” she said desperately “what chance is there of bringing this off tonight?”

“Every chance in the world.”

“But he’ll know about my having called you in. If he knew that Flynn and Jones were watching last night…”

“Without meaning to be derogatory about your friends, Mrs. Lacey, our fellows are trained to be invisible.”

Inspector Burns smiled and patted her hand in a paternal way.

“Don’t worry, my dear. I’ve a hunch we’ll bring this off. We have to try it. It’s our biggest clue. If it fails, I’ve made arrangements for an immediate broadcast, and of course in the morning the papers will splash the story.”

The telephone rang.

Harriet could still not control her nervous jump of apprehension when this happened.

“You answer it,” said the inspector quietly.

She approached it, almost as Millie had done, eyeing it as if it were a snake.

Would it be Millie ringing? Or the strange, husky, unidentifiable voice with its menacing instructions.

“Hello,” said a brisk voice in her ear. “Inspector Burns there? It’s urgent.”

She had to listen to what the inspector said as he gripped the receiver, his pleasant face tightening and growing grim.

“Where? How long ago? Is she badly hurt? Quite. Too late, of course. Right. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He paused a moment before he put the receiver down and turned to Harriet.

“It’s Millie?” she whispered. “It’s Millie, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s Millie.”

“She’s not—dead?”

“No. She’s been lucky. She was attacked on Barnes Common, but the person who attacked her was interrupted and ran off, leaving the job half done. The witnesses, a man and woman who were crossing the common, came on them suddenly out of the fog, but the attacker got away. The man gave chase, but the fog was too thick. He describes the attacker as a tall, rather slightly built person, but he couldn’t swear to the sex. On the other hand, Millie says—”

“She’s able to speak?”

“Yes. They’ve got her in the Hammersmith Hospital, badly bruised and suffering from shock. But she’s able to speak. She says—” here the inspector looked angry and frustrated—“it was this person who I thought was a myth. The blonde woman.”

He picked up his overcoat and put it on.

“I have to go to the hospital and see her before they dope her too much. I won’t be long. One of my men is downstairs. If anything happens, anything at all, ring this number. Right?”

“Right,” Harriet murmured dazedly.

Now she was alone. Completely alone for the first time since these extraordinary things had begun happening. She remembered her promise to Flynn when she had left him an hour ago to call on him the moment she needed him. Suddenly the need to do that was very strong indeed. She just had her hand on the telephone to dial his number when her doorbell rang.

It was absurd to be so cautious about everything one did. The telephone could not do one physical harm when one answered it, but whoever stood at the door—

The blonde woman, she thought again, absurdly, and her mouth was dry as she turned the knob.

When she saw Flynn standing there she simply went into his arms.

“Harriet! Harriet, my sweet!”

“Oh, forgive me, Flynn. I’m just
so
jittery. I can’t seem to do without you.”

His arms tightened, but his voice was harsh.

“Much use I am to you.”

“If you only knew! Flynn, kiss me, so that I can know you’re real and alive.”

“Is that the only reason?” But without waiting for her answer he found her mouth, and for one wild sweet moment nothing else existed.

Then he pushed her away.

“Now?”

“It’s Millie. She’s been half killed. Just as quickly as that. Almost before one has turned one’s back.”

As soon as Flynn had listened to her rather incoherent story he told her why he had happened to arrive at that moment. His own telephone had just rung, and when he had answered it a woman had asked for Jones.

“I told her Jones was out, and she just said, ‘Tell him I’m so lonely.’”

“Who was it?”

“That’s what I want to know. She hung up before I could ask.”

“The blonde woman,” said Harriet breathlessly.

“That’s jumping to a quite unjustified conclusion. You have the blonde woman on your mind, the way Millie had. No, I don’t think that’s who it was, I think it was Jones’s wife.”

“His wife!”

“It was a thin, weak voice, and whining, the way an invalid would speak.”

“Yes. That’s the way she sounded when I spoke to her earlier. But how could it be her? Jones is with her. The police checked.”

“Harriet, I want you to go down and look in my telephone book for the number Jones said he left there. Then I want you to ring his wife and see what she has to say.”

“Yes.” Harriet was excited, and, all at once, no longer afraid. “That’s a wonderful idea. You wait here for me, in case my telephone rings. I won’t be long.”

Strangely enough, however, there seemed to be no number in Flynn’s telephone book, as Jones had promised there was. There were varieties of other numbers, some business firms, some under the cryptic headings of Sally or Kate or Nobby, but nothing under Jones, nothing under the letter “J” at all. Indeed, it rather looked as if a page of the looseleaf book had been slipped out. That was interesting, but baffling and extremely disappointing. Harriet, in despair, went to the telephone to see if by any chance Jones had left a number written anywhere else.

But the little pad was virgin white, no scribbled messages, no doodles. Although—wait a moment! There were faint marks that had come through the upper sheet which had been torn off. It looked like a number, written several times, in a doodling way, as Jones had spoken on the telephone.

Rapidly she carried the pad to the light. It was not easy to read. In one the first three letters FUL were quite clear, but none of the following numbers were decipherable. In the next she could read 5, but nothing else. Ah, here the figures were clear. She could read all four of them.

But how mysterious, for Jones to make such a secret of his home telephone number. She would dial it and see what happened.

At first, nothing at all happened.

Then a woman’s voice, with a sharpness that seemed apprehensive, said, “Yes? Who is it?”

“I want to speak to Mrs. Jones, please,” Harriet said. Then, when there was no answer, she repeated clearly, “Mrs. Jones. Have I the right number?”

There was a brief pause. Then the voice said curtly, “You have the wrong number.”

But before she could hang up Harriet called, “Wait! Wait! I can hear my baby crying! It is my baby, isn’t it?”

There was an audible gasp, then a silence, save for Arabella’s distinctive and vigorous wail in the background.

The woman suddenly said rapidly, “If you’re the mother, come quickly. Don’t tell the police, or he’ll kill the baby. Just come.”

“But where? Where?” Harriet cried.

“14 River Lane, Hammersmith. Don’t tell the police! Promise!”

“I promise.”

“Then hurry”

She was quite calm. She wrote on the telephone pad, “I have gone to 14 River Lane, Hammersmith. If I am not back in an hour tell the police.”

Flynn could not see the note, but whoever else came in would. It was a small safeguard, at least. Because she had to go alone. She couldn’t even take Flynn. He was blind and might get hurt. And the police might provoke some dreadful accident to the children.

She believed the desperate, frightened voice of the woman on the telephone. She would give Harriet her children.

She had neither overcoat nor money. But a quick look in Flynn’s wardrobe produced a tweed coat that would serve the purpose, and she apologized silently to him as she opened his writing desk and found a few odd coins in it.

In the too large tweed coat, and with a scarf tied around her head, she looked quite anonymous. Even Fred at the doors did not recognize her as she slipped past, with her head down. It was a cold enough night to be going out well muffled up. Little more than her nose was visible.