More Deadly Than The Male (31 page)

"Do you like them?" he asked, with a catch in his voice. Little Ernie moved forward. "Wot's hup?"

"Nothing," Cora said viciously. "I might have known the fool was pulling my leg. What are you trying to do, George? Get even?"

George suddenly went cold.

"What do you mean?" he said, feeling the blood leave his face.

"What I say," she said, pointing to the bundle on the bed. He pushed past her and turned the things over. At first he couldn't believe what he saw. He held up one garment and stared at it stupidly. It looked like a pair of black combinations, only it had a long tail. He dropped it as if it had bitten him and stared down at the rest of the stuff.

"It's a Mickey Mouse outfit," Eva cried suddenly. "My God! It's Mickey Mouse!"

Little Ernie started to laugh. Eva joined him Together they shrieked at George and Cora.

"Wot a card!" Little Ernie spluttered. "In the middle of the night! Stone me! 'Ad our Cora properly. Oh dear, oh dear, this'll kill me!" He collapsed howling in an armchair

George turned away. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to die. He heard Cora say in a voice hoarse with frustrated rage, "Get out! Do you hear! Get out, both of you!" And when Little Ernie and Eva, roaring with hysterical mirth, had stumbled out of the room, Cora turned on George. "You rotten rat!" she said. "Do you think that's funny? Do you think you can make a fool out of me?"

George wasn't listening He picked up a scrap of notepaper that he had just noticed lying on the bed. It seemed to be a letter written in small, neat handwriting:

He became aware that Cora was standing at his elbow, reading over his shoulder. He screwed up the note and turned away, crushed and dazed.

Cora suddenly burst out: "So you weren't lying! You did it! And she made a fool out of you! God! What a sucker you are! What a damn, stupid, dim-witted fool!" And she suddenly went in peal after peal of jeering laughter. "Go away, you chump," she cried, throwing herself on the bed and rolling backwards and forwards, holding her sides. "Oh, it's the funniest thing I've ever heard. You sucker! You big tough, stupid sucker!" 

George opened the door and went slowly down the passage to his room.

The following night the first of three robberies took place at a garage on the Kingston Bypass. The police stated that the robberies were the work of one man, described by the three garage attendants as a big, powerful fellow with shoulders like an ox. They could give no better description than this, since the man had masked his face with a white handkerchief.

This fellow had walked into the Kingston garage just after midnight. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He threatened the attendant with a Luger revolver, and before the attendant could gather his startled wits together, the man had given him a crushing punch on the jaw. When the attendant recovered consciousness, he found the till had been rifled and nearly twenty pounds were missing.

The following night a similar crime was committed at a garage on the Watford Bypass. The big man again succeeded in getting away, this time with thirty pounds.

Another attendant was attacked the next night in a garage on the Great West Road by the same man, and forty-five pounds were taken.

Then, as abruptly as they had begun, the garage robberies ceased.

George, with a net gain of nearly a hundred pounds, decided for the time being, not to tempt Providence further.

He had told no one what he had done; but Cora, reading of the robberies, knowing that the man who had been responsible for them was big and had carried a Luger, looked at George questioningly.

She was uneasy about George. Since the night she and the other two had laughed at him there had come over him a subtle change. He was hard now, and his temper inclined to fly up. There was a cold, bitter, brooding look in his eyes that Cora didn't like.

He had left Eva's flat before anyone was up on the morning following the scene with the Mickey Mouse costume. Cora, awakening to find him gone, hoped that she had seen the last of him, but he returned in the afternoon just as she was going out.

She was wearing a silk frock, silk stockings and high- heeled shoes borrowed from Little Ernie's Wardrobe. Little Ernie and Eva had gone off to the dog-racing at Wembley, and she was alone in the flat.

George came in and stood looking at her, the brooding expression in his eyes.

"What do you want?" she snapped, uneasy, and wondering why he had come back.

"Here," he said, thrusting an envelope at her, "buy yourself some clothes."

She took the envelope, and found inside five ten-pound notes. She knew the wise thing to do was to throw the money at him and tell him to go to hell, but fifty pounds impressed her, and she could not give up such a sum, no matter what the consequences might he.

"Where did you get this from?" she asked.

"I've had that sum by me," he returned, watching her. "I got it out of the post office for you. There's more where that came from."

"Well, thank you," she said, wondering just how much there was. Perhaps it would he as well, she thought, to wait a little while before getting rid of him.

They went together, and when they returned, having spent all the money except for a pound or two, George pointed to the bedroom.

"Get out of that outfit," he said grimly "You're not wearing clothes from a pimp."

She showed a flash of temper. "Who do you think you are?" she snapped. "I'll wear what I like."

Before she could stop him, he had reached out and had laid hold of the front of her dress in his thick fingers. He jerked her forward, and with a twisting movement he ripped the dress right down.

"Get out of those things or I'll tear them off you," he said, white as clay.

"You must be cracked," she gasped, startled out of her temper, but she went into the bedroom and changed into the clothes he had bought her.

When Little Ernie returned, he told them that he had a flat for them.

"How much?" George asked, staring with hot, intent eyes at the little man.

"Don't worry about that," Ernie said, shooting a quick glance at Cora. "You're my pal . . ."

George walked over to him and caught him by his coat front.

"I ask no favours from you," he said between his teeth. "And listen, I don't like the way you look at Cora. She's my girl. If you try anything with her, I'll kill you. I shan't warn you again."

And Little Ernie, looking into the brooding eyes, suddenly went cold.

The flat that Little Ernie rented them was on the top floor of a block of offices in Holles Street, off Oxford Street. It was secluded and, after business hours, as lonely as a shepherd's but on a Welsh mountain. It was vacant only because it was some distance from the usual haunts of the street-prowlers.

George liked the place. It was his first proper home, and tie took pride in it. He did everything in the house, including the cooking

Cora, still in two minds as to whether she should stay or not, was influenced by the money that George had so suddenly acquired. She could ask him for anything and she got it. At first, it was clothes, and then it was jewellery. She was already brooding about a car; but she hadn't quite made up her mind what kind of a car to have.

She wasn't giving him anything in return. When he came to her room one night, a look of pleading hope in his eyes, she played a card which she was certain would keep him out of her room in the future.

She invited him to sit down; she even took his hand. Then speaking in a quiet voice, a sad expression on her face, she explained about Sydney. He was, she said, the only man she had ever loved. If George wanted payment, then she wouldn't resist him. But he would be making a prostitute of her, because, at the moment, she had no feelings for him. But if George were patient, if he let her recover from the shock of losing Sydney, then she might grow to love him. She was quite clever about this, and the look she managed to get into her eyes—a look of promise of wonderful things to come—completely fooled George.

He was crazy about her, and the thought of forcing his attentions on her was unthinkable. So it was agreed that she should have her own room, George should do the housekeeping and pay for everything, and Cora—well, they didn't come to any decisions about Cora. It seemed rather obvious that Cora wasn't to do anything

And Cora did nothing. She stayed in bed most of the morning, reading the hooks George got for her from a twopenny library. She spent a long time before her mirror preparing herself for the day. They lunched together and loafed away the afternoon. In the evenings they either went to a movie or a theatre and had dinner out.

This kind of existence dragged on for a few days, and then George discovered his money was running out again. It was frightening how quickly money went, living in the West End with Cora as a companion.

He decided that he would have to stage another robbery. He viewed the prospects quite calmly. He had a lot of confidence in himself now. It seemed as if he were living a charmed life. He had killed a man, and no one had arrested him He had attacked three garage attendants, and the police were still floundering. It would be all right, he decided, after some thought. He would leave garages alone this time and pick on a hank. That was dangerous, of course, but there was a lot of money to be found in banks: the prize was worth the risk.

He was sitting by the open window. It was eight o'clock i n the morning, and Cora was still asleep. He sat there, making his plans, his hands caressing Leo's thick fur. 

It was odd how he had brought Leo to the flat. The morning he had left Eva's place, after going to the post office to draw out the fifty pounds, he had returned to his room off the Edgware Road. He had hastily packed his things, paid his rent and told Mrs Rhodes that he had been unexpectedly called out of town. He had said goodbye to Ella. She had known that something was wrong, and she had asked him outright.

"You're in trouble, ain't you, Mr George?" she said. "Is it that gang you was telling me about?"

George nodded. He wished he could tell her the gang that was troubling him was a girl far more dangerous than any make-believe gang he had bragged about in the past.

"I'll keep in touch, Ella," he said. "If anyone asks for me, tell 'em I've gone to Scotland on business. It's important that no one should know where I really am."

Leaving Ella thrilling with intrigue, he had picked up his hag, slung his mackintosh and overcoat over his arm and ran down the steps. It was while he was waiting for a taxi that Leo suddenly appeared. George put down his hag and stroked the cat. He suddenly realized that he was going to miss Leo. Leo meant so much to him: understanding, companionship, love even—odd things like that.

A taxi drew up, and George opened the door, put his bag and overcoat on the seat and gave the driver Eva's address. Then, without stopping to think, he picked Leo up, and got into the taxi.

He was glad now that Leo was with him He had hoped that Cora would have filled the hollow loneliness of his life, but somehow, although they were together so much, she seemed like a stranger. She talked, but her talk meant nothing. There was no love nor understanding in her look. She might really not be there.

Leo did not like Cora, and whenever she was in the room the cat would creep under the settee; but alone with George it would reveal an affection for him which did much to comfort the big, wretched man.

Sitting in the armchair, Leo on his knee, George made plans to rob a bank. It would have to be a village hank, he decided. There was only one way to discover the right kind of bank. He would have to hire a car, and he would also have to leave Cora for a few days. He must never incriminate her. He guessed she knew that he was the mysterious robber who masked his face with a white handkerchief. But they had reached a silent understanding that they should not mention the fact. If he were caught, she must know nothing about the robberies.

So it was arranged. George explained to Cora that he had to go off on business. She gave him a quick look, read his expression correctly, and agreed without protest. He hired a car, and after putting Leo in a cat's home for a few days—he did not trust Cora to feed the cat—he set off for Brighton.

It took him three days to find the bank he was looking for. It was a tiny place in a village a few miles from Brighton. The staff consisted of only a branch manager who opened the hank twice a week. It did not take George long to obtain the information he needed. It was extraordinary how easy it was to rob the place. Of course, he had thought out a plan and had spent a lot of time on the ground, but somehow he felt it shouldn't have been quite so easy. He entered the hank at a few minutes to three, just as the branch manager was closing the door. There was no one else in the bank, and the manager, a red-faced, cheerful man of about sixty, shut the door and bolted it before attending to George.

"You're the last customer, sir," he said, rubbing his hands. "I want some golf this afternoon."

George hit him with his clenched fist in exactly the spot where he had hit the garage attendants. The manager slumped to the floor, and that was all there was to it. George helped himself to two hundred pounds. If there had been more he would have taken it, but two hundred pounds wasn't to be sneezed at. He left by the back way, drove to London without incident and handed the car hack to the garage where he had hired it.