Rolling Stone (21 page)

“What's the matter with it?”

She pushed the bits of meat about in the sizzling fat.

“You know perfectly well I've got a bruise the size of a house.”

“There are worse things than bruises,” said Peter grimly.

There was a gleam between Jake's lashes. So he wasn't asleep. Well, he was welcome to what he could hear. When he went out tonight and made his report—Peter had an idea that Jake would make a report—he could make the most of that bruise. But if ever Peter wished for anything in his life, he wished he could follow Jake and identify the person to whom he reported.

A very savoury smell began to come from the steak. Alf's ears went up like twin points of exclamation. As plainly as if the words had been spoken, they said, “Oh, boy!” With a furtive sideways glance at his master the bull-terrier rose to his feet, stretched, and began to edge noiselessly towards the smell. His pink nose snuffed the delicious fragrance. He made googoo eyes at Terry, who threw a glance at the mattress and, stepping back to the table, found a long delicious strip of fat and meaty gristle. It went down Alf's throat with a golloping sound. Jake swore, called him back, and clouted him.

Terry went on making her pie.

CHAPTER XXX

Human beings are very adaptable. By the end of the day Terry was housekeeping. She had a grocery list written out for Jake to take away with him when he went off duty, and she sent the Bruiser back to wipe his feet when he came in wet and muddy.

The extraordinary thing was that he went. Peter caught his breath, but the Bruiser went back meekly enough. They heard him scuffing his feet on the mat by the area door. He came, after all, of generations of women who had told their men they wouldn't have boots like that on a clean scrubbed kitchen floor. Breeding tells.

But it was Peter who black-leaded the stove when Jake came back in the morning—black lead was one of the items on Terry's list. He also lit the fire and carried coals. The Bruiser was only interested in getting away for his day off, but Jake came and leaned against the kitchen table and watched with jeering eyes.

They had haddock for breakfast. It came wrapped up in newspaper, which Terry said was revolting. Whilst she was washing the fish Peter picked up the sheet and went to burn it. He had it in his outstretched hand, when his eye was caught by a headline and a name—of all names in the world Louisa Spedding's name. Something went hard and cold in him as he flattened the paper out.

TELEPHONE-BOX MURDER.

WHO SHOT LOUISA SPEDDING?

Between him and the paper came the picture he had seen in the taxi by the flash of a street-lamp—Maud Millicent Simpson's hand resting quietly on her knee, and a little pistol not so much longer than the hand.

He stood over the range and read what was there to read. Miss Roberta Jones of Cardiff, up in London on a visit to her uncle, Mr. Robert Jones of Tooting, had entered the telephone-box at the corner of Sitfield Row at 1.45 p.m. precisely. A second later she had rushed screaming into the traffic of North Street. Commotion. Hubbub. The discovery of Louisa's body. Police whistles. The collection of an interested and horrified crowd. No one had seen Louisa enter the box. No one had seen anyone come out of it. No one could suggest any motive for the murder of a respectable middle-aged woman who had neither husband nor lover. The police were exploring every avenue. They would be glad to interview the deceased woman's half-brother, Mr. James Peter Reilly, who had walked out of the Edenbridge Hotel, Minden Avenue, without leaving an address some time in the late afternoon of Monday, the day of the murder. He is stated to have had an interview with his sister there between twelve and one o'clock, and with the exception of the murderer he was probably the last person to see her alive.

Peter crumpled up the paper and pushed it down among the kindling coals. There was a great anger on him for the death of this harmless, innocent woman. She had come to see him—no, she had been sent to see him. There was design in that. She had gone out from him in trouble at the death of her brother, and she had been most brutally murdered. He watched the paper burn and go away into a handful of black shaking ash rimmed and shot through with fire. It was the most damnable and deliberate murder. She had been sent to make sure that he was Spike Reilly, and she had come away from him and met Maud Millicent Simpson, and Maud Millicent Simpson had shot her in cold blood. He was as sure of this as if he had witnessed the crime. Who else could have done it? Who else had any interest in doing it? Maud Millicent had been recognized, and that meant death to Louisa Spedding. But Maud Millicent would use her first—send her to see her brother, meet her afterwards, and talk in friendly fashion.…

His anger mounted. Terry saw his face as he turned round from the range, and was startled. Just for a moment she knew what it was to be afraid.

The day lagged and dragged. Jake lay on his bed and smoked and slept, or appeared to sleep. Alf was put out into the yard, where he whined, and snuffed, and butted the back door with his nose until Jake went out and hammered him, after which he went and sat down on a pile of damp straw and made miserable slobbering noises to himself.

Terry cooked, washed up, polished all the spoons and forks until they shone, and baked a super sponge-cake for tea. Jake, finishing his third slice, laughed suddenly and said,

“Almost a pity to waste a cook like you, miss.”

Whereupon Terry laughed too, and said, “But I don't think I'm wasted. You are all very complimentary about my cooking.”

Jake winked at Peter.

“Ah, but you won't be able to keep it up.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Why not?”

“Our cooks don't stay,” said Jake, and laughed consumedly.

For a second time in the day Terry saw Peter look like murder.

“What did he mean?” she said when Jake had gone out to the yard. “And why did you look like that? You frightened me.”

Peter said, “Are you frightened?” and Terry said,

‘Sometimes.”

She waited for Peter to tell her that there was nothing to be frightened of, but he had a hard look and frowning brows. She said quickly,

“How long is this going on? I want to go home. What do they want? Is it money?”

She said “What do they want?”, not “What do you want?” It pleased him, but he thought it dangerous. He said,

“Not money—at least I don't think so. It's what you saw—they're afraid of what you saw. And, by the way, what did you see?”

Terry shut her lips in a firm red curve. Her eyes met his. She shook her head and did not speak.

“Shall I tell you?” said Peter. “I will if you like. You see, I know, because I was in the bushes, and I saw what you did. Shall I tell you what you saw? That's one thing about this place, there's plenty of time for conversation. Well, you looked out of your window, and you saw someone come from the glass door on to the terrace—the same door that Norah Margesson came out of when she gave me the pearls. The moon had gone in, and it was too dark to see much more than a shadow. There were three windows on the left of the door as I looked at it. The shadow went along to the nearest of those windows and took out a pane of glass. All professional, with treacle and brown paper. I could just hear the glass tinkling, and I got some of the treacle on my thumb later on—but that's my affair and nothing to do with what you saw. When the shadow had finished its job it went back into the house and locked the door. I don't know whether it was a male shadow or a female shadow, but perhaps you do.”

“I'm not telling anyone what I saw.”

“You were supposed to be telling the police yesterday, weren't you? Shall I tell you what I think? I think you were bluffing. If you'd recognized the person who came out of that door, you'd have put the screw on that person good and hard. You wouldn't have gone all round the house-party saying you'd seen something and you were going to the police if the picture didn't come back by Tuesday morning.”

“How do you know what I did?” said Terry in a whisper.

They could hear Jake in the scullery calling to Alf.

Peter laughed.

“I know quite a lot of things, Terry. I know you were bluffing.”

“You
can't
know what I saw—nobody can!”

He struck the table lightly with the edge of his hand.

“I can't, can't I? Well, I tell you I can. And it's not guessing either. What's the good of pulling your bluff on me? I was there, wasn't I? The only thing about it is that you were a bit nearer than I was. It's just possible you could make a good guess at whether it was a man or a woman who came through that door. Could you?”

Jake had gone out into the yard again. He left the back door open, and the wind blew in. It smelled of rain.

“Well?” said Peter. “Could you tell whether it was a man or a woman?”

“What difference does it make—now?” Her breath caught on the last word.

Peter thought he had shaken her. He said in a rough whisper,

“It makes all the difference. You've got to tell me what you saw. Don't you see, you little fool, that you've got into this mess because you talked too much—and not enough. If you had kept your mouth shut, nobody would have known. You'd have been safe at home. If you'd told the police then and there—”

Terry's eyes blazed. She said on a furious breath,

“How could I tell the police? If it was one of the people in the house—they were all people I knew—how could I tell?”

“You did the most dangerous thing you could have done.”

She said, “Dangerous?” and then, “They want money, don't they? But they haven't said so.”

“What's the good of money? You've shilly-shallied till they don't know what you know. Don't you realize the mess you're in? There's somebody's neck at stake now.”

“What do you mean?”

“The person who did this job is liable to swing for the Oppenstein murder—that's what I mean.”

They sat with the tea-things between them, and the cake Terry had made. A neat, tidy kitchen—a most domestic meal—and quick, angry talk of murder past and perhaps to come. Peter had not meant it to go so far, but his temper had struck a spark from her resistance. He saw the colour die out of her face.

The back door banged. Jake was coming in. Peter said quickly,

“Don't look like that. But you'll have to do what I tell you.”

CHAPTER XXXI

Murder past and murder yet to come. That was the burden of Peter's thoughts through the long evening and late into the night. As he saw it, Maud Millicent had laid a very pretty trap for him, and if he had really been Spike Reilly, he did not see how he would have escaped it. There was the murder of Solly Oppenstein's butler, Francis Bird. He thought Spike Reilly had been cast for the part of First Murderer. The Turner might at any moment be found tucked away in his car. He thought it would be found there, and it would, of course, have his finger-prints all over it. But the Turner was a small matter. All day it had been borne in upon him that he was intended to make a really sensational appearance as the murderer of Louisa Spedding. Spike Reilly was Louisa's only relative. She had probably saved money, and what she had saved she would have left to her brother. And he was the last person to have seen her alive. The ingenuity of Maud Millicent's plan chilled him to the marrow. Louisa had been sent to see him and then murdered. He had been tricked into disappearing. Where would suspicion rest but upon James Peter Reilly? The trap was neatly set. If it hadn't been for the breakfast haddock, he wouldn't even have known that Louisa was dead. No newspapers were to be brought into the house, lest Terry Clive should see what she wasn't meant to see. And he had actually swallowed that. Terry Clive my foot! It was Spike Reilly who wasn't to see a paper and find out that poor Louie had been murdered.

He thought the game had gone on long enough. He had hoped for a visit from Maud Millicent. He had met her, talked to her, and had not a single clue as to her identity. He had seen an old woman, and he had listened to a shaky voice and a made-up cough. He had seen a hand just for a moment in the flicker of a street-lamp—a small hand with a pistol in it. London was full of women whose hands would fit that picture. There was only one Maud Millicent, and he wanted desperately to find her.

Once he left this house, he left the chance that she might come there. He thought that she would have to come there. There was the matter of the bruise on Terry's arm. Nothing was to be done until the bruise was gone. Well, Maud Millicent would have to be sure that the bruise was gone. Would she take his word for it? He wondered. If she did, she would have to see him. But he thought she would come herself. He banked on that. Jake and the Bruiser didn't come into it at all, because without using force neither would get a chance of seeing Terry's arm, and force was not to be used. No, it lay between Maud Millicent and himself. Whether she trusted him, or whether she trusted no one but herself, there would have to be a meeting between them. He must hang on for that, and Terry must hang on too. If the worst came to the worst, he thought he could hold Jake up.

Jake wouldn't shoot if he could help it—he could reckon on that. He had an automatic in his pocket, and he would be quick on the draw—probably quicker than Peter. The Bruiser didn't worry him much. A slow fellow, and only there at night. The sound of his snoring filled the room. Peter took out his pistol and handled it. There was a little light from the fire. He sat up, turning himself so as to screen the pistol, and opened the breach. The magazine was full, but he would just make sure—

The magazine was empty.

He scrambled up and felt in his pockets for the space clip. He knew where he had put it. He could see himself standing at the dressing-table in his room at the Edenbridge, putting the pistol here, an extra clip of cartridges there—