The Best of British Crime omnibus (77 page)

She said in a low voice: ‘I thought you said I was to wait outside the—'

‘A change of plan,' he said affably, and patted his brief-case. ‘It's all right. I have the money.' He twisted round to smile at her. ‘Not that I expect to need it.'

‘Oh? Why not, Mr. Owen?'

‘Rogers, please.' Hubert put on his pained look. ‘I far prefer my – er – professional name on these occasions. Hubert Rogers.'

The train changed its tune and began to emit the generator-charging hum which indicated preparation to move off. Rogers cocked his ear to it.

‘Why won't you need the money?' Judy knew that her voice was shaking. She tried to tell herself that she had nothing to fear.

Hubert was still smiling in his friendly way. ‘Because I think you're bluffing me, Miss Black. That's why.'

Judy opened her mouth but she stifled the words as she saw that Hubert's expression had completely changed. And when he spoke his voice had changed too.

‘Do you think I haven't met this situation before?' he said quietly. ‘Do you think it's new to me?'

‘What – situation?' She was almost hypnotised by his voice; she could not even bring herself to even fling a glance towards Nat.

‘A girl overhears something – finds something out. Something about me.' He was speaking rapidly, his mouth close to her ear. ‘She feels important. It gives her a misguided sense of power. She decides to risk—'

‘Mind the doors!'

Hubert had broken off as the familiar chant echoed down the station. The warning was unnecessary. The platform was empty. Those boarding the train were seated and the few who had alighted at St. John's Wood had disappeared up the staircases. Judy risked a glance towards Nat Fletcher.

Suddenly a hand was clamped on her wrist. Hubert had stood up. He moved quickly to the sliding door and got his foot against it to prevent it shutting as all along the train the doors slid across.

‘Come on, Judy,' he said brightly. ‘This way.'

He propelled her through the door and as he removed his foot and followed her the train began to move.

It accelerated rapidly, so that by the time the end of the carriage passed it was moving quite fast. Judy just had time to see Nat Fletcher, vainly trying to pull the automatic doors apart. He was trapped behind the glass. The train carried him away and into the dark tunnel.

‘A friend of yours, Miss Black?' Hubert enquired coldly. ‘How many others were there, I wonder?'

He changed his grip, twisting her wrist and forcing her hand up between her shoulder blades. The agonising pain made her scream. He had chosen the arm where the shoulder had been dislocated. As he walked her to the exit the platform was empty and half the train had disappeared into the tunnel.

Harry had been waiting for the train at the extreme end of the platform, where the end of the last carriage had stopped. When he had seen Nat enter the same compartment as Judy he had said a word to the railwayman in charge of the doors and stepped into the little control booth at the back of the train.

All the same, Hubert's manoeuvre had caught him by surprise. When the automatic doors were closed he believed that he had Hubert Rogers nicely sealed up in the same compartment as Nat.

As the train gathered speed he saw to his horror the couple standing on the platform, the girl's arm in the grip of the man's. He pushed past the railwayman, who was standing beside his half-open door.

‘Hold it, mate! You want to kill yourself?'

The train must have been travelling at nearer thirty than twenty when Harry jumped out. He had no chance of staying on his feet. He went into a jockey's roll and the very speed of his landing took the jolt out of the impact. He slid along the platform and fetched up against the end wall.

He was bruised and shaken but still conscious. Hubert and Judy had disappeared.

He scrambled to his feet and raced along the platform. In the time available there was only one exit they could have reached. He turned the corner. The staircase ahead was empty. He raced up it, taking the steps three at a time, turned the next corner and there they were near the top of the next flight.

Hubert heard the hurrying footsteps behind him and whirled round. When he saw Harry he thrust his free hand under the lapel of his jacket and drew out a revolver. But he did not aim it at Harry. He thrust the barrel against Judy's chest. The threat of the gesture was unmistakable.

‘Keep back, Dawson. Well back. Come up one step and she gets it.'

He began to move away, watching Harry all the time. He must have tightened his grip on the arm, for Judy gasped out loud and her face contorted.

Paradoxically it was that small act of vicious cruelty which brought about Hubert's downfall. The pain made Judy desperate and the sight of her agonised face steeled Harry to risk anything.

As Hubert glanced behind him to see whether all was clear round the next corner, she stamped her sharp heel on that vulnerable part of the human anatomy, his instep. In an instinctive movement of retaliation, he raised the gun to whip her across the face with its hard jaggedness.

Harry saw the momentary opening and flung himself at the man. His momentum threw him between Judy and Hubert. Hubert released his hold on Judy's arm, but as the two men fell to the ground he still had a firm grip on the gun. He was slightly on top of Harry, whose head had struck one of the steps.

Hubert was trying to force the barrel round against Harry when a fury hit him from behind. Judy flung herself on the gun, seizing it with both hands to prevent Hubert aiming it at Harry. Then she dipped her head and sank her teeth into the back of his hand, felt them bite through flesh and blood to the bone beneath.

Hubert howled and relaxed his grip. The gun clattered on to the stone step. She picked it up and stood back, covering him. Hubert took one look at her expression and knew that she was capable in that moment of emptying the chamber into his body. He put his bleeding hand to his mouth, sucking at the wound.

‘Don't,' he said. ‘Don't shoot.'

He knew what was going through Judy's mind. Not just the pain he had inflicted on her, but Linda Wade's ruined looks, Peter Newton's callous murder, the sacrificial deaths of Tom Dawson and Arnold Conway.

‘For God's sake, Dawson,' he said as Harry got to his feet. ‘Get that gun from her.'

Harry moved round beside Judy.

‘I'll take the gun, Judy. Don't worry. If he gets up off his knees I'll kill him.'

Twenty minutes later Judy and Harry stood on the pavement outside St. John's Wood Station. They were silent as they watched Hubert Rogers, now handcuffed to a uniformed constable, being hustled quickly through the crowd and into the back of a police car. It drew away from the kerb and soon its flashing blue light disappeared among the thickening midday traffic.

The pavement was wet from a recent shower, but now the sun had come out again. Everything seemed very clear and gleaming.

Harry turned to Judy, whose injured arm was tucked under her coat, resting on the button for support.

‘Thank you, Judy. Without your help we'd never—' He broke off. It was hard to find the right words. ‘What are you going to do now?'

‘I feel like a strong cup of coffee,' Judy said. ‘Preferably with a tot of whisky in it.'

‘That's not a bad idea. But I mean – after that?'

She stared up the street, not really seeing it. The wisp of hair had worked loose again and was playing over her brow.

‘I don't know. I've been offered a job in Manchester, but I'm not sure whether to take it or not. I thought I might go away for a week or two. I feel I've earned a holiday.'

‘That's a good idea. Why don't you go to The Priory at Steeple Aston? It's quiet, it's a very nice hotel and as I told you, the manager and his wife are friends of mine.'

‘Yes. I might do that.' She turned towards him, a slightly mischievous smile playing round her lips. ‘Steeple Aston. I suppose that would mean catching a train from Paddington?'

‘No,' Harry said with mock seriousness. ‘Certainly not Paddington.'

‘Euston, then?'

‘No.'

‘King's Cross?'

Harry shook his head again and they both laughed. He took her firmly by the arm, the good arm, and led her towards a coffee bar a hundred yards down the road.

‘You don't take a train at all. Let's go and have that coffee and I'll tell you my plan for solving the problem.'

ANDREW GARVE
Murder in Moscow
No Mask For Murder
The Cuckoo Line Affair
The Megstone Plot
The Narrow Search
The Prisoner's Friend
The House of Soldiers
Murderer's Fen
A Press of Suspects
A Hole in the Ground
A Hero for Leanda
The Golden Deed
The Sea Monks
The Ashes of Loda
A Very Quiet Place
The Long Short Cut
The Case of Robert Quarry
The File on Lester
Home to Roost
Counterstroke
The Galloway Case

DAVID WILLIAMS
Murder in Advent
Wedding Treasure
Divided Treasure

Treasure in Oxford
Holy Treasure!
Prescription for Murder
Treasure by Post
Banking on Murder
Murder for Treasure
“Copper, Gold and Treasure”
Treasure Preserved
Planning on Murder

FRANCIS DURBRIDGE
The Pig-Tail Murder
The Passenger
The Desperate People
My Wife Melissa
A Game of Murder
The Other Man

HESTER ROWAN
Overture in Venice
The Linden Tree
Snowfall

JOHN BUXTON HILTON
Death of An Alderman
Hangman's Tide
No Birds Sang
Some Run Crooked
The Anathema Stone
Playground of Death
Surrender Value
The Green Frontier
The Sunset Law
The Asking Price
Corridors of Guilt
The Hobbema Prospect

Passion in the Peak
Moondrop to Murder
The Innocents at Home
Displaced Persons
Gamekeeper's Gallows
Dead-Nettle
Mr Fred
The Quiet Stranger
Slickensides

JOHN GREENWOOD
“Murder, Mr Mosley”
Mosley by Moonlight
Mosley Went to Mow
Mists Over Mosley
The Mind of Mr Mosley
“What Me, Mr Mosley”

JOSEPHINE BELL
The Summer School Mystery
The China Roundabout
The Hunter and the Trapped
A Flat Tyre in Fulham
Death on the Reserve
A Hydra with Six Heads
A Question of Inheritance
The Upfold Witch
The Fennister Affair
Death at the Medical Board
Death in Clairvoyance
Bones in the Barrow
Hell's Pavement
Death in Retirement
Double Doom
Easy Prey
The House Above the River
A Well Known Face
Adventure with Crime
The Trouble in Hunter Ward
Such a Nice Client
A Swan-Song Betrayed
Wolf! Wolf!
The Innocent
Safety First
The Alien
No Escape
The Catalyst
The Wilberforce Legacy
A Hole in the Ground
Death of a Poison Tongue
A Pigeon Among the Cats
Victim

PAUL SOMERS
Beginner's Luck
The Shivering Mountain
Operation Piracy

ROGER BAX
Death Beneath Jerusalem
Came the Dawn
A Grave Case of Murder

ROY VICKERS
Murder of a Snob
Gold and Wine
Murder in Two Flats
The Sole Survivor
The Kynsard Affair
Murdering Mr Velfrage
Find the Innocent

S T HAYMON
Death and the Pregnant Virgin
Ritual Murder
Stately Homicide
Death of a God
A Very Particular Murder
Death of a Warrior Queen
A Beautiful Death
Death of a Hero

SHEILA RADLEY
Death and the Maiden
The Chief Inspector's Daughter
A Talent for Destruction
Blood on the Happy Highway
Fate Worse than Death
Who Saw Him Die?
This Way Out
Cross My Heart and Hope to Die
Fair Game
New Blood from Old Bones

Murder In Moscow
(1951)
Foreign correspondent George Verney, travelling to Moscow by train to report for his newspaper on post-war changes there, finds himself in the company of a pro-Soviet delegation from England. His aloof attitude towards his fellow passengers receives a jolt, however, when one of them is murdered in Moscow. He refuses to accept the official Russian explanation of the crime and, better versed than most foreigners in Soviet tactics of every kind, he does his own investigating – giving a shrewd and often amusing picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.

A Game of Murder
(1975)
A young Scotland Yard CIT officer is on leave when his father dies in a golfing accident. But Harry Dawson won't let the mystery go, for mystery it is. Who is the young man seen on the golf links? Why is everyone so interested in a dog collar? What is the connection with the man in the pet shop? Is it really possible that the housekeeper's nephew can be inept as he seems? And where is the housekeeper?

Francis Durbridge's twisting, turning plot drips suspense on every page, quickening into a flood of action and mystery that keeps the reader guessing till the very end.

Prescription for Murder
(1990)
When a group pledged to stopping experiments on animals demonstrates at a Closter Drug Company news conference, set to make fortunes for the directors of the company, the action is seen as no more than embarrassing. But the kidnap of one of the Closter directors that follows cannot be so easily ignored, especially when, instead of a ransom, the kidnappers demand that the other directors sell their company shares at a crippling loss. No one understands what the kidnappers themselves are gaining by this, until banker Mark Treasure – the non-executive Chairman of Closter Drug – returns from an American trip and works out what's really happening. Even so he is too late to prevent two murders and the stock market skulduggery that decimates Closter management and threatens to wipe out the company.

Murder In Moscow
first published in 1951 by Collins First published by Bello 2012 Copyright © Andrew Garve, 1951 The right of Andrew Garve to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.