The Lately Deceased (23 page)

‘Hey, what's up?' she demanded. ‘You all look as gloomy as sin.'

‘Our dear friends the detectives from the West End have descended on us again!' explained Abe.

‘Oh, no, not again! Don't they ever let up?'

‘You'd better ask them yourself,' Morton-Smith replied, as the sound of a car stopping at the porch was heard. ‘Here they are now and as far as I am concerned you can be as rude to them as you bloody well like.'

A peal on the bell followed and Bodger hurried to open the door. Meredith stood in the dim oblong of the doorway as the guests crowded out into the hall. Behind the superintendent, the shapes of Stammers and Masters could be made out, all dressed in mackintoshes.

Meredith removed his hat as he began to speak to Gordon.

‘May I have a word with you alone, sir?' he asked quietly.

‘Look here, Meredith, this is too much,' Walker protested. ‘You're becoming a perfect bloody nuisance. There can't be anything more you have to say to me, and I've certainly nothing to say to you.'

Meredith was unmoved and repeated his request in the same quiet tones. ‘I must insist, I'm afraid, sir. I must speak to you alone and at once.'

Gordon glowered at him truculently, thrust both hands into the pockets of his jacket, and snapped back: ‘Well, you can't! It so happens I am entertaining friends tonight and we are just going into dinner. I must ask you to come back some other time.'

Old Nick sighed, and Masters and Stammers moved into the hall, standing one on either side of him just within the front door.

‘Is that your last word, sir? I do assure you it would be better for all concerned if you would come with me into another room for a moment.'

Walker, now red in the face, was trying to retain the last vestiges of his temper.

‘I've told you clearly enough that I have nothing further to say to you. I shall be grateful if you will leave without any further fuss.'

Meredith opened the top button of his raincoat and fumbled in his breast pocket. ‘Very well, sir. If that's how you want it, I've done my best!'

He produced a folded buff paper as he spoke, and stood tapping it on the back of his hand.

‘Gordon Arthur Walker, I have a warrant here for your arrest, charging you with the murder of your wife, Margaret Elizabeth Walker, on or about the twenty-fourth of November last. I must caution you that you are not obliged to say anything, but anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence.'

Chapter Twenty

The hall of Long Manor looked for a moment like a stage melodrama frozen at the point of climax. The two leading figures stood facing each other, the tall lean detective with his back to the door. The defiant figure of Gordon Walker stood in the centre of the tiled hall, his hands bulging the sides of his dark lounge suit.

‘I'll certainly have something to say to the board of enquiry into your conduct, Meredith. You won't even be offered a country beat after I've finished with you! You must be out of your mind coming here with such a fantastic tale.'

Meredith stood impassively waiting for the storm to pass.

‘Mr Walker, I hope you won't give us any trouble. I must ask you to come with us to the local police station. We can contact your solicitor from there.'

Gordon became even more tense with anger.

‘Get out, damn you!' he spat. ‘Get out before I throw you out.'

Meredith looked down at the folded warrant that he was holding and was silent for a moment. Then he looked up and spoke gently, as if he was talking to a rebellious child.

‘Mr Walker, please be sensible. This attitude will help no one, least of all yourself. I strongly advise you to say nothing more until you have conferred with your legal adviser. I have no wish to hear you say something to your disadvantage.' Gordon's face, previously red with anger, now changed colour like the switching off of a light within him.

He became suddenly grey and his whole body sagged visibly before their eyes. Both Masters and Abe Franklin thought he was going to faint and stepped forward to support him. As they touched him, however, another violent change took possession of him.

With a cry of ‘Get away!' he shook off the two unsuspecting men, sending Masters staggering into Meredith. Then he turned and raced off up the wide stairway.

Stammers, the only one not jostled off balance, raced hell for leather up the heavily carpeted stairs after him.

At the top, Walker turned and pulled a black automatic pistol from his pocket. Stammers, now halfway up the stairs, saw the weapon and threw himself to one side as an ear-splitting report rang through the house.

A moment later, Walker was dashing down the corridor that led to the first floor bedrooms. The bullet had lodged itself in the thick clothing beneath Stammers' armpit, leaving him unharmed, but its momentum spun him around, making him reel down two or three stairs into Meredith's arms as he and Masters raced upwards.

Reaching the landing Meredith saw a long, low corridor, panelled in dark oak stretching ahead, with eight or nine doors opening off it and a leaded casement window blocking the far end. A single lamp burned halfway along, giving a dim light. There was no sign of Walker anywhere and all the doors were tightly shut.

‘He's down there,' panted Meredith. He pointed down the corridor and Masters ran ahead down the tunnel-like passage.

‘Watch it, Sergeant!' Old Nick said at his shoulder. ‘He'll use that gun – he's got nothing to lose.'

The three officers, followed by Abe Franklin, went warily down the corridor, their feet silent on the thick carpet, wondering which room held their man. They were not left long in doubt, for, as they reached halfway, a stifled scream came from behind the next door on the left. Masters dashed up to it and wrestled with the handle. The door was firmly locked.

‘Get out of the line of fire,' Meredith hissed at him. ‘Do you want him to blow a hole in you while you fiddle with that knob?'

The four men stood clear of the door, listening for further sounds from inside the room.

‘Who's in there to have made that scream?' Meredith asked Franklin.

‘Either Pearl Moore or Eve Arden. They came upstairs to clean up for dinner.'

Meredith edged up to the door and called out authoritatively.

‘Come on, Walker, stop this nonsense. You're doing yourself nothing but harm by this performance.'

By way of answer there came another report with simultaneous splintering of the door panel. The smooth oak panel splintered along its whole length and the bullet, most of its force spent, half-embedded itself in the panelling opposite. The noise was followed by another female scream.

Meredith, trying to anticipate the next move from inside the room, again called on Walker to come out, but there was no reply.

Masters dropped to his knees and crept along the floor to listen at the bottom of the door. After a moment, he crawled back.

‘I can hear them talking in there, but I can't hear what they're saying.'

‘OK, but keep your head away from that door if you don't want a thirty-eight slug in your earhole,' said Meredith. He turned to Stammers and beckoned him a few paces up the corridor.

‘Get on the phone and ring the local emergency number. Get the Oxfordshire police to send a couple of cars here at the double. See if you can get authority for some of them to carry side arms. You know the drill.'

Stammers ran down the stairs and was met by Geoff Tate, coming up two at a time. He had arrived back from the toilet to find Morton-Smith in a dither and the two girls having mild hysterics in the sitting room. Now, fearful for Eve's safety, he raced upstairs to join the three men pressed against the wall of the corridor.

‘What the blazes is happening?' he demanded.

Meredith motioned to him to stay away from the door.

‘Walker's in there with a gun. He's resisting arrest and I fancy he may use Mrs Moore and Miss Arden to bargain for his own safety.'

Geoff stared at him incredulously. ‘Arrest? For what?'

‘His wife's murder, for a start,' replied Masters.

‘Good God!' he said. Then, remembering Eve's predicament, he said, ‘How the hell did he get those girls in there with him? Come on, we must do something!'

‘Take it easy, he won't hesitate to use that gun again. Look at that shattered door. We've got to act cagey if we're to keep those women out of harm's way.'

‘But Gordon wouldn't hurt them, whatever else he's done!' Geoff protested. ‘Damn it, he's more or less engaged to one of them. It's impossible!'

‘Anyone who takes two shots at a police officer to evade arrest is a pretty poor risk, sir,' said Meredith shortly, and turned back to the door.

Geoff stood irresolute for a moment, thinking. Then he went down the corridor a few paces until he came to the door of the neighbouring room. He went in, not switching on the light but picking his way cautiously through the darkness towards the window. Halfway across the room he stopped dead, staring at a long narrow slit of light coming up from floor level. With a start he realised it was coming from underneath a door that communicated with Walker's room.

Advancing on it without making a sound he bent down and found the keyhole. He put his eye to it but could see nothing; it was blocked, presumably by the key on the other side. As he knelt however, he discovered that if he could not see, he could nevertheless hear. Gordon was speaking, and there was a whining, pleading, ring to his voice.

‘But, Pearl, it was for you I did it. You know that. You must know it.'

He was answered by Pearl, shrill and easy to hear.

‘For me, you say? For me! And it was for me that you put the blame on Colin, I suppose. It was for me that you tried to make it look as though the poor little creep had killed himself.'

She was clearly near to hysteria.

‘What sort of a bastard are you?' she demanded. ‘Well, you've cooked your goose good and proper this time, lover boy. You won't get away this time and, if you did. I'd help them to catch you with the greatest of pleasure.'

Her voice rose to a scream of pain as he struck her across the face.

‘You little bitch, any more of that and you'll go the same way as your miserable little man.'

Geoff had heard all he needed to hear. He stood up and gently tried the door handle. The handle turned but the door refused to budge. As he stood wondering what to do, he became suddenly aware of the sounds of a scuffle taking place. Pearl's voice was raised in urgent protest and a moment later came the deafening sound of another shot. It was followed by a scream of terror and this time it was Eve who cried out.

Geoff waited no longer. He backed across the room and then hurled himself forward with all his weight at the door. There was the sound of splintering timber but the door held fast.

‘Open up, Gordon, I'm coming in,' Geoff yelled. For an answer there came the roar of another shot and a bullet came whining through a shattered door panel.

‘Don't, Geoff, stay where you are! He'll kill you if you don't,' Eve called to him.

‘That's good advice, Geoff,' Walker joined in. ‘I don't want to have to shoot you but I'll do it if I must.'

‘I'm coming in, all the same, and if you hurt either of those two girls, Gordon, I'll take you apart with my bare hands. So help me, I mean it.'

He backed away from the door again and threw himself at it just as Meredith and Masters ran in to try to stop him. This time the door burst open and Geoff erupted headlong into the room. Blinded by the brightness of the light he stood in the centre of the room not knowing which way to look. Then he heard Eve call out, ‘Look out, Geoff, he'll shoot.'

He looked and saw her standing in the far corner of the room, looking small, and vulnerable and very, very frightened.

Then he saw Gordon. He was standing with his back to the window, holding Pearl by the wrist with one hand, and the automatic in the other.

‘Keep away, Geoff,' he said. ‘I'm not bluffing. Keep away or I'll shoot you deader than mutton.'

‘Do as he says.' It was Meredith, framed in the open doorway with Masters at his back.

‘I don't budge until Eve is out of this room,' Geoff said doggedly, his face deathly pale, the skin drawn tight over the bones. ‘Understand this, Walker, if you attempt to stop her. I'll crucify you, if it's the last thing I do. Right, Eve, get outside!'

Tight-lipped and apprehensive, Eve began to sidle towards the door.

‘Remember, what I said, Gordon,' Geoff said, spitting the words out, his eyes never leaving Walker's. ‘Harm the girl and I'll make you scream for mercy with the last breath you ever draw.'

As Eve reached the door Meredith stepped to one side and she bolted through the opening with a strangled sob.

‘That was very well done, Mr Tate. Now, if you don't mind, I'll take over from here.'

Meredith had come into the centre of the room and was standing beside Geoff. He placed himself squarely in front of Gordon and rapped out, ‘Drop that gun, Walker. The game's up and you know it.'

‘But I don't know anything of the sort, you damned flatfoot,' Walker replied with a sneer. ‘Not while I hold Pearl as hostage. She's just as vulnerable to a bullet as you or Geoff and don't you forget it.'

‘Shoot and be damned to you,' Pearl challenged. She was quite magnificent, Meredith thought, white with fury, yet with not the least trace of fear. There was an ugly red weal across her face where Gordon had struck her, but three lines of scarlet scratches standing out on Walker's pale cheeks showed he had not fought a one-sided battle.

‘Don't be too brazen, Pearl, darling,' Walker advised her. ‘I mean to leave this house without a police escort, so let's all be sensible, shall we? Stand aside, Superintendent, I'm leaving.'

For an answer Masters made a dive towards Walker from where he stood by the door, but he'd hardly taken a second step before the automatic pistol spoke again. Masters went down, groaning and grasping his right shoulder.