Inspector West Regrets Read online

  Sloan looked sceptical, but Roger said: ‘When did you last have a meal, Miss Fayne?’

  ‘At breakfast, yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday!’

  ‘I had a small slab of chocolate, and it kept me going,’ said Griselda, and then suddenly her voice broke, and she turned her face away and said in a muffled tone: ‘I’m terribly thirsty. I—could I have a cup of tea?’

  ‘You certainly can,’ said Roger. ‘Come into the kitchen.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ said Griselda, when she had drunk the tea Roger prepared. ‘I went to a friend’s house and stayed there the night, and then I came here before it was light, yesterday morning.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘I’ve done some work here, and I thought—’ she broke off.

  ‘Go on,’ said Roger.

  ‘I thought the people who lived here might help me,’ said Griselda, and then she added fiercely: ‘They killed Anthony Kelham! I practically heard them say so! You won’t believe me, but they killed him.’

  ‘How did you get in?’ asked Roger.

  ‘No one was up when I arrived, and I knew where they kept a back-door key,’ said Griselda. ‘It’s in the garage. I was going to wait for them to come downstairs, when someone rang at the front door. I was in the kitchen—here—with the door open. I saw Mr Bellew open the door, and then I heard my name mentioned. A man came in and said that I’d been followed to Ealing, and had I turned up here. Bellew said “no”. The man said that they had better be careful or they’d take the rap for the Kelham murder.’ She was speaking very quickly, and her bright eyes were fixed on Roger. ‘This is true,’ she said, distressed, ‘I know it sounds fantastic, but it is true.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘They both went upstairs,’ said Griselda. ‘I suppose I should have left them, but I knew that you suspected me of the murder and I thought I might find out something else, so I stayed. I know the house well, you see. I went into the front room where there is a big screen, and stood behind it, in case they came in. There was Guy Bellew and his brother, and the stranger. They went into the kitchen, and I went upstairs. I thought the best place to hide was the loft. I thought that if they went out I could look through the house, and perhaps find some evidence. I hadn’t been upstairs five minutes before they came up again. I was afraid they’d heard the loft-door close, but they didn’t say anything. The chair is always in position beneath the loft, and there was nothing strange about it being there. So I stayed, listening to every sound, hoping they would go out. When they did, I tried to get down—but the loft door was bolted.’

  Sloan was no longer looking sceptical. Both he and Roger were used to fantastic and improbable stories, and they were good judges of a liar. This story, with its wealth of detail, was somehow convincing.

  Roger asked: ‘Did these Bellew people go out yesterday?’

  ‘They were out most of the afternoon, came back about seven o’clock, and went out again soon afterwards,’ said Griselda. ‘I heard them come in about one o’clock—it might have been later. I spread some pillows and blankets on the floor and tried to get to sleep. After what I’d heard, I knew it would be useless to let them know that I was here, you see. I—I had the idea that they were going to make you think that I had killed Anthony Kelham.’

  ‘I see,’ said Roger. ‘Now about the Bellews. Is one of them a bald-headed, rather friendly-looking man?’

  She stared, astonished. ‘Yes, that’s Mortimer!’

  ‘And the other a tall, lantern-jawed fellow?’

  ‘That’s Guy!’

  ‘And was the man who called here just after you a thickset, rather ugly fellow with a grating voice?’

  ‘Why yes,’ said Griselda, faintly. ‘So you know them?’

  ‘I didn’t know any of their names until you told me,’ said Roger, ‘but I’ve come across them before. When you first got to the loft. Miss Fayne, did you hear anyone immediately beneath the door?’

  ‘Well, someone came upstairs, as I told you. I don’t know where he stood. Why?’

  Roger said: ‘Because they doubtless knew you were in the house, guessed where you had gone, and shot the bolt to make sure that you were locked in.’ He grinned at Sloan. ‘It was neat, Bill, and they took you in, didn’t they? They must have gone over the garden wall and out through some other front gate!’

  Sloan said: ‘I was watching and I never saw them go. But I could have sworn the woman who came here this morning was you, Miss Fayne. She was wearing the clothes which fitted your description. The coloured mackintosh you mentioned,’ he added to Roger, ‘with a hood.’

  ‘I left that at the hostel!’ exclaimed Griselda.

  ‘We can soon find out whether it’s there,’ said Roger.

  The telephone was on the window-ledge. He called the hostel in Buckingham Palace Gate, and recognised the voice of the matron. No sooner had he given his name before she exclaimed: ‘Inspector, you must come here at once! I have already reported to Scotland Yard. There has been a burglary here! Miss Fayne’s room has been turned inside out! Most of her clothes are missing.’

  ‘Is Miss Fayne’s coloured mackintosh there?’

  ‘None of her street clothes are here!’

  ‘Not there, eh? That’s good!’ said Roger, and heard the matron gasp. ‘I’ll be along!’ He rang off.

  ‘But I can’t see the sense of it,’ said Griselda, helplessly. ‘Why on earth—’

  ‘You can’t expect me to go into many details,’ said Roger, reasonably, ‘but here’s a theory. Supposing they wanted to frame you, as you’ve said, and also wanted the police to find you? How could they do it better than to lock you in the loft, then let someone come here who would be recognised by the police, and get away themselves unobserved? Mind you, I don’t say that is what happened, but it’s possible.’

  The sergeant who had brought his car to the house came back, and Roger and Sloan went into the small, pleasant back garden.

  They easily spotted the gap in the fence through which the Bellews must have slipped, though it was hidden from the house by a corner of the brick-built garage that occupied part of the garden.

  Suddenly the half-darkness inside the garage was illuminated by a vivid yellow flash. From inside came a roar, and Sloan gasped. Roger caught a glimpse of his head as he staggered backwards, and then Sloan pitched forward. The roar of a second revolver shot sounded deafening.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Smoked Out

  ‘Drop that gun!’ snapped Roger and at the same moment he pulled his own automatic from his pocket and got out of range behind a corner of the garage.

  Griselda was coming from the house with the sergeant and two more policemen. He beckoned them, and they reached him quickly.

  ‘There’s at least one and perhaps two armed men inside,’ said Roger carefully. ‘Keep your distance, and fire to wound, not to kill.’ He handed the sergeant his gun, and added: ‘Miss Fayne, you’d better get back to the house.’ He looked at a constable. ‘Go back with Miss Fayne, and telephone to Headquarters. Speak to the Assistant Commissioner personally, tell him that armed men are hiding in a garage here and that we may have to smoke them out. Tell him that Inspector Sloan has been wounded and we need an ambulance.’

  When they had gone Roger surveyed the position more carefully. The neighbours on one side of The Nook were in the garden, but no one else seemed to have been disturbed. The two uniformed men were by the house and the sergeant and another two were close to the far end of the garage.

  He reached The Nook end, and whispered to a policeman.

  ‘Get some stones—those bricks will do—and throw ’em if necessary. Don’t come any nearer.’ He went cautiously towards the entrance where Sloan lay. He reached the doorway and peered round. A dim electric light was burning. It cast the shadow of a man on the wall. He went a little nearer, and then he heard the familiar grating voice: ‘Can’t we take a chance?’

  ‘Not yet, you foo
l—and keep an eye on the back door, damn you, or they’ll come in that way!’

  Roger thought that the man who moved towards the far end of the garage, and who carried a gun, was the tall man with the lantern jaw. He was quite sure of the identity of the man with the grating voice. He kept still for a moment, wishing that he had his own gun, then he took his hat from his head and held it out. A shot crashed out, and the hat was nearly shot out of his hand.

  ‘Is that you, West?’ the man called.

  Roger said nothing, but gripped Sloan’s feet and straightened his legs, then backed away a foot or two.

  ‘Whoever it is, you’d better not come any farther,’ the man said, ‘you won’t get out of here alive if you do.’

  Roger remained silent, but pulled Sloan towards him. There was no more shooting, and he wondered if it meant that the men were short of ammunition.

  ‘Look out, sir!’ cried a policeman suddenly.

  Roger jumped back. A bullet whined past, and the policeman hurled a brick into the doorway. It hit the wall at the far side. Roger looked round.

  ‘Thanks, nice work. Watch him.’

  He bent down again, and managed to get an arm beneath Sloan’s chest and another under his legs. He grunted as he lifted the unconscious man. The second constable came hurrying to help him, and he hoisted Sloan over his shoulder and carried him towards the house. Griselda was watching from the kitchen window. In the lounge he put the man on a settee, and saw the two wounds in his chest. Sloan was pale, and his coat and waistcoat were wet with blood.

  Griselda said: ‘I will look after him.’

  Roger was cheered by her confidence, and he hurried back to the scene of action. There had been no more shooting. The sergeant with his gun wanted to rush the garage, but Roger ordered him to do nothing of the kind. They would have to smoke the men out; there was no sense in risking their lives now, and it was only a matter of time – unless the trapped men decided to run for it, hoping to shoot a way through.

  They now had plenty of spectators. People were standing in their gardens and at windows, ignoring brusque commands to go away. He took possession of his gun and stood at a point from which he could see both ends of the garage, so he would have good time to shoot if they made a sortie.

  The tall man suddenly burst from the garage and rushed towards the top end of the garden, firing as he ran. The policeman in front of him ducked, and slipped. Roger fired and missed. Another policeman, ignoring the danger, plunged forward, a third threw a brick. The tall man raced on, firing twice again, and one of the bullets smashed the window of a house. Someone started to shout, and a woman screamed. Beyond the tall man were a dozen people, and if Roger fired again and missed he would probably hit one of them. He cursed the sightseers as he raced after the man. Roger gained on him, and then the man swung round and fired. Roger flung himself down. The bullet passed over his head, and now he was lying full length, and if he missed there was only a blank wall to hit.

  He took careful aim, and the tall member of the Bellew family stopped in his tracks, and then pitched forward. The gun flew from his grasp.

  The bullet had caught the man in the thigh, and it was the fall which had made him lose his gun. He was gasping for breath, and looked terrified.

  Policemen came up, and Roger turned back to the garage, fearful now that the stocky man might have got away, but no one had seen anything more of him. As Roger was wondering whether he should risk his men’s lives in a rush on the remaining man a car drew up outside the house, and men came hurrying from it. They were uniformed policemen, several of whom were carrying guns, and one of whom had a small canvas bag in his hand. It was an Ealing Division inspector whom he knew.

  ‘We’ve got plenty of tear-gas,’ he called as he came up. ‘I hope we’re not too late.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Roger. ‘Let him have it!’

  He wondered what the man inside was thinking as the brittle glass of the tear-gas ‘bombs’ broke against the floor of the garage, and the gas billowed about him. Roger, having no mask, had to stand by during the last stage, and he was on tenterhooks until, after what seemed an age, the thick-set man, coughing and spluttering and with tears streaming down his face, staggered out. The gas was spreading and Roger backed away, his eyes smarting. A gust of wind sent a cloud of gas towards the gardens where most of the sightseers were standing, and he grinned as they scattered.

  He superintended the removal of the tall Bellew. The stocky man whose name he did not know was already in the kitchen, bathing his eyes. Men stood on either side of him, and the little house was full. Roger went through to see Sloan, and found him stripped to the waist, with cloth pads over the two bullet holes to stop the bleeding. He was still unconscious, but Griselda said: ‘I think he’ll be all right’

  He looked at the girl curiously. She still seemed tired, but she had done everything quickly and competently, at a time when she might have taken another opportunity to get away.

  The ambulance arrived, and a police car from the Yard. From it stepped Chatworth’s burly figure. He forced his way through a rapidly growing crowd of sightseers, and was hardly in the hall before he was yelling for Roger, who reported briefly.

  ‘Hum!’ said Chatworth. ‘Let’s see the rascal you caught.’

  Roger led the way to the kitchen. The man was sitting dejectedly on a small chair, his eyes still watering, his chair wet and his clothes dusty and torn. He looked incapable of offering any more serious trouble.

  ‘What’s your name—’ demanded Chatworth, who could never be persuaded to leave questioning to his men if he were on the spot himself.

  ‘What’s yours?’ retorted the prisoner.

  ‘Now listen to me, my man, you—’

  ‘Look out!’ cried Roger.

  He saw the knife which the man took from his pocket. A single leap, and the fellow was free of the policemen, who were taken completely off their guard. Roger went forward, and the man turned from Chatworth and, with the knife raised, leapt at him. He knew then that the fellow had allowed himself to be trapped and had waited for this moment, simply to get an opportunity of killing him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Man Who Would Not Talk

  Chatworth swung his great arm, and as the knife touched Roger’s chest, caught the man a blow on the side of the head which sent him flying sideways. Roger felt the point of the knife tear his waistcoat, and then heard it clatter to the floor. In a flash, two men were on his assailant, while Chatworth looked at his own hand, and then at Roger.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Thanks to you, sir, yes.’

  ‘Dangerous customer,’ said Chatworth. He did not ask why the man had not been searched; that would come later, and the policemen who had been watching him would not be let off lightly. ‘Get him away as quickly as you can, and make sure he can’t slip the handcuffs.’ He watched as the handcuffs were put round the man’s wrists, and, as he was being led to the kitchen door, he shot out a hand, grabbed his shoulder and swung him round. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.

  ‘Find out,’ said the man, truculently.

  ‘Damned impertinence,’ fumed Chatworth.

  It was twenty minutes before Roger had made all the arrangements. Men from the Ealing Division, with two from the Yard, were left at the house with instructions to make a thorough search. Guy Bellew was on the way to the Westminster Hospital, in the same ambulance as Sloan. Griselda Fayne was sitting in Roger’s car, being eyed by fifty or sixty people who thronged the road, and the truculent prisoner was sitting in another car, with a policeman by his side and another at the wheel. Roger had a wash, dabbed his nose, which had started bleeding again, and had time to feel thankful that he had got off so lightly.

  ‘I’ll drive you back, sir, shall I?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Any particular reason why the girl should drive with us?’

  ‘I think we’ll find her amenable now, sir,’ said Roger.

  An hour later they were in Chat
worth’s office. Roger said, formally: ‘Miss Fayne, I have not charged you, you are not under arrest, and you are at liberty to refuse to answer any questions which I might put. I hope you won’t refuse. You own a portable typewriter, a Royal, don’t you?’

  Griselda looked startled.

  ‘Yes, I take it about with me on business sometimes.’

  ‘Have you ever typed anonymous letters on it?’

  ‘Certainly not! Why should I?’

  ‘You don’t like Andrew Kelham,’ said Roger, ‘and he and the Assistant Commissioner here have received anonymous letters typed on your machine.’

  ‘I didn’t type them,’ said Griselda.

  ‘Do you ever lend the machine to anyone else?’

  ‘I have done, but not lately. I suppose—’ she broke off, and bit her lip.

  You were going to suggest that it could have been used at your room, in your absence,’ said Roger.

  ‘Well, it could, because the Royal is often there, I don’t use it much. But I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. I mean—well, who could have done it? I know all the girls at the hostel, but I don’t think any of them ever heard of Kelham.’

  ‘I see,’ said Roger. ‘Now, what about the Bellews. How long have you known them?’

  ‘For seven or eight years,’ said Griselda, ‘ever since I started work.’

  ‘What work do you do for them?’

  ‘The same as for everyone else. They don’t have enough work to employ a full-time secretary, and they answered an advertisement of mine.’

  ‘Did the advertisement have your name on it?’ asked Roger.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Roger. ‘Have you ever had any idea that the Bellews were criminals?’

  ‘I certainly have not! I always thought they were very decent people. They lived alone at Ealing, as far as I knew, and did everything themselves. I often went out to their house to work. They were—well, I liked then.’ She sounded genuinely bewildered.