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  “You and Randall were in competition with each other – you were rivals in a business sense, weren’t you?” Roger asked.

  “He thought so,” said Scott.

  “Didn’t you?”

  Scott leaned forward. “I’ve forgotten more about selling than that cluck would ever have known,” he asserted. “In any case, the Crown people aren’t printers. They’ve got a little rabbit hutch up near Birmingham, and they’re trying to run before they can walk. You couldn’t call it competition.”

  “But you didn’t like it.”

  “I didn’t give a damn,” said Scott lazily.

  “Not when he took Perriman’s order from you?”

  Scott let the smoke curl from his mouth and make a veil in front of his eyes.

  “Randall didn’t take that from me,” he said slowly. “Sam Perriman did. He’s a total abstainer, and I’m not.” He grinned. “I was invited to the Perriman Staff Dance, and there was some drink around. I took more than was good for me, and Mr Samuel didn’t like it. I told him where to get off. As a result, he wanted to place an order quickly, and gave it to the first person who came along.”

  “I see,” Roger said. “You had no grudge against Randall?”

  “No, and if I had, I wouldn’t have shot him,” said Scott. “But he was playing with fire when he mixed with Sybil Lennox and her friends. Why don’t you ask Sybil to introduce you to those friends, West?”

  Scott had deliberately led the conversation back to the girl.

  “Don’t you read the newspapers?” Roger asked abruptly.

  “I haven’t seen one today, if that’s what you mean,” said Scott. “Why?”

  “We’re looking for Sybil Lennox. She’s disappeared.”

  “Has she, by jingo! I—”

  The telephone bell rang jarringly, and Scott broke off. The door opened and Miss Grey said: “It’s a call for you, Mr Scott.”

  “Oh, thanks. Sorry we’ve been interrupted,” said Scott insincerely, and stretched for the receiver. “Yes, what is it? Speak up, I can’t hear you … Oh, Mike. Yes, what … Oh, are you?”

  His voice altered. He shot Roger a single, vivid glance and looked hastily away again; he hadn’t meant to show his feelings – his alarm. And that ‘Mike’ could well refer to Michael Scott.

  Roger took out a cigarette and stifled a yawn. Scott relaxed a little. He kept saying: “Yes … yes, old boy.” And then finally: “Sure, I’ll come along one day, sure. ‘Bye, old chap.”

  He rang off.

  “Customer wants to see me,” he declared, and that was a palpable lie.

  Chapter Twelve

  Life in the Balance

  Mike Scott, his face still patched, his hand bandaged, and his right eye turning a bluish purple, put down the receiver. Two other men were with him, biggish fellows with hard, unshaven faces. They were sitting on either side of a small dining-table on which cards lay.

  “He coming?” asked one of the men.

  Mike said: “Yeah, he’s coming if I ring again. He sounded cagey.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “How the hell do I know what it means?” demanded Mike.

  “Mike, we’ve got to get some dough,” said one of the men. “We can’t touch yours, it ain’t safe, and we can’t get none through Relf any more. Your brother—”

  “My brother never has enough dough,” said Mike. “He’ll find some, though. We’re safe enough here, aren’t we? I can lie low until my face is mended. What’s the matter with you two going and earning some money, anyway?”

  One man said: “We’re not going out, Mike, don’t make any mistake about that. We did the job, didn’t we? We got rid of Relf.”

  “And I got rid of Kirby, that makes us even.” Mike Scott gave a hard, little laugh, but wasn’t amused. “Someone’s got to go out.”

  “We did our job—” the man began.

  “Shut up talking about your job!” cried Mike. “Kirby fixed Randall and got the case, Kirby was the man who made contact with the Boss, and now Kirby’s gone we don’t know who the Boss is or how to get in touch with the shyster. The Boss told me to see that Kirby wasn’t nabbed; he told you to see that Relf wasn’t nabbed, and we fixed it. But where’s that got us? Maybe we’ll never hear from the Boss again.”

  A bell rang.

  One of the men jumped up. “What’s that?”

  “How the hell do I know?” growled Mike. “Topsy will see.”

  They were in the middle one of three rooms. It had only a small window overlooking a tiny back garden and a wooden fence. The glass was frosted. An indoor passage ran alongside the room, and a woman padded along it towards the front door. They could imagine her blowsy, frowsy figure.

  They heard the door open and a man’s voice. The front door closed, and the man spoke again, so the woman had admitted him. The door of the room opened and the woman said: “Someone to see yer.”

  A man came in.

  He was short and wore a beard. Just an ordinary, neat, dark beard with a few streaks of grey. He had a big moustache, too, and his eyebrows were bushy and his hair plentiful. He wore a light raincoat, and beneath it a black coat and waistcoat and striped trousers.

  None of the men in the room knew him; none had seen him before. He smiled, just a little movement of his lips, and put a small attaché-case on the sideboard. He glanced at the dirty crockery and at the table.

  It was Mike who broke the silence in a cracked voice.

  “Who are you, behind that beard and grease-paint?”

  “Shall we say a friend?” asked the bearded man. “I thought I would come myself, because you must all be feeling very worried. We’ve had a bad spell.”

  The big man muttered: “Are you the Boss?”

  “Just call me a friend,” said the bearded man in his pleasant voice. “I know what you’ve done, and I must say you’ve handled it very well indeed. You know, both Relf and Kirby were becoming difficult. They weren’t reliable, not like you. Kirby bungled the job at our lady friend’s room, didn’t he? All I asked was for him to plant the brief-case there quietly, and he had to let the police know he’d broken in. His nerves weren’t very good, were they, Mike?”

  Mike Scott said: “I suppose not.”

  “And then there was Relf, kicking up that scene in the Strand,” said the bearded man. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d stopped at talking, but to kick that policeman simply shouted that it was a trick. However, you three did very well. Mixing with those policemen last night took some nerve. Mike will have to stay in hiding for a little while – till his face heals up.”

  He took out a wad of notes.

  “Here’s a hundred,” he said. “Split it even. That’s just to tide you over, of course, there’s plenty more where it came from. We’re doing very well.”

  Mike took the notes; the two big men eyed them hungrily.

  “Yeah, but just what are we doing?” demanded Mike.

  The bearded man smiled.

  “My dear Mike, the less you know the better. You are told exactly what to do, and you get well paid for it. That’s an excellent arrangement. Kirby knew a little more, and so did Relf – that’s why they became rather difficult. Divide the money, Mike, or the others will think you’re trying to take more than your share!”

  Mike slowly counted out the money – two lots of thirty-three pounds. He left one on the table and said: “Topsy can have that.”

  The rest he pocketed.

  The other men took their cut.

  “I’m going to send for you, Mike, after dark,” said the bearded man. “The taxi’s all right, that won’t be found yet – and when it is, it’ll be a different colour.” He smiled. “If it weren’t for one person, I’d be thoroughly happy. I don’t know what to say about her, it depends on whether you boys think she’ll keep her mouth shut.”

  The big man snapped: “Mean Topsy?”

  “Oh no, Topsy is all right,” the other said smoothly. “I’m thinking about the girl upstairs
. I don’t like killing, it’s always bad when we have to resort to it, but one more wouldn’t make any difference. And you’d feel safer. She doesn’t know me, so I’ve nothing to fear from her. You have. You couldn’t tell the police anything about me even if you wanted to, so it’s for you to decide. The only thing I ask is – if you decide she’ll be better out of the way – be quick about it.”

  They nodded, and the bearded man glanced at the ceiling.

  Sybil Lennox was in the room above.

  “You might make it look like suicide,” he went on thoughtfully. “It should be possible to leave something there to make it appear that she killed Randall too.”

  “The dicks have got Kirby’s gun,” said Mike.

  “They know he shot at the policeman, they don’t know that the gun was his. They’d have a job!” He gave a little laugh. “It belonged to Sybil, she was once persuaded that she needed one for her own protection. If a few bullets to fit the gun were left in her room it would be helpful. The police always see the obvious, even if they miss everything else. After all, they found some of the contents of Randall’s brief-case in her room. And she ran away. If she’s dead, she can’t tell the police why she ran, can she? In case you want the bullets, here they are.” He put a small brown-paper packet on the table. “Mike, I shall send for you just after dark. You others can leave whenever you like – Topsy had better leave early too.”

  The big man asked: “Where can we find you?”

  “Oh no, that won’t do – I’ll find you,” said the bearded man. “But instead of calling at Wignall’s garage for messages, call at Joe’s saloon in the Mile End Road.”

  He went out of the room, short, straight as a ramrod, stepping briskly.

  When the front door closed on him, three pairs of eyes turned towards the ceiling.

  Mike said: “We’ll have to fix her.”

  “Not so easy,” said the big man. “The dicks can smell a fake suicide miles off.”

  “There’s a gas-fire in her room,” said the third man.

  “Listen to me,” said the big man. “You and me can leave this place when we want to – he wouldn’t have pulled a fast one over that. We can scram.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mike can’t,” the man said meaningly.

  Mike Scott flicked his lighter, lit a cigarette. His left hand strayed to his face, and he began to pick at a piece of adhesive plaster.

  “So you reckon I can hold the baby.” He gave an ugly little laugh. “We could just slit her throat.”

  “You aren’t going to get away with that,” said the big man roughly. “We’ve been seen coming in here, and maybe we’ll be seen going out. It’s got to be suicide.”

  “Could try,” yawned Mike. “It would mean putting her to sleep and then turning on the gas. How are we going to get her to sleep?” He gave the ugly little laugh again. “Beaver didn’t think of that one, did he?”

  The big man said softly: “Didn’t he?” He put his hand to his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small glass tube – like a cheap tube of aspirins. He uncorked it and shook two or three tiny white tablets on to his great, sweating palm. “That’s morphia. He knew I had some.”

  Sybil Lennox stirred restlessly on the big double bed.

  She was lying at full length, her arms folded over her head, her eyes narrowed as she looked at the small window opposite the bed. Her shoes lay on the floor; over her legs, from the knees downwards, was a bright pink eiderdown. The room was hideously furnished and had a flowered wallpaper. She knew that the house was in Hurlingham, in a side-street not far from the tennis club, but knew little else about it.

  She had been brought here the previous night by Mike, whom she knew well and who had given her her orders for some time. Except when Mike had looked in for a few minutes late the previous night, she had seen only the two men and the slatternly old woman called Topsy. Topsy had brought her supper, breakfast, and lunch. Sybil knew that she would soon be told what to do next, knew that she would have to obey – it was useless to act on her own initiative.

  She heard the stairs creak.

  It was nearly five o’clock – she had been here just on twenty-four hours.

  The creaking grew louder and she heard the shuffling footsteps of the woman. Topsy came in, carrying a tray and breathing heavily. She dumped the tray on the chair, and some tea spilled out of the spout of the tea-pot. There was a plate of bread and butter, the bread thick and stale, the butter scraped; that was all, except the milk and sugar. Topsy shuffled out.

  Sybil looked at the bread and butter distastefully, then more cheerfully at the tea-pot. She stretched out for the milk-jug, then saw that there was some milk in the cup. She didn’t give a second thought to that, but poured out tea and put in two spoonfuls of sugar. She sipped; the tea was very strong, so she added more sugar. She nibbled at a piece of bread and butter, finished the tea and poured out another cup.

  It wasn’t long afterwards that she began to feel drowsy.

  In half an hour she was asleep.

  She was lying there, breathing evenly, when Mike came in. He stood looking at her, with a twisted smile. He shook her arm, then her shoulder, but she didn’t stir. He slapped her across the face sharply. The blow left a red mark which gradually faded, but it didn’t rouse her. He gave that soft, ugly laugh, and put on a pair of cotton gloves. He crossed to the dressing-table on which lay her handbag, and took from his pocket the little packet containing the bullets – three in all. He slipped them into the bag.

  Then he went to the gas-fire, where there was a gas-ring with a long flex. He disconnected the ring so that the tubing flex was free, and brought an old arm-chair to the fireplace. As he did that, footsteps sounded in the hall and the front door closed.

  He paused, staring at the door. He was now alone in the house with Sybil.

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned to the girl on the bed. He carried her to the fireplace and put her on the floor near the gasring; then bent down, took her hand in his, and made her turn on the tap. Gas hissed out. He held her thumb and forefinger tightly over the tap and turned it off; her fingerprints would be clear enough on it now. Then he dragged her near the chair, her head resting against it, and pushed her so that the tubing stretched to her mouth without being too taut. But it wouldn’t stay there. He looked round and saw a tall, oak towel-rail in a corner near the old-fashioned, marble-topped wash-stand.

  He brought it near the chair and rested the tubing on it. Now it pointed straight at her face. He lifted her into the chair, and then drew the tubing closer, so that it was within an inch of her mouth, which was slightly open. He took her hand again, and closed her fingers round the tubing – her prints would be on there too.

  He stood back, to admire his handiwork.

  Sybil’s hair, a golden cascade, covered part of the tube. The cheek he had slapped was a glowing pink, but the other was pale. She looked as nearly beautiful as ever she would.

  Mike went to the gas-tap, bent down, touched the edge of the tap and pushed it gently, so as not to smear or blur her prints. He went to the window and drew the curtains, then went out and closed the door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jeremiah Scott Pays a Call

  Half an hour after West had left the Tucktos office, Jeremiah Scott left Deverall and went out to the car-park. His car was a powerful, grey Chrysler, modern, glittering, and stream-lined. He looked about him carefully when he turned into the main road, but saw no sign of West. It was twenty-five past five when eventually he found himself in Hurlingham. He pulled up in a side-road, took out a book-map of London streets and found Kent Street, the name of the road his brother had mentioned over the telephone. He drove swiftly to Kent Street and pulled up a few doors away from number 41, for which he was looking. He sat in the car for a few minutes, looking round constantly, until he was certain that no one was watching him, then he got out and went to number 41.

  He banged the heavy brass knocker.

  No
one answered, and he knocked again and rang the bell. There was still no answer.

  He tried once more, but only silence greeted him. He turned away from the porch and went into the small front garden – and then he stood quite still, shocked into immobility.

  West and two other men were approaching from one direction and two big fellows, with ‘plain-clothes officers’ written all over them, were coming from the other. A uniformed constable stood by the Chrysler.

  After the first shock, Jeremiah Scott forced a grin.

  Roger turned in at the gate.

  “Paying a call?” he asked casually.

  “Since when have I to ask permission to call on friends?” retorted Scott.

  “You haven’t,” Roger assured him. He smiled at Scott’s glaring face. “Don’t get worked up,” he said. “While I was with you, your brother Michael telephoned you. We want to interview him – and it seemed that you might be planning to see him. Yes?”

  Scott made no answer.

  “Let’s see if we can make them hear,” said Roger.

  He went to the door and gave a heavy knock, which echoed along the street; but there was no response, and Scott’s grin broadened.

  “I thought I might find a customer in,” said Scott airily. “But it’s not our lucky day, is it, West?”

  “There’s a lot of the day left yet,” said Roger. He turned to Peel, who was just behind him. “Our other chaps will be at the back by now, won’t they?”

  “Ages ago,” said Peel.

  “All right, let’s see what we can do,” said Roger.

  “Got permission to break in?” asked Scott.

  “Yes,” said Roger shortly.

  He examined the lock of the door while his men examined the windows, all with a deliberation which seemed to afford Scott a cynical amusement. Meanwhile Peel had found that he could open the window of the front room by slipping a knife between the frame and the catch. He threw the window up.

  As he did so there was a bellow at the back of the house; a pause, and then a shrill blast of a police-whistle. “Got someone!” cried Peel.