Dead or Alive (32 page)

He had, not unnaturally, taken a great dislike to Ledstow Place, and intended to return without delay to Way's End.

“And we shall have to let him have the Evanses,” said Bill with a groan.

“I'm afraid so,” said Meg. “But you know they always would have called me Miss Meg, and never really believed I was quite grown up, so perhaps it's just as well.”

Garratt pulled strings. Formalities were gone through with what the official mind obviously considered indecent haste, and Robin O'Hara was pronounced legally dead.

Garratt as well as the bank manager was present when Meg opened the packet which O'Hara had deposited at the bank just before his disappearance. It contained a couple of snapshots and half a sheet of paper. One of the snapshots showed the Millers, the other Henderson standing by the car in his chauffeur's uniform. There was a note on the back of each. On the first: “Compare Rogues' Gallery Scotland Yard—Crooked Sue.” On the second: “Think this is the Basher. See Rogues' Gallery.”

The sheet of paper contained a very few lines of writing in the form of rough notes:

“Chauffeur's photograph—Henderson, Ledstow Place. Good references. Forged?”

“Second photograph—Millers, Ledstow Place. Man and wife.”

“Cannock—secretary, Ledstow Place. Very good references from Professor Oliver Smallholm, deceased.”

That was all.

Garratt put the paper down.

“The real Miss Cannock died just a month before Maud Millicent used her references to get the job of secretary to Henry Postlethwaite. By the way, I wonder what's happened to the woman she replaced—Williams—Wallace—what as her name? She left because she was ill, didn't she? So did the Evanses leave because they were ill!” He laughed his barking laugh. “I wonder if she ate toadstools too. I wonder whether the real Miss Cannock ate 'em, poor soul. Quiet, retiring woman—invaluable secretary—no friends, no money, no private life—no relation nearer than a distant cousin. Maud Millicent just slipped into her shoes and wore 'em as if they belonged to her. She's a dab at a secretary's job anyhow—that's the way she got round Mannister. I see he's begun speechifying again, the old gas-bag. I wonder what he would have said if we'd nabbed her. He likes the limelight, but he might have found it a bit too strong. Well, we shan't get her now—not until next time.” He grimaced and shuffled his papers together. “That's one thing—there's always bound to be a next time, and one of these next times Maud Millicent will slip up, and when she slips we shall be waiting for her. She's got away with being Asphodel, and Geoffrey Deane, and Della Delorne, and the Cannock woman, but some day she'll go too far and she won't get away with it. Blackmail—forgery—murder—we'll get her some day, and when we do she'll have a damned heavy bill to foot.”

He pushed back his chair, stood up, nodded abruptly to the manager, and went out.

Bill and Meg followed him a few minutes later. They walked silently along the grey street and did not speak. Bill was wondering about Della Delorne. Had she attracted Robin O'Hara? Had he sought her because she attracted him, or because he suspected her? Or had he begun by being attracted, and ended in suspecting? On that last night before he went down to Ledstow Place and to his death what had happened between them? Something, beyond all cavil. He had tried to send a message, and because a girl had been in a larking mood his message had gone up in smoke. What had he feared? What had he discovered? What had he written on the scrap of paper which had been burned? No one would ever know.

Meg was thinking her own thoughts—sad thoughts, hurt thoughts. Robin had been her husband. They had loved each other, and then they had stopped loving. Or perhaps he had never loved her at all. Perhaps there was no real power of loving in him—only a hot flare of passion, and then cold ash. Or perhaps not even that. Perhaps he had only wanted Uncle Henry's money.… She mustn't think of that. She must only think that he had died doing his duty.

They walked to the flat. A little rain began to fall. When they came into Meg's sitting-room it was so dark that Bill put the light on.

Meg went to the window and stood there looking out. The dreary houses opposite were grey against the leaden sky. She felt tired, and old, and without courage for the future. Bill oughtn't to marry someone like that. He ought to marry someone gay, and happy and full of life. A most unregenerate feeling of dislike for this imaginary female warmed her a little. She turned as Bill came up to her and put an arm about her shoulders.

“What's the matter, Meg?” And then, “Did you hate it very much, my darling?”

She nodded. Her eyes stung. Bill loved her—he did really love her. It was in his eyes when he looked at her, and in his voice when he said “My darling.”

“It's all over now,” he said. His arm tightened and he gave her a little shake. “When are you going to marry me?”

“Bill—I've been thinking—you oughtn't to. I feel as if—I mean—you ought to marry someone who hasn't been under a steam-roller.”

“Do you feel like that?” said Bill. He put his other arm round her.

She nodded.

“Yes, I do.”

“You won't when we're married.” His voice was strong and confident.

“How do you know?”

Bill looked at her. It was a loving, teasing look.

“Silly muggins!” he said.

“Bill!”

“You are!” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Any special girl you'd like me to marry instead of you?”

“N-no,” said Meg.

“You'd have to hustle a bit, because I'm going to get married next Monday as ever is.”

“Are you?”

Meg looked up, and then looked down again. She wasn't quite sure whether she was going to laugh or cry. She felt somewhere between the two. But she wasn't cold, and sad, and grey any more. She felt warm and full of light. It wasn't just Bill's arms that were round her, it was his steady unchanging love—a love so sure of itself and so sure of her that it could laugh a little tenderly, tease a little, and hold her all the time. She knew that he would never let her go.

She said against his shoulder,

“Are you, Bill?”

And Bill said,

“We
are.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Frank Garrett Mysteries

CHAPTER I

The rain fell in a fine, steady drizzle. The young man in the armchair looked up from the letter he was writing and glanced with dislike at a prospect where nothing pleased and man appeared viler than usual. It had been raining all day. Everything was very wet. And instead of being the cleaner for this continuous shower-bath, everything, steep tilted roofs, narrow street, small shops, and a wavering, havering, haphazard straggle of men women children and dogs, appeared to be even dirtier than usual.

The room was a bare one, the arm chair dowdy, sagging, but not uncomfortable. The man who occupied it had one leg crossed above the other at a fantastic angle. He brought his eyes back from the window to a writing-block precariously perched against the tilted knee and went on writing. A loosely built young man of indeterminate features, in repose expressionless. But just now when he had looked at the rain they had changed. Something quick, vivid and angry had looked out. Then he was back at his writing, pen running fast, left hand steadying the block.

“I think I've found the man. Wrong expression—as you were—I am on his track. Dictionary for sleuths, use of—don't the department issue it? If not, why not? All right, all right, I'm coming to the point. You know I didn't ask to be dragged into sleuthing, so you'll just have to take me as you find me. It will, I feel, do you—and the department—a lot of good. Query—is the Foreign Office Secret Service a department? Probably not. That's the sort of moss a rolling stone like me doesn't gather. Yes, I'm really coming to it—the point,
cher maître
, the point.”

Here the young man grinned suddenly, showing good teeth. He was ready to bet that no one had ever called Colonel Garrett
cher maître
before, and he had a clear and pleasant picture of what Garrett's reactions would be. Then he went on writing.

“He calls himself Pierre Riel. I am told he is Spike Reilly. I think he may be the goods. Someone told a girl, who told a man, who told a girl, who told another man, who told me that Mr. Spike had once talked in his cups. Moral of this—all criminals should join their local Band of Hope. I go now to take a room in the same pub as Spike. Viewed from the outside it presents every appearance of being about as low in the social scale as you can get. If I fall a victim to dirt, drains or bugs, I presume that a grateful government will pay for my obsequies.

Yours unofficially,

J.P.T.

P.S. I shall post this on my way. Another thrilling installment tomorrow.

P.P.S. Brussels has some fine architectural features and a lot of bells. I like it better when it doesn't rain.

P.P.P.S., or what comes next. It's been raining ever since I got here.

N.B. That is all,
cher maître
.”

The grin showed again for a fleeting moment. Then, with the letter enveloped and stamped, suit-case in hand and raincoat on back, Mr. Peter Talbot clattered down a steep and rickety stair and sallied reluctantly forth into the rain.

He posted the letter, and pursued a damp and devious course through a number of mean and narrow streets. The odd thing was that his spirits kept on rising. And, paradoxically, this was a depressing circumstance. He even groaned over it slightly himself, because, on his own private barometer, that sudden lift was a certain indication of cyclones ahead, and at this stage of the proceedings while the blood mounted to Peter's head, he could still be aware that his feet were cold.

He was whistling between his teeth when he came to the Hotel Dupin and pushed through into its narrow, dingy hall.

A room? But certainly m'sieu could have a room. If m'sieu would register. And the suit-case of m'sieu would be taken up,
o bien sur
.

Peter Talbot stood with the pen in his hand and looked at the register. Five—no, six names up, illegibly scrawled, the name of Pierre Riel. Something sang in his ears. He bent down and signed the good old-fashioned name of John Smith.

CHAPTER II

Peter looked presently from a third-floor window, and beheld a back yard under rain—very literally under rain, because the water stood in pools amongst a jumble of old barrels, broken crockery, a mouldering dog kennel, and other odds and ends. There were logs of wood, a perambulator with only one wheel, something that looked like the wreck of a bicycle, and a hip bath with a hole in it. He was wondering where all these things had come from, and wondering too about the odd muttering sound which seemed to come from the room on the right. He had taken it at first for the murmur of voices in conversation, but there were not two voices, there was only one, and it went on, and on, and on.

There was a communicating door. The first thing you do about a communicating door in a place like this is to find out whether it is locked, and whether there is a bolt on your own side. Well, it was locked all right, but there was no sign of a key, and there wasn't any bolt. Not so good. Behind that door was M. Pierre Riel, alias Mr. Spike Reilly, and Peter would have preferred that there should be a bolt.

With his hand on the jamb he listened to the muttering voice. Either Mr. Spike Reilly was drunk, or—or—he saw again very vividly the scrawled name in the register—the very illegible scrawled name. If he hadn't known what name to look for, the odds would have been against his making head or tail of it.

The mutter on the other side of the door died down, and then rose again waveringly to a kind of scream. The scream broke off in a gasp. Peter walked down the stairs he had just come up and routed out M. Dupin—small, dark, sallow, with eyes as bright and beady as a rat's. Rather ratlike about the teeth, Peter thought. The way he had of half cupping his hands too—

“Who's the fellow in the room next to mine?” he said. “And what's the matter with him? Is he ill, or only drunk?”

M. Dupin cupped his hands and showed his teeth apologetically. Madame Dupin, at the desk, shrugged tightly upholstered shoulders and sent a glance to the ceiling.

“It is M'sieu Riel.”

Dupin shrugged too.

“It is only last night that he arrives and we notice nothing. We think he is a little drunk perhaps. But this morning he does not get up, he does not move. He has a fever, he talks all the time. And what can I do? I say to him, ‘Will you send for your friends—will you send for a doctor—will you tell me of someone to whom I can send?' And does he answer me? No. He has a delirium. He goes on talking, and there is not a single word of sense in all he says—not one. It is English, English. English all the time. And he calls himself Pierre Riel. Without a doubt that is not his name. Who knows whether we shall not find ourselves in trouble with the police?”