XX

DAWN

It was four o’clock.

The eastern sky was faintly light. London’s sparrows, starlings, and pigeons were stirring noisily. The stars were fading, even in the west and above his head. The air was clear and invigorating, with a promise of a fine, cool day to come; the thunder had broken the pressure.

Rollison walked quickly towards Oxford Street, choosing narrow alleys where he could, hardly troubled by the pain at his waist.

He had Leah Woolf, on the credit side. What of the debit?

The knife might be anywhere; might possibly have been in the flat above Marion-Liz. That wasn’t likely, Jim Rowse probably had it.

Rowse—

He refused to be side-tracked; he was examining the debit balance, and it was much too heavy. He needn’t weigh up Marion-Liz’s side again, he had plenty to think of with his own. The attack on Grice; the attack on the policeman; the burglaries.

There remained the knife; above everything, his knife, so neatly stolen from Devon and used with such great cunning. Of course it had his prints on it; and of course the frame-up had been worked to include him – a perfect job.

Woolf ’s?

Or Jim Rowse’s?

Possibly even Nevett’s; the man had a quick mind, as he’d proved that night. His story that Rollison shot Woolf wouldn’t stand up against Reginald Rowse’s evidence and the girl’s. Well, it shouldn’t; but the girl’s evidence might mean little when prosecuting counsel had finished with her, and Reginald Rowse might be persuaded to withdraw his statement if the other Rowse had any influence with him. Were they brothers?

He turned a corner.

Two policemen, constable and sergeant, were conferring a little way along. He felt their gaze on him as he hurried past the end of the street. He heard a car, the engine snorting, but didn’t glance round.

It muffled the sound of policemen’s feet; he couldn’t judge whether he was being followed. He wanted to run to the nearest side street, and wouldn’t let himself. He wanted to glance round, as the car snorted nearer, but forced himself to look straight ahead. He thought he heard a new sound; as of brakes going on sharply. Tyres screeched – not loudly, but with noise enough to send his nerves screaming, to make him clench his hands and grit his teeth.

A red-nosed car edged past him, colour bright even in the faint dawn light, and a girl whispered:

‘Richard!’

He turned, stung. Iris sat at the wheel of her little two-seater, with the door beside her open, eagerness in her eyes. He could have kissed her. He sprang into the car, and the door slammed. He looked round, and there was no sign of the two policemen. He squeezed her hand.

‘Don’t, while I’m driving.’

He laughed; he couldn’t stop laughing.

‘I don’t know what’s happened to you,’ said Iris impatiently, ‘but I don’t think it’s a laughing matter. I’m taking big risks to help you. I was waiting at the Mews, and thought I recognised you.’

‘My sweet, you’re more wonderful even than I knew. Turn right, will you?’

She turned right.

‘Do you know the way to Hampstead?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Good,’ said Rollison.

She trod on the accelerator, glanced at him, and yet held her peace; she was a wonderful woman.

‘Why are we going to Hampstead?’ Iris asked at last.

‘A man lives there who has something belonging to me. I hope.’

‘What is it?’

‘Must we go into details?’

‘Well, I think you owe me that,’ said Iris, and looked stormily ahead of her. An early morning cyclist turned out of a side street, and she had to swing out to avoid him. ‘The fool!’

‘This man had a knife of mine, it helped to kill Keller. It has my prints on it. So I’m not going for a pleasant chat.’

She shot him a startled glance; she was as impulsive and as freshly naive as a child, for all her courage and loyalty.

‘Do the police know?’

‘I don’t think so – yet. I’d be much happier if I could wipe the blood off it, and clear the fingerprints away.’

‘Yes, so would I,’ said Iris. ‘Richard, how on earth did you come to get mixed up with devils like these?’

‘It just happens that way.’

There was a long, straight stretch of road, and no traffic, and she took her eyes off the road in front to look at him steadily. As he stared back, he saw her lips soften and her eyes full of something not far from sympathy, and she said softly: ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’

He would not have admitted it to another woman in the world, except perhaps Old Glory.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I’ll get you to Hampstead,’ she said. ‘We shan’t be long. But – have you thought that the police might be there first?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Have you, Richard?’

‘Yes, my sweet, I’ve thought of that.’

She was doing fifty miles an hour in a thirty-mile-limit district, and from the look of her face, she would gladly have stepped up the speed to eighty or ninety.

The morning light was keen and searching by the time they reached Hampstead Heath. The Heath itself was deserted, and the freshness of the new day gave the leaves of trees and bushes a new glory. The grass, damp from the overnight rain, had a silvery sheen upon its green. The roads were dry. Two motorists passed them, and they passed several cyclists, one a policeman moving steadily, as if he would bore his way through all the criminals of London. Doubtless he was thinking that the dark hours for crime were past.

Rollison kept his face averted as Iris drove past the man.

Niel Street, near the common, was a wide thoroughfare, tree-lined, with massive houses on either side, all standing in their own grounds; and the grounds of all were bright with flowers of every colour, lawns were trim and neat. Some of the houses were old and ugly with the Victorian redness of brick and unexpectedness of turrets; many were new, and smaller.

Number 15 was one of these.

It stood back from the road, a pleasant and imposing residence, with a green-tiled roof, white walls, wide steps leading to a loggia and the front door – which was in fact at the side – facing south. Cupressus-trees spiked along the front wall, so that they could catch only glimpses of the place as they passed. A drive with a wide carriageway, near the house itself, glowed yellow in the first glint of the sun. This was new and prosperous.

Iris slackened her pace so that Rollison could see as much as possible – including the small, new car which stood in the drive. The gateway was half-way along the street, and she drove as far as the corner.

‘No police, anyhow,’ she said with relief.

‘They keep giving us time.’

‘Where do you want me to wait?’

She had pulled up at the side of the road, and was looking at him full face, eyes hopeful and eager.

He rested a hand on hers.

‘I don’t want you to wait, my sweet. I want you to go home and stay there.’

‘You’re talking out of the back of your neck!’

‘All right, then! Go to Aunt Gloria, and keep her company. She’ll be needing company, she has the oddest affection for her prodigal nephew. Tell her all’s well, so far.’

‘She wouldn’t believe me, and anyhow, I’m staying here.’

‘For the police to find, if they get here in time.’ Rollison chuckled. ‘Iris, if taking risks with you would really help, I’d take them, because you’d want me to. But that wouldn’t help. This is the end of the hunt. Either I’m to be lucky or things will really go wrong. I expect to find what I want here, and if I do, I can lift the telephone and send for the police. That’ll be that. If I don’t …’

‘You’ll need to get away somewhere, in a hurry.’

‘If I don’t, I’ll have shot my bolt. No, this isn’t because I want to get you out of danger, it’s simple fact. And it’s a job I can only do on my own.’

She didn’t answer.

‘I started it alone, and I’ll see it through alone,’ went on Rollison. ‘Don’t look obstinate, and don’t be glum. Go back and help Jolly. He knows where I am.’

She shrugged.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go. But I’ll walk to the nearest tube, and leave the car here. Will it be all right here?’

‘It’s a good thought. The police might recognise it.’

‘You may need it.’

‘All right,’ Rollison said. ‘You do as you like.’

She got out, and he followed her. No one watched as they stood face to face, the girl a few inches shorter than Rollison. In the morning light she was as wholesome and lovely as at any time of night or day. Suddenly, she took his hands and kissed him, on the cheek – and then she turned and ran; actually ran.

Rollison watched her out of sight.

Then he rasped his fingers over the stubble of his face, and walked quickly towards Number 15.

The police weren’t here; Rollison didn’t seriously think they were being cagey, and watching from under cover; but he glanced into several of the big gardens near Number 15, from which the grounds could be seen. No one lurked there. The small car, a Morris, still stood outside the front door, and now the sun glistened on its black roof and sides and scintillated from the chromium of headlamps and fittings.

Rollison opened the gate and went into the grounds.

By night, he might have been able to approach unobserved; that was impossible now, the garden was fairly new and open, the only cover was the Cupressus-trees, behind him. The drive sloped upwards. He walked briskly, making no attempt to hurry, and went towards the front door. He watched the broad bay windows, but no one moved near them, he saw nothing to suggest that he was being observed.

He reached the loggia and the front door. The floor was polished red, but sand from the drive had been washed and blown on to it by the storm, small pieces of gravel grated under his feet.

It was an ordinary Yale lock.

He took out a strip of mica.

The door opened, and a man stood there, smiling at him sardonically; a red-headed man – an older version of Reginald Rowse.