“A black shoe and a brown – how very curious!”
“What did you say?” Jane Grove set down her tea-cup with a surprising clatter.
“And – dear me! – at Sheercliff.” Jane’s aunt, enjoyably interested, reached for a slice of cake. “You might have run into it. Which just shows, does it not? I mean, that in the midst of life we are in death. I’ve got a whole cherry.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jane’s voice trembled slightly.
“Something in the paper, dear,” Jane’s aunt propped the folded page against the milk-jug. “A poor man found dead beneath the cliffs quite early this morning.”
“Early this morning!”
“And something about another man. Will you have a third cup?”
“No. Go on.”
“I intend to, dear. I always take three cups.”
“I mean about the other man.”
“The other man? Oh, yes. He seems to have travelled on a train, and to have worn mixed-up shoes too. There are people at Scotland Yard who want any information about him.”
“May I see?” Jane took the evening paper and read without speaking.
“It couldn’t be a new fashion?”
“A new fashion, aunt?”
“Wearing different-coloured shoes. Two men, you see. But one – of course – now dead.”
Jane laughed a little wildly. “No – not a new fashion.” She got abruptly to her feet. “I think I must–”
“Yes, dear?”
Jane hesitated. “I must water the pot. You might like a fourth cup.” She performed this commonplace action with a steady hand, and when she spoke again her tone was entirely casual. “I’m afraid I have to go out.”
“To go out again, Jane – after your long day?”
“I – I’ve got to do something I forgot. It’s rather important.” Jane fetched her handbag and gloves. “I don’t suppose I shall be very long.”
“Very well, dear. But don’t forget – you can’t be too careful.”
Jane Grove jumped. “Careful?”
“Of the traffic, dear. So dangerous nowadays.”
Jane, standing by the window, smiled wryly. The quiet Kensington road was deserted. She lingered for some minutes. Then, as if reproaching herself for some lack of resolution, she grabbed her bag and hurried out.
Sir John Appleby’s tea and anchovy toast, although it had all the appearance of being a leisurely and carefree affair, had a steady accompaniment of messages despatched and received. Finally, Appleby’s secretary came in and spoke with a trace of excitement.
“Fifteen Babcock Gardens, sir. And at five-forty-five.”
“Good.” Appleby rose briskly. “He did as he was told, and said he’d walk?”
“Yes. He’s making for the Green Park now.”
“That gives us all very good time. You’ve got three cars out?”
“They should be pretty well posted by now. We’ve studied the maps and had a report from the section.”
Appleby nodded and signed to Derry Fisher to follow him. “And what sort of a problem does this house in Babcock Gardens look like presenting?”
“Tricky, sir – but it might be worse. At a corner, but very quiet. All the houses there have basements with areas. There’s a deserted cabmen’s shelter over the way.” The secretary hesitated. “Are you taking a bit of a risk, sir?”
“That’s as it will appear.” Appleby’s tone suggested that he found this question not wholly in order. “And now we’ll be off.”
“Your car’s outside, sir – with the short-wave tested and correct.”
Below, a discreetly powerful limousine was waiting, and into this Derry Fisher found himself bundled. It had a table with street-plans, and it was filled with low-pitched precise speech. Appleby had no sooner sat down than he joined in. The effect, as of an invisible conference, was very queer and very exciting. Derry had been involved in this sort of thing before – but only in the cinema. He rather expected the car to go hurtling through London with screaming sirens. The pace, however, proved to be nothing out of the ordinary. Turning into the Mall, they moved as sedately as if in a procession. Canton House Terrace seemed to go on for ever, and the Royal Standard fluttering above Buckingham Palace drew only very slowly nearer. When they rounded Queen Victoria on her elaborate pedestal and swung round for Constitution Hill, it was at a speed that seemed more appropriate to sightseers than to emissaries of the law.
But if the car dawdled, Derry’s mind moved fast – much faster than it was accustomed to do in the interest of his uncle’s business. He had never heard of Babcock Gardens, but he guessed that it was an address in Kensington – and the address, too, which he had failed to hear the girl giving at Waterloo that morning. And somebody was walking to it – walking to it through the Green Park. And Appleby had acknowledged that the girl was in danger, and Appleby’s secretary had let slip misgivings over the riskiness of what was now going on. What was now going on? Quite clearly, the setting of a trap. Appleby was setting a trap, with the girl as bait.
“I ought to tell you that there may be a little shooting before we’re through with this.”
Derry jumped. Appleby, apparently unconscious of any strain, had murmured the words in his ear. “Shooting, sir – you mean at the girl?”
“But all this is itself a very long shot.” Appleby had ominously ignored the question. “It mayn’t come off at all. But it’s going to be uncommonly labour-saving if it does… I think we turn out of Knightsbridge at the next corner.”
Derry was silent. He felt helpless and afraid. The crawl continued. Appleby was again absorbed in listening to reports and giving orders. But he had time for one brief aside. “Complicated, you know. Lurking for lurkers. Requires the policeman’s most cat-like tread. Not like marching up and arresting a fellow in the name of the law.”
Again Derry said nothing; he didn’t feel at all like mild fun. Suddenly the pace increased. Appleby’s dispositions – whatever they were – appeared to be completed. The car ran through broad, quiet streets between rows of solidly prosperous-looking houses. Presently it turned left into a narrower road, and then left again into what seemed a deserted mews. And there it drew to a halt.
Appleby jumped out. “The unobtrusive approach to our grandstand seat.”
Derry followed. “A grandstand seat?”
“We are at the back of Babcock Gardens. A surprised but obliging citizen is giving us the run of his dining-room. Number fifteen is just opposite.”
It seemed to Derry Fisher afterwards that what followed was all over in a flash. The dining-room of the obliging citizen was sombre and Victorian, and this gave the sunlit street outside, viewed through a large bay-window, something of the appearance of a theatrical scene – an empty stage awaiting the entrance of actors and the beginning of an action.
Suddenly it was peopled – and the action had taken place. The house opposite stood at a corner. Round this came the figure of a man, glancing upwards, as if in search of a street number. Derry had time only to realise that he was familiar when the door of number fifteen opened and a girl came down the steps. It was the girl of Derry’s encounter on the train that morning. She had almost reached the footpath when she staggered and fell – and in the same instant there came the crack of a revolver shot. The man was standing still, apparently staring at her intently. Denny could see only his back. But he now knew that it was the back of Mark Borlase.
Borlase took a step forward. Simultaneously, another figure leapt across the road – it must have been from the corresponding corner – and made a dash for Borlase. It was Meritt. What he intended seemed to be a flying Rugger tackle. But before he could bring this off, yet another figure dramatically appeared. A uniformed policeman, hurling himself up the area-steps of number fifteen, took the charging Meritt in the flank and brought him crashing to the ground. In an instant there were policemen all over the place.
“Come along.” Appleby touched the horrified Derry Fisher on the arm. They hurried out. Mark Borlase had not moved. Shocked and bewildered, he was looking from one side to the other. On his left, Meritt had been hauled to his feet, and stood collared by two powerful constables. On his right, still sprawled on the steps of number fifteen, lay the girl – a pool of blood forming beneath one arm.
Derry ran towards her, his heart pounding. As he did so, she raised herself, and with a groping movement found her handbag. For a moment, and with a queerly expressionless face, she gazed at Meritt and at the men who held him. Then with her uninjured arm she opened her bag, drew out a small glittering object, and thrust it in her mouth.
“Stop her!”
Appleby’s cry was too late. Another revolver shot broke the quiet of Babcock Gardens. Incredibly – incredibly and horribly – Denny Fisher’s beautiful girl had blown her brains out.