Chapter Seventeen

Quiet Reunion

“Hallo, Sheila,” said Danny.

“Hallo, Danny,” said Sheila.

She did not move towards him, and he went slowly into the hall. He must have seen the American, but had eyes only for Sheila. Their engagement ring glittered on her finger. Wilmot sent a puzzled glance at Rollison, who was far too intent on the couple to sympathise with the American.

There was certainly no joy in this reunion.

“Well—how are you?” asked Sheila.

“I’m all right,” said Danny.

“You’re free, then.”

“Yes, I’m free. Thanks to Rollison.”

“He is wonderful, isn’t he?”

“I suppose so.” Danny drew in his breath. “I didn’t know you would be here. You might have warned me, Rollison.”

“Oh, Rolly didn’t know,” said Sheila with a little more spirit. “This was to be a surprise for him, and it did surprise you, didn’t it, Rolly? I didn’t realise that you would be out, Danny. Er—Danny.”

“Yes.”

“Has Rolly told you?”

“About what?”

“That I’ve been to the poultry farm.”

“No,” said Danny. “No, he didn’t tell me. How—how is Alec?”

“He’s all right,” said Sheila. “Oh, you don’t know Gerry Wilmot, do you? He’s been a great help. Ask Rolly. I don’t know what we would have done without him.” She looked uncertainly at Wilmot, who advanced to shake hands. Danny put his hand forward without enthusiasm. They exchanged laconic greetings.

Sheila turned to Rollison. “Rolly, dear, I do hope you don’t mind, but I went to see your man yesterday, to take him some more eggs. He was so grateful, and he gave me a key.” She beamed. “He said he knew you wouldn’t mind if I had a key. Here it is,” she added, giving it to him. “I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in.”

“So you’re still at it,” Rollison said.

“What do you mean?”

“In the first place, I can’t imagine Jolly parting with a key except on my express instructions. In the second place, this isn’t his key, it’s a spare one of mine.”

A fiery flush spread slowly to Sheila’s ears and to her neck. She looked surprisingly neat after coming from a journey, and wore the green frock.

“Oh, I am a beast!” she confessed. “As a matter of fact, it was in your room at the hotel, Rolly, you left it on the dressing-table. That’s right, isn’t it, Gerry? I thought you wouldn’t mind if we borrowed it, and then I thought it was a bit of a nerve, and—well, you needn’t look at me as if I’m less than a worm!”

“How long have you been here?”

“Only about ten minutes,” said Sheila. “Haven’t we, Gerry?”

The American was also red in the face, and extremely ill-at-ease. Rollison tossed the key into the air, and then said more amiably: “What were you looking for? The package?”

“Why, no!” exclaimed Sheila. Then she stamped her foot. “Well, yes, we were! We knew you’d found it, Alec told us, and I don’t see why we haven’t got a right to have it. After all, Alec’s father said that it would make a great deal of difference to Alec, who isn’t really strong enough to look after his own interests.”

Slowly, Rollison shook his head.

“Grice is wrong,” he said. “You’re a very poor liar. I don’t know whether to wish you well or not. You have wasted your time, because the package was stolen from me two days ago. Why did you leave Winchester?”

“Well, nothing seemed to happen, and the police just wouldn’t tell us anything, so we caught the early train. But why are we standing here, we might as well sit down. Or is it time we went to lunch?” she added, with a glance at Danny. Obviously she was done with the key incident. “You haven’t had lunch in a decent place for a long time, have you?”

“A snack will be all right for me,” said Danny, very subdued.

“Gerry, take Sheila out to lunch, will you? And keep her away from me for at least two hours. By that time I might have resisted the temptation to put her across my knee and spank her.”

“Well!” exclaimed Sheila. “How beastly can one get!”

She marched out with her head held high. Wilmot turned towards Rollison.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

Rollison smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He saw the American’s relief, closed the door on the couple, and turned and regarded Danny Bond.

“You didn’t exactly rave,” he remarked.

“Didn’t I?” asked Danny perfunctorily.

Rollison said: “Danny, have you put yourself through all this trouble and turmoil for the sake of Sheila’s pretty face? Don’t lie about it. The situation is too serious. You and I know that we might be attacked, you because of what someone thinks you know, I because you might have told me about it. Sheila isn’t worth it, you know.”

Danny said very slowly: “There’s nothing you can tell me about Sheila. I sometimes wonder if I shall swing for strangling her.”

“My, my!” exclaimed Rollison.

“It isn’t funny! She—” Danny drew in his breath, and turned away. “That was a damned silly thing to say. There’s nothing wrong with Sheila except that she’s as fickle as they come. The highest bidder will always win Sheila. If I hadn’t spent every penny I had to give her excitement, I would never have got myself in this mess. Alec had the right idea when he threw her over. Who’s this American chap she’s tagging along with?” He frowned. “You know, I’ve seen him before somewhere. I—Great Scott, of course! At the Kim-Kam!”

Rollison said: “Well, well.”

“He was there one night a few weeks ago, and in the card-room,” said Danny, excitedly. “Whittering, or one of Arnott’s other men, was stacking the cards and Wilmot saw him. There was a peach of a row! Wilmot was thrown out on his neck, eventually, but I always thought he would come back and make trouble for Henderson. How on earth did Sheila pick him up?”

“They said they met for the first time on a train,” said Rollison. “I wondered how true that was. I wonder if Grice is right!”

“What has Grice got to do with it?”

“He thinks Sheila is a congenital liar. And Wilmot has been so meekly amenable it isn’t true.” He looked at Danny thoughtfully. “He was a victim at the Kim-Kam, you say?”

“Oh, yes. There was trouble now and again whenever we struck someone with a bit of spirit,” said Danny. “What a filthy business it was!”

“Filthy is one word.”

“You needn’t rub it in,” said Danny Bond. “Oh, forget it! Do you think there’ll be any objection to my going to my flat?”

“I don’t see why,” said Rollison. “Mrs Fotheringay might not approve.”

“Is she in hospital?”

“Yes. She’s conscious, I’m told, but doesn’t know who it was who attacked her. She may believe it was you.”

“Poor old soul,” said Danny Bond. “She was pretty decent to me, Rollison. I’d like to deal with Arnott myself for what he did to her. There are some things I’d like to collect,” he added abruptly. “Shall I go now?”

“We’ll go after lunch,” said Rollison. “I’ll get some sent up.”

Throughout the meal he fancied that Danny Bond was thinking more of Sheila than of anyone else. The more he saw of Sheila the harder he found it to believe in her sincerity. ‘Fickle’ was exactly the right word for her. She was doubtless flirting outrageously with Gerry Wilmot and at the same time looking about her with speculative eye on the other presentable men in the restaurant. It began to look as if she had toyed with Danny Bond and Alec Stewart, but had no deep affection for either of them.

Of the two women in the affair, he liked Babette Smith much better.

At the back of his mind was the possibility that there was something more in Sheila than he had yet seen. It seemed incredible that she played any key part in the crimes, yet the possibility seemed to get greater all the time. Grice would probably feel even more certain if he knew of the fresh ‘coincidence’ in the fact that Wilmot had been a victim of the Arnott gang at the Kim-Kam club.

They finished the meal just after half-past one. To find out whether they were being followed, they went to Chelsea by bus. There was no evidence that they were followed, and nothing to suggest now that Danny was greatly afraid.

The house where Danny had lived was near the river. It was one of the few small houses standing in its own grounds behind a high wall, a charming Georgian place, creeper-clad, with a small walled garden sadly in need of attention.

“It’s gone to rack and ruin in a week,” Danny remarked. “If Mrs. F. were here it would look as neat as a new pin. I wouldn’t mind spending a day or so tidying up.”

“That’s a nice thought.”

“The police would probably think that I was digging for buried loot.” They reached the front door, with a pillared portico, and he took a key-ring from his pocket, selected a key, and inserted it. The brass was tarnished.

On the brass of the lock were several tiny scratches, which looked very bright.

Rollison saw them, but their significance did not dawn on him until Danny had opened the door and pushed it wider. Danny stepped in first, and Rollison suddenly pushed him forward. Danny gasped and fell headlong, taken so much by surprise that he had no time to put out his hands to save himself. Rollison flung himself to one side, and as he did so he caught sight of a man at the far end of a wide passage. He saw the flashes from a gun which the man was holding. The bullets went through the open doorway, and would have hit Danny Bond in the chest had he been standing upright.