CHAPTER 3

Hand over Mouth

IT was a large, powerful hand. It smacked against Polly’s face and smothered her cry. The thumb on one side of her jaw and the forefinger on the other pressed so hard that her bones seemed about to crack. The pain was agonizing. She felt herself going faint, hot tears sprang to her eyes. Her feet seemed to float in the air, and her head was pressed back, causing a red-hot pain at the back of her neck.

She thought her neck would break.

Then, only slowly at first, the grip relaxed. The man pulled her head forward. The pain was no less, but the strain eased. As slowly he eased off the pressure of his thumb and forefinger. Her cheeks seemed to swell, and her throat felt swollen; she could breathe only through her nose, and with difficulty.

Then he pushed her head forward, using his other hand with the fingers spaced over her cranium. He turned her round at the same time, so that she was looking into the mirror. She saw the reflection of the man and herself. Then he pushed her head between her knees, and she was unable to help herself.

When he let her straighten up, still keeping his hand on her head, she was dizzy but the pain had eased, and in a few seconds she could see his reflection clearly. He was not much taller than she, but a broad-shouldered, powerful man. His face was set, the mouth very straight—a face which was not quite human. His skin was rough and red, and not natural, but his eyes, deep-set and very bright, were full of life. He was dressed in dark grey, which threw her cream clothes and pink flesh into sharp relief. She was trembling from head to foot; the pleated skirt danced up and down just above her knees.

‘What happened downstairs?’ he demanded, and pressed his fingers into her scalp, so that she felt pain again, as well as the tenderness about her neck and ears.

‘N-n-nothing!’ she gasped.

The way he could hurt her, without appearing to move his hands, was terrifying. She had gone red after the shock, but now the colour drained away from her face.

‘Did George catch anyone?’ he demanded, maintaining the tighter pressure and pushing her head forward.

‘Y-yes!’ she gasped. ‘Yes!’

‘Are they still downstairs?’

She was surprised that in spite of her fear of the man and of the pain he could cause, she could still think clearly. She screwed up her face, as if the pain were unbearable, and answered in an agonized voice:

‘He took him away in a taxi.’

‘That’s a lie,’ said the man.

‘It isn’t a lie, I rang for the taxi myself!’

‘What number?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t remember! It was——’ She caught a mind picture of a small car with a name written on it, the taxi which had brought her from the station. ‘It was Autax, or something like that. Auto, Autax!’

His grip relaxed a little, and she knew that he was inclined to believe her. He stared into the mirror for a moment, and then said, thoughtfully:

‘So he took him away in an ordinary cab, did he? What address did he give?’

‘I don’t know, he wouldn’t let me go with him, he hurried downstairs with the man as soon as the taxi arrived.’ Her mind was much clearer, and she could elaborate without difficulty. ‘He asked me to come up here.’

‘Why?’ demanded the man.

She was ready for that.

‘I told him I would go to the police unless he told me what it was all about, and he gave me a key and asked me to wait up here for him.’

‘Did he?’ said the man. He seemed in two minds whether to believe that or not. ‘What else happened?’

She told him a garbled story of what had transpired downstairs, without mentioning the name of Gabriel Toller or going into any other details. He seemed satisfied. He also seemed confident of himself, and by now she was worried in case George Henry George came up to find out what was detaining her. If he walked into the room without a thought of danger, this man would be more than a match for him.

The man was looking into the mirror where he could see her and the door, and he was staring at the door as he asked:

‘You knew him before you arrived here, didn’t you?’

‘No, I came for a holiday.’

He pushed her head forward. ‘You knew him. Don’t tell me lies!’

‘It isn’t true,’ she gasped. ‘I came here for a holiday. I played tennis with him this afternoon, that’s all.’

She saw his eyes glint, but broke off when he pushed her forward roughly, and let her go. She came up against the dressing-table and bumped her nose against the mirror, not knowing what had made him thrust her away from him. She sensed that he turned round.

She did not see him drop his hand to his pocket, nor see the door burst open.

George came in, at first upright and moving very fast; then he launched himself forward in a flying tackle. He got a grip of the man’s ankles before the other could get out his gun, and brought him down with a crash that shook the room. The man’s elbow cracked into the small of Polly’s back as she was trying to recover her balance, and she slumped forward again, unable to repress a cry of pain. She was aware of sundry noises, gasping and grunting, sharper sounds when everything was knocked off the dressing-table, a crash when a glass broke. She dragged herself towards the window, and sat helplessly against the wall. She was just in time to see the broad-shouldered man pick up a chair and swing it at George, and this time she screamed in real earnest.

George side-stepped.

The broad-shouldered man let go of the chair, and for a moment it was mixed up with George’s long arms. The other made a bee-line for the door. There were people in the passage, and she heard cries of alarm and a thud. Someone fell just outside the room. There were heavy footsteps on the stairs.

George Henry George finished juggling with the chair, put it down gently, and said quite clearly:

‘Oh, dear, he’s got away.’

He did not go to the door, nor trouble about the people who suddenly burst into the room, but turned to Polly and gave her a most engaging smile. He bent down and put his hands beneath her elbows, and in a moment she was on her feet. It seemed no effort for him to lift her. She swayed, and he gripped her waist, lifted her clear of the floor and carried her to the easy-chair in one corner, heavy though she was. He put her into it, and stood back.

‘No bones broken, I hope,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so,’ muttered Polly.

‘Good girl! I shall stand you the largest dinner you have had in your life for this!’

He turned and faced the other people. Polly recognized the manager and his wife, and two middle-aged men, guests of the hotel, who were talking volubly. Lambert, the manager, raised a hand and said, in a surprisingly loud voice:

‘Be quiet, gentlemen, if you please.’

They fell silent.

‘Parade-ground tactics,’ said George, with an inane smile. ‘Thank you very much. Mrs. Lambert and gentlemen, I have police authority, and I know you will forgive me for not explaining what happened here. I will gladly discuss it with the police, if you care to send for them—perhaps it will be better if you do. The gentleman who escaped your close attentions was caught in the act of burgling this room, but I don’t think he had time to remove anything but the minor valuables.’ His voice was like soothing syrup, and in spite of his closed eye and his unimposing appearance, he was quite the strongest personality in the room. ‘If Mrs. Lambert will look after Miss Dalton, who has been very brave, I’m sure she would appreciate it. You’ll telephone for the police, Mr. Lambert, won’t you? And I suppose you haven’t a spare beefsteak?’

‘Beefsteak!’ gasped Lambert.

‘Fine cure for black eyes,’ said George, cheerfully, ‘and is my eye going to be black! Look at it already! Don’t you think,’ he added, with a sudden change of tone, ‘that we ought to leave Mrs. Lambert and Miss Dalton together, gentlemen?’

He ushered the men out of the room and led the way downstairs, talking all the way.

In the small but pleasant hall there stood a large man, more than usually good-looking, although his nose was a trifle too large—or more correctly, was Grecian. This man surveyed the party coming down the stairs, and demanded, in a most cultured voice, whether anyone had sent for a taxi.

‘Oh yes,’ said George, without batting an eye. ‘I want you to take a large parcel to the station for me—it is addressed. You’ll find it in my Room—Number 11,’ he added, and then raised his hand as if to touch his eye, and in so doing spread out four fingers and a thumb. Toller’s room number was 5. ‘Will you get it? Thank you so much.’ He took two half-crowns out of his pocket, and put them into the large man’s hand, saying: ‘I can’t come up, I’ve an urgent date with a beefsteak!’ He assured Lambert that there was no need to send a maid or a porter up with the taxi-driver, then led the way into Lambert’s office, which opened off the front hall. Lambert and the two guests followed.

Not until later did Lambert and the others discover that the ‘parcel’ was a man whose face was battered very much more than George’s, and who needed much support as he walked down the stairs, across the hall, and stepped from the porch to the luxurious limousine standing outside. The limousine had a taxi-meter, but was remarkably modern and smooth running, even for a Bournemouth taxi in the higher category.

•           •           •           •

Little Lambert, a perky man with a waxed moustache, was satisfied after a police sergeant had called, but Mrs. Lambert was by no means satisfied, because she felt that Miss Dalton, such a charming girl, had not been wholly frank. She was disappointed, too—Miss Dalton was not, she thought, the type of young lady whom one would expect to find in a man’s bedroom. Hotel-keeping did so disillusion one.

Little Lambert laughed.

‘I think there’s more in this business than meets the eye, Emily. I’m not really surprised that there has been trouble. I’ve remembered where we’ve heard of Toller.’

‘I knew I’d seen that man before,’ said Mrs. Lambert.

‘You’ve seen his photograph,’ Lambert told her. ‘He’s the Gabriel Toller.’

‘Oh, is he?’ murmured Mrs. Lambert, vaguely.

‘They say he invented more secret weapons than any man living, during the war,’ said Lambert. ‘Nearly all electrical devices, I think.’

‘What I want to know,’ said Mrs. Lambert, ‘is what Mr. Toller has got to do with Miss Dalton being in that fool’s room?’

‘I think we can take it for granted,’ said Lambert, twirling his moustache, ‘that George isn’t the fool he pretends to be.’

Mrs. Lambert sniffed.

‘I don’t think Miss Dalton is the girl she pretends to be,’ she declared. ‘The Fool and the girl, they’ve got to go. Why, you never know what might happen, and if Mr. Larkin saw the girl coming out of his room, or him coming out of her room, the Fool’s, I mean, why, he’d probably give notice on the spot, you know how strict he is.’

‘He’s an old hypocrite,’ said Lambert, glumly.

‘There’s no need to talk like that about a 10-guinea guest, winter and summer,’ said Mrs. Lambert, ‘even if we do reduce his price to 8 guineas in the winter, and it wouldn’t surprise me,’ continued Mrs. Lambert, heatedly, ‘if that girl hasn’t got her eyes on you.’

‘Oh, be sensible,’ growled Lambert.

‘I am sensible enough,’ declared his wife, loftily. ‘It is you who lack the common sense to make a real success of this business, Eric. The old gentleman can stay, if he behaves himself, and I’m sure he will, he gave me such a nice smile this morning. You’d better write a note so that they can have it on their breakfast table in the morning, Eric. The Fool and that girl, I mean.’

He knew better than to protest further.

When he went to put the notes by the respective plates, however—it was nearly half-past nine and the dining-room was empty—he found on the Fool’s table a well-filled envelope. It was addressed to him. He opened it as he walked back to the office-cum-living-room, and stood reading it while his wife looked up at him, prim faced.

‘Eric, what on earth are you reading?’ she demanded. ‘And—Eric! What’s that? Where did you get all that money?’

Lambert, who had taken a thick wad of one-pound notes from the envelope, looked over his glasses at his wife and said, in a bewildered voice:

‘They’ve gone.’

‘Gone? Who’s gone?’

‘The Fool, Mr. Toller and Miss Dalton,’ said Lambert, sitting down on the arm of a chair. ‘George has written a silly note, he says that all three of them think the air of the West Cliff is better than on the East Cliff. He’s enclosed two weeks’ money for each of them, in lieu of notice, and says their cases are packed and will be collected at ten o’clock.’