French’s conversation with Molly Moran had given that young lady very seriously to think. From the beginning she had realised that the undertaking in which she was assisting was unlawful, if not actually criminal. She was not making a bid for French’s sympathy when she told him that, since she had become involved, she had been miserable and in terror. This was the literal truth. Continually she had felt as if she were living on the edge of a volcano which might break out and overwhelm her at any moment. Visions of dismissal, of imprisonment, of ruin were constantly before her, and in spite of the money she was earning, she would have been thankful if she could have given up the whole thing and removed its evil shadow from her life.
But never in her wildest imaginings had she conceived that the affair could be weighted with murder or she herself in actual physical danger. The story of Thurza Darke and her two predecessors had therefore come to her as an appalling shock. Indeed, she realised that had it come alone she might easily have been driven by panic to take some step which might have precipitated the very crisis she feared.
Fortunately it had not come alone. The same conversation had brought her a feeling of overwhelming relief. She had confided her position to Scotland Yard. She had made a clean breast of everything. And she had not been arrested nor made to suffer any unpleasantness whatever. On the contrary she had been met with a sympathetic understanding such as she could not have expected from a police officer. She had been promised escape from the toils in which she had been caught as well as protection against her captors. In spite of the dark suggestion of murder, as she returned from the manager’s room to her box office she felt happier than she had done for months.
During the remainder of that day it must be confessed that her thoughts were far from her job. Mechanically she counted change and shot out disc tickets while she speculated as to the developments which would take place as a result of her statement to French. Would Westinghouse, Style and Gwen Lestrange be arrested? If so, would she be a witness at their trial? She had always heard that giving evidence was a distressing ordeal, especially if one were cross-examined, as she would be by the lawyers for the defence. However, she was sure that French would see her through.
Excitement kept her awake for a good part of that night and next morning she came down with her mind keyed up to a high pitch of expectancy. What would the day bring forth? Surely with the knowledge the police now had some decisive step would be taken before night.
After breakfast she found herself with three hours on her hands before she must present herself at the cinema. Too restless to settle down at her boarding house, she determined to go for a walk in the parks, in the hope that the exercise might calm her mind. She was bursting to confide her story to all and sundry, but French’s warning, as well as her own fears, deprived her of this relief.
As she walked, that other warning which French had given her seemed to stand out in her mind with an ever-growing insistence. Those addresses, the two places to which she must not go! The farther she walked, the more powerfully they drew her thoughts. That at Harrow did not so greatly interest her; it was far away. But Waterloo was near. She had been there scores of times. Not indeed in York Road, but close by. She would have liked … But of course she couldn’t dream of going there after what Mr French had said.
She turned resolutely into the Green Park, but ever her thoughts reverted to the coach builder’s yard. Presently without conscious volition on her part she found herself leaving the Park and walking in the direction of the river. ‘This will never do,’ she thought; then she saw that it could not possibly be any harm for her just to walk past the end of the street and look down. She had an uneasy twinge of conscience as she crossed Westminster Bridge, but the place drew her with extraordinary insistence.
Ten minutes later she found herself actually turning into Tate’s Lane. But here she drew the line. French had said she was not to go and she would not. Therefore contenting herself with a long, eager look down the unattractive thoroughfare, she put temptation behind her and passed on.
But still the place drew her. Aimlessly strolling on with time to kill, she thought she would go down the next parallel street and have a look at Tate’s Lane from the other end. Perhaps from there she would see the builder’s yard.
Thus it came to pass that at just five-and-twenty minutes past ten she was slowly sauntering along Killowen Street.
She had walked a hundred yards or more when she saw coming towards her a green saloon car with a figure which looked familiar at the wheel. No, she was not mistaken; it was indeed Mr Style! He was alone, and though he evidently did not see her, he was stopping, for he was slowing down and signalling to following drivers. As she stared at him, he turned the car into an entry almost beside where she was standing.
Her heart beat fast. Here was news for Mr French! Was it possible that where the tremendous organisation of Scotland Yard had failed, she was going to succeed? Mr French would revise his estimate of her. She would prove herself less of a fool than he had supposed.
At this moment, as he was crossing the footpath, Style saw her. For the fraction of a second an ugly gleam shone in his eyes, then he smiled pleasantly.
‘Good morning, Miss Moran,’ he called. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure. What are you doing in this part of the world?’ His tone was genial and he looked as if delighted by the meeting.
Molly felt a sudden urge to take to her heels. Then she saw that she could not do so. Style must not be allowed to think that she suspected him. She must satisfy him that the meeting was accidental and that she did not connect him with the half-crown affair, then pass on and ring up French from the first shop she came to. If she played her part well Style would suspect nothing and might stay where he was until French arrived. She therefore smiled back at him and walked up to the car.
‘Good morning, Mr Style. I didn’t expect to see you either, though I have often wanted to do so since our last meeting.’
This piece of mendacity was due to a sudden idea. If she could engage Style in conversation she would probably be able to dispel any suspicion he might have formed. She would tell him that, having come into some money, she wished to resume betting on the Monte Carlo tables.
‘In that case, I’m very pleased that you have found me. Will you excuse me for one second till I get the car out of the way of the traffic and then I shall be at your service.’
He drove the car through the entry, turned it in the yard, and driving back, stopped inside the entry. Then he came out to Molly.
‘Will you come into the office?’ he invited. ‘Though I carry on bookmaking as a spare-time job, I do my real work in this shop. I think only one clerk is in at the moment, so that we can talk without being disturbed.’
In spite of herself, Molly hesitated. French’s warning recurred to her with increasing urgency. Was not this the very thing he had cautioned her against? Then she told herself she must not be a coward. She could see through the glass door into the office. There was nothing terrifying about its appearance. She could also see the clerk. With him there and in broad daylight and practically in a crowded street nothing could possibly happen to her. Nevertheless it was with some trepidation that she followed Style in.
He led her through the opening in the counter, drew a chair forward near the roll top desk, and asked her to sit down.
‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ he declared, ‘but there is a bit of business I must attend to before we have our chat. Do you mind if I leave you for a moment? The inscription on a football cup which we are making has been changed, and I want to stop them before they cut the lettering.’
He went out through the door into the entry and she presently saw him pass the window at the back. After a short stare the clerk had resumed his occupation of transcribing entries into a book. His appearance comforted her strangely. It was impossible, she felt instinctively, that anyone as stupid looking as he could be a party to a plot. The sight through the window of the stream of passers-by and the sound of their feet on the pavement still further eased her mind. Reassured, she set herself with a growing and wholly delicious excitement to await Style’s return.
She was not impressed by the appearance of the office. It was positively filthy. The floor looked as if it hadn’t been swept for weeks and dust lay thick on the furniture and the calendars and pictures on the walls. Compared with the spick and span establishment at the cinema, with its typewriters, calculating machines, filing cabinets and busy air, this place seemed like a reversion to the conditions of a century earlier. Molly smiled as she contrasted this uncouth, almost imbecile looking youth, with his untidy clothes and his inkstained fingers, with the neatly dressed, efficient staff to which she was accustomed.
Presently there came the whistle of a speaking tube. The youth put down his pen and slowly shuffled across the room to just behind where Molly was sitting.
‘Yeh,’ he said. ‘Yeh. Two bob? Right.’
He plugged the speaking tube, and taking his cap, lounged slowly out into the street.
Then Style re-entered. He in his turn went to the speaking-tube.
‘Just a moment, Miss Moran, and I shall be at your service,’ he apologised as he picked it up. Then he began to speak. ‘Jenkins … Is that Jenkins? … Oh, Jenkins, I want you to get out that presentation shield that we did last month for Mr Hargreaves. I’ve sold it to Otway’s people, and all we have to do is to change the inscription. You might—’
The voice suddenly trailed away into silence, as a sickening blow crashed down on Molly’s head. She gasped, while momentary stars flashed before her eyes, then great waves of darkness seemed to rise up round her and she felt herself sinking down, down, down, into the blackness of unconsciousness.
Aeons of time passed, and then slowly sensation began to return to Molly Moran. First she realised only pain, indefinite but terrible pain. Then this seemed to localise in her head and to pass from there down through her whole body. Still she was in darkness, still a roaring sounded in her ears, but gradually she became conscious of movement. The place that she was in was shaking. At first she realised it only as something which added to her misery, but as she slowly regained her senses she realised where she was.
The sounds and the movement told her that she was in a motor car, travelling at a fair rate of speed. She was lying on the floor of the tonneau, entirely covered with a rug. This intelligence having sunk into her brain, experiment told the rest. Attempted movement showed her that her wrists and ankles were bound together and at the same time she found that she was securely gagged. Recollection of the scene in the silversmiths’ office then returned to her and she knew what had happened. She had been kidnapped by Style!
Cold terror took possession of her as she remembered the story French had told her of the fate of the three girls who had attempted to betray the gang to the police. Had Thurza Darke, she wondered, lain bound in the tonneau of this terrible car as it jolted her on towards her doom? And what had befallen her at the end of the journey? Was drowning painful? As Molly pictured what might have happened, a cold sweat of fear broke out on her. It was too ghastly even to think of. And yet before many hours, before many minutes perhaps … Almost she swooned away again as she lay trembling in sick horror, her mind numb and scarcely functioning.
But she was young and strong. Gradually the paralysing sharpness of the first shock passed. Whatever faults she had, cowardice was not one of them, and soon she was striving desperately to pull herself together and to put as brave a face on the situation as she could. Things in her case were not quite so hopeless as in that of poor Thurza Darke. French was looking after her and she would immediately be missed. He would trace her to the silversmiths’ and so learn what had happened. With the great organisation of the Yard behind him it could not be long until he found her. In fact he had evidently foreseen what might occur when he gave her his warning. Oh, that she had taken that warning!
But suppose he didn’t trace her in time? She shivered, though she strove resolutely to shut her mind to the suggestion. She was not dead yet. While there was life there was hope.
To divert her mind from these harrowing thoughts, she fixed her attention more deliberately on her surroundings. Could she learn anything as to her destination from the sounds she heard?
It was immediately clear to her that they were bowling along at a fair speed on an extremely good road, asphalted, she thought. But she was conscious also of a reduction in the sound. She wondered if this were due to meeting fewer vehicles, as if so, it would indicate that they were getting farther from London. As she was considering the point they slowed down, and turning, she believed to the right, passed at a slower speed over a road with a much worse surface. After a few minutes they stopped altogether and she heard movements as if her driver were performing some gymnastic feat in the front seat. Then he got out and walked round the car and she heard a sort of click behind it. A moment later he re-entered and again they drove off.
For what she judged at about ten minutes, they drove off slowly along the bad road, then a slack, a sounding of the horn, another turn and they were once more on the smooth surface of a main thoroughfare. A few minutes of this, a few minutes of another byroad, and after another slack and turn, the wheels grated on the gravel of a drive. It was evidently a short one, then they bumped over some kind of obstruction and came to rest on a smooth surface. A rolling sound followed by a clang gave the necessary hint. They had driven into a yard and the big entrance gate had been shut behind them.
Presently she heard muffled voices and the door of the tonneau was opened. Then she felt herself being lifted and carried, still rolled in the rug, into some building and upstairs. One, two, three—six flights they went up. A few steps more on the level and she was laid down on something soft. Immediately the rug and gag were taken off and her bonds loosed.
She found herself in a dingy, whitewashed attic, with slanting ceilings and a skylight. The lower walls were stained and dirty and the boarded floor looked as if it had not been washed for a year. The furniture consisted of the bed on which she was lying, a chair, a table, a wash basin and a jug on an old box, a fireplace with fender and fire-irons but no fire, and in a corner a pile of old, untidy books. Over her were bending Style and Gwen Lestrange. They watched her in silence and at the look in their eyes a paralysing fear again swept over her.
‘So you thought you could get off with it,’ Style said at last, and his voice was like the snarl of some vicious animal. ‘You thought you could play the traitor, speaking us fair and taking our money, and all the time spying on us and telling that cursed French what we were doing. You thought you could, did you?’
Molly was not prepared for this direct attack, but she countered as well as she could.
‘What do you mean? I didn’t tell anyone what you were doing. Sure, how could I when I didn’t know myself?’
Style shook his clenched fist in her face.
‘None of that, you traitor!’ he answered harshly. ‘You’ve made the mistake of your life! You thought you had us, but we have you. You’ve betrayed us to French, but French can’t help you now. You’re in our power and you’re going to pay.’
Molly felt his gaze almost as a physical touch. It sapped her strength, but she clutched her courage with both hands.
‘I don’t know what you’re meaning. Who is French anyway?’
‘Liar!’ Style shouted savagely. ‘Do you think we’re fools? Do you think we act before we’re sure? Let me tell you you’ve been watched. When you were telling French about us on the seat in Charing Cross Gardens yesterday, our agent was reading the paper within twenty feet of you! He saw you offering to show French your vanity bag and French’s quick refusal. And we’ve watched you with him before. Fool!’ he glared at her, ‘to think that you could fool us!’
To Molly, his abuse seemed to act as a stimulant. She felt her courage coming back.
‘Ah,’ she retorted, ‘you’re a bit off the track, Mr Style. That was me uncle you saw me with. He often meets me and takes me out.’
Gwen Lestrange spoke for the first time.
‘Little fool!’ she said harshly. ‘Lies like that will only finish you up.’ But Style held up his hand.
‘Just tell us his name,’ he demanded with a suddenly ingratiating manner and a sly look on his narrow face.
His friendliness terrified Molly even more than his anger. She realised that she had made a mistake and tried to recover.
‘French,’ she admitted. ‘I see there’s no good trying to deceive you. And he is an inspector at Scotland Yard. But he’s me uncle for all that and he often takes me out and we’ve never discussed you or your affairs at all.’
Style made a furious gesture.
‘You—!’ He used a foul name. ‘Do you know what happens to liars and traitors? Did you ever hear of Smith and the brides of the bath—how he drowned his wives in a bath? Well, that’s what’ll happen to you. There’s a bath in the next room all ready for you. The water rises slowly, slowly, slowly; up to your mouth, up to your nose, over your head. French won’t help you then. Uncle indeed!’ He paused and gazed gloatingly down at the helpless girl.
‘He is me uncle,’ Molly persisted, but in spite of herself her voice faltered.
Again Style raved at her.
‘Look here,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll get one chance and one only. Tell us everything that passed between you and French and we’ll let you go.’ He lowered his voice and spoke almost in persuasive tones. ‘Make a clean breast of the whole thing and we’ll put you in the car and drive you to some deserted place from which you can make your way home. You’d like to be back in London, wouldn’t you?’
He paused expectantly, but Molly did not answer.
‘I’m sure you’d like to be free and home again. Well, tell us everything and you’ll be there in a couple of hours. Hold back the least fact and you’ll never see London again. No power in heaven or earth can save you. Tell me,’ he bent forward again and stared fixedly at her with his sinister eyes till she felt all the strength draining out of her, ‘tell me, did you ever hear of a young lady named Thurza Darke? Ah, I see you did. And none but French could have told you. You fool, to give that away! Well,’ his look became indescribably evil, ‘Thurza Darke wouldn’t tell either, and she went and lay in the bath while the water slowly rose … We had to stop her screams lest they should be heard outside the house. Then after a long time the water rose above her mouth and she didn’t scream anymore … That’s what’ll happen to you. It’s just next door.’ He motioned with his hand.
Molly couldn’t speak. She felt too sick with horror. She lay gazing up at that narrow face with its evil, staring eyes and its expression of almost maniac hate. Presently Style went on:
‘Perhaps you don’t believe me? I tell you there were more than Thurza Darke. You never heard of Eileen Tucker, did you? Nor of Agatha Frinton? You don’t know what happened to them? Well, you soon will.’ He pushed forward his face till Molly could scarcely refrain from screaming. ‘They went to the bath, and afterwards their bodies were found in rivers and quarryholes. But yours won’t be found. We’re going to hide it so that it’ll never be seen again. No one will ever know what happened to you. Not even your beloved French will ever know, you—’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake dry up and leave the girl till we’re ready for her,’ burst in Gwen impatiently. ‘You’ve something else to do than stand here spouting like a bum actor in a dime circus! What about those machines?’
There was hatred in the look Style turned on Gwen and something of fear also. But his manner changed at once.
‘You’re right. We must get on,’ he said sullenly, then he turned again to Molly.
‘There’s a bell beside the fireplace. If you want to go back to town, ring and we’ll come to hear your statement. If not—there’s the bath in the next room!’
He walked to the door, let himself and Gwen out and locked it. Molly heard their steps descending the stairs, then all was still.