'Yes, I do,' she said. 'It was about three months ago. Mr. Jeremy came here to see Miss Cynthis, but she was out. He said he'd wait for her to come back. I was busy in the kitchen pressing a frock and he put his head in and asked if he might look around the flat, said he admired it. I said of course he might. He came in here, and he was here for some time.'

  Callaghan smiled.

  'That's fine,' he said. 'Well, Jenny, you've been a real friend. Miss Cynthis will thank you for all this one day. Now all you have to remember is to forget that I ever came here or that Mr. Willie came here either.'

  He picked up his hat.

  'Don't you worry,' he said. 'Everything is goin' to be marvellous, an' in the meantime I think I'll be wise, too, an' go out by the tradesmen's entrance as well. Au revoir, Jenny. We'll be meeting again.'

  He followed the girl to the back of the flat, and went down in the hand-worked tradesmen's lift. Outside he took a quick look round, but there was no one in the street. He tipped his hat slightly over his left eye—a sure sign of satisfaction—and strolled in the direction of Victoria Station.

  At the station he went into a telephone box. He rang through to the Meraulton Estates Office, asked for Willie. He gave his name and waited.

  Willie came on the line. His voice sounded tired. He spoke slowly.

  'Mr. Meraulton,' said Callaghan softly, 'I just wanted to tell you that that was a fine bit of work you did at the flat at you-know-where—takin' that little box away, I mean. I thought of the same thing myself an' went there this mornin'. It might mean something to you, an' then again it mightn't, when I tell you that the girl around there told me that some two-three months ago Jeremy was in that room—alone. Understand?'

  'I understand, Callaghan,' said Willie. 'Thanks for ringing up. How is everything and everybody?'

  'Everybody's fine,' Callaghan answered. 'I was with everybody last night, and she understands perfectly that the thing for her to do is not to try and get in touch with you—or anybody else in the family. Just so's there shouldn't be any slip-up about that, I took the liberty of tellin' her that you'd be in Edinburgh for a few days. I said I'd be talkin' to you an' try an' get your telephone number, but I don't think I'll even do that.'

  He extracted a cigarette from his case with one hand.

  'In fact, Mr. Meraulton,' he said, 'I've got hopes about this case. I've got hopes that I may sort of stumble on something or other within the next forty-eight hours or so, something that will pin this thing down. Anyhow I'll keep in touch with you from time to time, an' if by chance you shouldn't hear from me, don't worry. I may have to go out of town for a day or so.'

  He lit the cigarette.

  'There's just one thing that's worryin' me a bit, Mr. Meraulton,' he said. 'I tell you quite frankly I'm still worryin' about Cynthis. There may be a pretty strong circumstantial case againt her in a day or so, an' even circumstantial evidence has to be reckoned with in these days.'

  He took a long puff at his cigarette and inhaled.

  'Why didn't she come an' see me when you first told her to,' he said, 'which would have been about eight days ago, long before any of this business got goin'? Why didn't she do it? Hadn't she got any money?'

  'That wasn't the reason,' said Willie. 'I don't know why she didn't do as I asked. It couldn't have been the money, because she knew perfectly well that you'd need money before taking the job on, and she also knew that she was to get the money from me. It was here for her whenever she wanted it.'

  'Silly girl,' muttered Callaghan.

  'Silly girl is right,' Willie went on. 'I pestered her every day to go and see you, said I would take her myself if she would only make a definite time, but something or other turned up each day to prevent her—you know what women are. Also, I don't think she was looking forward to the interview very much.'

  Callaghan laughed.

  'I know she wasn't,' he said. 'I don't think she liked me at all. Anyhow it was lucky you got her to come when you did. That was better than not comin' at all. At least we've been able to do something.'

  'That's as may be,' said Willie, 'but if she'd come when I asked her to in the first place all this business wouldn't have happened. She only came when she did because I insisted.'

  Callaghan exhaled, filling the telephone box with smoke.

  'Never mind,' he said. 'Better late than never.'

  His voice became a little more friendly.

  'I'm damn sorry for you, Mr. Meraulton,' he said. 'But you keep your pecker up. Somehow or other we'll keep the flag flyin' an' one day all this business will just be a memory. So long, sir.'

  He hung up and threw the cigarette stub away.

  Then he walked over to Stewart's Restaurant and ordered a double portion of lamb chops with mint sauce. The chops to be very well done.

  Life could be worse, he thought.

  It was two-thirty.

  Callaghan came out of Stewart's Restaurant and walked across to the station. He went into a telephone call-box and rang Scotland Yard. He gave his name and asked for Detective-Inspector Gringall.

  Gringall came on the line.

  'Hallo, Slim,' he said cheerfully. 'That was a nice job of work you did on Beldoces the other night. I didn't know you could hit as hard as that!'

  Callaghan grinned.

  'Oh, that isn't anythin',' he said. 'I was tryin' to get some information in a blackmail case I've got, an' that fat slob got funny, so I socked him.'

  Gringall grunted. He sounded dubious.

  'I rang up because I may have to go off for a day or so,' said Callaghan. 'An' I didn't want you to think that I was running away or holdin' out on you or anythin'.'

  Gringall laughed.

  'I wouldn't think that about you, Slim,' he said. 'Oh, no!' His tone was sarcastic. 'By the way,' he went on, 'Bellamy Meraulton's telling all sorts of fairy stories about you.'

  'Really,' said Callaghan airily. 'Such as...?'

  'Such as you took him for two hundred pounds. Absolute blackmail, he called it, and that you told him that you believed Cynthis Meraulton killed the old boy, and a lot of other stuff like that.'

  Callaghan laughed.

  'Bellamy's an awful liar,' he said. 'But then, these dopes always are, aren't they, Gringall?'

  'Possibly,' Gringall replied.

  He changed his tone.

  'I'm trying to trace that hat we found in Bellamy's place,' he said. 'You knew I'd look for that hat, didn't you? Well, I'm doubtful if August Meraulton ever bought or wore that hat we found at Bellamy's place. I'm having its sale traced. I shall know tomorrow or the next day. Unfortunately it's a rather common type of hat, and there's no maker's name on the inside band.'

  Gringall paused for a moment and coughed.

  'If by any chance we find that someone else bought that hat and planted it on Bellamy, if we do find that, then I should like to have a word with you, Slim.' His voice hardened. 'So I take it you'll be in town in, say, two days' time.'

  'Definitely,' said Callaghan. 'Although what the hat an' where it came from has got to do with me I don't know. However,' he went on, 'I'll tell you what I'll do: I reckon I'll be droppin' in to see you in about two days' time anyhow. I reckon I'll want to talk to you then.'

  'All right,' said Gringall. 'The only thing is, I wonder if I'll want to talk to you.'

  Callaghan laughed into the transmitter.

  'I'll promise you one thing, Gringall,' he said. 'When I want to talk to you, you'll listen. By heck you will—and like it!'

  He hung up the receiver.

  Outside he took a taxi and drove to his office in Chancery Lane. Fred Mazin was half asleep over a racing form book in the outer office.

  Callaghan went into his own room, took off his hat, put his feet on the desk and prayed that Revenholt would come through.

  He wondered what he would do if Revenholt didn't come through.

  He thought about this for some moments. Then he removed his feet from the desk top, unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a well-kept Luger pistol. It was fully loaded. Callaghan inspected it, put it in his hip pocket, thought again, took it out and looked at it.

  'I'm always givin' it,' he muttered to himself, 'to somebody or other. Maybe one of these fine days I'll have to take it.'

  He put his pistol back in the drawer and locked it.

  'An' if you've got to take it, you've got to take it,' he concluded.

  He put his feet back on the desk as the telephone rang.

  IX. — THE LADY-FRIEND

  IT was Revenholt. His voice came casually through the telephone in answer to Callaghan's hallo.

  'You're in luck, Callaghan,' he said, 'and so am I. If you want the Ferrival woman very badly you can get her tonight.'

  Callaghan said: 'When an' where?'

  'I'll tell you,' Revenholt went on. 'After I left you this morning I did some quiet thinking, and I remembered a man—he's in service with some friends of mine—who'd once put a relative, who had a weakness for flipping the pasteboards and losing the family shekels on the green cloth, on to this 'Show-Down' place. It's about seven miles on the other side of High Wycombe.

  'I went round and had a word with my butler friend, and he was able then and there to get through to his friend, who acts as a sort of unofficial maître d'hotel at the Show-Down, and get a few points—quite in confidence, of course—on the beautiful Mayola.

  'She knows all the answers, apparently; she's as hard as nails. She acts as hostess down at the Show-Down and occasionally introduces visitors with heavy pocket-books down there. Sometimes she goes in for a little high-class blackmail for a change. Her method is to find some old boy who's feeling a little playful and lead him up the garden path. Apparently she has rather a way with old gentlemen. And she always takes care that some one else knows all about it, some one, that is, who—just as the old gentleman is beginning to get tired of things—intimates that it would be useful for him to come across with a few hundreds, otherwise his wife might like to hear a few amusing little stories as to what he's been at.

  'The old boy usually pays up. They never ask too much money, and it's usually worth while to pay.

  'That's Mayola's side-line. There's no doubt she runs it in conjunction with Jeremy. Apparently she's pretty fond of Jeremy, that is as much as a you-know-what like her can be fond of anybody. She's also pretty good at singing a hot number. She does a turn sometimes at the Show-Down just to liven things up a bit, and she also does one now and again on an extension night at one of the London night joints. She's doing one tonight. I'll come to that in a minute.

  'Jeremy's a tough proposition. Apparently he was kicked out of the Army (His Majesty having no further use for his services) for having a too unique system of shuffling cards when playing poker. He then got a job over in Buenos Aires being secretary to a rather mysterious sports club that used to do a little dope running. He was nearly jailed there on two occasions, and only got out of a very nasty jam because he's very quick on the uptake. Apparently Jeremy doesn't like any of his brothers very much, but he has a certain respect for Willie. Jeremy has no delusions about himself. He knows he's no good and rather likes the idea, and he thinks, apparently, that Paul, Bellamy and Percival are as bad, but don't know it. He despises them for that.

  'He thinks Willie is the only male member of the family who's got brains enough to be honest, and he rather envies him for that virtue.

  'But remember what I told you about his being tough. It seems as if he'll stop at nothing when he gets going.'

  Callaghan grunted.

  'That's fine,' he said. 'Now where do I contact Mayola?'

  'She's in town tonight,' said Revenholt. 'There's an extension at the Noughts and Crosses Club—just off Cork Street—and she's singing there. She'll do her turn about midnight, and when she's done it she drives herself back to the Show-Down. Sometimes she takes one or two mug gamblers with her and sometimes not.'

  He coughed diffidently.

  'Now,' he went on, 'do I touch for that eighty?'

  'Yes,' said Callaghan, 'you do. I'll telephone Darkie to send it along to your address by express messenger. You'll get it this evening.'

  'Thanks a lot,' said Revenholt. 'I can do with it. Is there anything else I can do? I'm as keen as mustard to turn over a few honest pennies.'

  Callaghan thought for a moment.

  'I don't think so, Revenholt,' he said. 'Thanks all the same. I think I'm through with you.'

  'Righty-ho,' said Revenholt. 'Then it only remains for me to collect my eighty and take a trip across the Channel and see what I can do to 'em at Monte. Perhaps I can win myself a thousand!'

  'Maybe,' said Callaghan. 'That, or a thick ear!'

  He hung up.

  He sat for a few moments looking at the telephone; then he got up and walked into the outer office.

  'Fred,' he said, 'walk round to the corner to the tea an' coffee shop. Go in an' buy something—some cigarettes—anything—and grab a couple of those sheets of rough paper they use for wrapping things up in. Bring 'em back here.'

  Fred nodded. Callaghan went back to his own room and telephoned through to Darkie, told him to send the eighty pounds to Revenholt.

  Five minutes later Fred Mazin came back with the paper. It was rough white stuff commonly used for wrapping foodstuffs in.

  Callaghan folded one of the sheets and tore it into four, making it the size of an ordinary sheet of writing paper. Then he placed a sheet of carbon paper on top of it, and two sheets of ordinary typing paper over that. He placed these in the typewriter, typing through the two sheets of paper, through the carbon paper on to the wrapping paper. He wrote:

  Somewhere in London.

  Dear Mr. Callaghan,

  I have herd that you are working for Belamy Meraulton. If you are you might be interrested in knowing about the man that the Yard are asking after. I mean the man who was seen near the morterary on the night of the murder. In case you do not alreddy guess I will tell you that this is the man who took the will out of old Meraulton's watch-case. Now you know as well as I do that all the Meraulton boys know that this will does them all out of getting any money at all, but if this will was to get lost they would still get there dough under the first will. Well I am the one who has got that will and if you like to cash in with five hundred of the best I will hand it over to you and they can burn it or do what they damn well like with it. If that will is found they wont get a sou. If you like to get the five hundred nicker you can get hold of me by showing this letter to Willie the Lug down at Tom Peppers place and he will tell you where you can find me. And I'm not even asking you to keep your mouth shut about this becos praps I know as much about you as I want to.

  Ta ta Slimmy boy,

  Sammy the Shiek

  P.S. If I don't get that five hundred nicker in three days I'm going to send the will to Gazeling the solicitor so the boys had better cash in quick.

  Callaghan perused this missive, folded the paper two or three times and then searched in the waste-paper basket for an envelope addressed to himself that had arrived that morning bearing a bill. This envelope, after the manner of its kind, was cheap and unsealed.

  He inserted the note he had just written, stuck down the flap of the envelope and then slit it along the top, opening it in the ordinary way.

  He now scrutinized his handiwork which bore the appearance of a letter, complete in envelope, addressed to himself.

  It was half-past eleven.

  Callaghan, who was sitting at one of the small tables at the end of the dance floor at the Noughts and Crosses Club, lit another cigarette.

  Before him were the remains of an excellent supper.

  On the floor, dancing to the soft and 'hot' music of a band of six, were all those very tired and disinterested people who go to the Noughts and Crosses, and who, having got themselves there, seem to spend most of the time wondering why they are there and gazing vacantly about in the hope that something will happen to give them a moment's escape from the boredom in which they seem to have been born and lived.

  Callaghan, stubbing out his cigarette, lighting another, drinking the whisky and soda before him, then ordering another, did all these things mechanically.

  His mind was concentrated on the ramifications of the Meraulton Murder Case; on his own position in it; on Gringall and the ideas that would be forming slowly and surely in Gringall's head; on Cynthis Meraulton and the trouble that might ensue from that direction within the next twelve hours, on Mayola Ferrival and on Jeremy Meraulton.

  Percival didn't matter. Percival was just a stooge; just a shadow of Bellamy; the complete and absolute 'yes man' to Bellamy; hanging around on the chance of getting his drinks paid for, without sufficient backbone or mentality to be dangerous to anyone except himself.

  Now the dance floor was clear, the band silent. From the tables about that of the private detective came the soft chatter, representative of the minds of the talkers, that can be heard in most dance clubs that specialize for people who have money and who believe that late hours are necessary for a good time...

  '... I said to him, "Don't be a damned fool," I said. But you know, Vicky, once he's made up his mind that he's going after a girl, well, he goes after her and he doesn't mean maybe, either...' Then a woman's voice: '... He's got to marry her. I don't care what he says or does, he's just got to. If he doesn't there'll be trouble...' A man's: '... Of course the jolly old cheque bounced back, old boy. Scriven's cheques have always been made of rubber, an' any money-lender who's mug enough to take his bill is just askin' for trouble...'

  Callaghan, listening vaguely, permitted himself to think that the Noughts and Crosses Club might make a good stamping ground for him and his business. There ought to be 'cases' for him in the Noughts and Crosses Club. The people who belonged to it were the sort of people who had money, who got into mischief.

  Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, Callaghan found himself thinking that he was rather bored with people who had too much money, who got into mischief. He wondered if he were feeling out of sorts. It wasn't like him to feel like that. He had not come to realize that it was the Meraulton case, his own connection with the Meraulton case, everything connected with the Meraulton case that was slowly but surely bringing to his mind a clearer realization of just how he stood in regard to the world at large; just what the world at large would think of him.

 

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