Killer in the Shade (5 page)

‘Of course. Humphrey Peel was that forger. He was in a flat that caught fire and was burned to death. The police decided it was an accident. But what the devil could Carol want with him?'

In reply this surprising visitor unfolded the map she had kept in her hand and spread it under the guttering candles.

‘Come and look,' she said. ‘Tell me if you don't think this interesting.'

Peering over her shoulder, Rollo followed the finger with which she pointed to a group of streets to the north of London.
The word ‘Edgware' was printed across the area.

‘Newlyn Road East,' she said, ‘and here,' following the movement of her finger, ‘about half a mile away is Cotswold Crescent, where Peel was found in the upper burned-out flat.' She paused, still pointing to where her finger had arrived on the local map that had an estate agent's name in one corner, and turned to look at him over her shoulder. ‘Or, keeping strictly to the facts, the remains of Humphrey Peel.'

Rollo's eyes turned from the map to the report from the detective agency. It set out clearly the terms of imprisonment served by Peel, his police record, and his address at the time the report was drafted, which, according to the date on it, was a day or two before the tragedy in Cotswold Crescent.

Rollo looked back at the girl who had produced these amazing documents.

‘You're quite a girl, Mellie,' he said with a note of awe blended with admiration in his voice. ‘But — '

‘Don't say it,' she cautioned. ‘I will.
What made me snoop with Carol's post? When I got her letter this afternoon and decided she was in trouble and being compelled to write it, I went over to what she calls our flat in the letter, but strictly is now hers, because I don't share it. I have that spare key still. It was agreed by us that I should keep it to see how things worked out, and it's lucky I did, Rollo. I found this report from — what's their name? — the Temple-Moore Inquiry Agency. I came on here. For one thing, I know you're on a newspaper and you might be able to tell me if this agency is a reputable one.'

‘I can certainly do that, Mellie. It's used by a number of law offices, so you can have no misgivings about their being a shady concern. Carol went to an agency with a sound reputation, not one of these keyhole and camera services whose methods are dubious and charges exorbitantly close to blackmail.'

‘Well, that's a relief,' she sighed. ‘It makes things simpler all round, for now there seems to be one line of inquiry we can try without delay.'

‘We?' he repeated, surprised.

She looked at him. ‘I'm in this because I choose to be. After all, I didn't have to come and wait for four hours,' she reminded him.

‘Very well,' he said at last. ‘Leave the agency report with me. I'll see them as soon as I can fix an appointment. But there's something else. Did you find any other letters sent to Carol?'

‘Only the two you sent her. I haven't sent them on.'

She seemed to be awaiting a suggestion from him. He said, ‘Leave them, Mellie. If she's in trouble this won't be the right time, and anyway things have moved beyond those letters.'

She frowned. ‘Carol gave you no reason for breaking off the engagement?'

‘She merely said she had to go away, that something had happened which made it impossible for us to continue as we were.'

He asked her to have dinner with him, but she declined on the pretext that she had some work to do. He accompanied her to where she had left her small car
parked in a side-street and then made his way back to his flat and relit the candles. He poured himself a fresh drink and sat down to read the Temple-Moore report more thoroughly.

He was halfway through the three pages of typed lines when he saw the few words that had registered in his mind but not in his consciousness the first time he had seen them.

‘ … married Margaret Wilson … '

Those were the words that brought him to a halt. He felt it was no coincidence that the forger who had died in the Cotswold Crescent fire had married someone named Wilson. Humphrey Peel had, by marriage, been related to Carol.

He was still puzzling at the problem with no hope of success when he switched off the TV and decided to have an early night.

Lying awake in the dark, he found sleep did not come readily. His mind was still actively pursuing the mystery of Margaret Wilson. He had a poor night.

Dan Simpson gave him no argument, only a sardonic look, when the next morning he said he had a lead he wanted to follow.

‘If it comes to anything we can use, clear it with Murphy,' the news editor cautioned. ‘I don't want another murder, even if it's justified.'

Half an hour later Rollo was shown into an office not far from Holborn, where he was confronted by a man who had years before been featured in the newspapers as Chief Inspector Richard Temple. The years since then had put weight on Temple's thickset frame, but when he rose and offered his hand he was still making the movements of an agile man.

‘What can I do for you, Mr Hackley?' Dick Temple asked. ‘On the phone you said it was personal. So it isn't
Gazette
business.'

Rollo sat in the chair indicated and said, ‘I'll come to the point, Mr Temple. It's about a report you sent a short while
back to Miss Carol Wilson.'

The ex-Yard man frowned. ‘I recall it. She wanted information about someone.'

‘Humphrey Peel.'

Temple's face remained expressionless as he said, ‘I do not speak of our clients' affairs to other clients nor discuss them.'

Rollo said, ‘This is important, Mr Temple, or I wouldn't be here. I was engaged to Miss Wilson. Suddenly she broke off the engagement without giving an acceptable or even reasonable reason, which isn't like her. Now she's disappeared. I feel the inquiry you made on her behalf could possibly explain why.'

The man watching Rollo seemed to be considering what he had been told. He said, ‘Tell me what's on your mind, Mr Hackley.'

‘Carol has written to a friend of hers to send on any letters for her to an address in Edgware. This friend found your report and brought it to me. So I've read it. I know you told Carol that Humphrey Peel had married a Margaret Wilson.
Perhaps she was a relative of Carol's.'

This time Temple's response was not delayed. He said, ‘She was the sister of Carol Wilson's mother. Her aunt, in fact. I can tell you that I was paid in advance for that report. Miss Wilson insisted on that arrangement. Can I make a suggestion?'

Rollo waited, sensing that he wouldn't want to hear what the other man had to say.

‘Don't take this amiss, but young women can be capricious.' The ex-Yard man almost managed to look apologetic, but didn't quite make it. Apologies of any kind did not come easily to him. ‘Take, for example, a young woman in love with a young man whom she is anxious to keep from knowing there was a crook in her family.'

Rollo felt angry, but tried not to show his feelings. He said, ‘I can't wear that, Mr Temple. Carol isn't like that.'

‘Then I can't help you,' Dick Temple told him bluntly.

Rollo took a chance, aware that later could be too late. He asked, ‘Did you
find out anything about Peel that didn't go into your report?'

The man opposite smiled. He could have been amused at a younger man's impudence excused by a natural anxiety.

‘That's a very leading question, Mr Hackley. I know a great deal about Humphrey Peel that didn't go into the report for Miss Wilson. So does my partner, Tom Moore, who was also at the Yard, if you remember.'

It was Rollo's turn to smile. ‘I've done my homework, Mr Temple.'

‘I bet you have. Well, understand that we gave Miss Wilson all the information she asked for.'

‘There's nothing else you can tell me?' Rollo pressed.

‘The man's dead,' he was reminded.

‘I'd still like to know if you can agree, Mr Temple.'

The ex-Yard man rubbed a hand over his chin. ‘You'll make good on a newspaper, young man,' he said grudgingly. ‘You're persistent. But then, on the
Gazette
you've got a good teacher.'

‘Joe Murphy?'

‘Joe,' Dick Temple nodded. ‘Did he put you up to this?'

‘He doesn't know about the report and I've told no one I intended calling on you.'

The man behind the desk thought about this. He dropped the hand from his chin and said, ‘Very well, not for publication nor for Joe's big wide ear, Mr Hackley. Agree?'

Rollo nodded. ‘My word, Mr Temple.'

‘Good enough,' said the ex-Yard man, leaning forward on his arms. ‘Peel was of medium height, dark, and had poor sight. He usually wore dark glasses to protect his eyes, not as a gimmick like today's hippies. He was a poor mixer, almost what you might call a loner, but he was a clever forger. He was a pain in the neck to a lot of people who parted with money because of his penmanship. When he was sent up he was a model prisoner. No trouble inside. He didn't smoke, so he had no bother with the snout barons. But he had one weakness. He was very fond of bananas. Yet he
didn't put on weight. He was even on the slim side and a bit stoop-shouldered. Now this is what I'm prepared to share with you, but not for publication, Mr Hackley.' The ex-Yard man paused, his manner a little theatrical, but his purpose and meaning both undeniably clear to the younger man. ‘The description of the body found charred in the burned-out flat in Cotswold Crescent could have been that of Humphrey Peel. After all, burning breaks down size to charred remnants and ash. But I knew Peel, so did my partner. Neither of us was convinced, from what was released in the papers, that the body in Peel's burned-out flat was that of the man we knew.'

The speaker leaned back in his chair.

‘But that's as far as I can go,' he added quickly. ‘We weren't convinced, that's all. It could have been Peel. I have to admit that. But somehow it didn't sound to us like him. Nothing we could do anything about, you understand. Just a feeling, and we could have both been wrong.'

That was the moment the door opened
and another man of late middle age entered. Rollo hadn't lied when he claimed to have done his homework. He recognized the one-time Detective Inspector Thomas Moore, who gave him a quick glance of inquiry, and was on the point of withdrawing when Dick Temple stopped him.

‘Don't go, Tom. This is Mr Hackley, nephew of Dr John Cadman, who found that body in Croft Avenue. He's on the
Gazette
, but isn't here to get a story. He was engaged to Miss Carol Wilson, for whom we turned in a report on Humphrey Peel.'

When Temple paused it seemed to Rollo that the two other men exchanged glances holding special meaning beyond that of the words spoken.

‘You've told him Peel was the girl's uncle, Dick?'

Temple nodded. ‘He knows. He also thinks something could have happened to Carol Wilson. You'd better listen to him, Tom.'

Tom Moore leaned against a radiator under the single window in the office
while Rollo, in response to a hand gesture from Temple, related his story again. It was taking less time with each telling, and he was even growing somewhat critical of the way he was presenting it, for to him his own words sounded too simple, too direct and factual, conveying nothing of his disturbed feelings and fears for the woman he loved.

Tom Moore listened in a brooding silence, a man who was a natural listener and who would not speak until he felt he had something to say. His hair was grey and there was a greyish tinge to his face, emphasized by the wide grey eyes, like washed pebbles in a brook.

‘You've no idea what could have happened to her?' he inquired when Rollo stopped.

‘No. But her friend who brought me the letter thought from its appearance that she was crying when she wrote it.'

‘At someone's dictation, you mean?'

‘I'm not sure what I mean. Anyway, it wasn't my original idea.'

‘I'd like to see that letter, if you've no objection, Mr Hackley.'

Rollo glanced at Temple and received another hand gesture to go ahead as he wished. Somewhat reluctantly, for this was not an action he had discussed with Mellie Smallwood, Rollo produced the letter with the blurred ballpoint lettering. Moore took it, read it, and handed it, after receiving a nod from Rollo, to his partner, who in turn read it and gave it back to the young man.

‘Cheap paper, smudgy well-used ballpoint. She could have been crying. Not easy to decide,' Moore said. ‘But I've got something maybe he should know, Dick.'

‘What you went after, Tom?' the other partner inquired.

Moore nodded. ‘I saw Bill Hazard, put him in the picture. In return he told me the forensic boys found a fingerprint at Holly Lawn that checked as being one of Humphrey Peel's.'

Rollo was on his feet, aware that both partners in the agency were watching him. He felt curiously lost and groping for direction.