Run! (10 page)

“James, is that you? Darling, whatever you want, do make it snappy, because I'm going to be out all night, and there's a man waiting to do my hair, and a girl waiting to do my nails while Marthe does my face, so you see—”

James saw. He made it very snappy indeed. He said,

“I want Sally West's address and her telephone number.”

Daphne laughed. It was a silvery laugh, which meant she was going to be irritating. James had once taken her by the scruff of the neck and shaken her until her eyes very nearly popped out for laughing like that, when he was fourteen and she was twelve. It still had exactly the same effect upon him, but he had to repress himself. He said in a tone of cold ferocity,

“I don't see anything to laugh at—and you're keeping your hairdresser waiting. I want Sally's address.”

“
And
her telephone number. Don't forget her telephone number.”

“I won't,” said James. “What is it?”

Daphne laughed again. This time it was more of a giggle.

“Darling, I can't give it you. She absolutely made me
swear.
”

“What nonsense!”

“I know, darling, but I don't see what I can do about it. I couldn't break a solemn vow.”

“Couldn't you?” said James in his nastiest voice. “I should have thought you'd have any amount of practice. I seem to remember—”

“Darling, how unkind! I couldn't have believed you'd be so vindictive.”

“Sally's telephone number,” said James shortly.

“Darling, I positively can't. She made me swear—like glue.”

“Well, look here,” said James, “will you ring her up—now, at once? No waiting till you've had your hair done and forgetting all about it and going off to your blighted party and not coming home till the middle of tomorrow morning.”

“Oh well—” said Daphne. “James, I think you get ruder and ruder.”

“Are you going to do it—at once, as soon as I ring off—and then ring me up again and tell me whether you've got her?”

“All right. It's going to make me late.”

“It doesn't matter how late it makes you. And, Daph—no messages—you've got to speak to Sally herself. If she's out, ask where she is and get her, get her somehow. I've got to speak to her at once. And hold your tongue about it, Daph!”

“Well, well,” said Daphne. “All right, I'll do it.”

James rang off.

It was about twenty minutes before Daphne's call came through. James had spent the time telling himself,

(i) That he was perfectly calm.

(ii) That Sally was perfectly safe.

(iii) That it didn't matter to him personally whether she was safe or not.

(iv) That it was necessary to preserve perfect calm.

(v) That the First Murderer couldn't possibly have seen the bicycle.

(vi) That it didn't matter whether he had seen it or not.

(vii) That Sally was perfectly safe.

(viii) That he was perfectly calm.…

The telephone bell rang, and Daphne said, “Hullo!”

“Me,” said James.

She giggled.

“Gertrude doesn't keep a butler. All right, all right—don't be fractious, darling! I got her.”

“Well?”

“Darling, I've worked like a black, and I shall be half an hour late for dinner, so I hope you're feeling really fervid, because of course she was out, and I had to track her to about six cocktail parties and she'd always
just
left as I got there. And she says—here's the important part—she says she'll ring you up at once.”

“Then you'd better get off the line,” said James.

“Darling! You overwhelm me! I never expected such gratitude!”

“Don't be an ass, Daph,” said James, and rang off.

Five minutes later the bell rang again. A very faint, distant voice said “Hullo!”

James said “Hullo!” and the voice said, “Who is speaking?”

“James Elliot.”

The voice said, “It's Sally. Daphne said you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes, I must. It's frightfully important. I want to see you.”

Sally's voice sounded a little regretful.

“Sorry, James Elliot, it can't be done.”

“Sally, I really must see you. Something's happened.”

“What?”

“I can't tell you like this. I've got to see you.”

There was such a long pause that he thought they had been cut off, but when he said “Hullo!” she said,

“All right—I'm here—I was just thinking. You're sure it's important?”

“Yes.”

“Very well—just this once. We oughtn't to meet, you know. Or you don't know, but—we oughtn't to.”

James took no notice of this.

“Where shall we meet?” he said.

“I'm supposed to be going to a dance. If I start early and arrive late, no one will be any the wiser—at least I hope not.”

“Well?”

“I'd better come to you. You're in Gertrude Lushington's flat, aren't you? I'll take a taxi to the corner, and you can meet me there at a quarter to ten.”

“I'll be there,” said James.

XIII

Corbyn Mews opens on to Little Corbyn Street, and Little Corbyn Street runs into Hinton Road. The houses in Hinton Road, old-fashioned, inconvenient, and five storeys high, back on to the Mews. They have sunless basements and horrible long back yards, by courtesy gardens, which are the fighting-ground of every cat in the neighbourhood.

James walked from the corner fifty paces down Hinton Road and back to the corner and fifty paces down Little Corbyn Street. It was a bitter night with a cold wind blowing. Coming or going, the wind appeared to meet him full. The air smelt of frost. It was too early for the full chorus of the cats—too early, and perhaps too cold.

James hoped that Sally wasn't going to be late. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch and found that it was just a quarter to ten. Before he had time to pull down his cuff a taxi drew up in front of the corner house. James was a dozen paces away. He stood still where he was in the shadow. He watched Sally get out and pay the driver. He watched the taxi move off and disappear up the road. Then he came up quickly and said,

“I was just wondering if you were going to be late.”

“Brr!” said Sally. “Isn't it bitter? I was here first, James Elliot.”

“No—I've been here ten minutes. Come along. I thought the taxi man had better not see me—just in case, you know.”

Sally laughed under her breath.

“How discreet! Go right up to the top of the class! Where's this place of Gertrude's?”

“In here. It's only a step.”

Sally said, “Brr!” again.

James felt an extraordinary sense of pride as he opened the door and ushered her up a ladder-like stair into his cousin Gertrude's studio. It was at any rate warm—an anthracite stove saw to that—and altogether it wasn't too bad if you didn't look too hard at the pictures. There was a Persian carpet on the floor, and some odd stripy curtains from Georgia, or Caucasia, or some other off-the-map sort of place where Gertrude had just missed coming to a sticky end. The stair came up through a hole in the floor, because the studio had once been a hayloft. James reflected that he and Sally seemed destined to meet in haylofts. He shut down the trap-door to keep out the draught, folded the rug back over it, and offered Sally a shapeless old red leather chair which he knew to be comfortable.

“Lovely and warm,” she said. “My goodness—what's that?”

James said gloomily, “It's called Eve.”

Sally gazed fixedly at the gaunt, grey female with the apple. Then she looked at the lobster in the left-hand corner and said,

“What's that?”

“A lobster.”

“Why?”

“Ask Gertrude.”

“Do you think she's going to eat it? It's already cooked.”

“It's symbolic. The blue tadpole thing in the other corner is symbolic too. Gertrude told me so.”

“I don't wonder Gertrude can't stay at home.” She pulled her chair round so that she didn't have to look at Eve.

James took the other chair, the one you had to sit in carefully because the off front leg was loose.

“I oughtn't to be here,” said Sally in rather an irresolute voice. “We ought never to see each other, or telephone, or anything. It's frightfully dangerous.”

“For you?” said James.

“For both of us,” said Sally.

She sat up straight in the leather chair and threw back her cloak. It was very long, and it was made of black velvet with a lining of white fur. Under it she had on a soft white filmy dress. There was a string of pearls round her neck. James told himself that there was no earthly reason why he should not admit that she was easy to look at—very easy—very,
very
easy.

“You're not listening,” said Sally.

James blushed under the unshaded electric light. To his own horror, he heard himself say, “I was looking at you.”

“Staring,” said Sally.

James pulled himself together with a jerk.

“Perhaps you wouldn't mind repeating what you've said.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“But you said—”

“No I didn't. What was the good of saying anything when you weren't listening?”

James gave it up. Girls were like that. He said in a forbearing voice,

“All right, I'm sorry. Let's begin again. You said it was dangerous for us to meet. Why?”

Sally opened her green eyes wide.

“Can't you see that they mayn't be sure about you and they mayn't be sure about me, but if they see us together, they'll be sure about both of us.”

“Why couldn't we have met at Daphne's? As a matter of fact we did. If you know Daphne, why should it be so compromising for you to know me?”

“I've known Daphne for more than a year. We met in the Tyrol. But that's not the point. Don't you see that if they saw your car the other day, and if they took the number, they could find out what firm it belonged to? Say they were rather suspicious of me, but not sure enough to do anything about it—well then, don't you think that if I'm friendly with someone employed by that firm, they'll be much, much more suspicious about both of us. They mayn't know you drove the car, but they're bound to keep an eye on anyone who might have driven it.”

“I've got to tell her about Jackson,” said James to himself.

He got up and went over to the stove and rattled at the thing that let the ashes through and came back again.

“Look here,” he said, “you keep on saying
they,
and I don't know who
they
are, but
they
don't think it was I who drove the car—
they
think it was Jackson.”

“Jackson?” said Sally in a small startled voice.

“He was at Atwell's with me. He did most of the demonstrating.”

“Did?” said Sally.

“He's dead,” said James.

“Oh!” said Sally. It was more of a startled breath than a word—the sort of sound that she might have made if she had hurt herself. Only when they were running away together and she had cut her foot she hadn't made any sound at all. James remembered that.

He saw her black lashes dip for a moment and rise again. Her eyes were steady. So was her voice, though she only managed one word,

“How?”

“Someone rang up—after I'd gone, a couple of nights ago. He said he was Mr. Hazeby. Hazeby, Meredith & Hazeby are a very respectable firm of solicitors. I've made enquiries about them. I'm quite sure they hadn't anything to do with the business. I'm certain someone was just using their name.”

Sally took a breath.

“Go on. What happened?”

“Jackson took the call, but the clerk, a girl called Daisy Callender, told me about it. She swears she could hear both ends of the conversation. I believe she did, because she told me what Lucas's said to me when I was talking to them this afternoon. She's got ears like a cat.”

“What did she hear?” said Sally breathlessly.

“She heard this person who called himself Hazeby make an appointment with Jackson. He began by asking about our trade plate and the Rolls, and Jackson said was there any complaint, and he said quite the reverse, and that the driver had been of service to a girl who was a client of his and she would like to thank him.”

“
What
?”

“Yes. And as she'd only met him in the fog and couldn't be sure she would know him again, would he wear a buttonhole and meet her on the steps of the B.B.C.”

“You're making it up.”

“I'm not. Daisy Callender swears to it. And that ass Jackson fell for it, poor chap, and said he was the driver and buzzed off to meet the girl. He was like that, you know—a bit of a chaser.”

“Yes,” said Sally. “And?”

“He was picked up dead in a Surrey lane early next morning—run over.”

Sally put a hand on either arm of her chair. Her fingers closed so tightly upon the worn red leather that the knuckles stood out white. She did not say anything at all. Her lashes went down, and the colour went out of her face. James hoped very much that she wasn't going to faint. She took a moment. Then she said quick and low,

“It might have been you.”

“It may have been an accident,” said James. He spoke quickly too, because quite suddenly he was most frightfully glad to be alive and it wouldn't have been decent to say so—not when they were talking about Jackson.

Sally shook her head.

“No, it wasn't an accident.”

And with that James burst into speech.

“Look here, Sally, we can't go on like this. You can't just say it wasn't an accident and expect me to leave it at that, because, you see, if it wasn't an accident, it was murder, and if Jackson was murdered, he was murdered instead of me. He was a silly ass, and I've often thought he was an offensive ass, and he blobbed right into the middle of this thing because he
was
a silly ass, but the fact remains that he got murdered instead of me. I'm safe as long as they think they've wiped out the person who drove that car. I'm safe because Jackson was murdered. Don't you see, that puts it up to me to get back on them? I can't just stay safe and let them get away with it. You must see that.”