The Trail of Fear (11 page)

After about half an hour he ordered the taxi to return to the neighborhood of Jermyn Street and in the obscurity of St. James' Square they got out and paid the driver. This man also remarked on Sam's cut in a friendly way, at which Sam flinched visibly; but Rezaire, more cool and collected, realized that the fact that a man with a cut was “wanted” could at the moment still only be known by the police. The general public, taxi drivers, railway officials, and so on, would not know that, till the morning papers were out. The taxi driver would remember; but by that time they would be safe at Beaulieu lying up till the evening when his launch would put in to the deserted quay.

They walked away and Rezaire said: “For Heaven's sake, man, pull yourself together. No one knows about your cut except the police. Don't jump like a schoolgirl every time anyone mentions it.”

“I can't help it,” said Sam, humbly enough for him. “I haven't got your nerve. I keep thinking that everyone's after me.”

“So they will be if you go on like that. The bold way is the best way. The unexpected is the…” And at that moment the unexpected happened. They met a constable face to face under a lamp, Sam at the moment actually mopping the telltale cut in his face with his handkerchief. There was no time to bluff, to wonder how much the constable knew, no time to do anything. For a moment they stared incredulously at each other, then Rezaire saw sudden recognition come into the policeman's eyes. His hand went to his whistle. He took a step forward. Sam's nerve gave, and the next moment they were racing up the road toward Jermyn Street.

Behind them they heard once more the shrill whistle blast and the heavy clatter of pursuing feet.

CHAPTER XI

TWO FLATS

Rezaire felt furious with Sam, as he fled up the street. If only the fool had kept his head, they might conceivably have bluffed the matter out, despite the scar. Or even if they found they could not deceive the constable, they might have attacked him and tied him up before he could give the alarm. But to turn round and run like that… Rezaire cursed Sam heartily, as he found himself once again after all his escapes pursued through the streets of London.

For the moment too his brain was blank of ideas. It had been busy enough, just before, but only with plans for making good his escape by car and launch, not for dealing with following policemen. He had thought that he had done with that part.

He sped on, knowing well that in a very few seconds the whistle would bring them all upon his track again—almost certainly those very detectives who had been after him earlier in the evening and who were probably now searching everywhere for him after his escape from the cinema.

He turned, running lightly, into Jermyn Street, thankful that the crowds and the traffic were beginning to ease off for the night. If he could only hide for a couple of hours he felt no doubt of his ability to throw off his pursuers in the empty streets.

He heard a whistle in the distance ahead of him, saw other figures. Sam was close behind, but at the time the first constable had not yet turned the corner. He caught a glimpse on his left of the open doorway to a block of service flats and an empty lighted hall. In that same brief instant he saw also the bottom of a lift disappearing upward. The hall was deserted because the night porter was at the moment taking a tenant up in the lift to his flat. He made his mind up in a flash and almost instinctively turned in, Sam following him. They moved silently and swiftly across the hall and the next moment were ascending the carpeted stairs, the lift moving on ahead of them.

Sam was too upset at the sudden reversal of their fortunes to make any comment, also too used to Rezaire's sudden and daring moves which so often were successful.

“Where do we go?” he whispered, as they kept pace with the lift, holding themselves just out of sight of its occupants.

“Don't know. All I want is a place to lie low and rest in. I'm trusting to my luck now.”

“They will have seen us turn in.”

“Bound to; but it will take them a moment or two to discover exactly where, and if we can get inside one of these flats… Shh! The lift's stopping.”

The lift hummed to a standstill, several stories up, the gate clashed open; someone was warned to mind the step. Rezaire and Sam waited in the staircase at the back of the lift, only half a flight below the floor at which it had stopped. They heard footsteps on the carpeted landing, heard a man's voice saying, “Good-night, Harris.”

“Good-night, Mr. Challoner,” returned the lift man, and the gates clanged to again.

As the lift started downward, Rezaire and Sam moved cautiously up, avoiding being seen by the lift-attendant. They arrived on the landing to find a young man in evening dress with an opera hat on the back of his head trying to fit his key in the lock.

As they approached him noiselessly on the thick carpet, he achieved success at last, and the door of the flat swung open.

He straightened himself with an effort. He was not exactly drunk, but at the same time had evidently been having one or two. Then catching sight of their reflection in the glass of the door, he turned round with surprise.

Rezaire surveyed him quickly, a swift stream of impressions running through his brain. Fair hair, pale face with incipient fluff of a moustache, weak mouth and chin, and rather watery goggle eyes. An absolute type—the Piccadilly lounger. Very little brain; might easily be bluffed.

“Good evening, Mr. Challoner,” he remarked suavely and Sam though visibly surprised for a moment, twisted his cut features into a smile and also echoed the greeting.

“Good evenin',” returned the youth, his eyes goggling from one to the other. Where the devil had he met these chappies before, he was asking himself.

“You don't remember us?” went on Rezaire, still feeling tentatively for a handle to the situation. Far down on the ground floor he heard the lift come to a standstill and knew their voices could not be heard.

“Er, no, 'fraid I don't, and all that, don't you know.”

Rezaire turned to Sam with affected heartiness.

“There, Dick, I told you when we saw him down in the street that he wouldn't remember us.”

The youth, puzzled and slightly incredulous, was beginning to edge back into his flat. His brain, never very good at any time, was certainly not working well after the drink he had had. He put his hand against the doorpost to steady himself, and this suddenly gave Rezaire an idea.

He resumed with a knowing smile: “As a matter of fact, it's a wonder any of us remembered the other after that night.”

“We'd certainly had one or two,” chuckled Sam, taking the cue.

The youth's face cleared a bit. Evidently he had been a trifle sprung when he had met them, or else they had. That would account for it. One met a lot of people when one was like that. But still, dash it all, fellows oughtn't to go bearding other fellows at midnight when they were trotting home to bye-bye, just because one had happened to have a drink with them at one time or another.

“Do you know the Premier Lounge?” suddenly asked Rezaire in playful fashion, but in reality drawing a bow at venture.

The arrow struck. The goggle-eyed young man beamed. Of course he knew the Premier.

“Well, that was where we met. We had a heavy night there one evening…”

“Er, by Jove, so we did.” He couldn't remember it at all, but still—there it was. After all, the heavier the night, the less one remembered it. He had been like that before. Life was very full of chappies he had met during a heavy night at the Premier Lounge and couldn't remember. But still at midnight; and to pursue him up to the door of his own flat!

He looked at them suddenly in a flash of sobriety. Sam was staring at him with a fixed grin that made him feel as if he were being hypnotized. Rezaire also was smiling. There seemed to be something behind it. Ought he to ask them in? Perhaps they wanted to touch him for something. Dash it all, had he promised them anything that night in the Premier? They looked as though he had borrowed money from them, but with his stray bar acquaintances the matter was usually the other way about. He cleared his throat nervously.

“Er, awfully jolly of you to look me up, and all that sort of thing,” he began. Hang it all though—midnight! “Er, did I, er…”

“There!” said Rezaire triumphantly. “That's wonderful.” He put his hand in his pocket. “I never met anyone before from whom I'd borrowed money who hadn't remembered it.” His eyes, laughing and friendly, were yet narrowly watching the effect of this upon the other. The situation needed delicate handling. He took his hand from his pocket and held out five £1 notes.

Sam slapped his thigh and laughed loudly. “He doesn't remember,” he began in that cheery fashion of his. “Well, I'm damned! Say, Fred,”—this to Rezaire,—“we might have got away with it.”

“No,” said Rezaire sententiously. “I always pay my debts. When I saw the gentleman coming in here down below, I said: ‘Why, if that isn't that nice young chap…' pardon me, of course, Mr. Challoner, but those were my words”—Mr. Challoner, flushing upward from his Adam's apple, emitted a deprecating sound—“young fellow who lent me a fiver and I've lost the card he gave me.”

“Oh, I say, really, it doesn't matter, you know… Between friends…” This was positively an unprecedented event in Mr. Challoner's young life. Most of his acquaintances treated him as a kind of perpetual and inexhaustible overdraft. He made as if to decline the proffered notes.

“Those were your very words, Fred,” Sam corroborated. “As a matter of fact, you went on: ‘And I know Mr. Challoner will excuse us for running up the stairs after him like this just when he wanted to go to bed, but debts between gentlemen…”

Sam was in his element. Slightly muzzy youths with a lot of money, no brains, and a taste for drink, dope, cards or bets, he considered his legitimate prey.

“Come on,” urged Rezaire, thrusting the money into the other's hand. “You must take it, and then we must be off.” He turned airily as if to go, though he had no such intention, but was merely pulling out this his biggest bluff of all.

It succeeded.

“Oh, I say, really, don't go. Come in and have a drink or something.” All suspicions had now vanished. Chappies who came galloping after you at midnight to pay debts must be all right.

“Well, I don't mind,” said Sam dubiously.

“It's awfully good of you, but we ought to be going,” resumed Rezaire, playing his fish. His quick ears had caught the faint sounds floating up the lift well—without doubt the arrival of the police.

“Oh, you must. You really must. It's all ready.”

“We shall disturb your household.”

“Oh, there's only my man, and he's asleep; but it doesn't matter if we do wake him up.”

Rezaire, smiling to himself, thought otherwise. Down beneath he heard the lift gate clang. He allowed himself to be persuaded at last.

“Well, it's really awfully good of you,” he said, and with Sam stepped over the threshold.

“Oh, not at all,” murmured the youth, who had not yet got over his surprise at being paid back.

Rezaire himself closed the door, taking care to do so without noise. The outside world was suddenly shut off, as Challoner led the way somewhat unsteadily to the dining-room.

“Cheap at the price,” murmured Rezaire to Sam, who winked in answer.

“Put him to sleep for a bit?” he queried, and touched his waistcoat pocket.

Rezaire nodded.

The unconscious Mr. Challoner led the way to the dining-room, where a decanter of whisky and a siphon with glasses were evidently awaiting his parched arrival home. He took the decanter after waving Rezaire and Sam to armchairs and began to pour out. The glass rattled against the rim and he apologized.

“To tell you fellows the truth,” he explained affably, “I had a bit of a binge tonight. Met a lot of the lads and what not.”

“Well, we should hardly have noticed it.”

“You look as fit as hell,” added Sam.

“Awfully good of you to pay back that fiver. Say when! Help yourself to soda! You know, I'm hanged if I can remember it at all.”

Rezaire looked inquiringly at Sam who, finger to waistcoat pocket, secretly nodded affirmation. Rezaire thereupon called their host's attention with much delight to a Jacobean oak cabinet standing strangely enough somewhere directly behind him.

The young man turned round to explain further and as he turned his back Sam's long arm shot out from his pocket and for a moment hung over the third glass. A white powder dropped and effervesced into nothingness in a second. A short while later the unsuspecting youth was drinking the doctored whisky and soda and Rezaire and Sam were chatting amiably to him, ears stretched to catch any noise from outside.

They finished their drinks and began to make slow preparations for departure. Mr. Challoner swayed suddenly as he got up.

“Tell you the truth, you fellows,” he began again. “I had a bit of binge tonight. I don't feel quite as well as I did.”

“Never mind, old man,” said Sam sympathetically. “We all get like that at times.”

“A drop of drink doesn't hurt anyone,” added Rezaire, as the young man abruptly sat down again and half closed his eyes.

“Infernally sleepy,” he muttered. “Must have been those liqueurs.” He opened his eyes very wide for a moment more and gazed mistily round, then suddenly shut them.

The other two waited a moment. Then: “O. K.?” queried Rezaire.

“Yes. He's good for eight hours. What'll we do now?”

“Put him in his bedroom quietly.”

“Why the hell do we want to do that? We haven't got time to go tucking up half London and kissing it good-night.”

“No. I know. But the cops may come here yet. If he's in bed and obviously tight, they'll push off again…”

“Humph!” grunted Sam unconvinced, but obediently helped to carry the inert form of Mr. Challoner out of the dining-room.

“Quietly!” ordered Rezaire. “We don't want to wake the blooming valet.”

A brief search revealed the bedroom and the young man was taken in; his boots, coat and collar were removed, and he was laid on the bed. While doing so, Rezaire seized the opportunity to retransfer the five pounds that had served as bait to his own pocket. He strewed the clothes about the room and left the light switched on.

“See,” he added with the pride of an artist, “he was too tight to undress properly.”

They went back to the sitting-room where Rezaire dried and replaced upside down on the tray two out of the three used glasses, Sam watching in admiring wonder.

“You've got a head on you and no mistake,” he whispered at length, but Rezaire went quietly on without replying. The head that Sam admired was at that very moment occupied with schemes for definitely betraying Sam to the police in order to ensure his own escape.

Rezaire finished what he was doing and peeped into the hall. Sam came to his side and had just finished reloading and adjusting his revolver when faint voices came to their ears. Through the outer door of the flat they could hear men talking together in the landing outside. They paused motionless. The voices grew louder and suddenly the whirr of an electric bell shattered the silence, followed by a peremptory knocking on the front door.

“My God!” muttered Sam wildly. “How the hell have they…”

Without a word Rezaire grasped him by the sleeve and pulled him rapidly over the hall to where a tall alcove, curtained off, hid a row of pegs for coats and hats.

In a minute they had settled themselves in concealment, awaiting apprehensively the next turn of the wheel of fate. The curtain had barely swung to behind them to the accompaniment of the knocking and the insistent bell, when a door further back in the flat opened and Mr. Challoner's valet, grumbling to himself, in trousers, nightshirt, and overcoat, came out and made his way to the front door.