Dead or Alive: A Frank Garrett Mystery Read online

  He came to the posts at the far end, and saw by the light of a distant lamp that the street was empty. He had enough sense not to emerge upon the pavement, faintly though it was lit. Instead he flattened himself against the wall of the right-hand house and looked back, listening. There was nothing either to see or hear. Nobody moved, threw up a window, or concerned himself with the shot which had come within half an inch of achieving a murder.

  Bill began to feel that he was uncommonly lucky to be alive. He also began to wonder whether he was going to be able to stay alive, or whether the shadow would have a second shot at him as soon as he came out into the light. He didn’t think the fellow had got away in front of him. No—most likely he had stood against the wall, let Bill charge past him, and then made his get-away up at the other end. Of course he might not have been bothering about getting away. A really persevering assassin would be all out for that second shot. On the other hand, he couldn’t have banked on the neighbourhood having absolutely no reactions to midnight murder. Personally he thought the swab would have cleared out.

  He waited five minutes, heard nothing, saw nothing, slipped out of the alley between the end post and the wall, and walked home to his hotel without further incident.

  Chapter Seven

  When Meg had shut the door on Bill Coverdale she went into the sitting-room and put on the light there. That is to say, she pulled down the switch, and the light should have come in, but it didn’t. She remained standing just inside the door, frowning at the dark room, with the one bright shaft slanting in from the hall to a spot about a yard in front of her. She pushed the switch up, and then down again. There were two little clicks, but nothing happened.

  She went back into the hall, opened her bedroom door, and tried the switch there. Again nothing happened except the click. Her frown deepened. It seemed odd that both these lights would go wrong together, when the hall light was all right. She tried the bathroom and the kitchen and found both lights were gone. Well, she hadn’t got a spare bulb, and she hadn’t got any candles, so she would just have to make the best of it and feel her way to bed in the dark. Of course she might take the hall bulb and see if it would work in her room, but if she did that, she would have to make the change in the dark. A little cold shiver ran over her. She didn’t like the idea. If there was anything wrong with the fuse, it might spoil the new bulb and leave her without any light at all. That was a definitely unpleasant thought.

  She left her door open, and found that she could see well enough. Besides she didn’t want to see. She wanted to undress as quickly as she could and get to bed and sleep, a long, long, dreamless sleep. She didn’t need a light for that.

  She kept all her thoughts on the surface as she undressed. Her dress hadn’t looked too bad—she must find the right hanger—she could do that by feeling for it—it was a little colder tonight—the wind was this way—she couldn’t be bothered to fill her hot water bottle—nice to slip into bed and lie down—nice to feel sleep waiting for you—Nice to stop thinking and go down into forgetfulness.…

  But after all she dreamed. Sleep betrayed her and she dreamed. At first it was pleasant enough—a mere hazy sense of being amongst trees, and the sound of a stream flowing somewhere out of sight. She was walking on pine-needles. That was her first really clear impression—thick, soft pine-needles which gave out an aromatic smell when her feet bruised them. She must be walking under pine-trees, but she couldn’t see them, only the smooth drifted needles at her feet. And then she knew that she wasn’t alone in the wood. There was someone walking behind her with a step that kept pace with her own, so that she could not hear when it fell. She began to run, and the thing that followed her ran too, faster and faster, faster and faster, until with a little click the dream broke off short and she was awake in the dark. Her heart was racing, her mouth was dry. She pushed the bed-clothes away from her shoulders and got up on her elbow to listen. The click which she had heard—had it been in her dream, or here? It had broken the dream, but had it broken it from within or from without? She stared into the even darkness. It was everywhere.

  But she had left her door open. She had left the hall light burning, a piece of the most shocking extravagance and one for which she was now being punished, because if she hadn’t left it burning it would have been just natural and ordinary to wake up in the dark instead of most unnatural and alarming. She had left the light on, and she had left the door open about a foot. There should have been a lighted patch on the floor, and a long bright panel between the door edge and the jamb. The click that had waked her might very easily have been the click of the closing door.…

  The draught from the open window stirred her hair. She drew a long breath of relief. The door had blown to, and that was what had broken her dream.

  But she ought to have been able to see a bright gleam from under the door. There was always that line of light at the sill when this room was dark and the hall was lit.

  The bulb in the hall must have gone wrong. Stupid of her not to have thought of that before—very stupid. Well, there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She had better turn over and go to sleep again—much better—much, much better.

  She remained leaning on her elbow—listening. If you listen in the night, there are always things to hear—faint almost inaudible rustling, creaking sounds. If you listen long enough, you can hear your own pulses, the beating of your heart. If you listen longer still, you can hear your own thoughts, your own sick fears. Meg heard all these things.

  She said to herself, “Get up and go to the door. Open it and strike a match. Go into the sitting-room and see for yourself that there isn’t anybody there.” See? When the minute you struck a match it went out again? Meg said, “I won’t!” and went on listening. The arm on which she was leaning had gone to sleep. She sat right up and began to move it to and fro to get the feeling back into it again. This was better than listening.

  And then all at once there was a sound she did not have to listen for. It came from the sitting-room, and it was a sound which she knew as well as the sound of her own voice. The second drawer of her writing-table squeaked when it was drawn fully out. The sound went right away back into her childhood, because the writing-table was her mother’s and that drawer had always squeaked it if was pulled more than half way. Someone must be in the sitting-room at this moment pulling out the drawer. She threw off the bed-clothes and jumped out of bed. The spurt of anger which had taken her as far as this took her for the moment no farther. She stood bare-foot on the linoleum and felt her anger die down into a sort of cold horror.

  It was then that the stranger thought looked in again at one of the defenceless windows of her mind—if Bill were here, she wouldn’t be frightened and alone like this. This time she was much too cold and afraid to blush. The thought would even have been company if it hadn’t been for the sharp realization that Bill was at least three miles away, and that somebody else was in the next room.

  With a most frightful effort Meg lifted first one cold foot and then the other, and so took herself to the door. She leaned against it for a moment and then turned the handle and pulled it a bare half inch towards her.

  There wasn’t any light in the hall. She knew that already, so it was perfectly idiotic for her heart to bang like this. She had known there was no light in the hall from the moment she had looked at the door and seen only even gloom, with no prick of light at the key-hole, no line of light at the sill.

  There wasn’t any light in the hall, but there was a light in the sitting-room.… Was there? She thought so. The door stood half-way open now, and she was sure she had left it wide. It stood half-way open, and the room beyond was not as dark as the hall. There was some light there, and as she stared, one hand on the door and one on the jamb, a sudden shifting ray told her what that light was. Only an electric torch casts a narrow ray like that. The anger that had got her out of bed flared up again. It was very heartening, but it didn’t last. If she had been sure it was a burglar in there
pulling out the drawers of her writing-table, nothing would have been easier than to run out on to the stair and scream for help. The burglar would be certain to run away, and with any luck he might run into trouble and be caught before he could reach the street. Meg had a very good scream, and she thought she could bank on rousing the block. But she wasn’t sure it was a burglar. Suppose it was Robin. Horrible to feel that you would be more frightened if it was your husband than if it was a burglar. Impossible to risk screaming the house down if it was Robin in there with the torch.

  Robin was dead.

  She stared into the darkness. How could it be Robin, if Robin was dead? A faintness that was not physical came over her. It was her will, her courage, that was near to fainting. If it was Robin who was there and Robin was alive, what was he doing? What darkness and cruelty was this in which he hid himself? What darkness and suspicion was there in her that she should think him capable of such a thing? She felt an agony of self-abasement. Robin was dead. Whatever had been wrong between them should be blotted out. How vile, how vile, to accuse a dead man in her thought—to bring him back from the grave in order to accuse him.

  She straightened herself suddenly and stood clear of the door. It was no good. If it was vile to think Robin capable of this, then she was vile. But it was he who had taught her to believe the unbelievable. There was no cruelty and no betrayal which she could not believe of Robin O’Hara.

  A calmness came over her. She would rather know whatever there was to be known. She caught the edge of the door and pulled it wide. The two open doorways faced one another now with the hall between. She had only to cross the hall and she would know whether it was Robin who was there in the sitting-room. She took a step forward, and all at once that small bright ray leapt out of the darkness and struck her in the face. It dazzled and went out. She shut her eyes involuntarily, and she made some sound that was not quite a scream. Then, before she could move or open her eyes, someone went past within a yard of her and the outer door swung in without a sound and closed again with no more than the click of the latch.

  Meg went and stood against it. It was shut. She was alone in the flat. The outer door was shut. No one could come in without a key. No one could have come in without a key. Her own key was in her bag. She had used it to let herself in when she came home with Bill. It seemed as if it was hours, and hours, and hours ago. No one else had a key except Robin. No one could get in without a key. Tomorrow, she thought, she would have a bolt put on the door. No, it was today—today, as soon as the shops were open. She would go to the ironmonger round the corner and get a really efficient bolt.

  She left the door and went to the sitting-room. She wasn’t afraid any longer. The flat was empty of anyone but herself. But there had been someone here, and she couldn’t wait for daylight to know what he had been doing. There ought to be matches on the mantelpiece. She found them and struck one.

  The first thing she saw, quite close to her beside the matchbox, was an electric bulb. She wondered if it were the one from the hall. She wondered if the bulb in her bedroom had been taken out too. If it had, then he must have been in the flat before she came home. The match burnt her fingers and she dropped it into the fireplace. A second one showed her the drawer of her writing-table pulled out. She came nearer, but the match went out before she could see whether the papers had been disturbed or not.

  She was just going to light a third match, when her mind suddenly woke up. There she was, striking matches like a dazed idiot, with a perfectly good electric bulb only waiting to be put in.

  She had to climb on a chair and feel for the socket inside the cloudy bowl which hung from the ceiling. When she moved the chair it knocked against something, and when she put out her hand she found that a small walnut table had been moved out of its place. She wondered why it had been moved.

  She went back to the door, but with her hand on the switch, she felt an acute stab of fear. If it didn’t work, if the light didn’t come—She had the feeling that she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Stupid, because you always have to bear things, whether you feel as if you can or not. Her fingers moved with a jerk and the light came on. With a most blessed sense of relief she looked about the familiar room. There was the writing-table with the drawer pulled out, but she had seen that already and her glance went past it. The writing-chair had been moved to one side. She passed that too.

  It was the small walnut table which arrested her. As a rule it held books and papers, but they were all gone, cleared off it and thrown upon the couch. The light came from the bowl in the ceiling, and the table stood under the light. It had been moved so that it might stand there. Its surface was broken by a small rectangular card, white against the warm polished brown.

  Meg came slowly to the table and looked down at it. The card lay there right in the middle, an ordinary calling card. It had neatly printed across it in the conventional manner:

  Mr Robin O’Hara.

  Chapter Eight

  “It sounds to me like a pack of nonsense!” said Garrett. He glared resentfully at Bill Coverdale and went on cramming tobacco into his pipe.

  Bill leaned against the mantelpiece and waited. It wasn’t the slightest use arguing with Garrett, but when he had told you what a damned fool you were he would as a rule give you a fair innings. He waited therefore quite amiably until the pipe was alight.

  Garrett tossed the match in the direction of the fireplace and missed it.

  “A pack of twaddle-bosh!” he said rudely. “First you say you wouldn’t recognize the woman you saw with O’Hara, and then you come here and tell me you’ve recognized her.” Bill nodded.

  “I recognized her all right.”

  “Then why did you tell me you wouldn’t be able to?”

  “I never said I wouldn’t know her. And when I saw this Delorne girl at the Luxe last night I recognized her at once—that is to say I recognized her lipstick.”

  “You recognized her what?”

  “Lipstick,” said Bill. “You know—the stuff girls put on their mouths.”

  He got a baleful glance.

  “How do you mean you recognized it? Every woman in London plasters herself with the stuff!”

  “Oh—you’ve noticed that? Then perhaps you’ve noticed that the stuff isn’t all the same colour. This particular brand wasn’t. It was pink, a sort of flannelette pink, and the minute I saw it I knew that I’d seen it before. And I knew when—and where.”

  “Well?”

  “The night before I sailed last year—that’s when. And just beyond Robin O’Hara in a taxi—that’s where.”

  Garrett pulled at his pipe.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You can’t be!”

  Bill picked up the spent match and dropped it amongst the wood and coal of the unlighted fire.

  “Well, there’s some corroborative evidence—”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” snapped Garrett.

  Bill laughed a little.

  “Just waiting for you to say your piece,” he said.

  “Well, what is it? I suppose you know I’ve got a job to get on with. What’s your evidence? Trot it out!”

  “Well, Meg O’Hara obviously recognized the girl—saw her, and didn’t want to see her—dropped her handkerchief and turned away to pick it up just as we were passing Miss Delorne. Then when I pressed her she said she knew who she was. She gave me her name—Della Delorne—and when I went on pressing her she told me she’d seen her with Robin O’Hara.” He hesitated, and then went on with some change of voice. “It’s no good trying to keep things back in an affair of this kind, so you’d better know that she was going to sue for a divorce. O’Hara was a rotten husband. He was a cruel devil, you know, and she’d have been well quit of him. I gathered that Della Delorne would have been the co-respondent.”

  Garrett blew out another cloud of smoke. He looked through it sharply at Bill Coverdale and said,

  “How much did you know of this w
hen you—recognized her?”

  “I didn’t know any of it.”

  “Sure of that?”

  “Oh, quite sure.”

  “And after you recognized this girl’s lipstick Mrs O’Hara gave you to understand that she was going to have cited her as co-respondent—if O’Hara hadn’t disappeared?”

  “That’s what it amounted to.”

  “All right,” said Garrett, “we’ll get on to her. You’ve probably made a mistake, and we shan’t get anything out of it, but we’ll try a cast or two. Good-bye—I’m going out.”

  Bill laughed again.

  “I’d hate to keep you, but it might interest you to know that I was shot at last night.”

  On his way to the door Garrett stopped and came about with a jerk.

  “You were what?”

  “Oh, just shot at—on my way home—in a nice convenient backwater where the local inhabitant is warranted to sleep through anything from an air raid to the day of judgment.”

  Garrett came back with a scowl on his face.

  “Are you fooling?”

  Bill looked mildly innocent.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then tell me in plain English what happened.”

  Bill told him. Before he got very far Garrett produced a map, and he had to start again and trace the way he had taken step by step.

  “Minnett’s Row—” Garrett jabbed with his thumbnail at the thin black line which represented the lane of crowding houses where Bill had stood to see who would come out of the darkness of the alley-way. “Morton’s Alley, and Minnett’s Row.” Garrett jabbed again.