Then he took out a box of matches.
Roger guessed what he intended to do, but the threat of the gun kept him still. Clumsily with one hand, Pickerell broke two matches before one ignited. He held it to the corner of a paper on the desk. It flared up. He set light to other papers. Smoke and flames rose up and began to spread.
“Don’t do it!” Roger cried.
“Stay where you are!” ordered Pickerell. He moved towards a door leading to the passage as the flames took a fiercer hold. A ring of them ran along the cable of the telephone and a draught from the open window sent two pieces of burning paper sliding along the desk where they caught others; the desk and its contents were soon ablaze, and the smoke was beginning to make Roger cough. The girl turned towards the window but Pickerell ignored her. Step by step, he reached the passage door, took a key from his pocket, inserted and turned it.
“Pep!” Roger exclaimed, moving forward, “he’s —”
Pickerell stretched out a leg and kicked a chair, standing near the wall. He pulled the door open and stepped swiftly into the passage. Morgan’s voice was raised and Pickerell fired. The gun had no silencer and the shot echoed loudly, followed by a sharp exclamation from Morgan. Roger leapt over the chair and reached the passage in time to see Pep leaning against the wall, holding one foot off the ground, and Pickerell disappearing down the stairs. He ran past Pep and might have caught the man up when the ‘Inquiries’ door opened and Lois Randall appeared. She got in his way, blocking his path by accident or design. He pushed past her and sped on, calling :
“Put that fire out!”
He could not see Pickerell when he reached the street. The stocky cabby was lounging against his taxi, staring towards the Piccadilly end of the street.
“Some people!” he was saying. “Swore at me just because I said —”
“Did he get a cab?”
“Yers. “Arf way up the road.”
“You didn’t hear where he was going?”
“Nar what do you think I am?” demanded the cabby, with a vast, triumphant grin. “A human walkie-talkie?”
“One day you’ll learn when to be funny,” Roger said savagely. “Telephone Scotland Yard from the nearest call- box, ask for Inspector Cornish and tell him that West — have you got that, West?”
“Yes.”
“West says that he should send men to this address at once,” Roger said. He turned and hurried upstairs, wondering whether he was too late to stop the fire from spreading. He had been forced to attempt too many things at once. There was no sign of the girl, but Pep Morgan was disappearing into the end office, from which smoke was billowing in great choking gusts. Roger hurried after him, to find him wincing as he dragged himself towards the desk, the top of which was all ablaze. He picked up a heavy ledger with one hand, and began to beat at the desk.
“All right, Pep,” said Roger, “I’ll get a fire extinguisher.”
He was surprised to see no one else on that floor; he called out for help. Someone had smelt the fire and was on the landing below; he hurried up. He was a middle-aged man, followed by two girls and an old lady; all of them sized up the situation quickly and began to help. A cloakroom was handy for water, and within five minutes the evil smelling foam from the extinguisher covered the desk while the two girls were going round the office, beating out little fires started by the burning paper which had blown off.
Pep was sitting on a chair against the wall with his right leg stuck out in front of him. Roger turned to help him but Pep shook his head and pointed to the other door. Roger went into the room where Lois had been working. He ran through the papers on her desk, picking up an address book and a telephone index. He pushed them under his coat, and made sure there was nothing else of interest. He opened a small account book and saw that the pages were headed with copperplate handwriting, admirably executed in black drawing ink. The entries were not all the same, some being in a neat hand which he imagined to be the girl’s, but others, in drawing ink, had exactly the same characteristics as the letter from ‘K’.
“So I don’t need to look much further for him,” he muttered.
He looked through the address book, found the name ‘Pickerell’ and an address in Lambeth. He picked up the telephone, dialled the Yard and asked for Chatworth. He was told that the AC was not in. He knew that Eddie Day would shrink from taking any action without Chatworth’s express wishes; Cornish was the only man to try, but Cornish had left. Accepting the inevitable, Roger asked for Abbott.
The Superintendent’s voice sounded far away.
“What is it, West?”
“I have the address of a man named Pickerell,” Roger said. Whatever else Abbott did he would take the message correctly. “He has admitted arranging for the payment of the money into my account, and using an employee to impersonate my wife. Pickerell has just escaped from his office. He might have gone to his home, at 81 Bligh Street, Lambeth. Is that clear?”
“Yes. But—”
“Thanks.” Roger rang off, giving Abbott no chance to ask questions, and hoping that he had forced an issue.
He heard men approaching and saw Cornish passing the open door. He called out, and Cornish hurried towards him.
“Much excitement,” said Roger, “but I’m afraid the bird’s flown.”
“Flown?” Cornish’s voice rose in disappointment.
“I’ve just phoned Abbott and told him where he might be, so you’d better stay here,” Roger said, “Abbott will probably resent it if you usurp his authority.”
“I don’t give a damn for Abbott!” said Cornish roundly.
Roger persuaded him to stay at the office of the Society. The fire and Roger’s and Morgan’s evidence were enough to justify Cornish making a search. Roger kept the address book and telephone list tucked under his coat. Eventually, Roger found that the two girls of the fire-fighting party had given Pep Morgan first aid. A bullet had entered the fleshy part of his thigh. When an ambulance arrived, the doctor said confidently that it would do perfectly until the patient reached hospital.
Roger saw the little private detective off.
“Got everything you want, Handsome?” Morgan asked as he was being lifted on to a stretcher.
“Everything,” Roger assured him. “I’ll look in before the day’s out, Pep.”
“Don’t you worry about me, you look after yourself,” urged Morgan. “Oh, there is one thing, Handsome — if you wouldn’t mind telling my wife. Don’t want some idiot putting the wind up her.”
“I’ll go straight from here,” Roger promised.
Pep said “Ta!”, and the doors were closed on him.
Roger felt a strange independence in his freedom from the obligation to go immediately to the Yard and report — and he was appreciative of Cornish’s ‘forgetfulness’ in not telling him to stay long enough to make a full statement.
He found the cabby waiting nearby.
“Anywhere else, Guv’nor ?” he asked, and then eagerly: “Your pal copped it, didn’t he?”
“Oh, that was nothing to what might happen next. Shall I hire another cab ?”
“Don’t you leave me aht o’ this,” snapped the cabby with quick resentment. “I drove all through the blitz, didn’t I? What’s a little thing like this to the blitz? Where to?”
Roger said : “Clapham Common.”
Then he broke off. Looking along the street, he saw a Daimler limousine turn the corner and approach slowly. He did not know whether Mrs Sylvester Cartier was inside but recognised her chauffeur, the man with the name of ‘Bott’.
CHAPTER 11
The Strange Behaviour of a Beautiful Woman
AS ROGER stepped away from him, the cabby drew himself up to his full height, puffed out his chest and thrust forward his square, unshaven chin, narrowed his shrewd eyes and spoke with deep feeling.