She went back to her flat, closed the door and picked up the letter. It was addressed to her in pencilled handwriting.
She tore the letter open, heart thumping now, because whenever he was in a hurry, Jim wrote in an almost indecipherable scrawl like this. She unfolded the single sheet of pale blue paper and read:
“Sorry I’ve messed things up, Judy. There’s nothing I can do now. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just felt I had to let you know.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Visitor
The note was signed with a scrawl which might have been “Jim”, might have been almost any short name. The handwriting was shaky—not Jim’s usual swift and confident scribble; but it wasn’t that alone which made her sure he had not written it.
She read the message again, then looked up at the photograph which was turned towards her.
“Judy,” she said, in an odd, squeaky voice. “Judy!” She gave a laugh which sounded as odd as her voice and read the note again. “Judy!” she cried aloud—then started violently as the flat doorbell rang.
She backed away.
Jim had never called her Judy but always— always—Punch. It had started at the moment when they’d been introduced, at a tennis-club dance—she could never remember who had actually introduced them. A casuaclass="underline" “This is Judy, this is Jim,” and the someone had been swept away in the crowd. Smiling eyes in a smiling face had looked at her and a merry voice had said: “Care to dance, Punch?”
The doorbell rang again.
She folded the letter, put it back in the envelope and opened the door. She had no idea whom it might be; she felt breathless from the discovery, sensing a significance which she couldn’t yet understand—and then a tall man appeared in front of her, smiling, vaguely familiar, hatless, wearing a dark grey suit of faultless cut. His eyes held the look that had so often been in Jim’s. She felt, not realising what she felt, that she had much in common with this man; they could get along.
“Miss Lome?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Rollison. I do hope you can spare me a few minutes.”
She had the letter in her hand and wanted desperately to read it again and think about it and try to understand the significance of that “Judy”. She didn’t know this man; for all she knew he had come to sell her something she didn’t want. And yet—
He stepped past her while she hesitated.
“Thank you very much.”
His smile faded and his face became grave as he looked at her. She felt that he was assessing every feature of her face in his calm appraisal. Then he moved, easily and swiftly but without fuss and, before she had started to close the door, he was at the window, looking out. She had a feeling that he had forgotten her—put her out of his mind because he wanted to give his attention to something else. She never got over that feeling with him; she never forgot the way he looked while standing close to the wall. If ever she wanted a model for a gay, gallant adventurer, this was the man. The features were finely chiselled, the preoccupation in his gaze was something quite new to her. His eyebrows were dark and clearly marked, the corner of his mouth that she could see was turned down.
She felt instinctively that it would be a mistake to disturb him. The pause seemed unbearably long, although it could have been only two or three minutes, perhaps not even that. Then he relaxed and turned from the window, taking out his cigarette-case as he approached her again.
“Are the police still watching you?” he asked.
The question shattered the atmosphere of calm which he himself had created and her hand poised motionlessly above the cigarettes in the gold case. He stared into her questioning eyes and this time he was smiling.
“They were, weren’t they?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Are they doing so now?”
“I don’t think so.” She took a cigarette and he lit it for her. “Why?”
“I wanted to be sure whether you were being watched or I was being followed. Now I think I know.”
She said: “Are the police following you?”
He looked startled and then laughed.
“No. They don’t waste their time.”
It was nonsensical to think that he was like Jim. He was half a head taller, his hair so dark that it looked nearly black. Jim’s face was rugged and plain, made attractive by his eyes; this man was handsome; and yet—something about him reminded her vividly of Jim. Her glance strayed to the photograph and he didn’t look round but said:
“Is it a good likeness?”
“Yes, it is. But what do you want?” Her voice sharpened. “I’m busy, Mr—”
“Rollison,” he reminded her. “Why were you downstairs just now?”
She felt inclined to ask him what business it was of his but didn’t. She walked to a chair and sat down, smoothing the skirt of the long, green smock which she always wore when working. She was suddenly conscious of being untidy. Jim always said he preferred her fair, curly hair that way; he thought a conventional set spoiled it. She hadn’t made up that day because she hadn’t been out of doors; she must look dreadful. Her fingers strayed to her hair.
“Don’t bother,” said Rollison and his eyes sparkled, like Jim’s when he had first called her “Punch.”
“Why did you go downstairs? Please tell me.”
She was tempted to say “For a breath of air” but she didn’t; yet she couldn’t think how to tell him why without sounding foolish and perhaps giving something of importance away.
That letter was important. So she said:
“I thought I heard the postman.”
“Expecting a letter from Jim?”
She flared: “What are you getting at? Who are you? I’ve every right—”
But her voice trailed off because he was smiling at her, not mockingly or to make her feel foolish but as if he were amused and asking her to share the joke.
“I’m Richard Rollison, and I’ve heard a lot about you. I wanted to find out what you really looked like, what way you did your hair, whether you cared a hoot about Jim or whether he had almost faded out of your mind—all that kind of thing. You see, I’m interested in Jim Mellor’s disappearance. Not in Jim himself—we weren’t even acquaintances, I’m not a long-lost friend. It still gets you badly, doesn’t it? You can’t believe he ever killed a man, yet the evidence has piled up against him. To make it worse, he hasn’t written and hasn’t telephoned you. That’s almost as bad as a confession.”
She said: “He didn’t kill that man!”
“Do you know for sure or is that just wishful thinking?”
“He couldn’t have done. Not Jim.”
“Why did you look up and down the street?” asked Rollison.
“That’s nothing to do with it!”
Rollison went to the desk and picked up the photograph. She saw him glance at the sketches which were so stiff and wooden but his gaze didn’t linger for long on them. He studied the photograph and spoke while he was doing so.
“You know, I’ve a feeling that your jaunt has something to do with Jim. If you ask me why, I couldn’t tell you. But Jim’s very much on top of your mind just now—more even than usually. He’s always there, ready to pop out at a moment’s notice, but this afternoon he’s in complete possession. Why?”
He put the photograph down and looked at the letter which lay in her lap.
“Is that from him?” he asked gently.
Then suddenly, for no reason at all, hot tears stung her eyes and she turned her face away hastily. She hadn’t talked freely about Jim to anyone for twenty-nine days. She hadn’t met a soul who really understood what was in her mind, how Jim was with her so often, ready to smile at her or sing “Charles, Peter and Anne.” Or, if there were a gloomy headline in a newspaper, how he was likely to frown and become earnest and say that, hell, he didn’t know what the world was coming to.