Rollo never forgot little things like that. It was Doc’s diary that Rollo wanted. As soon as he found it he left the house, locked the door and climbed into the Packard.
“Drive around slowly,” he said to Long Tom. “I’ll tell you where to go in a little while.”
Then he sat back and hurriedly thumbed through the pages of the neatly written diary.
The last entry told him what he wanted to know.
Tonight, I call on Celie, wrote Doc Martin, it is now or never. She will get a big cut from Weidmann’s money. If Rollo learns that she and Butch are lovers, she won’t get anything. She’ll be glad to pay me to keep my mouth shut. I’ll surprise her tonight after the meeting.
A red mist hung before Rollo’s eyes. Slowly he shut the diary and slipped it into his pocket. She and Butch were lovers . . . He might have guessed it. Well, now he knew. He drew in a sharp breath and clenched his great fists. Doc had gone to Celie and Butch had been there. Butch had killed him. No wonder Celie was behaving like a scalded cat. He’d make them both suffer. Then he remembered Weidmann. Three million pounds in bearer bonds! It was incredible. He had to find the body. That was the first thing to do. Later he would think of a way of revenging himself. At the moment he needed Butch. One thing at the time, he thought, and closed down on his rage, forcing it back into his subconscious.
The girl must be found. Butch was already searching the streets for her. That would take too long. London was a big place. He might never find her.
“Gilroy’ s,” Rollo said through the speaking tube and Long Tom nodded.
In a few minutes, the Packard pulled up outside Athen Court.
“Wait,” Rollo said and walked across the enclosed courtyard.
He stood in the lift while it creaked its way to the fourth floor; half his mind brooded about Celie, the other half was concentrated on the means to find Cornelius’ body.
He was glad he had urgent work to do. Otherwise he knew he would have done something hasty and vicious. He had never been so provoked and never before had he felt the need for instant revenge. That would not do. He had always made plans. If Celie and Butch were to be punished, he would make certain that the police would not come to him for payment.
He rang the bell, pressing the bell push impatiently. The door opened almost immediately and Gilroy stared at him in surprise. Although it was past one o’clock, Gilroy was still wearing his oyster-coloured lounge suit. “You have never been here before,” he said, standing to one side. “There is something wrong?”
Rollo entered the large sitting room. He walked over to the empty fireplace, took out his cigar case and selected a cigar from it. After he had lit it, he looked thoughtfully at Gilroy. “We must find Cornelius’ body immediately,” he said.
Gilroy shrugged. “How do we do that?”
“I have come to you,” Rollo went on, watching the negro intently. “I believe you can find the body. You say you owe me something. Well, I’ve come for payment. Give me the body.”
Gilroy wandered across the room. “The girl knows where it is,” he said, picking up the little wooden doll and stroking the gold threads that were glued to its head. “She could take us to it.”
“Butch is looking for her, but I can’t wait. You must do better than that.”
“She will come,” Gilroy said indifferently, “if you wait long enough.”
Rollo grunted and left the flat. As he reached the ground floor, he paused and listened.
From upstairs there came the sound of a drum being softly beaten. At first, he thought it was the distant thunder, but as he stood there listening the sound became unmistakable. The steady boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . seemed inside his own head or in his veins like a pulse beating. There was something cosmic in the sound, like the rolling of mighty waters.
He hunched his shoulders and walked slowly to the waiting car.
Detective Sergeant Adams dropped off the bus with a cheery “good night” to the conductor and walked up the steps to the front door of 155A Fulham Road. As he pressed the bell push, he stifled a yawn. It was almost midnight and he had had a long tiring day. The desk sergeant at Vine Street Station had given him Cedric Smythe’s urgent message and it had not improved his temper. It was only because he lived a few hundred yards from Cedric’s house that he had bothered to look in at all.
Cedric opened the door almost immediately. “There you are,” he said, his round, pink and white face lighting up with relief. “I thought you were never coming.”
“Well, I can’t stay a moment,” Adams returned a little shortly. “I’ve been on my feet all day and I want some rest.
What’s the trouble?”
“My dear boy,” Cedric said, opening wide the front door and stepping aside, “this is far too serious to discuss on the doorstep. Come in. I’m very worried. You know I’m not the worrying kind, but this time, I am really very worried indeed.”
Adams grinned rather cynically. “Bosh,” he said, following Cedric into his sitting room. “You’d worry over anything.
Why if the cat had fleas you wouldn’t sleep a wink.”
“I haven’t got a cat,” Cedric returned somewhat coldly. “I dislike cats. Nasty, slinky things! But sit down, Jerry. I must talk to someone. I’m sure you’re tired, but I do want your advice. Have a drink? There’s whisky or beer. What’ll you have?”
Jerry Adams sighed, put his hat on the table and sat down in the big comfortable armchair. “I’ll have a whisky I think,” he said stretching out his long legs. “But be a good chap and get to the point. Has one of your boarders run off without paying his bill?”
Cedric compressed his full lips. “Really, Jerry, you’re most unfeeling,” he said a little bitterly. “I tell you this is serious. It might even be a police matter.”
Adams shot him a quick glance. “Oh? How do you make that out?”
“I must begin at the beginning,” Cedric returned, refusing to be hurried. He carried two large whiskies across the room and after adding a splash of soda in both, he handed one of the glasses to Adams. “Here’s how,” he went on, sitting down in the chair opposite.
“You mustn’t laugh at me,” Cedric repeated. “I’m very worried about Miss Hedder. There’s something going on I don’t like at all.”
“Oh? Miss Hedder again. What’s she been up to now?”
“She’s not mixing with the right people,” Cedric said, shaking his head. “In fact, she’s mixing with criminal types.”
Adams laughed. “Oh, come on, Cedric. What do you know about criminal types?”
“I know a bad lot when I see one and this boy, Joe Crawford, is a bad lot if there ever was one.”
“Joe Crawford? Who’s he?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. He came here a few days ago with a note for Miss Hedder. He was extraordinarily rude to me. Really, Jerry, you have no idea the words he used, and the look of him! He quite frightened me and you know I’m not easily frightened.”
“He brought her a note?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. The note wasn’t properly fastened and, seeing what a desperate character he was, I thought it was my duty to read it.”
“You’ll be getting yourself into trouble if you make a practice of that,” Adams said a little drily.
“Of course, if it hadn’t been unsealed, I wouldn’t’ve dreamed of reading it,”
Cedric said hastily. “I may have some faults but curiosity isn’t one of them.” He avoided Adams’ jeering eyes and self-consciously cleared his throat. “If I remember rightly the message simply said ‘Go to Fresby’s Agency, 24c Rupert Court, W.C.2. He’ll get you in,’ and it was signed J. C.”
Cedric told him about the arrival of the trunk and how upset Susan had been.
“She locked her room up and she stayed out all night. Then just after ten o’clock tonight, I heard a taxi drive up and she and a tall, thin, elderly man came in and went upstairs to her room. They came down almost immediately dragging a trunk between them. I spoke to Miss Hedder but she was in such a nervous state that she didn’t seem to hear me. The elderly man told me to mind my own business in a most insolent way and they went off together with the trunk in the taxi.”