She touched her face with a powder puff and then turned. “This isn’t right for us.”
“Sure?”
She nodded. “Rollo can handle it—but you couldn’t.”
Butch thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that’s right,” he said. “Maybe we can horn in when Rollo’s got started. Eleven thousand pounds would be nice pickings.”
She smiled secretively to herself. “We’ll have to wait a little while,” she said and yawned again.
He looked at her sharply. “Making out you’re tired?
She nodded. “Very tired.”
He came towards her, but her hand went up, stopping him.
“Not tonight,” she said.
“You’ve got something on your mind,” he returned, staring intently at her.
“You wouldn’t be thinking of double-crossing me, would you?”
Her eyes went empty. “Don’t be so suspicious.”
A hard smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I’ve taken a lot from you, Celie,” he said softly. “But I’m not grumbling. I want you to know that I’m wise to your boyfriends and I don’t give a damn. But when the time comes for me to break from Rollo, you’re coming with me. You and me are in this together and it’ll be too bad if you try anything funny.” He rubbed the side of his nose with his forefinger. “Too bad for you,” he added, a little unnecessarily.
“Goodnight, Mike,” Celie said, not moving, her eyes watchful. “And don’t be so suspicious.”
Butch grinned. ‘I’ll go in a little while,” he said.
Susan Hedder, crouching at the foot of the stairs, heard the sound that an open hand makes when it slaps flesh. She heard a thud that a body makes when it falls heavily to the floor. Then she put her hands over her ears to shut out the half-animal sounds that followed.
chapter two
Doc Martin thumbed the bell push set in the glittering brass disc and waited. There was scarcely a pause between the distant sound of the bell and the door opening.
Long Tom, Rollo’s man, a lean, elderly creature, servile and shifty, eyed the Doc with startled curiosity.
“You’re early,” he said, blocking the doorway. “He can’t be disturbed at this hour. Blimey! He’d create old ‘Arry.”
Doc Martin snorted. “ Get out of the way, my man,” he snapped querulously.
“Your master sent for me.” He pushed his way past Long Tom and hung his battered trilby hat on the hallstand.
“What’s the matter with him? Isn’t he well?”
Long Tom eyed Doc Martin doubtfully. “He’s all right,” he returned. There was a wistful note in his voice as he spoke.
“He always is. Well, if he sent for you, you’d better go up.”
Doc Martin granted. “Just like him to call me at this hour. Doesn’t he ever sleep? It’s not nine-thirty yet, is it?” He scowled at the hall clock. “All right, all right, I’ll go up. I suppose he’s still in bed?”
“He is,” Long Tom said, “and he’s busy stuffing his guts.”
Doc Martin walked briskly up the broad stairs, along the corridor to Rollo’s bedroom and rapped on the door.
He found Rollo propped up in a gigantic bed. His great, thick body was supported by a number of pillows and across his knees lay a large bedtray. He glanced up as Doc Martin came in, nodded his bald head in greeting and pointed with a fish fork to a chair by the bed.
“Sit down, Doc,” he said. “Have some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Doc said and then added wistfully, “I wish I could eat like that. I can’t look at any food until lunchtime and even then I haven’t any appetite.”
Rollo poured coffee into his cup. “You’ve probably got an ulcer,” he said indifferently. “But never mind that. I want to talk to you.”
Doc leaned forward. Small and compactly built, he had a big, dome-shaped head. His deepset eyes were restless, old and bitter. His long, thin nose hinted of an aristocratic birth and his thin lips and square chin revealed his strength of character.
There was a time, some fifteen years ago, when Doc Martin had a practice in Harley Street, but in a moment of reckless compassion he had helped a young woman and things had gone wrong.
Now, at the age of sixty-five, Doc Martin was on Rollo’s payroll. He not only served as the physician to the Gilded Lily—it was a useful acquisition to have a medical man on the premises who did not ask questions —but he also gave Rollo the benefit of his remarkable general knowledge and high standard of education, something which Rollo had not had the time to acquire.
Doc Martin had a lot of time on his hands. He used this time to keep his fund of knowledge up-to-date and quite recently he had increased his value to Rollo by making a study of the various members of the club. Doc Martin had completed full dossiers of nearly all of them and these dossiers were at the disposal of Rollo whenever he needed such information.
Doc Martin was now turning his attention to Rollo’s staff and his immediate discoveries were so startling that he had decided not to let Rollo know what he was doing. He felt that such tramp cards might stand him in good stead if he ever crossed swords with Butch or, for that matter, with the beautiful and fascinating Celie. Doc Martin had found out that Celie and Butch were double-crossing Rollo and the old man had not the nerve to touch off the powder barrel of Rollo’s fury by telling him.
As he sat on the edge of his chair, his small bony hands clasped on his knee, Doc Martin wondered uneasily if Rollo suspected what was going on, but Rollo’s first words reassured him.
“What do you know about voodooism, Doc?” Rollo asked, holding a large piece of salmon on his fork and eyeing it greedily.
Only for a moment did Doc show his surprise, then he said, “It’s a religious cult practised by the natives of the West Indies—witchcraft and that kind of stuff.”
A look of grudging admiration showed in Rollo’s eyes. “I thought you’d know,” he said. “Not much you don’t know, is there?”
Doc shrugged a little impatiently. He was used to surprising Rollo with his knowledge. At one time it had amused him, now it rather bored him.
“And zombiism—know about that too?”
“Animating the dead,” Doc replied promptly, wondering a little uneasily where all this was leading to. “It’s a branch of voodoo,” Doc explained, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He felt tired and his eyes ached. “The natives believe it happens, but I assure you it’s so much ridiculous nonsense.”
“Never mind how ridiculous it is,” Rollo said, thinking of the eleven thousand pounds he had been promised. “What happens? Explain the thing to me.”
“I had a friend once,” Doc returned, “who lived for a long time in Haiti. He told me about the zombies. He actually saw some—or so he said. A zombie is supposed to be a soulless human corpse, taken from the grave and endowed by witchcraft with a mechanical semblance of Life.” It’s a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive.” Doc glanced quickly at Rollo’s astonished face and smiled. “I told you it was ridiculous nonsense.”
“Yes,” Rollo said uneasily. “That’s beyond me.”
He brooded for a moment. “What happens to these— these zombies? I mean, suppose we believe that such a thing happens, what do they do?”
“The natives who have the power to animate dead bodies,” Doc returned, beginning to enjoy himself, “or shall I say the natives who are supposed to have this power, go to a grave, dig up the body before it has time to rot, galvanize it into motion and then make it their slave. Usually a zombie does all the dirty and hard work in the fields while its keeper draws its wages. It has been known, so my friend told me, for a zombie to be made to commit murder.”
“How are they supposed to come alive?” Rollo asked, pushing his plate away and reaching for some toast.