No one stirred.
Taking a pencil torch from his pocket, he shone it on to the lock. It was a straightforward Yale and easy to force, and in a few moments he was standing in the hall-way.
A flight of carpeted stairs led upwards to a small landing, and Rollison crept towards it. Soon he was standing outside a door beneath which shone a narrow band of light.
This was Flat A.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Spell-Binder
Somewhere in the flat across the landing, faint music came from radio or record-player. Apart from this there was silence. Rollison examined the lock, and found that this also could be forced without difficulty. Very soon the door was open and he found himself in a small, brightly-lit hall, from which led four doors.
A voice sounded in the room straight ahead, and for a moment Rollison stood still—then he breathed a sigh of relief. His hunch had paid off. It was the voice of Olivia Cordman.
“. . . you’re both utterly wrong. Madam Melinska is probably the best seer in the world—certainly she’s the most famous—”
“Infamous, you mean.” A man’s voice this time, and Rollison at once recognised it as that of the man who had telephoned him.
“That’s not true.” Olivia sounded angry. “If you knew what I know about her—”
“And if you knew what we know about her. All this second-sight and fortune-telling nonsense, it’s the biggest racket out.”
Rollison started. Surely that was the voice of the man who had held him up on the staircase at Gresham Terrace. Very gently, very quietly, he pushed the door open.
Olivia was sitting tied to a high-backed chair. The two men were watching her, their backs to the door.
“Pity you don’t have second sight,” said Rollison easily, “or you might have seen me coming.”
Both men swung round to face him.
There was just time for Rollison to see that one of them was indeed the man who had threatened him on the stairs, then to notice, with a start of surprise, the strong physical resemblance between them, before they sprang at him, their reflexes so perfectly in tune that they both moved at the same instant. He had anticipated what they would do and was ready for them; and hatred of what they had already done added power to the blow he rammed into one man’s jaw, the kick he landed on the other’s stomach. As they staggered back he went for them with a fury which almost frightened him, drawing back only when one lay in a crumpled heap on the floor and the other was draped across a chair. Rollison, breathing hard, brushed his hair back and smiled at Olivia.
“Aren’t you going to untie me?” she asked.
“Aren’t I going—”
“I thought you always moved fast:
He saw her mischievous smile, chuckled, then took a pen-knife from his pocket and cut the rope which bound her. “Have they hurt you?” he asked gently.
“No. But I do feel a bit tottery.” She stood up gingerly and almost collapsed; Rollison grabbed her and she leaned against him. “Rolly dear, am I glad to see you! What are you going to do with them?”
“Hand them over to the police. What else?”
“Sure they wouldn’t talk more freely to you?”
“If you mean will I do a deal with your two nice young friends, the answer is no,” Rollison said flatly.
“You could pretend to.”
“There’s no need, now that you’re free.”
“What do you mean, there’s no need?” she demanded. “Catching them’s not the main job, clearing Madam Melinska is. Have you cleared her yet?”
“No, but—”
“There isn’t any “but” about it. Until she’s proven innocent you can pretend anything; you don’t have to play by the Queensberry Rules with that lot.” She seemed angrier with Rollison than with her abductors. “If you hand them over to the police they’ll only tell them all about that beastly old dossier, and that won’t do Madam Melinska any good at all—oh yes, they know all about it, Lord knows how, but they do. And once the police get on to that, Madam Melinska won’t stand a chance.”
Rollison said slowly: “I don’t think she will.”
“There you are then!” Olivia was triumphant. “You’ve got to make them talk. And if you can’t, I can—everyone talks to me when I set my mind to it.”
“That I can believe,” said Rollison. He chuckled as he looked down at her. “You take some beating!”
“You’re not so bad yourself. I thought you’d tumble to what I meant when I talked about Lucy being a moaner. How is he?”
Rollison told her the latest news about Lucifer Stride. Then he turned towards the two men. The man who had threatened him on the stairs still sprawled across the chair, motionless; but the man who had telephoned him was beginning to stir.
Rollison leaned over him. “I’ll take this one first. Any idea who they are?”
“That one’s Bob. The other’s Frank. Or that’s what they called themselves. They didn’t tell me any more—except that they’re brothers.”
Rollison pulled the man to his feet.
“Don’t worry, we’ll soon find out all we want to know. Got that famous reporter’s biro of yours? I’d like you to take down what they say.”
Olivia rummaged in a sideboard, found pencil and paper, and sat down, crossing her legs. “Okay, Rolly, I’m all set.”
Bob was moistening his lips.
“What’s your name?” demanded Rollison.
“Webb. Robert Webb.”
“Where are you from?”
“Bui—Bulawayo, Rhodesia.”
“What work do you do?”
Robert Webb hesitated. “I—we—”
“Just answer for yourself.”
“I’m—I’m a private inquiry agent.”
“You’re a what?
“I’m a private inquiry agent.”
“You won’t be any more,” Rollison said grimly. “What work have you been doing?”
“Finding—finding out about Madam Melinska.”
“Did you prepare that dossier?”
“I—er—we—yes.”
“Who paid you?”
“Mrs—Mrs Abbott.”
“Why did you go to her flat to steal the report you yourself had prepared and given to her?” This was a shot in the dark, but Rollison hoped it might pay off.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“You went to Tillson Street and broke into her flat. While you were looking for the report she returned unexpectedly, and you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“And you killed Charlie Wray, a harmless little man who—”
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“You ran him down.”
“That—that wasn’t my fault, he ran right into my car.”
“Oh-ho, so you did go to Tillson Street.” Rollison’s shot in the dark had paid off. “And this evening you followed me from Gresham Terrace and tried to run me down on the Embankment.”
“I never ran you down.”
Rollison moved forward and gripped Robert Webb’s lapels, drawing him close. He could feel the man trembling, sensed the depth of his fear. He held him for several seconds, then thrust him away. Webb staggered backwards, stumbling against the far wall.
“I tell you I didn’t run you down!”
“You’re lying,” Rollison said ominously.
“I’m not lying. I wasn’t on the Embankment tonight.”
“Perhaps you didn’t kidnap Miss Cordman.”