“Now I will put on my hat and we will go,” said Madame Ferroni, accompanying her words by lifting down a huge black hat from a peg on the wall. “I do not like Fitzroy Square; it is so dull. And as I told Mr Narth, clients will not climb three flights of stairs to try on pretty dresses…”
The cup dropped from Joan’s fingers and smashed to splinters. With the litheness of a tiger, Madame leapt suddenly across the room and, catching the dazed girl as she swayed, lowered her gently to the floor.
As she did so there came a thunderous knock at the outer door, and Madame Ferroni’s face went green.
“Anybody here?”
There was authority in the tone, and the woman stood trembling, her hand on the key.
Again came the summons.
“Open the door; I can see the key on the inside,” said the voice.
Turning swiftly, Madame opened the wall-wardrobe and lifted out the loose bottom. There were eight inches of space between the floor of the room and the baseboard of the cupboard, and, lifting the limp figure of Joan, she laid her in the dusty cavity. Replacing the loose bottom, she closed and locked the wardrobe, took the girl’s tea cup and saucer, and, pushing open the window, flung them out into the little backyard. A swift glance round, and, walking to the door, she turned the key and flung it open.
A man was standing on the landing. Madame’s knowledge of the police was more than academical, and that this was a Scotland Yard man she knew. She had a tawny husband who had been snatched from her by such a man as this. She half recognized the caller but did not remember his name.
“Hallo!” he asked. “Where is Miss Bray?”
“Miss–-?” The woman frowned as though she had not heard the name aright.
“Miss Bray. She came in here five minutes ago.”
Madame Ferroni smiled and shook her head.
“You are mistaken,” she said. “Nobody has been here but me.”
The detective walked into the room and looked around. He saw the table and the solitary cup.
“What is in that cupboard?”
“Nothing—would you like to see it?” asked Madame sarcastically, and added: “May I ask who you are?”
“I am Detective-Sergeant Long of Scotland Yard,” said the other. “You know who I am—I raided your house two years ago and pinched your Chinese husband for peddling dope. Open that cupboard.”
With her one-shouldered shrug ‘Madame Ferroni’ threw open the doors. The floorboard was in place; not for an instant did it occur to the detective to wonder what occupied the space between that and the floor.
“Has she been and gone?” he asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I don’t know of whom you speak.”
From his pocket he took a small card, bearing the address written in Stephen Narth’s hand—he had followed the taxi to Fitzroy Square, had intercepted the driver and taken the card from him.
“You call yourself Madame Ferroni now, don’t you?”
She nodded. And then came an inspiration.
“There is another Madame Ferroni, on the top floor,” she said. “It is very awkward having two names similar in the same building. That is why I am not staying.”
The detective looked at her sharply and hesitated.
“I’ll try the next floor,” he said. “You wait here. If I find nothing upstairs, you’ll go a little walk with me.”
She closed the door behind him. There was a small house telephone in a corner of the room. She lifted this, pushed the button and began speaking in a low, earnest tone. In the meantime the detective had reached the head of the stairs. He saw only one room, that immediately facing him, and he rapped at the door.
A man’s shrill voice said “Come in,” and, unsuspecting, he pushed open the door and walked into the apartment.
The thick derby hat he was wearing saved his life, for the heavy club that came down on his head would have killed him. He staggered under the blow; somebody hit him sideways with a bottle, and he went down to the floor like a log.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Joan Bray came to consciousness with a sensation that something was hammering at regular and too frequent intervals on the crown of her head, and with every blow she winced. It was a long time before she realized that she was alone, and that the hammering came from within…
There was a sort of earthenware sink in a corner of the room. No windows, but a skylight in the roof, through which she saw the dull light of a rainy day. Mostly she concentrated her mind upon the sink and the tarnished brass tap, from which ran a steady trickle of water.
Dragging herself to her feet, she swayed and could hardly have maintained her balance but for the support of the wall; and now, with great labour and with her head throbbing at every step she took, she reached the tap, turned it and, first cupping her hands to catch the stream, she slaked her appalling thirst. Then she did what most women would have hesitated to do—she put her head under the cold stream, thankful that, in a moment of modernism, she had allowed herself to be shingled. Wringing the water from her hair, she stood upright. The pains in her head had diminished, and her immediate and prosaic requirement was a towel. She found one hanging on a roller, clean and new, and had a dim idea that it must have been put there specially for her use. By the time she had roughly dried herself, her mind was nearer normality. This room had been got ready specially for her. Near the old camp-bed on which she had been lying was a stool, on which was balanced a covered tray, a coffee-pot and a roll.
What time was it? She looked at the watch on her wrist; the hands pointed to half-past four. It had been three o’clock when she went into Madame Ferroni’s fateful room. In an hour and a half she had moved to—where?
She sat down on the bed and tried to create, from her confused thoughts, some clear conspectus of her situation. There was a piece of soiled green sacking beneath the bed. From where she sat she could see three letters—‘Maj…’ She pulled out the sacking. Major Spedwell, S & M Poona, was the faded inscription. Who was Major Spedwell? she wondered. She had met him somewhere…Of course, he was the third man present at the projected luncheon which Clifford Lynne had so rudely interrupted. Was she still in Fitzroy Square? And if she was not, how had they got her…wherever she was? The skylight was of frosted glass, but she could see the rain running down in little streams and could hear the sough of the wind outside.
She had no illusions whatever as to into whose charge she had fallen, for she could associate the dark face of Madame Ferroni with the coloured man whose startled face she had seen in the light of the magnesium flare. She was somewhere under the vigilant eye of Fing-Su! She winced at the thought. And Stephen Narth had sent her to this dreadful place…That recollection hurt her; for although she did not like Stephen, she had never in her most uncharitable moments conceived him capable of such infamy.
She got up quickly as the door opened, and instantly recognized the man who came in and closed the door behind him.
“You are Major Spedwell?” she said, and it was surprising how hoarse her voice was.
He was taken aback for the moment.
“I am Major Spedwell, yes,” he said. “You have a good memory, young lady.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“In a safe place. And you needn’t be scared; no harm is coming to you. I have been guilty of a good many things”—he hesitated—“from manslaughter to forgery, but I haven’t got so far down in the mud that I’d allow Fing-Su to hurt you. You’re here as a hostage.”
“To what?” she demanded.
“To fortune.” His quick smile held no humour in it. “You know all about it, young lady—Fing-Su wants a certain share from Clifford Lynne. I think he has already discussed the matter with you. You see, that share certificate is rather an important matter to us.”