John Creasey - Inspector West Alone

Everything had been laid-on, even the call to the police with the convincing warning that it was a case of murder. Nothing else would have brought Hansell and his squad along so fast.

He must get one thing clear. Hansell had been summoned so that he, Roger West, youngest C.I. at the Yard, could be caught in the house with the dead girl. Was he right in thinking he had only to convince Hansell that he was West, and the situation would switch in his favour?

He’d been found on enclosed premises, with a girl battered brutally, and with an axe by his hand.

Roger murmured to himself: “I’m in a spot.”

“About time you realized it,” Harris growled.

Roger shrugged and stood up. He could do that without pulling the standard lamp over. He hadn’t a chance to get away, but both policemen moved towards him. He turned away from them and looked into an oval mirror above the mantelpiece. This was the first time he had seen his reflection since he had come round, and it gave him another shock.

His face was a dark blotch, looking sinister and brutal.

* * * *

Hansell came in. Roger didn’t notice, because he was still staring at his reflection. The panic was subsiding into reason. His face was badly scratched, the scratches had bled a lot, and the blood had dried on it, in a brown mess which looked black in the mirror. He put his right hand to his cheek and felt a sharp pain in the back of the hand, looked down and saw the long cut in it—the cut which he had received from the window-glass.

Then he was aware of Hansell standing behind him and staring into the mirror. He turned. The two policemen had gone out, and the door was closed.

“Admiring yourself?” asked Hansell. “Who are you?”

“I’m——” Roger paused, as the vital question reared up in his mind again; would he be wise to allow this frame-up to succeed, for the time being?

“Aren’t you sure?” Hansell sneered. “Perhaps you’ve a split mind. Why were you so interested in that mole?”

“My wife has a mole just where I asked you to look.”

“So that makes you not a wife murderer.”

“That’s right.”

“Stop fencing. Who are you?”

Roger liked Hansell; he had a feeling that the man was a good officer, one in whom there was a full sense of responsibility. Once Hansell was convinced of the truth, he would hold his tongue.

“Roger West, Chief Inspector, Scotland Yard.”

“So you remember you’ve told Harris that. Mind if I see your wallet?”

Roger moved his left hand to get it, and the handcuff stopped him. “Help yourself.”

Hansell took out his wallet. In the poor light, this was an eerie experience, but he faced it out. He didn’t look at the wallet, but at Hansell’s lean, narrow face and the drooping lips—this man had the face of a cynic. Several letters were in the wallet, and Hansell took them and turned towards the light. Only then did Roger see that it wasn’t his wallet; it was brown, his was black; this was much thicker, too; and he saw a wad of one-pound notes, many more than he ever carried.

“That’s not——” he began.

“Three letters, addressed to Mr. Arthur King—at least you got the number of syllables right,” Hansell said sardonically. He probed into the wallet. “Driving licence— Arthur King. What gave you the idea of pretending to be a policeman?”

Roger sat down heavily.

“You’re Arthur King, of 18 Sedgley Road, Kingston-on-Thames,” Hansell said, “and I charge you with the murder of a woman, as yet unknown, and warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence. Any legal quibbles about that?”

Roger said slowly: “It’ll do, for now.”

“I still want to know why you pretended to be West.”

“Work it out later, and don’t try any rough stuff, Hansell.” Roger spoke sharply, seeing the other’s hands clench. “What’s your evidence? Wholly circumstantial? I was in the room with her, you saw me and jumped to the conclusion and charged me. That story ought to please your superintendent and give the magistrate apoplexy.”

“You were near to the axe with which she was killed,” Hansell said. “Your prints are on the axe, on the torch you were using, and they’re all over the place—including the window, where you forced entry. That girl put up a fight and clawed your face, and skin and blood off your face are under her finger-nails.”

Roger said: “I didn’t kill her. I was outside, heard a scream, broke in, and then heard moaning. I broke the door down with an axe and when I went inside, a man attacked me and knocked me out. I hadn’t been conscious again for five minutes before you arrived.”

“How did you get here?”

“By car.”

“What car do you use?”

“A Morris 12, supercharged engine, registration number SY 31.”

Hansell laughed. “That’s why a Chrysler with registration number XBU 31291 is parked in the road outside, I suppose.”

That made the frame-up as near perfect as one could ever be, by breaking down the story of how he had approached the house. His assailant had scratched his face to make it look as if he had struggled with the girl. There was even a chance that he’d transferred blood and skin from Roger’s cheeks to the girl’s fingers; he would be as thorough as that, and yet it didn’t make sense. How could the man prove that a senior officer of the Yard was someone else ? How could he hope to make that stand up ?

He couldn’t.

He stood a chance of proving that Roger had been pretending to be someone else.

“Why not give up trying. King?” Hansell asked. “We’ve caught you with everything.”

“Then you ought to be happy.”

“I’ll be more satisfied when I know why you killed that kid upstairs.”

“I’ll be more cheerful when you start looking for the murderer. Give me a cigarette, will you?” He always kept his cigarettes in his hip pocket and couldn’t reach it with his free hand.

“No, I don’t smoke them. I wouldn’t give you a cigarette if I did. Harris!” Hansell raised his voice, and the door opened at once. “Go through his pockets and put everything from them on the table,” Hansell ordered. “You stay here with them. Lister.” So the other big constable was named Lister.

Hansell went out, and Harris began to go through Roger’s pockets. Out of the right-hand jacket pocket he took a slim gold cigarette-case; not Roger’s. From the waistcoat, a lighter, watch, and diary—none of them Roger’s. He was used to the idea now—that his assailant had taken everything out of his pockets and put someone else’s stuff in its place.

P.C. Lister made a note of everything, calling it out aloud as Harris placed it on the table.

Hansell came in.

“Finished?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harris.

“Anything marked with ‘R.W.’?”

“No, but several things have ‘A.K.’ on them, sir.”

“Good enough,” said Hansell. “Sergeant Drayton is outside, and he’ll take you and the prisoner down to the station. He can be tidied up, but before that I want you to scrape some of that dried blood off his face, and keep it. You can give him something to eat, and let him have a packet of cigarettes but no matches—when he wants a light, he will have to ask for it. Don’t let the Press get at him. Take him in the back way, and see that he doesn’t see anyone except our people.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harris unlocked the handcuffs. Roger rubbed his wrist gently. Both policemen kept close to him, and once they were in the hall, Lister held his arm tightly, just above the elbow. Outside, there was a blaze of light with silver streaks stabbing through it; rain was coming down heavily. The lights came from several cars parked in the lane, most of them facing towards the road and Helsham, but one, a glistening American model, was facing the other direction; this was “Arthur King’s” Chrysler.

He got into the back of a car. Harris sat next to him, Lister took the wheel, and a bulky plain-clothes man, presumably Sergeant Drayton, sat next to the driver. Roger watched the other cars as they passed slowly, and then saw the big white boulder and the newly painted signpost.

He sat back and closed his eyes, feeling Harris’s arm against him. If he made a move, Harris would use that ham of a fist again. There was no point in trying to escape, anyhow, Harris could rest easy. His thoughts flashed from one thing to another. But for that girl’s face and head, this would be laughable; farcical.

They were going cautiously down the steep hill, which Roger had come up, in third. There were several dangerous corners, and none of them was marked, because the road was little used. The headlights shone on the spears of rain and the leafless hedges bent beneath the fierce March wind. Road and banks glistened. Trees stood out like grey spectres, and dropped behind, only to be replaced by others. Roger saw lights, some distance ahead—the lights of Helsham Village, but they would go on to Guildford. Whom did he know at Guildford?

The driver turned a corner and then jammed on his brakes. All of them were jolted forward, Roger before he caught a glimpse of the road block or of the men who darted forward the moment the car stopped.

CHAPTER IV

HOLD-UP

THE glow of the headlights shimmered on the rain, on huge branches of trees which had been flung across the road, and on a man who stood huddled up in a raincoat, with a hat pulled low over his forehead and a gun pointing towards the car. Roger saw other men, one of whom wrenched open the driver’s door and poked a gun inside.

Harris grunted and grabbed Roger’s wrist. Cold steel brushed his hand, and then the handcuffs clicked—he was manacled to Harris.

“Take it easy.” The man who poked the gun into the car had a smooth voice. A scarf, tied round the lower half of his face, served as a mask. “Do as you’re told, and you won’t get hurt.”

“You’re crazy.” That was Sergeant Drayton, in a shrill voice.

“Not so crazy as you’ll be if you try to pull a fast one. We want West.”

“No one named West——” began the driver.

“Okay, forget who it is, we want your prisoner—he’s a pal of ours.” Bright eyes showed in the pale light inside the car. “Get out, pal.” He looked at Roger.

They were remarkable eyes; like silvery fire.

“We’re the police!” howled Drayton.

“We’d still want our boy friend, even if you were the Army, Navy, and Air Force rolled into one.” The gun swivelled towards Roger. “Get out.”

The door by Roger’s side opened; another man with a gun stood there. The rain hissed down until wind caught it and sent it in a wild flurry about the car.

“I can’t——” Roger began.

“You can, pal. And hurry, we haven’t got all night.”

“That’s enough of this,” said Harris heavily. Harris was good—ten times better than Drayton. “You clear off, the lot of you.” He might have been talking to a crowd of gapers gathered about a street accident. “This man’s our prisoner. Clear off.”

“I’m handcuffed to him,” Roger said. It wasn’t easy to make the words sound casual, or to try to sum this up; except to see that it was the next stage in the framing.

Why?

Harris sat back in his seat. It would be no fun trying to get him out of the car by force, he must weigh sixteen stone.

“He’s got a key, hasn’t he?” The man with the strange eyes said harshly.

“I told you to clear out,” Harris growled. “Another car will be along in a minute, and then——”

“We’d make fools of more policemen,” said the spokesman. The rain hissed and spattered, and the wind howled; it was bitterly cold. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll unlock those handcuffs.”