No Escape (13 page)

“That's right. But neither he nor Milton opened the spool so they don't know what was in it.”

“I should think they've made a damned good guess.”

“Perhaps. I'll have the boy along, too, then.”

“It might be better,” Marsden suggested, changing his mind, “not to have all the interested parties pouring into these well-known precincts together. Suppose I tackle Long myself? We need only warn him against unnecessary curiosity and unsolicited action.”

“Most Press heroes get a thirst for further action,” Garrod said, sourly.

“Only if they're unemployed or haven't enough to occupy their minds—or rather their imaginations. Long has a reasonably busy job, hasn't he?”

“
That's
an understatement if I know anything about hospitals,” Garrod answered.

“So he'll only need a hint to keep him quiet, you mean?” Marsden asked. “Anyway, I'll take care of him. Your principal headache is the girl and this little cipher. May I have a copy to take away?”

Garrod agreed. It had been Bob's reference to the Indian student that had prompted him to call in Professor Marsden. The Foreign Office did so, too, when it was foxed over some difficult translation.

When the professor had gone, he went over again in his mind the chief points in Jane's connection with Sheila Burgess, as supplied by the divisional inspector. The man Stone was new to him. An eager character, by all accounts. No wonder a nice girl like Miss Wheelan was a bit put off by the wolf approach. Stone might have slipped up there. Found himself a bit out of his depth. Something quite unusual for him, probably. The girl might be useful. It depended on how she really stood in this business. No good counting on her for help, conscious, active help, that was. No right to. Far too risky.

He turned to other matters; those that had been interrupted by Dr Milton.

Jane approached Scotland Yard with feelings in which anxiety predominated. She still blamed herself for Sheila's death, because she had forgotten to give her back the film. In some way, she felt sure, this had brought about the fatal end.

So as soon as she was settled in a comfortable chair in Superintendent Garrod's office and found herself looking at two serious faces and two pairs of sympathetic eyes, she said, miserably, “I wish Sheila hadn't come to our hospital at all. I wanted to help her but I seem to have done the exact opposite. I feel—guilty—”

She could not go on. She was ashamed of the note of self-pity in her voice. It was poor Sheila she had come about, not her own feelings.

“Don't worry, Miss Wheelan,” Garrod said, getting over his astonishment at hearing words very seldom spoken in his room. “You did your best for her. She was too big a problem for you to tackle, you know.”

“I suppose so. But I needn't have forgotten to give her back her film. I needn't have dropped it on the floor of her room to begin with.”

“It was extremely lucky for the police you did both these things,” Professor Marsden said. “The way it looks now you may have set in motion something quite big.”

“How d'you mean?”

He did not answer. He let the sense of importance settle into her. It was necessary for the job in hand and supremely desirable for her own safety.

“You see,” Garrod went on, picking up the thread the professor had dropped, “we are quite sure there is more behind this than the ordinary sort of pornography. It might make it possible for us to break up a vice ring that's been a problem for a long time.”

“You mean there really
was
something in the spool?”

The two men exchanged glances. The young registrar had pointed out the spool's peculiarities to Dr Milton, they knew. They had not realised the girl was in on this as well.

Jane noticed their exchange and said, “Tim and I developed the film together. We both noticed the spool had no split in it and could have something inside, if it was hollow.”

“So you do realise the importance of this, both to us and to
them
?”

“Oh yes. Gerry—Mr Stone—keeps trying to see me. Yesterday he called three times. The girl I share my flat with saw him once. She didn't like the look of him. Besides, I'd told her the party I went to with him was a flop as far as I was concerned. Nearly everyone was high and silly with it. A good many weird characters. One in particular—”

“Go on.”

She told them about the self-styled artist's concern for Sheila.

“He was scared on her account. Genuinely. He came up to the hospital in the afternoon on the day she was killed. I think he'd seen the early editions of the evening papers. They had the story of her fall from the train but not her name. I've checked that since. He wanted to know if she was still in the hospital and when I said she'd gone he said, ‘Oh
God
!' like that and went away. I saw it myself in the late edition after I went home.”

“Can you give me this young man's name?” Marsden asked.

“Sorry. I never heard it.”

“He hasn't tried to get in touch since?”

“No.”

There was a little pause, another exchange of glances. Jane began to feel impatient. She saw no point in grinding over the few facts she could give them. She was tired and sad but she no longer felt responsible. These two clever competent individuals had taken over, thank God. Sheila was no longer a problem, only an unhappy memory.

“Miss Wheelan,” said Superintendent Garrod, gravely, breaking into these melancholy thoughts, “now that you understand the great importance of what has happened, we must ask you to help us still further.”

“
Me
?” said Jane astonished.

“Yes. This man Stone wants to see you, urgently. Probably he and his crowd are after the film. Probably that was what they wanted from Sheila on the train.”

“Oh,
no
!”

Jane's horrified exclamation put Garrod off his careful approach. Professor Marsden said, consolingly, “Now, Miss Wheelan, you mustn't start blaming yourself all over again. There's no evidence at all that Burgess was attacked on the train.”

“She opened the carriage door herself,” Garrod took up the tale. “Her prints were on the handle and on the surface of the door. She seems to have stood there for a time, making up her mind to go out. The inquest will certainly bring in a verdict of suicide and I wouldn't be prepared to dispute it, but for a few more facts that came up.”

“What did you find? Please, please, tell me. I won't repeat any of it.”

“I'm prepared to trust you for that. Well, then, her suitcases had both been gone through and re-packed. In a hurry, too. They were not locked. We think we know who did this. He's left London in a hurry.”

Jane said, dully, “She lost her keys in the river with her handbag.”

“We know that,” Garrod agreed. “The carriage luckily was not entered when the train went on from Reading and when the news of the body being found was sent down the line the guard was able to identify her luggage, left on the rack, and lock the carriage door. He was also able to describe fairly fully eight people who were sitting in that carriage when he collected or punched their tickets. They had all travelled from London. Six of them got out at Reading, two went on to Exeter, but went to the dining car and stayed there. The point is they were all sitting in that carriage a few minutes after the time the girl must have fallen from the train, yet not one of them had reported it, far less tried to prevent her going, or stopped the train when it happened.”

“But they
can't
have been in the carriage!”

“Perhaps not. Incidentally, the emergency cord had been cut.”

Jane was both horrified and indignant.

“Can't you trace them? Don't other people on the train know where they were at the time? I mean, if they weren't in the carriage.”

“That would call for a broadcast,” Marsden said. “At present the police don't want to show all that degree of interest. Isn't that so, Garrod?”

The superintendent nodded.

“I see,” Jane said. “How horrible!”

“Going back,” Garrod said, “the point is, Burgess did not have the film. Stone, Bream and the rest want it and they seem to think it may be with you.”

“I see,” said Jane again. She was beginning to see all too clearly. “Perhaps Gerry went to Sheila's digs, that afternoon I was there packing, on purpose to get the film. It fell out of her jewel box, you know. Trinket box would be a better name for it. She only had a few cheap brooches and some long strings of beads, poor thing. I don't suppose they paid her very much. Anyway it did fall out of that box, I think. I found it on the floor when I went up the last time to check I hadn't left anything she needed.”

“Very likely it did.”

“Yes, now I do remember he made quite a thing over helping me. Wanted to take the suitcases to Paddington for me. But I knew Sheila wanted
me
to take the big one. She didn't want anyone to know she was going from Paddington. After Gerry said he knew she lived at Reading I thought she'd prefer to have her cases at the hospital.”

“Can you think of anything else in connection with the film?”

“Why, yes, of course!” Jane was getting quite excited. “The night of the party I had a film of my own in the handbag I took with me. Sheila's film was in my everyday coat pocket. I do a lot of private photography,” she explained. “I often have the odd film, new ones or those I'm going to develop, in any of my handbags or pockets.”

“So what about this film you took to the party?”

“It disappeared.”

Garrod and Professor Marsden straightened in their chairs. Now was the right moment.

“Stone snitched it, then,” the professor said. “Sauce, don't you think?”

“
Bloody
sauce,” Jane agreed.

They laughed.

“That's the girl,” said Marsden. “Now isn't it obvious Stone still thinks you've got the film? Since he goes on trying to contact you?”

“Why doesn't he ring up and ask straight out?”

“Far too cagey. He must know the Law is interested in Sheila's death, even if he doesn't suspect they're on to his game, too. No, I think he'll keep on trying to see you. What I suggest and I'm sure it's what Superintendent Garrod wants is that you let him.”

“See Gerry again? But—but—knowing what you've told me—”

“Exactly. It won't be easy for you. In fact it might be a bit dangerous. But you're not entirely safe as it is. I don't want to frighten you unnecessarily, but it occurs to me they might even kidnap you as things are.”

“And that's the most frightening thing you could possibly suggest,” said Jane, jumping up as if she wanted to bolt on the spot.

“Now, now,” Garrod put in. “Don't listen to him. He's just playing the cloak and dagger card because he has no responsibility in this.”

“Aren't you a policeman?” Jane asked.

Marsden laughed.

“Far from it. I used to teach oriental languages. I was ill and retired. Now I help anyone who wants to consult me on almost any language east of Suez. I can always help them, you know.”

Jane turned to Garrod.

“What
did
you actually find in the spool?” she asked.

“I can't tell you that,” he said. “But I guarantee that you will have an unseen escort wherever you go at present, if you agree to meet this man Stone openly when next he tries to get in touch with you.”

“And if I won't?”

“It could be immensely valuable,” Marsden said. “Lead the superintendent where he wants to go. Will you play, Miss Wheelan?”

“I don't think much of it as a game,” she answered, soberly. “The man called Giles, who was at the party, gave me goose pimples. Why can't you just run in the whole bunch now, if you know who they are and what they do? Isn't the film good enough for that?”

“As pornography, yes,” said Garrod. “Good for a heavy fine, possibly a shortish prison sentence. We could certainly mop up the Bream outfit straight away. It wouldn't be his first conviction. It's the other angle that's all-important. You'd be well advised to do what Professor Marsden suggests. Otherwise I think we should have to ask you to get sick leave from the hospital for a couple of months.”

“Get
what
?”

“Without an escort we couldn't be held responsible for your safety. Even at your own home there would be a certain risk. These people are willing to take very big risks.”

“How long will it go on?” Jane asked, beginning to relent, even to become a little excited. After all, it would be better to experience danger here in London, with the Law behind her, than at home in a country vicarage.

“I can't imagine what my father would think,” she exclaimed. “He's a parson.”

“No one you know, not even your parents, must hear any of this at all,” Garrod said, severely.

“No one at all? Not Mary—the girl I live with? Not Tim? He knows rather more than me already.”

“Not even Dr Long. If any of them knew you were coming here you can say you've been and made a statement. Nothing else.”

She sat trying to make up her mind, but failed. In the end she got up, still undecided.

“I don't know what to say,” she told them, honestly. “If Gerry tries to see me, I'll have to make up my mind, won't I? But he may not. Then I needn't.”

“All right,” Garrod told her. “You think it over. Mind you, I don't believe they'll give up till they know for certain where the film is. If you do contact Stone, of course you'll say you know nothing whatever about it.”

“I don't think he'd believe me,” Jane answered, but she agreed to keep the secret at all times.

The flat was in darkness when she got back. She remembered that Mary had a date for that evening. Having switched on the lights and the fire in the sitting-room she went into her bedroom and put on the light there. She knew at once, in the dark, by the lingering smell of tobacco, that someone had been there. Neither she nor Mary smoked; there had been no unauthorised visitors that day.