Stars For The Toff

Rollison pushed the door wider open. The girl, standing by another open door at the far side of the room, jumped wildly. A man standing in that doorway stared at Rollison in mingled surprise and alarm. He was not Lucifer Stride, but he was remarkably like him, except that his fair hair was short and he was dressed in a well-cut, conventional dark grey suit.

“Good evening,” said Rollison. “I gather you’re expecting me.”

The man drew a deep breath.

“Sooner or later, I suppose we were,” he admitted.

“It’s all right, Jane, you worry too much.” He gave Rollison a rather subdued smile. “I suppose you want to know all we can tell you about Space Age Publishing.”

“That’s exactly what I do want,” Rollison agreed.

“You’d better come in,” said the man. His likeness to Lucifer Stride was quite remarkable, thought Rollison. “And you’d better come and take some notes, Jane—or better still, fix the tape-recorder so that we’ve a record of the conversation.” He pushed the door behind him wider and stood aside for Rollison to pass.

There was just one thing wrong: the girl’s manner.

The man was completely convincing, smooth, pleasant-voiced, but the girl was still agitated. Rollison went forward as if with no suspicions, but at the last moment gripped the man’s shoulders, spun him round, and thrust him into the inner room. As he did so, he saw a raised hand flash down from the other side of the door—a hand holding some kind of weapon.

There was a dull, heavy thud.

The man went down like a sack as Rollison, using all his strength, banged the door back against his would-be assailant, pulled it away, then banged it back again. There was a gasp, a groan, the weapon dropped and slithered along the carpet, and the man whom Rollison had squeezed between the door and wall joined his companion on the floor. Behind Rollison the girl stood, terrified. Rollison turned and passed her, scarcely out of breath, and twisted the key in the lock of the passage door.

CHAPTER TEN

Big Deal

The girl was slim, delicate-looking, with honey-coloured shoulder-length hair and a fringe. She watched Rollison tensely, following every move he made. When he took her arm, she jumped wildly.

“No need to worry, my dear, just do exactly what I tell you and you’ll come to no harm,” Rollison promised. “But do it quickly. Go into that room, prop the door wide open—we don’t want any more people hiding behind it, do we?—then straighten out the joker who knocked the wrong man over the head.”

He thought she would be too frightened to obey, but she freed herself and went into the inner room, while Rollison glanced around the outer one. The furniture was plain and spindly; on the walls were drawings, obviously the original artwork for advertisements in newspapers on such magazines as The Day. There were two shelves full of books and two filing cabinets as well as three desks, two typewriters, a very small telephone exchange and four telephones.

Jane was blocking the door open with a chair.

The man who had welcomed Rollison so pleasantly was beginning to stir. Rollison crossed to him, bent down, gripped his coat lapels and heaved him to his feet. Then he half pushed, half lifted him across the inner office. This was a larger room than the other, but furnished in much the same way. Behind a big flat desk, black-topped on auburn-coloured wood, was a swivel desk chair. Rollison moved this with his foot and dumped the man in a sitting position on the floor behind it, his back against the wall. “Don’t move,” he said shortly, “or I’ll call for the police.”

The man looked up at him from dazed eyes—but he might not be so dazed as he pretended, reflected Rollison, keeping a careful eye on both him and his assailant, who, with the girl’s help was now sitting up. Rollison waited until he was on his feet, and then said:

“And after telephoning the police I’ll break your neck. Go and sit next to your friend. On the floor.”

The man’s hair was ruffled, and his tie askew. He was broad-shouldered, solid-looking, and appeared to be in his middle thirties. He began to speak, then changed his mind and did what he was told.

“You, too,” Rollison told the girl.

“But—”

“Do I have to make you?”

Meekly, she went to the wall and sat down beside the two men, while Rollison tried to decide the best way to handle the situation. An appearance of omniscience might make the men crack earlier than they would otherwise, but he wasn’t sure. Despite what had just happened, neither looked the type to use violence.

Or to do murder.

On the desk was a sheaf of papers protruding from a manilla folder which was tied around with a piece of pink tape. Until then, Rollison had shown no interest in it; now he moved towards it. The man like Lucifer Stride drew in a sharp, hissing breath. Rollison glanced at the folder and read a name, upside down: Abbott. H. J. His heart began to beat faster. These papers might have been taken from Mrs Abbott’s flat; if they had, then these men were obviously suspects for the murder. He turned the folder round and pulled the tape; the bow which secured it undid easily.

“Who killed Mrs Abbott?” he asked casually.

The man like Lucifer Stride gasped.

“Killedr Jane echoed hoarsely.

“Oh, no!” Jane gasped. “Oh, no!”

The broad-shouldered man said breathlessly: “But I never saw her. The flat was empty. She wasn’t