been out of touch with Netta for a long time now. She may have got
into bad company, but I doubt it.
He sipped the coffee, grunted. “I think that’s likely,” he said. “The
diamond ring you found has a history. It’s part of a considerable
amount of jewelery stolen a few weeks ago. The owner of the
jewelery, Hervey Allenby, identified the ring late last night. Our
people have been waiting for the stuff to come into the market. This
ring is the first sign of it. How do you think she got hold of it?”
I shook my head, perplexed. “Maybe someone gave it to her,” I
said.
“Then why should she hide it at the bottom of a jar of cold
cream?” Corridan returned, finishing his coffee. “Odd place to keep a
ring unless you have a guilty conscience, isn’t it?”
I said it was.
“Well, it’ll sort itself out,” Corridan went on. “I still don’t think we
have any grounds to suppose the girl was murdered, Harmas. After all
that’s the thing that was worrying you. You can leave this other
business to me.”
“So you’re going to play copper, are you?” I said. “Well, I think
someone knocked her off. If you’ll take the trouble to use that hat
rack you call a head, I’ll explain in two minutes why it wasn’t suicide.”
He eyed me coldly, moved to the door.
“I’m afraid I can’t spare the time, Harmas,” he said. “I have a lot to
do, and newspaper men’s theories scarcely interest me. Sorry, but I
suggest you leave this to those competent to handle it.”
“There must be times when Mrs. Corridan is very proud of you,” I
said sarcastically. “This is one of them, I should think.”
“I’m single,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you. I must be getting
along.” He paused at the door. “I’m afraid there can be no question of
you coming with me to see this Anne Scott. This is official business
now. We can’t have Yankee newspaper men barging in on our
preserves.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “If that’s the way you feel, think no more
about it.”
“I won’t,” he said, with a sour smile, quietly left the room.
For a moment or so I was too mad to think clearly, then I calmed
down, had to grin. If Corridan thought he could keep me out of this
business he was crazy.
I bundled into my clothes, grabbed the telephone and asked
Inquiries how I could hire a car. They said they’d have one ready for
me in twenty minutes after I’d explained I could get petrol on my
Press card. I smoked two cigarettes, did a little thinking, then went
downstairs.
They had found me a Buick. I was too scared to ask them how
much it would cost, took the hall porter aside and inquired my way to
Lakeham. He said that it was a few miles from Horsham, and
suggested I should leave London via Putney Bridge and the Kingston
By-pass. The rest of the run, he told me, would be simple as Horsham
was well signposted.
In spite of its rather obvious age, the Buick ran well, and I reached
the Fulham Road in less than a quarter of an hour and without having
to ask the way. At this time of the morning, the traffic was coming
into London, and I had practically a clear road ahead of me.
As I passed the Stamford Bridge football ground, one of the
landmarks described by the hall porter, I noticed in the driving mirror
a battered Standard car which I was fairly certain I’d seen behind me
at Knightsbridge. I thought nothing of it until I reached Putney Bridge
when I spotted it again. Being still a little jittery from the attack of last
night, I began to wonder if I was being tailed.
I tried to catch sight of the driver, but the car was equipped with a
blue anti-dazzle windscreen, and I could only make out the silhouette
of a man’s head.
I drove up Putney High Street, stopped at the traffic lights as they
turned red. The Standard parked behind me.
I decided I would have to make certain that this man in the
battered Standard was following me. If he was, I’d have to shake him.
I wondered if Corridan had set one of his cops on to tailing me,
decided it wasn’t likely.
I was glad I had the Buick because it was obviously more powerful
than the Standard which looked to me to be only a fourteen
horsepower job against my thirty-one. As soon as the traffic lights
changed to yellow, I shoved down the accelerator pedal, made a
racing get-away. I roared up the hill leading from Putney, changed
into top, missing second, and belted forward with the speedometer
swinging dangerously near eighty miles an hour.
I saw people staring after me, but as no policeman hove into
sight, I couldn’t care less. I let the Buick have all the petrol it could
take until I reached the top of the hill. Then I eased off the throttle,
looked rather contentedly into the mirror, had the shock of my life.
The Standard was about twenty feet from my tail.
I was still uncertain that I was being tailed. It might be that the
guy had decided to show me I wasn’t the only one with a fast car. I
now had a healthy respect for the battered Standard, whose shabby
body obviously concealed a first-class engine, tuned for speed.
I kept on; so did the Standard. When I reached the beginning of
the By-pass, and he was still a hundred yards or so behind me, I
decided to be foxy.
I flapped my hand out of the window, pulled up by the side of the
road, watched the Standard shoot past me. As it went by I spotted the
driver. He looked a youth. He was dark, a greasy slouch hat was pulled
down low, but I saw enough of his face to recognize him. He was the
runt who’d tried to make a batter out of my brains the previous night.
Now feeling certain he had been tailing me, I watched the
Standard go on, and I reached for a cigarette. I guessed he would be
pretty mad by now, wondering what he could do. He couldn’t very
well stop — couldn’t he? I had to grin. A couple of hundred yards
farther up the road, he pulled up.
That settled it. I was being tailed, and I took out a pencil from my
pocket and scribbled the licence number of the car on the back of an
