crossed the room, opened up, gaped.
Julius Cole stood in the doorway, his eyebrows raised, his head on
one side.
“Hello, baby,” he said, moving into the room. “I want to talk to
you.”
Chapter XXI
A WAITER passed, pushing a table on wheels before him. The
table was set for someone’s belated breakfast: a simple meal of
coffee and rolls. He eyed Julius Cole; I noted his look of snobbish
contempt. He went on, disappeared around the bend in the corridor,
but Julius Cole didn’t disappear. He sauntered into my room, smiling
his secret smile, wagging his head, very sure of himself.
“Nice to see you again, baby,” he said.
I let him in because I was too surprised to exert the effort to keep
him out. Somewhere in my sub-conscious mind an alarm bell was
ringing, warning me that trouble was on the way.
“What do you want?” I asked, leaning against the door.
Julius Cole looked around the room, peered out of the window.
“How nice,” he said, his hands in his baggy trouser pockets. The
grey suit he wore was shiny at the elbows, even on the back of the
coat he had managed to collect grease spots. His bottle- green shirt
was frayed at the cuffs; his white tie was grubby. “I’ve often wanted
to see the Savoy from the inside. I had no idea they did you as well as
this. The view alone must be worth the money.” He gave me an arch
look. “What do they charge for a room like this?”
“Suppose you tell me what you want,” I said. “And then I’l call
Corridan. He wants to see you.”
He sat on the window seat, raised his eyebrows.
“I know,” he said. “But you won’t call Corridan.”
I wondered if it might be a sound idea to hit him in the left eye,
but resisted the temptation. I sat down.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Something’s crawling about in the thing you
call your mind. What is it?”
He took a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one.
Smoke drifted down his narrow nostrils.
“I want to borrow a little money,” he said.
“I won’t stop you,” I returned briefly, “but you’re in the wrong
room. Try the desk. They might trust you. I don’t.”
He giggled. “I don’t suppose you’d think it to look at me, baby,” he
said softly, “but one of my side-lines is blackmail. I’m here to
blackmail you.” He giggled again.
“What makes you think I’d be a good subject to blackmail?” I
asked, suddenly wary.
“No one’s a good subject to blackmail,” he returned, pouting.
“Sometimes I wonder if the game is worth the risk.” He fingered his
tie with slender, grubby fingers. His finger-nails were black crescents.
“It’s a big risk, you know. I have to be very careful how I select my
victim. Even then I have made mistakes.”
“Chalk this up as your biggest mistake yet,” I said grimly. “I don’t
believe in blackmail; never did.”
He stroked his clipped hair, smiled. “But then no one ever does,
baby,” he pointed out. “It depends entirely on the force of
circumstances. In your case, I don’t see how you can help yourself.”
“By ramming my foot into your fat carcass,” I said, eyeing him
with distaste.
He flicked ash on to the carpet, shook his head. “So many people
have wanted to do that. I’ve always taken care to convince them it
wouldn’t pay.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“I heard what you and Corridan said to each other,” he said,
giggled. “I was listening outside the door. I could get you hanged.
That’s not bad, is it?”
“I don’t think you could,” l said, shaken.
“Don’t be obstinate, baby,” he pleaded. “I wouldn’t risk coming to
London, coming here, unless I was sure it’d pay dividends. It was my
luck that I heard what Corridan said. He wants me and he suspects I
saw what happened in Madge Kennitt’s flat. Well, I wouldn’t
disappoint him. I’d tell him.”
“You saw nothing,” I said.
“I know, but he doesn’t know. I’ll tell him you were in love with
Netta. That Madge told you Netta and Peter French murdered Anne.
You didn’t want Madge to tel the police, so you tried to bribe her. She
wouldn’t play, and you lost your head and killed her. I saw you do it.”
I drummed with my fingers on the chair arm. “You didn’t, Cole,” I
said. “And you know it.”
He nodded. “Of course I didn’t, but that doesn’t matter. Corridan
expects me to say something like that and I will if you force me to.”
“They’ll want to know why you didn’t tell them before,” I said.
“Of course, I shall get into trouble, but then I don’t anticipate it’ll
come to that. I was also watching you when you went to Selma
Jacobi’s flat. I saw Littlejohns enter after you had arrived, but I didn’t
see him come out.”
“You get around, don’t you?” I said.
“I’ve never even seen Selma’s place, but I can tell Corridan that,
can’t I? He wants to get someone for these murders, and he’ll jump at
my evidence.”
I knew Corridan would.
There was a long pause, then I said, “Corridan wouldn’t be so
pleased to learn you made a monkey out of him when you identified
Anne as Netta. He’d give you a stretch for that.”
Cole smirked. “Yes, baby,” he said; “I’ve taken that into account
too. But they’d stretch your neck, so I’m not really anticipating
trouble. I don’t think I shall have to go to Corridan because you’ll pay
me to keep quiet.”
I lit a cigarette, smoked for a moment, thinking.
“You see, there’s Netta to be considered too,” Cole said in his soft,
lisping voice. “She’ll get into trouble too. Corridan will bring a murder
