“There is another Madame Ferroni, on the top floor,” she said. “It is very awkward having two names similar in the same building. That is why I am not staying.”
The detective looked at her sharply and hesitated.
“I’ll try the next floor,” he said. “You wait here. If I find nothing upstairs, you’ll go a little walk with me.”
She closed the door behind him. There was a small house telephone in a corner of the room. She lifted this, pushed the button and began speaking in a low, earnest tone. In the meantime the detective had reached the head of the stairs. He saw only one room, that immediately facing him, and he rapped at the door.
A man’s shrill voice said “Come in,” and, unsuspecting, he pushed open the door and walked into the apartment.
The thick derby hat he was wearing saved his life, for the heavy club that came down on his head would have killed him. He staggered under the blow; somebody hit him sideways with a bottle, and he went down to the floor like a log.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Joan Bray came to consciousness with a sensation that something was hammering at regular and too frequent intervals on the crown of her head, and with every blow she winced. It was a long time before she realized that she was alone, and that the hammering came from within…
There was a sort of earthenware sink in a corner of the room. No windows, but a skylight in the roof, through which she saw the dull light of a rainy day. Mostly she concentrated her mind upon the sink and the tarnished brass tap, from which ran a steady trickle of water.
Dragging herself to her feet, she swayed and could hardly have maintained her balance but for the support of the wall; and now, with great labour and with her head throbbing at every step she took, she reached the tap, turned it and, first cupping her hands to catch the stream, she slaked her appalling thirst. Then she did what most women would have hesitated to do—she put her head under the cold stream, thankful that, in a moment of modernism, she had allowed herself to be shingled. Wringing the water from her hair, she stood upright. The pains in her head had diminished, and her immediate and prosaic requirement was a towel. She found one hanging on a roller, clean and new, and had a dim idea that it must have been put there specially for her use. By the time she had roughly dried herself, her mind was nearer normality. This room had been got ready specially for her. Near the old camp-bed on which she had been lying was a stool, on which was balanced a covered tray, a coffee-pot and a roll.
What time was it? She looked at the watch on her wrist; the hands pointed to half-past four. It had been three o’clock when she went into Madame Ferroni’s fateful room. In an hour and a half she had moved to—where?
She sat down on the bed and tried to create, from her confused thoughts, some clear conspectus of her situation. There was a piece of soiled green sacking beneath the bed. From where she sat she could see three letters—‘Maj…’ She pulled out the sacking. Major Spedwell, S & M Poona, was the faded inscription. Who was Major Spedwell? she wondered. She had met him somewhere…Of course, he was the third man present at the projected luncheon which Clifford Lynne had so rudely interrupted. Was she still in Fitzroy Square? And if she was not, how had they got her…wherever she was? The skylight was of frosted glass, but she could see the rain running down in little streams and could hear the sough of the wind outside.
She had no illusions whatever as to into whose charge she had fallen, for she could associate the dark face of Madame Ferroni with the coloured man whose startled face she had seen in the light of the magnesium flare. She was somewhere under the vigilant eye of Fing-Su! She winced at the thought. And Stephen Narth had sent her to this dreadful place…That recollection hurt her; for although she did not like Stephen, she had never in her most uncharitable moments conceived him capable of such infamy.
She got up quickly as the door opened, and instantly recognized the man who came in and closed the door behind him.
“You are Major Spedwell?” she said, and it was surprising how hoarse her voice was.
He was taken aback for the moment.
“I am Major Spedwell, yes,” he said. “You have a good memory, young lady.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“In a safe place. And you needn’t be scared; no harm is coming to you. I have been guilty of a good many things”—he hesitated—“from manslaughter to forgery, but I haven’t got so far down in the mud that I’d allow Fing- Su to hurt you. You’re here as a hostage.”
“To what?” she demanded.
“To fortune.” His quick smile held no humour in it. “You know all about it, young lady—Fing-Su wants a certain share from Clifford Lynne. I think he has already discussed the matter with you. You see, that share certificate is rather an important matter to us.”
“And you think that Mr Lynne will give it to you in exchange for—me?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Spedwell, with a curious glance at the girl’s wet hair. “We’re doing a little banditti work: you’re held for ransom.”
Her lips curled.
“Your friend has evidently a very high opinion of Mr Lynne’s chivalry,” she said.
“Or his love,” was Spedwell’s quiet reply. “Fing-Su thinks that Clifford Lynne is crazy about you, and will part without a squeal.”
“Then I’m happy to think that Fing-Su will have a shock,” she said. “Mr Lynne and I do not love each other; and as to marriage, there is no longer any need for–-“
On the point of betraying the return of Joe Bray, she stopped herself.
“No need for the marriage now that old Joe’s alive, eh? Oh, yes, I know,” he said. He had a smile that came and went with incredible rapidity. “In fact, we all know. But Clifford Lynne is fond of you; I agree with Fing-Su.”
It was useless to pursue this topic. She asked where she was.
“In Peckham. I don’t see why you shouldn’t know. If you managed to away from here any policeman would tell you. This is one of the change rooms that the girl explosive workers used in the war. It isn’t very cosy, but it is the best we could do,” he said. “Believe me, Miss Bray, there is nothing to fear. I’m the only person with a key to this building, and you are as safe as though you were in your own room at Sunni Lodge.”
“You’re not going to leave me here, Major?” She purposely used the title, but he was not made uncomfortable by this s reminder of a more honourable past. Rather, he divined her intention.
“I hope you’re going to be sensible, young lady,” he said.. “If you are going to appeal to my manhood and all that sort of stuff, and the fact that I’ve held the King’s commission, you can save yourself the effort. My skin is pretty thick—I was kicked out of the Army for forgery, and I’ve got to the point where I can’t be ashamed of myself.”
“That is a long way, Major,” she said quietly.
“Rather a long way,” he admitted. “The only thing I can promise you is that no harm will come to you—while I am alive,” he added, and somehow she believed him.
He closed the door, locked it, and went out at the back of the building to where his car was waiting. Fing-Su was in his office on Tower Hill when Spedwell arrived, an impatient, worried man, for so far he had not heard that the girl had been safely conveyed to the factory, a somewhat difficult undertaking in broad daylight.
“Yes, she’s there all right,” said Spedwell moodily, and took a cigar from an open box on the table, bit off the end and lit it. “How long do you expect to keep her?”
Fing-Su spread out his long, thin palms.
“How long will Mr Clifford Lynne keep me waiting?” he asked. And then: “How is the detective?”
“Nearly dead,” was the laconic reply. “But I think he’ll recover. There was nearly a hanging for you and me in that alone, Fing-Su.”
The Chinaman’s face had gone grey.
“Dead?” he said huskily. “I told them to–-“
“You told them to knock him out. They pretty well knocked him out of life,” said the other in his brief, direct way. “A detective-sergeant isn’t a very important person, but killing him would be one of those little errors which upset big enterprises. There will be hell to pay as soon as this man is reported missing, because they will naturally turn to you and to me for information.”
“What was he doing?” demanded the other.
