Rollison carried Snub into the room and put him in an easy-chair opposite Fryer, who WAS unconscious from a blow on the side of the head. Rollison glanced at the man, to make sure that he was still out, then gave his whole attention to Snub.
Snub’s eyes were half-open and he was grinning.
“Where did they get you, Snub?”
Snub licked his lips and raised a hand to his chest. Rollison drew aside the coat. Blood was spreading slowly over Snub’s shirt from a wound rather low down and on the right-hand side; not likely to be fatal. Snub raised his hand again and gritted his teeth; Rollison saw the ugly wound at the back of his head, not caused by a bullet but by some heavy weapon. Blood matted the curly hair.
“You’ll be all right, old chap. Wonderful job.”
Snub grinned and closed his eyes.
Clarissa came in with Mrs Begbie close behind her, a flustered rather than frightened woman. She drew back when she saw two unconscious men. “Well!”
Clarissa turned round sharply and said: “Please hurry with the hot water.” She looked at Rollison as the old woman went out. “How is Snub?”
“Not too good. Take the car and telephone the police, will you? Ask for an ambulance and a police surgeon and utter the magic words, “attempted murder”.”
“The—police?”
“All safe now,” said Rollison. “I’d have taken you straight to Scotland Yard, anyhow—the quicker your story is off your chest the better. Grice won’t ask for more trouble; he’ll believe the story of two Mellors now.”
“You ought to know,” she said. “There’ll be a telephone in the village. I won’t be long.”
She hurried out, soon replaced by Mrs Begbie, carrying towels and a bowl of hot water. She put them down and went out, returning with a can of cold water and some cotton-wool. Rollison had opened Snub’s shirt and blood trickled down the pale skin of his torso. He began to dab at it and Mrs Begbie snorted:
“Let me do that.”
“Better do his head first,” Rollison said.
“I haven’t been a trained nurse all my life for nothing, young man. Get out of my way.”
Rollison said: “Bless you!” and smiled at her—and saw Fryer’s eyelids flutter. He moved across, gripped Fryer’s coat-lapels, dragged him out of the chair and out of the room into the tiny kitchen. He dumped him down on an old Windsor chair, scooped a cupful of cold water out of a pail standing by the brick copper and tossed it into the man’s face. Fryer gasped and straightened up, even tried to lift his injured right hand.
Rollison said: “Now you’re going to talk fast.”
Fryer gabbled: “Sure, sure, I’ll tell you all I know. Sure!”
* * *
Grice sat behind his large desk at New Scotland Yard, listening carefully and without interruption. Clarissa, sitting on his right, saw the ugly red scar on his face which would have disfigured him altogether had it been on the cheek and nose; the wound which had left that scar must almost have blinded him. Rollison sat in an easy- chair, his legs stretched out, his voice quiet and casual. He told Grice what Clarissa had told him: all about the investigations and his suspicions; everything that he had guessed and that Waleski had confirmed in that careless moment when he had thought himself quite safe.
Snub was in Woking Hospital; Waleski in the mortuary attached to Cannon Row Police Station, just across the courtyard of Scotland Yard. Fryer was in a police cell, not far from the mortuary, and Mellor was still at the cottage with detectives guarding him and Mrs Begbie shrilly insistent that he should not be moved that day.
Rollison paused, to take a sip of water from a glass on the desk.
“Feeling happier, Bill?”
“I may be when I’ve heard it all.”
“There isn’t a great deal more. Let’s sum up as far as I’ve gone shall we? You’ll agree there was justification for keeping Mellor away from you? I mean my Mellor, who was not the man you really wanted.”
Grice said: “Legally, you’d get away with it. I think you were a damned fool not to tell me the whole story.”
“Wrong, Bill. Once you’d got Mellor, Waleski and his friends would have faded right out of the picture for a long time. While I had him they were on the go, sticking their necks right out.”
“You’d still say you were right if you could talk after death,” said Grice dryly.
“There had to be risks.”
Grice shrugged. “I don’t think anyone is going to prefer a charge, so forget it. You haven’t told me what Fryer told you.”
“He fitted in some odds and ends,” Rollison said quietly. “Mellor, the real murderer, is still in hiding. Fryer swears that he doesn’t know where and thinks he’s out of the country. Fryer’s confirmed that Dimond was in the racket. Although Mellor killed his brother, Dimond stayed loyal. You can guess what he’s like from that. He exported a lot of goods abroad and smuggled the proceeds of the Mellor robberies out with his goods. Waleski found the foreign markets. I told the Middlesex police about Dimond—I hope he’s been picked up.”
“He’s being brought in now,” Grice said. “What else?”
“Fryer knows that Sir Frederick Arden is involved somewhere; just how, he swears he doesn’t know. He thinks that one of the staff at Pulham Gate was fiddling with his medicine—giving him diluted doses, which would explain his worsening condition but wouldn’t rouse much suspicion. Waleski was also working with a housekeeper at
