far.”
“There isn’t very much to say,” said Angela, obviously prepared. “Nearly all of the others
“What’s that?”
“They may all be fallen angels but they all want to pick themselves up. At dinner time tonight they talked more freely than I’ve known them, it’s almost as if they’re beginning to forget that I’m new.”
“That’s good,” said Rollison. “Angela—”
“I really ought to go,” Angela interrupted. “If anything happens worth reporting, I’ll tell you afterwards. Bye for now!”
Rollison rang off, thinking almost ruefully that she had virtually dismissed him. Did that mean that someone had been—or might be—listening in? Or had she simply been afraid that someone would interrupt?
Angela telephoned again on Wednesday, and for the first time sounded almost excited.
“They are absolutely accepting me,” she cried. “Two of them confided in me last night about their own problems, and wanted to hear about mine. It seems to be far more difficult to invent a purple patch than a white one. I finally planked for a kind of grey. I can tell you another thing, Rolly.”
“What’s that?” asked Raison patiently.
“They’re puzzled because they haven’t seen Professor Webberson for a week—he usually takes one afternoon and one evening class at Smith Hall.”
“Isn’t he away?” asked Rollison.
“He didn’t say he was going away,” Angela informed him.
Raison rang off, and immediately put in a call to Webberson; as usual there was no answer. On the spur of the moment, he went downstairs and walked to his garage, in a mews nearby, took out his latest car, a grey Allard, and drove to St. John’s Wood. Webberson lived in a top floor flat of a block which towered above its neighbours; from south windows it was possible to see almost all of the ground at Lords.
Raison got out of the lift opposite Number 901— Webberson’s flat. Outide the front door was a printed note : “No tradesmen until I’m back, please,” and it was followed by the initials “K.W.” It was an odd way for an intelligent man to advertise the fact that the fiat was empty, and Rollison studied the note, and then the front door—and on that instant decided to break in.
There was no convincing reason why he should suspect anything was wrong, but the suspicion was very strong in him. He drew on a pair of thin cotton gloves, not wanting to leave prints, then took out a knife with blades of highly flexible steel, and began to work on the lock.
CHAPTER 5
As he pushed the blade between the lock and the door frame, waiting for the moment when the tension on both sides became the same and the lock would click back, Rollison felt a dozen questions tearing through his mind. Was this crazy? Was there really any reason to think anything was wrong? If a neighbour came out of one of the other three doors in sight, how could he explain what he was doing?
None of the questions made him hesitate.
As he worked, manipulating the blade with infinite patience, he listened intently. The silence was broken by a loud clang as the trelliswork inner gate of the lift closed. Almost at once there was a whirring sound, of the lift ascending. The odds against it coming to this floor were eight to one, but there was no way of being sure.
The lock clicked, and Webberson’s door sprang open an inch.
The lift seemed to be coming very fast.
Rollison stepped inside the door and closed it, holding it tight with his left hand, for it would not close properly until the lock was repaired. Was this Webberson, by some strange freak of chance?
The lift stopped on the floor below.
Half jeering at himself but intensely relieved, Rollison put on a light, for the hall had no windows. A chair stood by a table against the wall and he placed the chair at the door; no one passing would now notice that it was open. There were four doors—one right, one left, two facing the front door. The parquet flooring was dull and looked dusty, as empty places will. A persian rug covered half the floor.
He opened the door on the left: it was the bathroom.
A towel lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, shaving gear was on a glass-topped table, and a safety razor and a shaving brush stood as if they had just been used. He looked at the brush, noticing the dried-up lather, matting the badger bristles—so it had not been washed after the shave. He opened the door opposite, into a kitchen, where a window overlooked an inner courtyard.
It was very modern and at first glance, clean. But there were cups and saucers and knives and forks, piled unwashed into the sink. A jar of ground coffee beans stood with the lid off, and a carton of cream, the lid partly on, was near it. Rollison poked at the lid, gingerly, using his finger nail. It was solid, with a minute line of mould growing at the edges where it had dried and drawn away from the side of the carton.
Rollison’s breath was coming tensely.
He went to the right hand door facing the hall, which was ajar. He opened it wider with his elbow, and peered into a bedroom. This had the big windows overlooking lawns and parking places; a pair of trousers, carelessly folded, lay at the foot of the bed, a clean shirt was draped over a chair, clean socks were poked into shoes placed near. It was as if Webberson had put everything out so as to nip into the bedroom from the bathroom, and
