London!
Fresh under an April sun, but with her great buildings dark with smoke and grime. London, a seething, toiling mass of people, crowded streets, giant red buses, box-like taxis, shops, shops, shops—and factories, docks, the broad, smooth Thames. The London he knew and loved, revealed to him again as he was driven along the straight, wide tawdriness of Oxford Street, into Regent Street with its curving stateliness. Piccadilly bustle, Leicester Square a quiet, friendly grass patch with gargantuan cinemas around it, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, massive Government buildings and—Scotland Yard. The driver turned towards Scotland Yard, but didn’t go past the gates. He stopped the car so that Roger could see the reddish brick of the old building, housing the civil police. Constables on duty looked at them disinterestedly, as at all sightseers. They drove past Cannon Row Police Station, dark, low-roofed, and dingy, with its barred windows. He knew every inch of it—and of the Yard. It had been his life.
The Embankment; the white new building, housing the C.I.D. Then they drove off the cluttered road near the pale-grey austerity of the new Waterloo Bridge, and into the Strand.
Roger, by the driver’s side, hadn’t said a word since they had reached London. Now :
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
They turned out of the Strand, near Covent Garden, empty and desolate and waiting for the next day’s business. They stopped in a narrow street. Here the buildings were old—a mixture of flats and offices.
“This is you,” said the driver. “Number 15.”
Roger got out. Number 15 was opposite—with an open door, a dark hallway, and narrow stairs. He went in, completely mystified. The driver sat in the car and grinned at his back. He glanced at the notice-board: there were six names, and one newly painted sign read:
Charles Rayner.
Commission Agent.
Wholesale—Retail.
4th Floor.
There was no lift. He walked upstairs slowly. He was Charles Rayner, and this was where he would work, do what “business” he would. It was dark on each landing; darkest on the fourth where a broken window was boarded up. He stood undecidedly outside a door marked with his new name; took the plunge and opened it.
A man leapt at him from the corner behind the door.
CHAPTER XI
WILD eyes burned in a pale face. An iron rod clenched in a claw-like hand brushed Roger’s shoulders as he swung to one side. The rod hit the door with a metallic clang, and clattered on the floor. Roger ducked and dodged, then went into the attack, striking out savagely.
Right to the stomach; left to the chin. The first blow brought forth a soughing groan, the second, a screech. The man backed away helplessly, banged against a chair and sprawled into it.
Roger closed the door, and listened intently. He could hear a typewriter, going at speed; that was distant, the only audible sound. The man in the chair sat up, licked his lips and put out a hand as if afraid of further violence.
“Can you give me one reason why I shouldn’t break your neck?” Roger growled. His voice was hard and grating, the voice he’d trained himself to acquire.
The man cowered back; hardly a hero. He wasn’t difficult to read. He had screwed himself up to make that assault, and when it had failed, courage went out of him like air from a punctured balloon.
He was thin, his pallor sickly. He needed a shave, and his gingery hair wanted cutting. His clothes were poor; navy-blue suit frayed at the cuffs, and a choker-scarf, not a collar and tie.
This was a waiting-room; the high, cream-washed walls were bare, and there were two leather arm-chairs and four good uprights, reproduction Hepplewhite. On a plain walnut table, a dozen new magazines were neatly placed; alongside it was a similar arrangement of trade periodicals. There was a faint smell, dry and not unpleasant, of distemper. Two doors led from here. One was marked: Inquiries: Please Ring, with a sign beneath a bell-push; the other,
“Why did you attack me?” Roger demanded, roughly.
“I—thought——” The man hesitated, thrusting out his hands appealingly. “You’re not the man I expected.”
“It would still have been murder.”
“I came to kill him.”
You couldn’t mistake the touch of dignity which came unexpectedly with the words; the man was proud of what he had come to do.
Roger said: “Stay there.” He turned, pushed open the inquiries door and saw a large office, with six or seven desks, three typewriters, several telephones, cabinets—a well-equipped place, where everything was new. There was a large cupboard, with hooks for hats and coats. He went back, gripped the ginger-haired man and took him into the room and locked him in the cupboard.
Another door led from this room—to the “Private” one. Roger opened it; the office beyond was sumptuous; more study than office, with a thick carpet, panelled walls, a library of books, and several easy-chairs. No one was here. He studied the ceiling and the panelled walls; a policeman again, knowing exactly what he wanted and
