“A poky Morris, is it? How did you know the size of that car, Mister Rayner.”
Roger would never feel contemptuous about a crook who made a simple slip again. But he laughed.
“When I think of Morris’s, I also think of size eights. I still wish that I knew what’s under your skin.”
Sloan said: “You will. We’ve picked up your Doris.”
“Really? What’s she done? I didn’t know that she was a crook in her spare time. I—oh, she’s a pro, is she ? Pity.”
“She’s a girl who lives on the fringe of a small East London gang. You know the gang—Myers runs it. She was in that muddy Morris outside Brixton Jail on Sunday night. You were with her.”
Roger said: “Well, well! Did she say so?”
“You were with her.”
“At her flat. If she’s said anything different, she was out with another man after I left her. That was quite early, remember. She——”
Sloan took out his gun—an automatic. He held it pointing towards Roger. He was a Scotland Yard Officer, and a Yard Officer never used a gun to threaten, or hardly ever. He used a gun in self-defence only, and there was no reason for self-defence here. Sloan was going too far, and the glitter in Sloan’s eyes suggested that he wasn’t himself. There was a dictaphone too, and it was at least possible that the watcher across the road had telephoned to report Sloan’s arrival. If so, others might come to collect the fly that had walked into Roger’s parlour.
“Let’s have the truth,” growled Sloan. “Go back a bit, Rayner. You killed West. All the rest is unimportant. You killed West. I may not be able to pin it on to you, but I’ve promised myself that I shall kill the man who killed West. I can shoot you in self-defence and get away with it.” His voice was low-pitched, he wasn’t so far beside himself that he risked Harry hearing the conversation. Could he mean this? Was it just bluff? All the experience of years told Roger that it was bluff, but he had never before seen Sloan in a savage, unreasoning mood like this. There was something more than the suspicion about the little grey car burning in Sloan.
Roger said: “I did not kill West. I have not killed anyone. I was not out in a grey Morris on Sunday night.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“All right, get on with your romancing. I’m hungry.” Roger turned to the mixed grill. It was cold, the fat had congealed on the plate. Sloan towered over him.
He said slowly, deliberately: “West’s body was found this morning. Until then, I wasn’t sure that he was dead. Now I know. Now I know that you killed him. But there are others, higher up than you. Kennedy—others. Let’s have the truth, Rayner. Give me the story, and the other names, and I’ll let you take your rap for the Brixton job and forget the rest. Keep it to yourself, and——”
He wasn’t even consistent.
Take it one at a time, and quickly. Kennedy’s sister had said that Janet could be “looked after” with a big insurance about which she had known nothing; that had been a strong hint that plans were in the making to produce his “body”. Sloan had jumped to the conclusions; but Sloan wasn’t in a normal mood.
Roger heard a car pull up, outside. Percy? Or men summoned by the man across the road?
“You can’t make me take a rap for a job I didn’t do,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Sloan. Put that gun away and be sensible. How do you know your friend West is dead?”
“His body was found. He’d been drowned. Face battered, fingers amputated, all the usual tricks to prevent identification, but they made a mistake. You made a mistake. You fools always make one. West had a scar or two which served as identification. I saw the body myself. I’ve seen those scars myself. I’ve seen them before—I was with West when he was wounded, and got one of them.”
Brilliantly clever; they had even scarred a man, so that the identification would be to the satisfaction of the police. And Janet—did Janet know? He felt a desperate surge of anxiety, he had never been nearer telling Sloan the truth. But he daren’t, yet. He heard a sound, metal on metal; a key was being inserted in the lock of the outer door.
Sloan didn’t seem to hear it.
“I’m sorry about West,” Roger said. He felt sick—did Janet know? “If this girl Doris told you that I was with her in the car on Sunday night, she lied.”
Sloan thrust the gun forward.
“I’ll give you half a minute,” he said. His eyes glared, all finesse had gone, but even now it must be bluff.
The door of the hall opened softly. Sloan had his back to it.
“I mean it, Rayner.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
A man slid into the room, gun in hand, and spoke. Sloan spun round. The man at the door fired. The bullet smacked into Sloan’s gun and wrenched it out of his hand. It dropped to the floor, between him and the gunman, who moved forward swiftly and kicked it away. Two other men came in swiftly. Both had guns.
Sloan drew back. “Get out. Get——”
They approached, remorselessly.
Roger screwed himself up. If the order had gone out, “Kill Sloan”, then they’d shoot again, whether Sloan took this lying down, or put up a fight. But if they had orders to kill, would the man have shot the gun out of Sloan’s grasp? Wouldn’t he have killed him with that first shot?
Sloan said: “Get away.”
“Don’t try any rough stuff, Sloan,” said the man with the gun. He was small, thin, evil-faced: evil because of his grin. Roger knew him slightly, as one of the most corrupt and vicious East End gangsters, a race-gang type,
