Send Superintendent West

He glanced over his shoulder.

No one was in sight; no one had been in sight since he had left Peel two hundred yards away where this little private road led off the main highway. Peel had wanted to come with him; would have followed, if he hadn’t received strict instructions to stay put. Had that been safe? Was he safe? Did the trees conceal watchers, men who would slit another’s throat?

Roger tried the handle, but this door was also locked. He walked to the nearest window; examined it, and discovered that it would not be easy to force. If all the windows were the same, he might have to break one in order to get inside. He had no search warrant, but Hardy would cover him for that

Retracing his steps round the house, he tried a skeleton key in the back door; after a lot of twisting and turning, it worked, but he found that the door was bolted. Close by, he found a small window with a fastener he could reach with a long nail file. In five minutes he climbed into the kitchen. There was no sound. He shut the window and walked slowly across to a door leading into a square hall; there was no passage, only three other rooms, two on the right, one on the left; and a flight of stairs, carpeted from wall to banisters; the hall floor was also covered by a fitted carpet. His footsteps were muffled by dark-fawn pile. He went straight to the front door, unbolted and opened it and stood for a moment on the porch, not waving, but making sure that Sloan had time to see him. Then he closed the door and went inside again.

The three downstairs rooms were bright, airy and pleasant; there was nothing striking about them or the furniture. Homely but well-to-do folk lived here. On a baby grand piano were several photographs, all of the same woman; an attractive woman whose pictures here ranged over fifteen to twenty years. There was no photograph of a man.

Roger went upstairs, the only sound the faint rub of his clothes, cloth on cloth, and his soft footfalls. He found himself whistling softly, under his breath. This was exactly as he had expected, but there was something else: his own mood of expectancy. Fearful expectancy?

There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms; all were spotless but for a light dust, comfortable, pleasantly furnished in a bleak modern way, all empty. Yet two of the bedrooms had the air of being lived in. A woman’s coat lay over the back of a chair, a piece of tissue, dabbed with lipstick, was in a small wastepaper basket, together with a twist or two of blonde hair. There were more pictures of the same woman, but once again Roger could see no photograph of a man. He began searching the bedrooms, twenty wasted minutes irritating him.

There were no men’s clothes in any wardrobe, no shaving-gear, no tell-tale oddments. They could have been taken away, Roger mused, but more likely no man lived here, only Mrs Norwood.

An hour after he had arrived he drove off. The only thing he took away was an impression of a key, in soap, of the back door. This door he left locked; but he was careful to pull back the bolt which secured the door on the inside.

•     •     •

From the Yard, Roger telephoned the Surete Nationale; a Paris acquaintance was quick to understand and to promise to look for Mrs Norwood, but not to let her know she was being watched. Unfortunately, it might be days before a Paris report came through — and Ricky Shawn was in the hands of murderers.

Roger had full local reports on what little was known about the woman and several conflicting descriptions of her regular boyfriend; all agreed on one thing only — that he was middle-aged.

After three o’clock that afternoon, when the telephone rang, he was ready for anything — except a call from Paris. A French Inspector, with good English, was in triumphant mood.

“This Mrs Norwood, Superintendent. I think we have found her.”

Roger’s heart leapt.

“Wonderful!” It was almost too good to be true.

“It is not so bad, you admit. She answers the description you gave me. She gives her true name. She is at the Hotel de Paris, on the Boulevard Madeleine. Also, she has been there before. We have seen her before.”

Roger said tensely: “Go on.”

“We questioned the man who was then with her. A Mr Jack Gissing. Gissing.” The Frenchman spelt the name out carefully. “At the time, we asked you for information about this man. It was three — no, four months ago. You will have a record, perhaps?”

“We’ll have a record!” The breaks always came when they were least expected. “I can’t say thanks enough,” Roger said, fighting down excitement.

Very soon, he was going through the records of a man who was known as Gissing, a wealthy man of independent means. Nothing was known against him except that he had some mysterious way of outwitting most currency regulations. It was surprising how little had been learned about him. The French had suspected him of smuggling, but had been able to prove nothing.

Roger sent for the Sergeant who had made the inquiries, a dark-haired, chunky Cornishman, who had interviewed Gissing on his return to England. The man had been living in a luxury service flat in Kensington, his passport had been in order, he had seemed amused by the investigation. What was he like? Not a man one would forget, but one difficult to describe. Not big, not small.

“We want the Home Office files for his passport photograph,” Roger said. “You’d better go for it — I’ll phone ‘em.”

It took time.

Marino telephoned, Roger promised news of a kind soon, and rang off. Had he been too abrupt? Much more abrupt than he would have been if Lissa had telephoned. He read the report on Gissing until he knew it off by heart; another case of a man of whom practically nothing was known, a vague past, an equally vague source of income. He did some buying and selling on the “Change, had some overseas balances which were blocked; no known American income or capital.

The Sergeant came back, as nearly flurried as a Cornishman could be.

“If that’s Jack Gissing, I’m a Chinaman,” he said, handing the passport photograph to Roger. “He