he would probably still be working on it, but by the time he was able to get about again, the case might be over.
That forgotten factor still teased him.
Now and again, resting and even dozing, his body would grow tense. An image of Gissing’s face in the doorway of the dining-room would come, showing all the evil and the dead-liness. As Lissa was beauty, so was Gissing ugliness; corruption. It was thinking extravagantly, but he couldn’t rid himself of the thought Gissing — corruption. In the moment of revelation the man had been stripped of the veneer covering his unholy, deadly self.
In the evening, the boys came home, commiserated, and went off, Scoop to his exhibition, Richard to see a film.
The next day passed, and Roger learned nothing more. Lissa had not inquired. There was nothing new from the newspapers, from Sloan or from Marino, who telephoned again. This time, Roger spoke to him from the bedroom extension, wanted to ask questions, to prompt Marino to talk about the case, about Lissa; but Marino would talk of neither, just told him not to worry and hoped he would soon be on his feet
“Tomorrow,” Roger said grimly.
“You stay in bed,” Marino advised.
Roger put down the receiver, stared at the ceiling and felt as if there were a conspiracy against him. It probably meant the end of the case for him, and if it hadn’t been for that bloody blow over the head, he would have been in it up to his neck. Finding Ricky Shawn was his job; and finding the man who had run down the police officers was also his. He mightn’t be able to do it — oh, to hell with it all! He picked up a newspaper and began to skim through the headlines, then to read “
Martin, who was in for once, went to open it.
“A cable,” he said, marvelling. He came striding up the stairs and burst into Roger’s room, calling: “A cablegram, Dad —
Roger slit it open eagerly, heard Janet coming upstairs, wondered without trying to think deeply, and read:
“Get well soon sorry I had to leave without seeing you Lissa Meredith”
The cable was from New York.
Roger stared at it, and the name especially. He didn’t realize that Martin was looking at him in bewilderment, or that Janet had come in. When he did wake up to that and look round, Janet was watching him with a strange intentness, and in an unfamiliar, even voice she said:
Tut a kettle on, Scoop, will you?” When the boy had gone, with obvious reluctance, she closed the door. “What is it, darling?” she asked.
She spoke as if she knew that it was bad news, and Roger realized in that moment that he looked as if it were deadly. He realized, too, that this was because Lissa Meredith was in New York, three thousand miles away. He had to find an explanation for Janet, to stop her from springing to the obvious conclusion. He flung the cable aside, and growled:
“From New York. Mrs Meredith’s gone back, everything’s been transferred there. It means the case is over, as far as I’m concerned, and I wanted to see the end of it.”
Tension faded from Janet’s face. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, but couldn’t hide her relief. “Don’t worry about it, darling.” She picked up the cable and read it; and obviously she hadn’t the faintest thought that the name “Lissa” had stabbed him savagely.
13
SPECIAL REQUEST
JANET said: “You’re sure you’re all right?” and Roger laughed as he squeezed her arm and then walked to the car, which she had taken out of the garage. He wore a heavy top-coat and a light-weight felt hat, which hid the plaster on the back of his head and the patches where the hair had been cut away. It was a week since he had been attacked at “Rest”. Except for tenderness round the patch, he felt quite normal as he waved to Janet, and drove off. The first dew of the summer had been heavy, it still glistened white on the rooftops, on the trimmed privet-hedges, and, where the sun hadn’t reached it, on the pavement. The morning was fresh and invigorating, a good one to start work again. In fact, he had been working at home. Papers had been sent to the house, mostly about Yard business, keeping him up to date with cases under way when he had been taken off for the Embassy affair. He had skimmed them, as routine. The report from Hardy about the Shawn case had not been routine. He had read it several times, and knew it almost word for word. The airways tickets which the man he had thought was Gissing had given to Shawn had been bought from an agency, and the buyer had not been traced. The only cause for satisfaction was that Marino had asked that a copy of the report be sent to Roger.
The Shawns were back in their Connecticut home, fifty miles out of New York. Ricky Shawn had not been returned to them, although they had flown with Gissing’s tickets. These were the cold facts of the situation, but Roger could read between the lines, and guess that Marino and others had tried to dissuade Shawn from returning to America but had decided to use no compulsion. Did it matter as much as Marino had said?
Would Marino have exaggerated?
Only Lissa Meredith had gone from the Embassy with the Shawns; and she was still with them, officially Shawn’s secretary, actually to keep close watch on him, of course. It was hardly a woman’s job, but there would be men at hand, Marino wouldn’t be careless. There was no clear indication about the real part which Lissa played, except that she was Shawn’s shadow.
There was the detailed report on the Yard investigation, which showed little in the way of results. The driver of the killer car hadn’t been traced, and this was somehow worse because the second plain-clothes man had died. Soon afterwards, Shawn had admitted being told by telephone, before his line had been tapped, when to go to the house at Barnes. Sloan had theorized that Shawn had been followed by one of Gissing’s men who had realized that Yard officers were near by and acted swiftly and ruthlessly. There was evidence that Ed Scammel had been thrown into the river from a jetty near Barnes Bridge, some distance from “Rest”. The man named Jaybird had not been found, although he was now known to have been an associate of Scammel; he might be the man in the raincoat, might also be the killer driver.
