Roger cocked a thumb.
“Come and make the tea, Fish, will you?” he said. I want to nip along to the bathroom.”
Scoop was leaning against the sink, drinking tea, when Roger went back to the kitchen. Janet had tea and a piece of cake on a small table by her side. Richard was tucking into the biscuits and cheese, and saying, “Anyone else want apple-pie and cream before I woof up the lot?”
No one did.
• • •
Later, Roger sat downstairs, reading through his reports, altering a word or two here, making changes of emphasis, seeing all the people concerned, in his mind’s eye, and yet for once putting most of his attention on his family. No matter what he said or even pretended to himself, the fact of Scoop’s going hurt. And if it hurt him, what would Janet feel? He waited until he heard doors close upstairs; she had been in to each boy to say goodnight, an old children’s days habit which asserted itself at all times of emotional crisis. He heard her clear “Goodnight, Scoop,” and then went upstairs. She was already half-undressed, very pale, and her eyes were shiny with tears.
“Hallo, darling,” he said. “You were wonderful!”
That was the moment when she burst out crying . . .
It was a long time before she stopped and got ready for bed, but it was not long, once she was in bed, before Roger heard her even breathing, and knew she was asleep.
He felt very tired but lay awake for over an hour. As the minutes passed, Scoop’s face faded from his mind and he could picture Rachel Warrender’s and Mario Rapelli’s. He wondered whether they were sleeping, and whether the divisional police were keeping Rapelli under proper surveillance.
He thought of Maisie Dunster with her bright hair and cherry-red lips; of Hamish Campbell and his chef’s hat and white smock; of Wilfred Smithson and his tape- recorder and earphones. The odd thing was that he did not give a thought to Coppell, nor even to Benjamin Artemeus and the proposals he had promised to make.
DEATH
The telephone woke Roger next morning, and he groped for it, aware of the daylight, of Janet next to him, of the harshness of the bedside bell. He lifted the receiver, nearly dropped it and so made more noise, muttered “Blast it,” and then grunted, “West here.”
“This is Blackie Cole,” a man said. “Blackie. Are you awake, Handsome?”
“Yes. What’s up?”
“Verdi’s dead,” announced Blackie, and stopped after the brusque statement.
In a way it was a good thing he did, for Roger needed a few moments to recover. Verdi, dead of a blow with a guitar, making murder the charge against Rapelli, with two witnesses prepared to swear he had swung that bizarre weapon. Roger struggled to a sitting position and felt a pillow being pushed into the gap between the head panel and the small of his back. Bless Janet!
“And what?” he asked Cole.
“The witness, Wilfred Smithson, died in a road accident late last night,” stated Blackie flatly. “Not a hit and run, but the driver was probably drunk.” He paused again and then added almost superfluously. “That makes the pastry-cook even more important.”
Now there seemed not the slightest doubt that there was deep significance behind the Verdi affair. There had been yesterday’s stubborn attempt to get dismissal of the charge and now this tragedy; together they were too much for a coincidence.
Roger said roughly, “We must watch Campbell like lynxes.”
“I’ve got his home covered, back and front,” Blackie assured him. “I thought you should know straight away.”
“You couldn’t be more right,” Roger approved. The bedside clock told him that it was a little after six. Janet had snuggled down again and he thought she was more asleep than awake. “Anything else?”
“No,” said Blackie, and gave a grim laugh. “Isn’t that enough?”
“What about the driver of the car?”
“He’s a man named Fogarty, and we’re holding him at North Kensington. The accident happened in Fulham at Fulham Broadway, just after eleven o’clock last night. The night man at North Ken tied Smithson in with your court affair and put word through at once. So we did a very quick job on Fogarty. Howard has all the details.”
“Thanks,” said Roger. At least that was one good thing.
He rang off, and got out of bed. Janet stirred but did not speak, perhaps her way of saying that she wanted to try to get off to sleep again. In a way he would be glad to be out of the house before she was up and there was more discussion about and with Scoop. There could be no argument: he had to start on this new stage of the investigation very quickly. After last night Janet should be all right; in a way it might even be better for her to have an hour with the boys on their own. He bathed, dressed, shaved, and was downstairs in twenty minutes, making tea and toast; he disliked starting out without anything to eat.
Half an hour after receiving the telephone call he was driving through nearly deserted streets towards North Kensington, only twenty minutes away. He passed two dust-carts, some red Post Office vans, some milk-carts and several newspaper boys on bicycles, before he pulled up outside the Victorian red-brick building. A constable standing outside the entrance regarded him at first with disapproval and then, on recognition, almost with alarm.
