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Copyright & Information

Doorway To Death

 

First published in 1957

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1957-2014

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

 

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

 

EAN   ISBN   Edition
0755136756   9780755136759   Print
0755140087   9780755140084   Kindle
0755138430   9780755138432   Epub
0755146468   9780755146468   Epdf

 

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

 

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About the Author

John Creasey

 

John Creasey – Master Storyteller – was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:

 

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

 

 

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.

PROLOGUE

Michael Quist studied the cheques very closely through a magnifying glass, and then put the last one down on the desk in his small office. It had been altered cleverly, from one hundred and seventy-five pounds to nine hundred and seventy-five.

He had spent the day checking payments against invoices, and found some other small mistakes, but all of those could be put down to error.

There was no question of error with the last one. It was in favour of Thomas Cole and Company, and passed and endorsed on the back by T. Cole. Undoubtedly three other cheques, each made out to a different small firm, had also been tampered with; he had found these after scrutinising every cancelled cheque that seemed even slightly suspect.

There might be others.

The remarkable thing was that each altered cheque had been passed by the bank, although he had spotted the alteration quickly. Anyone who specialised in scrutinising cheques should have queried it.

No one had.

But the bank cashier who had scrawled his initials over these, in approval, was a certain Charles Henry, who worked closely with Saxby’s; and Henry was usually eagle-eyed in scrutiny.

How was it he had passed these?

Normally, Quist would have taken the cheque to the secretary, but the great man was away in America for the next two months. Gorringe, the second-in-command and now in charge, would doubtless applaud his junior’s acute observation, and arrange things so that he, Gorringe, and not a comparative newcomer to the accountancy staff, took the credit.

“And that would be a pity,” Quist mused, still tense with the excitement of his discovery. “I think I’ll probe a bit myself.”

The first essential thing was to have a look at other cheques drawn in favour of the same firms, to get access to the bank statements without arousing anyone’s curiosity, and try to have a complete survey ready by the time the great man returned. He must watch future cheques closely, too. If any newly-drawn ones were altered, he would have to report to Gorringe at once; the damage was already done with these, so delay should do no harm. The more he discovered for himself, the more difficult it would be for Gorringe to usurp the credit.

To Quist, this was a heaven-sent opportunity to prove his value to Saxby’s. He set about the task carefully, but at once, and it was not long before his suspicions of Charles Henry, the bank cashier, grew stronger.

Chapter One

Fear

Charles Henry was dozing when the telephone rang. It startled him, as it always did these days, and he sat bolt upright in his armchair. His back was to the window, the lawn, the flowers and the evening sun. From the garden there was the sound of a hedge being clipped.

Henry placed his large hands on the arm of his chair, and heaved himself to his feet. He was big and overweight, and the movement was an effort. He looked round swiftly, almost furtively, but the clipping continued uninterrupted, a kind of peaceful reminder of living. There was no other sound, until the telephone blared out again.

It was in the hall of this small, suburban house.

Henry ran his hands over his balding head, and moved towards the door, still physically powerful although well past his peak, for he was in his sixties. He was wearing grey flannels and an open-necked shirt, and the trousers were unbuttoned at the waist. He did the buttons up as he reached the hall, snatched up the telephone, and cut the ringing short.

“Hallo?”

A man said: “Who is that?”

“This—this is Charles Henry speaking.” Henry clenched the telephone tightly, and looked about him, up the flight of narrow stairs to the landing, then towards the front door, which stood ajar, letting the bright light in.

The man at the other end of the telephone said: “There’ll be another one tomorrow,” in a flat voice.

“No!” ejaculated Henry. “No, I can’t! It’s impossible so soon!”

“Tomorrow, and don’t forget,” the man said, and rang off. Henry did not put the receiver down immediately, but stood looking at the partly open door, which swayed gently in the evening breeze. His breathing was short and laboured, his jaw and lips were set, and a film of sweat which had not been there before was on his forehead. Slowly, he put the receiver down, and as he did so new and different sounds came in. Footsteps in the garden, a girl calling: “Hallo, Mike,” and then more footsteps, undoubtedly Sybil hurrying to greet her new boy friend, eager for a quick kiss, a hug, a smile. They were a few yards away, and yet might have been a thousand miles from here for all the help they were to Charles Henry.

The footsteps stopped; they were kissing. Henry could not see them, but he knew.

“Oh, God,” he breathed.

Then he heard another sound, and turned his head swiftly, almost as if in fear. He stood gaping towards the head of the stairs.

His wife stood there.

She was looking at him in a way which had become almost normal in the past few months, as if in despair; as if her love for him was kept at bay by the barrier which had come between them. She had always been the lover and he the beloved, but the years had brought them together so closely that until recently they thought and talked and worked and played as if of one mind.

A few months ago all that had ended.

“Charles,” his wife began, and stopped.

Henry didn’t answer.

“Charles, why don’t you tell me what it is? Why do you keep it to yourself?” Grace Henry began to move towards him, one stair at a time, her small, pale hands tight on the banister rail, her voice carrying not only to the hall but outside, where Sybil and her Michael were still silent.

To the wife, also, these two might have been a thousand miles away; all she could see and think of was her husband.

“Charles, I can’t stand it any longer. You look—you look like death.”

He didn’t speak.

She reached the bottom stair.

“Charles, you must tell me what it is,” Mrs. Henry persisted in that low-pitched yet carrying voice. “I can’t stand the strain any longer, I really can’t. Is—is it something at the bank? Have you embezzled some money?” When her husband didn’t answer, just stared as if unseeing, she became shrill in desperation: “I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how bad it is, but I must know. I can’t help unless I know. Charles, in God’s name, tell me what it is.”

“You help, Grace,” he said, in a voice as tense as hers, but hoarse and uneven. “You help by—by just being yourself. It—it won’t be much longer. Then—then perhaps I’ll be able to tell you about it. But it will soon be over, I—I’m sure. Don’t worry me now.”

“That’s what you always say,” Grace protested, still shrill and insistent. “You’ve been saying exactly the same thing for weeks—for months! It’s no use, I’ve got to know.” She moved towards him and clasped his big, soft hands. “Charles, can’t you see that? I’ll do anything I can to help. I don’t care what you’ve done, but we can’t go on like this any longer.”

Henry moistened his lips. The pale flesh sagged beneath his chin, there were pouches beneath his eyes, and a kind of frightening helplessness. He freed his right hand, patted hers in a futile gesture, then moved away.

“I’m sorry, Grace. I have to go out for an hour or two this evening. I won’t be any later than I can help.”

“Charles,” said his wife, now in a low-pitched, determined voice, “you’re not going out tonight and you’re not going anywhere again until you tell me what is affecting you like this.”

“Now, now, Grace, please.”

“I can’t put off any longer, I must know.”

“Grace, please.”

“You’re not going out of this house until—” Mrs. Henry began. But abruptly she broke off, because of the change in her husband’s expression. She saw him as she had never really seen him before; in anger which put fire into his eyes, roughness in his voice, and brutal strength into his hand as he gripped her wrist.

“Don’t keep nagging me! I’m going out. I’ll go where I like and when I like, and I won’t have any interference from you or anyone. Is that clear?”

She was shocked into silence.

He shouted:Is that clear?

“It—yes,” mumbled Grace, all determination gone. “Yes, Charles, I—I only want to help you.”

“The way to help me is to stop nagging, and pestering me with questions,” Charles Henry said. “Let’s understand that once and for all.”

He pushed past his wife and started up the stairs, without looking back even at the landing. Grace Henry turned and watched him. Tears shimmered in her grey eyes, but did not fall. She was a tall, slim woman, who had kept her figure remarkably in middle-age, but whose hair was iron grey and whose face was beginning to show lines which betrayed her years. She wore a dark blue linen dress, trimmed with white, and with a wide white belt; but its youthfulness was lost on her.

Her husband went into the bedroom, and the door closed.

Outside, in the garden, Sybil Henry had heard the telephone ringing, and at first had not given it a serious thought. She had known that both her mother and her father were indoors, so one or the other would answer it. It held no terrors for her, aroused no fears. She knew that her father wasn’t well, and was worried because that seemed to distress her mother, but the anxiety did not go deep. If challenged, she would have denied the reason for this: that her affection for her father did not go very deep, either. He was part of the background of life, but these days he did not affect her life very much, for she was at home only at weekends and occasionally on holiday.

She had been trimming a low hedge of box privet, an easy job, and kept glancing round towards the street and the corner, hoping that it would not be long before Michael came. When she first saw him, he was cycling; she went on clipping, deliberately, anxious not to give away the fact that all her inclination was to fling down the shears and rush towards him. He stood the bicycle against the kerb, and came into the garden, tall, brisk, lithe. He wasn’t exactly dashingly handsome, but it was easy to forget that, especially when laughter seemed to spring from his eyes.

He didn’t speak, and in a way seemed to imply that he knew what she was feeling; for there he was, smiling, inviting her to hurry to him, almost drawing her near by a kind of magnetism. And she could not help herself; she actually ran the last few steps, and he looked eager and delighted as he first hugged and then kissed her. The things they said didn’t matter.

“Hallo, Sybil. Am I late?”

“Hardly.”

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s criminal. That’s a nice hedge.”

“Is it?”

“Magnificently trimmed.”

“My mother does it once a week.”

He grinned. “Liar.”

All this time they had been standing very close to each other, looking into each other’s eyes. Two or three neighbours were in sight, in nearby gardens, but the couple were oblivious of this, as of the house. Except for the soft breeze, the evening was warm, the sun touched the tops of the trees which grew along the winding street, caught the coloured tiles of the roofs and, where hedges were low, the flowers in beds and in borders. The world of Laurel Avenue was of colour and brightness.

This was really the first time that Sybil had been quite sure how she felt about Michael Quist. She had known that she liked the way he looked, smiled, moved and walked; how he kissed, yet did not presume that she wanted only caresses. He had interested her since they had first met, a few weeks ago, and tonight she had looked forward very much to his coming. The moment when she had first seen him her heart had leapt, telling its tale. Then he had virtually willed her to hurry towards him. Now her heart was beating fast and she could still feel the pressure of his firm body and of his lips in the kiss of greeting. He was no longer smiling in that rather bold, gay way; there was the tension in him, as of a new discovery.

“Sybil,” he said, rather abruptly.

“Yes?”

“There’s something I particularly want to tell you. Can you come out for an hour or so?”

“Yes.”

“Need a coat?”

“I’ll get my handbag, and tell mother,” Sybil said.

“Right.”

She turned towards the front door, which stood ajar. They had heard nothing of her father speaking on the telephone, for they had been in that other world.

Now Quist saw Sybil turn away from him, and her swift, graceful movement made him catch his breath. She wasn’t really small, and she had – everything. The sun’s rays caught the side of her face, with its smooth, clear, creamy skin, her fine hair, drawn rather lightly back from her forehead, her little, snug ear. She was wearing a green cotton dress, and he did not realise how subtly it emphasised her figure. Her legs and ankles were beautiful.

Then he heard a woman say, as if angrily: “Charles!”

Sybil missed a step, startled, and didn’t go on. There was a long silence, before the woman, her mother, went on to say in a voice which Quist hardly recognised: “Charles, why don’t you tell me what it is? Why do you keep it to yourself?”

The way Sybil turned to look at Quist, as if hating the fact that he heard, seemed to give added significance to the words. There were more, which he didn’t hear clearly because a motor-cycle passed along the street, its engine noisy and offensive. Sybil didn’t go any nearer the house, and Quist moved towards her, putting an arm firmly round her waist. They stood quite still, looking at the open door, hearing everything now but seeing nothing. Sybil seemed to hold herself very taut. Quist glanced down and saw the tension at her lips, the way her hands were clenched.

Then Charles Henry shouted. The rage was all too evident; he sounded as if he hated his wife.

Is that clear?” he bellowed.

Grace Henry said something in a voice pitched so low that Sybil and Quist couldn’t hear what it was. There were movements, as of footsteps, but Sybil didn’t move. Quist’s hand was at her waist, and he squeezed gently, trying to give her some comfort. She stared at the doorway, and said: “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be.”

“I must go and see mother.”

“Yes, of course.”

She looked up at him, her eyes very bright.

“Mick, you do understand, don’t you?”

“I understand perfectly,” Quist said. “You may be needed here. I gather that they don’t—” He broke off.

“What?”

“Quarrel often?”

“Hardly ever, until lately.”

“No need to go on,” Quist said gruffly. “It’s none of my business. There’s just one thing.”

Her eyes asked him what that was.

“If there’s any way I can help, let me know.”

“I don’t think there is, but I’ll tell you,” Sybil said, and suddenly took his hands. “Mick, please don’t go away yet. Why—why don’t you clip the hedge for five minutes? This may fizzle out, and I may be able to come.”

“I’ll stay,” Quist promised, and stood and watched as she hurried to the porch, opened the door and stepped into the house. Then he went towards the small shears she had been using, bent down, and picked them up. Doing so, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the comer of his eyes, and saw Sybil’s father standing at a top-floor window.

It was like looking upon fear.

Quist felt sure that he knew the cause of that fear.

He had wanted to tell Sybil the truth, long before this had happened. That he, Michael Quist, had been spying on her father. That he believed Henry to be party to a serious crime. That he had schemed an introduction to her so as to get to know her father, and had fallen in love with her.

Soon she was going to be hurt. If she learned about his part in it, she would be hurt even more.

If she loved him.

Chapter Two

Meeting

It was twenty minutes before Sybil came out again, and in that time Quist had clipped about two square feet of hedge, and spent much of the time day-dreaming. But the exaltation he had felt when he had asked Sybil to come out for an hour or two had faded completely. There had been magic, and the magic was gone; he had the sense to know that he couldn’t command it to come back. He also had the sense to know that something quite exceptional had happened to him when his heart lurched, almost painfully, at sight of Sybil coming out of the side door of the house. She moved with such easy grace, very light on her feet; but her expression told him that there had been no easing of the tension indoors. As she came out of the shadow of the house into the sunlight of the garden, he saw a vivid likeness between her and her father, in spite of her father’s full, fleshy face; and in spite of his fear.

Sybil had startlingly blue eyes.

Quist smiled, and held out the shears.

“All right, I surrender,” he said. “I’ll come again tomorrow, and hope things are better.”

“Mick,” she asked, “will you do something for me?”

That was quite unexpected, and he showed his surprise, but said quickly: “Yes, of course,” and waited for her to explain.

She hesitated, glancing away from him towards the road where people walked by, and then back at him, as if she wasn’t happy about the request she had to make.

“There’s no reason why you should,” she said rather quickly. “It isn’t your affair, and—well, we hardly know each other, do we? If you’d rather not do it, please say so.”

“I want to help if I can.” God knew he did.

“I mean, if you’d rather not do this particular thing.” Sybil hesitated, and looked quickly over her shoulder, as if afraid that they were being watched. Then she took Michael’s hand and led him further away from the house, as if to make sure that they weren’t overheard. “Mick, it’s a long story really, and I can’t explain because I don’t know what’s behind it, but about two or three months ago my father—my father started to act a little oddly.”

Quist just said: “Mm-mm,” non-committally.

“Mother hardly noticed it at first,” Sybil went on. “Father was home a little later some evenings, and occasionally he would go out without telling her where he was going. Trivial things like that. It—it was especially strange because he’s always been a creature of habit. You know that he works at Southern National Bank, don’t you?”

“You told me.” As if he hadn’t known before he’d met her! “He’s head cashier at the Hadworth branch.”

“Yes, he—but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he began to worry mother,” Sybil went on quickly, and it would not take much to make her wish that she hadn’t started to talk. It behoved Michael Quist to be very careful what he said and how he looked; it would be easy to make her stop, and so cause embarrassment which would give them a new problem of their own. “Once or twice most weeks he has a telephone call in the evening. Sometimes he shuts himself in his room upstairs after it, sometimes he goes out. When he goes out, he’s usually gone two hours or so. Mother has no idea where he goes or what he does. At first he pretended that he was going to see a friend, but lately he’s given up pretending. She keeps trying to make him explain, but he won’t, and—well she’s frightened by it now. And I could kick myself.”

“What have you done?”

“That’s the trouble. I’ve done nothing.”

“Didn’t you know what was going on?”

“Well, I suppose I did,” Sybil said slowly. “Mother told me that something was worrying him, and he’s certainly looked ill. I suppose the truth is that I didn’t take it very seriously, even when I was home. Mother didn’t tell me how unhappy it was making her, and I can see now that she was anxious not to worry me. I should have realised it, but I’ve been so busy with my own silly affairs—” Sybil was a little flushed, and the colour in her cheeks and the glint in her eyes made Quist wish he could stand and look at her for a long time.

At least she was finding it easier to talk.

“I can’t alter what’s been done,” she said, still vexedly, “but I can try to help now. I wonder if you would try to find out where—”

She broke off, as if only then did she realise what she was asking. She looked away from him quickly, as if she was anxious not to see his expression.

“Mick, I’m sorry; you can’t possibly. Forget it. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly,” Quist said quickly. “There’s no reason at all why I shouldn’t try to find out where he goes, if you really want me to. Er—there’s one thing you might have overlooked, though. I don’t want to drop a brick, but you know the obvious explanation, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes; another woman,” said Sybil, almost offhandedly. “I hate even to think that’s it.”

She brightened up a lot when Quist insisted on trying to help; but if her father was involved with another woman, she and her mother would be in for a nasty time. And if Sybil then found out why Quist had come to know her—

Her hand on his was light but firm. Trusting.

“Sure you don’t mind, Mick?”

“I’m positive,” he said. “But don’t blame me if you wish you’d never heard of me when I’ve reported.” He sounded almost grim.

“Mick, don’t be silly! I’ve been talking to mother, and she says she knows that father often catches a bus at the end of the road and gets off at Hadworth Station. She doesn’t know what he does then. If you—”

Quist took her by the shoulders, kissed her firmly and then dropped his arms and turned and walked off. She watched every step, until he turned from the gate to wave.

Sybil saw Michael glance up at the upper windows, and then sit astride his bicycle and pedal off. He didn’t look back again, and she was glad, for there were tears in her eyes, and she saw him through a haze.

Why had this thing happened now, of all times?

She felt a great bitterness towards her father because he had spoiled the magic of the evening. No matter how understanding Michael was, he could not fail to be affected by this dismal family trouble. She wished that she hadn’t asked him to spy on her father, and could well believe that she had only made the situation worse. It was hard to understand the expression in Mike’s eyes when he had agreed to go; hard to understand why he had said that she might wish she’d never heard of him.

It was almost as if he knew something already.

Nonsense!

Her mother came to the window and looked out, but did not speak or beckon. Then Sybil heard footsteps. Her father appeared at the front door, carrying a bowler hat and an umbrella, looking as respectable as a man could; a tower of strength, a regular pillar of society, she thought bitterly. She saw the way her mother was looking at him, and realised what awful hurt he had caused her; that turned bitterness almost into hatred.

Then she saw her father’s face.

Bitterness and hatred faded in deep compassion. It was easy to see how much he suffered, too. Some cruel thing was tormenting him, and suddenly she wanted to help, to do something, anything, to ease the burden.

She hurried towards him, hands outstretched.

“Dad, is there anything at all that I can do?”

“Go to your mother,” he said in a harsh, commanding voice.

She drew back, dropping her hand, coldness quickly replacing the warmth of compassion. That was how it had always been; he had managed to stifle her affection.

Her mother had seen her gesture, and the rebuff.

Sybil went in to her, wishing more than ever that she had not asked Michael to go.

What had he meant?

She heard a motor-cycle start up.

That was not unusual, for in Laurel Avenue there were a dozen youths with motor-cycles or Vespas, the staccato noise of engines was a part of the background noise of the neighbourhood. Sybil did not even glance towards it; it did not occur to her that her father was being followed, and that Michael would be noticed, too.

Her thoughts were mostly on Michael. How hard he worked, how much he studied in the evening, how he had snatched precious hours for tonight, how he preferred a bicycle to a car, because the car would tempt him out into the country too often.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” he had told her, half laughingly.

That reminded her how little she really knew about him. An acquaintance had introduced them only three weeks ago, at North Hadworth Tennis Club, the day he had joined. She knew that he worked at Saxby’s, a manufacturing company with its works on the outskirts of the London suburb. He was in the secretary’s office in the West End, training for some kind of job which he hadn’t talked much about. He had a small flat in Hadworth, near the station, and spent part of his time at the factory, part at the West End office.

That was really all she knew.

Except that she was desperately in love with him, and although she had tried not to admit it, had been from the first time she had seen him. Love at first sight had seemed too absurd, so school-girlish, but there it was.

She would have to stop thinking about Michael now, and hope desperately that this would not make any difference to the way he thought of her. Even while she was talking to her mother and trying to comfort her, that thought was uppermost in her mind.

As Michael Quist reached the end of the avenue, a man on a motorcycle, at the side of the road, glanced at him but showed no sign of deep interest. But after he had reached the main road, the motor-cyclist followed, and watched him as he rode down the hill towards the station. A few minutes later, Charles Henry appeared, and boarded a bus going in the same direction as Quist.

The motor-cyclist went ahead of the bus, and reached Hadworth Hill station a few seconds before Quist, who saw the man without really noticing him.

The bus came up.

Henry got off, heavily, and made straight for one of the several taxis waiting nearby. The motor-cyclist watched Quist, who sat astride his bicycle on the other side of the wide road.

Obviously he had to choose between trying to keep up with the taxi on the bicycle, or hurrying across the road, hiring another cab and asking the driver to keep the first in sight. In the moment of indecision, another crowd came from the station and two men hurried for taxis. The one which Henry had hired was already moving away, and Quist cycled off first, going very fast down a short, steep hill. By day, his task would have been easy, for traffic would have slowed the taxi down; but there was little about now, and the High Street stretched wide and almost empty. The motor-cyclist, following, saw him shoot past a set of traffic lights as they changed from amber to red; the taxi was held up. Quist’s next problem would be whether to turn right at the second lights or go straight on, towards London. If he waited, he would lose the taxi anyhow, so went straight on.

The taxi followed, with the motor-cyclist a little way behind.

Now it was a kind of game, and a cyclist’s only hope of keeping the taxi in sight was to keep ahead or catch up with it at traffic lights. One after another these turned red, and helped Quist, who kept looking round. The taxi took a corner behind him, and he braked fiercely, made a U turn, and cycled furiously back.

The motor-cyclist grinned.

The taxi was out of sight of them both.

There was a warren of streets here, some at right angles, some at acute angles to others; there were small cul-de-sacs, too, a dozen places where the taxi might go. Quist sped on, glancing right and left into turnings and narrow streets with small, terraced houses on either side, all looking very much alike. Most had a bush or two outside in a tiny garden. The road surface was of loose gravel, for it had been freshly tarred, and the warmth of the evening made the smell stick in his throat.

Then, the taxi came out of a street, its For Hire sign up, and along the same street, Charles Henry was going into a public-house.

Quist didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. He cycled along, and saw that the pub was the Rose and Crown, and that the door Henry had entered by was marked “Saloon Bar”. Quist went into the Lounge Bar, and ordered a beer; he could just see Henry in the next room.

Henry soon moved out of sight.

Quist downed his beer, hurried into the street, and saw Henry already turning a corner. Quist got on to his bicycle, and tried not to show how much he hurried.

Henry was fumbling at the letter-box of a house a little way along. He pulled something out – obviously a key dangling on a piece of string inside the door. Henry let himself in, and pushed the key back again.

Quist cycled past.

Two minutes later he turned back. He noticed a motorcyclist at one end of the street, but took no notice of him. At the window of a room upstairs was a woman whom he saw quite clearly; fine, bold, handsome.

Then he saw Henry join her.

try.

He was almost fierce in his insistence.

“It’s all right,” Sybil assured him. “I won’t be so silly as that. I just wish it hadn’t happened. What was she like? Really attractive?”

“Well, I only had a glimpse of her,” Quist admitted, as if grudgingly. “You know Lorna Morne, at the club?”

“Yes.”

“Not unlike her.”

Sybil had a mental picture of a woman in her late thirties, dark-haired, with a fine, full-breasted figure and a small waist; a rather handsome, colourful, sexy type, as different from her mother as anyone could be. Somehow it was easier to understand; and somehow she felt even more grateful to Michael.

“Listen, Sybil,” he said abruptly. “I couldn’t help hurting you. Whatever happens, remember that.”

“Of course I’ll remember,” Sybil promised.

His manner puzzled her, and she wanted to ask him what he meant by ‘whatever happens’, but she heard her mother coming back. She was glad that Michael decided to go then, and slipped out by the side door.

About eleven o’clock her father came home, and went straight up to the bedroom. Sybil caught a glimpse of him on the landing, and was surprised to see that he looked almost cheerful. A little later she heard him talking quite amiably to her mother. He’d had a drink or two, of course, but sometimes drink made him morose.

Could he have freed himself from that unknown woman?

Certainly there seemed no reason why Michael should have been so worried.

It was lunch-time next day when Sybil, sitting on a bench in St. James’s Park with her sandwiches, saw a photograph of her father’s mistress. It was the word ‘murder’ which caught her eye, and she found herself leading over the shoulder in an evening paper of a woman who must be rather like of the man with the newspaper.

There was a bold headline, followed by a short paragraph which seemed almost as if it was there for her to read.

WOMAN MURDERED IN BED

Scotland Yard officers are anxious to interview a cyclist known to have been in Page Street, Elwell, at about nine o’clock last night, and who is believed to have cycled away in the direction of Hadworth. Anyone in the Hadworth or Elwell district who saw a cyclist riding a new-looking, pale green machine, wearing grey flannel trousers, a brown sports jacket, and without a hat, is asked to communicate with Chief Inspector West of New Scotland Yard immediately.

It was absurd, of course; the woman reminded her of Lorna Morne, and the description fitted Michael.

She must forget it.