Maurice Procter - Murder Somewhere in This City

He pursued again, but she was not easy to catch. She wore flat-heeled crepe-soled shoes, and she was fleet and agile. She was slim enough to pass through openings between heavy pieces of furniture which were too narrow for him. And he was always hampered by the vital necessity of keeping her away from the stairs.

He tried new tactics. He began to push furniture around, closing ways of escape as he advanced. It became obvious that she would eventually be cornered. She stared around in desperation, looking for some way out. Then she picked up a heavy black marble clock, the pride of some nineteenth-century mantelpiece. She managed to raise the clock in both hands and hurl it through the window. There was a great crash of glass, and a second crash as the clock landed like a bomb in the street below.

“You bitch!” cried Starling, in astonishment and alarm. He abandoned his earth-stopping measures and went after her in headlong pursuit.

As she ran from him she caught up, with one hand, a bronze statuette of a muscular man with two rearing horses, and slung it through another window. Then, when she had barely eluded his clutching fingers by squeezing between two huge mahogany sideboards, she picked up a vase. It made a great noise as it went through a third window and burst on the concrete of the street.

Starling reacted according to type. He brought out his pistol. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it, or I’ll shoot!”

The pressure of swift and alarming events made him forget that the girl could not hear him. It seemed that she just wasn’t heeding him. She was defying him. He saw her lift a small but ornate lacquered chair, and run at a window with it.

At that moment he had only one thought and one intention; to stop the infernal din. “I’ll shoot!” he threatened.

She knew that she was temporarily out of his reach. She never looked at him. A second chair followed the first.

He fired one shot. She heard neither the report of the pistol nor the smack of the bullet as it struck the wall behind her. She reached for a bronze ornament. He fired again. He was not an expert with a pistol. It was the third shot which struck her and sent her reeling against the broken glass in the window frame.

Devery persuaded Martineau to turn up his nose at a hotel breakfast. “Come round the corner with me and see my girl,” he urged. “She’ll be delighted to meet you.” He smacked his lips. “There’ll be ham and eggs, I wouldn’t be surprised. Plenty on your plate.”

“But it’s after ten o’clock,” Martineau demurred.

“That makes no difference,” he was assured. “She’ll have ’em ready in a jiffy. She’s as good as gold.”

They left the hotel, and they were walking along Lacy Street when they heard the first crash. They stopped and stared around. Traffic was running smoothly: there was no commotion. “Somebody smashed a window somewhere,” Devery commented as they walked on.

They did not hear the second and third crashes, because those were in Little Sefton Street, but when they turned the corner into the alley they saw a uniformed policeman run past the other end.

“Something up,” said Martineau.

Then they saw two chairs, one after the other, sail through a top floor window of Furnisher Steele’s and fall and break their limbs on the cobbles of the alley.

Devery said “Silver!” and sprinted along the alley. The inspector did not immediately follow. He stood there, looking up. He heard a shot, then two more. A bronze statuette dropped to the ground. Then a bright golden head rocked for a moment in a frame of broken glass, and disappeared. He waited, and saw the face of Don Starling peering down. He smiled grimly, and waved. So they were to meet, after all! Starling seemed to say something, and his dark eyes suddenly glowed with devilish intent. His hand holding a pistol appeared, but Martineau had leaped toward Steele’s building, and he was running along close to the wall.

When the inspector reached Little Sefton Street he met a hurrying sergeant. “Get your men around Steele’s place,” he said, pointing. “Somebody’s been shot. Starling’s in there, and he’s armed.”

The sergeant said “Yessir,” and turned away. Martineau entered the furniture shop and ran up the stairs. He ascended the four flights without meeting anybody. But on the top floor he met Devery, carrying Silver’s limp body. By his side Furnisher Steele hovered anxiously. A uniformed constable was there also. He was staring up at an open skylight.

Silver’s eyes were closed. Her face was pale and her head lolled. She had lost her dust cap and her lovely hair hung down.

Martineau looked at Devery. “Sorry. Is it bad?”

“In the back,” said Devery tightly. “It looks bad to me. I’ll put her in the ambulance and come back here. Starling’s on the roof.”

They went down the stairs. Martineau turned to the P.C.

“Did anybody see him?” he asked.

“Me and the old man, sir,” the constable replied. “We arrived up here together. Starling’s legs were just disappearing through the skylight.”

He pointed. Martineau had already noticed the light cane table which had been placed on a bigger table beneath the skylight.

The constable held up a big service revolver which he had been holding at his side. “The old boy took a shot at him with this,” he said. “He missed by a mile. I took it off him before he hurt hisself.”

Martineau held out his hand for the revolver. “Did Starling return the fire?” he asked.

“No sir. He took a look at us-that’s when I saw his face-and pointed his pistol. Then he seemed to change his mind. He scarpered without shooting at us.”

“Saving his ammunition,” said Martineau. “It sounds as if he hasn’t a spare clip.” He “broke” the revolver carefully, so that the six shells were ejected into the palm of his hand. There were five unused. He reloaded with them, and put the gun in his pocket.

“If we aren’t careful,” he said, “some good man is going to lose his life on this job. Go and get on the phone to Superintendent Clay. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him it’s my urgent request that the men surrounding this building be issued firearms. The sooner the better.”

“Very good, sir,” said the constable. He turned away, and almost bumped into Ducklin, who was taking the last flight of stairs at speed.

“What’s happened, sir?” asked Ducklin breathlessly.

“Starling’s on this roof,” said the inspector shortly. “You go back to the Royal Lancs, and take the lift and get on the roof. I’ll be near that skylight. You’ll be able to look down and tell me what’s going on. Off you go, at the double.”

“Yessir,” said Ducklin. He went pattering down the stairs. Left alone, Martineau took the revolver from his pocket. “Now then, Don my boy,” he said as he went toward the skylight, “we’ll see what we can do for you.”

He climbed onto the two tables and stooped beneath the open window. It was propped open to an angle of forty-five degrees by an iron bracket. He put out his head for a fraction of a second, looking in one direction only. Then he looked around the tilted window. The section of sloping roof was deserted. He climbed out onto the slates.

This was no roof with a strong parapet like that of the hotel across the alley. If a man slipped on the slates, there was only a narrow iron rain trough to stop him from falling into the street below. But beyond this outer slope there was another bay of the roof, where two sections of slates sloped down to a gutter. That was half of the roof. Another inner bay and an outer slope made up the other half.

Martineau approached the crest of the outer slope. Before he showed his head against the sky he looked up at the roof of the Royal Lancaster, but Ducklin was not yet in position. He decided that he could not afford to wait for Ducklin. He reached up and put his fingers over a ridge tile, then he pulled himself up and took two quick looks. The first inner bay was empty. He scrambled over with relief. Now, at least, he could not roll off the roof.