James Chase - No Business Of Mine

ring unless you have a guilty conscience, isn’t it?”

I said it was.

“Well, it’ll sort itself out,” Corridan went on. “I still don’t think we

have any grounds to suppose the girl was murdered, Harmas. After all

that’s the thing that was worrying you. You can leave this other

business to me.”

“So you’re going to play copper, are you?” I said. “Well, I think

someone knocked her off. If you’ll take the trouble to use that hat

rack you call a head, I’ll explain in two minutes why it wasn’t suicide.”

He eyed me coldly, moved to the door.

“I’m afraid I can’t spare the time, Harmas,” he said. “I have a lot to

do, and newspaper men’s theories scarcely interest me. Sorry, but I

suggest you leave this to those competent to handle it.”

“There must be times when Mrs. Corridan is very proud of you,” I

said sarcastically. “This is one of them, I should think.”

“I’m single,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you. I must be getting

along.” He paused at the door. “I’m afraid there can be no question of

you coming with me to see this Anne Scott. This is official business

now. We can’t have Yankee newspaper men barging in on our

preserves.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “If that’s the way you feel, think no more

about it.”

“I won’t,” he said, with a sour smile, quietly left the room.

For a moment or so I was too mad to think clearly, then I calmed

down, had to grin. If Corridan thought he could keep me out of this

business he was crazy.

I bundled into my clothes, grabbed the telephone and asked

Inquiries how I could hire a car. They said they’d have one ready for

me in twenty minutes after I’d explained I could get petrol on my

Press card. I smoked two cigarettes, did a little thinking, then went

downstairs.

They had found me a Buick. I was too scared to ask them how

much it would cost, took the hall porter aside and inquired my way to

Lakeham. He said that it was a few miles from Horsham, and

suggested I should leave London via Putney Bridge and the Kingston

By-pass. The rest of the run, he told me, would be simple as Horsham

was well signposted.

In spite of its rather obvious age, the Buick ran well, and I reached

the Fulham Road in less than a quarter of an hour and without having

to ask the way. At this time of the morning, the traffic was coming

into London, and I had practically a clear road ahead of me.

As I passed the Stamford Bridge football ground, one of the

landmarks described by the hall porter, I noticed in the driving mirror

a battered Standard car which I was fairly certain I’d seen behind me

at Knightsbridge. I thought nothing of it until I reached Putney Bridge

when I spotted it again. Being still a little jittery from the attack of last

night, I began to wonder if I was being tailed.

I tried to catch sight of the driver, but the car was equipped with a

blue anti-dazzle windscreen, and I could only make out the silhouette

of a man’s head.

I drove up Putney High Street, stopped at the traffic lights as they

turned red. The Standard parked behind me.

I decided I would have to make certain that this man in the

battered Standard was following me. If he was, I’d have to shake him.

I wondered if Corridan had set one of his cops on to tailing me,

decided it wasn’t likely.

I was glad I had the Buick because it was obviously more powerful

than the Standard which looked to me to be only a fourteen

horsepower job against my thirty-one. As soon as the traffic lights

changed to yellow, I shoved down the accelerator pedal, made a

racing get-away. I roared up the hill leading from Putney, changed

into top, missing second, and belted forward with the speedometer

swinging dangerously near eighty miles an hour.

I saw people staring after me, but as no policeman hove into

sight, I couldn’t care less. I let the Buick have all the petrol it could

take until I reached the top of the hill. Then I eased off the throttle,

looked rather contentedly into the mirror, had the shock of my life.

The Standard was about twenty feet from my tail.

I was still uncertain that I was being tailed. It might be that the

guy had decided to show me I wasn’t the only one with a fast car. I

now had a healthy respect for the battered Standard, whose shabby

body obviously concealed a first-class engine, tuned for speed.

I kept on; so did the Standard. When I reached the beginning of

the By-pass, and he was still a hundred yards or so behind me, I

decided to be foxy.

I flapped my hand out of the window, pulled up by the side of the

road, watched the Standard shoot past me. As it went by I spotted the

driver. He looked a youth. He was dark, a greasy slouch hat was pulled

down low, but I saw enough of his face to recognize him. He was the

runt who’d tried to make a batter out of my brains the previous night.

Now feeling certain he had been tailing me, I watched the

Standard go on, and I reached for a cigarette. I guessed he would be

pretty mad by now, wondering what he could do. He couldn’t very

well stop — couldn’t he? I had to grin. A couple of hundred yards

farther up the road, he pulled up.

That settled it. I was being tailed, and I took out a pencil from my

pocket and scribbled the licence number of the car on the back of an

envelope.

Now I had to shake him. I didn’t hesitate. I owed him something

for giving me a scare last night. I started the Buick, drove up to the

Standard, braked sharply and was out of the car before the runt knew

what was happening.

“Hello, pal,” I said, smiling at him. “A little bird tells me you’re

following me. I don’t like it.” While I was speaking I took my penknife

out, opened the blade. “Sorry to give you a little work, sonny,” I went

on, “but it’ll do you a world of good.”

He just sat glowering at me, his lips drawn off his yellow teeth. He

looked like an infuriated ferret.

I bent down, stuck my penknife into one of his tyres. The air

hissed out; the tyre went flat.

“These tyres aren’t what they were, are they, son?” I asked,

folding the blade down, putting the knife in my pocket. “I’ll leave you

to change the wheel. I have an appointment right now.”

He called me a word which in normal times would have annoyed

me, but I felt he had some justification.

“If you’d like to collect a tyre lever, we’ll have another little joust,”

I said amiably.

He repeated the word, so I left him.

He was still sitting there as I drove past, and he was still sitting

there when I reached the bend in the road some six hundred yards

farther on. I guessed he was a sore pup all right.

I reached Horsham in half an hour and I was sure now that I

wasn’t being followed. The traffic was negligible, and for miles I drove

with nothing behind me.

From Horsham I took the Worthing road, branched off after a few

miles and approached Lakeham. The country was magnificent, and

the day hot and sunny. I enjoyed the last few miles, thinking I should

have explored that part of England before instead of spending so

many days and nights in stuffy, dirty London.

A signpost told me I was within three-quarters of a mile of

Lakeham, and I slowed down, driving along the narrow lane until I

reached a few cottages, a pub and a post office. I guessed I’d arrived.