John Creasey - Inspector West Alone

A light went on, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

The man coming was Pep Morgan, who knew Roger West well; once, had known him very well indeed. He ran a private inquiry agency, and seldom risked a clash with the police. He opened the door, a ball of a man wrapped in a thick dressing-gown. His sparse hair was awry, and his nose and mouth were screwed up in annoyance. He squeaked:

“What the hell do you want?”

“Your services,” said Roger. “Fifty pounds for a job that’s not worth ten.”

“Who are you?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re inside, maybe,” said Roger. He squeezed past the round ball as a woman called out from upstairs: “Pep. Who is it. Pep?”

“Just a client, m’dear, just a client.” Pep closed the door and put on the light of a front room. He had bright-brown eyes, from which all traces of sleepiness had vanished. He eyed Roger closely. “I don’t know you,” he said.

“I hope you never will.” Roger took the fifty pounds from his pocket and put it on top of a small upright piano. Pep hardly glanced towards it. “This is a simple job, there’s no risk, and there’s nothing illegal, but it’s urgent. First thing in the morning—if you can’t do it earlier!—I want you to arrange for a man on a bicycle to start from the Burlington Arcade, take the first right and then the second left—got it?”

“I’ll write it down.” There was a pad and pencil near the telephone. Pep’s stubby fingers moved swiftly. “Yes?”

“And around there he’ll find traces of flour, which was dropped from a passing car. There are more traces, in different streets, usually at corners—always at corners, except one place. That’s a few doors from a house numbered twenty-seven. The number of the house is painted in black on a cream, fluted column.”

Pep wrote swiftly. “Yes?”

“I want to know the name of the street and the name of the owner of the house—just that and no more. As soon as you’ve got it, leave word at your office. A Mr. Brown will call you, probably about lunch-time—all he wants is that name and full address. All clear?”

“What’s worth fifty quid?”

“Being hauled out of bed.”

Pep rubbed his button of a nose. “Okay,” he said.

* * * *

Roger went back the way he had come—through the window of the downstairs office, so that he could latch the window and lessen the risk that signs of intrusion would be noticed. He locked the passage door with the skeleton key and went quietly upstairs.

The piece of gummed paper at the foot of his door was still in one piece; so Harry hadn’t realized that he had been out. He ripped it off, went in, closed the door gently, and then sat down in an easy-chair. He felt more light-hearted than he had for weeks.

Sloan could look after himself now.

Couldn’t he?

CHAPTER XVIII

SLOAN

BILL SLOAN tapped his silver pencil against his strong white teeth as he skimmed through the notes he had made on what he called The West Disappearance . These notes were kept jealously for his eyes alone. They contained a precis of everything he had done in the past two months in his quest for Roger. They showed that he had spent every spare minute of his time on the hunt. They also showed that he had worked with Mark Lessing, but not consulted any official at the Yard. He had taken the extreme precaution of buying a diary with a lock on it. There were references to Kennedy—a name only—Kyle, Marion Day, and several others; nothing was evidence in a legal sense.

He locked the book, put it away, and pressed a bell on his desk. He shared the big office with five other D.I.’s, but none of them was in. None had seen the book.

A middle-aged man with florid face, straggly grey moustache, barrel-shaped figure, and sullen, disappointed eyes came in. He let the door slam behind him.

“Want me?” he asked gruffly as he approached the desk. He was slovenly dressed. His brown suit needed not only pressing but also cleaning. His hair needed cutting. He looked as if he thought the world was against him, and had an almost furtive expression in his cloudy blue eyes.

Sloan said : “Yes, Banister. Do you know if the Assistant Commissioner is in?”

“Yes, I know the old—yes, he’s in.” Banister bit on his comment, and evaded Sloan’s eyes.

“Been after you again?” asked Sloan.

“He’s always after me. Everyone’s—oh, forget it.”

“All right, that’s all,” said Sloan. He watched the sergeant go out; the door slammed again, indicating that Banister was in a foul temper. Sloan leaned back in his chair for a few minutes, forgetting the A.C. He was recalling a conversation he’d had with Roger at Roger’s Bell Street house, a week or two before the disappearance. Roger had started it.

“Happy about Banister, Bill?”

“Can anyone be ? The scales are pretty heavily weighted against him.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?” Sloan knew, but wanted it put into words.

“Would you trust him with much?”

“Well—I’ve no reason not to, but if I wanted anything kept right under my hat, I wouldn’t choose him to hold my hat for me.”

“That’s what I mean,” Roger had said.

The Yard was full of Roger; his face, his brisk walk, his crisp confidence, his unorthodoxy, his daring, his friendliness. Sloan owed his quick promotion to Roger; he felt lost and out on a limb ever since Roger had gone. The odd hint here, a suggestion there, a chat over a difficult case— Sloan had trained himself largely on Roger West. Admiration and respect had grown into confidence and friendship. He was probably the last man at the Yard who still believed that Roger was alive; and who believed the sun more likely to fail to rise than Roger to become corrupt.

He jumped up and hurried along to the Assistant Commissioner’s office. Had he telephoned for permission it would probably never have been granted. Chatworth seldom had time for D.I.’s except on a specific case.

Chatworth growled:

“Come in.”

“Morning, sir!” Sloan was bright and brisk.

“What do you want?” Chatworth glowered; so it was a bad moment to have chosen.

He was a big, burly man with grizzled grey hair and a shiny bald patch, a brown, tough, weather-beaten face, which in moments of affability became almost cherubic; then one could see the essential simplicity of the man. He was dressed in green homespun tweeds, and his blue collar was two sizes too large for him, his pink tie badly knotted. He looked like a farmer in a beauty salon; for the office was all chromium, glass, and tubular steel, spick and span—cold, unfriendly. No one quite knew how Chat-worth had managed to get the Office of Works to make him such an office.

“Can you spare me a few minutes, sir?”

“What about?”

“A personal matter, sir.”

“Come and sit down.” Chatworth pointed to a chair. Sloan sat in it stiffly, feeling on edge, knowing that Roger, in his place, would relax and light a cigarette and not care a hoot what the A.C. thought.

Chatworth pushed the papers away, made notes with a slim gold pencil, and looked up. The cherub in him appeared. He smiled, showing small teeth, and moved a silver cigarette-box across the black glass of his desk.

“Have a cigarette, Sloan. What’s it all about?”

“I’m scared, sir.” That was the kind of introduction Roger would have advocated as being sure to grip the A.C.’s attention. Chatworth raised a bushy eyebrow.

“Oh? What about?”

“I’ve had a warning which I think I ought to take seriously—that there is likely to be an attack on my life in the next day or two.”

“Whose corns have you been treading on?”

“It’s a long story, sir, and——”